“But what?” I asked.
“I’m not sure I believe in all of this. Vampires? Werewolves? Ghosts? That’s a lot to take in. My head is sort of spinning here. I mean, a part of me believes that this is an elaborate practical joke.”
“Like a hidden-camera, reality TV show?”
“Yes, right. MTV perhaps?” She put down the glass of ice water.
I nodded. It was perfectly reasonable for her to believe that, except that she had seen me perform a trick or two before her. A trick or two that could have been staged. Faked. Her aura, I saw, was green. Green meant that she was on guard. At least, that’s what I knew it to mean.
“It’s not a ruse and not a reality show. What do I need to do to convince you that it’s one hundred percent real?” I asked.
“Can I see Millicent?” Ivy challenged me.
I grinned. “That’s up to her, but I’ll tell you right now, she’s been sitting next to you this entire time.”
Despite herself, Ivy gasped, her hand shooting to her chest. “I-I don’t see her.”
“She just put a hand on your knee,” I said. “She’s smiling at you. Do you feel her?”
“I-I don’t know.”
“Hold out your hand,” I said. “And close your eyes.”
Ivy did so, and I saw that it was shaking. Millicent, who was indeed sitting next to her, took her hand in her own. My old friend—a friend from different lives, different times—was indeed sitting there. My enhanced psychic sensitivities, thanks mostly to my close association with two different vampires, allowed me to see her easily enough. Ivy, although she not as psychic as me, sensed Millicent. I knew this because I saw the color of her aura change from green to a light orange.
“You feel her,” I said. “Don’t you?”
Ivy made no movement. Then, her hand opened and closed. Millicent now gripped Ivy’s corporeal hand in both of her ethereal hands, and she shivered.
I watched the hair rise on the back of her neck. Her aura now rippled with a light blue. As Millicent sat with her, I knew she was drawing energy from her. Such energy would allow Millicent to make a full appearance.
Which she was doing now.
Little did Ivy know that a spirit was materializing next to her. Or perhaps, she did know. More and more of her hair was standing on end.
“She’s sitting next to me now, isn’t she?” said Ivy. “I can feel the couch sinking. And I’m cold.”
“If I said yes, would you be afraid?” I asked.
“No,” promised Ivy, shaking her head, her eyes still closed. “I see ghosts and spirits all the time. I know there is more to this world than the visible.”
“Then open your eyes,” I said.
She did, and despite her promise, Ivy screamed anyway.
Chapter Twenty-two
It was later.
Ivy was still here. She hadn’t run out screaming as I had thought she might. She had jumped straight from the couch to the middle of the living room, where she had continued screaming until I had wrapped my arms around her.
Then she had wept nearly hysterically, and apologized over and over. I reminded her that no one could predict how she would react to a spirit, especially one that had materialized next to her, holding her hand.
Later, after a glass of wine, she had calmed down enough. Millicent, to her credit, remained in the room. Trial by fire. Meaning, Ivy was just going to have to get damn well used to seeing a spirit, if she was going to be a member of our triad.
Now Ivy and I sat together on my coffee table, as Millicent remained seated on the couch. She was not really seated on the couch, I saw. Millicent was, in fact, rising and falling faintly. She only assumed the position of sitting, I knew, for our benefit. Hell, she could have just as easily been standing in the couch...or hovering near the ceiling.
As Ivy calmed down, and her swirling, agitated aura calmed as well, I filled her in on Billy Turner and the demon whose name I believed might be “Baal.”
“How do you know his name?”
“I’m pretty sure that I know it from another lifetime. I’m thinking we have met before,” I dared to tell her.
I was certain that this last disclosure would drive her to leave, and for her to drop me as her personal trainer as well. But I was wrong. As I spoke, Ivy’s eyes hardened and her grip on my forearm tightened.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said.
“No, I want to. I want to help. This thing can’t keep hurting people. It’s not right. It has to go.”
I blinked at her words, surprised. She was, after all, the same woman who nearly peed herself at seeing the ghost of a woman. How would she fare against a murderous demon? I didn’t know. But there was only one way to find out.
“So, what do we have to do?” she asked.
“You’re sure you want to do this?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ve dreamed of this day my whole life. Well, maybe not the day I would fight a demon, but the day I would meet my soul sisters. Little did I know that one of them worked for the Psychic Hotline and as a personal trainer, and that one of them was dead.”
Truth was, I was still uncomfortable with Millicent’s presence. Yes, I was getting more and more used to her, but I was surprised to discover how quickly Ivy seemed to be used to the spirit, who faded in and out of sight.
“And your friend really is a vampire?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Can I meet Samantha Moon someday? I am, after all, taking her place in the triad, right?”
“Right. And, I’m sure you will meet her someday.”
“Will she be mad that you told me her big secret?”
“Furious.”
Ivy grinned and rubbed my arm. “But she’ll let it go. She will understand. Say, do you think she would ever, you know, feed from me? It wouldn’t hurt to have own psychic abilities enhanced, as well.”
I was oddly jealous. “We’ll see,” I said.
“Well, I can’t imagine she’s too picky. She’s a vampire, for Christ’s sake. Blood is blood, right?”
I wasn’t sure if I should be offended by her words, but decided to let it go. All of this was, I knew, new for her. She was undoubtedly overwhelmed by it all. Yeah, I was going with that.
“She’s excited,” came Millicent’s words, directly into my head.
She’s bugging me, I thought back.
“Be patient. She is young and full of fire. Besides, we will need her for tonight’s work.”