Blood Ties

by Skyla Dawn Cameron

  All the barflies at the counter had whiskey, the bottles at the back indicating at least it was top shelf. There was no television and I found it somewhat disconcerting to see this many people drinking without sports in the background. Other than a pair of ladies at a table near the jukebox with three other men, we were the only women present. And definitely the only ones under thirty if not forty.

  Melinoë poured the beer and spoke in a low voice. “I didn’t see any of these people in town today, did you?”

  I studied their faces and slowly shook my head. “No. So maybe someone here was more familiar with Dev.”

  “Do you have your phone?”

  I did, in my back pocket. Not like the photo had been necessary since there was only one young stranger in town recently—other than us—but she’d texted it to me earlier just in case.

  No one here seemed too welcoming, though. I’d maybe start with the bartender when he finished our food.

  He reappeared a few minutes later, without our fries. Perhaps there’d been an additional employee back there cooking, but it didn’t seem like the bartender was needed much there anyway—no one had moved in his absence, all still nursing their drinks. He leaned on the bartop to carry on a conversation with someone at the far end, and the din of voices and music made it impossible to make out anything anyone was saying.

  “Let’s say we spend tomorrow searching,” she said. “What do we do if it turns up nothing?”

  I drank silently as I thought, though I didn’t need to buy time—it had been on my mind the entire time while she slept.

  This wasn’t my job—none of this was. Yes, I had a PI license; yes, I had training. But that wasn’t the same as experience. Dev had vanished. Maybe literally—maybe he finally got the hang of Dad’s teleporting spell and took off. But, again...his car. Can’t teleport with that. Even taking teleporting off the table, there were a dozen possibilities that would mean no trail for me to follow, and I had no idea what to do. My job—or hobby, really—was to kill people. It wasn’t always easy but it was simple. I knew where my targets were. I had all the information I needed. I made quick work of them. I didn’t have to hunt anyone down.

  Dev, whatever had happened, seemed like he didn’t want to be found. If he was actually taking precautions to cover his tracks, there was fuck all I could do.

  “Elis?” she said softly.

  I took a gulp of beer and set down my glass, fingertips dragging along the condensation. “I’m not sure. Maybe hit an occult shop for supplies and try some spells that might help locate him or divine a location.”

  “You can do that?”

  I chuckled and took another drink. “Not particularly well. I’m not like Dev—he’s a true student of magic. I am decidedly not. I like practical application.” And setting people on fire, even if it wasn’t practical.

  “Would your dad—”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to involve him anymore than he already is.”

  “Isn’t he worried?”

  “He is. Great poker face, but Dad is an exceptionally excellent worrier. I’m willing to bet he’s already put calls out to all his contacts in case someone might know more about the swarm. It’s why I have to do this—if I don’t look for Dev, he might, and he...has better things to spend his time on.” Just don’t ask for details. Because I couldn’t even come up with a convincing lie for it—reclusive wealthy vampire with nothing but time on his hands shouldn’t have anything better to do than look for his missing son, right? But it was much more complicated than that.

  “Does he know...?” She gestured as if that would complete the sentence.

  “That I’m a whole man garbage disposal agent?”

  She chuckled and took another sip of her beer. “Creative way of putting it.”

  “Yeah, I was thinking of getting business cards. I think he knows plenty but he doesn’t bring it up. He is many things but tries not to be a hypocrite with us—Dad did some fucked up shit at my age. Not that he advertises, but Aunt Roo told us the stories. So he’s never said anything about my hobby and would more than likely approve, probably.” I wasn’t about to test that supposition, however.

  “You’re very lucky,” she said, an edge of wistfulness to her voice that I didn’t think I was imagining.

  Might as well show some cards. “I admit I know absolutely nothing about your family.” I took a long sip of my beer and waited.

  She skirted my gaze, both hands folding over her glass and fingers smudging the condensation. “I don’t have one. I know my mom had kids before I was born but they were killed.”

  A shiver rolled down my back that I fought not to give into.

  “Mom died when I was young,” she continued. “Her family was dead as well.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, and meant it. Because I believed her, and she was right—I was very lucky. I grew up with amazing parents. And I missed my mother fiercely, every day, but I still had a father. I had a brother, somewhere out there. I had Aunt Roo. And for a moment Melinoë looked a little lost, a little younger, a little smaller, and I knew that whatever my particular brand of damage, she had probably been through a hell of a lot more herself. “Your dad?”

  She shook her head and lifted her glass again, tipping it back and swallowing down the remaining half pint of beer in the ensuing silence. Then she poured another glass and I suspected she wished for something stronger. Her dark eyes peered up at me briefly, a little twist to her lips. “I was created in a lab. My biological father was apparently a doctor, and my knowledge of him begins and ends there.”

  I lifted my own glass. “Some of my very favourite people in the world were created in petri dishes—makes no difference to me.” I tipped my glass, and she met it with her own—along with a rueful little smile that looked like thanks.

  “That’s a better way of looking at it, absolutely.”

  “And now you have Dev, at least.”

  “I do. Provided we can find him.”

  A woman just short of forty came through the swinging kitchen door then with two baskets of fries balanced in her arms and another basket of veggie sticks and dip angled atop them. Her faded red hair was bound in an equally faded bandanna, ringlets damp with sweat and steam bouncing around her tired face. “Here you go, ladies.” She set each basket down carefully.

  As I saw her approach, I’d pulled out my phone in preparation, and quickly thumbed to the photo of Dev that Melinoë had sent me to use. “Excuse me—can you tell me if this man looks familiar?”

  She paused there with a sigh and her hands on her hips, peering down at my phone. “He came in a couple of times I think, maybe a few weeks ago?”

  “It would’ve been about a week ago.”

  She nodded. “Probably. Days bleed into each other here, I don’t remember exactly when. Maybe two evenings? Kept to himself.”

  “Did he talk to anyone? Say anything?”

  A shrug. “Sat at the bar.” She looked over her shoulder. “Hey Donnie!”

  The bartender looked up, gaze going from her to us, then he straightened and came to stand at the end of the bar. “Yeah?”

  “That boy from out of town that was here—he talk about anything?”

  Donnie the bartender shrugged. “Nope. Regular conversation. Did see him once out at Cemetery Road, though. Thought maybe he was visiting a grave out here or something, like he had family once this area?”

  We most certainly didn’t have family out here—even Dev’s mom’s side couldn’t have anything to do with St. Philip Point.

  “Did anyone see his vehicle?” Melinoë asked. “It was a—”

  “I remember the car,” Donnie interrupted. “Not often we see anything built in the past decade here. Not seen it since, figured he took it with him, didn’t he?”

  “Thanks for your help,” I said rather than answer that. The waitress went back to the kitchen and the bartender slung a towel over his shoulder and returned to his conversation.

  “Cemetery Ro
ad?” Melinoë said in a low voice.

  “Already on it,” I responded as I typed it into the maps app on my phone.

  Surprise surprise: the only thing there was the actual cemetery by the looks of it, but the signal wasn’t great in here and I gave up waiting for the rest of the page to load. I tucked the phone back in my pocket and dug into the fries. “At least it’s somewhere to start tomorrow.”

  We ate and drank in relative silence for a bit, just the changing music in the background and the mumbling voices around us. More were looking our way the longer we were there, though, either growing comfortable enough to gawk or drunk enough.

  One in particularly, a man maybe fifty or sixty, openly stared from his perch at the bar. Thinning, graying hair, beard and glasses, that nebulous creepy air about him. I hadn’t missed the quick glances the waitress made his way the brief time she’d been out of the kitchen, words hovering on his lips if only she’d make eye contact, and I wondered if he was the reason she stayed back there rather than socialize out here.

  “Barfly nearest to us,” I said in a low voice without looking his way.

  Melinoë glanced at me instead of him as well. “I saw. He’s on his third whiskey since we’ve been here, too.”

  Maybe it was that he overheard us talking about Dev and knew something, but I personally doubted it. Irritation buzzed under my skin though I knew I should consider us lucky he hadn’t started speaking yet. Something about men in bars—maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the location, but they always felt entitled to speak to random women, even those clearly in conversation, and I sensed that coming from him.

  Unfortunately for him, we’d also polished off our pitcher, of which I’d had my fair share, and the loose comfortable feeling in my veins from the alcohol definitely peeled back what little impulse control I had.

  Melinoë chewed on a carrot stick and swallowed it back with the last of her drink. “Maybe we should head out.”

  I was not being run out of this podunk bar in this podunk town just because of the dickhead who was now rolling off his bar stool and heading toward us.

  “Counterpoint: we don’t head out and I kill him.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re not killing him.”

  “Not while there are witnesses, no.” But it was impossible to be without witnesses for long, especially if I encouraged him to step outside with me.

  She shook her head. “We’re here to find Dev, not become murder suspects. Although they probably don’t have that great of a police force.”

  I started to respond, but then had to stifle my irritation—just barely—as he reached our table and thumped his glass down between us.

  “Ladies.” His voice was a little slurred. “How’s your evening?”

  “Busy,” I replied without looking at him.

  “Love to know what you’re talking about—I can bring a chair over.” His hand came down half an inch from mine, close enough for me to feel the heat from it.

  The irritation that prickled along my skin turned into a wave of rage through my veins. At no point had either Melinoë or I turned to face him, made eye contact, or displayed any interest in speaking to him. We were focused on our own conversation and meal. Anyone with an iota of awareness, respect, or fucking common sense would be able to see that and not corner us, and that this man had made it through his entire goddamn life thinking this was okay told me no one pushed back when he encroached on their boundaries like this.

  He was about to learn a lesson.

  He tipped closer to me, wrist brushing my upper arm. “What brought you to St. Philip Point?”

  I held Melinoë’s gaze for a moment, my body stiffening. Then I slowly twisted to stare blankly up at him.

  Because he was not a smart man and had no sense of self-preservation, he chuckled and raised his hands in mock defence. “I’m just making friendly conversation. You don’t need to have an attitude.”

  I let several long beats of silence pass before I parted my lips to speak. “My friend and I are having a conversation you weren’t invited to. Go away.”

  “Knew you were a stuck-up bitch,” he started to rant, the volume of his voice rising enough that Donnie the bartender squared his shoulders in a brace and other patrons turned to look. None of them, I noticed, actually came over to stop him. “Know how I knew? Fucking prissy little—”

  “You knew because I deliberately telegraphed my body language to warn you to back off,” I interrupted. “I gave you time to back up, but your shitty little ego wouldn’t let you go on your way. This is your second warning. You will not like the third.”

  He got his back up and I knew he was, in fact, going to require a third warning, but the bartender finally stepped over with a firm hand on his upper arm. I couldn’t make out what he whispered to this asshole beyond the warning of a growled, “Jim!”...but it was enough to make ol’ Jimbo stalk back to the bar without another word.

  Melinoë leaned across the table to speak to me in a low voice. “Do you want to head back?”

  I swung around again to face her and drained the rest of my beer. “Fuck that—let’s get shots.”

  Thirteen

  Wonderwall

  I don’t drink much because I am the very definition of a lightweight. Even then, I don’t generally have hangovers because I drink 2:1 water to alcohol, and I never get blackout drunk. It doesn’t take long for me to get a happy buzz and I can usually time my drinks to keep me there rather than go too far over.

  Three shots of tequila and I was in a good place.

  Melinoë was a little more conservative; I’d always thought myself a little paranoid thanks to how I was raised, but she was something else entirely. She could also hold her alcohol better, though, and it was only the slight tilt of her head and small giggles that tipped anyone off that she wasn’t one hundred percent in control of her faculties.

  Bar patrons remained pretty steady for the next hour—two left, but three older men arrived to take up around a table and talk about...well, I didn’t want to be prejudiced, but they were all wearing camo, so I figured shooting Bambi.

  Jim, the asshole from earlier, remained in his spot drinking whiskey, and sent scowls between us and the bartender. The odd time the waitress came out to deliver food, he tried to get her attention and reached for her, confirming my theory that she hid back there because of him.

  Honestly, it was the bartender pissing me off more than anything—it was his establishment, he should be protecting his other patrons and his employee rather than that motherfucker. I’d probably be doing the universe a favour if I set the whole fucking place on fire.

  The jukebox sputtered through another round of twangy country and eventually I rose to cycle through the options with a swing to my step and my head feeling light and airy.

  There were plenty of genres—it was an old digital machine, at least a thousand songs loaded on it and I tabbed through the screens of songs I didn’t know. It required a key and code to change, but I suspected it had long ago been programmed and Donnie possibly inherited it. At least he didn’t remark on me poking around.

  The thing about personal magic like mine that held an electrical charge was that, when a witch was practiced with it, it had a lot of uses beyond zapping people. I dragged my finger along the console, sent a little charge through my index fingertip, and the screen flipped to a soft rock playlist.

  I strolled back to our table to the dulcet sound of guitar and a girl singing about whatever the hell a “Wonderwall” was, and paused by Melinoë with my hand out.

  She tossed back her shot of tequila and raised a brow. “I didn’t see a dancefloor.”

  “I’m trying to scandalize the locals,” I said in a low voice with a grin.

  She met my smile with her own, then took my hand. There was approximately five square feet of space between the front door and the bar but at least it was a slow song so less of a risk of running into tables.

  A few eyes followed us, but no one said a
word as we fell into a dance, arms around one another.

  She leaned over to whisper in my ear, the warmth of her enveloping me. “You think two women dancing would really scandalize anyone here nowadays?”

  “I think two young people having fun is the scandalous part.” Mostly I was trying to get a rise out of Jim, though—I wanted him to push, to just give me one more reason to show him the consequences of ignoring my boundaries. Which was probably a terrible thing to hope for, but I was a serial killer, after all, and I don’t know what else would be expected from me.

  “I’m really glad you’re here, Elis,” she confessed. “Trying to figure this out on my own was...daunting.”

  “Not that I’ve been much help.”

  She shrugged, the movement loose under my hands. “Cemetery Road. It’s more than I got trying twenty questions with the motel owner.”

  The leather of her coat was supple under my hands but I wished she’d taken it off so I could see the scars and feel her skin, and ask about the pain mapped across her flesh. Strength and vulnerability was a heady mix I was drawn to, a contrast that kept my thoughts drifting back to her again.

  I held her gaze for a moment and she looked away, a pretty blush rising on her cheeks. Long black lashes veiled her eyes and my heart gave a little kick of want.

  That want surprised me, because I hadn’t really been thinking about it—but yes, I liked her. Maybe I didn’t entirely trust her, but that added some excitement to any situation. I wasn’t sure what she felt—she hadn’t given any indication either way—and surely the alcohol wasn’t helping me thinking clearly. But for a few blessed seconds, I forgot everything—where we were, why we were here, the fucking mess I’d left behind in the city.

  I let the moment pass, though. Instead, I pulled her closer, our heads on one another’s shoulders, and closed my eyes as we swayed with the music.

  Too soon it was over, and she pulled out her phone to check the time. Well after midnight—I was surprised the bar was still open.