Into the Woods Read online

  As she stared at Mia’s knowing smile, memories filled her: memories of Piscary’s touch, his praise, of his taking everything from her and saying it was proof of her devotion and love, and her flush of acceptance, of finding worth in being everything he wanted. It was as raw as if it happened last night, not almost a decade ago. Years of indulgence followed, as she found that the more dominating she was, the more satisfaction she craved and the less she found. It was a cruel slipknot that sent her begging for Piscary to give her a feeling of worth. And though she never found it, he had turned the pain sweet.

  Now this woman who could sip misery from another as easy as breathing wanted her to accept that the dichotomy that had saved her sanity was a hollow truth? That she could find beauty in her cravings by calling it love?

  “It is not love,” she said, feeling as if she couldn’t breathe.

  “Then why do you resist Art?” she accused, a hint of a smile on her face and one eyebrow raised tauntingly. “The entire floor is thinking about it. You know it’s more than a casual act. It’s a way to show your love, and to give that to Art would mean you were a demimonde; no—a whore. A filthy, perverted slut selling herself for a moment of carnal pleasure and professional advancement.”

  It was so close to what she had been thinking herself that Ivy clenched her jaw, glad the office door was closed. She felt her eyes dilate, but the memory of Mia’s leashed hunger kept her sitting. She knew that Mia was provoking her, inciting her anger so she could lap it up. It was what banshees did. That they often used truth to do so made it worse. “You can’t express love in taking blood,” Ivy said, her voice low and vehement.

  “Why not?”

  Why not? It sounded so simple. “Because I can’t say no to blood,” Ivy said bitterly. “I need it. I crave it. I want to satisfy it, damn it.”

  Mia laughed. “You stupid, whiny little girl. You want to satisfy it because it’s tied to your need for love. It’s too late for me. I can’t find beauty in satisfying my needs since anyone a banshee loves dies. You can, and to see you so selfish makes me want to slap you. You are a coward,” she accused. “Too frightened to find the beauty in your needs because to do so would admit that you were wrong. That you have been fooling yourself for most of your life, lying that it has no importance so you can indulge yourself. You are a whore, Ivy. And you know it. Stop deluding yourself that you aren’t.”

  Ivy felt her eyes flash entirely to black, pulled by anger. “You need to leave,” she said, muscles so tense, it took all her restraint to keep from striking the banshee.

  Mia stood. She was alive and vibrant, her smooth face flushed and beautiful—an accusing angel, hard and uncaring. “You can live above your fate,” she mocked. “You can be who you want to be. So Piscary warped you. So he broke you and remade you to be a pliant source of emotion-rich blood. It’s up to you to either accept or deny it.”

  “You think I like being like this?” Ivy said, standing when her frustration spilled over. “That I like anyone with long teeth able to take advantage of me? This is what I was born into—there’s no way out. It’s too late! Too many people expect me to be the way I am, too many people force me to be the way they want me to be.” The truth was coming out, pissing her off.

  Mia’s lips were parted and her face was flushed. Her eyes were lost behind her sunglasses, and the gold in her short black hair caught the light. “That is the excuse of a lazy, frightened coward,” she said, and Ivy tensed, ready to tell her to shut up but for the memory of the leashed hunger in her eyes. “Admit you were wrong. Admit you are ugly and a whore. Then don’t be that way anymore.”

  “But it feels too good!” Ivy shouted, not caring if the floor heard her.

  Mia trembled, her entire body shuddering. Breath fast, she reached for the back of her chair. When she brought her gaze up from behind her sunglasses, Ivy realized that the air was as pure and pristine as if the argument hadn’t happened. Pulse fast, Ivy breathed deeply, finding only the hint of Mia’s perfume and the softest trace of her sweat. Damn. The bitch was good.

  “I never said it would be easy,” Mia said softly, and Ivy wondered exactly what the hell had just happened. “The hunger will always be there, like a thorn. Every day will be worse than the previous until you think you won’t be able to exist another moment, but then you’ll see the filth in your eyes trying to get out—and if you’re strong, you’ll find the will to put it off another day. And for another day, you will be who you want to be. Unless you’re a coward.”

  The humming of the wall clock grew loud in the new silence, almost deep enough to hear Mia’s heartbeat, and Ivy stood behind her desk, not liking the feelings mixing in her. “I’m not a coward,” Ivy finally said.

  “No, you’re not,” Mia admitted, subdued and quiet. Satiated.

  “And I am not weak of will,” Ivy added, louder.

  Mia inhaled slowly, her pale fingers tightening on her purse. “Yes, you are.” Ivy’s eyes narrowed, and Mia’s mien shifted again. “Forgive me for asking,” she said, sounding both embarrassed and nervous, “but would you consider living together?”

  Ivy’s gut tightened. “Get out.”

  Mia swallowed, taking off her sunglasses to show her pale blue eyes, her pupils carrying a familiar swelling of black that made her look vulnerable. “I can make it worth your while,” she said, her eyes running over Ivy as if she was a past lover and moistening her lips. “My blood for your emotion? I can satisfy everything you need, Ivy, and more. And you could kindle a child in me with the pain you carry.”

  “Get—out.”

  Head bowing, Mia nodded and moved to the door.

  “I am not weak of will,” Ivy repeated, shame joining her anger when Mia crossed the small office. Mia opened the door, hesitating to turn and look at her.

  “No,” she said, a gentle sadness in her ageless features. “You aren’t. But you do need practice.” Dress furling, the woman left, the click, click of her heels silencing the entire floor, the fluorescent lights catching the highlights in her hair.

  Angry, Ivy lurched to the door, slamming it shut and falling back into her chair. “I am not weak of will,” she said aloud, as if hearing it would make it so. But the idea she might be wiggled in between thought and reason, and it was too easy to doubt herself.

  Her boot heels went up onto her desk, ankles crossed. She didn’t want to think about what Mia had said—or what she offered. Eyes closed, Ivy took a breath to relax, forcing her body to do as she told it. She hadn’t liked Mia using her, but that’s what they did. It was Ivy’s own fault for arguing with her.

  Again, Ivy inhaled, slower to make her shoulders ease. She could ignore everything but what she wanted to focus on if she tried—she spent a great deal of her life that way. It made her quick to anger, depressed her appetite, and caused her to be overly sensitive, but it kept her sane.

  Ivy’s eyes opened in the silence, falling upon the tear. As inescapable as shadows, her mind fastened on it, desperately seeking a distraction. Disgust lifted through her at the torn bag. How was she going to explain the broken seal to Art?

  Leaning forward, she felt her muscles stretch as she pulled the bag closer, and in a surge of self-indulgence, shook the tear into her palm. A moment of hesitation, and she touched it to her tongue. She felt nothing, tasted nothing. With a guilty motion, she dropped it back in and pressed the seal shut, tossing it to her desk.

  The tear was three years old, found in a room stinking of fear. A banshee hadn’t been responsible. The man had murdered his wife with a plan already in place to shift the blame. Where had he gotten a tear? A tear three years old, no less?

  Three years. That was a long time to plan your wife’s murder. Especially when they had been married only eight months, according to Mr. Demere’s file. Long-term planning.

  Ivy leaned forward in a spike of adrenaline and fingered the bag. Vampires planned that long. Jacqueline had a record. Only a vampire who worked for the I.S. would be in a position to know she
was dead, unable to clear her name. And only an I.S. employee would have access to a tear swiped from the old-evidence vault. A tear no one would miss.

  “Holy shit,” Ivy softly swore. This went to the top.

  Dropping the tear, Ivy reached for the phone. Art would crap his coffin when he found out. But then a thought struck her, and she hesitated, the buzz of the open line a harsh whine.

  The apartment had been full of fear—anger and fear that should have been soaked up by the tear but wasn’t—fear that Art had covered up with her own emotions.

  The buzz of the phone line turned to beeping, and she set the phone back in the cradle, the acidic taste of betrayal filling her thoughts. Art had used her to muddle the psychic levels in the room. The guy from the collection van had commented on it when he had come in, blaming it on her after he saw the banshee tear, not knowing she had only added to what was already there. No one documented psychic levels unless a banshee was involved, and they hadn’t known until after she contaminated the scene. “After Art stole and planted the tear,” she muttered aloud. Art, who was so dense he couldn’t find his pretty fangs in someone’s ass.

  Plucking a pen from her pencil cup, she tapped it on the desk, wanting to write everything down but resisting lest it come back to bite her. Maybe not so dense after all. “Motive . . .” she breathed, enjoying the adrenaline rush and feeling as if it cleansed her somehow. Why would Art help plan and cover up a murder? What would he get out of it? Being undead, Art was moved only by survival and his need for blood.

  Blood? she thought. Had the suspect promised to be Art’s blood shadow in exchange for the opportunity to murder his wife? Didn’t sound right.

  Her lips curled upward and she smiled. Money. Art’s rise in the I.S. had stopped when he died and was no longer a potential source of blood. Without the currency of blood for bribes, he couldn’t rise in the vampiric hierarchy. He was existing on the interest from his postdeath funds, but by law he couldn’t touch the principal. If the suspect gave Art a portion of his wife’s insurance money, it might be enough to move Art up a step. That the undead vampire had openly admitted he wasn’t adverse to using Ivy to pull him up in the ranks only solidified her belief that he was having money problems. Undead vampires didn’t work harder than they had to. That Art was working at all said something.

  Pen clicking open and shut so fast it almost hummed, Ivy tried to remember if she had ever heard that Art had died untimely. He’d been working the same desk over thirty years.

  Jerking in sudden decision, she dropped the pen and pulled out the Yellow Pages, looking for the biggest insurance ad that wasn’t connected to one of Cincinnati’s older vamp families. She would call them all if she had to. Pulse quickening, she dialed, using the suspect’s social security number to find out his next payment wouldn’t be due until the fifteenth. It was for a hefty amount, and she impatiently kept hitting the star button until the machine had a cyber coronary and dumped her into a real person’s phone.

  “Were Insurance,” a polite voice answered.

  Ivy sat straighter. “This is Officer Tamwood,” she said, “and I’m checking on the records of a Mr. and Mrs. Demere? Could you tell me if they upped their life insurance recently?”

  There was a moment of silence. “You’re from the I.S.?” Before Ivy could answer, the woman continued primly. “I’m sorry, Officer Tamwood. We can’t give out information without a warrant.”

  Ivy smiled wickedly. “That’s fine, ma’am. My partner and I will be there with your little piece of paper as soon as the sun goes down. We’re kind of in a hurry, so he might skip breakfast to get there before you close.”

  “Uh . . .” the voice came back, and Ivy felt her eyes dilate at the fear it held. “No need. I’m always glad to help out the I.S. Let me pull up the policy in question.”

  Ivy tucked the phone between her ear and her shoulder, picking at her nails and trying to get her eyes to contract.

  “Here it is!” the woman gushed nervously. “Mr. and Mrs. Demere took out a modest policy covering each of them shortly after getting married . . .” The woman’s voice trailed off, sounding puzzled. “It was increased about four months ago. Just a minute.”

  Ivy swung her feet to the floor and reached for a pen.

  “Okay,” the woman said when she returned. “I see why. Mrs. Demere finished getting her degree. She was going to become the major breadwinner, and they wanted to take advantage of the lower payment schedule before her next birthday. It has a payout of a half million.” The woman chuckled. “Someone was a little enthusiastic. A data entry degree won’t get her a good enough job to warrant that kind of insurance.”

  A zing of adrenaline went through Ivy, and the pen snapped. “Damn it!” she swore as ink stained her hand and dripped to the desk.

  “Ma’am?” the woman questioned, a new wariness to her voice.

  Staring at the blue ink on her hand, Ivy said, “Nothing. My pen just broke.” She dropped it in the trash, and using her foot, she opened a lower drawer and snatched up a tissue. “It might be in your company’s best interest to misfile any claim for a few weeks,” she said as she wiped her fingers. “Could you give me a call when someone tries to process it?”

  “Thank you, Officer Tamwood,” the insurance officer said cheerfully over the sound of a pencil scratching. “Thank you very much. I’ve got your number on my screen, and I’ll do just that.”

  Embarrassed, Ivy hung up. Still trying to get the worst of the ink off her, she felt a stirring of excitement. It wasn’t in any report that the tear wasn’t functioning. This had possibilities. But she couldn’t go to the basement with her suspicions; if Art had promised someone down there a cut of money, her suspicions would go nowhere and she’d look like a whiny bitch trying to get out of giving Art his due blood. That she was doing just that didn’t bother her as much as she thought it would.

  Balling up the inkstained tissue, Ivy reached again for the phone. Kisten. Kisten could help her on this. Maybe they could have lunch together.

  FIVE

  The muted sounds of the last patrons being ushered out the door vibrated through the oak timbers of the floorboards, and Ivy relaxed in it, finding more peace there than she’d like to admit. Extending her long legs out under the piano, she picked up her melted milkshake and sipped through the straw as she planned Art’s downfall. Before her on the closed lid were written-out plans of contingencies, neatly arranged on the black varnished wood. Below her, Piscary’s living patrons stumbled home in the coming dawn. The undead ones had left a good hour ago. The scent of tomato paste, sausage, pasta, and the death-by-chocolate dessert someone had ordered to go drifted up through the cracks.

  The light coming in the expansive windows was thin, and Ivy looked from her pages set in neat piles and stretched her laced fingers to the distant ceiling. She was usually in bed this time of day—waiting for Kisten to finish closing up and slide in behind her with a soft nibble somewhere. More often than not, it turned into a breathless circle of give and take that left them content in each other’s arms as they fell asleep with the morning sun warming their skin.

  Focus blurring, Ivy plucking at the itchy fabric of her lace shirt, her thoughts returning to Mia. Banshees were known for inciting trouble, often hiring themselves in to a productive company and putting old friends at each other’s throats with a few well-placed words of truth, whereupon they would sit back and lap up the emotion while everything fell apart. That they usually did this with the truth made it worse. She loved Kisten, but to call it love when she took his blood? That was savage need. There could be no love there. Eyes dropping to the papers surrounding her, she pushed at them as if pushing away her thoughts, bringing her hand up to slide a finger between her neck and the collar of itchy lace.

  Ivy felt like a vamp wannabe, dressed in tight jeans and a black stretchy shirt with a high collar of peekaboo lace and an open, low neckline. A pair of flat sandals finished the look. It wasn’t what she would have picked out for
framing her partner for homicide, but it was close to what Sleeping Beauty had on.

  She had been here at the piano for hours, having called in sick after meeting Kisten for lunch, blaming it on bad sushi. Kisten wasn’t convinced putting Art in jail by dumping Piscary’s mistake in his apartment was a good way to get promoted, but Ivy liked its inescapable justice. Going to the I.S. would gain her nothing but their irritation for interfering. True, Mr. Demere wouldn’t be going to jail for murdering his wife, but that didn’t mean he was going to walk away from it. She’d take care of him later when he thought he had escaped unscathed.

  It surprised her that she was enjoying herself. She liked her job at the I.S., working backward from where someone else’s plan went wrong to catch stupid people making stupid decisions. But plotting her own action to snare someone in her own net was more satisfying. She was headed for management, but she’d never stopped to ask herself if it was something she wanted.

  And so after she had discussed it with Kisten, he had reluctantly bought her car for cash, and she had gone shopping with the untraceable money. She had felt ignorant at the first charm outlet she had gone into, but the man had become gratifyingly helpful once she showed him the money.

  Fingers cold from her melted shake, Ivy set the wet glass on a coaster and reached for the sleep amulet safe in its silk bag. She had wanted a potion she could get Art to drink or splash on him, but the witch refused to sell it to her, claiming it was too dangerous for a novice. He had sold her an amulet that would do the same thing, though, and she felt the outlines of the redwood disk on its cord carefully through the bag, satisfied it would work. The man had cautioned her three times to be sure there was someone there to take it off her or she’d sleep for two days before the charm spontaneously broke for safety reasons.

  A second, metallic amulet would give her the illusion of blond hair and take off about eight inches of height, making her closer to the size and look of Sleeping Beauty. She didn’t know how witches in the I.S. managed to make any money, seeing as the two charms had cost as much as her car, and she wondered if the witch had upped the price because she was a vampire.