by Lee Killough
Or maybe he could start the car with keys. Through the archway to the livingroom, Garreth saw Fowler’s trench coat thrown over the back of an easy chair.
He limped across the hall to check its pockets.
Fowler called, “I hear you out there, Mikaelian! How are you feeling? Not tip top I daresay. I told you your kind need blood to heal. You should have drunk from me before shutting me in.”
Garreth grimaced. Even if he wanted human blood, thought of Fowler’s repelled him.
Fowler snarled, “So when I break out, and I will...” Punctuating the threat with a body slam against the closet door. “...we will resume where left off...but this time with fillet of vampire! I will carve you down to the bone until you tell me where she is!” Garreth heard bared teeth in each emphatic word. The door vibrated as Fowler slammed into it again.
Quickly, Garreth checked the coat pockets. Damn. No keys. Then as he dropped the trench coat back on the chair, he saw a leather case the size and shape of a brick on the chair seat. Opening the case, he grinned. A mobile phone! Much better than car keys.
Not sure if it would work inside the house, he limped to the front door. Outside an ivy-covered lattice screened the entry...and between it and the door, like an intro to the interior, sat a wrought iron bench. Garreth sank on to it. Switching on the phone, he hoped Fowler had the channel selected for calling from this area of the city. Crossing his fingers, he punched in Harry’s phone number.
To his relief, it rang...and Lien answered.
“Is Harry there?”
The question emerged as a hoarse whisper and for several long seconds, the silence at the other end made Garreth wonder if she heard him.
“Garreth? You sound terrible. Are you hurt? Where are you?”
Where. Right. “I’m not sure.”
“I can find,” a voice in the background said.
Irina? What was she doing there?
“Don’t move,” Lien said. “We’re on our way.”
“Get Harry.”
But she had hung up. He sagged back against the bench to wait.
Chapter Thirty-two
“Garreth! My god! What happened!”
Without being aware he had closed his eyes, Garreth opened them to find Lien and Irina standing over him. “Why were you at the house?”
“We were to talk, remember? Instead of calling I decided — but is not important.” Irina frowned at him. “You need blood.”
Lien reached into a tote bag and handed him a thermos he recognized as his.
Irina wrinkled her nose as he opened it. “Animal blood! Is no good. You need human blood to heal properly.” She reached for the thermos.
“No!” He hugged the thermos. “Not human blood!” What was she going to suggest...drink from Lien? Memory of the girl in the Corvette crash flooded him...and the snarling animal in him that fought against surrendering her to the EMTs.
Lien said, “Worry about that later! I want to know who did this!”
He tilted his head toward house, toward the sound of Fowler assaulting the closet door. Between gulps of the blood jelly sliding from the thermos, which tasted almost good for a change, he gave them the story.
Listening, Lien’s face hardened. Several times she hissed under her breath.
Irina said nothing but her eyes — violet now without contact lenses — turned icy. As he finished she started for the front door. “So he is my killer. I will deal with him.”
One guess what that meant.
Garreth saw Lien understood, too. Her eyes widened in dismay.
“We can’t kill him.” Garreth pushed off the bench. Despite the blood being merely rats’, it had helped ease some pain and weakness. “I’m under suspicion for the store clerk’s murder. How do you think Harry and Girimonte will react to finding me with another body?”
“Look at you.” Irina waved at his clothes. “Who can doubt a knife in his heart is self defense?”
“The evidence,” Garreth said, “when none of this blood is Fowler’s from stabbing him.”
“Besides,” Lien said, “if he’s dead, how will he answer for these murders?”
“There is evidence against him for them?” Irina asked Garreth, and when he had to shake his head, she turned back to Lien. “So...blood is their only justice. Also, dead, Fowler cannot create more incriminating stories...perhaps even denouncing Garreth as vampire.”
“No one believes vampires are real!”
Unless Girimonte gave up secrecy about her sister and confirmed Fowler’s claim.
“But he can argue Garreth has delusions of being undead.”
Oh, yeah...and already being considered a nut case, how easy then to accept him as a homicidal psycho like Lane. Fowler might also hint Garreth was a living example of Thurlow’s Martians. Plenty of people knew those existed. Which would certainly lead to an extensive physical exam...and then what. Imprisonment as a laboratory specimen?
He fought a rush of panic.
Lien frowned. “Can’t you do something with your hypnotic power, like make him confess?”
Garreth grimaced. That was a long way from influencing some belligerent drunk to admit he started a bar fight. Unless Irina’s centuries of experience had given her enough power. After all, Lane had made Fowler bury the memory of his father’s death.
Irina shook her head. “Make him confess, yes, but only like puppet, and when released he will recant. Then no doubt retaliate. We need other than vampire trickery.” She raised a brow at Garreth. “How did you get confessions before crossing over?”
Garreth winced. Shit. He should have thought of that first. He considered the problem, shutting out his pain to concentrate. “Okay, maybe we can get, if not a confession, then maybe damaging admissions...or at least destroy his credibility by having him accuse someone of being a vampire who isn’t.”
They listened as he explained...both looking skeptical. At the end Irina eyed Lien. “We have no time to devise detailed script and this is man who has studied his prey. Do you believe you can play one of us convincingly?”
Lien nodded. “I think so.”
“So you think it’s worth a try?” Garreth said.
Irina shrugged. “If it fails, we always have Plan B.”
Lien passed her hooded sweatshirt to Irina, who disappeared inside it, the hood leaving her face invisible. The small jacket received in return from Irina Lien draped over one shoulder. Then she lifted her chin regally and headed for the front door. “Let’s push some buttons.”
Inside, they found the closet door vibrating from Fowler’s assault on it but still holding firm.
Irina raised her voice in a passable imitation of Girimonte’s. “Fowler!”
The slamming stopped. “Inspector Girimonte?”
“I’m letting you out.” She pulled away the chair...and while Garreth took a position on one side of the door, Irina stood where it hid her as it opened.
“Thank God. I don’t know how you found me but Mikaelian — ” He broke off, staring at Lien. “Mrs. Takananda?”
Garreth bit back a snarl. Abrasions on Fowler’s forehead and a bruise on his jaw, not there when Garreth shut him in, showed Fowler had been working on a Garreth-as-assailant accusation.
“I thought I heard — ”
Lien smiled. “I know, but it’s only me. To answer your question, though, I found you because Garreth called me. When they’re hurting, children naturally want their mother. Or maker.”
Intelligent criminals sometimes made police work easier. No need to draw pictures for them. Surprise and disbelief flashed across Fowler’s face, then quickly turned into a puzzled lift of brows. “I beg your pardon? I fear I you’ve lost me.”
Lien shook her head. “I doubt that...though I’ll grant you understandable confusion. It was only natural to assume Lane Barber made Garreth. However, her attack just precipitated his crossing. I became aware of her some years ago, but left her to her predation, as long as it didn’t become dangerously obvious. Wh
en I learned she was a murder suspect, though, I served Garreth and my husband Bloody Mary’s, secretly spiked with my blood, to protect them from possibly fatal consequences in dealing with her.”
The brows came down. Fowler laughed...a sharp, scornful bark. “Codswallop! You’re no vampire. I saw you eating and drinking at the party this week end.”
Of course he had. Shit.
But Lien never blinked. “Eight hundred years in this life, Mr. Fowler, have taught me how to pass as human by almost any test you can devise.”
Garreth cheered her silently.
Fowler’s lip curled. “Show me your fangs.”
Lien gave him a razor smile. “I’ll go one better. Garreth, Lotus dear...” Her voice turned to a whip crack. “...put him on his knees!”
Garreth wondered if he could have managed it alone right now...but Irina had strength enough for the both of them. She appeared around the door to twist one of Fowler’s arms backward and forced him down while Garreth grabbed the other arm.
Snarling, Fowler heaved against one then the other of them.
“Prease not to fight,” Irina said from within the hood in a high, sing-song voice...and added a little more pressure, making Fowler gasp. “I might tear arm off.”
Fowler glared up at Lien. “What the hell are you doing?”
Lien laid Irina’s jacket over the back of the chair. “Rather than show you my fangs, I’ll let you feel them. I can sympathize with your pursuit of Lane — how terrible to lose your father so brutally to her — but how you treated Garreth is inexcusable. No harm to me and mine goes unpunished. Lotus, give me his throat.”
Irina grabbed Fowler’s hair to pull his head back.
Suddenly Garreth found himself holding writhing fury.
“Bloodsucking bitch!” Fowler surged to his feet and forward with the strength of an addict pumped on PCP, oblivious to pain or the danger of losing his arms.
Caught by surprise, Irina lost her grip and slammed into the closet door.
Garreth managed to hang on, spurred by a surge of his own...a blast of terror as Fowler’s freed hand shot forward like a claw toward Lien’s neck. Cranking harder on the arm he held, he shouted: “Freeze!”, throwing the weight of both voice and body against Fowler.
He might as well try stopping a freight train. Without eye contact, he lacked the power to pierce Fowler’s fury.
Then behind them, Irina hissed, “Stop...right...there!”
Garreth had almost lost to Lane when she tried controlling him by voice alone. Irina’s command instantly froze him.
Fowler jolted to a halt with fingers at Lien’s neck.
“Not you, grasshopper.” Irina slapped the back of Garreth’s head, breaking his paralysis. “Put him down.” To Fowler, she said, “Do...not...move.”
Garreth kicked Fowler’s legs from under him and dropped him to his knees. At the same time, wondering why. Lien stood rigid and ashen, heart thundering audibly. After a shock like this, how could they expect her to go on with the scam? Or to fool Fowler if he saw her fright.
Yet Irina forced Fowler’s arm behind him, wound her fingers in his hair again, and cranked his head back. Her voice went sing-song. “Mistress, mistress, forgive unworthy daughter for not holding tight.”
Garreth held his breath waiting for Lien’s reaction. She remained motionless. Yeah. Time to give this up.
“Mistress?”
Lien came back to life, sighing. To Garreth’s amazement, though she remained pale and her heart still raced, she sounded...exasperated. “This time don’t let go.”
As Lien pulled down the turtleneck of Fowler’s sweater and fastened her mouth on his throat, Fowler’s muscles twitched, fighting Irina’s control. He snarled inarticulately, veins in his neck pulsing, sinews rigid.
It brought back Garreth’s memory of Lane on his throat. Though until he realized what she was doing to him, he had not resisted, had felt no anger or fear...only a piercing pleasure that had him straining toward her mouth. They could not create that experience for Fowler. Would it make him suspect a con job?
Maybe not. He still snarled at them when Lien backed away, fingers across her mouth to hide the lack of blood while she smacked her lips behind them. “That should do.” The hickey she left looked like the ones marking Lane’s victims...minus punctures.
Fowler went silent, staring up at her in disbelief.
She sniffed. “Did you think I meant to drain you? Death is no punishment. What I’ve done instead, since you hate us so much, is take enough blood to ensure you’re infected and will rise as one of us when you do d— Hold him!”
But Fowler only cursed her. This time his body remained under control.
Lien raised her voice over the profanity. “You notice I haven’t given you any of my blood, however...which your knowledge of us should tell you is necessary for wholly crossing. I have condemned you to rise as merely mindless and blood-hungry undead...the very monster you accuse us of being. Closet!”
They shoved him in and had barely wedged the chair back under the handle when Fowler slammed into the door, screaming curses.
“Time to push the Lane button,” Garreth said.
Lien nodded. She raised her voice again. “Oh...I forgot to mention that while Garreth doesn’t know where Lane Barber is, I do.”
The pounding and profanity cut off. After a short silence, Fowler said, “Where is she?”
“Where I put her when I caught her returning here. She is alive, before you ask, but somewhere the world is safe from her and she can meditate on her sins.”
“Where is she!”
“Think ‘Amontillado.’ The story of a character walled up alive,” she whispered to Garreth.
Garreth wished she had some other inspiration. Even knowing where Lane really was, the idea, so close to Fowler’s threat of hanging him in a closet, sent a chill down his spine.
Fowler pounded on the closet door. “Tell me where she is, you bitch!”
“It’s time to call Harry.” Lien glanced around. “Where’s the phone?”
Garreth pointed to where he laid the mobile unit by the front door.
She frowned. “I’ve never used one of those.”
Irina picked it up. “I have. Number?” She disappeared outside with the phone...coming back presently to say, “He is coming. Also Inspector Girimonte. I imitated your voice, of course, Lien...affecting distress...informing him Garreth is injured, and that I called from here, not home, as I needed to find address since Garreth knew only street and appearance of house. Now I will disappear, since Steffie has no reason to be here, but not go far...just in case.” While returning Lien’s hooded sweatshirt, she eyed the vibrating closet door. “Good luck.”
Chapter Thirty-three
Lien waited outside, away from Fowler’s racket. Garreth braced against the wall inside the front door, where he could hear Harry’s arrival and assess the possible tone of questioning.
Though right now, with thirst burning his throat, barely soothed by the mug of hot water he held, he wanted his thermos more than anything else. It should still have a little blood in it, yet it had disappeared. Sourly, he wondered if Irina took it, in the hope of driving him to drink from Lien.
A car pulled up to the garage.
Only one that Garreth heard. No uniformed backup, then. Meaning, what...no immediate intent to arrest him...or else they felt confident enough to handle him alone? Girimonte might be secretly armed with garlic.
Lien’s footsteps hurried toward it. “Oh, Harry!” Garreth pictured her holding out her hands to him.
And Harry taking her hands. “How bad is he hurt? What happened!”
“Mr. Fowler attacked him with a knife!”
“Fowler!” The slam of the far car door punctuated Harry and Girimonte’s simultaneous exclamations.
“When? Where?”
“Is that Mikaelian shouting?” Girimonte asked.
“It’s Mr. Fowler in the hall closet.”
“What!”
Garreth retreated to the kitchen before Harry and Girimonte rushed into the hall. Peering around the doorway, he watched Harry drag the chair away and pull open the door.
Fowler almost fell out on top of Girimonte, blinking in the light.
Garreth’s gut lurched. Fowler looked worse than before...more abrasions and bruises on his face. He had even given himself a bloody nose, and the drops scattered down the grey sweater like mottling on the breast of some bird.
Snarling, he shot claw hands toward Girimonte’s neck...and then, as suddenly as if deflected, his arms spread. He threw them around her. “Girimonte! Thank God!”
Garreth stared in dismay. Fowler almost whimpered. Could someone change that fast...bury all that fury between one breath and the next? If Fowler had that much self-control, did they have a chance of him making a slip that discredited or incriminated him?
As Girimonte peeled free, Fowler reeled back, hands up in apology. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.” He took a deep breath...lifted his chin and straightened his shoulders...as if regaining control of himself. “It’s just I’d begun to fear Mikaelian had dragged Mrs. Takananda away, abandoning me to starve. He’d already terrified her into keeping me shut in with a story about me attacking him.”
That needed to be countered fast. “A story about you attacking me?” Sliding into the hall, Garreth leaded against the wall as if needing the support to stay on his feet. Almost true.
Harry and Girimonte wheeled...gaped.
“Garreth!”
“Holy shit!”
“I had to defend myself,” Fowler said.
“Did you call for an ambulance?” Harry asked Lien.
Back by the front door, Lien shook her head. “Garreth didn’t want me to.”
Garreth shrugged. “The bleeding’s stopped.”
“The hell.” Harry reached for the radio on his belt. “Because there can’t be that much left in you. We need a bus!” he barked into the radio. At the same time he took a quick look into the diningroom, then shoved the chair into the kitchen. “Lien, make Garreth sit down in there...somewhere clean...and wrap him up in a tablecloth or something to keep him warm.”