“How could you search an entire house, then drive across town and be here just as we finished?” Sinclair asked.
“Dude: have you seen this town? It’s, like, a mile long. Is it our fault we’re way more efficient at looking for killers than you two are? I’m telling you, our guy’s not there.”
“Well, he isn’t here either,” Sophie said. “Damn it all. We’ll have to go back and talk to Shawna’s mother some more, poor thing. I was hoping we could leave her out of it.”
Liam was looking at the wooden sign over the front door. “This is the Rose Manor. But The Garden Bed-and-Breakfast is the one we’re looking for. We just assumed this was The Garden, because it’s the other B and B you can see from the road. But…”
“There’s another one,” Sinclair said immediately. “Probably called The Iris or something tiresome like that. But since the same people own and run them both, they’re considered one business. We checked the one across town, and we checked this one, because those are the two businesses.”
A quick trip inside to speak with the owner confirmed their suspicions; there was indeed one other B and B called The Garden.
“Stupid,” Liam said disgustedly. “We should have checked. Never assume, that’s what my mom always said.”
“I don’t understand,” Sophie said. “We checked the two in town. What are you talking about?”
“There’s three in town, and they’re all under the business name The Garden, because they’re all owned by the same family. We checked two of them…you and Sinclair checked The Rose, Betsy and I checked The Tulip.” At her mystified expression, he continued. “Those are the names of the individual houses, though they’re all under the same business name. But there’s one more, like the guy said inside. And it’ll have another flower name, like Sinclair said.”
“I guess it makes sense for the bad guy to make it hard for us to track him down,” Betsy said. “I know I’m totally confused. But if there’s another one, there’s another one. Let’s go check it out.”
Five minutes later, they were standing at the end of a long driveway outside a third Victorian with yet another flower motif.
“The Sweetheart Rose,” Sinclair said. “I was close.”
“We’re assuming he’s even still there,” Betsy said. “If it was me, I’d be long gone.”
“He’s not going anywhere,” Sophie said as Sinclair nodded agreement. “With the funeral, and the reporters, and all the mourners…there’s too much here for him still.”
“Prick,” Betsy commented, and this time, everyone nodded.
12
THE villain met them on the front steps.
This was startling, to say the least.
“Hello,” he said cheerfully. “I was just leaving to go break another girl’s heart, so I only have a minute.”
Sophie felt like hitting him. With luck, she would soon be doing exactly that. “You what?”
“Dude, you are so busted,” Betsy told him. Then, to Sinclair, “This kind of takes of fun out of it. No big showdown scene. Unless this is it.”
“You killed all those girls,” Sophie said, beginning to recover. She had a horrible feeling she knew why the youngish-looking man seemed so unconcerned. “It’s the same as if you had…” She groped for the words. “Shot them or used a knife on them.”
“Yes, I know.” She could see why he passed for a premed student; he didn’t look a day over twenty-five. He was short, only a few inches taller than she was, with hair that was exactly between blond and brown. He had pleasant features and looked rather like anyone else on the street, in his denim jacket and khaki slacks. His eyes were wide-set and brown. They were the only feature that gave him away. They glittered like a snake’s. “I’ve been meaning to get down to Minneapolis and…” He cut himself off and laughed. “Okay, that’s a lie. I’ve been up here having some fun, for a change.”
Sophie was staring at him. They were all, she realized, staring at him. Betsy was right. This was a very odd way to go about catching a killer. “For a change?” she finally asked, when no one else said anything.
“Sure. I mean, working for Nostro, talk about all work and no play making me a dull boy. I actually missed the big fight, when this guy here”—he nodded at Sinclair—“took control of the whole shebang. I was out getting Nostro some more girls.”
“You brought him victims.”
“Sure.”
“And when he wasn’t holding your leash any longer,” Sinclair went on with terrifying pleasantness, “you decided to come and…how did you put it? Have some fun?”
“Sure.” The killer looked puzzled. “Look, I know I should have come down and paid my respects, but you haven’t been in power that long, and I figured I had time—”
“We’re not here about that,” Betsy said, exasperated. “Jeez. Like we care if you come down to the cities and kiss our asses, or pretend to kiss our asses, which is way worse. We’re here to stop you from killing anybody else.”
The killer’s brow wrinkled as he struggled with the alien concept. “But…why? Do you need my help with something? I’ll be glad to go back to Minneapolis—”
“Dude…We. Don’t. Want. You. To. Kill. Anybody. Else.”
“Because. It’s. Wrong,” Sophie added.
“Do you mean, it’s wrong because I’m not letting you have a crack at the girls? I could—”
“Stop talking now,” Sinclair said.
“Do you believe this guy?” Betsy cried, turning to the group. “He’s not getting this at all. He—” Her eyes narrowed as she took in the expression on Sophie’s face, and the identical one on Sinclair’s. “You guys totally expected this!”
“Well…” Sophie began, but had no idea where to go from there.
“This is a regular thing for vampires?” Liam asked, his displeasure evident.
“No,” Sophie said. “Er…all right, sometimes. Not the making the girls fall in love with him part. But the, ah, other part.”
“See? See? This is why I’m not getting on board with the whole consort thing,” Betsy told him triumphantly. “And why being a vampire makes my skin crawl. Just when I think it might not be a totally insane idea, something like this happens. And you’re all, ‘Ho hum, another vampire who’s a total psycho killer, oh well.’”
“You guys have lost me,” the killer interrupted. “You’re mad because of the girls? What, you had your eye on one of them? Because if I crossed territory, I really apologize.”
“I guess they aren’t people to you,” Liam said. “They’re…what? Sheep?”
The killer laughed. “Not hardly! You’re supposed to cherish and protect your sheep. The girls are more like…hors d’oeuvres.”
Betsy carefully pushed the sleeve of her sweater up, almost to her elbow, then socked the killer in the face.
“Ow!” he cried, clapping a hand to his nose. “What was that for?”
“Where to begin?” Sophie replied.
“That was a good start,” Sinclair said, “but start in the groin area next time. And use knives instead of your hands.”
Betsy shuddered. “Ick. Though if anybody deserves it, it’s this punk. So, what? Do we arrest him? Can we do that?”
“Can this wait until after Theresa kills herself?” the killer asked nasally. “I was leaving to go watch, but—”
“You mean you’re doing it again? Right now? But Shawna’s barely a week in her grave!”
“Yeah, well, I thought it’d be fun to do a two-fer, you know, play them off each other, but Shawna was a little more fragile than I thought, she kind of jumped the gun on me—” Then he stopped, because Sinclair had picked him up by the throat.
“Where does Theresa live?” Silence, followed by Sinclair adding, “Oh, good, I can beat it out of you. Several times.”
“Sinclair, he can’t talk, you’re squishing his vocal cords,” Betsy pointed out. “Not that we want you to stop or anything.”
Sinclair let go, and the killer fell to the law
n and gurgled a street address. “We’ll tend to the girl,” the king said, grabbing Betsy’s hand and pulling her toward the car. She yelped, but let herself be dragged away. “You two take care of him. Frankly, if I have to look at him for another ten seconds…. you two deal with it.”
“What’s that mean?” Liam asked as Sinclair tore out of the small driveway.
“Drown him, stab him, choke him, slice him, squeeze him, starve him, burn him,” Sophie suggested.
“What is everybody’s problem tonight?” the killer bitched, standing and trying to brush grass stains off his pants. “You’d think this was about something important.”
“Oh, boy,” Sophie said. “You’re a disgrace to all of us, you wretched horrible thing, and it will be the greatest pleasure of my life to kill you.”
“The greatest?” Liam asked.
“Not now, Liam.”
“If you saw Shawna’s mother,” he told the killer, “you might not be so, what’s the word?”
“Cavalier,” Sophie suggested.
“Asshole. You might not be such an asshole about it.”
“I don’t have to talk to you, sheep.”
“Don’t you call him that.”
“Don’t sweat it, darlin’,” Liam said. “I’ve kind of changed my mind about a couple of things in the last five minutes. I thought you had a thing. Well, you don’t. This guy does. Whatever problems you and I have, we can work it out.”
“That’s really touching,” the killer said. “I haven’t puked in eighty years, but I might right now.”
“Oh, Liam, really?” Try to stay focused, you silly cow, she told herself, but it was impossible to deny how incredibly happy those words had made her. “You don’t think I’m some vampire snob who can’t relate to a mortal because she’s seen too much?”
“I do still think that,” he admitted, “but, like I said, we can work it out. Doncha think?”
“I do think,” she admitted. “I agree, comparably speaking, our troubles don’t seem so insurmountable now, do they?”
“I’m still here, you know,” the killer reminded them. “Shit, this is why I’m up here in the first place. Decades of being the go-to guy, the guy who can get you what you need, but nobody ever saw me. I was just one of Nostro’s stooges.”
“I’m sorry for the mean things I said,” Sophie said, looking up into Liam’s blue, blue eyes. “I was angry, and I was afaid.”
He smiled down at her. “That’s okay. I said some things, too. Mostly because I was mad.”
“Will you guys pay some attention to me? Don’t you remember? I’m the guy everybody’s mad at?”
“Think they’re still holding our room downtown?”
“Probably not. But we could get one up here,” she said, reaching up and stroking the new bruise on his neck. Liam shivered and she smiled back at him.
“Dammit!” Abruptly, annoyingly, the killer lunged at them, interrupting what was going to be a wonderful clinch. Liam put up an arm to fling him off…and the killer lunged again.
“Ow! Little son of a bitch bit me.” Liam was staring at his now-bloody arm. “Broke the skin, too. Can vampires transmit rabies?”
“How dare you touch him! Nobody bites him but me!”
“You tell him, honey,” he added, shaking the blood off his wrist.
Screaming, the killer lunged at them again. Liam, who had been digging in his pocket for a clean handkerchief, again warded him off.
Sophie didn’t understand until later what happened next; it was too quick, and it hurt her to watch. Liam had swiped back at the killer, and the killer’s screams heightened in pitch until she thought her ear drums might rupture. The killer had actually staggered back—why, Sophie didn’t know—and Liam followed up, this time swiping down.
The killer looked down at himself, which was understandable, because he was glowing. Sophie looked at him, and the light hurt her…it had been like trying to see into the middle of the sun.
Liam, either by accident or design, had drawn a line on the killer: from nipple to nipple. And then, from neck to belt buckle.
A cross.
The killer watched in horror—Sophie felt a little horrified, too, in truth—as the lines Liam had drawn on him first glowed, then sank into him, like a foot into mud. And, five seconds later, the screaming was cut short as the killer’s vocal cords turned into ash…as the killer’s entire body turned to ash.
“This never happens,” Sophie said, staring. “It’s just a movie legend. I’ve never seen anybody turn into dust before. It just doesn’t happen these days.”
Liam held out…a necklace? A fine gold chain, with a cross—a cross! Sophie hurriedly looked away from it. “I took it from Betsy. Promised to fix it for her. And I will, too,” he added. “Just as soon as we finish some other business.” He kicked through the three-foot mound of ashes, scattering it. Then he took her into his arms. “So, I guess I’m your sheep.”
“No,” she told him. “You’re…yourself. Liam. You’re Liam.”
“I’m a lucky fellow, is what I am.” He kissed her.
She kissed him back, then looked at the foot-wide black smudge on the grass, all that was left of Shawna’s tormenter. “I’d say so, yes.”
Epilogue
“LET me get this straight. You drew a cross on the bad guy with my cross? And he turned into dust and went to Hell, or wherever bad vampires go when they turn into dust?”
“Yup.”
“Well, shoot. And we missed it!” Betsy dumped more sugar in her coffee. They had come, by mutual agreement, to the Country Kitchen on Highway Six. “Though, we did save Theresa,” she admitted, brightening. “That was pretty cool. Sinclair zapped her with his mojo. Made her forget she’d ever met Fuckface. And a good thing, too, because she was starting to get into her dad’s gun collection in a really unhealthy way.”
“Excellent,” Sophie said. “Just excellent.”
“And you fixed my necklace! What, you found an all-night jewelry store?”
“I had some tools in the truck,” Liam said, looking modest.
“Thank you again for bringing this distasteful business to our attention, Dr. Trudeau,” Sinclair said. “If not for your conscientiousness, he might have done a great deal more damage.”
She shook her head. “I wish I’d caught on sooner.”
“You did everything you could. More than most people would have done, I bet,” Liam told her, squeezing her hand. She squeezed back, carefully, and smiled at him. “Oh, man. I ever tell you, you’ve got the prettiest smile?”
“No. It seems to be one of many things you’ve been keeping to yourself,” she teased.
“Not anymore.”
“I have things to tell you, too,” she admitted. “Many things.”
“Well, we’ve got plenty of time now. We can tell each other everything.”
“I can’t wait. Liam, I—I don’t think you’re a child with a crush.”
“I think that might be as close to ‘I love you, too’ as you will get,” Sinclair said.
“Seriously. You guys. We’re right here.” Betsy waved at them from across the table. “I mean, make with the goo-goo eyes a little more, why don’t you? Get a room!”
“We did. And we’d better get there pretty quick, or my new girlfriend is going to go up in smoke like that little prick.”
“Horrible thought. Dr. Trudeau.” Sinclair nodded at her, and she stood beside the booth and bowed back. Liam slid out behind her. “Liam.” Since he wasn’t a subject, the king shook his hand. “Thank you again.”
“It was nice meeting you,” Betsy said, shaking their hands. Sophie started to bow to her, then thought better of it (the warning glare was a tip-off). “Thanks for figuring it out, tracking down the bad guy, and killing him. I’m trying to figure out what you needed us for,” she joked.
“It’s nice to make new friends, if nothing else,” she replied, smiling shyly at the queen. “I’ve been alone for a while, but it was by choice…a poor on
e, I’m thinking now.”
“Yeah, well, nice to meet you, too.”
Sophie was looking at the new queen with a thoughtful expression. “I avoided this area when Nostro was in power, but now things seem very different. I’d like to stay in touch.”
“Nothing would please us more,” Sinclair said. “Good night.”
“One more thing,” Liam said, as he and Sophie went back out to the truck. “Since I’m telling you all the deep dark secrets I’ve been keeping, I’ve got another one.”
“Yes?”
“I hate cats.”
She laughed. “Be serious.”
“Sophie. I hate ’em. That’s why I don’t have any.”
“You have a dozen!”
“Well, they aren’t mine. I just feed them and look after them.”
“I thought you loved cats,” she said, confused. “You’re always bringing them to me and—oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Oh!”
“Uh-huh. You know, you’re not as smart as you think you are.”
“I guess not,” she admitted, and laughed, and kissed him.
GALAHAD
Angela Knight
1
SHE came out of it curled on the living room rug, sweating and nauseated. Caroline Lang swallowed hard, trying not to heave up the pint of magic, calorie-free Ben and Jerry’s she’d had for dinner. The copper taste of blood drowned out any lingering chocolate, accompanied by a pulsing throb in her lower lip. She must have bitten it.
Groaning, she rolled onto her hands and knees and watched her arms shake. Her muscles were still jumping in the aftermath of the vision, and her head throbbed. The television didn’t exactly help, blaring a used car commercial loud enough to wake Elvis. “Off!” Caroline gasped, casting a quick spell.
The TV instantly went silent. She sighed in the blessed stillness.
One minute she’d been licking a spoonful of Chunky Monkey and yelling answers at a particularly witless Jeopardy contestant. She’d just told him the capital of Lithuania when all hell broke loose in her brain. Blinded by the storm of images, Caroline had reeled to her feet, tripped over the coffee table, and fallen flat on her face.