"No," I said, kicking myself for ever thinking things were as bad as they could get. "I think your mother's here."
"What?"
"Surprise," Cathie said, and smiled.
"Mother!" Laura had twisted around in her seat and was glaring at the devil. "I can do this without your help!"
"I'm sure you can," the devil went on in Cathie's voice, smirking with Cathie's face. "But it seemed for a moment like you were going to take the coward's way out. Knocking him out and waiting for the police…" The devil rolled her eyes. "That's just sad."
"Go to Hell," Laura said through gritted teeth, and—I'm not sure how she did this from the passenger seat of a Dodge Stratus—pulled out her sword and stabbed Cathie with it.
Who promptly cried, "What the hell do you think you're doing, you morbid bitch?"
Laura looked at me. "Is she talking again?"
"Oh, yeah."
"Good." The sword disappeared. Laura turned back around. Nobody said a word for five miles.
Chapter 36
"Your sword disrupts magic," I began, because somebody had to say something.
"Yes."
"So why didn't it 'kill' Cathie?"
"I don't know. I've only ever killed vampires with it. I tried to kill a werewolf once, but it just made her change back into a woman. She was so startled she ran away from me, and I never saw her again."
"There are werewolves?" Cathie asked. "For real?"
"You gotta be kidding me, werewolves. Like I don't have enough to deal with?" I bitched.
"It was only the one time," Laura said defensively. "I'm sure you'll never have to meet one. They're rarer than vampires, I bet."
"Let's for cripe's sake hope so. Cathie, is any of this looking familiar?"
"I only saw the house from the inside," she said apologetically. "I remember what the inside looked like… and the smell of the place. I remember that."
"Oh, it's that one." Laura pointed to a nondescript split-level on the end of the block. It was tan with dark-brown trim. The driveway and sidewalks had been neatly shoveled.
"It is?" Cathie whispered, leaning forward so that her head popped through the seat between us.
"How do you know? Cathie, does anything ring a bell?"
"Just the smell. How does she know?"
Laura sighed, a dreadful sound, and looked at the nice little split-level the way I would look at a child abuser. "Is it a black house? All black, even the sidewalks? Even the snow around it?"
"No," Cathie and I said in unison.
"It looks black to me," Laura said simply.
Chapter 37
"Hi, Eric? It's Betsy. Listen, don't freak out, but Laura and Cathie—never mind, long story—anyway, we think we've found where the Driveway Killer lives, so we're going to check it out. It's 4241 Treadwell Lane in Minneapolis. Anyway, when you get this, call me. Except I'm going to have my ringer turned off so we can sneak up on this guy if we have to, so don't flip out if I don't answer. Okay, love you, bye!"
"Are you happy now?" Cathie bitched. "Can you please get off your ass and help me, or do you have more calls to make?"
"Hey, you've seen the horror movies. The heroine never tells anyone where she's going—it's maddening. Or if she does remember she has a cell phone, it's always dead. Or she can't get a signal."
"Or her fiancé is on the other line and doesn't answer the call," Laura prompted helpfully.
"You shut up. And keep that thing put away unless we need it."
"We'd better not need it," she said as we parked a few blocks away and got out of the car. "It only disrupts magic; it doesn't do squat on regular people. Well, humans, I mean."
"Oh."
"I've been meaning to ask," she whispered as we snuck up on the split-level and Cathie ran through (literally through) snowbanks ahead imploring us to hurry, hurry, hurry! "I thank God every night that I didn't hurt you, but, uh, why didn't my sword hurt you? It should have killed you."
I shrugged. "Got no idea, doll. But one thing at a time."
"Oh. All right."
"Now remember," I whispered as we peeked into the front window. "Fact-finding. And if the woman's here, we'll save her."
"What if there's no woman here, just the bad guy?" Laura asked.
"You'll recognize him, right?" I asked Cathie.
"Too damned right I will."
"Okay, well, then we'll pull back and call the good guys and wait for them to come."
"What if he leaves before—"
"One thing at a time, okay? We don't even know if anybody's home."
"Nobody's in the living room," Laura observed.
"Just a minute," Cathie said, and flitted through the window. We hid (in plain sight, in the front yard), feeling like idiots (at least I did) while she phased through the house. She popped out through the garage and said, "He's not here. But there's a woman in the basement!"
"Pull up the garage door," Laura suggested.
"Everything's locked," Cathie fretted.
"I'm sure I can pull it up—" I began.
"But you guys," Laura protested, "he'll see it!"
"Who cares? Do him good to get a really big scare. Maybe he'll do something stupid."
"And maybe he'll run away and we won't catch him."
"Well, we can't just leave that poor woman down in the dark by herself, thinking she's going to die."
"Goddamned right!" Cathie said. "One of you break something and get in here! All I can do is float around going booooooooo. Cross of Christ!"
I picked up one of the bricks lining the sidewalk and tossed it through the front window. The noise was tremendous. Not to mention the mess. Cathie and Laura stared at me, shocked.
"Maybe this way, he'll think it's just kids." It was lame, but it was all I had. "Maybe he won't think the cops are here if he just sees a broken window."
"Oh. Good one." Cathie floated approvingly away, and Laura carefully hoisted herself up and into the living room.
"Watch the glass," I warned her and then cut myself a good one and cursed. Luckily, I bled as well as I read: sluggishly.
"Down here!" Cathie called, and darted into a closed wooden door.
What's funny was, I was starting to get used to the smell of the refinery—we'd been driving around the neighborhood a good twenty minutes, after all. But Cathie was right, it blotted out everything else. If he was killing women in the basement, I couldn't smell it from the kitchen. I couldn't even smell the kitchen from the kitchen.
Laura and I hurried down the stairs, which were predictably dark and spooky until Laura found the light switch. Banks of fluorescents winked on, and in the far corner, we could see a woman with messy, short blond hair, tied up and gagged with electrician's tape. Her outfit was, needless to say, a mess.
"Ha!" Cathie screeched, phasing though the wood-burning furnace and zooming around in a tight circle. "Told you, told you!"
"It's all right," Laura said, going to her. "You're safe now. Er, this might sting a bit." And she ripped the tape off the woman's mouth. "It's like a Band-Aid," she told her. "You can't do it little by little."
"He's coming back—to kill me—" Mrs. Scoman (I assume it was Mrs. Scoman) gasped. "He said he—was going to use his special friend—and kill me—" Then she leaned over and barfed all over Laura's shoes.
"That's all right," Laura said, rubbing the terrified woman's back. "You've had a hard night."
"If those were my shoes," I muttered to Cathie, "I wouldn't be able to be so nice about it."
"Oh, your sister's a freak," Cathie said, dismissing ShoeGate with a wave of her hand. "I've only known her a couple of days, and I figured that one out."
"She's different and nice," I said defensively, "but that doesn't make her a freak."
"Trust me. Having been killed by one, I recognize the breed."
"You take that back! You can't put someone like Laura in the same league as the Driveway Asshole."
"Will you two stop it?" Laura hissed, struggling wit
h the tape. "You're scaring poor Mrs. Scoman! And I am not in the same league as the Driveway Asshole."
"I just want to get out of here," she groaned. "I want to get out of here so bad. Just my feet. I don't care about my hands. I can run with my hands tied."
Then I heard it. "Move," I told Laura. "The—we have to go now."
Cathie darted up through the ceiling.
"What?" Laura asked.
I started to rip through the tape with a couple tugs, tricky because I didn't want to hurt Mrs. Scoman. "The garage door just went up," I said shortly.
Cathie swooped back into the basement. "He's back! And boy, he is freaked out. Keeps muttering about the damn foster kids, whatever that's supposed to mean."
"Hurry," Mrs. Scoman whispered.
"Please don't throw up on me. If I do it any faster or harder, I could break all the bones in your hands."
"I don't care! Do my feet! Break my feet! Cut them off if you have to, just get me out of here!"
"Carrie? Do you have friends downstairs, Carrie?"
"Oh, great," I mumbled. "The predictably creepy killer has arrived."
Cathie pointed at the man—I couldn't see him because we were as much under the stairs as beside them—walking down the stairs. "Time's up, motherfucker," was how she greeted him, and damn, I liked the woman's style.
"Why did no one think to bring a knife?" Laura asked the air.
"Because we're the hotshit vampire queen and devil's daughter, and we don't need knives. Unless, of course, the bad guy ties up his victims with tape. Then we're screwed." Ah! I finally got her feet free and went to work on her hands. Because she would have had to run past the killer to escape, I shoved her back down when she tried to scramble to her feet. "It's okay," I told her. "We've got it covered. We really are the hotshit—never mind. I'll have this off in another minute."
The killer turned and came into the basement. Saw us. (Well, most of us… not Cathie.) Looked startled, then quickly recovered. "Carrie, I told you, no friends over on a school night."
"My name isn't Carrie," Mrs. Scoman whispered. She wouldn't look at the killer.
Cathie stepped into his chest and stood inside him. "Asshole. Jerkoff. Tyrant. Fuckwad," she informed him from inside his own head. "Loser. Virgin. Dimwit. Ass-hat. God, what I wouldn't give to be corporeal right now!"
"It's overrated," I mumbled.
"I can't believe this loser's face was the last thing I saw."
"You aren't the foster kids," the psycho nutjob killer said, looking puzzled. "I thought the kids at the end of the block broke my window again."
"Score," I said under my breath, tugging away. "What did I say? Huh?"
"Yeah, you actually had a good idea," Cathie snarked. "And we're not calling the police right this second why again?"
"Why did you kill those women?" Laura asked, the way you'd ask someone why they picked a red car over a blue one. "Why did you steal Mrs. Scoman?"
"Because they're mine," he explained, the way you'd explain about owning a shirt. Everyone was being all calm and civilized, and it was freaking me the hell out. I could smell trouble. Not a huge talent, given the circumstances, but it was still making me twitchy as a cat in heat. "They're all mine. Carrie forgot, so I have to keep reminding her."
"Psycho!" I coughed into my fist.
"Did you really," Laura began, and then had to try again, "did you really strangle them until they pooped, and then make fun of them after you stole their clothes?"
"Laura, he's crazy. You're not going to get a straight answer. Look at him!"
Unfortunately, looking at him didn't help: he looked like a lawyer on casual Fridays. Nice, clean blue work shirt. Khakis. Penny loafers. Not at all like the slobbering nutjob he obviously was.
Then he fucked himself forever by saying, "It sucks when you get the bra off and find out they don't have a decent rack. I don't mind them lying about that other stuff, but tell the truth about your tits, that's what my dad used to say. Otherwise, it's like lying."
Then, of course, he was dead, because Laura leaned down, picked up a chunk of wood off the pile, and broke his head in half. I screamed. Mrs. Scoman screamed. Even Cathie screamed, but I think she was happy. I wasn't. I was in Hell. I think Mrs. Scoman thought so, too.
Chapter 38
I used my vampire mojo to convince Mrs. Scoman she had escaped and had no idea why the killer was dead, or who had killed him. I reminded her to tell Nick and the task force the killer's address. We thought she'd make out okay… none of the killer's blood was on her. It was all over Laura.
"Okay," I said on the way home. "I'm a little concerned."
"I lost my temper," Laura said, looking out the window. "I'll be the first to admit it."
"Freak!" Cathie sang from the backseat.
"That's another thing," I snapped, glaring into the rearview mirror. "You're supposed to disappear and be in heaven or wherever you people go after I've fixed your problem."
"Yeah, I know, but I kind of like this."
"What?"
"This." She waved her ghostly hands through my head. I shuddered, and the car swerved. "How cheated was I? Repeat after me: promising life cut short."
"Yeah, but…" I paused delicately. "You're dead. It's time to move on."
"Look who's talking. Besides, I helped you, right? I could get into the house when you guys were standing out on the lawn like jerks. I think I could be pretty good at this. Anyway, I think I'll hang around."
"Oh, Christ on crackers."
"What?"
"Good to have you aboard!" I said with fake heartiness.
"She's still here?" Laura asked. "That's odd."
"Don't try to change the subject! You murdered that guy. He was just standing there, and you killed him!"
"Killed him dead," Cathie agreed. "Like a big blond roach motel. She's a freak, but I'm totally in love with your sister right now."
"You stay out of this."
"If you think about it, the whole thing is kind of my fault," Cathie confessed.
"Never mind! Laura, what were you thinking?"
"That I was very very very very angry? And it upset me to know he would be walking around breathing the same air as my folks?"
Points for honesty, at least. "Laura, it's like this. I don't know if you're having a bad month, or if certain prophecies are coming to light, or what, but I gotta admit, I'm concerned. Okay? I mean, I'm a vampire and I'm not going around—okay, I am, but that's a totally different thing."
"I know it was wrong," Laura said, looking at me with guileless blue eyes, "but you have to admit, it will be difficult for him to take off his belt and strangle any more women after today. Won't it?" She almost smiled, and was that a flash of green I saw in her eyes?
I decided it was my imagination.
Before I could take the issue further—not that I had the slightest idea what to say, not exactly having the moral high ground—the blue Mustang behind me flashed its high beams twice. Then it snuggled right up on my bumper, and my cell phone vibrated.
"Do they give dead people speeding tickets?" Cathie asked.
"That's no cop, that's my fiancé." I hummed the first few lines of "My Boyfriend's Back" and then answered the phone.
Chapter 39
"Eric, it was just an ordinary guy this time! It's not like I got tricked by vampires or got stuck in the middle of another coup."
He put his hands behind his back. I knew why; it was so he wouldn't choke me. "What is this aversion you have to waiting for my assistance?"
"It's not aversion. You're just never around when I need you. Hum. Okay, that sounded nicer in my head. Hey, I did call you. It's not my fault you didn't answer your cell."
"I was available twenty seconds later! You were physically unable to wait less than half a minute?"
"Well, I kind of wish we had, because the thing is…" I burst into tears.
"Oh, Elizabeth, don't do that." He snuggled me into his arms. "Was I shouting? I won't apologize f
or worrying, but I will clarify: I was concerned, not angry."
"It's not that. Laura—she killed the bad guy."
"And that's… er, bad?"
"It's how she did it. He didn't even attack us or anything. He was just standing there. And there were all these piles of wood in the basement, because he has—had—a wood-burning stove, and she leaned over and picked up a big old chunk of wood, and just beaned him with it! And I heard the crack—I heard his head break!" I shuddered. "And brains—did you know brains are pink and red? Don't answer that," I ordered tearfully. "And all this stuff came out. And he was just… dead. And she didn't even care! Just said later that she lost her temper."
"That… is cause for concern," he said after a moment's thought. "I must admit, I have… dispatched… my share of societal burdens in my day. But Laura seems to be—"
"Going over to the dark side."
"Or something," he agreed. "But it could be argued that she saved lives."
"Definitely it could be argued. I guess Driveway Jerk had this thing for short-haired blondes because when he was a teen, this girl named—never mind, it's creepy and stupid at the same time. And he was just driving around, looking for the right type to be in the right spot at the right time! Tell me how that can be allowed to happen in a sane world. You could be putting your groceries away ten minutes later and not be killed."
"But you and Laura are in a sane world," he suggested. "Righting wrongs."
"I really don't think this is the tactic we should use when talking to her about this, okay?" I pulled away so I could look into his eyes. "And see this? How I came right home and told you everything and we're discussing it like sane people who talk to each other?"
"Well, I did follow you to be sure you were going to do that," he admitted.
"This, this is what couples do! Kuh-MYUN-ih-kate. Memorize the word, Sinclair. Practice it."
"Consider me chastened." He didn't look terribly repentant, though. "Getting back to the matter of your sister…"
"I don't know what to do. What can I tell her, killing is wrong? Of course it's wrong, everybody knows that. She knows it, too. The problem is, that only makes us the biggest hypocrites in the world. Not to mention, it's not like she killed a Girl Scout. She did the world a favor. So what do I say to her?"
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