Saber stiffened. “You have werewolves in Europe?”
“And in other countries. Werewolves are extinct only in the states, you see, because the drug introduced here to kill them was not widely used overseas. The population is controlled, they live in seclusion, and they are not allowed to immigrate.”
“I’ll have to let the VPA know about this,” Saber said.
“Do as you think best. And now,” Cosmil said, as he pushed to his feet, “I have kept you long enough. Saber mentioned that Francesca has a late ghost tour, and I must rest.”
“Will you be okay alone?” I asked.
“He won’t be alone,” Triton piped up. “I’ll stay with him tonight.”
Saber and I exchanged a glance, waiting for Cosmil to object. He didn’t so much as furrow his brow.
“I’ll come by tomorrow,” Saber offered, “while Cesca’s sacked out and Triton’s working. Maybe you’ll have news from Lia.”
The three men turned to me, but I threw up my hands.
“Hey, I have work tonight, and bridge club tomorrow night. I can’t cancel this late.”
“So your activities are more important than training with us?” Triton demanded. “It’s only all our lives on the line.”
“Don’t start with me, Triton. I can cancel some things, but not my maid of honor duties. Maggie’s wedding is two weeks and five days away. I can’t and won’t let her down. This Starrack jerk and the Void will have to take a number, and you can kiss my surfboard if you don’t like it.”
Cosmil laughed then, a deep, rich sound that washed through the room like a warm wave. “My dear, Lia will love you. Pandora, see them out. And Triton, retrieve your duffel and the amulets from your truck.”
Pandora took the lead, padding by my side while Saber fell back to have a word with Triton.
Where is the kitten?
I did a double take at her unexpected question. “You mean Snowball? Probably still hiding in the laundry room.”
I’d found the pure white kitten in the parking garage at Saber’s old condo in Daytona Beach, before he bought Neil’s place in St. Augustine. Snowball liked me well enough, but she adored and had adopted Saber. When Saber moved in with me five days ago, Snowball came along.
There will be times to keep her close by.
“Okay, why?”
She will sense the unseen and alert you to presences.
“You told me something like that before, but I think Snowball’s more into lizards and beetles.”
Pandora rolled her eyes.
We arrived at Saber’s SUV, and I leaned a hip against the door. “Okay, I give. Are there any particular times Snowball should be with me?”
Heed her behavior. That will forewarn you.
Well, didn’t that sound nice and ominous? I have manners in spades, but the last two hours had frayed my nerves, and Pandora’s queen of cryptic act wasn’t scoring points with me.
She pinned me with reproachful amber eyes. Great. Pandora had read my mind, and now I was being scolded by a feline big enough to eat my face. I had to learn to guard my thoughts.
Yes, you do. Pandora smirked, I swear, then she chuffed and trotted back to the cabin.
I climbed into the SUV, suddenly very tired and completely overwhelmed.
Much as I love interior design, I adore leading ghost tours.
While catching up to the twenty-first century, I had discovered an aptitude for history, studied hard, and passed the required licensing test to give tours. It helped in my job hunt that Maggie had contacts in the city’s tourist industry, but I’d earned my place at Old Coast Ghost Tours and took pride in my work as a ghost walk guide.
One of my guide friends calls me a ghost magnet, and I admit to an affinity with Oldest City’s ghosts. A few spirits aren’t Casper friendly, but the playful ones are always ready to oooh and awe the crowds.
I’d even begun flying to work occasionally, but only when I had the late tour at nine thirty, after dark when I wouldn’t spook anyone. And, okay, it wasn’t real vampire flying as much as it was puddle hopping. I’d take to the air long enough to clear a few houses at a time, using landmarks such as the numerous church spires and steeples and domes to track my location. Sooner or later, though, I had to look down to spot my landing, and the vertigo was murder. Heights are not my friend.
Since I didn’t need more stress tonight, I’d drive. That lifted my spirits, and my mood brightened even more when I stepped into my new silvery Cinderella dress. It didn’t have frou-frou trims and tucks, or a huge skirt to get in the way, but it was magical anyway. Shirley Thomas, costume genius for the Flagler College theater department, had created new tour-guide togs for me when my old ones had been shot up. I’d also hired Shirley to design and make Maggie’s Victorian wedding gown, and Shirley had later surprised me with this fairy tale inspired creation.
I felt like a Disney character as I drove my beloved aqua SSR downtown. Not that bluebirds and bunnies cavorted around my skirts. Not a single industrious dwarf fell into step with me as I hustled to the waterwheel near the Mill Top Tavern where I met my tour groups. Still, I felt happier than I had all day, more so when I caught sight of the waiting tourists.
Along with half-a-dozen couples and a smattering of teens, I spotted Millie Hayward and two of her Jag Queens friends chatting with three dapper older men.
“Millie,” I greeted as she enfolded me in a Shalimar-scented hug. “You and the Jag Queens looked great on TV this weekend!”
“You saw the Jacksonville game, then?” Grace Warner beamed. “I thought we looked pretty sharp myself, but my TiVo didn’t record.”
“Mine did,” Kay Sims chimed in. “We’re having a watch party tomorrow night, if you want to come, Cesca.”
I grinned, imagining the clothing and hair critique that would ensue. “I’d love to, but that’s my bridge night.”
“Maybelle Banks is back from her cruise?” Millie asked.
I nodded. “She showed us her pictures of Greece last week.”
I didn’t know how Millie and Maybelle had met, but Maybelle is sixty-something, wields a dry, sharp wit, and dabbles in astrology. She and Millie must make a pair.
So did Millie and—what was her swain’s name? I’d seen him once a few weeks ago but not met him.
When he cleared his throat, Millie took the hint and introduced the gentlemen.
“Cesca, this is Dan Kelley.”
“Nice to meet you, Miss Cesca.” Dan’s full head of white hair and a tan I pegged as golf course golden made his eyes a startling shade of green.
“And these gentlemen”—Millie gestured toward two more athletic types—“are Hal Lipkin and Joel Granger.”
We murmured greetings while Millie continued, “The guys couldn’t get tickets to the Jaguar game, so we’re treating them to the ghost tour tonight.”
“Then I’ll do my best to be extra entertaining,” I vowed.
Dan took Millie’s hand, Hal smiled at Grace, and Joel lightly touched Kay’s back. Ah, mature romance!
Though at my age, I should talk about mature. Even Saber isn’t quite the young stud I’d assumed he was when I met him.
As I turned away to take ticket stubs, I noticed another elderly couple staring in a size-me-up way. Wearing colorful, tourist-casual slacks, shirts, and walking shoes, they looked older than Millie, perhaps in their eighties. I worried for a moment about them traversing the uneven pavement along our route, but the man nimbly dodged a teenaged boy who nearly backed into him. Okay, the man seemed surprisingly spry. Still, I’d keep an eye out. Subtle bursts of vampire speed had helped me keep more than one tourist from taking a tumble.
I paused to speak with Carol and Nancy when I took their tickets, two special ladies who’d become known around town simply as “the sisters.” They’d only been in St. Augustine a few years, but were enthusiastic community volunteers and hard-core Pittsburgh Steelers fans. Good thing they weren’t wearing Steelers gear or Millie and the Jag Queen ladies migh
t’ve done some trash talking.
Grinning at that image, I went to the tour substation, a wooden structure with a cabinet behind padlocked doors. I keyed the lock open, stashed the tickets stubs in a manila envelope, and grabbed my battery-operated lantern. The lantern doesn’t provide much light, but it’s a beacon of sorts for people to follow and part of the ghostly ambiance. The cabinet relocked, I waved my tour group closer.
“Good evening, and welcome to Old Coast Ghost Walk. I’m Cesca Marinelli, your guide. St. Augustine is regarded as one of the most haunted cities in America, and tonight we’ll visit the ghosts as I tell you what we know of their history.
“Feel free to take photos and ask questions when you like, but please watch out for uneven ground as we tour.”
We started by greeting Elizabeth, the redheaded teen ghost at the City Gates, then crossed the street to the Huguenot Cemetery. The group gobbled up the stories of Judge John B. Stickney and Erastus Nye, and of the Bridal Ghost when we reached the Tolomato Cemetery. We spotted orbs in both locations, too. I suspected the orbs in the Huguenot Cemetery were caused by the reflections of headlight beams, but who was I to spoil the fun?
After leading my tourist troupe through most of the square mile of the historic district, almost an hour and a half had passed, but no one seemed tired.
“Our last stop,” I said as I paused before a house on a downtown side street, “is Fay’s House. Now Fay might be our crankiest ghost, but she’s also one of my favorites.”
I relayed what I knew of Fay’s life and death, and saw a hand shoot up.
“You have a question?” I asked the young man.
“Isn’t this where the French Bride killer shoot-out and capture went down?”
“Yeah,” another man said. “And you caught the guy, right? You’re the vampire Nancy Drew.”
I blushed at the reference, especially since I fervently hoped my Drew days were over, but answered the question.
“It’s true I was here, but the police made the arrest.”
“Have you worked any more cases since then?” the first guy asked.
The case of the vanishing vampires at the comedy club hadn’t made the news. Saber had arranged a quiet cover-up, with the public blessedly none the wiser. I wasn’t about to change that, so I waved off the question.
“The papers exaggerated. I’m more interested in mystery reading than mystery solving any day.”
“You’re being far too modest,” Millie put in. “Our guide is also a whiz at interior decorating.”
Which Millie knew because she’d seen my place during the housewarming in August. I smiled and thanked Millie, and caught the strange old couple suddenly beaming at me like I’d created a cure for cancer. Talk about easily impressed.
I led my group back to our starting place near the waterwheel, ran through my closing spiel, and turned to put my lantern away as the group dispersed.
Except for Millie who edged closer on a Shalimar cloud.
“Cesca, dear, do you have a minute?”
“Of course,” I said as she darted a gaze over her shoulder.
The rest of her party stood ten feet away chatting easily, so why did Millie look frightened?
When she didn’t speak up, I moved deeper into the shadow of a towering pink bougainvillea.
“What’s wrong, Millie?”
She stepped closer. “Did Maybelle Banks say anything special to you at bridge club last week?’
“Not that I remember. Why?”
Millie bit her lip, and now I was thoroughly mystified.
“It’s silly, really, but she said she’d do my astrology chart to see how compatible I am with Dan.”
“And she forgot to do it?”
“Oh, no, she did it, and it turned out quite wonderfully. The thing is, I asked her to do your chart as an anniversary gift from me.”
I blinked. I’d celebrated my first anniversary out of the coffin on August thirteenth, but Millie hadn’t given me an astrology chart.
Millie straightened and gave me a rueful smile. “I’m making too much of it, I’m sure. Astrology is fun, but it’s not a science, right?”
“Millie, what is it you’re trying so hard not to tell me?”
“It-it’s just that Maybelle said she did your chart three times and had very odd results,” Millie said in a rush. “That’s why I got you a different gift.”
“Odd results how?”
Millie gnawed on her lip again, looked over her shoulder again, and finally spit it out.
“My dear, you disappeared entirely from your own chart.”
By the time I soothed Millie, promised to be careful, and sent her off with Dan and the rest of her party, it was nearly eleven thirty. I set off for the Cordova parking lot where I’d parked, taking the Orange Street route. The walk took me past the oldest drugstore, the Love Tree, and the Tolomato Cemetery, but I paid no attention to the hovering ghosts. Instead I thought about how I could rearrange my schedule once Cosmil’s friend Lia hit town.
Thursday Maggie and I had a meeting with the florist and a cake tasting. Friday we were leaving to meet Maggie’s friends in Fernandina Beach for the bachelorette weekend. Amelia Island was less than two hours north if the traffic was with us, and was convenient for her Florida and southern Georgia friends. The weekend was a must do, no room for negotiation.
If Lia arrived before Sunday, Triton and Saber would just have to start training without me. I’d allow nothing, no one, no how to stand between me and—
“Aaarrrggh!”
I squealed at the man suddenly looming in my path. He smelled like jalapenos and cheap cigars. My very own stalker, Victor Gorman.
“Surprised you, huh?”
I hadn’t seen him since he’d tried to kill me. Or was it when we caught him breaking into a hotel room? Didn’t matter. Between his bad breath and his gravely voice, ripe with malicious overtones, my last nerve threatened to snap.
“Gorman, what now?”
“What were those two vampires doin’ on your tour?”
I blinked. “What two vampires?”
“The old, wrinkled couple.”
Did he mean the ones who’d stared at me?
“Gorman, those people had to be eighty.”
“So? I saw ’em fly off.”
I reached for patience. “You actually saw them levitate and zoom away into the night?”
“They were there on the sidewalk, then they weren’t. Old people don’t move that fast.”
“And vamps don’t just disappear. They also don’t Turn senior citizens.”
He narrowed his eerie light blue eyes. “Why not?”
“Because there’s nothing to gain. No power, no prestige, no money.”
“That’s it. Money. Vampires could steal old codgers blind.”
“Vamps could enthrall them to do that.”
He frowned, and I could almost see the wheels thunk in his brain. How Gorman got into the Covenant, I’d never understand. Originally a search-and-destroy-vampires group, the Covenant had now scaled back to watch and report to the VPA. At least the St. Augustine branch had, and two of the Covenant members I’d met were relatively pleasant. The most pleasant thing about Gorman was that, tonight at least, he didn’t also reek of garlic.
I moved to step around him, but he blocked me.
“I’m warnin’ you, don’t bring no more of your kind into town.”
That did it. The slow fizzle of my temper flared.
“Gorman, listen up. Knock off the threats and corny lines. You don’t impress me, and you don’t scare me. I’m sorry if some vampire did you or your family wrong, but it wasn’t me, and I’m tired of taking the crap for it.”
This time I stormed past him, only to stop when I heard him say, “You’re wrong, bitch. You started it all.”
When I spun to challenge him, he’d melted into the shadows.
FIVE
I thought about Gorman’s comment for about five minutes on the way home then dism
issed it. For one thing, he had shadowed me, threatened me, and generally annoyed me for months. Even his attempt to kill me with a well-aimed shot from a crossbow had angered more than frightened me. His antics were old news.
For another thing, I had bigger concerns, which came into sharp relief when I opened my cottage door. Snowball, the four-pound rescue cat, flew across the floor headed straight for me with Pandora in her twenty-pound house cat form smack on Snowball’s tail. Snowball dove under my full skirts and a beat later thudded into the wall behind me. Pandora braked at my feet, morphed to her panther size in time-lapse-photography style, and calmly lifted and licked a dinner-plate-sized paw.
Then I saw Saber from the corner of my eye. He sat at my laptop housed in the computer cabinet tucked into an alcove in my living room. A few keystrokes later, he swiveled to face me.
I huffed a breath and dropped my car keys on the entry table. “What’s going on?”
“Pandora brought a message from Triton.”
I stared. “You’re talking to the animals now?”
Pandora sat on her haunches and gave me a “you’re a moron” gaze. Snowball, now at Pandora’s side, mirrored the pose as if mimicking an adored older sibling.
“The note was in her collar,” Saber clarified as he swung back to the computer screen.
I’d never seen Pandora wear a collar, and she wasn’t sporting one now, but I let that pass.
“So what was the message?”
“Cosmil is better, but no word on when Lia will arrive.”
“Why didn’t Triton just call?”
“Maybe because he didn’t want Cosmil to overhear him on the phone.” He punched a key and swiveled back to me. “I asked him to get the names of the other Council of Ancients members.”
“Ah, you’re searching for anyone suspicious.”
“Yeah, but I’m getting less than nothing.”
“No handy-dandy COA website, huh?”
Saber and Pandora snorted in unison, and Snowball sneezed.
Always the Vampire Page 5