“Chinese food is here.” He held out a couple bags for us. “I am sorry again that I didn’t cook for the night and that I have to deal with business.”
I shrugged. “It happens. Besides, I’m pretty sure that at twenty-five I can handle a low key birthday. How long is Mario in town?”
“Until Agent Tomes is sentenced.”
I cringed. “That could be a while. Agent Grace is still building the complete case. They won’t let him out on bond though, because he technically killed people with magic.”
“Then why haven’t they sentenced him to death? That’s the normal automatic sentence.” Levi crossed his arms. “I want to make sure he’s punished for going after you.”
Never mind the people he’d killed with the zombies. “I don’t have the answer, Levi. My guess is because necromancy is still a gray area when it comes to magic.”
He bowed his head. “I advise that you keep low and stay out of Mario’s way while he is here.”
“If Tomes is being sentenced and it’s a PIB case, why is there another vampire involved?”
He opened his mouth and I held a hand up. “If you say vampire business, I’m going to scream, this has to do with not one but two of my PIB cases.”
Levi glanced at Clarissa who turned away and started pulling the food out of the bags. “Levi?” I prompted.
“Because when I had worked the original case with Tomes there was more to it than him just using blood-starved vampires. Mario believes it may go deeper into vampire politics than we originally thought. He’s worried that Tomes might have been working with someone who will continue the attacks.”
It was probably the best answer I could have gotten out of him. “Thank you. He might want to talk to Melody Grace then, because she seemed to know more about it than anyone else.”
I plopped back down on the couch and pulled my box of chow mien towards me. Levi left without another word. Clarissa glanced at me. “Out of all nights, you wanted to push him for answers tonight?”
“Did you have a better idea? Need I remind you that Tomes threatened to leave my dead and broken body for the Vampire King? After letting his blood-starved vampires drain me? Not to mention having me kidnapped and me almost dying in a car accident because of it? You said it yourself. I deserve answers. If Mario thinks there’s someone working with Tomes, I could very well still be a target.”
She pressed her lips together and settled back into her seat. She took a few bites before sighing. “I forgot to tell you, the coven would like you to come celebrate your birthday next week. During the full moon.”
“Tell them that I politely decline.” I shoved some noodles in my mouth. The coven and I didn’t really get along. It’d been about a year since I’d gone to a gathering which had been to cleanse my aura of a hex.
“Abby…” Clarissa started. “What if I can promise you just a barbecue and no happy naked dancing?”
I narrowed my eyes at her over my food. “And no harassment about going to other meetings?”
“I’ll do what I can. Please, Abby? You need community.”
I met her begging eyes. “Okay, fine. But if anything weird happens, I’m out of there.”
“We’re a coven of witches and warlocks, Abby, weird things tend to happen.”
Wasn’t that the truth. “More than normal.” I took another bite of my noodles. “And if my case allows for it.” With my luck, I could get out of it because we’d find the victims the thumbs belonged to.
“Of course, work first.” She smiled and turned to the television.
I couldn’t really read the tone in her voice, but I didn’t want to question it. I wanted to relax and enjoy my birthday.
I walked into the office the next morning to the sound of fingers tapping against keys. I glanced at Nick and threw my jacket over my chair. “Systems back up?”
“For the most part, but everyone is backlogged. So we still have no answers on the thumbs. Mason didn’t want me in the house without you. Said something about not trusting me.” He glanced up at me. “Know anything about that?”
I was surprised that Mason used such blunt language, but maybe there had been more than Nick just being arrogant while I was gone. “Nothing, but maybe he wants me there when you look at the runes. We going this morning?”
“Yeah, I figured we could carpool. I’ll drive.”
He didn’t trust my car to not blow up, I really couldn’t blame him. “I just got done with a long drive. Can we wait a bit?”
“I’d rather do it now.” He stood and I grumbled.
“Can we stop for coffee first then?”
He nodded and handed me a folder. “I also looked more into that murder in the 1900s when the house was first built. You’ll have some reading material while we wait in the drive thru.”
“Can’t you just brief me?”
“No, trust me. It’s better you just read it.” He handed me the folder. “Might be something you need to talk to Levi about. I don’t know how long he’s been in this area, but had PIB existed, we would have sent executioners out.”
I looked down at the folder and wondered what had happened to that poor woman. Chris said it had paranormal elements to it, but the article he provided didn’t give enough details to figure out what that might have been. I looked up to find that Nick was already out of the office. I cursed and ran after him.
“Are you that eager to look at the runes?” I asked when I met him at the elevator.
He nodded. “Aren’t you curious as to why the Cult is in town and dealing with the same house we are?”
“Of course.” The elevator dinged and the doors opened. “I’d just rather deal with it when I’m fully awake.”
He shook his head. “You know, you could start going to bed earlier.”
“I could, but then how would I get my junk TV fix in?” I pressed the button for the lobby. “Besides, part of it was because I stayed at the mansion last night and had to get up early to get here.”
“Ah that’s right, a big birthday celebration. Did you enjoy your night?” He didn’t look at me as the elevator started moving.
“I had a good night, but it wasn’t a big celebration. It was just Clarissa and I with some Chinese food.” I leaned against the back of the elevator.
“Long drive just for that.” Nick crossed his arms. “I figured Levi would throw you some elaborate party.”
I snorted. “Levi doesn’t particularly care for those.” The elevator dinged and we stepped out. Nick led the way to the car. He walked around the car not once, but twice, looking to see if anything had been tampered with. He looked at me over the roof of it. “All clear.”
I didn’t think someone would try to blow my partner up, but I wouldn’t put it past them. With the Cult in town and Mario thinking there might be more to the blood-starved vampires case…it was probably best that my paranoia rubbed off on Nick too.
I climbed into the car and buckled myself in. I flipped open the folder and looked at the information Nick had gathered. Black and white pictures of a young woman’s body were the first things in the folder. Dark puncture marks stood out against her pale skin, the black dots covered her pulse points on each wrist. The next photo showed her neck. I slowly flipped the page and found what I feared. Fang marks at the juncture of her thighs. I swallowed the bit of bile that burned my throat.
“She was a vampire victim.” And probably a victim of other things I didn’t want to think about. “Kept in a basement.” In the early 1900s vampires weren’t known to exist. Something like this would have been seen as weird and swept under the rug, which explained the article that Chris had given me, with its very few details.
“She was kept in the basement for over a year before someone noticed something odd about the occupant. Said that the owner fled and the house was foreclosed on.”
I scanned the notes Nick provided. “They assume she was there for a year. There’s no telling because technology back then sucked. So now, not only do we have ten
thumbs to figure out, we have an unsolved murder.”
Nick gripped the steering wheel. “I want you to take that to Levi and see if he knows anything that might lead us to the vampire that did that.”
“It was over a hundred years ago, he might not have been in the territory at that time. .” I closed the folder. “Who knows if the vampire is even still alive.”
“That’s what we need to know.” Nick growled. “I’m not going to let her case go cold again, we have a chance to solve it.”
I started to ask Nick about his issues with vampires and why it seemed to hit so close to home, but I lost my nerve. My voice died in my throat as I tried to imagine what horror he might have gone through to have such hate and passion. I let it go as he drove out into the country.
CHAPTER THREE
Nick and I pulled up the gravel driveway of the house and sat in the car for a moment. “How bad are the runes?”
“You read my notes, you know what they are.” I glanced over at him. The color had drained from his hands and his fingers curled over the steering wheel with enough force to turn his knuckles white. “Nick?”
“You said there was just one murder here?”
“As far as our research shows, yes, but the systems were down so I wasn’t able to do a full search.” I opened the door to get out of the car, but he put a hand on my arm to stop me. “Nick, what? Are you afraid a ghost is going to jump out and get me?” I teased and pulled my arm away.
He sighed and got out of the car, staying right on my heels. “Don’t you believe in ghosts?”
“Well, I do, but I don’t have the talent to see, sense, or talk to them, so they’ve never bothered me.” I walked up the steps of the crumbling porch. “What I want to do is look the house over, see if we can’t find the basement entrance, and see if we can’t figure out what those runes are for.”
“You have high hopes for the day, I was just planning on looking at the runes.” He gave a shaky laugh and I wondered what it was that made him nervous.
“Nick, is there something wrong?” I opened the door, slipping under the crime scene tape.
His feet froze at the threshold of the door. “You don’t feel that?”
“No… I didn’t feel anything evil or malevolent when I walked in the first time either.” I crossed my arms. “If you’re trying to prank me, I’m not laughing.”
He shook his head and ducked under the tape. “No, I’m not pranking you, but I’m wondering why nothing is itching your aura, or at the very least making the hairs on your neck stand up.”
“No idea.” I kept my voice even, but if he felt something was there, then what I was missing? I turned and walked through the room that I assumed had been a living room at some point. I stopped in the middle and looked around for anything that looked like it led down to a basement. “It specified a basement, right? Not a cellar?”
“Everything I found said basement, do you have the blue prints or anything for the house?”
“Not yet, the realtor is supposed to e-mail them to me.” I glanced to the side. “I didn’t look at the rest of the house while I was here with Mason. Do you want to go see the kitchen and the room with the runes while I look at the rest?”
“What are you hoping for? Mason swept the house, he didn’t find the bodies.” Nick’s voice was soft.
I turned to meet his gaze, his eyes darted around the room as if trying to keep track of multiple things moving about. His hand hovered over his gun, his fingers twitching every couple of seconds. “If there are any to be found.” I said.
“Oh, there are.” He muttered and closed his eyes. He took a few deep breaths and the worry on his face smoothed out. “Go ahead and look around, let me know if you find anything. Just point me in the right direction.”
“Kitchen is just through the left, the room straight through there.” I motioned to the doorway. “Watch out, the door to the room is rotting. Just be careful with it.”
I heard the floor creak as he walked away. I took a deep breath and finished walking through the living room and into the bedroom to the left. An old mattress lay in the corner, shredded. I assumed that an animal of some sort had gotten to it, but there was nothing unusual in the room. Some rickety furniture shoved into a corner. I looked down at the dirty smeared floor and the clean trail that stretched from one side of the room and led to the furniture. Someone had moved it recently. I heard a crash back in the kitchen and went running towards it.
I expected to find Nick on the ground, but the door to the room lay on the ground and Nick was still at the kitchen window. “What the hell?”
Nick held his hands up. “I swear I didn’t do it.”
“Someone’s been here, and I don’t know if it was Mason’s men, but there’s been furniture moved in one of the bedrooms.” I moved towards the door and knelt down to see the hinges were rusted through. “The door has just had enough.”
Nicki let out a breath, as if he was holding it in fear. “What do you mean moved?”
I looked back to see him scrubbing his hands over his face. I stood and opened my mouth to tell him exactly what I saw, when a piece of wood came hurling towards me. I ducked and it shattered against the wall. I glanced over my shoulder to see the runes in the room fading.
“Um, Abby, you’re going to want to get out of the house.” Nick shooed me towards the exit. “Now, the faster the better. I’ll be out there in a minute.”
I tried to protest, but a drawer flew out of the counter and slammed into my side, almost knocking me off my feet. I stumbled as I ran towards the exit, trusting Nicks words. Furniture slid in front of me. I flung myself over the couch as it cut me off, only to find a bookshelf falling away from the wall and crashing to the ground. I dodged to the side, the wood shattering right next to my feet, and I dove out the front door.
The havoc inside quieted down the moment my feet crossed the threshold. I turned around on the porch and stared into the living room. Whatever Nick had felt that I hadn’t manifested as soon as that door had crashed down. I wasn’t an expert in ghosts, but I felt that maybe we were dealing with a poltergeist and it had something against me.
I rubbed my side where the drawer had hit and knew that there would be a bruise there. My heart pounded in my chest as I tried to breathe past the adrenaline that pulsed through me. I hadn’t been running in a few days, but a quick sprint like that made it feel like I hadn’t been running in a year. I closed my eyes and focused on forcing the air in and out of my lungs as I leaned against the car.
Nick came out a few minutes later. “You’re not welcome in the house.”
“No shit.” I raised a brow. “But why me and not you?”
Nick toed the ground and didn’t meet my gaze.
I put all his odd comments together. “You can see them!” I shoved away from the car. “You can see the ghost!”
“Ghosts, actually, and at least one of them is a poltergeist.” He motioned to me. “One who doesn’t like you.”
Poltergeists were able to interact with the physical world, where a typical ghost couldn’t. “Why? I’m here to help them.”
“They know you’re in contact with the vampires. He doesn’t like you.”
He? “So it’s not the girl from the article?” I stepped closer to him. “I would have thought it was her.”
“No, she’s around, but she’s much quieter, I think this guy and the others scare her.”
“Like, ghost bullies?” I shook my head. “What about the runes?”
“They were keeping this guy in. I wasn’t welcome in the room, so I couldn’t tell you much other than that. Even after he was free, the magic in the room pushed against me and I thought it best I not force it.”
The words ‘in case it exploded’ hung in the air. “Interesting, I walked in without an issue.”
“They knew you’d be coming then.” He shook his head. “Now you can’t go in the house, because of him.”
If the Cult knew I was coming they would set the
runes to accept me, but they probably weren’t expecting Nick. “Because we set him free.”
“No, because the door crumbled and the trigger rune was on that.” Nick growled. “I think they were trying to lure you in.”
I laughed. “Remember a few months ago you called me paranoid?”
“It was when you drew the gun on me.” He smirked. “I could go in and ask the ghost.”
“By all means, go talk to the ghosty, and while you’re at it, ask him about how he was killed.” I smiled sweetly and opened the door to the car. “I’ll wait here and Google some things on my phone.”
He rolled his eyes and went back towards the house. I sat with my legs sticking out of the car and pulled my phone out. There wasn’t much more the Internet was going to tell me, but it was at least going to give me something to do. I looked up when he walked into the house. I gave it a moment to see if he came running out screaming. Nothing happened.
I looked down at the screen of my phone, scrolling through social media to distract myself from why a ghost may or may not like me. Had I known the victim? Had Levi? How did he know that I was involved with the vampire world? There were no answers for me, but maybe Nick was having some luck.
“Abigail…” The voice whispered across the wind.
Dust and dirt kicked up with the wind, pelting my pants. Had I been wearing shorts, it might have hurt. My name came again with the gust and I stood up out of the car. I wasn’t like Nick, I didn’t have his ability to talk to ghosts or see them, but I was smart enough to follow if something felt right. The wind pushed me away from the house and car towards the field behind.
My steps crushed over the dead plants that covered the ground. A small gray mound, just a bit bigger than my palm, stuck out of the dirt. I bent down and my heart pounded. I knew that shape, I knew the marks and cracks on it despite a chunk missing from the side. I unburied part of it with my hand, being gentle as I dusted dirt off with my fingertips.
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