She seemed surprised as she looked up. In a flat voice that spoke volumes, she said, "I did it to tick my mother off." A flicker of what looked like pain flashed over her, vanishing before I could be sure it existed. "My dad isn't pleased I quit," she added. "He told me I should have either stuck it out or killed Denon."

Dinner forgotten, I stared, not knowing if I was more surprised at learning her father was still alive or at his rather creative advice on how to get ahead at the office. "Uh, Jenks said you were the last living member of your house," I finally said.

Ivy's head moved in a slow, controlled nod. Brown eyes watching me, she moved her chopsticks between the box and her lips in a slow dance. The subtle display of sensuality took me aback, and I shifted uneasily on my perch on the table. She had never been this bad when we had worked together. Of course, we usually quit work before midnight.

"My dad married into the family," she said between dips into the box, and I wondered if she knew how provocative she looked. "I'm the last living blood member of my house. Because of the prenuptial, my mother's money is all mine, or it was. She is as mad as all hell I quit. She wants me to find a nice, living, high-blood vamp, settle down, and pop out as many kids as I can to be sure her living bloodline doesn't die out. She'll kill me if I croak before having a kid."

I nodded as if I understood, but I didn't. "I joined because of my dad," I admitted. Embarrassed, I put my attention into my dinner. "He worked for the I.S. in the arcane division. He'd come home every morning with these wild stories of people he had helped or tagged. He made it sound so exciting." I snickered. "He never mentioned the paperwork. When he died, I thought it would be a way to get close to him, sort of remember him by. Stupid, isn't it?"

"No."

I looked up, crunching through a carrot. "I had to do something. I spent a year watching my mother fall off her rocker. She isn't crazy, but it's like she doesn't want to believe he's gone. You can't talk to her without her saying something like, 'I made banana pudding today; it was your father's favorite.' She knows he's dead, but she can't let him go."

Ivy was staring out the black kitchen window and into a memory. "My dad's like that. He spends all his time keeping my mother going. I hate it."

My chewing slowed. Not many vamps could afford to remain alive after death. The elaborate sunlight precautions and liability insurance alone was enough to put most families on the street. Not to mention the continuous supply of fresh blood.

"I hardly ever see him," she added, her voice a whisper. "I don't understand it, Rachel. He has his entire life left, but he won't let her get the blood she needs from anyone else. If he's not with her, he's passed out on the floor from blood loss. Keeping her from dying completely is killing him. One person alone can't support a dead vampire. They both know that."

The conversation had taken an uncomfortable turn, but I couldn't just leave. "Maybe he's doing it because he loves her?" I offered slowly.

Ivy frowned. "What kind of love is that?" She stood, her long legs unfolding in a slow graceful movement. Cardboard box in hand, she vanished into the hall.

The sudden silence hammered on my ears. I stared at her empty chair in surprise. She walked out. How could she just walk out? We were talking. The conversation was too interesting to drop, so I slid from the table and followed her into the living room with my dinner.

She had collapsed into one of the gray suede chairs, sprawled out in a look of total unconcern, with her head on one of the thick arms and her feet dangling over the other. I hesitated in the doorway, taken aback at the picture she made. Like a lioness in her den, satiated from the kill. Well, I thought, she is a vampire. What did I expect her to look like?

Reminding myself that she wasn't a practicing vamp and that I had nothing to worry about, I cautiously settled in the chair across from her, the coffee table between us. Only one of the table lamps was on, and the edges of the room were indistinct and lost in shadow. The lights from her electronic equipment glowed. "So, joining the I.S. was your dad's idea?" I prompted.

Ivy had set her little white cardboard box atop her stomach. Not meeting my gaze, she lay on her back and indolently ate a bamboo shoot, looking at the ceiling as she chewed. "It was my mother's idea, originally. She wanted me to be in management." Ivy took another bite. "I was supposed to stay nice and safe. She thought it would be good for me to work on my people skills." She shrugged. "I wanted to be a runner."

I kicked off my slippers and tucked my feet under me. Curled up around my take-out box, I flicked a glance at Ivy as she slowly pulled her chopsticks out from between her lips. Most of the upper management in the I.S. were undead. I always thought it was because the job was easier if you didn't have a soul.

"It wasn't as if she could stop me," Ivy continued, talking to the ceiling. "So to punish me for doing what I wanted instead of what she wanted, she made sure Denon was my boss." A snicker escaped her. "She thought I'd get so ticked that I'd jump to a management position as soon as one opened up. She never considered I'd trade my inheritance to get out of my contract. I guess I showed her," she said sarcastically.

I shuffled past a tiny corncob to get to a chunk of tomato. "You threw away all your money because you didn't like your boss? I don't like him, either, but—"

Ivy stiffened. The force of her gaze struck me cold. My words froze in my throat at the hatred in her expression. "Denon is a ghoul," Ivy said, her words drawing the warmth from the room. "If I had to take his flack for one more day, I was going to rip his throat out."

I hesitated. "A ghoul?" I said, confused. "I thought he was a vamp."

"He is." When I said nothing, she swung herself upright to put her boots on the floor. "Look," she said, sounding bothered. "You must have noticed Denon doesn't look like a vamp. His teeth are human, right? He can't maintain an aura at noon? And he moves so loud you can hear him coming a mile away?"

"I'm not blind, Ivy."

She cradled her white paperboard box and stared at me. The night air coming in through the window was chilly for late spring, and I drew her robe tighter about my shoulders.

"Denon was bitten by an undead, so he has the vampire virus in him," Ivy continued. "That lets him do a few tricks and makes him real pretty, and I imagine he's as scary as all hell if you let him bully you, but he's someone's lackey, Rachel. He's a toy and always will be."

There was a small scrape as she put her white box on the coffee table between us and edged forward to the end of her chair so she could reach it. "Even if he dies and someone bothers to turn him into an undead, he'll be second-class," she said. "Look at his eyes next time you see him. He's afraid. Every time he lets a vamp feed on him, he has to trust that they'll bring him back as an undead if they lose control and accidentally kill him." She took a slow breath. "He should be afraid."

The red curry went tasteless. Heart pounding, I searched her gaze, praying it would just be Ivy staring back at me. Her eyes were still brown, but something was in them. Something old that I didn't understand. My stomach clenched, and I was suddenly unsure of myself. "Don't be afraid of ghouls like Denon," she whispered. I thought her words were meant to be soothing, but they tightened my skin until it tingled. "There are a lot more dangerous things to be afraid of."

Like you? I thought, but didn't say it. Her sudden air of repressed predator set off alarm bells in my head. I thought I should get up and leave. Get my scrawny witch butt back in the kitchen where it belonged. But she had eased herself back into her chair with her dinner, and I didn't want her to know she was scaring the crap out of me. It wasn't as if I hadn't seen Ivy go vampy before. Just not after midnight. In her living room. Alone.