Fire in Her Blood

by Rachel Graves

  “Students,” I declared, insufferably pleased with myself for being able to think before nine in the morning.

  “Students?” Danny didn’t see the connection, my ego swelled a bit.

  “Students, the clinic is run by students and serves college students, and the high school is full of them. Not to mention a ton of teenage angst around high school and getting into college, plenty of room there for an arson.”

  “You call the school and see if they have any fire witches. Check on trouble makers too, if any of them got rejected by the college or has some beef with it. I’ll call Penny and see if they had any student interns from the high school,” he said.

  I took my marching orders and ran with them. The school provided a maze of bureaucracy I couldn’t get out of even after I recited my badge number five times. Eventually I got through to the principal’s office only to hit voice mail. I left a message and was delighted when my phone rang a minute later.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t the school calling with a much needed lead. It was a new case, and Danny and I were off to downtown again. We pulled into a parking spot in front of weathered brick and gaslights, the exterior of one of the city’s hottest new restaurants, Satin. I’d heard about it on one of Jakob’s local cooking shows. The name came from the satiny smooth sauces that accompanied every part of your meal be it salad, appetizer, steak, or dessert. I expected my first visit to involve Jakob sneaking miniscule tastes of my meal while I plead ignorance of whether something was made with fresh or dried basil. Instead I was investigating a theft.

  Several thefts, actually, the owner, Gus, and the chef, Julia, gave us a laundry list of missing things. The upstairs had been a bed and breakfast, when small things got lost no one worried, but when the restaurant had opened a month ago, the problem became serious. Silverware disappeared into thin air. Heirloom silver salt cellars were hard enough to find that losing one got attention. Lots of little problems, none of them important enough to worry about, until the engagement ring.

  “I took it off to wash my hands,” Julia explained.

  “She always takes it off to wash her hands,” Gus added.

  “Which is why there’s a ring rest by the sink.” She pointed to the crystal dish with a pointed place for rings to be kept. “I put it there, washed my hands, and saw there wasn’t a towel. I walked across the kitchen to get the towel, and the ring was gone.”

  “There was no one in the kitchen?” Danny asked.

  “No one. I came in early. There’s a dish in my head, strawberries and black pepper over cornmeal, and I wanted to work on it alone. We wouldn’t have called except there was water all over the sink, and drips away from the sink looked wrong.”

  “Wrong how?”

  “Wrong—too spread out,” Gus took over again. The two of them acted as a team, jumping over each other’s sentences. They’d introduced themselves as best friends from school, and the way they spoke I believed it. He got up to demonstrate, getting his hands wet at the sink. “If I walk like this”—he let his hands dangle—“drips close together.” The water dotted the red tile floor in a tight pattern. “These were really far apart, like you’d have to be at the ceiling, and they stopped.”

  “They stopped after a few feet,” Julia said, “like drip, drip, drip then nothing.” She showed us a spot three feet from the sink where the drips stopped. “I keep a clean kitchen. My staff knows, elbows in, arms up after you wash your hands. I don’t want anyone slipping on a wet floor, so whoever did this was fifteen feet tall.”

  “Or magical,” Gus finished for her again.

  “Imp?” I asked Danny.

  “Gremlin maybe,” he said. “Is there anything that seems to go more often? Different creatures have different habits. If there’s a pattern, it’ll help narrow things down.”

  “Silver spoons,” Gus said.

  “Silver teaspoons,” Julia clarified.

  He took over for her. “We keep them locked up because of the number we lost. You’d put one on the counter, and it’d be gone a minute later.”

  “Well, let’s try that,” I said.

  Danny agreed and a minute later we were watching three shiny silver spoons sit on the counter from outside the kitchen doors. That’s when I saw it, an amorphous solid, a blob like something out of a comic with a round head, a body that tapered to nothingness, and pudgy arms. It picked up one of the spoons and balanced it on the spot where a nose would have been. I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. The live people in the room looked at me like I was nuts, but the ghost hammed it up.

  He dropped the spoon and floated over to us through the door. He plucked the eye glasses out of Gus’s shirt pocket. Putting on the round lenses the ghost mimicked a Southern gentlemen strutting about on his tail, the glasses perched on his nose. It grabbed its tail and spun it in the air, then made it into a walking stick. I couldn’t stop myself from laughing, while the others stared at me.

  “You can’t see him, can you?” I asked when I caught my breath.

  “No, Mal, only you,” Danny said.

  “Well that’s too bad, ’cause he’s hilarious.” I turned back to the floating apparition. “Did you take the ring?”

  It nodded, looking like an overly enthusiastic puppy.

  “Can you get it for me?” It nodded again, dropping the glasses back in the pocket of the startled owner and flying through the ceiling. “It’s a kid, playing around,” I tried to explain to my shocked looking companions.

  “It’s a poltergeist.” Julia didn’t look pleased at the idea.

  My entertainer came back, sailing through the doorway, banging the door open as it went. When it got into the room it changed into a perfect hourglass figure and sashayed back and forth waving its hips. The engagement ring sparkled on its chubby fingers. I fought to keep my laughter at his silly antics to myself.

  “You don’t see him at all?” I asked.

  “Only the ring floating through the air,” she answered me.

  The ghost stopped in front of me and offered me its hand like a lady waiting for a gentleman to kiss it. I laughed and pointed to Julia. It floated over and arranged itself into a man on his knees holding the ring out to her. She took it and slipped it back on without any hesitation.

  “Where’s the rest of it?” Gus asked. She gave him a dirty look. “What? Silver is expensive.”

  “Well?” I asked, and the ghost started to bounce forward, restored to its circular form, it crooked a finger at me and I followed. Until it went through the wall, and then I stopped, causing everyone behind me to almost run into me. It popped its head through the wall and looked at me patiently. I pointed to the door, and it flew over, once again in the lead. We stopped at the side of the stairs, as far as I could see it was a solid wall covered with rose print wallpaper. The ghost flitted in and out.

  “Any chance there’s a room under there?” I asked. My answer was met with silence. Danny stepped forward and started knocking on the wall, I directed him to the left and we were rewarded with a hallow sound. He traced his fingers along the edges.

  “There’s a door here,” he said. “Got a knife to cut this paper?”

  “Uh, yeah, hold on.” Gus turned to leave, but from a crack at the floor a thin razor blade pushed out. I could see the ghost come through the wall and offer it to Danny on the flat of its white hand. To them it must have been floating.

  Danny picked up the blade, “thanks?” he said and the apparition nodded its head happily. Danny cut a smooth line through the paper and muscled open the door while the ghost floated beside me. When the door was open the ghost zoomed inside the dusty cabinet. The wooden stairway made dozens of tiny shelves and each one held something, earrings and tie tacks, newspapers yellowed with age, and from this era a laser print postcard of the science center. There was even a signed baseball resting on one ledge.

  “Okay, everything else fit through the crack, but how’d you get the baseball in?” I asked. It picked it up and floated to the top of the st
air way, I craned my neck and could see a hole at the top of the landing. It wasn’t huge, but big enough. I suppressed a chuckle.

  “Are you Marcus?” Julia’s voice surprised me. I’d expected the chef to stay afraid. She pointed to a sign on the door in childish hand ‘Marcus’s spot.’ I didn’t have the heart to correct his grammar as he nodded his see-through head.

  The problem solved, Julia treated us to an early lunch before she sent us on our way. I spent the whole time cracking up at the mischievous antics of Marcus the ghost, who was an incredible mimic. Danny looked slightly weirded out as I narrated, but the owner was delighted. He kept talking about how ghosts were good for business. As I munched on a grilled chicken wrap with honey-mustard-orange dipping sauce, I didn’t think they’d need the help.

  On the way back to the squad room, Danny kidded me about being able to see dead people in a spooky voice, and I teased him back about being afraid of a little ghost. The joking went on as we worked through old case files associated with the high school and wrote our reports. It made the day go by fast. I was surprised when my phone rang at six-thirty. Wednesday night was usually my night alone, a time when I got to do laundry or watch a chick flick. Jakob went into work early and stayed late to make up for the time I inevitably made him miss during the week. With the sun down an hour ago, Jakob was probably already there. Phoebe and the rest of the girls didn’t usually call at work. I picked up the phone with a frown at the thought of another arson.

  “Mallory?” I broke into a smile at the sound of Jakob’s voice.

  “This is a pleasant surprise. Are you going to rescue me from all these reports?” I liked my time alone, but I’d be willing to give it up for him.

  “I’m afraid not. Can you and Detective Gallagher come to my office? There’s someone here who wants to talk to you.” I hung up the phone wildly curious, and dragged Danny downstairs to get his car.

  “Where are we going?” He asked as we pulled away.

  “Valkyrie Building downtown. Jakob has someone who needs to talk to us.”

  “Someone who can’t call us?” he asked confused.

  “Jakob has a position within the vampire community.” I hoped Danny would catch my drift. He didn’t.

  “Community? I thought they just didn’t kill each other.”

  “Right, but there’s a hierarchy and Jakob’s at the top of it.”

  “So what he’s in charge?”

  “As far as the vampires are concerned, yes.”

  “Fascinating,” he pronounced.

  ****

  I stepped off the elevator on the top floor of Jakob’s building feeling apprehensive. I preferred it when my professional life didn’t coincide with my personal life. I didn’t want Jakob to see how I acted at work and be upset by it. Danny’s dry comments interrupted my thoughts.

  “The stiff does pretty well for himself, doesn’t he?” He gave a low whistle at the lobby with its fresh flowers and marble floors. We walked through the maze of cubicles to find Jakob’s office at the back.

  “Oh you must be Mallory!” His secretary seemed giddy with the news. She stood up and enveloped me in a hug that smelled like breath mints and lavender lotion. “It is so nice to meet you. I’m delighted you two kids found each other. Now maybe you can convince him to keep better hours, hmm? It’d be nice to work during the day now that my kids are grown. Head on in!”

  “She doesn’t know he’s a vampire?” Danny asked as we walked the few paces to Jakob’s office.

  “Not a clue.” I opened the door to find Jakob sitting at his desk. His suit jacket draped around the chair behind him was the only thing casual in the sea of formal documents in front of him. His windows held a breathtaking view of the city skyline. It took me a minute to drag my eyes to his conference table. Michael, the young vampire we’d watch feed the day before, sat twitching anxiously.

  “Let’s begin shall we?” Jakob sounded annoyed. I wasn’t sure at what. Danny looked at me, but I didn’t have anything to say. We took seats on one side of the table, and Jakob joined the three of us sitting at the head. He immediately reclined looking somewhere between bored and aggravated.

  “Mr. Mueller, I would never speak against my Lady.” The boy waited nervously folding his long pianist fingers; if Jakob nodded it was only the barest fraction of an inch. “But when I saw your companion I knew I had to come to you.”

  Jakob’s face clouded with anger. “She is not marked.”

  “With respect sir, we don’t need to see marks to know she belongs to you.”

  They were speaking in some sort of vampire code, and it bothered me. “How old are you?” I interrupted.

  “I was sixteen”—he gave me a wiry grin—“but we didn’t live here then.” I wasn’t sure whose benefit he added it for, then it occurred to me, he wasn’t nervous but scared. “You asked if anyone in our household has business at Fairy Tails? Vianne has a habit for younger men.”

  “But you haven’t been there?” Danny asked.

  “None of us would ever go to her hunting ground.” The boy looked directly at Jakob, and I realized who he was scared of. “I would never speak against my Lady, but you would do well to look into it, sir.” Again Jakob barely nodded. “She doesn’t know I’m here. I told her I was feeding.”

  “Then you should go do that.” Jakob’s voice held condemnation and irritation. The boy scurried out of the room like he’d been desperate to leave since the minute he entered.

  “Care to explain?” Danny beat me to asking.

  “Vianne made him, speaking against her is an offense. She could kill him for it.” Jakob pronounced the death sentence like it didn’t really matter.

  “Is that a rule?” I asked. “Like is there a book of these somewhere I could get a copy of?”

  He smiled at me. “It’s a law not a rule, and I’m afraid there’s no book.”

  “Turning a sixteen-year-old is against the law in our books,” Danny said.

  “She didn’t live here then.” Jakob spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “The others, any new ones, I’ll look into it.”

  “Have there been new ones?” Danny asked.

  “Not with my knowledge.” He stood up. “I’m sorry to be brisk but I do have things…”

  “Sure,” Danny said. It was my turn to only nod. I was still fairly perplexed at how the whole interview had gone. I wasn’t sure if I should say goodbye or just leave. I turned before I walked out and saw him standing there with the cityscape behind him. His eyes looked sad, even grave.

  “Jakob?” I asked, wanting to be sure of him.

  “Later, my love, in another place.” He smiled at me. I didn’t know why we were behaving this way, but his smile was enough to let me know it wasn’t going to last.

  ****

  “It’s Wednesday, I’m supposed to be alone.” Jakob’s body slipped into bed next to mine. It was late, but for some reason three a.m. always found me awake. I’d known there was a vampire around the minute he’d stepped off the elevator. I’d known it was him when he unlocked the door with his key. Sometimes being a death witch was a wonderful thing.

  “I didn’t want to leave things the way they were,” he said, lying on his side of the bed, away from me. “I’m sorry you had to see me like that.”

  He could have meant heartless or like a master vampire, I wasn’t sure but really, since he’d come to my bed naked I wasn’t too worried about it. “You’ll just have to make love to me until I forget.”

  He did. Well, not entirely, the sex was as amazing as always, but afterward the strange encounter prayed on my mind.

  “What did Michael mean?” I asked.

  “Michael?”

  “The boy in your office tonight. The one who was scared stiff.”

  “Was that his name?”

  “You didn’t know?”

  “It really isn’t important.”

  I rolled over and stared at him. “You sound, and you acted, incredibly…” I couldn’t come up with the r
ight word.

  “Callous?” he supplied. “Cold? Cruel?”

  “All of those and more. What’s going on?”

  “It’s simply how we are around each other. I keep telling you vampires are feral violent creatures, will you never believe me?” He sighed, clearly exasperated with me. I kissed him with a smile. I didn’t mind his sighs in my bed.

  “I’ve seen you around Mark. You don’t act at all like that.”

  “Mark is my friend, the boy is”—he thought for a minute—“barely above food.”

  Wow, my boyfriend was an elitist vampire snob. I had no idea. “Do I come in above food?”

  His face became serious. “Always.”

  “What about all the other people out there? Michael couldn’t have been made that long ago, when did he lose his right to respect?”

  “When he let her make him and keep him as a slave.”

  “That’s incredibly harsh.”

  He shrugged. “It’s true. You look at him and see a weak vampire. I look at him and see a vampire content to remain weak.”

  “He could fight her?” It looked to me like he could barely talk to another vampire let alone battle one.

  “He could tell me what she’s done instead of dancing around the issue hoping I’ll offer him protection.” He sighed again. When someone who doesn’t need to breath sighs that much you know they’re frustrated. “He could fight her; he could have fought when she first marked him.”

  “There’s that word again, marked. It came up the other night. What the hell does that mean?”

  “What some vampires do to their lovers,” he said simply, summing up the mix of sex and feeding in as few words as possible. “It can be done in such a way that it leaves permanent scars. A vampire will not touch another’s marked property.”

  “Well, I’m glad I’m not property.” I snuggled next to him, content that the problem was between Jakob and the rest of the vampires of the world, not between the two of us.