"No!" I cried out, backpedaling until I found the car behind me again. Panic grew at the soft pop of a gun, muffled in the snow. "Ivy!" I shouted, then jerked when Mia found my throat again. "What have you done?" I whispered, seeing her inches away.
"Don't move," she demanded, eyes wild. "Or Remus will kill her."
She's alive? I squirmed, and my energy left me. I didn't care. "Ivy," I panted. "I can't see her. Let me see her, you cold bitch!"
Mia's face grew ugly, but from behind her I heard Ivy say, "I'm okay!" followed by a soft "Ow," and then an aggressive "Hurt her, and you'll find yourself worse than dead, human!"
Mia's cold fingers never leaving my throat, she sent her gaze to the van, where Holly was now crying. My heart pounded when her attention returned to me. Hand still around my neck, she reached out, her palm coming for my forehead. "Don't," I pleaded, thinking she was going to kill me. "Please, don't!"
Smiling wickedly, Mia put her cold hand to my cheek in an almost loving gesture. "This is why you're going to help me, witch. This is what I can give you."
Tiny pinpricks exploded in my cheek, and I gasped, stiffening, as I reached for the car behind me. Warmth was spilling into me, familiar and soothing. It was my aura returning, filling the cracks and making me whole. It spilled in with the pain of a healing scab, and my eyes flashed wide as I looked into Mia's clear blue ones. I exhaled, thinking it sounded like a sob, and I held my next breath so I could taste the incoming energy better. She was giving it back. The energy wasn't coming from a ley line-it was coming right from her soul. She was giving me back my life's energy. Why?
The tingles quit with a surprising suddenness, and I realized that I was pressed up against a car in a cold parking lot, a small woman holding me hostage with the power of my soul.
Mia made a fist of her hand and backed up, hunched over and looking tired. "That's what Holly taught me," she said proudly. "Because her father cannot be harmed by a banshee, Holly was born knowing how to push energy into a person, not just take it. I learned by example."
"So?" I said, still not understanding. God, it felt good, and I suddenly realized I could tap a line. Relief spilled into me as I did, taking in a huge amount of ley line force, spindling it in my head. At the end of the lot, a car pulled in, its lights dim in the falling snow. Moving slowly, it crept down the aisles, looking for a space.
"Mia?" Remus called, clearly nervous.
"Be still," the woman said. "I'm impressing upon the witch the reason she's going to convince the FIB to back off." She wore a smile when she turned back to me, but it was the smile of someone who thinks they control you, and my mood hardened. "I've fed extremely well these last few months," Mia said with an unremorseful satisfaction. "Humans are stupid, trusting animals, and if you give a little, they think you love them, and then it's a simple matter of taking what they give you. Natural causes," she said coyly, "heart attack, brain aneurysm, simple fatigue. We have fasted for forty years since the Turn, but Holly will give us back our strength, the cunning to take what we want with impunity instead of this thin tracing the law allows us. Those who protest will be silenced. The I.S. knows it. I'm charging you to impress upon the FIB the error of their thinking."
Behind her, Ivy shook with anger, Remus's hold tight on her. "You monster," she seethed. "You're making them think you love them, then killing them? That's not why I gave you the wish!"
"Shut up," Remus said, and Ivy grunted in pain. My face paled and the cold night seemed darker. That's how she had been feeding herself and her child. Damn it, how were we supposed to tell the banshee-induced deaths from the natural ones? "You think I'm going to help you?" I said, appalled. "Are you nuts?"
The car drove slowly past, following the path of the one that had just left, tracks upon tracks, and my skin started to tingle. It was going too slowly. And it looked, no, sounded familiar. Early model, dripping rust. It turned at the end of the lot, and the lights shown on Ivy and Remus. In the van, Holly cried, her hands reaching up for someone.
"Mia!" Remus shouted. "We have to go!"
"Help me is exactly what you're going to do," Mia said, and a second wave of warmth filled me as she moved closer. "Tell the FIB I'm gone. Tell them aliens came down and abducted me. I don't care, but if they don't leave me alone, I'll kill you, right here if need be, then start on that man's son, and move on from there."
"Touch Glenn, and you'll find yourself dead!" Ivy snarled, and Mia eyed her in disgust.
"Don't presume to threaten me," she said condescendingly. "I watched your Piscary set foot in my city, and I watched him buried in it. Keep that in mind."
I shook my head. "I won't help you, Mia. If you don't come in, you and your daughter will be forever living outside society and on the run."
Mia's pale eyebrows rose. "Witch, I made this society. If they touch me, I won't live outside it. I'll bring it down."
I felt the strength of the line in me, and it made me bold. "Then you can go to hell."
A sigh lifted through Mia. She turned to Remus, who was fidgeting, wanting to leave. "You can lead a pig to water," she said, then turned back to me. "I'll ask the vampire to pass on my words, then."
My breath caught as I realized she was going to kill me. "Wait!"
Panicked, I scrambled back among the cars, but she followed. Still not touching me, she reached out a hand, and eyes glistening in rapture, she ripped my aura away. Everything she had given me, she took back.
Mouth open, I fell to my knees as the ley line in me became a ribbon of fire, and screaming, I shoved it at her, unable to hold it anymore. Mia swore delicately, and I had a moment of respite, but then cold avalanched in behind it, and my arms and legs went numb. The force of the line hadn't slowed her at all. She was taking my aura slowly, painstakingly, making me suffer so there would be more to feast on.
Ivy was shouting, a savage sound against Holly's piercing cries. Behind it was the roar of a car. I couldn't think, kneeling on the snow as Mia stripped me bare. I looked up as a brilliant white light grew. I'm dying, I thought, and the light shifted and the car that was making it smashed into the front corner of the van.
Metal groaned and plastic shattered. Mia's attention was diverted, and the pain of my aura being ripped from me vanished. I looked up, on my hands and knees, sucking in air as if it might coat my soul. "Look out!" I called in warning as the van slid on the ice, toward Ivy. Crap, it was going to pin her between it and the SUV.
Ivy jumped straight up, landing on the hood of the SUV. Remus dropped to roll under it. Holly howled as the van jolted to a halt. In the aisle, an ugly green, rusty Chevy steamed. Radiator fluid poured out, but the engine still ran. The thing probably weighed more than the van and the SUV put together and would take an atomic bomb to kill.
"Holly!" Mia screamed, running to her daughter.
Pulling myself up to lean against the car, I stared as Tom emerged from the Chevy. Son of a bitch! It hadn't been Ms. Walker Mia had felt following her, it had been Tom.
With an ugly snarl, Ivy launched herself from the top of the SUV, landing on Mia.
"God, no," I whispered. I was shaky, hardly able to walk, and I staggered forward. Mia had a grip on Ivy's throat, her face savage as she started to kill her. The light from one headlamp threw everything into a stark light. Ivy was fighting back, teeth shining as she struggled.
The harsh sound of Holly screaming continued, and my eyes jerked to Remus and Tom. The ley line witch's fist was smothered in a purple haze, but the incensed man had grabbed it and squeezed until Tom screamed in pain. Giving him a solid kick in parting, Remus left Tom kneeling over his broken hand. I moved, and Remus's head swung up to me. Black eyes fixed me where I was, warning me to not move. They were the eyes of a wolf, and I froze. He turned away. From the jail, a loud claxon started hooting, and the lot was suddenly bathed in a harsh glow of blue krypton bulbs. Where in hell have they been?
Calm and soothing, the mass murderer coolly got his screaming child from the ruined van. Singing a lullaby, he looked to his wife.
"Ivy," I breathed, seeing her down and unmoving. Mia was kneeling beside her with her back to me, her blue coat spread, looking like the wings of a bird covering her prey. Staggering, I started for them, yelling, "Get away from her!"
Remus got there first, and with one hand, he yanked Mia up.
"Let me go!" the woman yelled, fighting him, but he dragged her to Tom's running car, opening the passenger-side door and nearly throwing her in. Holly's crying competed with the jail's alarm system, but her cries became faint when Remus handed her to Mia and slammed the door. Giving me a sour look, he paced to the other side and got in. The engine roared. Tom rolled out of the way as Remus gunned it, headed for the road. Frozen slush pelted us, and they were gone.
Feeling as if my heart was going to explode, I got to Ivy, and fell to kneel in the pressed snow. "Oh my God, Ivy. Ivy!" I exclaimed, turning her over and pulling her upright, against me. Her head lolled, and her eyes were shut. Her skin was pale, and her hair was in her face. "Don't you leave me, Ivy! I can't live with you being dead!" I shouted. "Ivy, you hear me?"
Oh God. Please no. Why do I have to live like this?
Tears were falling from me, and I choked back a sob when her eyes opened. They were brown, and I rejoiced. She wasn't dead, or undead, or whatever. White and pale, she looked up at me, eyes glassy and not seeing. In her grip was a faded purple ribbon with a coin laced on it. Her fingers gripped it as if it was life itself, holding on with a white-knuckled strength. "I got it back," she rasped, victory in her vacant gaze. "She doesn't deserve love."
The building behind us was still making that awful noise, and I could hear men coming this way. Ivy took a breath, then another. "I need...Rachel?" she whispered, and then her focus on me cleared. "Shit," she breathed, and I held her closer, rocking her and knowing she was still alive. She hadn't died, and I wasn't holding an undead.
"You're going to be all right," I said, not knowing if it was the truth. She looked so pale.
"I'm not. I have to have it," Ivy said, and I looked at her, seeing the tears making tracks down her face and her fangs wet with saliva. It was obvious what she was talking about. Blood. She needed blood. Vampires were the banshee's closest relative, and they had a way to replenish auras. They took them in when they fed. Ivy needed blood.
Unafraid, I pulled her farther up off the pavement, and she started to cry in earnest, knowing she couldn't be the person she wanted and mourning the loss of a dream. "I wanted to be clean, but I can't," she said as I rocked her. "Every time I try to be someone else, I fail. I need it," she said, eyes glowing black. "But not you. Not you," she begged even as her eyes started to dilate and her hunger took hold. "I'd rather die than have you give me your blood. I love you, Rachel. Don't give me your blood. Promise me-you won't give me your blood."
"You're going to be all right," I said, frantic. I could smell antifreeze from the busted Chevy, and the faint smell of hot engine was fading.
"Promise me," she said, trying to touch my face. "I don't want you to give me your blood. Promise me, damn it!"
Shit. I looked up, only now seeing the flashlights and the men behind them. My bag with my keys was across the aisle. "I promise."
There was a crunching of boots on ice, and from behind me came an authoritative "Ma'am, get away from the woman. Lie down and put your face on the pavement! Keep your fingers spread and where I can see them!"
Face wet with tears, I looked up and behind me into the bright security lights, seeing a big shadow behind it. "Go ahead and shoot me!" I screamed. "I'm not letting go of her!"