A Mate Worse Than Death (26 page)

“Back atcha, sir.”

Anthony left, Melly and Fred in tow, and Phil and Cal went out to sit and wait for the Lieutenant in the hallway so they could give Tony and her mother some priva
cy to deal with the new normal.

When Lieutenant Azeem arrived, he found Cal and Phil sitting and eating ice cream just outside of Tony’s room in ICU. Phil had worked with Ms. Beaumont to put together a shield for her that they hoped would keep her free of any more Visions for the moment, at least until they could consult and find out why she had such violent physical reactions during those Visions. Since she had now gone several hours without any kind of Vision or accompanying seizure, the doctor indicated that he thought she might be moved out of ICU soon.

The Newmans had stayed with Tony while Phil and Ms. Beaumont had created the shielding spell, but Tony convinced them to go home after it was in place.

“Hey, Phil’s here in case I need more magical help, and Cal and the Lieutenant and I need to talk. I’m hoping to get this case registered as solved tonight and protect the Beings who would be collateral damage otherwise,” she told her family, convincing them to go home and go to bed.

Azeem paused at Tony’s door and looked at Cal and Phil, “Let’s wrap this up. I want her to get some sleep.”

Cal nodded and juggled his ice cream while he grabbed more containers and carried them into the room. Tony had been napping, but when they came in, she rolled over, stretched, and then winced.

“Hello, sir,” she told Azeem.

He padded over to her bed. “Hello, detective. I hear that you have had an interesting evening.”

She laughed. “Yeah, that old Chinese curse--I’m living in interesting times.”

“Well, I believe we can relieve your mind of some of what weighs on it.”

“I’m ready.”

“Wait,” Cal told her. He came over with two containers heaped with ice cream. “The kids brought extra for you and the Lieutenant.” He handed her a cup with coffee, almond, and caramel ice cream in it. “They got your fav mix up!”

“That was swee
t,” she smirked at her own pun.

Phil rolled his eyes and handed the Lieutenant a cup that Cal had passed to him.

“They seemed to think you would want peanut butter and chocolate. I have never warmed up to peanut butter myself, but I hope it meets with your approval.”

Azeem purred, “It is the oddest thing, isn’t it? A nut, but not! Tony must have told her siblings about my weakness for this butter form!”

Tony paused in scooping up ice cream to ask Phil, “Do you really not have ice cream in Fairie?”

“We don’t have these flavors. Trust me, detective, ice cream alone has convinced many a Super that being stuck in Mundania isn’t all bad,” he told her as he lifted a huge spoon of cherry chocolate to his mouth.

“Dude, brain freeze!” Tony said as he winced at the pain. “Take a smaller bite next time, why don’t ya?” Then she muttered, “Good to know you have some flaws. “And of course,” Cal pointed at his cone, “no Oreo cookies in Fairie, so no Oreo cookie ice cream, right?”

For a few minutes, the four simply enjoyed being alive and having ice cream. Lieutenant Azeem finished first, and though he had a disconcerting way of running his enormous tongue over his face pretty frequently for the next ten minutes, they were all so accustomed to seeing him clean his face that no one really commented. They sat up as he began his report on Heraphina’s apprehension.

“Detective Kelly and I went to the Casters’ cabin and found Heraphina there.”

“Cal said she’d been poisoned, but survived it?”

“Yes, I called him when I left her in order to tell him she had made it through detoxification.” Azeem paused. “She told me her story, and I have it recorded for the official report. The short version of it is that she was used by Serena Melinoe to create the vampire.”

“How did they create it?” Tony asked. “I thought vamps were one of the few examples of Mundania’s magic.”

“Oh, they are. It takes a great amount of belief to make a vampire. Serena found herself the perfect raw material. Haldis Hostrom,” he nodded to Phil, “one of your clients, found out that she was dying from a very rare disease, one that only attacks Supers, and only those in Mundania. It doesn’t happen in Fairie. The disease is a wasting illness, and Holdstrom had only just been diagnosed.”

“That turned her into a vampire?” Cal asked.

“No, hope did,” Azeem pronounced. “Holstrom had been with Monster-Mate for over five years and had found her perfect match, Lilith. Until she was diagnosed, she had not found the courage to declare her true love to her father. But when she found out that she was dying, she wanted to live so that she and Lilith could be together. She asked Serena for help, and Serena sent her to Heraphina Caster, who offered to cure Haldis as a favor to her own true love, Serena.”

“Whoa! Heraphina and Serena?” Cal said. “Bizarre! Am I right? ”

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Tony nodded. “I really thought...well...only one sister got to...” Tony started tripping over her own stereotypes and finished lamely, “please continue, sir.”

Azeem nodded. “Of course, it was a set up. Serena was behind everything that happened. Apparently, Heraphina had had her eye on Serena as a lover since the day she started working at Monster-Mate. Until Serena came to her for help with Haldis,
she had never given Heraphina any encouragement. Serena told Heraphina that she wanted to save her friend Haldis by using a piece of Mundane magic, and that if Heraphina helped her, then she would make Heraphina’s dreams come true.

“Did she love the witch?” Phil asked.

Azeem snorted. “Serena knew that Heraphina would do anything she asked, so she asked her to turn Holstrom. She gave Heraphina the spell because Heraphina is a magic-wielder with a higher mpsi rating than Serena has. Heraphina took the spell, an old artifact of the Christian church, and a desperate Super, and when she put the three together, they had themselves a vampire. As they killed her, they told Holstrom that they were ‘curing’ her disease, and she wanted to believe,” Azeem’s head drooped. “Serena wanted Holstrom in order to attack Lilith, an old lover of Phil’s so that she could implicate him in the murder at best, or as a fallback plan, have the Geas do all the work for her.”

Tony frowned. “That explains why Lilith died with a smile on her face. She must have seen Holstrom as a friend and lover, not a threat, right up to the point that it went bad.”

“I gotta know, boss, did Heraphina know why Lilith’s and Engstrom’s feet were cut up? And why did she kill her sister?”

“Heraphina told me that the sister was not part of the plan. She dropped by to visit and saw too much. In both cases, the vampire made from Holstrom showed reluctance to attack the women, her lover and her sister. Both murders happened at Holstrom’s apartment. The first was when Lilith came over to meet her lover for a night out and the second when Engstrom came to check on her sister. Serena forced her to attack. Serena to
ok control of the vampire from Heraphina, and to incite its bloodlust, she threw shards of glass on the floor of Holstrom’s appartment. When the women came in and took off their shoes, they walked in the glass and bled.”

“Why did they take off their shoes?” Cal asked.

“Cal, you live in the city and you don’t change outdoor shoes for slippers?” Tony asked him.

“Uh, no?”

Tony shuddered. “I need to talk to B.” She looked back at Azeem, who was using his paws and tongue to clean his whiskers. “Sir, why did Serena poison Heraphina?”

“Heraphina was ready to turn her in. She went along with the plan to turn Holstrom because the Swan Maid was dying anyway. And she apparently disliked her new boss, so she didn’t have a problem killing one of his old lovers.”

Phil cocked one eyebrow and shrugged and added dryly, “I reprimanded her twice for tardiness and slovenly dress. Killing me by way of triggering the Geas seems a bit extreme, however.”

“Witches,” said Cal. “What’re you gonna do?”
Then he slapped his hand over his mouth and looked at Tony, bug-eyed.

“Oh man,” she said gleefully, rubbing her hands together. “I am going to get some serious mileage out of being a witchling.” She wiggled her fingers, “Better watch it, Cal, there might be some warts in here!”

Azeem reached in a paw and picked up the ice cream cup from her lap. “No more sugar for you, young Natty.” He turned to Cal, “And you, detective, are going to a diversity training workshop after you get back from paternity leave.” He sat back on his haunches. “Now, where was I?”

“Heraphina had decided to turn Serena in?”

“Ah, yes. She decided to turn Serena in after the murder of Engstrom, but then she noticed odd physical changes and realized that Serena had been poisoning her with magebane.”

“What’s that?” Tony asked.

Azeem told her gravely, “An herb from the Fairie Realms. It absorbs a witch’s magic, soaks it up like a sponge and lessens her power over time. Eventually, the witch has to regurgitate the resulting mass out of her body, and usually it chokes her to death.” He looked a little shame-faced. “It was a common method of controlling the witch population in earlier, less tolerant times. It is illegal now. We don’t advertise its existence. It’s too dangerous.”

“If Heraphina was so ill, why did she end up at the cabin?” Tony asked.

“When she realized that the Being she’d risked going back to prison for, made a vampire for, was trying to kill her, she ran home, to her family cabin. She was ready to die until we showed up, and then she decided revenge made a better option.”

Cal cleared his throat. “Is she gonna make it?”

“Oh yes,” Azeem nodded. “She got treatment before the mass came back up. She has lost a large part of her power, but she’s prepared to make a statement and take her punishment. She’ll go back to Lock Up.”

“And Serena?” Tony asked a little wearily.

Azeem grinned, “Your consultant captured her with a homemade Net-All Super Holder.”

Tony looked over at Phil. “Look at you! All crafty and such! How did you do that?”

“I sampled the net when you and your officers trapped me while trying to trap the vampire,” Phil looked a bit uncomfortable. “I was able to transmute your old t-shirt into a net and hold her long enough for one of the officers to shoot her with a fully-spelled NASH. After that, it was simply a matter of packing up the Changelings and sending them back through the portal.”

I have your report?” Azeem asked Tony.

“I sent it while I was waiting for Phil and Ms. Beaumont to finish the shielding spell for me.”

Azeem looked at Phil, “I’ll need your statement as well to add to the reports of the officers on the scene after Tony collapsed.”

Phil nodded, “Perhaps tomorrow for that?”

Azeem nodded and turned to his other detective, “Detective Kelly, I’ll see you at the office tomorrow to finalize paperwork. Then you’ll take two weeks off to spend with your family and new spawn. Phil, can we give you a ride?”

Phil paused for a moment, then said, “I, ah, have transportation. I may need to check with the, uh, the doctor, before I go.” He pointed to his leg, “You know, bullet hole and all. I may need another check before I go.”

Azeem looked at him for a moment, whiskers twitching. “Don’t let the, uh, doctor, keep you out too late.” He gave both Phil and Tony a stern look. “It has been a very long day.”

He left, dragging Cal with him, and Phil turned back to Tony. “Not my smoothest moment, by any means.”

“I don’t know, looked pretty par for the course to me,” Tony told him.

He shook his head, “Only with you, my sweet, only with you am I like a teenaged boy again.” He walked over to the bed and sat next to her, taking her hand in his again. “I seem to lose my brain around you.”

“About three pounds, gray, and squishy?” she grinned and reached up and put her hand against his face. “I kinda bet it is right behind that gorgeous face of yours.”

He leaned his face into her hand and took a deep breath. “I think it is likely that I will be alive after the next few days pass.”

“I should hope so. We have a confession. I don’t think the Geas is about to do any generic smackings after this report goes in, and knowing the Lieutenant, that’s what he went to do.”

He turned his head and kissed her palm and she felt the tingle all the way down her body, like an electric shock. He turned his head back and looked at her, his dark eyes serious for a change as he took in her face with its halo of sweat curled hair and ice cream smudged lips. “How did you manage to get ice cream on your ear?”

“Pure mess-making, genius-level talent. Or maybe it’s my magic,” she fluttered her fingers at him.

“Your magic is passive, not active.”

“I was joking.”

“I wasn’t. It could have been magic.”

She giggled, and he leaned in and kissed her almond, chocolate, caramel lips, enjoying all that tasted of Tony beneath the sweet creamy additions to her normal flavor.

When he sat back up, she sighed. “I wonder who’s gonna cash in on that office pool?” she pondered, then snorted. “I wish I had thought to bet against myself.”

He sat very still for a moment, then admitted, “I, well, I hope you won’t be upset, but I put 100 dollars down on two days from now. I assumed we would just make the deadline for Geas, and then, well, in the relief of it all...”he trailed off, not wanting to suggest celebration sex.