“Hold up, hold up, you’re married? And you didn’t invite me? You know I love good champagne!”
“Actually no,” Finn said. “We’re not married. I just meant, you know, playing the part of the wife. I’m actually not his wife.”
“But why hasn’t he married you yet? Made a respectable woman out of you?” Ivy teased, leaning back on the lumpy couch. She had taken, in true Ivy form, only five seconds to get to the heart of the matter.
“I don’t know,” Finn said, taking a slow sip from her glass. The red liquid rocked in her hand.
“You’ve been together, what, ten years?”
“Pretty much.”
“Time to make it happen, don’t you think? Especially if you have to go to all these boring lunches and dinners and act like it already.”
“We’re practically married—it’s not a big deal,” Finn said. “Stop it, you sound like my mother.”
“Would you say yes if he asked?”
Finn rolled her eyes. “Of course, and he knows that.”
“But he’s never asked?”
“No,” she had to admit. “I guess it’s sort of moot. I mean, the thing is…”
“What?” Ivy asked, scratching the sole of her foot.
“Nothing… forget I said anything.”
“Finny, it’s me. Remember?” She waggled her paint-flecked finger to remind Finn she would keep her secrets.
“The thing is, Oliver is… Oliver is different. And we’re already together.” Blood bound. I am bound to him—even without the vows, I am his. Why bother with anything else?
“Yeah, he’s different all right. He’s so much richer.” Ivy smirked.
“I mean he’s not like us,” Finn said slowly. The wine had loosened her tongue, she thought. She could never tell Ivy the truth. The Coven kept its secrets by huddling together, by socializing only with their own kind. As the years went by, Finn found that it was a burden to keep her place in the Coven, her life, a secret from everyone in her life who wasn’t a part of it, like her mother and grandmother, with whom she had been very close. She had never been tempted before, but she was tempted now. She wanted to tell Ivy everything, about the Coven, about Oliver, about her secret life as a human familiar to the most powerful vampire in the world.
“Tell me,” Ivy said, so eager she almost tipped out of her seat. “You can tell me.” She poured her more of the strangely addictive fortified wine.
The thing was, Finn couldn’t, and she knew that. Of all the many things that Oliver had made clear she couldn’t do, this was one of the big ones.
Maybe the biggest.
So Finn leaned back against the edge of the couch, pressing her body deep into the sagging upholstery and willing her mouth shut. She took another sip of wine.
“What is it?” Ivy asked. Her eyes never left Finn’s face. That girl should be a detective, thought Finn. Or maybe a shrink.
Maybe she already is. Maybe she’s mine.
“You know, I was going to be an artist.” Finn smiled.
“Oh, I know.” Ivy held up her glass. Cheers.
Finn laughed at the memories flooding back into her mind. They were especially funny, given that the two women were sitting in a studio surrounded by paint and canvases. “I was terrible, Ivy.”
“I know that, too.” Ivy toasted her again, and Finn raised her own glass with a nod.
“Why did you never say anything? Why did you let me take all those awful classes, week after week? Painting every piece of fruit and naked model in Chicago?” Finn sighed.
“You wanted it. Hey, man. It was your dream. Who was I to tell you what you could and couldn’t have?” Ivy shook her head. “That’s not my place, to steal someone’s dream like that.”
“But I was never going to have it. I didn’t deserve it. I wasn’t a real artist.” I am something else entirely, someone I don’t recognize anymore.
Ivy shrugged. “Why not?”
Finn shook her head. She had thought this through so many times that there was no harm in talking about it now. “There is such a thing as reality, Ivy.”
“Are you a realist, Finny? Is that what you are?” Ivy set her glass down on the uneven stack of books supporting the plywood tray that passed for her coffee table. “Is that what this thing with Oliver is really about?”
Finn avoided Ivy’s eyes. Instead, she focused on her glass. Her glass and the table. There were so many wine-red rings on the wood now that it looked like an intentional pattern, like a modernist take on grapes.
“About this thing with Oliver…,” Finn said slowly, and as soon as she began talking, she couldn’t stop. She didn’t know if it was the wine, or her rekindled friendship with Ivy, or because it was a relief speaking out loud after keeping silent for so long. Secrets had the ability to fester and rot, and this one was beginning to itch.
“Oliver is… a vampire, he’s immortal, and I am his human familiar,” she said breathlessly.
Ivy stared at Finn in shocked silence. Then she laughed. Her huge, honking belly laughs, wiping her tears and clutching her sides.
“You don’t believe me?” Finn whispered.
Her friend took a deep breath. “No, it’s just that—It’s so funny because—that’s my secret, too,” Ivy said. And with a dramatic gesture she was famous for, she pulled away her collar to show the two white scars at the base of her neck.
“It’s why I’ve been so obsessed with blood lately. It’s all I can think about,” Ivy said dreamily. “I’m part of him and he’s part of me. It’s wonderful, really, isn’t it?”
22 TRUTH OR DARE
IT WAS DIFFICULT, if not impossible, to keep a secret from Venators. It was the most admirable and most annoying thing about her colleagues. The next evening, when Ara walked into headquarters, it was as if everyone already knew what had happened last night, and she blushed and kept her head down, feeling sheepish and self-conscious. There were way too many knowing smiles and surreptitious glances thrown her way. She tossed her bag on her desk and took a long sip from her coffee. She’d had way too little sleep last night, that was for sure, and her body ached, although it was a satisfied soreness, if one could call it that. The corner office she shared with Rowena was empty, the desk across from hers absent of her cheerful partner. Rowena must have taken the night off and was probably spending it with Jasmine.
“Hey.” Deming, her superior officer, popped her head into her office. “Do you have the case file for that Neph you iced last night? I need it for my nightly report. By the way, one of the Venators thinks ‘Chocolate Factory’ might be a warehouse in Brooklyn. I sent some noovs this morning to three locations that match the name. We’ll see what we find.”
Ara nodded. “Yeah, I’ve got it here… somewhere,” she said apologetically, rummaging through the folders on her desk.
Deming waited while Ara looked for the file. “So… you and Sam, huh?” she teased, tossing her long black hair over one shoulder.
Ara almost dropped her coffee cup. “Who told you that?” she asked, looking up from the mess on her desk.
“You just did.” Deming laughed. “Oh, stop. We’ve seen the way the two of you look at each other. It’s not a secret. There were bets on how soon it would happen.”
“Oh yeah? Who won?”
“Your partner. That’s why I gave her the day off.”
“Sold me out,” Ara complained, trying not to blush, thinking about yesterday after the Holiday closed, when she’d invited Sam up to her apartment, ostensibly for a cup of coffee. “I, um, have no coffee,” she’d said when they arrived, throwing open the empty cupboards and giggling uncharacteristically. She hadn’t expected to end up at home with the chief, but she’d had a little too much to drink—okay, a lot too much to drink—and she had gotten caught up in the moment and had ended up doing something she hoped she wouldn’t regret. He was her boss, after all, and she should’ve kept her head and her distance, but she’d lost her good sense sometime around the fourth or fifth cocktail.
Alcohol didn’t affect vampires, or so she’d been told.
They had fallen asleep in each other’s arms, and when the alarm rang at midnight, she hit the snooze button. But when she woke up with a start an hour later, she realized she’d made a mistake, that wasn’t the snooze she’d hit. Sam had laughed and made a joke about finally discovering why she was late all the time. Then he’d kissed her again.
“You’re going to make me late for work,” she whispered.
“That’s okay, I know your boss,” he’d said.
She blushed at the memory, found the file, and handed it to Deming.
Deming took it, crossed her arms, and appraised Ara from head to toe, as if judging her. “Sam’s great,” she said. “A real good guy. You’re lucky.” Her face changed a little, a little sadder, a little wistful, and Ara wondered what that was about. Deming was dating one of the senior conclave members, and they were all over each other at parties. It wasn’t jealousy, Ara thought, but sadness that she saw in Deming. Why did Sam make her sad? she wondered.
“Thank you,” Ara said finally, since she had no idea what else to say. She was a little intimidated by Deming Chen. Sam was lying, anyway, when he said she and Rowena were the Coven’s best Venators. It was a sweet lie, but Deming Chen was far more formidable. Even Ara was a little scared of her.
“Be good to him, okay?” Deming asked. “He’s more fragile than he looks.”
Ara went back to her work. The demon she’d killed last night and the one they had caught the other week confirmed there was a nest somewhere in town, as Nephilim tended to travel in groups for protection. Lucifer’s half-demon kin were drawn to New York, since the Coven was here, but it certainly felt as if there were more of them lately than usual. Was it because of the upcoming Four Hundred Ball, as other Venators whispered? Was the prospect of the vampire celebration causing agitation among their enemies? Or was there another reason—something they didn’t see? Rowena was sure they were running a drug operation of some sort.
Ara pored over the secret underground maps of New York, circling spots in the city where they’d tracked the Nephilim. Her shift was long, tedious, and lonely without Rowena making jokes. Before she clocked out, she stopped by the chief’s office, where Sam was sitting at his desk, frowning at his computer, looking as red-eyed and sleep deprived as she was. When he saw her, he smiled, and his blue eyes crinkled. He motioned her in.
“Hey,” she said. “When’d you get in? I didn’t see you do the walk of pride.”
“There’s a back entrance around the side. Keeps the noovs from gossiping too much.” He motioned for her to shut the door, and he stood up to close the blinds so they could have a little privacy. Which only served to make the Venators all the more curious, she thought. “You all right?” he asked worriedly.
“Should I not be?” she asked, shrugging.
“You seem… anxious,” he said.
She took a seat across from his desk and bit her thumb. There was something else that was bothering her. “It’s like everyone knows. About us, I mean. About last night.” It felt vulnerable and exposing.
“They’re truth tellers,” he said. “Of course they know.”
“Deming flat out congratulated me.”
“Nice to know I’ve got her approval.” He was wearing a clean pressed shirt, not the same one from the night before, but she knew he went straight to work from her apartment. He must keep them in a drawer in his desk, she guessed. For conclave meetings or when the Regent visited. Or for when he had a late-night booty call with one of the young Venators? No. Deming had said so herself. Sam wasn’t a player. He was loyal and steadfast, not just a good Venator, but a good guy.
“Do you care? That people know about us?” she asked hesitantly. There weren’t any rules about dating superiors, like in the mortal world. There wasn’t as much gender bias in the Coven, as their strongest leaders had been female. But she still felt self-conscious about it, thinking of Chris Jackson and her frosty smile.
“I couldn’t give a fuck.” He laughed. “Come over here.”
So she laughed, too, and sat on his lap and kissed him. She made him happy, and she liked that. She’d never done that before. She’d never had any ability to put a smile on anyone’s face. It felt good, he felt good, his lips against her neck felt good.
“Why do you think the Nephilim are back?” she asked, when they’d taken a break from kissing. Sam was one of the first Venators to discover their existence during the War, that Lucifer was breeding demons with human mothers since the fifteenth century. “Do you think they’re running drugs, like Rowena does?”
“Who knows what the hell those fuckers are up to? Lucifer bred them to spread evil in the world; that’s all there is to it,” he said, looking uncomfortable. Ara knew the Nephilim brought him a lot of bad memories.
“Yeah, you’re right,” she agreed. Her job was to kill the demons, not ask questions.
“You know that stunt you did with the Death Walk was pretty ballsy,” he murmured between kisses. “But don’t do it again. I’m serious, Ara—that demon could’ve taken you hostage in its mind.”
“I had to,” she said. “Rowena’s a good tracker, but it seemed like every time we were closing in on the Neph, he would move—like he knew what we were going to do before we did it. It was the only way to get ahead.” She was still feeling a little defiant and defensive—it had worked, after all.
“Yeah, well, I’ll let it slide for now,” Sam said with a yawn. “But next time, cute as you are, you’re going to have to answer to me.”
She looked him in the eye and smiled. “I think I can handle that.”
23 MYSTERY GANG
IVY WASN’T AT HER STUDIO the next time Finn came to visit. Granted, it was not at her usual time but after midnight. Oliver was working late as usual, and Finn had been up all night until finally she gave in to what she wanted to do and set out to see Ivy immediately.
A sleepy Jake let her in, nonplussed at having a late-night visitor. Artists kept vampire hours, she thought. He presumed she was there about Ivy’s work and pointed out that it was all ready. Indeed, the eight large canvases scattered around the loft on various easels looked stunning. The gallery was picking up the works later that day, and they would then send it over to the museum for the exhibition. But that wasn’t why Finn was there.
“She’s not here?” she asked. After learning Ivy shared her secret, she felt even more bonded to her than before. “When did she leave? I just saw her yesterday.”
“I don’t know, she’s hard to keep track of. I don’t even try,” Jake said, sounding bored and a little annoyed that she was still in his space.
Finn nodded. Ivy was impulsive and careless. She thought back to their conversation the other day and her utter shock. Ivy was with a vampire? It seemed utterly improbable, and Finn never heard her name come up at the Coven. She tried to press her for details about this mystery man, but Ivy was tight-lipped. “Oh, I could never tell…”
“Well, at least tell me where you met him?” Finn had asked.
“The craziest thing,” Ivy said. “He was looking for me,” she said triumphantly. “He said he’d heard I was an artist, and he wanted to meet me.”
“So he’s a fan.”
Ivy had giggled. “Something like that, I guess.”
“Where did she go?” Finn asked Jake.
“Like I said, I really have no idea. The desert? Paris? Washington Heights… who knows?” he said, turning back to his computer. “I’m sure she’ll post a photo online or check into Foursquare.”
Jake began typing, and it was clear that the conversation was over.
Finn walked around the studio, toward the kitchen, and found the jug of the cheap red wine. To be honest, this was what she had come for in the first place. She wanted to see Ivy, sure, but Finn had started to crave the taste of this cheap wine mixed with whatever her friend put in it. “Do you know where she gets the secret stuff she puts in the wine?”
Jake swirled around in his chair and grinned at her as if she was finally speaking his language. “Vitamin P?”
She blushed. “Yeah, that’s what Ivy calls it.”
“Some guy up the block by the warehouse district. They call him Scooby. He’s got crazy spiky red hair, you won’t miss him. By the way, it’s a club drug. You should be careful with that. It’s dangerous,” he said in a serious tone.
“Club drug?”
“The kids take it. Enhances their senses, loosens their inhibitions. You know why they call it Vitamin P?”
“Why?”
“ ’Cause it takes you to Paradise. Oh, that’s what you have to say when you find Scooby, by the way. Otherwise he won’t sell it to you.” Jake saluted her, then went back to his computer.
When Finn was in college in Chicago, getting your hands on drugs was laughably easy. There was always a guy who lived in the hall in a hemp sweatshirt, or dreadlocks, or Birkenstocks, who had a connection. If you wanted some, you would stop by his room—which reeked of pot—and he would open the door and give you a glassy, red-eyed smile. It was always a guy, never a girl, Finn thought, wondering about that. Why was it that she had never known any girl drug dealers? Girls with connections?
Finn had been a good girl. She had never knocked on the door, she tended to shake her head when the peace pipe was offered, and she never went to the bathroom with a tiny amber bottle and a miniature spoon, never grew the nail on her pinkie finger too long. So she was surprised to find herself giving the new driver instructions on how to find this Scooby person. Jerry had called in sick—and she knew she would never attempt this if he was on duty that night. She wasn’t even sure why she was doing it; she just needed to get more of it—whatever it was.
They drove up the block, the doors locked, the windows tinted, but Finn felt so exposed as the car made its way slowly down the empty street. In the afternoons, this place was busy with peddlers selling designer knockoffs, peanut vendors, office clerks in suits and sneakers heading home. But tonight it was empty, abandoned, and eerie. What was she doing? She knew she should turn the car around and go back to Manhattan immediately. Whatever was in the wine was not worth this, she thought. She’d never been any sort of addict, and she sure wasn’t about to start now. But just as she was about to give the driver directions to turn around, Finn spotted a kid with bright red hair wearing a Mystery Gang T-shirt. He was underage—he couldn’t have been older than sixteen.
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