The low lub-lub-lub-lub of a bike pulled my eyes up from my book. Recognizing the cadence of Kist's motorbike, I pulled my knees to my chin, tugged my covers farther up, and clicked off my bedside lamp. The sliver of black beyond my propped-open stained-glass window showed a lighter gray. Ivy was home. If Kist came in, I was going to pretend to be asleep until he left. But his bike hardly paused before it idled back up the street. My eyes went to the glowing green numbers of my clock. Four in the morning. She was early.

Closing the book upon my finger to mark the page, I listened for her footsteps on the walk. The cold, predawn September air had pooled in my room. If I were smart, I'd get up and close my window; Ivy would probably turn the heat on when she came in.

I thanked all that was holy that my bedroom was part of the original church and fell under the sacred-ground clause: guaranteed to keep out undead vamps, demons, and mothers-in-law. I was safe in my bed until the sun came up. I still had to worry about Kist. But he wouldn't touch me while Ivy breathed. He wouldn't touch me if she were dead, either.

A stirring of unease pulled my finger out of the book, and I set it on the cloth-covered box I was using as a table. Ivy hadn't come in yet. It had been Kist's bike I heard driving away.

I listened to my heartbeat, waiting for Ivy's soft steps or the closing of the church's door. But what met me was the sound of someone retching, faint through the cold-silenced night.

"Ivy," I whispered, throwing off my covers. Chilled, I lurched from my bed, snatched my robe, jammed my feet into my fuzzy pink slippers, and went into the hall. Skittering to a halt, I retraced my steps. Standing before my press-board chest of drawers, I sent my fingers over the shadowed bumps of my perfumes.

Choosing the new one I had found among the rest just yesterday, I impatiently dumped a splash on me. Citrus blossomed, clean and sharp, and I set the bottle down, knocking over half of what remained with a harsh clatter. Feeling unreal and disoriented, I almost ran through the empty church, tugging my robe on as I went. I hoped this one worked better than the last.

A sharp clattering of wings was my only warning as Jenks dropped from the ceiling. I jerked to a stop as he hovered before me. He was glowing black. I blinked in shock. He was freaking glowing black.

"Don't go out there," he said, fear thick in his high voice. "Go out the back. Get on a bus. Go to Nick's."

My gaze shot past him to the door as I heard Ivy vomiting again, the ugly sounding gags mixing with heavy sobs. "What happened?" I asked, frightened.

"Ivy fell off the wagon."

I stood there, not understanding. "What?"

"She fell off the wagon," he repeated. "She's sipping the B-juice. She's sampling the wine. She's practicing again, Rachel. And she's off her rocker. Go. My family is waiting for you by the far wall. Get them to Nick's for me. I'll stay here and keep an eye on her. To make sure she - " He glanced at the door. "I'll make sure she isn't going to come after you."

The sound of Ivy vomiting stopped. I stood in my nightgown and robe in the middle of the sanctuary, listening. Fear soaked in with the stillness, settling in my gut. I heard a small noise that grew into a steady, soft crying.

"Excuse me," I whispered, moving around Jenks. My heart was pounding and my knees were weak as I pushed open one side of the heavy door.

The glow from the streetlight was enough to see. Deep in the shadows cast by the oaks, Ivy was sprawled in her biker leather, half laying across the church's two lowest steps, dumped and left to fend for herself. A gelatinous dark vomit spread over the steps, dripping to the sidewalk in ugly syrupy clumps. The cloying smell of blood was thick, overpowering my citrus scent.

Gathering the hem of my robe, I went down the steps with a calm born in fear.

"Rachel!" Jenks shouted, his wings a harsh clatter. "You can't help her. Leave!"

I faltered as I stood over Ivy, her long legs askew and her hair sticking to the black vomit. Her sobs had turned silent, shaking her shoulders. God, help me through this.

Breath held, I reached from behind, gripping under her arms to try to get her to her feet. She flinched at my touch. Coherency flickered over her. Focus wavering, she angled her feet under her to help. "I told him no," she said, her voice cracking. "I said no."

My stomach clenched at the sound of her voice, bewildered and confused. The acidic smell of vomit caught in my throat. Under it was a rich scent of well-turned earth, mixing with her burnt ash smell.

Jenks flitted around us as I got her to her feet. Pixy dust sifted from him to make a glowing cloud. "Careful," he whispered, first on my left side, then my right. "Be careful. I can't stop her if she attacks you."

"She's not going to attack me," I said, anger joining my fear to make a nauseating mix. "She didn't fall off the wagon. Listen to her. Someone pushed her."

Ivy shuddered as we reached the top step. Her hand touched the door for support, and she jerked as if burned. Like an animal, she clawed her way from me. Gasping, I fell back, wide-eyed. Her crucifix was gone.

She stood before me on the church's landing, tension pulling her tall. Her gaze took me in, and I went cold. There was nothing in Ivy's black eyes. Then they flashed into a ravenous hunger, and she lunged.

I had not a chance.

Ivy grabbed me by my neck, pinning me to the door of the church. Adrenaline surged, flashed through me in a pained assault. Her hand was like warm stone under my chin. My last breath made an ugly sound. Toes brushing the stone landing, I hung. Terrified, I tried to kick out, but she pressed into me, heat going through my robe. Eyes bulging, I pried at her fingers about my throat.

Struggling to breathe, I watched her eyes. They were utterly black in the streetlight. Fear, despair, hunger all mixed. Nothing there was her. Nothing at all.

"He told me to do it," she said, her feather-light voice a shocking contrast to her twisted face, terrifying in its absolute hunger. "I told him I wouldn't."

"Ivy," I rasped, managing a breath. "Put me down." Again I made that ugly noise as her grip tightened.

"Not this way!" Jenks shrilled. "Ivy! It's not what you want!"

The fingers on my neck clenched. My lungs struggled, a fire burning as they tried to fill. The black of Ivy's eyes grew as my body started to shut down. Panicking, I stretched for my ley line. The disorientation of connection flashed through the chaos almost unnoticed. Reeling from the lack of oxygen, I let the surge of power explode from me, uncontrolled.

Ivy was flung back. I fell to my knees, drawn forward even as her grip around my neck pulled away. My breath came in a ragged gasp. Pain went all the way to my skull as my knees hit the stone landing. I coughed, feeling my throat. I took a breath, then another. Jenks was a blur of green and black. The black spots dancing before me shrank and vanished.

I looked up to find Ivy curled in a fetal position against the closed doors, her arms over her head as if she had been beaten, rocking herself. "I said no. I said no. I said no."

"Jenks," I rasped, watching her around the strands of my hair. "Go get Nick."

The pixy hovered before me as I staggered to my feet. "I'm not leaving."

I felt my neck as I swallowed. "Go get him, if he's not already on his way here. He must have felt me pull on that line."

Jenks's face was set. "You should run. Run while you can."

Shaking my head, I watched Ivy, her confident self-assurance shattered into nothing as she rocked herself and cried. I couldn't go. I couldn't walk away because it would be safer. She needed help, and I was the only one who stood a chance of surviving her.

"Damn it all to hell!" Jenks shouted. "She's going to kill you!"

"We'll be okay," I said as I lurched to her. "Go get Nick. Please. I need him to get through this."

The pitch of his wings rose and fell in tandem with his visible indecision. Finally he nodded and left. The silence his absence made reminded me of the quiet left in a cruddy little hospital room when two faltered to one. Swallowing, I tightened my robe tie. "Ivy," I whispered. "Come on, Ivy. I'm going to get you inside." Stealing myself, I reached out and put a shaking hand on her shoulder, jerking away as she shuddered.

"Run away," she whispered as she stopped rocking, falling into a wire-tight stillness.

My heart pounded as she looked up at me, her eyes empty and her hair wild.

"Run away," she repeated. "If you run, I'll know what to do."

Trembling, I forced myself to remain still, not wanting to trigger her instincts.

Her face went slack, and with a sudden creasing of her brow, a ring of brown showed in her eyes. "Oh God. Help me, Rachel," she whimpered.

It scared the crap of me.

My legs trembled. I wanted to run. I wanted to leave her on the steps of the church and go. No one would say anything if I did. But instead I reached out and put my hands under her shoulders and lifted. "Come on," I whispered as I pulled her to her feet. All my instincts screamed to drop her as her hot skin touched mine. "Let's get you inside."

She hung slack in my grip. "I said no," she said, her words starting to slur. "I said no."

Ivy was taller than I, but my shoulder fit nicely under hers, and supporting most of her weight, I wedged the door open.

"He didn't listen," Ivy said, all but incoherent as I dragged her inside and shut the door behind us, shutting out the vomit and blood on the steps outside.

The black of the foyer was smothering. I staggered into motion, the light brightening as we entered the sanctuary. Ivy doubled over, panting around a moan. There was a dark smear of new blood on my robe, and I looked closer. "Ivy," I said. "You're bleeding."

I went cold as her new mantra of "He said it was all right" turned into a giggle. It was a deep, skin crawling giggle, and my mouth went dry.

"Yes," she said, the word sliding from her with a sultry heat. "I'm bleeding. Want a taste?" Horror settled into me as her giggle slipped into a sobbing moan. "Everyone should have a taste," she whimpered. "It doesn't matter anymore."

My jaw clenched and I tightened my grip on her shoulders. Anger mixed with my fear. Someone had used her. Someone had forced her to take blood against her will. She was out of her mind, an addict coming off a high.

"Rachel?" she quavered, her steps slowing. "I think I'm going to be sick...."

"We're almost there," I said grimly. "Hold on. Just hold on."

We barely made it, and I held Ivy's vomit-strewn hair out of the way as she gagged and retched into her black porcelain toilet. I looked once in the glow of the seashell night-light, then closed my eyes as she vomited thick, black blood over and over. Sobs shook her shoulders, and when she finished, I flushed the toilet, wanting to get rid of what ugliness I could.

I stretched to flick the light on, and a rosy glow filled her bathroom. Ivy sat on the floor with her forehead on the toilet, crying. Her leather pants were shiny with blood down to her knees. Under her jacket, her silk blouse was torn. It clung to her, sticky with blood coming from her neck. Ignoring the warning coursing through me, I carefully gathered her hair to see.

My stomach knotted. Ivy's perfect neck had been ravaged, one long low tear marking the austere whiteness of her skin. It was still bleeding, and I tried not to breathe on it lest the lingering vamp saliva might set it into play.

Frightened, I let her hair fall and backed away. In vampire terms, she had been raped.

"I told him no," she said, her sobs slowing as she realized I wasn't standing over her anymore. "I told him no."

The image of me in the mirror looked white and scared. I took a breath to steady myself. I wanted it to go away. I wanted it all to just go away. But I had to get the blood off her. I had to get her in bed with a pillow to cry on. I had to get her a cup of cocoa and a really good shrink. Did they have shrinks for abused vampires? I wondered as I put a hand on her shoulder.

"Ivy," I coaxed. "It's time to get cleaned up." I looked at her bathtub where that stupid fish still swam. She needed a shower, not a bath where she would be sitting in the filth she had to get off her. "Let's go, Ivy," I encouraged. "A quick shower in my bathroom. I'll get your nightgown. Come on..."

"No," she protested, eyes not focused and unable to help as I lugged her upright. "I couldn't stop. I told him no. Why didn't he stop?"

"I don't know," I murmured, my anger growing. I supported her across the hall and into my bathroom. Hitting the light switch with my elbow, I left her slumped upright against the washer and dryer and went to start the shower.

The sound of the water seemed to revive her. "I smell," she whispered vacantly, looking down at herself.

She wouldn't look at me. "Can you take your shower by yourself?" I asked, hoping to spark some motion.

Face empty and slack, she looked down at herself, seeing she was covered in coagulated, vomited blood. My stomach clenched as she touched the shiny blood with a careful finger and licked it. Tension tightened my shoulders until they hurt.

Ivy started to cry. "Three years," she said in a soft exhalation, tears running down her oval face until she ran the back of her hand under her chin to leave a smear of blood. "Three years..."

Head bowed, she reached for the side zipper on her pants, and I lurched to the door. "I'll make you a cup of cocoa," I said, feeling entirely inadequate. I hesitated. "Will you be all right for a few minutes?"

"Yeah," she breathed, and I shut the door softly behind me.

Feeling weightless and unreal, I went into the kitchen. I flicked on the light, gripping my arms around myself, hearing the emptiness of the room. Her makeshift desk with its silver technology smelling faintly of ozone looked oddly right beside my shiny copper pots, ceramic spoons, and herbs hanging from a sweater rack. The kitchen was full of us, carefully separated by space but contained by the same walls. I wanted to call someone, to rage, to rant, to ask for help. But everyone would tell me to leave her and get out.

My fingers shook as I methodically got the milk and cocoa out and started to make Ivy a drink. Hot cocoa, I thought bitterly. Someone had raped Ivy, and all I could do was make her a damned cup of cocoa.

It had to be Piscary. Only Piscary was strong or bold enough to rape her. And it had been rape. She told him to stop. He took her against her will. It had been rape.

The timer on the microwave dinged, and I tightened the tie on my robe. My face went cold as I saw the blood on it and my slippers, some of it black and coagulated, some fresh and red from her neck. The former was smoldering. It was undead vampire blood. No wonder Ivy was retching. It must be burning inside her.

Ignoring the rank smell of cauterized blood, I resolutely finished making Ivy's cocoa, taking it to her room as the shower was still running.

The light from her bedside table filled the pink and white room with a soft glow. Ivy's bedroom was as far from a vampire's lair as her bathroom was. The leather curtains to keep out the morning light were hidden behind white curtains. Gunmetal-framed pictures of her, her mother, father, sister, and their lives took up an entire wall, looking like a shrine.

There were grainy photos taken before Christmas trees with robes, smiles, and uncombed hair. Vacations in front of roller coasters, with sunburned noses and wide-brimmed hats. A sunrise on the beach, her father's arms about Ivy and her sister, protecting them from the cold. The newer pictures were in focus and in vibrant color, but I thought them less beautiful. The smiles had become mechanical. Her father looked tired. A new distance existed between Ivy and her mother. The most recent photos didn't have her mother in them at all.

Turning away, I pulled Ivy's soft coverlet down to expose the black satin smelling of wood ash. The book on the night-stand concerned deep meditation and the practice of reaching altered states of consciousness. My anger swelled. She had been trying so hard, and now she was back to square one. Why? What had it all been for?

Leaving the cocoa beside the book, I went across the hall to get rid of my bloodied robe. Motions quick with spent adrenaline, I brushed through my hair and threw on a pair of jeans and my black halter top, the warmest clean thing I had since I hadn't gotten my winter stuff out of storage yet. Leaving my robe and smoldering slippers in an ugly pile on the floor, I padded barefoot through the church, getting her nightgown from the back of her bathroom door.

"Ivy?" I called, knocking hesitantly on my bathroom door, hearing only the water running. There was no answer, and so knocking again, I pushed the door open. A heavy mist blurred everything, filling my lungs and making them seem heavy. "Ivy?" I called again, worry striking through me. "Ivy, are you all right?"

I found her on the floor of the shower stall, crumpled in a huddle of long legs and arms. The water flowed over her bowed head, blood making a thin rivulet to the drain from her neck. A shimmer of lighter red colored the bottom of the stall, coming from her legs. I stared, unable to look away. Her inner thighs were marred with deep scratches. Maybe it had been rape in the traditional sense as well.

I thought I was going to be sick. Ivy's hair was plastered to her. Her skin was white and her arms and legs were askew. The black of the twin ankle bracelets showed dark against the white of her skin, looking like shackles. She was shivering though the water was scalding, her eyes closed and her face twisted in a memory that would haunt her the rest of her life and into her death. Who said vampirism was glamorous? It was a lie, an illusion to cover the ugly reality.

I took a breath. "Ivy?"

Her eyes flashed open, and I jerked back.

"I don't want to think anymore," she said softly, unblinking though the water flowed over her face. "If I kill you, I won't have to."

I tried to swallow. "Should I leave?" I whispered, but I knew she could hear me.

Her eyes closed and her face scrunched up. Drawing her knees to her chin to cover herself, she wrapped her arms around her legs and started to cry again. "Yes."

Shaking inside, I stretched over her and turned off the water. The cotton towel was rough on my fingertips as I grabbed it and hesitated. "Ivy?" I said, frightened. "I don't want to touch you. Please get up."

Tears silently mixing with the water, she rose and took the towel. After she promised she would get herself dried off and dressed, I took her blood-soaked clothes along with my slippers and robe through the church to drop them on the back porch. The smell of burning blood turned my stomach like bad incense. I'd bury them in the cemetery later.

I found her huddled in her bed when I came back, her damp hair soaking her pillow and her untouched cocoa on the nightstand. Her face was to the wall and she wasn't moving. I pulled the afghan from the foot of the bed over her, and she trembled. "Ivy?" I said, then hesitated, not knowing what to do.

"I told him no," she said, her voice a whisper, torn gray silk drifting to rest atop snow.

I sat down on the cloth-draped trunk against the wall. Piscary. But I wouldn't say his name for fear of triggering something.

"Kist took me to him," she said, her words having the cadence of repeated memory. She had crossed her arms over her chest, only her fingers showing as they clutched her shoulders. I blanched as I saw what must be flesh under her nails, and I tugged the afghan up to hide it.

"Kisten took me to see him," she repeated, her words slow and deliberate. "He was angry. He said you were causing trouble. I told him you weren't going to hurt him, but he was angry. He was so angry with me."

I leaned closer, not liking this.

"He said," Ivy whispered, her voice almost unheard, "that if I couldn't curb you, that he would. I told him I'd make you my scion, that you would behave and he wouldn't have to kill you, but I couldn't do it." Her voice got higher, almost frantic. "You didn't want it, and it's supposed to be a gift. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I tried to tell you," she said to the wall. "I tried to keep you alive, but he wants to see you now. He wants to talk to you. Unless..."Her trembling ceased. "Rachel? Yesterday... when you said you were sorry, was it because you thought you'd pushed me too far, or that you said no?"

I took a breath to answer, shocked when my words got stuck in my throat.

"Do you want to be my scion?" she breathed, softer than a guilty prayer.

"No," I whispered, frightened out of my mind.

She started shaking, and I realized she was crying again. "I said no, too," she said around her gulps for air. "I said no, but he did anyway. I think I'm dead, Rachel. Am I dead?" she questioned, her tears cutting off in her sudden fear.

My mouth was dry and I clutched my arms around myself. "What happened?"

Her breath came in a quick sound, and she held it for a moment. "He was angry. He said I had failed him. But he said it was all right. That I was the child of his heart, and that he loved me, that he forgave me. He told me he understood about pets. That he once kept them himself but that they always turned on him and he had to kill them. It hurt him, when they betrayed him time and again. He said if I couldn't bring myself to make you safe, that he'd do it for me. I said I'd do it, but he knew I was lying." A frightening moan came from her. "He knew I was lying."

I was a pet. I was a dangerous pet to be tamed. That's what Piscary thought I was.

"He said he understood my want for a friend instead of a pet, but that it wasn't safe to let you stay as you were. He said I had lost control and people were talking. I started to cry then, because he was so kind and I had disappointed him." Her words came in short bursts as she struggled to get the words out. "And he made me sit beside him, holding me as he whispered how proud he was of me and that he loved my great-grandmother almost as much as he loved me. That was all I ever wanted," she said. "Him to be proud of me."

She made a short gasp of pained laugher. "He said he understood about wanting a friend," she said to the wall, her face hidden behind her hair. "He told me he had been looking for centuries for someone strong enough to survive with him, that my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother were all too weak but that I had the will to survive. I told him I didn't want to live forever, and he shushed me, telling me I was his chosen, that I would stay with him forever."

Her shoulders shook under the coverlet. "He held me, soothing my fears of the future. He said he loved me and was proud of me. And then he took my finger and drew blood from himself."

Stomach acid bubbled up, and I swallowed it down.

Her voice had gone wispy, her hunger and need a hidden ribbon of steel. "Oh God, Rachel. He's so old. It was like liquid electricity, welling up from him. I tried to leave. I wanted it, and I tried to leave, but he wouldn't let me. I said no, and then I ran. But he caught me. I tried to fight, but it didn't matter. Then I begged him no, but he held me and forced me to taste him."

Her voice was husky and her body shook. I moved to sit on the edge of the bed, horrified. Ivy went still, and I waited, unable to see her face, afraid to.

"And then I didn't have to think anymore," she said, the flat sound of her voice shocking. "I think I passed out for a moment. I wanted it. The power, the passion. He's so old. I pulled him to the floor and straddled him. I took everything he had as he clutched me to him, urging me to go deeper, to draw more. And I took it, Rachel. I took more than I should have. He should have stopped me, but he let me take it all."

I couldn't move, riveted by the terror of it.

"Kist tried to stop us. He tried to get between us, to stop Piscary from letting me take too much, but with every swallow, I lost more of myself. I think I - hurt Kist. I think I broke him. All I know is he went away, and Piscary..." A soft, pleasure-filled sound escaped her as she said his name again. "...Piscary drew me back." She moved languorously beneath the black sheets, suggestively. "He gentled my head against him and pressed me closer until I was sure he wanted me and I found he had more to give."

A harsh breath shook her, and she clenched into a huddled knot, the sated lover flashing into a beaten child. "I took everything. He let me take everything. I knew why he let me, and I did it anyway."

She was silent, but I knew she wasn't done yet. I didn't want to hear anymore, but she had to say it or she would drive herself slowly insane.

"With every pull, I could feel his hunger growing," she said, whispering. "With my every swallow his need swelled. I knew what would happen if I didn't stop, but he said it was all right, and it had been so long," she almost moaned. "I didn't want to stop. I knew what would happen, and I didn't want to stop. It was my fault. My fault."

I recognized the phrase from rape victims. "It wasn't your fault," I said, resting my hand upon her covered shoulder.

"It was," she said, and I pulled away as her voice became low and sultry. "I knew what would happen. And when I had everything he was, he asked for his blood back - like I knew he would. And I gave it to him. I wanted to, and I did. And it was fantastic."

I forced myself to breathe.

"God help me," she whispered. "I was alive. I hadn't been alive for three years. I was a goddess. I could give life. I could take it away. I saw him for what he was, and I wanted to be like him. And with his blood burning in me as if it was mine, his strength wholly mine, and his power wholly mine, burning into me the ugly, beautiful truth of his existence, he asked me to be his scion. He asked me to take Kisten's place, that he had been waiting for me to understand what it meant before he offered it to me. And that when I died, I would be his equal."

I kept my hand moving over her head in a soothing motion as her eyes closed and her shaking stopped. She was getting drowsy, her face going slack as her mind unwound her nightmare, finding a way to deal with it. I wondered if it had anything to do with the sky past her curtains brightening with the coming dawn.

"I went to him, Rachel," she whispered, color starting to come back into her lips. "I went to him, and he tore into me like a beast. I welcomed the pain. His teeth were God's truth, cutting clean into my soul. He savaged me, out of control from the joy of getting his power back after giving it to me so freely. And I gloried in it even as he bruised my arms and tore my neck open."

I forced my hand to keep moving.

"It hurt," she whispered, sounding like a child as her eyelids fluttered. "No one has enough vamp saliva in them to transmute that much pain, and he lapped up my misery and anguish along with my blood. I wanted to give him more, prove my loyalty to him, prove that though I failed by not taming you, that I would be his scion. Blood tastes better during sex," she said faintly. "The hormones make it sweet, so I opened myself to him. He said no, even as he moaned for it, that he might kill me by mistake. But I worked him until he couldn't stop himself. I wanted it. I wanted it even as he hurt me. He took it all, bringing us to climax even as he killed me." She shuddered, her eyes closed. "Oh God, Rachel. I think he killed me."

"You aren't dead," I whispered, frightened because I wasn't sure. She couldn't be in a church if she was dead, yes? Unless she was still in transition. The space of time when the chemistry shifted over had no hard and fast rules. What the hell was I doing?

"I think he killed me," she said again, her voice starting to slur as she fell asleep. "I think I killed myself." Her voice grew childlike. Her eyelids fluttered. "Am I dead, Rachel? Will you watch over me? Make sure the sun doesn't burn me while I sleep? Will you keep me safe?"

"Shhhh," I whispered, scared. "Go to sleep, Ivy."

"I don't want to be dead," she mumbled. "I made a mistake. I don't want to be Piscary's scion. I want to stay here with you. Can I stay here with you? Will you watch over me?"

"Hush," I murmured, running a hand over her hair. "Go to sleep."

"You smell good...like oranges," she whispered, setting my pulse pounding, but at least I didn't smell like her. I kept my hand moving until her breathing slowed and grew deep. I wondered if, when she fell asleep, it would stop. I wasn't sure Ivy was alive anymore.

My gaze went to the stained-glass window, the hint of dawn leaking around the edges. The sun would be up soon, and I didn't know anything about vampires crossing over except they had to be six feet under or in a light-tight room. That, and that they woke hungry the next sunset. Oh God. What if Ivy was dead?

I looked at the jewelry box on her mahogany dresser that held her "in case of death" bracelet that she refused to wear. Ivy had good insurance. If I called the number engraved on the silver band, an ambulance would be there in a guaranteed five minutes, whisking her away to a nice dark hole in the ground to emerge when darkness fell as a beautiful reborn undead.

My stomach churned and I rose to go to my room for my tiny cross. If she was dead, there would be some reaction, even if she was in transition. Passing out in a church is one thing; having a consecrated cross touch your skin is another.

Nauseated, I returned. Charms jingling, I held my breath and dangled my bracelet over Ivy. There was no response. I brought the cross close to her neck behind her ear, breathing easier when again there was no reaction. Silently asking for her forgiveness if I was wrong, I touched the cross to her skin. She didn't move, her pulse at her neck staying slow and sedate. Her skin, when I pulled the cross away, was white and unblemished.

I straightened, saying a silent prayer. I didn't think she was dead.

Slowly I crept from Ivy's room, shutting the door behind me. Piscary had raped Ivy for one reason. He knew I had figured it out. Ivy said he wanted to talk to me. If I stayed in my church, he would go for my mother next, then Nick, and then probably track down my brother.

My thoughts returned to Ivy, huddled under her covers in a shock-induced sleep. My mother would be next. And she would die not even knowing why she was being tortured.

Shaking inside, I went into the living room for the phone. My fingers were trembling so badly, I had to dial it twice. It took a precious three minutes of arguing to get to Rose.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Morgan," the woman said, her voice so politically correct I could freeze an egg on it. "Captain Edden is not available, and Detective Glenn left word that he is not to be disturbed."

"Not to be - " I stammered. "Listen. I know who murdered them. We have to go out there now. Before he sends someone after my mother!"

"I'm sorry, Ms. Morgan," the woman said politely. "You are no longer a consultant. If you have a complaint or death threat, please hold and I'll transfer you back to the front desk."

"No! Wait!" I pleaded. "You don't understand. Just let me talk to Glenn!"

"No, Morgan." Rose's calm, reasonable voice was suddenly thick with an unexpected anger. "You don't understand. No one here wants to talk to you."

"But I know who the witch hunter is!" I exclaimed, and the connection clicked off.

"You sorry-assed idiots!" I shouted, throwing the phone across the room. It hit the wall, the back coming off and the batteries rolling over the floor. Frustrated, I stomped into the kitchen, spilling Ivy's pens over the table as I reached for one. Heart pounding, I scratched a note to thumbtack to the door of the church.

Nick was coming. Glenn would talk to Nick. He could convince them I was right, tell them where I'd gone. They'd have to come out, if only to arrest me for interfering. I would have told him to call the I.S., but Piscary probably owned them. And though humans had as much chance of besting a master vampire as I did, perhaps just the interruption might be enough to save my butt.

Spinning, I reached for the cupboard, pulling amulets from hooks and jamming them into my bag. I yanked open a bottom drawer and grabbed three wooden stakes. I added the big butcher cleaver from the knife block. My splat gun was next, loaded with the strongest spell a white witch would have: sleepy-time charms. From the island counter I took a bottle of holy water. Thinking for a moment, I pulled up the valve top, took a swallow, recapped it, then shoved it in with the rest. Holy water wasn't much good unless it was all you'd been drinking for the last three days, but I'd take all the deterrent I could scrape together.

Not slowing, I strode into the hall for my boots. I slipped them on and headed for the front door, laces flapping. Jerking to a halt in the hallway, I spun, returning to the kitchen. Grabbing a handful of change for the bus, I left.

Piscary wanted to talk to me? Good. I wanted to talk to him.