The Isis Collar bs-4

by Cat Adams

  “No. Explain first. Please what?”

  She rose easily to her feet from a crossed-leg position and attached the computer sensor to where a face would be on the mannequin. “Must we really go there?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and tipped my head. “Yeah. I guess we must.”

  Alex sighed and stopped what she was doing to turn and mimic my stance. “Fine. John Colton Creede is the millionaire owner of a multinational company that provides protective services for everyone from movie stars to heads of state.” I nodded and she continued. “He’s a level-eight mage who personally protected a diplomatic envoy in the Middle East back in ’08, holding out alone against more than a dozen terrorist mages and witches for better than two days.” Okay, that was news to me, but it sounded like something he’d do. “He’s known to hop in a plane for jaunts to Monte Carlo or to sail down to Mexico for a weekend.” Wow. Didn’t know that at all. “He’s also well known for being late to meetings.” Well, yeah. “But—” She raised a finger significantly. “When he misses two meetings and a phone call in one day, what happens? His staff, his P.A., and even his family don’t call the police in Los Angeles, where he’s known to live—I checked. No. You call me.” She smiled and the calm intensity in her eyes sort of unnerved me. “Sort of odd, don’t you think? Frankly, Celia, if I didn’t know you better, I’d probably be casually searching this house right now while asking to use the restroom. More often than not, it’s the murderer who contacts the police first to establish innocence. And reporting it in an odd location is even more fishy.”

  Well, hell.

  I opened my mouth to respond, but she just turned back to the dummy and kept talking. “I just can’t decide whether you’re too different or too much alike.”

  Dawna snorted and I glared at her. “Alike. Definitely. But ohhh … yeah. You should see the way he looks at her when she’s not watching. Yum. But definitely too much alike. Not … you know, complementary. Type A personalities. Both of them. It probably won’t work.”

  It was my turn to snort. I leaned against the wall, feeling the weight of that comment. “Tell me about it. But I always seem to wind up with them.” Alex moved her head in agreement but didn’t speak because it’s not like she hadn’t had the same issue with Vicki. Both very Type A’s. “Maybe it’s because they understand the stress. They feel it, too.”

  Alex looked at me and then at Dawna before she smiled. It had sad edges. “Or maybe we’re just masochists.”

  That made me twitch a little. “Or that.”

  She let out a heaving sigh. “If his sister wants to make a report after forty-eight hours, I can open a case. Let her know. It’s easier to process when the family makes the call. Right now, I’ve done all I can do.” She reached into the sash she wore over her official navy blue police warm-ups and handed me a carved stake. “Except offer to help you work off some of the stress.” I didn’t take the piece of pointed wood right away, until she thrust it toward me. “You can’t hide that look in your eyes, Celia. Not from me. That’s why I’m taking you seriously, even if I’m teasing a little. Worry and fear will get you. They’re not rational and you can’t make them go away just by wishing it. Take the stake. Work it off. Trust me … exhaustion isn’t perfect, but it works.”

  Worried? Afraid? For a man perfectly capable of taking care of himself? In some ways, he was better at it than me. Totally irrational.

  I took the stake.

  Dawna proudly pulled out one of her brand-new stakes. “I have my own! What do I do first?”

  Alex turned to her, raised one eyebrow, and said, “Get out of that ridiculous outfit and put on something you don’t care about.”

  I fought back a smile. Alex had done in one sentence what I’d been struggling to find a way to say. Dawna looked gorgeous, as always. A yellow scrunchie held her hair in a perfect ponytail. The apricot bodysuit was cut high on the hips and made her tawny skin glow, while simultaneously matching the bunched leg warmers. The striped tights brought the two colors together and even matched the piping on her sparkling white sneakers. Totally perfect for either a spinning class at the gym or a Jazzercise video. But for staking training? Um … not so much. “She’s right, Dawna. No fashion plates at this party. Look at us. We both look like crap.”

  I’d gone for black warm-ups because, like navy, they don’t show blood. There would be blood—well, of a sort. There were packets of red, mint-scented slime inside the ballistics gel. Drive the stake in far enough and the mannequin bleeds. Hit it with enough force to kill a bat and it sprays you. Part of the exercise is to make sure you can keep going when the stake is slippery or you’re wiping sticky liquid out of your eyes. Same theory as when police academies spray trainees with pepper spray and make them keep chasing a suspect. Life sucks when you’re going up against the bad guys who want you to hurt.

  Dawna’s face fell. “But I bought the outfit just for this morning. It’s pretty.”

  Alex just shrugged. “No question. It’s stunning. But it’ll be ruined. Fake blood just doesn’t come out of nylon. You’ll have to throw it away after. Is that all you’ve got with you?”

  She nodded and I moved away from the wall. “C’mon. You can wear my gray sweats. They’ve got a drawstring waist and I don’t care if they get stained.”

  Her sad little pout went away when the computer on the dummy finally reset and a screen set where the nose would be displayed: Ready for first opponent. Choose level. Then all of a sudden she was dragging me to the bedroom. “C’mon! It’s ready. I want to start learning this stuff.”

  * * *

  “Ow! Okay, you know what? This just sucks! I don’t like staking.” Dawna dropped the stake and used her red-stained fingernails to pull another splinter from her palm.

  Alex responded by handing Dawna one of the ash stakes from her sash. “And now you know why we pay to get our stakes turned and sanded. Raw wood has splinters. I can give you the name of the guy who does this for a lot of us on the force. He’s a retired cabinetmaker and does it for cheap. Five bucks a stake and he’ll fit the hilt to your hand.”

  I handed a pair of needle-nose tweezers over. I’d pulled the first three from her palms because I have better eyesight, but she needed to get used to doing it herself. “Alex is right. Don’t play the hero today. Of course, if you have no other choice when you’re in the field, use what you have. Splinters won’t matter. But for now, use the good ones. A bad first experience will make you want to stop training.”

  She nodded. “Oh, it already has. This is hard. I can’t even get the right angle to drive it in to hit the blinking light.”

  Alex put a hand on her shoulder in a sisterly, non-patronizing way. “Look, why don’t you sit down and I’ll show you some of the tricks I’ve learned. We’re about the same size and I’ll explain as I go.”

  Again Dawna brightened and she nodded. “Okay. Maybe that will help.”

  I was closest to the mannequin and reached up to press the selector switch. Ready for Opponent Two. Choose level. “What do you want? Level six?”

  She took a deep breath and let it out slow. “Rack it up to eight. I need to prove to my lieutenant it was a good workout.”

  Wow. I let out a low whistle. “Man. I’m not even sure I can pull off a level-eight workout. I’ll be interested to watch.” I was about to press the start button and step back when she raised a hand.

  “Wait. I need to scan my badge to save the data.” She reached for her purse that was still slung over the dolly and pulled out the black leather wallet with her badge. I didn’t realize there was a bar code in the holder now. When she held it up in front of the screen, it displayed her name and badge number, then scrolled: Welcome, Heather. Prepare to defend yourself.

  She tossed me the badge. Her hands dangled at her sides; her weight rested on the balls of her feet. I sat down next to Dawna and my friend asked, “Why does it say, ‘defend yourself’ on the screen? And why hasn’t she pulled out a stake?”

  “S
he’s a cop,” I whispered, encouraging Dawna to do the same so we didn’t distract Alex. “Cops can only pull a weapon when there’s no other choice and the opponent has demonstrated it’s a vampire. The dummy will hiss and the screen will show a pair of fangs and only then is she allowed to attack.” That wasn’t all, of course, but I didn’t have time to finish my explanation. The dummy abruptly sprang forward, dipping toward Alex, fast and hard. The thick, coiled spring that formed the lower part of the dummy stretched with a squeak and a male shout came from its speakers: “Get away from me!”

  Alex leapt to the side, pushing the dummy back upright. She moved back until she almost reached the edge of the pad.

  “Ahh! What the hell?” At the dummy’s first move, Dawna had raised her feet onto the couch. Now she stared with wide eyes. “What’s happening? It didn’t do that to me.”

  I leaned closer to her, likewise curling my legs onto the couch to give Alex that little extra bit of room while the dummy tracked her movements, turning on its swivel to keep facing her. It slammed forward again, nearly touching the mat, trying to knock her off her feet. “You were only on level one,” I said. “On levels one through three, the dummy just sits there quietly and lets you shove the stake into it. You get sound on level three. Levels four through six add movement. The dummy tries to get away from the stake, so you have to fight harder to get it into the heart. Levels seven through nine have the dummy attack you. Level ten is … well, actually, I’ve never seen level ten. I have no idea what happens.”

  Alex spun and kicked, hitting the looming dummy in the chest and knocking it backward on its spring. It moved with preternatural quickness back to upright, which is why the computer chip has to be bespelled. Strange as it seems, regular computer programs struggle with supernatural speed. Then she spoke. “Pause. Hold position. Teaching mode.” The dummy stopped moving and the screen started blinking pause. Alex commented as she circled the dummy. “What you’re seeing right now, Dawna, is a suspect I might come upon in the field. I don’t know who or what it might be, except its shown aggression. Not every suspect who shows aggression is necessarily guilty of something, so I have to proceed with caution.” She pointed to spots on the dummy’s body. “There are mini-cameras set into the dummy here and here, recording my actions for our weapons master to review. Then he can suggest changes to my strategy or my form.

  “Now I’m going to go back to the training mode and I’ll start to treat the dummy like a real person. I’ll be talking to it, trying to get the suspect to voluntarily surrender, to allow me to approach. At up to level six, that can work if I’m persuasive enough. But on level eight, the suspect will continue to attack and eventually will show fangs. Then I’m allowed to stake it. Until that happens, it’s going to try to beat the crap out of me and will probably get in a few good shots. Just stay on the couch unless I get knocked unconscious. Then you can yell, ‘Uncle,’ and it’ll stop. If I’m bleeding or you can’t wake me, call an ambulance. But so far I haven’t been knocked out at this level.” She looked over at us. I nodded, and glanced at Dawna. Her eyes were showing too much white and her mouth was open, her jaw slack. I could see the pulse in her neck fluttering frantically and smell her fear.

  I patted her hand and she jumped. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. I’d thought the dummy would bother her less than seeing a real person spar with one of us, but maybe this was too much, too soon. “Sweetie, if this is going to freak you out, we don’t have to use this level.”

  She turned to me, eyes still wide, then blinked and shook her head. “No. It’s okay. I just wasn’t expecting the voice. Will it keep yelling at you?”

  Alex and I shared a look. We both knew that on level eight yelling wasn’t going to be the biggest issue. Swearing, screams of pain, and piteously begging the cop not to kill it were also part of the program. Crap. Dawna just wasn’t ready for that. Heck, the screams and begging had given me nightmares for a month the first time I trained with my friend Bob Johnson … on level six. “Can you mute it?”

  Alex gave a small, sympathetic nod. “Sure. No problem. That’s available for use in residential areas where the noise might bother the neighbors.” She stared at the dummy’s main camera again. “Detective Heather Alexander. Change program. Silent mode. Residential area.” A small display in the upper left-hand corner of the screen dutifully appeared. Confirmed for police training. Mute.

  Everybody has a weakness due to a particular sense. Some people are visual and can’t stand to see the sight of blood. Some are really bothered by bad smells, to the point of nausea or vomiting. Touch is what gets me. I’m squicked out by things that squirm—maggots and things crawling on me. Apparently, Dawna reacted to sound.

  At least, I hoped it was only sound. I planned to watch Dawna closely to see if she was getting traumatized. She didn’t need any more therapy bills. Alex looked at the computer screen. “Resume training mode.”

  Fortunately, over the next half hour, I didn’t see the sign of any heightened panic in Dawna. We watched, enthralled, as Alex pushed, kicked, and talked to the dummy. She would give me a good run for my money at hand-to-hand combat and was really good at the talking part. I had a feeling she could normally get the mannequin to surrender even at level six. But not at level eight. “If you don’t surrender quietly, I’ll be forced to draw my weapon. Now, get on the ground! Facedown, hands behind your head, legs spread apart. Do it!”

  She was breathing hard and a sheen of sweat made her bangs droop and stick together. I caught a glimpse of the display as they circled around the mat. F*ck you, b*tch. I wondered what that sounded like because I knew the department dummies weren’t programmed to say actual swear words. The dummy moved fast and Alex was put on the defensive again. This time, she missed her mark and wound up spin-kicking through open air. The dummy used that moment to swing backward and catch her supporting leg. She went down with an oof and Dawna and I winced when the dummy came down again and hit her in the stomach with the side of its head, hard enough to force a pained sound from her throat. The dummy’s head always turned at the last second to protect the computer screen. The display now showed fangs and the words: You’re afraid. You’ll taste sweet. Die, human!

  Alex had struggled to a half-sitting position by the time the dummy came down again. Ooh, that was going to hurt.

  But I was wrong. As the dummy approached, Alex pulled a stake from her sash and used the dummy’s own momentum to drive the sharpened wood into its heart. There was a beep and red fluid spilled over her in a wash that made Dawna gasp. The scent of mint filled the air, which was just as well. The spray of red had made me twitch uncomfortably for an instant, but mint held no appeal to my vampire nose.

  Alex said, “Pause. Hold position. Teaching mode.” She and the dummy froze as if they were on a movie screen, locked in a final death battle. Alex moved only her head, turning toward us with her hand still locked on the stake. “Do you see what I’m doing here? The reason you were struggling with the stake was your hand position. See how I’ve got the bottom of the stake against the heel of my palm? If you grip the stake like a golf club, you can’t get enough force behind a strike. You have to use your body weight to push the stake in. Think of it like an extension of your arm. You have more strength when you punch straight forward than when your wrist is bent. Down is always best if you can get on top of the vampire. But when all else fails, sometimes you have to allow the bat to attack toward you. Drop and roll. Make it come to you and then push it in.”

  The screen was displaying Ahhhh! [hisses. screams]. But Dawna’s eyes were fixed on Alex. She was using every muscle, every nerve of her being, to take it all in. There was clarity and understanding in her eyes. Whew, this was actually working. I’d just have to figure out some way to get her past the sounds of death. Maybe I needed to talk to her psychologist about that.

  “Resume program.” The dummy returned to an upright position and the screen read Congratulations, Heather. You have killed the vampire. Please replace
cartridge. We needed to put a new heart package into the center of the ballistic gel.

  I rose and helped Alex to her feet. Dawna excused herself to the bathroom, pausing to ask Alex, “Unless you need to clean up before you start again?”

  She shook her head, accidentally showering me with tiny droplets of minty red. “Naw. I don’t get that luxury when I’m actually in the field. They seldom come at me in singles, so I need to be able to work when I’m messy.” As Dawna left the room with an odd look on her face, Alex leaned closer to me and whispered, “Will it bother her if I stay bloody? Be honest. How’s she doing?”

  I shrugged lightly and kept my voice down. “Fine. As far as I can tell, there are no problems without the sound. Don’t know what to do about that issue, though.”

  “We’ll talk later. I have some ideas.” She wiped away the trickles of sweat dripping down toward her eyes and we replaced the heart cartridge just as Dawna came back into the room.

  * * *

  An hour later, we were all sweating. I’d had a turn at level six on civilian mode, which didn’t require me to talk to the dummy or wait to pull out my stake. It was easy. So easy it frightened me a little because I started to get really aggressive. I found out later that as I was fighting, Alex began to raise the levels with voice commands I didn’t even hear. She upped the six to an eight and then to police mode. Then to ten.

  I was moving and dodging, kicking and stabbing without even realizing it. When I finally shoved the stake into the gel chest, it went all the way through to stick out the dummy’s back. I heard my own battle scream as I drove in the wood, and it was a freaky sound.

  Panting with sweat and minty blood running down my face, I finally turned to my friends. They stared at me with an odd mix of awe and wariness. Neither said a word. They just stood up from the couch, replaced the cartridge in the dummy, and, while I wiped down my face, began their own practice again.