My tiny vampire heart was relieved, Wendy would live after all that. Fang would be sad if she died. He had suffered enough.
I wrinkled my nose, which was all the enthusiasm I could muster. “I’m fine but Fang’s paws are badly bleeding. Please take a look.”
Despite her size and strength, Serena was wary of Fang’s wolf.
“I’m not a vet.” She assessed him without touching him.
If I wasn’t a vamp I probably would have had more sympathy for her.
“Don’t be a pussy. He’s got glass and nails in his paws from saving your coven sister. And he’s got some pretty bad burns on his flank.”
Serena’s arched brows shot up.
She probably didn’t get much name calling.
“Do we have a problem?” I stood up. The world tilted to the right.
Serena shot out an arm to steady me. “Have a seat, Scrappy Doo. I’ll do my best. Ben, your vamp needs you.” Her voice cut through the air without being racked by hacking coughs.
Ben turned from directing the motley crew of exhausted wiccans. He trotted over to me. His pace quickened when he drew closer. “You must feed, Dr. Silverthorne.”
I didn’t swoon when he reached me but it was the closest I’d ever get. Ben lowered us to the cold, hard ground.
Ben lay down. His hair was mussed with ash and soot. His pupils were dilated like they always get when I’m about to bite him. It was difficult not to collapse right on him.
He turned his head to the side. Saliva pooled in my mouth at the sight of his exposed neck vein. My fangs extended. Placing one hand on the top of his head and the other on his chin to stabilize myself, my fangs pierced his skin.
The first taste of his blood was sweet with the salt of his sweat providing a wonderful counterbalance. I drank, savoring his blood over my tongue. Warmth spread out to my body. My skin felt less crispy, and the healing skin on my forearm pushed the glass out of my body.
Cold-blooded vampires have much less blood than mammals. In truth, we need little blood to survive. The bloody excesses that vampires have been known for have more to do with what we are capable of rather than what we need.
I finished my feeding. I’d taken more than I should from Ben. I was greedy, and his blood tasted delicious. I licked his neck to stimulate clotting and collect the last few drops. Now my human would need to recover.
I sat back on the ground. Ben’s eyes had drifted closed when I fed. Now they flickered open. He was pale. And groggy.
“Done so soon?” He tried to raise his head but I put out an arm to restrain him.
“Rest here for a few minutes.”
I glanced around.
The fire had stopped spreading. The trees weren’t dense here and thankfully they were wet enough from the recent snows to make them much less flammable.
The motel was gone though. All that remained if the wind didn’t shift again was the office, the sign and a row of charred casitas.
Clumps of witches huddled whispering and chanting.
Fang lay on his side, still in wolf form, recovering.
I stood. Ben needed something to drink, and those witches could conjure something to speed his recovery. It was the least they could do. I scanned them, wondering who was the most competent. I didn’t want him turned into a frog.
I stamped my feet on the packed earth to get some feeling back in my toes when the dust started to swirl.
Curious.
The snows had packed the dirt down. Usually the dust only swirled in the dry seasons.
The swirl grew in length and width. It reminded me of a clay pot on a wheel struggling to take shape.
And the swirling thing moving closer.
It danced to and fro as it approached. The bobbing caught my attention.
Fuck no. Not now. This guy had the worst timing.
“Djinn! Now, is not a good time!” Coughing spasms wracked my body from the dust he stirred up.
The Djinn continued spiraling toward me spitting bits of gravel, ash and cinder in its wake. It was like following behind a massive truck on the road with bits of debris being flung toward the windshield.
“You thought you’d seen the last of me? Ha! Feel my doom!”
I put my hands on my hips. How could none of these witches notice a dust devil? They excelled at navel gazing. “You had me until the my doom bit.”
The Djinn slowed, treading in place.
“My doom means my destruction.” I really didn’t have time for this.
“Ha! Exactly!” the Djinn cried.
“You need to work on your delivery. And at least threaten me.”
The Djinn flickered in frustration. “How about a do over?”
“I’m rather busy right now.”
“After all I did for you last time? You owe me.” The Djinn sniffed.
“You gave me a vague warning and blew out my electronics. I don’t exactly call that a favor. If you knew my Maker was coming after me, why didn’t you just say so?”
“Is that that specificity thing again?” His mini cyclone dug a little hole under him as he spun in place.
I rubbed my forehead. It couldn’t be easy being a Djinn. I don’t know how it did it. Day after day it spun blindly, trying to bump into enough random soul specks to gather enough energy to manifest.
It was depressing really. Paranormals don’t appreciate how tough the lower beings have it. The mind-numbing repetition of it all and for what? Its best chance of success was also mutually assured destruction.
“I’ve got to go. Let’s try this again some other time.” I turned around. Ben and Fang needed me now.
“Wait, I have a new message!” The Djinn whirled closer, snagging the trailing end of my blanket. “We’re not done here.”
“Catch!” Ben called.
I turned but Ben wasn’t talking to me.
He stood with one of the dirty blankets, draped around his shoulders like a cap. He tossed a handful of old hotel room keys at the Djinn.
The heavy metal keys connected with the Djinn’s electricity. Immediately white and blue sparks shot out with a loud ‘pop.
“I’ll be baaaaack.” My Djinn wailed before the knee-high cyclone sputtered out. All that remained was another pile of smoldering rubble among the many already here.
“You were done, weren’t you, Silverthorne?” Ben asked anxiously. He was so pale that his few freckles stood out across his cheeks. “It looked like you were being hassled.”
I thanked my lucky stars for my personal assistant. “Thanks. How did you know how to do that?”
“Gretel.” He grinned at the witch approaching him with something steaming from a plastic cup. He whispered to me, “She’s really nice.”
Gretel gazed at Ben with a combination of ownership and pride. What had she put in his drink?
The good news was she was looking after him. He needed that after tonight. There weren’t going to be many hours left before daybreak. But I was not looking forward to how the motel apartment would smell tomorrow evening.
18
By now, Fang had returned to his human shape. He sat in my previously vacated chair, wrapped in blankets. Big white bandages bound his hands and feet. He waved a club-like hand at me in greeting as I approached with Ben.
Serena was finishing wrapping up a leg. I bet she appreciated his humanoid like every other female in the radius. She didn’t hear me approach. “Fang, I really wish you’d come to the infirmary for the night or even to my house.” She offered the last part in a lower tone of voice.
“Thanks for the offer but I’ll be fine.” Fang’s voice was gritty. Even hoarse he sounded sexy. The smoke inhalation effects would take time to dissipate.
The witch finished the bandage. “They are all going to need changing tomorrow at the latest. Sooner if they are weeping through.”
Fang met my gaze, his light eyes full of so many emotions. It was like watching clouds chase across the sky on a windy day.
It was one of the few mem
ories of my human life I retained.
“I’ll come by tomorrow,” Fang grudgingly admitted. “Thank you.”
“My coven owes you an apology. We’ll do what we have to do to make this right.”
Damn right.
Still Serena was growing on me. I didn’t want to have tea with her but she wasn’t bad as far as witches go.
She left, leaving us alone in a muddle of witches.
It was pretty obvious that Fang was naked under the wrapping. The blankets had shifted. He did have nice pecs for an old dog.
“You planning to stay tonight in the office?” I asked. “Ben would be glad to have you.”
“Nope.”
“How about bunking down with the coven? I bet they know how to show their appreciation.”
Fang tilted his head to one side, considering. “I bet you’re right.” He waved a bandaged hand toward me and then lowered his voice. “This place stinks of incense.”
I squatted before I turned my face up to his, studying his bristly, craggy face.
“Where are you planning to spend the night?” I asked.
“With you,” he said simply.
I raised my eyebrows. “Presumptuous.”
“Would you rather I make it official?” His gray eyes twinkled.
“How’s that?” I pulled my head back slightly. Relief that Fang was all right was making me, well for lack of a better word, giddy. Plus my blood infusion had kick started my libido. I was ready to tackle him. Who cared if it was before a coven of homeless witches and an anemic human?
“I’m the sheriff, after all.” His voice sent shivers up my spine.
“Would there be handcuffs involved?” I asked.
“If you ask nicely.”
“Let’s get you home.” I got to my feet.
Fang towered over me as usual, but he was unsteady on his feet with the bandages. He gathered his blankets around him, looking more than a bit like a Greek god.
The fire had burned out. Now the charred remains of the motel lay like a blackened skeleton. Smoke still drifted up from smoldering piles of rubble. The wind picked up, bringing with it some snow flurries. Soon everything would be covered with a dusting of white.
It’d make the motel ruins less of an eyesore but I didn’t think that Fang or Ben would appreciate my observation.
“I’ll go get the car.” I wanted to move things along. Fang agreed. Within minutes we were zipping away, the motel in my rearview mirror. “Where did you have in mind for us to spend the night, sheriff?” I adjusted the mirror so that the motel remains were gone.
Despite recent events, I was feeling downright playful. Elsbeth and Idris were gone. Sure, Fang’s inheritance had burned to the ground, but he hadn’t been among the rubble. Gretel would keep an eye on Ben. Wendy had survived. Mr. Figgles was sleeping through the whole thing safely in Fang’s office, and we’d discovered the culprit behind Griz’s death was the drug mule was Triana. My job was done. Glytr would not be proliferating. I needed to leave but…one last night with Fang first.
Forbidden or not. I’d earned it. More important than that, I wanted it more than anything else in the world right now.
That did bring up a new idea to me, though. “You better not suggest going to your ex-wife’s house.”
Fang’s chuckle turned into a cough. “I’m returning the place to Leon.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You’re looking to sleep in the jail or the motel apartment on a regular basis? Or maybe you were thinking to set up a harem with the witches?”
Fang laid his head back against the seat rest. A smile played at his lips. “I’m just going to close my eyes for a few minutes.”
He was asleep within minutes as I sped along the roadway. The few snowflakes turned into a steady rain. In my mind there was no question of where to go. There was only one place—where things began. It was only fitting that was where things would end.
I could never see an end to loving Fang but I could never have an ongoing relationship with him.
I’d mistakenly thought being away from him would make the pain lessen but it only deepened my love for him. I felt even more tied to Fang than I did a decade ago.
And if you’d seen us then that was saying something.
There were still a few hours until sunrise. It wasn’t much time but deep in the mountains, it felt like all the time in the world.
Fang’s eyes flickered open when I slowed the car. He’d been sleeping pretty soundly with an occasional snore escaping him.
“Good rest?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “I feel better.”
“Do you dream when you sleep?” I asked.
Fang turned his head against the seat rest. “Sometimes. You?”
“Never.” I glanced over at him.
“Never?”
I shook my head. I turned my head to stare straight ahead out the window in front of me. It was easier that way. “I can never dream because I never sleep. Dreams only belong to the living. During daylight hours, I’m dead. Not asleep.”
Fang was quiet, taking that in. I knew he knew it, but it probably wasn’t something he gave much thought to. I know I never did. It’s always like that when you take something for granted.
He squinted into the dark night surrounding us with miles and miles of desert with not a soul around except the occasional jackrabbit or hawk. He looked smug.
I steered the car off the main road and down a narrow drive. I ignored his knowing glance. What did he think? This was Nowhere. I’d spent enough nights in the morgue as it was.
“You sure you’re up to this?” I asked. “The climb hasn’t gotten easier. There’s still time to get you back to town.”
“Look at you all concerned.” He opened the car door and heaved himself out.
We left my car, walking to the sheer rock wall in front of us. It rose up into a vertical cliff, creating a partial rim to this canyon. Our progress was slow, but I savored every second. The sound of our steps, our breath puffing little streams of steam in the cold night air, the night sky clear now and littered with stars.
Far off a coyote howled, and seconds later another answered in return.
“Friends of yours?” I spoke in a whisper but my voice carried in the night.
“Nobody I know.”
We reached the canyon where a small stream ran along the edge partially dipping into the rock, partially cutting into the flat desert on the other side. We stared up, up, up.
“It’ll be easier going as a wolf,” I suggested.
“It usually is,” Fang agreed.
I never gave much thought to Fang’s two natures. They seemed as set to me as his height or eye color.
“Can you change again so soon?”
“Don’t worry about me. You get started. Even with a head start, I’ll still beat you to the top.”
In his wolf form, Fang leapt from ledge to ledge, glancing back at me as he rose higher and higher.
“Don’t stop.” I grunted. “I’m right behind you.”
He ignored my request, continuing to check that I was following him. His fur was soaked. His gray coat, now soaked and dark colored, blended in with the landscape.
I ducked when a rock loosened by his leap narrowly missed my head.
I wasn’t so lucky the second time. I ducked again, but the rock hit the back of my head and then bounced down to my shoulder before disappearing in the swirling waters below.
“Fuck!” That hurt. Maybe not all that badly, but it surprised me. Not much did that these days, but I shouldn’t be surprised Fang had been the one to do it.
The wolf pivoted on an impossibly small perch, ready to come back down. He cocked his head, and rain slicked his fur back like a seal’s.
I grunted and dug my fingers into the rock so hard some pieces crumbled under my ribs. Well, shit. This seriously sucked.
We continued climbing.
Then I glanced up, expecting to see either the back end of a wet wolf or his face staring
down at me.
Instead, I saw nothing.
What the hell? I would’ve known if he’d fallen past me.
Grunting, I kept going. Hand over hand. Feeling each toehold.
The next time I glanced up, the wolf was back. He was on a ledge. The wind blew the rain into my face; I couldn’t see behind him. Water dripped off his black whiskers, but his eyes were bright and I swear he wiggled his eyebrows at me.
The rain hadn’t lessened, but the rushing water below me didn’t sound quite so close. My head hurt. The rock that hit me must’ve been bigger than I’d thought, and I had a pretty high pain tolerance.
“Here.” I looked up. Fang extended his hand.
He was lying on the ledge, still some distance above me and now no longer wolf but man. He was soaked, water dripping in his eyes. This time I was sure: he did wiggle his eyebrows at me.
“Hattie, give me your hand.” He was stretched, his shoulders hanging over the edge, one hand gripping the ledge, the other gesturing impatiently for me. “I’ll never let you go.”
My fingers and toes were all that was keeping me from dropping however many feet were between me and the canyon floor below. Letting go to try to reach him wasn’t something I wanted to do.
I was stuck, literally between a rock and a hard place. I couldn’t go any higher on my own; the cliff above me was sheer. My fingers and toes ached. Waiting here until the rain stopped and waters receded wasn’t an option.
“Dammit, come on. That tiny little vamp heart of yours knows you can trust me.”
Fang wasn’t a curser by nature. This disappointed me about him. By contrast, I loved cursing. Not only did I like the actual words, but I enjoyed the listener’s shock at the way my language contrasted with my youthful appearance.
Seeing as how this might be my last opportunity, I let loose with a string of my favorite lovelies. I was still concentrating on my grips, but I was gratified to discern Fang’s wincing.
This was it. I was going to die again. I’d been invincible for so long that I was surprised by my own fear.
What surprised me was how much I didn’t want to die again. This time there would be nothing to save me. Even I couldn’t survive a fall from this height. And if I met with a branch on my way down, I’d be staked before I even hit the water.
The Undead Detective Bites Page 17