Her father sighs, “There is more to life than conversation, Jessica."
"Spoken like a true vampire."
He looks behind him quickly, "Sh-h."
Jessica, "You haven't told her?"
He whisks his hand through the air, "You have so much to learn." He changes the subject.
"How is Raven doing these days? Maybe we could have him over for dinner one of these nights. Break you out of your shell, you know."
Jessica perks up remembering his involvement in her sleuthing plan and his kind response to her desperate call for help, "Raven? Yes! He'd like to visit, talk with you."
She pauses, "Just a question, is everything with your business going okay.... the show?"
Her father rubs his hands together. "Why do you ask? Jessi-ca..."
"I just wanted to know. If you ever needed help, or advice, you could tell me."
Jessica's Father begins to pull the door shut and step out into the hall. "O that. That's thoughtful of you Jessica. I think it's time for you to go to sleep now, don't you?"
Jessica's rat in the cage makes a squeaking sound as it climbs onto its little wheel. Jessica and her father both turn toward the noise and watch the rat begin to run against the circling of the wheel.
Her father sneers, "Evil deeds, Jessica! I don't know how you keep that thing."
Jessica tilts her head and smiles at her pet.
"I like him. He makes me feel happyl"
Her father fakes exhasperation, "A vampire... with a pet rat... what would the neighbors say.... Jessica! Well, sleep sound as the dead souls, then, dear!”
"Good night, little fright?"
He smiles, "Yes, good night, little fright?"
After a restless night's sleep Jessica wakes full of thoughts about the threats she overheard the night before in the library. During breakfast she picks at her food and asks Mattressa questions about her father: his mood, his finances, even her paychecks. At that last intrusive question Mattressa gets a little insulted and sends Jessica to clean her room. Jessica calls Raven and practically begs him to come over feeling that, due to the personal nature of this case, she can't sleuth for clues all alone. Jessica plots out to Raven how he should distract her father as she looks within the library for any trace of evidence as to why the ghouls came calling for her father and why her father must pay what it is they are after.
Waiting impatiently, often pacing and occasionally peering out the window, Jessica jumps at the first sight of Raven walking up the long stair steps.
She claps her hands together and yells, "Father! Raven's here." She opens the large front door, smiling and winking.
"He'll be right down. I'll take your coat. Thanks for doing this. Keep him occupied, ask about business, make it sound like you know the show's in trouble... see what he says."
Raven removes his coat and hands it to her, "Thanks."
Jessica whispers, "Try to keep him occupied for at least 10 minutes. That should be enough time to uncover some kind of clue as to what this is all about." She looks up as the sound of shoes across the foyer's tiled floors.
"Father, here!" She holds out her hand and he walks up to them.
He immediately reaches out to Raven and shakes his hand, "Hello, Raven. Good to see you. Jessica tells me you've started a cremation business." Raven pulls his hand back and wipes it against his pant legs. His nervousness has caused his palm to sweat.
"Yes sir. Jessica thought I could talk to you, ask you a few questions."
Her father moves toward the living room, "Sure... come in."
Jessica seizes the moment to excuse herself, "I'll be right back," she says. "You guys go ahead," she turns and runs up the stairs straight for the library and the big wooden desk. With Raven distracting her father during his normal routine, she discovers drawers that are normally locked, open, and papers usually neatly put away, still sitting out on his desk.
Downstairs, Raven talks with her father while Jessica looks through everything. She discovers a couple phone numbers and an address written down with the words Slow Kill. She puts this information in her pocket. Frustrated at not having found much more than that, she at last gives up and goes downstairs to rescue Raven. As soon as she has entered the foyer and can see Raven sitting on the couch from across the room, it is apparent she has taken too long.
Raven glances up at her and widens his eyes with an expression that seems to scream, "Hurry up!", and then he wipes the sweat from him palms on his pants.
Quite nervous and impatient he jumps up and stammers out some words about seeing Jessica and ends with an adamant exclamation, "I gotta go. Now!" He walks toward Jessica.
"Well, thanks." Her father stops talking, mid-sentence and watches as Raven grabs hold of Jessica's arm and leads her toward the kitchen and she rushes him out the back door.
"What took you so long!"
"I was only gone twenty, thirty..."
"You said ten minutes! Devil's boot heels! Jess! Ten minutes would have seemed like forty! I didn't even know what to say for the first five minutes. Did you uncover anything worth the time spent digging?" Raven sits down on a wooden swing while Jessica paces, talking.
"Yeah, had to be a ghoul. But why would my father owe him money?"
"Were you scared? When you overheard them?" Raven asks her much calmer now.
"Terribly! You would have been. They threatened to break his legs! Not exactly, I guess, but that’s what I thought they were going to say. It was just like an old movie, or something. They were definitely threatening him,." Jessica fishes for the piece of paper in her pocket.
"Oooh, real ghouls."
"Yeah! Real. What do you think he owes money for?"
Raven kicks his foot into the dust below the swing, "You asked me that already. I don't know. Does he make bets?"
She looks confused, "Like at the track?"
"Yeah, or on games or something?"
"I don't know. I don't think so. I thought you were supposed to ask him stuff like that. "
Raven smiles, "I did, kind of. He was pretty vague. I told him I was thinking about betting, for quick money, you know, for the business. "
"Great. How'd that go?"
Raven shakes his head, no, "He didn't say much, but he did advise me not to get mixed up with ghouls. He said they are the lowest life form."
"I guess we know he has experience in that, huh."
Raven twists the swing around till the rope is twisted, "He mentioned some options for me, but I don't think we went about it the right way, faking this business thing. I got the feeling he was setting me on the right track, you know, he wasn't expecting anything I wouldn't want to do. But now, he thinks like we're working on a business together, or something, like he really wants to help me by getting involved. I was hoping you'd hurry. The whole fake story idea made me kind of uncomfortable. I hope it’s not the same as lying. Did you get anything else?"
Jessica pulls the piece of paper out of her pocket and shows it to Raven, "A couple of numbers. And this..."
She hands him the piece of paper with the address and the words Slow Kill written down on it.
Raven reads it in amazement and then lets the swing go, twirling around several times, "Woe! What do you think it means?"
Jesssica takes the piece of paper back from him and puts it back in her pocket, "I don't know. I guess we'll find out."
Raven looks at her, "You going there? You're going there, aren't you." She looks back at him and does not respond.
He asks, "We're going there?" Jessica smiles.
"I thought so," he says, "It could be dangerous."
Jessica brightens, "We'll wear disguises. All I know, is I want to get to the bottom of this quandry. I think father's got a week now before he has to pay again. Maybe by the time I see those ghouls next week, I'll know how to stop them."
Raven stands up, "You? Jess, I don't think he'd want you to take this on... I mean..." he puts a hand on her shoulder.
Jessica steps back, de
termined, "Yes, he would. Besides, he doesn't have anybody else."
The Quill Pen Killer
Chapter Two: Body of Work
Jessica stops Raven from walking further with her hand held out against her arm. He stops and watches her take out the piece of paper she'd found from her pocket and watches while she checks the address twice, glancing up and down from the paper to the house number.
"This it?" he asks her.
Jessica responds, "Yes, seems to be."
"Have you thought of what we're going to say?" he says suddenly feeling small and wanting to back away from the large house before him, with every reason to believe at least two ghouls lurk inside it.
"I mean, seems like all we came here with are words. Not much of a defense. I'm suddenly wishing I was coated in armor. Or at least had a shield or a sword in my hand." Jessica laughs.
"I didn't plan this part out. And here we are. I'm kind of scared too. But not as scared as if they..." her voice gets smaller, "if they hurt my father."
Raven moves so that he is standing behind her. "Two crows short of a murder, Jessica, this is a bad time to talk about violence, okay?"
Jessica puts her hand to her chin, "Hmmm. Large, greenish house. The two of us. Umm, we're painters. Available this weekend. We'll just go up to the door and ask if they need any house painting done."
Raven almost laughs, "What's that going to tell us?"
Jessica looks down at the paper in her hand, "You're right. That won't work."
Raven blurts out, "A survey."
Jessica adds, "With a reward."
"We don't have anything to offer," he objects.
"A chance to enter a drawing," Jessica suggests.
"Yeah, that's good," he agrees.
"I have a notebook," Jessica rummages through her bag, "and a pen," she holds the pen up.
He looks at the pen, looks at her, "I can't believe you didn't think of all these things beforehand. This is possibly the house of the ghouls who threatened your father, you know."
"I've been out of sorts since I overheard them. I don’t know why I didn’t think things out more thoroughly. I didn’t mean to put you in any danger." Jessica explains feeling kind of sorry she has dragged Raven into her half-baked plan, but she is secretly very glad that she is not out front of the 'Slow Kill' house alone.
Raven asks, "Since you heard the threat? To your father?"
Jessica nods her head, "Yeah."
"That's understandable. Sorry. Did I push?" Raven asks.
"Did you mean to?" Jessica smiles.
"Not really," he looks down, then up at the house, "Are we going to go up there?"
Jessica says, "Yeah. Enough excuses. Let's go."
Raven knocks on the door. The two of them look at each other, wide eyed while they wait for the door to open, both imagining something ghoulish and creepy behind the door. Nothing. Raven knocks again, louder this time. Nothing, only silence. Jessica walks over and peeks in the window while Raven knocks loudly one more time. No response. All of that time spent mustering up their courage to meet ghouls – dead souls to immortal being (save Raven’s mortal soul!) - that they both feel a little let down, disappointed in the lack of risk they seemed to have braved.
Raven rubs his knuckles, sore from knocking. "You know, there could have been ghouls in there. We could have been killed!"
Realizing his luck he adds, "I'm really glad they're not home." Jessica, having ignored Raven’s encouragement to get the heck outta here, pulls her hand back from the window where she'd tried to block the sun to look in.
"Guess they're really not home." She turns as she hears a car. "Wait! Quick. Over here!" Jessica and Raven jump down from the porch and hide behind a large bush. Two ghouls exit the car that has pulled up into the driveway and stopped.
Jessica whispers, "That's him. The little guy." The ghouls go to the trunk of the car. The taller one opens it up.
"What do we do now?" the ghoul Jessica recognized asks in a low, growly tone.
His ghoul friend answers in a question, "Take it in the house?"
The ghoul gets louder, "I'm not taking it in the house."
"What about out back?" the ghoul concedes, "Yeah, okay. Until tomorrow night."
"Why not tonight?" his friend asks.
The ghoul growls, "I’m thinking we want to lay low tonight."
His ghoulish friend shrugs, "I guess so." These two ghouls lift the black plastic shape out of the trunk and carry it around the side of the house, walking uncomfortably close to where Jessica and Raven are hiding.
Jessica whispers, "Did you see that?"
Raven nearly shaking with fright says, "Yeah, what do you think that was?"
Jessica whispers louder, "A body?!"
Raven starts to stand, "I don't know. Let's get out of here."
Jessica agrees, "Yeah... run!"
The detective duo run down several blocks without thinking of anything but there could be unholy undead running after them. There aren’t, however, and at last Raven catches up to Jessica who has been running quite a ways ahead of him since she uttered the word ‘run’.
Panting, Raven, calls out, "Jess... Jess... slow down. We can stop now."
Jessica slows to a walk, "Oh, yeah, right," she says, and stops to catch her breath. Jessica puts her hands on her knees and inhales long, deep breaths.
"O evil eye! I hope my father's home," she says. Raven's eyes widen.
He admits, "I didn't even think of that. No. It isn't your father. In there, the bag thing, they were carrying?" he thinks of the plastic shape. His voice becomes whiny and scared, "No! It wasn't; it wasn’t," he looks at Jessica and grabs her hand.
"Come on!" They both run again toward Jessica's home; toward the DeAngeliuson's mansion to see if her father is home.
Up the last step to the door at the crest of that hill, at the end of the long, winding avenue, Jessica opens the door to her father's home.
The door nearly slams shut on Raven as Jessica in her crisis forgets everything and immediately shouts,"Father! Father!!!"
Raven walks in after her. He sees the maid. Immediately, he demands, "Where is Jessica's father?!"
Mattressa gives the usually polite boy a look of alarm but answers without scolding him, "He’s upstairs, in his office. At least that’s where he was the last time I saw him."
At the sound of her uncertainty, Jessica runs up the stairs.
"What have you two gotten into now?" Mattressa asks with another awkward glance at Raven, then goes back to dusting before nearly tsk, tsking him for his rudeness. (Just between her and her feather duster, however, a lesson in manners could turn into a lecture if she were his mother.)
Raven, noticing her muttering and strange glances, utters a quick, "Sorry," and walks up the stairs after Jessica. Jessica bursts inside the door to the library where the big, wooden desk sits, nearly expecting at this time to see it empty.
"Father!" she yells out. Her father stands quite near the doorway, with his fangs about to graze a woman's neck. He is interrupted by the shouting. He looks at Jessica, his daughter, afraid for his life; but, with this moment as with many, he does misunderstands his teenage daughter.
He asks calmly, "Didn't I tell you to knock first when entering people’s rooms? "
Jessica puts her hand to her forehead and lets out a relieved and happy exhale, smiling she says, "You're here! You're safe! You're..." she hugs him, then takes a moment to look about the room. His fangs are out and the woman in the room looks half-tranced. Jessica sees she might be enchanted.
“Whoops!” Jessica says covering her mouth with her hand.
Her father interjects, "Yes...?"
Jessica steps back toward the door, "I'm just glad to see you,” she explains, “so glad. I'll just... I'll just shut the door now; but you're here! You're safe!” she says, and then expecting the usual dinner meeting, she says, “I'll see you at dinner, I guess?"” Jessica waves her hand, a little finger wave. She shuts the door, relieved
.
Nearly witnessing a vampire’s evil intent to nearly drain a mortal’s life blood, right in front of you, is a horror at worst and awkward at best (if he happens to be family); but, it pales in comparison to thinking that the same beloved soul of eternity might have hit a body bag instead of a castle for the eons. Jessica is over-joyed, to say the least, unscathed by the little scene to reveal her father’s potential at dark night, fright life among the mortal beings’ least welcome party girl of the moment. All’s well that ends well, in other words, for now.
Jessica sees Raven walking up the hallway. She sighs and leans against the door.
"He's here."
"What a relief." Raven says and leans, too, with his shoulder against the door.
Jessica pauses, then asks, "Now what do we do?"
"Nothing! Are you kidding me? It's your father's problem. I'm not working with you on this. Sorry Jess."
Jessica puts her hands behind her and leans on them feeling the coolness of the hallway wall.
"Well, I'm not giving up."
Raven scoffs, "You can’t be serious. You're out of your mind. Those guys mean business and they aren't foolin' around. You’re practically be out of your mind to go back there. Don't wrap yourself up in this mess, Jessica. It's not your mess. You could get hurt."
Jessica says firmly, "He's my father."
Raven admits, "I don't care. He could be the queen of England for all I care. But, I can see I'm not talking you out of this. Just count me out, will ya?"
Jessica changes the subject, "Can you stay for dinner?"
She motions toward the library door and whispers, "Meet drain-of-the-week number two?"
Raven shrugs, smiles and then whispers, "It's only Tuesday."
Jessica sighs, "I know. Please...."
Raven thinks for a moment then decides, "No. I gotta go. You have fun."
Jessica sighs again, "Perfect. Just me and my dad, and that... thing."
The Quill Pen Killer (Vampire DeAngeliuson Book 1) Page 2
