"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 Kisten'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."
I pressed into the wall, wanting to escape. Skimmer put her mouth on an old scar under Ivy's ear, and a rush of remembered ecstasy rose through me at Ivy's tormented intake of breath.
"Don't do this," Ivy whispered, her hands rising to take Skimmer's elbows, but she couldn't push her away. It was too much. I knew it felt too good, and I leaned against the wall, unable to look away as the pheromones lit through my own scars and dove to my groin.
"I'm not making you do anything," Skimmer said. "You want to do this. How bad do you want to know who killed that bastard Kisten? How much did you love him? Was it real? Or was he just another one of your toys?"
I clenched my jaw harder. My neck was flaming, sending tendrils of promised ecstasy down my long muscles, making them tremble. "That's not fair," I managed. "Stop it."
Skimmer moved to Ivy's earlobe. "Life seldom is," she said, and I watched, fixated, as she bit down gently on Ivy's lobe, her white teeth on Ivy's skin. "Push me away," Skimmer whispered into her ear. "You can't do it. You're a monster, my sweet, and only I will love you. Little Bo Peep will lose her sheep if the sheep can see inside her. You'll be all alone, Ivy. And I'm the only one who loves you."