The Last of the Red-Hot Vampires (6 page)

“She said trial,” Sarah whispered, gripping my forearm. “Didn't Theo say something about a trial before you scared him off?”

“And a champion,” I answered, nibbling my bottom lip. It was a bad habit from youth, but one I couldn't help in times of stress…and whether I wanted to admit it or not, I was suddenly a bit worried about the two women who were even now escorting an overwhelmed-looking Bettina back to her seat.

“What do you think it means?” Sarah asked.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” Dame Margaret clapped her hands and, without warning, the room was filled with an intense bluish light, seemingly coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. It must have dazzled me more than I realized, because without being aware of moving, I suddenly found myself standing in the center of the room, facing the two women, Sarah at my side. “We commence with the first trial of the virtue known as Portia Harding.”

“I have a feeling this evening is going to end up being just as strange as the afternoon,” I told my friend.

She nodded.

“Is your champion ready?” Dame Margaret asked me.

Sarah and I looked at each other. “I'm a champion? Isn't that like a knight-errant or something?”

“So I gather.” I turned back to face the two women. Beyond them, Bettina, Milo and his wife, and the elegant lady watched us with startled eyes. They were oddly silent given the unexpected interruption. “I'm really sorry, but this has to stop.”

Dame Margaret frowned. “You're not Portia Harding?”

“Yes, I am, but—”

“And this is your champion?”

“No, she's my friend, not a champion, but—”

“It is your right to waive the presence of a champion, although I can't imagine why you would do so,” Dame Margaret said with a shrug.

“Look, this has gone far enough,” I said, getting angry. “As I explained to Theo, we are not the gullible, helpless tourists we may look to be, and frankly, we've had a hell of a day and I'm really not going to put up with any more fun and games a la Theo. Feel free to trot back to him and tell him that your little scheme didn't work, and the police will be contacting him about this continued harassment.”

Tansy pursed her lips. Dame Margaret frowned. Sarah clutched my arm even tighter.

“We are already late, Portia Harding. I don't understand the purpose of your little joke, but we have a job to do. Tansy, if you please?”

“This is absolutely insaaaaaaaaa—”

Before I knew what was happening, little round butterball Tansy threw herself at me, slamming into me with a force that knocked me backward several feet onto my butt. I stared in stunned disbelief at her as she did the flying dive toward me, knocking the breath out of me as her not-insubstantial form squashed me like a ripe bug. My head hit the ground, making me see stars for a few seconds, my already injured shoulder screaming with reawakened pain.

“Sweet mother of reason, what do you think you're doing?” I shrieked as Tansy grabbed my hair and started slamming my head against the floor. “Sarah, call the cops!”

“I can't move,” Sarah yelled back, her voice strained. “Something seems to be holding me back.”

“You are not the champion,” Dame Margaret said with irritating calm. “Only a champion can assist a subject.”

“Stop it, you crazy old lady!” I screamed as Tansy sat on me and continued to pound my head against the floor. I struggled against her, trying to push her off me, but for an old woman, she was remarkably strong. It didn't help that one of my arms was just about incapacitated due to my sore shoulder, or that my head was becoming more and more befuddled with each wallop on the floor. “Someone help me!”

Tansy's face was twisted with concentration, her teeth bared in a grotesque parody of a smile.

“Fifteen seconds,” Dame Margaret said in a bored voice. “I suggest that you make your move soon, Portia Harding.”

“Arrrrrrrgh!” I bellowed, trying to twist my way out of Tansy's vicious grip. Part of my mind, the part that annoys me the most, pointed out with abstracted amusement the irony of being beaten up by an overweight, elderly lady after having earlier survived attacks by an extremely fit man.

“Ten seconds.”

“Are you all right, Portia?” Sarah called.

“No…I…am…not…” I answered in between head bangings. “Gaaaarr!”

“Can't you just push her off you?” she asked. “It's just one old lady.”

“This isn't an old lady; it's a big-time wrestler in disguise,” I snarled, trying to pry Tansy's hands from my head.

“Five seconds.”

“Well then…you're just going to have to persuade her to stop,” Sarah said, quite unreasonably in my opinion. “Without striking her, of course. I do not condone physical abuse of the elderly.”

“Granng!”

“And…cease.”

In a twinkling, Tansy released me and hopped up, immediately straightening her shapeless wool skirt and blouse, the former of which had been somewhat rumpled during her attack on me. “What happened?” she asked, peering down at me.

“That's what I'd like to know,” I answered a bit woozily. With slow, careful movements, I sat up, feeling the back of my head. There was a horribly tender spot, from which tendrils of pain snaked out and wrapped themselves around my brain. “I'm going to have a hell of a goose egg back there. What have I ever done to you that you'd attack me like that?”

“Why didn't you defend yourself?” Tansy asked, looking confused.

Sarah rushed over and helped me to my feet, her face red with anger. “You people are insane—insane! How dare you assault us! You may be elderly, but that does not give you the right to beat up whom soever you feel like!”

The ground dipped beneath my feet for a moment. I clutched Sarah and tried to blink away the dizziness.

“Subject failed to manifest any sort of defense whatsoever,” Dame Margaret said as she wrote in a small notebook. She tucked the pencil into the book and put both away in her pocket, cocking an eyebrow at me. “Let's hope you do better on the second trial. That will commence tomorrow.”

“Could someone call the police?” Sarah asked, gently pushing me toward my chair. Bettina and the others still sat around the table, as still as statues. “And an aid unit. Portia looks very pale.”

“I don't understand why she didn't protect herself,” Tansy said, back to looking like a fluffy-haired, jolly grandmother. I knew just how deceptive that appearance was. “Why didn't she do something, Letty?”

“No idea,” Dame Margaret answered, pursing her lips again. “But it's no concern of ours. Who's next on the list?”

Tansy pulled a piece of paper from her purse. “A throne applicant.”

“Oh, good. Always like testing them. They have such polite manners. Good evening!”

“Someone stop them,” Sarah said, heading for the door, but it did no good. The bright bluish light that had filled the room suddenly went off, plunging us into relative darkness. We were light blind for a moment or two, moments which the two women used to hurry out the door before anyone could stop them.

“What is wrong with everyone here?” I asked, rubbing my head and glaring at the people around the table. “Couldn't someone have pulled that old lady off me?”

Bettina gave me an odd look. “Pardon? What old lady are you speaking about?”

“What old lady? The one who just tried to bash my brains into mush on the floor!”

Four sets of eyes watched me warily, as if I was the one who was behaving oddly.

“Perhaps you would like to lie down for a few minutes while we continue with the séance,” Bettina said kindly. “There is a sofa in the reception room which you are welcome to use.”

I looked from person to person, then to Sarah.

“Didn't you just see the two women who came in here?” she asked them all.

All four of them shook their heads.

“No one? You're telling us you didn't see anyone else come into the room?” Sarah asked, her hands on her hips.

“No,” Milo said. “No one but the six of us.”

“Unauthorized visitors are not allowed at client séances,” Bettina added. “Shall we continue?”

“What's going on?” Sarah asked, confusion written all over her face. It probably mirrored mine.

I shook my head very, very carefully. “I have no idea, but I think it's time to leave.”

“Definitely,” she said, helping me to my feet and opening the door for me. I felt like I had been run down by a steam roller. My head and shoulder were hurting so much it was making me sick to my stomach. Sarah paused at the doorway and looked back at the four people at the séance table. “You English are just downright mean sometimes!”

“Well?” Sarah asked the next morning as I staggered into the small room on the first floor that the pub owner said would serve as our private dining room.

“I'm still alive, my head is still attached to my body, and no other evil elderly people tried to beat the crap out of me after I went to bed,” I said, slumping gratefully into a chair.

“Did you talk to the police yet?”

“Just got off the phone with them. Good morning, Darla. Yes, thank you, coffee and toast. And perhaps an egg, and that delicious-looking marmalade. Is there any bacon? Oh, good. I'll have some bacon, too. And a grapefruit, if you have one.”

The barmaid/waitress who fed us breakfast and dinner gave me a curious look, but toddled off to bring me the requested foodstuffs.

“And?” Sarah asked around a mouthful of eggs and grilled tomato, a combination that made me shudder just looking at it.

“It's not polite to talk with your mouth full.”

She made a face that would be more appropriate on her youngest child.

“I talked to the same sergeant who interviewed us yesterday, and he said they haven't found Theo, nor the two deranged women who attacked me at the séance. They have an address for Theo, but it's somewhere up north, and whoever is checking on it hasn't reported in yet. They want us to go in later and look at mug shots, in case he has an arrest history.”

“So basically there are no leads,” Sarah said, blowing on her cup of tea.

“Exactly. Thanks, Darla.” I sipped the coffee set before me with pleasure that approached bliss, and wondered if I couldn't just have it administered intravenously.

“I've been thinking,” Sarah said as she set down her cup.

“Good gravy, not that! Shall I alert the newspapers?”

“Oh, ha ha. You should be a comedian.” She dabbed at her lips and gave me a stern look that had me giggling into my coffee. “About those two women last night.”

“If you're going to pick on me because I was beat up by an elderly woman—”

“No, I'm not. But that makes up a good part of my point. It's not normal for little old ladies to go around attacking people.”

I rubbed the bump on the back of my head, wincing slightly when my fingers found a particularly tender spot. “Granted, but that doesn't change the fact that one did. While everyone stood around and let her, I might add.”

Sarah's blue eyes were uncommonly grave. “I told you that I couldn't move. Judging by what happened with the others at the séance, I assume the same thing applied to them, only they had a mind wipe afterward.”

“Mind wipe?” A horrible suspicion occurred to me. “Oh no, you're not going to tell me that what happened last night was something paranormal, are you?”

“Let's look at the facts,” Sarah said, ticking items off her fingers. “First, two women show up at a séance knowing your name and that you are a virtue.”

“I am not a virtue,” I said, waiting for Darla to serve my breakfast and leave the room before continuing. “A virtue is not a person, it's a concept.”

“Yes, but how did they know you would be at that exact spot at that exact time?” Sarah asked, triumph evident in her voice.

“Easy.” I smeared a little homemade berry jam on my toast and took a bite. “They asked the pub owner. Or Darla. Or the shopkeeper down the road whom you told just about our entire schedule to. Any one of those three people knew we were going off to that séance.”

“Yes, but how would someone know who to ask, eh?”

I rolled my eyes and chewed my toast.

“Second, the women were there to administer the first in who-knows-how-many trials. I'm not sure what that's all about, but I know we'll figure it out sooner or later.”

I licked a smidgen of jam off my upper lip. “Right, and since Theo mentioned something about trials earlier, it's obvious they are working with him. Honestly, Sarah, it's as clear as the noses on both our faces—you're a famous author. You have gazillions of readers all over the world. Somehow, Theo got hold of the news that you were going to be in the area, no doubt from your English publisher, and since you make no bones about believing in every out-there theory floating around, he decided to set up an elaborate hoax to sucker you in.”

“Sucker me in for what?” she asked, looking mulish.

I waved the jam spoon around. “I don't know, but it has to be something to do with money. Why else would he go to all the time and expense of hiring people to playact the parts of Hope, Tansy, and the big, horsey Dame Margaret woman.”

“You can't tell me you seriously believe that nothing paranormal happened last night!” Sarah's face mirrored her disbelief. “How on earth do you explain that bright blue light? Or Mystic Bettina and the others having their memories wiped clean? Or the fact that I was held immobile while you were being beaten up?”

“Flat-panel lights in the ceiling, they were lying, and hypnosis,” I said, wiping the crumbs off my mouth and pushing my plate aside. “You ready to go? We can swing by the police station first, before we head out to look for the Hound of the Baskervilles.”

“It's not the Hound of the Baskervilles, as you very well know. The Black Shuck is a ghostly black dog according to local legend, and evidently it's become quite active the last few years…oh, never mind. The Shuck can wait. It's not supposed to appear before dark anyway. You're being entirely unreasonable about this, Portia. The bet aside, I don't understand why you are so unwilling to admit that you have become involved with something highly paranormal.”

“You have yet to prove to me that anything paranormal has happened,” I said with complacency that I knew would drive her wild. I was right. She lectured me for the next few hours while we drove out to view a circle of stones known as the Angry Stones. We didn't see or hear either the singing reputed to be audible or the medieval fair that supposedly haunts the area, although we did have a pleasantly relaxing drive through the country.

“This has been a lovely day,” I said five hours later as we drove past the area containing the faery circle and headed for the humpbacked bridge leading into our town. “Beautiful countryside, shopping, lunch at a five-hundred-year-old pub…it's everything I imagined this trip would be.”

“It is pretty country, isn't it?”

“Yes.” I sighed, reality pressing down on me again. “I suppose we should visit the police before dinner and do the mug-shot thing with them. Ugh. What a way to end such an idyllically normal day. Not one single event had your paranormal meter shrieking.”

“I never shriek,” Sarah said as she rounded the corner before the bridge. At the sight of a figure standing smack-dab in the center of the bridge, she slammed her foot down on the brakes, and shrieked, “Dear god in heaven, where did he come from?”

The car skidded to a stop a few feet away from the man on the bridge. I narrowed my eyes as the man walked around to my side of the car. “I'm beginning to think the local loony bin. Don't just sit there—drive!”

“What? Are you blind? That's Theo!”

“My point exactly. Drive!”

“But he obviously wants to say somethiiiii—Portia!”

“Whatever he wants to say, he can say it to a policeman,” I said grimly, leaning backward at an odd angle so I could keep my foot on the accelerator.

“You could have killed him!” Sarah yelled. “Get your foot out of the way! I can't drive with your foot like that!”

We whipped past Theo at a faster-than-normal pace. Despite Sarah's exaggeration, he wasn't in any danger of being run over; he'd been in the process of walking around to my side of the car, and wasn't anywhere near the front. I ignored Sarah's continued demands that I put my foot back, waiting until we were through most of the town before assuming a more traditional passenger position.

“If you ever do that again—I swear to god, Portia, sometimes I just want to strangle you! What will Theo think?” We came to an abrupt halt in front of a small cluster of stone buildings.

I unhooked the seat belt and got out of the car, grabbing the replacement purse I'd purchased earlier. “Sarah, he's a con man, nothing more. We don't care what he thinks.”

“I care.” She had a familiar mulish look on her face again, one that warned she was going to do something unreasonable. “You can go look at your precious mug shots if you want.” She put the car in gear and reversed smoothly away from the police station. “I'm going to go back and apologize to Theo for your rudeness.”

“Sarah! It's not safe for you to see him alone—oh, crapbeans!” I watched with frustration as my friend drove off through the town, worried that she would put herself into Theo's power and end up regretting her naive belief that he was not a bad man.

I thought about washing my hands of her, but Sarah was my oldest friend, and I couldn't leave her to the mercy of such a possibly dangerous man as Theo. I marched into the police station, intent on saving Sarah despite herself.

A short, balding man was at the reception counter, the only other person in the entryway. Beyond him, walls that were half glass gave the room light, and allowed the occupants to see what was going on in other sections of the station. Two policemen, and one policewoman, sat at desks typing industriously on their keyboards.

“Hello. You must be Portia Harding,” the policeman at the reception desk said, coming around to shake my hand. He had a pleasant smile, and warm, friendly brown eyes that had me smiling back despite my distress. “I'm Terrin.”

“It's a pleasure to meet you. Is Sergeant Reading here? She's the one we spoke with yesterday.”

Terrin glanced behind him at the people in the other office. “Looks like she's stepped out for a bit. Shall we get started? This shouldn't take too much of your time.”

“I'd be happy to, but I've just seen the man who assaulted me outside of town, and my friend has gone off to talk with him. If you hurry, I'm sure you can nab him before he escapes again.”

A slight frown wrinkled his forehead. “Who would that be?”

“Theo North. You know, the man who assaulted me and kidnapped us?” I slapped my hands on my thighs, annoyed that he wasn't springing to life to capture Theo. “Are you at all familiar with the situation involving myself and my friend?”

“Of course I am,” he laughed, taking my arm and guiding me to the far end of the room. “It's what I get paid to do. So to speak. Theo North. Hmm. The name is ringing a bell, but I can't put a face to it. While I'm thinking on it, why don't we get started?”

I stared at the policeman in disbelief, marching over to where he stood. “I am not going to stay here and do nothing while my friend is in danger!”

“The sooner you're finished, the sooner you can help her,” he said soothingly, gently escorting me back to the corner.

“Oh, this is ridiculous. I'm going to go get my friend, and then you can bet I'll be back to complain to your superior about your callous disregard of human life!” I took one step forward and stopped, my skin crawling with horror as the black and white checkered tile floor that filled the reception area melted away to nothing. Everything but the two tiles I was standing on, and the two where Terrin stood across the room, was gone, a black pit of emptiness in its place.

“Sweet mother of reason,” I swore, closing my eyes for a moment in hopes that whatever optical illusion I was seeing would disappear.

It didn't.

“All you need do to complete this trial is walk over to me,” Terrin said with a happy little smile that I badly wanted to smack right off his face.

“This is not happening,” I told him, shaking my finger at him. “Floors do not just disappear. And since I haven't been around any faery rings to breathe in hallucinogenic spores that don't show up on hospital tests, I doubt if this is a hallucination. Thus, I must be dreaming. An extremely lucid dream, one I want to stop right this very minute.”

I closed my eyes tightly and willed myself to wake up.

“I'm afraid I don't have a lot of time to give to your trial,” Terrin said.

My eyes popped open at the word
trial
. He looked at his watch. “This isn't a timed event, but I do have other appointments I must attend to, so I would appreciate it if you could please focus on the matter at hand.”

“Good gravy, you're another henchman?”

Terrin's eyebrows rose. “Pardon?”

“You're another one of Theo's henchmen, aren't you? Just like those two ladies? How many of you are there? It must be hugely expensive hiring so many people to play these silly roles. Regardless, I'm not going to do whatever it is he is paying you to get me to do, so feel free to go on to your other appointments.” I crossed my arms and tried to look decisive and absolute without appearing bitchy.

“I assure you, Portia Harding, I am not in the pay of Theo North.” Terrin's gaze on me was steady. “Now if we could dispense with the drama, could you please walk over to me?”

“You have not begun to see drama,” I warned, giving him a look that should have singed off his eyebrows. “I consider this harassment of the purest form, and I will have no qualms whatsoever about lodging a complaint with the police about you if you do not cease with this ridiculous persecution!”

Terrin laughed, genuine amusement in his face. “The police? They have no jurisdiction over me, at least not the mortal sort. Please, time is passing quickly. If you could just walk over to me, we will both be free to go about our respective ways.”

“You are insane if you think I'm going to walk anywhere near you,” I told him, glancing at the floor. “Not that I believe your little optical tricks.”

The amusement in his eyes deepened. “I see. You don't believe that I have made the floor disappear?”

“Absolutely not. This is nothing more than an illusion. It's done with lights and mirrors, or holograms, or some other sort of sophisticated projection.”