by Michele Hauf
“Right?” Tor said. “What a way to get rid of the stress. We should do this again soon.”
“No, the bag.” She clutched his hand. “My bag with the heart in it is missing. I set it right there.”
“Ah, hell.” Tor’s body stiffened, instantly moving from relaxed to alert. His eyes took in the crowd and then traced along the riverfront. “It was red with big flowers?”
“Yes. I wonder if the cloaking spell dissipated? Or maybe it was a thief taking advantage of an unwatched bag.”
“There!” Tor pointed up toward the street level.
Mel sighted a man walking swiftly, her bag slung over his shoulder.
“Let’s go!”
Chapter 13
Tor grabbed Mel’s hand and they soared up the stairway to street level. Here at the edge of the 5th the traffic was lighter, but the streetlights were also spaced farther apart, darkening their path. Half a block ahead, they saw the dark-haired man turn a corner.
“I’ve got this!”
Tor took off, leaving Mel to follow. She reached the corner and saw Tor take another right into what must be an alleyway. She heard shouts and what could only be described as a fist meeting flesh and bone. Creeping toward the turn, she snuck a look around the side.
Tor struggled with a man who snarled and lashed out with deadly knives in each hand. But what was most deadly were the fangs jutting from his mouth.
“Vampire?” Mel muttered. “But how could he know what was in the bag?” Had her cloaking spell been—again—ineffective? What was up with her magic lately?
The tapestry bag sat on the ground ten feet away from the men’s struggle. Mel slipped around the corner and crept over. When her fingers glanced onto the wooden bag handle, she saw the glow from within. She picked up the bag and peered inside. “Why is it doing that?”
She hadn’t a clue how the thing worked, only that it was necessary for her spell. It hadn’t glowed since the night she’d stolen—borrowed—it from the Archives. When the dead things had risen from her backyard, it hadn’t been glowing.
Curious.
“Watch out, Mel!”
Dodging the oncoming vampire body, Mel stepped to the side and pressed her back to the brick building. Tor lunged and grabbed the creature by the shirt. He wielded a stake high in the air. Just as he swept down his arm to stake the vamp, his opponent kicked him in the shin, setting Tor’s trajectory off course and felling him to one knee with a painful groan.
The vampire dove for Mel and gripped her by the shoulders. She clutched the bag to her chest. She wasn’t afraid of a vampire. Even if he did flash his fangs—one of which was chipped.
“Divertia!” Her repulsion spell sent the vamp flying away from her. His shoulders hit the wall and he slapped his palms to it.
“A witch, eh?”
“How do you know about the heart?” Mel demanded.
“Heart?”
Tor stepped before Mel. “That’s enough chatting. You like to steal things, flesh pricker?”
The vampire snarled. “There’s something in that bag I need.”
“But you didn’t know what that something was?” Mel called from behind Tor. She bounced on her toes but couldn’t see over his broad shoulders.
“I know now that it’s a heart.” The vampire stood and curled his fingers into claws. “It called to me. And I take what I want.”
“It can’t call to you,” Mel muttered from behind Tor. “It’s warded. And cloaked!”
“Oh, it called.” Fangs bared, the vampire again lunged for Tor.
Tor bent, plunging the stake upward. Mel saw the vampire’s fangs graze Tor’s neck, drawing blood, and then the vamp shoved him to the ground as it stumbled backward. The stake had found a place in its heart. Yet the creature didn’t turn to ash as it should.
“Heh, heh.” The vamp pulled the stake from its heart and tossed it to the ground. “This is not over!” He took off.
Tor, falling to one knee before her, slapped a palm to the brick wall to catch his breath.
“Aren’t you going after him?”
He stood and gripped the bag she held. “This is not warded.”
“Yeah, I get that. Sorry. Vampire getting away? And why didn’t he ash?”
“Because it’s a bloody revenant. And—hell.” Tor stood and marched down the alleyway. “Let’s go home. It’s been a long day.”
* * *
After a shower, Tor walked out of the bathroom to find Mel asleep on his bed and snoring. Her white vinyl boots were strewn on the floor. The flowered bag was hugged tight against her chest, her knees tucked up and her mouth open. He hoped she didn’t drool on his Egyptian-cotton pillowcase. Then again, he did have a maid.
Smiling at her easy fall into slumber, he snuck into the closet and pulled down an extra pillow and blanket for himself. Wandering down the hallway in boxers and bare feet, under his breath he sang a lullaby he knew Sinatra had once performed. “Lay thee down, now and rest, may thy slumber be blessed.”
In the living room he eyed the leather sofa. It did not look at all inviting. He’d purchased the boxy, hard item because it went with his masculine, streamlined decor. And his decorator had suggested it suited his personality. In the four years he’d lived here, he’d probably sat on it half a dozen times.
With a sigh, he lay down and confirmed the utter hardness of his night’s rest. As a consolation, the cushy pillow provided a saving grace.
He hadn’t gone after the vampire because it wouldn’t have proven fruitful. The creature had been revenant. Not even a stake could kill an already-dead thing. That particular breed of vamp needed to be beheaded in order to be ashed. And he hadn’t been packing a machete.
And the key question remained: Hadn’t the cloaking and ward worked? How had the vampire been attracted to the heart? Tor had held a frog’s hand for that spell.
Mel’s spells seemed to work, for the most part. But so far none of her wards had lasted for long. Was it because she wasn’t an expert with dark magic? How would she accomplish the greater spell under the full moon if even a small warding wasn’t effective for her? The woman had very big plans for that night.
“Necromancy,” he muttered. The word sank into his gut like a spiked iron ball. He’d forgotten to ask her more about that unsavory development. Had he known that was part of the plan, would he still have taken the job? “Probably.”
Because lush lashes and big doe eyes. Sometimes a man couldn’t resist. And maybe, just maybe, she possessed a sort of lash magic. Anything was possible with witches.
Tugging the blanket over his face, he dropped into sleep almost immediately.
* * *
When the phone rang, Tor startled upright, winced at the pull in his back muscles and slapped around for his cell phone. Dragging himself up with a groan, he spied the phone over on the kitchen counter. The daylight beaming in through the deck windows shocked him completely awake as he wandered to the kitchen. It was morning? He noted the time of eight thirty as he answered.
The man on the phone sounded pleased. It was the very same one who had interviewed him via Skype a few days earlier. “You’re one of three final candidates for the job, Monsieur Rindle. We’d like you to come in for a face-to-face on Monday at 8:00 a.m.”
“I’ll be there,” Tor confirmed. He pumped a triumphant fist. “Merci, monsieur.”
Hanging up, he again pumped the air and then moaned as his shoulder muscles screamed in protest. “Damn couch. Whew!” He sat on a stool and leaned forward, catching his palms against his temples.
He’d gotten a second interview. Of course, he hadn’t doubted he’d aced the first interview. He was excellent at the verbal volley. And face-to-face? He was even more confident in that.
“What’s the hubbub?”
A tousle-haired witch wandered into the living room, yawning and st
retching her arms above her head. She still wore the violet dress she’d had on yesterday. She walked over to the kitchen counter, and Tor noticed her smile grew to a teasing smirk.
“What?” he asked.
“You’re not much for pants, are you?”
He’d forgotten his lacking night wear. Boxers were comfy to sleep in. The woman should be lucky he wasn’t naked, as was his usual sleeping mode. On the other hand, maybe he should label that unlucky?
“Not for sleeping in,” he commented. “And the hubbub is that I got an in-person interview on Monday.”
“Hey, that’s awesome.” She leaned forward, catching her elbows on the counter. Her eyes glinted with morning sunshine. Unicorns and sparkle? Or lash magic? “The day after the full moon.”
“The day after the—ah, hell. Really?” Tor rubbed a hand through his hair. “I wasn’t thinking about that.”
“That’s okay. On Sunday night I’ll invoke the spell. All will be well. Your employment with me will be complete. And you won’t have to deal with me, or the Jones family, anymore. Monday morning comes around and you get to step into the normal human world of mundane and boring office work.”
“That’s life,” he said.
Sunday night he’d escort the witch to whatever spell-invocation ritual she required, stand guard and make it happen. Monday morning he’d arrive at the accounting office ready to slay the interview.
The only part that didn’t sound ideal was the not-dealing-with-Mel part. She’d grown on him. Sort of like a fungus. But still, he liked her close.
“I might need another shower this morning,” he muttered. “That couch was like sleeping on a rock.”
“None of your furniture appears conducive to comfort. You must have hired a designer.”
“How do you know?”
“They tend to make a man’s place look manly but never consider that our bodies like soft, comfy things as opposed to leather and wood.” Mel shuddered. “But your bed is a dream to sleep in. And it smells good, too.”
“It...smells?”
She leaned across the counter and whispered into his ear, “Like you. All manly and macho. Are you sure you don’t smoke a pipe?”
“Positive. It’s my soap.”
“Well, I love it. Delicious. Want me to make some breakfast while you shower with lots more of that soap? I might be able to find something edible in your cupboards.”
“You won’t. The stocks are low. Grocery delivery isn’t until Saturday. I’ll shower quick and then bring you home. Then maybe...you can make us some smoothie bowls?”
“Love to.”
Tor wandered down the hallway. His cell phone rang, and he stopped in the doorway to his bedroom. It was his contact at the Hôtel-Dieu ER, where he’d had the vampire victim sent.
“What’s up, Jean-Paul?”
“That woman I did the usual runaround on yesterday?”
“Thanks for that. You know I’ll pay you.”
“Of course you will. It’s not easy making up a blood test and disposing of the evidence without some asshole in administration getting onto my ass.”
“I know. It’s a fine line, but you walk it well. So why the call?”
“There’s been a strange complication.”
* * *
Mel noticed when Tor pounded his head against the door frame leading into the bedroom. Whomever he was on the phone with had not given him good news. Closing the fridge door, she wandered down the hallway to find he had entered his closet and was selecting a shirt and tie.
“No shower?”
“Change of plans.”
“Emergency?”
“Of a sort. The woman bitten by a vampire? My contact at the ER did the usual blood work on her and let her believe she’d received an antidote against a vampire bite—which it was not.”
“But it was.”
He pulled on his shirt and paused, giving her a good view of his abs. “You’re missing the point, Mel.”
She liked when he called her that. Everyone else called her Lissa. Mel felt more personal.
“I didn’t miss it. I know the story. We want her to believe there are no vampires. So what’s the sort-of problem?”
He flipped up his collar and threaded a tie around his neck. She stepped up and took command of the silk tie, and he let her.
“The sort-of problem is that Jean-Paul checked the blood. It actually showed a rare strain in her system that only Jean-Paul would have recognized because he’s an expert on vampire DNA and bodily fluids. She was bitten by a revenant.”
“The same kind of vamp you staked and set free last night?”
“Yes, and I did not set him free. I didn’t have a means to slay him. You need to behead those bastards.”
Mel stuck out her tongue in disgust and twisted the silk around a length that hung to his chest.
“And since the antidote vampire saliva that Jean-Paul usually injects at the bite sight isn’t effective against revenants—because they’re dead vampires, and there’s no way to inoculate against death—we’ve got a potential transformation on our hands. Not cool.”
“Which means you’re getting all prettied up to go slay a potential vampire.”
“I wouldn’t call this pretty.”
“I would.” She fluttered her lashes up at him. He brushed the hair from her face, and she realized she’d crawled right out of bed and wandered in for breakfast. “And look at me. This hair hasn’t seen a comb and I desperately need a toothbrush.”
He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “You are beautiful, Mel. The more tousled the better.”
“Really?”
“Really. Is it good?” He patted his tie and frowned.
She shrugged and gave up on the mess she’d created. “I have no idea how to tie a tie.”
He patted at the bow she’d formed as if wrapping a package. “Apparently.” With a few flips and tugs, he produced a tight square knot. Then he grabbed a pair of pants and nodded toward the control panel. “I need a machete.”
“Doesn’t sound like a picnic.” Mel punched the top button and the door swung open. “I thought you weren’t a slayer?”
“I’m not.” Tor entered the weapons closet and she strolled in, gliding her fingers along a sword boasting a decorative hilt that gleamed gold. “I’ll give Rook a call on the way there. This should be his target. Damned Order of the Stake needs to learn how to clean up their own messes. Hand me that stiletto. I like that one.”
He took the blade from her, flipped it and caught it expertly. “You’ll have to come along.”
“Does that mean I get a weapon?”
He winced. “Don’t you have magic in your arsenal?”
“Oh. Right. Of course I do. When it sticks.”
“About that—”
“No time! You’re in a hurry.”
Tor grabbed a wicked machete and led her out into adventure.
Chapter 14
Mel did as she was told, and waited in the van while Tor walked through the courtyard toward the victim’s home. He shook hands with a man wearing a black leather duster coat who had been waiting for him. Must be Rook from The Order of the Stake. One of her good friends, Zoe Guillebeaux, was in a long-term relationship with a knight recruited by the Order. She knew the Order was a bunch of human men who had taken vows to defend other humans from vicious vampires. Supposedly they were discriminating and only went after the bad vamps, but Mel had her suspicions that when in the heat of the moment, any mortal man might plunge a stake through the heart first before asking questions or determining benevolence.
She winced to think that Tor was going inside to, in all likelihood, stake the woman she had met yesterday. Mademoiselle deStrand had been an innocent victim, bitten in an attack. And to top that off, the police had laughed at her, and then later she’d been man
ipulated by Tor to believe that what she’d thought was true had not been so. It wasn’t right.
On the other hand, the sensible, protecting-the-masses side of things, this matter could not be ignored. If the human had been bitten by a revenant, she would not develop like a normal vampire, one who could blend in with society and exist alongside humans. She would become feral and, well...dead.
“The poor woman.” The clutch Mel had on the door handle was turning her knuckles white. It was so difficult not to run out and stand up for the woman’s rights. She whispered, “Just stay put.” Tor knew what he was doing. This was his turf.
Her determination lasted four seconds. The urge to help another was so strong, she pushed open the door and dashed out. She got halfway up the walk to the courtyard and stopped abruptly, turning back to the van. “Forgot the heart!” Rushing back to the vehicle, she grabbed the bag.
What would be a good spell to hold back two vampire slayers while she determined if the woman had transformed to vampire and was indeed a threat? She had a motionlessness spell that could fix a person in place for a few seconds. That required nothing more than a few words of invocation and... “Charcoal dust,” she muttered. “Left my spell supplies at home. Shoot!”
Locating the door to the woman’s home and seeing it was open, Mel rushed up and peered inside. The room was hazy due to the drawn shades. She could hear voices around the corner. An agitated woman who...snarled?
Mel rushed down a hallway, bag banging the wall as she did, which alerted Tor. He stepped out from a room and grabbed her by the shoulders. “I told you to stay in the van.”
“She didn’t ask to be bitten,” Mel argued. “You have to hear her out. Maybe she won’t transform.”
Tor’s jaw pulsed. Then, without a word, he turned her toward the open doorway and, hands still on her shoulders, pushed her forward to stand in the threshold. The bedroom was decorated in blue and white chinoiserie. The knight, with a bladed collar glinting at his neck, held a stake high above the creature who cowered against a dressmaker’s dummy, clutching at the torn fabric stomach.
