A Mate Worse Than Death (22 page)

“That’s right handy,” the Sheriff mused. “Reckon I might need to send some o’ my folks up to you for some trainin’ when this mess is dished up. What’d you need us to take in the way o’ weapons, sir? We got mostly plain ole guns and such, but we found a stash o’ things in the supply closet that might come in handy if things go a-might south out there.”

Azeem shook his head. He was getting the hang of this dialect. “I want your officers to circle the cabin. Do you have the NASH guns?”

“Are those them things that shoot out webs? Like Spiderman?”

Azeem looked confused and was thinking that maybe he didn’t understand this dialect after all when Cal leaned over to his f-light. “Cal,” he told it, then added, “Yes, sir, Sheriff MacMurray, you got it.
Those’ll do the trick.” He looked at the Lieutenant and said, “I’ll explain later. Plus, we get to watch some movies!”

Azeem nodded far less enthusiastically. “Right. Well, Sheriff, those particular units are called NASH guns, which stands for Net-All Super Holder, and when they are shot, magic cannot affect them, so they are good general capture nets. They won’t harm the perpetrator, but they will hold anything up to twenty-five feet tall and three thousand pounds with an mpsi of fifty or lower.”

“MPSI?”

Azeem tried not to sigh. “Magic power per square inch. I’m afraid it will have to wait for your training session. Trust me when I say that no vampire can break it, and Heraphina does not rate that high
on the Newtonian Power Scale.”

“Lieutenant, when this is done, I want to buy you beer and have a good jawin’.”

Azeem looked appalled, but Cal nodded enthusiastically and said, “This is good publicity for the department and Supers--go with it. I’ll explain later!”

Azeem cautiously agreed to a “jawin’” later, though for a Sphinx that had some rather naughty connotations. He decided it wasn’t his job to explain that one to the Sheriff. Then he laid out his plan for Heraphina and the vampire’s capture.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“Down!” Tony yelled at Phil as she pulled her NASH gun, trying to get a shot at the vamp. She had tucked it into the back of her waistband before they left the Beetle, but she realized, as she took aim, that she had assumed the vampire would be at the cabin with Heraphina.

She took a shot at the vamp, whom she recognized in the body of the former Haldis Holstrom, sister of victim Signa Engstrom, but missed a capture as the creature hissed and dodged the net with freaky speed and a dexterity that suggested that vampires had joints in more than their elbows and knees. The creature had been an innocent swan maiden, looking for love in, apparently, the ultimately wrong place. Now it clambered up the walls of the office, cutting itself on the sharp edges of the basalt walls and dripping blood as it went up and then across the ceiling like a lizard. Or a cockroach. Damned if Cal and Dr. C hadn’t called that one. She’d thought that was just a turn of phrase, but maybe they had seen one move like a cockroach before this case. Super-creepy.

She kept turning, following the movements of the vamp as best she could, her NASH aimed and ready to shoot if the damned thing would just stay in one place.

“I can’t get a solid shot!” she called out to Phil, “It’s moving way too fast. How do we get it to stay in one place?”

“You bleed,” Serena called out right before she shot Phil in the thigh. “I hope it takes its sweet time draining you,” she told her boss in her usual sugar-sweet voice. Then she turned to his desk and slapped a hidden button that caused a section of the wall beside it to open. Serena had slipped through and the wall shuddered to a close before Tony could move, so she turned to the more immediate problem and ran over to where Phil had fallen and was sitting, still a bit stunned to have been shot with a Mundane gun.

“She shot me! With an iron gun!” he told Tony indignantly, who let out a burst of hysterical laughter in reply before she shut that down. She looked around the room and didn’t see the vampire. “Why did she say bleeding would make it stop moving?”

Phil grimaced as he looked down at his wound, which was producing enough blood to make him look away, up to Tony’s worried face. “I suppose because it will come over here and settle down for a nice snack. Me.” He scanned the room as he added, “I have not dealt with such creatures often in recent years. It takes so much power to make and control one. Supers prefer to do their own dirty work, and the Naturals who did make them in the past did not last long afterwards. Eventually, their creatures ate them.”

Tony kept doing a sweep of the room while trying to get a look at Phil’s leg and assess the damage. “Can you shoot straight?”

“Yes,” he gritted out.

She handed him the NASH and pulled her f-light, contacting the squad cars outside. “Serena Melinoe has left the building. I have a civilian casualty here and a vampire loose in this office. I need two of you with NASH experience down here immediately. The rest of you, find Melinoe.” She cut the transmission and turned to Phil’s leg. “I need to tie that up to stop the bleeding.” She shrugged and pulled off her shirt. She was wearing an exercise bra under it, so it gave more coverage than most bikini tops on the market, but Phil’s eyes widened for a moment before he regretfully pulled his gaze away to check the perimeter.

Phil told her mournfully, belying his watchful gaze that flickered around the room, “This is not how I pictured you tying me up. Though the view is quite nice.”

“Fucking hilarious, Phil.”

“I had so hoped for exactly that, but later, and at my place. Oh well,” he smiled at her before looking back around the room, “the best laid plans.”

“Wow. Two puns in one blow.” She kept working as fast as could. “You have got to get some new material, demon.” She finished pulling the ends together and gestured to him to hand back the NASH. “I have a really bad feeling about this. Where the hell did the vamp go?”

“I have seen nothing since Serena shot me, and I have been scanning the room constantly. I do not see how it could still be here.”

“You checked the ceilings?”

“After watching it crawl across them like a gigantic cockroach?” he grimaced his distaste. “Of course.”

Tony shivered. “Enough with the cockroach analogies. I hate those things.” She thought for a minute. “All the folklore about vampires mention different powers--have you got any idea which ones are real?” She emphasized the last word, figuring that the whole vampire-as-real was no wackier than the rest of the real in the world now, but somehow, it still seemed weirder.

“I have no clue which of the old tales also contain truth, but obviously, they are fast and can crawl up walls like that scene in Mr. Stoker’s novel.”

“I hated that scene. It scared the bejesus out of me when I read it as a kid!”

“They are said to be able to call wolves.”

“On the east coast?” she snorted, still looking around, holding the NASH at the ready. “Only a problem if it calls up some of the red wolves that were released down in the Great Dismal Swamp and if they decide to follow the call. But that’ll take ‘em a while.”

“They are said to be able to turn into mist.”

“Ding, ding, ding.” She pointed over to corner of the room. “Folks, we have a winner.”

In one of the darkest corners, a pale, grey fog lurked. If Tony hadn’t been looking for it, she would have never seen it.

“Okay. I think we need to get
you out of this room, first of all. Can you stand?”

“Perhaps, but I think you will need to help me get to my feet.” When she turned to him, he put out a hand to stop her. “Before you try to lever me off the floor, we need to consider the fact that I have blood all over me.”

“You don’t honestly think I give a shit about blood on me, do you? I mean, that shirt is a goner already, and I don’t care about the rest of my clothes.”

He shook his head. “I mean that Serena shot me for a reason other than just slowing us down. She said it would make the vampire stop moving--that is because it is focused on me, the wounded prey, and is going to make a move to attack as soon as it feels like it can. When we start moving, you will be distracted by helping me, and it will be able to attack with less chance of being shot by your weapon.”

“I really hate to say this,” Tony told him, turning back around with her NASH gun pointed at the mist, “but you are absolutely right. I don’t know if the net will hold mist. I mean, it will hold mist if we can catch mist, but that’s going to be the tricky part. We need the vamp in the net, and then it won’t matter what it turns into, even a cockroach,” she shuddered. “Once it’s in there, the net will hold. So, it looks like we can’t move you. You are going to have move yourself.”

“I am not sure that--”

“You need to scoot backwards on your butt.”

There was silence behind her.

“Phil! You didn’t pass out on me, did you?”

“No,” he drawled. “I am trying to decide if you have lost your mind.”

“What?”

“Scoot? Out?”

“Give me patience,” Tony asked the universe. Then she briefly turned back to stare him in the eye. “Scoot one cheek, then the other. One cheek, then the other. Haven’t you ever done aerobics? Or Zumba?” She turned back to watch the pulsing mist, not sure if some of the tendrils were actually oozing out towards them and then back into the main mass, edging closer, or if she was having some kind of visual hallucination about the forward motion.

Silence. Then, “Forgive me, dearest detective. What are aerobics or Zumba?”

Silence.

“You don’t gain weight do you?”

“Why do you ask? Is this Zumba thing for exercise?”

“You don’t have to work out to stay in good physical condition, do you?” Her voice dripped acid.

Silence.

“I do not know what to say,” Phil muttered apologetically.

“I do. Abandon any hope of ever dating me, you rat bastard. I will never be able to forgive you for keeping your girlish figure without having to sacrifice for it.”

“I do not have a girlish--”

She cut him off, “It’s a phrase. Let it go. Trust me, I know from experience that you’re packing boy bits. They may even be impressive. One day I may be impressed by them. Who knows? Stranger things and all. But for now, shut up and let me explain.”

Silence.

“O-kay. Not used to someone actually being quiet when I ask. So, here’s the deal. If you can scoot backwards, then I can cover us. We can move to the door, let Hiller and the other officers in, and then we’ll use you as bait to net the vamp. Surely, it will have to re-materialize to bite you, and we’ll have a lovely little bottleneck to capture it.”

“I am the bait.”

“Right.”

“Now I am trying to decide if you are trying to get rid of me.”

“Phil, I just know good bait when I see it.” She turned and threw him a quick grin and an eyebrow wiggle, “What cute little vamp could turn down a chance to sink her teeth into all the yumminess that is you?”

He looked at her with suspicion, but then pursed his undeniably luscious lips. “Very well. I will try the scooting method. Please do not watch.”

“Why not?” She automatically turned to look.

“No!” he sat still until she turned around. “This is very undignified. You choose to do this in public?”

“First of all, I’m keeping an eye on the murderous vampire that’s waiting for a hint of weakness so it can scuttle in and suck you and me dry, so I am really too busy to rate your performance.” She tried to keep the laugh out of her voice. “Second, the whole purpose of that move in aerobics is to firm up the tushy, so you should be thankful that the mortal whose pants you seem to want to get in tries to keep those buttocks in firm shape.”

“I hope to get a chance to express my sincere appreciation of all of your efforts when I’m not bleeding and in pain from scooting across the floor,” he hissed between teeth clenched from pain. “That bullet really hurts.”

She snorted and started backing toward his voice. “Just keep moving, Phil. It’s gonna be all right.”

“At least I have a good view.”
“Don’t drool on your wound,” she told him dryly. “Mouths are just full of germs.”

Azeem leaped gracefully over a fallen log as he and Cal made their way to the cabin. Cal moved beside him as silently as a seven foot tall og
re could, but they wouldn’t win any awards for woodscraft.

Cal looked at his f-light for an MGP reading. “Sir, the cabin is just on the other side of this hill.”

Azeem turned to him, “Contact Sheriff MacMurray and let him and his deputies know that they should get into position. You and I will go in first and flush her out. If the vampire is with her, she will not be able to resist using it to attack us. The officers need to be in the formation we sent, ready to use the NASH guns.”

Cal sent out the call and reminded the officers of the plan. He looked at Azeem who gave him the mark, and the two headed over the hilltop and into the cove where the Caster sisters’ cabin lay.

“Detective,” Azeem told Cal, “set your f-light to megaphone and let’s give the lady’s door a little knock.”

“Yes, sir!” Cal reset the f-light and held it out to broadcast. He had to clear his throat a few times to get started, but he knew this was it. Time to get past his fear of witches. “Heraphina Caster! This is the Washington D.C. PD, SCI Bureau. We need to talk to you. Come out with your hands up and leave your wand behind.”

He was shocked when this approach worked.

Within minutes, Heraphina was standing on the front porch of the cabin, a fairly new, custom-built, two-story log cabin with multiple windows and a large front porch holding seven rocking chairs.

“Don’t shoot,” she called out, her voice breaking like a cawing crow. “Don’t shoot, officers! Please help me! I don’t know what to do.”

Azeem and Cal looked at each other, totally mystified. Then Azeem synched his own f-light to megaphone. “We are coming down to talk to you.” He shifted to mass call and contacted the Sheriff and his deputies. “We have no idea what is going on down there, so stay on alert. She may be sacrificing herself to let the vampire get away, so circle around the cabin as we go down to talk to her. Cal and I are setting our f-lights to broadcast to you. If you want to talk to us, you’ll have to tell your f-light. Otherwise, it will be masking your presence by blocking any chatter on the line. Do you copy?”

“Shore do. We’ll hear y’uns, but unless we tell the f-light specifically, y’uns cain’t hear us.”

Azeem nodded as he replied, “Exactly. Good luck.”

He and Cal began moving down the hill, going slowly to give the deputies time to get into position. Since it was quite dark and they weren’t on a trail, their slow approach would make sense to Heraphina as well. The area directly around the cabin was beautifully landscaped, but the area beyond remained overgrown.

When the two got to the porch, they called on the f-lights for illumination. Heraphina stood in front of them, twitching and groaning. She kept her hands up and it was clear that she held no wand, but she couldn’t stand still and was rocking on her feet.

“Please,” she whispered hoarsely, “please help me. The little bitch has poisoned me. I didn’t know! I really didn’t know!” And just as she finished speaking, she collapsed.