Authors: Kelley Armstrong
Pulse quickening, she took a sharp right, weaving in and out of traffic until she reached Fountain Square. The plaza was empty, and she found a parking spot near the front of the belowground garage. Nervousness crept into her as she shut off her cycle. A moment with a small mirror and a red lipstick, and she was ready. Leaving her helmet on the seat, she fumbled for her duffel bag and headed to the rectangle of light with more confidence than she felt. There was no reason for her anxiety. She’d planned sufficiently.
A furtive glance to make sure no one was watching, and she found the charmed silver that would change her appearance. She pulled the tiny pin out of the watch-sized amulet to invoke the disguise, tossed the pin aside, and laced the metallic amulet over her head. This one didn’t need to touch her skin, just be on her person. The witch had said it worked using her own aura’s energy, but she really hadn’t cared beyond what she needed to make it function properly.
An eerie feeling rippled over her, and Ivy shuddered, her sandals grinding the street grit. It wouldn’t make her look like Sleeping Beauty—that was illegal, she had been primly told—but with the clothing, hair, and attitude, it would be close enough.
She squinted in the brighter light when she came out onto the sidewalk and headed for the bus stop. Witch magic was powerful shit, and she wondered if no one realized the potential it had, or if no one cared, seeing as witches didn’t try to govern anything but themselves, quietly going about their business of blending with humanity.
The bus was pulling up as she got there—precisely as she had timed it—and she was the third one on, dropping a token in before finding a seat and putting her duffel bag to prevent someone from sitting beside her. She had a swipe card, but using a token would add to her anonymity.
Jostled, she watched the city pass, the professional buildings giving way to tall thin homes with dirt yards the size of a Buick. Her clenched jaw eased when the yards got nicer and the paint jobs fresher as the house numbers rose. By the time she reached Art’s block, the salt-rusted, dented vehicles had been replaced by late-model, expensive cars. She watched Art’s house pass, waiting two blocks before signaling the driver she wanted off. It wasn’t a regular stop, but he pulled over, letting irate humans on their way to work pass him as she said, “Thank you” in a soft voice and disembarked.
She was walking before the door shut behind her. Free arm swinging, she hit her heels hard to attract attention. Warming, she shortened her pace to accommodate her smaller look. The clip-clack, clip-clack cadence was unnatural, and she dropped her head as if not wanting to be seen when she heard a car start.
At Art’s house, she hesitated, pretending to check an address. It was smaller than she expected, though well-maintained. Her parents had a modest mansion built with railroad money earned by her great-grandfather, the elaborate underground apartments added after her great-grandmother had attracted Piscary’s attention. Art couldn’t have much of a bedroom; the footprint for the two-story house was only fifty-by-thirty.
Swinging her duffel bag to her front, she took the stairs with a series of prissy steps. Thirty years ago, the house would have been low high-class, and it was obvious why Art needed the money. His interest income when he died had been sufficient to keep him at low high-class—of the seventies. Inflation was moving him down in the socioeconomic ladder. He needed something to pull himself up before he slid into poverty over the next hundred years.
There was a note on the door. Smirking, she pulled it from the screen and let it fall to the bushes for the forensics team to find. “Late, am I?” she muttered, wondering if he had the front miked. Pitching her voice high, she called, “Art, I brought wine. Can I come in?”
There was no answer, so she opened the door and entered a modest living room. The curtains were drawn and a light was on for her. She wandered into the spotless kitchen with a dry sink. Again there were leather curtains, hidden behind a lightweight white fabric to disguise them. Leather curtains couldn’t protect an undead vamp from the sun, but boarding up the windows was against the city ordinances. Another note on an interior door invited her down.
Her lip curled, and she started to wish she had arranged this during night hours so she didn’t have to play this disgusting game. Crumpling the note, she dropped it on the faded linoleum. She took off the charmed silver amulet, shivering when something pulled through her aura. Her hair lost its corn yellow hue, and she hung the amulet on the knob so Kisten would know where she was.
Knocking, she opened the door to find a downward leading stair and music. She wanted to be annoyed, but he’d done his research and it was something she liked—midnight jazz. A patch of cream carpet met her, glowing under soft lights. Gripping her duffel bag, she called, “Art?”
“Shut the door,” he snarled from somewhere out of sight. “The sun is up.”
Ivy took three steps down and shut the door, noting it was as thick as coffin wood and reinforced with steel with a metal crossbar to lock it. There was a clock stuck to its back, along with a page from the almanac, a calendar, and a mirror. Her mother had something similar.
Again Ivy wanted to belittle him, but it looked professional and businesslike. No pictures of sunsets or graveyards. The only notation on the calendar about her was “date with Ivy.” No exclamation points, no hearts, no “hubba-hubba.”
Thank God.
She touched her pocket for the sleep amulet and looked down her cleavage for the fake potion. Relying on witch magic made her nervous. She didn’t like it. Didn’t understand it. She had had no idea witch magic was so versatile, much less so powerful. They had a nice little secret here, and they protected it the same way vampires protected their strengths: by having them out in the open and shackled by laws that meant nothing when push came to shove.
Sandals loud on the wooden steps, she descended, watching Art’s shadow approach the landing. The faint scent of bleach intruded, growing stronger as she reached the floor. She kept her face impassive when she found him, glad he was still wearing his usual work clothes. If he had been in a Hugh Hefner robe and holding a glass of vodka, she would have screamed.
Ignoring him watching her, she looked over his belowground apartments. They were plush and comfortable, with low ceilings. It was an old house, and the city had strict guidelines about how much dirt you could pull out from under your dwelling. They were in what was obviously the living room, a wood-paneled hallway probably leading to a traditional bedroom. Her eyes went to the lit gas fireplace, and she felt her eyebrows rise.
“It dries the air out,” he said. “You don’t think I’m going to romance you, do you?”
Relieved, she dropped her duffel bag by the couch. Hand on her hip, she swung her hair, glad it was back to its usual black. “Art, I’m here for one thing, and after I’m done, I’m cleaning up and leaving. Romance would ruin my entire image of you, so why don’t we just get it over with?”
Art’s eyes flashed to black. “Okay.”
It was fast. He moved, reaching out and yanking her to him. Instinct got an arm between them as he pulled her to his chest. Her pulse pounded, and she stared when he hesitated, her naked fear striking a chord with him. It was a drug to him, and she knew he paused so as to prolong it. She cursed herself when her own bloodlust rose, heady and unstoppable. She didn’t want this. She could say no. Her will was stronger than her instincts.
But her jaw tightened, and he smiled to show his teeth when she felt her eyes dilate against her will. Lips parting, she exhaled into it. The savage desire to force her needs on him vibrated through every nerve. Mia was wrong. There could be no love here, no tenderness. And when Art forced her closer and ran his teeth gently across her neck, she found herself tense with anticipation even as she tried to bring it under control.
Concentrate, Ivy,
she thought, her pulse quickening in her conflicting feelings. She was here to nail his coffin, not be nailed.
He knew she wouldn’t say yes to him until he pulled her to the brink where bloodlust made her choices. And even as she thought no, she gripped his shoulder, poised as he ran his hand down her hips and eased to the inside of her thighs, searching. A rumbling growl came from him, shivering through her. His hands became possessive, demanding. And she willed the feeling to grow, even when self-loathing filled her.
How had it come on so fast?
she thought. Had she been wanting this all along, teasing herself? Or was Mia right in that she had refused Art because giving in would prove she knew she could find love in the ugliness, but was too cowardly to fight for it?
Art carefully hooked a tooth into the lace of her collar and tore it, the sound of the ripping fabric cutting through her. His teeth grazed her, promising, and she lost all thought but how to get him to sink them, to fill her with glorious feeling proving she was alive and could feel joy, even if she paid for it with her self-respect.
Art didn’t speak as he stood, holding her against him, the demanding pressure in his lips, his fingers, his very breathing, waking every nerve in her. He hadn’t bespelled her; he hadn’t needed to. She was willing to be everything he wanted, and a tiny part of her screamed, drowned out by her need to give to him and to feel in return, even though she knew it was false.
His fingers rose from his grip upon her waist, tracing upward with a firm insistence until they found her chin and tilted her head. “Give this to me,” he whispered, his fingers among her hair. “This is mine. Give it…tome.”
It was haggard, almost torn by the need in him that her tortured willingness had sparked. The thought that she was buying empty emotion rose like bubbles to pop against the top of her mind. Mia had said she could live above the bloodlust. Mia didn’t know shit, didn’t know the exquisite pleasure of this. She wanted his blood, and he wanted hers. What difference did it make how she would feel in the morning? Tomorrow she could be dead and it wouldn’t matter.
And then she remembered the leashed hunger Mia contained and counted it stronger than her own. She remembered the scorn in Mia’s voice, calling her a whiny little girl who could have everything if she had the courage to live up to her greater need for love. Even if she did have to taint it with bloodlust.
Ivy’s heart pounded as she tried to find the will to pull away, but the lure of what he could fill her with was too strong. She couldn’t. It was ingrained too deeply. It was what she was. But she wanted more, damn it. She wanted to escape the ugliness of what she really was.
As she struggled with herself, she found Art’s mouth with her own, drawing his lips from her neck and putting them on hers. The salty electric taste of blood filled her, but it wasn’t hers. Art had cut his own lip, sending her into a dizzy lust for the rest of him.
Gasping, she pushed away.
It would stop here.
She fell back, fingers fumbling for the vial. Eyes black, Art gripped her wrist, the tiny glass bottle exposed. Ivy flushed hot as she stood, her arm stretched between them.
Hunched from the pain of breaking from her, Art wiped his mouth of his blood. He let go of her, and she stumbled back. In Art’s hand was the vial.
“What’s this?” he asked, wary but amused when he unscrewed the top and sniffed at it.
“Nothing,” she said, truly afraid even as her body ached at the interruption.
He sucked in her fear, his eyes going blacker and his smile more predatory. “Really.”
Panicking that he would drop it and come at her again, she fumbled in her pocket, bringing out the real charm, invoked but quiescent in its silk pouch.
Art’s eyes went to it, and before he could think, she jumped at him. Arm moving in a quick arc, Art flung the contents of the vial at her. Heavy droplets, warm from her body, struck her like shocks from a whip. Adrenaline pounding to make her head hurt, she forced her muscles to go slack. She collapsed as if she’d run into a wall, falling to where he had been standing a second earlier. The carpet burned her cheek, and she exhaled as if passing out.
From across the room, she heard him shift his feet against the carpet, trying to figure out what had happened. She forced her breathing to slow, feigning unconsciousness. It had to work. If not, she had only an instant to escape.
“I knew you’d try something,” Art said, going to the wet bar and pouring himself something. The undead didn’t need to drink, but it would cleanse his cut lip. “Not as clever as Piscary said you’d be,” he said amid the heavy clink of a bottle against glass. “Did you really think I wouldn’t have you followed on your shopping?”
Ivy clenched her stomach muscles when a dress shoe edged under her and flipped her over. Forcing herself to remain flaccid, she kept her eyes lightly shut as her back hit the carpet. He might bite her anyway, but fear and desire tainted the blood with delicious compounds, and he’d rather have her awake. Heart pounding, she loosened her fingers and let the pouch slip from them. Curiosity could put the cat in the bag when force could not.
“I’m forty-two years dead,” he said bitterly. “You don’t survive that long if you’re stupid.” There was a slight hesitation, and then, “And what the hell was this supposed to do?”
Ivy heard him pick up the silk pouch and shake the amulet into his hand. She tensed, springing to her feet as he exhaled. He was still standing, his eyes losing their focus when she shot her hand out, curling his slack fingers around the amulet before it could slip from him.
With a sigh, he collapsed, and she went down with him, desperate to keep the amulet in his grip. They hit the carpet together, her arm wedged painfully under her.
“You can survive that long if you’re stupid
and
lucky,” she said. “And your luck’s run out, Artie.”
Slowly Ivy shifted her legs under her into a more comfortable position, her hand still gripped around Art’s fingers. Hooking her foot in the handle of her duffel bag by the couch, she dragged it closer. With one hand, she opened it to pull out a plastic-coated metallic zip-strip the I.S. used to bind ley line witches to keep them from escaping by jumping to a ley line. Art couldn’t use ley line magic, but the strip would hold the amulet to him. At the sound of the plastic ratcheting against itself to pinch the amulet between his palm and the strip, she relaxed.