She’d fought them. She’d beaten them into unconsciousness with the savagery of a lover protecting the one she loved.

Trying to smile, I wiped the tears from my cheek and sniffed. “It’s okay,” I said, stomach knotting. “I wouldn’t have been able to do it either. Remember?” I hated them, hated the demons for this. Of all the curses I’d seen, heard whispers of, witnessed the destruction from, this utter raping of hope by destroying people through their love and fear was the worst.

Ivy licked her lips, haunted eyes flicking past me when Nina sobbed behind the shut door. “I should have killed her twice, but I was so scared that her soul would be lost forever when the lines fell and there was nowhere for it to go. Nina was fine until her soul went into the bottle.”

Another heartrending cry of loss rose behind the door when Ivy opened her hand to show me the hazy bottle I’d given her. Nina’s moan was so filled with pain it even made Al shift his feet. Or maybe he just wanted a closer look.

“I had to do it.” Ivy’s hand shook. “I had to. I couldn’t let her soul go to that hell.”

I took Ivy’s hand in mine, closing her fingers over the bottle before she dropped it. Her hands were frighteningly cold. Her head bowed, and I pulled her to me again, hating the demons all the more. But a niggling thought wedged under my heartache. Ivy had used the bottle after the lines had fallen. It had worked with the Goddess’s strength. Mystics wreathed her, unseen and unnoticed, my thousand eyes that I’d blinded myself to still working my will for me.

From behind the door, a wail rose, and Ivy sniffed back her tears. “She knows I have it. She wants it, but it will make her walk into the sun. Rachel, I can’t.”

I jerked when Ivy pulled back, her expression suddenly empty. “You take it,” she whispered, pressing the bottle into my hands. “Take it and hide it.”

“Ivy, I can’t.”

“Hide it where she can’t find it. Rachel, please!”

“It’s mine!” Nina howled, having heard us, and Ivy’s eyes went wide. Shaking, I forced the bottle back into Ivy’s hand.

“That won’t help,” I said, hating my own cowardice.

Ivy’s head bowed. “I didn’t know it could hurt this much,” she whispered to me. “I watched my mother die her first death, and then Kisten passed on.”

Again I pulled her to me, trying to give her strength.

“This is so wrong,” she breathed, but the tears were gone, leaving only an exhausted numbness. “How is your leg?”

“My leg?” We separated, and my heart seemed to break at the distance between us. “My leg will be fine,” I said, almost crying again.

“Ivy?” Nina warbled behind the door. “Please, I need it! Just for a moment. I’ll give it back. I promise!”

Ivy swallowed hard, empty as she stood before me and glanced at the door. “I’ve got her tied up. I was hoping . . .” Her shoulders fell, and she glanced behind me to Al. “I decided that she should have it, even if she walks into the sun.”

“Ivy . . .”

Tears spilled from her anew as her chin lifted. “Even if it means she dies.” Her black gaze found Al. “You all deserve to die in whatever manner the elves can devise. What you have forced on us deserves payment in pain.”

Al became solemn. “The elves killed the maker of the curse years ago.”

“You let him do it!” Ivy raged, and Nina screamed in pain behind the door.

Al held his hat before him, head lowered. “I agree, but we can’t unravel her work.”

A woman? I mused. A woman did this?

“And even if we could,” Al said, gesturing to the door, “enough of the undead would refuse it out of fear, wanting the chance at immortality even if it cost them their soul.” His gaze fastened on Ivy, and she quailed. “You yourself can’t walk away from it. Or you would have let Rachel take the virus from you already.”

“Al, stop,” I said as shame caused Ivy to drop her eyes.

“You like it,” Al said bitterly. “The urge, the lust, the glorious satisfaction of fulfilling that need.”

“That’s enough!” I exclaimed, but my neck was tingling with remembered passion.

Expression holding a bitter betrayal, Al shifted his accusing gaze from Ivy to me. “The curse is power, Rachel, and she knows without it her world would be flat and gray. She’d rather live with pain and heartache than no feeling at all.”

Angry, I got in his face. “That is a sad excuse to cover your own guilt,” I snapped, then dropped back when Ivy touched my arm.

“No, he’s right,” she said, shocking me. Her hand fumbled behind her, rattling the knob. Never turning around, she pushed open the door. “See what your pride has wrought, demon.”

She opened the door to show her bedroom, the cool grays and soothing greens lit by a battery-powered lantern hanging from the dark light fixture. Nina was tied up with soft straps. They were designed for this, but they still cut into her skin as she struggled to be free, her eyes black and wide. Blood marked her clothes, but I think it was from the fight in the ambulance. She hadn’t been dead long enough to be hungry. Though her soul was gone, her aura would remain for a few hours yet.

“Ivy, please,” Nina begged, straining to be free. “Just for a moment. You can have it back, but I need it just for a moment.” Her eyes flicked to mine, then back to Ivy. “I need it now!” she raged, a muffled scream coming from her as she fought her bonds.

“Interesting . . .”

I spun, reaching for the support of Ivy’s dresser when my leg almost gave out. “Interesting?” I snapped at Al. “You son of a bastard! These are my friends!”

Al’s eyes twitched, but he never took them off Nina. “I mean,” he said as he shoved me deeper into the room, “that she knows where her soul is. Your spell bound it so completely that she recognizes it.”

“Give it to me!” Nina cried out, her emotions swinging back to sadness. “Give it to me, it’s mine,” she sobbed.

Ivy dropped to her knees, taking Nina into her arms and hiding her face. She whispered things I couldn’t hear, and Nina’s rage dissolved into a helpless, sobbing acceptance.

My stomach churned. I thought of Bis up in the belfry and Trent probably trying to reach him without a ladder. Before me, Ivy and Nina both ached, trapped in a hell of the demons’ making. The fear of the people in the square rose up in my thoughts, good people so scared they thought the only way out was genocide.

“We have to reopen the lines,” I said, and behind me Al sighed.

“Rachel, I know Newt thinks it’s possible, but it isn’t.”

“To separate them forever from their souls is . . .” I turned to Al, searching. “I don’t know a word thatmeans that depraved and cruel.”

“To say it would break the worlds,” Al said, but I didn’t think there could be a word like that, and he turned as Trent scuffed into view with a sleeping gargoyle in his arms, Jenks on his shoulder. Trent’s eyes widened as he took in Nina tied to the chair and Ivy kneeling in front of her, trying to ground her, bring her back. Seeing all eyes on them, Ivy whispered something to Nina and got to her feet to stand protectively beside her. Her jaw was clenched and I was so proud of her. Even now she was willing to fight.

“No, this was very well done,” Al said as he eased into the room and lifted Nina’s gaze to his by lifting her chin with a careful finger. “Very well done.”

“You son of a bitch.” I shoved Al. He fell back, catching himself on the dresser, his red goat-slitted eyes narrowed.

“Easy, Rachel,” Trent said, but Jenks had taken to the air as well, blade pulled.

“I should have let you all die, you know that!” I shouted, shaking.

Al tugged his suit straight. “Yes, you should have,” he said mildly, pissing me off. “But you didn’t. I have an idea.”

“So do I.” I shrugged off Trent’s hand, feeling braver when Ivy and Jenks fell into place beside me. “It involves you and that crowd at Fountain Square.”

Al’s dismissive look made my face burn. Speculation heavy in his gaze, he turned to Ivy. “What are you willing to sacrifice for her?” he asked Ivy, and my heart seemed to stop at the thoughtful but manipulative tone in his voice.

Ivy’s eyes flashed. “Everything.”

I stiffened. Nina’s head came up, only it was not hope but my fear that roused her. “Ivy, no,” I warned, and Al sniffed derisively, already knowing Ivy’s answer.

“Everything!” Ivy said again, almost grabbing his arm.

Al flicked a glance at me, then back to her. “Be utmost sure. Your needs, your desires, no longer yours alone but wedded to another?” he said, and Ivy nodded, grasping at the barest hint of hope. “What another needs, you must attend to. What another craves, you must find. It will be heaven if you love her or hell if there’s any doubt. It can’t be undone, and you will be responsible for her soul until she dies a second death or you lose yours as well. It’s a chance, nothing more.”

“How?” Ivy begged, and I could take this no more.

“Ivy, he’s a demon!”

“So are you!” she exclaimed, then lowered her voice as Nina began to sob again, calling for her soul. “Tell me,” Ivy demanded of Al, her own fear making her even more desperately beautiful. “I will do anything to stop this.”

My heart thudded as Al was silent, thinking. “Ask her,” he finally said, chin lifting to indicate me.

“Me?” My anger vanished. Jenks’s dust was an uneasy red and Trent’s face was pale.

“Rachel, please,” Ivy said, and I jumped when she took my hands. She was trembling. “I’ll do anything. I love her!”

“I . . . I know you do,” I stammered, trying to figure this out. Me? Was he serious?

Al took Ivy’s free hand, opening it to show that tiny bottle I’d given her. Taking it, he moved it to mine, closing my fingers about it. I swallowed hard at the stirring I felt within it. Tingles cramped my arm, and Nina moaned, voice raw and raspy.

“I can’t put Nina’s soul back into her body,” I protested. “It’s going to do the same thing it did to Felix and she’ll suncide to bring her mind, body, and soul back in balance.”

“True,” Al drawled, making Jenks yo-yo up and down in impatience.

“Then what, ash breath?” the pixy snarled. “You hurt any of my friends anymore and I’ll lobotomize you in your sleep!”

Al frowned, but Ivy’s hope had kindled in me and Al’s confidence fanned it to a painful brightness. “To remain sane, her soul needs the stimulation of a stable, living body and aura,” Al lectured, as if trying to teach a dull student. “And so . . . ,” he drawled, gesturing for me to finish it.

“I need to put it into someone still alive,” I said, glancing at Trent when he made an abrupt noise of realization. “Ivy, if I put her soul into you—”

“You can do that?” Jenks asked, his suspicion thick.

“Of course my itchy witch can,” Al huffed as Ivy went three shades whiter. “She already put an alien presence in that Were fellow, David, was it? And there was no love there. At least not at first. I think he rather likes it now.”

Yes, David liked the focus. It was made to live through another, the symbiosis complete and beautiful. But Nina’s soul was hers. To graft it to another . . . was that right?

But as I looked at Ivy’s hope and Nina’s ragged exhaustion, I figured what was right didn’t matter much. “She might still need to take in her aura with your blood,” I said, and Ivy grasped my hands. They were shaking, but her need to do this was absolute.

“I don’t care,” Ivy whispered, alive and filled with hope, more beautiful for having seen her despair only moments before. “I want this. It feels right. I love Nina. She . . . loves me. I can’t see her like this, and I can’t end it. Please!”

I felt light and unreal. “I don’t know what it will do to you. What happens when you die? Will both your souls perish?”

“I don’t care!” Ivy shouted, and I turned to Al and Trent, wanting their opinion.

“It’s Nina’s soul, free of her consciousness,” Al said. “Unlike that ill-fated attempt when you, ah, tried to bind with that soul, Ivy likely won’t notice a thing. But there will be far-reaching repercussions from this.”

“I don’t care,” Ivy whispered.

“Well, I do,” I said, very aware of how much he liked breaking people with their own desires. “Tell me why you want this, Al, or nothing happens.”

“Rachel!” Ivy cried, and I clenched my teeth and faced Al squarely. Behind him, Trent and Jenks waited, scared but trusting me.

Al’s smile went wickedly crafty. “Ivy will be the first of a new kind of master vampire,” he said, and Trent made a soft sound of understanding. “A living one. The newly undead will look to the living for their continued existence, much as they do now, but it’s the undead who will be bound to the living, not the other way around. It should impart a measure of . . . morality that’s absent now.”

I hesitated, seeing the hope for the end of a long-kept guilt in him, and Al dropped his eyes, embarrassed perhaps that I knew him so well. “The soul Nina sips from Ivy will be her own,” Al said. “Where is the guilt in that? Freely given, freely held. The undead will lose their clout. It will fall to the living. Where it should be.”