The Good, The Bad and The Undead

“Come on in to the kitchen,” I said as I went through the archway at the back of the sanctuary. I took off my shades as I passed my bathroom. It had once been the men’s bathroom, the traditional fixtures replaced with a washer and dryer, a small sink, and a shower. This one was mine. The women’s bathroom across the hall had been converted into a more conventional bathroom with a tub. That one was Ivy’s. Separate bathrooms made things a heck of a lot easier.

Not liking the way Glenn was making silent judgments, I closed the doors to both Ivy’s and my bedrooms as I passed them. They had once been clergy offices. He shuffled into the kitchen behind me, spending a moment or two taking it all in. Most people did.

The kitchen was huge, and part of the reason I had agreed to live in a church with a vampire. It had two stoves, an institutional-size fridge, and a large center island overhung with a rack of gleaming utensils and pots. The stainless steel shone, and the counter space was expansive. With the exception of my Beta in the brandy snifter on the windowsill, and the massive antique wooden table Ivy used for a computer desk, it looked like the set of a cooking show. It was the last thing one would expect attached to the back of church—and I loved it.

I set the canister of fish on the table. “Why don’t you sit down,” I said, wanting to call the Howlers. “I’ll be right back.” I hesitated as my manners clawed their way up to the forefront of my mind. “Do you want a drink…or something?” I asked.

Glenn’s brown eyes were unreadable. “No, ma’am.” His voice was stiff, with more than a hint of sarcasm, making me want to smack him a good one and tell him to lighten up. I’d deal with his attitude later. Right now I had to call the Howlers.

“Have a seat, then,” I said, letting some of my own bother show. “I’ll be right back.”

The living room was just off the kitchen on the other side of the hallway. As I searched for the coach’s number in my bag, I hit the message button on the answering machine.

“Hey, Ray-ray. It’s me,” came Nick’s voice, sounding tinny through the recording. Shooting a glance at the hallway, I turned it down so Glenn couldn’t hear. “I’ve got ’em. Third row back on the far right. Now you’ll have to make good on your claim and get us backstage passes.” There was a pause, then, “I still don’t believe you’ve met him. Talk to you later.”

My breath came in anticipation as it clicked off. I had met Takata four years ago when he spotted me in the balcony at a solstice concert. I had thought I was going to be kicked out when a thick Were in a staff shirt escorted me backstage while the warm-up band played.

Turned out Takata had seen my frizzy hair and wanted to know if it was spelled or natural, and if natural, did I have a charm to get something that wild to lie flat? Starstuck and repeatedly embarrassing myself, I admitted it was natural, though I had encouraged it that night, then gave him one of the charms my mother and I spent my entire high school career perfecting to tame it. He laughed then, unwinding one of his blond dreadlocks to show me his hair was worse than mine, static making it float and stick to everything. I hadn’t straightened my hair since.

My friends and I had watched the show from backstage, and afterward, Takata and I led his bodyguards on a merry chase through Cincinnati the whole night. I was sure he would remember me, but I hadn’t a clue as to how to get in touch with him. It wasn’t as if I could call him up and say, “Remember me? We had coffee on the solstice four years ago and discussed how to straighten curls.”

A smile twitched the corner of my mouth as I fingered the answering machine. He was all right for an old guy. ’Course, anyone over the age of thirty had seemed old to me at the time.

Nick’s was the only message, and I found myself pacing as I picked up the phone and punched in the Howlers’ number. I plucked at my shirt as the number rang. After running from those Weres, I had to take a shower.

There was a click, and a low voice nearly growled, “ ’Ello. Ya got the Howlers.”

“Coach!” I exclaimed, recognizing the Were’s voice. “Good news.”

There was a slight pause. “Who is this?” he asked. “How did you get this number?”

I started. “This is Rachel Morgan,” I said slowly. “Of Vampiric Charms?”

There was a half-heard shout directed off the phone, “Which one of you dogs called the escort service? You’re athletes, for God’s sake. Can’t you pin your own bitches without having to buy them?”

“Wait!” I said before he could hang up. “You hired me to find your mascot.”

“Oh!” There was a pause, and I heard several war whoops in the background. “Right.”

I briefly weighed the trouble of changing our name against the fuss Ivy would raise: a thousand glossy black business cards, the page ad in the phone book, the matched oversized mugs she had imprinted our name on in gold foil. It wasn’t going to happen.

“I recovered your fish,” I said, bringing myself back. “When can someone pick it up?”

“Uh,” the coach muttered. “Didn’t anyone call you?”

My face went slack. “No.”

“One of the guys moved her while they cleaned her tank and didn’t tell anyone,” he said. “She was never gone.”

Her? I thought. The fish was a her? How could they tell? Then I got angry. I had broken into a Were’s office for nothing? “No,” I said coldly. “No one called me.”

“Mmmm. Sorry about that. Thanks for your help, though.”

“Whoa! Wait a moment,” I cried, hearing the brush-off in his voice. “I spent three days planning this. I risked my life!”

“And we appreciate that—” the coach started.

I spun in an angry circle and stared out at the garden through the shoulder-high windows. The sun glinted on the tombstones beyond. “I don’t think you do, Coach. We’re talking bullets!”

“But she was never lost,” the coach insisted. “You don’t have our fish. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry won’t keep those Weres off my tail.” Furious, I paced around the coffee table.

“Look,” he said. “I’ll send you some tickets to the exhibition game coming up.”

“Tickets!” I exclaimed, astounded. “For breaking into Mr. Ray’s office?”

“Simon Ray?” the coach said. “You broke into Simon’s office? Damn, that’s rough. ’Bye now.”

“No, wait!” I shouted, but the phone clicked off. I stared at the humming receiver. Didn’t they know who I was? Didn’t they know I could curse their bats to crack and their pop flies to land foul? Did they think I would sit back and do nothing when they owed me my rent!

I flopped into Ivy’s gray suede chair with a feeling of helplessness. “Yeah, right,” I said softly. A noncontact spell required a wand. Tuition at the community college hadn’t covered wand making, just potions and amulets. I didn’t have the expertise, much less the recipe, for anything that complicated. I guess they knew who I was right enough.

The sound of a foot scraping linoleum came from the kitchen, and I glanced at the hall. Swell. Glenn had heard the entire thing. Embarrassed, I pulled myself up from the chair. I’d get the money from somewhere. I had almost a week.

Glenn turned as I entered the kitchen. He was standing next to that canister of useless fish. Maybe I could sell it. I put the phone beside Ivy’s computer and went to the sink. “You can sit down, Detective Edden. We’re going to be here a while.”

“It’s Glenn,” he said stiffly. “It’s against FIB policy to report to a member of your family, so keep it to yourself. And we’re going to Mr. Smather’s apartment now.”

I made a scoffing bark of laughter. “Your dad just loves to bend the rules, doesn’t he?”

He frowned. “Yes ma’am.”

“We aren’t going to Dan’s apartment until Sara Jane gets off work.” Then I slumped. Glenn wasn’t the one I was angry with. “Look,” I said, not wanting Ivy to find him while I was in the shower. “Why don’t you go home and meet me back here about seven-thirty?”

“I’d prefer to stay.” He scratched at the welt showing a light pink under his watchband.

“Sure,” I said sourly. “Whatever. I gotta shower, though.” Clearly he was concerned I’d go without him. The worry was well-founded. Leaning to the window over the sink, I shouted out into the lavish, pixy-tended garden, “Jenks!”

The pixy buzzed in through the hole in the screen so fast, I was willing to bet he’d been eavesdropping. “You bellowed, princess of stink?” he said, landing beside Mr. Fish on the sill.

I gave him a weary look. “Would you show Glenn the garden while I shower?”

Jenks’s wings blurred into motion. “Yeah,” he said, going to make wide wary circles around Glenn’s head. “I’ll baby-sit. Come on, cookie. You’re going to get the five-dollar tour. Let’s start in the graveyard.”

“Jenks,” I warned, and he gave me a grin, tossing his blond hair artfully over his eyes.

“This way, Glenn,” he said, darting out into the hall. Glenn followed, clearly not happy.

I heard the back door shut, and I leaned to the window. “Jenks?”

“What!” The pixy darted back in the window, his face creased with irritation.

I crossed my arms in thought. “Would you bring in some mullein leaves and jewel weed flowers when you get the chance? And do we have any dandelions that haven’t gone to seed?”

“Dandelions?” He dropped an inch in surprise, his wings clattering. “You going soft on me? You’re going to make him an anti-itch spell, aren’t you?”

I leaned to see Glenn standing stiffly under the oak tree, scratching his neck. He looked pitiful, and as Jenks kept telling me, I was a sucker for the underdog. “Just get them, all right?”

“Sure,” he said. “He’s not much good like that, is he?”

I choked back a laugh, and Jenks flew out the window to join Glenn. The pixy landed on his shoulder, and Glenn jumped in surprise. “Hey, Glenn,” Jenks said loudly. “Head off toward those yellow flowers over there behind that stone angel. I want to show you to the rest of my kids. They’ve never met an FIB officer before.”

A faint smile crossed me. Glenn would be safe with Jenks if Ivy came home early. She jealously guarded her privacy and hated surprises, especially ones in FIB uniforms. That Glenn was Edden’s son wouldn’t help. She was willing to let sleeping grudges lie, but if she felt her territory was being threatened, she wouldn’t hesitate to act, her odd, political status of dead-vamp-in-waiting letting her get away with things that would put me in the I.S. lockup.

Turning, my eyes fell upon the fish. “What am I going to do with you—Bob?” I said around a sigh. I wasn’t going to take him back to Mr. Ray’s office, but I couldn’t keep him in the canister. I cracked the top, finding that his gills were pumping and he was laying almost on his side. I thought perhaps I ought to put him in the tub.

Canister in hand, I went into Ivy’s bathroom. “Welcome home, Bob,” I murmured, dumping the canister into Ivy’s black garden tub. The fish flopped in the inch of water, and I hurriedly ran the taps, jiggling the flow to try to keep it room temp. Soon Bob the fish was swimming in graceful sedate circles. I turned off the water and waited until it finished tinkling in and the surface grew smooth. He really was a pretty fish, striking against the black porcelain: all silver, with long, cream fins and that black circle decorating one side to look like a reverse full moon. I dabbled my fingertips in the water, and he darted to the other end of the tub.

Leaving him, I crossed the hall to my bathroom, got a change of clothes out of the dryer, and started the shower. As I picked the snarls out of my hair while waiting for the water to warm, my eyes fell upon the three tomatoes ripening upon the sill. I winced, glad they hadn’t been anywhere for Glenn to see. A pixy had given them to me as payment for smuggling her across the city as she fled an unwanted marriage. And while tomatoes weren’t illegal anymore, it was in bad taste to have them on display when one had a human guest.

It had been just over forty years since a quarter of the world’s human population had been killed by a militarygenerated virus that had escaped and spontaneously fastened to a weak spot in a biogenetically engineered tomato. It was shipped out before anyone knew—the virus crossing oceans with the ease of an international traveler—and the Turn began.

The engineered virus had a varied effect upon the hidden Inderlanders. Witches, undead vampires, and the smaller species such as pixies and fairies, weren’t affected at all. Weres, living vamps, leprechauns, and the like got the flu. Humans died by the droves, taking the elves with them as their practice of bolstering their numbers by hybridizing with humanity backfired.

The U.S. would have followed the Third World countries into chaos if the hidden Inderlanders hadn’t stepped in to halt the spread of the virus, burn the dead, and keep civilization running until what was left of humanity finished mourning. Our secret was on the verge of coming out by way of the what-makes-these-people-immune question when a charismatic living vamp named Rynn Cormel pointed out that our combined numbers equaled humanity’s. The decision to make our presence known, to live openly among the humans we had been mimicking to keep ourselves safe, was almost unanimous.

The Turn, as it came to be called, ushered in a nightmarish three years. Humanity took their fear of us out on the world’s surviving bioengineers, murdering them in trials designed to legalize murder. Then they went further, to outlaw all genetically engineered products, along with the science that created them. A second, slower wave of death followed the first once old diseases found new life when the medicines humanity had created to battle everything from Alzheimer’s to cancer no longer existed. Tomatoes are still treated like poison by humans, even though the virus is long gone. If you don’t grow them yourself, you have to go to a specialty store to find them.

A frown pinched my forehead as I looked at the red fruit beading up with shower fog. If I was smart, I’d put it in the kitchen to see how Glenn would react at Piscary’s. Bringing a human into an Inderland eatery wasn’t a crackerjack idea. If he made a scene, we might not only get no information, we might get banned, or worse.

Judging that the water was hot enough, I eased into it with little “ow, ow, ows.” Twenty minutes later I was wrapped in a big pink towel, standing before my ugly pressboard dresser with its dozen or so bottles of perfume carefully arranged on top. The blurry picture of the Howlers’ fish was tucked between the glass and the frame. Sure looked like the same fish to me.

The delighted shrieks of pixy children filtered in through my open window to soften my mood. Very few pixies could manage to raise a family in the city. Jenks was stronger in spirit than most would ever know. He had killed before to keep his garden so his children wouldn’t starve. It was good to hear their voices raised in delight: the sound of family and security.

“Which scent was it, now?” I murmured, fingers hovering over my perfumes as I tried to remember which one Ivy and I were currently experimenting with. Every so often a new bottle would show up without comment as she found something new for me to try.

I reached for one, dropping it when Jenks said from right beside my ear, “Not that one.”

“Jenks!” I clutched my towel closer and spun. “Get the hell out of my room!”

He darted backward as I made a grab for him. His grin widened as he looked down at the leg I accidentally showed. Laughing, he swooped past me and landed on a bottle. “This one works good,” he said. “And you’re going to need all the help you can get when you tell Ivy you’re going to make a run for Trent again.”

Scowling, I reached for the bottle. Wings clattering, he rose, pixy dust making temporary sunbeams shimmer through the glittering bottles. “Thanks,” I said sullenly, knowing his nose was better than mine. “Now get out. No, wait.” He hesitated by my small stained-glass window, and I vowed to sew up the pixy hole in the screen. “Who’s watching Glenn?”

Jenks literally glowed with parental pride. “Jax. They’re in garden. Glenn is shooting wild cherry pits straight up with a rubber band for my kids to catch before they hit the ground.”

I was so surprised, I almost could ignore that my hair was dripping wet and I was wearing nothing but a towel. “He’s playing with your kids?”

“Yeah. He’s not so bad—once you get to know him.” Jenks vaulted through the pixy hole. “I’ll send him inside in about five minutes, okay?” he said through the screen.

“Make it ten,” I said softly, but he was gone. Frowning, I shut the window, locked it, and checked twice that the curtains hung right. Taking the bottle Jenks had suggested, I gave myself a splash. Cinnamon blossomed. Ivy and I had been working for the last three months to find a perfume that covered her natural scent mixing with mine. This was one of the nicer ones.

Whether undead or alive, vampires moved by instinct triggered by pheromones and scent, more at the mercy of their hormones than an adolescent. They gave off a largely undetectable smell that lingered where they did, an odoriferous signpost telling other vamps that this was taken territory and to back off. A far cry better than the way dogs did it, but living together the way we were, Ivy’s smell lingered on me. She had once told me it was a survival trait that helped increase a shadow’s life expectancy by preventing poaching. I wasn’t her shadow, but there it was anyway. What it boiled down to was, the smell of our natural scents mingling tended to act like a blood aphrodisiac, making it harder for Ivy to best her instincts, nonpracticing or not.

One of Nick’s and my few arguments had been over why I put up with her and the constant threat she posed to my free will if she forgot her vow of abstinence one night and I couldn’t fend her off. The truth was, she considered herself my friend, but even more telling was that she had loosened the death grip she kept on her emotions and let me be her friend as well. The honor of that was heady. She was the best runner I’d ever seen, and I was continually flattered that she left a brilliant career at the I.S. to work with me/save my ass.

Ivy was possessive, domineering, and unpredictable. She also had the strongest will of anyone I had met, fighting a battle in herself that if she won would rob her of her life after death. And she was willing to kill to protect me because I called her my friend. God, how could you walk away from something like that?

Apart from when we were alone and she felt safe from recrimination, she either held herself with a cool stiffness or fell into a classic vampire mode of sexy domination that I had discovered was her way of divorcing herself from her feelings, afraid that if she showed a softening she would lose control. I think she had pinned her sanity on living vicariously through me as I stumbled through life, enjoying the enthusiasm with which I embraced everything, from finding a pair of red heels on sale to learning a spell to laying a big-bad-ugly out flat. And as my fingers drifted over the perfumes she had bought for me, I wondered again if perhaps Nick was right and our odd relationship might be slipping into an area I didn’t want it to go.

Dressing quickly, I made my way back to the empty kitchen. The clock above the sink said it was edging toward four. I had loads of time to make a spell for Glenn before we left.

Pulling out one of my spelling books from the shelf under the center island counter, I sat at my usual spot at Ivy’s antique wooden table. Contentment filled me as I opened the yellowed tome. The breeze coming in the window had a chill that promised a cold night. I loved it here, working in my beautiful kitchen surrounded by holy ground, safe from everything nasty.

The anti-itch spell was easy to find, dog-eared and spotted with old splatters. Leaving the book open, I rose to pull out my smallest copper vat and ceramic spoons. It was rare that a human would accept an amulet, but perhaps if he saw me making it, Glenn might. His dad had taken a pain amulet from me once.

I was measuring the springwater with my graduated cylinder when there was a scuffing on the back steps. “Hello? Ms. Morgan?” Glenn called as he knocked and opened the door. “Jenks said I could come right in.”

I didn’t look up from my careful measuring. “In the kitchen,” I said loudly.

Glenn edged into the room. He took in my new clothes, running his eyes from my fuzzy pink slippers, up my black nylons to my matching short skirt, past my red blouse, to the black bow holding my damp hair back. If I was going to see Sara Jane again, I wanted to look nice.

In Glenn’s hands was a wad of mullein leaves, dandelion blossoms, and jewelweed flowers. He looked stiffly embarrassed. “Jenks—the pixy—said you wanted these, ma’am.”

I nodded to the island counter. “You can put them over there. Thanks. Have a seat.”

With a stilted haste, he crossed the room and set the cuttings down. Hesitating briefly, he pulled out what was traditionally Ivy’s chair and eased into it. His jacket was gone, and his shoulder holster with his weapon looked obvious and aggressive. In contrast, his tie was loose and the top button of his starched shirt was unfastened to show a wisp of dark chest hair.

“Where’s your jacket?” I asked lightly, trying to figure out his mood.

“The kids…” He hesitated. “The pixy children are using it as a fort.”

“Oh.” Hiding my smile, I rummaged in my spice rack to find my vial of celandine syrup. Jenks’s capacity to be a pain in the butt was inversely proportional to his size. His ability to be a stanch friend was the same. Apparently Glenn had won Jenks’s confidence. How about that?

Satisfied the show of his gun wasn’t intended to cow me, I added a dollop of celandine, swishing the ceramic measuring spoon to get the last of the sticky stuff off. An uncomfortable silence grew, accented by the whoosh of igniting gas. I could feel his gaze heavy upon my charm bracelet as the tiny wooden amulets gently clattered. The crucifix was self-explanatory, but he’d have to ask if he wanted to know what the rest were for. I had only a paltry three—my old ones were burnt to uselessness when Trent killed the witness wearing them in a car explosion.

The mix on the stove started to steam, and Glenn still hadn’t said a word. “So-o-o-o,” I drawled. “Have you been in the FIB long?”

“Yes ma’am.” It was short, both aloof and patronizing.

“Can you stop with the ma’am? Just call me Rachel.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Ooooh, I thought, it was going to be a fun evening. Peeved, I snatched up the mullein leaves. Tossing them into my green-stained mortar, I ground them using more force then necessary. I set the mush to soak in the cream for a moment. Why was I bothering to make him an amulet? He wasn ’t going to use it.

The brew was at a full boil, and I turned the flame down, setting the timer for three minutes. It was in the shape of a cow, and I loved it. Glenn was silent, watching me with a wary distrust as I leaned my back against the edge of the counter. “I’m making you something to stop the itching,” I said. “God help me, but I feel sorry for you.”

His face hardened. “Captain Edden is making me take you. I don’t need your help.”

Angry, I took a breath to tell him he could take a flying leap off a broomstick, but then shut my mouth. “I don’t need your help” had once been my mantra. But friends made things a lot easier. My brow furrowed in thought. What was it that Jenks did to persuade me? Oh, yeah. Swear and tell me I was being stupid.

“You can go Turn yourself for all I care,” I said pleasantly. “But Jenks pixed you, and he says you’re sensitive to pixy dust. It’s spreading through your lymph system. You want to itch for a week just because you’re too stiff-necked to use a paltry itch spell? This is kindergarten stuff.” I flicked the copper vat with a fingernail and it rang. “An aspirin. A dime a dozen.” It wasn’t, but Glenn probably wouldn’t accept it if he knew how much one of these cost at a charm shop. It was a class-two medicinal spell. I probably should have put myself inside a circle to make it, but I’d have to tap into the ever-after to close one. And seeing me under the influence of a ley line would probably freak Glenn out.