I shrugged. "We'll ask him. Maybe he'll be more willing to talk. You know, since you two are buddies."
"Used to be buddies," Devin said. "I'm pretty sure he'll consider me an apostate. You know, being a warlock and... you know..."
"Being with me," I said, nodding.
"Right. We need a place to take him. Can't go to Nicky's."
I bit my lip. "Don't want to take him to the apartment either. Not just because I don't want to put Malinda at risk. But really, if he ever gets free, I'd rather no vampires and especially no nightwalkers know where we live."
Devin nodded. "Good thing the apartment's still in Donnie's name."
"For now. I'm pretty sure she'll want me to take over the lease sooner or later. Though maybe not. Since she knows about me. She understands. Thing is, the cops know where our place is. It's on my driver's license. I wouldn't want them to show up while we're interrogating a vampire, either."
Devin smiled. "Any word on when Donnie's wedding is?"
I shrugged. "I think they plan to go to Vegas. Elvis is going to officiate."
Devin chuckled. "Sounds like something Donnie would do."
"Come on," I said. "I have a place we can question the nightwalker. An old warehouse not far from the apartment."
Devin nodded and grabbed Nicholas' hands. I grabbed his feet, and we carried him to the car. We put the back seat down, opened Devin's hatchback, and slid him in, careful not to dislodge my heel from his heart.
I hadn't used the warehouse for any vampire interrogations since the first time I captured Wolfgang. Come to find out, he allowed me to capture him. All part of his plan, at the time, to lure me to his cause, to force me to consume Alice's blood so I'd be able to shift into the form of his long-lost love. He intended to use his compulsion ability to wipe my mind, make me think I was the woman he used to love a few hundred years ago when he was human. I thwarted that plan. Ended Wolfgang's existence.
The warehouse was unused this time of year. In October, they turned it into a haunted house attraction called the Edge of Hell. Not all that frightening. Not to me, at least. But for most humans, who weren't accustomed to encountering real horrors, it offered something a lot of folks crave. A temporary scare within the confines of something they knew, deep down, was totally safe. Little did anyone know I made a habit of using the same facility for interrogating real vampires when the haunted house was out of season. We picked up a few "tools" back at the apartment. Garlic cloves to weaken the vamp. Syringes filled with garlic oil. Chains. Stakes, just in case. A UV lamp. An old CD player with "Barbie Girl" by Aqua inside. My standard torture package.
"Did you have to grab the CD player?" Devin asked. "This guy used to be my friend, you know. I thought you'd go easy on him."
I shrugged. "This is going easy. I was going to grab the Ricky Martin album."
"Late nineties pop. It's brutal."
I shrugged. "At least it still serves a purpose."
"You know," Devin said. pulling up next to the Edge of Hell. "You could stream these songs on your phone."
I shook my head. "One, I'm not going to leave my phone with the vampire. And two, I'm sure as hell not going to be in the room when those songs are playing. Besides, got this old boombox at Goodwill. It was cheap."
Devin raised an eyebrow. "You actually shopped at Goodwill? I've never known you to wear anything that didn't have a name on it I couldn't pronounce."
I smirked. "Always looking for diamonds in the rough. You never know what you can find at thrift stores. The best part is, the people who work there don't know the difference."
"What have you bought from a thrift store that you've actually worn?" Devin asked.
"My pink fur coat!"
Devin snorted. "You got that from Goodwill?"
I nodded. "Absolutely. And it's fabulous, don't you think?"
"On you, yes. On anyone else? Not so much."
I smiled. "I'll take that as a compliment."
There was a window in an alley with a broken latch that opened up into the basement of the haunted house. I went to check it first. I hadn't used the spot for an interrogation in a while. There was a chance someone might have fixed it. They didn't. In fact, the same folding chair I'd used for my last vampire interrogation still sat in the middle of the room.
I was in my element. Yes, when I'm on stage as Nicky, I feel more like myself than at any other time. The one exception to that was when I was on a hunt or interrogating a vamp. Devin and I carried Nicholas to the open window. We lowered the vampire to the floor through the window. I jumped inside. I'd grabbed another pair of shoes at the apartment. The basement level of the Edge of Hell wasn't clean. Metal shavings, bits of broken glass, even a few nails were scattered on the floor. I didn't like going barefoot generally. Doesn't do much for my pedicure. With one of my shoes still in the vampire's chest, I needed a second pair.
We set the vampire in the folding chair and wrapped him up in chains. I stuck cloves of garlic through the links. I was eager to try out the syringe. Injecting garlic oil was a trick I picked up from Dr. Cain back at the Vilokan Asylum. It weakened vampires. Made them easier to handle and, if the vampire had any latent abilities I wasn't aware of, it muted those skills. Since I'd encountered vampires with compulsion abilities before, even though this was a relatively new vampire who probably didn't have such a skill, I wasn't inclined to take any chances.
I stuck the needle into the vampire's arm and injected a few cubic centimeters of garlic into his system. I pulled my heel out of his chest.
The vampire gasped. He opened his eyes wide, his red irises catching a little light that shone through the window from a streetlight.
"Hello, Nicholas," Devin said. I paced back and forth, twirling a wooden stake in my hand.
"You..." Nicholas said, a tone of disgust in his voice.
"Come on, buddy. We were friends once," Devin said.
Nicholas spat at Devin. He missed. But the message was clear—he had no love lost for his old friend. "You're an apostate!"
"Am I?" Devin asked. "My faith remains unshaken. Nothing about my beliefs has changed."
"You're a witch! Suffer not a witch to live!"
"The book of Exodus, right?" I asked. I knew the answer.
"The twenty-second chapter, eighteenth verse," Devin said. "But my craft isn't at all like what witches were doing back then. I've never sacrificed a human, for one. If you insist on taking verses out of context, you can condemn a lot of people."
Nicholas snorted. "You shall not lie with a man as with a woman. It is an abomination!"
"He quotes Leviticus, too!" I said. "Good thing I'm a woman!"
"Doesn't matter," Devin said. "If you read that in context, it speaks to incestuous extramarital relationships. It basically says don't sleep with your male or female relatives as one would with his wife. The point is you can't find loopholes to cheat on your wife by sleeping with a man on the side."
"Interesting," I said. "Funny how context changes things. What about those passages about not consuming blood? I take it you've done that, haven't you, Nicholas?"
"I am an abomination! I don't deny it! I will find salvation in service to the Order!"
"Really?" I asked. "Because you know, Mina is a witch, too."
"She wields only godly power!"
I snorted. "Really. You realize the Grimoire of the Nazarene wasn't given by Christ, right? It was written in his blood. Used by others who warped his power, tried to extract it and use it for unholy purposes."
Nicholas furrowed his brow. "How could you possibly know that?"
I smiled. I wasn't inclined to detail my dream to the vampire. Still, I could tell him enough. "I've been around a while. You pick up things through the centuries."
"Where is the grimoire, Nicholas?" Devin asked. "Where has Mina taken it?"
Nicholas laughed. "Don't you wish you knew?"
"Why would you protect her?" I asked. "You realize she left you behind. At the cemetery. After I st
aked you, she and the others didn't even try to save you."
"I don't believe that."
"It's true," I said. "Why do you think they changed you, to begin with?"
Nicholas grunted. "The nightwalkers are blessed. Even as the cross was evil and redeemed for a holy purpose, so am I."
"Standard Order of the Morning Dawn bullshit," Devin said. "You realize, the celestial magic, what she calls miracles, was taken from the Grimoire of Pope Honorius? The same book contains infernal spells. Complete instructions to perform both brands of magic with encouragement to use both, to wield them in balance."
"Says who?" Nicholas asked.
"It's true," I added. "I've seen the book."
"I don't believe you."
"Think about it," Devin said. "If Mina uses the Grimoire of the Nazarene to command angels, isn't it an abomination to harness legions meant to be commanded by God alone?"
"But she intends to wield it for a holy purpose!"
I snorted. "To act as the judge of others? Judge not. Isn't that in the Bible, too? It says God, alone, should judge mankind."
Nicholas sighed. "I don't know what she means to do with it."
"Think about what she and the Order promised you," I said. "To be redeemed by killing others. Even if I were to agree vampires are reprehensible creatures, where in your Bible does it say anyone can be saved by judging others, even vampires?"
Nicholas sighed. "It doesn't."
"When you were staked," I added. "What was it like in vampire hell?"
Nicholas stared at me with wide eyes. "How did you know..."
"I know a lot about vampires. And where they go when they are staked."
"It was horrific..."
"And how many vampires have you killed as a nightwalker?" Devin asked.
Nicholas shook his head. "I've staked my share."
"But you still went to vampire hell," I said. "Tell me, how many do you have to kill before you'd go somewhere else when you get staked?"
Nicholas sighed. "I don't know."
"But when you were bitten and nearly died," Devin continued, "you had faith, did you not?"
"Of course..."
"And the Order brought you back as a vampire. If you weren't destined for hell already, they set you on that path."
"I don't think that's what they meant to do..."
"Look," I said. "I know vampires who've redeemed themselves. I can't say what will happen to them one day when their existences are ended. But I do know the path you are on will not merit the salvation you seek."
Devin stepped toward Nicholas. "Nothing the Order does is about redemption or salvation. It's all fueled by hate for witches and vampires. One thing I know for sure about the Bible is hate is the furthest thing from grace."
Nicholas snarled and clenches his fists. "Then what choice do I have?"
I shrugged. "Help us. We can stop Mina from unleashing the power of that grimoire. But we have to find it and destroy it. You should want that too. If the Grimoire of the Nazarene was not, as I told you, given by Christ but was an abuse of the power in his blood, shouldn't you want to see it destroyed as well?"
"If you're telling the truth. Then yes. I suppose so."
"Then tell us where Mina took the grimoire!" Devin urged.
Nicholas sighed. "She doesn't have it. If it wasn't in that casket you dug up, then she doesn't know where it is any more than you do."
I cocked my head. "She doesn't have it?"
"Did I stutter? I said that Mina does not have the book!"
Devin and I exchanged glances. Devin looked back at Nicholas. "Someone took it."
"It wasn't Mina! And she was afraid it would be gone."
"The body that was in that grave," I said. "There's evidence it might have been a vampire. There were burn marks, like those produced by the crucifixes that Order members wield."
Nicholas shook his head. "That's not what caused the burns."
"Then what was it?" Devin asked.
Nicholas sighed. "It's believed one who holds the grimoire in death will be raised, as was the Nazarene."
"Are you certain?" Devin asked.
Nicholas nodded. "It's in your father's old reports. If he buried the thing with that woman, he knew it would bring her back to life. Mina expected that. It's why she came wearing her cloak. To protect her from the woman in the grave. She hoped the woman might still be alive, resurrected but trapped in her coffin."
"And what did Mina think this woman might be able to do that she needed protection, but you didn't?" I asked.
"I asked the same thing," Nicholas said. "The Order has issued similar cloaks to nightwalkers before. But Mina insisted we wouldn't need it."
"Why not?" Devin asked.
Nicholas sighed. "Because vampires don't have souls. Those who are resurrected by the grimoire are vampires of a sort. But they don't drink blood."
"They consume souls," I said, looking at Devin. "I don't know who this Heather Morgan is. But she's the killer."
Chapter Twenty-Two
We let Nicholas go. I wasn't in the habit of freeing vampires I'd staked. He offered to return to Mina to infiltrate the Order and report back to us whatever he turned up. I doubted Nicholas' sincerity. Devin insisted, though, that we allow it as a gesture of good faith. I figured it was a relatively low-risk but high-reward gamble if Mina didn't know who Heather Morgan was or how to find her. The worst Nicholas could do was let Mina know Heather Morgan had killed people in my club. Now that the police had the place locked down, though, the chances of her showing up again at Nicky's were slim to none. Even if Nicholas told Mina about it, we were several steps ahead of her in terms of identifying who Heather Morgan was or, at least, who she was pretending to be.
I fired up my laptop as soon as we got home. It didn't take long to rule out the fringe possibility Heather Morgan had purchased tickets under her own name. If she was smart, in fact, she'd probably used several different aliases. I couldn't eliminate the possibility she came to the club with tickets purchased under three different names. We were, for all intents and purposes, back at square one.
While I had the files open, I quickly sent them off to Detective Cavanaugh. The last thing we needed was for him to show up at my apartment looking for what I'd promised him. Not to mention, it wasn't like the lists would help his investigation. The only people I had identified so far who had been there all the nights in question hadn't purchased tickets all three nights. From what I could tell, based on the detective's suggestion poisoning might be to blame, Joey would be his prime suspect.
Unless Heather Morgan resurrected as a dude, however, Joey wasn't the killer. My only hope, at this point, was the funeral director would keep to his word and send us the bulletin from the funeral. I found an obituary from Heather Morgan online. Unfortunately, it didn't include a photo. Some obits did. Others didn't. I did learn, however, that she was eighty-two years old at the time of her passing.
Devin went to bed at that point. I stayed up to review the camera footage again. We attracted an eclectic crowd at Nicky's, but our show appealed to a younger demographic for the most part. If I could find an older lady on camera who was at the club all three nights in question, who interacted with the victims at some point, I could probably get a good visual identity of the killer.
Two hours of scouring video revealed nothing. In fact, I didn't see anyone in the club on those nights north of fifty. What was I missing? Heather Morgan had to be the killer. A resurrected soul-collector on the loose was too great a coincidence to dismiss.
Devin was already sawing logs in our bed. Not literally. Though a lumberjack roleplay might be fun. There has to be a joke about "handling wood" there somewhere. On second thought, though, lumberjacks chop wood, right? Maybe I need to rethink that idea.
I curled up next to him and fell asleep.
More dreams. Not as vivid as before. Not a continuous vision. Instead, a flash of the Nazarene standing, again, in the place of the monk who'd called me from the
waters. He spoke, his lips moved, but I couldn't hear his voice. Three shadowy figures appeared behind him. I couldn't make out their faces. They appeared like shades. A crowd of other shades appeared behind them, but their forms were so blurred I couldn't begin to count how many there were.
"Save us!" they screamed, their voices shrill. "You are our only hope! Destroy the scroll, destroy the grimoire!"
Again the Nazarene looked at me, compassion in his eyes. I still couldn't hear his words, but I focused on his lips. Take and eat. Again, he lifted his wrist to my lips. As I pressed my teeth into his flesh, I woke up. My body was in cold sweats—the water that was my blood seeping from my pores.
I rolled out of bed, my body trembling. What was happening to me? What did these dreams mean?
I removed my clothes and stepped into the shower. The water cascaded down my body. My tremors ceased.
The answer might be in the details. That's what Cain told me. I tied a towel around my waist, sat down on the couch, and opened my laptop. All I needed was a word processor. Something I could journal with. I wrote down everything I could remember. The colors. The light. The sound of the shadow voices. There were three, and then more. Were the three shades the trapped souls of the ones who died? Geraldo's mom. Amelia. Connor. That was my best guess. But who were the rest? They all spoke as one as if their plea was the same. If I was right, if these were the souls of those who'd been killed by Heather Morgan, who were the others? All I could figure was more had died. Others, who I didn't know. The figures, in my dream, blended together. How many were there? I didn't count them. I couldn't count them. It was like their forms all blended into one, even as their voices cried in unison.
I didn't know how I could do it. But if I did, could I bring these people back to life? What did they want me to save them from? Being consumed, trapped within the resurrected body of Heather Morgan. If I found her, I hoped she'd lead me to the grimoire. But even if I found it, without a relic that pierced the Nazarene, how would I destroy it? They said I was their only hope. Was it on account of my former nature, my elemental self, that I could do it? Even if that was the case, I wasn't inclined to give up my humanity. And even if I could, I wouldn't do it. There was only one way to return to my elemental form. I had to consume the one whom I last targeted, the one who gave me the form he most desired. I'd have to kill Devin. It didn't matter how many people Heather Morgan killed. I wouldn't do that. There had to be another way.
No Shift, Sherlock: A Vampire Hunter Urban Fantasy Mystery (The Legend of Nyx Book 3) Page 12
