“These young beauties are my invitation,” Gullah said. “Unless you object.”
The girls gathered around the pirate and the chubby Ben Franklin look-alike and whispered in their ears. The men stood straighter, excited by whatever the girls promised.
“Yes, yes,” Franklin said. “We can come to an agreement. I mean, there are only nine of you, right, you and these lovely women.”
Gullah touched his crown. “Only us.”
The pirate looked at Rooster.
Gullah explained. “My lieutenant will remain outside. To guard against party crashers.”
The woman in the princess costume stamped a foot. “Wait a minute. Where’s my man candy?”
Gullah said, “That would be me.”
Princess rolled her eyes. “Oh, please.”
“In that case, if you feel left out,” he said, “my entourage is very accommodating.” He nodded and three of the girls raised their hands. “Bisexual. Not man candy but still very tasty.”
The girls circled the princess. One took her left arm, the other her right arm, and the remaining girl lifted the train of the dress.
Gullah motioned with his cane. “Party time.”
They paraded past me, Gullah at the rear. He stopped and gave me a deprecating once-over. He snagged the lapel of my vest. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m undercover.”
“Undercover, my ass. Every mutt in this place can sniff you out as a vampire.”
“How about you?” I asked. “What about the Araneum’s warning to stay away from the werewolves?”
“I’m applying a creative interpretation,” he replied. “The warning shouldn’t prohibit me from adding a touch of class to this shindig. Besides, I’m here and the Araneum is far away.”
We filed back into the jail.
Music reverberated from the speakers. A reggae beat, something from Burning Spear. In one cell, a group of women danced, while other guests cheered and sang along.
My ears tingled. An alert.
Someone was making their move.
I stood against the wall. I put my sixth sense on maximum gain. I touched the outline of the Webley inside my vest.
The crowd parted. A dozen weres entered, in the costume of Royal Navy sailors circa the late 1700s. They brandished cutlasses but, instead of flintlock pistols, had modern semiautomatics shoved into their waist sashes.
They guarded another were—their commander, Randolph Calhoun.
CHAPTER 51
Calhoun was dressed like a sea captain, in a long coat of light blue cloth, dark blue breeches, and a chapeau with gold fringes. His clawed prosthesis added to the authenticity of his uniform.
His date wore a red satin dress and her hair was done up like Marie Antoinette’s. She carried the front of her skirt off the floor. Slippers covered in red rhinestones kicked from under the mass of petticoats dragging about her ankles.
A knot of disgust twisted in my belly. Wendy hadn’t been a dead a day and here was Calhoun getting ready to party.
But I hadn’t done much mourning either.
I had work to do.
With the full moon and Le Cercle de Sang et Crocs approaching, Calhoun had his duties to perform even if they meant having to serve as toastmaster of this costume ball.
Someone called my name. A faint voice. I looked around.
Smoke drifted from a lantern to the floor. A breeze should’ve pushed the smoke across the room. But the smoke stayed in place and grew into the silhouette of a woman.
Deliah.
She straightened her clothes and adjusted the scarf on her head. She looked the same as before, a blurry image in light and dark gray shades. No one but me seemed to have noticed her.
“I’m here to make good on your promise,” she said.
“About what?”
“About what I want in return for warning you.”
Warning? I glanced around.
“About who? What?” I asked.
She raised a finger. “The information is going to cost you.”
“What do you want?” I couldn’t imagine what would be on a ghost’s shopping list.
“What I haven’t had in a long time.”
My first thought was that she wanted to get laid. Would be an interesting experience, as I haven’t yet done a ghost booty call. Didn’t think it was possible.
“Ice cream,” she replied. “Strawberry.”
Ice cream? “No problem,” I said, though I remained curious about spectral shagging. “I didn’t know you could eat ice cream.”
She sighed. “I can’t.”
“Then what are you going to do with ice cream?”
“Nothing. I’m going to watch you eat it. You’re going to let me know what’s it like.”
“Is there a catch? Like I have to eat a thousand pounds? Or wrestle a fat lady in a tubful of the stuff?”
She shook her head. “No. No. Just eat it.” She pantomimed spooning to her mouth. “Share with me. The taste. The sensations.”
“How? By telling you?”
“No, there’s a ghost technique.”
“Which is?”
“You’ll see.”
I pointed to the boxes and cartons of catered food. “You’ll have to wait. There’s no ice cream here.”
“I trust you,” she said.
“You were going to warn me.”
Deliah leaned into the hall. Guests walked through her. She pointed to a petite blonde carrying trays of pastries stacked on each other. The woman wore a white chef’s coat and had her hair pulled into a bun.
Deliah said, “She’s carrying a pistol.”
My kundalini noir began a slight tingle. “How do you know?”
“I’m a ghost. When she was in one of the storerooms, she made a call on her cell phone and I heard your name. Then she checked the gun.”
The tingle in my kundalini noir spread to my ears and fingertips. My gaze followed the woman and I took a deep sniff in her direction. She was human. As small as she was, I could handle her. “Anyone else?”
“I’ve told you enough,” Deliah said. Another breeze whisked through the prep room. “Remember, strawberry ice cream.” Her features distorted, smearing, fading, and she disappeared like vapor.
The blonde set the trays on a table. I wanted to take my contacts out. I could read her aura and zap her with hypnosis. She’d tell me what she was up to. But if I took my contacts out, I’d be alerting the werewolves that I didn’t trust them.
I had to admit the woman was a cool prospect. She didn’t act one bit nervous, the way a normal person would if they were scheming to commit murder, especially if their victim was a vampire.
Deliah had said the woman carried a gun. If the woman knew I was a vampire, then the gun was certainly loaded with silver bullets.
The woman pulled foil off the trays. She grasped one tray, and when she lifted it from the table, turned and glanced at me.
Her look lingered for a split second, and in that quick exchange of glances, I could read the recognition in her eyes. She knew who I was.
The woman turned away and started for the hall and up the stairs.
I let her go up a couple of steps and followed. We were alone.
My ears and fingertips buzzed.
Danger.
From where? From who?
Damn you, Deliah, if you knew more, why didn’t you tell me?
My hands clenched to keep from showing my growing talons. My fangs itched within my gums.
My sixth sense blared like a radar warning display, lights flashing, alarms whooping.
I whirled around.
A brunette in a white chef’s jacket raised a pistol, a handful of black metal and right angles. A Glock.
I unclenched my hands. My talons sprouted to full length.
Her face blanched in fright. Didn’t expect the full vampiric monty, did she?
She retreated, hesitating, the pistol muzzle quivering.
In a second, I
’d be on her, gouging flesh, ripping her throat.
A tray banged across my head.
I dropped to a crouch, astonished. A flurry of pastries cascaded over me.
The blonde had thrown the tray to distract me. But the other woman had her gun out. She was the priority.
Droplets sprayed against the back of my left ear and the nape of my neck.
Heavy, burning droplets.
Garlic oil.
I cringed.
The blonde aimed a vaccination gun loaded with garlic oil. Her face was wadded in cruel fury.
The garlic sizzled my skin.
Get rid of the pain.
Now.
I sprang back into the prep room. I snatched a bottle of champagne from an iced tub. I cracked the neck of the bottle against the corner of the wall.
Foam sprayed from the broken bottle. I dumped champagne over my head and neck and scrubbed the cold bubbly against my ear and the back of my neck.
The bottle exploded in my hand.
The brunette aimed her Glock. She jerked the trigger, the gun went bang, bang, bang, and bullets whizzed through the air. Cups and food flew off the tables. Bottles of champagne exploded. Gouts of foam splashed across the room.
The blonde scrambled beside her. She raised the vaccination pistol, her face grotesque with hate and determination. Garlic oil spurted from the muzzle.
I staggered backward. My gun. Get my gun and shoot back.
Another spurt of garlic oil arced by my face. Tiny droplets landed on my cheek and each burned like the sting of a scorpion.
Get away. Now. I turned and launched myself at a window at the back of the room. My hands clutched the grate of iron bars blocking my escape. I drew myself onto the stone windowsill like a trapped racoon.
The women sprinted after me. They slipped on the champagne pooling on the floor and fell over.
I grasped the iron bars and pulled. The grate twisted and groaned. The windowsill cracked. One side of the bars tore free of the stone in a puff of dust.
Panic tore at my nerves. Get away before you’re dissolved into undead paste.
I gave the bars another heave. The grate folded and revealed a hole just big enough for me to slide through.
I pushed my head through the hole and yanked on the bars to pull myself outside. Garlic oil splashed against my left hand.
The pain was like pressing a hot iron against my fingers. I jerked my hand away and tucked it against my chest. I pulled with my right arm and tumbled outside.
I landed on muddy ground. Inside the jail, my attackers clambered for the window.
I rubbed the back of my left hand into the mud to wash away the garlic oil. The cool, moist soil soothed the burning.
I rose to my feet.
The women wouldn’t give up so easily. They’d come after me.
Let them.
I’d be ready.
I scuttled up the outside wall.
Instead of following me out the window, the woman with the Glock ran out the back door. She halted on the stairs and looked around.
Where was her accomplice?
The blonde came out. The two bunched together. I could get them both with one attack. I needed them alive, so I kept my pistol tucked away.
I pushed from the wall and fell upon them, silent as an owl.
The women collapsed beneath me. I tumbled to the right and landed on the woman with the Glock.
The breath froze in her throat. Her cry sounded as if it had been muffled by ice.
I swatted the Glock from her hand. My talons slashed through her wrist. For an instant, the wounds looked like parallel scratches, then widened into red furrows. Blood gushed from the slash marks.
The woman screamed and rolled down the steps.
I grasped one of her lapels and pulled her off the ground.
Her face went pale from terror.
I needed information.
Now.
I removed my contacts and put them in their plastic case, which I slipped back into my pocket.
The woman’s red aura flared like fire consuming burning tumbleweeds. She grasped my wrist with her left hand. Blood stained the right sleeve of her white chef’s jacket.
The blonde picked herself up off the ground. The vaccination gun lay in pieces, surrounded by a dark, noxious puddle. She ran for the parking lot.
I turned back to the brunette. “Not much of a team player. Looks like you’ve been abandoned.”
I pulled her close to fang her throat.
Blam.
The report of a gun cracked the night air.
The woman went “Uh.” Her arms went limp and she sagged against me.
Dead.
CHAPTER 52
A figure approached from around the front of the jail.
A red aura bubbling with orange spots.
Eric Bourbon.
I pulled my Webley and aimed it at him.
He stopped, acting surprised that I’d drawn my gun. He held his Vektor pistol at the ready. “No need for congratulations.”
I propped the woman on my knee. A red spot blossomed between her shoulder blades.
My bewilderment morphed into anger. “You killed her.”
“Thought I was doing you a favor. Sorry. Couldn’t be helped.” He tried to sound apologetic, but his tone remained smug.
I laid her on the steps, stunned by Bourbon’s indifference. “The bullet could’ve gone through her and hit me.”
“Doubtful,” he answered. “It was a silver slug. I’m sure it barely made it through her spine.”
I didn’t feel sorry for her. A minute ago she had tried to kill me.
A Pontiac Grand Am tore out of the parking lot.
The blonde?
The Pontiac’s lights were off, but there was no mistaking the turmoil of the woman’s turbulent red aura.
I stepped from the stairs, moving carefully, my gaze cutting from Bourbon to the fleeing Pontiac.
Bourbon slipped the Vektor into a holster of his colonial officer’s costume and backed away. He wore the conceit of a poker player who was folding while he still hoarded a pile of winnings. Why? Because he’d killed the brunette or because the blonde was getting away?
Satisfied that I’d put enough distance between Bourbon and me, I took off after the car. I couldn’t blow my supernatural cover by racing after her in public. A vampire running at traffic speed would raise questions.
I took a running leap and levitated to the closest roof. I jammed the Webley back into my vest. As I scurried across the roof, my feet sounded no louder than the scamper of squirrels. I jumped from roof to roof, bouncing from balconies and sailing over the streets.
The Pontiac turned on its lights. It screeched through an intersection, sped north on East Bay Street, and zigzagged through traffic. Even on flat ground at an undead run, I wouldn’t have been able to keep up.
I doubted the driver was aware that I was chasing her. Still, she pressed her advantage in speed.
If she turned onto the bridge for Mount Pleasant I’d lose her for sure. But she kept going north on East Bay Street. I tracked her going under the overpass.
The high fences surrounding the docks pressed at us from the right. The distance between me and her Pontiac kept growing. After another minute, it was all I could do to keep her distinctive aura in sight.
Miraculously, her brake lights lit up and she swerved right. Dust hung in the air where she’d looped onto the shoulder of a road leading into the docks along the Cooper River.
I slowed to a trot.
A traffic bar blocked access through a gate leading toward the warehouses. The adjacent lampposts bristled with security cameras.
Where had she gone?
I stopped in the shadows by the fence. Hopefully the surveillance cameras couldn’t see me unless they had low-light amplification or thermal imaging.
I listened.
The throaty groan of diesel engines echoed from the docks.
To my left. A car eng
ine. The Pontiac.
I noticed a section of the fence that sat on small wheels. A gate.
How had she passed through the gate? Did she have a code or a card, or had the guards allowed her through?
I backtracked along the outside of the fence and searched for a blind spot between the cameras.
I was sure the guards were on alert. The Pontiac had come barreling through here, and unless security was in a coma, no way could they have missed her.
I found a place to levitate over the fence and slithered across the top like a snake, to give the guards less to see.
Once on the other side, I heard the quiet rumble of the Pontiac’s engine. Its tires ground against gravel.
The car was up ahead. The engine noise picked up an echo that meant the car was in an enclosed space like an open bay or a garage.
My talons and fangs extended. I crept between rows of warehouses, levitating on the gravel so I made no more sound than a spider.
A door rattled closed.
I sped up.
The sound got louder.
I rounded the corner.
A door was about to descend to the floor of an open bay. The Pontiac sat inside.
I lunged and dove through the gap. I slid on my belly and tucked myself under the rear bumper into a bubble of stink from the catalytic converter.
The bay door rattled to the floor and locked.
I peeked around the left rear wheel of the car.
The driver’s door opened. The blonde stepped out. Her bun was coming apart and she pushed the loose strands back into place.
Her aura bubbled with turmoil. A fuzz of distress scintillated along her penumbra. Her partner was dead, but she had survived the night. Until now.
The car’s lights flashed once and the door locks clicked. She started for a door on the wall in front of the car. Her back was to me.
I scanned the bay. We were alone. No obvious security cameras.
Perfect.
CHAPTER 53
I pushed from the floor and floated over the Pontiac, brushing against the car with a touch as light as a helium balloon. I used my fingers to pull myself along.
The woman approached the door. The only noises in the bay were the clicking sounds from the Pontiac’s engine and the woman’s shoes scuffing the concrete.
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