Thankfully, there was no line when we pulled up to Pizza Piscary's in Glenn's unmarked FIB car. Ivy and I slid out almost as soon as the car stopped. It hadn't been a very comfortable ride for either of us, the memory of her pinning me to the kitchen wall still new-penny bright. Her manner had been odd this evening, subdued but excited. I felt like I was going to meet her parents. In a way, I suppose I was. Piscary was the way-back originator of her living-vamp family line.
Glenn yawned as he slowly got out and put his jacket on, but he woke up enough to wave off Jenks, flitting around his head. He didn't seem at all uneasy about going into what was strictly an Inderland eatery. I could almost see the chip on his shoulder. Maybe he was a slow learner.
The FIB detective had agreed to exchange his stiff FIB suit for the jeans and faded flannel shirt Ivy had tucked in the back of her closet in a box labeled leftovers in a faded black marker. They fit Glenn exactly, and I didn't want to know where she had gotten them or why they had several neatly mended tears in some rather unusual places. A nylon jacket hid the weapon he refused to leave behind, but I had left my splat gun at home. It would be useless against a room full of vamps.
A van eased into the lot to take an empty space at the far end. My attention drifted from it to the brightly lit delivery/ takeout window. As I watched, another pizza went out, the car lurching into the street and speeding away with the quickness that told of a large engine. Pizza drivers have made good money since they successfully lobbied for hazard pay.
Past the parking lot was the soft lapping of water on wood. Long strips of light glinted on the Ohio River, and the taller buildings of Cincinnati reflected in wide streaks on the flat water. Piscary's was waterfront property, situated in the middle of the more affluent strip of clubs, restaurants, and nightspots. It even had a landing where yacht-traveling patrons could tie up to - but getting a table overlooking the dock would be impossible this late.
"Ready?" Ivy said brightly as she finished adjusting her jacket. She was dressed in her usual black leather pants and silk shirt, looking lanky and predatory. The only color to her face was her bright red lipstick. A chain of black gold hung about her neck in place of her usual crucifix - which was now tucked in her jewelry box at home. It matched her ankle bracelets perfectly. She had gone further to paint her nails with a clear coat, giving them a subtle shine.
The jewelry and nail polish were unusual for her, and after seeing it, I had opted to wear a wide silver band instead of my usual charm bracelet to cover my demon mark. It felt nice to get dressed up, and I'd even tried to do something with my hair. The red frizz I ended up with almost looked intentional.
I kept a step behind Glenn as we moved to the front door. Inderlanders mixed freely, but our group was more odd than usual, and I was hoping to get in and out quickly with the information we came for before we attracted attention. The van that pulled in after us was a pack of Weres, and they were noisy as they closed the gap between us.
"Glenn," Ivy said as we reached the door. "Keep your mouth shut."
"Whatever," the officer said antagonistically.
My eyebrows rose and I took a wary step back. Jenks landed upon my big hoop earrings. "This ought to be good," he snickered.
Ivy grabbed Glenn's collar, picking him up and slamming him against the wooden pillar supporting the canopy. The startled man froze for an instant, then kicked out, aiming for Ivy's gut. Ivy dropped him to evade the strike. With a vamp quickness, she picked him back up and slammed him into the post again. Glenn grunted in pain, struggling to catch his breath.
"Ooooh," Jenks cheered. "That's going to ache in the morning."
I jiggled my foot and glanced at the pack of Weres. "Couldn't you have taken care of this before we left?" I complained.
"Look, you little snack," Ivy said calmly, putting herself in Glenn's face. "You will keep your mouth shut. You do not exist unless I ask you a question."
"Go to hell," Glenn managed, his face reddening under his dark skin.
Ivy shifted him a smidgen higher, and he grunted. "You stink like a human," she continued, her eyes shifting toward black. "Piscary's is all Inderlanders or bound humans. The only way you're going to get out of here with all your parts intact and unpunctured is if everyone thinks you're my shadow."
Shadow, I thought. It was a derogatory term. Thrall was another. Toy would be more accurate. It referred to a human recently bit, now little more than a walking source of sex and food, and mentally bound to a vamp. They were kept submissive as long as possible. Decades sometimes. My old boss, Denon, had been counted among them until he curried the favor of the one who had granted him a more free existence.
Face ugly, Glenn broke her hold and fell to the ground. "Go Turn yourself, Tamwood," he rasped, rubbing his neck. "I can take care of myself. This won't be any worse than walking into a good-old-boy's bar in deep Georgia."
"Yeah?" she questioned, pale hand on her cocked hip. "Anyone there want to eat you?"
The Were pack flowed past us and inside. One jerked, doing a double take as he saw me, and I wondered if my stealing that fish was going to be a problem. Music and chatter drifted out, cutting off as the thick door shut. I sighed. It sounded busy. Now we'd probably have to wait for a table.
I offered Glenn a hand up as Ivy opened the door. Glenn refused my help, tucking his anti-itch spell back behind his shirt as he struggled to find his pride, squished under Ivy's boots somewhere. Jenks flitted from me to his shoulder, and Glenn started. "Go sit somewhere else, pixy," he said around a cough.
"Oh, no," Jenks said merrily. "Don't you know a vamp won't touch you if there's a pixy on your shoulder? It's a well-known fact."
Glenn hesitated, and my eyes rolled. What a crock.
We filed in behind Ivy as the Were pack was being led to their table. The place was crowded, not unusual for a work-day. Piscary's had the best pizza in Cincinnati, and they didn't take reservations. The warmth and noise relaxed me, and I took off my coat. The rough-cut, thick support beams seemed to prop up the low ceiling, and a rhythmic stomping to the beat of Sting's "Rehumanize Yourself" filtered down the wide stairs. Past them were wide windows looking out over the black river and the city beyond. A three-story, obscenely expensive motorboat was tied up, the docking lights shining on the name across the bow, solar. Pretty college-age kids moved efficiently about in their skimpy uniforms, some more suggestive than others. Most were bound humans, since the vamp staff traditionally took the less supervised upstairs.
The host's eyebrows rose as he took Glenn in. I could tell he was the host because his shirt was only half undone and his name tag said so. "Table for three? Lighted or non?"
"Lighted," I interjected before Ivy could say different. I didn't want to be upstairs. It sounded rowdy.
"It will be about fifteen minutes, then. You can wait at the bar if you like."
I sighed. Fifteen minutes. It was always fifteen minutes. Fifteen little minutes that dragged to thirty, then forty, and then you were willing to wait ten more so you didn't have to go to the next restaurant and start all over again.
Ivy smiled to show her teeth. Her canines were no bigger than mine were, but sharp like a cat's. "We'll wait here, thanks."
Looking almost enraptured by her smile, the host nodded. His chest, showing beneath his open shirt, was scattered with pale scars. It wasn't what the hosts were wearing at Denny's, but who was I to complain? There was a soft look about him that I didn't like in my men but some women did. "It won't be long," he said, his eyes fixing to mine as he noticed my attention on him. His lips parted suggestively. "Do you want to order now?"
A pizza went by on a tray, and as I jerked my gaze from him, I glanced at Ivy and shrugged. We weren't there for dinner, but why not? It smelled great.
"Yeah," Ivy said. "An extra large. Everything but peppers and onions."
Glenn jerked his attention from what looked like a coven of witches applauding the arrival of their dinner. Eating at Piscary's was an event. "You said we weren't going to stay."
Ivy turned, black swelling within her eyes. "I'm hungry. Is that okay with you?"
"Sure," he muttered.
Immediately Ivy regained her composure. I knew she wouldn't vamp out here. It might start a cascading reaction from the surrounding vampires, and Piscary would lose his A rating on his MPL. "Maybe we can share a table with someone. I'm starved," she said, jiggling her foot.
MPL was short for Mixed Public License. What it meant was a strict enforcement of no blood drawn on the premises. Standard stuff for most places serving alcohol since the Turn. It created a safe zone that we frail "dead means dead" folk needed. If you had too many vamps together and one drew blood, the rest had a tendency to lose control. No problem if everyone's a vampire, but people didn't like it when their loved one's night on the town turned into an eternity in the graveyard. Or worse.
The clubs and nightspots without a MPL existed, but they weren't as popular and didn't make as much money. Humans liked MPL places, since they could safely flirt without someone else's bad decision turning their date into an out of control, bloodthirsty fiend. At least until the privacy of their own bedroom, where they might survive it. And vamps liked it too - it was easier to break the ice when your date wasn't uptight about you breaking his or her skin.
I looked around the semiopen room, seeing only Inderlanders among the patrons. MPL or not, it was obvious Glenn was attracting attention. The music had died, and no one had put in another quarter. Apart from the witches in the corner and the pack of Weres in the back, the downstairs was full of vamps in various levels of sensuality ranging from casual to satin and lace. A good part of the floor was taken up in what looked like a death-day party.
The sudden warm breath on my neck jerked me straight, and it was only Ivy's bothered look that kept me from smacking whoever it was. Spinning, my tart retort died. Swell. Kisten.
The living vamp was Ivy's friend, and I didn't like him. Some of that was because Kist was Piscary's scion, a loose extension of the master vampire who did his daylight work for him. It didn't help that Piscary had once bespelled me against my will through Kist, something I hadn't known was possible at the time. It also didn't help that he was very, very pretty, making him very, very dangerous by my reckoning.
If Ivy was a diva of the dark, then Kist was her consort, and God help me, he looked the part. Short blond hair, blue eyes, and chin holding enough stubble to give his delicate features a more rugged cast made him a sexy bundle of promised fun. He was dressed more conservatively than usual, his biker leather and chains replaced with a tasteful shirt and slacks. His I-should-care-what-you-think-because? attitude remained, though. The lack of biker boots put him a shade taller than me with the heels I had on, and the ageless look of an undead vampire shimmered in him like a promise to be fulfilled. He moved with a catlike confidence, having enough muscle to enjoy running your fingertips over but not so much that it got in the way.
Ivy and he had a past I didn't want to know about, since she had been a very practicing vamp at the time. I was always struck with the impression that if he couldn't have her, he'd be happy with her roommate. Or the girl next door. Or the woman he met on the bus this morning...
"Evening, love," he breathed in a fake English accent, his eyes amused because he had surprised me.
I pushed him back with a finger. "Your accent stinks. Go away until you get it right." But my pulse had increased, and a faint, pleasant tickle from the scar on my neck brought all my proximity alarms into play. Damn it. I'd forgotten about that.
He glanced at Ivy as if for permission, then playfully licked his lips as she frowned her answer. I scowled, thinking I didn't need her help fending him off. Seeing it, she made a puff of exasperated air and pulled Glenn to the bar, enticing Jenks to join them with the promise of a honeyed toddy. The FIB detective glanced at me over his shoulder as he went, knowing something had passed between the three of us but not what.
"Alone at last." Kist shifted to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with me and look across the open floor. I could smell leather, though he wasn't wearing any. That I could see, at least.
"Can't you find a better opening line than that?" I said, wishing I hadn't driven Ivy away.
"It wasn't a line."
His shoulder was too close to mine, but I wouldn't shift away and let him know it bothered me. I snuck a glance at him as he breathed with a heavy slowness, his eyes scanning the patrons even as he took in my scent to gauge my state of unease. Twin diamond earrings glittered from one ear, and I remembered the other had only one stud and a healed tear. A chain made out of the same stuff as Ivy's was the only hint of his usual bad-boy attire. I wondered what he was doing here. There were better places for a living vamp to pick up a date/snack.
His fingers moved with a restless motion, always pulling my eyes back to him. I knew he was throwing off vamp pheromones to soothe and relax me - all the better to eat you with, my dear - but the prettier they are, the more defensive I get. My face went slack as I realized I had matched my breathing to his.
Subtle bespelling at its finest, I thought, purposely holding my breath to get us out of sync, and I saw him smile as he ducked his head and ran a hand over his chin. Normally only an undead vampire could bespell the unwilling, but being Piscary's scion gave Kist a portion of his master's abilities. He wouldn't dare try it here, though. Not with Ivy watching from the bar around her bottled water.
I suddenly realized he was rocking, moving his hips with a steady, suggestive motion. "Stop it," I said as I turned to face him, disgusted. "There's an entire string of women watching you at the bar. Go bother them."
"It's much more fun to bother you." Taking my scent deep into him, he leaned close. "You still smell like Ivy, but she hasn't bitten you. My God, you are a tease."
"We're friends," I said, affronted. "She's not hunting me."
"Then she won't mind if I do."
Annoyed, I pulled away. He followed me until my back found a support post. "Stop moving," he said as he put his hand against the thick post beside my head, pinning me though air still showed between us. "I want to tell you something, and I don't want anyone else to hear it."
"Like anyone could hear you over the noise," I scoffed, the fingers behind my back bending into a fist that wouldn't make my nails cut my palm if I had to slug him.
"You might be surprised," he murmured, his eyes intent. I fixed on them, looking for and recognizing the barest hint of swelling black, even as his nearness sent a promise of heat from my scar. I'd lived long enough with Ivy to know what a vamp looked like when they were close to losing it. He was fine, his instincts curbed and his hunger sated.
I was reasonably safe, so I relaxed, easing my shoulders down. His lust-reddened lips parted in surprise at my acceptance at how close he was. Eyes bright, he breathed languorously slow, tilting his head and leaning in so his lips brushed the curve of my ear. The light shimmered on the black chain around his neck, drawing my hand up. It was warm, and that surprise kept my fingers playing with it when I should have stopped.
The clatter of dishes and conversation retreated as I exhaled into his soft, unrecognizable whisper. A delicious feeling ran through me, sending the sensation of molten metal through my veins. I didn't care that it was from him triggering my scar into play; it felt so good. And he hadn't even said a word I recognized yet.
"Sir?" came a hesitant voice from behind him.
Kist's breath caught. For three heartbeats he held himself still, unmoving as his shoulders tensed in annoyance. My hand dropped from his neck.
"Someone wants you," I said, looking beyond him to the host, shifting nervously. A smile edged over me. Kist was tempting a break in the MPL, and someone had been sent to rein him in. Laws were good things. They kept me alive when I did something stupid.
"What," Kist said flatly. I'd never heard his voice carry anything but sultry petulance before, and the power in it sent a jolt through me, its unexpectedness making it all the more demanding.
"Sir, the party of Weres upstairs? They're starting to pack."
Oh? I thought. That was not what I had expected.
Kist straightened his elbow and pushed away from the post, irritation flickering across him. I took a clean breath, my unhealthy disappointment mixing with a distressingly small waft of self-preserving relief.
"I told you to tell them we were out of bane," Kist said. "They came in reeking of it."
"We did, sir," the waiter protested, taking a step back as Kist pulled entirely away from me. "But they coerced Tarra into admitting there was some in the back, and she gave it to them."
Kist's annoyance turned into anger. "Who gave Tarra the upstairs? I told her to work the lower floor until that Were bite healed over."
Kist worked at Piscary's? Surprise, surprise. I hadn't thought the vamp had the presence of mind to do anything useful.
"She convinced Samuel to let her up there, saying she'd get better tips," the waiter said.
"Sam..." Kist said from between closed teeth. Emotion crossed him, the first hints of coherent thoughts that didn't revolve around sex and blood surprising me. Full lips pressed together, he scanned the floor. "All right. Pull everyone as if for a birthday and get her out of there before she sets them off. Cut off the bane. Complimentary desert for any who want it."
Blond stubble catching the light, he glanced up as if able to see through the ceiling to the noise upstairs. The music was high again, and Jeff Beck filtered down. "Loser." Somehow, it seemed to fit as they all slurred the lyrics together. The wealthier patrons in the lower floor didn't seem to mind.
"Piscary will have my hide if we lose our A rating over a Were bite," Kist said. "And as exciting as that might be, I want to be able to walk tomorrow."
Kist's easy admission of his relationship with Piscary took me aback, but it shouldn't have. Though I always equated the giving and taking of blood with sex, it wasn't, especially if the exchange was between a living and an undead vampire. The two held vastly different views, probably because one had a soul and the other didn't.
The "bottle the blood came in" mattered to most living vamps. They picked their partners with care, usually - but not always - following their sexual gender preferences on the happy chance that sex might be included in the mix. Even when driven by hunger, the giving and taking of blood often fulfilled an emotional need, a physical affirmation of an emotional bond in much the same way that sex could - but didn't always have to.
Undead vampires were even more meticulous, choosing their companions with the care of a serial killer. Seeking domination and emotional manipulation rather than commitment, gender didn't enter into the equation - though the undead wouldn't turn down the addition of sex, since it imparted an even more intense feeling of domination, akin to rape even with a willing partner. Any relationship that grew from such an arrangement was utterly one-sided, though the bitee usually didn't accept it, thinking their master was the exception to the rule. It gave me pause that Kist seemed eager for another encounter with Piscary, and I wondered, as I glanced at the young vampire beside me, if it was because Kist received a large measure of strength and status by being his scion.
Unaware of my thoughts, Kist furrowed his brow in anger. "Where's Sam?" he asked.
"The kitchen, sir."
His eye twitched. Kist looked at the waiter as if to say, "What are you waiting for?" and the man hurried away.
Bottled water in hand, Ivy snuck up behind Kist, pulling him farther from me. "And you thought I was stupid for majoring in security instead of business management?" she said. "You sound almost responsible, Kisten. Be careful, or you'll ruin your reputation."
Kist smiled to show his sharp canines, the air of harried restaurant manager falling from him. "The perks are great, Ivy, love," he said, curving a hand around her backside with a familiarity she tolerated for an instant before hitting him. "You ever need a job, come see me."
"Shove it up your ass, Kist."
He laughed, dropping his head for an instant before bringing his sly gaze back to mine. A group of waiters and waitresses were headed up the wide stairway, clapping in time and singing some asinine song. It looked annoying and innocuous, nothing like the rescue mission it really was. My eyebrows rose. Kist was good at this.
Almost as if reading my mind, he leaned close. "I'm even better in bed, love," he whispered, his breath sending a delicious dart of sensation down to the pit of my being.
He shifted out of my reach before I could push him away, and still smiling, walked off. Halfway to the kitchen he turned to see if I was watching. Which I was. Hell, everything female in the place - alive, dead, or in between - was watching.
I pulled my attention from him to find a curiously closed look on Ivy. "You aren't afraid of him anymore," she said flatly.
"No," I said, surprised to find I wasn't. "I think it's because he can do something other than flirt."
She looked away. "Kist can do a lot of things. He gets off on being dominated, but when it comes to business, he'll slam you to the ground soon as look at you. Piscary wouldn't have a fool for a scion, no matter how good he is to bleed." Her lips pressed together until they went white. "Table's ready."
I followed her gaze to the single empty table against the far wall away from the windows. Glenn and Jenks had joined us when Kist left, and as a group we wove through the tables, settling on the half-circle bench with all our backs to the wall - Inderlander, human, Inderlander - and waited for the waiter to find us.
Jenks had perched himself on the low chandelier, and the light coming through his wings made green and gold spots on the table. Glenn silently took everything in, clearly trying not to look nonplussed at the sight of the scarred, well-put-together waiters and waitresses. Whether male or female, they were all young with smiling, eager faces that had me on edge.
Ivy didn't say anything more about Kist, for which I was grateful. It was embarrassing how quickly vamp pheromones acted on me, turning "get lost" to "get over here." Thanks to the excessive amount of vamp saliva the demon pumped into me while trying to kill me, my resistance to vamp pheromones was almost nil.
Glenn carefully put his elbows on the table. "You haven't told me how class went."
Jenks laughed. "It was hell on earth. Two hours of non-stop nitpicking and putdowns."
My mouth dropped open. "How do you know that?"
"I snuck back in. What did you do to that woman, Rachel? Kill her cat?"
My face burned. Knowing Jenks had witnessed it made it worse. "The woman is a hag," I said. "Glenn, if you want to string her up for killing those people, you go right ahead. She already knows she's a suspect. The I.S. was there stirring her into a tizzy. I didn't find anything that remotely resembled possible motive or guilt."
Glenn pulled his arms from the table and sat back. "Nothing?"
I shook my head. "Just that Dan had an interview after Friday's class. I'm thinking that was the big news he was going to spring on Sara Jane."
"He dropped all his classes Friday night," Jenks said. "Just made the add/drop with a full refund. Must have done it by e-mail."
I squinted up at the pixy sitting by the lightbulbs to stay warm. "How do you know?"
His wings blurred to nothing and he grinned. "I checked out the registrar's office during class break. You think the only reason I went was to look pretty on your shoulder?"
Ivy drummed her fingernails. "You three aren't going to talk shop all night, are you?"
"Ivy girl!" came a strong voice, and we all looked up. A short, spare man in a cook's apron was making a beeline for us from across the restaurant, weaving gracefully through the tables. "My Ivy girl!" he called over the noise. "Back already. And with friends!"
I glanced at Ivy, surprised to see a faint blush coloring her pale cheeks. Ivy girl?
"Ivy girl?" Jenks said from on high. "What the hell is that?"
Ivy rose to give him an embarrassed-looking hug as he halted before us, making an odd picture since he was nearly six inches smaller than she was. He returned it with a fatherly pat on the back. My eyebrows rose. She hugged him?