Many Bloody Returns

by Charlaine Harris

  The hour struck and they assembled in the parlor again. On the long table fresh candles were substituted for the ones that had expired. The chandelier was switched off.

  From my vantage point at the screen I tried to get a sense of Flora’s reaction to things. She had the silver-backed hairbrush square in front of her and kept looking at it. She had to be the gracious hostess, but her nerves were showing in the way she played with that handkerchief. She’d rip it apart before too long. As she took her seat again close to Bradford, she held the wedding ring out as before, but her fingers shook.

  Third time’s the charm, I thought, and waited.

  Bradford did his routine without a hitch, and before too long good old Frère Lèon was back and in a thick accent offered them greetings and a warning against paying mind to dark spirits who could lead them astray from the True Path.

  That’s what he called it. I just shook my head, assembling my borrowed weapons quietly on the serving table, a napkin scrounged from a stack at one end to nix the noise.

  Flora gave Frère Lèon a formal greeting and asked if her husband was present.

  “He is, ma petit. ’E shines like the sun and speaks of ’is love for you.”

  She released a shaky sigh of relief and it sounded too much like a sob. “What else does he say? James? Are you sure? Tell me what to do!”

  Bradford’s old monk tortured her a little longer, not answering. He said he could not hear well for the dark spirits trying to come between, then: “Ah! ’E is clear at last. ’E says ’is love is deep, and ’e wants you to be ’appy on this plane. You are to open your ’eart to new love. Ah—the ’appiness that awaits you is great. ’E smiles! Such joy for you, sweet child, such joy!”

  Flora shook her head a little. Some part of her must have known this was all wrong.

  Time to confirm it.

  I’d pulled out the curtain material and draped it over my head, tying one of the napkins kerchieflike around my neck to keep the stuff from slipping off. It looked phony as hell, I was sure, but in the darkness with this crowd it would lay ’em in the aisles.

  Picking up Weisinger’s things, I eased from behind the screen. Everyone was looking at Bradford. He might have seen me in the shadows beyond the candle glow, but his eyes were shut.

  Made to order, I thought, and accurately bounced the keys off his skull. It was a damned good throw, and I followed quickly with the other things. The comb landed square in the cake, the pipe skidded along the table and slid into Flora’s lap. She shrieked and jumped up.

  If Frère Lèon had a good entrance, that was nothing to compare to that of Jack Fleming, fake ghost-for-hire.

  I vanished and reappeared but only just, holding to a mostly transparent state—standing smack-dab in the middle of the table. The top half of my body was visible, beautifully obscured by the pale curtain. The bottom half went right into the wood.

  It didn’t feel good but was pretty spectacular. The screaming helped.

  With some effort I pressed forward, moving right through the table, candles and all, down its remaining length, working steadily toward Bradford. His eyes were now wide open, and it was a treat to see him shed the trance to see some real supernatural trouble. When I raised a pale, curtain-swathed hand to point at him, I thought he’d swallow his tongue.

  Then I willed myself higher, rising until I was clear of the table and floating free. I made one swimming circuit of the room, then dove toward Bradford, letting myself go solid as I dropped.

  I took in enough breath to fill the room with a wordless and hopefully terrifying bellow and hit him like bowling ball taking out one last stubborn pin. It was a nasty impact for us both, but I had the advantage of being able to vanish again. So far as I could tell he was sprawled flat and screaming with the rest.

  Remaining invisible was uphill work for me now, but necessary. I clung close to Bradford so he could enjoy my unique kind of cold. I’d been told it was like death’s own breath from the Arctic. Through chattering teeth he babbled nonsense about dark spirits being gathered against him and that he had to leave before they manifested again. He got some argument and a suggestion they all pray to dispel the negative influences, but he was already barreling out the door.

  I stuck with him until he got in his car, then slipped into the backseat and went solid. He screeched like a woman when I snaked one arm around his neck in a half nelson. I’m damned strong. He couldn’t break free. When he stopped making noise, I noticed him staring at the rearview mirror. It was empty, of course.

  Leaning in, my mouth close to his ear, in my best imitation of the Shadow, I whispered, “Game’s over, Svengali. Digging up that grave pissed off the wrong kind of things. We’re on to you and we’re hungry. You want to see another dawn?”

  He whimpered, and the sound of his racing heart filled the car. I took that as a yes.

  “Get out of town. Get out of the racket. Go back to the stage. Better a live magician than a dead medium. Got that? Got that?”

  Not waiting for a reply, I vanished, exiting fast. He gunned the motor to life and shot away like Barney Oldfield looking to make a new speed record.

  As the wrecked evening played itself out to the survivors in the parlor, I made it back to the linen closet, killed the light, and parked my duff on an overturned bucket to wait in the dark. I needed the rest.

  The house grew quiet. The last guests departed with enough copy from tonight to fill their monthly pamphlets for years to come. Escott would have some interesting reading to share. I got the impression Flora was not planning another sitting, though a few people assured her that tonight’s events should be continued.

  The residents finished and came upstairs one by one. Flora Weisinger went into James’s room and stayed there for a long time, crying. Abby found her, they talked in low voices for a time, and Flora cried some more. I wasn’t sorry. Better now than later, married to a leech. Apparently things worked out. The sisters emerged, each going to her own room. Some servant made a last round, checking the windows, then things fell silent.

  I’d taken off the spook coverings, folding the curtain and napkin, slipping them in with similar ones on a shelf. Retrieving my coat and hat I was ready to make a quiet exit until catching the faint sound of “Gloomy Sunday” seeping through the walls.

  Damn.

  This night had been a flying rout for Bradford, but Flora was still stuck in her pit. She might dig it even deeper until it was a match for her husband’s grave.

  Someone needed to talk sense into her. I felt the least qualified for the job, but soon as I recognized the music I got that twinge again.

  I did my vanishing act and went across to Flora’s room.

  The music grew louder as I floated toward it, just solid enough to check the lay of the land. The lights were out, only a little glow from around her heavy curtains, enough to navigate and not be seen.

  Quick as I could I re-formed, flicked the phonograph’s needle arm clear, and pulled out the record. It made a hell of a crunch when I broke it to pieces.

  There was a feminine gasp from the bed, and she fumbled the light on. By then I was gone, but sensed her coming over. Another gasp, then…

  “James?” Her voice quavered with that heartbreaking hope, now tinged with anguish. “James? Oh, please, darling, talk to me. I know you’re here.”

  She’d picked up on the cologne.

  “James? Please…”

  This would be tough. I drifted over to a wall and gradually took shape, keeping it slow so she had time to stare, and if not get used to me, then at least not scream.

  Hands to her mouth, eyes big, and her skin dead white, she looked ready to faint. This was cruel. A different kind from Bradford’s type of torture, but still cruel.

  “James sent me,” I said, keeping my voice soft. “Please don’t be afraid.”

  She’d frozen in place and I wasn’t sure she understood.

  I repeated myself and she finally nodded.

  “Where is he?�
�� she demanded, matching my soft tone.

  “He’s with God.” It seemed best to keep things as simple as possible. “Everything that man told you was a lie. You know that now, don’t you?”

  She nodded again, the jerky movement very similar to Abby’s mannerism. “Please, let me speak to James.”

  “He knows already. He said to tell you it wasn’t your fault. There’s nothing to forgive. It was just his time to go, that’s all. Not your fault.”

  “But it was.”

  “Nope.” I raised my right hand. “Swear to God. And I should know.”

  That had her nonplussed. “What…who are you?”

  “Just a friend.”

  “That cologne, it’s his.”

  “So you’d know he sent me. Flora, he loves you and knows you love him. But this is not the way to honor his memory. He wants you to give it up before it destroys you. He’s dead and you’re alive. There’s a reason you’re here.”

  “What? Tell me!”

  “Doesn’t work like that, you have to find out for yourself. You won’t find answers in a Ouija board, though.”

  Flora had tentatively moved closer to me. “You look real.”

  “Thanks, I try my best. I can’t stay long. Not allowed. I have to make sure you’re clear-headed on this. No more guilt—it wasn’t your fault—get rid of this junk and live your life. James wants you to be happy again. If not now, then someday.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Flora…that’s a lifetime. A good one if you choose it.”

  “I’ll…all right. Would you tell James—”

  “He knows. Now get some sleep. New day in the morning. Enjoy it.” I was set to gradually vanish again, then remembered—“One last thing, Flora. James’s wedding band.” I held my hand out.

  “Oh, no, I couldn’t.”

  “Yes, you can. It belongs with him and you know it. Come on.”

  Fresh tears ran down her face, but maybe this time there would be healing for her. She had his ring on a gold chain around her neck and reluctantly took it off. She read the inscription one more time, kissed the ring, and gave it over.

  “Everything will be fine,” I said. “This is from James.” I didn’t think he’d mind. I leaned over and kissed her on the forehead, very lightly, and vanished before she could open her eyes.

  For the next few hours I drove around Chicago, feeling like a prize idiot and hoping I’d not done even worse damage to Flora than Alistair Bradford. I didn’t think so, but the worry stuck.

  Eventually I found my way back to that big cemetery and got myself inside, walking quickly along the path to the fancy mausoleum and the grave behind it.

  I was damned tired, but had one last job to do to earn Abby Saeger’s five bucks.

  Pinching the ring in my fingers as Flora had done at the séance, I extended my arm and disappeared once more, this time sinking into the earth. It was the most unpleasant sensation, pushing down through the broken soil, pushing until what had been my hand found a greater resistance.

  That would be James Weisinger’s coffin.

  I’d never attempted anything like this before but was reasonably sure it was possible. This was a hell of a way to find out for certain.

  Pushing just a little more against the resistance, it suddenly ceased to be there. Carefully not thinking what that meant, I focused my concentration on getting just my hand to go solid.

  It must have worked, because it hurt like a Fury, felt like my hand was being sawed away at the wrist. Just before the pain got to be too much I felt the gold ring slip from my grasp.

  One instant I was six feet under with my hand in a coffin and the next I was stumbling in the snow, clutching my wrist and trying not to yell too much.

  My hand was still attached. That was good news. I worked the fingers until they stopped looking so clawlike, then sagged against a tree.

  What a night.

  I got back in my car just as the sleet began ticking against the windows, trying to get in. It was creepy. I wanted some sound to mask it but hesitated turning on the radio, apprehensive that “Gloomy Sunday” might be playing again.

  What the hell. Music was company, proof that there were other people awake somewhere. I could always change the station.

  When it warmed up, Bing Crosby sang “Pennies from Heaven.” Someone at the radio station had noticed the weather, perhaps, and was having his little joke.

  I felt that twinge again, but now it raised a smile.

  The First Day of the Rest of Your Life

  Rachel Caine

  Rachel Caine is known for the bestselling Weather Warden series, as well as her hot new young adult series, The Morganville Vampires. She’s also written novels for the Silhouette Bombshell line, and has numerous other books and short stories to her credit. Visit her website at www.rachelcaine.com for news and updates.

  Eighteenth birthdays in Morganville are usually celebrated one of two ways: getting totally wasted with your friends or making a terrifying life-or-death decision about your continued survival.

  Not that there can’t be some combination of the two.

  My eighteenth birthday party was held in the back of a rust-colored ’70s-era Good Times van, and the select guest list included some of Morganville’s Least Wanted. Me, for instance—Eve Rosser. Number of people who’d signed my yearbook: five. Two of them had scrawled C YA LOSER. (Number of people I’d wanted to sign my yearbook? Zero. But that was just me.)

  And then there was my best friend, Jane, and her sister, Miranda. I’d invited Jane, not Miranda. Jane was okay—kind of dull, but seriously, with a name like Jane? Cursed from birth. She did like some cool things, other than me of course. Wicked ’80s make-out music, for instance. BPAL—Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab—perfume, particularly from the Dark Elements line, although I personally preferred the Funereal Oils. Jane wasn’t Goth—more Preppy Nerd Girl than anything else—but she had some style.

  Miranda, the uninvited one, was a kid. Well, Miranda was a weird kid who’d convinced a lot of people she was some kind of psychic. I didn’t invite her to the party, because I didn’t think she’d be loads of fun, and also she wasn’t likely to bring beer. Her BPAL preferences were unknown, mainly because she didn’t live on Planet Earth.

  Which left Guy and Trent, my two excellent beer-buying buddies. They were my buddies mostly because Guy had a fake ID that he’d made in art class, and Trent owned the party bus in which we were ensconced. Other than that, I didn’t know either one of them that well, but they were smart-ass, funny, and safe to get drunk with. Guy and Trent were the only gay couple I actually knew, gaydom being sort of frowned upon in the Heartland of Texas that was Morganville.

  We were all about the ironic family values.

  The evening went pretty much the way such things are supposed to go: guys buy cheap-ass beer, distribute to underage females, drive to a deserted location (in this case, the creepy-cool high school parking lot) to play loud headbanger music and generally act like idiots. The only thing missing was the make-out sessions, which was okay by me; most of the guys of Morganville were gag worthy, anyway. There were one or two I would have gladly crawled over barbwire to date, but Shane Collins had left town, and Michael Glass…well, I hadn’t seen Michael in a while. Nobody had.

  Jane brought me a birthday present, which was kind of sweet, especially since it was a brand-new mix CD of songs about dead people. Jane knows what I like.

  I was still a mystery to Guy and Trent, though. Granted, Morganville’s a small town, and all us loser outcast freaks had a nodding acquaintance. The pecking order goes something like this: geeks, freaks, nerds, druggies, gays, and Goths. Goths were on the bottom because the undead think wannabes are disgusting if they’re serious about it, or dangerously smart-assed if they aren’t. Which I wasn’t. Mostly.

  Oh, I forgot to mention: vampires. Town’s run by them. Full of them. Humans live here on sufferance, heavy on the “suffer.”

  See what I mean about the iron
ic family values?

  I could tell that Guy had been trying to think of a way to ask me all night, but thanks to consuming over half a case of beer with his Significantly Wasted Other, he finally just blurted out the question of the day. “So, are you signing or what?” he asked. Yelled, actually, over whatever song was currently making my head hurt. “I mean, tomorrow?”

  Was I signing? That was the Big Question, the one all of us faced at eighteen. I looked down at my wrist, because I was still wearing my leather bracelet. The symbol on it wasn’t anything people outside of Morganville would recognize, but it identified the vampire who was the official Protector for my family. However, as of that morning, I was no longer in that select little club of people who had to kiss Brandon’s ass to continue to draw breath.

  I also would no longer have any kind of deal or Protection from any vampire in Morganville.

  What Guy was asking was whether or not I intended to pick myself a Protector of my very own. It was traditional to sign with your family’s hereditary patron, but no way in hell was I letting Brandon have power over me. So I could either shop around to see if any other vampire could—or would—take me, or go bare…live without a contract.

  Which was attractive but seriously risky. See, Morganville vampires don’t generally kill off their own humans, because that would make life difficult for everybody, but free-range, unProtected humans? Nobody worries much what happens to them, because usually they’re alone, and they’re poor, and they disappear without a trace.

  Just another job opening at the Chicken Shack fry machine.

  They were all looking at me now. Jane, Miranda, Guy, and Trent, all waiting to hear what Eve Rosser, Professional Rebel, was going to do.

  I didn’t disappoint them. I tipped back the beer, belched, and said, “Hell, no, I’m not signing. Bareback all the way, baby! Let’s live fast and die young!”

  Guy and I did drunken high fives. Trent rolled his eyes and clicked beer bottles with Jane. “They all say that,” he said. “Right up until the AIDS test comes back. Then there’s the wailing and the weeping….”