The Good, The Bad, And The Undead

statement from you before Piscary wakes up and presses charges.'

'Presses charges? For what?' I jerked out of his grip, refusing to move. What in hell was going on? I had just tagged the witch hunter, and I was the one being arrested?

The nearby officers were carefully listening, and Edden's round face went even more guilty. 'For assault and battery, slander, trespassing, illegal entry, malicious destruction of private property, and whatever else his pre-Turn lawyer can come up with. What did you think you were doing, coming down here and trying to kill him?'

I struggled to speak, affronted. 'I didn't kill him, though he by God deserves it. He raped Ivy to get me to come here so he could kill me because I found out he was the witch hunter!' I reached up with my good hand as if it could sooth the raw ache of my throat from the outside. 'And I have a witness willing to testify that Piscary contracted it to kill the victims. Is that enough for you?'

Edden's brow rose. 'It?' He turned to look at Piscary, surrounded by nervous FIB officers until the I.S. ambulance got there. 'Which it would that be?'

'You don't want to know.' I closed my eyes. I was going to be a demon's familiar. But I was alive. I hadn't lost my soul. Focus on the positive.

'Can I go?' I asked as I saw the first of the stairs past the hole in the wall. I had no idea how I was going to make it up all of them. Maybe if I let Edden arrest me, they would carry me up. Not waiting for his permission, I pulled away and held my arm close as I limped to the ragged hole in the wall. I had just tagged Cincinnati's most powerful vampire as a serial murderer, and all I wanted to do was throw up.

Edden took a step to catch up, still not having answered me. 'Can I at least have my boots?' I asked as I saw Gwen taking pictures of them, carefully making her way through the room, her video camera recording everything.

The FIB captain started, looking down at my feet. 'You always tag master vampires in your bare feet?'

'Only when they're in their pj's.' I clutched the blanket around myself miserably. 'Want to keep it sporting, you know.'

Edden's round face broke into a grin. 'Hey, Gwen! Knock it off,' he said loudly as he took my elbow and helped me wobble to the stairs. 'This isn't a crime scene. It's an arrest.'

Twenty-Nine

'Hey! Here!' I shouted, sitting straighter on the hard ballpark seat and waving to get the attention of the wandering vendor. It was almost a good forty minutes before the game was scheduled to start, and though the stands were starting to fill, the vendors weren't very attentive.

I squinted and held up four fingers as he turned, and he held up eight in return. I winced. Eight bucks for four hot dogs? I thought, passing my money down. Oh well. It wasn't as if I had bought the tickets.

'Thanks, Rachel,' Glenn said from beside me as the paper-wrapped package hit his hand, thrown by the vendor. He set it on his lap and caught the rest since my arm was in a sling and obviously not working. He handed one to his dad and Jenks on his left. The next he gave to me, and I passed it to Nick on my other side. Nick flashed me a thin smile, immediately looking down to where the Howlers were warming up.

My shoulders slumped, and Glenn leaned closer under the excuse of unwrapping my hot dog and handing it to me. 'Give him some time.'

I said nothing, my gaze riveted to the highly manicured ballpark. Though Nick wouldn't admit it, a new ribbon of fear had slid between us. We'd had a painful discussion last week where I had apologized profusely for having pulled such a massive amount of ley line energy through him and told him it had been an accident. He insisted that it was all right, that he understood, that he was glad I had done it since it saved my life. His words were earnest and heartfelt, and I knew to the depths of my soul he believed them. But he would only rarely meet my eyes anymore, and he worked hard to keep from touching me.

As if to prove nothing had changed, he had insisted on our usual weekend sleepover last night. It had been a mistake. The dinner conversation was stilted at best: How was your day, dear? Fine, thank you; how was yours? We followed that with several hours of TV where I sat on the couch and he sat on the chair across the room. I had hoped for some improvement after retiring at an ungodly early one o'clock in the morning, but he pretended to fall asleep right away, setting me almost to tears when he moved away from the touch of my foot.

The night was brilliantly capped off at four in the morning when he woke from a sound sleep in a nightmare. He all but panicked when he found me in bed with him.

I had quietly excused myself and took the bus home, saying that as long as I was up, I should make sure Ivy got home all right and that I'd see him later. He hadn't stopped me. He sat on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands and hadn't stopped me.

I squinted into the bright afternoon sun, sniffing back any hint of tears. It was the sun. That's all. I took a bite of hot dog. It seemed to take a lot of effort to chew, and it sat heavy in my middle when I finally swallowed. Below, the Howlers called and threw the ball about.

Setting the hot dog down on the paper wrapping across my lap, I took up a baseball in my injured hand. My lips moved in unvoiced Latin as I quietly sketched a complex figure with my good left hand. The fingers about the ball tingled as I said the last word of the charm. A melancholy satisfaction stirred me as the pitcher's throw went wild. The catcher stood to reach it, hesitating in question before he returned to his crouch.

Jenks rubbed his wings together to get my attention, giving me a merry thumbs-up for the bit of ley line magic. I returned his grin with a weak smile. The pixy was sitting on Captain Edden's shoulder so he could see better. The two had mended their fences over a conversation about country western singers and a night out at a karaoke bar. I didn't want to know. Really.

Edden followed Jenks's attention to me, his eyes behind his round-framed glasses suddenly suspicious. Jenks distracted him by loudly extolling the features of a trio of women headed up the concrete steps. The squat man's face reddened but the smile remained.

Grateful, I turned to Glenn, finding he had already finished his hot dog. I should have gotten him two. 'How's Piscary's court case shaping up?' I asked.

The tall man shifted in his seat with a bound excitement as he wiped his fingers off on his jeans. Out of his suit and tie, he looked like another person, the sweatshirt emblazoned with the Howlers' logo making him appear comfortable and safe. 'With your demon's testimony, I think it's reasonably secure,' he said. 'I've been waiting for a surge in violent crimes, but they've dropped.' He glanced at his dad. 'I'm thinking the lesser houses are waiting until Piscary is officially incarcerated before they start vying for his territory.'

'They won't.' My fingers and words sent another ball clean out of the park with a boost of ever-after energy. It was harder to gather the power from the nearby line. The park's safeguards were kicking in. 'Kisten is handling Piscary's affairs,' I said sourly. 'It's business as usual.'

'Kisten?' He leaned closer. 'He's not a master vamp. Won't that cause problems?'

Nodding, I sent a pop fly to bounce wrong. The players became slow with tension as it hit the wall and rolled in an odd direction. Glenn had no idea how much trouble it was going to be. Ivy was Piscary's scion. By unwritten vamp law, she was in charge whether she wanted to be or not. It put the retired I.S. runner in a huge moral dilemma, caught between her vampire responsibilities and her need to be true to herself. She was ignoring Piscary's summons to his jail cell, along with a lot of other things that were quietly building.

Hiding behind the excuse that everyone thought Kist was still Piscary's scion, she did nothing, claiming that Kisten had the clout, if not the physical presence, to hold everything together. It didn't look good, but I wasn't about to advise her to start handling Piscary's affairs. Not only had she devoted her life to bringing in those who broke the law, but she'd snap while trying to best the pull of blood and domination such a position would magnify.

Seeing no more comments forthcoming, Glenn crumbled his paper and dropped it into a coat pocket. 'So, Rachel,' he said, glancing at the empty seat beside Nick. 'How is your roommate? Better?'

I took another bite. 'She's handling it,' I said around my full mouth. 'She would have come today but the sun really bothers her—lately.'

Lots of things bothered her since having glutted herself on Piscary's blood: the sun, too much noise, not enough noise, the lack of speed of her computer, the pulp in her orange juice, the fish in her bathtub until Jenks