White Witch, Black Curse

Blinking fast, I wiped the sting of tears from my scraped cheek as I remembered his confused eyes and his angelic grace. "He was beautiful, Ivy," I said, crying. "He was innocent and savage. He remembered he loved me, and on that alone he tried to save me, save us, the only way he could. Remember, Jenks said I told him Kisten bit his attacker? He did it to save us, Ivy. He died in my arms as his attacker ran away."

My voice broke and I went silent. I couldn't tell her the rest. Not here. Not now.

Ivy blinked fast. It almost looked like panic in her slowly widening pupils. "He killed himself to save you?" she asked. "Because he loved you?"

I clenched my jaw. "Not me. Us. He chose to sacrifice the rest of his existence to save both of us. That vampire hates you, Ivy. He was going on and on about how you were Piscary's queen and he couldn't touch you, but killing Kisten wasn't enough, and how he was going to make you pay for his going to jail and living off discarded shadows for five years."

Ivy backed up. Frightened, she put a hand to her throat. "It wasn't someone who went to visit Piscary. It was someone who was in jail at the same time," she whispered.

Her eyes went utterly black in the dim shadows of the lantern-lit room, and I stifled a shiver. "The psycho was going to kill everyone you had ever loved, including your sister, just to hurt you. After Kisten bit him, he ran away. He fell off the boat. Kisten didn't know if he got enough saliva in him to start a rejection of the virus. He might still be alive. I don't know." Drained, my voice trailed off at the end.

For a moment, Ivy said nothing. Then she turned to the door, yanking it open with enough force to send it crashing into the wall.

"Edden!" she shouted into the snowy darkness. "I know who killed Kisten. He's down here. Bring me another flashlight."

Thirty-three

"It's Art. It's got to be Art," Ivy said as she paced beside me in the empty tunnel, fretting at my slow pace. We'd make faster time if she carried me, but that wasn't going to happen.

"Why are we just now hearing about him?" Edden asked, and I blanched as she turned her anger-black eyes to him.

"Because I'm a stupid ass," she said caustically. "Any more questions?"

"I don't understand why you didn't recognize his scent," I said to distract her, but having her glaring at me wasn't a vast improvement.

Ivy took a slow breath. The shadows of Mia's lantern moved with us, making it seem as if we weren't moving at all. Edden had his own flashlight, and I was shaking too much to hold one. The FIB captain had predictably wanted us to wait for a car, but Ivy was predictably so sure she knew where he was that she headed down before they could get back here. So of course we predictably went with her. At least I had Edden's socks on now, something I hadn't predicted but greatly appreciated.

Slowly Ivy eased her tension, and once calm, she answered, "It was five years ago, and smells change, especially when you go from living in a nice house in the city to a dank hole in the ground. He was my I.S. supervisor." Ivy clenched her jaw, seeing not the darkness ahead of us but her past, fidgeting so subtly that only Jenks or I would notice. "I told you, remember? I put him in jail for one of Piscary's accidental deaths so I wouldn't have to sleep with him to move up in the I.S. hierarchy."

My eyes narrowed, and Edden took an aggressive stance. "Y-you…," he stammered. "That's not legal," he added.

Ivy was nonplussed. Unvoiced thoughts flitting behind her eyes, she glanced at me and said, "Vampires have a different outlook on legal."

It was making a lot of ugly sense, and a slow burn of anger took root as I hiked my coat closer and put one cold foot before the other. The deeper we went, the thicker the dust and dirt were. "So you put him in jail for Piscary's crimes, and then got demoted to me, huh."

Ivy jerked. Mouth open in embarrassment, she said, "It wasn't like that."

"Yes it was," I said, hearing the bitterness as my words echoed back. "I was your punishment. No one puts a witch working with a vampire. I wasn't blind those first few weeks until you…lightened up." I was shivering violently, but I wasn't going to go back and wait in a car.

Shadows on her face, Ivy looked at me. "I could have gone to the Arcane. I chose to be a runner. That I was assigned to you is one of the best things in my life."

Edden cleared his throat uncomfortably, and my face warmed. What could I say to that? "Sorry," I muttered, and she looked ahead.

"Ivy?" Edden's voice was tired. We'd been walking for a good five minutes. His radio wasn't working, and I knew he wasn't happy. "No one is down here. I understand your desire to search, but they inspect the tunnels every year. If there was a vampire here, living or dead, they would have found evidence of it by now."