“Let us begin.” Ishmael seemed to sink further in his chair, reclining. “Come, sit.” He said. He gestured to one of the chairs next to him.
I moved to sit down, and noticed that Teresa had not moved at all since she had first introduced me to Ishmael. My brain tried to piece together her role in all of this. Was she in the power structure in some way?
“So, Ishmael, what can you tell me about Sam?”
He tapped a finger against his chin. “She was a lively woman, even for a were. Full of energy. She was an intelligent girl, bound to move on to bright opportunities. She was also a regular here, and she associated with several of the vampires here.” He licked his lips. “Were blood is quite energizing. She was a welcome patron here.”
“Were you involved with her, Count?”
“No, I was not.” He said. “My tastes don't lie towards things that bite back these days.”
“Well, do you know why she might just disappear?” I asked.
“I do not. Teresa, might you be able to shed some light?”
Teresa pondered for a moment. “Not personally, but I can ask a few of her usual partners here.”
“Please do so.” Ishmael said. His voice barely changed, but it wasn’t subtle enough for me not to notice. He’d commanded her.
When Teresa left, I decided to inquire. “So, what’s Teresa’s deal with this?” I asked.
He smiled, and folded his hands across his lap. “You see much.”
“It’s my job to.” I said. “I have to be aware. I’m a bartender.”
“A bartender? The irony. Your talents must be wasted. Why don’t you come work for me?”
“Because I’m not really the type to go accepting job offers from undead guys I just met.” I remarked. “And you still haven’t answered my question about Teresa.”
Ishmael nodded. “Indeed. Teresa is my favorite daughter. I found her, two centuries ago, and she’s served me since.”
“And by daughter, you mean…”
“I made her into what she is now. I’m her father, at least in the vampiric sense of it. She has sired her own, one or two who now gallivant across the Old World, where things are much less stringent than here.”
I knew that much. Here in America, the laws had been set down rather fast. You practically needed a legal contract to bite a human, at least on paper. I imagined what happened to me last night wasn’t an isolated incident, though. Why would a predator set aside his nature for legality? So long as the incidents stayed unreported and few, I’m sure some vampires enjoyed their occasional hunt. That thought was not comforting at all.
“So, do you uh, like, sense what she does?” I asked.
“Somewhat. When she smelled you, I did as well, and I had to invite you up.”
“And when did you figure out what I was?”
“Oh, but that would be telling, Eric Carpenter. Tut tut.” He wagged a finger, as if scolding. “I can’t tell you all my secrets.”
“So you say you’ve met other witches. What were they like?”
“I have met two that I care to discuss. But let’s save that for another night, shall we? You already owe me one favor.”
I bit my tongue. Curiosity kills cats, and apparently, indebts witches. I figured to play it safe. “So, did Sam have any enemies here, anyone she pissed off? I mean, she was a were.”
“Weres and vampires have their disagreements, but you can say that of any race, Mister Carpenter. When you are here in the Last Drop, you are a guest here. It’s only if you sully our hospitality that we strike. Never in anger, only in revenge.”
“Right.” Though, I wondered how much of that was just a sound byte to appear innocent. Ishmael seemed to be of a more serious cut. He knew how to play his games.
Teresa returned after ten minutes. My bottle of beer was empty by that time. She had with her another vampire, a bald man with a slim build. “Mister Carpenter,” She said. “This is Robert. He knew Samantha Coolidge.”
“Robert.” I echoed. “Do any of you have surnames?”
“Surnames are something most of us choose to discard when we leave the mortal coil, Mister Carpenter.” Robert said. His accent was American in origin, though I guessed he was from the northeast. New England, somewhere. “What do you want to know about Sam?”
“I want to know if there’s any reason she’s disappeared. Did anyone have a beef with her?”
He nodded. “A week ago, the last time she came to the club. She ran into a man. I did not see what happened, but I saw the aftermath. Sam had a black eye, and she was crying. I’d never seen her cry before. I offered to drive her home, but she just said she’d grab a cab.”
“And that was the last you saw of her?”
He nodded. “I saw her to the cab, and she was gone.” I bit my lip.
“And this was when?”
“Last Wednesday. Sam was here to unwind. She said she’d had a stressful day.”
“You guys talk about it at all?”
“No, the fight happened almost immediately after she got here.”
I thought on that. Maybe if I found who she was fighting with, I could figure out the next clue here. If only. “Do you know if anyone saw the fight?” I asked Teresa.
“I found no reports of anything. Our patrons can sometimes get…physical in their desires, Eric. I’m sure you can understand, with blood in the air.” Her pouting lips turned up in a smile.
“Uh, yea, sure.” I said. “Well, okay, I think I’m done here. Robert, can I grab your number, if anything else comes up?”
“Of course.” He said, and produced a business card instantly. He handed it to me.
Robert Stewart, Attorney at Law, Tate and Hart Law Firm, it read. “I thought you said that vampires abandoned their surnames.”
“Vampires, perhaps. Lawyers can’t exactly show up into court with only one name.” He smirked.
“I thought they were one and the same?” I couldn’t resist.
“Clever, clever.” He rolled his eyes. “Like I haven’t heard that one before.”
“Thank you for your time, Robert.” I stood up. “And thank you for your hospitality, Ishmael. You’ve been very helpful, but I do need to be going.”
“Did you drive here, Mister Carpenter?” Teresa asked. “Or do you need us to call you a cab?”
“Teresa,” Ishmael waved a hand towards me. “Why don’t you drive Mister Carpenter home? I’m sure that he’d appreciate it.”
Teresa smiled. “Of course, my Count.” She bowed to Ishmael, and looked to me. “Very well, Eric. If you’ll come with me.”
“I don’t want to be a bother.” I insisted.
“But you’re not,” Ishmael said. “It’s my hope you’ll be a friend of my court, Mister Carpenter. Au Revoir.”
I followed Teresa out of the door. When we got to the hallway, I said. “Listen, I really don’t want to be a bother. Just call me a cab.”
Teresa sent me a playful look. “Afraid of just a drive home? As nice as you look, I promise I’ll be a perfect lady.”
She led me down the hallway in the opposite direction. We went down a flight of stairs, and out a door that led out back. There was a small parking lot there, with a very big clash of the different cars. Some were obviously staff cars, which were, while not terrible, used and worn, while others were obviously the higher-class vampires.
The car that Teresa led me to was a black Mustang. It was old, probably twice as old as I was, and lovingly cared for. “Wow,” I said, running my hand across the hood. “This is a really nice car.”
“Indeed. Quite the looker, isn’t she?” She smiled. We got into the car, and I gave her my address. “So, what did you think of the Count?”
“He’s an interesting guy. Not really what I was expecting when I was thinking of a big shot vampire ruler.”
“Big shot ruler?” She laughed. “I’ve never heard him described quite like that. But, I suppose it does fit. He’s rather old, even for one of us.”
“
And just how old is he?”
“He does not openly talk about it. But he was around to watch the First Crusade. That alone should tell you something.”
“Shit.” I whistled in appreciation. “That’s really old.”
“Quite. And he is very powerful.”
“I’d imagine. So why is he so interested in me?”
She gave me a look over to me, evaluating for just a moment. “It’s very cute, you know. This naive thing.” She laughed, a chuckle that, I had to admit was pretty sexy. It was almost a purr coming from her. Even when she laughed, it was low and quiet.
“I’m missing a joke, aren’t I?”
“Indeed. Magic is something beyond even a vampire’s powers. The Fae have their glamours, and can work some Arcane powers, but they don’t have the affinity that a witch does. You’re a resource, Eric. People want that.”
“I don’t want to be a resource.”
“Then you will have to find out how to fend for yourself.”
“You guys must love Darwin.” I rolled my eyes.
“It fits. We’re creatures of nature, Eric.”
“Yea, you are.” I said, trying to remind myself more than answer.
We sat in silence for the most part while she drove. I gave her a street corner, mostly because at the moment, I didn't want a vampire knowing where I lived. I closed my eyes for a bit, not really paying attention. I couldn’t sleep, but I felt mentally exhausted. It was broken some time later, when the car pulled to a stop. My eyes fluttered open, and I saw we were at my place.
“Fall asleep on me, witch?” Teresa asked.
“Uh, no.” I said. I thought on that. Why wasn’t I a warlock, or a wizard? Wasn’t witch a feminine word? Just one more thing to ask Amy. “Thanks for the ride.”
“You’re welcome, Eric.” She nodded. “I know this is sort of abrupt, but I was wondering if you might want to have drinks some time.”
“Uh, drinks?” To show just how clueless I am about women, I first thought she had implied she wanted to suck my blood. I felt like slapping her right across the face or slugging her. It took me a few moments to realize what it actually meant. Yea, sure, I had been hit on before, working at the bar, but drunk co-eds weren’t really my style.
“Yea, drinks.” She nodded. “One of us picks the other up, or if we want to be very progressive, we meet somewhere. We get a few drinks, talk. Think you’d like that?”
The first thought was to ask “Who, me?” But I shoved that down. “Yea, I do.” I answered her. “Uh, how about we swap digits, and you give me a call, or I’ll give you a call?”
“Either way works.” She smiled, but didn’t show her fangs. We swapped phone numbers, and I felt a little plume of self-confidence. I’d gotten some information on Sam Coolidge, not gotten myself killed, and I’d gotten a hot vampiress' phone number. The last one, I did not think I would tell Amy, but overall this was a good night. Of all the things she’d blow up about, me going out with a vampire? Maybe one of them. It was a sound guess, considering how vehemently she’d told me to stay away from the Last Drop.
“All right, Eric.” She blew me a kiss. “Good night.”
“Good night.” I was sure that, somehow, she saw my cheeks flush. I got out of the car, feeling my heart pound. So, yea, I agreed to have drinks with a vampire, a night after I got bit by one? Yea, I’m totally sane.
I headed into my building. I was tired, even if it was just midnight. And I was going to have to go running with Matt tomorrow. That was going to be an info dump to make his head spin, for sure.
I headed up to my floor and headed to my door. I opened the door and-
Wait, my door was unlocked. My brain took a second to process that. Someone was in my place. Amy said she’d have gone to her place, wherever that was. Matt, the only other person with a key, was out partying tonight. He would have called if he was using my apartment for something.
My hand flashed to my back pocket, and brought out the knife. I flicked out the blade. It was weighted well, I guessed. I’m not exactly a combat specialist, but it seemed like pretty good stuff. I held it in my left hand, and used my right to push open the door. It creaked as I did so, darn old apartment.
I flipped on the light switch, I saw someone there, frozen. He was near my dresser, some of the drawers pulled out.
“Who the hell are you?” I hissed. “Freeze.” I thrust the knife forward, gesturing towards the couch.
But he didn’t. The intruder, a large dark-haired man, rushed towards me. That told me something already. I know I wouldn’t have charged a guy holding a knife. So he was either pretty crazy, or maybe a bit brave. Or maybe just that much better than me.
He swung a punch at me, and I dodged to the side, leaving me back in the hallway. I made a wide swing with the knife, trying to slash at the intruder. The big man dodged, but he seemed to do it with much more grace. He batted my knife hand down with a chop, and swung out with a huge fist.
I took it in the shoulder, and pain lanced through me. I scolded myself, but really, this guy probably had a lot more experience than I did.
I found myself on my ass, with my knife on the floor. The man stepped over me. And as he walked away, he called over his shoulder. “Stay out of this shit, kid.”
And as he waked into the stairway, and I moved to sit up, I recognized that I had heard that voice before. He’d been one of the guys we had seen at Raymond Francis’s office earlier.
“Shit, shit. He must have followed you home. Stupid Eric!” I cursed myself, and I got myself to my feet. I flicked on the lights in my apartment, and surveyed the damage.
My apartment had been pretty thoroughly tossed, at first look. My futon’s mattress was on the floor, next to the coffee table. Several of my drawers had been pulled out of the dresser, and their contents now were lying on the floor.
The last one, however, was the important one. I opened up the drawer, and there in the bottom, underneath my socks, was the brush that Diana had given me. “Hell yea.” I pumped my fist. I closed the drawer, and then went back out into the hall to grab my knife. Once that was inside, I locked the door, and started to clean up.
I may not be a messy guy, but it was calming. Even in the craziness of what had just happened, that I could restore it to some sort of order. That was cathartic in its own.
By the time my place resembled something like my apartment, I crawled to bed and kicked off my boots. I was asleep by the time my head hit the pillow.
Chapter 11
I woke up to the smell of cooking bacon. That was unusual in itself. I don’t remember waking up to bacon in years. That was something I remembered from days when I was much younger, my grandma cooking bacon and eggs on a Sunday morning, with not a care in the world. It was really a good memory.
Then I heard a thumping sound, and then a strangled “Eric, help!” I shot up off the bed, rolling to my feet. The knife was in my hand, though I didn’t flip the blade out.
The scene in front of me reminded me just how screwed up my life had gotten. Matt had apparently been cooking breakfast. That in itself was weird. He didn’t cook breakfast, much less bacon. The man usually ate something closer to cereal and fruits in the morning.
But Matt was holding Amy against the wall, a steak knife in hand at her throat.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I yelled. “What the hell is going on?”
Matt growled out first. “Listen, I was just cooking breakfast for you, after that whole vampire thing, thought you’d need it, and…and this blond chick just popped in out of nowhere.”
“Matt,” I blinked, trying to shake the cobwebs of sleep from my head. “Matt, you are going to let Amy go. She’s welcome here.”
Matt hesitated a moment. “Wait, what? Eric, what’s going on?”
“Matt, let her go.”
He took the knife away from her throat, and backed off. “You’ve got explaining to do.”
“Yea, and so does she.” I answered. “You say she just appeared, Matt?”
Matt nodded as he set the knife on the counter. “I went to the fridge to find your eggs, and when I closed the door, this blond gal is standing right in the middle of your kitchen.”
“Okay,” I ran a hand through my hair. “I guess we’ve both got to explain some stuff…You don’t have to cook the eggs or anything. Listen, Matt, take a seat at the table. Amy, you too.”
We all sat down at the table. It was the largest crowd I think I’d ever had in my apartment. Amy seemed tiny next to Matt, who was built from large Scandinavian stock. Amy’s petite frame seemed much more comfortable in my second-hand chairs.
“So, start talking.” Matt said. “One of you.”
“Okay.” I said. “Uh, why the bacon?”
Matt shrugged. “Well, I thought you might need it. You know, it’s been a crazy few days, you know? You saw a dead body, got bit by a vampire…You want some? It’s all done now.”
“Uh, yea, sure.” As Matt got up, and came back with a plate of bacon, I grabbed one and started to chew on it as I went to grab some bread and pop it into the toaster. “First off, Matt, there’s something you need to know about me.”
“That you have crazy blonds breaking into your house?” Matt asked.
“I’ll get to her in a second. Matt, you know there are four big races of Arcanes out there, right?”
“Yea, vampires, weres, Fae, and the Red Angels, right?”
“There’s a fifth. A fifth, apparently, that they’ve all been keeping under wraps. They’re witches.”
“Witches?” Matt arched an eyebrow. “You mean, like Harry Potter shit? It's real?”
“Eric, this is not what I would call wise.” Amy warned me. Her eyes narrowed at me as I finished off my bacon.
I shook my head. If I told a werefox to get her to trust me, I could let my closest friend in on my little secret. “Matt is one of the few people I trust, Amy. He gets to hear the truth.” I looked back to Matt. “Matt, I’m a witch.”
“Witch?” He looked to her, then me. “You mean, magic, and all that shit.”
“Yea. Magic, and all that shit.” I echoed. “There apparently aren’t a lot of us left. This was my mother’s legacy to me, I guess. She was a witch, and this all was passed on to me.”
West Coast Witch Page 7
