by Lisa Emme
“Nice trick,” he said.
“Listen,” I replied. “It’s not that I’m not grateful, but I don’t know why you seem to think you’re my keeper or guardian angel or something now.”
“You’re welcome.” Nash grabbed his coat from where it hung by the door.
“I said I was grateful. Let’s just not make a habit of it.”
Nash snorted. “That’s fine by me.”
He slammed the door behind him, leaving me wondering what the hell had just happened.
***
“There’s a vampire sleeping in our storage closet.” Tess looked half asleep.
An hour or so had passed and although I'd only had less than four hours sleep, I still felt amazing. Better than I had in ages. And while I knew the half loaf of peanut butter toast I had just demolished with a chocolate milk chaser had helped too, I really had a lot to thank Nash for. He had possibly saved my life or at least kept me from getting very sick. I frowned, trying to sort out my feelings about Nash.
“Hello? Earth to Harry?” Tess waved her hand in front of my face, snapping me out of my reverie. “Harry?”
“What? Oh yeah, the vampire.” I grimaced. “Long story.”
“Must have been.” She sounded a little hurt. “Didn’t you get any of my messages?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t get a chance to check them. What’s wrong? And where’s Holly?”
Tess’s face fell and she looked close to tears. “That’s just it, I don’t know. She never came home last night.”
“What?” I was surprised. Holly was the reliable one of the three of us. It was unlike her to not check in.
“I tried all her friends, the hospital…no one has seen her since she went to do outreach yesterday for her shift. She never reported back at the end of the day.”
I hugged Tess. No wonder she was so upset. And then I went and disappeared practically all night too.
“Don’t worry. We’ll find her.” I chewed my lip, thinking. “Maybe she went to visit someone back home?” Unlike Tess and me, Holly still had family back in the small community outside of town where we had grown up.
“I checked there too.” Tess sat down at a stool at the kitchen counter. “I don’t know where she could be. This isn’t like her at all, especially with you going out last night to the Magister’s. You know she was worried about you. She wouldn’t have missed at least checking in.” She looked up, a worried expression on her face. “You don’t suppose she went to Dante’s and…” She trailed off, unable to finish.
“No, she wouldn’t have.” I frowned. “At least, I don’t think she would have.” I rubbed her back reassuringly. “We’ll find out. We’ll find her. I promise.” Now if only I knew how to keep that promise. Maybe we could get…no, forget that. I wasn’t asking Nash for anything. But what would the police do? Surely I had watched enough cop shows to figure it out.
“I have an idea.” I hurried over to the computer, Tess close on my heels.
“Whoa, Harry. What the hell did you do to the computer?” She looked in awe at the two new monitors, speakers, and laser printer.
“Yeah, about that, we’ve had a bit of an upgrade.”
“No shit.” Tess shook her head. “Where did you get the money for all this?”
“Would you believe a ghost and an off-shore bank account?”
***
I filled Tess in on the Bryce situation while I waited for the computer to boot up.
“Seriously? He’s in the computer?” Tess looked at the computer with trepidation.
“Well, he was. I’m not sure if he is now. I guess we’ll find out.” I patted the side of the machine. “Hey Bryce! You in there?”
“Hey! Hands off sister!”
Tess and I both jumped as the disembodied voice came out of the speakers.
“What the…” Tess’s eyes were wide with surprise.
“Bryce! You can talk.” I was just as surprised. “And you sound like James Earl Jones?”
“What? You don’t like? Check this out…Harry, I am… your father.”
“Ew, no. I don’t.”
“That’s just wrong.” Tess shook her head again.
“Fine, then perhaps you prefer this? I am Bryce, human-cyborg relations.”
“Ha ha! Yeah, that’s slightly better. It’s still kind of weird though.”
“So does this mean we can’t use the computer anymore?” Tess looked at the new set up skeptically.
“Check the bottom drawer.”
Tess opened the desk drawer and pulled out three tablets. “You bought us tablets?”
“One for each of you. No shoe shopping or trolling online dating sites on me, thank you very much.”
“Hey!” Tess protested.
“Okay, that’s fine.” I interrupted, “We need your help.”
“How can I be of service, oh Obi-wan?”
“Ha ha. Very funny. You’re mixing up the characters. I can’t be Luke and Obi-wan. But seriously, Holly is missing. Can you help find her? Can you access security or traffic-cam footage?”
“You bet. Tell me where.”
“Outside Dante’s. We need to know if she went there last night. Do you think you could find footage of the club’s entrance?”
“Piece of cake. I’ll need a current photo of Holly.” Several pictures flashed across the screen. “Which of these looks most like her today?” The pictures were all ones I had taken over the last year or so that had Holly in them.
“That one.” Tess pointed to the second picture. “I mean, the second one.”
“Okay. This might take a few minutes while I scan the footage.”
“Omigod, Harry. This is so cool. We have our own talking super computer!”
“Shh! Don’t say that. His ego is big enough to begin with.”
“So while we are waiting, tell me about the vampire and why he is sleeping in our storage room and what the hell happened to you last night?”
I brought Tess up to speed on everything that happened in the last twelve hours or so. She sat back in her chair looking a little overwhelmed.
“So he’s like your pet vampire or something?”
“No, of course not.” Although I really wasn’t sure what Isaac was to me. “He’s more like my bodyguard now. He’s under a compulsion to keep me safe.”
Tess shrugged. “Well, I guess there are worse things than a vampire bodyguard, and with everything that is going on, maybe it’s exactly what you need.”
“Maybe, for now. It’s not like I’m planning on leaving it this way though. As soon as I can figure out how, I’ll un-compel him.”
“I don’t think that is possible.” Isaac’s voice startled us as he came around the corner from the hall. “You are safer with me as your pet vampire,” he looked at Tess with a wry smile, and she blushed, “if you try to un-compel me, as you say, you will no longer be safe and therefore, I cannot let you do it.”
“So you can’t be un-compelled because that would go against what Harry has already compelled you to do?” Tess looked confused. So was I.
“Exactly. Quite the catch-22 as they say.”
“I’m sorry Isaac.” And I was, but then again, I wasn’t. If I hadn’t done what I had last night, whatever the hell I did, Isaac probably would have killed me, especially in the state he was in.
“There is nothing for you to apologize for. You and I are both victims of Salvador’s games. And, truth be told, I am quite happy to be here, to once again have a purpose.”
I wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. Luckily, I was saved from having to reply by Bryce.
“Good news. No sign of your friend on any of the security cameras at or near Dante’s.”
“That’s a relief,” Tess replied.
“But we still don’t know what happened to Holly. How are we going to find her?” I
ran my hands through my hair in frustration. “What about her cell phone? Can’t you do what they do on all the TV shows and pinpoint where it is?”
“I might be able to track her using her phone’s GPS or by triangulating her last position.”
“Great. You do that while I go take a shower and get dressed.” Another idea suddenly came to me. “And can you run the video again for Isaac?” I turned to look at Isaac. “I think that Salvador recognized the man behind the zombie attacks, maybe you will too.”
Chapter Nineteen
It was late afternoon when we rolled up to the spot where Bryce had tracked Holly’s cellphone. The black Escalade with darkly tinted windows looked very out of place for the neighbourhood. Tess and I jumped out, leaving Isaac to wait behind the wheel. Although he could manage the fading daylight - most vamps who were old enough and powerful enough could - he would wait in the car unless we needed him.
Isaac took the whole bodyguard thing seriously, although I guess he really had no choice in the matter. Rather than argue with him, I figured it was easier to just let him come along. Besides, he provided the sweet ride. It had been delivered to the firehall along with some of Isaac’s clothes and other possessions sometime in the wee hours of the morning.
I looked around at the debris filled street. We were in a very poor part of the city near one of the more popular areas for the homeless. Holly had often come to this neighbourhood with her hospital outreach program, bringing medical care and food, so it wasn’t a surprise that she had last been seen here.
I was on edge, worried about Holly and still a little blown away by the information Isaac had imparted on the drive across town. He had watched the security video and had in fact recognized the mage, as I suspected he would. Just who that mage was though, was the incredible part. According to Isaac, the mage on the video wielding the dagger was Levy DiCastro.
Every young witch learns about DiCastro. He’s like the boogeyman, his name used to frighten young magic users to stay on the white side of magic. He was once a high-ranking mage on the Conclave, the ruling council of witches. The Conclave consists of thirteen very powerful witches or mages. The makeup of the council can change from year to year based on a nomination/selection process that ensures only the most powerful, white magic practitioners are accepted, but generally, once you’re on the council you stay there for life or until you decide to retire. Each year, one of the thirteen members is selected to serve as the ‘Hammer’ or leader of all the witches and mages. Levy DiCastro once served as the Hammer until he was ejected from the Conclave for using dark magic. It was a real scandal that tore a rift through the witch community. The interesting thing is that it happened over one hundred years ago. That would make DiCastro over a hundred and fifty years old.
I didn`t have time to worry about DiCastro right now though. Finding Holly was the priority. Tess and I made our way across the vacant lot. There were cardboard ‘condos’ scattered around amongst the abandoned shopping carts and the wreck of a burned out car. Most of the improvised shelters seemed to be vacant, their usual inhabitants out for the day, panhandling or dumpster diving or whatever. We had made up some sandwiches before we left home and we handed them out to anyone willing to talk to us about Holly. So far we hadn’t had much luck. No one had seen her.
“Maybe we should try calling her phone?” Tess sounded as frustrated as I felt.
“I guess it’s worth a shot, but Bryce said it seemed to be turned off now.” I tried Holly’s number. It rang once then went to voicemail.
“Hello? Hello? Can’t talk now. Busy. Very busy.”
I looked around. The speaker was an older woman pushing a laden shopping cart along the sidewalk. She was dressed in rags on top of rags with a horrible looking curly, red wig sitting on her head like a hat. She looked like a nightmare version of Lucy from the old TV shows. She held something to her ear and spoke into it and then shook it like it was broken, before putting it back to her ear.
“Hello? Can’t talk. Can’t talk. Busy, busy.” She spoke into the phone again.
“Excuse me?” I approached the woman I was now thinking of as Lucy slowly, not wanting to spook her. “Can you help me?”
“Busy! Busy, busy, busy.” She stuck whatever it was she was speaking to into the pocket of the worn housecoat she wore and started pushing her cart faster. “No time. No time.”
“Wait! Do you want a sandwich?”
The cart came to a halt.
“What kind of sammich?” She bounced on her feet, anxious, ready to make her escape if necessary.
I rooted through the grocery bag. “We have ham, peanut butter, tuna.”
“No cat food. No cat food.” She started to push her cart again.
“Wait! Okay, no tuna. How about some nice ham? Or peanut butter and jelly?”
She stopped her cart again. “What kind of jelly?”
“Strawberry.” I hoped it was the right answer.
“Strawberry. Strawberry is good. Don’t like no grape. The ‘J’ should be strawberry. PBJ is peanut butter and strawberry.”
“Well I have…” I looked in the bag, “two of them. All yours, if you can take a minute from your busy schedule and talk to me.”
Lucy grimaced, clearly thinking about it. “Okay. Okay. But don’t touch my cart. No one touches my cart.”
“It’s okay. We,” I indicated to Tess and myself, “we won’t touch anything.” I held out the sandwiches. Lucy hesitantly let go of her cart then scuttled over to snatch them from my hand. For a minute I thought she was going to just take them and run, but she shuffled a few steps away, out of reach. She hastily tore the plastic wrap off one of the sandwiches, stuffing half of it in her mouth.
Tess made a bit of a face and whispered, “We should have brought some milk. She’ll never be able to talk after that mouthful.”
I snorted a little laugh and then tried to cover it by clearing my throat. “Ma’am, I was wondering if you could look at this picture and tell me if you have seen this woman in the last day or so?” I held up a picture of Holly on my phone for her to see.
Lucy squinted at the picture and then her eyes went wide. She hastily stuffed the rest of the sandwich into her pocket and started to run back to her cart. “No, no, no! All gone. All gone. Not here.” She started pushing her cart along the sidewalk. “No talk. All gone.”
“Hey!” Tess shouted after her.
“Wait! What’s wrong?” I stuffed my phone in my pocket and Tess and I hurried after her.
She pushed her cart around the corner and into the mouth of an alley. Tess caught up to her and grabbed for her cart to stop her.
“DON’T TOUCH MY STUFF!” Lucy yelled at the top of her lungs and pulled what looked to be a plastic picnic knife out of her pocket, waving it threateningly.
Tess threw her hands up in surrender. “Alright, alright. Sorry.”
“Please,” I said. “We just want to find our friend.”
“All gone. Gone away. Hope she not come back.” Lucy shook her head, but she was looking off into the distance down the alley.
I followed her gaze, puzzled by what I saw. I walked a little further into the alley. The sun had almost set so it was filled with shadows making it hard to see anything, but there was one pocket of shadow where I could see furtive movements.
“Why would you say that about our friend?” Tess asked Lucy. “Of course we want her to come back.”
“No, not come back.” Lucy shook her head. “Not good. Not come back.”
I looked at Lucy. Her eyes seemed to be tracking the same movements I could see. After a moment, she noticed that I was watching. “Do you see? You see?” She gestured down the alley to where I could see the diaphanous outline of a spirit. It was a man, dressed in a ragged suit, wearing a rumpled old fedora. He paced back and forth muttering to himself. There wouldn’t be m
uch use in trying to talk to him though. I’d seen this type of ghost before. I don’t know what they are really called, or if there’s actually a name for them, but I call them ‘repeaters’, ghosts that just repeat the same familiar action over and over, oblivious to anything else around them.
“Yes, I can see him,” I said to Lucy.
She looked at me with astonishment. “You see. He go. Go, go, go. Had to go.” She pointed at the spirit. “Not good. He come back. Not good.”
“What do you mean? Where did he go?”
“All gone. All, all gone. Others go. Not come back.”
This wasn’t getting us anywhere. Obviously Lucy had a bit of the gift. She could see the ghost, but what did she mean about having to go? I wanted to question her more, but just then, my phone rang.
“Hello?” I didn’t recognize the number so I was surprised when Salvador’s voice purred back over the line.
“My dear Miss Russo. So glad I was able to reach you.” Even over the phone, his voice gave me the heebee-geebees.
“Magister, I’m kind of busy right now.” I frowned looking over at Lucy. She had reached into her pocket to remove something and was talking into it. From closer up, it looked like an actual cell phone. I gestured to Tess to take a closer look.
“I’m sure you are, but whatever it is, it will have to wait. You and I have some unfinished business to discuss.”
“We do?”
“Certainly,” Salvador’s reply sounded surprised. “We did not complete our dinner last evening so I’m afraid our deal is void.”
“What?” Did he mean the deal for the firehall? As far as I was concerned I had held up my end of the bargain. “Wait a minute. I arrived for dinner last night as promised.”
“But we never ate dinner.”
“That’s not my fault.” Damn vampires and their loopholes.
“Nevertheless,” Salvador continued, “the terms will need to be renegotiated and as such, I require your presence this evening. Say around ten?” Before I could answer, he hung up, leaving me staring at my phone.