“Who’s working on Jennifer Hamilton’s case?”
“I’ll feed you information about Gizmo, but that’s it. I don’t want to get into hot water myself.”
“Why not? You get used to it after a while.”
He chuckles. “I—“
His cell cuts him off.
“I better get back to work.” He walks away but then turns back, walking quickly and pressing a key into my hand, his eyes filled with concern. “In my trunk is a spare gun. Leave the key in the glove compartment.” And he walks away.
I’ve basically given up on the idea of him, but his body pressing against me and the warmth of his breath on my neck leaves me wanting more. Maybe I’m just clinging to my crush because it’s obvious we’re only friends. Maybe I just feel alone and overwhelmed that he’s kinda aligning himself with me. Whatever the reason, I appreciate him all the more. Whatever the case, I need to not worry about my heart and worry about keeping my neck unbitten and my head attached.
Chapter 15
Since I’m suspended, I can’t count on paychecks, so I opt to stop by my place to get something to eat. I keep forgetting to return to City Dry Cleaners and Tailor to get my coat. I’m taking off my jacket when there’s a knock at the door.
Huh. I’m not expecting anyone.
Marlon’s gun fits well in my hand, and I clutch it as I cross over to the window. Relief floods me. I sheepishly hide the gun on the table and open the door.
“Travis, you startled me.”
My partner steps jerkily inside, a brown bag in his hands. “Hi, Clarissa. How are you?”
“Been better. You?” I gesture to the couch.
He doesn’t sit. “I overheard that you haven’t been eating.” Travis awkwardly shoves the bag toward me.
“You brought me food? Back to babysitting me?”
He continues to hold out the bag.
Embarrassment gnawing at me, I reluctantly take the bag from him and tease, “Please tell me Ali made it.”
Travis can’t cook. He can’t even boil water. I’m not exaggerating. Once, he went to make toast, and the toaster caught on fire. No lie.
He doesn’t blink.
Okay…
I carry the bag into the kitchen. Travis follows, almost on my heels. I sit down, open the bag, and pull out a container of soup. When I stand, he jerks forward.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“Nothing. Just need a spoon. Man, you’re jumpy. How’s it going without me?”
He kinda grunts and waits for me to sit back down before sitting again. Ever the gentleman, my partner.
“That bad?” I open the container, and steam billows. “What is this? It smells divine.” I stir the spoon, and carrots and small potato chunks float to the surface. It’s not soup after. It’s beef stew. My mouth waters just looking at it.
“Go ahead and eat.”
“I’ll give it a second to cool. So, work. The kid… I’m so sorry. Did we ever locate his parents?”
Travis shakes his head.
“He was an orphan? Damn,” I murmur, hating myself.
Maybe that explains how he got involved in drugs in the first place.
“I wish…” I shake my head, trying to ignore the growing pit of self-loathing, guilt, and dismay growing in my stomach. “Wishing won’t change things. You know what? I don’t want to talk about police work, vice or the murders or any of it. Tell me about Ali. How is she? She must’ve made this, right?”
“Aren’t you going to eat?”
“In a minute,” I say, indifferent.
“You should eat.”
I stare at the stew, which has suddenly lost its appeal. “I’m actually not that hungry,” I lie. “I’m just so wiped. I think I might be coming down with something.”
On cue, I cough. My chest does feel tight, and a tickle in the back of my throat has been brewing. I’m exhausted. My ribs are better but not completely healed yet, so I’m wincing all the time yet. I’m pushing my body harder than I should. I’m not taking good care of myself at all. Which will lead to slower reflexes. If I’m potentially going up against vamps with super speed and possibly other advantages, slower reflexes could mean a quick death. Or a slow one.
Travis blinks once.
My chair scraps against the tile floor as I stand. “Since you don’t seem to be in a talkative mood, I’m just gonna save this for later and take a nap.” I reach for the lid, but Travis jerks forward and seizes my wrist.
“You should eat.”
“I told you I’m not hungry.” I try to pull free, but his grip is like a vice.
He relaxes slightly, and I yank back. “If you’re that tired, I can feed you.”
“I’m not a baby.” What is going on with him? Why is he acting so weird?
Travis snatches the container.
If he thinks he’s going to force fed me, he’s got another think coming.
“Put that down,” I say calmly. “I’m just gonna take a nap now. You can stay or go. I don’t care. Eat the stew yourself.” I hedge around him.
He blocks me. “Eat.”
“No.”
Travis slams the stew onto the table, dark liquid seeping over the sides. He grabs me by the neck and slams me against my fridge.
Reacting on instinct, I kick him where it counts and judo chop his Adam’s apple. He gasps, choking and wincing, hobbling back a few steps and hunching over.
My elbow comes down on the back of his neck. Travis drops in a heap, his face slamming against the tile.
He’s passed out.
Crap.
What the Hell is in that stew? Why did he want me to eat it so badly? Why did he attack me?
Maybe it’s not him. Maybe it’s the vamps. Maybe they did something to him.
How to prove it when no one else believes in vamps? It’s not like there’s a biological or chemical test for this!
I pick up his legs and twist Travis around, planning on dragging him to the couch, but there’s stew on the ground. After I clean it up, careful not to touch it, I pull him back into the living room. Somehow, I manage to lift him onto the couch. Hopefully, he can sleep off whatever they did to him.
If they even did anything.
Man, maybe I really am jumping to conclusions, but too many bizarre things have been happening lately. If only there is a vampire expert I can talk to.
Maybe there is.
There’s a metaphysical shop here in Bethlehem. I’ve never gone to it before, but it has witches’ balls and other events. If anyone might have a clue about all of this, maybe the employees will.
Honestly, I’m not expecting much from it, but a trip there can’t hurt any.
But what about Travis?
I don’t like the idea of leaving him behind, especially when he might be in some kind of hypnotic state induced by a vamp. It’s not like I can lug an unconscious guy with me. Waiting for him to wake up and potentially go after me again, nope. What if he tried to force me to eat that possibly poisoned stew? Not gonna happen. Who knows? He might attack me, hurt me, even try to kill me. Yeah. I’m not gonna sit by my couch, holding his hand. I’ve always been a go-getter.
Wishing I did this in the first place, I drag Travis to my bed. By sitting him up, I’m able to shift him onto the best. From there, I use belts to tie Travis’s arms and legs to the four corners of the bed. I’m careful not to make them super tight but secure enough. Then I hide the stew in a cabinet. I just want to make a quick stop at the shop before coming back here to check on him. I’ll have the stew’s contents analyzed if I can bargain another favor at the lab.
Into the Myst is on West Broad Street. I have to park a few blocks away because all of the nearby on-street spots are already taken. I walk fast, head down. Half a dozen steps, and the hair on the back of my neck rises. Someone is watching me.
I glance over my shoulder. The streets have normal traffic, and the sidewalks not overly crowded. No one seems to be fixated on me, but I can’t shake the feeling
that someone is spying on me.
The feeling lingers as I cross the next block and the next. Someone is tailing me. I’m sure of it.
But I can’t figure out who it is. And if it’s a vamp, he’ll be moving too fast for me to be able to see him.
Why tail me? Why send Travis after me? Why toy with me? If they want me dead, why not kill me themselves?
Are they toying with me?
And if humans are a vamp’s meal…
It’s kinda like they’re playing with their food.
The thought makes my stomach twist into vicious knots.
A sudden fog drifts out of the nearby alley. Despite my goon and danger alarm going off, I enter the alley and halt halfway down. No one is here, but maybe I just can’t see him.
“Why are you using my partner to get to me?” I whisper, holding out my arms in a defensive manner. “Why? I stopped. I told you I would stop, and I did. You started it up again. Leave him alone. Leave me alone. Or else…”
I can’t really make a threat against them. I might have a gun, but I don’t have pure silver bullets, so I still can’t hurt them.
“If you want me, come and get me, but leave my friends out of this.”
The only response is a quiet howl on an icy breeze.
This is ridiculous. I’m ridiculous. Talking to shadows. Seeking out help from an occult shop. Leaving my partner behind at my place when I should be getting him help.
It’s not like a hospital will know how to help him, though.
After one last look down the alley, I turn, leave the fog behind, and rush toward the shop. Before I can walk inside, a woman comes out, smoking a cigarette. As I move to walk around her to the door, she nods to me.
“You look like you have questions.”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“Yes, but not all who ask want to hear the answer.”
Psychology? Philosophy? Not what I was expecting. She has a small hole in her nose, a nose ring removed, short, spiky black hair, and dark winged eyeliner.
“I want answers all right,” I say grimly.
“From the dead?”
“Nope.”
Well, not like a séance. Are vamps dead? I can’t wrap my head around the idea of the dead walking around, drinking blood. Yeah, I might be a Walking Dead fan, but that doesn’t mean I think zombies are real.
“From a fortune teller,” she tries again.
“Not exactly,” I mutter, feeling more and more stupid for coming here.
“From a witch.” She grins. Her upper right canine is gray, but the rest of her teeth are white. It’s distracting.
“You believe in all of that?” I gesture behind her to the shop’s window display featuring books about astrology and witches, statues, ghosts. It looks like a Halloween setup.
“I’m a witch myself. I don’t work here, but those who do are really knowledgeable. Healers, teachers, practitioners of metaphysical arts… other witches, pagans… Whatever you’re looking for, whatever your questions, they can help.”
“Any of them know about vamps?”
“Vamps?” she repeats blankly.
“You know. Vampires.”
“Vampires aren’t real. Well, not in the blood sucking kind of way. There are people who feed off of another person’s energy, but the horror kind of vampires, they don’t exist. Why are you asking about them?”
“No reason.”
She rolls her eyes at me so epically that I’m shocked her eyes don’t pop out of her head. “If you can’t be honest with yourself, you can’t expect others to be honest with you.”
“A dream,” I mumble. “I had a dream about them. A nightmare.”
“Dream interpretation isn’t my thing, but go in and ask around and see if someone else can help you.” But she’s grimacing, and I can tell she thinks no one will be able to. She believes herself a witch, but she doesn’t believe in vamps. If someone like her can’t be convinced, I’m in big trouble. All of Bethlehem is in big trouble.
I mean, sure, I can tell her about how a woman has been bitten and then died. I can explain how another had her neck torn most likely from fang-like teeth. I can add that a man had his head and neck removed from his body. The only thing worse than a possible vamp invasion is for the city to be in a panic over a possible vamp invasion. So far, the media hasn’t pieced everything together yet, and I hope that never happens. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of those cops who hate reporters. The public has a right to know, but until we determine what we’re up against, it’s better to keep this under wraps.
The so-called witch drops her cigarette and stomps on it. She nods to me and walks away, her spiky hair flopping around with each step.
The interior of the shop is actually really interesting, with all kinds of strange objects to look at. The candles burning are a little overly strong, and I wrinkle my nose, doing my best to hold back a sneeze.
The woman behind the counter hands change to another customer and then smiles expectantly at me. “Can I help you?” Her voice is surprisingly deep.
“Sure. Do you have a vampire section?”
“A few books right over here.” She bustles around and leads me to them.
To my disappointment, the books are definitely meant to be taken with a carefree attitude.
“Do you have anything else?”
“A few posters. Statues. That kind of thing, but I take it that’s not what you’re looking for.”
“What can you tell me about vampires?”
“Well, there have been stories about them dating back to the—“
“I mean vampires now.”
“As in alive today?” Her laugh is mocking. I get the feeling she doesn’t intend for it to come across that way. “Not that vampires are alive, of course. And they aren’t real—“
“How can you be so sure?” I ask.
“How would they be able to live underground with all of today’s technology? I mean, everyone has cameras and—“
“If they have super speed, they won’t show up on a camera. Hasn’t it been said that vampires can’t show up in film anyhow?”
“That’s supposedly because they don’t have a soul. How can having a soul have anything to do with your picture being taken or not? There are way too many inconsistencies among vampire stories to be able to take anything seriously. It’s more worthwhile to focus your energies on something that is real—“
“Like witches and the dead,” I deadpan.
She beams. “Exactly!”
I suppress a sigh. “Do you have anything that might be able to help me?”
“Not really. I think you can get vampire survival kits online. You know, wooden stakes, garlic, holy water, crucifixes, but it’s just a hokey thing.” She winces. “Not a hokey thing at all! I’m sorry. I don’t mean to imply—“
“That I’m crazy. Yeah, don’t worry. I’ve been thinking that, too.”
“Why the interest in vampires?” she asks.
“I want to become one.” I grin at her, revealing my teeth.
“Oh,” she says faintly.
“Or date one. And I want to know if they sparkle.”
I can’t. I can’t handle it anymore. I burst out laughing, laughing so hard I snort and tears stream down my cheeks.
“Th-Thank you for your time,” I manage to say, and I leave the store behind.
Well, that was a dead end. I sure don’t want to run down more of them, or else I’ll be the one to end up dead.
Chapter 16
It doesn’t take me long to return to my place. All in all, I only left Travis for thirty-five minutes. Not bad at all.
But thirty-five minutes is too long, as it turns out. I go to check on him, and he’s gone. Immediately, my mind jumps to kidnapped.
Why?
Because the belts are all still tied, just like I left them. He couldn’t have gotten free himself, and why would he have re-tied them?
Not that he had been acting logically when he came over, but s
till.
This all is too bizarre.
My stomach forces me back to the kitchen. I still haven’t eaten yet, and the pain I’m getting is severe. Two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches later and a glass of milk, and I feel much better.
As I put my plate into the dishwasher, I spy the stew container. Time to run that to the lab.
I love going there. The workers are always so enthusiastic, working hard, wanting to get answers as much as we do. Without them, our evidence is purely circumstantial, but with their DNA and other tests, they can make an entire case for us.
Doug Nelson is the one who usually handles the drug samples, and he’s the one I go to. He’s older, but you can’t tell since he dyes his hair a stark black.
He grins at me as I approach his desk. “Clarissa. I thought you were taking a break.”
“I am. This isn’t about work.” I hand him the stew.
“You brought me food?”
I remove a Snickers bar from my purse. “Yes.”
He raises his dyed eyebrows. Yes, they’re dyed, too. “What’s this for then? You want me to run analysis on it?”
“I know it’s a little out of your wheelhouse, but if you could…”
“What do you want to find?”
“Nothing,” I say honestly, “but I wonder if you could see if there might be poison in it.”
“Who would want to poison you?”
I laugh it off. “Can you also look to see if there’s any kind of substance in it that you have no idea what it is?”
“Now you’re making me curious. Can you tell me where the stew came from?”
“Sure I can tell ya. But then I’d have to—”
“Seriously?”
Innocently, I shrug.
“It’ll take some time,” he warns.
“Of course. Call me as soon as you learn anything.”
When Vamps Bite (Bedlam in Bethlehem Book 1) Page 11
