by Linda Wisdom
“Oh yeah, a laugh a minute.” He rolled his eyes.
Jazz hopped off the table and leaned over Krebs’ shoulder to read the members’ profiles.
“’After dark accountant seeks numbers-minded match. Former NFL star looking for athletic type O+.’” She shook her head. “Are you sure not just anyone can get into this site? Ads for blood bars and vamp self-help groups tend to put off most of the living. It even creeps me out a little.”
He grinned. “Not the way I have it set up with enough firewalls to rival the U.S. Government. Leticia’s site hasn’t been hacked into once.”
“Who knew creatures of the night and the magick-minded would enjoy surfing the net so much. And li’l ole warm-blooded you designs most of their business sites,” she teased, dropping a kiss on top of his head. She peered closer. “Missing Vampire announcements?” She pointed at a series of drawings that were remarkably lifelike for creatures whose DOAD—date of actual death—meant the subjects had been long dead in the mortal sense. Nikolai’s words about members of his kind disappearing teased the back of her mind. She ruthlessly pushed the thought into a mental compartment that held any memory to do with the sleaze fang, slammed the door, and locked it. The last thing she wanted was a reminder of the man who could make mind-blowing love to her one moment and betray her the next.
A faint rumbling sounded overhead.
Krebs swore under his breath. “That better not mean we’re getting a thunderstorm. This has to be finished tonight.”
“It sounded more like a low-flying jet to me,” Jazz said with a nervous twitch. The last thing she needed was a few hours listening to Mother Nature lecture about not venturing into her territory. She quickly changed the subject. “There’s sure a lot of missing vampire ads posted. Vampires move around all the time. They can’t stay in one place too long or people start to notice they’re not aging. So why are vamps thinking others are missing?”
“This is different. Some say they’ve been snatched. There’re even rumors that there’s some kind of cure to vampirism and that those who were treated successfully have taken up a mortal life again. So far, no one’s come forward to say what’s true and what’s not. There are even articles about the disappearances posted on some of the vamp news feeds.”
She studied the drawings. “Hmm, I guess it wouldn’t be the same to have the pictures of the missing vampires plastered across blood bags, would it?”
He looked up and grinned at her reference to a vampire version of pictures of missing children once posted on milk cartons. “Hey! How did it go with your deadbeat client? Did he pay up?”
“Of course he did. With a little help from moi.” She held up her wiggling fingers. “A cookie jar, not to mention pretty much the entire house, cursed by your dead, but totally insane, mother-in-law is nothing to ignore.” She grinned as she performed an impromptu soft shoe on the polished hardwood floor. “Martin ‘The Sleaze Bag’ Reynolds learned his lesson to the tune of five extremely big ones.”
Krebs let loose a low whistle. “That’s some markup from your original fee.”
“Expanded curse, expanded fee. Plus he totally pissed me off.” Her bunny slippers starting singing an off-key ditty as she continued her dance. “I warn my clients up front there are consequences if they cheat me out of my fee. Martin learned just what those consequences could be. He’s lucky I didn’t make it worse.” She walked over to the small refrigerator set in a corner of the room and rummaged inside. She cast aspersions on a man who couldn’t bother offering fat and cholesterol-filled snacks to his visitors. She finally settled on a butterscotch pudding cup. “I don’t know what I enjoyed more—seeing his mother-in-law’s face pop out of the Picasso hanging over his mantel or the way he panicked when he realized how long it would take him to bury all the pieces from the cursed antique cookie jar I broke.”
“And you know your antiques well,” he murmured.
“No age jokes, thank you very much.” Further exploration among napkins and single-size non-dairy creamers earned her a plastic spoon that looked reasonably clean.
“Exactly how old are you?”
Although Jazz had related bits and pieces of her history to Krebs, she hadn’t told him everything. A woman had to have a few secrets, after all.
She merely smiled, “Old enough.”
She walked over to one of the front-facing windows and looked out. The brightly lit amusement park rides at the nearby boardwalk were easily seen from where she stood. The immense multi-colored disk doubling as a Ferris wheel overlooking the ocean lent magick to the night. One of the reasons she loved the house was that it was only a ten-minute walk to the beach and boardwalk when she needed a cotton candy and carnival ride fix.
Krebs glanced up from his work and noticed her pensive expression. “You’re not exactly dressed for the boardwalk, love. Plus I thought your man-eating slippers were considered bunny non grata after their last visit.”
Jazz laughed as one of her slippers snarled a response. “They’re convinced they were framed. Fluff said there was no way he could eat an entire man on his own. And Puff had a sore throat that day.”
Krebs gave a mock shudder. “Jazzy, love, I’m glad you’re on my side.”
She hitched herself back up onto the table and polished off her pudding.
“In the wastebasket, please.” Krebs glared at the cup she set on the table. She wrinkled her nose at him and executed a perfect toss into the basket by his chair.
Jazz sat quietly, content to watch Krebs work his own brand of magick. She doubted he’d appreciate knowing she thought of him as her very own calming influence, something she sorely needed after her emotional confrontation with Nikolai. The sexy vampire never failed to stir up her hormones, whether she wanted them stirred or not. She was determined to do what she could to make sure not to run into him again. It should be fairly easy to manage. It wasn’t like she had a lot to do with the undead community. Vampires weren’t her favorite companions, and they didn’t like witches much either. She tended to steer clear of them, except for the times she had to drive those who were automobile-challenged. With her blood poisonous to a vamp’s digestive system, she was safe from becoming a late night snack. They weren’t her favorite jobs—vampires were also incredibly bad tippers.
Despite the large room with its high ceilings she felt a slight pressure building up around her. Without saying anything, she slid off the table and wandered back to the front window overlooking the street.
The first thing she noticed was a neighbor’s calico cat skidding to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk across the street. It stared into the darkness and arched its back. She imagined she heard the hiss that escaped the feline’s mouth as it gazed intently at something the normal human eye couldn’t detect. When the cat ran away, Jazz noticed a faint blur of movement near the neighbor’s front gate. Then all grew still. She did not need her powers to know what the nearly invisible figure was.
“You just couldn’t stop, could you?” she whispered. “You had to remind me that you’re back and intend to find a way back into my life again by claiming you need my help. Go find yourself another witch, Nikolai. I’m not going to play with you anymore.”
She didn’t stop to wonder how he had discovered where she lived. If there was one thing Jazz understood, it was that in the preternatural world there were few secrets. And ex-lovers had even fewer.
Nick ignored the cold fog that swept around him and partially obscured the house across the street. With his enhanced vision, the fog was not a deterrent. He easily saw Jazz standing at the second-floor window, just as he heard the soul-stealing jazz music. He imagined he could smell the spicy scent of her perfume mingling nicely with her natural scent. He noticed she’d smothered the Gael in her voice, but what she didn’t realize was that her heritage showed anytime she was emotional. No matter how many centuries had gone by, she still couldn’t hide some things.
He unashamedly eavesdropped on the conversation between her and the
roommate who did not appear to be her lover. Thinking back to the bar scene, he recalled that the only sentiment exchanged between her and Murphy’s bartender had been teasing flirtation. That was unexpected since he knew only too intimately that Jazz had a strong sexual appetite. It was difficult to believe neither man was her lover, but it was a relief to know she was free.
Considering what he’d just heard her whisper, he knew that knowledge wouldn’t do him any good. She hadn’t exactly welcomed him with open arms when he approached her. He winced when a movement to one side reminded him of his bruised hip; it seemed to be healing more slowly than usual. Jazz’s power had increased quite a bit since he’d seen her last. From the size of the fireball she conjured in the alley he was lucky he hadn’t ended up a charcoal briquette.
A brief smile touched his lips. Some things never changed.
He slowly moved down the street toward the boardwalk. He knew he’d been right to find her, that Jazz was the only one who could help him and his kind—the only witch with enough power and enough guts to defy the Witches’ High Council in order to use it—to help him figure out how and why vampires in the process of seeking an elusive cure to vampirism didn’t return to a mortal life but disappeared for good.
Three
Krebsie, there is no jam.” A seriously sleep-deprived Jazz stared at the refrigerator’s interior as wisps of cold air tickled her toes. Five minutes of study and the refrigerator shelves were still as empty as they had been when she first opened it. Examination of the shelves in the door proved just as futile. Her witchy tantrum had left her so wired the night before that sleep had proven next to impossible. She woke up feeling so out of sorts she hadn’t even bothered with a glamour spell to look suitable for the outside world. Instead, her hair was matted against one side of her head and pillow creases tracked her cheek.
“No butter either.” She glanced over her shoulder at Krebs who sat at the table. He spooned up oatmeal from the bowl in front of him. “Krebs, my love? We have no food.” She made sure to sound as plaintive as it was possible without shifting to outright pathetic.
He concentrated on his breakfast, making sure nothing dripped on his navy blue polo shirt and khaki slacks. “Jazz, my love,” he shot back. “It’s your turn to do the grocery shopping. If you want food, you’ll have to go pick it up.”
Her shoulders hunched over and her head hung down at the prospect of her least favorite chore. “I grocery shopped the last time.”
“I did the shopping the last three times,” he reminded her. “Sorry, babe. You have to step up to the plate and do the job. Pull up those thong panties and deal with the situation. Or wiggle your nose and conjure up breakfast.”
She flopped down into a chair at the table. “That is so not allowed. And thanks to Fluff and Puff no one will deliver here anymore. Besides, I have stuff to do today.” She used her favorite excuse. “I have to go by Dweezil’s to pick up my pay and I have a curse elimination appointment at a sorority house.” The more she thought about the latter, the more she wished she hadn’t answered the phone a half hour ago. She took the job in hopes that using some magick would dispel, pardon’the pun, the last of her irritation from the night before. Plus she wouldn’t get dinged again since, in a sense, she was using her powers for good. She hoped the girls hadn’t used some sort of crazy spell to improve their grades or get dates for the next dance or she would be delivering them the lecture from hell. Literally.
Krebs’ interest perked up. “Sorority house? Are we talking nubile sweet young things running around in crop tops and tiny shorts and maybe even less? The kind who’d just love to learn the finer art of sex from an experienced older man? Maybe I should go with you.”
Jazz smirked. “You wish. Besides, at that age they’d see you as decrepit.”
“Shall we compare birth certificates?”
She flicked her fingers at him. A light shower of sparkles fluttered about his head like a swarm of multi-colored bees. “I think I can handle it. Considering the hysterical twit I talked to a few minutes ago, I’d say these girls’ shoe sizes are way higher than their IQs. She refused to give me specifics. Said I’d have to see it for myself, which worries me. She said this is an extreme emergency and begged me to come out today. I’d gather whatever is out there isn’t pleasant.”
“Interesting. It’s an emergency, but you’re not going over there until after you see Dweezil.”
“Her idea of an emergency and mine probably don’t mesh. And since she didn’t use the term life-threatening, I’m not going to worry.”
She stared longingly at the coffee maker. She really should have gotten a cup before she sat down. A tired Jazz was a snarky Jazz. “Now do you understand why I can’t go grocery shopping today? And maybe you could stop at the store after your meeting?” She stared at him hopefully.
Krebs got up and walked over to the coffee maker. He refilled his cup and filled another mug. He looked over his shoulder, cocking an eyebrow. “Try another one.”
“But I don’t wanna go to the grocery store!” Her forehead connected with the table’s surface. “It’s a mean nasty place with soccer moms blocking the aisles as they talk to their friends or on their cell phones, kids running and screaming all over the place. And Fred, the produce guy, fondles his melons while looking at mine. And I’m not allowed to zap any of them!” she moaned. “It’s so not fair!”
“Stop the whining, Jazz. It doesn’t become you and you’re not going to make me feel sorry for you.” He pushed the second mug in her direction. “Drink this. You’ll feel more human once you’ve got some caffeine in you.”
She raised her head and offered him a snarl worthy of her beloved Fluff and Puff. “I want toast and eggs.” A glimmer of hope brightened her eyes. “Do we have any toaster pastries or frozen French toast sticks? Maybe I should check the freezer.” She started to get up.
Krebs shook his head. “You ate the last of those three days ago. If you’re so hungry, fix yourself some oatmeal. It’s healthier for you anyway.” He grinned, knowing full well she wouldn’t eat anything that smacked of natural grains or good cholesterol. Spooning up the last of his oatmeal, he slurped his orange juice before standing up. “I’ve got to go. To make it easy on you I wrote out a shopping list and left it by the phone.” He dropped a kiss on the top of her head and headed for the back door. “Considering we need, well, everything, I am afraid it will take you awhile. So good-bye, sweetheart, and have a wonderful day.”
“Have a good day yourself, Krebsie, darling. I hate you for making me go to the grocery store,” Jazz sang out in her best June Cleaver voice. “May you come home and find fleas in your bed.”
“Nah, you don’t hate me.” Krebs grinned and winked at her. “You just want me as a sex toy.”
“You wish, darling!” she crooned.
A few moments later she heard the muted growl of his Porsche roll down the driveway.
Jazz picked up her green and purple over-sized mug with Wicked written in bold script on one side and sipped the hearty brew. In her mind’s eye she easily read the shopping list lying on the counter across the room.
“Healthy food, out.” Black lines ran across half the items neatly printed on the paper. “Fun food, in.” Graceful calligraphy covered the rest of the lined paper. Health-conscious Krebs would consider the new items listed as nothing more than empty calories. Jazz considered Hostess cream-filled cupcakes essential to a well-balanced diet and the basis for an excellent midnight snack.
She finished her coffee and poured a good measure in a travel mug. On her way out she snatched up the grocery list along with a leather jacket to battle the morning chill. As she headed out to the carriage house, reflex had her staring down to the end of the driveway. She searched for someone she knew wouldn’t be there. It wasn’t just fiction that vampires had to stay out of the sun. It was a cold hard fact. Yet it didn’t stop the sense that a well-known voice whispered her name on the wind.
“You couldn’t bring me coffee
too?” Irma’s flat Midwestern twang assaulted her ears the moment she slid the large door open. “You never think of others, do you?”
“Yeah, like you can actually drink it.” Jazz slid into the sports car and nestled the travel mug between her thighs. “You try drinking coffee and it will only end up on the seat, which will royally piss me off.” The car started up with a muted roar.
“Everything pisses you off lately,” Irma muttered. “Maybe you should have talked to Nicky. Maybe done even more than just talked to him. He could have put you in a better mood.”
Jazz knew exactly how Nikolai would have put her in a good mood too. And it didn’t involve either talking or listening; just a lack of clothing. Actually, a little rearrangement would work too. She ruthlessly ignored the heat skimming along her nerve endings. How many times had she vowed no more where the sexy vampire was concerned? How many times had she sworn she would have nothing to do with him again? More times than she could count on her fingers and toes many times over, yet, damn him, he always managed to seduce her all over again. This time she was determined to avoid being pulled into his sphere. Of course, every slipup in her past where he was concerned told her that was easier said than done.
Besides, didn’t she have enough problems in her life without once again adding a “he makes me crazy” vampire to the mix?
She wrinkled her nose at the sharp tang of cigarette smoke. “Get rid of that fucking cigarette, Irma! How many times do you have to be told this car is a no smoking vehicle?”
“As if you haven’t conjured up some smoke of your own. I will have you know that Preacher Morris wouldn’t appreciate the language you use in front of a lady,” Irma sniffed as her cigarette disappeared from view.
“Then Preacher Morris never knew the real you, did he?” Jazz pulled out onto the street without looking either way.