by Debra Dunbar
“So right now I’ve got Travis Dawson and a kid named Strike, both late teens and both members of the band Rabid Rabbit. From what I overheard they like these two identities—at least Travis aka Gary does. So, would they head back to live in their parents’ basement or something?”
“I don’t think so. I’m thinking that these young wouldn’t want to be subject to adult rules. It would remind them too much of Grandmother and the restrictions they ran away from. Maybe the band has a place? Or they’re staying with friends of Travis and Sammy’s?”
Possibly. I remembered them saying something about a rehearsal spot. “They can’t be living on the street, can they? It’s going to be hard to find them if they’re holed up in a cardboard box beside a dumpster.”
“Boo Hag want company, so I’m assuming they would be naturally drawn to the society their humans enjoyed. Check friends and places where Strike and Travis used to go. There might be a chance you’ll catch them there.”
That gave me good leads on the two boys, but what about the girl? “The one with the vampire skin, do you think she might actually try to seek out other vampires? The victim wasn’t a member of the Balaj, but even rogues have a natural inclination to group together. Vampires don’t like to be solo.”
Sean shrugged. “I don’t know much about vampires. Boo Hag don’t like to be alone, and I’m guessing if she’s wearing a vampire skin, she’ll seek them out.”
Which meant there was a good chance Dario would catch her. I sent off a quick text to him, asking him to try to not kill the vampire imposter if they caught her, and that I had more information for him.
“What happens to a skin that’s not in use? Let’s say they’ve got six or seven of them, do they stay preserved when they’re not regularly worn?”
Sean shook his head. “The skins will last a normal human lifetime if worn continuously. Removing them at night doesn’t seem to affect the preservation, but I’d assume a few days of non-use and the skin would begin to decompose.”
This might be a self-limiting factor, eventually forcing the Boo Hag to narrow down to one or two skins at a time. I could only hope they were fond enough of Travis and Strike that they were still wearing them. Tremelay should be able to check out friends of those two and hopefully narrow down spots where they might be located.
“Thanks. This was a huge help,” I told Sean as he packed up the martini supplies.
“Like I said, I was very reluctant to share this with you, but I like Janice and you’re her friend. I felt you needed to know. I’m trusting that I’m not going to wake up one morning with a sword in my chest?”
My smile probably wasn’t as reassuring as he was hoping for. “That’s going to depend on you, Sean. You choose your path, but you better make sure it’s a righteous one.”
Chapter 33
AFTER SEAN LEFT I sat, stunned and a bit tipsy from my liquid lunch. I’d been at the end of the line thinking these guys were skinwalkers and in a matter of hours I knew what they were and how to stop them.
Boo Hag. And my friend was dating one of them. But I’d think about that another time. Right now I needed to prepare myself to be more of a Templar and less of mage.
I tried to meditate, tried to pray, but each time doubt disrupted my concentration, occupying my thoughts. How could I be true to the Templar purpose when I’d killed a man, stabbed him in the back as he’d turned to leave. How could anything justify that?
It had been so easy when I was a child riding through the fields with the sun’s golden rays on the tall grass. I’d been so sure that God would guide me, would keep my aim true and my heart pure. I’d always felt the knowledge that had come with that fateful bite of apple in the Garden of Eden had been self-awareness, that the burden humanity bore in our eviction from paradise was free will. God’s righteous path wasn’t so easy to discern anymore. It was overgrown with briars and fallen trees blocking our way. Do we go around? Do we chop our way through? Are we even on the right path anymore?
I guess that’s where faith came in—that elusive wisp that I’d left in a forgotten place. I was lost in the woods and I wasn’t sure which path was the righteous one.
Yeah, I was dedicated to protecting Pilgrims on the Path and yet I couldn’t even find my own way.
Giving up on the meditation I called Tremelay to fill him in on all I’d learned.
“Okay. Skinwalkers, Boo Hag…how do we catch these kids and how to I make sure they stay in jail this time? That’s what I need to know.” The detective sounded all business. His confidence was infectious.
“Salt can take them down and even kill them, but I’m not sure how that is going to help. Take their skin away and surround the jail cell with a thick layer of it? Coat the bars and windows with it?” Sword. Magic. Salt. None of them were practical for long-term incarceration.
“They could always make a deal with a prisoner or guard to scrape away the salt and poof they’d be gone. No one is going to understand the importance of surrounding one guy’s cell with a mineral. And skinless? That’s gonna cause a panic.”
I grimaced. “Solitary confinement?”
Tremelay sighed. “Again, how are we going to convince both a judge and our correctional system the need to lock three teenagers up in solitary, in cells with salt cemented all over the place?”
“How are you keeping the Fiore Noir mages in place?” The prosecutor must have worked something into the sentencing guidelines, otherwise the mages would be charming and hexing their way into an early, and very illegal, release.
“We explained to the judge that allowing them magical items would cause a disruption and possibly make them targets for prisoners who would believe they were devil worshippers. The defense attorneys tried to pull the religious freedom card, but the prosecutor was able to prove this had nothing to do with religion. Heck, half of them went to church regularly and even took communion.”
None of that would work. Boo Hag didn’t need spell books or components. They’d just shed their skins and be gone. And I was beginning to rethink my original suggestion. “I don’t think we can do the salt-lined cell anyway. They’d starve. They need to slip away each night and feed from sleeping humans. They can’t do that if they’re confined.”
“We’re just not set up to deliver justice to non-human offenders,” Tremelay confessed.
We weren’t, which was why the vampires took internal matters into their own hands. There would be the same problem with an incarcerated vampire. They’d either burn in the sunlight, starve to death, or bend the bars of their cells and strong-arm their way out come night time.
There was no way to make a justice system run by humans who didn’t believe such creatures existed work in these cases. I was back to the torturous decision I’d made with Dark Iron. The one where killing the offender was the only justice available.
I looked at my sword on the kitchen counter. This was the sole solution. Kill Gary, Becca, and maybe even Lawton. Their only pardon would be if Grandmother could get here first. Even then, I wasn’t sure I wanted to let her cart away murderers. What punishment would they meet at her hands? Sean was adamant this wasn’t typical Boo Hag behavior. I’d like to believe him, but this Grandmother had been negligent and allowed three of her charges to escape. Who’s to say that wouldn’t happen again? I’d need reassurance that it wouldn’t, otherwise the Boo Hag and I were going to have a problem.
“Any leads on their whereabouts?” I asked, my eyes still on my sword.
“We’ve interviewed family and friends. We’ve got eyes on their band practice spot, and their hangouts. They think you’re dead and that they’re safe. I’m willing to bet these two will turn up in the next day or so once they’re convinced the coast is clear.”
I nodded, even though Tremelay couldn’t see me. “If you get wind of them, even a rumor, call me. I’ll take care of the situation. I’ll deliver justice.”
And I would, no matter how difficult that would be for me.
Tremelay was
silent a moment and I know he was having a battle of his own. He was a cop. His whole life was dedicated to arresting offenders and seeing them judged by a jury of their peers, serving time through a human correctional system. He’d be green-lighting me as a vigilante, and even though these killers weren’t human, that had to have been just as difficult for him as killing the Boo-Hag would be for me.
“I’ll call you, Ainsworth.” The detective’s voice was soft. “This one’s all yours.
Chapter 34
GOT HER.” DARIO was downright smug.
It was close to midnight. He’d texted me the thumbs-up emoticon in reply to my eight-page message about Boo Hag attributes and how I really needed this girl alive if at all possible. The brief communication then radio silence had me on edge. I knew he was on the trail of our vampire Boo Hag.
“Where did you find her?” I asked.
“Getting beaten up by two girls behind a strip joint.”
That was unexpected.
“Cops showed up,” Dario continued. “It was all very entertaining. The dancers don’t like other women poaching their regulars. Drinks were thrown, words were exchanged, but our vampire wannabe persisted in trying to pick up the men at the club. She went out back to meet a patron and instead got pummeled by two of the dancers.”
“Two women subdued a vampire?” It was incredible. She might have been a Boo Hag in vampire skin, but having recently been on the receiving end of Boo Hag fists, I would have expected a different outcome. Unless these two women trained with Ronda Rousey, they should have been easily overcome.
“There’s something wrong with her,” Dario told me. “I think she’s dying. Maybe they’re not compatible with vampire skins.”
Or maybe she was starving to death.
“What happened with the police?”
The vampire snorted. “We told them she was a friend of ours, that she was drunk and we were taking her home. She wasn’t in any shape to protest. The dancers were clearly the aggressors, and were happy just to see her gone and not to wind up facing assault charges.”
How badly had she been injured? Vampires healed fast. And from what I’d seen, Boo Hag did, too. “What did they do to her?”
“Not a lot. Scratches, kicking, punching. Like I said, I think she’s dying. She was healing, but slowly. And she didn’t protest or fight us when we took her.”
That was kind of…sad. I couldn’t feel sympathy for this woman, though. She’d killed at least one vampire. She was a murderer, not a starving runaway kid. A murderer.
“Is she still up north in Towson or Hampton? Where did you end up taking her?”
“No, we brought her back. There’s nowhere adequate to hold a vampire up there, and she’s got the same strength and speed as one of us. I put her in Leonora’s holding cell for now, but I’m not sure how long even that’s going to hold her.”
Yikes. I wasn’t sure which alarmed me more—the fact that the Boo Hag might escape a cell meant to hold a vampire, or that Dario had taken her to the Mistress’s house. Leonora and I didn’t have the most amicable relationship, and I’m sure she was less than thrilled to have a creature wearing the skin of a rogue vampire in her house.
“Should I meet you there?” Duh. He was hardly going to drag the Boo Hag through the city to my apartment. It’s just that I was reluctant to go to Leonora’s. I’d have my sword, and Dario would meet me, but I still hated that place with a passion.
“Yes. Armand is at the door. He’ll escort you.”
Which meant Armand would ensure no one snacked on me or harassed me. Those loyal to Dario always treated me with the utmost courtesy, but Leonora’s followers tended to mirror her dislike if not expand it to a threatening extreme.
I hung up with Dario, grabbed my sword, but hesitated in the doorway. Should I call Sean? He was probably still in the city, although at midnight I wasn’t sure whether he would be in his human skin or out “riding.”
I wound up just texting him to let him know we’d found Becca and the vampires had brought her, alive but injured, back to the city. He’d promised to help. I was sure he’d get back to me as soon as he was able.
Driving to Leonora’s, I tried to think of what tactic I should take in interrogating this Boo Hag. My main goal was to find out where Gary and Lawton were, but I could hardly lead with that question. I’d need to find out as much about her as I could.
Armand did meet me at the door, a favor for which I was quite grateful. The two vampires out front were Leonora’s buddies and they made it very clear that without Armand, my drained body would have been found at dawn in a dark alley.
They were bluffing. That sort of thing would have meant war between Leonora and Dario—something the Mistress was eager to avoid. Even so, my palms sweated on Trusty’s hilt, protection blessings ready on my lips as I followed Armand through the hallway and down a set of stairs. It was different stairs than I’d been down last time, making me think Leonora had her basement sectioned off.
She did. And evidently there were different levels. We continued down two more sets of increasingly creaky wooden stairs, the air turning dry and cool. It reminded me of a wine cellar—a wine cellar with a set of holding cells, one in each corner of the room. Dario stood next to the far left cell. It seemed far too large for the occupant, a woman huddled in a ball as far away from the bars as possible. White-blond hair shielded her face and arms from view, its length even covering most of her legs.
“Becca?” I asked softly. She looked so frail that I suddenly decided to take a kinder, gentler approach than I’d originally intended.
She didn’t reply, or even look up.
Dario shrugged.
“Hon? What’s your name?”
Armand strode forward, snatching a stick off the floor and banging on the bars. “Hey. Answer the Templar when she asks you a question.”
So much for kinder and gentler. Or for keeping my identity a secret. This woman had never seen me. I’d hoped to keep the fact that I was a Templar from her as long as possible.
The woman looked up and snarled, baring her fangs. Yep, not likely to get any cooperation from her now—at least not without coercion.
In spite of the bravado she was drawn and paler than even a vampire should be. Bruises covered her face, and her bare arms still had the faint marks of scratches. Her eyes struggled to focus on me, her body slumped weakly against the back wall.
“She rallied a bit and tried to escape once we got her down here,” Dario told me.
The cage did look like it had seen better days, but I couldn’t tell what damage was from the Boo Hag and what had been caused by previous vampire occupants. Bars were twisted as if they’d been pulled apart then bent back into shape. Some had chunks taken out of the metal. Vampires were amazingly strong, but it would take one more than a few minutes to work their way out of this cage. An attentive guard would be able to subdue them before they managed to escape. Which made me wonder about their techniques of restraining prisoners.
“How do you guys keep vampires in the cage? The bars are just iron. Do you really have guards on them twenty-four seven to beat them back every time they try to break out?”
Dario got that blank, expressionless look that I was beginning to recognize so well – it was the expression he got every time he was about to tell me something I wouldn’t like.
“Normally prisoners are only kept alive long enough to interrogate, so long term guards or confinement isn’t an issue. We have ways of rendering them immobile for long periods of time so they don’t attempt escape while we’re holding them.”
I read between the lines. Vampires healed quickly, but amputations or massive amounts of bone breaks with internal injuries would take time—a lot of time if the vampire hadn’t fed recently. I could hardly complain, though. It’s not like human jails could hold them. Paranormal criminals required a different method of confinement. I could hardly fault the vampires for their extreme methods given the nature of their offenders.
“Any idea what’s wrong with her?” I asked. Dario wasn’t a medic and neither of us knew anything about Boo Hag physiology, but he did know vampires. She was wearing the skin of one. Maybe whatever she had going on was a vampire thing.
“I think she’s starving. The weird thing is she’s been trying to feed like a vampire, but she keeps vomiting the blood back up.”
“I am a vampire,” the girl shouted. “I’m Marcielle and I pledge my loyalty and life to Mistress Leonora and her Balaj.”
I caught Dario doing something suspiciously close to an eye roll. “And she keeps yelling that,” he told me.
“She’s no vampire,” Armand chimed in. “She’s crazy, that’s what she is. She smells funny, can’t keep blood down, and her one finger keeps turning into some kind of claw thing. Looks like a knife.”
Yeah, I’d had up close and personal experience with one of those. I’d no wish to repeat that.
“Has she tried to take her skin off yet?” I couldn’t figure out why she hadn’t resorted to that last ditch effort to escape. At night, or day, without the skin she’d be able to slip between the bars and be out of Leonora’s house before the vampires could catch her. She had to have another skin stashed somewhere she could use once she got away.
Unless she was particularly fond of this skin. I remembered what Sean had told me. If the Boo Hag had grown attached to living Marcielle’s life, she’d be very reluctant to leave it behind. That plus her vampire fixation and the difficulties in gaining a replacement skin could be keeping her here.
“Where are the other two Boo Hag?” I asked, deciding to cut with the small talk and go for the jugular.
She glared at me. “I don’t know. I’m a vampire.”
Was she trying to negate her real self, or did she really not know where the other two were? She could be telling the truth. When she’d left them behind to go vampire hunting up north, she could have broken off all contact with them.
