The Vampire Next Door

by Ashlyn Chase

  “It sounds like a good arrangement. I don’t quilt, I’m afraid.”

  “No, and you’re already livin’ in the city, but there’s somethin’ else you could make and sell to folks here. The thing my daddy makes.”

  “Which is?”

  “Moonshine!”

  Morgaine heard the smile in Gwyneth’s voice. She had to be kidding, right? Was her cousin actually suggesting Sly set up a still?

  “My daddy makes the best moonshine, and people came from miles around to get some. He gets good money for it too. It’s sort of illegal, but that’s because of Prohibition. It used to be illegal then, because alcohol of any kind was illegal. They never changed the law though, because the government would lose out on all the tax money. It’s cheap as wood chips to make.”

  “Wood chips?”

  “Just an expression. Cheap as wood chips at a sawmill. You don’t need wood chips to make moonshine. Just a still, cornmeal, sugar, and yeast. After you distill it, putting it through charcoal turns it into good, safe-drinkin’ whiskey.”

  “Interesting. It sounds as if you know exactly how it’s done.”

  Morgaine was torn. Should she interfere? She probably wouldn’t have to. Sly would make some polite excuse not to get involved in something so illegal or simply change the subject. Any moment now…

  “I used to help him. I remember exactly how it’s done. You just put three pounds of sugar in a big bucket of hot water and stir it until all the sugar melts. Then stir in the yeast until that melts.”

  “You mean, dissolves?”

  “Yes, that’s the more proper way to say it. The heatin’ up part comes later. That’s where the still comes in.”

  Morgaine scratched her head… any minute.

  “And do you know how to set up a still?”

  “I sure do. If my memory needs refreshin’ I could probably look it up on the Internet. The Internet can tell ya how to do anything.”

  Why was Sly still listening to Gwyneth’s hogwash? Morgaine knew he was a gentleman and all, but— The kettle whistled. As soon as she’d moved it off the burner, she heard him say, “I could have people meet me after dark to buy it, I suppose.”

  “That’s why I thought of it. They call it moonshine because people wait until the sheriff’s in bed before they truck it out. A’course, our county sheriff was one of daddy’s best customers.”

  Sly laughed.

  Confused, Morgaine shook her head and poured the hot water into the teapot. She set everything on a tray to transport to the living room. Was he honestly considering that harebrained idea?

  By the time Morgaine reached them, Gwyneth and Sly seemed to already be hatching a plan.

  “If I vacate my spot behind the false wall in the basement, maybe that would be enough room for the still, and it can stay hidden. I don’t want Merry to know about it.”

  “Why? She’d never report it to the authorities,” Gwyneth said.

  Morgaine poured a cup of tea and handed it to Sly, listening intently.

  “I know she wouldn’t, but I don’t want to get her in trouble with her husband. The less she knows, the better.”

  “I understand. What do y’all mean about a false wall?”

  “That’s right. You’ve never seen my place, have you?”

  “I’ve seen the laundry-room part of the basement. I know the other side’s for storage. I never really thought about y’all hiding behind a wall. I just figured maybe you was holed up in the corner with a bunch of boxes blockin’ the view of your coffin—or whatever.”

  He chuckled. “Nope. No coffin. And I built the wall as soon as I knew I’d be staying a while. Konrad took me in initially, but I couldn’t take advantage of his hospitality long term. The old landlord never went down to the basement, plus it was almost completely dark, so for my purposes, it was ideal.”

  “Can I see it?” Gwyneth asked.

  He sipped his tea. “Sure. I suppose you’ll need to if you’re going to figure out whether or not a still will fit in there.”

  Morgaine couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Sly, are you seriously considering this?”

  He shrugged. “Somehow I don’t think my voice is sexy enough to get in on your business.”

  Gulp. Touché. There wasn’t much she could say to counter that.

  Chapter 3

  “Well, this is it,” Sly said, as he slid the false wall out of its channel. “Home, musty home.”

  Morgaine and Gwyneth stared wide-eyed. Part of that may have been because Sly’s area of the basement was so dark. He had purposely sabotaged the lighting fixture at the far end of the large room to further hide his lair.

  At last, Morgaine said, “Amazing. How did you come up with that false wall?”

  He smiled. “I used to be an engineer. Not bad considering what I had to work with. I scavenged the wood and used a hammer and chisel to take the part of the rocks I wanted. Then mortar and superglue, and voilà!”

  Morgaine touched the stone face he had affixed to the double sheet of plywood. “It looks like a solid rock wall.”

  “And like it’s been here since the day the place was built,” Gwyneth added. “Y’all outdid yourself, Sly.”

  “Thanks. I was lucky the basement took a bit of a jog here. Otherwise I’d have had to make a much longer wall.”

  “It looks heavy, but y’all just picked it up like it was Styrofoam.”

  “That’s vampiric strength for you.”

  Gwyneth sidled up next to him and stroked his bicep. “My, my. I had no idea you was that strong.” She gazed at him like he had suddenly become a side of beef and she was starving. Maybe she was sex starved. How long ago had her old lover, Joe, moved out?

  Morgaine cleared her throat. “I can see a potential problem or two here.”

  Sly transferred his full attention to her. “What kind of problems?”

  “Well, ventilation for one.”

  Gwyneth said, “Oh, fiddlesticks. That’s right. Y’all have any windows down here?”

  “A couple.” Sly moved a few boxes to clear a path and led them to one of two small basement windows along the side wall. Since it was dark outside and dark inside, they must not have noticed them. Piles of old furniture and boxes might have also obscured their view. “Is this big enough?”

  “Does it open?” Morgaine asked.

  “It’s not supposed to, but it does. It used to be nailed shut, but I had to let Konrad in this way once when he got stuck outside buck naked.”

  Gwyneth laughed.

  “I think I remember him telling me about that,” Morgaine said. “He used to keep his clothes stashed behind the Dumpster before he shifted and went on his midnight runs. But he said they were stolen once.”

  “Twice. After that, he changed in his apartment, and either Nathan or I would let him out the door and back in again.”

  “Y’all shapeshifters and vampires might be strong as a team of horses, but you’ve got problems…” Gwyneth smirked.

  He caught Morgaine sending her a sharp look. “It’s okay for her to say that. It’s true. I hate my limitations. Hell, I missed out on raising my daughter because I’d never be able to drive her to soccer or band practice.”

  Gwyneth tipped her head. “I didn’t know Merry was in soccer and band.”

  “She wasn’t. I was just referring to all the things she might have wanted to do. Field hockey was her sport, and I think she took guitar lessons. Gave it up after her mother was killed by a stray bullet though.”

  “I thought y’all lost your wife from a vampire attack the night Merry was born.”

  “I did. I was referring to her other mother—the one who adopted her—Mrs. MacKenzie.”

  “The night you lost your wife… Is that when you were turned?” Morgaine asked softly.

  “Yes.” He hung his head, remembering that horrible night. “She was barely clinging to life, and the only way he’d help me get my pregnant wife to the hospital was if I allowed him to turn me.”

&nb
sp; “How awful!”

  Gwyneth crossed her arms. “I wish I’d been there. I’d have kicked his bad ass into next week and left him there—then helped you myself.”

  “He’d taken us God-knows-where. I’d have been wandering around a deserted warehouse area carrying a dying pregnant woman.”

  “So what finally happened?” Morgaine asked. “Did he use his vampiric strength and speed to take her to the nearest emergency room?”

  Sly frowned, remembering the fiend’s face. “He laughed. He said now that I was a vampire, I could get her there myself and pointed in the general direction of the hospital. It turned out we were only a mile or so away. I got her there in time to save Merry, but Alice had lost too much blood and died on the operating table.”

  Morgaine touched his arm. “I’m so sorry, Sly. You didn’t deserve that. None of you did.”

  “I know.” He acknowledged her sympathy with a sad smile. “Thank you.”

  Her eyebrows knit and her lips thinned. “I’m with Gwyneth. If only I’d been there. I could have come up with some kind of spell to force him to help you, then punished the hell out of him after that. Screw the repercussions.”

  He chuckled. “It’s a good thing you weren’t there then. I understand using magic to harm another can backfire pretty badly.”

  “You’re right. The negative energy turns on the sender three times. It’s called the law of three.”

  “Sounds like a harsh law. Instead of an eye for an eye, it’s an eye, arm, and leg for an eye.”

  “You got it. That’s why I’ve drummed that law into my dear cousin’s head.”

  “About a million times,” Gwyneth added. “So what are all the things vampires can and can’t do? Can you see yourselves in mirrors? Do you get burned by holy water and crosses? I know about the sun thing.”

  He laughed. “I’m not sure about one of those things. I can see my reflection and crosses don’t bother me, but no one has tossed holy water in my face yet.”

  “Are there other vampires y’all can ask?”

  Sly shrugged. “I don’t know many vampires, but I’ve heard of one I’d very much like to meet someday.”

  “Who?” they both asked at once.

  “His name is Mikhail. I don’t know his last name. I think he’s Russian originally, but I heard he was living in New York. He found some temporary cure for vampirism and managed to bottle it. It’s in some kind of wine.”

  “Well, that’s what y’all have to do then! Find him and ask him to give you some.”

  “He sells it, but I could never afford enough to make a difference. It costs a fortune. I guess most vampires who’ve been around a long time have managed to amass some wealth. If I never get cured, I need to find out how they do that. Something tells me they aren’t just playing the stock market, and I refuse to do anything illegal.” He looked at the space he was considering for the still. “Well, illegal enough to warrant a jail sentence rather than paying a fine.”

  Morgaine had been worrying her lip the whole time he was talking. Was something about this conversation bothering her?

  “Morgaine, are you all right? You look concerned.”

  “I-I don’t know if I should tell you this. I don’t want to give you false hope. But I think I know the vampire you’re talking about.”

  Sly almost swallowed his tongue when he gasped, “You do?”

  “I think so. He made Baltimore his temporary home back when I lived there. I got to know him through the goth scene. His name was Mikhail, and he was very old. So old, he didn’t have a real last name. Then he said he was moving to New York to buy and run some museum. I never saw him after that.”

  Sly was hanging on her every word. Did he dare hope he might find this elusive vampire and somehow learn his secret? Could Sly perhaps bottle his own cure? He gazed back at his open wall where he could hide the still during the day if he took Merry up on her generous offer.

  “I wonder…” he began out loud.

  Morgaine finished his thought with excitement in her voice. “Maybe if we can figure out how he does it, you can bottle your own cure?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Great minds…” She smiled and winked.

  First things first. He had to free up his lair for the still. Oh, but Morgaine said she saw another potential problem. What was that?

  “Morgaine, I’ll get back to your friend in a moment, but first, you said you saw a couple of problems with having the still down here. What was the other one?”

  She grinned. “Forget it. We need a still!”

  * * * *

  Merry was delighted when Sly told her he’d take the apartment. They didn’t discuss rent or a security deposit. She just wanted to know what he needed to furnish his new place. Embarrassed to ask for anything at all, he’d insisted she squelch the urge to buy him anything new.

  She offered him her old bed, now dismantled and in the basement. He agreed to accept it and asked to borrow some old blankets, if she had any, to curtain off the sun in his bedroom. She said all her old linens and towels were in a box labeled “Merry’s linen closet,” and he could have those too.

  That’s all he needed. Well, that and Sly needed the key to his new apartment, so he knocked on the door of apartment 2B, the super’s place.

  A salty smell assaulted his nose as Jules opened the door a few inches and peeked around it.

  “Hi, I think Merry mentioned I’d be moving into 1B, downstairs. She said I should see you to pick up the key.”

  “Oh, yes. You must be Sylvestro Flores.” He opened the door just a few inches wider so he could shake Sly’s hand. “I’ll be back in a minute with your key.”

  As soon as he was out of sight, Sly pushed the door open the rest of the way. He was still protective of his daughter’s home and wondered what Jules Vernon might be trying to hide.

  The floor plan looked the same as all the apartments on the B side of the building, but Jules’s stuff was not what Sly had expected. Massive shelves surrounded the room, and on them dozens of large fish tanks held live fish. Not the pretty little tropical types found in most household aquariums—ugly saltwater fish. Sly recognized haddock, pollock, and blue fish. The most attractive were the herring and mackerel. At least they had iridescent stripes along their sides.

  Seaweed floated on the water within most of the tanks, and nets hung from high hooks.

  So that accounted for the smell, but what was that human-sized fish tank under the bay window about? Sly was glad to see the floor had been reinforced with long planks. They probably distributed the weight better. The only things in the tank were some sand and starfish at the bottom.

  When Jules returned and saw Sly appraising his living room, he halted in mid-stride.

  “Interesting decor you have,” Sly said.

  “Oh, uh… yeah! I’m an avid angler. Just love to fish and hate the cold. I prefer the ocean, so ice fishing is out of the question. This keeps me happy in the chilly months.”

  Sly pointed to the human-sized tank by the front windows. “And what were you fishing for over there? Orcas?”

  “Ha, ha… No. I just don’t like the idea of fishing in those smaller tanks. Doesn’t seem fair, you know? So I transfer them to the big one and give them a little freedom before they make their way to my dinner plate.”

  “I see.” Sly folded his arms. “And you felt their five minutes of freedom was important enough to reinforce the floor?”

  “Well, I can’t let my tank come crashing down into your apartment, can I?” He let out a nervous chuckle, and Sly noticed Jules’s teeth for the first time. They were pointed and quite sharp looking. Not exactly like fangs. They were much shorter and didn’t look like they extended.

  Something fishy was definitely going on here.

  “You know my daughter owns the building, right?”

  “Oh! Is Merry your daughter? I didn’t know that.”

  “Yes, she is.” Sly stepped a little closer and held the super’s gaze. “We don
’t want anything bad to happen to Merry’s home, do we?”

  Jules raised his eyebrows and blinked. “Uh, no. Of course not.”

  He blinked? Sly’s attempt to mesmerize the man hadn’t worked—if he was a man. Sly was beginning to doubt it.

  But Sly had his own secrets to hide, so he’d have to flush out the real identity of this “Jules Vernon” carefully—without putting him on the defensive. Besides, Jules seemed to have an excuse for everything. Sly would bide his time and try to catch him eventually in the act of—whatever.

  * * * *

  “Morgaine, why don’t you just tell her how you feel?” Chad, the ghost, said.

  Morgaine snorted, continued labeling her dried herbs, and tried to ignore the apparition that was making too much sense. “Oh, get a grave.”

  “Seriously. I know Gwyneth pretty well, considering we’re roommates. She’ll understand if you just give her a chance.”

  “You forget I lived with her for a long time before you did. She has to be the belle of every ball. You even called her that, remember?”

  “So, what? Are you just going to step back and let her take over?”

  “Look, I already got a makeover. What else are you telling me to do? Change my personality?”

  “I think you’re being oversensitive.”

  “About what?” Morgaine realized she had snapped at him, but he should mind his own damn business. Sure, he was probably bored out of his mind, but he could find other ways to amuse himself besides butting into her private life… like insulting people who couldn’t hear him or listening in on the phone-sex line like he used to do.

  “About your more extroverted cousin getting the attention you crave but refuse to risk rejection for.”

  She grabbed her mortar and pestle and another handful of herbs. “Oh, great,” she muttered. “Now our spook thinks he has a degree in psychology.” She took out some of her aggression and ground the sage forcefully. It didn’t need to be turned into powder as if she wanted to cook with it. Courser herbs would do quite nicely for a spell, and she didn’t plan to cook a turkey for another month.

  Unfortunately, she couldn’t think of a way to win the heart of a man with her cute, vivacious cousin around—unless she broke the Witches’ Rede and resorted to manipulation. The rules made it quite clear that forcing the feelings and behavior of others would backfire on a witch big time. And would a night of false passion be worth it?