A Perfect Blood

librarian frown at me from across the large room.
    My smile vanished, and I started for the front desk, everyone following at their own pace, trying not to look like an invasion. The lady behind the desk didn’t look like your average librarian—not with that bulge under her sweater that said pistol. “Back and to the left,” she said, glancing once at the camera on the ceiling as she lifted the counter gate and invited us in.
    I glanced up at the camera, seeing Jenks’s tiny slip of silver dust sifting from it. Satisfied that HAPA wouldn’t know we were here that way, I headed for the back offices.
    I’d been here before, and the desks with their stacks of books and light-starved plants were familiar, but I stopped short when I saw Dr. Cordova bent over a cluttered table, giving directions to two FIB officers. Behind her, another officer manned a portable radio switchboard. The woman looked up as Nina cleared her throat. A flash of irritation crossed her face, then vanished.
    “I didn’t know you would be here,” I said, and Glenn pushed past me, telling me to mind my manners with a slight shoulder knock.
    “I could say the same for you,” the woman said, her gaze lingering on my shot leg, then rising to my empty wrist. Slowly her smile faded. “How is your leg?”
    “Fine,” I said, smacking it. “It wasn’t a very big bullet.”
    She stared at me, her expression bland. “I’m so pleased to hear that. A human would still be in the hospital.”
    It sounded like an accusation, and my tension spiked. “It went in and out, no big deal,” I lied. “If humans would try witch medicine, they’d be on the streets a lot faster, too.”
    “Teresa!” Nina strode forward with the fading scent of copy paper and vampiric incense. “How pleasant to see you again. I must commend Detective Glenn on finding this place. Marvelous blending of both our respective strong points, don’t you think?”
    By her sour expression, “marvelous” was probably the last adjective on her mind. “Splendid,” the woman said flatly. One of the men with her had a question, and she turned away.
    I leaned against a vacant desk and crossed my arms over my chest. I didn’t care if it made me look pensive. It was better than looking mad. The last time Dr. Cordova was on a run, everything went to hell and I ended up captured and then shot. She didn’t like me, and the feeling was mutual.
    The growing wing clatter of a pixy was a welcome distraction, and I brushed my hair from my shoulder an instant before Jenks landed on it. “I don’t trust her,” the pixy whispered.
    “Why is she even here?” I said, gesturing with one hand. Apparently my voice was too loud, because Dr. Cordova turned, her expression ugly.
    Jenks snickered, and in the near distance, Glenn smirked as he picked up three radio sets. They looked very polished and professional, far beyond what the FIB usually had. “We need to get downstairs,” he said, and she turned away.
    Nina eased up to me, breathing deep of the anger I’d given off, her eyes dilating. “Ms. Morgan?” she said as she extended an arm for me in a decidedly masculine gesture. “I’d be delighted if you’d walk with me.”
    I just bet. The memory of her losing control rose in my mind, the snarl she’d worn, her strength that had overpowered Ivy. She had killed a man. Ivy had tried to stop her and failed. We might have gotten all of them if not for her/him. My eyes went to Ivy’s, and Nina slowly dropped her arm. “Uh, I don’t know if this is such a good idea,” I said, adding, “You going down there, I mean.”
    Glenn winced at the delay, but Nina was undeterred, and she gracefully took my arm and pulled me into motion. “I’m in control,” she said, her gaze fixed on a point somewhere ahead of us as we began to walk. “I have spent two days breaking Nina of her . . . innocence.”
    Two days? No wonder Ivy was worried. Two days of practice against a thousand years of evolution meant nothing.
    Jenks’s wings hummed, and I jerked away, not because I didn’t want a woman to escort me, but because the vampire controlling her was an ass. His breaking Nina was not a good thing, and I glanced at Ivy, seeing her anger. She had probably spent yesterday putting the woman back together again. Being a vampire was hard enough, but add in the depravity of a master and the demands they made on their favorites, and it was akin to legalized abuse. And Ivy thought there was a chance