The Vampire's Revenge (8 page)

“And on and on and on,” I said with a shudder.

“Wait a minute,” Connie said, her eyes widening.

“What?” Olivia and I asked in unison.

“The cop shop has heard from the hospital that there’s some kind of local mass psychosis going on. They’re calling it dissociative disorder,” Connie said.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“They said it’s when your perception of self breaks down. They’re blaming it on the stress caused by the earthquake,” Connie explained.

“If this works the way we think it does, it could be spreading exponentially through the human population,” Olivia said gravely.

“Which means it’s spreading faster than we could stop it even if we could figure out how to match up what body with what spirit,” Connie observed grimly, looking from one to the other of us.

Then it hit me. “Oh, my God,” I said.

“What?” Connie asked.

“Saint Patrick’s Day!”

“What about Saint Patrick’s Day?” Olivia wanted to know.

“Don’t you see?” I said. “People are coming here to celebrate from all over the country. If their spirits get cast out of their bodies while they’re here and they get shipped home in straitjackets—”

Connie finished my thought. “This—this body-stealing business will spread all over the country until no one’s in their right body.” She ran one hand through her long black hair and broke out into more curses. With visible effort she pulled herself together and asked, “Do either of you have any ideas for how to head this off?”

“I’ll talk to Mel,” I said. “Maybe she can figure something out.”

“I’ll make some calls,” Olivia said.

“To who?” Connie said, sounding skeptical.

“To some very wise women back in the old country,” Olivia said, reaching into the truck for her bag. “How’s the mobile reception out here?”

“Should be fine,” I said.

Oliva dialed her cell phone and walked a little way from Connie and me.

“Look,” I said to the Slayer, “there’s something else I’ve got to tell you.”

“Save it, McShane. You’ve used up your quota of bad news for one night.” Connie waved one hand and started to walk away.

“Wait! You’ve got to hear this.” I took her by the arm and Connie stopped walking. She stared at my hand on her arm for a moment and then she leveled a look on me that could have flash-frozen hot lead.

Before she could tell me again to buzz off, I filled her in on the fact that two of the nastiest vampires I’d ever heard of were gunning for her. When I’d gotten through talking, I could tell that Connie wasn’t nearly scared enough. In fact, she wasn’t scared at all. Though she was full of concern for the citizenry, she had no concern for her own well-being. That scared me more than anything.

“Have you heard what I just said?”

“Yeah, yeah. A couple of badass bloodsuckers are going to try to bite me.”

“Look, they know you’re the Slayer, they know your name, and they know where you live.”

“Whatever.”

“Do you have any idea what a prize your death would be to the vampire who killed you? Whoever could take you out would be looking to get crowned king of the vampires!” I stared at her, exasperated. The light of malevolence was so palpable in her eyes that I was beginning to think of her exactly as I thought of the humans who’d had their bodies stolen by demons. This—this Slayer thing that had taken over Connie wasn’t afraid of anything. How could you protect someone, some
thing
that had no fear?

“I get it,” she said finally. “But don’t tell me; let me guess the rest. A poor slayer can’t tell the good vampires from the bad vampires without a program—or rather without
you,
right? Not that I have any particular reason to trust
you
as a judge of character.” Connie glanced at Olivia, who was chattering to someone in Gaelic. “Take her, for example. She your girlfriend?”

I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying,
You’re my girlfriend.
Then I remembered myself. “Yeah,” I finally said. “Something like that. So how’s
your
love life? Are you and Seth . . . seeing each other again?”

“Something like that,” she mocked. “Not that it’s any of your business, vampire. Especially not since you tried to kill me.”

She almost had a point there.

“And I
will
kill
you,
” Connie said with conviction. “Just as soon as this double-dead mess is cleaned up, the truce is over. I’ll kill you like I killed William. No, wait. I killed him quickly. I do believe I’ll kill you the way you tried to kill me.”

She came closer to me, so close the tips of her breasts touched my chest. Her eyes, blazing with hatred, gazed steadily into mine. “I’m going to sink my fangs into your jugular and suck your blood drop by drop until there’s nothing left of you.” Then she wheeled and stalked away from me, back to the crime scene.

Feeling like an empty shell already, I walked the few feet to the water’s edge and peered into its glasslike surface. The moonlight was bright, but of course I didn’t cast a shadow on the ground or a reflection in the water. It was as if I wasn’t there at all. How nice that would have been.

I heard Olivia’s cell phone snap shut and saw that she was back at my side. “I do believe she means it,” she said.

“Oh my, yes,” I agreed. “She does.”

“And by the misery in your eyes, I’d say you almost want to let her do that to you,” she said.

I said nothing, only stooped to pick up a stone from the spongy patch of ground where the sea grass gave way to the water.

Olivia followed me to the edge of the water. “Promise me something, love. Promise me that when the time comes, you’ll fight her as hard as you can to stay alive.”

“I’m
not
alive.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I can’t promise you that,” I said, and skipped the rock across the surface of the sea. The ripple reassured me that I was really there.

For now anyway.

Five

On the drive back to William’s, Olivia explained that she talked to some of her Irish friends who were practitioners of what she called the old magic. William had hinted that in addition to being a vampire, Olivia was also some sort of witch. I didn’t care what kind of witch as long as she and her buddies could wave a wand over this body-swapping situation and make it go away.

“So what do they think?” I asked her as I pulled the wrecker into William’s driveway.

“They said they’d study the problem and get back to me. While they’re doing that, Melaphia and I can put our heads together. She might know something in the voodoo realm that could help.”

As it was nearly sunup, Melaphia was at her usual place in the kitchen, drinking coffee and cooking fragrant spiced oatmeal for breakfast. I was glad it wasn’t time for Renee to wake up yet. I didn’t want her to hear the troubling news I had for her mother. She’d had to deal with too much evil lately, more than any nine-year-old ever should.

I didn’t waste any time in explaining the situation to Melaphia. She responded by covering her face with her hands and moaning. I didn’t blame her.

“What do you think, Mel?” Olivia asked. “Is there anything you can do? Chants to call on the gods? Spells? I’ve contacted some of the practitioners of the Celtic magic tradition, and they’re working on it, but in the meantime, I thought perhaps you—”

“It’s too much!” Melaphia cried, slamming both fists on the table.

I laid my hand on her arm. “I know it’s a lot to ask, especially now, but . . .”

“No! Do you hear me? I can’t do it again. I can’t save the world. Look at what happened the last time I tried! Because my timing was off by seconds, William died and he’s never coming back!”

Olivia leaned in close and said gently, “Darling girl, you did your best. What happened to William wasn’t your fault. There is no doubt you saved humanity by closing the portal from hell as quickly as you did. Otherwise, Savannah would have been overrun by demons.”

“To hear you tell it, Savannah’s going to be overrun with demons anyway! You can’t ask me to do this. It’s too much!” Melaphia folded her arms on the table, lowered her head, and sobbed.

Over Melaphia’s bowed head, I looked helplessly at Olivia. “Liv, why don’t you go on to bed. I’ll be there soon.”

With a parting pat of Mel’s shoulder, Olivia nodded and headed downstairs. I sat and stroked Melaphia’s dreadlocks while she cried. She was right, of course. William and I had placed the weight of the world on her shoulders more than once. The pressure we’d put on her to help us fight satanic forces would have stressed out anyone. But Renee’s kidnapping had brought Melaphia to the brink of madness and her nerves weren’t fully recovered. The last thing she needed now was to feel as if she’d been saddled with the responsibility for the souls of potentially every human on earth.

She stopped crying and sat up, gathering her strength to tell me something I could tell I wouldn’t like. “Dex came again yesterday.”

Dammit.
I had forgotten all about him. “What happened? Did he threaten you again?”

“No, he didn’t. We actually had a good talk.” Melaphia sniffed and delicately blew her nose with a tissue. “He’s taken a professorship in Ireland and he wants Renee and me to go there with him and try to make it as a real family.”

“A
real
family,” I repeated numbly. Between the lines in Melaphia’s words was one inescapable fact. The family she and her daughter had grown up in was composed of two vampires and two mystic, shape-shifting Egyptian sighthounds. Not exactly what you would call the Brady Bunch.

“First he wanted to take Renee and now he wants to take you both,” I muttered.

Melaphia abruptly shoved her chair back from the table and stood up. “Take me? I don’t belong to you, Jack!”

“Oh, Mel. I know. I just meant—”

“You just meant you think of me as being destined to serve you like all my female ancestors back to colonial times. And you think that Renee has no choice but to serve you when her time comes.”

“Surely you know you’ve always had the right to leave. William and I would never have kept you here against your will. You could have done anything you wanted. Gone anywhere. Made yourself into anything. William would have paid for you to tour the world, further your education however you wanted, whatever.”

She sobbed once in frustration, leaning against the cabinet for support. “Don’t you see it wasn’t as simple as that? He would have made any of those things possible for me, but he
wanted
me
here.
He had the expectation that I would stay. He always talked about the tradition of my foremothers and how ancient and powerful it was.

“Don’t you see? I couldn’t leave. The ties that bind me to this place might only have existed in here.” She pointed to her heart. “But they trapped me all the same. Because of
William.
”

I stood up slowly and walked toward the windows, where the curtains had been drawn shut tightly in anticipation of my arrival home—as always barely in time to beat the sun. Just one of the countless little things Melaphia knew to do for William and me without asking, without us even thinking about it. Her assistance was something we just took for granted. Melaphia’s words,
because of William,
resonated in my head and weighed on my heart like a gravestone.

“And now that William’s gone,” I said simply, “there’s nothing for you or Renee here anymore.”

Melaphia’s voice broke on another sob and she ran to me. Wrapping her arms around me, she said, “Don’t say that, Jack. You know I love you, too. I always have and I always will. But I can’t do this anymore. I can’t sit here waiting for dawn and worrying that you won’t make it back in time, and even when you do come home, I can’t bear knowing that William’s not coming home with you.

“I don’t want much. Just a normal life and a real family. I’ve never had that before, not even as a little girl. I want it now, before it’s too late. I want it not just for me but for Renee. Don’t we deserve that?”

“Of course you do,” I murmured. “You deserve every good thing life has to offer.” I held her against my chest, her head tucked under my chin. I stroked her back lightly as I had when she was a little girl and I soothed her hurts. How I loved her.

How I’d miss her.

I started to speak, but was so choked up I had to clear my throat and start again. “You know those invisible bonds you talked about? The ones around your heart?”

“Yes,” Mel said, her voice muffled against my chest.

“Don’t consider them bonds,” I said.

“Hmm? What do you mean?”

“Think of them as bungee cords.”

Melaphia raised her head and looked up at me. As she began to laugh I could feel the tension flow from her body. “What do you mean, silly?”

“They’re bungee cords from my heart to yours. They’ll stretch enough to let you live your own life wherever you want to go. But if you ever need me you can pull on the cords and I’ll be at your side in a heartbeat. And if you ever get homesick, they can always lead you and Renee back to me.”

“Thank you,” Melaphia said, resting her cheek on my chest again. “Thank you. Thank you.”

I held her away from me and whisked away the tears on her cheeks with my fingertips. “You and Renee will be right in the heart of the old lords’ territory. You have to use all the cloaking spells you know to disguise yourself.”

“I’ve already thought about that, and I have everything we need.”

“Otis’s fey friends are headquartered in that area, too. I’ll get him to talk to them. They can help protect you. Olivia’s network of Bonaventures can look out for you and Renee.”

“With all that help, we’ll be fine,” Melaphia agreed.

“All right, then. It’s settled. You and Dex make your plans. You can tell me all about them at sundown.”

Melaphia nodded, beaming. “I will.”

“Oh, and there’s one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“My superior sense of smell tells me that breakfast is about to burn.”

“The oatmeal!”

When Mel turned to run to the stove, I slipped through the open door from the kitchen to the stair-way to the vault, closed it, and locked it from the inside. I think I took a couple of steps toward the bottom before sagging onto the stairs. I propped my elbows onto my knees and let my head fall into my hands. A sense of loss overtook me, almost as deep and dark as the void I felt whenever I thought of William and Connie. I was losing everything I’d ever held dear.