Ivy wouldn't look at Skimmer. "I think we should go."

She moved to the door, and I glanced at Skimmer. "We didn't get what we came for."

"I don't care."

Ivy tapped on the door, and when that brought Miltast, though the screams hadn't, Skimmer rallied. "Bitch!" she shouted, lunging at me again. Ivy was ready, and Skimmer ran right into Ivy's stiff-armed palm. My pulse hammered at how fast it had been.

Gasping, Skimmer fell back. Her hands covered her face, but blood leaked from her nose. Crying now in earnest, the small vampire collapsed onto the couch. Her back was to us, and as I almost ran through the open door, Ivy hesitated. I watched from the hall as she put a loving hand on Skimmer's shoulder.

"I'm sorry," I heard her whisper. "I loved you, but I can't do this anymore."

Skimmer hunched deeper. "I'll kill her," she sobbed. "If you stay with her, I'll kill her."

A chill ran through me. Not at her words, but at the love in Ivy's arms as she curved them around Skimmer. "No, you won't. Rachel isn't the one who showed me I deserved to be loved. You did. Tell me who came to visit Piscary."

"Get out," Skimmer sobbed, pushing weakly at Ivy. Blood stained her white jumpsuit, and Miltast stiffened upon seeing it.

"Who visited Piscary off the lists?" Ivy insisted.

Skimmer's shaking stopped as she gave up. "No one but Kisten came," she said, her high voice bland. "Once a week, three days after you. No one else."

I exhaled, and a sorry-assed depression took hold. Nothing. We had gotten nothing.

"I loved you, Ivy," Skimmer whispered in a dead voice. "Get out. Don't come back."

Ivy stood, her head bowed. Steadying herself, she turned and strode to the door, passing me in a wash of sour, unhappy-vampire incense. Boots clacking on the hard floor, she continued down the hallway alone.

I jumped to follow. I heard Miltast lock the door and then his booted steps. I caught up to Ivy at the locked door where we waited for Miltast. "Are you all right?" I questioned, not knowing what she was feeling.

"She'll be okay," Ivy said, jaw tight and not looking at me.

Miltast fumbled for the door lock, swiping his card and falling back when Ivy pushed through it ahead of him. "I can't believe you didn't get bitten," he said in apparent awe.

My eyes narrowed and I decided that they'd let me in there expecting me to come out hurt or dead. He was a white witch who had the government's blessing to do black magic. And if I made one wrong move, he'd react. Disgusted, I turned on my heel and followed Ivy.

I could hear his steps slow behind me, and my skin prickled. I finally caught up with her at the first door. The old woman at the spell checker, standing up and getting the check-out forms ready, seemed surprised to see us.

"Ivy," I said as we waited for Miltast to catch up, her head down and silent. "I'm sorry."

Finally her stoic expression cracked and she looked at me, unshed tears glinting. "I didn't know she was going to do that," she said. "Thank you for hitting me. I…couldn't say no. Damn it, I couldn't. I thought—"

She cut her thought short when Miltast slid the glass door aside. The air wasn't much fresher, but I pulled it in deep as I crossed into the middle ground, trying to rid myself of the accumulated vampire pheromones. Sighing, I put a hand to my neck and let it drop. "You're not serious about going on a blood fast," I asked as I handed Miltast my badge.

Ivy's fingers shook as she peeled off her name tag and handed it to the officer. "I was thinking about it," she said evenly.

Even Miltast knew it was a bad idea, and he eyed me as we signed our forms again and headed to the final door. If she was on a blood fast, living with her was going to be a lot harder.

"What a waste of time," Ivy said softly as we passed back through the spell checker and the woman gave us our stuff; but it hadn't been, and my pulse quickened. I remembered. I had remembered a lot. Ignoring my shaky knees, I wound my scarf around my neck, and with my bag under my arm, I headed for the double glass doors and the brutal but honest chill of the night. Milktoast and his friend had been privy to too much of our drama already.

"Actually," I said as I wrangled my gloves on while Ivy held the door open for me, "it wasn't a waste. Seeing you and Skimmer…I remembered something."

Ivy stopped dead in her tracks, pulling me to a halt in a puddle of light just outside. It seemed to have gotten colder in the hour we'd been inside, and the night air cut into my lungs like a knife, making my thoughts crystal clear after the heated confusion behind the glass walls. I pulled the dry air, smelling of snow and exhaust, in deep, relishing it and seeing the past moments with a clearer eye.

"Kisten—" I said, warming, then flushed. God, this was hard, and I closed my eyes to keep them from filling. Maybe I could say it if I couldn't see her. "Kisten's killer had dry hands," I said. "Rough. He smelled like damp cement, and his fingertips tasted of cold iron." I knew this because I'd had them in my mouth. God help me, I had begged him to bite me.

My jaw clenched, and I forced it to relax as I opened my eyes. "Kisten was dead," I said as the snow started to show on Ivy's black-clad shoulder. "I think it was an accident. His killer hadn't touched his blood yet, and he was really mad about that…. So he was going to make me his shadow instead. He…he was making me beg for it." I took a shaky breath. If I didn't tell her now, I might not ever. "He was playing on my scar to make me beg him to bite me. Kisten stopped him. He knew it might end with him dead twice, but he did it anyway."

Ivy's head dropped, and she rubbed her forehead.

"I'm sorry," I said, not knowing why. "He let himself be killed again because he loved me."

The light glistened on Ivy's tear-wet eyes when she looked up. "But he couldn't remember why he loved you, could he?"

I shook my head when a remembered feeling of mental pain drifted up. "No, he couldn't."

Ivy silently took that in. Deep in her shadowed eyes I could see her wish that I might find a way to save her from that fate. "I don't want to live not remembering why I love," she finally said, her face pallid as she looked ahead to her own soul death.

"I'm sorry, Ivy," I whispered as I fell into step beside her while we headed for my vehicle.

"It's what we are," she said stoically.

But it wasn't who she wanted to be.

Twenty-two

Ivy's head was down as we walked into the parking lot, aiming for my red convertible under a distant security light. Snow had covered all but the warm cars, and the world was white and black. "I'm sorry," she said, not looking at me. "I could have gotten you killed in there."

I breathed in another lungful of cold air to try to clear my head. "I'm fine. You didn't."

"I could have." She slowed to let me go first between two cars, looking at me with her face deceptively placid. "Your aura was compromised and you can't make a circle. I'm sorry. Asking you to do that when you're not well was a mistake. They were expecting you to die in there, or worse."

Linking my arm in hers, I pulled her after me, angling for the shortest path to my car. I could see it, its bright red paint looking gray in the streetlight and the snow sticking only to the cooler roof. "I guess we fooled them, huh?"

Ivy stiffened, but I wouldn't let her pull out of my grip in the narrow passage. If I didn't touch her, she wouldn't believe that she was worth the emotional baggage she brought to both our lives. "I'm fine," I said, becoming serious. "I wanted to know who killed Kisten, too. Now we know more." Not exactly how I would have chosen it, but okay. "Don't worry about it."

Ivy predictably pulled out of my grip the moment we came out from between the two cars, glancing over her shoulder through the snow to the quiet building. "I'm not going to be that person anymore," she said, and my eyes widened when she wiped her eyes with the back of a gloved hand to show a glint of moisture in the security light. "I can't do this," she whispered, clearly shaken to her core. "Rachel, I'm sorry. I understand that I can't bite you again. I'm sorry I ever tried. You're better than that, and I'm bringing you down."