Free Black Magic Sanction by Kim Harrison

had, and I wondered if this might be a big mistake or one of the best things in Ivy's life. Glenn was nothing if not solid. "He doesn't want to go vamp, does he?" I asked, half joking but afraid of her answer. I was the last person to advocate shunning vampires as friends, but if you didn't know what you were doing, or the vampire was a real predator, you were in trouble. Glenn and Ivy were all of the above.
    "No."
    She was down to one-word answers, but she was still talking. Jenks's relieved expression told me it was more than she'd told him—which made me feel good. "Good," I said, careful to keep my eyes on the passing traffic to give her some privacy. "I like him the way he is."
    "You'd like him more as a vampire. I can tell. I've seen it before." She sounded wistful, and I looked across the dark car at her, trying to hide my alarm.
    "Ivy..."
    "He doesn't want to go vamp," she said, flicking her eyes at me and then away. "That's one of the things I like about him."
    Jenks winced, wings flat against his back. He knew as well as I that what you wanted didn't mean crap if the vampire you were with wanted something else. She was alive, so she couldn't turn him—only dead vampires could do that—but she could bind him, make him a shadow. Not that she would mean to, but accidents happened in the throes of passion. Hell, I roomed with her, and that was hard enough. Adding sex or blood to the mix could be deadly, which was why I'd finally made our relationship strictly platonic—that it had taken almost two years of confusing emotions and two bites between us to do it was beside the point.
    I darted a nervous look at Jenks. "And he's okay with you going somewhere else for blood?" I asked hesitantly. Ivy never talked to me about her boyfriends. Her girlfriends either.
    Gazing out the window at the night, Ivy said softly, "Who said I was?"
    "No fairy-assed way!" Jenks exclaimed, and I gave him a look telling him to shut up.
    Turning to us, she shrugged in embarrassment. "I told you I didn't need much. It's the act, not the amount. I'm not going to make him a shadow. Piscary taught me to be careful, if nothing else." Her eyebrows were raised in challenge as a flush colored her usually pale face. "Jealous?" she asked as she took in my alarmed expression.
    Oh. My. God. "No, I think it's great," I finally stammered. Ivy and I had a... balanced relationship. Adding blood to it, no matter how right it felt, would destroy exactly what we admired most in each other. Her dating Glenn was a very good thing. I think.
    "Urn, you won't say anything to his dad, will you?" she asked. "Glenn wants to tell him. He's not embarrassed as much as not wanting to—"
    "To deal with Edden telling him it's a bad idea to date your coworkers," I finished for her before she could even think to bring up the dangers of dating a vampire, even a living one.
    Ivy pointed to a break I could slip into, and I hit the gas, eager to be moving again. "I'm being smart about this," she said as the car swung and we shifted from the momentum.
    "I won't say anything unless Edden asks me first." Ivy and Glenn? Am I that blind, or was I just not looking for it? The bridge was ahead, and beyond that, the lights of the Hollows.
    "Thank you," she said, her entire posture easing as she settled into the seat. "Glenn... I wasn't expecting this. He's not after my blood, and we like the same stuff."
    From the rearview mirror, Jenks snickered. "Guns, violence, crime scene photos, leather, sex, and women. Yeah, I can see that."
    "I think it's good," I said again, hoping he'd shut up, but it was pretty nearly the same list that had brought Ivy and me together.
    Jenks laughed. "Has he let you hold his gun yet?"
    I smiled as Ivy stiffened.
    "The man has a big gun," the pixy continued, his words innocent, but his tone full of innuendo. "It's got shiny bullets. You like shiny, don't you, Ivy? I bet Daryl has seen his gun."
    "God, Jenks! Grow up!" she exclaimed, and the pixy snorted.
    We