by Kim Harrison
Ivy handed me the pen, and I signed in under her. My thoughts went back to the last time I’d put my name in a register book, and I added a solid period after my signature to symbolically end any psychic connection it might have to me. Crossing it off would be better, but I wouldn’t be able to get away with that here.
“Right through there,” the woman said as she ran our IDs through a scanner and handed them back. “Keep your ID out,” she added, gesturing to a pair of thick plastic doors, clearly anxious to get back to her phone conversation.
I’d rather have gone to the right, where the floor was covered in carpet and there were fake potted plants, but Ivy, who clearly knew the drill, was already headed for the sterile, ugly hallway to the left with its white tile and milky-plastic doors. They were magnetically sealed, and when I caught up to Ivy, the woman buzzed us through.
My jaw clenched when the doors opened and the scent of unhappy vampire and angry Were worsened. I shuddered as I passed the threshold and the prison’s safeguards started to take hold. The magnetic door snicked shut behind us, and the air pressure shifted. We were probably in prison air now. Swell. There could be anything in it up to and including airborne potions.
At the end of the room was another set of those doors and a guy behind a desk. The old woman with him started our way, clearly in charge of the standard-looking spell checker before us—which was probably anything but standard. I couldn’t help but notice that the woman really stank of redwood, and that, if the gun on her hip wasn’t enough, would keep me minding my p’s and q’s. She might look like an old woman, but I bet she could give Al a run for his money.
“Anything to declare?” the woman asked as she looked over our IDs then gave them back.
“No.” Ivy’s mood was tight as she handed her coat and purse to her, ignoring the little claim check and walking unhesitatingly through the spell checker and to the desk at the end of the room. More paperwork, I thought as I saw her take a clipboard and start filling in a form.
“Anything to declare?” the guard asked me, and I brought my attention back. God, the woman looked a hundred and sixty, with nasty black hair that matched the color of her too-tight uniform. Her complexion was a pasty white, and I would’ve wondered why she didn’t invest in a cheap complexion spell except I didn’t think they allowed them anything while on the job.
“Just a lethal-amulet detector,” I said, handing her my bag and taking the little slip of paper and jamming it in a jeans pocket.
“I’ll bet,” she said under her breath, and I hesitated, eyeing her. I didn’t like my stuff in her care. She’d probably go through it as soon as I was out of sight. I sighed, trying not to get upset. If this was the crap you had to go through to see a low-security inmate, I didn’t want to know what was needed to see someone in the high-security prison.
Smiling, making herself look almost ugly, she nodded to the spell checker, and I reluctantly approached it. I couldn’t see the cameras, but I knew they were here—and I didn’t like the casual carelessness she used to bag my stuff up and drop it in a bin.
The wave of synthetic aura cascading over me from the spell checker gave me a start, and I jumped. Maybe it was because I didn’t have much of an aura right now, but I hadn’t been able to stifle my shudder, and the guy at the desk smirked.
Ivy was waiting impatiently, and I took the form the guy shoved across the desk at me. “And who are we visiting today?” he snarkily asked me as he handed Ivy her visitor’s pass.
My attention jerked up from the release form. I was not the one in jail here. Then I saw where he was looking and went cold. My visible scars were less than a year old, clear enough, and I stiffened when I decided he thought I was a vampire junkie on my way to get a fix. “Dorothy Claymor, same as her,” I said as if he didn’t know, signing the paper with stiff fingers.
The young man’s smirk grew nasty. “Not at the same time you aren’t.”
Ivy took a stance, and I set the clipboard down with a tap. Peeved, I looked at him. Why is this becoming so difficult? “Look,” I said, using one finger to slide the form back to him. “I’m just trying to help a friend, and this is the only way Dorothy will see her, okay?”
“She likes threesomes, eh?” the guy said, and seeing me drumming my fingers on my crossed arm, he added in a more businesslike voice, “We can’t let two people visit an inmate at once. Accidents happen.”
Much to my surprise, it was the woman who came to my rescue, clearing her throat like she was trying to get a cat out of it. “They can go in, Miltast.”
Officer Miltast, apparently, turned. “I’m not losing my job over her.”
The woman grinned and tapped her paperwork. “We got a call. She can go in.”
What in hell is going on? Concern wound tighter in my gut when the man looked from me to my scrawl and back again. Face scrunching up, he turned to Ivy, then handed me the visitor’s badge the tabletop machine spit out.
“I’ll escort you to the visiting rooms,” he said as he rose and patted his shirt front for his key card. “You got this okay?” he asked the woman, and she laughed.
“Thank you,” I muttered as I peeled the backing off my badge and stuck it to my upper shoulder. Maybe me being an independent runner just got me in, but I doubted it. My man Miltast opened the door, and hoisting his belt up, waited for us to pass through. God, he was only thirty-something, but he was swaggering around like he was fifty, with a gut.
Again the vampire incense hit me, with a hint of unhappy Were and decayed redwood. It was not a good mix. There was anger, and desperation, and hunger. Everyone was under mental stress so thick I could almost taste it. Ivy and I going in together suddenly didn’t seem like a good idea. The vamp pheromones were probably hitting her hard.
The door shut behind me, and I stifled a shudder. Ivy was silent and stoic as we paced down the corridor, jittery under her facade of confidence. Her black jeans looked out of place in the white corridor, and her dark hair caught the light, looking almost silver. I wondered what she was hearing that I wasn’t.
We passed through another Plexiglas door and the corridor got twice as wide. Blue lines blocked the floor into sections, and I realized that the clear doors we were passing led to cells. I couldn’t see anyone, but it all looked clean and sterile, like a hospital. And somewhere down here was Skimmer.
“The solid doors cut down on the pheromones,” Ivy said, noticing me eyeing them.
“Oh.” I missed Jenks, and I wished he was here watching my back. There were cameras in the corners, and I bet they weren’t fake. “So how come they’ve got witches working as guards?” I said, realizing that the only vamp I’d seen outside a cell so far had been Ivy.
“A vampire might be tempted to do something stupid for blood,” Ivy said, her gaze distant and not paying me much attention. “A Were can be overpowered.”
“So can a witch,” I said, watching our escort take an interest in our conversation.
Ivy looked sideways at me. “Not if they tap a line.”
“Yeah,” I protested, not liking that I couldn’t right now, “but even the I.S. doesn’t send a witch after an undead. There’s no way I could even come near besting Piscary.”
The man walking behind us made a small noise. “This is an aboveground, low-security facility. We don’t house dead vampires here. Just witches, Weres, and living vampires.”
“And the guards are more experienced than you, Rachel,” Ivy said, her gaze lighting on the cell numbers, counting them down probably. “Officer Milktoast here probably has clearance to use charms that aren’t street legal.” She smiled at him, chilling me. “Isn’t that right?”
“It’s Miltast,” he said sharply. “And if you ever get bitten,” he added, looking at my neck, “you lose your job.”
I wanted to jerk my scarf up, but knew that to a hungry vampire, dead or alive, that was like wearing a negligee. “That is so unfair,” I said. “I get labeled a black witch for getting a smutty aura saving people�
��s lives, but you can use a black charm with impunity?”
At that, Miltast smiled. “Yep. And I get paid for it.”
I didn’t like what he was saying, but at least he was talking to me. Maybe he had a smutty aura, too, and my own greasy coating didn’t scare him. That he was even talking to me was odd. He had to know I was shunned. That’s probably why they’d let me in with Ivy. They simply didn’t care what happened to me. God help me. What am I going to tell my mom?
We passed through another set of doors, and my claustrophobic feeling doubled. Ivy, too, was starting to show the strain and was beginning to sweat. “You okay?” I asked, thinking she smelled great. Evolution. You’ve gotta love it.
“Fine,” she said, but her nervous smile said different. “Thank you for doing this.”
“Wait to thank me until we both get back in the car in one piece, okay?”
Our escort slowed to check the numbers painted on the outside of the doors, and leaning to the side, he used a two-way radio to check something. Satisfied, he looked through the glass, pointed his finger at someone in warning, then ran his card to open the door.
There was a soft hiss of equalizing pressure, and Ivy immediately went in. I moved to follow Ivy, and Miltast stopped me. “Excuse me?” I said snottily, letting him grip my arm like that because he was the only one armed with magic.
“I’m watching you,” he threatened, and I started. Me? He was watching me? Why?
“Good,” I said, confirming that he knew I’d been shunned. Maybe they let us in together hoping we would all kill each other. “Tell them that I’m a white witch and to get off my case.”
Miltast didn’t seem to know what to say, and with a final squeeze of pressure, he let me go in. Knees shaking, I passed over the threshold. The door hissed shut, and I swear I heard it seal with a vacuum. The better to contain the pheromones, I guess.
The white chamber was a mix of interviewing room and conjugal-visit trailer. Not that I knew what the latter looked like, but I could guess. There was a second, solid door in the back with a peephole. A white couch took up one side wall, two chairs and a table between them filled the opposite. Lots of room to touch. Lots of room for mistakes to be made. I especially didn’t like the transparent door we had come through or the camera on the ceiling. It smelled like burnt paper, and I wondered if it was to help mask the pheromones.
Skimmer sat coyly in a corner white chair. Her white jumpsuit looked good on her, making her seem both small and devilish. Standing in the middle of the room, Ivy was her polar opposite. Skimmer was confident where Ivy was unsure. The blond vamp was coy where Ivy was pleading for understanding. Skimmer wanted to rip my face off, and Ivy wanted to save it.
No one said anything, and I realized I could hear the circulation fans. Skimmer stayed silent, knowing from her courtroom past that he who spoke first was probably the neediest.
“Thank you for seeing me,” Ivy said, and I sighed. Here we go.
Skimmer shifted to cross her legs the other way. Her blond hair hung about her face, and her complexion was blotchy. They didn’t allow them much in here. “I didn’t want to see you,” she said. Smiling wickedly, she stood to show she’d lost some weight. Never heavy, the woman was now skinny. “I wanted to see her,” she finished.
I licked my lips and edged away from the closed door. “Hi, Skimmer.” My pulse was quickening, and I forced my breathing to slow, knowing tension was a trigger.
“Hi, Rachel,” the smaller vampire mocked as she sashayed closer.
Ivy jerked her arm up, and I fell back in shock when she blocked Skimmer’s blurring arm, lashing out at me. Thin fingers with long nails swung inches from where my face had been, and I pressed against the wall. Crap, I didn’t want to walk out of here with a scratch or a bite. I was having dinner with my mom and Robbie, and he’d never let me live it down.
“Don’t,” Ivy said, and I forced myself from the wall. This was going to be bad. Skimmer’s eyes had flashed black, and a thread of warning drifted through me, tightening my muscles when I realized Ivy’s eyes had dilated to match hers. Damn.
Ivy let go of Skimmer’s arm, and the white-clad vampire backed up, smelling Ivy’s scent on her wrist and smiling. Double damn.
“So, Ivy,” Skimmer said, shifting her body in its tight jumpsuit to look sultry. “She’s still stringing you along like a pull toy, baby?”
Ivy jerked when I moved a step closer. “Can you be decent for once?” my roommate said. “Who visited Piscary but wasn’t on the official list? He got blood from someone.”
“Other than you?” Skimmer mocked, and my pulse jerked again. “Hurts, doesn’t it?” she said as she settled herself in her chair, making it a throne of power. “Seeing what you want and knowing they don’t care a shit about you.”
I took a deep breath, unable to let that stand. “I care.”
“Don’t argue with her,” Ivy said. “It’s what she wants.”
Skimmer smiled to show her fangs, and that, combined with her dark eyes, caused a shiver to slide through me. She wasn’t dead yet, so she couldn’t pull a full vampiric aura, but it was close.
“But here you are,” the small woman almost purred, “asking what I know. How bad do you want it, Ivy girl?”
“Don’t call me that.” Ivy had gone pale. That was Piscary’s pet name for her, and she hated it. My scar started to tingle, and I clenched my jaw, refusing to let the tendrils of feeling slip any deeper in me. Skimmer must have noticed my panicked expression.
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” she said coquettishly. “Like a lover’s long-absent touch. If you knew how it was hitting Ivy in this little tiny locked room, you’d be scared shitless.”
In a surge of pique, the vampire rose. I took an involuntary step back before I could stop myself. This was so not good. I think they’d bent the rules and let me in here hoping I’d get killed, thus ending the problem of what to do with Rachel Morgan.
Ivy’s stance stiffened. “You said you’d tell me who visited Piscary.”
“But I didn’t promise…”
Ivy’s face became closed. “Let’s go,” she said, her tone crisp as she spun to the door.
“Wait,” Skimmer said petulantly, and Ivy halted. There’d been panic in Skimmer’s voice, but instead of making me feel better, my tension ratcheted higher. This was so not safe.
Skimmer came forward, to take the middle of the room, and Ivy stood almost in front of me with her hands on her hips. “I can’t give you anything, Skimmer,” my roommate said. “You killed Piscary. That was a mistake.”
“He treated you like shit!” Skimmer exclaimed.
Ivy was calm and sedate. “He was still important to me. I loved him.”
“You hated him!”
“I loved him, too.” Ivy shook her head, making the tips of her hair shift. “If you’re not going to tell me who visited him off the lists, then we’re done.”
Again Ivy turned her back on Skimmer. She took my arm and started me to the door. We’re leaving?
“Ivy likes her new toy,” Skimmer said bitterly. “She doesn’t want to play with her old dolls anymore.”
I didn’t think we were going to get anything out of Skimmer, but Ivy stopped. Her head was down as she gathered her thoughts, and slowly she spun around to the angry, frustrated vampire. “You were never a toy,” she whispered, pleading for understanding.
“No, but you were.” Skimmer’s confidence flowed back, and she stood before us tall and proud. “Once. When we first met. I turned you back into a person.”
Her eyes were black again, and my scars, both visible and hidden beneath my perfect skin, were tingling. Backing up, I found the wall. I felt safer, a false security.
Skimmer moved forward as I moved back, and the woman stopped right before Ivy. “I want you to hurt, Ivy,” she breathed. “I want restitution for what you did to me.”
“I didn’t do anything to you.”
“That’s the point, love,” Skimmer said, hitting Kis
ten’s accent perfectly.
Ivy took a breath and held it, frozen as Skimmer started circling her. “You aren’t going to have one good thing in your life,” the smaller vampire said, and I knew she was talking about me. “Not one. And I’m going to take her from you. Know how?”
“If you touch her,” Ivy threatened, and Skimmer laughed.
“No, silly Ivy girl. I’m better than that. You’re going to do it for me.”
I didn’t get it. Skimmer had already tried to warn me off Ivy, and it hadn’t worked. There wasn’t anything she could do, but as the slinky woman wound herself more tightly around Ivy, I wondered what the intelligent vamp was thinking.
The satisfied noise coming from deep within her set my scars warming in memory. Her motions sultry and slow, Skimmer stopped, facing me, with Ivy between us, draping her arms around Ivy’s neck. Ivy didn’t move, frozen, and my gut tightened. “You want to know who visited Piscary?” Skimmer asked, her eyes flicking over Ivy’s shoulder to me. “Bite me.”
My face went cold. I didn’t think she meant it in the negative sense.
“Right now,” the small woman said, “in front of your new girlfriend. Show her the blood, the savagery, the monster you really are.”
I took a breath and held it. I knew how ugly Ivy could be. I didn’t want to see it again.
“I told you,” Ivy whispered. “I’m not practicing anymore.”
A surge of panic rose through me, and I jerked from the wall. “Since when?” I exclaimed, pretty much ignored. “I want you to practice. God, Ivy, it’s who you are.”
Skimmer just smiled, showing a slip of fang. “But it’s not who she wants to be.” Watching me, she played with the hair behind Ivy’s ears until my blood pounded in anger. She was toying with Ivy, and I could do nothing. Ivy couldn’t move, couldn’t bring herself to pull away. Skimmer was in complete control.
“I want you to bite me,” Skimmer said, “or you get—nothing.”
Ivy’s hands, fisted at her sides, trembled. “Why are you doing this to me?”
Her eyes fixing on me, Skimmer wound even more tightly against Ivy, kissing her neck. “Please?” she whispered, soft and petulant. “It’s been ages, Ivy. And you’re the best. I’d kill for you.”