A Perfect Blood (The Hollows #10)(108)
Author: Kim Harrison

"I didn’t know you would be here," I said, and Glenn pushed past me, telling me to mind my manners with a slight shoulder knock.

"I could say the same for you," the woman said, her gaze lingering on my shot leg, then rising to my empty wrist. Slowly her smile faded. "How is your leg?"

"Fine," I said, smacking it. "It wasn’t a very big bullet."

She stared at me, her expression bland. "I’m so pleased to hear that. A human would still be in the hospital."

It sounded like an accusation, and my tension spiked. "It went in and out, no big deal," I lied. "If humans would try witch medicine, they’d be on the streets a lot faster, too."

"Teresa!" Nina strode forward with the fading scent of copy paper and vampiric incense. "How pleasant to see you again. I must commend Detective Glenn on finding this place. Marvelous blending of both our respective strong points, don’t you think?"

By her sour expression, "marvelous" was probably the last adjective on her mind. "Splendid," the woman said flatly. One of the men with her had a question, and she turned away.

I leaned against a vacant desk and crossed my arms over my chest. I didn’t care if it made me look pensive. It was better than looking mad. The last time Dr. Cordova was on a run, everything went to hell and I ended up captured and then shot. She didn’t like me, and the feeling was mutual.

The growing wing clatter of a pixy was a welcome distraction, and I brushed my hair from my shoulder an instant before Jenks landed on it. "I don’t trust her," the pixy whispered.

"Why is she even here?" I said, gesturing with one hand. Apparently my voice was too loud, because Dr. Cordova turned, her expression ugly.

Jenks snickered, and in the near distance, Glenn smirked as he picked up three radio sets. They looked very polished and professional, far beyond what the FIB usually had. "We need to get downstairs," he said, and she turned away.

Nina eased up to me, breathing deep of the anger I’d given off, her eyes dilating. "Ms. Morgan?" she said as she extended an arm for me in a decidedly masculine gesture. "I’d be delighted if you’d walk with me."

I just bet. The memory of her losing control rose in my mind, the snarl she’d worn, her strength that had overpowered Ivy. She had killed a man. Ivy had tried to stop her and failed. We might have gotten all of them if not for her/him. My eyes went to Ivy’s, and Nina slowly dropped her arm. "Uh, I don’t know if this is such a good idea," I said, adding, "You going down there, I mean."

Glenn winced at the delay, but Nina was undeterred, and she gracefully took my arm and pulled me into motion. "I’m in control," she said, her gaze fixed on a point somewhere ahead of us as we began to walk. "I have spent two days breaking Nina of her . . . innocence."

Two days? No wonder Ivy was worried. Two days of practice against a thousand years of evolution meant nothing.

Jenks’s wings hummed, and I jerked away, not because I didn’t want a woman to escort me, but because the vampire controlling her was an ass. His breaking Nina was not a good thing, and I glanced at Ivy, seeing her anger. She had probably spent yesterday putting the woman back together again. Being a vampire was hard enough, but add in the depravity of a master and the demands they made on their favorites, and it was akin to legalized abuse. And Ivy thought there was a chance neither was going to survive . . .

Accepting my refusal with a fake hurt expression, Nina gallantly gestured for me to go before her. Ivy fell into place beside me, smiling falsely as she cheerfully said, "Relax, Rachel. If Nina so much as twitches in a direction I don’t like, I’m taking her down and Felix with her." She smiled and patted Nina’s face. "Nina and I have it all worked out. Felix."

Nina’s smile grew thinner, showing both gratitude for Ivy’s helping Nina and irritation that it gave Ivy a whisper of control over him. My mood worsening, I followed Glenn to the elevator. "Why is Dr. Cordova even here?" I groused, not really expecting an answer.

Nina leaned toward me, making me shiver when she whispered, "Probably for the same reason I am. We don’t trust you, Ms. Morgan."

Swell. Just peachy damn keen. But I got in the elevator with all of them, and an uncomfortable silence grew as we descended. I said nothing, stewing over what David had said yesterday about them not trusting me. Maybe I was why Glenn was being closed with Ivy. Great. Now I was screwing up her relationships as well as mine.

"Rache, did I ever tell you the one about the pixy and the druggist?"

"Here are your radios," Glenn interrupted, and I turned from the blank silver doors in relief. "Please wear them," he said as he handed me one, then Ivy another. "I don’t want a repeat of what happened with Mia. I never heard the end of it, you running off like that and leaving your nylons to show us where you’d gone."

"Thanks," I said dryly, fingering the tiny earpiece. There was a mic on the battery pack. This was very high tech, far more than usual. Someone had finally given Glenn some funds, by the look of it. I’d be able to hear everything, and it made me feel professional as I dropped the battery down my shirt. Nina had already put hers on, and was making faces as the plastic warmed up in her ear.

"You just slip it, sort of . . ." Glenn was saying, his hands moving in pantomime.

"I think I can figure it out. Thanks." My head went down, and I turned my back on them as I wiggled the wire to a more comfortable spot and clipped the battery to my waistband. A quick toss of my hair, and the wire was hidden. Not that it needed to be, but if I was going to do this, I was going to do it right.

"Test," I said softly, and Glenn held up three fingers to me. "This is radio three. Test."

From my ear came a soft, "Radio three, acknowledged. Please maintain silence."

I smiled, feeling like a part of something big, and I stood straighter. Ivy was doing the same with her radio. Nina was looking at her radio as if wondering why the I.S. didn’t have anything this high tech, and I smiled a bit smugly, even if I’d never seen anything this elaborate, either.

"Turn it down, Rache!" Jenks complained. "It’s going right through my head."

I fiddled with the control until he lost his pained expression, then looked at Glenn when he leaned close, his map rattling. "Rachel, I’ve put you on the outer ring at one of the surface shafts," he said, pointing, and I sighed at the distant location. "If they get past us, you and Jenks will have to stop them if they come your way. Okay?"