A/N: Meanwhile, back home, a lot has happened while Rachel and Trent were gone... heed the chapter title, yes?
CHAPTER 16 - "Sucker Punch"
Given the long, tortuous nature of our last trip through realities, I suppose I expected the journey home to be similar. It wasn't. This trip was jarringly instantaneous. One moment we were flying backwards into a mirror in Bobby Singer's house in Sioux Falls South Dakota in the Winchester's reality and the next we were tumbling backwards out of the large floor length mirror in Ivy's room in my church in Cincinnati Ohio in our own reality.
The mirror shattered outward with us, as if we really had passed through it in some way. Trent and I hit the ground hard, landing in an undignified sprawl beside one another, minds struggling to adjust to the abrupt shift in our circumstances. Amidst the sound of the breaking glass, I thought I might have heard the chime of familiar laughter, as if it amused and pleased someone that Trent and I had indeed found our way back home again. Sure, laugh it up. I scowled inwardly, feeling none too pleased with Trent's Turn-blasted Goddess right now. The thought didn't hold a lot of my attention, though. One part of my mind was automatically trying to understand and dissect the spell that had just been enacted on us, wondering if there was some significance to using something like a mirror or a window as the transfer point between realities, while another part was yammering at me that Ivy was going to be pissed that we'd just busted her mirror and scattered it all over her bedroom. Granted, she didn't use this room that much anymore now that she was pretty much living with Nina, but still.
Trent sat up almost at once, looking around in an alert, wary manner that instantly told me that he didn't know where we were. Why would he? He'd been to the church on numerous occasions, but I don't think he'd ever been inside Ivy's room. I was suddenly intensely grateful that Castiel had actually dropped us some place safe and familiar rather than just dumping us anywhere in our reality that was handy. Maybe it had been easiest to connect us to some place where we had a strong emotional attachment or something, but I was grateful all the same. I'd had about all I could take of wandering about like lost hitch hikers.
I sat up a little slower, shaking broken glass shards off my shirt and trying not to accidentally place my hands on any of the slivers as I pushed up and got my feet under me. "This is Ivy's room," I told Trent because it was the only thing I could think to say. "We're ... we're home." I did not expect the simple words to hit me like they did. I hadn't expected the tightness in my throat, the burn in my eyes or the sudden welling of relief that surged up in me like a delayed reaction as the reality of it finally sunk in. We were home.
The door of the bedroom burst open as I reached for it and I suddenly found myself confronted with the deadly calm visage of a beautiful woman with dark hair and a lethal expression who had obviously come to investigate the sudden crash in the bedroom that was still technically hers.
I backed up instinctively, judiciously cautious of the seductive ferocity in Ivy's stance even as my heart swelled in joy at seeing her. "Ivy!" I half cried, half squeaked, sounding pretty stupid what with the way my voice kind of cracked over the word. Ivy froze as still as a statue in the doorway, shock written in every graceful line of her body. For half a moment I felt illogically embarrassed by the way we'd shown up and hyper conscious of the fact that Trent was here with me in Ivy's bedroom. The truly ridiculous urge to explain that it was all very innocent and accidental babbled through my brain for no good reason.
Then my friend finally seemed to register what she was seeing and her whole expression changed in a way that drove all other thoughts from my mind. "Rachel?" she whispered, her voice barely audible. Then she repeated it, louder, as if my name were a talisman that could fix me in place and never let me go again. "Rachel!"
The look on Ivy's face almost broke my heart. It was a raw picture of hope, shock and disbelief carved in lines that seemed to go soul deep. I saw her struggling with herself, gulping several breaths of air to keep her own powerful emotions from tripping her up and eroding her control. Then she was across the room, vamp fast, and folding me into a tight embrace.
"Rachel..." she whispered into my hair and the tremble in her voice made the lump in my throat almost painful. God, I had missed her.
"Tink loves a duck! Rache, you're alive!" Jenk's voice shrilled above us as Ivy nearly crushed my ribs.
"We thought you were dead." Ivy's voice rumbled in her throat, her head buried against my shoulder. "Quen said they burned your soul. Bis felt you disappear."
"We just about rented out your room and everything. Where in the fairy farting universe have you been Rache?! Way to scare us all to death!" Jenks was darting everywhere, dusting heavily and babbling in a way that told me exactly how hard my supposed death had hit my friends.
"And you even brought the cookie maker back with you!" Jenks crowed, flitting over to buzz around Trent's head in the same enthusiastic, dizzying, whirl of clattering wings. "Hey, Trent! You look like hell, but I guess that's pretty good for a dead guy!" The pixy sounded genuinely happy and relieved in a way that suggested he was a lot fonder of Trent than I perhaps realized.
"It's good to see you again, Jenks," Trent greeted with a smile. Jenks finally darted down and landed on the elf's shoulder.
"Piss on my daisies, you both stink!" Jenks complained cheerfully. "You smell like ... I don't even know what you smell like, but it's really weird and you look like a couple of lumber jack wannabes! Where have you been?!"
"It's a ... rather a long story," Trent replied wryly. "They did try to burn our souls, but it didn't quite turn out that way. Instead we ended up in exile on an ... alternate version of earth." I could tell from the brief hesitation in his voice that he didn't know how to deal with how bizarre that sounded when trying to explain it to someone who hadn't been there.
"No freaking way!" Jenks exclaimed, wide-eyed as he lifted several inches off Trent's shoulder in surprise before settling back down again. "Really? Did you have to battle your own evil twins?!" He sounded like he was only half joking.
"No, as far as I know, there were no alternate versions of us on that earth. It was a very different place. We did, however, encounter some very radically different vampires and demons, battled an army of ghouls and met an angel - wearing a trench coat." Trent grinned at Jenks' wide-eyed look.
"No way, you're pulling my leg!" Jenks eyed the elf suspiciously, lifting off his shoulder and buzzing over to me. "Rache, is Trent pulling my leg?"
"Nope," I smiled up at him over Ivy's shoulder. "It was total ghoul apocalypse for a while and the angel's the one who zapped us back here."
"Tink's dildo! I wish I had been with you, Rache! But I'll settle for you being back. And not dead. It sucks when you're dead, Rachel. Everything is so boring." Again, I got the feeling Jenks was only partially joking.
"I missed you too, Jenks. We tried to get back as quickly as we could, but hoping realities seems to take some pretty heavy mojo. How long have we been gone, here?"
"A little over two weeks," Ivy still hadn't let go and her voice was muffled against me. I gave her shoulders a squeeze, trying to keep my own emotions in check so as not to set her off worse than she already was. I was so happy to see her and to be home that I probably wasn't worrying as much as I should have at having her so close with so much emotion swirling about.
Trent and I exchanged unpleasantly shocked glances at her answer. We hadn't been in the other world that long, so there must have been some time loss during our initial transition after all. Trent's face said he obviously wasn't happy about that, but there wasn't much I could do about it.
"Is that coffee I smell?" I asked as Ivy finally, reluctantly let go of me. I may be home, but I still hadn't slept properly in days and a little caffeine would not go amiss. By mutual consent, the four of us moved our little reunion into the kitchen. Ivy still seemed a bit in shock, so I dug out coffee mugs for all of us. Evening sun was slanting in through the windows and I felt another little jolt of disconnection as I tried to get my brain to stop thinking of it as being the middle of the night. It felt sort of like traveling to a different time zone ... only multiplied by a thousand.
"You staying here again?" I asked Ivy as I filled our mugs with some of her delicious fresh brew. I'd had enough coffee over the past few days to float a boat, but the battery acid the hunters made was nothing like this. "Everything okay with Nina?"
Ivy made a sort-of gesture with her head and shoulders in response to my first question. "Not really staying," she qualified, sounding almost guilty about it. "I can't leave Nina alone too long and she doesn't want to move into the church, but I didn't want to leave Jenks alone here either."
Jenks huffed indignantly at this. "Tink's diaphragm, Ivy! You know how old I am for a pixy? I'm ancient for crying out loud! I keep telling you I don't need a damn babysitter and I'm not exactly alone."
Ivy and I exchanged looks. We both knew that the pixy was more than capable of taking care of himself, but even when I had been there the church had felt somewhat empty since the last of his children had moved out to their own gardens. Many of his kids were nearby, like Jih and her family, and of course Belle was still here, but I knew what Ivy meant. With me gone, this church was far too big and too empty for a lone pixy and a wingless fairy by themselves. I glanced around, wondering where Belle was. Out patrolling the grounds, maybe? No, it was probably too cold for that still.
"Where's Belle?" I asked Jenks, once again looking around for her. We'd made enough commotion just now that I couldn't believe we hadn't drawn everyone in the house.
Jenks' gaze skittered away ever so slightly. "She's, ah... with her sisters. One of 'em's hurt and it's been a little touch and go, but I think she's going to be okay."
I thought it was kind of sweet that Jenks seemed a little worried about Belle's kin, given that a year or two ago he would have happily killed them himself. I wondered at the uneasy evasiveness in his answer though. Was it just because he was embarrassed to admit that he cared what happened to a bunch of fairies? Or was it something else?
I nodded with a small frown of concern. "I'll check on them and see if there's anything I can do to help when I take Trent back to his place," I said as I inhaled the steam from my hot mug. I assumed Jenks meant that Belle was staying over at Trent's greenhouse where her other wingless kin lived, although I wasn't sure how she'd gotten there in this weather. Ivy, maybe?
Ivy and Jenks were both silent and I noticed that only Trent and I seemed interested in touching our drinks.
"Crap on toast," I muttered once a few sips of the heavenly beverage got my lagging brain moving again and the reality of what it meant to have been assumed dead for several weeks finally sunk in. "I need to call my Mom. Nobody's issued a death certificate or anything yet, have they? It is SUCH a pain being legally dead..." I stopped, another awful thought striking me as I realized Belle wasn't the only person absent from this reunion.
"Bis!" I said, alarm spiking through me. "Where's Bis? Is he okay?" It was daylight, so his absence shouldn't have worried me, but Ivy said he'd felt me disappear. Bis was bound to me. When I died, he would die. And they had thought we were dead ... no, no, no! "Bis!" I shouted in alarm, abandoning my coffee mug and almost running towards the stairs to the attic.
Jenks buzzed up in front of me, forcing me to stop before I made it out of the kitchen. "Cool it, Rache! Bis is okay. Well ... I think he will be, anyway," he amended, a troubled look on his face.
"The day you ... didn't die, Bis woke up shortly before sunset. He was freaking out. He said something must have happened to you because he felt you disappear. We called and couldn't reach you. Ivy went looking, found where you'd been taken and took off after the trail with Bis tagging along." I could see in the sour expression on Jenks' face that Ivy had refused to take the pixy with them. It had been too cold and Ivy's motorcycle offered no protection. Jenks wouldn't have survived, but being forced to stay behind had obviously been murder for him.
"Ivy and Bis followed your trail to the woods where there were a lot of burned trees and dead elves. Soon as she saw the elf bodies, she called Trent. Only she couldn't get him of course, so she called Quen, who was already in full blown alert mode because he'd just found out that Trent wasn't where he was supposed to be and nobody was tellin' him nothin'. Ivy smelled both your blood and Trent's in the woods and when Quen showed up ... I guess he recognized the ritual that they were tryin' to pull off."
"You think I can be scary, you should have seen Quen when he saw that post with the bloody chains and those markings cut into the ground and realized what they'd done," Ivy put in.
I could just imagine, and obviously Trent could too because the elf shifted, instinctively reaching for the phone he didn't have before stopping himself. "I will need to call Quen soon. I'm sure he's going to be most put-out with me for all this," he added. He said it lightly, but there was something curiously intense and wary as he watched the vampire and the pixy, looking for their reactions. Trent was worried, I realized. He wanted to know the status of the people close to him but seemed almost reluctant to ask outright lest the news be bad, especially about Quen.
Ivy and Jenks exchanged looks and I felt something inside me tighten. What weren't they telling us?
"Bis was ... very upset, when Quen said you were dead and they had burned your soul. He insisted it couldn't be true and that he had to find you. Then he disappeared; popped into a line, I guess." Ivy continued her story quietly. Her face had gone blank in a way that worried me. "Quen knew Ellasbeth had to be involved because she'd lied to him about where Trent was and made sure Quen wasn't around when he was getting snatched. I wasn't familiar enough with her scent to be sure whether she had been there in the woods or not, but Quen found this little pink princess Band-Aid on the ground and he went bat shit crazy. He took off without a word.
"He's fast, but I'm faster. I got in his car to keep him from leaving without me, so he took off with me instead. I found out on the way that we were heading for Trent's place. That's where Ellasbeth was now, Quen said, with the girls. He was so angry it was hard to keep myself under control, much less get him to talk, but I got the impression that he figured Ellasbeth had not only been in on the murders, but had also forced one or both of the girls to watch you both being burned." Ivy's voice was cool and empty and her gaze distant as if she needed to remove herself completely from the emotions of the story she told in order to avoid re-living them. I knew from experience that this was actually the case. If Ivy was being this intentionally blank, it meant that the memories she was relating were so bad they could risk setting off her vampire nature just by allowing herself to remember what they had felt like.
"Bis searched both sides of the lines. He even went to Al for help, but they couldn't find you. He took it real hard over the next day or so, Rache," Jenks interjected. "He refused to believe you were dead, even after the rest of us finally accepted it. He wasn't doing real good or making a lot of sense. Not being able to feel or connect with you was apparently doin' bad things to his head. When he finally allowed you might be gone, he decided that meant he was a bad gargoyle. That there was something wrong with him that you could die and he was still here. I guess it's not supposed to work like that. I tried to talk to him, Rache, I did. I told him how I shouldn't be here either after Matalina and how sometimes things can change. But the kid was bad off." Jenks' wings slumped. "He went out on the church roof at sunrise one day and just stayed there. He looks like he's gone solid stone, but his dad says he's still alive. He's in some kind of deep gargoyle coma. They didn't expect him to ever come out of it ... but I'm sure he will now that you're back!" Jenks finished quickly when he saw the horrified look on my face.
Worry clenched my stomach. I needed to go check on him right away. I needed to make sure Bis knew I was back and see if there was something I had to do to rekindle our bond and wake him up. But there was a funny unease curling in my stomach that held me in place a little longer. I hadn't missed the fact that Jenks had intentionally skipped the story at least a day ahead, without letting Ivy finish telling what had happened when she and Quen went to confront Ellasbeth.
"What happened when you went back to my apartments?" Trent's gaze had zeroed in on Ivy and I could tell that he hadn't missed that either.
Ivy sighed, her body and posture tight. "Things went ... sideways," she said quietly and the tightening in my gut became painful. "The whole way there, Quen was on and off the phone. There was some kind of huge political firestorm taking place among the elves and it was turning ugly fast. Whoever orchestrated your assassination was playing out of their league and it burned them, bad. Still, you were gone and that meant an immediate scramble to fill the power void." Ivy shook her head. "The Withon clan was apparently the obvious choice and they were acting like it, but that wasn't sitting well with everyone and there were factions who opposed them. Quen seemed to think it was only a matter of time before the Withons came out on top and that the dissenters would settle down. Normally, perhaps, that is what would have happened, but the situation wasn't normal because the flames of discord were being intentionally fanned from the outside. Only ... we didn't know that until later." Ivy's expression became hard.
"The elves as a whole were plenty pissed at Trent for what he'd been up to with the demons, but the faction who decided he needed to die for it turned out to have been influenced and manipulated by the undercover workings of a couple Master Vampires who were unhappy with both the elves coming out of the closet and the fact that they're not dying out anymore," she explained.
Trent's face tightened. His eyes were dark, but lit with a grim understanding as if he finally had the answer to a question that had been plaguing him, even if it wasn't one he particularly liked. "Of course, that explains the pieces that didn't fit. Reginald or whatever fool he was working for must have thought that whatever deals they'd made with their new friends would give them enough power to be able to successfully challenge the Withons if I was out of the way."
Ivy nodded. "There was a lot of double-dealing going on because some of the elves were apparently in thrall to the vampires and their companions didn't know that they'd been bitten and bound. I guess not all are strong enough to resist as much as Quen did."
Trent shook his head grimly. "There's too much human in too many of our bloodlines, and there is also force of will to consider," he said distractedly. "I knew the vampires would eagerly take advantage of the elves' internal strife. I should have known they could also have been the cause of that strife. I shouldhave seen this coming." There was true, reproachful bitterness in his voice and I shot him a little frown.
"Give yourself a break, you're not omniscient, Trent," I muttered.
Gaze still on Ivy, Trent ignored me. "Did Cormell know? He and I had an understanding about trying to maintain peace between our races. I find it hard to believe he wished to take us to war."
Ivy shook hear head. "Cormell wasn't part of this, he was supposed to be another victim. I found out later that he had been the target of a murderous coup at around the same time that you and Rachel were. The elves and the vampires were supposed to be getting new leadership all in one fell swoop, only it didn't work out that way. Cormell was injured, but survived. The traitors did not. Ironically, Felix showing up unexpectedly and creating chaos is what botched the assassination attempt enough to save him, although it wasn't intentional on Felix's part." The undead vampire was all but crazy these days and no one understood why Cormell hadn't yet put him down, although I was glad for Ivy and Nina's sake since it was still unsure whether Nina would survive Felix's death.
I felt a chill of shock that so much could have happened while we were gone. It seemed surreal and almost unfair somehow. Trent had been worried about something like this all along, but it hadn't been real to me until now. It was unrealistic to have expected the world here to just stand still while we were gone, but feeling like I'd missed so much was still disconcerting and uncomfortable.
"It was Belle's kin who put it all together," Jenks put in with a slight note of very unexpected pride. "Damn elves would still be killing each other if those fairies hadn't been in Trent's garden and seen that it was vampires who ..." Jenks stopped suddenly, dipping a few feet as his wings slowed. "Who stirred things up even worse," he finished lamely, looking sick in a way that made very worried. "By the way, Rache, they're ... uh ... they're kind of all rooming in your desk right now with Belle and me. The fairies, I mean. Hope you don't mind. It's a totally temporary situation," he added quickly, frowning lest anyone think he was at all going soft on the idea of having a bunch of fairies hanging about.
"That's fine, Jenks," I shook my head distractedly, guessing that this had something to do with why Jenks had been evasive about Belle earlier. Of course I didn't mind, although I wondered why Jenks was allowing it and why the wingless fairies would have moved out of Trent's protected greenhouse and into a house owned by a pixy, in the middle of the winter no less, unless they had no choice.
Trent's eyes were hard and his features set. "Classic divide and conquer. We were too strong as a united front; they wanted us to destroy ourselves first, allowing them to eventually hunt us to near extinction like they did the Banshees." He ran a hand through his hair, displaying his agitation.
"I believe that was their plan, yes," Ivy agreed calmly and I suddenly realized that this could be a very awkward situation, considering that it was in fact a vampire and an elf who were discussing the matter. However, I knew Ivy didn't give a damn for vampire politics and whether the elves became more powerful or not, and Trent had already proved himself smart enough to not paint everyone of a certain bloodline with the same brush.
"It worked for a while, too. The amount of elven blood spilled in the first few days after the incident was high by any standard," Ivy continued darkly. "The pieces didn't come together until we had a warm day and Jenks got me to take him and Belle over to Trent's to look for her family. When we found them and heard what they had to say, I took the information to Cormell. I knew it was part of the same plot that had been enacted against him and that he'd move against the perpetrators. He made the call to inform the Withons, although I would have found a way to reveal the truth even if he had chosen to hide it."
Ivy lifted her chin in a surprising display of defiance, as if she needed us to believe that she would have found a way to make sure the culprits were exposed even if it meant the suicidal step of going against her own Master Vampire. She had come so far in terms of her independence and courage and I was so proud of her, even as I worried for her safety as a result.
She was still speaking to Trent, but her gaze had shifted to me. I knew it was my opinion she cared about. I appreciated that she hadn't let a lot of people get killed needlessly ... but there was something off about this. Ivy was by no means cold-hearted, but the fate of a bunch of elves who were stupid enough to be killing one another off wasn't something I would have expected to be of much concern to her, especially after the elven involvement in Trent's and my supposed death.
I guessed that it wasn't concern for the elves that had motivated her, but rather her intense hatred for the ones who had set the wheels in motion and her desire for vengeance against the right targets. I could tell she had held the Master Vampires behind the plot as equally culpable in my supposed death as the elves, and her eyes said she would never have let them cover that up, even if she'd had to buck Rynn Cormell all by herself - and probably die for it. I could tell that there was something else, too ... something else had happened that had increased and cemented her hatred for everyone involved in this ugly plot. I was beginning to fear the revelation of what that something else might be.
Trent raised his eyebrows. "I'm sure that revelation went over fantastically," he said with dark sarcasm.
Ivy met his gaze coolly. "About as well as you'd expect, yes. Cormell proved good faith with the Withons by handing over all those involved whom he hadn't already killed. That allegedly prevented an all-out war, but you wouldn't know it by the rising body count on both sides. It's officially frowned upon, but the elves and vampires have been at one another ever since. The I.S. is tied in knots trying to deal with it. Their general plan of action seems to be to let the elves and vampires hash it out amongst themselves and just focus on damage control and keeping the rest of the world from finding out about what's going on," she added with a note of disgust. Given that a predominant portion of the I.S. hierarchy were in fact vampires, I wasn't surprised.
Trent's face was dark, his expression guarded and ... worried? "Ivy, as much as I expected and feared something of this nature, I find it hard to believe that my death alone could have triggered hostilities on this scale. You said things went sideways when you and Quen went to confront Ellasbeth. What else happened? What haven't you told us?"
Ivy seemed reluctant but determined, as if facing a nasty yet inevitable task. "A lot of things went wrong that night. When we got to your apartments, your guards and staff were gone. I don't how it went down, but Ellasbeth had taken over and the place was crawling with the Withons' men. Jonathan was one of them. I'm not sure who returned him to his human form, but he was definitely working for the other side. He taunted Quen about being able to snatch you from right under his nose and about ... what they had done to you, and Rachel. Quen was livid and just about lost it. They went at each other hard and ugly. A number of the other guards attempted to weigh in and I ... dealt with them." She paused and closed her eyes, breathing deep to maintain her control over the memories. I had a feeling Quen wasn't the only one who had lost it in the face of having our supposed demise confirmed and gloated over. I'd always worried how Ivy would react to something like that after all we'd been through together. I was glad to see she had apparently held up relatively well, all things considered. She'd been able to go on after losing me, and despite a completely selfish twinge of illogical melancholy, I was fiercely pleased and relieved by that fact.
Jenks was silent, spilling a sickly red and black dust that was making me about as anxious as Ivy's obvious reluctance to continue.
"Ivy? Where's Quen? If I call him, will he answer his phone?" Trent's voice was quiet and even. It was a calmness that I now recognized was his way of burying his emotions in preparation for an expected blow.
Ivy shook her head. "No. He won't answer. Bis isn't the only one who's been out. Quen's been in a coma since the night you two disappeared." Her expression going deadly calm, Ivy forced her way through the rest of the story. "Quen killed Jonathan. Quen was pretty hurt, but still on his feet. More guards came running from the house." She gave a dark, fanged smile. "Between the two of us, they wouldn't have had a chance, but then Ellasbeth video calls Quen from inside." Ivy's jaw clenched. "She didn't fight fair. She and her bodyguards are in the nursery with Lucy and Ray. She tells Quen that you're gone; he can't change that and he needs to rethink his allegiances. She says he'd better stand down and take care of the vampire if he doesn't want Lucy growing up as an only child."
My breath literally caught in my throat and I clenched my fists so hard my nails dug into my palms. My gaze shot to Trent. The pure hatred flaring in his eyes had displaced his cool mask. He was still collected, but obviously seething. It was no less than he had feared, but being right clearly still hit him hard.
"That bitch," Trent said very quietly, taking the words right out of my mouth. Looking at Trent's eyes, I knew that if Ellasbeth had been foolish enough to actually allow Ray to be harmed, there was nothing that could save her. "And then?" Trent prompted; his expression going icy once more as he steadied himself for what was to come.
Given what we'd heard to this point, I thought I knew what was coming. I thought Ivy and Jenks had been hesitating to tell us about how Quen had betrayed Ivy and allowed himself to be taken out to protect his daughter. Maybe even that he was dying and would never come out of his coma. I think that's what Trent was expecting too.
We were right, but also wrong. Devastatingly wrong. The truth was so much worse.
"Quen stood down, of course, and took me with him." There was no accusation in Ivy's tone. She understood the choice forced upon him and obviously did not consider it a true betrayal, even though it seemed a miracle that he hadn't gotten her killed.
"Then ... then the whole fucking place went to hell," she said with a dark, dangerous blankness. "One minute, the guards are taking Quen into custody and I'm spelled flat on the ground, about to be killed twice. The next minute, there's a huge explosion from inside your house, Trent. It took out half the complex in one blast. The building was ablaze in moments. I actually thought it was some kind of trick at first, but the guards were thrown into complete panic. They weren't even paying attention to us anymore and it was easy to get free. Quen ran into the burning house. I followed, but there was another explosion and we were separated. The whole place was going up. By the time I found him again he'd been blown through a wall and was trapped under the rubble. I managed to get him out, but the doctors say he sustained severe head trauma and he's not woken up since. I tried to go back in ... I did," Ivy's eyes were black with pain as they looked at Trent and then over at me, as if she really needed me to understand and believe that. I realized with a lurch that Ivy felt she had failed somehow.
"But it was all coming down; there was no house, there was nothing to go back in to anymore. It happened so fast. No one knew about the vampires yet. The explosion was initially blamed on one of the rival elf factions who didn't want the Withons to take over and had therefore removed their strongest claim to power. The Withons' response was swift and brutal. That's what started them all killing each other. It was only later we learned from the fairies that they'd seen vampires on the grounds that night, sneaking in and back out again under the cover of the disturbance created when Ellasbeth's security ousted Trent's. The fairies had fought the intruders, leaving one of them visibly scarred in a manner I was able to use to track him down. It took a while, but it was from him that I was eventually able to ... extract the full story and find out that they were responsible for the bombing and for everything else." Ivy's teeth flashed again in a snarl. "He got what he deserved. Everyone involved did. Not a one died quickly," she promised grimly.
Cold, stark horror and disbelief was worming its way under my skin and starting to tighten like a vice around my heart. The point of the attack had been to set the Withons off by taking away part of their claim to leadership of the elves and by doing it in such an atrocious manner it would leave the elven world tearing itself apart with rage. That meant Ellasbeth hadn't been the target of the assassination. Killing her would certainly enrage the Withons, but she wasn't the one who held the symbolic promise of the future. She wasn't the first child to have been born true in millennia, the one who mixed the Withons' political power with the Kalamack's pure bloodline. No, the person they had needed to take out in order to cause chaos and retribution on this massive a scale ... was Lucy.
"What happened to Lucy and Ray," Trent's urgent, demanding voice was unexpectedly ragged. He stepped across the space between them and actually grabbed Ivy's shoulders, giving her a very unwise shake. "Ivy! Where are my children?!"
Ivy's eyes were completely black, Trent's fear and anger on top of her own emotions tripping her right over the edge into a full on vamp-out.
I grabbed Trent's shoulders and pushed him back, getting between them and wrestling him quickly away from Ivy before things got ugly. Trent fought me, terror stripping him of his usual composure and any semblance of good sense. "What happened to my girls?!" he shouted. "Damn it to the Turn, Rachel! Make her tell me!"
My eyes burned with tears, because some part of me already knew. Just as some part of Trent must know as well. That's why he was fighting so hard. He wanted a different answer. He wanted to force it to be different. Oh God, no ... please, no, not this ... anything but this.
A/N: Don't hate me, don't hate me... *hides*