Bled & Breakfast

by Michelle Rowen

  “Here. Take my hand.” Heather reached out toward me and I took her hand. Then I took Thierry’s and he took Rose’s, until we formed a ring around the table.

  “You can do this,” Rose soothed. “I know you can.”

  Heather’s expression tensed. “I hope you’re right.”

  Then I had a scary thought. “Just try not to summon the spirit of that Malik guy.”

  “Malik?” Rose said with surprise. “You’ve heard of him?”

  “Saw him,” I confirmed. “At a café before we came here. Seemed like a very unpleasant ghost.”

  “Why? What did he do?”

  I shifted in my seat. “Well, he was just generally creepy. That was more than enough for me to get a bad vibe.”

  “I’m sure,” Heather murmured. “Jonathan Malik allegedly killed a dozen witches with his bare hands—those who aren’t even in the history books or who weren’t given a trial first. He played judge, jury, and executioner. Or so the story goes. I hope I don’t summon him by mistake, either. Yuck.”

  A chill went through me at hearing about Malik’s crimes. It was even worse than I’d imagined. “Then my vibe was right on the money. Evil spirits are not invited to this séance. But how do you home in on the exact spirit you’re searching for?”

  “I have a lock of Owen’s hair.” From her pocket, Heather pulled out the dark blond hair, which was tied with a thin red ribbon, and placed it in front of her next to Hoppy.

  Was that weird or was it just me?

  Thierry eyed the hair skeptically. “May I ask why you have a lock of Owen’s hair?”

  Maybe it wasn’t just me.

  “I gave him a haircut last week and still had the sweepings. But, I mean, it’s not like I kept some of his hair in an envelope.” Heather cleared her throat. “That would be strange.”

  I exchanged a glance with Thierry. “Not strange at all,” I said. “Nope.”

  Rose gave us a squeamish look. “My granddaughter was working on a love spell. Luckily for her, she doesn’t have access to that level of magic.”

  “Grandma!” Heather’s face reddened. “Anyway . . . let’s get started, shall we? Close your eyes.”

  I closed my eyes as instructed, disturbed that this girl had considered doing a love spell.

  Love couldn’t be forced. It either happened or it didn’t, whether with the wrong guy or not. And you could only hope the other felt the same in return—no envelope of vampire hair required.

  “I’m speaking to the spirit world,” Heather said. “I am searching through those who abide there. I come in peace, and I mean no harm. I seek Owen Harper. Owen? Are you there?”

  There was silence at the table, so much that I could hear the tick of the grandfather clock to my right.

  I cranked open one eye and glanced around. Heather was concentrating so hard that her forehead wrinkled beneath her long red side-swept bangs. Thierry’s eyes were closed, his expression controlled. Rose’s face was peaceful, as if she enjoyed her granddaughter’s attempts to tap into her dormant witchy talents.

  “Do you sense anything, dear?” Rose asked after a minute of silence.

  “Not yet.”

  “Keep trying. You know it doesn’t always work on the first attempt.”

  I didn’t have much experience with séances. I remembered doing a few back when I was a teenager—gathered with my friends at a sleepover and pulling out the Ouija board. I will reluctantly admit to being the one who’d pushed the pointer and freaked everyone out whenever I got the chance.

  Good clean fun.

  I closed my eye again.

  “Owen . . .” Heather’s tone had turned wistful. “Please come back. We want to help you. We want to know who did this to you.”

  Again, she was greeted by nothing but silence.

  Thierry’s thumb slid across my knuckles and I opened my eyes a crack to glance at him. He shook his head once.

  It was enough for me to understand what he meant.

  Heather might desperately want to summon Owen’s recently departed spirit back to the Booberry Inn, but it didn’t look like she’d be successful.

  Closure for her, and for us as well—since the Ring would want to know what happened and how it related to the other missing vampires—wouldn’t happen tonight.

  “It’s okay, dear,” Rose soothed. “It might not be the right time. We can try again tomorrow night if you’re having problems.”

  Heather’s face was tense. “I always have problems when I’m trying to do any magic—even something relatively simple like this. I’ve summoned spirits before.”

  “Not for a long time.”

  “True,” she allowed, glumly.

  Rose brightened. “Remember when ghosts used to visit you when you were a little girl? Almost every night?”

  “Vividly.” She blinked. “It was . . . kind of fun.”

  “Ghostly visits were fun?” I found that rather difficult to believe. Some considered vampires to be scary monsters, but I’d put my money on dead people any day. I mean, really dead people, not just sort of undead. Totally different. “I guess you didn’t have a lot in common with that kid in The Sixth Sense. He did not have fun.”

  “The ghosts I met haven’t been scary. Although I know they were all afraid of Malik, even back when I was a kid. He’s been the only ghost who’s stuck around town; the others all disappeared within a few days.”

  Thierry took this in. “So these abilities have little to do with witchcraft. You’re a medium.”

  “I don’t know. I thought so at one time. Maybe I’ve got that bit of psychic edge to me, but it’s nowhere near as good as being a real witch who can work with magic all the time.”

  “Says who?” I said. “That Miranda chick?”

  It was a guess. But by the blanched look on her face at the name, probably a good one.

  “Miranda won’t let me join her coven,” Heather said, her jaw tight. “Maybe I just need their help to access my powers.”

  “No,” Rose insisted. “You want nothing to do with those girls. They’ve been cruel to you, excluding you. Why would you want to give them a chance to be mean to you again?”

  Heather deflated. “You’re right. Miranda wouldn’t lift a finger to help me.”

  “Well,” I said, “she did lift a finger when she left earlier. Unfortunately, it was the middle one.”

  The direction of this conversation had only worked to harden Heather’s expression. “Okay, let’s try again. I mean, it’s Owen. We had a connection. I swear we did. If his spirit is still around, I know he’d want to talk to me.”

  Despite the worries about Owen and the other missing vampires, I couldn’t get my mind off my conversation with Markus about Thierry’s mysterious past—or really, that missing fifty-year chunk of it. I hadn’t always been the most proactive person in my life, but when somebody I loved was threatened, my claws came out. My claws could currently use a manicure, but they were still very sharp.

  I’d find the answer to keep those greedy elder vamps off Thierry’s back. Either that or I’d start keeping a sharp wooden stake around for protection.

  Heather closed her eyes and the rest of us did the same.

  “Owen Harper . . .” Heather’s voice was strong and clear, more so than before. “I’m summoning your spirit to appear in my presence. Owen, hear my voice. Come to me. I want to help you.”

  A whisper of cool air zipped across the bare skin on my arms. I opened my eyes.

  And shrieked.

  There was a luminescent ghostly face staring at me, only a few inches away from my own.

  Just a face. No body attached.

  “Well, hello there,” the face said. “And who might you be?”

  I pushed back in my chair, my heart doubling its speed. “Hi. I, um, I’m Sarah.”

  “Buonasera, Sarah. Lovely to meet you.”

  Thierry’s grip on my hand tightened. “You’re not Owen.”

  “No, no, not Owen.” The face belonged to a
man, a fat man with salt-and-pepper hair. It glowed in the dim, candlelit room. “I’m Lorenzo.”

  “Lorenzo,” I repeated.

  “I owned the Italian restaurant on the corner.”

  I glanced at Heather from the corner of my eye. “You summoned the wrong spirit.”

  She looked stricken. “Oops.”

  “My meatballs are the best in all of New England,” Lorenzo said, smiling widely. “Two-for-one spaghetti dinners on Thursdays. Delizioso.”

  Heather frowned. “Well, damn.”

  “Still,” Rose said, “it shows that you have great talent in this, dear. Don’t be too discouraged.”

  “But it’s not Owen. Lorenzo, can you help us?”

  “I don’t know this Owen.” Lorenzo now frowned. “Wait. Unless you mean Owen Harper.”

  “That’s who I meant to summon,” Heather said, excitement rising in her voice. “Have you seen him?”

  “Seen him? After insulting my world-famous meatballs without even tasting them first, that bastard slept with both of my daughters! I’m going to kill him!” The face bounced up and down erratically.

  “That might be difficult,” I said, cringing. “Someone already beat you to it.”

  “Oh.” Lorenzo came to a stop. “Well, then, good. Deserved it, too.”

  “No one deserves such a fate.” At Thierry’s intimidatingly icy glare, one of his most dangerous weapons, the ghost reared back, looking ill.

  “Well, then . . .” Lorenzo cleared his nonexistent throat. “Who killed him?”

  Thierry’s fierce gaze didn’t waver from the spirit. “That’s what we’re trying to determine.”

  “I can think of twenty men in this town who would have liked to see him dead.”

  “Twenty?” I repeated. “Wow. Owen really got around.”

  “You’re a cute little thing.” Lorenzo’s face zoomed toward me again. “What’s your favorite Italian dish? Maybe I can prepare it for you.”

  “Sounds great, but . . .” I grimaced. “I don’t eat solid food. Sorry.”

  “Oh, a dieter.” He nodded. “I see. No trouble at all. Anyway, was there anything else I can do for you lovely folks? It’s been delightful having this chat. The mortal world is a dangerous place, but much more interesting than where I’ve been hanging out.”

  Dangerous? I would think his dangerous days were over.

  “Lorenzo,” Rose said, “why are you appearing to us only partially?”

  “Am I?” He frowned, then turned in a full circle so I could see the bald spot on the back of his head. “Ah, you’re right. I don’t know. I had a body.”

  “It’s me,” Heather said, her voice catching. “I’m not powerful enough to summon his entire body. Only”—she sniffed—“a face!”

  Lorenzo was fading as I watched him, like a firefly nearly out of juice. “Good night, all. I must leave. Please, tell my wife that I loved her. Even though . . .” His expression darkened. “Wait a minute. She poisoned me! Let everyone know—”

  He disappeared with a soft popping sound.

  “He was poisoned?” I looked around at the others, alarmed.

  Rose waved a hand dismissively. “Lorenzo was always full of drama. His wife didn’t poison him. He choked to death on a piece of salami the day before yesterday. It was certainly tragic, but not a crime. By the way, he wasn’t kidding about the meatballs at his restaurant. Fantastic.”

  We’d come close to contacting Owen but, alas, no luck. Instead, we got a friendly floating head who’d choked on a piece of processed meat.

  Still, it was better than a scary witch hunter with glittering black eyes and a stare even icier than Thierry’s at his most intimidating.

  “I can’t believe this.” Tears rolled down Heather’s cheeks. “I failed. Owen’s gone, out of my reach. I’ll never see him again.”

  Rose pulled her chair over close enough that she could give her granddaughter a hug.

  My throat thickened to witness her pain. I glanced at Thierry. “Now what?”

  “Now,” he said grimly, “we accept that there will be no easy answers in this particular matter.”

  “Are there ever?”

  “That depends entirely on the question.”

  The answer to the question we’d asked tonight was no.

  But tomorrow was another day.

  • • •

  After experiencing life as a vampire for going on eight months now, sometimes I forgot how dangerous it could be. How, lurking in the shadows, there might be someone with a pointy wooden stake, his goal to wipe me off the face of the planet. Bottom line: Vampire hunters sucked.

  To think I was now in a town that had additional dangers in it—dangers that could kill a vampire from a distance when you least expected it. Well, that sucked even more.

  We had to scour Salem for clues about what happened to Owen Harper—and also what happened to the missing VIP vampires—all without clueing anyone in to the fact that underneath our honeymooning exterior we were both so-called creatures of the night.

  Thierry had had six hundred years to perfect his camouflage. He’d gone with the rich, untouchable businessman look to keep people from getting too close, as opposed to Owen’s playboy hedonist, which only seemed to have brought people closer.

  Thierry and I, at first glance, didn’t exactly look like the perfect match. Him in his Hugo Boss suits, me in my jeans and T-shirts . . .

  He eyed me before we left the inn, sweeping his gaze over my chosen “Let’s investigate Salem!” outfit. “You look rather dazzling today.”

  I touched my shirt, which literally had the words “Dazzle Me” in sequins. “Got it in Vegas.”

  “I have no doubt.”

  “You like it?”

  His gaze moved down the front of me, then back up to lock with mine. “Very much.”

  I’d earned the hint of one of those rare smiles. I considered it an excellent way to start the day.

  After a quick breakfast that included three cups of coffee and a little something from my BYOB stash in the minifridge, Thierry and I emerged from the Booberry Inn to check out the town.

  I busied myself taking pictures with my cell phone—anything that looked interesting. Not tourist photos, but businesses Owen had been known to frequent. Bars, taverns, homes of rumored lovers.

  Thierry and I spoke to many people during the course of the day. We showed photos of the missing vampires to shop owners and people on the street and received unhelpful responses such as, “Yeah, I think I saw her a couple weeks ago,” or “Never seen him before—sorry.” After a couple of hours of this, we shifted our focus to Owen.

  Everybody knew Owen.

  Most conversations went a little something like this:

  “Owen Harper? Gorgeous, right? Friendly? Loves to hang out at Mulligan’s? Yeah, he’s a great guy. Everybody loves him.”

  “Everybody?” Thierry asked. “So he doesn’t have any enemies?”

  He said “doesn’t” rather than “didn’t” since nobody knew Owen was dead—other than us witnesses and the murderer. No body. No proof. We were pretending to be old friends visiting town concerned for his well-being.

  Whomever we spoke to, male or female, would usually laugh at this and answer with something along the lines of “Oh, he had enemies. Jilted girlfriends. The jilted girlfriends’ boyfriends. Yeah, that guy might be a stud, but he should sleep with one eye open.”

  One woman asked me, her expression pinched, “Are you one of his exes?”

  I grimaced. “No.”

  She gave me an unfriendly head-to-toe scan, and then, just before she walked away, threw out, “I’m surprised. You look like his type.”

  I really wasn’t sure if I should take that as a compliment or an insult.

  Needless to say, we found nothing helpful. At the end of the day, everyone we’d spoken to seemed equally innocent and guilty. Anyone could have done it.

  Anyone could have been the alpha witch who just might have a death wish for a
ll vampires who entered the town limits. And we were nowhere closer to finding him or her than we’d been yesterday.

  “Maybe we should check out Mulligan’s tonight,” I said once we returned to the inn just before nine o’clock. It was the karaoke bar Owen liked to go to that got busier later in the evenings.

  “If you like.”

  I checked myself in the vampire-approved mirror, tucking my hair behind my ears. “Or we can hang out here and I can show you what I bought in Vegas other than this delightful shirt.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “Let’s just say silk and lace are involved. But not very much of either.” I glanced at him over my shoulder.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Then my vote, most definitely, is for us to stay in this evening.”

  “You and me, alone in a tiny bedroom with a very sexy minifridge. Didn’t seem right to experiment in honeymoon lingerie after the séance last night. Tonight, however . . .”

  “You had me at the sexy minifridge.”

  “Then we can focus on getting to the bottom of your previous Salem visit and what could have wiped your memory.”

  His expression tensed. “Let’s forget about that.”

  “See, I think that’s the problem. Too much forgetting. We need to figure out something to tell them.”

  “I know what I’m going to tell them. I’m going to lie and hope they believe me. However, there’s a problem.”

  Lying worked. Not all the time, but in this instance I’d totally allow it. “What?”

  “You know the truth. And Markus, for some unacceptable reason, feels comfortable contacting you personally.”

  I understood what he was trying to say. “And I’m a lousy liar.”

  His tense expression eased. “I can handle the Ring. This isn’t the first problem I’ve had with them.”

  I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself to warm up a little. “Who are these people, Thierry? Why are they so good at being shadowy and creepy?”

  He went to the window to glance outside, past the curtain. “They only do what they must.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure that’s what the friendly gazelles say about the hungry pride of lions circling their herd.”

  That earned me a glance. “Last time I checked, I’m not a friendly gazelle.”