The Witch with No Name

“But he needs his clothes,” Marsha was saying as I collected my splat gun from the counter. Ivy was almost carrying Luke to the door, and tears began to slip again from Marsha. I totally understood. The entire place was a perfect blending of their love. It was sucky when happiness became this costly. But if they’d fought this hard for it, then it would last their entire lifetime. I just hoped that lifetime would be longer than a week.

The hallway was quiet, smelling of dust and old carpet. Eyes were watching through peepholes, and it made me edgy. Marsha took Luke’s elbow to help him shuffle down the stairs in his blanket, and Ivy dropped back to talk to me.

“Jenks, you’re going with Ivy, right?” I asked, knowing she wouldn’t tell me the address of her safe house, much less take me there. Jenks, though . . .

Jenks’s wings hummed into invisibility, and he rose up a hand width. “Yeah.”

“No,” Ivy said, frowning, and he made a face at her. “You’re not coming, pixy.”

“Tink’s a Disney whore, like you could stop me!” he shot back.

Smiling, I edged around Ivy to keep Marsha and Luke from heading out without us. “I’ve got my phone on,” I said, pushing them back to the mailboxes until I could look at the street.

“I’ll be fine. See you at home,” Ivy said, ignoring Jenks and his sword pointed at her nose. “Hey, you doing anything tonight?”

“Listen to me, you broken-fanged, moss-wiped excuse for a back-drafted blood bag!” Jenks said, a silver-edged red dust slipping from him.

I looked back inside from the street, thinking this had been nice, even with the near miss. I liked working with Ivy. Always had. We did well together—even when it had gone wrong. “I’m working security for Trent,” I said, lips quirking as I saw her mentally smack her forehead. “You want me to bring you back something? It’s probably going to end somewhere with food.”

“Sure. That’d be good,” she said, turning to give Marsha and Luke some last-minute instructions on how to get from here to there alive. “I’ll call if I need help.”

I touched her arm, and her eyes met mine in farewell. Smiling, I turned away remembering something Kisten had once said: I was there when she had her morning coffee, I was there when she turned out the light. I was her friend, and to Ivy, that was everything.

“Jenks, I’ve got this!” I heard, and then I shut the door, my steps light as I headed for my car. Ivy would get home okay. She was right that the masters would want to be there when they brought their children in line. Besides, everyone in Cincinnati with fangs knew Ivy Tamwood.

Head up, I stomped along, eyeing the few pedestrians. Slowly my good mood was tarnished. Love died in the shadows, and it shouldn’t cost so much to keep it in the sun. But as Trent would say, anything gotten cheap wouldn’t last, so do what you need to do to be happy and deal with the consequences. That if love was easy, everyone would find it.

I turned the corner, my head coming up at the clatter of pixy wings. “She said no, huh?” I said as Jenks landed on my shoulder, his wings tickling my neck as he settled himself.

“Tink’s little pink rosebuds,” he muttered. “She threatened to dump insecticide on my summer hut. Besides, she’s got it okay. God! Vampires in love. The only thing worse is you mooning over Trent.”

My smile widened. Maybe I’d make cookies. The man loved cookies.

He made a rude sound, his silence telling me he was unhappy. “Sorry about the dog.”

I lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “You didn’t know.”

“I should have.”

I didn’t answer, thinking about my date tonight with Trent. Well, not a date exactly, but I had to get dressed up as if it were one. I was still trying to decide whether to put my hair up or wear it down. Chocolate chip is his favorite.

“Oh God,” Jenks moaned. “You’re thinking about him. I can tell. Your aura shifted.”

Embarrassed, I halted at the crosswalk, waiting for the light. “It did not.”

“It did,” he complained, but I knew he crabbed because he couldn’t say he was happy for me lest he jinx it somehow. “So it’s been like what, three months? Does he still curl your toes?”

“Totally,” I said, and he made a rude noise at my blissful smile. “He’s a total toe curler.”

“Awww, this is sweeter than pixy piss,” he said with false sarcasm. “All my girls happy. I can’t tell you the last time that happened.”

My smile widened, and I pushed the walk button as if that might hurry it along. “I think it was when—”

The unmistakable sound of tires screaming on pavement iced through me. My breath caught, and I turned. Jenks was gone, his white-hot sparkles seeming to burn an airborne trail back the way we’d come. A woman screamed for help, and I jumped back when a black sedan roared past me, the front fender dented. Somehow I knew, like when a picture falls off the wall, or the clock stops ticking.

“Ivy,” I whispered, then turned and ran.

Chapter 2