"Right through there," the woman said as she ran our IDs through a scanner and handed them back. "Keep your ID out," she added, gesturing to a pair of thick plastic doors, clearly anxious to get back to her phone conversation.
I'd rather have gone to the right, where the floor was covered in carpet and there were fake potted plants, but Ivy, who clearly knew the drill, was already headed for the sterile, ugly hallway to the left with its white tile and milky-plastic doors. They were magnetically sealed, and when I caught up to Ivy, the woman buzzed us through.
My jaw clenched when the doors opened and the scent of unhappy vampire and angry Were worsened. I shuddered as I passed the threshold and the prison's safeguards started to take hold. The magnetic door snicked shut behind us, and the air pressure shifted. We were probably in prison air now. Swell. There could be anything in it up to and including airborne potions.
At the end of the room was another set of those doors and a guy behind a desk. The old woman with him started our way, clearly in charge of the standard-looking spell checker before us—which was probably anything but standard. I couldn't help but notice that the woman really stank of redwood, and that, if the gun on her hip wasn't enough, would keep me minding my p's and q's. She might look like an old woman, but I bet she could give Al a run for his money.
"Anything to declare?" the woman asked as she looked over our IDs then gave them back.
"No." Ivy's mood was tight as she handed her coat and purse to her, ignoring the little claim check and walking unhesitatingly through the spell checker and to the desk at the end of the room. More paperwork, I thought as I saw her take a clipboard and start filling in a form.
"Anything to declare?" the guard asked me, and I brought my attention back. God, the woman looked a hundred and sixty, with nasty black hair that matched the color of her too-tight uniform. Her complexion was a pasty white, and I would've wondered why she didn't invest in a cheap complexion spell except I didn't think they allowed them anything while on the job.
"Just a lethal-amulet detector," I said, handing her my bag and taking the little slip of paper and jamming it in a jeans pocket.
"I'll bet," she said under her breath, and I hesitated, eyeing her. I didn't like my stuff in her care. She'd probably go through it as soon as I was out of sight. I sighed, trying not to get upset. If this was the crap you had to go through to see a low-security inmate, I didn't want to know what was needed to see someone in the high-security prison.
Smiling, making herself look almost ugly, she nodded to the spell checker, and I reluctantly approached it. I couldn't see the cameras, but I knew they were here—and I didn't like the casual carelessness she used to bag my stuff up and drop it in a bin.
The wave of synthetic aura cascading over me from the spell checker gave me a start, and I jumped. Maybe it was because I didn't have much of an aura right now, but I hadn't been able to stifle my shudder, and the guy at the desk smirked.
Ivy was waiting impatiently, and I took the form the guy shoved across the desk at me. "And who are we visiting today?" he snarkily asked me as he handed Ivy her visitor's pass.
My attention jerked up from the release form. I was not the one in jail here. Then I saw where he was looking and went cold. My visible scars were less than a year old, clear enough, and I stiffened when I decided he thought I was a vampire junkie on my way to get a fix. "Dorothy Claymor, same as her," I said as if he didn't know, signing the paper with stiff fingers.
The young man's smirk grew nasty. "Not at the same time you aren't."
Ivy took a stance, and I set the clipboard down with a tap. Peeved, I looked at him. Why is this becoming so difficult? "Look," I said, using one finger to slide the form back to him. "I'm just trying to help a friend, and this is the only way Dorothy will see her, okay?"
"She likes threesomes, eh?" the guy said, and seeing me drumming my fingers on my crossed arm, he added in a more businesslike voice, "We can't let two people visit an inmate at once. Accidents happen."
Much to my surprise, it was the woman who came to my rescue, clearing her throat like she was trying to get a cat out of it. "They can go in, Miltast."
Officer Miltast, apparently, turned. "I'm not losing my job over her."
The woman grinned and tapped her paperwork. "We got a call. She can go in."
What in hell is going on? Concern wound tighter in my gut when the man looked from me to my scrawl and back again. Face scrunching up, he turned to Ivy, then handed me the visitor's badge the tabletop machine spit out.
"I'll escort you to the visiting rooms," he said as he rose and patted his shirt front for his key card. "You got this okay?" he asked the woman, and she laughed.
