Night Shift

by Charlaine Harris

  “You’re right,” Madonna said, glaring at him. “I don’t believe half you tell me. This is a crazy place, and the sooner we get out of here, the better. I can’t believe we haven’t gotten a million questions. These people aren’t dumb.”

  “You like the café. You told me so. You like the work.”

  “Yeah, I do. But we’re not moving forward.” Forward momentum was key to Madonna, whose father had been a garbage truck driver in Dallas. “We can’t stay here. As soon as the job is over, we have to get out of here. Sooner or later, they’re going to cotton to who and what we are.”

  “You really believe they don’t already suspect?” Teacher looked incredulous.

  “They don’t,” she said, as if it were chiseled in stone.

  “But honey . . . These aren’t normal people with normal resources.”

  His wife gave a scornful snort. “Yeah, like I believe that some magic person casting some spell is gonna make us look normal to the natives.”

  Madonna went back to work serving dinner. Grady was occupied with smearing his mashed potatoes all over the counter and occasionally putting a piece of carrot in his mouth.

  Teacher said, “I’m going to file a report.”

  “Fix that drawer in the kitchen that keeps sticking,” Madonna said.

  “Okay.”

  “There’s plenty of leftover roast beef for a sandwich,” she reminded him.

  “Thanks, babe,” he said, and went out the back door.

  When Madonna closed the restaurant that night a little after eight o’clock, she scooped up Grady and stepped out the same door. She locked it, having to fumble because she couldn’t see. “Huh,” she muttered. Madonna turned to find that the trailer was dark. This was so unusual that she froze in place for a moment. Grady said, “Mama?” and gripped her a little more tightly.

  The door to the trailer was unlocked, so Teacher had made it across the few intervening yards. Cautiously, Madonna reached a hand in to flip the light switch by the door. “Teacher?” she called. A groan answered her.

  Teacher was curled in a ball on the living room floor, gasping with pain.

  “Oh my God,” she said. “Oh my God. Grady, Mama’s putting you in your room while I take care of Daddy, okay?”

  Grady protested, shrieking, but Madonna detached him from her neck and put him in his crib, shutting the door behind her to muffle his high-decibel yells.

  Back in the living room, she threw herself on her knees by Teacher. He knew she was there. He reached toward her.

  “What’s wrong?” Madonna asked, crouching on the floor by her husband. “Teach, what’s wrong?”

  “Pain,” he whispered. “Pain.”

  “I’m calling 911,” Madonna said. “Get you an ambulance.”

  He shook his head. “Noooo,” he whispered.

  “Why not?” she demanded.

  “Payback,” he said, after gathering himself.

  “What you mean?”

  He whimpered. He grabbed her hand and squeezed it until she winced.

  “You mean Fiji is doing this to you?”

  He managed to nod.

  “I’m gonna kill that bitch,” Madonna said, reaching for her purse, where she always carried a gun.

  Again, he shook his head vehemently. And he drew a long, shuddering breath. He was able to take Madonna’s hand.

  “Why not?”

  Teacher’s body eased. “She caught me, and she’s warning me,” he said. “Fair and square.” He took another deep breath, relaxed a bit more. “It’s going away. It’s over.”

  When Teacher could stand, Madonna helped him into bed. He told her three times that he’d be fine after a full night’s sleep. “This has to stop now,” he warned her, before he closed his eyes. “No dosing her food or giving her the stink-eye.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing. She’s not our target. I took a stupid risk and I got caught. I showed her my hand and got nothing in return.”

  Madonna looked down at him. “What kind of thing did you think you might find?”

  “Some kind of clue why all the suicides are happening,” Teacher said. “Some kind of reason. You can’t tell me that isn’t some kind of mystical shit. And Fiji is the witch, so I figured the two things must be tied together.”

  “She can’t be causing them,” Madonna said. “That’s just not her.”

  “Well, I would have said the same thing right up until an hour ago,” Teacher said, wincing as he eased into a more comfortable position.

  Madonna cocked her head. From the silence, Grady had cried himself to sleep. She would skip his bath and his toothbrush tonight in favor of letting him stay that way. She raised a finger to her husband and slipped into the toddler’s room to pull a blanket over him. She tiptoed out without waking him, to her relief.

  Though Teacher was almost asleep, he roused enough to say, “She didn’t call the cops. She didn’t go running to her neighbors and ask them to come question me about it. She solved her problem herself.”

  And with that, Madonna made a sound of disgust, turned off the light, and left him to sleep. She was not content with Teacher’s verdict, but for now she’d go along.

  Madonna was not one to forgive and forget. She was more of the “get even” school.

  She stopped herself from making plans for vengeance by reminding herself that Fiji was not the object of her paycheck these past two years. Madonna had to keep her eyes on the prize.

  And it was a rich prize, indeed.

  18

  Lemuel said, “Bobo, the shop has to be closed tonight.”

  Bobo was standing in the doorway of his apartment above the pawnshop. Lemuel had come silently up the stairs while Bobo had been waiting for a pizza to come out of the oven.

  Bobo thought of asking why, but if Lemuel had wanted to explain, he would have done so. “Okay,” he said. “The weather’s so bad I don’t think you’ll disappoint a lot of clientele.”

  “Thank you,” the vampire said stiffly. He almost spoke again, but he seemed to think the better of it, and he went down as silently as he’d come up.

  A few minutes later, Bobo saw Lemuel and Olivia climb into Olivia’s anonymous gray Honda Civic and drive off. He shrugged and sliced the pizza. He was reading a book by Tana French, and he propped it up on another book while he ate his dinner.

  He would have been very surprised to know that Lemuel and Olivia were on their way to kidnap a vampire.

  * * *

  “Her name’s Christine?” Lemuel asked Olivia.

  “Yep. That’s what the Vampire Directory said. And this is the latest edition. The purchase had to go on your credit card. You have to be a vampire listed in it to buy it.”

  “I didn’t know such a thing existed,” Lemuel marveled. “And you say I’m in it?”

  “You did ask me to search the Internet.”

  “I did wonder if you might be able to find the descendants of Arria Auclina and Dr. Quigley,” he said. Lemuel was quite proud that he’d even imagined Olivia could discover such a thing, and he was even more delighted that once Olivia had understood what he wanted, she’d purchased the software and found his answer while he slept.

  Lemuel had not been this pleased since Bobo had given him the hidden books.

  “Do you want to look at your entry?” Olivia asked.

  “I’m interested in hers,” he said. “Mine need only read, ‘Stay away from him.’”

  Olivia laughed. “One person in a million would say that, Lem. Okay, Christine’s entry says that she’s the linear descendant of Arria Auclina. Christine was turned by Dr. Quigley thirty years ago to provide a gift for his sire. She is fluent in Etruscan.”

  “Where is she?”

  “This is the best part. She’s in Dallas right now, living in Joseph’s nest.”

/>   “Then let’s go.” Lemuel was up and walking by the time Olivia’s astonished look vanished, replaced by concern.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked. “Lem, you can’t just steal her.” But she was smiling as she said it.

  “Of course I can,” he said. “And I may yet do so. But I plan to bargain.” Lemuel was running up the stairs and into the shop. By the time Olivia caught up with him, he was looking in the old ledger, one of the earliest recording the pawnshop transactions. Whatever its original color, the book was now a mottled yellowish color with a dark brown spine.

  Olivia didn’t ask what Lemuel was doing. She knew that very soon he’d tell her. Lemuel turned to the earliest section of the ledger (which was about the size of a 9-by-13 baking pan), and within a minute he’d found what he wanted.

  “It’s still here,” Lemuel said. “That’s the beauty of keeping records.” Laying the ledger on the counter, he went to the corner of the pawnshop where the magical objects were kept. Olivia studied the locked cabinets some nights while Lemuel was on duty, and she would have sworn she knew the appearance of each item, though not its use—for Bobo and Lemuel did not know the properties of all of them. But Lemuel unlocked a cabinet with a tiny key from his key ring and withdrew a ball the color of aged ivory. It was about the size of a softball, and it was decorated with tiny blue paintings of butterflies.

  “Tell me a lie,” Lemuel said.

  “I’m a virgin,” Olivia said promptly.

  And the ball glowed from inside.

  It was startlingly lovely lit this way, but Lemuel was not at all interested in the aesthetics of the ball. “It still works,” he said with some satisfaction. “This will be a good thing to trade for Christine.”

  Olivia opened her mouth to protest that a woman should not be traded for an object, even if she was a vampire, but she closed it again. There were arguments you could win with Lemuel, and there were arguments you couldn’t. This was one of those.

  Lemuel slapped his pockets until he found his phone, which Olivia had given him the previous Christmas. She had also instructed him in its use, and now, with a glance to make sure she noticed, he checked his list of contacts and pressed one of the icons. He held the phone to his ear, and Olivia could hear it ring.

  “Yes,” said a cold voice.

  “This is Lemuel Bridger.”

  After a pause, the voice said, “A great surprise to hear from you.”

  “Please tell Joseph that I need to talk to him this night and that I am on my way from Midnight.”

  “I will see if he has time to talk to you, Mr. Bridger.”

  “I am coming, anyway,” Lemuel said, and hung up.

  “If we’re going to Dallas, we better get on the road now,” Olivia said. “Are we taking the Vette?” Lemuel had a red Corvette, and Olivia loved to ride in it.

  “I wish we could, but we have to bring back another person, so we’d better take yours,” he said. “And you’re right, let’s start.” He ran up the stairs to Bobo’s door, told Bobo he was leaving, and in the next five minutes they were on their way to Dallas.

  Joseph’s large house was in a neighborhood of similar homes. His predecessor, Stan, had refused to move after the famous massacre several years ago. Joseph, too, had insisted the nest remain where it had been. The house had been carefully repaired. There was no sign that blood and death had ever filled the night in this upscale neighborhood.

  Olivia had read all about the massacre, and she scanned the mansion’s façade with some curiosity. She was rewarded at discovering a bullet hole on one of the window frames. Though it had been filled in and painted, it was detectable to Olivia, who knew her bullets.

  Lemuel rang the doorbell. He said, “Olivia, don’t leave my side in this house. If you have to answer the call of nature, I’d rather you do it in your pants than go somewhere alone with one of these vampires.”

  “You might have said that before we got here,” she said, not knowing whether to laugh or make a dash for the bushes. “I can hold it.” Olivia wished he hadn’t brought up her bladder, though, because come to think of it . . .

  Then the door opened, and Joseph Velasquez himself greeted them. He was not a handsome man; short and squat and flat-faced. But he was powerful and intelligent, which was attractive in its own right. “Mr. Bridger,” he said, with just a hint of an accent. “And perhaps your companion is Miss Charity?”

  “I am,” Olivia confirmed.

  “Very formidable,” Joseph said, in a voice that conveyed the exact opposite. “Please enter my home.” He stepped aside. Lemuel entered in front of Olivia, to take the first blow if there was an ambush. But none fell, and Olivia stepped inside behind him, trying not to feel shaken by the vibration of power as she moved past Joseph.

  There were other vampires in the hall, and still more in the room to which Joseph led them. When the house had been built (by humans), this had been the family room, and it still served that purpose, though for a very different sort of family.

  Olivia had never met any other vampire besides Lemuel, and she was surprised by how different they felt. She knew that Lemuel was unusual, but now she understood what a gap it made between him and the blood drinkers.

  “Would you like a glass?” Joseph asked. He gestured toward a thin black-haired female who was carrying a tray of wineglasses.

  “Thank you,” Lemuel said, taking a glass from the central part of the tray.

  “Would your human like something to drink?”

  “Olivia?” Lemuel turned to her. There was a warning in his face.

  “No, thank you,” she said politely. Now was not the time to inform Joseph she could speak for herself.

  “Thank you, no,” Lemuel relayed.

  “We are so pleased to be able to extend hospitality to such a famous vampire,” Joseph said, slowly and carefully. “But since you have banned all such as us from your territory, I am quite interested to find out why you wanted to visit my own territory.”

  “I have come to ask for one favor in exchange for another,” Lemuel said, just as carefully.

  Their voices, you could hang icicles from them, Olivia thought. She was careful not to meet the eyes of any of the vampires around them. She’d read enough to know that. The mesmerizing eyes were not a trait of Lemuel’s, and she was glad of that, because it would have been mighty inconvenient to dodge his gaze all the time.

  “A favor?” Joseph was able to inject a lot of incredulity into two words. “From us? You astonish me.”

  “I was astonished to hear that daytime servants of yours had come to my town while I slept,” Lemuel said.

  “Ah. I will tell you why.” Joseph inclined his head graciously. “I had heard that a human who did us great harm was hiding in Midnight,” he said. “Rather than offend you by sending one of us at night, I thought humans in our service would be less intrusive.”

  “But of course, I heard of it,” Lemuel said, and though calm, his voice was truly terrifying. “And it did seem to me that such an action might be considered a violation of our agreement of so many years ago.”

  “An agreement you made with Stan when he was young,” Joseph murmured.

  “An agreement with the head of a nest is an agreement forever, unless it is renegotiated,” Lemuel said in return. No one in the room moved by so much as a whisker. Vampires could do that.

  In the silence that followed, Olivia kept her eyes on Lemuel’s feet. She would know if the time had come to fight by the way he planted his feet.

  “Perhaps you could explain the favor?” Joseph asked.

  “Certainly. I need the services of a young vampire in your nest. Her name is Christine.”

  The thin black-haired female with the tray moved an inch.

  Busted, thought Olivia. It was the equivalent of jumping up and down screaming, “That’s me!”

  �
��This is Christine,” Joseph said, and the censure was heavy in his voice. “She is a weak vampire, but a fair fighter.”

  He really doesn’t like Christine. Olivia began to feel optimistic about their chances. Perhaps Lemuel would not have to give up the truth ball if Joseph was anxious to be rid of Christine.

  “On the other hand,” said a male with a blond crew cut, who had already caught Olivia’s attention because he looked very retro-1950s, “Christine has proven her worth to us. May we ask why you need Christine, in particular?”

  Does she have something we don’t know about that we could use or exploit? Olivia translated.

  “She is a weak vampire,” Lemuel said, with the air of one being sadly blunt. “She has only one recommendation to me, and that is her lineage. Her maker, who calls himself Dr. Quigley, gave me less than fair value in something I bought from him.”

  Olivia found it draining to be so hyperalert to tiny movements. But at least no one was getting closer, and she could sense the vampires’ interest. Olivia was finding the atmosphere in the house stagnant and cool, and she realized that the vampires had not turned on the heat yet, though the night temperatures were dipping into the low fifties. She was glad she’d pulled on a sweater for the drive.

  The silence had lasted way too long, at least for a human conversation, and Olivia realized her thoughts were drifting when they should be most focused.

  She’d heard that vampires could communicate with each other silently if they were connected by blood, and she figured that was what was happening.

  “We are willing to give up Christine, for a price,” Joseph said.

  Good-bye, truth ball, Olivia thought.

  “As it happens, I have something that may interest you,” Lemuel said smoothly.

  Forty minutes later they were driving back to Midnight with a very sullen vampire in the backseat.

  Olivia realized that her sex life was on hold for the foreseeable future. Lemuel was so private he didn’t admit in public that he and Olivia actually had sex, he had banned the F word from casual conversation, and he would never be induced into her bed with a vampire in the next room. Sure, there were more important things to face at the moment. But.