The Isis Collar

19

My eyes opened in the early dawn, heart pounding with leg muscles twitching like I’d been running. I couldn’t remember being out of bed, but when I moved my legs under the covers, I felt sand on sheets I’d just changed that morning. It was frightening to have no memory of where I’d been or what I’d been doing. Once again I checked for blood. There was none, but I couldn’t remember whether I ate dinner before bed. Either I’d cleaned up the dishes or I hadn’t. But I felt full.

I shivered and huddled in a chair in the corner until it was light. Safety came with the sun.

It felt strange, planning normal things when so much of life was not normal. But I needed something to take my mind off of everything, and I’ve found that good old-fashioned exercise can help a lot. A jog was out of the question. I wasn’t sure what I would find out in the sand. This was something we could do inside the beach house. And I really had promised Dawna.

I looked from Dawna to the woman pushing a laden two-wheel dolly into my living room. Alex was petite and pretty. Normally she dressed very professionally. Today, in honor of our activity she was in worn sweats, her hair pulled back into a tight ponytail.

“Thanks for doing this, Alex. I was afraid after that scene in the parking garage…”

She snorted. “That was just for show. One of your ‘buddies’ got a promotion. He’s my direct superior now. He’s been making my life hell.”

Ouch. “Sorry.”

“Not your problem. He’s an ass. But I wanted you to know it was a bad idea to come to the station, and you really did need to see Rizzoli.”

“Yeah. I did.”

“Hey, Dawna.” Alex turned to the woman lounging on my couch. “Explain to me again why I’m doing this on my one day off for the past two weeks?”

“Boy,” I said while moving the couch and carpet to the side to give her more room to unload her cargo. “Your schedule sucks worse than mine. You need a better union rep.”

The dirty look she gave me said she was well aware of that. “You’ll need to clear out a bigger space.”

I raised my brows appreciatively and tugged at the couch to pull it farther away from the open space I’d cleared. I closed the drapes so I could take off the sunglasses. “You managed to get the deluxe dummy? Not just the piece of crap from the police storage basement?”

“Turns out I’m three hours short of required staking practice for this quarter. My lieutenant handed me the dolly personally. Hope you don’t mind if I log in my own time on it while I’m here … seeing as this is a big favor.” She untucked the padded mat from behind the dummy and rolled it out on my floor. “Nasty burn in the hardwood. Most people start campfires on the beach.”

At first I thought she was serious, but then I saw a tiny grin. I smiled in response because I knew she remembered just where the burn came from. “Tell that to Bruno. ‘Oh, it’s just a little chalk circle. No big deal.’ Sheesh. Mages and their spells.”

I rolled my eyes and she chuckled before she spoke. “C’mon. Give me a hand with the ballistic gel. It’s hard to get into the slots.”

I joined her at the dolly and lifted up the hunk of amber ballistic gel while she steadied the red plastic mannequin. The squishy cylinder was wobbly like Jell-O, but thicker and more dense. It was developed to mimic flesh for testing weapons involved in crimes, but the cops figured out it worked well for practicing driving stakes into flesh. I whispered to Alex when Dawna went to the kitchen to grab a bottled water. “Dawna’s really going to appreciate this. She needs to start feeling more confident when she’s alone.”

Alex braced herself against the dummy while I shoved the gel into the round slots and pushed until it was firmly against the solid back of the dummy. “So you said in your voice mail. Is there a bat problem in her neighborhood? Should I get a squad out there?”

I shook my head. “Don’t know. It sounds like it might be specific against her—she survived when the master vampire who’d bitten her died. Apparently, some of the other bats seem to think it should have been the other way around. She thinks they might be targeting her.”

Alex nodded. “Reason enough to at least have some basic training and I’ll probably call it in just to be safe. Never hurts to be careful. Bats aren’t very careful about making sure they get the right target the first time, so it’s not just her in danger.”

The staking dummy was loaded and braced, so all that was left was attaching the spelled computer chip. While Alex opened the padded box it was housed in, I tried to ask something casually. “So … about my voice mail. Anything on the other question?” I’d asked her when I called about the dummy if she could check to see if John had showed up on any police reports—good or bad.

She flicked her gaze up for a second. “Sort of. I found three people named John Creede in the Greater L.A. area. John Colton, John Henry, and Jonathan Thomas. Which one is missing?”

The problem was, I didn’t know. “Um. Good question. It’s the John who’s half of Miller and Creede. I don’t know his middle name.”

She looked up at me. “Really. So, John Colton Creede, then. Hmph. Wouldn’t have figured that.”

That made me frown. “Wouldn’t have figured what?”

A tiny snort that might have been a laugh, combined with an eye roll, was all she’d give me for a long moment. “Please. But there’s nothing. I checked out hospitals, morgues, and radio chatter for all three names. There’s no mention of anything involving him. What makes you think he’s missing?”

“No. Explain first. Please what?”

She rose easily to her feet from a crossed-leg position and attached the computer sensor to where a face would be on the mannequin. “Must we really go there?”

I crossed my arms over my chest and tipped my head. “Yeah. I guess we must.”

Alex sighed and stopped what she was doing to turn and mimic my stance. “Fine. John Colton Creede is the millionaire owner of a multinational company that provides protective services for everyone from movie stars to heads of state.” I nodded and she continued. “He’s a level-eight mage who personally protected a diplomatic envoy in the Middle East back in ’08, holding out alone against more than a dozen terrorist mages and witches for better than two days.” Okay, that was news to me, but it sounded like something he’d do. “He’s known to hop in a plane for jaunts to Monte Carlo or to sail down to Mexico for a weekend.” Wow. Didn’t know that at all. “He’s also well known for being late to meetings.” Well, yeah. “But—” She raised a finger significantly. “When he misses two meetings and a phone call in one day, what happens? His staff, his P.A., and even his family don’t call the police in Los Angeles, where he’s known to live—I checked. No. You call me.” She smiled and the calm intensity in her eyes sort of unnerved me. “Sort of odd, don’t you think? Frankly, Celia, if I didn’t know you better, I’d probably be casually searching this house right now while asking to use the restroom. More often than not, it’s the murderer who contacts the police first to establish innocence. And reporting it in an odd location is even more fishy.”

Well, hell.

I opened my mouth to respond, but she just turned back to the dummy and kept talking. “I just can’t decide whether you’re too different or too much alike.”

Dawna snorted and I glared at her. “Alike. Definitely. But ohhh … yeah. You should see the way he looks at her when she’s not watching. Yum. But definitely too much alike. Not … you know, complementary. Type A personalities. Both of them. It probably won’t work.”

It was my turn to snort. I leaned against the wall, feeling the weight of that comment. “Tell me about it. But I always seem to wind up with them.” Alex moved her head in agreement but didn’t speak because it’s not like she hadn’t had the same issue with Vicki. Both very Type A’s. “Maybe it’s because they understand the stress. They feel it, too.”

Alex looked at me and then at Dawna before she smiled. It had sad edges. “Or maybe we’re just masochists.”

That made me twitch a little. “Or that.”

She let out a heaving sigh. “If his sister wants to make a report after forty-eight hours, I can open a case. Let her know. It’s easier to process when the family makes the call. Right now, I’ve done all I can do.” She reached into the sash she wore over her official navy blue police warm-ups and handed me a carved stake. “Except offer to help you work off some of the stress.” I didn’t take the piece of pointed wood right away, until she thrust it toward me. “You can’t hide that look in your eyes, Celia. Not from me. That’s why I’m taking you seriously, even if I’m teasing a little. Worry and fear will get you. They’re not rational and you can’t make them go away just by wishing it. Take the stake. Work it off. Trust me … exhaustion isn’t perfect, but it works.”

Worried? Afraid? For a man perfectly capable of taking care of himself? In some ways, he was better at it than me. Totally irrational.

I took the stake.

Dawna proudly pulled out one of her brand-new stakes. “I have my own! What do I do first?”

Alex turned to her, raised one eyebrow, and said, “Get out of that ridiculous outfit and put on something you don’t care about.”

I fought back a smile. Alex had done in one sentence what I’d been struggling to find a way to say. Dawna looked gorgeous, as always. A yellow scrunchie held her hair in a perfect ponytail. The apricot bodysuit was cut high on the hips and made her tawny skin glow, while simultaneously matching the bunched leg warmers. The striped tights brought the two colors together and even matched the piping on her sparkling white sneakers. Totally perfect for either a spinning class at the gym or a Jazzercise video. But for staking training? Um … not so much. “She’s right, Dawna. No fashion plates at this party. Look at us. We both look like crap.”

I’d gone for black warm-ups because, like navy, they don’t show blood. There would be blood—well, of a sort. There were packets of red, mint-scented slime inside the ballistics gel. Drive the stake in far enough and the mannequin bleeds. Hit it with enough force to kill a bat and it sprays you. Part of the exercise is to make sure you can keep going when the stake is slippery or you’re wiping sticky liquid out of your eyes. Same theory as when police academies spray trainees with pepper spray and make them keep chasing a suspect. Life sucks when you’re going up against the bad guys who want you to hurt.

Dawna’s face fell. “But I bought the outfit just for this morning. It’s pretty.”

Alex just shrugged. “No question. It’s stunning. But it’ll be ruined. Fake blood just doesn’t come out of nylon. You’ll have to throw it away after. Is that all you’ve got with you?”

She nodded and I moved away from the wall. “C’mon. You can wear my gray sweats. They’ve got a drawstring waist and I don’t care if they get stained.”

Her sad little pout went away when the computer on the dummy finally reset and a screen set where the nose would be displayed: Ready for first opponent. Choose level. Then all of a sudden she was dragging me to the bedroom. “C’mon! It’s ready. I want to start learning this stuff.”

“Ow! Okay, you know what? This just sucks! I don’t like staking.” Dawna dropped the stake and used her red-stained fingernails to pull another splinter from her palm.

Alex responded by handing Dawna one of the ash stakes from her sash. “And now you know why we pay to get our stakes turned and sanded. Raw wood has splinters. I can give you the name of the guy who does this for a lot of us on the force. He’s a retired cabinetmaker and does it for cheap. Five bucks a stake and he’ll fit the hilt to your hand.”

I handed a pair of needle-nose tweezers over. I’d pulled the first three from her palms because I have better eyesight, but she needed to get used to doing it herself. “Alex is right. Don’t play the hero today. Of course, if you have no other choice when you’re in the field, use what you have. Splinters won’t matter. But for now, use the good ones. A bad first experience will make you want to stop training.”

She nodded. “Oh, it already has. This is hard. I can’t even get the right angle to drive it in to hit the blinking light.”

Alex put a hand on her shoulder in a sisterly, non-patronizing way. “Look, why don’t you sit down and I’ll show you some of the tricks I’ve learned. We’re about the same size and I’ll explain as I go.”

Again Dawna brightened and she nodded. “Okay. Maybe that will help.”

I was closest to the mannequin and reached up to press the selector switch. Ready for Opponent Two. Choose level. “What do you want? Level six?”

She took a deep breath and let it out slow. “Rack it up to eight. I need to prove to my lieutenant it was a good workout.”

Wow. I let out a low whistle. “Man. I’m not even sure I can pull off a level-eight workout. I’ll be interested to watch.” I was about to press the start button and step back when she raised a hand.

“Wait. I need to scan my badge to save the data.” She reached for her purse that was still slung over the dolly and pulled out the black leather wallet with her badge. I didn’t realize there was a bar code in the holder now. When she held it up in front of the screen, it displayed her name and badge number, then scrolled: Welcome, Heather. Prepare to defend yourself.

She tossed me the badge. Her hands dangled at her sides; her weight rested on the balls of her feet. I sat down next to Dawna and my friend asked, “Why does it say, ‘defend yourself’ on the screen? And why hasn’t she pulled out a stake?”

“She’s a cop,” I whispered, encouraging Dawna to do the same so we didn’t distract Alex. “Cops can only pull a weapon when there’s no other choice and the opponent has demonstrated it’s a vampire. The dummy will hiss and the screen will show a pair of fangs and only then is she allowed to attack.” That wasn’t all, of course, but I didn’t have time to finish my explanation. The dummy abruptly sprang forward, dipping toward Alex, fast and hard. The thick, coiled spring that formed the lower part of the dummy stretched with a squeak and a male shout came from its speakers: “Get away from me!”

Alex leapt to the side, pushing the dummy back upright. She moved back until she almost reached the edge of the pad.

“Ahh! What the hell?” At the dummy’s first move, Dawna had raised her feet onto the couch. Now she stared with wide eyes. “What’s happening? It didn’t do that to me.”

I leaned closer to her, likewise curling my legs onto the couch to give Alex that little extra bit of room while the dummy tracked her movements, turning on its swivel to keep facing her. It slammed forward again, nearly touching the mat, trying to knock her off her feet. “You were only on level one,” I said. “On levels one through three, the dummy just sits there quietly and lets you shove the stake into it. You get sound on level three. Levels four through six add movement. The dummy tries to get away from the stake, so you have to fight harder to get it into the heart. Levels seven through nine have the dummy attack you. Level ten is … well, actually, I’ve never seen level ten. I have no idea what happens.”

Alex spun and kicked, hitting the looming dummy in the chest and knocking it backward on its spring. It moved with preternatural quickness back to upright, which is why the computer chip has to be bespelled. Strange as it seems, regular computer programs struggle with supernatural speed. Then she spoke. “Pause. Hold position. Teaching mode.” The dummy stopped moving and the screen started blinking pause. Alex commented as she circled the dummy. “What you’re seeing right now, Dawna, is a suspect I might come upon in the field. I don’t know who or what it might be, except its shown aggression. Not every suspect who shows aggression is necessarily guilty of something, so I have to proceed with caution.” She pointed to spots on the dummy’s body. “There are mini-cameras set into the dummy here and here, recording my actions for our weapons master to review. Then he can suggest changes to my strategy or my form.

“Now I’m going to go back to the training mode and I’ll start to treat the dummy like a real person. I’ll be talking to it, trying to get the suspect to voluntarily surrender, to allow me to approach. At up to level six, that can work if I’m persuasive enough. But on level eight, the suspect will continue to attack and eventually will show fangs. Then I’m allowed to stake it. Until that happens, it’s going to try to beat the crap out of me and will probably get in a few good shots. Just stay on the couch unless I get knocked unconscious. Then you can yell, ‘Uncle,’ and it’ll stop. If I’m bleeding or you can’t wake me, call an ambulance. But so far I haven’t been knocked out at this level.” She looked over at us. I nodded, and glanced at Dawna. Her eyes were showing too much white and her mouth was open, her jaw slack. I could see the pulse in her neck fluttering frantically and smell her fear.

I patted her hand and she jumped. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. I’d thought the dummy would bother her less than seeing a real person spar with one of us, but maybe this was too much, too soon. “Sweetie, if this is going to freak you out, we don’t have to use this level.”

She turned to me, eyes still wide, then blinked and shook her head. “No. It’s okay. I just wasn’t expecting the voice. Will it keep yelling at you?”

Alex and I shared a look. We both knew that on level eight yelling wasn’t going to be the biggest issue. Swearing, screams of pain, and piteously begging the cop not to kill it were also part of the program. Crap. Dawna just wasn’t ready for that. Heck, the screams and begging had given me nightmares for a month the first time I trained with my friend Bob Johnson … on level six. “Can you mute it?”

Alex gave a small, sympathetic nod. “Sure. No problem. That’s available for use in residential areas where the noise might bother the neighbors.” She stared at the dummy’s main camera again. “Detective Heather Alexander. Change program. Silent mode. Residential area.” A small display in the upper left-hand corner of the screen dutifully appeared. Confirmed for police training. Mute.

Everybody has a weakness due to a particular sense. Some people are visual and can’t stand to see the sight of blood. Some are really bothered by bad smells, to the point of nausea or vomiting. Touch is what gets me. I’m squicked out by things that squirm—maggots and things crawling on me. Apparently, Dawna reacted to sound.

At least, I hoped it was only sound. I planned to watch Dawna closely to see if she was getting traumatized. She didn’t need any more therapy bills. Alex looked at the computer screen. “Resume training mode.”

Fortunately, over the next half hour, I didn’t see the sign of any heightened panic in Dawna. We watched, enthralled, as Alex pushed, kicked, and talked to the dummy. She would give me a good run for my money at hand-to-hand combat and was really good at the talking part. I had a feeling she could normally get the mannequin to surrender even at level six. But not at level eight. “If you don’t surrender quietly, I’ll be forced to draw my weapon. Now, get on the ground! Facedown, hands behind your head, legs spread apart. Do it!”

She was breathing hard and a sheen of sweat made her bangs droop and stick together. I caught a glimpse of the display as they circled around the mat. F*ck you, b*tch. I wondered what that sounded like because I knew the department dummies weren’t programmed to say actual swear words. The dummy moved fast and Alex was put on the defensive again. This time, she missed her mark and wound up spin-kicking through open air. The dummy used that moment to swing backward and catch her supporting leg. She went down with an oof and Dawna and I winced when the dummy came down again and hit her in the stomach with the side of its head, hard enough to force a pained sound from her throat. The dummy’s head always turned at the last second to protect the computer screen. The display now showed fangs and the words: You’re afraid. You’ll taste sweet. Die, human!

Alex had struggled to a half-sitting position by the time the dummy came down again. Ooh, that was going to hurt.

But I was wrong. As the dummy approached, Alex pulled a stake from her sash and used the dummy’s own momentum to drive the sharpened wood into its heart. There was a beep and red fluid spilled over her in a wash that made Dawna gasp. The scent of mint filled the air, which was just as well. The spray of red had made me twitch uncomfortably for an instant, but mint held no appeal to my vampire nose.

Alex said, “Pause. Hold position. Teaching mode.” She and the dummy froze as if they were on a movie screen, locked in a final death battle. Alex moved only her head, turning toward us with her hand still locked on the stake. “Do you see what I’m doing here? The reason you were struggling with the stake was your hand position. See how I’ve got the bottom of the stake against the heel of my palm? If you grip the stake like a golf club, you can’t get enough force behind a strike. You have to use your body weight to push the stake in. Think of it like an extension of your arm. You have more strength when you punch straight forward than when your wrist is bent. Down is always best if you can get on top of the vampire. But when all else fails, sometimes you have to allow the bat to attack toward you. Drop and roll. Make it come to you and then push it in.”

The screen was displaying Ahhhh! [hisses. screams]. But Dawna’s eyes were fixed on Alex. She was using every muscle, every nerve of her being, to take it all in. There was clarity and understanding in her eyes. Whew, this was actually working. I’d just have to figure out some way to get her past the sounds of death. Maybe I needed to talk to her psychologist about that.

“Resume program.” The dummy returned to an upright position and the screen read Congratulations, Heather. You have killed the vampire. Please replace cartridge. We needed to put a new heart package into the center of the ballistic gel.

I rose and helped Alex to her feet. Dawna excused herself to the bathroom, pausing to ask Alex, “Unless you need to clean up before you start again?”

She shook her head, accidentally showering me with tiny droplets of minty red. “Naw. I don’t get that luxury when I’m actually in the field. They seldom come at me in singles, so I need to be able to work when I’m messy.” As Dawna left the room with an odd look on her face, Alex leaned closer to me and whispered, “Will it bother her if I stay bloody? Be honest. How’s she doing?”

I shrugged lightly and kept my voice down. “Fine. As far as I can tell, there are no problems without the sound. Don’t know what to do about that issue, though.”

“We’ll talk later. I have some ideas.” She wiped away the trickles of sweat dripping down toward her eyes and we replaced the heart cartridge just as Dawna came back into the room.

An hour later, we were all sweating. I’d had a turn at level six on civilian mode, which didn’t require me to talk to the dummy or wait to pull out my stake. It was easy. So easy it frightened me a little because I started to get really aggressive. I found out later that as I was fighting, Alex began to raise the levels with voice commands I didn’t even hear. She upped the six to an eight and then to police mode. Then to ten.

I was moving and dodging, kicking and stabbing without even realizing it. When I finally shoved the stake into the gel chest, it went all the way through to stick out the dummy’s back. I heard my own battle scream as I drove in the wood, and it was a freaky sound.

Panting with sweat and minty blood running down my face, I finally turned to my friends. They stared at me with an odd mix of awe and wariness. Neither said a word. They just stood up from the couch, replaced the cartridge in the dummy, and, while I wiped down my face, began their own practice again.

Dawna had used Alex’s tips to good effect and had killed the vampire twice. Of course, Dawna had also died twice, but that was the nice thing about training. You got to get up again when you died and you didn’t wind up with fangs.

I sat down while Alex did another session. I was still breathing hard, which said I hadn’t been working out as often as I should. Dawna had barely raised a sweat and seemed a little disappointed that it wasn’t her turn again. She was really getting into this and was flexible enough that once she’d mastered the whole “stake” thing, she would be pretty good at it. Except for those annoying sounds. If only we could push the mute button on real monsters.

My cell phone rang across the room. I skirted around the action on the mat and picked it up, walking into the kitchen so I wouldn’t bother the others. The display showed a number I didn’t recognize. “Celia Graves.”

“Celia? It’s Molly Murphy. I’m sorry to bother you. I just needed to hear a friendly voice.” She sounded like crap. The little hiccupping sounds in her breathing told me she’d been crying.

“What’s wrong, Molly? Is Julie…?” No, I wouldn’t say the word. But my brain kept thinking it, no matter how hard I tried to shove it away. Dead dead dead. You’ve failed.

“Not … yet. But she keeps getting worse, Celia. The medicine isn’t working. The doctor doesn’t know what to do. He told me I had to … prepare for the worst. How am I going to tell Mick, Celia? He’ll be here from the airport any minute. How am I going to tell Beverly?”

I didn’t have any answers and found a chill settling over me. “I don’t know, Molly. But I’ll come to the hospital.” Maybe whatever guardian angel was watching over me would take pity on her.

I hung up the phone and walked back to the living room. Alex was working with Dawna, explaining how she should turn her body when attacked from behind. “Hey, guys. That was Molly Murphy on the phone. Julie’s taken a turn for the worse and she’s asked me to run over to the hospital.”

Alex responded immediately, taking her hands off Dawna’s arm. “Oh, man. I’m so sorry, Celia. Just give me a minute to pack up the dummy and we’ll be out of here. We can pick this up another time.”

I shook my head and grabbed my purse. “No, don’t bother. You guys are welcome to stay here and keep working. Just lock up when you leave. I trust you both and who better to watch the house than a cop who’s looking for a fight?” I smiled, fangs and all, and they both laughed.

It only took me a few minutes to get out of my sweats and change into something more presentable and put on enough makeup to not look three days dead. The trip to the hospital was slow because of traffic. All the hospital lots were full, and there were news vans parked on the street. Crap.

I had to park blocks away, far enough that even with the sunscreen I’d slathered on my skin was feeling the burn. Dark sunglasses cut down on the glare, but the combination of bright sunlight and the workout with the dummy had brought the headache back with a vengeance.

There were reporters at both the main and ER entrances. I’m not exactly a celebrity, but recent events had raised my profile enough that I didn’t want them to notice me. So I slipped around to one of the unmarked entrances at the back of the building and worked my way through the maze of hallways until I was just outside the isolation ward.

The first person I spotted was Bruno, sitting in a chair in the main hall with a magazine open on his lap. I raised a hand to catch his attention, and something in my face must have told him something was wrong, because he stood up and opened his arms. I walked to him and let myself be enveloped with warmth and caring. “Hey, you okay?” His voice was concerned, warm.

I nodded against his chest, but it was a lie. “Julie’s worse. Molly asked if I could come. Why are you here?”

“Follow-up saliva test. I’m just waiting for the lab to call me. They’ve been backed up. Did you get the message from Dr. Gaetano?” I shook my head and he gave an extra squeeze. “I overheard him leaving it. Your results came back clear. So you shouldn’t have any other problems.”

It was a relief and muscles I didn’t know were clenched loosened a bit. But that didn’t solve the bigger problem. “That’s good. But how many others aren’t, Bruno? How many kids are going to wind up here, just like Julie?”

He paused for long enough that I pulled my cheek away from his shoulder to look at him. His eyes were both sad and angry. “A half dozen people more showed up overnight, Celie. All students and teachers from Third Street. The quarantine and isolation wards are filling up fast. Nobody’s said anything. Not a word. But I can feel the tension in the hallways. They’re getting worried, and especially since Julie’s not improving. Have you heard from Creede?”

I shook my head and didn’t want to ask the next question because part of me didn’t want to know. I wasn’t sure I could deal with the combination of emotions that would result. “Any word on my mom?”

He shook his head, just a fraction, and put a hand on the back of my head to pull me against him again. “They haven’t said anything except they’re still waiting on tests. The first batch was inconclusive.”

I knew I should go to visit her, but what would it really accomplish? She was angry and scared and I was angry and scared and we would just feed off each other’s emotions like we always did. But I had to ask, to see if I was being unreasonable. “Should I visit her?”

Bruno let out the sound that he always made when confronted with a seemingly insurmountable problem, part growl and part thoughtful hum. “She’s headed back to jail from here?” I nodded and closed my eyes before shaking my head slightly in frustration. He sighed and I felt his forehead rest against my temple. “It won’t do anything but get you both upset. But it’ll be a sore point if you don’t, too.”

That’s what I was afraid of. I just needed to hear it out loud. “Then you think I should, huh?”

He pulled back slightly and touched me under my chin with his fingers. “Well, your gran is here. In fact, she’s already pissed that you haven’t been here doing vigil with her. So, while it won’t do any good with your mom, you probably need to do it anyway.”

Oh, crap. Gran. Here. I should’ve known. And she would be pissed. Damn it.

Bruno pulled me close again, letting me rest my head on his shoulder. “It’ll be okay … eventually.”

That made me laugh. It was a little hysterical, but it was better than crying. And it was exactly the reaction he’d planned. Nobody knows me better than Bruno. He “gets” me. We have the same sense of humor, share most of the same attitudes. When it works with us it’s so very good. I took the moment of solace he offered and let my mind and body be whisked away to a better place.

Until the screaming started.

We both reacted as if cattle prods had been shoved into our spines. We sprang away from each other and turned, searching for the danger. It was interesting seeing which people ran toward the danger and which ran away. The doctors and nurses, by and large, went toward. The clerks and orderlies, away. I would have thought at least the orderlies would stay. They’re usually stuck with the strong-arm stuff when it came to violent patients. But the looks on their faces as they passed by the waiting room said they wanted no part of whatever was down the hall.

There are laws about what you can bring into a hospital, so all I had were charm disks. I came on such short notice to comfort Molly that I didn’t even think about bringing my knives. Well, I wasn’t totally unarmed. I had a level-nine mage by my side.

And who needed more than that?

We rounded the corner and got our first look at the future of the city, and possibly the world, if we didn’t stop this disease. The man was big, tall, and bulky like a construction worker or pro boxer. He filled the hallway, standing still but sensing around him, searching for something to attack. His skin was black—and I don’t mean like an African-American’s, but black like something from the back of the refrigerator, where you would rather throw away the bowl rather than risk taking off the plastic wrap. What remained of his clothing was stuck to the goo oozing out of the lesions that covered his skin. Doctors and nurses surrounded him, completely baffled about what to do.

Bruno skidded to a stop beside me. I wondered what our options were. “Jesus. Is that the endgame of M. Necrose? I’ve never seen it.”

“Yeah. But he’s way worse than Principal Sanchez was. This guy’s eyeballs are missing. That is, except for what’s left dangling on his cheek. And for the record, eww. But he’s tracking the people around him.” One arm made a grab for a nearby nurse and managed to catch the fabric of her scrub top. She was quick, I’d give her that. She stripped out of that thing so fast you’d think it was burning. Her bra was snow-white, matching her widened eyes.

I could smell the death on him, but he sure was active for a corpse.

Bruno said, “I might not be able to pack the body-binding spell into a charm like Creede, but I sure can cast it directly.” I felt the hairs all over my body rise in unison as he raised power without half-trying. He whispered the words and I felt the energy leave his outstretched hands and fly toward the zombie in the hallway. “Corpus bidim.”

The spell should have frozen the man’s muscles, causing him to fall straight over and hit his nose on the linoleum.

Note I say, should. Because that’s not what happened. The power struck him all right, but, like a movie said when a nuclear bomb exploded uselessly against an alien ship, the target remains. Bruno got a shocked look on his face. One of the doctors looked at him and said, “Whatever spell you tried to cast … do it again. He’s still moving.”

Bruno cast a second time and the power he used not only raised my hair but also brought on a sudden bout of my hypervision. I really should have had a nutrition shake before leaving home. While I enjoyed drinking fruit or vegetable juice, they didn’t satisfy my hunger. I had to have either broth or a shake to keep the vampire down.

But the second spell likewise had no effect. I tapped his arm and he noticed my glowing skin and reddened eyes. Nobody else did because everyone was too busy watching the zombie, who was baring sharp-looking teeth and clawlike fingernails, all the better to spread the infection with.

“What the hell?” Bruno’s voice held equal parts disbelief and anger. He’d probably never failed at casting before, but I knew why as I stared at the zombie with different sight.

I tapped Bruno’s arm a second time. “I know what’s wrong—why the spell isn’t working.”

A doctor looked at me and his eyes widened. He reached for the cross around his neck as Bruno said, “Why? What can you see that I can’t?”

I pointed toward the zombie. “You’re casting one spell, against a single individual. But that is a million billion individuals, working together. He’s glowing with tiny dots of energy.” It was bizarre, unlike anything I’d ever seen before. Each dot seemed to have the same bands of energy I’d see in a living person. “What else can you try?”

“Freeze, cut him apart … a thousand things. What do you think will work?”

I had an idea. It was on the theory of divide and conquer. “Crowd control during a riot. What works best?”

He shrugged. “Scatter, disorient the group. Make them…” A smile lit his face. “Make them disperse.” He walked forward, toward the doctors and nurses. “Folks, I’m an A and C cardholder and I’m declaring this an emergency. You need to find somewhere else to be. My lady friend and I can take care of this, but you need to be out of our way.”

Most of those present were happy to obey. Only two doctors remained behind. One of them, a middle-aged man with silvered temples, shook his head. “We can’t leave this man if he’s still treatable. Can you guarantee he’s deceased?”

I nodded. “There’s no blood flowing through his veins. His heart isn’t pumping and I can’t see any brain activity. There’s no fear center reacting to me. Is that enough for you?” I let the doctor see my fangs and red eyes. “Trust me. If he was alive, I’d know it. Frankly, just the scent of his skin is making me nauseous.”

Bruno raised his brows. “I’d believe the nice Abomination if I were you.”

The doctors looked at each other and without a word, turned and walked away, leaving us with the colony of disease that wanted to make us just like it/them. The empty sockets turned our way. “Okay, then. Crowd control. We’ll start with distraction.” I pulled several charm disks from my pocket and threw them hard at the floor in front of the zombie. Light and sound exploded and I went abruptly deaf. I knew the sound probably wouldn’t have any effect, but intense light is sometimes processed oddly by microbes. It could be good, or bad.

The zombie lurched away from the light and froze briefly, as though trying to figure out how to proceed. Bruno began a series of complex, targeted castings that I knew were intended to threaten each bacterium individually. The goal was to hopefully cause a threat response to our two attacks and force them to huddle together at the core of the body. I can’t really explain how I knew what we were planning, but I knew.

Bruno threw a spell that looked like a starburst firework. A thousand tiny points of light raced through the hall to hit the body, killing small groups of microbes. If Bruno hadn’t had a nearly unlimited amount of magic to work with, this wouldn’t work at all. But our plan was working, slowly but surely. Unfortunately, I was running out of charm disks. If this guy had been my size and weight we’d already be done. But his sheer mass was making it take longer.

“I still have one of John’s binding disks. Do you think it’s weak enough yet for that to work?”

“I … don’t think it matters anymore.” I’d been watching Bruno, but now my attention snapped back to the zombie, which was apparently starting to feel desperate. He lumbered toward us, wildly flailing, with claws and teeth bared, making odd noises that weren’t words. We backed away. The guy’s arms opened wide enough to nearly touch each side of the hall. There wasn’t much room to move in the narrow space.

“Bruno, when I count to three, dive into the nearest room. Let’s see whether the little guys have pain centers.” I didn’t give him time to do anything more than open his mouth when I said, “One, two, three!”

He trusted me and reacted without question. He dived into an examination room and I bunched my leg muscles and pushed off from the floor. I sailed high, over the head of the creature, just barely missing smacking my head into the ceiling tiles. Arms reached up to grab my legs, but I tucked them under me and somersaulted over him to land behind his back. I kicked out and hit him hard in the back with every ounce of energy I had. There was a disturbing squish as my heel hit dissolving flesh. I heard a snap as his spine broke. He flew forward down the hall, skidding part of the way on one arm and his face. Bruno peeked his head out of the room and pursed his lips in appreciation. “Nice. Good hit.”

The zombie was having a hard time getting up with a broken spine. Yeah, the bacteria colony could probably figure it out, given enough time. We didn’t intend to give it any.

The body-binding charm was next to hit the floor, and Bruno lashed out with a similar spell. The combination was too much for the zombie and he froze in place like a really disturbing statue. “That’s fine for the next ten minutes. But we need to get this locked up somewhere where it can’t get loose.”

Bruno shrugged. “I recommend a crematorium. That’s the only real fix for this. Most hospitals have one on premises for vampire bite fatalities. But I have no idea where it is.”

He offered to stay with the zombie and keep him disoriented while I went to find a doctor. My vision was back to normal, and other than the delicate fangs that I could usually cover, there was nothing about me to make anyone look at me twice. One of the older doctors was able to tell me that the crematorium was in the basement, next to the morgue. We probably needed to figure out who the dead guy was, but there was so little left of him to go by that it might take a missing-person report to connect the dots. But to do that … “Hey, before you torch him, make sure you take some pictures. Maybe someone could ID him by his clothes or jewelry. At least his family would want to know…” Well, not details, maybe. But still.

“What are we going to do if it happens again?” It was a logical question from the head physician while he helped push the gurney toward the makeshift incinerator. “I mean, I know Mage DeLuca is checking the rest of the building, but it seems like that took a lot out of you and it was only one.”

Unfortunately, I didn’t have much of an answer. “I guess you’ll need to call the police. Maybe their mages can set some sort of barrier spell that’s targeted to the disease.”

He gave me a look. “Perfect. A spell to keep the sick away from the hospital. I’m sure our accountants would be thrilled, but it’s not much of an answer.”

I shrugged. “I’m not a witch, but I’ll bet there’s something that’ll work. It might take trial and error, but this is going to get worse before it gets better.”

He let out a sound that might have been a tearful laugh. “That’s what I’m afraid of. But we do appreciate your help today. At least he didn’t make it up to the second floor, where the quarantine wards are. The last thing we need is a secondary vector. We’ll have to disinfect the whole hallway as it is.”

Oh, no doubt. It stank to high heaven in the whole area. I’d nearly coughed up my liquid cookies. I wanted to back off on visiting my mom, but when I mentioned that to Bruno, he frowned at me in a way that told me he didn’t approve.

So I headed upstairs, leaving Bruno and the doctor to put the zombie into the furnace. Frankly, that’s not something I really wanted to see. I went upstairs to the quarantine ward. Dr. Gaetano wasn’t there, but the nurse told me, with a smile on her face, that my mother had been cleared and was being released. Huh?

The nurse probably didn’t expect my frown before I bolted down the hallway.

I peeked through the window of her room, standing where it would be hard for her to see me. Sure enough, she was getting dressed and didn’t seem to have any … jewelry that would prevent her from walking out the door.

Maybe I’m a horrible daughter. In fact, I have no doubt I am. But I didn’t go into the room. Instead, I grabbed the nearest nurse and explained the situation. She agreed to call a security guard to keep everyone in the room.

Then I scrolled through my phone’s address book until I got to Security Officer Baker. I didn’t even give her a chance to do more than pick up when I whispered, “What the hell, Baker? Why isn’t anyone here watching my mom? They’re about to release her. Didn’t you tell them she was a prisoner?”

“What?” Her outrage was immediate and I realized that it wasn’t her at fault. “Natura was … Oh, fire and water, never mind! My apologies, Princess. I will be there in ten minutes. No more. Could you, and I hate to even ask, keep her there?”

Like I had a choice. But I sure as hell wasn’t going to be in the room when the lady with the cuffs arrived. No, as much as I wanted to see Molly and Julie, it was better for everyone if I stayed away until my mother was back in custody. I sent a text message to Molly’s phone to explain and told her I’d try to talk to her tomorrow. Yeah, I knew I wasn’t being the best friend, but sometimes that’s the best I can do.

Damn it.

I squatted, ready to sit down in front of the doors to keep them from opening until a guard arrived. That’s when I heard the voice.

“What precisely do you think you’re doing?” The words were cold, crisp, with edges like razor blades. I’d heard my gran use that tone before, but never with me.

“Gran…” I turned to talk to her and the words froze in my mouth. My grandmother is tiny, and seems to grow more frail every time I see her. But she has a will of iron, and nothing in this world will shake her belief in God, and in my mother.

“I asked you a question.”

“She needs to stay here until the guards can come get her.”

Her arms crossed over her chest and her chin lowered into battle position. “I see. So you’re taking it on yourself to imprison her.”

“No, the hospital is, as they should. Her release order was a mistake and you know it. She’s an escaped convict, Gran. If they don’t take her back to the island she’ll wind up in jail here again. The last time almost killed her. She has to go back.”

Her lips pressed together in a tight line. She didn’t argue with me on that. She couldn’t. So she changed the subject. “What is this Lana tells me about you taking Ivy from her? Your sister’s ghost is all your mother has left of her. You’ve no right…”

My eyes rolled automatically. I couldn’t seem to help it and it didn’t improve Gran’s mood. “I didn’t take Ivy’s ghost away. I couldn’t if I wanted to. Ivy has her own mind and does what she wants. But I’m not going to let Mom steal another woman’s child by having Ivy overshadow her.”

Gran puffed up like a blowfish, her face getting red. “Overshadow a living child? That’s … evil. My Lana would never!”

The truth hurt, but I wasn’t going to let the charade go on anymore. “Your Lana damned well did. And as for evil, well, that’s my mom.”

Her hand struck out in a blur. Not a fist, but a good, hard slap to my face. I was so shocked I didn’t even try to avoid the blow. I just stood there, mouth hanging open, as the grandmother I adored turned her back on me and walked away.