Dead Witch Walking (2 page)

Working with a vampire—living or not—had scared the peas out of me until I found out she wasn’t a practicing vamp and had sworn off blood. We were as unalike as two people could be, but her strengths were my weakness. I wish I could say her weaknesses were my strengths, but Ivy didn’t have any weaknesses—other than the tendency to plan the joy out of everything.

We hadn’t worked together for years, and despite my grudgingly given promotion, Ivy still outranked me. She knew all the right things to say to all the right people at all the right times. It helped that she belonged to the Tamwood family, a name as old as Cincinnati itself. She was its last living member, in possession of a soul and as alive as me, having been infected with the vamp virus through her then still-living mother. The virus had molded Ivy even as she grew in her mother’s womb, giving Ivy a little of both worlds, the living and the dead.

At my nod, she sauntered over. The men at the bar jostled elbows, all three turning to watch her in appreciation. She flicked them a dismissing glance, and I swear I heard one sigh. “How’s it going, Ivy?” I said as she eased onto the bench opposite me.

Vinyl seat squeaking, she reclined in the booth with her back against the wall, the heels of her tall boots on the long bench, and her knees showing over the edge of the table. She stood half a head over me, but where I just looked tall, she pulled off a svelte elegance. Her slightly Oriental cast gave her an enigmatic look, upholding my belief that most models had to be vamps. She dressed like a model, too: modest leather skirt and silk blouse, top-of-the-line, all-vamp construction; black, of course. Her hair was a smooth dark wave, accenting her pale skin and oval-shaped face. No matter what she did with her hair, it made her look exotic. I could spend hours with mine and it always came out red and frizzy. Mr. One Eyebrow wouldn’t have stopped for her; she was too classy.

“Hey, Rachel,” Ivy said. “Whatcha doing down in the Hollows?” Her voice was melodious and low, flowing with all the subtleties of gray silk. “I thought you’d be catching some skin cancer on the coast this week,” she added. “Is Denon still ticked about the dog?”

I shrugged sheepishly. “Nah.” Actually, the boss nearly blew a vein. I had been a step away from being promoted to office broom pusher.

“It was an honest mistake.” Ivy let her head fall back in a languorous motion to expose the long length of her neck. There wasn’t a scar on it. “Anyone could have made it.”

Anyone but you,
I thought sourly. “Yeah?” I said aloud, pushing the Bloody Mary toward her. “Well, let me know if you spot my take.” I jingled the charms on my cuffs, touching the clover carved from olive wood.

Her thin fingers curved around the glass as if they were caressing it. Those same fingers could break my wrist if she put some effort into it. She’d have to wait until she was dead before she had enough strength to snap it without a thought, but she was still stronger than me. Half the red drink disappeared down her throat. “Since when is the I.S. interested in leprechauns?” she asked, eyeing the rest of the charms.

“Since the boss’s last rainy day.”

She shrugged, pulling her crucifix out from behind her shirt to run the metal loop through her teeth provocatively. Her canines were sharp, like a cat’s, but no bigger than mine. She’d get the extended versions after she died. I forced my eyes from them, watching the metal cross instead. It was as long as my hand and made of a beautifully tooled silver. She had begun wearing it lately to irritate her mother. They weren’t on the best of terms.

I fingered the tiny cross on my cuffs, thinking it must be difficult having your mother be undead. I had met only a handful of dead vampires. The really old ones kept to themselves, and the new ones tended to get staked unless they learned to keep to themselves.

Dead vamps were utterly without conscience, ruthless instinct incarnate. The only reason they followed society’s rules was because it was a game to them. And dead vampires knew about rules. Their continued existence depended upon rules which, if challenged, meant death or pain, the biggest rule of course being no sun. They needed blood daily to keep sane. Anyone’s would do, and taking it from the living was the only joy they found. And they were powerful, having incredible strength and endurance, and the ability to heal with an unearthly quickness. It was hard to destroy them except for the traditional beheading and staking through the heart.

In exchange for their soul, they had the chance for immortality. It came with a loss of conscience. The oldest vampires claimed that was the best part: the ability to fulfill every carnal need without guilt when someone died to give you pleasure and keep you sane one more day.

Ivy possessed both the vamp virus and a soul, caught in the middle ground until she died and became a true undead. Though not as powerful or dangerous as a dead vamp, the ability to walk under the sun and worship without pain made her envied by her dead brethren.

The metal rings of Ivy’s necklace clicked rhythmically against her pearly whites, and I ignored her sensuality with a practiced restraint. I liked her better when the sun was up and she had more control over her mien of sexual predator.

My pixy returned to land on the fake flowers in their vase full of cigarette butts. “Good God,” Ivy said, dropping her cross. “A pixy? Denon must be pissed.”

Jenks’s wings froze for an instant before returning to a blur of motion. “Go Turn yourself, Tamwood!” he said shrilly. “You think fairies are the only ones who have a nose?”

I winced as Jenks landed heavily upon my earring. “Nothing but the best for Ms. Rachel,” I said dryly. Ivy laughed, and the hair on the back of my neck prickled. I missed the prestige of working with Ivy, but she still set me on edge. “I can come back if you think I’ll mess up your take,” I added.

“No,” she said. “You’re stat. I’ve got a pair of needles cornered in the bathroom. I caught them soliciting out-of-season game.” Drink in hand, she slid to the end of the bench and stood with a sensual stretch, an almost unheard moan slipping from her. “They look too cheap to have a shift spell,” she said when she finished. “But I’ve got my big owl outside just in case. If they try to bat their way out a broken window, they’re bird chow. I’m just waiting them out.” She took a sip, her brown eyes watching me over the rim of her glass. “If you make your tag early enough, maybe we can share a cab uptown?”

The soft hint of danger in her voice made me nod noncommittally as she left. Fingers nervously playing with a drooping curl of my red hair, I decided I’d see what she looked like before getting in a cab with her this late at night. Ivy might not need blood to survive, but it was obvious she still craved it, her public vow to abstain aside.

Condolences were made at the bar as only two drinks remained at my elbow. Jenks was still fussing in a high-pitched tantrum. “Relax, Jenks,” I said, trying to keep him from ripping my earring out. “I like having a pixy backup. Fairies don’t do squat unless their union clears it.”

“You’ve noticed?” he all but snarled, tickling my ear with the wind from his fitfully moving wings. “Just because of some maggoty-jack, pre-Turn poem written by a drunk lard-butt, they think they’re better than us. Publicity, Rachel. That’s all it is. Good old-fashioned greasy palms. Did you know fairies get paid more than pixies for the same work?”

“Jenks?” I interrupted, fluffing my hair from my shoulder. “What’s going on at the bar?”

“And that picture!” he continued, my earring quivering. “You’ve seen it? The one of that human brat crashing the frat party? Those fairies were so drunk, they didn’t even know they were dancing with a human. And they’re still getting the royalties.”

“Hose yourself off, Jenks,” I said tightly. “What’s up at the bar?”

There was a tiny huff, and my earring twisted. “Contestant number one is a personal athletic trainer,” he grumbled. “Contestant number two fixes air conditioners, and contestant number three is a newspaper reporter. Day-trippers. All of them.”

“What about the guy on stage?” I whispered, making sure I didn’t look that way. “The I.S. gave me only a sketch description, since our take is probably under a disguise spell.”

“
Our
take?” Jenks said. The wind from his wings ceased, and his voice lost its anger.

I fastened on that. Maybe all he needed was to be included. “Why not check him out?” I asked instead of demanding. “He doesn’t seem to know which end of his bagpipes to blow into.”

Jenks made a short bark of laughter and buzzed off in a better mood. Fraternization between runner and backup was discouraged, but what the heck. Jenks felt better, and perhaps my ear would still be in one piece when the sun came up.

The bar jocks jostled elbows as I ran an index finger around the rim of the old-fashioned to make it sing while I waited. I was bored, and a little flirtation was good for the soul.

A group came in, their loud chatter telling me the rain had picked up. They clustered at the far end of the bar, all talking at once, their arms stretching for their drinks as they demanded attention. I looked them over, a faint tightening of my gut telling me that at least one in their party was a dead vamp. It was hard to tell whom under the goth paraphernalia.

My guess was the quiet young man in the back. He was the most normal looking in the tattooed, body-pierced group, wearing jeans and a button shirt instead of rain-spotted leather. He must have been doing well to have such a bevy of humans with him, their necks scarred and their bodies thin and anemic. But they seemed happy enough, content in their close-knit, almost familylike group. They were being especially nice to a pretty blonde, supporting her and working together to coax her to eat some peanuts. She looked tired as she smiled. Must have been his breakfast.

As if pulled by my thoughts, the attractive man turned. He shifted his sunglasses down, and my face went slack as he met my eyes over them. I took a breath, seeing from across the room the rain on his eyelashes. A sudden need to brush them free filled me. I could almost feel the dampness of the rain on my fingers, how soft it would feel. His lips moved as he whispered, and it seemed I could hear but not understand his words swirling behind me to push me forward.

Heart pounding, I gave him a knowing look and shook my head. A faint, charming smile tugged the corners of his mouth, and he looked away.

My held breath slipped from me as I forced my eyes away. Yeah. He was a dead vamp. A living vamp couldn’t have bespelled me even that little bit. If he had been really trying, I wouldn’t have had a chance. But that’s what the laws were for, right? Dead vamps were only supposed to take willing initiates, and only after release papers were signed, but who was to say if the papers were signed before or after? Witches, Weres, and other Inderlanders were immune to turning vampire. Small comfort if the vamp lost control and you died from having your throat torn out. ’Course, there were laws against that, too.

Still uneasy, I looked up to find the musician making a beeline for me, his eyes alight with a fevered itch. Stupid pixy. He had gotten himself caught.

“Come to hear me play, beautiful?” the kid said as he stopped at my table, clearly struggling to make his voice low.

“My name is Sue, not Beautiful,” I lied, staring past him toward Ivy. She was laughing at me. Swell. This was going to look just fantastic in our office newsletter.

“You sent your fairy friend to
check—me—out,
” he said, half singing the words.

“He’s a pixy not a fairy,” I said. The guy was either a stupid norm or a smart Inderlander pretending to be a stupid norm. I was betting on the former.

He opened his fist and Jenks flew a wobbly trail to my earring. One of his wings was bent, and pixy dust sifted from him to make brief sunbeams on the table and my shoulder. My eyes closed in a strength-gathering blink. I was going to get blamed for this. I knew it.

Jenks’s irate snarling filled my ear, and I frowned in thought. I didn’t think any of his suggestions were anatomically possible—but at least I knew the kid was a norm.

“Come and see my big pipe in the van,” the kid said. “Bet you could make it sing-g-g-g.”

I looked up at him, the dead vamp’s proposition making me jittery. “Go away.”

“I’m gonna make it big, Suzy-Q,” he boasted, taking my hostile stare as an invitation to sit. “I’m going to the coast, soon as I get enough money. Got a friend in the music biz. He knows this guy who knows this guy who cleans Janice Joplin’s pool.”

“Go away,” I repeated, but he only leaned back and screwed his face up, singing “Sue-sue-sussudio” in a high falsetto, pounding on the table in a broken rhythm.

This was embarrassing. Surely I would be forgiven for nacking him? But no, I was a good little soldier in the fight for crimes against norms, even if no one but I thought so. Smiling, I leaned forward until my cleavage showed. That always gets their attention, even if there isn’t much of it. Reaching across the table, I grabbed the short hairs on his chest and twisted. That gets their attention, too, and it’s far more satisfying.

The yelp as his singing cut off was like icing, it was so sweet. “Leave,” I whispered. I pushed the old-fashioned into his hand and curled his slack fingers around it. “And get rid of this for me.” His eyes grew wider as I gave a little tug. My fingers reluctantly loosened, and he beat a tactful retreat, sloshing half the drink as he went.

There was a cheer from the bar. I looked to see the old bartender grinning. He touched the side of his nose, and I inclined my head. “Dumb kid,” I muttered. He had no business being in the Hollows. Someone ought to sling his butt back across the river before he got hurt.

One glass remained before me, and bets were probably being made as to whether I would drink or not. “You all right, Jenks?” I asked, already guessing the answer.

“The sawed-off lunker nearly pulps me, and you ask if I’m
all right
?” he snarled. His tiny voice was hilarious, and my eyebrows rose. “Nearly cracked my ribs. Slime stink all over me.
Great God almighty
, I reek of it. And look what he did to
my clothes.
Do you know how hard it is to get stink out of silk! My wife is gonna make me sleep in the flower boxes if I come home smelling like this. You can shove the triple pay, Rache. You aren’t worth it!”