Ryan flicked a questioning glance my way. I gave him a thin smile in return. “Elena Sharp loved being a society wife,” I explained. “With Rachel’s cooperation and assistance, Elena could return to Beaulac and play the tragic widow—”

“—and remarry as soon as she found a new sugar daddy.”

Streets whizzed by as Ryan drove, a frown wrinkling his forehead. “So what is Rachel going to do now? We don’t have any evidence to prove she killed Brian, so it’s going to be assumed that Davis did it.”

“Yeah, but you’re forgetting one important detail.”

He cocked an eyebrow at me.

“I’m a tenacious, stubborn bitch,” I said. “We can prove that Harris killed Carol. Easy. DNA. I’ll get the phone records to prove that Harris called Davis. And I’ll find a way to prove that Rachel was in the car with Davis if I have to track down every piece of surveillance video in this city. And I’ll grovel and apologize to Detective Fourcade in Mandeville and work with him to pin Elena’s death on Rachel as well—surveillance, trace evidence in the condo, whatever it takes.”

Ryan’s expression turned grim. “She’s going to know that we’re figuring it out and that she can’t walk away from all of this. It’s blowing up in her face.”

“Shit. It all makes sense now. Rachel did pro bono work at the neuro center and nursing homes, not out of the kindness of her heart but—”

“—to be near people whose essences she could slurp up,” Ryan finished for me.

“And when she killed Brian, she couldn’t pass up that juicy essence—”

“—and then she ran into one of those psycho pixies and got a lot stronger.”

“Yes,” I replied, “and stop finishing my sentences. It’s starting to—”

“—get annoying?” His eyes flashed with humor.

“Smart-ass. She must have wondered why Tessa didn’t have any essence, so she came to the house and she ran into a psycho pixie.” I sobered quickly. If I hadn’t taken all the wards down, she’d never have been able to get in. “And this means that she doesn’t need any weapons to kill.” A horrible thought struck me. “Oh, fuck. The ambulance—”

Ryan was dialing his cell phone before I could even finish the sentence. I listened, nerves on edge while he told the dispatcher that he needed a bolo—a be-on-the-look-out alert—on the subject that the ambulance had transported from Judge Roth’s house, explaining that Rachel Roth was a murder suspect and considered to be extremely dangerous. I watched his face as he listened, seeing his eyes narrow.

Finally he hung up. “They can’t raise the ambulance.”

They’re dead. A spasm of guilt twisted through me. I’d been too focused on Harris; I’d avoided seeing anything that could have allowed me to stop Rachel sooner.

“It’s not your fault,” Ryan cut into my thoughts.

“That’s up for debate,” I countered, worrying my lower lip. I could see the hospital a couple of blocks ahead. “Wait! Stop!” I pointed to a parking lot across from the hospital, where I could see an ambulance parked crookedly.

Ryan whipped the car over, somehow managing not to get clipped by the sedan behind him. He bounced over the curb and screeched to a stop beside the ambulance.

“You check the back!” I ordered. I jumped out of the car and ran around to the front of the ambulance, gut tightening as I saw the driver slumped in her seat belt. “Shit,” I breathed, looking with sick dread at the dark-haired young woman and her open, staring brown eyes. I didn’t need to check for a pulse. I could feel what had happened.

I stepped back as Ryan closed the back of the ambulance, face grim. It was too easy for her. One was in the back with her, and then she reached through to the cab for the other one. I was distantly aware that Ryan was on his cell phone again, calling it in to the dispatcher, but my attention was suddenly focused elsewhere as I realized where we were.

We were in front of the neuro center.

Chapter 33

I started toward the door, but Ryan grabbed my arm to stop me. “Wait,” he said. I looked back at him, a little surprised by the force in his grip. It wasn’t painful, but it was solid, and it was pretty damn obvious that he wasn’t going to let me go until he could say whatever he needed to say.

“Don’t put me through thinking you’re dead again,” he said, voice low and just as strong as the grip on my arm.

I almost came back with something flippant—a smartass remark to lighten the mood—but the look in his eyes stilled that line of thought. I suddenly realized how terrible the aftermath of my death must have been for him. He’d seen me eviscerated, my chest and stomach sliced open by the claws of a demon. He’d watched me bleed out onto the white tile floor, and there’d been no reason to believe that he would ever see me alive again. And for nearly two weeks he had lived with the knowledge that I was dead.

I could see the naked emotion in his face. For this one instant he’d dropped his careful guard, letting me see that he couldn’t lose me again, that he wouldn’t be able to survive it a second time.

But as a friend losing a friend or as something more? I wished I could tell.

“I won’t,” I replied quietly. “I promise.”

The tension in his eyes eased, even though we both knew that there was no way to ensure that such a promise would be kept. But I knew that it was more than that. He wanted me to promise that I wouldn’t make the self-sacrifice that I’d been willing to make before.

I put my hand over his and squeezed briefly. “This bitch is going down. That I can promise.”

He smiled, but I could see the flicker of unease in it. He knew I hadn’t given him the promise he wanted, but at the same time he knew that it wasn’t a promise I could give. Rachel wasn’t as big a baddie as a demonic lord under the control of the Symbol Man, but I still had to stop her.

But he didn’t say anything, just released my arm. There was an insane part of me that wanted to grab him and hold him and tell him what he wanted to hear, but there was no time and I had no idea what could be said.

We ran up to the front door together. I flashed my badge at the surprised receptionist without stopping or breaking stride, then bypassed the elevator for the stairs. I wanted to take the stairs two at a time, but I really wasn’t in the best shape for advanced stair-running, plus my legs were a bit too short to make that anything other than agonizing. Luckily, my aunt was only on the third floor, so I didn’t lose too much time. Ryan, the bastard, did take them two at a time, and then gave me what was clearly a smug grin when he reached the landing several seconds before I did.

I would have said something obnoxious to him, but getting oxygen to my tortured lungs seemed a bit more important. I merely scowled and gasped for breath as I kept moving down the hall to my aunt’s room.

Not that the running made any difference. I rounded the corner and careened into the open door of her room in classic cartoon fashion, complete with the screeching of my shoes on the tile. I expected to see some sort of dramatic tableau, with the role of the homicidal maniac being played by Rachel and the helpless hostage played by my comatose aunt.

Instead, I burst into the room to see Carl sitting by my aunt’s bedside, quietly reading to her. He stopped midsentence and lifted his head to look at me, the barest trace of puzzlement crossing his features. I quickly scanned the rest of the room to make sure that Rachel wasn’t hiding behind the door or anything else, but the curtains on all of the partitions had been pulled back, and I could see that the only people in the room were Carl, my aunt, and three definitely comatose patients.

“Busy room today,” he said, setting the book down. “Is something wrong?”

Busy? “Who else has been in here?” I demanded, still panting. Damn, but I needed to get in better shape. “Has Rachel Roth been here?”

His brows drew together. “Yes. About ten minutes ago. Very strange.”

“What was strange?” Ryan asked. He wasn’t out of breath at all. I hated him.

Carl tilted his head. “She ran in here, much like you two, and seemed very surprised to see me. Then she told me that she was here to take Tessa downstairs for some tests. I asked her what tests, and she became very angry, then came up to me and grabbed my forearm.” All of this was delivered in a calm, even recitation. “I had no idea what she was doing, but after a few seconds she let go, looking very puzzled and upset. Then she said, ‘Forget it. I can go straight to the source.’” His thin shoulders lifted in a shrug.

“You didn’t think to call the police or anything?” I demanded.

Carl lifted an eyebrow half a millimeter. “For what?”

He had a point. How was he to know that Rachel was a soul-sucking homicidal maniac? “She … couldn’t kill you,” I said, processing everything he’d said. “Must be something about how wards don’t affect you.”

Carl just shrugged again. “Well, she lit out of here. Would have been about ten minutes ago.”

“The source?” Ryan murmured.

I let out a curse. “The portal. She’s on her way to Tessa’s house.”

“Whatever that psycho pixie did to her before, she wants more,” Ryan said, voice near a growl.

Shit. She could kill with a touch now. I didn’t want to think about how much more powerful she could get. I whirled to leave, then looked back at Carl and stabbed a finger toward Tessa. “Protect her!”

He nodded gravely. “Absolutely.”

A blue Honda Civic was parked unevenly in Tessa’s drive way when we pulled up, and I briefly wondered if Rachel had killed to get the car. On the way over, I’d called dispatch to modify the bolo on Rachel to warn officers off from attempting to apprehend her. I absolutely did not want anyone laying hands on her to try to arrest her.

Ryan and I approached the house, guns out and at the ready. The window beside the front door was shattered, and the door was wide open. Obviously the aversion wards didn’t have much effect on someone who was seriously determined to get in. I hope the wards on the portal will be strong enough to keep her from getting another pixie-thing out.

We made entry, one behind the other, covering the hallway and listening for any sounds. I motioned to the library and Ryan nodded. We could both hear movement within. Please let those wards hold!

I did a quick peek around the doorway, just enough to see Rachel standing in front of the portal, her back to us. The wards on the portal were still intact, to my intense relief.

“Don’t move!” I commanded, covering her with my Glock. “Keep your hands where I can see them!” I stepped fully into the library, giving Ryan room to enter as well.

Rachel stiffened, but she kept her arms down by her sides. “You could tell, couldn’t you?” Tension coiled in her voice, and her hands clutched into fists.

“Yes. I could feel it. I could feel what you did.” I kept my gun steady on her, though my voice wasn’t as stable. The memory of the gaping emptiness still left my stomach roiling. “You consumed their essence when you killed all those people.”

“I didn’t want to. I swear! I never wanted it to go so far.” Her voice shook. “But I can’t … can’t stop. I mean, I can. I know I can. I just …” She trailed off, and I could see a shudder run through her.

Like she’s jonesing for a fix. Shit. “How are you doing it?” I asked. I knew it was an innate ability—Rhyzkahl had revealed that much, though the thought that summoning demons and destroying essence might have similar roots was disturbing to me. But right now I was more interested in stalling until I could figure out what to do.

She let out a shaking laugh. “It used to be a little thing I could do. My grandfather died when I was five years old. They brought all of us kids into the room right after he’d drawn his last breath. Horrible to inflict that sort of experience on a kid that young anyway, but for me it was … providence.”

“Because his essence had just been freed,” I said.

I could hear her swallow. “Clinging by a thread to the empty shell. I could see it and feel it, and it felt so damn good. And when I threw myself at the essence, everyone thought I was throwing myself on his body in grief. By the time they lifted me off him, I’d pulled that essence into me.” She turned her head to look at me, eyes haunted and dark. “You always remember your first time, right?”

“I’ve never consumed anyone’s essence,” I retorted. “I wouldn’t know.”

A tremulous smile crossed her face. “It was marvelous. Made me feel so good. I never forgot that feeling. When I got older, I did a lot of volunteer work in hospitals. But I never killed anyone. I always waited … until after it was over.” She paused. “Then I got sick. Breast cancer. I was so scared and desperate, and I was seeing a client at a nursing home …”

“Why bother waiting for them to die, right?” I said.

“He was going to die anyway!” she snarled, but I could see the fear and guilt in her eyes. “It was simple enough to give him a fatal overdose of his heart medicine. And I got better. I … I figured it was like an organ donation. He died just a bit early, and my cancer was gone.”

“But you kept doing pro bono work there,” I countered. That’s it, keep talking. I knew from experience that most people wanted to confess, wanted to tell someone, anyone, what they’d done. I was more than happy to oblige her. Maybe it would give me enough time to figure out a plan. “How many others have died before their time?”