by Ira Bloom
When Esme entered the house, all the lights were out. She rapped lightly on Veronica’s door, but there was no response. The door to Katy’s attic was locked, as always. Esme was quiet, so as not to rouse the dogs. She was exhausted. She’d had almost no sleep for two nights. Her clarity was almost entirely gone: Apparently, it needed to be renewed daily. She’d work Katy and Ronnie through the tea ceremony in the morning, and by the afternoon she’d have her talented sisters by her side when she met back up with Norm and his dad to deal with the vampire problem.
Esme awoke in the morning to the sound of howling dogs. She checked her clock: only six a.m.! And on the first day of vacation. She rolled over and tried to get back to sleep.
A cat jumped onto the bed, displacing Charlie, Kali and Mandela. Why wouldn’t they let her sleep? She pulled her blankets over her head. It was cold in the basement but warm under her down comforter. Murasaki, under the blankets with her, clawed herself over Esme’s leg and fled.
Kasha nosed his way under the blanket, by Esme’s face. She smelled his fetid carrion breath. “Hey, sleeping beauty,” he taunted. “Are you going to stay in bed all day?”
“It’s Saturday,” she complained. “Let me sleep.”
“Oh, sorry,” he said, pulling his head back out. Then he snaked his way back under the quilt to mention, as an afterthought, “I just thought you’d be interested to know that while you were out last night, the vampires came and took your sisters away.”
Esme jumped out of bed so fast, all the cats in the room scampered for the cat door. “What?! Why didn’t you tell me last night?!” she screamed.
Kasha didn’t startle easily. “I wasn’t here. I followed them. I thought you’d want to know where the vampires’ lair is.”
“I know where their lair is!” she yelled. “Everybody knows where their lair is. It’s the old Hampstead mansion. It’s on the national register of historic homes!”
“Well you could have said something before I spent all night tracking them. But at least it wasn’t a complete waste of time.”
“You know how to get them out?” she asked desperately.
“No, but I found a field on the other side of town that’s full of gophers. Big suckers, too.”
Esme frantically pulled out drawers and scrambled into clothes. “We have to get Norman and his dad. We’ll get the police and the FBI and the National Guard if we have to, but we’re getting them back. Today. Right now!”
“Esme, calm down,” Kasha advised. “You don’t want to do anything that’s going to get your sisters killed, do you?”
“I don’t have time to argue with you!” she yelled. Keys in hand, she slammed through the basement door and ran up the stairs. Esme got into her car, fumbling with the keys, and started the engine. She put it in gear. Then she put it in park. Then she turned off the engine. She had no idea what she was going to do. Of course she couldn’t just go get her sisters out. She couldn’t even call the police. Norm and his dad had been very insistent on that point. The windows fogged with her breath, and the mucus ran freely down her face as she sobbed onto the steering wheel.
The opposite door opened, and Kasha jumped into the passenger seat. “Were you planning to take on those vampires by yourself?” he asked casually.
“You,” she blubbered. “You’re a demon. You could help me. Couldn’t you?”
“What good is a little cat against two big vampires?”
“So you can’t help me?” The cat stared at her, unblinking. He licked a foreleg and ran it back over his head, slicking down fur. “You can, but you won’t?” she tried.
“I got my own problems,” he replied. “I haven’t had a soul in years. I’m way behind on my quota. The hounds of hell are breathing down my neck here. I need some action. Now.”
“You … horrible … ” she accused, sobbing. “My mother was right about you. You’re evil. What was all that, with Shikker, about me becoming a vampire so you could extend your contract another thousand years? You were actually going to let me become a vampire?”
“You must have dreamed that,” he replied, grooming. “It never happened.”
“I had an epiphany of clarity the other night. I remember every word.”
“Oh. Well that changes things. Yeah, the vampire stuff. You’ll recall, I’d tried to warn you off Zack, but you wouldn’t listen to me. I needed a contingency plan.”
“So the lesson here is, you aren’t trustworthy at all.”
“Oh, I’m entirely trustworthy,” Kasha argued. “You can always rely on me to act in my own self-interest. You learn to work with that, you’ll come out just fine.”
“Getting my sisters out is in your own self-interest!” she yelled. “If we all get killed, you won’t have a contract anymore!”
“A fairly moot point, with the hellhounds nipping at my heels.”
“What should I do?” she pleaded, shaking the steering wheel violently.
“I suggest you get your head straight and come up with something that doesn’t involve getting yourself or your sisters killed,” he suggested, jumping down out of the car. “There’s nothing in my contract about any vampires.”
Back in her room, Esme tried to empty her mind of images of ripping Zack and Drake Kallas limb from limb and pleas to the Goddess for lightning bolts to shoot out of her fingertips. She needed to assemble her resources and formulate an intelligent course of action. With lightning bolts coming out of her fingertips. Why wasn’t there a spell for that? Stupid grimoire was practically useless.
Esme searched Veronica’s room. There was no sign of a struggle anywhere, no forced entry, no resistance. Ronnie had left the house with little more than the clothes on her back. Her cell phone was on her dresser, and all her makeup was still all over her vanity. Esme closed Veronica’s door behind her and approached the doorway to the attic. Kasha joined her there.
The dogs started barking furiously when they sensed Esme outside the attic door. Kasha jumped up onto the tansu chest in the hallway, out of reach. “Recludo,” Esme intoned, eyes closed. The tumblers clicked. A stampede of dogs tore out of the attic, jumping and barking.
“Something’s not right,” Kasha said, when they were inside the room.
“You think?” Esme snarled. “My sisters were kidnapped by vampires. How did they get past Nick?”
“Kid in the car? The older vampire walked right up to him and knocked on the window. They talked for a few minutes, then the vampires walked up your sidewalk and knocked on the door. They left with your sisters about ten minutes later. They were expecting you to be here, too. They came downstairs looking for you.”
“And you did nothing!” she yelled. “Big fierce demon.”
“As a matter of fact, I hissed at them,” Kasha said. “They didn’t seem too intimidated.” The cat was sniffing around the room at the air. “Is that sage and juniper I smell?”
Esme sniffed. “I don’t smell anything except the dog poo in the corner over there.”
“Okay, this is going to sound weird, but nobody smudges with sage and juniper. Except … ” The cat paced, nose in the air. His tail twitched violently. “Use your locator spell and see if you can find a set of black candles,” he commanded.
Esme closed her eyes for a moment and cleared her head, echoing the words in her mind. She walked over to the wardrobe and opened it. “Here,” she said, removing a bundle wrapped in African indigo. She was so confident in her vision, she knew what the candles looked like before she unrolled the bundle. There was also a small vial of green fluid.
“Your great-aunt Becky always used sage and juniper together,” the cat explained. “It was her thing. Did you know Katy was a necromancer?”
“No way,” Esme complained. “That’s so not fair. On top of all her other gifts?”
“Open the vial and let me smell that potion.” Esme uncorked the vial and held it low, beneath his nose. “Yeah, that’s the good stuff. Becks helped Katy brew up a dose of her famous love potion.”
/> Esme put the vial into her pocket. There was no way she’d ever let Katy use a love potion. Especially with a jumpy demon cat around desperate for a soul fix.
“Stein residence.” Norman’s voice came over the phone, sleepy but so, so reassuring.
“Norm, they took Katy and Veronica.” Esme tried to be strong, but she started crying into the phone. She’d been okay up until the very moment she’d had to tell someone, and then it all came pouring out.
“I’m on my way,” he said, steady as a rock. “Don’t move. Don’t answer the door or do anything until I get there. They could be anywhere.”
Ten minutes later there was a knocking on the front door. It had to be Norman, the way the pounding reverberated through the whole house. Esme had been waiting in the kitchen. She parted the curtains, just to be sure. Norm’s SUV was in the driveway.
“Oh, Norman,” she cried, falling into his arms. She barely came up to his chest. She couldn’t get her arms all the way around him. His size was so reassuring. She felt safe. Norm was exactly what she needed.
Norman waited with Esme while she gathered her stuff. He was very insistent that she move into the clinic with him and his dad. It took two trips to Norm’s SUV to get everything she felt she’d need, including her laptop and all the botanicals and witchcraft supplies and the large tin of her special powdered tea. She also brought the hatbox pentacle, as Kasha had suggested, as well as her mother’s black ceremonial wooden knife, from her shelf of African fetishes. The cat had warned her that it probably wouldn’t kill a vampire, but it might slow one down.
Dr. Stein and Wilson were waiting for them at the kitchen table with fruit and coffee and bagels when they arrived at the clinic. “So what happened last night?” Norm asked Wilson.
“How can you people be so calm?” Esme yelled. “They took Katy and Ronnie! We have to get them back!” She looked around the kitchen table from face to face. Nobody was moving! “Wilson, your family has guns! Let’s go! Now! Call the police and the FBI and the fire department! Let’s move, people!”
“That’s a very stupid idea, Esme,” Dr. Stein said bluntly. “Even if we don’t all get ourselves killed, we would most certainly get your sisters killed. Please. Calm down. We need to talk.”
There was a knock at the door. Norman got up and returned a minute later with Jackson. He seemed a shadow of his former self. He’d lost about twenty pounds since the fight. His face was still bruised where Zack had hit him.
Esme cut to the chase. “What’s the plan?” she asked Dr. Stein.
“The plan is, we don’t do anything that Zack or his father would regard as suspicious.”
Esme’s fists were tight in her lap. “If we all went to the police, they’d have to believe us.”
“If we went to the police, your sisters would be dead in minutes, plus whoever else is there,” Norm said.
“The police would have to get a court order before they can enter,” Dr. Stein explained. “Vampires are always plugged into the judicial system. Get the wrong clerk, or the wrong judge, they’ll be gone before the paperwork is signed, and your sisters will be nothing more than ashes.”
“You can’t know Zack and Drake would do that,” she argued.
“Do you want to take a chance?” Jackson asked, his voice cracking.
“So, how about like … the FBI? Or Homeland Security? We could say they’re terrorists … ”
“If we call the FBI, they’ll contact our local law enforcement, even if we tell them not to,” Dr. Stein explained. “Vampires always have informants. They operate beyond the law, in the world of human trafficking. They have ties to organized crime all over the world. The Tong, the Yakuza, the Cosa Nostra, and the Russian mob fear them. There’s a secret unit within Interpol that tracks them. Interpol gets its funding from a hundred and ninety member nations, and they do not go around discussing vampires in public. In fact, only four or five people at Interpol even know about them. My friend the duke arranged a teleconference for me last week with an agent at headquarters in Lyon.”
“So … ? What? How do we kill them?” Esme asked.
“We need to be very cautious,” Dr. Stein said. “Whenever Interpol has been on the verge of catching one, they end up at an abandoned lair with the bodies of multiple victims on-site. Vampires are tremendously wealthy and powerful, and their network for intel is vast.”
“I have to get my sisters out of there,” Esme pled. “You can’t tell me if we went up there with automatic weapons we couldn’t shoot our way in, kill the vampires, and rescue my sisters. If you pumped enough bullets into them, you’d have to do some damage.”
Dr. Stein shook his head. “Interpol coordinated an ambush in Turkey a few years ago. Highly trained team all in Kevlar, heavily armed, with advanced intelligence and communication. They lost five agents and the suspect escaped. His lair in Istanbul was burned to the ground. There were thirteen girls burned beyond recognition in the rubble. Vampires are incredibly fast and ruthless. They’re fearless and unbelievably strong and impervious to pain. They can sustain tremendous injuries, damage that would be fatal to a normal person, and recover quickly. You have to sever their heads to stop them.”
“So we’re just going to do nothing?” Esme yelled, banging both hands on the table.
“Esme, sit down,” Norman pleaded. “We have a plan, we’ve been working on it for weeks.”
Esme glared at them, but took her seat. “What is it?”
“Jackson? You want to give your report?” Norman prompted.
“Yeah, okay.” Jackson leaned forward with his arms on the table, eyes downcast. “So, like, I’ve been watching the old Hampstead place, whenever I can. It’s not like I sleep much anymore, anyway … So, uh … you know, there’s just the county road, Hampstead Drive, that goes out there, right? It runs up the hill past the Hampstead estate, and backs onto Darner Woods. A lot of the land used to be part of the estate. I don’t know who owns it now. There’s signs posted to keep out, but lots of people hunt those woods for deer in season.” Jackson scooted up to the table and wedged his elbows in, giving his head a little leverage. “Yeah. Anyway, I’ve checked out the manor, there’s no way in or out except the driveway, and there’s a gate there, and almost a half mile of gravel through rough territory until you hit the old orchards. Then there’s some field, and the house. You cross a little wooden bridge over a stream, maybe four hundred yards from the house, but they’ll see you coming a long time before that. And you won’t get through that gate in a car without dynamite anyway. Forget about off-roading it. It’s too rough. The whole property is fenced in wrought iron, with security cameras and motion detectors all over. We can’t sneak up on them.”
Wilson added an opinion: “If you go over the fence and across country with heavy weapons, figure on them having ten minutes to torch the place before you get there, and more time to escape out back across country while you try to get into the house. So, everyone inside will die if we just attack. That’s assuming they don’t decide to fight us.”
“So your plan is: It’s hopeless,” Esme said.
“Not at all,” the doctor reassured her. “We’re planning to wait until the older one is out of the house and coordinate a quarantine with Interpol and the Centers for Disease Control. The CDC doesn’t need a warrant, and they don’t have to inform local law enforcement. I’m meeting tomorrow at my lab at the university with an old colleague. I’ll show her my tissue samples and we’ll confer with my contacts at Interpol. She’s an epidemiologist with the CDC. She coordinated the response to that Ebola outbreak last year. The CDC response team is a group of hard-core operators. They know how to control a quarantine site. ”
“I’ve been watching the only road out for weeks now,” Jackson reported. “The older one leaves for up to eight hours at a time, two or three times a week. There are three cars, but he’s the only one who drives the Bentley.”
“All we have to do is wait until the old one goes out, then move in while Zack’s alon
e. I can take care of him,” Norman promised.
“But you almost lost, when you fought him,” Esme reminded him.
“I never fought Zack,” Norm said. “That whole fight I staged, that you saw? That was just a lab procedure with a difficult patient.”
“But we’re going in tomorrow, right?” Esme asked.
“No, I’ll need at least an extra day to bring the CDC on board,” Dr. Stein said. “Once we have them, we’ll contact Interpol.”
“And we’ll have to wait until the older one goes out. Two or three days, tops. Don’t worry,” Norm added, noticing the homicidal expression on Esme’s face. “Your sisters will be fine.”
“Yeah, as long as they have blood,” Wilson said.
Esme noticed Norm’s expression, his reaction to her own anger, and she forced herself into composure. Every muscle in her body was tense with fury, but she pulled her elbows off the table, clasped her hands calmly, and put them on her lap. She couldn’t display any indication of what she was thinking, of what she intended. Because two or three days was not going to fly. Not with her sisters’ lives at risk. If Norm and his dad and friends were not going to help her, she’d find someone who would, or go in alone if she had to. But they couldn’t know. They would try to stop her.
There was a shave-and-a-haircut rap at the door and Nick let himself in.
“Hey, folks,” Nick said, entering. “Mom said you wanted to meet here? Cool, bagels.”
“Nick. How are you?” asked Norman. His voice was even, but Esme heard the concern.
“Never felt better in my life.” He grabbed an empty plate off the counter and started walking around the dining table, loading up on bagels and fruit.
“Did you sleep well?” Dr. Stein asked.
