Hard Day's Knight (4 page)

“So you’re saying she was possessed? By what?” Greg asked.

“Yes, she was possessed. And based on the amount of power she exhibited, we may have a very serious problem. I don’t know exactly what type of demon was possessing her, but it’s obviously incredibly strong. I’ve never experienced anything like that kind of power. To be able to melt a symbol of the Lord in the hands of a priest…” Mike trailed off, and if anything, he looked a little paler. Not as pale as me, but getting there.

“How’s the hand?” I wanted to change the subject, and quick.

“Mostly second-degree burns. I dropped the crucifix before it completely liquefied, but some of the molten silver did get onto my skin. I probably won’t have full use of the last two fingers again.” That explains the screaming I heard as I passed out. Molten metal eating through your flesh tends to do that to a person.

That subject was even more uncomfortable than the first, so I switched back to the lineup. “So what do we know?”

“Not much,” Mike said. “There are only a few demons that have the kind of power she exhibited last night, and all of them are bad news. And if what she said about serving an even more powerful demon is true, then we have to stop her.” Of course we do. Because we’re not vampires, the beasties that give people nightmares and make them think twice about walking down that alley alone, we’re detective vampires. We’re the good guys. Like Batman, only with dietary restrictions. Sometimes I wondered what it would be like just to
eat
people, like a normal vampire. But no, not only do I have a conscience, I have a roommate with a Kal-el complex and a priest for a best friend. If I could find a shrink that kept office hours after sundown, I could spend eternity in therapy.

“So what happened to the demon? When you got it out of the girl it just went back to Hell?” Greg asked, a little more hopefully than I thought we had a right to be. Of course I was right. I hate being right sometimes.

“I have no idea, but I doubt it. I would expect that it found someone close by to inhabit, but the ethereal definitions of close by could mean anywhere in the city.” Mike was wobbling a little by now, so I led him over to sit on a headstone. It was a mark of how much had been taken out of him that he was willing to sit. Usually that was one of the things Greg and I did to get a rise out of him, sit on headstones and make fun of the occupants. Mike never disrespected the dead. Greg and I exchanged a worried glance behind Mike’s back and with a nod decided on an impromptu plan.

“Alright,” Greg started, “you stay here and keep an eye on the girl, and when she comes around see what kind of information you can get out of her. Somebody had to help her bring this thing up; no kid has that kind of power. See if you can get the names of who else was in the circle with her that night, and keep her here. The beastie’s gotten into her once, that might make her vulnerable to a repeat possession, if there is such a thing.”

I chimed in then “we’ll split up and keep an eye on Tommy and his family. If getting revenge on him for picking on the girl was part of this creature’s contract for getting to this side of Hell, then it may still go after them. I’ll take the hospital and Greg will keep an eye on the sister.”

“That sounds good, boys. I think I would do well to do my part from my chair this time.” Mike said, as he started back towards the church. “Boys?” He called as he stopped at the cemetery gate.

“Yeah, Dad?” Mike replied.

“Be careful. This one is bad. Very, very bad.” Greg and I looked at each other as Mike limped into the church, looking every bit as old as we were all supposed to be. We stood there watching our friend’s back for a second, then headed off into the night for our respective charges. Good thing I was headed to the hospital, I needed breakfast
bad
.

It only took me a few minutes to get to the hospital, and no I did not turn into a bat to get there. I can’t do that. I’ve heard that some of us can take animal forms, but either I haven’t figured out how, or I haven’t been around long enough, or the vampire that made me wasn’t strong enough, or something like that. I don’t really know. So since I can’t fly, I took the bus. And by that I mean I jumped on top of one and hitched a ride to the hospital.

Cut me some slack, I was out of cash. When I got there, Tommy had some company that I certainly wasn’t interested in seeing – the police. I did a quick one-eighty in the hallway once I saw the guard outside his room and headed back downstairs to swipe a disguise. If possible, it’s a good idea to avoid masquerading as someone with medical training, because someone always wants you to do something with that training, and that can turn out poorly for you and the patient. So I usually put on my best janitor clothes and grab a bucket. There’s never been a hospital that didn’t have something that needed to be mopped, and the cleaning staff is usually pretty invisible.

I found an unattended supply closet on Tommy’s floor and commandeered a bucket and mop. I wheeled my way down the hall to the room next to Tommy’s, and headed in to mop and eavesdrop. Fortunately for me, the guy in the room was comatose, so he didn’t care that I was doing a crappy cleaning job, and I was able to hear a grumpy-sounding female detective grilling Tommy through the wall.

“Mr. Matthews, how exactly did you break your arm?” She asked.

“Fell off my skateboard.” Tommy had the sullen teenager thing down pat, probably because he was a teenager with a crap attitude toward authority figures and a system full of painkillers.

“That’s bull!” I heard her slam something to the floor, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who was playing the bad cop. If she was playing. “The doctor told us your injuries were consistent with your arm being broken by a very strong person. Now who did it?”

“I told you, I fell off my skateboard.” Tommy even managed a little whine at the end. I was impressed; I wasn’t anywhere near that good at being a putz when I was a kid.

“And I told you, I know you’re lying.” I could almost see her leaning in to him, her voice dropped and got real confidential. “We can’t protect you if you don’t tell us the truth, Tommy. And you want us to protect you, don’t you? I’d hate to have to leave here and take that guard with me. Wouldn’t you?” I certainly wouldn’t hate that, but I didn’t think she was asking me.

I heard nothing for a minute, then heard Tommy take a deep breath and say, “Okay, I’ll tell you what happened.” My heart, if it still beat, would have stopped for a second, and Tommy’s next words did nothing to make me feel any better. Before I could reach through the wall and strangle him, he said “I hired a couple of vampire detectives to protect me from a demonic curse and when we went to confront the witch that cursed me, she broke my arm like a twig.” The silence from the other room was thick, and I leaned my head against the wall berating myself for not eating the kid when I had the chance.

After a long minute I heard the woman’s voice again, and it was pretty obvious that she was not happy with Tommy’s answer. She spit out the words like they were bullets. “You little bastard. I have somebody in this town kidnapping little kids, and this girl is just the latest. Now you were seen harassing her at school and the neighbors say a kid matching your description was at her house before she went missing last night. You know something, and if anything happens to that little girl and it turns out you had anything to do with it, I will personally make sure that you do your undergraduate work in the federal penitentiary in Raleigh.” With that, I heard her heading for the door. Seconds later I felt the wall shake as she slammed the door to Tommy’s room open.

“Come on, leave the chump here. Anything that’s after him, can have him,” she said to the guard. They passed by the open door of the room I was mopping without a glance, and headed for the elevator. The woman led the parade, followed by two uniforms. She was a striking woman more than really pretty, a little too sharp in the face for most guys’ comfort. Tall, with ass-kicking boots on, she was almost six feet, her dark brown hair tied into a messy ponytail. She wore a tailored jacket open to show her badge and gun, and a cross around her neck. I notice the little things, like crosses. They get to be important. I counted to a hundred twice and then wheeled my bucket into Tommy’s room. He was fiddling with the bed when I closed the door behind me and moved a chair under the knob.

“Holy crap! I almost peed the bed! I thought you guys had left me here to die!” I crossed to the bed as quickly as I could, which is pretty damned quick, and put my hand over his mouth.

“You want to yell that a little louder? I’m not sure every brat in the nursery heard you.” I whispered into his face. His eyes got big as he noticed the pointy teeth, and I backed off a little. “How long were they here? What did they tell you?”

“They were here when I woke up. That chick cop was a real bitch. She was all about wanting to know how my arm got broke, but I didn’t tell her anything, I swear.” He flopped back onto his pillows looking proud of himself.

“Except the absolute truth, you mean. Good thing for all of us she’s a civilian and doesn’t believe in anything having to do with our world.” Tommy looked a lot less smug, and I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Vamp senses are ridiculously good. I listened through the wall. Now what was she talking about with little kids being kidnapped?” I pulled a chair over to the window and looked down. The detective was standing by her car looking up at me. I sat down hoping that she was nearsighted. Somehow I knew she was going to be someone I had to deal with before this mess was over.

“Dude, don’t you, like read the paper?” Tommy used the remote to elevate bed so he could see me better while I took the chair.

“My morning delivery leaves a little to be desired. Enlighten me.”

“There’s been, like, ten or eleven kids go missing in the last month, dude. There’s talk of not letting anybody go out for Halloween or nothing unless they catch the dude.” That would suck; Halloween is one of best nights of the year. It’s like a Vegas buffet, only everyone you nibble on has had so much candy they all taste like dessert.

I poked around at the leftovers on his tray, hoping for a little Jell-O. “Go on.”

“What are you doing? I thought you couldn’t eat.”

“Old habits. Now about the kids?”

“Oh, yeah. Well, the first couple were no big deal, their parents were all over each other about custody anyway, so most folks figured one or the other was lying and had swiped the kid. But then a pair of twins vanished out of like a day care or something like that, and people started to get worried. By that time, everybody was making a huge deal about the cops not caring because the first kids were black, and the latest kids were white, and it got to be a whole big thing. So they made a whole task force thing and press conferences, and a big news thing out of everything. But while the cops were conferencing, kids kept disappearing. Hey, can you hand my that ginger ale?” He took a drink while I looked at him.

“Is that all?” I asked when he didn’t continue.

“What do you mean? I guess. That’s what I know, anyway.” Sometimes I wonder if everybody in the world is brutally stupid, or if it’s just my clients.

“Did you think that maybe a bunch of kids disappearing might have something to do with the super-brat that mopped the floor with us last night?” I kept my voice down, but it was starting to be a bit of a stretch. This kid would have given me high blood pressure if I still had blood pressure.

“No, man. That was, like, a demon or something. This is just some kids going missing. Oh! I get it! You think the demon might be taking the kids, right?” It’s almost cute how excited stupid people get when they figure something out. Like Christmas for morons.

“I was thinking that maybe the people calling the demon might have something to do with the vanishing children, yes. How many did you say were gone?”

“I don’t know, man. They were all little kids, like middle school. I didn’t know any of them, so I didn’t really pay attention. But I did kinda know this girl whose little sister was one that got kidnapped. I think they said she was number eight or something like that.”

“Does your friend have a name?” I had the beginnings of a plan, but I needed to be able to leave Tommy alone and know he was safe. He was a moron, but he was my moron for the moment.

“Dude, she’s not my friend, I barely know her.” I motioned for his to go on, because I didn’t care. “Janice Reynolds. My buddy Rick used to go out with her or something. Or maybe hooked up with her at a party. I can’t remember. But she lives in that new development over by the high school. What are you gonna do?” He held out his ginger ale, and I put it back on the tray for him. I hate invalids. They always want somebody to do things for them just because they can’t possibly do it for themselves. Pansies.

“Alright. I’m going to go talk to your friend Janice. But I’ve got a couple of other stops to make first, and I need to make a little noise so your guard will come back, so try to make this convincing.”

“Make what convincing?” I didn’t answer; I just put a pillow over his head and counted to twenty. He thrashed around pretty well, but wasn’t anywhere near smart enough to press the call button for the nurse. So after he passed out I checked that he was still breathing, pressed the call button myself, and threw a chair out the window. I figured that would be enough to draw attention even at a hospital, so I ducked out into the hall and headed for the elevator.

I walked past the crowd of people looking at the armchair that had crushed the hood of a police car in front of the hospital and headed toward the bus stop. The cop car was a nice touch, if I do say so myself. I thought my luck was finally starting to look up as I got to the bus stop, when my phone rang and proved me wrong again.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Dude, you gotta get over here!’ Greg sounded more than a little freaked out, but since Greg freaks out when he burns a Pop-Tart it didn’t give me much to go on.

“One, where are you? And two, what’s up?”