Fangtabulous

by Lucienne Diver

  “Not the witching hour?” Bobby asked, spitting out his latest nail-biting success.

  “Ten o’clock gives us plenty of time for it to get dark and deserted down at the pier.”

  She looked meaningfully in my direction, as if some part of that was meant to be a threat, which implied to me that she had no idea that nighttime-without-witnesses played right to my strengths. That hope was dashed a second later when she squatted before me, the pendant I’d wondered about swinging free of her shirt.

  “So vampires really exist?” she asked, studying me.

  I made myself turn away to glare at Bobby in betrayal, rather than stare at the pendant and reveal just how interested in it I was. Bobby surely hadn’t been able to help himself. It was probably impossible to keep secrets from someone—something—that shared your body and brain, but still … I hoped there were some things that he’d held back. For instance, I did not need this Renfield guy knowing what I looked like in my skivvies.

  “Answer me,” she ordered.

  I skimmed past the pendant on my way to give her the death glare of doom. The piece wasn’t much to look at, at least not at first glance—just a pure black stone, like obsidian, ringed by a twisted wire setting and strung on a leather cord. But the longer I looked, the harder it was to look away, like the stone was some black hole, sucking me in. Rebecca caught my stare and tucked the pendant quickly away with a glare all her own.

  “Answer me,” she snarled, again.

  I met her gaze. “We’re not like genies. You can’t compel us to answer.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Djinn exist too? How do I get one?”

  “Have you tried digging up Aladdin’s lamp? Seems like you’ve dug up everything else.”

  Those eyes narrowed again, and she flipped her long auburn hair over her shoulder. “I’m no grave robber. I was looking for something.”

  “Tell that to the guy whose grave you robbed, the one whose skeleton is sitting in the Morbid Gift Shop looking for hand-outs.” She’d probably never expected that JC Supplies would resell it so close to home.

  She hissed. “How much do you know?”

  “Everything,” I lied.

  Except what she was looking for. And why? What did she want with Brent? Or this Tituba person? Had she found what she was looking for? Was it the pendant?

  “Then you know about the Book of Shadows,” she said, studying me.

  Oh crapcakes, that didn’t bode well. “Of course.” Not.

  She leaned in, practically salivating. “Do you have it? I would ransom you for the book.”

  “I thought you were planning to trade me for Brent.”

  “If I have the book, I don’t need him.”

  Ah, so that’s how things stood. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, then. We don’t have it.”

  “Fine,” she spat. “Let’s go.” She looked at Bobby, who stopped gnawing the last of his nails to dip his head in a mini-bow.

  “Master?” he asked.

  “It’s mistress, I keep telling you. Bring her.”

  He crouched next to me to grab my arms and haul me to my feet. He was so close I was tempted to go for the vein again, but I could barely even smell the blood beneath his skin. He was still low from my earlier feeding and hadn’t replenished. That might even the playing field, with me all tied up, but I just couldn’t do it. For once, I had an entourage, and I was determined to use it. Brent, I was sure, would not come alone, no matter what Rebecca said. Marcy would never let him.

  The ride to Derby Wharf was nearly silent but for me trying to get more information out of Rebecca about this Book of Shadows and how it all tied in to Salem’s troubles. Apparently, though, she’d read the Evil Overlord rules and knew you didn’t monologue about your plans to the good guys, giving them a chance to escape and foil everything. You also didn’t arrange ridiculously convoluted and slow deaths for them or set explosives to actually go off at zero as opposed to, say, ten. But I was hoping that last one wouldn’t become relevant.

  Rebecca drove, and Bobby sat in the back with me, staring eerily and stroking my hair, saying creepy things like “smooth as spider silk” and something about how they made sweaters out of alpaca but my hair was so much softer. He gave me the chills, and not at all in the way I was used to them from Bobby. I didn’t like it.

  Renfield! I suddenly remembered. The insane henchman from all the Dracula movies. He’d never lived in Salem—or at all—but Renfield Syndrome, with its craving for blood and all, that I thought was a real thing. This made it more and more likely that we were dealing with our asylum ghost.

  When I leaned away, Bobby aka Renfield came with me. So I gave up, rather than risk him falling right into my lap.

  By the time we parked at the wharf, I was ready to crawl out of my own skin to escape. There was a commercial side to the wharf, complete with a little loop of stores and restaurants featuring anything from knickknacks and incense to steamed clams, but we weren’t there. We were at the actual piers, past the Maritime Museum, where an antique-looking ship rocked—the schooner Rebecca had mentioned, I guessed. It appeared ready for another voyage at any second. The museum was, of course, closed, and the pier was dark except for a few low lights at foot level. Faces would be in shadow.

  Only one person stood on that pier, halfway to the end. With my vamp sight, I could see it was Brent. I knew he wouldn’t have come alone, but scanning the area, I couldn’t spot Marcy or any other backup. Now that it was no longer an option, I realized what a huge advantage Bobby’s mind-speak ability had always been for coordinating attacks. I couldn’t read Brent’s mind, and he couldn’t read mine. We were going to have to wing it.

  “Is it him?” Rebecca asked her Renfield.

  He nodded.

  “Good. When we get to the pier, you stay on the shore with Gia while I go out to meet the telemetric. Once I’ve got him, you can free her.”

  Renfield-Bobby did that head bob again. “Yes, Master.” But there was a sly tone to his voice, like the whole master/mistress thing was intentional. Or maybe he knew the bit about letting me go was just for show and there was no way it was really gonna happen.

  With my legs bound together, I had to take tiny, mincing steps toward the dock. Rebecca soon outpaced Renfield and me, leaving us behind, as planned, when she walked out onto the pier. Renfield held my bound arms in one hand and had the other wrapped around my neck. It reminded me chillingly of the ghostly hands choking me on my first night at Haunts. I broke out in a blood sweat, not because I had anything to fear from strangulation, but because I was afraid of Bobby. I didn’t know where the night would take us or what I’d be forced to do.

  We watched as Rebecca stopped, face-to-face with Brent.

  “You came alone?” she asked, as if Brent would tell her otherwise.

  He nodded.

  “As soon as you let me bind you, we’ll let your friend go. I have no use for her.”

  I could hear the lie as clear as a bell from where I was standing. I wondered if it sounded any more convincing at close range.

  “Let her go first,” he demanded.

  “Not on your life.”

  Brent looked at me, and I wished I knew what he was trying to tell me. Renfield pointedly tightened his grip on my throat.

  “It doesn’t seem I have any choice,” Brent said.

  His shoulders slumped in defeat, and he held his hands out to her for cuffing. A look of triumph flashed across Rebecca’s face.

  As she made a move toward him, something burst out of the water right behind her and tore her feet out from under her. Rebecca hit the pier hard, barely catching herself with her hands and banging her chin with a smack that should have her seeing stars. She flopped like a landed fish and clawed at the wooden planking for dear life as Marcy pulled her by the ankles toward the freezing cold waters.

  I didn’t wait for the splashdown, but ghosted out of my bonds and Renfield’s grip. I rematerialized as soon as I felt both fall away, close enough to Re
nfield to head-butt him in the nose. If I’d been any shorter or he hadn’t bent to grab me, I might have failed. But he yelped, blood spouted, and I whirled out of the way of a counterstrike, ending up behind him where I launched a kidney-kick to take him down. It hurt me, I think, more than it hurt him. The boy was made of solid iron, but I staggered him.

  He landed on hands and knees, immediately sweeping a leg out to knock me down. I jumped it like a rope and aimed another kick at his head, but he reared up and caught my foot in mid-air. He twisted, and it knocked me off balance. I started to topple and turned it into a shoulder roll at the last second to keep from face-planting into the pier.

  Renfield was up again.

  “Master!” he called.

  I looked at where I’d last seen Rebecca, but she’d vanished. Brent was staring down at the water, so Marcy must have succeeded in pulling her in, but from the way the water was churning, the fight was far from over.

  I took advantage of Renfield’s distraction to jump him, grab his head in my hands, and twist for all I was worth. Breaking his neck broke my heart. I felt it snap along with his vertebra.

  He lay still. So still. Dead. That his condition was temporary didn’t do much for my state of mind. He’d heal, but it would take time, especially without the benefit of new blood.

  Marcy popped up from the depths, dripping wet and spitting water out of her mouth. “Do you see her?” she asked urgently. “The girl is like an eel. She got away from me.”

  Brent, who’d been studying the water, shook his head. “No sign of her. She didn’t … drown, did she?”

  “I wish. She kicked off my chest and I lost her.”

  “There,” Brent shouted suddenly, pointing.

  “Hold this,” Marcy ordered, tossing something up onto the pier.

  It was Rebecca’s obsidian pendant. It must have come off in their struggle.

  Marcy struck out in the direction Brent had pointed. But after an initial burst of speed, she got slower and slower until she started to sink instead of swim. She bobbed to the surface, gasping, “Help!”

  Before I could even process the SOS, Brent had his shoes off and was diving in after her. I was torn between guarding Bobby and doing the same, but Brent had Marcy in no time. He hugged her to him with one arm and stroked back to the pier with the other as I waited anxiously topside. I knew she couldn’t drown—she didn’t need to breathe—but that didn’t do anything to calm my fear for my friend.

  He pushed her up out of the water to me, and I took her under the arms, drawing her out and laying her down. Brent pulled himself up after her, panting as he stood above us.

  “What do we do for her?” he asked. “CPR won’t work.”

  “Feed her a bit of your blood,” I told him. “That’ll do better than CPR.”

  He bent down beside her, grabbed a knife out of his back pocket, flicked it open, and cut himself. He opened her mouth gently and let the blood fall in.

  “What happened?” I asked him. “What went wrong?”

  “If I had to guess … ” Brent paused. “Well, mythology has it that vampires can’t cross running water, which we’ve always thought was hokum. Clearly, they got from the old world to the new, so they’ve crossed oceans. Must be, though, that it takes a lot out of them. I don’t know the scientific explanation. I’m not even sure there is one.”

  “Well, damn, let’s get her away from the water then. Let’s all get away. We have Rebecca’s pendant, at least. We don’t want to risk her coming back for it.”

  Brent lifted Marcy into his arms in one of those heroic carries with her head cradled against his chest. Me? I went, as always, for the bling. Rebecca’s necklace lay abandoned on the pier, its dark stone sucking light. Marcy had touched it, so I knew it had to be safe, but there was something about it I didn’t like. I pulled my fleecy sleeve down over my hand to pick it up, careful not to touch it with my bare skin. I tucked it quickly away in a pocket and we walked to where I’d left Bobby, who was still unconscious. My beautiful, brilliant boy, all beaten to a pulp. I’d done it to him. Me.

  “Do you need a hand with him?” Brent asked, nodding at Bobby.

  He had his hands full, and I had my vampire strength. And my guilt. “No, I’ve got this.”

  Brent watched me, just to be sure. “Do you think we should call someone about Rebecca?” he asked, pretending not to see me struggling to get all of Bobby’s limbs where I needed them to be after declining his help.

  “As soon as we get back to the car. Where is it?”

  “Ulric drove us here, but we left him back on the other wharf. We couldn’t let Rebecca see him or the car—it wasn’t safe.”

  “He didn’t put up a fight?”

  Brent’s lips twisted. “We told him it was for your safety. That seemed to convince him. Gina, the boy’s got it bad. You’re going to have to tell him if he doesn’t have a shot.”

  I looked over my shoulder at Bobby’s upside-down face where it bumped my butt. He looked so … him. So handsome and non-homicidal. So peaceful, like a fallen angel. I looked back up at Brent. Whatever he saw on my face, he didn’t push it.

  “I’ll call for pick-up,” he said, gently lowering Marcy’s legs to the ground.

  “No need,” came a voice out of the darkness. Ulric. “I parked way back at the seafood shack, but I couldn’t stay away. Guess you didn’t need my backup, though.” He was looking at me when he said it, his eyes all intense. “I’m so glad you’re okay. Can I take that from you?”

  That being Bobby. “Nah, I’ve got this, thanks.”

  This. That. As if Bobby was nothing more than my own personal baggage.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said.

  “My aunt’s out tonight with her bunco group. We can go back to her place.”

  “What about our footprints on her rug?”

  He shrugged. “So maybe I’ll vacuum.”

  Ulric, being domestic. The mind boggled.

  Marcy was coming around, and she was able to walk with Brent’s support. “Wha’ ’appened?” she asked, her head lolling against his shoulder as he supported her, their arms wrapped tightly around each other.

  “You don’t know? You were swimming after Rebecca when you just seemed to run out of steam.”

  It took her eyes a second to focus on Brent’s face.

  “I ’member now. I felt so heavy.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that at all. I thought of the old

  witch test. If you floated, you were a witch. If you drowned …

  well, I guess maybe you were a vampire. Either way, the test seemed like a lose-lose proposition.

  “Do you think Rebecca’s a witch?” I asked, not realizing that I was the only one riding my train of thought.

  “Why, because of her pendant?” Brent asked.

  “No, the Book of Shadows.”

  14

  Everyone looked at me blankly, and I realized that no one had a clue what I was talking about. I was so used to sharing mind-speak with Bobby, to having someone know what I was thinking, that even with everyone around, I suddenly felt totally alone.

  Then I heard a snap and my gaze riveted on the boy in my arms. Bobby was adjusting his neck like he was working out kinks rather than totally realigning his spine.

  I felt the piercing stab of guilt with every crack. Then his heart-stopping blue eyes focused on me and the most amazing smile lit his face. “Hey, beautiful.”

  My knees gave out, and Bobby would have toppled to the ground if Ulric hadn’t steadied me and then helped lower him to the ground.

  “It’s you!” I said stupidly.

  Then I dropped beside Bobby and kissed his face—his cheeks, his eyes, his chin, finally his mouth. Such a flood of warmth washed over me that I thought I might spontaneously combust. He looked a little confused until I got to his mouth, and then he held onto me for dear life. You know those crazy-awesome film kisses after the hero and heroine have just survived a killer virus or mondo explosion or, lik
e, Doctor Doom. Well, it was like that, with tongue.

  Then there was the throat-clearing in the background, but we ignored that. It was the hooting and hollering from the drunk people just stumbling out of one of the bars over on the wharf that did the trick, especially when two of the guys started offering suggestions about what should come next.

  We moved on to Ulric’s Crown Vic. He grabbed a towel out of the trunk for Marcy to slosh on. The rest of us piled in—Bobby riding shotgun, since he was the tallest of us.

  “So what now?” he asked. No one suggested he get into the battered trunk. We knew there was no point.

  Shooting sidelong glances at Bobby all the while, I told them about the Book of Shadows Rebecca was searching for. It took all of one second, since I didn’t really know much.

  “And she thought I could help?” Brent asked.

  “She knew you were a telemetric. She must have had something related to the book that she thought you could read.”

  We both looked to the pocket where I’d stashed the pendant.

  “You think?” he asked.

  I reached into my pocket, but hesitated to pull it out. Rebecca had summoned spirits with an object of power. I had the overwhelming sense that this was it. The amulet was making Salem’s spirits strong. What if it had some kind of control over Bobby … or rather, his ride-along? We could lose him again. Or he could go nuts and fry the Crown Vic like he had the van.

  “Only one way to find out,” Brent said, as if he could read my mind. I knew he couldn’t, but … maybe I was just that obvious.

  Reluctantly, I brought out the amulet, watching Bobby the whole time, looking for the first sign that he was going to go all Renfield again. But for the moment he just looked curious, and tired. Almost human.

  “Wait!” Marcy said as Brent reached to take it from me.

  She grabbed his ears and gave him a scorching kiss first. Everyone else looked away.

  “There. Now you won’t get lost in it or anything. You’ll remember what you have to come back for.”

  “Always,” Brent said, heart in his eyes. Okay, ewww, bad visual.