Entre l'Amour et la Mort, Chapter 13
Title: Entre l'Amour et la Mort
Author: P-L
Word count: 5732
Fandom: The Hollows, AKA the Rachel Morgan Series, Rachel/Ivy
Rating: M
Disclaimer: Those characters belong to Kim Harrison. I'm just having a little fun with them.
Summary: A run gone wrong sets events into motion, events that lead to a bittersweet realisation... and the birth of Rachel's worst nightmare.
She was a bloody mess. There was no denying it, not even Dorothy “Models wish they were hot like me” Claymor could make the aftermath of an undead vampire attack fashionable. Her usual tanned complexion had turned grey, her blond hair hung, matted with sweat and blood. The bandage on her neck was still clean, but she was still in obvious pain when she pushed off the couch to a somewhat upright position, her once-pretty face scrunching up in a wince that she refused to let out of her throat. Her blue eyes, usually as deep as the ocean and sharper than a razor’s edge, were pitch black, but she was miles away from pulling an aura. The confidence required had been ripped out of her along with her blood and dignity. What was left of her... it was so little of the snarky, strong and smart woman I had known it horrified me, no matter how much we disliked each other.
There was enough left of her to feel some semblance of pride, however, and she did bring her hand to her neck to hide it the instant my eyes touched it. She obviously didn’t want my pity, or maybe she was ashamed.
“Came here to gloat, have you?” She managed to summon enough anger at me to hide the pain, as if she dared me to forget our mutual dislike and offer any comfort. She held herself high despite the pain, and even tucked away some of her befouled hair behind her ear, all the better to show her stormy eyes.
“Hmph. I don’t like you, but I’m not that much of a bitch.” I answered, crossing my arms, my voice neutral rather than gentle, as I wanted it to be. If her dark smirk at my reply was any indication, she definitely didn’t want her bitter rival to coddle her. She’d probably spit in my face if I did. “Ivy asked me to keep an eye on you while she’s out.”
“She... she’s gone?” Skimmer asked me, what little composure she had scrapped together slipping instantly, though the strain to keep hold of it showed on her face. Vampires are like that. They need to look up to someone stronger than they are, especially in times of distress, like say, a blood rape. Skimmer had obviously made Ivy her surrogate Master, even if according to her, Skimmer would need the real deal if she was ever to recover. I was still on the fence as far as that particular plan was concerned, but Ivy had my trust.
Maybe I could volunteer to stay close to her all the time. She seems to get better when she’s got a rage-on for me...
“She’s trying to get in touch with an old friend of yours. It shouldn’t take long.”
“Nat?” Skimmer guessed in an unsure voice, and I nodded; she half-scoffed, half-sobbed at my answer. “She’s wasting her time. How could Nat possibly still want me after this? She already cut me off the instant I left, even though I had her blessing. Now I’m... leftovers. She has higher standards than that. Shut up.” She cut me off the second my mouth opened, a compassionate word on the tip of my tongue. “I need...” She inhaled deeply, probably trying to steady herself, and ended up almost gagging. “I need a shower.”
“You... I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Better not get that bandage wet.” I scrambled for an excuse not to let her out of my sight. Don’t think I wasn’t aware of how stupid I probably sounded. “Besides, I think you should probably be resting. Just sit tight and wait until Ivy gets back. She’ll help you with that.”
She didn’t say anything at first, just stared at me with huge, eerie black eyes. I could barely see her breathing, and I couldn’t fathom what was going on in her head, but what little I could see in her eyes... it was painful. She couldn’t hide her distress, no matter how prideful she was.
“Rachel, I can still smell him.” She finally answered, though her teeth were gritted so tight I could barely make it out and her head was lowered. “I can smell him on my skin and it makes me want to fucking rip it off! Please, I just... I want to feel clean again. Please...”
It was a struggle not to let anything show. Fuck, fuck, fuck! I had promised Ivy I’d keep an eye on her, but what could I do faced with this? Her need was too raw, too heartfelt. I had no idea she could still smell her attacker on herself. It had to feel like salt in a gaping wound. I couldn’t do the safe thing and wait. Maybe my emotional control was getting shot to hell and it was clouding my judgement, but I just couldn’t ignore her and tell her to stay put.
“Okay.” I gave in and nodded to her, and she made a sound that might have been conveying gratitude, had it come from anyone else. “But you’re using my shower stall. That’s final.” I cut her off this time. “I’ll get you Ivy’s soap if you want,” I offered, knowing it would probably bring her some sort of comfort to rub some of Ivy’s scent on herself, “but you’re showering in my bathroom.”
“Why?” She hissed, looking at me like I was the single most annoying and offensive thing on Earth... which she probably did. There goes the kinda-gratitude...
Why? Because I know where all my razors are, and I don’t want you to get any one on one time with one of Ivy’s. I could make my bathroom relatively safe, but not Ivy’s, hence, she had to take her shower in mine. See? Who says I can’t plan ahead when I need to?
“It’s easier to pull someone out of my shower, if something’s wrong.” I made up a reason, and an almost convincing one at that, now that I think about it. “Besides, it doesn’t lock. It’s safer if I can reach you in a pinch.”
She sighed and muttered something I suspected was mean under her breath, but otherwise complied, her desire for a shower overshadowing her annoyance at me. She followed me to my bathroom, waiting outside while I quickly gathered everything sharp I could find, under the pretence of putting away my unmentionables (hey, better she think I was a prude rather than think I was actually worried about her), my bathroom serving a double function as a laundry room and being also filled with clothes of mine both clean and not. More ugly, ugly memories came to mind as I did, memories of that horrible night almost two years ago when Piscary had forcefully made Ivy his Scion and she had to clean his blood and hers from her ravaged body. It hadn’t done much for her mind, however; somehow, I doubted it would do much for Skimmer’s either.
I quickly whipped away the few tears my memories summoned; Skimmer might think my distress was for her, and bit my lip to stifle any sound I might make. It didn’t change the fact I could see her from the corner of my eye as I rummaged through my cabinet; Ivy’s dark, hunched figure, blood streaming along with water down her body in pale, pink rivulets, still and nigh-dead under a scalding spray she was far too numb to feel. Long delayed pain and guilt and sheer soul-rending anger washed over me, all the emotional distress I had been too overwhelmed by events, by the struggle to stay alive, to have time to feel back then. Now it was merciless, crushing my heart like a vice. My restraint, my mercy of Piscary, when I held his miserable existence in the palm of my hand, it sickened me now. I should have plunged that stake in his heart then and there for what he did to those I loved. Ivy wouldn’t have suffered as his Scion for almost a year. Kist would still be here. Heck, even Skimmer would probably be better off, but no; I had chosen a moral victory over an actual one, and everyone paid the price.
Christ, maybe Trent’s not so wrong after all. Maybe there truly is such a thing as necessary evil... I thought, and knew instantly that it was the anguish talking, because “Trent” and “not wrong” could not be used together in the same sentence. I chuckled bitterly at my own inner joke, probably to the dismay of the blond vamp watching me.
“You better tell me you’re not getting all worked up over me.” Skimmer said snidely from the doorway, the weight of her gaze on me just now registering as I hunched over my tiny sink, trying to get my breathing under control. I wasn’t sure how much of my mini outburst she’d observed. “I might just puke.”
“Not a chance.” I replied curtly, gathering a few pairs of stray undies before I forgot my pretence. Hey, at least they hid my razors from view... “All yours.”
I needn’t have bothered with my pseudo deception, honestly. Skimmer’s still-black eyes were riveted to her reflection in the bathroom mirror, staring straight at the mess of her neck, as if she could see beneath the bandage and gaze upon the grisly wound on her neck.
“I’ll be outside.” I told her after clearing my throat, hoping to snap her out of her contemplations, whatever they were. She began to undress, her back turned to me, without even shooting me a glance. “I don’t know what do for you about clothes. You don’t want to put those back on.” The clothes she was discarding one by one were partly torn and covered in blood, and I could imagine they smelled absolutely repugnant to her.
“The last drawer.” She shot over her now-naked shoulder, her entire back bare. Lean muscles played under her skin as she unclasped her bra and tossed it on the pile, where it was soon followed by her skirt. She had no panties on, for Ivy’s benefit, I quietly hoped; better that than having them ripped off by her attacker.
“What was that?” I snapped out of my once over of her very impressive body (not that I was checking her out; she had pretty nasty bruises all over her back, and I wanted to make sure Ivy hadn’t missed any injuries... honest.). Her stare was half quizzical, half annoyed, and she gestured behind me as she repeated herself.
“The last drawer in Ivy’s dresser. Do I need to draw you a picture?”
Blink. “Oh.” Blink. “Right.” Blink. Blink.
Skimmer has a drawer in Ivy’s room. Skimmer has a drawer in Ivy’s room. Skimmer has a drawer in Ivy’s room.
Does it make me horribly shallow to be having a surge of rabid jealousy in a moment like that? Yeah, that’s what I thought. I’m a horrible person, but let me tell you that searching Skimmer’s sleepover drawer was definitely punishment enough...
Honestly, it was an exercise in self-esteem, especially considering how fresh my mental image of her gorgeous, if battered, figure was. The woman was as fond of white as Ivy was of black, but the apparent, elegant simplicity of her usual apparel belied the ludicrous amount and variety of lingerie she had stockpiled for Ivy... Let’s just say that it was enough to make me worried the vamp wouldn’t be all that satisfied with our intimacy, if this day ever ended and we ever got around to it. I wasn’t prude or anything, but I didn’t have the confidence to wear half the naughty stuff Skimmer had in there. There was little doubt about the kind of activity she had in mind when spending the night; I didn’t want to know what that long narrow bulge tucked in the corner was...
Still, I managed to get my hands on fresh, almost functional underwear, jeans and a white silk shirt. Skimmer’s cream coloured, vamp leather boots were salvageable, at least, so I didn’t have to worry about footwear. I left everything inside my bathroom for Skimmer to find, and resumed my watch after checking in on her. Judging by her voice when she answered me, I could tell she was quietly crying while out of my direct line of sight, but otherwise she sounded as alright as she could be. Still, I stuck around outside, so I could go in quickly enough if anything happened. The only thing she could do to hurt herself was to use shards of my mirror, and I’d hear if she broke it.
Man, what a night... I shook my head to clear some of the bone-deep weariness that was settling in. I’m going bipolar for sure. Grief over Marshall, pure, seething anger at Lee (I kicked myself for forgetting, yet again, to warn Ivy about him), joy over Ivy and I finally seeing eye to eye, anguish, both fresh and old, over what happened to Skimmer... I was getting very, very tired of the downs and occasional up, and so ready to call it a night, but a little voice in the back of my mind told me Ivy and I weren’t out of the woods yet, not even close.
“Do you need a hand in there?” I couldn’t resist offering and peeked into the bathroom. She was dressed, but her back was to me and I couldn’t see her wounded neck. “Want me to help you change the bandage?”
“I’m fine!” She half turned to yell at me, nearly hysterical. “Will you leave me the hell...” She seemed to realise mid-sentence that she was totally loosing her cool, something that was unacceptable in front of me, and turned to face me, a hand on her neck. “The blood in my veins is a millennia old, Rachel. Between it and Ivy’s saliva, I heal quickly.” She stated a little dully. In a somewhat jerky motion, she ripped off the soggy gauze, and turned her head as if to show of what was beneath it. There was still a wound there, but it didn’t look half as bad as it did half an hour ago. It was impressive, if eerie, reminding me of her earlier displays of power against Ivy; Skimmer truly had terrifying untapped potential. If she’d had half of Ivy’s training, she would be unstoppable to anything living, short of a demon.
“Better to cover it again anyway.” I insisted stubbornly. “Just let me give you a hand, and I’ll get out of your way until Ivy gets back.”
“Fine.” She sighed and sat down on the toilet, and I smirked inwardly; I’d guessed right as to what might motivate her to listen to me. I quickly fetched the first aid kit again and got what I needed from it before kneeling before the blond vamp. Her hair was still damp from the shower, and she had no make up on, making her look younger and much messier than usual. The tattered remnants of her attitude and confidence she still held close to herself, like a drowning man holds on to a life jacket, and the look she gave me before she allowed me to look at her neck again was annoyed and cold.
“Okay, don’t move.” I demanded, taking a quick look before I dressed the wound again. It looked okay; the real wounds would show themselves in the years to come, long after the scars on her body had healed. I couldn’t do much about those except not treat her with pity now and not letting her cause herself more pain.
Maybe I could take the bait and give her that fight she’s been fishing for... I thought in annoyance as her noise scrunched up in disdain at having me this close to her.
“God, how can Ivy stand your stench...” She muttered under her breath, making me twitch and sigh. I wanted to say the same about her, but honestly, she didn’t smell bad at all, much as it sickened me to admit it; her pheromones were probably mellowing me a little. Besides, vamp always thought people they cared about smelled great, and vice-versa for those they disliked. She probably wasn’t lying.
“Could you pretend to want to help me here?” I was getting a little peeved nonetheless...
“I can’t help it.” She replied with her trademark venomous sweetness. “Your smell doesn’t mix well with Ivy’s. At all.”
“Well, if I remember correctly, you said I smelled like any other witch just a few hours ago. Or are you telling me every one of my kind stinks?” I sighed again and tried to cool before I slapped her. Damn, I hated the woman. The way she got under my skin was simply preternatural, and coming from an Inderlander, that says something. “Just try and work with me here, would you? It’ll be over quicker that way, for both of us.”
She growled quietly, and glared at me a bit, but otherwise complied, letting me dress her wound at long last. It wasn’t as neat and professional as Ivy’s work, but at least it held.
“There. Was that so painful?” I asked innocently as I stepped away, but Skimmer had gone completely quiet, her breathing so still I almost jarred her before she made herself pass out.
“Painful, Rachel?” She breathed very, very quietly. “Yes. Yes, I’d say that was painful.” Her dark eyes fixed on mind, not a trace of emotion in them. “Ivy kissed you recently, didn’t she?”
“How did you-?” My eyes widened in surprise, and my hand shot almost guiltily to my lips. She couldn’t have that much of a sense of smell, could she? There was no way she could smell Ivy on my lips when I smelled like her all over... right?
“She did. Don’t lie to me, she did.” She snarled, her small body seemingly taking half the available space. She was getting riled up, and I was getting worried. My bathroom was much too small for both me and an upset vampire who could snap my neck like a twig. Hell, as far as I was concerned, the church was too small for that.
“Skimmer, calm down.” I warned her. “I don’t want to hurt you anymore than you already are.”
“Oh, is that so? Then why didn’t you stay the hell away from Ivy when I moved here, uh? Why, when Ivy doesn’t even interest you? If you’d just done that, everything would have worked out between us.” She stood up, and instinctively, I grabbed hold of the line out back. My scar was starting to tingle, but not enough to stop me in my tracks this time. I was ready for her, whatever she tried.
“What have you ever done for Ivy?” She asked me, her pain drowned out by anger. “I mean, besides neutering her and confirming those ridiculous notions that there’s something wrong with her just for being a vampire? What can she possibly see in you that’s not in me? What’s so great between you that she would reject me over it? Me! I know her as if I’d made her, Rachel! I know her better than she knows herself, and unlike you, I love her!”
“I love her too.” I defended myself, standing my ground against the anguished vamp. Backing away would be a sign of weakness, one she would latch on to and dominate me with. “I’m what she-“
“I don’t believe this... You actually dare say you love her?! You made her change everything for you! You made her turn her back on herself, on who she is! She’ll always be a vampire, Rachel, but you, you made her into a miserable one!”
“Piscary made her miserable, not me.” I protested. What she implied was preposterous. Ivy had been messed up long before I met her. I had little merit in how far she’d come, seeing as she had made those efforts for me, but I certainly hadn’t pushed her into anything.
“Piscary made her lose control and hate herself. I taught her control. Me! I taught her how to live with it, even enjoy what he made her into! I thought I’d have a chance to finish what I started in high school when I moved here, but no, I was back at square one. Because of you, her head was filled with those ridiculous ideas that sharing blood was a horrible and ugly act. I’d say it’s hypocritical, if I remember the way you witches have sex. What? Are you telling me you and your unimpressive male lover didn’t do a power pull? Go ahead, tell me it’s not exactly the same as sharing blood. I dare you.”
“I tried to share blood with her.” I blushed a little as she hit the nail on the head, but I tried to ignore the elephant in the room. Indeed, Marshall and I had done a power pull, and it had been such a frigid moment it should have tipped me off that it was a bad idea to go any further. She had a point that it was a very similar, if less dangerous, act. How she knew about it, however, was a mystery. “We couldn’t make it work.”
“Yes, you certainly did try, and God, you have no idea how often she cried to me after she bit you. You made her loose so much progress towards her own acceptance in such a short time... I couldn’t believe my eyes. I almost had her convinced she wasn’t a monster before you decided to screw her over.”
“I screwed her over? We were both pretty stupid that time! She wanted it too much, and I didn’t want the whole deal. Compromising just didn’t work, but how were we supposed to know that without trying first.”
“No, indeed you didn’t want all of her, and still you dare tell me you love her? If you do, it’s the love one has for a pet, nothing else. You only ever took the parts that suited you from her, never the whole person, even if she is fanatically devoted to you. Ivy deserves more, so tell me what the hell is between you that’s worth all this bullshit! I sure as hell can’t see it.”
“I don’t know!” I shouted and almost shoved her away from me, the beginning of an aura she was trying to pull making me shiver. “I don’t have a clue what’s between us! I just know that we can’t help wanting to be around each other, okay?! I know that when she bites me, she not only takes my blood and my aura, she touches something so deep in me that our auras become one! I don’t know what the hell it means, I just know it’s there and neither of us wants to let it go!”
Skimmer abruptly fell silent, as if I had just slapped her hard.
“Your... your auras m-merge?” She stammered, her whole body quivering. “You... you lying little bitch! It’s a myth! It can’t happen, I know it! I’m sure of it!”
Okay, she knows something I don’t...
“I’m not lying to you.” I replied carefully, my training dictating I lower myself into a half crouch and ready myself to fight. “Believe it or don’t, it’s the truth. You can deny it all you want, but there is something wonderful between her and me.”
“Between? You think this has anything to do with you? Stupid little girl, so self-centered...” She shook her head, her voice quiet now. “It has nothing to do with you. Anyone Ivy cares sufficiently about could merge their aura with her during a bite. It’s such a rare phenomenon, it requires such trust and love that we all believe it’s merely mythical. But it’s not. It really happened, didn’t it?” She gazed at me with huge, shimmering eyes, the doubt and fear in them soul-deep. I couldn’t, for the life of me, tell if she wanted me to acknowledge or deny what had happened between me and Ivy.
“Yes” I answered gently after a long pause. “Yes, it did happen. Our auras merged as one. She bit me another time last fall. We had no idea what it meant.” At least, I sure didn’t. Maybe Ivy had a clue after all. Maybe it explained her fascination with me somehow...
No, it’s the other way around. We can make this... thing, this wonderful thing, happen between us because she cares so much about me. My head was almost swimming with this new tidbit of information. I knew Ivy cared, that she was fanatically devoted to me, but this was apparently the Holy Grail of vampirism... and we had it. Holy crap.
“She found it. She found what she was looking for all along. And it’s not me.” Skimmer sounded utterly broken. It should have tipped me off. I didn’t spot the grim resolve in her eyes until it was too late.
She rushed me like a raging bull, but not in an attempt to hurt me. She simply wanted me out of her way, and doing just that she made my back slam against the wall, hard enough to knock the wind out of me. My arms instantly shot up to block any follow up attack, but she only walked past me and out of my bathroom, leaving me sprawled on the floor with stars dancing before my eyes and my heart beating in my temples. I could hear her heading for the kitchen, and gathered my will to push off the cold tile floor. I followed suit, half stumbling, ley line energy filling my chi a bit more harshly than I was used to. It was just a precaution, an instinctive one, but it proved useful when I walked in the kitchen just in time to see Skimmer press our huge knife to her throat.
“No!!” I cried out, my hand reaching for the blond vampire. It was pointless, of course. I couldn’t reach her before she slit her own throat, and at that point, no amount of magic or vampire fluids would save her. She was already gone... or she would have been had I been human. As it was, my hand was merely focus for the whip-thin thread of ley line energy I snapped, with more accuracy than I thought I was capable of, at the utensil in her hand. The knife flew away from her at an insane speed and buried halfway through one of our cupboards, the handle quivering about as much as the vampire standing, stupefied, in the middle of my kitchen. I didn’t waste any time.
It was my turn to lunge up to her with every ounce of speed in my body. I reached out for her wrists and managed to twist her arm in a submission hold that made a cry of pain and surprise erupt from her throat. Before she could react, I had her bent over the island counter, every move flowing into one another with the ease of years of practice. The overhead racks rattled when I shoved her down, but considering her vamp strength, I couldn’t afford to be gentle or considerate with her. My right hand, along with most of my weight, kept her small body pinned down while my left went searching for my splat gun, resting in its usual hiding place, my old, dented spell pot. I had just found the edge of it and begun pulling the weapon out when Skimmer completely stopped struggling, going utterly still beneath me.
“Skimmer?” I asked cautiously, using the hand that held my splat gun to push away some of the hair that obscured her face. She looked blank and barely alive once more. “Will I need to use this?” I gestured within her field of vision with the splat gun.
“No.” She whispered. “Yes. I don’t know.” Her whole face scrunched up in pain that had nothing to do with me hold on her. “What do I have left, Rachel? I came here running after my dream girl, and I lost it all. My job, my friends, my family, my Master... I lost them all, and for what? This?”
“You don’t know that.” I relaxed my grip just a little; I needn’t have bothered holding her at all, to be honest. She was done, completely defeated. “Ivy will be back soon. She’ll have news. Skimmer, you don’t know that. You gotta have faith that things may work out.”
“Yes, I do know. I’ve been so stupid. So goddamn stupid for so long. I’m just getting what’s coming to me now, that’s all.
It was rape talk. Victims who blame themselves for what happened to them were common, but unfortunately for this one, she didn’t have a nice specialist to help her get out of that circle of self-recrimination. She had me. I didn’t want to say she was screwed, but I sure thought it.
“You should let me do it. It’d be more merciful than letting me go on like this.”
You hear that cracking sound? That was my heart breaking. Over Skimmer. Weirdly horrible fucking day...
“Skimmer, I know you’re hurting right now, but it’ll end eventually. Pain always ends, no matter how impossible it seems. You will recover. You can move on from this.
“I can’t. I can’t. I’m no good anymore. I screwed everything up so bad. I can’t deal with the payback.”
She was drowning, in despair and pain, and I couldn’t stand by and just pin her down like this. I strongly disliked her, true, but it felt so inhumane. I couldn’t pretend her situation didn’t strike me to the core any longer.
“You never screwed up. You saved Ivy, remember? You saved her when no one else could. You killed Piscary for her.”
“And for what? I’m not good enough for her. I can see that now.”
Man, this isn’t working...
“I took her from you.” I said in a sudden burst of inspiration. She hated herself right now and tore herself apart with self-loathing. I could shift that focus to someone else. “I’m the one who made her give up on you. I’m the one who led her one for a year. I’m the one she was with tonight, when she should have been by your side, keeping you safe. I did those things, Skimmer, not you. It was my fault.”
I could feel them, increasing with each of my words, the tremors coming from deep within her body. Her eyes swam more and more as emotion took her over, ripping her apart so she could, I hoped, better put herself back together.
Hate me, Skimmer. Hate me. Not yourself, me, with all your heart.
“I HATE YOU!!” It came out like a dam bursting, a tremendous wail of agony from the bottom of her soul. Her whole body shook with the strength of her huge, wracking sobs, as she somehow found enough breath to keep repeating those words over and over again. Tears she had tried to hide from me overflowed, spilling down her cheeks and the slope of her neck. “I hate you so much.”
I still took the broken vamp in my arms. She still let me take her. We were beyond our usual bickering and dislike. I held her, and she held me, both with desperate strength. I stroked her hair while she repeated her mantra, her voice muffled by my chest she had buried her face in. She cried and cried and cried, until she had no tears left and she stilled against me, her head tucked beneath my chin.
“I love you, Skimmer.” I admitted truthfully, surprising myself as much as her. “You saved Ivy when I couldn’t. I may have misjudged you, but at least I’ll say thank you for that. I’ll always be grateful. Always.”
I planted a kiss on her forehead, and pulled the trigger of the splat gun before she could utter a word.
She jerked once as I shot her point blank with a sleep potion, and breathed a sigh of relief on her way down to the floor. I caught her and eased her down, letting her head rest on my lap as I kneeled. Her breathing quickly settled, her muscles relaxed one by one. She looked peaceful at last, if only for a moment (eight hours and counting), and I couldn’t resist stroking her hair. We would never be friends, even if we saw each other again after this was over, which I doubted, but for now... for now, we were okay, I think.
Ivy looked pretty bewildered when she walked in on us like that, but she still thanked me once I assured her Skimmer was unharmed.
“What’s the news?” I asked her while she effortlessly scooped her ex off the floor and carried her into her bedroom. “Got in touch with that guy you talked about?”
“Yeah, I did.” She answered from behind her closed door. She wasn’t any more forthcoming than that.
“Aaand?”
Ivy walked out of her room, sans Skimmer, after a long glance at a tucked in and peaceful blond vamp. “And I got an answer. Nathalie agreed to take Skimmer back into her Camarilla.”
“That’s... good right?” I inquired, a little worried by Ivy’s nervous shiftiness. “Please tell me that’s good...”
“It’s... good, I guess.” She answered, refusing to meet my eyes. “Except for the part where she just got on a sun-proof jet plane.”
I blinked. Blinked again. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You mean she’s actually coming here? In Cinci?” Ivy didn’t reply. She didn’t need to. Her silence said it all. “What are we supposed to do?”
“I’m supposed to get Skimmer to a secure location downtown and wait for her.” I didn’t miss the emphasis she put on I, and apparently, I could be loquacious without moving my lips too, because she picked right up on my intentions. “No. You are staying right here where it’s safe. Nathalie is not happy about this whole ordeal.”
“Then that’s another reason I’m coming with you. If you’re facing an angry Master vamp, you sure as hell aren’t facing her alone.”