Neck Deep In Vampires (A BBW Urban Fantasy) (7 page)

             
“Of course. I feel safer already,” I sighed, as he jumped into my pocketbook. Lately all my clothes and everything in my pocketbook was festooned with cat hair, but what can you do.

             
“Damn straight.” He settled in, making himself comfortable.

I headed out to the Bay Breeze around 1 a.m., to make sure that nobody else was around. 
The chief of Security for Bay Breeze was Thomas Diamond.  He was working in the small security kiosk outside of the subdivision when I pulled up.

             
He leaned out of the kiosk to greet me.

             
“Thomas, you will obey all of my questions truthfully,” I said firmly.  “Tell me how the familiars are going missing.”

             
He didn’t know a thing about it.

             
Damn it. I felt like I was running into a brick wall with every avenue I tried to investigate.

             
“Are we giving up?” Barney asked, disappointment in his voice.

             
“Not by a long shot.”

             
I looked up at Thomas, who was standing there with that glaze-eyed look of the compelled.  “Has anyone told you to do anything unusual recently?” I asked him.

             
“Yes. There are some nights I’m supposed to turn off the security cameras on the Northeast end of the subdivision. I had to rewire them so the video would run in a loop and nobody would know that I’d done that.”

             
Barney perked up, climbing halfway out of my purse.  My heart beat faster. Finally!

             
“Who told you to do that?” I said eagerly.

             
“I don’t know.”

             
I pushed my way into his head, searching, but it was like there was blank spot in his memory. Somebody with some powerful magic had done that.  I can usually find any memory, even if it’s hidden or suppressed.

             
“Was it a man or a woman?” I pressed him.

             
“I don’t know.” His voice was a dull monotone.

             
“How long ago did this happen?”

             
“Maybe a month ago.”

             
“When is the next time that you’re supposed to turn the cameras off?”

             
“Tonight. In two hours,” he said.

             
I thought for a moment. “Okay, go ahead and do it. And forget you ever spoke to me. Forget I was here.”

             
I made a U-turn and pulled out of there, and headed back home. I called Mirabelle as I drove, and told her what had happened.

             
“I can’t believe it.” Her voice rose high with anger.  “So you couldn’t make him tell who gave him those orders?”

             
“No, but since it had to be a pretty powerful witch to blank his memory out like that, my money is on either Emmeline, or December.  Or maybe your sister?”

             
“No, Narcissa isn’t strong enough to do that. You’re right, those are our two best candidates. I just hope it’s not someone in my own family.”  She let out a long, angry sigh.

             
“What do you want me to do next?” I asked her.

             
“I’d like you to talk to December.  If I can prove that she’s behind this, she’d be hauled up before the Supreme High Council and stripped of her position, and subject to severe sanctions.”

             
“All right then,” I said. “I’ll talk to her tomorrow night, and I’ll let you know what I find. So what are you going to do tonight?”

             
“I’ll make sure that the security cameras get turned back on, and I’ll have our entire security force out in the woods watching out in case any familiars escape. I’m also going to question Victor myself; maybe my magic can reverse whatever spell he’s been put under. I can’t thank you enough for helping with this, Frankie. If you ever need my help, just ask.”

             
I drove back to the condo, but I felt restless and anxious.  As Barney wolfed down more cat food – where did he put it all? – I stared at a hardcover book on the kitchen table, and levitated it, just to make sure I still could.

             
It floated, but it wobbled. It shouldn’t have wobbled. I set it down with a thud, when I should have been able to lower it gracefully.

             
I felt fear washing over me, which was unacceptable. I had a mission coming up, and I could not afford to be afraid, or sick, or weak. I wouldn’t let myself weaken, damn it. I would will myself to be strong again.

I glanced out the window at the half moon that hung luminous in the sky.
  “I should go back to Bay Breeze and see if I can help,” I told Camille, who was on her laptop, reading up on forensic botany. That was the kind of thing she did as a hobby. “I could at least park down the road from the subdivision and watch out for anything unusual.”

She looked up at me.
“You want me to come with?”

“I’
m coming!” Barney called out.

“
No, and no. I work best on my own. And Barney, we know for a fact that somebody plans some kind of attack on Bay Breeze tonight, probably the kidnapping of another familiar, so there is no flipping way you’re going anywhere near there tonight.”

He protested loudly, but I hurried out the door, slamming it behind me.

              As I walked to the parking lot where my car was parked, I sensed them. Humans, waiting in the shadows.

             
Again? I thought irritably. And here, where I was staying? I really wanted to kick their asses, but I couldn’t afford to, not right in front of my condo. The police would come by asking too many questions.

             
There were half a dozen of them this time, rushing at me from behind a parked van, and for the first time in a long time, I was suddenly afraid to be outside alone in the dark.  Would my powers hold up?

             
“Stop!” I yelled, as they moved closer, and they paused, wavering, but pushed forward, as if fighting a heavy headwind.

             
“We’ve got a mess…a message…” One of them stammered. He waved a knife in the air, and I smelled silver. If he cut me, that would hurt. “You shouldn’t…mess with witches.”

             
They stumbled forward in slow motion.

             
“Who sent you here?” I demanded angrily. I concentrated as hard as I could, using all of my power.  “I said stop!”

             
“The witches…You shouldn’t…” A big guy wearing a sweatshirt and hoodie slurred. Damn, wasn’t he hot? It never cooled down here, not even at midnight. It made me sweat just to look at him.

             
“Which ones?” I forced my way into his mind.  They were staggering as if their feet were sinking into sticky tar, but still moving forward, very slowly.

             
I moved back away from them, jogging backwards as I searched the big guy’s mind.

             
I saw a dark shadowy figure, wearing a cloak and a mask, calling them over. The person had approached them in the parking lot of a local dive bar earlier that evening, and said some kind of incantation,  which apparently worked the same way that my powers of Compelling did.  I couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman – my would-be assailant only remembered a dark blurry kind of shadow, and the voice was disguised and strange.

             
Either way, he or she had ordered them to come to my condo and kill me – and then leave immediately, and forget what they’d done. The person knew where I lived, and was targeting me.

             
This group of thugs was a member of a local motorcycle gang. I could see memories flashing through his mind, memories of people that he and his friends had killed, memories of tossing bodies into swamps. Whoever bewitched them had chosen well. If they ever were caught and traced back to me, nobody would question that they’d assaulted and murdered a woman in a parking lot.

             
Suddenly, that earlier assault by the three stooges didn’t seem so random any more. They’d targeted me, I realized, just as these guys had. What witch or warlock had I so mortally offended?

             
Compelling all of them was too much for me. With a snap, I felt my power draining from me.  J couldn’t hold them back any more. 

             
They started lurching forward more quickly, and  I turned to run, and then it hit me – vampires. There were vampires nearby.

             
Everything after that was a blur. Vampires flew through the parking lot, running at inhuman speeds, and attacked the humans. There were screams that choked off quickly, and then  their bodies were dragged out of the parking lot so fast that no human could have seen it.  A van had pulled up on the street, and all the bodies were tossed in. Vampires always clean up after themselves; we’re a tidy crew, when it comes to bodies.

             
While the bodies were being stuffed in the van, three vampires ran towards me and grabbed me.

             
“Get off me!” I yelled. They piled on me, and I fell to the ground.  My physical powers were slackening just the same as my mental powers; I should have been able to take on a dozen vampires.  Kicking and punching, I managed to hurl them off of me, but they only flew a few feet before they were on me again.              

             
“Enough!” A familiar voice cracked through the air.

             
A tall, blond vampire strode through the woods towards me, and the other vampires climbed off me, grumbling and brushing themselves off.  One of them held up a dangling, broken arm which quickly began resetting itself as I watched.

             
“Bitch,” he muttered

             
“Damn straight, and don’t you forget it,” I agreed coolly.

             
“You need to come with us now, without making any more noise. You’re going to start attracting attention,” the blond vampire said.

             
“Cedric,” I said to him. He was Nicholas’ chief warden. “What the hell are you doing here?”

             
“Nicholas told us to bring you to him by any means necessary.” Cedric said in his familiar Cockney accent. His eyes glowed with an angry light.

             
“I’m not coming back to New York!” God, did I want to go back to New York.

             
“He’s not in New York. He’s in a house a few miles from here.”

             
Clever Nicholas.  Far enough away that I wouldn’t be able to sense his presence. If he’d been closer, I would have been able to sense him. I could always pick up on the presence of paranormals, but Nicholas, my Eternal Consort, was the only one I could specifically feel near me.

             
My heart leapt at the thought of seeing him again, but this was terrible timing. I needed to kill Andreas first. If I was successful, and nobody found out that it was me, than maybe I could risk getting back together with Nicholas.

             
“He can’t break up with me and demand that I come running whenever he wants,” I bluffed. “I’m still recovering from my broken heart, thank you. I will be going now.”

             
“Maybe he changed his mind.” Cedric looked bored. “I obey his orders, not yours. He told me to bring you back, and we will obey his orders or die trying.”

             
Damn it. Stupid vampire loyalty. He wasn’t lying; an order from Nicholas was considered sacred. I didn’t want to have to cause harm to Nicholas’ servants just for obeying his orders.

             
“Fine,” I sighed heavily, and let them lead me out of the woods to a Range Rover that was waiting by the roadside.

             
Nicholas was apparently renting a private house in a wooded area south of town, a big sprawling McMansion style house with faux-Mediterranean styling. Red barrel tile roof, stucco exterior with arched windows and wrought iron balconies. Giant palm trees in terra cotta pots were arranged around the big wooden doorway.

             
They led me inside, to an enormous living room with walls painted in warm earth tones. Colorful rugs were scattered across the terra cotta tile floor.

             
Nicholas sat on a distressed leather sofa, sipping a wine glass full of blood.  My heart nearly stopped when I walked in and saw him there, and the longing that rushed over me threatened to knock me off my feet.

             
He set the glass down and turned to look at me. He was even more beautiful then I remembered.  Black wavy hair with a curl that dipped low over the middle of his forehead, sharp cheekbones, and beautiful blue eyes.  He wore a black silk shirt with pearl buttons, and black trousers with black loafers. The sexual energy crackled off him like static electricity, and I wanted to climb into his lap, rip my clothes off, and ravish him.