Into the Woods: Tales from the Hollows and Beyond(40)
Author: Kim Harrison

Wine, she thought, forcing herself to look confident and casual when she emerged on the stoop and found the lights of a news crew already illuminating the parking lot. She’d pick up two bottles on the way home so Kisten would be drunk enough not to care if she hurt him.

THREE

Even with her intentions to leave at midnight, the sun was up by the time Ivy was idling her bike through the Hollows’s rush-hour traffic, winding her way to the waterfront and the spacious apartment she and Kisten shared above Piscary’s restaurant. That she worked for the force that policed the underground he controlled wasn’t surprising or unintentional, but prudent planning. Though not on the payroll, Piscary ran the I.S. through a complicated system of favors. He still had to obey the laws-or at least not get caught breaking them lest he get hauled in like anyone else. It reminded Ivy of what Camelot had probably really been like.

Her mother had worked in the top of the I.S. hierarchy until she died, and Ivy knew that was where she and Piscary wanted Ivy to be. Piscary dealt in gambling and protection-on paper, both legal ways to make his money-and the master vampire had more finesse than to put her where she’d have to choose between doing what he wanted and what her job required. The corruption was that bad.

Or that good, Ivy thought, checking to see that the guy behind her was watching before she slowed and turned left into the restaurant’s parking lot. If it hadn’t been for the threat of Piscary coming down on aggressive vampires in backstreet justice, the I.S. wouldn’t be able to cope. She was sure that was why most people, including the FIB, looked the other way. The I.S. was corrupt, but the people actually in charge of the city did a good job keeping it civilized.

Ivy slowed her bike by the door to the kitchen and cut the engine, scanning the empty lot. It was Wednesday, and whereas any other day of the week the restaurant would be emptying out of the last stragglers, today it was deserted. Piscary liked a day of rest. At least she wouldn’t have to dodge the waitstaff and their questions as to why her eyes were half dilated. She needed either a long bubble bath before bed, or Kisten, or both.

The breeze off the nearby river was cool and carried the scent of oil and gas. Taking a breath to clear her mind, she pushed the service door open with the wheel of her bike. It didn’t even have a lock to let the produce trucks make their deliveries at all hours. No one would steal from Piscary. For all appearances he obeyed the law, but somehow, you’d find yourself dead anyway.

Purse and twin wine bottles in hand, she left her bike beside the crates of tomatoes and mushrooms and took the cement steps to the kitchen two at a time. She passed the dark counters and cold ovens without seeing them. The faint odor of rising yeast mixed with the lingering odors of the vampires who worked here, and she felt herself relax, her boots making a soft cadence on the tiled floor. The scent brought to memory thoughts of her summers working in the kitchen and, when old enough, on the floor as a waitress. She hadn’t been innocent, but then the ugliness had been lost in the glare of the thrill. Now it just made her tired.

Her pulse quickened when she passed the thick door that led to the elevator and Piscary’s underground apartments. The thought that he would meet her with soothing hands and calculated sympathy was enough to bring her blood to the surface, but her irritation that he was manipulating her kept her moving into the bar. He wouldn’t call her to him, knowing it would cause her more mental anguish to come begging to him when she could take no more, desperate for the reassurance that he still loved her.

It was comfortingly silent in the restaurant proper, and the low ceilings and dim atmosphere seemed to follow her into the closed-party rooms in the back. A wide stairway behind a door led to the private second floor. Her hand traced the wall for balance as she rose up the wide, black-wood stairs, eager to find Kisten and an understanding ear that wasn’t attached to a manipulating mind.

She and Kisten lived in the converted apartment that took up the entire top floor of the old shipping warehouse. Ivy liked the openness, arbitrarily dividing it into spaces with folding screens and strategically placed furniture. The windows were spacious and smeared on the outside with the dirt and grime of forty years. Piscary didn’t like being that exposed, and this granted the two of them a measure of security.

Wine bottles clinking, Ivy set them on the table at the top of the stairs, thinking she and Kisten were like two abused children, craving the attention of the very person who had warped them, loving him out of desperation. It was an old thought, one that had lost its sting long ago.

Shuffling off her coat, she set it and her purse by the wine. "Kist?" she called, her voice filling the silence. "I’m home." She picked the bottles back up and frowned. Maybe she should have gotten three.

There was no answer, and as she headed back toward the kitchen to chill the wine, the scent of blood shivered through her like an electrical current. It wasn’t Kisten’s.

Her feet stopped, and she breathed deeply. Her head swiveled to the corner where the deliverymen had put her baby grand last week. It had dented her finances more than the bike, but the sound of it in this emptiness made her forget everything until the echoes faded.

"Kist?"

She heard him take a breath, but didn’t see him. Her face blanked and every muscle tightened as she paced to the couches arranged about her piano. The dirty sunshine pooling in glinted on the black sheen of the wood, and she found him there, kneeling on the white Persian rug between the couch and the piano, a girl in tight jeans, a black lacy shirt, and a worn leather coat sprawled before him.

Kisten lifted his head, an unusual panic in his blue eyes. "I didn’t do it," he said, his bloodied hands hovering over the corpse.

Shit. Dropping the bottles on the couch, Ivy swung into motion, moving to kneel before them. Habit made her check for a pulse, but it was obvious by her pallor and the gentle mauling on her neck that the petite blonde was dead despite her warmth.

"I didn’t do it," Kisten said again, shifting his trim, pretty-boy body back a few inches. His hands, strong and muscular, were shaking, the tops of his fingernails red with a light sheen. Ivy looked from them to his face, seeing the fear in his almost delicate features that he hid behind a reddish blond beard. A smear of blood was on his forehead behind his brown bangs, and she stifled an urge to kiss it away that both disgusted and intrigued her. This is not who I wanted to be.

"I didn’t do it, Ivy!" he exclaimed at her continued silence, and she reached over the girl and brushed his too-long bangs back. The gentle swelling of black in his gaze made her breath catch. God, he was beautiful when he was agitated.