"Stop it, Dad." Ivy pulled out a chair and sat. "Rachel is my roommate, not my live-in."
"You'd better make sure Skimmer knows that." His narrow chest moved as he breathed deeply to take in the emotions on the air. "She came out here for you. Left everything. Think hard before you walk away from that. She has good breeding behind her. An unbroken millennium line is hard to find."
Tension slammed back into me and I felt myself stiffen.
"Oh God," Erica moaned, her hand back in the cookie jar. "Don't start, Daddy. We just had an ugly in the hallway."
Smiling to show teeth, he reached across to take the cookie from her and ate a bite. "Don't you have to be to work soon?" he said when he swallowed.
The young vampire jiggled. "Daddy, I want to go to the concert. All my friends are."
My eyebrows rose. Ivy shook her head with the smallest of movements, a private answer to my question as to whether we should tell him we were going and that we'd keep an eye on her.
"No," her father said, brushing the crumbs from himself as he finished his cookie.
"But, Daddy…"
Opening the jar, he took out three more. "You don't have enough control—"
Erica puffed, slumping against the counter. "My control is fine," she said sulkily.
He straightened, the first hints of steel tightening his face. "Erica, your hormones are jumping up and down right now. One night you have control in a stressful situation, the next you lose it while you're watching TV. You aren't wearing your caps like you're supposed to, and I don't want you to accidentally bind someone to you."
"Daddy!" she cried, flushing a dull, embarrassed red.
Getting two glasses from the cupboard, Ivy snickered. My uneasiness faded slightly.
"I know…" her father said, his head bowed and a hand raised. "A lot of your friends have shadows, and it looks like fun having someone trailing behind you, seeking your attention and always there. You're the center of their world, and they see only you. But Erica, bonded shadows are a lot of work. They aren't pets you can give to a friend when you tire of them. They need reassurance and attention. You're too young to have that kind of responsibility."
"Daddy, stop!" Erica said, clearly mortified. I sat as Ivy got a carton of orange juice from the fridge. I wondered how much of this was for Erica and how much of it was his way of trying to scare me off from his eldest daughter. It was working. Not that I needed any encouragement.
The living vampire's face went stern. "You're being careless," he said, his gravely voice harsh. "Taking risks that might put you in a place you don't want to be yet. Don't think I don't know you take your caps off as soon as you leave this house. You aren't going to that concert."
"That's not fair!" she shouted, spiked hair bobbing. "I'm pulling all A's and working part-time. It's just a concert! There won't even be any Brimstone there!"
He shook his head as she huffed. "Until that bad Brimstone is off the streets, you will be home before sunrise, young lady. I'm not going down to the city tombs to identify and bring a member of my house home. I've done that once, and I'm not ready to do it again."
"Daddy!"
Ivy handed her father a glass of juice, then sat down with her drink in the chair adjacent to mine. Crossing her legs at the knees, she said, "I'm going to the concert."
Erica gasped, her jewelry tinkling as she jumped. "Daddy!" she cried. "Ivy's going. I won't take any Brimstone and I won't bite anyone. I promise! Oh God! Please let me go!"
Eyebrows high, Ivy's dad looked at Ivy. She shrugged, and Erica held her breath. "If it's all right with your mother, it's all right with me," he finally said.
"Thank you, Daddy!" Erica squealed. She flung herself at him, almost knocking her taller father down. In a clatter of boots, she yanked the door to the stairwell open and thumped downstairs. The door arched closed, and Erica's shouts grew muffled.
The man sighed, his thin shoulders moving. "Just how long were you going to let her beg before you told me you were going?" he asked wryly.
Her eyes on her juice, Ivy smiled. "Long enough that she will listen to me when I tell her to wear her caps or I'll change my mind."
A chuckle rose. "You learn well, young grasshopper," he said, affecting a strong accent.
There was a thumping on the stairs and Erica burst out, eyes black in excitement, chains swinging. "She said yes! Gotta go! Love you, Daddy! Thanks, Ivy!" She made a pair of bunny ears with her fingers, crooking them as she said, "Kiss, kiss!" and darted out of the room.
"Do you have your caps?" her father shouted after her.
"Yes!" she called back, her voice faint.
"Take some of those necklaces off, young lady!" he added, but the door slammed. The quiet was a relief, and I met Ivy's smile with bemused wonder. Erica could really fill a room.
Ivy's father put his glass down. His face seemed to take on more wrinkles, and I could see the strain his body was enduring to supply the blood his undead wife needed to stay sane.
I watched Ivy shift her fingers on her glass to spin it where it sat. Slowly her smile faded. "Has she been to see Piscary?" she asked softly, the sudden worry in her voice drawing my attention. This was why Ivy had come to talk to her dad, and as I thought of Erica's carefree, wild innocence in Piscary's manipulative embrace, I worried, too.
Ivy's dad, though, didn't seem to have a problem with it, taking a slow sip of juice before answering, "Yes. She visits him every two weeks. As is respectful." My brow pinched at the implied question, and I wasn't surprised when he followed up with, "Have you?"
Ivy stilled the fingers encircling her glass. Uncomfortable, I looked for a way to excuse myself and go hide in the car. Ivy glanced at me, then her father. He leaned back, waiting. From outside came the rumble of Erica's car, fading to leave the hum of the clock on the oven the only sound. Ivy took a breath. "Dad, I made a mistake."
I felt Ivy's dad's eyes land on me, even though I was staring out the window trying to divorce myself from the conversation. "We should talk about this when your mother is available," he said, and I took a quick breath.
"You know," I said as I got up, "I think I'll go wait in the car."
"I don't want to talk about it with Mom, I want to talk about it with you," Ivy said crossly. "And there's no reason Rachel can't hear this."
The hidden request in Ivy's voice stopped me short. I sank back down, ignoring the obvious disapproval from her dad. This wasn't going to be fun. Maybe she wanted my opinion of the conversation to balance out her own. I could do that for her.
"I made a mistake," Ivy said softly. "I don't want to be Piscary's scion."
"Ivy…" There was a tired weariness in that one word. "It's time to start taking on your responsibilities. Your mother was his scion before she died. The benefits—"
"I don't want them!" Ivy said, and I watched her eyes closely, wondering if the ring of brown about her pupil was shrinking. "Maybe if he wasn't in my head all the time," she added, moving her juice away. "But I can't take it anymore. He just keeps pushing."
"He wouldn't if you would go see him."
Ivy sat straighter, eyes on the table. "I did go see him. I told him that I wasn't going to be his scion and to get out of my head. He laughed at me. He said I had made a choice and now I had to live and die by it."
"You did make a choice."
"And now I'm making another one," she shot back, her eyes lowered submissively but her voice determined. "I'm not going to do it. I don't want to run Cincinnati's underground, and I won't." She took a deep breath, her eyes rising to his. "I can't tell if I like something anymore because I like it or because Piscary likes it. Dad, will you talk to him for me?"