The Good, The Bad and The Undead

The detective wouldn’t meet my eyes. His foot twitched as if he was struggling to not scratch his leg through his pants. The timer dinged—or mooed, rather—and leaving him to make up his mind, I added the blossoms of jewelweed and dandelion, crushing them against the side of the pot with a clockwise—never withershins—motion. I was a white witch, after all.

Glenn gave up all pretense at trying not to scratch and slowly rubbed his arm through his shirtsleeve. “No one will know I’ve been spelled?”

“Not unless they did a spell check on you.” I was mildly disappointed. He was afraid to openly show he was using magic. The prejudice wasn’t unusual. But then, after having taken an aspirin once, I’d rather be in pain than swallow another. I guess I wasn’t one to talk.

“All right.” It was a very reluctant admission.

“Okey-dokey.” I added the grated goldenseal root and turned it to a high boil. When the froth took on a yellow tint that smelled like camphor, I turned off the heat. Nearly done.

This spell made the usual seven portions, and I wondered if he’d demand I waste one on myself before trusting I wasn’t going to turn him into a toad. That was an idea. I could put him in the garden to police the slugs from the hostas. Edden wouldn’t miss him for at least a week.

Glenn’s eyes were on me as I pulled out seven clean redwood disks about the size of a wooden nickle and arranged them on the counter where he could see. “Just about done,” I said with a forced cheerfulness.

“That’s it?” he questioned, his brown eyes wide.

“That’s it.”

“No lighting candles, or making circles, or saying magic words?”

I shook my head. “You’re thinking of ley line magic. And it’s Latin, not magic words. Ley line witches draw their power right from the line and need the trappings of ceremony to control it. I’m an earth witch.” Thank God. “My magic is from ley lines, too, but it’s naturally filtered through plants. If I was a black witch, much of it would come through animals.”

Feeling as if I was back doing my graduate lab-work exam, I dug in the silverware drawer for a finger stick. The sharp prick of the blade on my fingertip was hardly noticeable, and I massaged the required three drops into the potion. The scent of redwood rose thick and musty, overpowering the camphor smell. I had done it right. I had known I had.

“You put blood in it!” he said, and my head came up at his disgusted tone.

“Well, duh. How else was I supposed to quicken it? Put it in the oven and bake it?” My brow furrowed, and I tucked a strand of my hair that had escaped my bow back behind my ear. “All magic requires a price paid by death, Detective. White earth magic pays for it by my blood and killing plants. If I wanted to make a black charm to knock you out, or turn your blood to tar, or even give you the hiccups, I’d have to use some nasty ingredients involving animal parts. The really black magic requires not just my blood but animal sacrifice.” Or human or Inderlander.

My voice was harsher than I had intended, and I kept my eyes down as I measured out the doses and let them soak into the redwood disks. Much of my stunted career at the I.S. involved bringing in gray spell crafters—witches that took a white charm such as a sleep spell and turned it to a bad use—but I’d brought in black charm makers as well. Most had been ley line witches, since just the ingredients needed to stir a black charm were enough to keep most earth witches white. Eye of newt and toe of frog? Hardly. Try blood drawn from the spleen of a still-living animal and its tongue removed as it screamed its last breath into the ether. Nasty.

“I won’t make a black charm,” I said when Glenn remained silent. “Not only is it demented and gross, but black magic always comes back to get you.” And when I had my way, it involved my foot in his gut or my cuffs on his wrists.

Choosing an amulet, I massaged three more drops of my blood onto it to invoke the spell. It soaked in quickly, as if the spell pulled the blood from my finger. I extended the charm to him, thinking of the time I had been tempted to stir a black spell. I survived, but came away with my demon mark. And all I’d done was look at the book. Black magic always swings back. Always.

“It’s got your blood in it,” he said in revulsion. “Make another, and I’ll put mine in it.”

“Yours? Yours won’t do squat. It has to be witch blood. Yours doesn’t have the right enzymes to quicken a spell.” I held it out again, and he shook his head. Frustrated, I gritted my teeth. “Your dad used one, you whiny little human. Take it so we can all move on with our lives!” I thrust the amulet belligerently at him, and he gingerly took it.

“Better?” I said as his fingers encircled the wooden disk.

“Um, yeah,” he said, his square-jawed face suddenly slack. “It is.”

“Of course it is,” I muttered. Slightly mollified, I hung the rest of my amulets in my charm cupboard. Glenn silently took in my stash, each hook carefully labeled thanks to Ivy’s anal-retentive need to organize. Whatever. It made her happy and was no skin off my nose. I closed the door with a loud thump and turned.

“Thank you, Ms. Morgan,” he said, surprising me.

“You’re welcome,” I said, glad he had finally dropped the ma’am. “Don’t get any salt on it, and it should last for a year. You can take it off and store it if you want when the blisters go away. It works on poison ivy, too.” I started to clean up my mess. “I’m sorry for letting Jenks pix you like that,” I said slowly. “He wouldn’t have if he had known you were sensitive to pixy dust. Usually the blisters don’t spread.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He stretched for one of Ivy’s catalogs at the end of the table, pulling his hand back at the picture of the curved stainless-steel knives on special.

I slid my spelling book away under the center island counter, glad he was loosening up. “When it comes to Inderlanders, sometimes the smallest things can pack the hardest punch.”

There was a loud boom of the front door closing. Stiffening, I crossed my arms before me, only now recognizing that it had been Ivy’s motorcycle tooling up the road a moment before. Glenn met my eyes, sitting straighter as he recognized my alarm. Ivy was home.

“But not always,” I finished.

Five

Eyes on the empty hallway, I motioned for Glenn to stay seated. I didn’t have time to explain. I wondered how much Edden had told him, or if this was going to be one of his nasty but effective ways to smooth Glenn’s edges.

“Rachel?” came Ivy’s melodious voice, and Glenn stood, checking the creases in his gray slacks. Yeah, that would help. “Did you know there’s an FIB car parked in front of Keasley’s?”

“Sit down, Glenn,” I warned, and when he didn’t, I moved to stand between him and the open archway to the hall.

“Yuck!” Ivy exclaimed, her voice muffled. “There’s a fish in my bathtub. Is it the Howlers’? When are they coming to get it?” There was a hesitation, and I managed a sick smile at Glenn. “Rachel?” she called out, closer. “Are you in here? Hey, we should go out to the mall tonight. Bath and Bodyworks is re-releasing an old scent with a citrus base. We need to hit the sample bottles. See how it works. You know, celebrate you making rent. What is that you have on now? The cinnamon? That’s a nice one, but it only lasts three hours.”

Would have been nice to have known that earlier. “I’m in the kitchen,” I said loudly.

Ivy’s tall, black-clad form strode past the opening. A canvas sack of groceries hung from her shoulder. Her black silk duster fluttered after her boot heels, and I could hear her looking for something in the living room. “I didn’t think you would be able to pull the fish thing off,” she said. There was a hesitation, then, “Where in hell is the phone?”

“In here,” I said, crossing my arms uneasily.

Ivy pulled up short in the archway as she saw Glenn. Her somewhat Oriental features went blank in surprise. I could almost see the wall come down as she realized we weren’t alone. The skin around her eyes tightened. Her small nose flared, taking in his scent, cataloging his fear and my concern in an instant. Lips tight, she put her canvas bag of groceries on the counter and brushed her hair out of her eyes. It fell to her mid-back in a smooth black wave, and I knew it was bother, not nerves, that had prompted her to tuck it behind an ear.

Ivy had once had money, and still dressed like it, but her entire early inheritance had gone to the I.S. to pay off her contract when she quit with me. Put simply, she looked like a scary model: lithe and pale, but incredibly strong. Unlike me, she wore no nail polish, no jewelry apart from her crucifix twin black chain anklets about one foot, and very little makeup; she didn’t need it. But like me, she was basically broke, at least until her mother finished dying and the rest of the Tamwood estate came to her. I was guessing that wouldn’t be for about two hundred years—bare minimum.

Ivy’s thin eyebrows rose as she looked Glenn over. “Bringing your work home again, Rachel?”

I took a breath. “Hi, Ivy. This is Detective Glenn. You talked to him this afternoon? Sent him to pick me up?” My look went pointed. We were going to talk about that later.

Ivy turned her back on him to unpack the groceries. “Nice to meet you,” she said, her tone flat. Then to me, she muttered, “Sorry. Something came up.”

Glenn swallowed hard. He looked shaky but was holding up. I guess Edden hadn’t told him about Ivy. I really liked Edden. “You’re a vampire,” he said.

“Ooooh,” Ivy said. “We’ve got a bright one here.”

Fingers fumbling around the string of his new amulet, he pulled a cross from behind his shirt. “But the sun is up,” he said, sounding as if he had been betrayed.

“My my my,” Ivy said. “And a weatherman, too?” She turned with a snide look. “I’m not dead yet, Detective Glenn. Only the true undead have light restrictions. Come back in sixty years and I might be worried about a sunburn.” Seeing his cross, she smiled patronizingly and pulled out from behind her black spandex shirt her own, extravagant crucifix. “That only works on undead vamps,” she said as she turned back to the counter. “Where did you get your schooling? B-movies?”

Glenn backed up a step. “Captain Edden never said you worked with a vampire,” the FIB officer stammered.

At Edden’s name, Ivy spun. It was a blindingly fast motion, and I started. This wasn’t going well. She was starting to pull an aura. Damn. I glanced out the window. The sun would be down soon. Double damn.

“I heard about you,” the officer said, and I cringed at the arrogance in his voice, which he was using to cover his fear. Even Glenn couldn’t be stupid enough to antagonize a vamp in her own house. That gun at his side wasn’t going to do him any good. Sure, he could shoot her, and kill her, but then she’d be dead and she’d rip his freaking head off. And no jury in the world would convict her of murder, seeing as he killed her first.

“You’re Tamwood,” Glenn said, his bravado clearly scraped from a misplaced feeling of security. “Captain Edden gave you three hundred hours of community service for taking out everyone on his floor, didn’t he? What was it he made you do? A candy striper, right?”

Ivy stiffened, and my mouth dropped open. He was that stupid.

“It was worth it,” Ivy said softly. Her fingers were shaking as she set the bag of marshmallows gently on the counter.

My breath caught. Shit. Ivy’s brown eyes had gone black as her pupils dilated. I stood, shocked at how quickly it had happened. It had been weeks since she vamped out on me, and never without warning. The angry shock of finding someone in an FIB uniform in her kitchen might have accounted for some of it, but in hindsight I had a sick feeling that letting her walk in on Glenn hadn’t been the best thing. His fear had hit her hard and fast, giving her no time to prepare herself against temptation.

His sudden fright had filled the air with pheromones. They acted as a potent aphrodisiac only she could taste, jerking into play thousand-year-old instincts fixed deep in her virus-changed DNA. In a breath, they had turned her from my slightly disturbing roommate to a predator that could kill both of us in three seconds flat if the desire to sate her longsuppressed hunger outweighed the consequences of draining an FIB detective. It was that balance that frightened me. I knew where I was on her personal scale of hunger and reason. Where Glenn stood, I hadn’t a clue.

Like flowing dust, her posture melted and she leaned back against the counter on one bent elbow, hip cocked. Deathly still, she ran her gaze up Glenn until it locked upon his eyes. Her head tilted with a sultry slowness until she was eyeing him from under her straight bangs. Only now did she take a slow, deliberate breath. Her long pale fingers flicked about the deep V-neck of her spandex shirt tucked into her leather pants.

“You’re tall,” she said, her gray voice pulling remembered fear from me. “I like that.” It wasn’t sex she was after, it was dominance. She would have bespelled him if she could have, but she’d have to wait until she was dead before she had power over the unwilling.

Swell, I thought as she pushed herself from the counter and headed for him. She’d lost it. It was worse than the time she found Nick and I snuggled up together on her couch not watching pro wrestling. I still didn’t know what had set her off then—she and I had a concrete understanding that I wasn’t her girlfriend, plaything, lover, shadow, or whatever the newest term for vampire flunky was these days.

My thoughts scrambled for a way to bring her back without making things worse. Ivy drifted to a stop before Glenn, the hem of her duster seeming to move in slow motion as it edged forward to touch his shoes. Her tongue slipped across her very white teeth, hiding them even as they flashed. With a recognizable restrained power, she put a hand to either side of him at head height, pinning him to the wall. “Mmmm,” she said, breathing in through parted lips. “Very tall. Lots of leg. Beautiful, beautiful dark skin. Did Rachel bring you home for me?”

She leaned into him, almost touching. He was only a few inches taller than she was. She tilted her head as if to give him a kiss. A drop of sweat slid down his face and neck. He didn’t move, tension pulling every muscle tight.

“You work for Edden,” she whispered, her eyes fixed on the line of moisture as it pooled at his collarbone. “He’d probably be upset if you died.” Her eyes darted to his at the sound of his quick breath.

Don’t move, I thought, knowing if he did, instincts would take over. He was in trouble with his back to the wall like that. “Ivy?” I said, trying to distract her and avoid having to tell Edden why his son was in intensive care. “Edden gave me a run. Glenn is along for the ride.”

I willed myself not to shudder as she turned the black pits her eyes had become to me. They tracked me as I put the island counter between us. She stood unmoving but for a hand tracing Glenn’s shoulder and neck, her finger running a perfect half inch above him. “Uh, Ivy?” I said hesitantly. “Glenn might want to leave now. Let him go.”

My request seemed to break through, and she took a quick, clean breath. Bending her elbow, she pushed herself away from the wall.

Glenn darted out from under her. Weapon drawn, he stood in the archway to the hall, his feet spread and his gun trained upon Ivy. The safety clicked off, and his eyes were wide.

Ivy turned her back on him and went to the bag of forgotten groceries. It might look as if she was ignoring him, but I knew she was aware of everything down to the wasp bumping about at the ceiling. Back hunched, she set a bag of shredded cheese on the counter. “Tell that bloodsack of a captain I said hi the next time you see him,” she said, her soft voice carrying a shocking amount of anger. But the hunger—the need to dominate—was gone.

Knees weak, I let my breath out in a long puff of air. “Glenn?” I suggested. “Put the gun away before she takes it from you. And the next time you insult my roommate, I’m going to let her tear your throat out. Understand?”

His eyes flicked to Ivy before he holstered the weapon. He stayed in the archway, breathing hard.

Thinking the worst had to be over, I opened the fridge. “Hey, Ivy,” I said lightly, to try and get everyone back to normal, “toss me the pepperoni?”

Ivy met my gaze from across the kitchen and blinked the last of her runaway instincts from her. “Pepperoni,” she said, her voice huskier than usual. “Yeah.” She felt a cheek with the back of her hand. Frowning at herself, she crossed the kitchen with what I recognized as a deliberately slow pace. “Thanks for bringing me down,” she said softly as she handed me the pouch of cut meat.

“I should have warned you. I’m sorry.” I put the pepperoni away and straightened, giving Glenn a black look. His face was grayed and drawn as he wiped the perspiration away. I think he just figured out we were in the same room with a predator held back by pride and courtesy. Maybe he learned something today. Edden would be pleased.

I shuffled through the groceries and pulled out the perishables. Ivy leaned close as she put a can of peaches away. “What’s he doing here?” she asked, loud enough for Glenn to hear.

“I’m baby-sitting.”

She nodded, clearly waiting for more. When it wasn’t forthcoming, she added, “It’s a paying job, right?”

I glanced at Glenn. “Uh, yeah. A missing person.” I snuck a glance at her, relieved to see her pupils were almost back to normal.

“Can I help?” she asked.

Ivy had done almost nothing but run for missing persons since she quit the I.S., but I knew she would side with Jenks that it was a ploy of Trent Kalamack’s once she learned it was Sara Jane’s boyfriend. Putting off telling her would only make it worse, though. And I wanted her to come out to Piscary’s with me. I’d get more information that way.

Glenn stood with an affected casualness as Ivy and I put the groceries away, not seeming to care that we were ignoring him. “Oh, come on, Rachel,” the vamp cajoled. “Who is it? I’ll put my feelers out.” She looked as far from a predator now as a duck. I was used to the shifts in temperament, but Glenn looked bewildered.

“Uh, a witch named Dan.” I tuned away, hiding my head in the fridge as I put the cottage cheese away. “He’s Sara Jane’s boyfriend, and before you get all huffy, Glenn is coming with me to look at his apartment. I figure we can wait until tomorrow to check out Piscary’s; he works there as a driver. But no way is Glenn coming with me to the university.” There was a heartbeat of silence, and I cringed, waiting for her shout of protest. It never came.

I looked past the door of the fridge, going slack in surprise. Ivy had put herself at the sink and was hunched over it, a hand to either side. It was her “count to ten” spot. It had never failed her yet. She pulled her eyes up and put them on me. My mouth went dry. It had failed.

“You are not taking this run,” she said, the smooth monotone of her voice pulling the chill of black ice through me.

Panic flashed before settling into a churning burn in the pit of my stomach. All that existed was her pupil-black eyes. She inhaled, taking my warmth. Her presence seemed to swirl behind me until I fought to keep from turning around. My shoulders tensed and my breath came fast. She had pulled a full-blown, soul-stealing aura. Something was different, though. This wasn’t anger or hunger I was seeing. This was fear. Ivy was afraid?

“I’m taking the run,” I said, hearing a thin thread of fear in my voice. “Trent can’t touch me, and I already told Edden I would.”

“No you aren’t.”

Silk duster furling, she jerked into motion. I started, finding her right before me almost as soon as I noticed she had moved. Face whiter than usual, she pushed the fridge door shut. I jumped to get out of the way. I met her eyes, knowing if I showed the fright that was making my stomach knot, she would feed on it, making her fervor stronger. I’d learned a lot in the last three months, some of it the hard way, some of it I wished I hadn’t needed to know.

“The last time you took on Trent, you almost died,” she said, sweat trickling down her neck to disappear behind the deep V of her shirt. She was sweating?

“The key word there is ‘almost,’ ” I said boldly.

“No. The key word is ‘died.’ ”

I could feel the heat coming from her and stepped back. Glenn was in the archway, watching me with wide eyes as I argued with a vamp. There was a knack to it. “Ivy,” I said calmly, though I was shaking inside. “I’m taking this run. If you want to come with Glenn and me when we talk to Piscary—”

My breath cut off. Ivy’s fingers were around my throat. Gasping, my air exploded from me as she slammed me up against the kitchen wall. “Ivy!” I managed before she picked me up with one hand and pinned me there.

Air coming in short, insufficient pants, I hung off the floor.

Ivy put her face next to mine. Her eyes were black, but they were wide with fear. “You aren’t going to talk to Piscary,” she said, panic a silver ribbon through the gray silk of her voice. “You aren’t taking this run.”

I braced my feet against the wall and pushed. A breath of air made it past her fingers, and my back smacked back into the wall. I kicked out at her, and she shifted to the side. Her hold on me never altered. “What the hell are you doing?” I rasped. “Let me go!”

“Ms. Tamwood!” Glenn shouted. “Drop the woman and step to the center of the room!”

Digging my fingers into her one-handed grip, I looked past Ivy. Glenn was behind her, his feet braced, ready to shoot. “No!” my voice grated. “Get out. Get out of here!”

Ivy wouldn’t listen to me if he was here. She was afraid. What the hell was she afraid of? Trent couldn’t touch me.

There was a sharp whistle of surprise as Jenks darted in. “Howdy, campers,” he said sarcastically. “I see Rachel told you about her run, huh, Ivy?”

“Get out!” I demanded, my head pounding as Ivy’s grip tightened.

“Holy crap!” the pixy exclaimed from the ceiling, his wings flashing into a frightened red. “She’s not kidding.”

“I know…” Lungs hurting, I pried at the fingers around my neck, managing a ragged breath. Ivy’s pale face was drawn. The black of her eyes was total and absolute. And laced with fear. Seeing the emotion on her was terrifying.

“Ivy, let her go!” Jenks demanded as he hovered at eye level. “It’s not that bad, really. We’ll just go with her.”

“Get out!” I said, taking a clean breath as Ivy’s eyes went confused and her grip faltered. Panic took me as her fingers shook. Sweat trickled down her forehead, pinched in confusion. The whites of her eyes showed strong against the black.

Jenks darted to Glenn. “You heard her,” the pixy said. “Get out.”

My heart raced as Glenn hissed, “Are you crazy? We leave, and that bitch will kill her!”

Ivy’s breath came in a whimper. It was as soft as the first snowflake, but I heard it. The smell of cinnamon filled my senses.

“We gotta get out of here,” Jenks said. “Either Rachel will get Ivy to let go, or Ivy will kill her. You might be able to separate them by shooting Ivy, but Ivy will track her down and kill her the first chance she gets if she overthrows Rachel’s dominance.”

“Rachel is dominant?”

I could hear the disbelief in Glenn’s voice, and I frantically prayed they’d get out before Ivy finished throttling me.

The buzz of Jenks’s wings was as loud as my blood humming in my ears. “How else do you think Rachel got Ivy to back off of you? You think a witch could do that if she wasn’t in charge? Get out like she said.”

I didn’t know if dominant was the right word. But if they didn’t leave, the point would be moot. The honest to God’s truth was, in some twisted fashion Ivy needed me more than I needed her. But the “dating guide” Ivy had given me last spring so I would stop pressing her vamp-instinct buttons hadn’t had a chapter on “What to Do If You Find Yourself the Dominant.” I was in uncharted territory.