Fangtabulous

by Lucienne Diver

  “I can check the hall of records or the historical society archives in the morning,” Brent said.

  “I can help,” Pru offered.

  But I didn’t think we had that kind of time. Inspiration struck.

  “I know someone who might help,” I said suddenly. “But she’s a little shy.”

  All eyes were on me. I mean, not on me. That would just be gross. Looking my way, let’s say.

  I explained.

  “You know a ghost?” Irish asked, awed.

  “So do you.” I cut a glance at Ren-Bobby. He was back to rocking and chanting, but now instead of the “There Was an Old Lady,” it was a twisted little childhood song. I knew it well:

  “The worms crawl in

  The worms crawl out

  The worms play pinochle on your snout … ”

  A sound from outside cut across his song.

  Marcy and I exchanged a look. She’d heard it too—a car, maybe two, pulling up outside the closed pub … at this time of night.

  “We’d better get out of here,” I said.

  She nodded. The rest looked at us in confusion.

  “We have company. Out front,” I explained.

  Olivia got up to go look and came back a few seconds later. “The police. But why are they here?”

  “At a guess,” I said, “because of us. I have to go, and I don’t think my ghost is going to want company.”

  “You’re not going alone to see her,” Brent said firmly.

  I rolled my eyes at him. “Fine, I’ll take Marcy.”

  “We need someone with”—vampire strength, he didn’t say—“someone very strong here to deal with Bobby, in case—”

  “Then I’ll go alone. Somehow I don’t get the sense that my ghost girl would be comfortable with a guy.”

  “I’ll go!” Olivia said immediately. “I’ve always wanted to see a ghost.”

  “This isn’t exactly a meet and greet,” I said, exasperated.

  “I promise I’ll be good. You’ll barely know I’m there.”

  “Fine.” I took the amulet and stuffed it into my pocket as a knock sounded at the door. To the rest, I said, “I’ll call when I have a location or the book.” I shot a glance at Bobby. “Take care of him.”

  “We will,” Marcy promised.

  It would have to be good enough. The only way to save him was to go. Snoop. Find. Foil.

  “Come on, then,” I said to Olivia.

  She didn’t have to be told twice. She showed me the back way out—through the kitchen, all spic and span, shut down for the evening. Brent, Marcy, and Ulric followed behind, ushering Bobby along with them, and disappeared into the night.

  15

  The cold air slapped us in the face on the way out, a touch of moisture to it, like rain or unseasonable snow might be lurking. But it was only late September; snow would have been really unseasonable.

  “Brrr,” Olivia said, to emphasize the point.

  I agreed. Just because the cold didn’t particularly bother me didn’t mean I didn’t feel it. “Which way to the Howard Street Cemetery from here?” I asked.

  She looked at me funny. “You do know that cemetery is from, like, a hundred years after the witch trials, right?”

  “It’s still a couple centuries older than we are, and only a few generations removed from the trials. Didn’t generations tend to live and die in the same houses back then?” I’d learned something from listening to Bobby after all.

  Olivia thought about that. “I guess.”

  She led the way, and I picked her brain about magic and what she knew of the mysterious Book of Shadows while we walked.

  “A Book of Shadows is the sum total of a witch’s knowledge, gained throughout her life,” she told me. “At the beginning are spells learned from others, maybe copied down from a mother or grandmother. Then later there’ll be things the witch developed herself—potions, spells, castings. It’s priceless. A witch would as soon lose her life as her spell book.”

  “Yet she left it behind.”

  Olivia stopped suddenly, as if she’d just thought of something. “Wait. Tituba was from the West Indies somewhere … or was it Africa? Her Book of Shadows might not even be in English. We might not be able to read it.”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” I said.

  Someone had to have a smart phone with an app or something that would let us read the book.

  I didn’t have Bobby’s mental mojo to manipulate locks, and ghosting through the cemetery gates wouldn’t get Olivia in, but I’d aced my class on lockpicking back at spy school. I was all set to go to work, only Olivia didn’t lead us to the gates but around the side of the wrought-iron cemetery fence, where two bars bowed out in different directions like some strongman had gone to town on them.

  Someone—the cemetery people, probably—had planted honeysuckle along the fence to climb the bars and cover the gap, but the vines weren’t quite thick enough yet for that.

  “How long has this been here?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “A few months. The locals know about it. Kids like to dare each other to sneak in. Drives Terrible Tommy nuts.”

  Speaking of the devil, I didn’t see his light anywhere, so either he was off duty or occupied elsewhere.

  “You sure he had to be driven?”

  “Okay, more nuts, then,” she said, ducking through the gap ahead of me.

  I led the way once we were through. I didn’t see or sense anything tonight, but I signaled Olivia to stay behind as we got closer to little Jenny’s grave. It occurred to me at that moment that I couldn’t make contact without revealing myself to Olivia. But I didn’t see an alternative. Anyway, the gang and I would be blowing town again and taking on new identities as soon as this was put to rest. I ignored the pang this caused me once again. I’d never thought I was a “putting down roots” kind of gal, but this constant running and hiding wasn’t my style either. I wanted a place, I realized, where everybody knew my name. The real one.

  I stifled a sigh and focused on my ghost hunt.

  “Close your eyes,” I whispered to Olivia.

  She did, but I couldn’t tell if she kept them closed, because in that second I vanished, going as insubstantial as a ghost. All I could do was sense the differences and densities of the air around me—including one small, human-shaped form huddled at the base of a stone. I couldn’t call out to Jenny in this form, but I drifted close, and the form seemed to startle. Something swept through me—a questing hand? It felt weird, like butterfly kisses. I backed off just a bit and went solid again.

  “Jenny?” I said quietly.

  She flickered in front of me, and I caught sight of her for just a second. Big brown eyes, a fly-away corona of red-gold curls, freckles.

  I pulled the amulet out of my pocket, not wanting to compel her, not sure I even could with it still bound to Rebecca, but hoping it might lend her strength.

  “Jenny, can you talk with me?”

  I watched the spot where she’d flickered, and slowly she reappeared again, her arms wrapped protectively around her knees, which were drawn up under her long colonial skirts. She looked like she belonged to the era of Betsy Ross, but I was totally no expert.

  “Just with you?” she asked, her voice no more than a sigh. “What about your friend?”

  She cocked her head Olivia’s way, but those big brown doe eyes stayed on me, studying me for any kind of threat or trickery. I wondered what she’d been through in her life, or death, to make her so distrustful.

  I debated how to handle it, and decided the truth was the way to go.

  “She’d love to meet you as well, but only if you’re comfortable with it.”

  Her gaze flicked to Olivia and back quickly to me.

  “Is she like us?” Jenny asked.

  “Like us?”

  “Dead.”

  My heart kicked … or wanted to. I was not dead. Or, anyway, not truly. I died every time I left a new self behind. Every time I ha
d to turn away from people and places I’d come to love. Okay, and yeah, I supposed medical examiners might declare me dead if they ever got their hands on me, but—

  Focus.

  “No.” I leaned in to whisper and counted it a victory when she didn’t lean away or wink out. “She’s a witch,” I confided.

  Those big eyes widened. “A real one?”

  “Why don’t you ask her?”

  She worried her ghostly lips between her teeth. From the look of them, she did that a lot. Her brows drew together as she thought. It was a really serious look for someone so young. Although, if the dates on her gravestone were right, truly she was older than me.

  “Okay.”

  I motioned to Olivia, who had long since opened her eyes even though I’d forgotten to give her the go-ahead, and she smiled excitedly, stepping carefully toward us. Seeing that I was squatted down in front of a grave, she crouched beside me.

  “Can you see her?” I asked.

  “I see … something.” She squinted like she was trying really, really hard.

  “Olivia, this is Jenny. Jenny, my friend Olivia, the witch.”

  “The good witch,” Olivia added.

  “The good witch,” I confirmed. “We’re hoping you can help us with something. If you can, we may be able to find a way that you can rest without having to worry about anyone ‘getting’ you ever again.”

  “You mean you want to help me move on?” she asked, but not with anything like enthusiasm.

  Olivia more than made up for it. “Was that her? I think I heard her voice!”

  I ignored her, afraid to lose my connection with Jenny. “Wouldn’t you like that?” I asked her.

  Jenny shook her head vehemently.

  “Why not?”

  “I’m … scared of heights.” Translucent tears started to form in the corners of her eyes.

  I don’t know what I’d expected, but that hadn’t been it.

  “Huh?” I asked brilliantly.

  But Olivia seemed to get it. “Oh, honey, you think heaven is up there,” she said, looking where she thought Jenny was, but pointing toward the stars in the sky, which were out in full force.

  Jenny nodded, afraid even to look where Olivia pointed. “That’s why I hid when the white light came for me. Been hidin’ ever since.” Her full lip quivering. “Sleeping, mostly, until now.”

  Olivia glanced at me, as if to see whether I wanted to take this one, but I was at a loss. What did I know about heaven other than that I probably wasn’t getting in? Not based on the burn of the crucifix. I was going to have to make the most of this world.

  “Honey, heaven isn’t a place.” Olivia jumped in again, seeing that I wouldn’t. “At least, not one we can get to from here. Heaven is about being one with the universe, being linked to God and everyone who has come before.”

  “So it’s like a daisy chain?” Jenny asked, her eyes glowing just a bit brighter.

  “Something like that,” Olivia said.

  Jenny thought, her lips still again as she bit at them like Renfield-Bobby and his nubby nails. “And I get to see Ma, again, and Da and … God?”

  Those unfallen tears in her eyes made them shine with hope. I prayed Olivia was right. I hoped there was a heaven and that it was a beautiful place full of love and lollipops.

  “Wait, how do you know?” Jenny asked, suspicion suddenly flashing across her translucent face.

  “Because,” Olivia answered, “in heaven there’s no fear or pain. Only peace.”

  She spoke like she believed it. I didn’t know there was a Wiccan concept of heaven. Of course, what I didn’t know about Wicca was approximately everything.

  “That’s what CeCe always said.” Jenny brightened. “That’s my gran.” She hesitated another second. “I’m not sure I’m going to go, you know, into the light. But I’ll help you. What can I do?”

  Olivia smiled, and I knew from the direction of it that she still wasn’t quite seeing Jenny, but they’d made a connection all the same.

  “You know the oldest parts of town,” I said, jumping back into the conversation. “The parts that were old when you, uh, lived? We need you to show them to us.”

  “But … why?”

  “We’re looking for a book—a really old book that someone who lived long ago hid away. She lived in the Parris house.”

  Jenny’s whole face lit up. “You mean it’s like a treasure hunt? My sisters and me used to play that. The best place for hiding anything is the tunnels. Everybody knows that. It’s where I—” Her eyes got all unfocused and she looked suddenly confused. “Where I … ” She winked out momentarily. When she flickered back into being, she asked, “What were we saying?”

  I bit my own lip, worried about the little ghost girl.

  “You’re going to take us to the tunnels,” Olivia answered, unaware of what had happened.

  “Yes,” Jenny said, confusion clearing and a smile starting on her face. “My sisters and I used to play there.”

  I was afraid from her reaction that she might have died there as well. I remembered my “death,” but I understood that this was a rarity. Traumatic events tended to wipe the memory, which could account for Jenny’s confusion. I hoped bringing her back to the tunnels wouldn’t kickstart any painful remembrances. I hated to put her through it, but I didn’t see that we had a choice, unless we wanted to lose another day in researching records. It was too late to save Jenny, but not girls like her—older girls who might be targeted by the Salem Strangler. We had to lay him, and Renfield, and any other spirits to rest, once and for all. I needed my Bobby back.

  As Olivia and I stood there, a light hit us square in the eyes. I hissed. My fangs snapped down into place, immediately reacting to the threat.

  The light was followed with, “Stop right there. Stay where you are.” It was Sid’s voice.

  Oh hell to the no.

  I immediately dropped to the ground and scissored Olivia’s legs out from under her, bringing her down as well. A shot fired, but it was too late. It zinged harmlessly over our heads, far quieter than it should have been. Silenced?

  “Stay down,” I ordered Olivia, probably unnecessarily.

  I ghosted out, the better to sneak up behind Sid and whoever he had with him. A disturbance pointed me his way, but it was huge, way bigger than he and a few compatriots good ghost hunting. There was a fight going on.

  I materialized close to the disturbance, in time to catch Agent Sid in my arms as he reeled from a snap kick to the chin by Marcy.

  I didn’t have time to celebrate the fact that the gang had followed me before a gun was pressed up under my ribs. Sid had managed to keep control of it somehow.

  “Stop or I’ll blow her heart apart. She might recover … or not,” Sid said in his usual no-nonsense way.

  Unaware, Brent and Maya continued to battle it out beyond our frozen tableau. Brent went down on his ass when Maya lashed out with a powerful blow to the ribs. He tried to take her feet out from under her as he went down. I wondered who was watching Bobby, then saw him there, eying it all with a bloodthirsty smile as if waiting for the winner to tag him in, or to feast on the loser.

  I ghosted again, coming back to myself behind Sid—I hoped. He wasn’t ready for the move. I’d gone rogue before the Feds could even guess at my ability. It left him off-balance, grabbing air, and Marcy seized the moment to kick the gun out of his hand.

  Sid whirled away and reached into his pocket, coming out with something that looked like a grenade.

  “Watch out!” Olivia said unnecessarily from the sidelines.

  I hurled myself into him, ready to throw myself on the grenade before he could launch it. I hit Sid with the force of Hurricane Gina. Small but mighty, that was me, especially with the vamp speed. The momentum sent us both crashing to the ground, rolling chest over chassis across the hard earth. We ran up against a grave, the grenade trapped between us. Sid spat in my face, which seemed a girly move, but then Marcy was standing over both of us with
Sid’s lost weapon pointed at his head. “You can get up now, I’ve got him,” she told me.

  Beneath me, Sid cursed and went limp. I was able to take the grenade with me as I rose. To my surprise, it sloshed, as though filled with holy water rather than explosives.

  But then Brent and Maya’s ongoing battle crashed right into me and the grenade went flying out of my hands. It burst against the gravestone by Sid’s head, and Marcy and I shrieked in concert as it splattered us with liquid that burned like the fires of hell.

  My instinct was to reach for the burns, to claw away at the skin before the poison could burn me down to bones, but the distraction would get me killed. I whirled on Maya, just in time to meet her fist with my face. I stumbled to the ground, catching myself on one burning hand.

  I heard a terrified gasp and had a second to regret that Jenny was seeing all this before a foot connected with my throat and sent me sprawling.

  A gunshot went off then, and suddenly, Maya was on the ground beside me clutching her shoulder.

  “I’ve got more where that came from,” Brent announced, leveling a gun on the downed agents. “A full clip, I’d guess.”

  Maya glared but didn’t try to take him, and Sid froze as well, knowing he could never get the gun away from Brent before he could fire. And Brent would … I was pretty certain of that. He’d been one of them before he’d become one of us.

  “See to her,” he ordered Sid. Sid crawled toward Maya.

  Then Brent looked at Marcy. “Find the other gun and stay out of the crossfire.”

  She did as he said.

  “How did you know to come?” I asked him.

  Brent didn’t risk a glance away from the agents. “Bobby started getting really agitated right after you left. I think he sensed something.”

  Either that or he just wanted to get in some more hair sniffing. “Bobby!” I looked quickly where I’d last seen him, afraid he might have run off, but he just stood there licking his lips, eyes fixed on the blood seeping from Maya’s wound. “Down boy,” I said, nearly cutting my lip on my own fangs, which were out in full force. The pain of the holy-water grenade was only now settling down to a dull roar.

  “The more important question,” Marcy asked, “is what do we do with them?”