The Undead Detective Bites: Book 1

by Jennifer Hilt

  The door opened before Wendy reached it. Light spilled out into the night. A large man ducked under the doorframe, approaching the car. I grabbed Idris by the scruff of the neck and shoved him in a canvas carryall I’d found in the back seat.

  “I’m Dr. Silverthorne.” I exited the car, meeting the shifter en route. “Can you lend me a hand with the sheriff?”

  I’d only asked to get on his good side. Vampires are not beloved by other paranormals. However, it was a no-brainer that Fang was deeply respected among the community.

  “I’ll bring him in.” His eyes weren’t friendly to me. He was close to six feet five inches tall and built like a lumberjack. He also dressed like one with a flannel shirt and work pants. He had a bushy bright red beard above which his nose twitched as the wind shifted. No doubt smelling the rabbit in my bag. “You go in,” he said. “I’m Mathias. This is my home.”

  “Thank you for your hospitality.” I nodded, casting a glance back at Fang sagging in the front seat. I hoped Mathias would be careful with Fang. I didn’t know how much more movement he could take.

  I hurried inside, swinging my canvas bag full of rabbit a bit more than necessary.

  As with Wendy, the door opened before I reached it. Inside the log cabin were a dozen children ranging from teenagers down to toddlers. Several appeared to be twins. Their hair color ranged from deep auburn like their father to a titian gold, which I was guessing was the mother’s influence. They wore pajamas but despite the late hour didn’t appear to be heading to bed. Board games and books were laid out on the tables. A roaring fire kept the place warm or maybe that was just all the body heat.

  A large oak chair was near the fireplace, Mathias set Fang down there. He disappeared into what I guessed was the bedroom with Wendy and his laboring wife. The children politely divested me of my coat and gloves. I joined Fang over by the fire to examine him.

  The children gathered around. I slowly peeled away Fang’s jacket and unbuttoned his shirt. By the time I was done, only one boy around ten with fiery red hair and Harry Potter glasses remained.

  “Don’t get many vampires visiting?” I asked.

  “Nope.” Unlike his siblings he was less interested in catching a glimpse of my fangs and more interested in what I was doing to Fang.

  I sent him for some warm washcloths and tea mixed with honey. He promptly returned with what I requested, and I set about trying to figure out how badly injured Fang was.

  My biggest worry was that Fang had some serious injury I’d not yet assessed. Shifters were tough stock but still if he was impaled during the roll over, internal damage was done. There was little I could do here to fix it.

  His chest was bruised and he’d cracked a rib. I was pretty sure by his labored breathing and pain, his lung was punctured. The good news was that his pulse was steady so probably no internal bleeding. I needed an x-ray to be sure though. And I sure as hell wished I had some extra oxygen for him.

  Now that Wendy was here, I wanted to take Fang back to town using her vehicle. I wiped Fang’s sweaty face, thinking of how painful the drive would be for him.

  He was drifting in and out of consciousness. His eyes opened. He blinked slowly then closed them.

  I glanced behind me to his point of vision. A child of six or seven with long red curls marched by in my black leather coat. The sleeves had been rolled up but the length of the coat made a perfect magician’s robe. She stopped with her wooden stirring spoon wand to make an incantation. Her subject was tucked in a doll-sized baby buggy. She pushed back the covering to reveal Idris peeking over a pink blanket.

  I was never so sorry that the Dijinn had killed my cell phone. There were so many ways those photos could be useful to me in the future.

  The bedroom door opened. “Dr. Silverthorne, will you please come here?”

  “Keep an eye on him,” I said to my assistant.

  I nodded and rose from Fang’s side.

  Dammit. Here I was hoping to avoid the whole delivery scene. Judging by the family size here, these shifters were experienced parents and badly in need of some other hobby.

  I washed my hands at the deep farmhouse sink before instructing my assistant to keep pushing sips of the honey tea to Fang.

  Inside the bedroom, a smaller hearth kept the room warm. The room was overly scented of incense but that was a witch for you. Always overkill with the incense. For all I knew, they bought it in the Wiccan equivalent of Sam’s Club.

  The woman looked remarkably chipper for a laboring mother of twins. It’d been a while since I’d seen a live birth but that seemed a good sign. She smiled at her husband when clearly she was in pain. Shifters were often more concerned with others than themselves. I wasn’t sure this was necessarily a good life plan but probably vampires could do without being quite so self-involved.

  “Good news.” Wendy turned to me. “Twin B has turned head down. Now if twin A will cooperate, I think we can have some babies pretty soon.”

  I was hoping this wasn’t an ask on my part as I wanted to leave with Fang but Wendy blew my plan apart.

  “I’m very glad to have you here, Dr. It’s good to have extra hands with twins. I expect things to move quickly pretty soon.”

  Crap.

  I was pissed at Idris for being the asshole I knew he was. Otherwise he could’ve assisted while I left with Fang. But no, he had to try to glamour a witch. By the time the spell dissolved I was pretty sure it’d be a long time before he made that mistake again.

  While the mother rested between contractions, I filled Wendy in on Fang’s condition.

  “Thank the Goddess, you’re here. We’ll get him back to town as soon as we can. I’m sorry to prolong his pain,” Wendy said.

  I wanted to snap, “me too” but it was obvious she cared for Fang.

  In the meantime, we were stuck in this bedroom with barely space enough for the enormous featherbed let alone a male shifter, a witch and vampire plus the laboring female. Good thing she was on the bed. I stationed myself in a small sliver of space near the fireplace and as far away from the bed as possible. The robust fire in the stone hearth kept the room toasty.

  Her husband Mathias paced at the foot of the bed. Wendy spoke in soft soothing tones in her Wiccan language as she rubbed the laboring woman’s back. My ears pricked up. The few bits I heard now reminded me of Old Norse. I’d heard it spoken long ago by an aged vampire. Perhaps the Wiccan spells were a variant of that.

  Beside the bed which rested on a large timber frame, the room’s only other furnishings were a bedside table, a wardrobe and a rocking chair. The fire, candles and a table lamp provided the room’s only light. A few handwoven rugs scattered the wood floor and homespun curtains covered the two small windows. The effect was cozy for about two minutes before I started feeling claustrophobic. I wasn’t a big fan of spending time with the living. And here there were so many of them. I wanted to get back to see how Fang was doing. The only thing that cheered me was knowing Idris was seriously scared shitless.

  I did find it curious how tidy this room and the cabin in general was. The whole place was a neat as my LA laboratory. I wanted to ask how this was possible with so large a family in a tight space. The mother must have a formidable talent for organization. I was curious about her system but I knew well enough not to ask her now. She and Ben would get along well.

  Shifter blood was no good for vampires. Normally I wouldn’t even be tempted but with the mother ready to deliver twins, the volume of blood in that enclosed room made my ears pound. I heard the swift and steady heartbeats of the twins waiting to be born.

  Saliva filled my mouth. I swallowed, staring into the fire. I forced myself to not think about the impending birth.

  “Do you mind?” Mathias’ eyes were on my hands.

  I stopped cracking my knuckles.

  As far as nervous habits go it’s fairly tame but vampires aren’t associated with anxiety. Still I’d rather not embarrass myself professionally by trying to drink of the blood
of these babes.

  There was a reason that obstetrics was not a field of medicine populated by vampires.

  The mother moaned, moving restlessly on the bed. Shifter delivers were generally routine, but the twins made things more complicated.

  As soon as these little shifters safely arrived, we could get moving. I loved pathology because it was so controlled. But there is nothing organized about babies. It was a loud messy process and things only become more so after delivery.

  “Anything I can do?” I asked Wendy quietly.

  “It won’t be long.”

  Twin A got my mental message to move things along. Or maybe it just decided to flip around on its own. Thankfully things got moving and within fifteen minutes, Wendy handed me a very pink baby girl covered in blood and fluid.

  I wrapped her in a towel and rubbed her vigorously to get her circulation moving. I took a surreptitious sniff. She smelled divine. Instead of drinking her blood I rewrapped her in a fresh blanket and handed her to Mathias. That stopped his pacing. As I handed her over, I noted a halo of red fuzzy hair springing from her pink scalp.

  Mathis kissed the top of his new daughter’s head.

  I was really glad I had not tried to drink her blood.

  That was just as twin B appeared and I repeated the process. I concentrated on ignoring the new baby’s scent. Instead I thought about how satisfying it would be to snap Junior’s neck.

  “Congratulations, Mathias and Kate, on your daughter and son.” Wendy beamed at them and me as if the offspring were her own.

  I murmured appropriate sentiments and then excused myself from the room. Stepping back in the main room of the cabin, I inhaled Fang’s scent. It steadied me.

  The activity level had quieted down out here. The number of little shifters was much less now. At close to three in the morning, most were in bed.

  Except for my assistant waiting on a step stool by Fang. He popped up when I approached. “He won’t touch the tea.” Then he ventured, “He’s in quite a bit of pain.”

  “A punctured lung is no easy thing.” I laid my hand on Fang’s warm forehead. Wendy’s charm from the car ride had worn off. I hoped he wasn’t getting an infection.

  “I plan to study medicine.” He whispered. “But Dad wants me to go into engineering like him.”

  The boy’s inclination was unusual. Shifters didn’t tend toward the healing arts, leaving that to vampires and witches. A shifter would be a good addition to the profession, provided he didn’t mind working away from his pack for training.

  “You could study surgery,” I suggested. “It’s like engineering and medicine. What’s your name?” This last sentence popped out without any thought. Since when did I care about some shifter stuck in the middle of Nowhere’s aspirations?

  Goddamn these sappy shifters. It was like empathy oozed from the walls.

  “I’m Fritz. I’m ten years old next week,” he said proudly.

  “When you are old enough if you are still interested, come talk to me,” I said.

  “How will I find you?” the boy asked eagerly.

  Still, his earnestness pleased me. Paranormal medicine needed more of his kind and less of us vampires. I pictured a likely gangly freckled shifter would be in my office within the decade.

  I was about to say, “Ask Fang. He’ll know where to find me.” Thank God I didn’t. This was appallingly unprofessional in addition to being an all-around bad idea. I gave the boy my name and office address in LA. “Good luck and study hard.”

  Mathias emerged from the bedroom to deliver the news of the new arrivals and check on the family. He stopped by to inquire about Fang and thank me for my help.

  “I’m in Nowhere investigating a possible new drug in the community. It’s causing big problems in the human population. Have you heard anything about Glytr?”

  Mathias shook his shaggy head. “Nothing like that here. As an engineer, I mostly supervised the dwarves building the casino.”

  “Any sign of them using any new recreational drugs?”

  Matthias laughed. He was a big man. Not handsome but there was something appealing about him.

  “Dwarves are interested only in working hard, drinking hard and fighting hard. Then they wake up and do it all again. There’s no way they could handle recreational drugs on top of that.”

  Dwarves prefer to live amongst themselves, deep in mountain caves. They traveled and worked in groups, the fairy tales got that right at least.

  “Where’d they stay when they worked at the casino?” I asked.

  “The motel. Why?”

  “Just curious. We’re investigating Griz’s death too.”

  “I was sorry to hear that. He was a good man. But I can’t see the dwarves mixed up in anything like that. They like to earn their money and head home.”

  “Don’t we all,” I murmured, thinking of Ben and Mr. Figgles. “Thanks for your insight.” One of his teenagers, a female who looked very much like her mother, had been eavesdropping. “Would you do me a favor and carry this to the car?” I handed her the rabbit bag. “I’d like to get things as comfortable for the sheriff as possible first.”

  She ducked her head, grabbing a coat from the line of outwear lining the wall. I followed her out.

  At the vehicle I asked, “Know anything about Glytr around here?”

  She tucked a lock of fair hair behind her ear, glancing back at the house. She handed me the bag with Idris. “I don’t know for sure. But I heard about a party at school where someone said the Fae have a new drug called Blue Lava.”

  Blue Lava and Glytr? It was a pretty strong coincidence.

  Leave it to the fucking Fae to stir up trouble. And humans thought vampires were bad. Fae were influenza. Deadly and nearly impossible to get rid of.

  This was the first I’d heard of them in Nowhere. They typically favored places more upscale. All that nature loving shit was based on folklore. The Fae liked radiant floor heat, upscale coffee shops and hot yoga just like any other craven individual.

  “Thank you. I’ll look into it. But if it’s anything like what I’m seeing in the human population, you and your friends need to stay far away from it. And that’s coming from a vampire.”

  Wide-eyed, she nodded when I flashed her my fangs and fled back to the house.

  Wendy started the car to warm it up while Mathias carried Fang out. It was still snowing heavily. The trip back to Nowhere would take some time.

  The family loaned us some blankets for the ride back. We tucked Fang in the front seat while Mathias shoveled snow away from Wendy’s vehicle. I resented how the weather was endangering Fang’s life. If we were back in LA all this would be so much simpler.

  I hoped the witch doctor had exhausted her need for socialization. All I wanted was to get Fang to town as soon as possible and check on Ben. The night had gone completely off the rails. And we were still no closer to finding Triana.

  After driving for more than ten minutes in blessed silence, I began to relax slightly.

  Fang slept fitfully. He’d doze off only to start a coughing fit.

  “You must be tired. I’m good to drive,” I said.

  “I’m fine. Thanks.” Wendy kept her eyes on the road.

  I sat back in my seat, staring out the window at the swirling snow. It was impossible to gauge progress in this whiteout. Not another single vehicle was out.

  Idly, I wondered how Wendy ended up here. She was the only witch in the area currently. That was obvious. When witches congregate the incense scent multiplies exponentially. All I can compare it to is a small town I drove through once that reeked of sauerkraut. I’d learned the area’s leading produce was cabbage. Same idea with witches.

  “Forbidden love,” Wendy said.

  “What?”

  “That’s how I wound up here. Forbidden love.” Her glance met mine in the rearview mirror.

  Oh fuck. So much for my lovely silence.

  Was she a mind reader too?

  8

 
I pretended I hadn’t heard Wendy’s confession. Next she’d want us to braid each other’s hair and sleep over. Besides, I was hardly going to divulge my own past.

  “I fell in love with the wrong person.” Wendy apparently did not need my response. Her gloveless knuckles tightened on the steering wheel. “She was the partner of our coven leader. I thought she felt the same way but she was just looking for some excitement.” Her voice grew husky at the memory.

  I touched my lower lip where I’d injured it earlier. It was completely healed. “How come you got the Scarlet Letter treatment?”

  “She claimed I hexed her. Of course I did not but it smoothed things over with our coven leader so that she could remain. I had to leave.”

  Witches are bitches. Case proven.

  “I sure hope you hexed her on the way out of town,” I murmured.

  Wendy wiped at her cheek. “Not my style, but I wish it were.”

  “Everyone seems glad to have you in Nowhere,” I said, hating myself for making small talk. Respect stirred in me for this witch starting her life over.

  She probably would be very good for Fang.

  The vehicle was quiet except for her windshield wiper blades and Fang’s fitful breathing.

  The silence was welcome except for our mutual worry about Fang.

  When we finally returned to Nowhere, I opened my door before Wendy had her car in park.

  “You want to get him started on oxygen while I get the x-ray set up?” I asked.

  “I can do that but there’s no x-ray machine.”

  “What do you mean there’s no x-ray machine?” I had Fang’s door open and was shouldering him. Idris was back in his bag on my other shoulder.

  Wendy pushed a lock of dark hair behind her ear as she bent to unlock the clinic door. The outside light shone on her fingers and revealed they were covered in thick stone rings. I finally noticed what she wore—a series of fashionably oversized sweaters over leggings. Bracelets, necklaces and scarves vied for attention. Oh yes, witches liked their accessories. They were not fans of the minimalist look.