Anxious, I pressed my knees together as Ivy wheeled me down the hall. We'd passed the long walkway over the service drive, and we were indeed in the children's wing. An awful feeling of dread and familiarity settled in me, and my gut clenched.
The smell was different, holding the scent of baby powder and crayons. The walls were a warmer yellow now, and the railings...I eyed them as we rolled past. There was a second, lower set, which just about killed me. Pictures of puppies and kittens were on the walls at seated height. And rainbows. Kids shouldn't be ill. But they were. They died here, and it wasn't fair.
I felt the prick of tears, and Jenks landed on my shoulder. "You okay?"
It isn't fair, damn it. "No," I said, forcing myself to smile so he wouldn't ask Ivy to stop. I could hear kids talking loudly with the intensity that children used when they knew they had only a short time to make their voices heard.
We were going by the playroom, the tall windows with the blinds open to show the snow, and the ceiling lights turned up to make it almost as bright as noon. It was just after midnight, and only the Inderlander kids would be up, most of them in their rooms with a parent or two, having their dinner. If they could swing it, most parents visited during meals to try to make their child's hospital room into a piece of the familiar by eating with them, and the kids-without exception-were too kind to tell them it only made home look that much farther away.
We slowly rolled by the bright room with its night-black windows. I wasn't surprised to see it empty but for the pack of kids whose parents were too far away to stop in for meals or had other responsibilities. They were an independent bunch, and they talked a lot. I smiled when they caught sight of us, but shock filled me when one of them shouted, "Ivy!"
Immediately the table in the far corner emptied out, and I sat in amazement as we were suddenly surrounded by kids in brightly colored pj's. One was enthusiastically dragging her IV stand behind her, and three had lost their hair from chemotherapy, still legal after the Turn, when more effective biomedicines were not. The oldest of the three, a skinny girl with her jaw clenched, lagged behind with a tired determination. She wore a bright red bandanna that matched her pajamas, and it gave her an endearing bad-girl look.
"Ivy, Ivy, Ivy!" a red-cheeked boy about six shouted again, shocking the hell out of me when he flung himself at Ivy's knees in an enthusiastic hug. Ivy flamed red, and Jenks laughed, spilling dust in a sheet of gold.
"Did you come to eat with us and throw peas at the parrot?" the girl with the IV asked, and I turned in my chair to see Ivy all the better.
"Pixy, pixy, pixy!" the boy on her legs shouted, and Jenks flew up out of his reach.
"Uh, I'm going to do a nurse check," he said nervously, then zipped off at ceiling height. There was a chorus of disappointment, and Ivy disentangled herself, kneeling to put us all on the same level. "No, Daryl," she said, "I'm sneaking my friend out for some ice cream, so lower your voices before they check up on you."
Immediately the shouts diminished to giggling whispers. One of the bald kids, a boy by the cowboys on his pajamas, ran to the end of the hall and peeked around the corner. He gave us a distant thumbs-up, and everyone sighed. There were only five of them, but they all apparently knew Ivy, and they clustered around us like...kids.
"She's a witch," the red-cheeked boy, still attached to Ivy's leg, said, pitching his tone imperialistically. His hand was on his hip, and he was clearly the floor's self-proclaimed king. "She can't be your friend. Vampires and witches don't make friends."
"She has a black aura," the girl with the IV said, backing up. Her eyes were wide, but I could tell by her plump, healthy body that she was going to survive. She was one of the kids who come in, stay, then leave, never to return. She must be special to have been accepted into what was clearly the clique of children who...weren't going to have an easy go of it.
"Are you a black witch?" the girl who had lagged behind asked. Her brown eyes were huge in her medicine-ravaged face. There was no fear in her, not because she was ignorant, but because she knew she was dying, and she knew I wasn't going to be the cause of her death. My heart went out to her. She was seeing around corners, but not yet ready to go. One more thing possibly to see and do.
Ivy shifted uncomfortably at her question. "Rachel is my friend," she said simply. "Would I be a friend to a black witch?"
"You might," Daryl said haughtily, and someone stepped on his foot to make him yelp. "But her aura is black!" the king protested. "And she has a demon mark. See?"
Everyone drew back with fear except the tall girl in the red pajamas. She simply stood before me and looked at my wrist, and unlike most times when someone pointed it out and I tried to hide it, I turned my hand up for all of them to see.
"I got it when a demon tried to kill me," I said, knowing most of them had to gain a lifetime of wisdom in just a few years and had no time for pretend, yet pretend was all they had. "I had to accept a very bad thing to survive."
Small heads bobbed and eyes grew wide, but the king lifted his chin and took a stance that was utterly charming-a round, chubby Jenks with his hands on his hips. "That's evil," he said, certain of his belief. "You should never do anything evil. If you do, you are evil and go to hell. My mom says so."
I felt ill when the smallest girl, with the IV, shrank back farther yet, tugging at her friend to leave with her.
"I'm sorry," Ivy whispered as she stood up and took the handles of the wheelchair. "I didn't think they would come over. They don't understand."
But the thing was, they did understand. They had the wisdom of the world in their eyes. They understood too well, and seeing their fear, I felt my heart gray.
Ivy made shooing motions with her hand, and they broke their circle. All except the skinny girl in the bright red pajamas. Seeing my misery, she reached out with her small, smooth, child hands and delicately took my wrist with her pinkie extended. Turning my hand palm up, she used a finger to slowly trace the circle and line. "Ivy's friend isn't evil for doing something to survive what hurt her," she said, her voice soft but certain. "You take poison to kill the bad cells in you, Daryl, just like me. It hurts you, makes you tired, makes you sick, but if you didn't you would die. Ivy's friend took a demon mark to save her life. It's the same thing."
Ivy's motion to push the chair stopped. The kids went silent, each thinking, assessing what they had been told with the harsh reality of what they lived with. Daryl's sure look faltered, and he pushed forward, not wanting to look like a coward, or worse, cruel. He peered over the arm of the wheelchair at my scar, then up to my face. His small round face broke into a smile of acceptance. I was one of them, and he knew it. My jaw unclenched, and I smiled back.
"I'm sorry," Daryl said, then scrambled up to sit in my lap. "You're okay."
My breath came fast, in surprise, but my hands naturally folded around him to keep him in place so he wouldn't fall. Daryl gave a hop and settled in, snuggling his head under my chin and tracing the demon scar as if to memorize its lines. He smelled like soap, and under that, of a green meadow faraway and distant. I blinked fast to keep the tears from brimming over, and Ivy laid a hand on my shoulder.
The girl with the red pajamas smiled like Ceri, wise and fragile. "You're not bad inside," she said, petting my wrist. "Just hurt." She put her hand on Daryl's shoulder, and her gaze going distant, she murmured, "It will be okay. There's always a chance."
It was so close to what I was feeling, what I'd felt when I was growing up, that I leaned forward, and with Daryl between us, I gave her a hug. "Thank you," I whispered, my eyes closed as I held her to me. "I needed to remember that. You're very wise."
Daryl slid down and away, squirming to get out from between us, darting to stand nearby, looking uncomfortable, yet pleased to have been included.
"That's what my mom says," the girl said, her eyes wide and serious. "She says the angels want me back so I can teach them about love."
I closed my eyes, but it didn't do any good, and a hot tear slipped down. "I'm sorry," I said as I wiped it away. I'd just broken one of the secret rules. "I've been away too long."
"It's okay," she said. "You're allowed if there aren't any parents around."
My throat closed up, and I held her hand. It was all I could do. Jenks's wings clattered a warning, and all the kids sighed and drew back when he landed on my upraised hand.
"They know where you are," he said.
Ivy, almost forgotten, shifted the chair, rolling it back as she turned to look behind us. "We have to go," she said to the kids.
Instead of the expected complaints, they dutifully dropped away, all looking toward a distant clacking of heels. The king straightened and said, "You want us to slow them down?"
I looked up at Ivy, whose grin transformed her face. "If we get away, I'll tell you two stories next time," she said, and delight showed on every young face.
"Go," the girl in red pajamas said, pulling the king out of the way with the gentle hands of the mother she would never be.
"Let's save the witch princess!" the boy cried, and he ran down the hall. The others fell into place the best they could, some moving fast, others slow, the bright colors of childhood scarred with bald heads and gaits too slow for their enthusiasm.
"I'm going to cry," Jenks said, sniffing as he flew up to Ivy. "I'm going to freaking cry."
Ivy's face, as she watched them, showed a depth of emotion I'd never seen; then she turned away, divorcing herself from it. Lips tight together, she started into motion. I turned to face where we were going, and her brisk steps seemed to carry the desperation that there was nothing she could do to save them.
Jenks flew ahead to get the elevator, holding it by hovering at the sensor. Ivy wheeled me in and around. The doors shut, and the tragic wisdom of the children's wing was gone. I took a breath, and my throat tightened.
"I didn't think you would understand them," Ivy said softly. "They really like you."
"Understand them?" I said raggedly, my throat still holding that lump. "I am them." I hesitated, then asked, "You come here a lot?"
The elevator opened to show a smaller, friendlier lobby with a Christmas tree and solstice decorations, and beyond, a big black Hummer burning gas at the snowy curb. "About once a week," she said, pushing me forward.
Jenks was humming happily about a horse with no name. The lady at the desk was on the phone, eyeing us, but my worry vanished when she waved, telling whoever she was talking to that the lobby was empty. Just her and Dan.
Dan was a young man in an orderly's smock, and he opened the door for us with a grin. "Hurry," he said as Jenks dived into my jacket and I zipped it up. "They're right behind you."
Ivy smiled. "Thanks, Dan. I'll bring you some ice cream."
Dan grinned. "You do that. I'll just tell them you hit me."
She laughed, and with that pleasant sound in my ears, we left the hospital.
It was bitterly cold, but the doors to the Hummer swung open, and two living vamps jumped out. "Uh, Ivy, that's not Erica," I said when they made a beeline for us. They were in black jeans and matching black T-shirts that all but screamed security, and I tensed.
"Erica's got people," Ivy said when Erica slid down and out from the backseat. Ivy's sister looked like a younger version of Ivy without all the emotional baggage: bright, happy, and active. Piscary had never looked her way due to Ivy intentionally distracting him, and the young living vamp was innocence where Ivy was jaded, loud where Ivy was reserved, and Ivy would do anything to keep it that way, even sacrificing herself.
"Oh my God!" the young woman squealed. "You're really breaking out of the hospital? Ivy called, and I was like, oh my God! Of course I'll pick you up. Then Rynn offered to drive, and it was a no-brainer. I mean, who wants to be picked up in their mom's station wagon?"
"Rynn Cormel is here?" I murmured, suddenly on edge, then started when the two burly living vamps in black jeans and matching T-shirts made a chair of their arms around me and I was airborne. The cold didn't seem to affect them, which seemed unfair. Old scars made an ugly mass on the neck of one man, but the other had only one, and it was relatively old.
"What happened to your mom's sedan?" I asked Ivy, and Erica fidgeted with the collar of her coat, her narrow-tipped boots marking the snow.
"A tree hit it," Erica said. "Totally totaled it. Not my fault. It was squirrel karma."
Squirrel karma?
"I'll tell you later," Ivy said as she leaned close. The intoxicating mix of vampire incense and male warmth was thick around me, and it was almost a disappointment when the two guys eased me into the back and let go. I didn't recognize them; they weren't Piscary's old crew.
"Are you okay?" I asked Erica as she slid in beside me with the scent of citrus.
"Oh, sure, but Mom almost died twice."
Ivy had gotten into the front seat, and looking remarkably relaxed, she leaned over the back. "The only person who almost died twice was you," she said to her sister, and Erica played with the thin strips of black leather dangling from her ears. She was still going Goth, complete with peekaboo lace at the neck and little tomatoes dangling among the skull and crossbones on her necklace. I wondered what she was doing with Rynn Cormel, as he was very much the sophisticate, but Ivy didn't seem worried, and Erica was as bright as ever.
There was a folded newspaper on the seat, but my sigh at the picture of the mall turned into a frown when I read, WITCH FLEES CIRCLE MALL, CAUSE OF RIOT? Isn't that nice...
"Are we all in?" came a rusty New York accent from my left, and I jumped, not having noticed Rynn Cormel in the corner. Holy crap, the attractively aged, former political leader was right next to me, and God, he smelled good. His power-colored tie was loosened and his hair was tousled, as if Erica had been in it. Smiling his world-famous, world-changing smile, which showed the barest hint of fang, he folded the newspaper and tucked it away. Shifting his eyes to the driver through the rearview mirror, he silently told her to go.
The door to my right slammed shut, and I was shoved closer to the undead vampire, making my pulse race. Ivy pushed to the middle in the front seat, and the other vamp got in beside her. With the thump of the closing door, alarm hit me. I was in a car with one dead vamp and five living ones. It was starting to smell really good in here. And if I liked what it smelled like, then they were liking what they were smelling, and ah...that would be me.
"Uh," I stammered when we crept into motion, and Rynn Cormel laughed with the practiced art of diplomacy.
"You are the last person who needs to fear anything from me, Ms. Morgan," he said, his eyes a safe brown in the streetlights. "I have other plans for you."
It might have sounded like a threat, but I knew what his plans were, and it didn't involve his teeth in my neck. Just the opposite, actually. "Yeah, but still," I protested when Erica shoved me over even more, thinking it was great fun by the amount of giggling and jumping she was doing. She was in black tights and a miniskirt, and not showing even a hint of being cold.
"Drive slowly," Ivy demanded. "She gets dizzy if you go too fast."
My focus became distant, and I suddenly realized there was only the barest hint of vertigo running through me, and we were going a lot faster than an elevator. "I'm fine," I said softly, and Ivy turned to look at me in surprise when we drove sedately under a streetlamp. I nodded, and she turned back around.
"Thanks, Ivy. Thank you, Jenks," I said as we slowed, then pulled onto the road.
"That's what we're here for," came Jenks's muffled response. "Now how about a little air?" and I unzipped my coat until he yelled that it was enough.
Remembering the kids, I leaned over to look up at the tall building behind us, knowing exactly where to look. Clustered at the wide plate-glass windows three stories up were five faces pressed against the glass. I waved, and one waved back. Happy, I settled into the seat of Rynn Cormel's car, promising myself I would come back and bring them my old tea set. Or maybe my stuffed animals. And ice cream.
"Thanks for picking us up, Mr. Cormel," I said, and the vampire breathed deep. The almost inaudible sound seemed to dive to my middle and pluck a long-silent chord. Warmth flooded me, and I found myself gazing at nothing, completely relaxed, just existing in the hint of promise he was giving off. It wasn't anything like the lame groping of the young undead vampire at the mall, and Ivy's neck stiffened.
Rynn Cormel leaned over to touch her shoulder. "It was my pleasure," he said to me, but his fingers were on Ivy. "I was on my way to visit you, actually. I have some information."
Ivy's eyes were pupil black when she turned to see us. "You know who killed Kisten?"
I held my breath, but the man shook his head. "I know who didn't."
