The Good, The Bad and The Undead

“It’s Ms. Morgan,” I said uncomfortably. “I don’t work for the FIB on a regular basis.”

Jenks’s wings shifted into motion as he remained perched on my foam cup. “She doesn’t really work regularly at all,” he said snidely.

“Ms. Morgan is our Inderland consultant,” Edden said, frowning at Jenks.

Sara Jane dabbed at her eyes. The tissue still in her grip, she nudged her hair back. She had cut it, and it made her look even more professional as it bumped about her shoulders in a straight yellow sheet. “I brought a picture of him,” she said, digging in her purse to pull out a snapshot and push it at me. I looked down to see her and a young man on the deck of one of the steamers that take tourists out on the Ohio River. They were both smiling. His arm was around her, and she was leaning into him. She looked happy and relaxed in blue jeans and a blouse.

I took a moment to study Dan’s picture. He was clean-cut, sturdy looking, and wearing a plaid shirt. Just the kind of man one would expect a farm girl to bring home to Mom and Dad.

“Can I keep this?” I asked, and she nodded. “Thanks.” I tucked it in my bag, not comfortable with how her eyes were fixed upon the picture as if she could bring him back by her will alone. “Do you know how we can get in touch with his relatives? He may have had a family emergency and needed to leave without notice.”

“Dan is an only child,” she said, dabbing at her nose with the crumpled tissue. “Both his parents are gone. They were serfed on a farm up north. Life expectancy isn’t high for a farmer.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say. “Technically, we can’t enter his apartment until he’s declared missing. You don’t happen to have a key, do you?”

“Yes. I—” She blushed through her makeup. “I let his cat in when he works late.”

I glanced down at the lie-detecting amulet in my lap as it briefly shifted from green to red. She was lying, but I didn’t need an amulet to figure that out. I said nothing, not wanting to embarrass her further by making her admit she had the key for other, more romantic reasons.

“I was there today about seven,” she said, eyes downcast. “Everything looked fine.”

“Seven in the morning?” Edden uncrossed his arms and levered himself upright. “Isn’t that when you—you witches, I mean—are tucked in bed?”

She gazed up at him and nodded. “I’m Mr. Kalamack’s personal secretary. He works in the mornings and evenings, so my schedule is split. Eight to noon in the morning and four to eight in the afternoon. It took a while to become accustomed to it, but with four hours for myself in the afternoon, I was able to spend more time with…Dan,” she finished.

“Please,” the young woman pleaded suddenly, her gaze shifting between Edden and me. “I know something’s wrong. Why won’t anyone help me?”

I shifted uncomfortably as she struggled for control. She felt helpless. I understood her better than she knew. Sara Jane was the latest in Trent’s long string of secretaries. As a mink I had listened in on her interview, unable to warn her as she was lured into believing Trent’s half-truths. For all her intelligence, she hadn’t a chance to escape his charm and extravagant offers. With his offer of employment, Trent had given her family a golden ticket out of their indentured servitude.

And Trent Kalamack was truly a benevolent employer, offering high wages and outstanding benefits. He gave people what they desperately wanted, asking in return nothing but their loyalty. By the time they realized how deep he demanded that loyalty go, they knew too much to extricate themselves.

Sara Jane had escaped the farm, but Trent had then bought it, probably to ensure that she would keep her mouth shut when she found out about his dealings in the illegal drug Brimstone, as well as the desperately sought-after genetic medicines outlawed during the Turn. I’d almost tagged him with the truth, but the sole other witness had died in a car explosion.

Publicly, Trent served on the city’s council, untouchable because of his vast wealth and generous donations to charities and underprivileged children. Privately, no one even knew if he was a human or Inderlander. Even Jenks couldn’t tell, which was unusual for a pixy. Trent quietly ran a good slice of Cincinnati’s underworld, and both the FIB and the I.S. would sell their bosses to have a court date with him. And now Sara Jane’s boyfriend was missing.

I cleared my throat, recalling the temptation of Trent’s offer myself. Seeing Sara Jane under control again, I asked, “You said he works at Pizza Piscary’s?”

She nodded. “He’s a driver. That’s how we met.” She bit her lip and dropped her eyes.

The lie-detecting amulet was a steady green. Piscary’s was an Inderland eatery serving everything from tomato soup to gourmet cheesecake. Piscary himself was said to be one of Cincinnati’s master vampires. Nice enough, from what I’d heard: not greedy with his vamp takes, eventempered, on record as being dead for the last three hundred years. ’Course, he was probably older than that, and the nicer and more civilized an undead vampire seemed, the more depraved he or she generally was. My roommate thought of him as sort of a friendly uncle, which made me feel oh-so-warm and fuzzy inside.

I handed Sara Jane another tissue, and she smiled weakly. “I can go out to his apartment today,” I said. “Do you think you could meet me there with the key? Sometimes a professional can spot things others miss.” Jenks snorted, and I shifted my legs, bumping the underside of the table to make him dart into the air.

Sara Jane showed relief. “Oh, thank you, Ms. Morgan,” she gushed. “I can go right now. I just have to call my employer and let him know I’ll be a little late.” She gripped her purse, looking like she was ready to fly out of the room. “Mr. Kalamack told me to take all the time I need this afternoon.”

I glanced at Jenks’s attention-getting buzz. He had a worried I-told-you-so look. How nice of Trent to let his secretary take all the time she needs to find her boyfriend when he’s probably stuffed in a closet so she’ll keep her mouth shut. “Ah, let’s make it tonight,” I said, thinking of my fish. “I need to look up a few things.” And whip up a few antigoon spells, check my splat gun, and collect my fee…

“Of course,” she said, settling back as her expression clouded.

“And if nothing turns up there, we’ll go on to the next step.” I tried to make my smile reassuring. “I’ll meet you at Dan’s apartment a little after eight?”

Hearing the dismissal in my voice, she nodded and stood. Jenks flitted into the air, and I rose as well. “All right,” she said. “It’s out at Redwood—”

Edden shuffled his feet. “I’ll tell Ms. Morgan where it is, Ms. Gradenko.”

“Yes. Thank you.” Her smile was starting to look stilted. “I’m just so worried…”

I disguised putting my lie-detecting amulet away by digging through my bag and pulling out one of my cards. “Please let me or the FIB know if you hear from him in the meantime,” I said as I handed it to her. Ivy had the cards professionally printed, and they looked slick.

“Yes. I will,” she murmured, her lips moving as she read VAMPIRIC CHARMS, the name Nick had given my and Ivy’s agency. She met my eyes as she tucked the card in her purse. I shook her hand, deciding her grip was firmer this time. Her fingers, though, were still cold.

“I’ll show you out, Ms. Gradenko,” Edden said as he opened the door. At his subtle gesture, I sank back into my chair to wait.

Jenks buzzed his wings for my attention. “I don’t like it,” he said as our eyes met.

A flash of ire took me. “She wasn’t lying,” I said defensively. He put his hands on his hips, and I waved him off my cup to take a sip of my lukewarm coffee. “You don’t know her, Jenks. She hates vermin, but she tried to keep Jonathan from tormenting me though it might have meant her job.”

“She felt sorry for you,” Jenks said. “Pitiful little mink with a concussion.”

“She gave me part of her lunch when I wouldn’t eat those disgusting pellets.”

“The carrots were drugged, Rache.”

“She didn’t know that. Sara Jane suffered as much as I did.”

The pixy hovered six inches before me, demanding I look at him. “That’s what I’m saying. Trent could be using her to get to you again, and she wouldn’t even know it.”

My sigh pushed him back. “She’s trapped. I have to help her if I can.” I looked up as Edden opened the door and poked his head in. He had an FIB hat on, and it looked odd with his white shirt and khakis as he gestured for me.

Jenks flitted to my shoulder. “You and your ‘rescue impulses’ are going to get you killed,” he whispered as I found the hallway.

“Thanks, Morgan,” Edden said as he grabbed my canister of fish and led me up front.

“No problem,” I said as we entered the FIB’s back offices. The hustle of people enfolded me, and my tension eased in the blessed autonomy it offered. “She wasn’t lying about anything other than having a key to let his cat out. But I could have told you that without the spell. I’ll let you know what I find out at Dan’s apartment. How late can I call you?”

“Oh,” Edden said loudly as we slipped past the front desk and headed for the sunlit sidewalk. “No need, Ms. Morgan. Thank you for your help. We’ll be in touch.”

I stopped short in surprise. A curl of escaped hair brushed my shoulder as Jenks’s wings clattered against themselves in a harsh noise. “What the hell?” he muttered.

My face warmed as I realized he was brushing me off. “I did not come down here just to invoke a lousy lie-detecting amulet,” I said as I jerked into motion. “I told you I’d leave Kalamack alone. Get out of my way and let me do what I’m good at.”

Behind me, conversations were going quiet. Edden never hesitated in his slow stride to the door. “It’s an FIB matter, Ms. Morgan. Let me help you out.”

I followed, tight to his heels, not caring about the dark looks I was getting. “This run is mine, Edden,” I almost yelled. “Your people will mess it up. These are Inderlanders, not humans. You can have the glory. All I want is to be paid.” And see Trent in jail, I added silently.

He pushed open one of the glass double doors. The sun-warmed concrete threw up a wave of heat as I stomped out after him, almost pinning the short man against the building as he gestured for a cab. “You gave me this run and I’m taking it,” I exclaimed, yanking a curl out of my mouth as the wind blew it up into my face. “Not some stuck-up, arrogant cookie in an FIB hat who thinks he’s the greatest thing since the Turn!”

“Good,” he said lightly, shocking me into taking a step back. Putting my canister on the sidewalk, he stuffed his FIB hat into his back pocket. “But from here on out, you are officially off the run.”

My mouth opened in understanding. I was officially not here. Taking a breath, I willed the adrenaline out of my system. Edden nodded as he saw my anger fizzle out. “I’d appreciate your discretion on this,” he said. “Sending Glenn out to Pizza Piscary’s alone isn’t prudent.”

“Glenn!” Jenks shrilled, his voice scraping the inside of my skull, making my eyes water.

“No,” I said. “I already have my team. We don’t need Detective Glenn.”

Jenks left me. “Yeah,” he said as he flew between the FIB captain and me. His wings were red. “We don’t play well with others.”

Edden frowned. “This is an FIB matter. You will have an FIB presence with you when at all possible, and Glenn is the only one qualified.”

“Qualified?” Jenks scoffed. “Why not admit he’s the only one of your officers who can talk to a witch without pissing his pants?”

“No,” I said firmly. “We work alone.”

Edden stood beside my canister, his arms crossed to make his squat form look as immovable as a stone wall. “He’s our new Inderland specialist. I know he’s inexperienced—”

“He’s an ass!” Jenks snapped.

A grin flashed over Edden. “I prefer rough around the edges, myself.”

My lips pursed. “Glenn is a cocky, self-assured…” I fumbled, looking for something suitably derogatory.“…FIB flunky who is going to get himself killed the first time he runs into an Inderlander who isn’t as nice as I am.”

Jenks bobbed his head. “He needs to be taught a lesson.”

Edden smiled. “He’s my son, and I couldn’t agree more,” he said.

“He’s what?” I exclaimed as an unmarked FIB car pulled up to the curb beside us. Edden reached for the handle of the back door and opened it. Edden was clearly from European decent, and Glenn…Glenn wasn’t. My mouth worked as I tried to find something that couldn’t be remotely construed as being racist. As a witch, I was sensitive to that kind of thing. “How come he doesn’t have your last name?” I managed.

“He’s used his mother’s maiden name since joining the FIB,” Edden said softly. “He’s not supposed to be under my direction, but no one else would take the job.”

My brow furrowed. Now I understood the cold reception in the FIB. It hadn’t been all me. Glenn was new, taking a position everyone but his dad thought was a waste of time. “I’m not doing this,” I said. “Find someone else to baby-sit your kid.”

Edden put my canister into the back. “Break him in gently.”

“You aren’t listening,” I said loudly, frustrated. “You gave me this run. My associates and I appreciate your offer to help, but you asked me here. Back off and let us work.”

“Great,” Edden said as he slammed the car’s back door shut. “Thanks for taking Detective Glenn with you out to Piscary’s.”

A cry of disgust slipped from me. “Edden!” I exclaimed, earning looks from the passing people. “I said no. There is one sound coming past my lips. One sound. Two letters. One meaning. No!”

Edden opened the front passenger door and gestured for me to get in. “Thanks bunches, Morgan.” He glanced into the backseat. “Why were you running from those Weres, anyway?”

My breath came in a slow, controlled sound. Damn.

Edden chuckled, and I put myself in the car and slammed the door, trying to get his stubby fingers in it. Scowling, I looked at the driver. It was Glenn. He looked as happy as I felt. I had to say something. “You don’t look anything like your dad,” I said snidely.

His gaze was fixed with a ramrod stiffness out the front window. “He adopted me when he married my mother,” he said through clenched teeth.

Jenks zipped in trailing a sunbeam of pixy dust. “You’re Edden’s son?”

“You got a problem with that?” he said belligerently.

The pixy landed on the dash with his hands on his hips. “Nah. All you humans look alike to me.”

Edden bent to put his beaming round face in the window. “Here’s your class schedule,” he said, handing me a yellow half page of paper with printer holes along the sides. “Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Glenn will buy any books you need.”

“Hold it!” I exclaimed, alarm washing through me as the yellow paper crackled in my fingers. “I thought I was just going to poke around the university. I don’t want to take a class!”

“It’s the one Mr. Smather was taking. Be there, or you won’t get paid.”

He was smiling, enjoying this. “Edden!” I shouted as he backed up onto the sidewalk.

“Glenn, take Ms. Morgan and Jenks to their office. Let me know what you find at Dan Smather’s apartment.”

“Yes sir!” he barked. His knuckles gripping the wheel showed a fierce pressure. Pink patches of Ivy-Aid decorated his wrists and neck. I didn’t care that he had heard most of the conversation. He wasn’t welcome, and the sooner he understood that, the better.

Four

“Right at the next corner,” I said, resting my arm on the open window of the unmarked FIB car. Glenn ran his fingertips through his close-cropped hair as he scratched his scalp. He hadn’t said a word the entire way, his jaw slowly unclenching as he realized I wasn’t going to make him talk to me. There was no one behind us, but he signaled before turning onto my street.

He had sunglasses on, taking in the residential neighborhood with its shady sidewalks and patchy lawns. We were well within the Hollows, the unofficial haven for most of Cincinnati’s resident Inderlanders since the Turn, when every surviving human fled into the city and its false sense of security. There has always been some mingling, but for the most part humans work and live in Cincinnati since the Turn, and Inderlanders work and—uh—play in the Hollows.

I think Glenn was surprised the suburb looked like everywhere else—until you noticed the runes scratched in the hopscotch grid, and that the basketball hoop was a third again taller than NBA regulation. It was quiet, too. Peaceful. Some of that could be attributed to Inderland’s schools not letting out until almost midnight, but most was self-preservation.

Every Inderlander over the age of forty had spent their earliest years trying to hide that they weren’t human, a tradition that is unraveling with the cautious fear of the hunted, vampires included. So the grass is mown by sullen teenagers on Friday, the cars are dutifully washed on Saturday, and the trash makes tidy piles at the curb on Wednesday. But the streetlights are shot out by gun or charm as soon as the city replaces them, and no one calls the Humane Society at the sight of a loose dog, as it might be the neighbor’s kid skipping school.

The dangerous reality of the Hollows remains carefully hidden. We know if we color too far out of humanity’s self-imposed lines, old fears will resurface and they will strike out at us. They would lose—badly—and as a whole, Inderlanders like things balanced just as they are. Fewer humans would mean that witches and Weres would start taking the brunt of vampires’ needs. And while the occasional witch “enjoyed” a vampiric lifestyle at his or her own discretion, we’d bind together to take them out if they tried to turn us into fodder. The older vampires know it, and so they make sure everyone plays by humanity’s rules.

Fortunately, the more savage side of Inderlanders naturally gravitates to the outskirts of the Hollows and away from our homes. The strip of nightclubs along both sides of the river is especially hazardous since swarming, high-spirited humans draw the more predatorial of us like fires on a cold night, promising warmth and reassurance of survival. Our homes are kept as human looking as possible. Those who strayed too far from the Mr. and Mrs. Cleaver veneer were encouraged in a rather unique neighborhood intervention party to blend in a little more…or move out to the country where they couldn’t do as much damage. My gaze drifted over the tongue-in-cheek sign peeping out from a bed of foxgloves. DAY SLEEPER. SOLICITORS WILL BE EATEN. For the most part, anyway.

“You can park up there on the right,” I said, pointing.

Glenn’s brow furrowed. “I thought we were going to your office.”

Jenks flitted from my earring to the rearview mirror. “We are,” he said snidely.

Glenn scratched his jawline, his short beard making a rasping sound under his nail. “You run your agency out of a house?”

I sighed at his patronizing lilt. “Sort of. Anywhere here is fine.”

He pulled to the curb at Keasley’s house, the neighborhood’s “wise old man” who had both the medical equipment and know-how of a small emergency room for those who could keep their mouths shut about it. Across the street was a small stone church, its steeple rising high above two gigantic oaks. It sat on an unreal four city lots and had come with its own graveyard.

Renting out a defunct church hadn’t been my idea but Ivy’s. Seeing tombstones out the small stained-glass window of my bedroom had taken a while to get used to, but the kitchen it came with made up for having dead humans buried in the backyard.

Glenn cut the engine, and the new silence soaked in. I scanned the surrounding yards before I got out, a habit begun during my not-so-distant death threats, which I thought prudent to continue. Old man Keasley was on his porch as usual, rocking and keeping a sharp eye on the street. I gave him a wave and got a raised hand in answer. Satisfied he would have warned me if I had needed it, I got out and opened the back door for my canister of fish.

“I’ll get it, ma’am,” Glenn said as his door thumped shut.

I gave him a tired look over the car’s roof. “Drop the ma’am, will you? I’m Rachel.”

His attention went over my shoulder and he visibly stiffened. I whipped around expecting the worst, relaxing as a cloud of pixy children descended in a high-pitched chorus of conversation too fast for me to follow. Papa Jenks had been missed—as usual. My sour mood evaporated as the darting swooping figures in pale green and gold swirled about their dad in a Disney nightmare. Glenn took his sunglasses off, his brown eyes wide and his lips parted.

Jenks made a piercing whistle with his wings, and the horde broke enough for him to hover before me. “Hey, Rache,” he said. “I’ll be out back if you want me.”

“Sure.” I glanced at Glenn and muttered, “Is Ivy here?”

The pixy followed my gaze to the human and grinned, undoubtedly imagining what Ivy would do when meeting Captain Edden’s son. Jax, Jenks’s eldest child, joined his father. “No, Ms. Morgan,” he said, pitching his preadolescent voice deeper than it normally fell. “She’s doing errands. The grocery store, the post office, the bank. She said she’d be back before five.”

The bank, I thought, wincing. She was supposed to wait until I had the rest of my rent. Jax flew three circles about my head, making me dizzy. “ ’Bye, Ms. Morgan,” he called out, zipping off to join his siblings, who were escorting their dad to the back of the church and the oak stump Jenks had moved his very large family into.

My breath puffed out as Glenn came around the back of the car, offering to carry my canister. I shook my head and hefted it; it wasn’t that heavy. I was starting to feel guilty for having let Jenks pix him. But then I hadn’t known I was going to have to baby-sit him at the time. “Come on in,” I said as I started across the street to the wide stone steps.

The sound of his hard-soled shoes on the street faltered. “You live in a church?”

My eyes narrowed. “Yeah. But I don’t sleep with voodoo dolls.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.”

Glenn muttered something, and my guilt deepened. “Thanks for driving me home,” I said as I climbed the stone steps and pulled open the right side of the twin wooden doors for him. He said nothing, and I added, “Really. Thanks.”

Hesitating on the stoop, he stared at me. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “You’re welcome,” he finally said, his voice giving me no clue, either.

I led the way through the empty foyer into the even more empty sanctuary. Before we rented out the church, it had been used as a daycare. The pews and altar had been removed to make a large play area. Now all that remained were the stained-glass windows and a slightly raised stage. The shadow of a huge, long-gone cross spread across the wall in a poignant reminder. I glanced at the tall ceiling, seeing the familiar room in a new way as Glenn looked it over. It was quiet. I’d forgotten how peaceful it was.

Ivy had spread tumbling mats over half of it, leaving a narrow walkway running from the foyer to the back rooms. At least once a week we’d spar to keep fresh, now that we were both independents and not on the streets every night. It invariably ended with me a sweating mass of bruises and her not even breathing hard. Ivy was a living vamp—as alive as I was and in possession of a soul, infected by the vamp virus by way of her, at the time, still-living mother.

Not having to wait until she was dead before the virus began molding her, Ivy had been born possessing a little of both worlds, the living and dead, caught in the middle ground until she died and became a true undead. From the living she retained a soul, allowing her to walk under the sun, worship without pain, and live on holy ground if she wanted, which she did to tick her mother off. From the dead came her small but sharp canines, her ability to pull an aura and scare the crap out of me, and her power to hold spellbound those who allowed it. Her unearthly strength and speed were decidedly less than a true undead, but still far beyond mine. And though she didn’t need blood to remain sane, as undead vampires did, she had an unsettling hunger for it, which she was continually fighting to suppress, since she was one of the few living vamps who had sworn off blood. I imagine Ivy must have had an interesting childhood, but I was afraid to ask.