The Witch with No Name

Bis popped in, winging up for altitude when he saw the surface demon writhing at her feet, gibbering like a monkey. I’d never seen anything like it, and the noise it made crawled up my spine like ice.

“Go away, you putrid thing,” Nina threatened, her voice dropping into the lower ranges. It was Nina, but not, and I started when Bis landed on my shoulder to wrap his tail around my back and under my arm for balance. He wouldn’t dare jump her out. Hell, I think he was scared to touch her, much less share mental space with her.

But the surface demon cowered like a beaten dog as it couldn’t move forward, couldn’t move back, snatching glances at Nina and the blood dripping from a scratch under her eye. I’d never been this close to one before and not been fighting for my life. It was almost as if I was looking at him through a fog. His features were indistinct, but gaunt, as if starved. The tattered remnants of his clothes gave no indication of color, and as soon as I looked away, I couldn’t remember if his hair was long or short. Again, I was struck by the feeling that he was there, but not, and I shuddered at the memory of how it had felt when I had pulled it off her.

“I said, go!” Nina/Felix shouted, and the surface demon scuttled back at her swinging foot. Feet spread in a way no woman in a skirt ever would, Nina threw the staff after it to clatter into the dust.

My circle was long gone, but it didn’t matter. The surface demons had left, even the ones at the outskirts. I exhaled, relieved. But another part of me was seething in anger. Felix had taken Nina over far too easily. The woman had been lying to Ivy, lying for three whole months. The worst part was, I think Ivy knew it.

“I ought to leave you here to rot,” I said, talking to Felix, but if I did, Nina would be the one to suffer.

Nina stiffened, her lip curling to show tiny pointed canines. She wouldn’t get the extended fangs until she died, which—if I got my way—would be tomorrow.

“Rachel,” Bis whispered as his feet pinched my shoulder in worry. Trent, too, wanted to leave, but I couldn’t. Not yet. The son of a bastard was playing Ivy for a fool.

“Get out of Nina,” I said, shaking off Trent’s hand and moving a step closer.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nina said, foolishly trying to hide the fact that it really was Felix, but young women in dress suits do not tug their sleeves down in agitation.

“Do we have to do this right now?” Trent said, eyes on the darkening shadows.

“Yes,” I said, coming another step closer. “Felix, get out of Nina. Get out and don’t come back. Right now, or I’m telling Ivy.”

The woman bared her teeth, dark eyes going darker. “Ivy? She doesn’t matter!”

“Maybe not to you,” I said shaking from the spent adrenaline. “But if Ivy knows, she might give up on Nina.”

“That’s fine with me.” Nina’s eyes narrowed, making the woman look dead already in the last of the light.

“Me too,” I said, heartsick for Ivy even as I hated Felix. “But if she does, Nina is going to find the balls to kick you out for good.”

Beside me, Trent made a sound of understanding. Nina’s expression twisted up in a snarl, hearing the truth of it.

“Love is funny like that,” I added.

Nina’s expression darkened, anger bubbling up until she was as ugly as the monster seeing the world through her eyes, wallowing in Ivy’s love as if it was his to have. My chin lifted, and seeing my determination, he suddenly left her.

Nina staggered, collapsing like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Sobbing, she huddled on the ground, exhausted and hyped up on the hormones Felix had pulled into her blood system. She touched her face, shocked at the blood, and my heart just about broke for Ivy. God, I hated the master vampires.

He might be gone, but the flash of evil intent that had crossed her left me shaking.

He’d be back.

Chapter 4

The coffee smell coming from the wax-coated cup was nauseatingly familiar, and I held it listlessly as I sat in the chair I’d pulled into the carpeted hallway. The oil-like sheen on the surface caught the fluorescent lights, showing the shake in my hand. I’d managed a few fitful hours of sleep after Ivy had come out of surgery, and though the beds in Trent’s surgical suites were comfortable, I’d been too worried to do more than doze. Besides, the smell of antiseptic and stainless steel kept waking me up.

Nina had crashed right in Ivy’s room. She was in there still, the guilt that I’d found out her secret making her noticeably passive and pliant. It pissed me off that she’d been lying to Ivy all this time, but I think Ivy had known it, her belief that she didn’t deserve anything good or lasting keeping her mouth shut and her eyes blind. I hoped that Bis and Jenks were doing better, the two of them having returned to the church to try to get the squatters out.