Fangtastic (11 page)

“Some would have chosen death before dishonor.”

I put a hand on one hip and stared her down. “Yeah, introduce them to me. Anyway, if failure were a killing offense, algebra would have sent me to an early grave. I won't do you any good dead.”

“I don't see that you're doing us much good alive.”

We eyed each other like two lionesses about to spring for the same piece of meat … or each others' throats if one got in the way of the other.

“Maybe that's because you've been holding out on us,” I said. “If we're going to stop Dion, we're going to need to talk to Xander.”

An actual expression crossed her face … surprise, maybe. Somehow, I sensed it wasn't so much about Xander's involvement but the fact that I knew about it.

Then she closed off and was every bit as catwalk-model cold as she'd ever been. “I'm afraid that's not possible.”

“Honey, we're the
living dead
.
Don't tell me what's not possible.”

She didn't even blink. Her game face was back in place. “Xander is … no longer with us.”

I studied her, but she was as smooth as ice that's just been zambonied.
“No longer with us
as in true dead? Gone? What?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“To which?”

“For all intents and purposes, Xander is dead and gone.”

“For all intents and purposes
—what does that mean?”

“I'll find you a dictionary.”

I growled.

“You have two nights,” she said. “Then if we have to tear down this town to get to Dion and to you, so be it.” I had a feeling Selene had been lobbying for that route right from the start.

“Why is this kid so important to you?” I asked.

Her hands tightened on Bobby's shoulders and I saw him bite back a wince.

“Why is he so important to
you
?” she said.

Her ice was starting to seep into my heart, and I let it come out in my voice. “I doubt our reasons are the same.”

“Reasons don't matter. Only results.”

She gave Bobby's shoulders a final brutal squeeze and
let go.

“One last question,” I said quickly, before she could disappear into the night. “How is it that you can track me, but not
Dion?”

She smiled, a sphinx's grin, like right before it pounces and has you for dinner. “We have our ways.”

Then she was gone, and Bobby and I were left staring at each other.

“The phone,” I said into the silence. “Damn, I should have thought of that. If Sid can track us via GPS on the Fed phone, the vamps can probably do the same with the one they gave me.”

I was tempted to plant it on one of the bar's patrons and be done with it, but that might put some unsuspecting person in danger. And if I just flushed it, Selene would figure it out when the phone stayed put. Anyway, it might still have a use. Right now, though, I felt like I was carrying a moving target.

As I was thinking it, the target rang in my pocket. Bobby's gaze flickered from mine to my phone. “You gonna answer that?”

Reluctantly, I pulled the phone from my pocket. “Yeah,” I said into it.

“Ask your Federal friends what became of Alistaire.”

Selene
.
She hung up before I could say a word. Weird.

Alistaire was the creepy psycho-psychic who'd dubbed me “chaos” and who'd tried alternately to end and save my life. I owed him. I didn't know for what, exactly, but I couldn't shake the feeling. He'd gone missing on Bobby's and my last mission. I'd thought he'd escaped, that the Feds had missed him, but what if … ?

What if, what? Why capture him and not tell us? Were secrets just that habitual with the Feds, or was there something more sinister going on they didn't want us to know about?

9

I
needed answers, and TV game shows had taught me exactly what to do in such situations—phone a friend. The problem was, I didn't think it was such a hot idea to call Marcy on a Fed-supplied phone to ask my questions. For all I knew, calls were recorded for quality assurance. Besides, Sid and Maya hadn't let me put her on speed dial, since the plan had been for me to get caught and for her to stay hidden. That meant my only option was to play telephone … with Bobby as the phone.

We got into the car with the doors firmly shut and locked around us, and I turned to him. “Bobby, ring up Marcy, would you?”

“Ring her up?”

“You know, do that voodoo you do so well. Give her a shout-out.”

“O-kay. The point being?” he asked.

“She works with Brent. He's one of
them
.
A Fed. Maybe she knows something or can find out. Maybe he talks in his sleep or has a map to some super-secret government facility tattooed on his ass. I don't know.”

“You want her to check out his butt?”

“Honey, if I know Marcy, she already has.”

His mouth opened and closed for a second like a landed fish. You'd have thought he'd be used to me by now. I was glad I could still surprise him.

“Whatever,” he said finally. “But I don't want details.”

I rolled my eyes. “Fine.”

“Drive,” Bobby ordered.

“I want to give the call my full focus.”

“We're sitting ducks here. I'd rather be on the move.”

He had a point. “Okay then, where to?” I asked.

“Back to HQ, but look for tails and make sure not to take a direct route.”

“But the vamps can find me anywhere, any time they want.”

“They're not the only ones we're worried about.”

True enough. I told him what Selene had said about Alistaire as I put the car into gear and pulled out of the space I'd backed into for a quick getaway. I hadn't really thought beyond relief that the psycho-psychic hadn't darkened my door since our last case, but now that I thought about things, it was out of character for him not to turn up again like a bad penny. Sure, vampires could be killed … just like humans, only different. But Alistaire was something infinitely scarier.

“And you think this means—what?” Bobby asked.

I stared at him until he grabbed the steering wheel to yank us back into our lane, then I switched over to words.

“She said it like something had happened to Alistaire and that the Feds were responsible.”

“This is Alistaire we're talking about. Do you really think the spooks can out-boogey the boogeyman?”

“I don't know,” I said, “but I mean to find out. I told you all along that something was off. This just confirms it.”

It was Bobby's turn to stare. “It doesn't confirm anything. You're not saying the
vamps
are suddenly reliable sources of information now?”

I shot him a look. Just quickly this time, because I was in no mood to die. “Careful,
we're
vamps.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Actually, I don't. You seem very cozy with the Feds lately, like maybe you've been drinking their brand of Kool-Aid. Have you ever noticed there are no vampire handlers? I haven't seen any vampires in charge, have you?”

Bobby bit his lip while he thought about that. “No,” he said at last.

“Right, so we check in with Marcy?”

In answer, Bobby closed his eyes and I felt that ripple of power from him, like someone had electrified the air. It made me all tingly.

“Hey, Marcy,” he said aloud for my benefit. All he really had to do to mind-speak to Marcy was think. “Wait, wait, wait, slow down.” Then, to me, “She wants you to call her, something about an awesome dress in clockwork orange.”

“Ooh, ask her if it's red-orange or closer to copper, because she should totally stay away from the more yellowy tones.”

“Gina wants to know—wait a minute, what am I doing? Girls,
focus
.
Criminal investigation, remember? Marcy, there's something weird going on. I don't know if the vamps are just yanking our chains, but they've implicated the Feds in at least one vampire disappearance. We don't know if the Feds have some kind of Guantanamo Bay for the undead or—” He paused.
“
Guan-tan-a-mo
,”
he repeated. “Not Geronimo. G-u-a- … Look, forget it. We want you to see if you can get any information out of Brent.”

Pause.

“She says he's not there right now.”

“Well, where is he?” I asked.

He passed it along.

“Where? But he's left some things behind, right? Things you can go through for clues.” Another pause. “Like, I don't know … anything. Check his computer.”

Bobby started to bang his head against the window. I knew the feeling. Marcy could make you nuts like that. I wondered if shatter-resistant glass was built to withstand the undead.

“Okay, let us know if you find anything,” he said. “I'll tell her. Bye.”

“Tell me what?” I asked.

“It blows Betsy Carmichael's dress out of the water … that mean anything to you?”

“It means she damn well better take pictures!” Of the dress anyway, since she, sadly, wouldn't show.

“Shoot me now,” he said. “I wonder if the Feds make vampire-strength migraine meds.”

“You can ask them yourself; we're almost there.” In fact, I was turning onto our street now. “It's your own fault, anyway. If you hadn't—”

Our street was apparently the latest crime scene. At least there was no ambulance, although a police patrol unit lit up the storefront with alternating flashes of red and blue. The bullet-proof windows of the pawnshop were still intact, but it looked like the door had been ripped off its hinges; it now canted to the left like a bird's broken wing.

And inside, a uniformed officer stood with Sid and Maya, a guy I figured was the pawnshop frontman, and—
Brent
. At least, I thought it was him. He was the right size and build, but he didn't currently look like a Fed
or
a goth. He looked like any frat boy off the street—baseball cap pulled low over his face, cargo shorts, gray sweatshirt.

I cruised right on past, hoping that they wouldn't see me. I parked on a side street two blocks away.

“Do we check it out?” I asked Bobby, as though he actually had a choice in the matter.

“Yeah,” he said. “I think we'd better.”

We strolled back toward the shop under the cover of darkness and stopped behind a clutch of palm trees a half block away, outside the reach of the flashing red and blues. In the doorway, we could see Sid and Maya shaking the officer's hand and sending him on his way with a “Thank you, officer. We'll fax over a full list of what's been taken after we've done inventory.”

The words carried to our sharpened senses, but with all the crap in the window, we couldn't see well enough into the store to check out what the others were up to.
Closer
,
I said mentally, hoping Bobby would pick up on it. I don't know why I bothered—human senses weren't as accurate as ours. I could have whispered and they'd never have heard, but it was getting harder to remember being human.

Bobby gave me a nod. We waited for Sid and Maya to go back inside the store, waited for the patrol unit's lights to go out and the car to drive off. Then we made our move, crossing the street, avoiding the security and street lights, and making it to the corner of the pawnshop/HQ building. We peeked through the front window, finding a gap between a poster for an antique weapons show and an old toaster oven. Inside, the new player in our little dramedy, the pawnbroker, was showing Brent a wall safe. We could only see Brent in profile, but he had one hand inside the vault and his eyes were closed as if he was concentrating.

Then I felt the wash of power. Not a tsunami like Bobby's, but more the natural flow of the ocean. Still, it was enough to make the hair on my arms stand on end. And it wasn't coming from me—as far as I could tell, my only superpowers were magical sensitivity and resistance to mesmerism. Oh, and
chaos
.
Yeah, the thing with that is it doesn't come when you call. And just try putting it on your resume.

“What's he doing?” I whispered to Bobby.

Bobby's eyes were shining, as electric blue as I'd ever seen them and completely focused on the scene inside. “He's reading the vault,” he whispered back. “Brent must be a telemetric. It makes sense why he'd be part of our team. I'd wondered—”

The dead weight of my heart sank to my stomach. I sometimes forgot we vamps hadn't cornered the market on magic. Just by touching your plate, a telemetric could tell you what you had for dinner and whether you used your finger to push the last of the peas onto your fork. More usefully, he could probably tell who'd been in the vault and maybe even where they were headed afterward.

So, we had a telemetric on our side and the Tampa vamps had a truth-teller on theirs. Two truly
powerful
powers. Right here. There was definitely more going on than some killer kids.
Way
more, if both sides had brought out the big guns. I hoped Bobby and I weren't caught in the crossfire.

Crap!
Marcy
.
If Brent could read objects, could he read people as well? If so, one touch and he'd find out we'd asked Marcy to spy on him. He'd know we had suspicions about what the Feds were up to. We'd be totally exposed.

“Bobby, you have to tell Marcy.”

“Shh!” Bobby hissed.

I was about to get all indignant when I realized he was trying to listen in on Brent's report.

“Why didn't you pass this machine along right away?” Brent was asking.

The pawnshop guy crossed his arms defensively. “Hadn't had time to investigate it yet. We've let it be known we're in the market for the unusual and the occult. Do you know how many crazy stories we get? If I passed them all along, you guys would be chasing your tails day and night. When a guy comes in saying he's got an energy transference machine, I take his name, give him a few bucks, and send him on his way. Business as usual.”

“Until now,” Sid cut in.

Pawn guy looked just shy of mutinous when a flash of … something around the far corner of the shop caught my attention. I squinted into the night, trying to catch it again.

There it was—a quick glint of light reflecting off glass … no,
glasses
. We weren't the only eavesdroppers. I was torn between sneaking up on our Peeping Tom or staying to listen in, but then realized I could pretty much be in two places at once.

Stay here
,
I ordered Bobby. I'd get the full scoop later, probably word for word. He had that kind of memory. Meanwhile, I crept silently toward the corner, but not close enough to the building that I'd set off any potential perimeter alarms. I peered around. Nothing.

Apparently, I wasn't stealthy enough. When I peeked around the corner where the Peeping Tom had disappeared, I found him staring right at me. Yes,
he
—brown wavy hair tending toward frizz, wild eyebrows that did their best to meet up with his hairline, round glasses sliding down his nose. Fine lines and wrinkles put him at about my dad's age, give or take. He held a finger to his lips, signaling me to be silent—as if I hadn't been. When he took it away, he mouthed, “Trust no one.”

Then he bolted like a rabbit. There one second, gone the next. Like magic … literally. I felt it like a backdraft sizzling over me. I knew there wasn't any point in giving chase and possibly calling attention to myself. He was
gone
.
Just gone.

I circled back around to Bobby. “I missed him,” I said when I got close, “but I got a decent look. Three guesses who it was.” Our Peeping Tom looked just like his picture in the Fed's briefing folder.

“Batman?” Bobby asked. “Santa Claus? The missing uncle?”

I stared. “How did you know?”

“Men's intuition.”

“Men don't get to have intuition.”

He rolled his eyes at me. “Okay, fine, I was guessing.”

“Well anyway, you're right. It was Eric Ricci—checking on one of his inventions, maybe. I mean, an energy transference machine sounds right up his alley.”

“But why? And how did it get here in the first place?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. If I'd caught him, we could have asked. Selene only gave us two more nights to find the killer kids, and so far we keep finding more questions and no answers. Ideas?”

Bobby shrugged. “I guess we go on in. If Sid's tracking us with GPS, he'll know we stopped here. Might as well own it. We can tell him we were chasing after their Peeping Tom.”