A Little Street Magic (13 page)

The meal was served all at once: Juicy pork chops with asparagus and glazed, baby carrots. More of the same waited in covered chafing dishes down the center of the table, if anyone wanted seconds.

After the last servant exited, Derrick gave Stannett his full attention. “I’m eager to learn how I may assist you, but please, don’t allow your meal to cool.”

Mine wasn’t going to get the chance. I dove in, listening to Stannett explain between bites of his own meal. Dodson, his forehead furrowed, was side-eying Stone. The dhampyr was eating with us. It wasn’t my place to enlighten the new guy.

In spite of the food, which was good stuff, Stannett managed to complete his explanation by the time I asked Dane to pass the chops for seconds.

He concluded with, “Discretion is required. We don’t want to panic people.”

“Of course not, and I do appreciate being included.” Derrick took a sip from the onyx wineglass before him. I wondered what was in it, not spotting any blood on his lips. “Cordi, would you feel comfortable sharing the visions you had with me?”

“Right now?” I’d just speared a second chop, and held it a little higher, so he’d see.

Derrick’s amusement colored his voice. “It’ll only take a few seconds, with proper concentration on both our parts.”

“I’m kind of not supposed to, because of uh, you know.” Mixed company, and some of them didn’t need to know that my eyes could change color, or more importantly, that I often felt like munching on humans after contact with a vampire.

“I assure you, it will not be an issue this time.” The vampire held out his hand, palm up. “Just concentrate on the visions, and allow me to view them.”

Well, shoot. I deposited the pork chop on my plate and put down my fork. Friends weren’t truly friends if they didn’t trust each other. Derrick and Stone had busted their tails to help find my mom. “Okay.”

Placing my hand in his, I discovered his was warm. He’d fed recently, and that was why he was certain Faux Vamp Cordi wouldn’t make an appearance.

Yes, it is
, Derrick ‘pathed, his mental voice calm and soft. The difference from the first time we’d made mental contact was huge.
The visions, if you would?

I hauled them out from my mental maze for his inspection. Derrick stayed outside the walls, a chilly shadow impression of his physical self.

Thank you
. He withdrew from the link and I pulled my hand back. “It does seem clear that vampires are behind these murders. I admit to not understanding why they’d be collecting magical artifacts. It’s rare for such objects to respond to us.”

“Vamps can’t do magic.” I picked up my fork and knife. My new pork chop wasn’t going to eat itself. “Not the witch or elf kind.”

“You could’ve mentioned that before,” Schumacher said. “Please pass the carrots.”

“I thought I did mention it.”

“No, you said that only humans and vamps get psychically lucky.”

I happened to be looking at Damian right then, and the expression on his face was priceless as the warlock stared at his partner. My plate proved less likely to cause giggling. “‘Psychically lucky,’ really?”

“I thought it sounded nifty. But no, you didn’t say ‘vampires can’t do magic’.” Schumacher ladled a healthy serving of carrots onto his plate.

He hadn’t been present at the first scene, when we’d talked about shifters being unable to do magic. And I hadn’t said those exact words, when discussing natural magic in regard to vamps. “Okay, I’m sorry. Now you know, and please pass those down when you’re done.”

“It’s possible they’re working for hire,” Derrick said, ignoring our interruption. “Perhaps collecting the artifacts for a non-vampire employer.”

“Do you know how they do the blood thing?” I asked. “The other two abilities are obvious.”

“I’m not sure what humans have named it, but we call it ‘water calling,’ and as you’ve seen, any type of liquid responds to it. Unfortunately, water calling is the second-most common ability among our people. Telepathy,” he inclined his head slightly to me, “being the most common.”

“What about pyrokinesis?” That seemed a weird ability for a vampire to have. The older they were, the more combustible.

“Far less common, and that’s what we’ll focus on during our internal investigation.” He returned his attention to Stannett. “If the culprits are part of our community, we will find them. They’ll be remanded to your custody.”

“Thank you, but I do have to question that ‘if’.”

“The council controls the Barrows to the best of its members’ abilities, but not all vampires are welcome in our domain. There are others who live above, and of course, there are vampires who prefer to travel from city to city, rather than settling down.” Derrick smiled. “Because of that, I’m pleased to offer my son’s services. He can act as our liaison, and he’s skilled at finding others of our kind.”

Schumacher beat Stannett to the question. “Your son?”

“Stone.” Derrick’s smile widened ever so slightly as he gestured at the other end of the table.

“Ah, some of our work does involve daytime hours.”

“Yes, that’s why I’m suggesting my son. He’s a dhampyr.”

“I’m sorry, a what?” Stannett’s bewilderment prompted me to answer.

“He’s not a full-blown vampire. The sun won’t burn him, and he can eat food.” I chased a carrot until it was cornered against my pork chop.

“I believe the opportunity to prove we can work together would be invaluable,” Derrick said.

Stannett’s blood-shot eyes swung my way, and I nodded. “He’s trustworthy.”

Damian pitched in. “If we’re dealing with supernatural perpetrators, it’d be good to have the extra backup, sir.”

“All right. I’m not sure the mayor will like the idea, but...”

“Civilian expert,” I said pointing at myself. “Vampire expert.” I gestured toward Stone.

“That, I can sell.” He nodded. “All right. Welcome aboard, Mr. Stone.”

“Excellent.” Derrick turned and leaned toward me. “I’ve meant to ask since you arrived. What happened to your skin?”

W
e returned to the station by three-fifteen, with Stone in tow.

“We’ll bring Mr. Stone up to speed,” Damian said.

“Okay, what do you want us to do?”

“With seven people, I think a division of labor is in order. Someone needs to meet with, ah,” Damian whipped out his notebook and riffled through the pages. “Here it is. Meeting with Tanisha...”

Dane interrupted him. “We know her.”

“Anything else?” I wasn’t going to argue if there was, because I really didn’t know how else we could help right now.

“Get a list of the cleaning supplies the museum uses. You can call, text, or email me instead of coming back.” Damian smiled, but most of his attention was on Stone. “And we’ll call you if anything comes up.”

“All right. We have our marching orders, so let’s go.” I led the way out of the office, slowing down only to tell Stone, “Have fun.”

“I
t’s just horrible.” Tanisha Wills’ brown eyes were bloodshot and puffy, but it didn’t detract from her looks. Lucky her, because I often thought my photo was next to “ugly cry” in the dictionary. “Ernie was such a sweet man.”

We’d offered our condolences upon arrival, which left me with exactly one response. “We’ll find who did it. I promise.”

She nodded, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. Taking a deep breath, she managed a small smile. “Reassuring me isn’t why you’re here though. If you don’t mind me asking, why do you look like you were recently burned?”

I didn’t want to shove Ernie’s brutal passing in her face, so I lied. “It’s a weird reaction to an alternative headache remedy.”

“Oh, yeah. You’ve got to be careful with some of that herbal stuff.” She nodded. “Okay, the missing artifacts were the Thieves’ Stick and the Seven-League Boots.”

I glanced at the guys, and neither looked particularly enlightened. “I’m afraid we’re not familiar with the fairy tales those are from.”

“Supposedly, the stick can be used to open any door, just by tapping the end on one. It didn’t work when we tested it.” The lovely, dark-skinned woman frowned. “To be perfectly frank, I think a lot of the collection is fake.”

Dane had been elected to take notes, because he wrote quickly and the end product didn’t look like a couple of hens’ scratch-fighting over a worm. His pen began flying over the paper.

“As in, they’re all bull crap, or they’re substitutes because the owners didn’t want to loan out the real thing?” I asked.

“Take your pick. Obviously, the mirror was real, but we haven’t seen the spirit since it was returned.”

I hadn’t noticed the mirror being at the scene the night before. Lady Celadine hadn’t informed them the spirit had been relocated. It didn’t seem like a good idea to give that information to Tanisha. “Maybe being kidnapped by demons spooked him.”

“Could be, and I can’t say that I’m sorry it’s hiding, but then, you’d have a witness.” She dismissed the idea with a wave of her hand. “The boots are allegedly magical transportation, but a code word is required to make them work.”

“Betting it’s not ‘Abracadabra’,” Logan muttered, earning a smile from her.

“Probably not. Of course, we weren’t given the code word.” Tanisha sniffed. “Being mere mortals, we can’t be trusted to resist the lure of magic. We humans are greedy, you know.”

I rolled my eyes. “Aren’t elves so cool?”

“Oh, absolutely...not.” We shared a laugh before she asked, “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“Yes, please. If you could point us to a maintenance worker? We need a list of the cleaning products you use here.”

“Sure. Follow me.”

“O
kay, all sent.” Dane tucked his phone away, and picked his notepad off the trunk of Logan’s car. “I forgot to mention that I have a date tonight.”

“Ooh, we’d better get him home so he can get beautified for Sheila.” I backed away when he tried to muss my hair, and smacked his hand. “No touchee the hair.”

“Get in the car, kids.” Logan unlocked it. “I can go pick up some dinner after I drop you two off, unless you’re wanting to call it a night?”

“I’ll cook something for us.” Once in the car, I brought up something I’d been thinking about. “Derrick said magical objects don’t often work for vamps.”

“Yes, he did.” Logan backed up the car and changed gears, but he was watching me from the corner of his eye, and there was a hint of a smile curving his lips.

“So would a scent-blocking charm work on them?”

“Good question.” Dane leaned forward, blocking our view of each other. “But if the charm doesn’t, we have science.”

“Huh?”

“Let’s assume the perps are definitely doing something to cover their scents, but a magical charm won’t do the trick for them. So what’s left?”

I drew a blank, and said so. He grinned and sat back. “They could be wearing clothes previously worn by humans. Unwashed clothing.”

Logan checked for oncoming traffic before pulling out of the museum’s parking lot. “That would cover their scents, especially with the heavy blood odor.”

My new thing learned for the day. “Okay, that makes sense.”

“They’d have to change right before breaking in, and we know they’re fast. It’d take maybe an hour or so for a vampire’s scent to saturate the clothing, and overwhelm the human smell.” Dane was still grinning. “Like I said, science.”