"Just a lethal-amulet detector," I said, handing her my bag and taking the little slip of paper and jamming it in a jeans pocket.

"I'll bet," she said under her breath, and I hesitated, eyeing her. I didn't like my stuff in her care. She'd probably go through it as soon as I was out of sight. I sighed, trying not to get upset. If this was the crap you had to go through to see a low-security inmate, I didn't want to know what was needed to see someone in the high-security prison.

Smiling, making herself look almost ugly, she nodded to the spell checker, and I reluctantly approached it. I couldn't see the cameras, but I knew they were here—and I didn't like the casual carelessness she used to bag my stuff up and drop it in a bin.

The wave of synthetic aura cascading over me from the spell checker gave me a start, and I jumped. Maybe it was because I didn't have much of an aura right now, but I hadn't been able to stifle my shudder, and the guy at the desk smirked.

Ivy was waiting impatiently, and I took the form the guy shoved across the desk at me. "And who are we visiting today?" he snarkily asked me as he handed Ivy her visitor's pass.

My attention jerked up from the release form. I was not the one in jail here. Then I saw where he was looking and went cold. My visible scars were less than a year old, clear enough, and I stiffened when I decided he thought I was a vampire junkie on my way to get a fix. "Dorothy Claymor, same as her," I said as if he didn't know, signing the paper with stiff fingers.

The young man's smirk grew nasty. "Not at the same time you aren't."

Ivy took a stance, and I set the clipboard down with a tap. Peeved, I looked at him. Why is this becoming so difficult? "Look," I said, using one finger to slide the form back to him. "I'm just trying to help a friend, and this is the only way Dorothy will see her, okay?"

"She likes threesomes, eh?" the guy said, and seeing me drumming my fingers on my crossed arm, he added in a more businesslike voice, "We can't let two people visit an inmate at once. Accidents happen."

Much to my surprise, it was the woman who came to my rescue, clearing her throat like she was trying to get a cat out of it. "They can go in, Miltast."

Officer Miltast, apparently, turned. "I'm not losing my job over her."

The woman grinned and tapped her paperwork. "We got a call. She can go in."

What in hell is going on? Concern wound tighter in my gut when the man looked from me to my scrawl and back again. Face scrunching up, he turned to Ivy, then handed me the visitor's badge the tabletop machine spit out.

"I'll escort you to the visiting rooms," he said as he rose and patted his shirt front for his key card. "You got this okay?" he asked the woman, and she laughed.

"Thank you," I muttered as I peeled the backing off my badge and stuck it to my upper shoulder. Maybe me being an independent runner just got me in, but I doubted it. My man Miltast opened the door, and hoisting his belt up, waited for us to pass through. God, he was only thirty-something, but he was swaggering around like he was fifty, with a gut.

Again the vampire incense hit me, with a hint of unhappy Were and decayed redwood. It was not a good mix. There was anger, and desperation, and hunger. Everyone was under mental stress so thick I could almost taste it. Ivy and I going in together suddenly didn't seem like a good idea. The vamp pheromones were probably hitting her hard.

The door shut behind me, and I stifled a shudder. Ivy was silent and stoic as we paced down the corridor, jittery under her facade of confidence. Her black jeans looked out of place in the white corridor, and her dark hair caught the light, looking almost silver. I wondered what she was hearing that I wasn't.

We passed through another Plexiglas door and the corridor got twice as wide. Blue lines blocked the floor into sections, and I realized that the clear doors we were passing led to cells. I couldn't see anyone, but it all looked clean and sterile, like a hospital. And somewhere down here was Skimmer.

"The solid doors cut down on the pheromones," Ivy said, noticing me eyeing them.

"Oh." I missed Jenks, and I wished he was here watching my back. There were cameras in the corners, and I bet they weren't fake. "So how come they've got witches working as guards?" I said, realizing that the only vamp I'd seen outside a cell so far had been Ivy.

"A vampire might be tempted to do something stupid for blood," Ivy said, her gaze distant and not paying me much attention. "A Were can be overpowered."

"So can a witch," I said, watching our escort take an interest in our conversation.

Ivy looked sideways at me. "Not if they tap a line."

"Yeah," I protested, not liking that I couldn't right now, "but even the I.S. doesn't send a witch after an undead. There's no way I could even come near besting Piscary."

The man walking behind us made a small noise. "This is an aboveground, low-security facility. We don't house dead vampires here. Just witches, Weres, and living vampires."

"And the guards are more experienced than you, Rachel," Ivy said, her gaze lighting on the cell numbers, counting them down probably. "Officer Milktoast here probably has clearance to use charms that aren't street legal." She smiled at him, chilling me. "Isn't that right?"

"It's Miltast," he said sharply. "And if you ever get bitten," he added, looking at my neck, "you lose your job."

I wanted to jerk my scarf up, but knew that to a hungry vampire, dead or alive, that was like wearing a negligee. "That is so unfair," I said. "I get labeled a black witch for getting a smutty aura saving people's lives, but you can use a black charm with impunity?"

At that, Miltast smiled. "Yep. And I get paid for it."

I didn't like what he was saying, but at least he was talking to me. Maybe he had a smutty aura, too, and my own greasy coating didn't scare him. That he was even talking to me was odd. He had to know I was shunned. That's probably why they'd let me in with Ivy. They simply didn't care what happened to me. God help me. What am I going to tell my mom?

We passed through another set of doors, and my claustrophobic feeling doubled. Ivy, too, was starting to show the strain and was beginning to sweat. "You okay?" I asked, thinking she smelled great. Evolution. You've gotta love it.

"Fine," she said, but her nervous smile said different. "Thank you for doing this."

"Wait to thank me until we both get back in the car in one piece, okay?"

Our escort slowed to check the numbers painted on the outside of the doors, and leaning to the side, he used a two-way radio to check something. Satisfied, he looked through the glass, pointed his finger at someone in warning, then ran his card to open the door.

There was a soft hiss of equalizing pressure, and Ivy immediately went in. I moved to follow Ivy, and Miltast stopped me. "Excuse me?" I said snottily, letting him grip my arm like that because he was the only one armed with magic.

"I'm watching you," he threatened, and I started. Me? He was watching me? Why?

"Good," I said, confirming that he knew I'd been shunned. Maybe they let us in together hoping we would all kill each other. "Tell them that I'm a white witch and to get off my case."

Miltast didn't seem to know what to say, and with a final squeeze of pressure, he let me go in. Knees shaking, I passed over the threshold. The door hissed shut, and I swear I heard it seal with a vacuum. The better to contain the pheromones, I guess.

The white chamber was a mix of interviewing room and conjugal-visit trailer. Not that I knew what the latter looked like, but I could guess. There was a second, solid door in the back with a peephole. A white couch took up one side wall, two chairs and a table between them filled the opposite. Lots of room to touch. Lots of room for mistakes to be made. I especially didn't like the transparent door we had come through or the camera on the ceiling. It smelled like burnt paper, and I wondered if it was to help mask the pheromones.