A Perfect Blood

newscaster’s eyes. “You should tell everyone at the FIB you eat pizza,” Ivy said. “It will do wonders for your street cred.”
    “My street cred is fine,” he said. “And they already think I’m insane. Seeing that I like working with witches and vampires.”
    Jenks hummed over my pizza, and I gestured that he could have it. “But it’s a good kind of insane,” the pixy said as he sat on the crust and used his chopsticks to nibble the tomato sauce.
    Glenn made a noise deep in his throat, then headed back into the kitchen, clearly not convinced. Ivy stood with her empty plate and followed him. She was looking a little sultry, and I’d be surprised if she came back to the church with me tonight. Good thing Wayde was here to get me home. It’d be hard to drive with my ankle and wrist messed up.
    Wayde choked, and I looked up from my bruised hand when he shouted, “Turn it up!”
    Daryl was already reaching for the remote, but Jenks beat her to it, stomping on the button until the announcer’s voice blared, “ . . . tonight when Orin escaped, while being moved to a more secure FIB facility.”
    “What?” Ivy exclaimed from the kitchen, and suddenly her scent poured over me as she stood at my shoulder, mouth agape.
    “Son of Tink!” Jenks said, and Glenn bellowed for everyone to shut up. He had escaped? How?
    “Authorities are asking for your help if you see this man,” the woman in lavender said as her face was replaced by a shot of Eloy, recent by the apparent bruise from where Trent had hit him and the swollen bump on his head from where he’d further slammed his head on the floor. Eloy’s head was cocked and he looked determined, angry, and disdainful. Anger stirred in me. He hadn’t escaped. Someone had broken him out. Eloy had said they were everywhere. The-men-who-don’t-belong, maybe?
    “Orin is considered highly dangerous and should not be approached,” she was saying as another picture of him popped up, this time a full-body shot. “Please call one of the numbers below if you see him.”
    Two numbers: one for the FIB, the other for the I.S. “Call the I.S.,” Jenks said, hovering before the TV with his hands on his hips. “The FIB can’t even hold their farts.”
    “You’re in the way!” Wayde leaned to see around him, but they’d gone back to a wide angle of the studio showing the newscasters sitting side by side.
    “Sounds like a dangerous man,” the guy was saying, “evading both the I.S. and the FIB. Let’s hope they get this one soon.”
    The woman smiled brightly. “If it were me, I’d be halfway to Brazil. You know how I like my sun. And speaking of sun, is there any sun in our forecast for tomorrow, Susan?”
    I stared at the map of the East Coast, with the low pressure dropping down from the Canadian wilds, stunned. Nice segue.
    “Glenn?” Ivy said, and I twisted in the couch and saw her staring at an empty kitchen.
    Jenks rose on a column of silver sparkles. “He’s in the bedroom, on the phone. Oh, he’s pissed.”
    I grabbed the arm of the couch and tried to get up, failing. Daryl was already halfway across the room. Ivy joined her at the locked door, hammering on it when a polite knock got no result. Her jaw clenched. “Glenn?” she shouted, and Jenks hummed by her ear, telling her to be quiet so he could hear.
    I sank back into the cushions, stymied. I could not get up out of this damned couch. Wayde was looking at me, and I stared back. “You going to help me, or just sit there?” I asked, and he sighed and set his pizza down.
    Wayde hauled me up, my ribs protesting. My foot was numb from human medicine, and I grabbed the crutch he handed me, hobbling to Glenn’s bedroom door. “What’s he saying?”
    “Just a lot of swearing so far,” Jenks said. “He wants to know who approved the move.”
    “Dr. Cordova,” Ivy whispered.
    “You heard that?” Jenks said, impressed, and she shook her head.
    “She was bitching about it under the library,” Ivy said, then frowned, brow furrowed as she listened to Glenn.
    “I didn’t approve a transfer!” His voice came clear through the thin walls of the apartment. “I don’t care if Cordova told you to, she’s not your boss, I am!” There was a hesitation, and he growled, “Cordova has been trying to close my division ever since its inception. I think she wanted him to escape.”
    At Glenn’s words, I blinked. A sudden thought stabbed through my head, and I staggered, almost falling