“I would say so, but you can check it out. Call
the company there and ask them.” She looked up at Denton senior when he spoke.
“He said that it’s real all right, and you’re the only person he could leave it
to after your mom passed. He said to tell you he’s with her now, and she’s as
proud of you as he is of anything that you ever gave her when you were a child.
Even the automatic toast jam spreader you made when you were ten.”
Denton laughed again and hugged his daughter.
Addie and Kari stood up…it was time for them to go. Denton senior thanked them
as well and faded out of the room. But almost as soon as he was gone, he came
back and asked her to speak to Denton about something.
“He wants to know if he can come and see
Missy and bring her grandmother.” Denton cried harder and nodded. “Your dad
wants you to know that he’s caring for Missy and will, for as long as he can,
be there for her. You too, he said. He said he hears you when you speak to him
at his grave. Both of them do.”
“Oh my God, he’s really here, isn’t he?” Addie
nodded and wiped at the tears on her cheeks. “My dad is here, with us, and I
can...tell him yes. Yes, I’ll come and talk to him more, and that he must bring
Mom to see Missy. I’d really...I’d really love that.”
Soon after that they left, cautioning the man
to not say the money had been found and that the insurance policy had been buried
deep within the desk, and it wasn’t until today he’d decided to look. Addie and
Kari decided to have lunch as a treat for their morning.
~~~
Horrie hated the meddling necros. If it were
up to him, he’d rid the world of them once and for all. In fact, that was his
plan. After he got rid of his daughter. And if his wife didn’t get on the ball
and help him out with that, he was going to take her out as well. He had plans,
and she was messing them up royally. Horrie thought of the day he’d been
murdered by his bitch of a girl and what he’d done to preserve himself. His
wife had been no more help back then than she was now, but he’d found out how
Victoria had gotten into his borrowed lair.
Horrie thought back on when he’d been taken
too. He’d been in his resting place, deep within the belly of someone else’s
home. The locks, he knew, were the best and would have taken a great deal more
than anything a simple human could have had on his person to get to him. It was
why he stole into the house during the day to be safe. He’d just never counted
on his whore of a daughter having the combination. He’d even asked his wife how
she’d done it, and she’d come up with a story that just made him madder than
ever. His daughter was a thief.
“She took my diary that you gave me. The one
I had all the important things in that you told me never to forget. I didn’t
even know she knew where you rested until she told me what she’d done. I told
you that you needed to get us a better home. One we could be safe in. So now,
while I’m resting in my own bed, she steals in and finds my personal things and
done this to you.” He’d asked her why she’d let her do such a thing to him. “I
had no idea until you were there. The council made me come and watch you. They
said it was to teach me to listen when they speak. They said you must pay, and
they wanted me to know that you were. They even built this structure for me to
stand in so I’d be safe from the sun. But they also warned me that, should I
look away, then the shelter would open and I would join you.” He’d screamed at
her then, telling her that her daughter had had no right to do this to him. As
her mate, she could not harm him. “I didn’t, Horrie. I was there to do what I
was told or join you. Vin...Victoria is the one that did this to us. And her
hatred of you makes everything that the laws of the vampire have written down
seem like nothing in comparison. They told me that either you die and I watch,
or I was to be staked out beside you to die as well. I just couldn’t do it. I’m
so sorry.”
Horrie had been lucky in his death to have
been to see this great witch the week before Victoria had caught him. The woman
had told him how to keep himself from dying...actually, what she’d told him was
that she could keep his mind alive, that his body was going to be shit out of
luck. And when his daughter, his own flesh and blood, had staked him out like
nothing more than an ant under a magnifying glass, he’d cursed her and had
nearly forgotten the spell he’d needed to say to keep his mind awake. What he
hadn’t counted on was that he’d be nothing more than a ghost with not much in
the way of power. But he’d taken care of that as well. The witch, sadly, could
teach him no more, as he’d killed her in a fit of rage a few days ago. Horrie
looked at the man with him, his only ally in all this, when he spoke.
“They’re leaving the house. Can we get in
again?” Horrie looked up at the house he’d been at until today, and sneered at
the two women that had banished him from his fun. Horrie knew he’d not be able
to enter the house, and even if he could the people in it were off-limits to
him. The fucking necro had worded things just right for that to be taken from
him.
He’d been watching the young woman of the
house in the shower earlier in the week when he’d been told another ghost had
been snooping around. Today was the first time he’d been able to catch him at
it, and now he could no longer go there. Not even to scare the kid, which had
been fun too. He glanced over at his familiar, Crocker, and smiled.
“Go with them. Make sure they have something
befall them. Could be that one of them can come to my side sooner rather than
later.” Crocker moved along the sidewalk, but just far enough back so they’d
not catch on. Humans, especially human women, were as stupid as dogs as far as Horrie
was concerned.
As he made his way to the place where he’d
been murdered, he thought about his daughter and her poor life choices that
day. Horrie looked at the ground where he’d been staked out, but never got
close enough that he could touch the area. Something about it made him feel
weird, like he was dying all over again. He remembered her words to him as if
she was speaking them to him now.
“You’ve killed enough, and according to the
governing body that watches out for idiots like you, it’s time you paid the
price for your deeds.” He’d told her he’d only just begun. “Do you have any
idea what they’re going to do once they figure out what has been murdering the
women? Do you have a single clue in that thick fucking head of yours what
they’ll do to the rest of us? How they’ll react when they know it’s a vampire
and we’re as real as they are? You motherfucker, you’re going to get us all
killed.”
“You’ll keep a civil tongue in your head
there, my girly. You’ve not reached an age where I will not beat you.” She
laughed. He could see why she’d not taken him seriously with him all spread out
on the ground like he’d been. But to have done what she’d done was uncalled for…and
to have done it to her own father. “Let me up from this thing and I’ll show you
how to treat someone.”
“No.” He hadn’t wanted to believe she’d leave
him there to die. And when his wife had shown up later in the evening to sit in
a chair next to where his daughter had him tied up, he realized he could no
longer command her to come free him either.
Horrie was still trying to work out how that
had happened. She’d told him later what had happened to her, of course. That
they’d made her do it. He had been very pissed then, but now he’d found that he
needed his wife living. Without her and her ability to make things happen that
he no longer could, he would not be able to carry out his most brilliant plan
against his daughter. Horrie remembered looking at his daughter as she stood
over him, looking down at his outstretched body like it sickened her to be
there.
“And what do you think I’ve done to you,
Victoria? Perhaps you think I should have just tried to live the way I was. Had
you just done for me what you should have, given me what I demanded, then
perhaps I might not have killed so many people. Why didn’t you give me the
money when I wanted it? It’s not like you didn’t have plenty.” She just snorted
at him. “Answer me, damn it. I’m your father.”
“Well, since you seem to not be in any kind
of hurry to die out here, let me start with when I was a child. When you killed
my nanny. Did you have to murder her in my bed where you’d been fucking her?”
He’d done that, yes, but it was his right to do so. He was paying her, was he
not? Or at least someone was. He asked Victoria the same thing. But she was on
a roll now and would not see his reasons. “Then there was the teacher you
decided would be a good fuck. Took her right there on the desk of my classroom—my
home room—and left her dead body there for us to find. Why? Why were you even
there? It’s not like you did anything else for me when it came to school work.”
“I went there on your behalf.” Victoria asked
him what that was for. “I don’t know as of this moment. But you cannot expect
me to remember that after so many years. I do recall she wasn’t that bad of a
fuck, however, and her blood tasted as sweet as honey.”
His wife had sobbed, and he turned to her. Before
he could blame her for his failings, she spoke first. “Horrie, just try to be
nice to her. I know she can’t let you go, but if the council sees you weren’t
all bad, maybe they’ll let me free you.” He snorted at her. “Horrie, please
tell them the other women were nothing to you. That...that you loved me and
those women lied about you taking them.”
“I did take them, you fool. You were not
giving me enough, so I had to go elsewhere. And drinking from them was as much
fun as it was fucking them.” Good, he’d told her. As he jerked on the silver
chains again, he ordered Vinnie to come to him and let him loose. “I will not
tolerate this sort of behavior, Victoria, nor from you, Amber. I demand that you
unchain me before the sun comes up. If it was a lesson you wished to teach me,
then sadly you wasted your time. I do not pretend to be anything but what I am.
A vampire, from a race of beings so superior to all that I do not abide by
their rules.”
“Then you can roast in hell.”
As Victoria left him, the sun was beginning
to rise over the mountain. His wife sat there in her little hut, sobbing hard.
He’d not been able to see a sunrise for a very long time, and still wondered
why the humans would go to great lengths to see such a sight. When his feet
began to burn, the pain so incredible he was nearly sick with it, he began to
think his daughter had been delayed or she really wished for him to be hurt. After
he felt the burn of his belly, his legs beyond help at that point, he started
screaming for her to come back, anyone to come and save him. As the heat began
to burn at his chest, he remembered the spell to save himself. He might have
waited just a little too long, he thought now.
As the fire on his body began to burn into
his face, his eyes no longer working, he began to chant the words that should
have saved him. The pain was overwhelming him and the words had been hard to
remember, but he worked at it until he could no longer speak. His mouth
had...he thought it had fallen from his face even as he began to chant in his
head. When he felt his soul, or whatever it was, leave his body, he wanted to
find his family and show them he’d won, that he’d beaten them after all. But
when he turned to find them, he saw a man standing there smiling.
“Never had me a vamp to bring over before.
You surely do look like you’ve had a time of it. Piss off the little woman, did
you?” Horatio asked him what he was talking about. “You. You’ve been burned to
a crisp. That’ll fade after a time, but you’ll have to get used to the stares
between now and then. Thought maybe you’d done gone and.... Well, never mind. What’s
done is done now. Here you go.”
The book, small and full of pages that were
colored, he just stared at without taking it. The man told him it was his
helpful guide to being dead. Horrie told him he wasn’t dead, that he’d prepared
for that.
“I’m sure you have, and that’s a good thing.
But you’re dead and this here book will answer your questions. Just don’t be
losing it. You need to keep that on your person at all times. Don’t know for
sure what happens to them after a bit, but you keep an eye on it.” The man
shook the book at him. “You need to take it. It won’t work for nobody else but
a necro, and you don’t want them to get your book.”
“I’m not dead. Get away from me.” The man and
the book had disappeared, and Horrie stood there for several minutes just
trying to figure out what he’d have to do now to get himself a body. It took
nearly a year for him to realize he
might
should have kept the book and
there was no getting a body to replace his own. He was dead. As he tried to
rest now knowing he wouldn’t, he thought of how he’d gotten to the point where
his daughter had gotten to him too.
Vinnie wasn’t sure where she was supposed to
go as she made her way to the upper floors of her home. Having the house opened
up again was noisy as well as dusty. She thought about having them leave for
the night so she could rest, but she really wasn’t prepared for her grandmother
to be there at the table talking to Hugo. He stood when she entered the big
room, but her grandmother only offered her cheek.
“You’ve been resting poorly, my child.” She
told her she’d gotten woken up a couple of times. “Would this be the new mate
your mother was going on about? I swear to you, Vinnie, that your mother gets
something in her head and there is no changing her mind. I should like to meet
this man of yours.”
“I’m guessing you know what he is.” She said
she did and wasn’t concerned. “Mom thinks he’s going to be bringing us up from
our resting places and having the sun beat down on us. I don’t think that’s the
way it works.”
“It is, as a matter of fact. When I was
younger, when there were fewer of us than there are now, we heard stories of a
necromancer that would do just that. He’d go from cemetery to cemetery and raise
the dead, then put them all to rest again when he’d find some vampires. I was
never sure how he did that part, but perhaps we can ask your young man.” Vinnie
told her he more than likely wouldn’t know either. “Yes, I suppose not. I doubt
very much that is done anymore. But then, they had less of an understanding
than they do now. Some do anyway. Now we’re considered sexy. But I still would
like to meet him. Does he live here, with you now?”
“No. As a matter of fact, I have no idea
where he lives when I’m resting.” Vinnie made a mental note to ask Mitch if he
wanted to live there. It had been on her mind to ask him yesterday, but she’d
forgotten. She’d asked the staff to start airing things out and restocking the
upper floors, and she hoped he’d like it there well enough that she’d not have
to move. This place was safe for her. “I’ll talk to him. So, tell me what Mom
wants you to do?”
Her grandmother waved her off, and she knew better
than to push the subject. If she wasn’t worried, then neither was Vinnie. When
Hugo shifted into his animal and lay at her feet, Gilda came in to tell her
what things she needed for Vinnie to do tonight, as well as any phone calls
she’d not been able to take care of. Which were few, as Gilda knew her job well.
After that, it was just the two of them and Hugo.
“So, you’ve decided not to take that case,
the one that brought you to Mitch. I’m so glad to hear that. It’s a stupid way
for some people to get money if you ask me. Suing people for things that should
never have made it to court in the first place.” Vinnie agreed. “Did they
really think they should continue collecting from the government on children
they were being paid to watch when they were no longer there? And now what? They
want more? Stupid.”
“Yes. And the fact that Mitch had had enough
and ran makes me wonder what happened to him. The Bruces said it was a loving
and very religious home. They project a nice image of people down on their luck.
I have to admit, though, there are things I felt there, but nothing I could put
my finger on. Had it not been for my boss begging me to take the case, I
wouldn’t have even considered it.” Her grandmother said her boss was a money
grubbing fool anyway, and would sue his own mother if he thought he’d win. “You
never did like him, but I think you might be right. And as for the house, I
didn’t believe that either. There is an odor of drugs and that nasty smell of
beer about them. And no matter how many times they brush their teeth, it’s in
their skin and hair. I think even then I was thinking of leaving the firm.
It’s...sort of my ticket out by doing it for him.”
“Amber says they’re suing you now as well.” Vinnie
wasn’t worried about that either. She could pay them ten times what they were
asking for and never see a difference in her lifestyle. Vinnie wasn’t going to
pay them anything, not ever, but she could. She had money, a great deal of it,
but had little to no use for it most of the time.
“I have been looking for someone to help you
should you need it. And I’ve sent over Roger, my friend, to help Mitch out. He’s
going to take the case for him. He said that Mr. Bennett has one for him as
well, but I think Richard convinced them he has a great deal more experience in
that department. And Roger is a shark when it comes to sniffing out shitty
people.”
“I have sent over some help too. Not
attorneys, mind you, but someone to keep an eye on the couple. They’re not
very...they really should buy some curtains when this is done.” Vinnie laughed
with her grandmother. “They have made it easy for the spies I’ve sent in to
check on them.”
She thanked her grandmother. “Dad is around. He’s
been seen with a couple of ghosts, I’ve heard. Not the kind I’d like to meet up
with. And so is Millicent. She’s...she has been following me, but she’s not
harmed me or tried to contact me. I think she’s avoiding Dad if you want to
know the truth.” Her grandmother leaned back in her seat and asked her what he
wanted. “He wants me dead, I guess. Not that I blame him all that much, but he
didn’t get anything didn’t deserve. You know that as well as I do. Had he and Mom
just had a little more care of what they were doing, he’d still be alive
pestering us all.”
“No. And the fact you had the backing of the
council has made your life easier as well by taking him out the way you did, I
would imagine.” Vinnie told her it had. “Your mother, she’s thinking if she
kills off your mate, then things will be all right. I think she’s wrong and she’s
going to end up where your father is. Dead. Did she tell you she wants to move
in here? That she thinks you owe her? What you could possibly owe her is beyond
me.”
“I don’t know either, but yes, every time I
talk to her I think there is something wrong with her. I mean....” Vinnie got
up to pace and tried to think how to talk to her grandmother. “She’s been
acting a little off lately. Have you seen it?”
“Your mother has always been a little off,
Vinnie. You’re going to have to be much clearer in what you mean now. Why that
woman didn’t do something before now about her finances is beyond me. Having
money is essential and something you cannot do without. And her mate? It was
almost as if she liked what he was doing, killing the humans to get us caught.”
Vinnie had thought the same thing and had been a little shocked when her mom
had nothing. Not even the house she was in was hers. Where the hell had they
spent all the money she’d loaned them over the years? Of course Vinnie had
never gotten it back, but she did help them a great deal.
“About six months or so ago, she came to me
and asked me for the ring you gave me. The diamond one Grandda gave you.” Her
grandmother sat up high in the chair and asked her if she’d gotten it. “No. I
told her I didn’t know where it was at that time. And she’s since asked me four
more times for it. I had Hugo take all the jewelry you gave me, as well as some
of the other personal items I’ve collected over the years, to my vault in the suites
where I rest. I never thought I’d have to use it against my own mother when I
had it put in, but I thought it would be safer for my things if I wanted to
keep them.”
“What do you suppose she wants with them? You
don’t suppose she planned to sell them, do you? I know that she and your father
never had a pot to piss in, and I’ve also been made aware that you’ve stopped
paying their bills too. Good for you, child. They’re older than dirt. They need
to act like it.” She wasn’t supporting them anymore, and told her grandmother
what she’d found out when she’d checked her finances. “So she’s borrowed
against a house she doesn’t own. How well do you suppose that is going to go
over when the owners find out? Not well, I’m sure. I wonder how she even
managed that.”
“Dad, I’m sure. He can move among the humans
now, and I heard he’s been whispering in the ears of some bankers. Mom had
about ten grand in her account a few weeks ago, and now it’s gone too. Plus,
I’ve told her that she won’t get anything else from me. Not for any reason.”
Vinnie sat down on the chair then and picked up Hugo. He was a huge cat and
much too big for her to pull onto her lap, but she needed the comfort of him
there. She noticed that grandmother’s bird was there as well, a large falcon
that had been with her for as long as Vinnie could remember. “The witch is gone
as well, the one he’d gone to for help just before he was staked out. I tried
to tell her he’d be back, but she said she was too powerful for him to mess
with.”
“Do you suppose he ever found out that she
was working with you?” Vinnie told her she didn’t think so. “Then you’ll have
to find her if you can. Unless you already believe her to be dead.”
“I do. The connection we had is gone. There
is nothing left of her.” Running her hand down Hugo’s back, she thought of
everything that had been bothering her lately about her mom. “I’m going to talk
to Mitch too. I think that...I think he’ll be safer here than living where he
is. I’m guessing you know who he works for and the fortress he has there.”
“Yes. And I know someone that you should talk
to as well. I don’t know if you can speak directly to her, but contact Connie
Aster. She’s buried out there on the land. Steele is her grandchild.” Vinnie
had already figured that part out. “Vinnie, take care you don’t get caught with
Horrie. Your father wasn’t a stable man when he was alive. He couldn’t be much
better as a dead man. And I’ve heard rumors of his murdering sprees even now.”
“Dad will hurt Mitch, won’t he?” She told her
that he’d kill him, and they both knew it. “I don’t...I want you to meet him.
When I can...I don’t know a great deal about him yet, but I like him a great
deal. He’s funny, considerate, and he seems to have this sadness about him that
I want to fix for him.”
“Talk to him, darling.” Hugo stiffened in her
arms, but then relaxed. Both her and her grandmother looked at the door when
Gilda opened it. She shouldn’t have been surprised to see Mitch there. But
seeing Steele with him had her standing in front of her grandmother. Steele
stopped moving and put his hands out in front of him. It was not that she
didn’t trust him, Vinnie just didn’t know him all that well.
“I won’t harm either of you. I’m
not...please, don’t be afraid of me.” She nodded but didn’t move. Steele
laughed a little. “You’re going to have to learn to trust me at some point. And
I swear to you, I’ve come to talk to you about good things, not just bad ones.”
“Are there bad things you need to tell me?” Steele
glanced at Mitch before he nodded. “Then let’s start with those. I’d like to
end on a good note for a change.”
“All right.” After the introductions were
made, Gilda brought in tea and a plate of cookies. There were four cups, and
before Vinnie could ask her who else was coming, Gilda looked at her.
“I wanted them to be comfortable.” Vinnie
nodded and tried to remember the last time she’d held a cup, much less drank
from one. Mitch laughed and she looked at him now.
“Don’t do anything you’d not do if we weren’t
here. You don’t drink tea, that’s fine.” He picked up the plate of cookies and
took four before handing it to Steele. “Your father threatened Addie and Kari
today. And in doing so, he’s pissed the two of them off. Not a good thing if
you ask me.”
“Did he hurt them?” Her grandmother looked at
her when Mitch said that he’d not. “Well then, it seems things are worse than I
thought. He apparently knows about your mate. You must do something now, my
dear.”
“He didn’t appear to know about me.” They
both looked at Mitch when he spoke. “He only had a message for you and told
them in no uncertain terms that she was to give it to you. Addie said she and
Kari talked it over, and rather than kill him again, they thought they’d see
what you wanted to do. But he is coming for you, and I’d say he thinks he’s
going to win, too, from what they said. I’m assuming the rumors are true and
you did have something to do with his death.”
“Yes. I did it. With the permission of the
council. Father was getting us into trouble with the humans. Killing and
leaving bodies in a position that would lead them right to our doorsteps. And
if not ours, then some innocent that might not have anything to do with being a
vampire.” Vinnie put Hugo down and got up to pace. She thought better when she
could move, and did so now. Hugo moved to Mitch and put his head on his leg and
watched him. Mitch asked her if he could pet him. “I’d say you should let him
have your scent. He’s my familiar. I know you think only witches have them, but
he protects me and my household during the day while I rest. He’s as old as I
am and as powerful when necessary.”
“I know you have to stay in the darkness
during the day, and while I’d like to say I can handle protecting you from
everything, I know I can’t. Also, I have no safe place for you to stay either.”
Mitch looked around. “I’d say this is about as safe as you can get it, and I’d
bet it has doorways and extra things in it that no normal house might have.”
“I bought it from a vamp that lost his wife
some time ago. He’d built it to protect them both. He sadly wasn’t here when
the humans came for them. But you’re right, it’s as safe as I can get it. I’ve
worked with a witch to make sure the house is impregnable too.” Steele laughed.
“You think I’m lying to you?”