Sweep - Stakes

by Sara Bourgeois

  “Besides a ghost? I don’t know, but we’re about to find out,” I answered.

  What was inside was an office. It was Theodore’s office, to be exact. In my opinion, the décor left something to be desired. It looked like something straight out of a horror movie. While it didn’t help that the room was dark, even with the lights on, and windowless, the collection of knick-knacks and artwork was almost cliché.

  “Are those real?” Annika asked.

  I turned to see what she was looking at and found myself staring at various body parts in jars. They appeared to be something you’d have bought in a Halloween store, but given that we were in a funeral home, I was going to go with authentic.

  “I think they are,” I said, and Annika shuddered. “And he’s got them in his office.”

  “The guy does spend his whole working life with dead bodies,” I offered. “It’s probably not all that strange to him anymore.”

  “Well, this certainly is strange,” Remy said.

  I walked over to the wall and considered the painting he’d been studying. That was my turn to shiver. It was a battle scene, but there were many fallen soldiers rendered in grotesque detail. The gory depiction of their wounds wasn’t the worst part of the piece, though. No, the worst part was the sad and pained expressions on their faces. I could feel my chest get tight looking at their anguish.

  “Let’s just look around and see what we can find,” I said. “And then get the heck out of here.”

  “Yeah,” Annika said. “I’m getting a definite bad vibe from this place. Not the whole building, but this office particularly.”

  I scanned his computer quickly while the other two went through his file drawers. There was a closet too, and Remy disappeared into that to investigate.

  None of the files on his computer or emails in his account gave me any clues. A lot of it was disturbing, but none of it was incriminating.

  Before I got up, I went through his drawers. The two on the side were a bust. There was nothing in them but blank notebooks, lots of unopened office supplies, some sort of word processing device that operated independently of a computer, a dictation recorder, and three large bags of candy. Theodore had a sweet tooth as all three bags were at least half empty.

  The thin center drawer was where I hit the jackpot. If you could call it that. There were three prescription pill bottles inside. One was an anti-anxiety drug, and the other two were anti-psychotics. All of them Theodore’s.

  “Look at this,” I said and lined them up on the desk.

  “Wow,” Annika said. “He’s dealing with some stuff for sure.”

  “Do you think…” I started to ask.

  “I don’t know,” Remy said as he emerged from the closet. “If he’s taking the medication, then he should be fine, right? Anti-psychotics don’t mean he’s dangerous. Even if he’s not on them, it doesn’t mean he’s dangerous.”

  “You’re right,” I said and put them back. “But, still. It’s worth filing in the mental drawer, right?”

  “You’re right,” Remy relented. “It’s possible that it’s something, but I still think it was an actual vampire.”

  “Brighton’s right. He could think he’s a vampire. I know you both want to be sensitive and all, but let’s not dismiss it. Those are some powerful drugs. Plus, the ghost wanted us to come in here. Perhaps that’s what she wanted us to find,” Annika said as she sat a rather large wood and gold crucifix back on the shelf.

  Almost the entire time I’d been going through the computer, she’d been picking up things off Theodore’s shelf looking over his macabre collection. Everything but the jars o’ body parts. I’d guessed there hadn’t been much in the file cabinets.

  “What next?” I asked with a yawn.

  It was getting late. I was getting tired, and more than a little hungry. I reminded myself it wasn’t because of the zombie thing but because I hadn’t eaten in a while.

  The answer to my question came in the form of another crash. Meri came into the office from the hall. “That one came from the storage room.”

  “The body storage room, or the storage storage room?” Annika’s face went ghostly pale.

  She must have thought he’d meant it came from the cold storage. I wasn’t used to seeing her scared like that, but we were all on edge.

  “The storage storage,” Meri said, and Annika visibly relaxed.

  We went inside and found what had been knocked over. It was just a box full of pamphlets for the funeral parlor. Not exactly a clue.

  “Let’s just look,” I said with a shrug.

  The metal shelves were lined with things like pamphlets, boxes of little white pillows that had flowers embroidered on them, and cleaning chemicals. It was the least frightening room as far as the funeral part of the building went.

  “Hey, what’s this?” Annika asked from a dark corner of the room.

  I walked over and joined her. “That’s probably a health code violation or something,” I said. “No wonder Landers was on him.”

  “You think?” Annika asked.

  “I mean, I’m sure there’s got to be a more official way to dispose of old embalming equipment than shoving it into a garbage bag and leaving it wide open in your storage room,” I said.

  “You think he meant to get rid of this stuff and just hasn’t yet?” Remy asked. “Like, he’s disposing of evidence?”

  “That or he’s just a lazy slob,” Meri said from behind us.

  “You don’t think it’s a clue?” I asked.

  “Seems convenient is all I’m saying,” Meri answered.

  “What else is in there?” Annika asked.

  She used one finger to peel the edge of the bag back a little. It looked like tubing and various metal implements.

  “I’m so not digging through there,” I said. “I think I’m ready to get out of here.”

  “Agreed,” Annika responded. “Nothing we found here is going to get Kyle out of jail tonight.”

  “We’re not giving up,” I said.

  About those windows we hadn’t noticed. We were fortunate enough to be outside of the funeral home before the sheriff’s cruiser pulled around the building. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the universe had helped us leave at exactly the right moment.

  Someone had either called Gunner or he’d been out on patrol and seen the lights on, but at least we were outside when he rolled up. All we had to do was figure out what to say.

  “So are you guys authorized to be in this particular building?” Gunner asked after he’d stepped out of his vehicle.

  His feet were planted on the asphalt parking lot, and his chest was puffed out like he was attempting to intimidate us. If only he knew who he was dealing with. Our interactions with Sheriff Gunner Black would have been so much easier if he knew that his new town was full of witches that could turn him into a goat with a snap of their fingers. I couldn’t do that, but I knew that both Annika and Remy could. Heck, I was fairly certain that Meri could do it too.

  “Oh, to heck with this.”

  “What did you say to me, boy?” Gunner’s eyes were laser focused on Remy.

  The only problem was that it wasn’t Remy who’d said it, but we were saved by the fact that Gunner thought it was him. Meri jumped out of the bag I’d been using to carry him and sprinted over to where Gunner stood with his hands on his hips.

  “Are you carrying a cat around in your bag?”

  Obviously, that had caught him slightly off guard. I didn’t have time to answer, though. Meri brushed up against his leg, and Gunner folded like a cheap suit.

  Remy realized what was happening and used a little magic to guide the sheriff down to the ground gently, so he didn’t hit his head on the pavement.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Meri said as he turned and ran toward the car.

  “What did you do?” I asked, but we all followed him.

  “I knocked him out,” Meri said proudly. “He’s going to sleep there for a little while.”

/>   “Meri, you can’t do that,” I said.

  “Who says? You can’t do that, but I totally can. And I did. Besides, even if you go with the witch rules, I did it to protect you and I didn’t do it for personal gain. I wasn’t going to jail for trespassing.”

  “Is he right?” I asked Annika and Remy as Remy started the car.

  I half expected lightning to strike our car or for the engine to blow up, but it didn’t. Remy looked like he was trying to suppress a smile, and Annika wasn’t even trying to hide hers.

  “Thanks, cat,” Remy said.

  “Whatever.”

  It seemed that Meri could do that. Nothing bad happened to us on the way back to Hangman’s House, and none of our powers were diminished.

  “Is he going to be all right?” I asked as Remy pulled into the driveway. “I mean Sheriff Black. He’s a little annoying, but I don’t want anything bad to happen to him while he’s laid out in the funeral home parking lot.”

  “He’ll be fine,” Meri said. “I included a protection spell with his main dish of being passed the heck out.”

  “He’s not going to be happy,” I said as we got out of the car.

  “He won’t tell anyone what happened,” Meri said. “Think about it. He would sound completely nuts. And for what? Technically, he caught us in the parking lot.”

  “We don’t know if someone called it in or if he saw the lights on when he drove by,” I said. “If he saw the lights, and I still can’t believe we all missed those stupid windows, he knows we were in there.”

  “But he can’t prove it,” Meri said. “That’s what matters.”

  “Are you sure you’re not evil Meri?”

  “Evil Meri is gray now, remember,” Annika reminded me.

  “Right. Anyway, is now a good time to talk about evil Meri?”

  “I gotta go,” Meri said right before he darted into his hole in the living room wall.

  “That’s convenient,” I said, but he was already gone.

  Chapter Seven

  “Hey,” I heard Brody say at the top of the stairs. “How’d it go?”

  He sounded far less accusatory than I’d expected given the last conversation. In fact, Brody almost sounded remorseful.

  “Not as well as we would have hoped,” I answered.

  He came down the stairs and gave Annika a quick kiss on the forehead. She flinched a little. I noticed. Brody didn’t.

  “There was a murder,” Annika said. “It looks like a vampire did it.”

  “And you’re friends with one of these things?” Brody asked.

  The stricken look on Annika’s face said it all. She took a step back from Brody, but he didn’t really notice that either.

  “These things?” Annika practically hissed.

  “Hey, guys. Come on now. Tensions are high, but let’s not fight,” I said. “But Brody, that really was a horrible thing to say. Vampires are not things. You shouldn’t dehumanize them like that.”

  “Well, they’re not exactly human, are they?” he asked.

  “That’s not the point,” I said.

  Remy and Annika were retreating toward the kitchen. Remy was guiding her there in an attempt to stem the argument we knew was brewing. As far as what was wrong with Brody, I had no idea.

  “Well, then what is the point?” he asked.

  “One of them is trying to help us, and the humans in Coventry arrested him. They don’t know he’s a vampire, so we don’t know why he was here or why they thought he did it. His vampire council came to me, though. They’re going to give me the blood I need if I get him released.”

  “Maybe he was here because he killed someone,” Brody responded.

  “Annika thinks he’s good, and I met him. Brody, I don’t think he did it either.”

  “Oh, Annika thinks her secret vampire friend is good, huh?” Brody snarked. “Well, that’s just rich.”

  “Brody, what is up?”

  “What’s up is that vampire boy might not be as awesome as you guys seem to think.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This peaceful vampire village you guys went to, it might not be so peaceful.”

  “I mean, they didn’t hurt us or anything while we were there.”

  “Yeah, probably because it’s more like a prison camp for vampire offenders than a hippie commune for vampires who just love humans so much, they don’t want to hurt them.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. Kyle moved there with his family when he was little. He’s still living there now.”

  “Why doesn’t that make sense?” Brody asked. “Do you know why he had to leave Coventry? Does Annika?”

  “Okay, so maybe his parents did something, but that doesn’t explain why he’d still be living there.”

  “Maybe because he moved there when he was a kid. If it’s all he knows, then perhaps it was easier to stay,” Brody said. “Or, and I know you and Annika don’t seem to want to think about this, he’s not good. If he was raised by parents who were sent to a prison colony, then perhaps he grew up to be a criminal too.”

  “I…”

  I wanted to argue with him, but how could I? Annika and I had no idea if Kyle was really good or not. We were going based on how we felt. More accurately, we were basing our assumptions on how she felt.

  Kyle had made her feel good, but perhaps that was just a part of his vampire nature. His whole existence was drawing people in so he could feed from them. Was he just a predator that had drawn us in?

  But then why did he come to Coventry?

  Ugh. What I needed to know was why Lundgren had arrested him. If I had that information, I could put those particular pieces together. That was barking up the wrong tree, though. Lundgren, and definitely Sheriff Black, were not going to give me any information.

  “What else do you know about Kyle’s village?” I asked. “And where did you get the information?”

  “You doubt me?” Brody scoffed. “Typical.”

  “I don’t doubt you, Brody. I just want to look into this further. I need to know what’s going on. My life literally depends on it.”

  “Fine,” he said. “Let me get my laptop.”

  I went into the kitchen to get a glass of water while Brody went upstairs to retrieve his computer. Annika and Remy were both at the table having a cup of coffee. They got quiet when I came into the room.

  “What?” I asked.

  “We’re just worried about him,” Remy said.

  “Yeah, I can understand that.” His attitude and mood were worrying to me as well. “But he’s coming back in a minute with his laptop to show me some info he found on Kyle’s village. So let’s pick that particular conversation up later.”

  “Okay,” they both agreed.

  A couple of minutes later, Brody came back downstairs and joined us at the kitchen table. “I’m not sure we’re supposed to be on here, but I’m going to show you anyway.”

  What he was showing us was a layer of the dark web that was below the one humans knew about. Not that Mariana Trench thing that supposedly needed a quantum computer to access, but deep enough.

  “These are mostly paranormals,” he said as he typed something in. “I think humans manage their way on here from time to time, but when they’re discovered, they’re usually hunted down and killed.”

  “How do you know that?” Remy asked.

  “Because I found a website with a list of the humans who had interfered and had been killed for it. I cross-checked the names, and they really were murdered. Some of them in horrifying ways.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Annika asked. “Is it because you’re jealous?”

  For a moment, it felt like all of the air went out of the room. I expected them to start fighting. Remy and I looked at each other. The glance we exchanged was one of agreement. We’d take our respective relatives aside and keep things calm.

  It didn’t come to that. Brody just smiled at Annika. It was strange gesture, but he didn’t say anything cruel. His eyes l
ooked as though he would, but he didn’t. He reminded me of our mother just before she said something to shatter my self-esteem.

  “I’ll show you the website,” he said. More tapping on the keyboard, and then he turned the laptop around for us to see. “Pick a name.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Laurence Collins,” Remy said without missing a beat.

  Brody turned the laptop back around and began to type again. A minute later, he turned the computer for us to see.

  Laurence Collins was murdered in his home five years before. The police had originally thought it was a home invasion for the purpose of robbery, but nothing was stolen. Later theories suggested it was a cult slaying, but those theories were widely dismissed.

  “Okay,” I said. “So the list is real. What does that have to do with the village?”

  “I just wanted to prove that the source was, at the very least, potentially reliable,” Brody said. “Would you agree that I’ve done that?”

  What he showed us next was a collection of historical documents about vampires. They’d been stolen from the council and possibly one of the vampire paranormal societies and posted on the paranormal deep web by shifters.

  He scrolled to a document that talked about vampire prison communities that were isolated and strictly watched by the vampire council. The document included a map of those colonies. One of them was in the exact location of Kyle’s village.

  “It doesn’t mean he’s a criminal,” Annika said defensively. “His parents moved there when he was a child.” She turned her attention to Remy. “Do you remember why they left town?”

  “Not well. Maybe because the father got a job somewhere else? But that could have been a cover story. If the vampire council sentenced them to live there, it’s not like they needed to run it by the witches for permission,” he said.

  “There’s only one way we’re going to figure out why he’s living there,” I said. “We have to find out from Kyle himself.”

  “He’s in jail,” Annika said. “And it doesn’t seem like the current law enforcement in Coventry is going to be too keen on letting us talk to him. We’re not lawyers, so…”

  “Then we go to the source,” I said. “We’ll go to his house and see what we can find.”