Hell's Belle

by Karen Greco

  "Nina, people cannot ‘spell’ other people,” he said, using air quotes. “Kill them, yeah. Spell them, no." He shook his head.

  "Yeah, weird people go to those places! Weird!" I gave a little extra force to that word. "And maybe dangerous. In the non-hocus pocus sort of way."

  Max just nodded at me, eyebrows raised. This conversation was not going well.

  "Nina, I am the go-to agent for gang murders. Botanicas are part of the job." He shook his head. "I am a little surprised they freak you out. You seem like the type that would have checked out a botanica or two in your teens. Try out a Ouija board, that sort of thing."

  "They don't freak me out," I lied, picking up another cookie and biting down on it. "So, did the lead pan out?"

  "Yeah, it did." He sipped at his coffee. "They had a replica of the knife left at the murder scene."

  I choked on my cookie.

  Max reached over and gave my back a few whacks. I coughed out cookie bits into a napkin.

  "You okay?" The corners of his mouth twitched up.

  I shot him a dirty look, which only made him smile more broadly. I slugged down more cappuccino, the hot liquid smoothing the rough edges on my abused throat.

  The door swung open and a cold gust of wind caught our attention. In walked Ami Bertrand, the mogul gunning to be Mayor of Providence. He was in his late 50s, with a full head of thick dark hair, brushed away from his face, graying at the temples. He was much shorter than I imagined -- he had maybe an inch on me, making him 5' 2" at the most, and he walked with a limp. Even wearing a heavy, camel-colored coat, I could see that he had an athletic build. For an older dude, he looked muscular. He carried an expensive walking stick, the silver handle molded into a snakehead.

  Close on his heels was the white-haired, goateed gentleman that I had seen earlier this morning. Bertrand was walking straight towards us. He extended his hand when Max stood.

  "Agent Deveroux." Bertrand's voice was smooth and rich like chocolate ganache. "Good to see you enjoying the best cappuccinos in Providence! Be sure to tell your friends about it when you get back home. Are you enjoying your time here?" Bertrand eyed me and smiled. It made me squirmy.

  "Mr. Bertrand." Max smiled back at him. "This is Nina Martinez. She co-owns..."

  "Babe's on the Sunnyside," he finished Max's sentence. I found that annoying. "Of course, everyone knows Babe's."

  "I don't believe I've seen you in there, Mr. Bertrand," I said as politely as I could. I didn't like him.

  "No, I have not made it to your fine establishment yet, Ms. Martinez, but perhaps I will soon." He smiled and winked at me. Ew.

  I nodded at his expensive looking coat and scarf, and his ridiculous walking stick. "Leave your cashmere at home. Our patrons are a bit more rough around the edges."

  "Yes," the goateed man interrupted. He had a faint Italian accent. "I heard you had some trouble there the other night. Anything you would like us to look into?"

  "Nope, no trouble." I smiled curtly. "Sometimes bad things happen in bars. Occupational hazard and all that."

  "Indeed," Bertrand said. He smiled again. "Well, I want to make sure our small business owners are taken care of. They are the lifeblood of our city."

  He drew out the word blood, lingering on the vowels a bit longer than necessary. On a creep scale of one to ten, this guy was off the charts.

  "Thank you, Mr. Bertrand. I'll remember you said in the voting booth." I hoped he couldn't read that as a lie.

  "I appreciate the sentiment, Ms. Martinez," he said as he elegantly removed the gloves from his hands. "But I am certain we will win, with or without your vote."

  So he was a human lie detector. I smiled at him coolly.

  "Tavio," Bertrand turned to the goateed man. "Make a note to visit Ms. Martinez's alehouse, perhaps Friday night?"

  Alehouse? What century was this?

  My cheeks ached from the forced smile that was glued onto my face. Babe was going to kill me. She had no use for people like Bertrand, and didn't want our bar used as a campaign stop. I hoped Alfonso stayed home. If he had a few in him, things could get ugly.

  Actually, thinking about it, it might liven things up a bit.

  "Wonderful idea, Mr. Bertrand!" Tavio smiled and helped Bertrand off with his coat. "It's been a long time since I saw your aunt." He smiled at me, almost kindly. There was that familiar feeling again, but I couldn't place it.

  Familiar or not, I didn't trust it. I picked up my helmet.

  "Lovely to meet you," I said through my plastered smile. "But I gotta run. Alehouse and all. Max, do you need a ride back Downcity, or did you want to stay and catch up with your friends?"

  Max stood up, pulling on his coat. “I should get back to the station, too. It's an easy walk."

  "How is the investigation going, Agent Deveroux?" Bertrand's voice was velvet. "Hard to believe that such a small city can have such big city problems. If I'm not voted in, I worry that we'll turn into Detroit."

  "Gangs are everywhere, Mr. Bertrand," Max said matter-of-factly. "Urban areas, rural areas. Even wealthy suburbs are seeing gang symbols scribbled in the bathroom stalls at the high schools."

  "Well, we're lucky to have such an esteemed federal agent helping our city in our time of need." Bertrand waved his hand, turned his back, and with that we were dismissed.

  I could not get away from Bertrand fast enough, and almost took the door off its hinges in my rush to get out.

  I turned on my heel and rounded on Max. "So you and Bertrand are chums?"

  "Whoa!" He held up his hands. "Back off. He knows my boss, and called when the murders started getting out of hand. He's the reason I am here."

  "But--" I huffed.

  He dropped his voice. "I think the guy is creepy as hell. But he owns this town. Better to ride the waves, you know."

  Much as I hated to admit it, he had a good point.

  "Be careful, okay, Max?" I gave him a faint smile and pulled on my helmet. "Things feel a little off right now. So watch your back."

  "Wait a minute." Max touched my arm and I felt voltage. "Does this mean you give a shit?"

  "It means I want that dinner you promised me tonight." I slid onto the bike and turned the ignition. The engine growled to life.

  CHAPTER 14

  I eased into the right turn by my building and looked across the street. The dog was there, pacing along the wall of the dilapidated building.

  I came to a stop and killed the engine. She looked at me warily, hunched over a bit, head down and eyes up. I surveyed her in a similar manner.

  For a big dog, she was a scrawny thing, all legs and ribs where she should have been solid muscle. Without taking my eyes from her, I swung off the bike, reached into the saddlebag and pulled out the package of ground beef from Venda Ravioli.

  Both of us yelped in surprise when the building's door crashed open and a stocky man sauntered into the noon sunlight. I had never seen him in the neighborhood before, and I eyed him warily. Apparently, the dog wasn’t too keen on him either.

  He stopped when he caught me looking at him, and smiled, a gold bridge covering his front teeth. Bristling, I snarled at him, exposing my fangs.

  I wasn't the only one snarling. The dog's growl suddenly caught his attention. She advanced on him, showing her teeth too, the growl getting louder and more intimidating. She inched forward, hair bristling, a hungry look in her eyes. The man was too scared to move, which was probably for the best. The dog would have given chase.

  If I looked half as scary as that when I was pissed off, vamps like Marcello would beg for a stake through the heart. The power the Rottweiler was throwing off was awesome.

  Slowly, I walked towards the dog. By now, she had the gold-toothed man almost cornered. He had his hand back on the door, ready to bolt back inside. Which he immediately did when I called out "Hey pretty puppy!" and she turned to stare me down.

  Ears back, she cautiously padded her way towards me. At least she wasn't showing me her teeth. Progr
ess!

  I rested on my haunches to meet her on her level. She circled around me, leaving several feet between us. I ripped open the package of raw meat, and pulled out a chunk. I held my hand out, palm up, with the ground beef on top and waited.

  Her nose twitched. She cautiously moved towards me, eyes never leaving my face. She tentatively sniffed at the meat and then snatched the whole piece into her mouth and swallowed. Just as fast, I grabbed another wad and held it out. She gobbled it up. We repeated this until she downed the whole pound of ground chuck.

  "Sorry, girl," I said soothingly, wiping my hands down the sides of my pants. "I am all out."

  I stood and walked back to the bike, and she followed along a few feet behind. I turned and looked at her. Her ears were now forward -- alert but friendly. Her panting almost looked like a smile.

  I didn't want the sound of the bike to spook her, so I pushed it towards the garage without starting it. With a press of a button, the garage doors on the loading dock raised, and I walked the bike into the building. I could hear the tip tap of her nails come in behind me. I stopped with my back to her. She walked up to me and nuzzled my hand. We were friends.

  Dropping to one knee, I stroked her head while looking her over. Her eyes were bright and alert. Even once she bulked up, she'd still be small for a Rottweiler. I checked her ears -- dirty but no mites. No fleas either -- the one bonus of living on the street in the winter months. Underneath the grime and matted fur, she was a beautiful dog. Too beautiful to leave on the street.

  As if she were reading my thoughts, she pushed her wet nose into my face and licked. Then she turned and trotted back out the garage door and across the street to continue her patrol along the opposite building. She clearly had something on her mind, and didn't want to leave the street just yet. I was worried about her, but she made her choice. I'd pop out later and give her some steak.

  I closed the garage door and made my way to my apartment. The building was quiet. Frankie was in the basement, well hidden from the sunlight. I unlocked my apartment door, and breathing deeply, entered my sanctuary of an apartment. After removing my ass-kicking boots, I walked to the living room, and stared at the mess of books on the floor. I grabbed my laptop off my desk and dropped down to the couch. Firing up my computer, I figured I would try good old Google translate. It was a reach, but I had nothing to lose for trying.

  If Frankie were awake, he would have laughed me out of my apartment. There were many modern things he refused to believe in, and one of those things was the Internet. For all the tinkering he did with electronics and his spectacular ability to build just about anything, including my fabulous bike, his abhorrence of the World Wide Web was pretty shocking.

  Once the site loaded, I opened to a random page in one of the old tomes. I pecked out C-O-Q-U-O-E and hit return. I blinked and a correction popped up. "Do you mean C-O-Q-U-O?" I clicked yes and a translation popped up. "Boil." It was Latin. Sort of.

  DUH.

  Frankie and I both missed the obvious. Of course, it wasn't Latin exactly. It was easy to misread it as something else.

  I tried another word. C-I-C-U-O-A-T-E changed to C-I-C-U-A-T-E translated to Hemlock. Boil poison? Lovely. What the hell was I reading anyway? D-E-A-V-O-T-I-O-U? It was really "devotion," an incantation used to imbue the poison, apparently from the days of Caesar. These books belonged to my parents? That was weird.

  I stuck a scrap of paper into the book to mark the page and stretched. The sun was low in the sky, ready to slide away to the horizon. I had my date with Max in a few hours, but needed to work off some aggression and clear my head. My little gym in the corner was calling to me. It was time to channel some vampire angst.

  CHAPTER 15

  Drenched in sweat, I pushed the weight up for the final rep of the bench press. Weight-training helped clear my mind, especially when I was frustrated.

  I climbed on a chair to reach my pull up bar. "Control the negative" I reminded myself, through gritted teeth, at the top of the movement, and slowly lowered my body back down. Repeat. After 20 pull-ups, I dropped to the ground. Chugging water, I walked in circles to catch my breath. But my mind refused to slow down.

  My lineage traced back to ancient Greece. My dad was a descendant of the Empusa, a demigoddess who seduced young men and sucked their blood. Since so many vampires had been vanquished over the years, particularly during the Victorian age when vampire folklore ran amok, there were not many left directly descended from the original vampires. This made my father one of the most powerful vampires in the world when he was alive. His powers apparently passed down to me, but would never be fully realized until I turned into a full vampire, which wouldn’t happen until I was dead.

  According to Dr. O, I was one of the few true vampire children in the world. Vampires are made, not born. So I was a freak phenomenon. I don’t think my parents even considered that I would have vampire in me. With a human mom, it was hard to imagine that they thought I would be born anything but human.

  My mom was a student at Brown University, a double major in religion and folklore, when she met my father. Being from Catemaco -- where there’s a witch on every corner, and the supernatural is part of everyday life -- she was fascinated by him. According to Babe, my dad finally found love after searching for it for 700 years. They didn’t think about the consequences of trying to live a traditional life. Who would expect that there would be consequences?

  Could this be why someone wanted my parents--and me--dead? I never asked Dr. O what happened to the few other vampire babies, and he never told me. I just assumed they lived their lives, died and were reborn as vampires. They either remained in the shadows or they were staked.

  And how does my dad’s knife tie into all this? Is Max right? Does Marcello have something to do with these murders? And the victims weren’t vampires. Casper was a witch. It was possible the others were too. Was Marcello targeting witches? Vampires and witches hated each other. Maybe they were just grudge murders while he waited to off me.

  I grabbed a jump rope and used the remote to turn up the music. While Flogging Molly vibrated off the walls, I exploded off the floor. After several months without Blood Ops, I was soft. I needed to get back into fighting shape. Frankie and I used to beat the crap out of each other daily. Based on the other night, I could hold my own with Marcello but I wasn't sure I could take him down.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder, and with the speed of a puma, I swirled the rope around and hit the intruder in the chest, knocking him back. He leapt away, moving so fast that I lashed out again at a blurred outline, this time with a roundhouse kick that connected to his jaw.

  He grabbed my foot on its way down and flipped me to the floor. "Nina, stop!"

  "Ow!" I fell to the floor with a thud, landing hard on my back. "What are you doing, Frankie!"

  "You need to learn how to lock your bloody door." He helped me to my feet, and then turned down the music.

  I shrugged. "What do you want?"

  "I wanted to make sure you were alright." He looked worried. "When I left you at sunrise, the vomiting seemed to have stopped."

  "I really don't remember too much." I mopped my sweaty face with a towel.

  "Yeah, you were a regular Linda Blair," he said, punching at the heavy bag in the corner of the room. I hoped he didn't punch a hole through it.

  "Babe's damn henbane." I had little recollection of drinking it, but I assumed that was the cause. "Guess it was good to barf that crap out."

  "How's the head feel?" he asked.

  "Fine, actually. Beyond 100 percent," I said. I was a little surprised about that, considering that I had been sick and blacked it out like a college kid on a bender.

  "Good," Frankie said. He took a mock swing at me, and I ducked. "Score one for Babe's poison. Cure worse than disease and all that."

  "And while you were lazing around in your coffin," I said, sending a punch out towards his chin, "I figured out the language in those books." My punch missed of course.
Frankie was across the room before it even got close to landing.

  "You know I don't sleep in a coffin." He reached out and grabbed me around the waist, flipping me onto my back without breaking a sweat. "So, are you going to share?"

  "Latin-ish." I pushed up to a squat position.

  Frankie roared with laughter at the "ish." I took advantage of his momentary mirth to sweep my leg under his feet, and down he went beside me on the mat.

  "The Latin is old," I explained, still feeling a little smug. "So it's not the easiest Latin to recognize, but it's some form of Latin."

  He shook his head. "I bet it's Etrusian." After living for half a century, Frankie knew a bunch of arcane languages, but this one had him stumped. "So, how did you figure that out?" Now he refused to get up, lounging on the mat.

  "Google." The shit-eating grin on my face spread.

  Frankie waved his hand dismissively. "I refuse to bow to the Google gods."

  "Well ancient Etrusian is not going to help me destroy Marcello." I wanted to refocus on our task. "I don't know that I am strong enough to battle someone his age."

  "You sure about that?" Frankie smiled, rubbing where I kicked his jaw.

  "Frankie, I get some good shots at you, but I have never been able to take you down." I looked at him sideways. "It was the same with him the other night."

  "What you need to do is train up." Frankie's voice was stern, but his look was mischievous.

  I was halfway up from the floor when he pulled my feet out from under me. I went down in a heap. He was still lounging on the floor.

  "No fair!" I growled while Frankie laughed at me. "I am a half-blood; not that quick."

  "Nina, you have to learn to do it." He pulled me up to my feet. "Marcello doesn't give a shit if you're a half-blood. And the faster you can move away from him in a fight, the better."

  I definitely saw that logic. But there was no way I could best a full vampire in the speed department.