Hollywood Dead: Elisabeth Hicks, Witch Detective Read online

  “Careful.” Jo’s voice sounded sober in my bedroom.

  “Should you be up?” I stopped moving my arm. The damage didn’t seem so bad, painful but not broken.

  “Good question. If you asked me yesterday, I’d say I couldn’t be, but today, for some reason I am.”

  “You don’t sound happy about it.” In the dark of the room, I could see her face but I couldn’t make out her emotions.

  “Long story. Do you want anything? There’s water by the bed. I washed and dressed your arm while you were asleep. But drugs, maybe? I could heal it but I figured you weren’t into that.”

  I shook my head, stopping abruptly when the pain hit me. ‘Heal it’ meant give me her blood. Let vampire magic heal my wounds. The chance it would be enough blood to reach that magical tipping point where I became a vampire was almost minuscule but still too large. “Tell me this long story.”

  She sighed and it sounded almost musical. “Did you ever read The Secret Garden as a kid?”

  I shook my head again, moving more gently this time. I might have seen the movie.

  “My son loved it. I used to read it to him. There’s this boy, Colin, and he’s crippled. At least, everyone has always told him he’s crippled so he’s never walked. Then his cousin shows up and she tells him there’s nothing wrong with his legs and he should walk. Eventually, he does.”

  “Uh-huh.” I reached for some water, stalling for something real to say but she went on.

  “What if I’m not as weak as I’ve always thought? What if I’m not strong because I’ve never had to be? I mean, sure, vampires gain strength in their first century and my first century was pretty easy but what if I missed something? What if I don’t need them to protect me all the time?”

  “Didn’t I say all that?” I was sure I had thought it.

  “Jean-Laurent walks in the sunlight. He says it doesn’t bother him. I mean, he’s not out sunbathing at high noon or anything but he can stand it. Maman does the same thing. It’s just not a concern for her.”

  Now I caught her look. She was staring at the blinds, probably wondering about the possibilities.

  “What if it’s like staying up past sunrise? What if I can’t do it because I don’t think I can?” She walked over toward the blinds, bare feet stepping silently on the wood floor, long skirt swishing. I held my breath as she stepped to one side and cracked the blinds. Thin beams of light fell on the floor, transfixing us both. Slowly, silently, she pushed her hand into it. A ring sparkled, throwing off purple light from the stone and her manicure shined. Jo’s hand held that sunlight for a perfect second before it burst into flame.

  “Fuck!” I screamed, shoving the glass of water at her. While she doused the flames, I shut the blinds. Our feet got mixed up in each other, her dance of pain getting in the way of my noble rescue. We went down, a tumbled mix of legs, feet, and water, her leaning against one corner of my wall, me on the other.

  Her hand was smoking softly and she was laughing.

  “Jesus Christ, are you insane?”

  “You have to admit for a second there, it looked totally possible.”

  “Jo, seriously, what the fuck?”

  She laughed for a good long time, finally gulping back the giggles before she said, “I stayed up past sunrise. Even if I can’t handle sunlight, I stayed up. So maybe I’m not the super powerful vampire Maman and Jean-Laurent are, and I can’t walk in the sun, but I stayed up.”

  “And that’s worth laughing over when your hand is…is like that!” It was black, charred, with bloody cracks running down the side. Her nails were still intact but the heat had made the polish bubble. I wanted to vomit looking at it, but she calmly peeled the nail off without flinching.

  “Oh, this’ll heal. Enough blood and everything heals. It’ll heal and I’ll still have stayed up through sunrise.” She beamed at me, triumphant, and all I wanted to do was go back to sleep.

  We ended up in bed, curled together like sisters, sleeping close. She made her heartbeat for me, and I went to sleep to the rhythm of that false pulse.

  “Oh my, what have I missed?” LaRue’s voice was sweeter than syrup and just as thick. He stood at the end of my bed, blond hair down around his shoulders, eyes wide with desire.

  “Nothing you wanted to see.”

  “Oh, I doubt that.” He leaned over the end of the bed—Jo’s old bed, I realized. His finger trailed over my ankle, barely touching me, noticeable only because of its cool.

  Jo stirred, moving her burned hand, and he lost it. He went totally nuts screaming in French making me glad I didn’t speak their language. I stumbled out of bed for a shower. When I got back, dressed, hair combed, ready for a night of whatever might come, they were still screaming.

  “She needs blood.” He turned to me as if that settled some point the two of them had been debating.

  “So?” I doubted even LaRue had the gall to suggest I open a vein.

  “There is none to be had here.” His smile was less than kind. “But she insists she will not leave you.”

  “Uh, she can talk?” I rolled my eyes at him and earned a wide smile from Jo.

  “Yes, she can,” Jo replied. “And like I told him, I’m not sure I should leave you.”

  “Guy with the car is dead, right? We don’t know who sent him or even if anybody sent him. I’m armed, and I’m fairly good at taking care of myself, despite the evidence otherwise. Get something to eat, fix your hand. I’ll call you if I need you.”

  “You sure?” She looked concerned but LaRue just glared. Something told me he wasn’t going to be his normal flirty self for a while.

  “Positive.”

  She gave me a quick hug, then pulled back enough to look at me.

  “Here take this.” She slipped the chain of the locket off her neck. “Just in case. Humor your hero okay?”

  I grinned as the heavy weight of the magic sat on my chest. “Happy to.”

  They left as a mist, dropping a pile of clothes at my feet and not even bothering to wrap around me. What would the rest of the night hold for them? Would LaRue insist on fresh blood? If he did, what would the person who fed Jo look like? LaRue would probably never understand how happy she was that she’d stayed up past sunrise, just like she’d never get how worried he was for her. It was cute, and it made me miss Ted.

  I got out to the street still missing him, but the reality of my life hit me when I saw my mangled car. There was no evidence of the other car, or the body of its driver. I pondered the possibilities. I would need to talk to a cop and one of LaRue’s thugs to figure it all out. I decided to start with the people who would be up at this hour of the night and leave the friendly police visit until later.

  I called Douglas, but he and the boys were out somewhere. I left a message on his cell phone and headed over to Ted’s. The walk through downtown wasn’t long, and soon I entered his cookie cutter development of suburban houses. Televisions cast blue light through the blinds of most houses. From others, I caught the sounds of people talking. None of these people had any idea what my life was like. Go to work, get the kids from soccer, have dinner, go to bed, a regular routine. God, I was jealous.

  Despite my envy, I noticed a car parked across the street from Ted’s place. The person inside sat in shadow, a cell phone held to their ear. But if they were on the phone they weren’t talking, just listening. Odd and out of place. As I got closer, I could see the someone was a woman. Women didn’t tend to sit alone in cars on suburban streets. I memorized the plate number, thinking of a cover story. I could be neighborhood watch or a helpful mom ready to offer directions. I’d just about chosen the helpful mom role when the car’s engine jumped to life. The driver pulled away without glancing in my direction.

  The ground where the car had been was unlittered. No cigarette butts, no junk food wrappers. I lingered, trying to get a read on the scene. How long had she been there? Had she been watching Ted’s place or waiting for someone to come out of one of the other houses? Dropping o
ff her kid for a play-date? Too many possibilities and none of them easily verified. I gave up, and walked into Ted’s open garage where another problem presented itself.

  OPS was back. The blue Taurus sat in the garage where my car should have been. Every nerve in my body woke up, the mystery woman in the car immediately forgotten. Ted was inside, probably having another conversation I wanted to know about but didn’t want to join. I left the garage, and circled around the house to the back door. William’s ghost-white hand cracked the door open for me. I stood beside him, straining to listen without getting too close. Our view went through the dining room and into the living room.

  “You can’t keep denying it. William is missing. Jen is dead. You’re the last member of your team left. Come back to us, Edward.” The OPS operative wore the same suit and the same sour expression.

  “I asked you to leave.” Ted’s voice was calm—not his working voice.

  “You know, don’t you? You know what’s coming and you don’t care. You think you deserve to die. Don’t be a fool. This killer isn’t some angel of God, it’s just—”

  “Five minutes ago I asked you to leave. Now I’m telling you. I appreciate the warning but I won’t be rejoining OPS.”

  “She was hung, Edward. Her worst fears come true. What about your worst fears? I’ve read your file. It’s almost the full moon.”

  Ted’s whole body stiffened as if he’d been slapped. He walked to the garage door and opened it wordlessly. The OPS agent had gone too far. He must have realized it because he silently dropped a card on the dining room table on his way out.

  William waited, listening to things humans couldn’t hear, then pushed the door completely open. I headed to the table to take a look at the card. The front was normal and boring, name and phone number. On the back, written in a fading pen, was a hotel name and room number.

  “Hi honey, how was your day?” Ted tried but the cheerfulness didn’t really work.

  “Not so great. It looks like your night was worse.”

  “Not really.” He paused for a second, his eyes going toward the ceiling. “Okay, my night was pretty bad.”

  “When did that loser show up?”

  “An hour ago?” Ted asked.

  William nodded.

  “What did he have to say?” I asked my boyfriend, ignoring the vampire.

  “He wanted me to know that Jen’s dead—”

  “We knew that,” I interrupted, wanting something new.

  “And William is missing,” he finished.

  We both turned to look at the vampire standing behind us.

  “It disturbs me somewhat to know they’ve been watching me,” William admitted.

  “Somewhat?” I asked him. “If that’s only somewhat disturbing, what disturbs you a lot?”

  “The smell coming from your back.”

  I flinched. Every inch of road rash within my reach was covered with antibiotic ointment, then hidden under a large bandage and a shirt. He could still smell it?

  “What happened?” Ted looked worried even though I stood in front of him, obviously fine.

  “Let’s stick with one crisis at a time. Tell me more about your psycho killer.”

  He frowned, not happy with my redirect. “I’m the only one left, assuming you’re dead.” He nodded to William, then turned back to me. “Strange thing, though—they’ve got pictures and horror stories for all of them, except one guy. Agent Dorset didn’t even mention him.”

  He dismissed it like it didn’t matter, then asked if I’d had dinner. I told him no and he walked into the kitchen. The frying pan hit the stove and started to heat. Onions and peppers came out of the fresh food bin, burrito shells followed.

  I started chopping but refused to give up. “Who got left out?”

  “Rudy,” he replied offhandedly. His mind was on dinner as he took the chopped veggies from me and dumped them in the hot pan along with some chicken, then started stirring and adding spices. Of course, he couldn’t handle the way I’d left the counter a mess, so he turned the heat down and cleaned a bit.

  “Rudy?” I asked both of them.

  “From the other team,” William answered.

  Apparently, extracting information was the OPS specialty, not sharing it. Getting these two to talk was like pulling teeth. I tried again. “Anything special about him?”

  “Nothing much. He could tourniquet off a cut with one hand,” Ted supplied cheerfully, finishing the cleaning and plating our food.

  “He was having an affair with a teammate.” William put in the much more interesting tidbit.

  “Really?” Ted looked shocked.

  “With Bree,” William confirmed.

  Ted raised his eyebrows. “Huh, I didn’t know that.”

  “They were discreet but not quiet.”

  “No one’s quiet enough for you,” Ted replied, cementing my plan to never have sex with William in the house.

  We sat down at the table, two perfectly wrapped burritos in front of us, the frying pan already washed, dried, and put away. Ted’s kitchen was as clean as it had been before he’d cooked and we hadn’t even eaten yet.

  “Okay, so Bree,” I asked the two of them, anxious to turn the conversation from sex.

  “Drowned in her own blood a few weeks back.” Ted spoke around a mouthful of food. I stopped myself from asking how that had happened, my stomach turning a little sour.

  “Perhaps we should discuss another topic while you eat?” William suggested.

  I didn’t want his sympathy but then I didn’t want to hear more about dead bodies either. “Nothing else about her?”

  “Hmm, not much. She worked on the inside, good at her job, went crazy, problem solved.”

  “Went crazy?”

  “They all went crazy, so that’s not really special.” Ted considered it for a second, then looked at William. “Did Rudy go crazy?”

  William shrugged.

  I took to it mean probably. “The agent guy though, he didn’t mention how Rudy died?”

  Ted shook his head.

  “And neither of you know? How he died or if he was crazy?”

  “We can’t be positive, but most of them were committed after the incident,” William intoned.

  The incident? It was nice to see something get to him.

  I stopped myself from calling him on it. “Where do we go from here?”

  William spoke first. “I’m going to see Agent Dorset. I suspect he’ll be willing to part with his access code and ID.”

  “You mean you’ll beat it out of him?” I asked, not surprised a vampire would resort to violence.

  “No, I’ll hypnotize him and ask him to tell me. The human mind is surprisingly open to suggestion.” William’s eyes looked at me like a predator sizing up prey. Sure, we were friendly, but that look reminded me that we weren’t friends.

  “Great.” I swallowed hard; my food almost stuck in my throat. “If there’s computer stuff I can handle it.”

  “As I expected.” He nodded to Ted and left without another word to me.

  I relaxed when the door shut behind him and leaned back in my chair, only to bolt forward again when the raw flesh hit the wood. I’d forgotten about the wound on my shoulder. Leaning back was a bad idea.

  “So, what happened to your back?” Ted took my plate.

  I told him as we did the dinner dishes. He thought finding out if the driver was an ordinary drunk or sent after me should be the highest priority. I thought the psycho coming after him should be top of the list. Our good-natured fight over it turned into something more. Whatever else was going on, I was glad to know that his bed was still my sanctuary. Together we could make the world fade away.

  Ted drove me home because he was worried about how safe I was walking. That left me feeling guilty when I hiked over to Mom’s. I let myself in and found Dad waiting up for Gina. After a brief conversation about her going out on a Monday night and how he wasn’t really waiting up, he promised to tell Mom I’d taken her car
. Five minutes later, I’d called Douglas. Another fifteen minutes after that I rang his bell.

  “What?” Calvin answered, looking pissed off. “Haven’t I cleaned up enough of your shit lately?”

  Douglas had told me the two of them were at his apartment but I hadn’t expected a scene like the one I found—just two guys, hanging out, a typical night after work, only drinking blood instead of beer.

  “Douglas, Calvin.” I went to the kitchen looking for something to drink. There wasn’t any beer but I found an old bottle of Jack on top of the fridge. I grabbed a glass and poured. I wanted something to hold on to while we all talked—a way to be one of the boys. Calvin looked at me with hostile glares, but underneath the anger he seemed nervous.

  The nervousness didn’t fade so finally I asked, “Did I do something?”

  “He’s just sore over the other night,” Douglas offered.

  “Which night? Last night I just passed out. Did Jo call or—”

  “Not that, the other stuff, the magic. Guess it was the night before last,” Douglas corrected.

  I looked over at Calvin, not sure what to say. “I’m sorry—it won’t happen again. I mean it. From now on, I’m hands off.”

  He mumbled something, then put his bottle on its side beside him, then spun it. “I haven’t thought about her in years. I mean, years, since before World War II, that long. I guess it fucked with me.”

  “Makes sense that it would. When did you lose your wife?”

  “She wasn’t my wife.” He puffed up when he said that, shoulders back, smile wide. “Oh, she had a husband but not me. She was an artist, a jazz baby, and he was just some old guy—a beard so she could live her life.” He got a far away look and I was almost sorry I’d promised not to peek inside his head.

  “A beard?” Douglas asked.