Freaky fangs, p.14
Freaky Fangs, page 14
part #9 of Mystic Caravan Mystery Series
“Oh, don’t.” He pointed at my smirking face. “He has good ideas, but I’m still in charge. Though he doesn’t seem to care.”
“I don’t think it’s that he doesn’t care as much as he’s passionate about keeping everybody safe. You should recognize the reaction — you act the same way.”
He worked his jaw. “You realize that now you’re standing up for him and I’m the one acting like a moron, right?”
I chuckled at his hangdog expression. “My how the tables have turned.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He shook his head. “I know I’m being ridiculous. I think it’s because he knows more about vampires and I hate it. I want to be the one who knows everything.”
“You’ll get there.” I cast him a sympathetic look. “You can’t learn everything overnight. Besides, if you learn everything on your own what will you need me for?”
“Oh, so many things.” He sidled closer and slid his arms around my waist, dipping me low and lavishing a deep kiss on me. I laughed as he deepened the kiss, enjoying the heady feeling rushing through me. The sound of footsteps on the hard-packed ground forced me back into the real world.
“Sorry to interrupt fornication hour, but we have a situation,” Nellie said dourly as he poked his head through the flap. “Were you guys going to do it standing up?”
I shot him a dirty look and straightened, ordering my clothes. “What situation are you referring to this time?”
“The cops are here.”
My heart dropped to my stomach. “What?”
Nellie bobbed his head. “Yup. They’re here and they want to talk to you specifically. I have no idea what’s going on, but I doubt it’s anything good.”
DETECTIVE BEN WILLIAMS WAS in his thirties — dour, lacking a sense of humor and obviously suspicious of our entire group.
“I’m Poet Parker,” I introduced myself, extending my hand. “How can I help you?” In the back of my mind I worried that he would ask to see the animal tent. If he did, we were in a world of trouble. Why would he go that route? Perhaps someone was watching us and this was Zurie’s way of getting revenge. If we were caught with a dead body on the premises, she might find that entertaining.
Oddly enough, though, he hadn’t come about Starla.
“I understand that you visited Edna Napoleon yesterday,” he supplied, his expression never changing.
I was taken aback. “I ... yes.” There was no sense lying. He obviously already knew I’d been there. How, though? “Is something wrong?”
“Can you tell me the nature of your business with Ms. Napoleon?”
I licked my lips and regrouped. This was hardly the first time I’d been questioned by police. I knew how to handle myself. “My co-worker and I read about her shop online,” I lied smoothly. “I tell fortunes. My deck of cards is rather ragged and I was hoping to find a replacement ... but she didn’t have what I was looking for.”
“I see.” The detective’s expression never changed so it was difficult to ascertain if he thought I was lying. The only surefire way I knew to check was to invade his mind. Given what Edna had said about the police and the vampires, I was worried what I would find there.
“Do you want to tell us what’s going on here?” Kade challenged, taking up position beside me. “Is something wrong?”
“I’m trying to track down the individuals last seen with Ms. Napoleon,” Williams replied calmly. “She was found dead in her store this morning.”
My heart did a long, slow roll. “What?”
“She’s dead,” Williams repeated, clearly oblivious to my distress. “We believe she took a header down the stairs. Her neck was broken, but we have to cover our bases.”
I rested my hands on my thighs as I bent over, taking a moment to collect myself. Kade’s hand automatically went to my back and began rubbing. “I don’t understand,” I said, forcing my eyes to meet his. “She was fine yesterday. I mean ... she was old, but fine. She was feisty even. She was fascinated about our life with the circus.”
“She was a colorful woman,” Williams agreed, “but she was old. It was only a matter of time.”
His blasé reaction had my temper ratcheting up a notch. “She wasn’t that old.”
“She was in her eighties.”
“And still getting around fine,” I snapped. “I assume you’re investigating her death.”
“Oh, geez,” Raven announced as she joined the small circle of faces. “Who died now?”
I shot her a quelling look, but she pretended not to notice.
“Edna Napoleon,” Williams replied, taking a moment to look Raven up and down. “You match the description of the second woman seen at her store yesterday. Can you tell me how she was acting when you said your goodbyes?”
Raven’s eyes narrowed to dangerous silver slits. “Wait ... are you telling me Edna is dead?” She looked to me for confirmation, and viciously swore under her breath when I nodded. “Well, that’s just ... freaking terrible.”
Williams made a sympathetic clucking sound with his tongue. It sounded compulsive rather than genuine. “She was a nice lady.” He tapped his notebook for emphasis. “How was she when you saw her?”
I took advantage of the detective’s distraction with Raven to send a probe into his mind. I was careful at first because I didn’t want to inadvertently trip over a trap. I needn’t have worried. What I found waiting for me was a profound disappointment.
I caught Kade’s questioning look — he obviously realized what I was doing — and gave him a small, almost imperceptible shake of the head. There was nothing there. If he was working with the vampires they’d found an ingenious way to hide it. For all intents and purposes, Williams was on the up and up ... although he was an incredibly lazy investigator.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Raven snapped, her temper on full display. “She was fine when we left yesterday.” I pushed an image of tarot cards into her head so she was aware of the lie I’d spun. “Poet was looking for new tarot cards so we stopped in there on a whim.
“Edna was fun and lively, and she had a lot of questions about the circus,” she continued. “We sat at her table, drank some tea and talked for a bit. Poet didn’t find what she was looking for, but we still had a good time.”
“That’s what your friend said.” Williams inclined his head in my direction. “Right now, it looks like a terrible accident. Unfortunately, that’s what happens with the elderly. She probably got lightheaded for a second and that was all it took for her to lose her balance. Tragic, but it’s common.”
I kind of wanted to tragically rip out his throat. One look at Raven told me she was contemplating the same.
“I’m very sorry for what happened to her,” I offered in a clear voice, shooting Raven a warning look. “She was a really nice lady. She was fine when we left.”
“That’s what I expected,” the detective said. “Thank you for your time.”
“ACCIDENT MY ASS,” RAVEN GROUSED as we pulled to a stop in front of Edna’s store an hour later. There were no emergency vehicles in front, no police tape cordoning off the area. It was simply quiet ... and sad.
I glanced around to see if anyone was spying on us. The neighborhood looked quiet, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything.
“How do I look?” I asked, smoothing my hair. I’d put a glamour in place so I resembled a woman in her sixties.
“You look like Florence Henderson,” Raven growled. “All you’re missing is three snot-nosed kids with yellow hair.”
I refused to engage in the argument for which she was clearly spoiling. “I was going for Florence Henderson. Isn’t that convenient?” I grinned at her and pointed to her hair. “You have to put one on, too.”
“I still don’t understand why we’re doing this.” Raven lifted her hands and changed her hair to a mousy brown color. “We know darned well the vampires did this.”
“We do,” I agreed. There was no sense trying to mount an argument. “Someone was obviously watching us yesterday. They saw us here. I want to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
“Which is why we borrowed Dolph’s truck without telling him?”
“He’s still recovering. That fight took more out of him than we realized. He might’ve been better off with a transfusion or something. He’s such a tough guy that I just assumed he would bounce back in twenty-four hours.”
Raven agreed, wiggling her nose until it grew in size and took up more space on her face. “Think this will work?”
I gave her a long once-over. She looked nothing like the mouthy lamia I knew. “It will do. Let’s get this over with.” I pocketed the keys and hopped out of the truck, making sure to keep my eyes forward as I strolled up the sidewalk. We’d purposely parked a block away so we could get a feel for the neighborhood as we walked. “Anything?”
Raven looked casual, but her body was coiled for attack. “Nothing yet. I don’t feel any eyes on us. Of course, I didn’t feel any eyes on us yesterday. I’m still not sure how they spied on us without us being aware.”
“I don’t know either. She should’ve been safe.” Guilt rolled through me. “Now she’s dead because of us.”
The look Raven shot me was questioning. “Are you really going to turn martyr over this?” she asked finally, agitation on full display. “Really?”
“I’m not being a martyr. I’m simply stating a fact. She would still be alive if we hadn’t stopped at her store yesterday. The vampires would’ve had no reason to kill her. Obviously they went after her because they thought she was telling tales out of school.” I thought back to Zurie’s reaction when I used the word strigoi. “They probably realized we knew the truth because of Edna.”
“That very well may be, but you can’t blame yourself for this.” Raven wasn’t the type to shoulder guilt. “Edna knew the risks. She told us what she knew because she was hopeful we would be able to free this place from whatever’s happening.”
“And all we’ve done is fry some vampires,” I said, frowning and slowing my pace when we reached our destination. For some reason, the garish peach color looked duller today. It was as if the house was mourning the loss of the occupant. “I’m still sad. She was a neat woman.”
“I liked her,” Raven agreed, wrinkling her nose as she moved closer to some bushes. “She told it like it was and didn’t mince words. She didn’t make us pretend to be something other than what we are. She was exactly how I want to be when I’m that age.”
“You’ve been that age a hundred times over at this point,” I reminded her.
She smirked. “You know what I mean.” Raven’s fingertips glowed as she pressed them to a print that she found in the dirt next to the bush. “It’s definitely a vampire,” she said when the print turned red. “I don’t know if there were any strigoi here, but there were definitely vampires.”
I moved to the window to look inside. The store looked exactly the same as it had the previous day ... except for what looked to be a small mess at the bottom of the stairs. “I think she was taking a snack upstairs when she was attacked.”
Raven nodded as she looked over my shoulder. “Yeah. That cop is an idiot if he believes this looks like an accident.”
“What else is he supposed to believe?” I asked. “I mean ... she was elderly. She lived by herself. I don’t see any blood. It doesn’t look as if anything was taken.”
“She’s still dead.” Raven clenched her jaw. “I’ll make them pay for this.”
She wasn’t the only one riding the revenge train. I was right there with her.
15
Fifteen
On our way back to the fairgrounds I made an impulse decision and turned down the road that led to Mammoth Caves.
Raven, who was back to looking like her usual self, arched an eyebrow. “Are we going to wipe out the entire nest ourselves?”
“No. We’re not even going in. I want to ask some questions.”
“How?”
“Tour guides.”
“Ah.” She nodded in understanding. “That’s good. Who else knows the cave system better than them? That’s ... really good.”
I parked in the lot and met Raven in front of the vehicle. There was no reason to hide our identities here. In truth, we probably didn’t need to do it at Edna’s place. It was already too late for that. Still, if I’d been wrong about what I saw in Williams’ mind, there was every chance an officer or two was staking out the place. It couldn’t hurt to be careful. Here, though, it was completely unnecessary. The strigoi had to know we would eventually come for them after the previous night’s showing. This was simply further confirmation.
“Which way?” Raven asked, glancing around.
That was a good question. “I don’t know. There’s a food cart.” I pointed. “Let’s grab a snack and sit down, maybe get the lay of the land. If we watch the guides interact we might get a feeling for which one we want to tackle.”
We purchased an order of nachos to share and cracked open bottles of water as we settled. The area bustled with animated tourists flitting here and there. They looked excited, as if they were about to enter another world, and I couldn’t blame them. I’d felt the same way before all this happened.
“I don’t get the point of being excited about caves,” Raven said, her nose wrinkled. “I mean ... they’re holes in the ground. There’s nothing special about them.”
Slowly, I tracked my eyes to her. “Tell me how you really feel.”
“That is how I really feel. Do you know how much time I’ve spent in caves?”
The thought had never crossed my mind. “Why would you hang out in caves?”
She looked exasperated. “You can’t be serious. I’m a lamia.”
“And?”
“That means I’m part snake. Snakes like caves. My ancestors, even those with real power who came before me, insisted we live in caves at the start.”
Huh. I’d never actually put that together. “Was this in Greece?”
She shrugged, noncommittal. “I’ve lived in many different places. Greece was only one.”
“You started there, right?” I was almost positive she’d told me that. “That’s your home base.”
“I don’t have a home base any longer. Or, well, I guess it’s fair to say Mystic Caravan is my home base. That was a long time ago and I don’t really think of it as home.”
“Kind of like me and Detroit?”
“No, it’s nothing like you and Detroit.” She made an exasperated expression. “It’s not the same. You have bad memories of your time in Detroit, but it’s tempered with good memories and genuine love. I don’t really have lovey-dovey feelings about Greece.”
She was never one to open up about her background, but I sensed a crack in her defenses now. Perhaps it was losing Edna. No matter what she said, I recognized she felt the guilt the same way I did. “Are your parents still alive?”
“They’re long gone.”
“What about siblings?”
“I’m sure I have sisters and brothers still out there, but I have no idea where they are. We separated a long time before cell phones and the internet. Actually, it was long before snail mail. If they’re out there, they were lost to me a long time ago.”
She almost sounded sad.
“I’m sure we could try to find them,” I offered. “If you really wanted to look, I mean.”
“It’s been hundreds of years since I’ve laid eyes on them. I have no interest in talking to them. I mean ... what would we even say?”
“I don’t know. What do you want to say?”
Her gaze was withering when it locked with mine. “We’re not bonding here,” she snapped. “I’m not going to turn soft and open myself to you. Just because I no longer want to kill you on a daily basis doesn’t mean I want to confide in you.”
The comment was biting, but it lacked the vitriol she used to toss about like confetti at a party. “You’re at a crossroads,” I supplied, ignoring the deepening of her glare. “You’re trying to decide what you want to do with the rest of your life. There’s no shame in that. People take time for introspection at various points of their lives.”
“I don’t. I’m not the introspective sort.”
I didn’t believe that. She was simply better at hiding it. “I think you’re wondering about your place in this world as it pertains to Percival.” It was a calculated risk, but I knew I was correct in my assumption by the way her eyes flashed.
“Excuse me?”
“Percival,” I repeated, refusing to back down. “He’s the new element in your life and he’s changing things for you. At first I thought you were only playing games with him. I figured you really wanted Kade but when you realized you couldn’t claim him you decided to settle for the British clown.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t be an idiot. If I wanted Kade, I’d take him.”
“You tried.”
“Not really. I put very little effort into it. It was more that I was bored and wanted to mess with you. He’s not really my type.”
I was offended on my boyfriend’s behalf. “He is all kinds of awesome.”
Now it was her turn to laugh. “Oh, geez. Why can’t we ever have a normal conversation?” She looked exasperated. “Why do we always have to delve into this deep crap that makes me want to yank your hair out and feed it to you?”
I shot her a lazy smile. “I guess that’s just who we are. I’m serious, though. You love Percival, don’t you?”
“Maybe.” She didn’t look comfortable with the question. “It’s hard for me to identify what I’m feeling. He’s ... such an idiot sometimes.”
”You still love him.”
“I ... don’t know what I feel. I enjoy spending time with him, even though it boggles the mind because he talks about ridiculous things. I miss him when he’s otherwise engaged. I know that I will be sad when he’s gone.”
“Gone?” I was confused. “Is he leaving? I didn’t know that. Ugh. I guess that means we’re going to have to hold clown auditions again. You know how I hate those.”
