Hex Appeal

OUTSIDE THE BOX by P. N. ELROD

To paraphrase a line from the movie—it wasn’t in the book—vampires are like chocolates; you don’t know what you get until you open the box.

Not that I was going to dig up a coffin stuffed with a newly made and hungry vamp. My partner and I would watch from a safe distance, the fresh grave bounded by my heavy-duty holding spell. How the vamp got free from its burial would tell us what breed we had on our hands. They were all dangerous, but some more than others.

My name is Marsha Madinia Goldfarb, occupation/vocation/inclination: witch. I register the post-dead and help with the orientation to their new lifestyle. Think you can escape bureaucracy by dying? That would be a no. Sooner or later, however badass a bloodsucker you might be, you will deal with someone from the Company, like me, armed with a clipboard and forms to fill out.

So here I was, my butt parked on a folding campstool in an old cemetery next to an abandoned wreck of an old country church, the sun gone and the darkness thickening.

Meh. It’s a living.

I gave a jump when the custom sound system in the Type III ambulance behind me came to life, blasting the air with the Peter Gunn Theme.

My partner, a vampire named Ellinghaus, began to appear, fading in like old-school special effects: ghostly at first, then forming up and taking on color and solidity. No streaming mist for this guy, he was there or not-there. He timed the fades and formings to the beat of the music. It was his party trick. Not all of them had that kind of control.

Like the rest, his breed of vamp had a special Latin name with the Company geeks, but the informal designation was “Chicago Special.” It coincided with his personal style. He dressed and acted as you might expect from a guy obsessed with the Blues Brothers, complete down to the hat and sunglasses. He even had the accent. On him, it worked. Other vamps ribbed him about it, often not in a good-natured way, but outside the Company people liked him on sight, thinking he was with some nightclub show.

Considering his choice of prime Mancini as his waking-up number for tonight, that was close enough.

Pop-culture packaging aside, Ellinghaus was tough, just couldn’t get around during the day like some of the Dracs could. No shape-shifting, either, but I’d never heard him complain. He’d been in a long, lightproofed storage bench in the back of his home on the road for at least eleven hours and somehow managed not to look rumpled. I could admire that.

His occupation: keeping an eye on the witch so she doesn’t get damaged.

Vamps are a dime a dozen, but true spell-slingers are rare, though you wouldn’t think so with my pay scale. More and more, I’d been giving thought to going indie, usually on Friday, when the amount on the check left after Company deductions was only enough to cover basic living expenses. I’d signed a seven-year contract, though. Two more to go for either renewal (and a significant raise) or resigning with the usual confidentiality spell in place for life.

“Good evening, Miss Goldfarb,” Ellinghaus said. He leaned in through the open window of the cab and shut off the player. He’d made his entrance.

“Hey, Ell.” I’d tried for five years to get him to call me Marsha or even Mars, but he liked calling me “Miss Goldfarb.” Whatever made him happy.

“Where are we this fine night?” Used to waking up in a different place than where he’d gone to bed, he was only mildly curious.

“Still in Texas.”

“Where in Texas, if I may inquire?”

“About two hundred miles west of HQ. We’ve been knocked back to the Stone Age. No phone, no Internet. Sorry.”

He took that pretty well. I hadn’t. “Anyone else joining us?”

“I don’t think so. No mentor called this one in.”

His solid form went ghostlike, and he rose straight up like a slow balloon. I should be used to that, but it’s cool to watch and just never gets old.

“Anything?” I asked when he came back to earth after a good look around.

“Lots of nothing. No cars on the road. I am thinking this is an orphan case, Miss Goldfarb.”

“It has that dump-site vibe, yes.”

He stalked over to the grave, stopping short of the barrier marked by the salt I’d put down, his head tilted, listening for activity. “Must be too soon,” he said.

Post-death incubation varied, anything from twenty-four to forty-eight hours. More than that, and it’s assumed the change failed. Then we back off and call an investigation team to process as a questionable death, possibly a murder.

We don’t get many of those these nights, but it happens.

Most of the time the vampire’s maker is standing by ready to mentor the newbie. In those cases we just fill out the paperwork, hand them a brochure about the benefits of working for the Company, and get out.

Then there are the orphans who, for one reason or other, don’t have anyone to show them the ropes. It’s shameful and wrong, like the casually cruel mouth-breathing morons who love playing with a new puppy, then abandon the grown dog on the side of the road to starve, go wild, or get killed in traffic.

When the Company finds the vamps who do that, there are penalties, severe ones. The CEOs take the Stan Lee trope of “with great power comes great responsibility” seriously. It’s the second-most-important rule in the greater community; ignore it at your peril. You make ’em, you take ’em.

I’d dealt with only a few orphans and counted myself lucky not to be around when the Company caught up with their makers. Word was that it got noisy.

Responsible vampires don’t pick out-of-the-way, long-neglected graveyards for their protégés. Some brainless jerk had dumped his or her table scraps.

Tonight’s case was going to be a bitch, I thought.

The wind kicked up, hot air sweeping through the long, drought-dry grass, making it hiss. The old church creaked like something trying to wake up. It must have been a tidy gathering place once upon a time, but a century of Texas weather had baked it to death. The structure leaned in the direction of the prevailing wind. The front door was on the ground and rotting, and I could see through to where the altar had been. No pews, perhaps those had been carted away to a newer, larger church.

This place was just sad. How many weddings, christenings and funerals had it seen? All that life past and gone, nothing to show for it but an ugly wreck and pale tombstones for people forgotten by time.

I’ve been in older cemeteries, scarier ones, ones that closed down the club for Gothic atmosphere, but there’s a special bone-dust creepiness to the ones in Texas. I don’t know if it’s the way the wind hits the lonely tilted markers or the fire ants, but I don’t like them.

“Should have brought more lights,” I muttered. I scrounged in my backpack for a flashlight but didn’t flick it on, else it would mess up my night vision. It felt good having a hunk of metal in my hand, especially one that doubled as a stun gun. I’d bought it on the Internet. Nifty toy.

Ellinghaus heard, of course. He could pick up the stirrings of a groggy neo with six feet of earth between. He gave a neutral grunt. “May I suggest a campfire and s’mores?”

He might have been kidding, it was hard to tell when he wore sunglasses, which was all the time.

“Maybe later.”

He grunted again, and I felt less creeped out. He’d reminded me that he had my back. The only danger I was in was from the insect life and my imagination.

Ellinghaus opened the back doors of the ambulance, checked the mini fridge and snagged a plastic sports bottle that would have his preferred beverage in it. I never asked whether it was animal or human blood, as that’s considered to be a social faux pas in the community. If he wanted me to know, he’d say—if he even thought it was important. For instance, he’d never asked whether the sandwiches I stacked next to his blood supply were turkey or ham. What did it matter?

He took a deep swig, gave a long, soft sigh, and I pretended not to hear. That was also something I should be used to by now, but it was less cool than his ability to float around or go invisible at will.

Word had passed down to the bullpen from one of the Company seers that there was to be a return case on this date and at this particular spot in the great state of Texas. That was all she could give, and we’d not gotten a corresponding call from any vamp about registering his or her offspring. Some actively hated the red tape, but their “kids” got registered, like it or not, because they couldn’t hide their rebirth from the seers. I don’t know why some vamps kicked up such a fuss. It’s just paperwork and not like we put microchip trackers under the skin.

At least I don’t think we do.

Most flashes of the future that come to seers are not reliable. It’s to do with theoretical physics and how things are constantly in flux because people are constantly in flux. Michio Kaku’s multiple universe stuff is involved, and it all works to effectively neutralize specific predictability. That’s why you don’t find seers winning the lottery. If they could, they would, but they can’t, so they work, same as anyone else. Some still buy tickets, you never know.

Prediction rules are different for the undead, though. Their passing and return somehow creates a short-term stability point for seers to pick up on with—what else—uncanny accuracy. That’s their story, and they’ve stuck to it for centuries. It’s easier to call it magic than to try explaining the equations to a liberal arts student who flunked algebra. (I’d not lost sleep over that one, having had no use for the subject. We can’t all be academically well-rounded.)

Anyway, when the word came, my gut gave a strange flutter, and I said I’d take the job. I don’t have psychic gifts in league with seers, but I never ignore that feeling. I wanted to tackle this one even if I didn’t consciously know why.

Five hours later I was in the ambulance the Company assigned permanently to Ellinghaus, who was on duty that week. The big Type III was his traveling home, and I tried to take it easy for the last mile as we lurched over a bad road, heading for, not unexpectedly, a cemetery next to the remains of a wood-frame church. I pulled up a few yards away, set the brake, and got out. There was an hour of sunlight left. Ellinghaus was still dead—I refused to think about it—leaving me on my own, so I made the most of it.

It didn’t take more than a minute to find the fresh grave. No effort had been made to tamp down the soil or conceal it, but why bother? No one had been out here for years. I wouldn’t put it past the maker vamp to have picked this isolated spot for no other reason than knowing it would inconvenience a Company employee.

I got my spell stuff together, nothing much, just sea salt in a five-pound container with a handle and perforations on the lid to make it into a giant shaker. Next, a small ice chest containing cold packs and a sports-drink bottle full of fresh bovine blood, then a change of clothes for whoever had been buried. Not knowing the sex wasn’t a problem, everyone started out with gender-neutral gray sweats. I opted for extra large and put them and some hospital scuffs neatly on the ice chest next to the grave.

Then it was time to focus and chant, pacing around the site, sprinkling the salt as I went. Three circuits did the trick; gotta love those prime numbers.

Vamps, being supernaturals, are subject to magical influences to a degree not shared by ordinary day-walking humans. For instance, if I put a holding circle around a regular person, he’d walk right through and not know it was there. But a vampire is held fast, unable to leave until I take it down. It’s a necessary precaution; most new vamps don’t wake up well and need a short adjustment period to get themselves together.

Ellinghaus, finished with his breakfast or whatever he called it, put the bottle back in the fridge, then rummaged in a vertical storage locker where he kept a number of weapons behind a trick panel. He had the usual peacekeepers that vamps respect: stakes, fully charged Tasers, police-grade stun guns, a hickory baseball bat (no shape-shifting jokes, please), and several types of firearms—including a real machine gun from the 1920s—all with special ammo made from wood, silver, and garlic-smeared lead. One pistol fired tranq darts with enough drugs to stun a charging rhino. Two shots worked for most.

My favorite, because it wasn’t lethal to humans, meaning I could use it without damaging myself, was a custom-made toxic green plastic pistol that could shoot holy water twenty feet. Some of the really rare Euro-breeds and a few old-school Dracs reacted to a squirt of that as though it were acid. Other breeds were immune, and the Company geeks were still trying to figure out why. For some reason, volunteers for experimentation were hard to find.

The Company prefers to avoid violence, of course, but if things went very wrong, then Ellinghaus had to be prepared to deal with an organic killing machine every bit as fast, strong, and deadly as himself. He liked having the advantage several times over.

Not all newborn vamps want to stick around to answer questions, even if their mentors insist; they want to cut loose and see if the hype’s true about their condition. (It is.) But there are rules to follow when you wake to the big change.

The number one rule for all of us: stay off the human radar.

It is inviolable.

If one gets noticed, we all get noticed. So don’t get noticed.

That’s hard to remember when you’re anxious to prove that you are the coolest apex predator on two legs.

But really, it’s just not allowed. Break the rule, and you will be staked.

The greater supernatural community has a zero-tolerance policy for grandstanding idiots. Ellinghaus was in charge of making sure the newbies knew there was policing and strict enforcement.

Of course, there are plenty who attempt to challenge that. The sense of entitlement some of the Dracs and Euro-breeds have is almost childish, but they get nobbled. It’s that or be killed.

The nobbling is magical, of course, buried in the registration process and quite painless.

The rule’s been around (more or less) since Polidori blew the whistle on Lord Ruthven. Back then, if a vamp made a village too hot to plunder, he just hopped a horse or flew his shape-shifted batty ass twenty miles over to find some other place to misbehave.

No more. The bad old days of rocking mayhem without consequences are gone. Since the Industrial Revolution, the whole subculture’s gone conservative to survive.

That’s okay with most because no one wants to end up in an experimental lab with inquisitive types vivisecting former humans down to their DNA. Or staked by fanatics who’ve seen one too many Hammer films—that’s a biggie on every vamp’s learning-experiences-to-avoid list. That sort of thing still happens, along with witch burnings, in third-world countries. I try not to think about it.

Standard operating procedure is for someone like me to lay a complex restraining spell on new vampires before they know what’s happened. They have to obey the directive of the magic. Spell details are proprietary to the Company, but it works.

Usually. I’d heard rumors of epic fails, but the real-deal reports were above my pay grade.

On my initial look around, I found faded tire tracks. I pointed them out to Ellinghaus, and we agreed that whoever had buried the body had gone back up the pockmarked road I’d taken to get here. There was a small hope that the maker-vamp had just split to find shelter for the day, but with the sun long gone, I gave up on that.

We had an orphan (or a body), and the maker, possibly killer, had a laughably long head start.

“Movement,” said Ellinghaus. He shouldered his baseball bat and returned to the grave. He went still in a way only his kind can when they’re not pretending to breathe and listened.

Not a body down there. That was something.

I boosted from the campstool (ow) and dug out my clipboard from the backpack. I was dressed in generic EMT clothes: khaki pants, crisp white shirt, the logo for a medical transportation company on the left pocket that matched the one on the sides of our vehicle. The business was a real one; our recovery/registration division is kept separate.

It’s protective coloration on the road and intended to reassure new vamps who are understandably traumatized by their resurrection experience. Most initially think they’ve been in an accident, so an ambulance and kindly faces telling them everything’s going to be okay can help settle them down.

Sometimes, it even works.

“Female,” he added, his voice tight. “She’s screaming.”

“I don’t like this part, either. Better give her some space.”

He backed away, and I moved forward, clipboard in hand for something to hold; I’d have preferred the flashlight in my pocket. My heart rate went up though I couldn’t hear anything of the woman’s struggles below in the dark. I took my cues from Ellinghaus, who looked grim and even flinched.

“What?” I asked.

“Something snapped. Must be breaking through the coffin. That might make her a—” He rattled off the Latin name of a Euro-breed that can’t vanish and filter up to the surface like the Dracs or Chicago Specials. They have to dig themselves out.

I was surprised about the coffin. Some mentors just wrap their neos in a blanket or body bag, bury them shallow, and wait. If this was an orphan, then why bother putting her in a box?

“She went quiet,” he said.

Whoever was down there might have gone into shock or heard us. I spoke clearly, addressing the mound of earth. “Hello! Please remain calm.”

In my own defense, I did not come up with the Company-approved greeting. I’m certain they stole it from some airline’s lame emergency protocols.

“My name is Marsha, and I’m here to help. Please follow the sound of my voice as best you can. Please remain calm and come to me…” I paused and looked at Ellinghaus, who gave a nod.

“I think she heard.”

I kept up the patter, halfway expecting to see a dirt-caked arm thrusting up from the earth. The instinct is to run like hell, but we’re trained to tough it out. My new instinct is to reach forward to help, but that would negate the holding spell, so I hung back, waiting.

She abruptly appeared, naked and bruised, on top of the grave. Not a Euro-vamp after all, she had figured out how to dematerialize. She’d used up what air had been in her lungs and hadn’t drawn in more; her mouth hung wide in a soundless scream.

At heart, Ellinghaus was an old-school gentleman and took his hat off, holding it in front of his face to block the view.

It took a minute to get her attention; I told her my name and that I was there to help her.

“Who are you?” she husked, breathing in so she could speak.

I repeated my name and asked for hers.

“Where am I?” Her voice rose high, and she suddenly realized she was naked and tried to cover herself. She made a terrible, keening sound: raw fear. It would escalate to sheer panic if I didn’t snap her out of it.

“Hey!” I used my no-nonsense sergeant-major bellow.

She twitched and went still, staring at me.

I pointed at the folded sweats atop the cooler. “There are some clothes; put them on.”

She hesitated.

“Now!” I roared.

That made her jump. Ellinghaus, too, a little. You can try a kindly, soothing approach, but in some situations it’s just going to prolong things. Most people respond to a direct order, at least until they pull themselves together enough to start asking questions. When they do, I go from bear to teddy bear.

“What’s your name?” I asked after she pulled the top on. It hung halfway to her knees. The pants would be too long and big in the waist, but she could roll the legs and hold the rest up until I found a better size.

“You first,” she snapped.

Anger was good, much better than panic. We were close enough that I got a clear look at her in the light spill from the back of the ambulance. She was strangely familiar, though I was certain I’d never met her before. It’s that out-of-context recognition where you know the face, just from some other location. I told her my name again and repeated my question.

“I’m—I’m Kellie Ann Donner. Have I been in an accident?”

Oh, crap.

I glanced at Ellinghaus. He put his hat on and took off his sunglasses. He never takes off his sunglasses.

“What’s going on?” she demanded, tears beginning to tumble. “Who are you people?”

I hate being off the grid. There was no way to let HQ know about the volatile situation we’d gotten into. Not that they’d change procedure, that was set in stone, but at least someone back in the bullpen could pass word up to management so they could start figuring out what to do.

That flutter in my gut came back. Why me? I wondered. Perhaps I’d had an inkling of this way back in my head, inspired by the news reports.

A week ago, Kellie Ann Donner, a night clerk at a roadside gas stop in Alabama, had inexplicably walked off her job and vanished. While it is a rage-making and horrible fact that many young women go missing and are never found again, this one caught the public imagination due to the efforts of the franchise owner, who raised holy hell with the media about his missing employee. He insisted she was a bright, responsible girl and posted a half-million-dollar reward for her safe return, no questions asked. The hometowners beat the bushes for her, and hoards of private investigators, pseudo-psychics, reporters, and other helpful crazies wanting a crack at that cash were on the case. It was like the community shark-hunt scene from Jaws—the movie, I’d not read the book.

CNN and other networks picked up and ran the story, that lady lawyer needled the Alabama authorities nightly on her show for not trying hard enough to find the girl, and the blurry video showing her departure had gotten more than a million hits on YouTube.

I’d seen it. From a high angle, the camera recorded the store’s door opening, Kellie Ann seemed to speak to someone coming in, only no one was in front of her. For exactly twenty-two seconds she stopped moving, staring at something unseen, then left her spot at the counter and went outside. An exterior security camera caught her walking up to a plain white van, no plates visible, and getting in. Its door seemed to slam shut on its own, and the van drove off. You couldn’t see the make or who was driving.

Poof, gone.

The store, lights bright on the side of a lonely two-lane, stood empty for an hour until a patrol car pulled up, and the officer, seeking his usual coffee-and-donut break for his shift, radioed in the first report of the mystery.

The Company was keeping a close eye on this one. We were certain in the bullpen that a rogue vamp was behind it since he wouldn’t show up on camera. The twenty-two seconds of blank staring would be when he’d hypnotized her. She’d be docile, under his complete control, perfect for a living blood bank. But who would be that stupid?

For a week now, Kellie Ann Donner’s face had been impossible to avoid. Moderately pretty, a birthmark just off the right corner of her mouth, she smiled at America from her high-school prom picture while friends and family put on a brave front and wore yellow ribbons. Bunches of flowers were left before an improvised shrine at the gas station. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of other people went missing that week in America, but this was the one that caught the public imagination—along with that half-million-dollar reward.

And now she was a vampire.

The inviolable rule was about to be shot to hell and gone.

Soon as the Company CEOs got my news—well, there had to be protocols in place. The simplest solution came to me, and I wanted to be wrong and hope they’d not go there. It wasn’t Kellie Ann’s fault. She was a victim. No need to make it worse.

In the meantime, I was in charge of getting her safely to our HQ in Dallas.

“Yes, Miss Donner, you’ve been in an accident. I’m here to help you.” I held hard to my professional patience.

Again, she wanted to know who we were, and I told her. Disorientation and short-term memory loss are normal. The latter usually includes how they died. The geeks think it’s a protective mechanism that kicks in because no one wants to remember that sort of thing.

“What is this place?” Clothes on, slippers on, she shuffled forward and bumped into the invisible barrier surrounding the grave. For a second, she looked like a street mime doing that stuck-in-a-box routine. Those magically powered walls were as solid to her as brick ones were to me.

It took time to get her past that shock, then introduce the idea (again) that she’d been in an accident, that we were not kidnappers, psychos, or part of some twisted reality show and would explain everything soon. That’s a lot for anyone to take in, especially when they’ve not been prepared. Neos and their mentors have usually been together for years and adjust faster. Even orphans will have some inkling of what’s happened to them and catch on sooner or later. It’s usually because they’ve lived on the fringes of the supernatural community and pick up hints by osmosis. Just because we stay off the human radar doesn’t mean people don’t notice and wonder.

But Kellie Ann didn’t have any of that. This was completely outside her tiny pocket of a sheltered world. She didn’t remember anything, didn’t know of the greater supernatural community, and she had no clue that she’d been murdered.

So how did she get from Alabama to an abandoned cemetery in Texas?

The vamp drove her. She was his food for the trip, perhaps kept locked in a trunk for the day. There were cases like that on the books. The supernatural community was no more immune to crime than the day-walking world. We punished the perps when we caught them.

This one had finished her off but didn’t do a proper job of it, enabling her to come back. It’s a mixed blessing. She was in the world again, but not all victims are able to make the adjustment.

Kellie Ann paced the boundaries I’d put up, trying to find a way out, too agitated to listen. That was also normal and the reason why she had to be confined. The fever that would drive her toward her first feeding was kicking in, and she wouldn’t be responsible for her actions. You might as well tell a newborn not to cry.

I ordered her several times to open the cooler chest. With shaking hands, she finally did, fumbled with the plastic drink bottle, snapping the lid off and, madly thirsty, gulped the contents.

Ellinghaus watched this with close attention, then relaxed a little. So did I.

A new vamp’s initial taste would influence the rest of their existence. They will stick with the kind of blood they got at their first meal. If it’s cattle blood, then it’s easier to follow the rules. If it’s human, it gets complicated in ways I try not to imagine. In the bad old days, human blood (often drained from a hapless victim) tended to be what some breeds craved unless the potential vamp knew to prepare and had himself interred near a livestock pen. Don’t laugh. It worked.

The Company has a deal going with a number of meat-processing plants—God knows what story they gave; for all I know, the vamps ran the slaughterhouses—and thoughtfully provided a month of free blood to orphan newbies. After that, they were expected to get gainful employment and buy it same as the rest.

With a quart of bovine in her, Kellie Ann settled down enough to focus, and I began making headway. Just not for long. Her eyes, flushed an alarming red from the feeding, soon dulled, then she sat on the cooler, blinking at me, nodding agreement at whatever I said. With a strange, drunken smile, she pointed at Ellinghaus.

“I know you, you’re that guy.”

He touched his hat brim. “Yes, ma’am. Close enough.”

“That. Guy.” She waved a hand around. “My dad loves your movies.”

“Very kind of him.” He shot me a look. “I believe she is ready to go, Miss Goldfarb.”

I needed a prop for this part and got a metal rod about a foot long and as big around as my thumb from my backpack. Nothing like cold iron to take the juice from a spell. I prodded the invisible wall, felt the energy thrum and dissipate, then the holding mechanism was gone, like popping a balloon.

Ellinghaus stepped forward and asked Kellie Ann for permission to help her to the ambulance.

I know. But it worked. She took his arm, made two unsteady steps, then her legs wobbled. He swept her up, hardly breaking stride, and got her in, stretching her flat on the rolling gurney clamped to one wall. I came up behind with the cooler and discarded bottle, stowed them, and went back for the stool and backpack. One more chore: fill a few plastic zip bags up with a quantity of dirt from her grave. Without it, she’d not be able to rest during the day. The geeks were still working on the why behind that one, too. I dropped the bags into an equipment drawer with the folding shovel and had a last glance at the horrible place. I hoped she wouldn’t remember it.

My partner had buckled her in under a blanket and gone through to the cab of the bus.

“You going to change?” I asked.

“Is it necessary?” He really liked his black suit; the look had proved to be disarming and distracting to Kellie Ann, as intended.

We’d be going the speed limit, and medical transport vehicles drove all hours, day and night, so there’d be no reason for a cop to bother with us. Sure, Ellinghaus could hypnotize us out of a situation, but why take chances? We could not be caught with a missing person. “I think you should. If we get pulled over…”

“I see your point. One moment.”

While he went outside to trade the hat, black coat, and tie, for a white shirt to match mine, I swabbed Kellie Ann’s face with a damp wipe and told her to relax, we were taking her to a doctor.

“But I feel fine,” she said dreamily.

With the drugs dissolved in that bottle of blood, she’d be feeling just wonderful for hours to come. It’s better this way. Really. Maybe she’d have been calm enough to cooperate and come willingly, but if not, then even Ellinghaus wouldn’t have been able to hold her for long. She’d vanished once to escape her grave and could do so again by accident. Not a good idea when you’re booming down the road at sixty-five.

I couldn’t raise a holding spell inside the ambulance, so a strong cocktail with lots of Xanax in it would keep her happy and her body solid until specialists could take charge. They’d treat her the same as any rape victim. Hopefully she’d be able to adjust to her new life.

If she was allowed to live it.

The simple solution, the one that didn’t bear thinking about, was to disappear her.

I said her name a few times, and she gave me a tired smile. “We’re going to need your consent to help you,” I said. “I need you to sign a standard release form.”

“I don’t have insurance.”

“It’s all right, this is on the county. You don’t have to worry about that. Sign here, and I’ll be able to treat you.”

“I feel fine,” she insisted.

“I know you do, but you have to sign. It’s a formality.”

“Need to read it first.”

“Of course.” I held the clipboard, and she must have read the simple agreement several times, unable to take any meaning from it. I fitted a marker-type pen into her hand and held the board firm as she scrawled her name at the bottom. She dotted the “i” with a little heart.

Thank God that was done. She might not have felt it, but I did, the tiny crackling of power that told me the spell that would compel her to obey the number one rule had taken hold. When she sobered up, she might not recall much of this, but she would adhere to the agreement. I’d have loved to meet the designer of that crafting; it was elegant and simple and powerful—like Hepburn’s little black dress in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Was I envious? You bet.

Things like that temped me to renew my contract when the time came. I’d get the big pay raise and truly advanced training in my craft. Right now I was a good, if limited, spell-slinger. I could slam a holding spell in my sleep and read auras in the right light, but there were others to be learned.

I ran the signed agreement through a portable laminating machine. The plastic would keep the ephemeral parchment preserved pretty much forever if it was properly stored, and the Company had excellent facilities. There. Most of my job was done. I heaved a huge sigh and felt ravenous. Spell work and therapy on the fly are exhausting.

Kellie Ann seemed to doze. No vitals like a heartbeat or pumping lungs, but no problem. It just meant she was a Chicago Special, a Drac, or another Euro-breed I was too tired to recall. I grabbed a double-thick turkey sandwich and Coke from the fridge, dragged my weary carcass to the cab, and belted into the passenger seat.

Ellinghaus still had on his sunglasses but otherwise looked like an EMT. Between bites, I gave him directions, and he got us clear of the bumpy road, onto a two-lane, and more than an hour later a four-lane heading in the right direction for home. The GPS began working again, along with my cell and laptop, but I told him to pull into the next gas station. We needed a fill-up, and I wanted to phone this one in on a landline.

He found a busy truck stop, pulled up to one of the diesel stations, and took care of the bus while I kept an eye on Kellie Ann. Regs demanded there always be someone with the patient though she was still out of it. Once Ellinghaus was done, I fled to a washroom. His ambulance has a potty, and I could pull the curtain divider shut behind the cab for privacy, but sue me, I prefer the kind with running water.

The phones were by the facilities. I used a Company card for the charges.

The night shift was the busy time at HQ, like Monday morning anywhere else, but there was some kind of old-country holiday with an unpronounceable name on. The phone rang and rang before someone finally picked up. I got an audible gasp—not common when dealing with people who don’t breathe all the time—when I asked to speak to Ms. Vouros. She was second only to God in authority so far as I was concerned. She was upper, upper management, and I doubted she knew my name. I’d never spoken to her directly. She relied on e-mails and underlings. Speculation ran that she learned her management style from Elizabeth Báthory, but that was ridiculous because old Liz had been a narcissist psycho, not a real vampire.

Which did not preclude Vouros from being a narcissist psycho, so I was very polite and stuck to the bare-bones business when she got on the line. I gave her my location, who I was with, and shared the joy about Kellie Ann Donner.

It was significant that Vouros did not ask me to repeat anything. I took it to mean she’d grasped the situation.

“Oh, crap,” she said, confirming.

I refrained from asking what to do next; she’d tell me if it deviated from the usual drill. She shot a few questions, getting an overview of the situation, and I gave her my best guess about what breed might be involved.

“Never mind that. Is she under control?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m sending a team to the gravesite to process it. The forensics crafter should be able to find maker traces. You two get straight back here, no stops.”

What did she think, that Ellinghaus and I would take in a movie? Good luck with that. There were hardly any drive-ins left. Only on the way to the truck did it hit me how rattled she must be.

The trip was routine from this point; Ellinghaus had his music plugged in from his iPod, and I tried to get some shut-eye stretched out on the padded bench in the back. The storage area under it was where he slept during the day with a bag of his soil, but I wasn’t bothered by that anymore. I belted in and wrapped tight under a blanket, fending off the A/C.

Of course I didn’t sleep. Who could?

I checked on Kellie Ann for the umpteeth time. Okay, she could sleep, or whatever it was vamps did. She made me want to have soothing drugs of my own. I couldn’t stop wondering what would happen to her once we got inside the gate.

If she disappeared permanently, it would solve everything for the Company. It would be hell on her family, but Company’s rules outweighed their right to know her fate.

If Kellie Ann was allowed to live and be a part of the greater community, she’d have to get a whole new ID, maybe relocation to another country. She wouldn’t like that. There was a kind of magic that could compel her to accept, but that sort of crafting is dangerous. When it goes completely against the will of the subject, they either throw it off or go nuts or both. None of those options is a party.

Or—with certain kinds of bounding spells in place so she could not share about being vamped—Kellie Ann could return to her family. She’d be primed to give them a tale of an abductor who’d drugged her, then let her go in a fit of conscience. The mystery around her disappearance would fade, and she could go back to most of her former life, with some dietary changes in place.

While it wasn’t anything I could influence, I would recommend it in my report and at my debriefing.

She would be closely questioned by experts. Spell work would be involved to pick her memory. Company investigators would want every detail to find out the name of the moron vampire behind this PR headache.

I wouldn’t feel sorry for him, either.

I gave up trying to sleep and returned to the cab. Ellinghaus was easy to hang with, no need to talk if we didn’t feel like it. He let a few miles pass before pulling out his ear buds and speaking. His voice was low, conversational. The general noise of the bus would prevent our patient from hearing him.

“Did you, by chance, notice her hands, Miss Goldfarb?”

“Can’t say that I did, no.”

“They were not messed up as one might expect, given her circumstances.”

Trying to claw your way from a coffin was hard on the manicure. “It just means she healed up when she vanished. You do that.”

“Yes, I do that. But it takes longer when the injury involves wood, and I heard wood snapping.”

“Okay.”

“I just thought I should mention that, is all.”

“Put it in your report. The geeks love details.”

“Indeed they do.”

I told him that Vouros was sending out a forensics crafter to process the grave.

He grunted approval.

That department had serious magical talent. Never mind about wearing gloves and being careful not to leave behind any DNA, they could get a fix on a vamp by magical means. It was also proprietary spell work, and scary efficient. Too bad they couldn’t apply it to human murder cases, only to supernaturals.

“I’ve been wondering about some things, too,” I said.

“Such as what, if I may inquire?”

“Such as how the hell did she get way out there? Who would even know about that place?”

“I have given some thought to that, as well. Perhaps the perpetrator was originally from the area and thought he could hide his crime, thinking no one would ever visit. He must not have expected her to revive.”

“He’s in for a shock.”

“Deservedly so.”

Ellinghaus hates them, the ones he calls crash-feeders. Since the Company got itself truly organized (at about the same time as the FBI), there’d not been many of those cases. He’s a stickler for rules, and when a crash-feeder comes along, it makes the rest of the vamps look bad. They resent anyone who caves to the crave.

“I suppose I could ask around, maybe look into genealogy records for that area,” he said. “I made note of the family names on the stones.”

“As good a place to start as any.”

“Might you consider initiating an online records search?”

“Glad to, but not right now. I’m tired and don’t want to get carsick.”

A grunt of understanding. Some vamps forget how tough it is to be human and subject to fatigue. Ellinghaus didn’t seem to be among their number. Not for the first time I wondered how old he was; I’d never asked, and he’s never brought it up. He could be fifty or five hundred, no way to tell. But he was comfortable to be with and always professional. I hoped he found those same qualities in me.

“Would you like to listen to some jazz, Miss Goldfarb?”

“Smooth?” I wasn’t in the mood for anything fast and raucous.

“And dark as chocolate.”

“The best kind.”

The music did its own magic to the point that I nodded off long enough to feel rotten when I snapped awake. Ellinghaus was on the exit for HQ; we were two minutes out with a long, comfortable margin before dawn. I was rumpled and soggy of brain, but if I had another Coke, it would leave me too wired to sleep later. Just have to tough it out minus chemical help.

Company grounds were intentionally deceptive. The buildings looked to be typical light industrial on the outside, with lots of security lights and cameras, nothing unexpected. However, the cyclone fence was extra tall, topped with razor wire and electrified. That was for human intruders. For everyone else, there was a boundary spell in place like the one I’d cast around Kellie Ann’s grave, but this one was on steroids with a crack chaser. My hat was off to the witch who had crafted it. He or she had created a vast domed perimeter, and no vamp could get in or out without magical help.

When dealing with people who can go invisible, people who might not agree with Company policies, you can’t overdo the locks.

The guard’s blockhouse in front was always manned. A vampire and witch pairing, as usual, to watch the gate. They recognized us, and Judy, the vamp, asked about the newbie.

“Orphan case,” said Ellinghaus. He knew better than to share our bombshell before management had a meeting on the subject.

“That sucks,” said Rosa, the witch. She was straight-faced, clearly not chasing a bad joke.

“I hate when that happens,” added Judy. I went in the back, opening the doors so she could make sure only three people were going in. Vamps can see others of their kind even when they’re vanished. She didn’t find unauthorized intruders in Ellinghaus’s storage locker and hardly glanced at the dozing Kellie Ann. Judy hopped out and called to Rosa to pass us in.

Rosa had a glass rod that would shift, rather than dissipate, power and waved it in a wide pattern that was too fast and subtle for me to follow, combining the action with a chant under her breath. The barrier that would have crushed Ellinghaus flat into his seat back had he tried to gun forward ceased to be there. Rosa nodded him in, working the wand and chant until our taillights were clear, then ceased, and things thumped back into place. I felt the power like a tangible echo. It would be so cool to know how to craft that kind of magic. Architecturally, the ones I raised were like a box made from Lincoln Logs. The one around HQ was comparable to a Renaissance cathedral in artistry and staying power.

However much training I got, I’d never be able to design anything like that. I had talent, but it was journeyman, not genius.

We braked again at another gate and guardhouse fifty feet along. It marked the second boundary wall. If the outer gate was ever compromised, then this one would hold, the guards protected within the compound. If that sounds military, it is. A lot of the vamps had served through the ages, and the Company made use of their experience.

We passed through, and the witch on duty chanted the gate back into place. I relaxed internally now that we were home.

The parking lot was almost empty, which was unusual for this time of night.

“Think it’s the holiday?” I asked after pointing it out.

“Security measure. Ms. Vouros won’t want this generally known yet.”

She’d probably given everyone the night off, using the holiday as an excuse. The fewer people, the fewer witnesses. They’d have happily grabbed at the free time, no questions.

Whatever was in store for Kellie Ann would be in place by now, and perhaps had been within minutes of my phone call. She was in for close questioning soon. I decided to stay with her. I’d be a familiar face, and she’d need a friend in her corner.

I told Ellinghaus to take it easy on the turns and made my way to the back, glad of the grab bars. Kellie Ann was awake, looking more alert.

“Where are we?”

“Almost there.” I rummaged in a drawer and got a package of sweatpants in a small and tore it open. “Here, these will fit you better. I’ll help you sit up.”

“Um…” She glanced at the opening to the cab.

The lightproof privacy curtain was fastened to one side. I undid it and pulled it across. “Okay, it’s just us girls now.”

“I wanna call my momma,” she whispered.

“This first.” I pulled the oversized pants off her and shook out the replacements.

She lurched up, swinging her legs around, facing me. “I said I wanna call my momma.”

“I heard you, Kellie Ann, but we have to—”

She grabbed my hair strongly and made me look into her eyes. “Do you not hear me? Give me your phone.”

I fumbled it from a pocket and handed it over. Some freaked-out part of my mind panicked, but the rest accepted this as perfectly normal and reasonable.

“Sit down and keep quiet,” she ordered, still whispering.

This also happened though I wanted to do the opposite. The internal conflict between what I wanted and the blunt, powerful orders set my heart thumping fit to burst.

Kellie Ann smiled soothingly. “Relax, Marsha. I’m your friend. You like me and want to help me.”

Like hell, I thought, but felt my face smiling back. It hurt.

She broke eye contact and tapped a number into my phone. “I’m in. Get moving.”

The ambulance slowed. We’d be pulling into the guest-processing wing of the main building. Ellinghaus couldn’t have heard anything, not over the motor noise with the curtain in the way.

Kellie Ann pulled on the smaller pants, pushed back the long sleeves of her top, and eased open the tall locker with the hidden weapons. She’d had plenty of time to sneak a search during the long drive back when I’d napped. She went for two pistols with extra long magazines filled with mixed ammo. Whether she faced a human or a vamp, she could take out just about anyone she liked.

As soon as he cut the motor, she slammed the curtain back and shot Ellinghaus, pressing the muzzle into the top of his shoulder and firing three rounds angling down into his trunk. He jerked, grunted, and slumped, and inside I screamed and screamed and could not move a muscle.

She left the bus and hustled into the main building. I don’t know what she did next, but I imagined the worst and that she would be swift and efficient. First the receptionist, then whoever was manning the bullpen, then perhaps Vouros herself. Kellie Ann wouldn’t show up on internal cameras. Our security people would have no clue.

I’d not been spared out of kindness. She’d want me to take down the inner gate. Whoever she’d phoned would deal with Judy and hypnotize Rosa into doing the same, and HQ would be wide open to … what?

Just about anything. There were plenty of vamps who hated the Company. They’d be glad to see it gone, along with everyone in it.

The fear of that, the rage, the grief for Ellinghaus washed through me—negative emotions full of power. Some crafters trained to avoid them, but I saw them as another kind of survival mechanism and embraced their dizzy chill. I shut my eyes, remembering Kellie Ann’s face in front of me, her words burrowing into my brain like worms.

Not hard. The real difficulty was replacing the image with something else. Visualization training was basic to all spell-slingers. The better you see what you want in your head, the more success with the magic.

Sweat crept over me as I made that memory fade, the color seeping away until her face was gone, and I was surrounded by dense white fog. I could hold it only for a few seconds, being badly out of practice. Like others, I tended to rely too much on props and chanting.

But when I opened my eyes, I’d shaken off the worst of it. I could stand and did so, struggling on wobbly legs to get to Ellinghaus.

His white shirt was covered with blood, and he was utterly slack. I pushed up the sunglasses. His eyes were rolled into his skull, just the whites showing. With no vital signs, I couldn’t tell if he was truly dead or alive and just unable to respond.

Terror and grief for him had me moving past the panic, forcing my sluggish limbs to obey me, not some bitch vamp’s forced influence. I stumbled to the mini fridge and grabbed a drug-free drink bottle and got it to him. Tipping his head, I squeezed blood down his throat, not knowing if that would choke him or not. What if it went into his lungs?

You don’t have time for this.

She’d be back any minute, and I had to do something.

Fight a vampire? Who was I kidding? Even throwing down a holding spell to keep her out of the vehicle wouldn’t be enough, she could shoot through it. I wasn’t absolutely necessary to taking out the inner gate; she could use the hapless crafter on duty there after shooting her partner.

Screw that.

That bloodsucking bitch had shot my partner.

Rage tipped things, scattering logic and common sense. I went to the locker and hauled out the machine gun. The damned thing scared the hell out of me; maybe it would do the same for Kellie Ann.

Almost a yard long, with the fifty-round drum attached, it weighed a ton and was too awkward for the confines of the ambulance, but I’d have to deal. A long time ago, Ellinghaus had shown me how it worked. In a spectacularly noisy rush, he’d emptied the drum in seconds. I didn’t want to do that.

Just above the trigger on the left … okay, safety off, set it for single rounds. Keep the muzzle pointed away from me, aim for the thickest part of her body, and brace for the recoil.

Damn, the thing was heavy. I couldn’t charge out and go after her. Better to wait until she came back and attempt a bushwhacking. Get her to approach from a specific direction, and I’d have a chance.

I opened the back doors and slipped out, the gun’s leather strap looped over one shoulder, taking the weight. I steadied it with one hand; the other grasped my container of sea salt.

It was the fastest shield I’d ever done and crude, but it would keep her from coming in the front. I worked out from the right side, shaking the salt in a wide spray around the truck. The wall would be thick, brittle, and full of gaps, but would stop her, I hoped. I chanted the energy into place, finishing on the left side, having formed a giant C-shape around us, the walls of the back opening about ten feet thick and five wide, making a short passage to the doors.

That would be my kill box. I’d heard the term on a TV documentary.

What was happening at the front gate? Were her friends there? Had they breached it?

Ellinghaus groaned.

I was next to him just that quick. He looked bad, his reddened eyes dazed and face showing pain. His fangs were out, but it was a good sign. The wooden slug had to have missed his heart. The others were still in him, preventing him from vanishing so he could heal, but he wasn’t lost yet. I got him to drink more blood. It’s the universal first aid for vamps.

“Radio?” he mumbled.

I clicked it on and tried to raise someone, anyone, but nothing. Next, I got his phone and punched the Company version of 911, but again, nothing. The battery was charged, what the—

“Jamming,” he said. “They’re organized.”

“Who?”

“Newbies, old Dracs with short memories, who knows. That dame is no rookie … oh, this hurts.”

It had to be perdition made solid to drag that out of him.

“Gotta hold on, Ell. I have a blocking up. I’m going to stop her.”

He squinted at me, alarm in his eyes when he noticed the Thompson dragging on my shoulder. “Mars, you gotta be kidding.”

Now was not the moment to notice his lapse into using my nickname for the first time. “Okay, I’m kidding, you get better right now and take over.”

He winced and looked past me, even more alarmed.

Kellie Ann strode from the building toward us, a pistol in each hand and blood spray on her oversized top. I dragged Ellinghaus from his seat, hoping the vehicle’s motor would shield him from fire. He couldn’t move much yet. I peered over the dash in time to see her smash right into my half-assed wall about ten feet out.

That pissed her off. When she recovered, she tried a single shot that put a star in the windshield. I ducked and crawled toward the back. Just had to cower for a bit until she circled around and into my trap, then shoot first.

Only she didn’t do that.

A running jump, a second of invisibility making her weightless, then she thudded down on the top of the bus. I’d been in too big a hurry to think of capping my wall with a roof.

I fell back and sent two wild shots straight up. Good thing I was already on the floor; the gun’s kick wasn’t as bad as I’d thought but would have still knocked me there. So that’s why you had to hold this monster on all three contact points and brace.

I sorted myself out and fired three more rounds through the aluminum skin, taking out the overhead light. Glass dropped, and the empty brass flew.

“Marsha!” Her voice … not above, she’d slipped away to the right side, perhaps feeling out the barrier for an opening as I’d hoped. “Marsha, listen to me. You have to listen to me.”

I’d seen the training vids. That was the favorite phrase of vamps the world over, the one that led into the hypnotic process. If they’d put you under once, you were more vulnerable to their voice. I fired through the wall, the crack and kick of the gun distracting me and cutting her off. Couldn’t keep this up all night, I’d run out of bullets. Why didn’t the bitch come around to the back?

Oh, hell, there she is.

I fired. The bullet passed harmlessly through her mostly transparent form. She smiled, a beautiful, winning, friendly smile, her eyes sparkling.

I made myself look away and shot again. Another wasted bullet.

She kept coming forward. Damn it, what a stupid, stupid trap. She’d hold herself in that state, get close, go solid, and put me under and—

Custom sound system cranked to max, the Peter Gunn Theme boomed through the air like a physical thing.

It hurt my ears, but Kellie Ann, with a vampire’s sensitive hearing, went straight into agony mode. She recoiled and vanished altogether.

Ellinghaus was still on the floor, sitting up just enough to reach the buttons on the dash. He had his iPod buds in his ears; they would mitigate the sound somewhat. He gave me a thumbs-up, settled his shades back into place, and swigged more blood.

The racket wouldn’t stop her forever, but it would keep her voice out of my head for the moment. I needed a Plan B.

I signed to Ellinghaus, making a spinning motion with one hand.

He got it and hit the siren.

Oh, yeah, that was good, annoyingly good. Combined with the shots I’d fired, the noise finally got the attention of the vamp guard at the inside gate. He came running at double speed around the main building.

Soon as he saw her—there’s a reason for the gray sweats on newbies—he concluded she needed to be disarmed and restrained. That was fairly impossible with an enemy who can go incorporeal and levitate, even filter through brick walls if need be.

She tried to take him out with pistol fire. He had the same advantage of being able to fade and return. While she might have gotten others by surprise, he was trained for just this kind of fight.

They went at each other like tigers in a tornado, much of it too fast to follow as they faded in and out, sweeping over the parking lot, trading shots and blows. She was no newbie, that was evident. He’d need an edge. We all did. I slipped off the machine gun and scrounged in the locker and seconds later left the relative safety of the bus.

Ellinghaus croaked something, but the music and siren blotted it out. Neither the guard nor Kellie Ann could hear me; I hoped they’d be too involved with each other until I got close enough.

I cut loose with the oversized toxic green water gun, soaking her (and the guard when I missed) with holy water. Neither reacted to it, except for some cursing from the spray. Their immunity didn’t matter, though. I dropped the empty gun and pulled out a Taser. I figured the salt in the holy water would add to the impact of its shock.

I’m too much of an optimist. It screws me over every time. Just as I made my range, Kellie Ann pulled a blurringly fast maneuver and caught the guard with a bullet the instant he went solid to attack. I couldn’t tell if it was wood, but he dropped and stopped moving.

Before I took another step, she was behind me, one strong arm around my neck, pulling me up and back. She slapped the Taser away; I’d had no chance from the start, just adrenaline and high hopes. I froze for an instant, feeling my ear tickle as she whispered into it to put me under again, but I couldn’t hear over the siren and Henry Mancini’s frenzied bass and horns. As she dragged me backward, heading toward the inside gate, I glimpsed Ellinghaus emerging unsteadily from the ambulance. With metal and wood in him, he’d never be able to vanish. The stuff short-circuited things. She’d kill him for sure.

Give him an edge, then.

She’d gotten the Taser, but missed the stun-gun flashlight in my pocket.

When I hit her with the business end, there was a hellish crack and zap as the voltage slammed through her. It couldn’t pass to me because of the limited distance between the contact poles, but she convulsed, muscles jumping, and fell forward.

Vamps are a lot heavier than you’d think. Something to do with changes to their muscle and bone density. She knocked the breath out of me as we slammed flat against the concrete.

It was a bitch, but worth it if it stopped her.

I lay helpless as her body bunched and twitched, her bare nails gouging the pavement like iron hooks.

Then she stubbornly pushed off, rolled to her feet, and staggered in an unsteady circle. If she tried to vanish, it didn’t work. The jolt was as good as a bullet for disrupting that ability.

She crouched and flipped me over, snarling. Her fangs were out. I was to be first-aid fodder.

Then Ellinghaus suddenly loomed over us, his prized machine gun cradled in his arms. Damn, he owned it. He lashed out with a sideways martial arts kick that knocked her clean off me. She landed yards away but managed to get upright, her feet under her for a sprint.

He cut loose, the gun in full-auto mode, firing in short, controlled bursts.

I couldn’t see much from my angle. Just as well.

Three rounds at a time he emptied the drum. The brass rained, and the smell of cordite and hot metal filled the air.

Out of bullets, but not out of fight, Ellinghaus lunged forward, and I missed whatever came next, for which I was grateful.

When he came back into view, there was a lot more blood on him.

He rolled his head a little to work kinks from his neck and shoulders, then said, “That disagreeable person is no longer a problem, Miss Goldfarb.”

The ambulance siren wailed and whooped; Peter Gunn ended, and the next track began.

Aretha Franklin told the whole compound about R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

The rest of the bad guys had breached the outer gate after wounding Judy and forcing Rosa to take it down, but the inner gate stalled them. They couldn’t get Rosa to open it because it was a different spell sequence. She just didn’t know the right chant. They shoved her out of the way, forced to wait for Kellie Ann, their own special Trojan horse, to complete her part of the invasion.

Which did not go to plan.

Rosa, who was a lot better at visualizations than I, threw off their hypnotic influence faster and fled back to her guard shack. She wasn’t so terrified as to forget to put her part of the gate up again, trapping two SUVs full of pissed-off Dracs in the space between. Once they realized what had happened, some of them shifted into bats and attempted to fly free only to hit the outer dome head-on. Others tried vanishing, sinking into the earth, hoping to sieve down far enough to get under the barrier. That was an epic fail, too. The designer, anticipating such ploys, had put in a foundation barrier. They either didn’t know about it or had forgotten that detail.

A sense of entitlement does not guarantee brains, just the arrogance to think having one plan to get in and destroy HQ would be sufficient.

Once other members of Company security arrived—many were witches with specialist magic I could only dream about—the whole lot of Dracs was rendered neutral and taken away. I didn’t know where and had no mind to find out.

In the aftermath—and there was a hellish amount of paperwork—we figured out their plan.

The vamp we’d brought in was not Kellie Ann Donner but did look like her, right down to the mole off the corner of her mouth. She’d searched far and wide for a patsy and found her working the night shift in that franchise gas station.

The vamp had kidnapped the poor girl, forced the change on her, and buried her deep in a box in that old cemetery. The box was big enough for two. The vamp had doubled up for the day with Kellie Ann’s corpse, waiting for her to revive, knowing that somewhere a Company seer would pick up on it and send a registration/recovery team.

The media frenzy and the reward money? All backed by the Dracs. The intent was to get the Company so worried about the number one rule being breached that they’d miss the real goal.

Those SUVs were stuffed with explosives. With them, plus the fake Kellie Ann and other Dracs killing or incapacitating anyone they found, they’d inflict enough damage on this branch of the Company to virtually wipe it out. Computer records would have survived in backup form, but all those signed registration agreements down in the vaults would have been wholly destroyed.

Free of magical restraint, any vamp who felt like cutting loose would be able to do so.

Not smart. Humans in the twenty-first century are infinitely more dangerous than their ancestors, though some of the really old vamps like to think otherwise.

Morons.

Ms. Vouros and others in the skeleton crew in the main building had a bad time of it from the fake Kellie Ann’s assault. She was a good shot but hadn’t stuck around to finish them off properly. They’d been hurt but eventually recovered. Most, including Ellinghaus, had to have surgery to get the slugs out, but it was done during the day while they were dead and unaware. A quick vanishing, and they were ready to get back to kicking rogue Drac ass and taking names.

The forensics team that had been sent out to process the burial found the real Kellie Ann Donner. The fake one had snapped her neck right after revival; that was the sound Ellinghaus had taken for breaking wood.

But even young Dracs are tough as hell and hard to kill a second time. The team tried standard first aid, and damned if it didn’t work. Her first accidental vanishing healed her up physically, but they had their hands full calming her down and getting her back.

To my surprise, Vouros did not take the easy way out and disappear her. Rogue vamps were behind the disruption and damage to Donner and her family, and Vouros felt a responsibility to try to patch things back together. She used the penitent kidnapper story, and eventually it worked. Post processing and orientation (with ongoing therapy), Kellie Ann went home. She and her family refused offers of book and movie deals, though I heard she accepted a job at the Company’s Birmingham branch.

Ellinghaus and I got the Jekyll and Hyde treatment: We were unfairly blamed for bringing in the fake Kellie Ann but also hailed as heroes for stopping her.

After that ear-shattering maneuver, no one ever again gave my partner flack about his favorite obsession.

I asked for a raise. Nothing unreasonable, just something in keeping with cost-of-living expenses.

Better believe I was pissed off when Vouros turned me down, citing from memory the clause in my contract that covered the limits of pay to apprentices. In turn, I cited my brilliance while under pressure in slowing down the fake Kellie Ann, so she could be stopped; and then I asked for a promotion.

Vouros said she’d think about it and said no in the next breath she drew.

“It’s just another two years to automatic promotion and a doubling of your check,” she reminded me.

Being a vamp, she had quite a different view of time than I, a short-lived human.

Grumbling, I went to the staff cafeteria and, in a fit of self-destructive rebellion, grabbed one of their infamously bad-for-your-figure desserts. It was a tower of chocolate brownies layered with chocolate ice cream, chocolate chunks, and hot chocolate syrup on top and as many cherries as you liked. As a coping mechanism for job frustration, it did the trick.

I was halfway through it when Ellinghaus came by and sat opposite me in the booth. He was back in his favorite black suit, tie, and hat, shades firmly in place. He sat straight up, hands clasped neatly on the table.

“Good evening, Miss Goldfarb.” He’d said that to me countless times, but tonight it seemed tinged with an uncommonly cheerful tone that made me want to brain him one. “Are you ready to get back to business as usual?”

I shot him a suspicious glare. “Were you listening outside when I talked to Vouros?”

“That would be completely unprofessional, Miss Goldfarb.”

“Don’t avoid the question.”

But he made no response. I mined ice-cream-soaked brownie from the bowl, and he watched, apparently fascinated.

“What?” I asked.

“My ambulance has been judged to not be up to Company standards because of the bullet holes.”

“Sorry about that.”

“But rather than get a replacement, I have opted to buy it from them. They’ll paint out the logos, of course.”

“Okay.”

“Once I get the holes patched, it will make a dandy home on the road.”

“I’m happy for you. Wait—are you leaving?”

“I’ve asked for and been given a sabbatical. Thought I’d go up north and check out the music.”

“Oh.” I felt a strange and heavy letdown at the news. “How long a sabbatical?”

“A few years.”

By the time he got back, I’d be locked into another contract. In the meantime, they’d team me with some other vamp. Ellinghaus was eccentric, but I was used to him. He was a positive distraction from the routine, and I knew for a fact I could trust him with my life.

“Well, we’ll keep in touch on Facebook.”

“Actually, I was hoping you might consider something else. I would be pleased and honored if you would come along. Nothing improper, just two coworkers taking a sabbatical in the same place.”

I dropped my spoon.

“We could watch each other’s backs, same as usual.”

“But I … two more years…”

“If I may be allowed to ask a personal question, are you happy here, Miss Goldfarb?”

“Uh…”

“Do you see yourself advancing as far as you’d like on your current career path?”

“Um … when you put it that way … no and no. But if I left I’d need a job.”

“There are excellent opportunities to be had for a crafter of your talents.”

Work was available for those with magical training, but you had to have connections or a really good résumé. I lacked both. “Oh, Ell, I’m a one-, maybe two-trick pony with the bounding spell and aura-reading.”

“Which has it all over the ponies who have no tricks.” He tilted his head. “Your heartbeat’s gotten very fast. May I take that to mean you might be interested in discussing this further?”

“Maybe. This is a big thing.”

“Indeed it is, Miss Goldfarb.”

To my shock, he took off the glasses. I wasn’t used to him without the shades. He seemed almost naked.

Damn, but he had beautiful eyes.

Author’s Bio:

P. N. Elrod is an award-winning author and editor, best known for her ongoing urban fantasy series, The Vampire Files. She’s sold more than twenty novels to various publishers with translations into several languages. A hopeless chocolate addict, she’s hard at work on a new Steampunk series. More info on her toothy titles may be found at www.vampwriter.com.