A Perfect Blood (The Hollows #10)(40)
Author: Kim Harrison

Nina reached for my hand, and I took a quick step back, sobering fast as her undead companion slipped in behind the woman’s eyes. I could tell, not only because they flashed pupil black, but because her entire posture now had the relaxed tension of the undead, sort of a satiated-lion look. "Afraid? I am nothing of the kind," she said, her voice smooth and confident. Still very womanly, she now exuded a feeling of control and power, an intoxicating mix of masculine and feminine, yin and yang. She gave Wayde a long up-and-down look, taking in his army boots and thin T, then dismissed him. "My message surely got lost in his voice mail. When did you have the time to get that marvelous tattoo, Rachel? It suits you. Does it go all the way around your neck? May I see?"

Blinking, I took another step away, forcing my hand down. Hiding one’s neck only made it look that much more appetizing to a vampire.

"Your tattoo?" Nina prompted, showing her small, pointy teeth, and I backed into Wayde. Sure, she was smiling, but I knew better. The vampire inside her was still peeved about yesterday. That my amulets worked when theirs hadn’t probably hadn’t gone down well, either.

"Yesterday," I said, more nervous yet. "Get your man out."

My voice didn’t tremble at all. Go me. Where in hell was Glenn?

"My officer is simply speaking with the curator," Nina said, and I breathed easier when she looked away. "You can’t have two I.S. cruisers pull up to your establishment and not explain yourself." Expression blank, she looked me up and down, and I suddenly felt grossly underdressed in my jeans and garden shoes. "How sure are you that this is the place?" she said with a sniff, her taking a wider stance, her hand straying to her waist where I’m sure the dead vampire kept his phone.

I looked at the amulet around my neck, glowing green. "Pretty sure. If you want, we can do a triangulation with the rest of the amulets before we go in with guns blazing."

Nina laughed, and I watched Wayde hide a shudder by scuffing his feet. "We aren’t going in with ‘guns blazing,’ " Nina said. "If they’re holding to their usual pattern, the people who committed these crimes are long gone. If this is indeed where they were." Her eyebrows rose. "It hardly looks like the area where one would go to perform acts of demonic magic," she said softly, squinting into the wind and bright autumn light as she looked up at the roofline.

"Yes, well, looks can be deceptive," I said. The more suave Nina became, the less I liked it. Living vampires considered it an honor to let their undead kin see through their eyes, speak through their mouths, and it was obvious that Nina the DMV worker was getting a great deal out of the arrangement, but I couldn’t help pitying her for the emotional fall when the dead guy left her for good and she went back to being just herself again. And that was if she was lucky.

I watched her from out of the corner of my eye, trying not to be obvious about it as I searched for something, anything, that belonged to the living Nina, but it was as if she was entirely gone, reduced to an elegant pantsuit and a pair of Prada shoes. Ivy could have been something like this. Had been, perhaps, before she stood up to Piscary. No wonder she’d wanted out.

As I watched, Nina frowned and brought her gaze back from the city. A second later, Wayde breathed a relieved "There he is." I followed his gaze across the interstate to the city to see the flashing lights of an FIB vehicle.

"Finally," I said, and Nina chuckled.

"We could have gone in to wait," she said as she extended her arm to invite me to cross the informal drive to the front steps. "It would have been warmer."

"I’m fine," I said, cursing under my breath as I found myself automatically moving and jerked myself to a stop before I’d gone more than a step. This guy was good. "How old are you?" I asked sourly, and Nina smiled.

"Old enough to know better, and young enough not to care."

That wasn’t the answer I was hoping for, and I slid two more feet away from her as Glenn pulled up behind the last I.S. car and got out. In the distance, another car followed. "You made good time!" I shouted before he was close, and we all crossed the wide, informal drive to the shallow steps leading to the front door, Wayde lagging behind and looking uncomfortable around all the suits.

Glenn seemed pissed, his arms swinging as he joined us. He looked a little tired, too. No surprise after a morning with Ivy. Blinking at Wayde’s less-than-professional dress, he turned to me. "Thanks for the call. Apparently the one that Nina made got stuck in my voice mail."

It was a thinly veiled rebuke, and Nina smiled. "My apologies?"

Nina didn’t look sorry, and Glenn’s expression became even tighter when the I.S. agent Nina had sent in came out with a bookish-looking man, wire glasses on his nose and wearing a polyester suit, the hem of the jacket whipping in the wind off the river. His shoes were shiny, and it looked like he didn’t get out much as he awkwardly followed the I.S. cop down the stairs to meet us somewhere in the middle.

"What was he doing in there?" Glenn asked, and Nina pleasantly inclined her head.

"I simply sent a man in to inform the curator of why we were parked on his drive. Relax, Detective Glenn. No one is trying to hide anything from you." Her eyes turning black, she turned to the short man looking at us from a step up. "We can go in now?"

The officer stiffened. "Mr. Ohem – "

Nina raised a hand to stop him. "It’s Nina," she said calmly, but it was obvious he wasn’t pleased about the slip – which made me all the more curious as to what his name was.

"Sir," the officer tried again, flushing. "This is Mr. Calaway, the curator on duty."

Mr. Calaway, oblivious to the blunder, stuck his thin hand out, and he and Nina shook. "Pleasure to meet you," he said enthusiastically, his narrow face beaming at the woman. It was obvious he didn’t have a clue that he was shaking hands with a vampire, much less one channeling a dead one, and I exchanged a quick look with Glenn. His eyes were as bright as I figured mine must be. Mr. Calaway was human. That put him as a suspect, perhaps? How could he not know there was demon magic being practiced in his building? The screams would give it away. It was always the quiet ones who were the ax murderers.

"Detective Glenn," Glenn said as he gave me a twist of his lips to acknowledge my suspicions. He took a breath to introduce me, hesitating when he saw the tattoo of the dandelion tuft on my collarbone. "Ah, this is Ms. Morgan, who is helping us with the magic, and Mr. Benson," he said, a faint smile quirking his lips, "her security."