Fangtastic

by Lucienne Diver

  “You think?” I asked. I didn’t mean to be snarky, but screaming pain will do that to a girl. “There’s bottled blood in the fridge,” I told him. “Maybe—”

  But he was shaking his head. “I wouldn’t trust it. Could be tainted. In fact, I wouldn’t stay here tonight. There’s no telling what else they’ve rigged, and once the sun rises—”

  I’d be completely vulnerable. Oh, the Feds had a formula that would let us operate by day, but the vamps knew all about it—thanks to my ex-minion, Rick, who turned ratfink on our last mission. Since this assignment catered to our night sides, no one was willing to give the formula to us now. It wasn’t worth the risk that it might fall into the wrong hands.

  “What I don’t understand,” Bobby went on, “is how they found you so fast. And why.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, trying not to sound as pitiful as I felt at that moment. I only wanted to collapse onto something and coddle my poor hands, but I didn’t trust anything enough to relax. “I only showed my ID to one person tonight. The girl taking the cover charge at the Tower door, but—”

  Bobby whipped out his cell phone before I could finish. My fingers strobed, as if with sympathy pain, with every button he pressed. My raw nerves felt like guitar strings being plucked by some overeager beginner. Even my nails hurt, my manicure marred with heat blisters and boiled to black.

  He was busy telling whoever was on the other end of the line about the girl, when suddenly he stopped and held the phone out to me, up to my ear so I didn’t have to touch it myself. “Describe her,” he ordered.

  So I did, cat’s-eye contacts and all, not that that would be any help. She probably didn’t wear them around out in the real world. I hadn’t noticed the height of her heels—clearly I was slipping—so I couldn’t even give them a sense of stature. Her size was easy, though. A four. Maybe a six, tops.

  Bobby took the phone back and listened for a sec before adding, “Oh, and hey, bring blood.”

  I was so meltingly grateful that I almost didn’t call him on the bossy thing. “But you never let me finish,” I accused as he disconnected. “The girl could have told anyone who I was, if she even bothered to notice. Though there was no reason why she would have. Heck, she scanned my ID—anyone associated with the club could have gotten my home address.”

  “Those machines don’t record the IDs, they just shine a kind of light on them that lets whoever’s looking detect tampering.”

  “As far as you know. I mean, look, we didn’t even know about vampires before we woke up dead, or about the juju brigade before we got recruited.”

  “Now who’s paranoid?”

  “Gah, men!”

  He smiled, and even though it should have been obnoxious, it kind of went straight to my heart. I know, right? Stupid. Still … sucker punch.

  “Okay, we’ll call scanning a possibility,” Bobby agreed. “I still say the girl herself is a good place to start. As you said, it was clearly someone associated with the club.”

  “Someone who knew or guessed I was a vampire.”

  “Maybe. We don’t actually know until the team does their sweep. Maybe the would-be killers were hedging their bets. Could be they’ve set human booby traps as well. I didn’t spring anything, but I was only looking to be sure they’d vacated the place. I wasn’t looking for hidden death.”

  “But why come after me at all?”

  “Why go after the Swinter family? I’m not sure we’re talking about motives that would make sense to you and me. If this is a cult, like a Manson family sort of thing … killing might be its own reward.”

  I shuddered. “Lovely.”

  Bobby pulled me into a very gentle hug, and I held my hands loosely at my sides so they wouldn’t get bumped. He was solid and sexy, and if I wasn’t very careful, I’d forget everything my momma ever taught me and fall head over heels in love. I’d already let him live after he’d turned me to the dark side, which, contrary to popular belief, didn’t even have cookies. Worse, he’d gotten me recruited as a super spy, though that last wasn’t entirely his fault.

  “Think of it this way,” he said, stroking my hair in such a way that if I were a cat, I would have purred. “The next best thing to knowing where Dion and his crew are is to know where they will be. ‘Sorry we missed you’ sounds like they’ll be back.”

  That moved me off my warm fuzzy thoughts but quick. “Great. So once again I’m supposed to be the Nightcrawler of the Damned.”

  “Nightcrawler?”

  “Sure. Aren’t they used as bait?”

  6

  No one expected the baddies to be back that night or the crime-scene techs to be finished with my place before dawn, plus the Feds wanted to go over our cars with a fine-toothed comb, so Bobby and I got a chauffeured ride to the pawnshop—meaning, the local front for the Feds that we’d turned into our temporary headquarters. It seemed an odd choice of location until I realized that, aside from Disney and Universal, any building in Florida that wasn’t medical—clinic, wellness center, hospital, or health insurance—was a pawnshop, bail bonds office, or guns-and-ammo place. Nothing could be more common or less remarkable. Apparently, everyone in Florida was either dyin’ or tryin’.

  By the time we got to the spy shop and Bobby had made his bad joke about us all being pawns in the grand chess game of life, it was nearly dawn and I was done in. But neither impending sun nor sleep were allowed to keep us from a debriefing. Bobby and I were ushered into a small conference room in the back with black-out shades, probably covering bricked-up or soundproofed windows that protected against noise transmitting to any directional microphones that might be aimed our way.

  I collapsed into one of the chairs at the conference table, my skirt falling away to reveal scads of thigh. Agent Stuffed Shirt—Sid—looked away quickly, which made me grin. I didn’t exactly live to discomfort him; I thought of it more as a death benefit.

  What he looked away to was an off-center image of Brent up on a flat-panel TV screen. I looked at Bobby. “Webcam,” he whispered. “Fairly high res.”

  I assumed the last part was geek-speak and moved right along, focusing on what Brent had to report.

  “—closed the place down around two,” Brent was saying, “but we got invited to the after-party in some artist-space downtown. You know, the kind with lots of small studios. Their unit was like an underground movie house. Huge projector screen, lots of couches … ”

  “All of them in use,” Marcy chimed in, and I realized that was why Brent was off-center. He’d made room on camera for Marcy, even though her image wouldn’t get picked up. For some reason, we vamps screwed with visuals but not audio. Totally wrecked my childhood dream of rocking runways from New York to Milan.

  “Marcy!” I called. I couldn’t help it. I was so glad to hear her voice.

  “Gina! You’re okay!”

  “They didn’t tell you?” I asked, turning on Sid.

  “Calm down,” he ordered. “We hadn’t gotten there yet.” To Brent: “The warehouse—you have the address?”

  “Yeah, I’ve already texted you the information. I’m scanning the cards we got and sending the info from Marcy’s arms as well.”

  “Her arms?” Sid asked.

  “Yeah, she was a big hit with the Steampunk crowd. She got a bunch of phone numbers.”

  “Penny Dreadful is going to help me make my own doomsday dress!” Marcy cut in excitedly.

  “Lucky!” I called.

  “I know, right? Those costumes are wicked.”

  “Focus,” Sid growled. “What did you learn?”

  It was Brent who answered. “We have a last-known address on Dion, but word is he’s moved on, and we’ve got the names of three other kids who were disillusioned with the vampire scene. They checked out around the same time as Dion.”

  “Good work,” Sid said.

  Dawn was pulling at my eyelids, making my whole body feel heavy. If we didn’t wrap this up soon—

  “One more thing,” Brent
added. “The older Swinter girl, the one who’s disappeared—she was part of the scene. They say Dion followed her around like a puppy until a week or so before he got booted, when he went off the grid for a few days. He was so changed when he came back, spouting so many crazy-dangerous ideas, that the Burgess Brigade petitioned for his exile.”

  “What kind of ideas?” Sid asked.

  My head hit the table, too heavy to hold up any more. I heard Bobby’s thunk down as well. The room grew dark. And then … nothingness.

  • • •

  I fell awake. I know, the expression is “fell asleep,” but trust me on this. You know that sense of falling into a bottomless pit where your hands and feet lash out trying to find something to stop the descent, and you bolt awake clutching the covers? Your head pounds, sweat beads at your temples, and your mind is certain you’ve just narrowly dodged death, all evidence to the contrary. That was how it felt to wake when the sun set. Put another way, it was like someone used those medical paddles to zap me back from the brink of death to the land of the living. Except that my heart still didn’t beat. I’d have fallen out of my chair if I’d still been back in the conference room, but someone had moved me to a room with no view and thrown a blanket over me.

  “Hey,” said Bobby, from the other cot in the tiny room, “anyone ever tell you you’re beautiful in the evening?”

  I smiled over at him—so cute, even with his bed head. “Yes, but I don’t mind hearing it again.”

  “Well, then—”

  The door burst open, revealing Sid as serious as I’d ever seen him, and that was saying something. A vein jumped along his jaw, which was set tight. That jaw seemed not so much to move as to break away from the rest of his face when he said, “Good, you’re up. Conference room now. We’ve had another incident.” He vanished again.

  Bobby and I looked at each other and scrambled to follow. Let me tell you—corsets, for all their fashion do’s, are a serious action don’t. It was physically impossible to rise quickly in a corset without breaking something … like a rib.

  Still, we managed to make it to the conference room before Sid sent out a search party.

  “Don’t suppose you’ve got the blood of a caffeine addict on tap?” I asked, as I sank back into my chair from yesterday.

  Then the image on the big-screen, the one Brent had spoken to us from the night before, caught my eye. What it showed shut me right up. I recognized that industrial gray carpeting … and those legs, with the baggy old-lady stockings constantly slipping down around the ankles beneath her house dress. I let out a cry.

  Even with the rest of her mercifully hidden behind the couch, I could tell that my nice neighbor lady with the spaniel was dead.

  Bobby reached over to take my hand. He couldn’t know who she was, but he was sharp enough to see that the carpeting looked just like the carpeting in my place, and he could guess.

  “I wondered why her dog didn’t bark,” I said faintly, like it was at all relevant.

  “They found the dog too,” Sid said, his voice not really cut out for gentle. “The granddaughter and her boyfriend discovered them early this morning when they went over to take the old lady to breakfast. Found the dog’s neck snapped and the old lady bled out. Coroner puts time of death at last night, around the same time your place was invaded.”

  I wanted to look away, but it seemed like some sort of self-punishment to make myself look. “It’s all my fault,” I said, finally glancing away before anyone could see my blood tears. “They wanted to get to me. They probably only attacked her to shut the dog up.”

  God, I didn’t even know her name. We’d smiled at each other and exchanged a few words, the couple of times I’d been out to the apartment. Her dog had growled at me and she’d shushed him, even bringing me a plate of homemade cookies on moving day as an apology. She’d had such a sweet smile, just like the kind of grandma they put on TV commercials selling ice cream and apple pie.

  I wiped away the tears and realized that my fangs had extended; I hoped it was in reaction to my own blood (though that was icky enough) and not to what I saw on the screen. I was very careful to talk around them, not so much for fear of slicing myself but to keep from lisping.

  “Dion is dead meat.” I’d think about the whole ‘bringing him in alive’ thing later. Much. “Brent and Marcy mentioned a last-known?”

  “The police have been over it. Dion—Nelson Ricci—and his uncle have both cleared out.”

  “You’re sure the uncle’s gone and not … dead?”

  “We don’t know anything until we find him or his body.”

  “What about the ID checker at the club—you know, bleached blond, cat’s-eye contacts?”

  “No sign of her. She’s not at her apartment or answering her phone.”

  “Crap.”

  “It sounds so cultured when you say it,” Sid said dryly.

  “Bite me,” I answered.

  He actually cracked a half-smile at the irony.

  Then it hit me—a potential lead, someone I could pump for information, someone who wanted to be my new bestest friend. Well, I already had a bestie, but I was still in the market for an entourage. Sid’s eyes widened when I slid two fingers into my cleavage to retrieve Hunter’s card. Charles Orloff, DDS, it said. I wondered if he made his own faux fangs. I just couldn’t quite picture it … I could see him as an ear, nose, and throat guy maybe, or a blood tech, whatever they called them, playing vampire on the weekends, but a mild-mannered dentist ? With the paper bibs and their minty-flavored menace?

  I flashed the card triumphantly. “Meet Hunter, vamp lifestyler and all-around adventurer with the Burgess Brigade, one of Tampa Bay’s premier clans. Tell me, Sid, what do you know about human servants?”

  • • •

  The number on Hunter’s card led to a voicemail with a second number for after-hours emergencies. I dialed the after-hours number and left a message, hoping Charles Orloff, DDS, didn’t have a partner on call tonight.

  “Hi, this is, ah—Cosette D’Ampir.” He wouldn’t know me by any other name. “It’s an emergency that I speak with Dr. Orloff. Please have him call me back as soon as possible.” I left my Fed cell phone number, then ended the call and looked at the others. “What now?”

  Sid was unhooking his laptop from the other equipment in the room, preparing to pack it up. “I’m going to the new crime scene to liaise with the police. They’re going to want into your apartment as well, and they’re going to want to talk to you.”

  “So I should come with you?” I asked.

  “No, you’ll be tied up half the night if you do that. We told them about the vandalism to your place when we heard about your neighbor, and they’re all pissy about the fact that we didn’t let them know sooner, so I’m going to be doing a lot of political ass-kissing that you don’t need to see. I’ll give them your statement. No need for us all to waste our time, though I may have to turn you over for an interview at some point. You two get cleaned up. You smell like a smokehouse.”

  Bobby and I exchanged a look.

  “Separately !” he barked. “Then check out Nelson Ricci’s last-known address. The police have already been over it, but maybe you’ll find something new, like a clue about where his uncle disappeared to and how to get in touch with him. Then you’re on the other names Brent and Marcy dug up. I’ve cc’d you on the info.” Sure enough, my phone vibrated to let me know I had new texts. “Marcy and Brent are still working the human-vampire scene. I don’t want to blow their cover having them out interviewing families.”

  So Marcy got to play dress-up, and I got stuck playing Feeb. The kicker—it didn’t even come with the hot Men-in-Black-style shades. Not that I’d ever been okay with standard issue, but in that case I might make an exception.

  “Blood?” I asked.

  “In the kitchenette. If you heat it up, wash the pots. That stuff tends to … congeal.”

  I made a face at him, but he wasn’t paying me any attention. At least
, not until his laptop was all packed away in its carrying case. “Well, what are you waiting for?” he asked. “Go. I’ll lock up on my way out.”

  See, suspicious. First this weird case, then all their uber-secrecy, which seemed excessive, even for spies. Weren’t we all supposed to be on the same team?

  “Why?” I asked. “In case we’re tempted to make off with your big-screen TV?”

  He glared. “This is sensitive equipment. It’s not meant for video games or reruns of The Bachelor.”

  “As if,” I said, at the same time Bobby burst out with, “You have video games?”

  “No,” Sid answered. “No games, no cable. Out.”

  Bobby and I exchanged another look, a whole lot less smoldering than the last.

  We proceeded Sid out of the conference room and, sure enough, he locked it behind him.

  “Don’t dawdle,” he ordered. “And check in when you get to the last-known.”

  I was tempted to salute, but he’d probably appreciate it, so I let it go.

  “Dibs on the shower,” I said, but only as cover until Sid was well and truly gone—out the door and into the night.

  “Well, that was weird,” Bobby said, heading for the room with the cots, probably to try and scrounge clean clothing.

  “Wait.” I put a hand on his arm to stop him. “This is the perfect chance to investigate—while we have the place to ourselves.”

  “You think they don’t have surveillance here?”

  “Hello, we’ve come face-to-face with the Mad Monk, fought off a psycho-psychic, and put the screws to the entire vampire council. You’re afraid of a little surveillance? We don’t even show up on camera, remember.”

  “I remember. Don’t you remember about motion detectors, microphones, pressure switches—”

  Now that he mentioned it … “Oh, right. Well, if they’ve got the place miked, we’re already sunk.”

  “Look, I understand that you’re concerned, but we’ve got to be smart about this. If there’s something wrong, we’ve got to be inside the system to change it. We can’t do that if we’re locked up.”