Bustin'

by Minda Webber

  "Your charm and beauty make me speechless," he went on, his tone wickedly sensual.

  "As I always suspected. You're showing your true colors, Nicky," Prince Petroff remarked. "It appears you're a rank sentimentalist." Varinski shot Nic and Sam an amused look, the same one he had been giving them on the plane.

  His amusement grated Sam like sandpaper on skin. Evidently Prince V. thought he knew some big secret about her, which irritated her to no end. Even on the jet, during the debriefing on the murder, the Prince had retained this politely amused smile. And Sam wasn't some Kewpie doll or stand-up comedian brought here to entertain the haughty Russian aristocrat.

  Nic edged closer, so Sam scooted away, trying not to make a scene with so many eyes watching. Instead she ignored him, which he chose to take exception to; he shifted his weight, his thigh touching her leg. This time she scooted so far away that she was wedged into the door handle—not a comfortable position.

  Glaring at him, Sam couldn't help but notice his two hundred pounds of pure male beauty, all trying to soften her up. She shut her eyes, recalling remorsefully that even though he might be two hundred pounds of hot raw man, he was still grade-A prime jerk.

  Leaning back against the seat cushion, Sam decided to ignore everything—the amused Prince, the brutish Ripley, the rowdy Alex and the randy Nic—and concentrate on New York's preternatural pest problem. A woman petrified was more than bizarre. Nothing alive and kicking in this century could turn a woman to stone. True stonings only happened on college campuses. Otherwise it had been since Greek and Roman times—although maybe also as late as the thirteenth century, when there had been two unsubstantiated cases of women being reduced to rubble. Spontaneous stonebustion, it was called.

  Carefully but quickly she had read the research papers done on such creatures to cause petrification, but in her opinion they were too vague to be helpful. Could an almost prehistoric creature be alive and well, running around New York City? If so, the beast would be the find of the twenty-first century. She would be famous for capturing such a creature; not to mention raking in a lot of dough at the monster's removal.

  No. It was impossible. Even though William Ripley had reassured them on the jet that no black magic was found at the murder site, Sam didn't have to be a diviner to believe that a Lei-line queen witch or a king warlock was at the bottom of this mess. Only Lei-line royalty, which was basically earth witchcraft, could summon this kind of power. The king and queen of the Lei-line coven—and maybe their two prince sons and one princess—had the right type of heritage to do the kind of damage to a human body that had been described. Sam reasoned that it had to be the covens doing this foul deed, since the alternative was just too unbelievable for a practical, hardworking gal like herself to contemplate.

  "Sam, we're here," Nic said.

  She looked outside. They were at a typical brownstone, New York style.

  Nic took her arm as she climbed out of the limousine. "Are you going to behave yourself?" he whispered.

  "Behave?"

  "Play the consummate professional," Nic advised, his face a blank.

  Like a furnace blast, blood rose to her face. "I am the consummate professional. It's you I have doubts about." She said the last while jerking her arm out of Nic's hand, and stomped up the front steps. She'd show him professional; she could out-professional Nic with her eyes closed. Once she was at the murder scene, she would switch to job mode and forget her ire at the double-crossing creep. "Professional? Ha! My family has been finding monsters before you were even a gleam in your father's eye!"

  Inside the brownstone, Sam calmed down, placing duty before her anger and taking note of her surroundings. The rather plain façade of the building was not reflected on the interior. The furnishings were extravagant and pricey; she recognized many as they bypassed the formal living areas and went straight for the stairs to Jessie Barrington's bedroom.

  On the bed was a naked statue, back arching, nipples pebbled, caught in what looked like a smashing orgasm. Only the big finale; the climax as it were, had been the vampiress being turned to stone. Talk about hardcore sex, Sam mused darkly, appalled and yet horribly fascinated at the same time.

  The expression on the petrified woman's face was one of both pain and pleasure. No le petit mart for this beauty; no little death, though she'd clearly been rocked.

  Talk about being stone-faced, Sam thought. How humiliating to be caught for eternity with her pants down. Then, realizing what she was doing, she quickly berated herself, feeling ashamed for making jokes about the dead. She supposed it was a defense mechanism against the cold hard reality of death.

  Taking another long look at the bed and night-stand next to it, she noticed a bottle of vodka, half-finished, with two glasses. Jessie and her lover had apparently been drinking before sex. Smirnoff on the rocks.

  Stepping forward placed her directly by the bedside. A faint blush tinged Sam's cheeks, embarrassed as she was by the intimacy of the body's pose with Nic and Alex in the room, along with the Prince. Petroff had lost his amused look; his expression was dark and his eyes hooded.

  Taking a thoughtful poke at the body, she wondered if Jessie Barrington had been a hardbody before. She definitely was now.

  Looking up, she met Nic's eyes and said, "There's no magic in the room." It was the first thing she'd checked, as black magic always left a whiff of sulfur, and other spells left their own kinds of dark vibrating energy. "No spells. Jessie here was turned into a rock on this bed, and no witches or warlocks did it."

  Alex went to stand next to Sam, letting out a long whistle. "Will you look at the boulders on her! She had some body. What a damned waste!"

  Nic shot his brother a disgusted look, while Prince Varinski hissed, his long white fangs flashing. "Jessie Barrington was a close friend of mine. If you weren't my cousin, I'd rip out your throat," he snarled.

  Alex jerked his head up, clearly chastened by the scolding.

  Sam sympathized. "Look here, Prince V., take it easy. We all know Alex has a big mouth. He's a real paranormal joker. But take it from me, he didn't mean anything cruel." Gesturing to the body on the bed, she continued, "This is a horror you don't see everyday. We're all mad and shocked, and humor is the outlet a lot of people need in a situation like this. I've seen it a hundred times. No disrespect to the dead intended, but don't get your cape in a knot."

  Both Nic and Alex looked surprised at Sam taking up for someone who had played such devious practical jokes on her, but they were also surprised by the wisecrack Sam made about Petroff's attire. Generally Prince Varinski dressed like a human, but the man did have a fetish for capes, wearing them whenever he could. His Dracula complex was something Nic and Alex had teased him about for years.

  The Prince acknowledged her, nodding once as his fangs receded. Then, glaring at Alex, he warned, "If you find you must say something like that, please do it outside."

  Alex nodded, relieved that he and his cousin were not going to get into a fight.

  Ignoring the last echoes of the family fireworks, Sam began a methodical search of the bed, looking for evidence as to what might have done this foul deed. She had her suspicions, but they couldn't be right, could they?

  Nic joined her, searching under the bed, while a chastened Alex, an enraged vampire prince and a quiet Ripley, who had just entered the room, watched. Ripley stood stoically, his eyebrows drawn so tightly together they looked like one long black line. He really needed a wax job, Sam mused abstractedly; then she turned her attention back to Miss Marble.

  Under the silk pillows, Sam found a dark hair. Since the female vampire was a sandy blonde—Sam had noted the picture on the nightstand—the hairs weren't hers. She also found a few scales and grimaced as she picked them up with tweezers.

  Holding the tweezers up for Nic to see, she dropped a few scales into his hand. Nic shook his head in grim amazement, his eyes wide.

  "We need to roll the body," she said.

  Nic complied with her request,
easily rolling over the hundreds of pounds of solid rock. Sam watched in amazement, thinking that Nic must work out. daily to be able to handle so much dead weight without breaking a sweat. She suppressed a shudder of desire.

  Examining the woman's back, Sam was thankful that Jessie had worn her hair short, because she found what she was looking for on Jessie's neck. Even after seeing it with her own eyes, she still had trouble believing. But the rock solid evidence left no doubt as to who or what had perpetrated this crime.

  Ripley moved forward, staring hard at the two large fang marks on the back of Jessie's neck, just below the hairline. "It looks like a bite, but it's too big to be a vampire's, and a werewolf would have torn the skin more."

  "It's a serpent bite." Sam opened her hands to show them the scales. Then, pointing to the claw marks on Jessie's lower body, she added, "Claw imprints. They resemble the claws of a lion, but are a bit shorter and thicker."

  "Impossible!" the Prince argued, his voice filled with disbelief and horror. Nic gently replaced Jessie's stone body to its original position on the bed.

  "When you rule out the impossible, all that's left is the possible," Sam quoted. That was wisdom from her favorite literary detective, besides Sam Spade.

  "That's right," Nic stated grimly, facing his cousin. "She was bitten by a Meduse, a gorgon. Hard to believe, but true."

  "A Meduse?" Ripley asked in confusion.

  At that moment, the sound of voices and footsteps approaching interrupted their discussion. A few seconds later, Sam felt decidedly less feminine as two drop-undead-gorgeous female vampires walked into the room. Escorting them was a short but well-muscled vampire with long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. He would have been extremely good-looking if he didn't have beady black eyes. In human years he looked about twenty. In lived years, who knew?

  The taller of the two women, a honey blonde, was statuesque with pale eyes the color of amber. The shorter had a knockout figure, perfectly proportioned, and was beyond pale with tiny freckles covering her face and shoulders. She had hair the color of copper, hair clearly natural because that color didn't come out of any bottle—although the Irish vampiress could really have used a different haircut. A cut that maybe feathered more about her face, Sam thought as she brushed her fingers through her own loose hair, hoping that it didn't look too windblown.

  Studying the extremely pale redhead, she reflected a moment that she had never met an Irish vampire before, although she had known quite a few leprechauns. Those were short charming fellows with a ready laugh, but were terrible employees. Always off to see what was over the next hill. And on rainy days, forget it.

  The Irish vampiress glided up to Nic and kissed him on the cheek, and Sam decided then and there that she didn't like her. The hag could forget any hair tips that might otherwise have dropped her way.

  "Hello, Nic," the sexy redhead said. "It's been a long time since I've seen you in our neck of the woods."

  Not long enough, Sam thought, keeping her irritation hidden behind a mask of cool disdain. The redheaded vamp was trying to vamp Nic with her odious charms.

  "Forest. Nice to see you, too," Nic replied, eyeing the rather spectacular cleavage on display with the dress. "Let me introduce you to Alex, my little brother, and Samantha Hammett."

  Forest smiled at Alex flirtatiously, then turned to Sam and deliberately shot her a mean smirk, her dark green eyes shining with malice. The expression revealed a hint of very white, very long fang.

  Ha! Sam thought. Those two-inch fangs didn't scare her at all.

  Nic motioned with his hand for Sam to step closer. "Samantha, this is Forest O'Day." Gesturing to the short male vampire and the tall blond female, he added, "And this is Boris Van Winkle and Natasha Barrington, Jessie's sister."

  Boris flashed a big smile, with plenty of tooth, while Natasha merely nodded. She turned back to stare sadly at what was left of her sister.

  "Sam is helping us out on this case. She owns Triple-P, Paranormal bustin' Pest Pursuers." No one seemed particularly impressed by Nic's introduction, Sam noted peevishly.

  "Let's go downstairs and discuss what we have learned so far," Nic advised, taking Forest by the arm.

  "So, you know what did this to my sister?" Natasha asked, her voice filled with equal amounts of hate and sorrow.

  "Let's take the discussion downstairs," Petroff Varinski repeated. He'd noted the extreme pallor of his old lover's face, which was really pale even for a vampire.

  Feeling like last night's cold pizza, Sam followed the others downstairs, taking one final look at Jessie Barrington's corpse as she muttered, "Hold on to your hats, ladies and vampires, because we have a rocky road ahead." Then Sam walked out of the room, singularly alone and feeling it.

  The Rocky and Van Winkle Show

  Downstairs, Prince Varinski seated himself next to Natasha, petting her hand from time to time in a gesture of comfort. Boris Van Winkle sat on her other side, his hand possessively caressing the vampiress's knee.

  Alex and Ripley stood by the huge black-bricked fireplace, their moods betrayed by the restless energy with which they shifted from foot to foot.

  The moment they had entered the room, Forest had pulled Nic down beside her on a small sofa. Next, the vampiress had entwined herself around him like a snake, Sam observed hotly, noticing immediately that there was less than an inch of space between him and the viperous vamp. She undoubtedly wanted to sink her fangs into him; it was so obvious, Sam wished herself oblivious to the tacky seduction.

  More the fool, she, Sam decided disgustedly. Let Nic break the Irish vampire's heart and take her to the heights of heaven, only to let her fall back to earth with a big fat splat, like Sam had done. Let the slinky Forest O'Day get lost in the wood.

  Sam narrowed her eyes at the cackling couple. Nic seemed to be enjoying all of the overdone attention, and right now the vampiress was running her fingers along his collar, playing with all his silky, thick hair. Natural hair, because Nic didn't wear any hair gels, like the overmoussed Forest, whose front bangs were a little stiff. Rolling her eyes, Sam regretted that she even cared how Forest the sex kitten was eyeing Nic, like he was a tasty piece of chocolate that she intended to devour.

  Narrowing her eyes in derision, Sam watched Forest flutter her eyelashes, a flirtation that had gone out of fashion with the Civil War. Of course, Sam judged, Forest was no sapling; she was more an old growth, because it was obvious the vampiress had seen at least two centuries, maybe more. How could Nic be interested in an older woman that old? And he'd warned her about being professional, while all the time his eyes were glued to this client's cleavage. Professional, my ass, she grumbled silently.

  She had the sudden urge to shout "Fire, fire—run, Forest, run," then sit back and watch the vampires all fly to the front door in fear of their overindulged lives. It was a cruel thought, and it made her smile secretly since she had gumption to do it. Unfortunately, she also had the smarts to know better.

  Natasha Barrington's words interrupted Sam's criticism of her competition—competition Sam wasn't willing to yet admit was competition.

  "I just know Jessie would die if she knew she was immortalized in grey."

  "She'd be petrified," Forest agreed. "Jessie should have been changed into marble or gold, not something as mundane as rock."

  "She was such a beautiful creature, all fire and light. Now she's stone cold dead. We'll never again share the thrill of shopping for a good bargain on coffins, or drink human martinis at sunrise after a night of raunchy sex," Natasha mourned, her eyes filling with scarlet tears.

  Listening to Natasha's grief, Sam was very glad that she wasn't a vampire: coffin hunting and human martinis were not her thing. In fact, the only thing she had ever liked about a martini was the glass. And the olive. The drink tasted like hair tonic.

  "We'll never again turn into bats and harass the tourists around the Brooklyn Bridge. Jessie had such a sense of humor. She used to love hearing the tourists scream when she go
t tangled in their hair," Natasha continued, her litany of regrets growing.

  Monster memories, how sweet, Sam thought snidely. Jessie's humor sounded a little twisted. Messing up people's hair was just plain rude, especially since tourists didn't have their regular hairdressers to help them!

  Turning her face to Prince Varinski, Natasha spoke: "Now tell me, who killed my little sister?" Her voice was devoid of any humanity, causing Sam to shiver in her chair by the fireplace.

  "A Meduse—a gorgon," Petroff answered somberly.

  "A Meduse? I thought the term was Medusa?" Boris said, his tone doubtful.

  Nic answered this time. "The Medusas were from Greece originally. They're also known as the three gorgons, cursed by Athena because the youngest sister had an affair with Athena's lover, Poseidon. What's not commonly known is that they had a brother, who also was cursed. His name, Meduse."

  "But I thought Medusas were all hideously ugly, with snakes for hair," Natasha said; then she resolutely shook her head. "You're wrong. Jessie wouldn't be caught dead with anyone even average-looking."

  What a fractured fairy tale, Sam mused wryly. And what shallow bloodsuckers. "The oldest recorded versions state that the gorgons were all very attractive people, and that they would only turn into snake-headed creatures with red bulging eyes and long claws when their emotions were aroused. It's the venom from the bite of the snake that causes a person to turn to stone."

  "That's mythology! These creatures weren't ever real then, were they?" Forest asked. Her tone was dismissive, her face conveying her scorn.

  Nic broke in. "As real as you and me. There were sightings and deaths attributed to the gorgons until the thirteenth century. Then history goes quiet. I thought, like everyone else, that the gorgons were extinct. Not any longer."

  "I thought so too," Sam threw in. It earned a smile from Nic, a smile Forest took exception to. She ran her fingers up and down his silken sleeve, her long red fingernails making a slight scratching noise on the fabric. Sam wanted to punch her lights out, or at least find an ax to chop her down to size.