For A Few Demons More. Kim Harrison
I apologized, reaching to help her up. “I’m so sorry.”
Skimmer gripped it, yanking me off balance. Yelping, I fell, rolling across the wet grass and getting soaked. The living vampire beat me to my feet, but she was crying, tears silently slipping down her face. “Stay away from her!” she shouted. “She’s mine!”
Nearby, a dog barked. Frightened, I tugged my shirt straight. “She isn’t anyone’s,” I said, not caring if the neighbors were listening. “I don’t care if you two are sleeping together, or sharing blood, or whatever, but I’m not leaving!”
“You selfish bitch!” she seethed, and I backed up as she came forward. “Staying without letting her touch you is cruel. Why do you live with her if you don’t want her to touch you?”
Curtains were being pulled aside in the neighboring houses, and I started to worry that someone might call the I.S. “Because I’m her friend,” I said, beginning to get mad. “She’s just scared, okay? And a friend doesn’t walk away when another friend is scared. I’m willing to wait until she isn’t. God knows she waited for me. She needs me, and I need her—so back off!”
Skimmer stopped her advance, pulling herself up to look possessed, calm, and pissed. “You let her taste your blood. What could you do that would scare her?”
I was wet from hitting the grass, and I looked up from my damp legs. “I trusted her so much that I would’ve let her kill me if Jenks hadn’t stopped her.”
Skimmer went even whiter.
“Skimmer, I’m sorry,” I said, gesturing helplessly. “I didn’t plan this.”
“But you’re sleeping with Kisten,” she protested. “I can smell him all over you.”
This was as embarrassing as all hell. “You’re the one who taught her she could love two people at the same time, not me.”
With an abrupt motion, Skimmer turned on a heel and started back the way we came, blond hair swinging and steps sharp.
Actually, that I was sleeping with Kisten while wanting Ivy to bite me was a twinge on my conscience. But I figured between Ivy’s fear and the vampiric mentality that multiple blood and bed partners were the norm, I could deal with the issue when it became an issue. I loved Kisten. I wanted Ivy to bite me. It made sense, if I didn’t think about it too hard.
Depressed, I scooped up my shoulder bag and Ivy’s canvas sack. “If you jump me again, I’ll freaking break your damn arm,” I muttered as I trailed behind her, knowing she could hear me. I didn’t know where we stood, but ice cream now sounded as appealing as eating a hot dog in the snow. Perhaps the encounter had been inevitable. It could have been worse. Ivy could have heard us.
“You okay?” I asked when I caught up to Skimmer on the church steps, the lights in the sanctuary making yellow swaths on the wet concrete.
Giving me a sideways glance, she felt her middle, her expression a mix of sullen mistrust and anger. “I love Ivy, and I’ll do anything to protect her. You understand me?”
My eyes narrowed at the implication that I was a threat to Ivy. “I’m not endangering her.”
“Yes you are.” The woman’s narrow chin lifted as she stood a step above me. “If she kills you by mistake because you goad her into something, she will never forgive herself. I know her. She’ll end it all to escape the pain. I love Ivy, and I’m not going to let her kill herself.”
“Neither am I,” I said hotly.
Skimmer’s face emptied of emotion, chilling me. A quiet vampire was a plotting vampire. Yanking the door open, she slipped in ahead of me. Great. I think I had just put myself on Skimmer’s hit list.
While I leaned against the wall and wedged off my sandals, Skimmer muttered something about the bathroom. Wiping her boots, she clattered into Ivy’s bathroom making an obvious amount of noise, and slammed the door. I followed the scent of warm bread into the kitchen, my steps silent from being barefoot. I found Ivy at her computer buying music. “What flavor did you get?” she asked.
“Ah, it started to rain,” I ad-libbed, “and we decided it wasn’t worth the effort.” It wasn’t really a lie, just looking at it from an expanded point of view.
Ivy nodded, eyes on the screen. I had expected some sort of reaction, but then I noticed that her boots were wet, and I slumped. Crap, she’d seen the entire thing.
I took a breath to explain, but her brown eyes flicked to mine, halting me. Skimmer came in, her cell phone in hand. “Hey, the office called,” she said, the lie coming from her as easily as breathing. “They want me back early, so I’m going to cut out on you. You two go ahead and have lunch. I’ll take a rain check.”
Ivy sat straighter. “You’re headed into Cincy?” Skimmer nodded, and Ivy rose, stretching. “Mind if I get a ride from you?” she asked. “That’s where my run is.” Ivy glanced at me. “You don’t mind, do you, Rachel?”
Like I could really say anything? “Go on,” I told her, moving to the stove and stirring the cooling pasta. My eyes drifted to the opened bottle of white wine. “I’ll give Ceri a call. Maybe she’ll come over early.”
Ten to one they were both going to see Piscary. Why didn’t they just come out with it?
“See you later, Rachel,” Skimmer said tightly, then headed to the front, her boots loud.
Ivy pulled her purse across the table. My gaze dropped to her boots, and when I brought them back up, I saw a wisp of guilt. “I won’t do it,” she said. “If I bite you, it’ll blow everything we have into the ever-after.”
I shrugged, thinking she was right, but only if we were stupid about it. If she had been listening, then she also knew I was willing to wait. Besides, to think that I could satisfy all of her blood lust was insane. I didn’t even want to try. I only wanted to prove that I accepted her the way she was. I’d just have to wait until she was ready to believe that.
“You’d better get going,” I said, not wanting her to be here when Minias showed up.
Ivy hesitated in the threshold. “Lunch was a good idea.”
I shrugged without looking up, and after a moment’s hesitation she walked out. My eyes followed her wet prints, and I frowned when I heard Ivy say defensively, “I told you she did. You’re lucky she didn’t hit you with anything other than her foot.”
Tired, I slipped into my chair, the scent of cooked pasta, vinegar dressing, and grilled bread heavy in the air. I knew that Ivy wasn’t going to move out of the church. Which meant the only way Skimmer was going to get Ivy all to herself was if I was dead.
How nice was that?
I thunked the sauce off the spoon when I heard the front door open and Ceri’s voice, soft in conversation. Jenks had gone to get her, having come in when Ivy and Skimmer left. He didn’t like the thin blond vampire and had made himself scarce. It was after sunset and time to call Minias. I didn’t like the idea of kicking sleeping demons, but I needed to reduce the confusion in my life, and calling him was the easiest way to do that.
Damn it, what am I doing, calling a demon? And what kind of a life do I have when calling one is at the top of my to-do list?
Ceri’s steps were soft in the hallway, and I turned to her smile when her pleasant laughter at something Jenks said filled the kitchen. She was wearing a summery linen dress in three shades of purple, a matching ribbon holding her long, almost-transparent hair up off her neck against the moist heat. Jenks was on her shoulder to look like he belonged there, and Rex, Jenks’s cat, was in her arms. The orange kitten was purring, her eyes closed and her paws wet with rain.
“Hello,