"Then why's he on probation, Malinda?" I asked. "And why would being associated with a dead body be something he'd worry about."
"His wife tried to stab him with a knife. He shoved her, and she hit her head. Got a concussion. She pressed charges. That's it!"
"He's married!" Devin shouted.
"They're separated!" Malinda said. "Obviously they would be after what happened! It's not like I'm a homewrecker or anything!"
"How old is this guy?" I asked.
"He's only twenty-five!"
"So he's six years older than you? Malinda, that's not appropriate!"
"I'm an adult! And like you're one to talk. You're like a thousand years older than Devin."
"That's different, and you know it," I said.
"Look, he was in a bad relationship. He didn't do anything wrong. He was defending himself. I promise!"
"You don't really know the whole story," I said. "All you know what he told you happened."
"Look, you know what happened now. That's it. And I only see Connor at the club, anyway. What's the worst that could happen?"
I closed my laptop. "Look, we'll talk about the situation with Connor later. But I appreciate your honesty, Malinda."
"So, since I told the truth, I can still see him, right?"
"I didn't say that," I said.
"That's so unfair!" Malinda protested.
"Like I said, we'll talk about that situation later. I'm just relieved to know you didn't have anything to do with Amelia's death."
"I still can't believe you'd think I would..."
"I didn't think that, Malinda. I had to follow up on what I saw on the camera. Like I said, my first thought was maybe it was a mistake. But I'm glad you didn't have anything to do with it."
"Whatever. I'm going back to bed."
"You coming home, Nicky?"
"Yeah. I'll see you shortly."
In truth, I wasn't ready to leave. My mind was too busy trying to think through all the possibilities. Someone in that club was the monster who'd killed Amelia. But who was it? No one smelled like a vampire. No one looked like anything other than human.
I glanced at a stack of mail piled up on my desk. I'd been chipping away at it since the New Orleans trip, but now most of it was splattered with blood due to Malinda's earlier accident. I figured, before I left, I'd quickly go through it. I couldn't have blood-stained anything sitting in plain view on my desk. After all, while the cops left without any real suspicion, there was always a chance they'd come investigating later. Not likely, of course. The coroner wouldn't find anything to suggest a homicide or anything that would require an investigation. But I couldn't be too careful. And I suspected since this was the last place she was seen, Amelia's parents would probably come around at some point. All in all, now that my pile of letters had blood on it, I really couldn't procrastinate dealing with it any longer.
Most of it was junk mail addressed to Alice. Old funeral home crap. Coffin dealers. Tombstone engravers. An issue of Mortician's Monthly. I opened the magazine out of a grim curiosity. I didn't see anything that caught my eye. I supposed most funeral directors read it for the great articles.
I pulled out a few bills. That was really all I ever got addressed to me, anyway. But I had to pull them out. I had most of them on autopay through the bank. They were all paid. But I liked to hold onto the paper copies. I stuck them in a file. Not sure why. Devin said I should, so I did.
My wastepaper basket was half-full of junk mail before something caught my eye. The return address read Lakeview Funeral Home and Cemetery. That was the one I'd visited earlier in the day—where I'd met Kevin, the funeral director. I checked the postmark. It was sent a few weeks earlier. It was addressed to Alice, of course. But out of curiosity, I hooked my nail under the envelope flap and tore it open.
I pulled out a small piece of card stock. On one side were written the following words:
You are Cordially Invited to celebrate the retirement of Lester Holcomb and his forty years of service as the senior director of Lakeview Funeral Home and Cemetery.
My eyes scrolled to the bottom of the card.
Date: August 21
Time: 4:00 pm
Location: Lakeview Funeral Home
RSVP is not required.
I glanced at my phone. That was on Saturday. In two days. I presumed Kevin, the young man we'd met earlier in the day, must've been Lester's son. A lot of funeral homes are father and sons ventures.
I still didn't have a solid lead concerning Amelia's death. But at least my time staying back at the office turned something up. Kevin might not have recognized the photo of Devin's dad because he wasn't the funeral director who handled it.
This was a retirement party. Lester might have retired sometime before. Did he retire at some point after Tom, Devin's dad, might have contacted him to bury the grimoire? Possibly. And since he was no longer working, it made sense his son, Kevin, who was probably more concerned to get rid of us than help us out, wouldn't know a thing about it. And didn't care enough to ask his father about it on our behalf.
Chapter Nine
The wind blew through my hair as I rode home on my motorcycle. By the time I'd gone through all my mail, changed into pants (I don't recommend riding a motorcycle in a dress), and hit the road, another hour had passed since I talked to Devin and Malinda. Without any traffic on the road that time of night, though, I made it home in about twenty minutes.
I unlocked my apartment door and stepped inside, kicking off my heels. I splashed a little water in my face and brushed my teeth before spooning up behind Devin in bed.
He grabbed my arm, pulling it across his body. He muttered something. I wasn't sure what. I think he was just talking in his sleep.
I closed my eyes and drifted off.
I saw water. All around me. I looked at myself—I didn't have a corporeal body. I was water. Was this a memory? From my old life? They often came to me in my dreams. At least they used to. It had been a while. But I was never sure how many of my dreams contained true memories. Dreams are weird that way. Usually a combination of memory and subconscious desire. At least, that's what Dr. Cain told me when I explained my dreams to him back the first time I was committed to the Vilokan Asylum. I shouldn't take them as my history, but I should listen to them. I might learn something about myself. So, while I was in treatment, I kept a dream journal. Kept it up for a few months after I was released. Then, the dreams subsided and became rarer. I fell out of the habit of writing them down. But I hadn't had a dream this vivid in years.
Still, I supposed, I'd had enough of them I could recognize it was a dream even in the midst of it. I just couldn't say it out loud. Not if I wanted to see what the dream was going to show me. In the past, once I declared it a dream, I woke up.
My elemental form started to swirl. Energy welled up within me. Yes, welled up is another lousy pun, I suppose. Not exactly accurate. I didn't inhabit a well. It was a river. From the color of the waters, I could tell it was from the rivers I'd inhabited back in what's now known as Germany before the witches brought me to America.
When I took my shape, the countryside around me confirmed as much. No cars. No airplanes in the sky. A small carriage and a man, his hair cut into a monk's tonsure. He was wearing a long, black cowl.
Something like a lute formed in my hands. I started to sing.
"Nehmet, esset, das ist mein Leib... Trinket alle darus; dis ist mein Blut des neuen Testaments..."
Not the kind of diva number I'd sing at Nicky's, but a chorale appropriate to the times. From J.S. Bach's St. Matthew's Passion. They were the words Jesus spoke in the upper room when he consecrated the Passover meal.
I looked at myself. I appeared as a young boy, fair of skin. Was this truly the form this priest desired the most? That was how I always appeared to my would-be meals... to seduce them before luring them down to my watery lair. My stomach churned in disgust. Not only at the fact that I was about, in this memory, to consume a human. But b
ecause of the form I took... the one the priest could not resist.
The priest smiled at me. "You sing a Lutheran Chorale, siren. You should know I am a Catholic."
I cocked my head. So much as I could remember, it wasn't often my would-be victims questioned my song choice. Hell, I didn't even choose the songs. I usually drew them from the minds of my targeted prospects. And why was I hearing this priest in English? He should have been speaking in German, even as I sang in his native tongue.
"Take and eat," the priest said. "This is my body. Drink of it all of you. This is my blood of the New Testament."
I set my lute on the river shore, next to me.
"Who are you, priest?"
"One who cannot be tempted or tested by your spells. I am chaste. I no longer have such desires."
I bit my lip. "Then why did I take this form?"
"I desire purity of heart. The faith of a child is what I prize above all else."
I scratched my head. "Well, I suppose that's better than what I assumed."
"Indeed," the priest said, smiling at me kindly. "Tell me, siren. What is it you desire? If our roles were reversed, what form would I take?"
I rubbed my brow, looking down at the green grasses beneath my tiny feet. "I don't know... I..."
When I looked up, the priest had changed shape. He still had his hair in a tonsure. He still wore the monk's cowl. But it was Devin's face that looked back at me.
"What the heck! Devin?"
"Is he the one you desire the most?" the priest asked, still in his voice, not Devin's.
"Yes," I said. "But how did you..."
"The question is not how, siren. Perhaps it is why."
I shook my head. "This memory. Devin won't even be born for centuries. I don't understand..."
"Not all of this is memory. Some of what you're seeing is you, siren. I am a projection of your mind, am I not?"
"I suppose you are. But I still have to eat you. I'm sorry. If I don't, I'll remain in this form. I have to consume my target to return to my elemental form."
The priest smiled at me again. He extended me his arm. "Then take and eat. This is my body. Take and drink..."
I grabbed the priest's arm. I was about to sink my teeth into his flesh when I looked up at him. He'd changed shape again. Not Devin. Not the priest from before. Now, his skin had an olive tone. His hair had grown out and fell, in long chocolate curls, to his shoulder.
"What is your name?" I asked.
"Who do you say that I am?" the man asked.
"I don't know. If some of this is memory. Tell me, who are you from my past? Who were you in my memories?"
"I am who I am," the man said.
"I've read Devin's bible. I know what that means. If you are him, why am I seeing you now?"
"The grimoire you seek, it is not what many think it to be, Nicky."
I cocked my head. "You know my name?"
"I know all things."
"Then what is it? This grimoire, I mean? What is the power in the book?"
"It is not a book, Nicky. It is a scroll."
"Fair enough, I guess that makes sense. But what is it?"
"It was written with my blood. That is why it has power. But it was not written with my hand."
"Then who did it? Why?"
"It doesn't matter. What was done was done."
"Then why am I here. Why are you here."
"To warn you, Nicky. And to tell you what you must do."
"To warn me of what?"
"All things are connected. The answers you seek."
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"It means what I have said."
"And what would you have me do?"
"You must destroy the grimoire," the man said.
"And how do I do that? Devin's dad, Tom, he hid it because the book... the scroll, I mean... it couldn't be destroyed."
"Only that which has pierced my flesh can destroy the scroll."
"So I have to find a nail from the cross? The centurion's spear?"
"I have said what I said, Nicky," the man, who I now presumed to be the Nazarene himself, said as he extended his hand to me again.
"This do in remembrance of me," the Nazarene said, placing his arm to my mouth.
I bit. I ate. I drank.
Everything went black. I opened my eyes.
I was in bed, again, next to Devin. I reached to my nightstand and checked my phone. It was almost six in the morning.
"What a strange dream," I said to myself as I tried to close my eyes again. But after that, I couldn't sleep. Was that real? Was it a memory? How much of it was a memory, how much of it was an invention of my mind? I didn't know. But I was trying to tell myself something. What it was, I didn't have the slightest clue. But I remembered one thing—I didn't only have to find the grimoire. I had to destroy it.
Chapter Ten
The coffee pot gurgled as the last drips of freshly brewed java fell into the pot. I didn't drink the stuff. I thought it tasted like mud. Devin did. Malinda might. I wasn't sure. They both had more sleep than me. But I wasn't tired. Technically, I didn't require as much sleep as natural-born humans.
The images of my dream still haunted my mind. Something like that, whatever it was, happened in my past. What I saw, I knew, was a mix between my dormant recollections and whatever my current subconscious mind was telling me. How was it Cain had explained it? Since he'd learned psychoanalysis from Sigmund Freud himself, Cain said my dreams were what the ego manifested, pulling my visions from a combination of the id and superego. It was by striving to interpret my dreams, Cain had told me, I could follow the road to a knowledge of what was dormant otherwise in my unconscious mind. A lot of mumbo jumbo psycho-babble. But the exercise, before, had been pivotal in helping me overcome my craving for human flesh. So, I didn't discount it. I had to think about it. What was I trying to tell myself?
"I smell heaven," Devin said, stumbling out of bed in his boxers and t-shirt.
"That's just my natural body odor," I said, winking at him.
"Ha!" Devin said. "When you haven't showered in a while, you smell like a stagnant pond."
"Ouch! Harsh!" I said, laughing.
"It's true! I guess it makes sense."
I grabbed a mug and poured it for Devin. I handed it to him. "I presume this was what you were referring to."
"Indeed," Devin said, taking a sip. "Delectable!"
"See, that's the sort of word you should reserve for me."
Devin snickered. "Oh, you are delectable, Nicky. But coffee... I don't know if you can compete. What if you weren't a water elemental but a coffee elemental. I'd never be able to get enough of you."
I smiled. "You already can't. Nonetheless, that's why I make sure I'm the one who provides it to you. Since you drink it black, I'm not exactly your sugar momma. Maybe I'm your coffee momma?"
"My angel of music," Devin said. "Won't you sing for me?"
"Anytime," I said. "But you know, when I do, you tend to get all hot and bothered. And the creature that lives in our apartment is bound to wake up any moment."
"The creature. Yes, we must be careful not to awaken the beast."
I shook my head. "I can't believe all this Connor shit. What is that girl thinking? A married guy six years older?"
"She isn't thinking," Devin said, taking another sip. "That's the problem."
"Found something interesting in my pile of junk mail last night," I said, sliding the invitation to Lester's retirement party over to Devin.
Devin picked it up. "Interesting. Do you think he might know something that bigot we talked to didn't?"
"First, we don't know if he's a bigot. But I'm not going to argue with you about that again. Second, yes, that's what I'm thinking. What if this was the guy your dad talked to. Kevin didn't know because he wasn't the one who dealt with it."
"And you want to crash this funeral director's retirement party?"
I nodded. "More or less. Not the sort of party I'm usually incli
ned to crash. But you know."
Devin chuckled. "We'll stick out like sore thumbs. I doubt a funeral director's retirement attracts a huge crowd."
I shrugged. "You might be surprised. Funeral directors deal with a lot of people at vulnerable times in their lives. I bet there will be more people than you think. Hopefully, it's enough people it won't be weird when we show up. We'll be able to blend in. All we have to do is find this Lester guy, ask him about what he might know, and be on our way."
Devin nodded. "Well, that's tomorrow. Thankfully it won't conflict with the show. Presuming I still haven't convinced you to cancel it."
I shook my head. "This is all connected. I don't know how. But Amelia's death, her killer, and the grimoire. Something ties all this together."
Devin cocked his head. "Why do you say that?"
I bit my lip and shifted my eyes back and forth. "Jesus told me."
Devin rolled his eyes. "Jesus. Seriously, Nicky? You sound like my mom."
"I'm not making this up. I had a dream last night. And in my dream, Jesus told me everything is connected."
"And you want to know what I dreamed about last night? I had a dream about walking into my classes totally naked. Like, I totally forgot to get dressed after my shower. Do you think me being naked is connected to all this, too?"
"First," I said. "I know you're taking graphic design classes. I didn't know it was that graphic. Can I sign up?"
Devin chuckled. "No. You don't have time for school right now."
I smiled. "Second, your dreams aren't like mine. You know this."
"Yes. Cain said your dreams are your old memories, from your old life, coming out. So you're saying you met Jesus in your old life? Like he was, you know, taking a stroll out on the lake like he likes to do, and you popped up hungry?"
I bit my lip. "Not exactly how it happened. But some of my dreams are memories. Some of them are my subconscious mind trying to tell me something. I'm not sure which parts really happened and which ones didn't. But the Nazarene did say we had to destroy the grimoire."
"How, exactly, did he propose we do that since we can't find it and the thing can't be destroyed?"
No Shift, Sherlock: A Vampire Hunter Urban Fantasy Mystery (The Legend of Nyx Book 3) Page 6