Thankfully, he didn't go there. He asked what happened. I told him how she was nervous. How she told the other girls she wasn't feeling well. Figured she went out to get some air. Malinda described how she found Amelia in the parking lot. I said we took her downstairs for space. Too many people in the crowd. The officer asked a few questions to ascertain if there was any foul play.
I answered his questions honestly. I'd barely met Amelia. How was I supposed to know if anyone wanted the girl dead? The officer asked me to keep all the records from the night. Who bought tickets. Credit card records from the bar. Things like that. Just in case foul play was suspected by the coroner. I agreed. But the coroner wasn't going to find anything. If Brucie said she was in perfect health, I figured, they'd make some general claim. Heart failure, probably. Who knows. They'd come up with something. But I knew they wouldn't find anything to warrant further investigation.
That didn't mean her death wasn't going to be investigated. If Brucie was right, and I had no reason to doubt he was, someone had killed Amelia. And I was determined to find out not only who but what was responsible.
Chapter Six
"The show must go on," I said, wiping down the embalming table with Clorox wipes.
"You can't be serious, Nicky. We can't have a show tomorrow. We should probably cancel the shows for the week."
I shook my head. "Whatever it was will come back."
"Exactly!" Devin said. "You can't use your fans as bait. People buy tickets to your shows, Nicky, expecting a fun and safe night of entertainment."
"They'll be safe. Why wouldn't they be safe? We have an advantage now. We weren't expecting anything before. Now we'll be ready."
Devin snorted. "We don't even know what it was that killed that girl."
"Amelia," I said. "Her name was Amelia."
Devin sighed. "I know. But look, you can't be ready for something if you don't even know what to be ready for."
I slammed my fist on the embalming table. "The police aren't going to investigate this as a homicide. I am the only one who knows the truth. I have to catch the killer, Devin!"
"You don't always have to be the hero, Nicky."
"Bullshit!" I shouted. "This happened in my club. I took that girl under my wing, and..."
I started to choke up as images of Amelia's brilliant performance flashed through my mind.
Devin put his hand on my shoulder. "I know, Nicky. You feel responsible. But you aren't. This wasn't your fault."
I snorted and wiped a little snot from my nose with the sleeve of my blouse. Not very ladylike, but I didn't have a tissue. "You don't understand. I do have to be the hero."
"You saved me, Nicky," Malinda said. "You're already my hero."
I pressed my lips together. "Thank you for saying that. But it's not enough."
"Not enough for what, exactly?" Devin asked.
"You don't know how many lives I took. Before I became human. How many meals... how many lives changed? Families were devastated because of me."
"That's not you, Nicky. You aren't what you used to be."
I snorted. "But I am. Deep down. There's a part of me every time I stake a vamp, even when I kick someone out of my club. There's a thrill and urge to take things further. And there's no one else who is going to avenge Amelia. I can't bring back the people I killed, the ones I ate... before... but I can get justice for her. And I can stop whatever it is that did this."
"You don't know that," Devin said. "How do you know you can kill whatever killed Amelia if you don't know who or what did it?"
I scratched my shoulder. "I don't know. But I have to try."
"Come on, Nicky. We should go home. Try and get some rest."
"You two go ahead. I have my motorcycle here. I can come home later. I'm going to go through the footage."
Devin shook his head. "We don't have cameras in the parking lot."
"I know. But Amelia told the other girls she wasn't feeling well. Maybe whatever it was that killed her did something to her in the club."
"Do what you need to do. But I'm serious, Nicky. We should cancel the rest of the week's shows. Tomorrow night, at least."
"I can't, Devin. So far, no one suspects this was a murder. It was a tragedy. But it won't stop people from coming. And I promised Rose and Katie..."
"Rose and Katie? The other two girls you hired?"
I nodded. "They're preparing to open up the other two nights this week."
Devin stared at me blankly. "They will understand, Nicky. Someone died at your club! No one will question it if you decide to cancel a few shows."
"Look," I said. "We're going on Tomorrow. There are only two more shows this week."
"Right," Devin said. "And then you'll have Sunday off anyway. You could easily cancel two shows and start again next week."
I shook my head. "But Friday and Saturday are our biggest shows of the week."
"Says who?" Devin asked. "You sell out every night during the week anyway."
"Yeah, but it's not the same. There's a different feel during weekend shows."
"More drunks, you mean?"
"Maybe that's it. But whatever. Like I said, the show must go on. And I won't let anyone else die. If something shows up to hurt someone again, I'll catch them. I swear it."
"I'll help keep an eye out, too," Malinda said.
Devin shook his head. "And what if this creature comes after you, Malinda?"
"Then I'll kick its ass!"
"Sure you will," Devin said, sighing as he scratched his head. "If you're going to be here, I need to be here, too. I won't let you out of my sight."
"Okay, daddy," Malinda said, smiling.
Devin rolled his eyes. "Alright, Nicky. Well, do what you need to do. We're going back to the apartment to get some sleep."
I nodded. "I won't be far behind you. If there's something we caught on camera, though, I need to find it. I won't be able to sleep until I've at least checked it out."
Devin nodded. "Do what you need to do."
I locked the door behind Devin and Malinda after they left. I watched, through the glass doors, as they drove off. Call me paranoid. I wanted to make sure they got to the car safely. Until I knew what I was dealing with, I had to be extra vigilant. If the killer made a move, I'd catch it. I'd be damned before I let it hurt anyone else—especially someone I cared about.
Devin had a point. It was a risk to keep the club open. But if I closed it, would that really stop the killer? There was nothing magical about Nicky's. Not technically speaking. Nothing more than the magic of good music and an exhilarating show.
Whatever this killer was, I had to believe it wasn't a coincidence it struck at my club. Supernatural killings aren't all that common. Even vampires, really, don't often kill their victims. Only younglings are prone to doing that. And when they do, the older vampires will usually stake the younglings themselves. When bodies pile up, hunters like me take notice. Most vampires who'd been turned a decade or more were keen enough to know better. As much as they craved blood, the one thing that vampires desired more than that was their own ongoing existence. That meant, more often than not, they hunted discreetly. Drinking only enough to prevent their victims from dying. Usually, they attacked people who'd been drinking. Not because they craved the taste of alcohol. Quite the opposite, in fact. A vampire's bite filtered out the alcohol content from the blood they drank. The result? With less blood in the victim's system, it raised their blood alcohol content. A drink or two was usually enough a vampire could make an intoxicated victim forget the whole incident. Such vampire victims didn't merely pass out from blood loss. They blacked out from intoxication. That meant, when I hunted vamps, clubs like mine and other bars were usually the first place I'd check if I suspected a bloodsucker was on the prowl.
But Amelia wasn't bitten. That meant it wasn't a vampire. Or was it? It wasn't the blood vampires craved. Old blood didn't appeal to vampires at all. It was human souls, contained within the blood, that satisfied their cravi
ngs. And Amelia's soul was what was missing. What if a vampire figured out a way to feed on a person's soul without biting? I shuddered, considering the possibility. If that was the case, I had no choice. I had to stop the soul-sucker. If Amelia was a typical victim, if the vampire or whatever consumed souls this way regularly, he didn't leave his victims alive. He took the entire soul.
Chapter Seven
I opened the desk drawer and retrieved my laptop. My office still reeked of blood. I had a peculiarly keen sense of smell. It wasn't likely anyone else would notice. For the most part, though, Devin and Malinda cleaned the room up nicely.
My security cameras synced to the cloud. All I had to do was log into my account, and I could view whatever they captured.
I bit my lip anxiously while I waited for the video stream to load. Usually, if a vampire was lurking nearby, I could smell it. It was one of the many skills I possessed that made me such a deadly slayer. If there had been a vampire, and it was responsible for Amelia's death, whatever it was that allowed the monster to extract a soul without a bite must've also covered up its scent. I would have noticed it otherwise.
I usually live-streamed only one show a week. Typically a Friday or Saturday night performance. Even then, I only broadcasted portions of the show. Enough to tease potential patrons. I tried to broadcast something new so the clips might go viral. That camera, the one I used for my live streams, wasn't operating earlier that night. But my security cameras ran twenty-four-seven. I had pretty much every corner of the auditorium covered. Only the greenroom, since people changed clothes there, my office, the bathrooms, and the bat cave mortuary weren't covered. I even had a couple cameras on my parking lot. Reviewing all that footage would take some time.
I could narrow it down a little and ignore the footage recorded while Amelia was on stage. I was watching her the whole time. That still meant I had a good hour and a half of footage from several camera angles to check out. I could eliminate some of the streams when Amelia wasn't on screen. And if I had a good angle on her, I really only needed to watch the best shots that revealed whatever had happened around her.
The time stamps on the footage made it easy to switch angles if she ever moved out of view of the camera I was viewing. I watched as Amelia left the stage.
She shook a lot of hands. She went to the bar, ordered a cocktail, and fist-bumped Joey before making her way back to her seat next to Katie and Rose. So far, nothing strange. But if this soul-sucker—that's what I was calling the unidentified killer until I had more information—only needed to touch her, she'd probably shaken two-dozen hands. Even with my different angles, I couldn't identify every audience member who greeted her. Some of them were obscured by other people. And since there was nothing notable about any of these contacts, there wasn't any reason to pursue anyone further. Technically, if I needed to, I could identify every person who touched her. I could wait until that person moved into view of one of my cameras and get a face. If they happened to have seats in the front half of the auditorium, I could cross-reference the suspect with my ticket sales records. I could check their credit cards and get an address. That would mean a lot of interviews—most of which would turn up nothing at all. That would be the next step. I hoped it wouldn't be necessary. If only I found something more insidious, something obvious...
I watched as Amelia's face turned sour. She said something to Rose and Katie and got up from her seat. She went to the bathroom. She came out of the bathroom.
She said something to Joey. He was closing up the bar at the time. I'd have to ask him what she said. He was gone already by the time I finished my performance before Amelia was found.
Amelia walked out the front door. Joey followed her. Not unusual. Probably a coincidence. It was the time he typically left. But I had to follow through.
I switched to the parking lot cameras. Joey went to the back of the parking lot and got in his car to leave. I didn't think he'd done anything, but he was the last person to talk to Amelia. Nothing about his actions, though, was the least bit suspicious.
Since that was a dead-end lead, I went back and watched Amelia from when she went outside. She went to a car—I presumed it was her car since it was the only one still left in the parking lot after everyone left. A midnight blue Toyota Camry. She opened the door to her car and retrieved something. What was it? It was hard to tell until she put it to her lips. An inhaler. She must've been an asthmatic. Still, since Brucie said there was literally nothing wrong with her at the time if she was having an asthma attack, the inhaler must've taken care of it.
Amelia tossed her inhaler back into her car. Then, she stumbled. She grabbed the side of her car. Her shoulders were rising and falling—she was breathing heavily. She collapsed in the parking lot. Just beside her vehicle.
Amelia's car obscured my view of her body. I didn't have a good angle. I continued watching. The view right above Amelia's car, what I could see, lost focus. It was subtle, like a blur. It moved from the top of her car back toward the club. It was almost like a mist, a smoke of some kind. The cameras didn't capture it well—and being late at night, there wasn't any color to what I was seeing.
I tried to follow the blur. Was that Amelia's soul? If it was, whoever captured it would be the killer. My heart raced in anticipation. Then people started walking out the doors. The show was over. I tried to follow the blur but, again, too many people. I switched to the inside cameras. I didn't see any such blur pass through the doors.
"Dammit!" I said, slamming my fist on my desk.
I watched the footage of the blur as it disappeared into the crowd of people all leaving the club. Malinda was among them. She was the one who found the body. Surely not... no... she wouldn't. But why was Malinda going outside at all? We were her ride home, after all. My heart sank. Surely she didn't...
But her magic was unwieldy. She was a blood witch. Souls cohere within the blood. Had she done something, even inadvertently, that killed Amelia?
I closed my laptop and rested my face in my hands. The last thing I wanted to do was accuse Malinda of killing someone. But if she had, if her magic had gone awry and caused someone to die, we had to know.
Chapter Eight
I picked up my phone and called Devin. It went to voice mail. I called again. He picked up.
"Hello..." Devin's voice was groggy. I woke him up.
"Devin, I need you to get Malinda."
"Nicky, she's asleep. It's three in the morning."
"I know," I sighed. "But I need you to ask her why she went outside. When she found Amelia. There was no reason for Mal to go out, Devin."
"You don't think... Nicky... surely not..."
"You could ask her," I said. "She must have an explanation. And I saw something on the footage. I think it was Amelia's soul. It disappeared close to the time when Malinda left the club."
Devin sighed. "Hold on, let me put the phone on speaker."
I listened as Devin woke up Malinda. She moaned a little—it had been a late night, and she wasn't at all a happy camper about being woken up. "Malinda, Nicky needs to talk to you."
"About what?" Malinda asked.
"Malinda," I said. "I've been watching the footage. I'm not accusing you of anything. But why did you go outside?"
"You can't be serious."
"I told you, I'm not accusing you. I thought, maybe if you were practicing a spell, maybe something went wrong..."
"I wasn't doing any spells, Mother!"
"Then why'd you go outside? You know to wait for us to close up before we go home."
"I wanted fresh air, that's all."
"Fresh air?" I asked.
"And to move my legs. My muscles were cramping. I needed to move around."
"You could have done that inside."
Malinda sighed. "Devin... I mean, Dad... look in my purse."
I listened as Devin, presumably, was going through Malinda's purse.
"Malinda!" Devin said. "Cigarettes?"
"You're smoking!" I shou
ted.
Malinda sighed. "Yeah. But that's all! I went out for a smoke!"
"Where did you get cigarettes?" I asked.
"I told him I wouldn't tell you..."
"Who gave you cigarettes, Malinda?" Devin asked, tapping his toe.
"Just a boy I like. It's no biggie!"
"A boy?" I asked. "At my club?"
Malinda cleared her throat. "His name is Connor, okay."
"And you met him at the club?" I asked.
Malinda sighed. "The first night I went to the club. He's cute. I like him!"
"And he comes every night, just to see you?" Devin asked.
"And to supply you with cigarettes!" I said, raising my voice.
"I've been sneaking him tickets. He gives me smokes in exchange. That's it!"
"Stay on the phone," I said, opening my laptop again. "I'm going to see if this checks out."
"It will!" Malinda said. "I went out for a smoke with Connor. I saw Amelia's body. Connor went home after that. Nothing else happened, I swear!"
I watched the cameras. Sure enough, I saw Malinda, her cane in hand, walk out of the club with a boy. They leaned against the side of the building, lit up their smokes and laughed a little. Then, ugh...
"You kissed him?" I asked.
"Mom, who cares! It was only a kiss!"
I grunted. I kept watching. Malinda and Connor stopped kissing. Then I saw Malinda's face turn. She was in perfect view of the backside of Amelia's car, where her body was found.
She tossed her cigarette down and, moving as quickly as she could with her cane. Malinda approached Amelia's body and screamed. Connor was with her. She said something to him. He said a few things back. He left.
"Why did he leave?" I asked. "You said something to him."
Malinda grunted. "Connor is on probation. He didn't want to be wrapped up in what happened, you know, since there was a body."
"You're seeing a boy who smokes and is on probation!" Devin said.
"It's not a big deal!" Malinda said. "He's not a bad guy!"
No Shift, Sherlock: A Vampire Hunter Urban Fantasy Mystery (The Legend of Nyx Book 3) Page 5