Animal Attraction (24 page)

Telling them what I knew as a ghost was also
a – wait for it – dead end. Ha-ha. Ghosts were not legal witnesses
since only a handful of people could communicate with the really
dead. That law also extended to the souls of vampires when they
left their bodies for the day. Nothing they saw as ghosts was
admissible. That’s mundane human justice for you. Para rights still
have a long way to go.

Beyond my own legal issues, running my mouth
to law enforcement would get Ashley’s husband in deep poo. He’d go
to jail. Ashley and Jesse already struggled with the fallout of
Ryan becoming a shifter. Talk about out of the frying pan and into
the fire if his embezzlement became known.

All we could do was wait for something solid
to come along, something we could take to the police to nail
Tattingail. And hope that particular something didn’t cost someone
their life like it had the werehog shifter.

The next step was for Taylor to track Ryan’s
watch and see if it led her to Tattingail or the country club. We
hoped the dead shifter’s autopsy would show he’d been shot by a
bullet infused with silver. Maybe we’d find some way to pin the
Tats to the wall through one of those options, though I wasn’t sure
how.

With no options, we set about other tasks. I
sent Levi an email about what had happened. Dan and Gerald went off
to check in with the police and Tristan, respectively. They were as
morose and thoughtful as me when they left.

I judged it to be about two hours until
daylight when my skin prickled. I had the feeling I someone watched
me. I turned my head from my computer monitor to look towards the
door. Arthur stood there, smiling in a charmingly hopeful manner.
Remembering our last encounter, I was not charmed. I scowled at
him.

He nodded as if he’d expected such. “Ah, I
see you are still displeased with me. I came to offer my humblest
apologies.”

He bowed in that old-fashioned way of his and
stepped up to the desk. With an air of great ceremony, he extended
his arm and rolled back the sleeve of his cream-colored shirt. I
stared at the limb. It was devoid of any hair. The top was
bronze-tanned and the underside almost as white as Patricia’s skin.
It looked weird. My curiosity on how he’d managed to tan the back
of his arm in winter was arrested by the network of veins that
showed under the paler bit.

Plus there was that interesting sizzling
scent of his. My tongue ran along the tips of my fangs. I thought
his blood might crackle with life inside my mouth. He smelled like
bright, flaring vitality.

Arthur looked at me with amusement, as if he
guessed what I thought. “A peace offering. You may take my blood if
it will repair our acquaintanceship.”

If there was ever a test to my resolve to not
feed on the living, this fit the bill. Even as my heart remembered
Dan and shouted no! I leaned forward in anticipation. Arthur’s
aroma burned inside my nostrils ... alive, vibrant, exciting. If he
tasted half as good as he smelled, his blood would be a feast like
no other.

I glanced at his face. The avid interest he
showed mirrored mine. This wasn’t merely an attempt to make amends.
He wanted me to drink from him. He desired it. Profoundly.

That and a renewed sense of the amusement
he’d shown when I’d crashed during the flying lesson jerked me to a
halt. Remembering how Arthur had laughed at me brought me back to
myself. Holy smokes, I lay halfway across my desk, practically
crawling over it to get at him. My mouth gaped open. I knew the
glamour hiding my fangs had dissolved.

Thank goodness I’d glutted on BP9 in the
effort to heal my arm. I drew back with real regret, but I was able
to do it. I wrapped glamour around myself, feeling a wave of
embarrassment for having shown too much hunger. How
humiliating.

It made me want to swipe Arthur’s head off
and drown from the fountain that would erupt from his neck.
Thankfully that brought a vision of me humping his headless corpse.
Blood and sex, the vampire’s dynamic duo. Knowing how easily such a
scenario could happen tamped down the vampire urges plaguing
me.

With as much dignity as I could muster, I
stood up straight and strong behind my desk. I folded my arms
beneath my breasts and did my best cool and collected Patricia
imitation. “The bottled stuff does me fine. I’m not really a
vampire, after all.”

The old protest sounded worn even to me.
Arthur’s brows rose. “No? You certainly look like one. You really
looked like one a second ago.”

I felt like he egged me on. Did he want me to
feed on him so much? Maybe he had a vampire fetish.

Nope. Gerald was my one indiscretion, and I
had every intention of eradicating even his hunky gorgeous self off
my play list. I was Dan’s sweetie.

Since Arthur knew I existed as ghost and
vampire, I told him, “This is not my body. I was drawn into it
against my will. The lack of flying ability should have clued you
in.”

Uninvited, he sat in one of the chairs across
my desk. He gave me a little nod and rolled his sleeve back down to
button it at his wrist. “Augustus told me of your dilemma. The dead
who became the undead. I don’t know that anyone has seen your like
before, Ms. Payson.”

I sat down too, though I wanted to make him
leave. Yet there was way too much I didn’t know about this man. I
wanted to find out why Augustus had sent him our way. And I wanted
to know why I found him so darned compelling.

I said, “I wouldn’t wish my existence on my
worst enemy. How do you know Augustus, Mr. Dragwald?”

He crooked a horsey smile. “We go way back.
We’ve been acquainted for so long, it seems like ancient history.”
He abruptly changed the subject. “You know, flying is much more
than flapping wings or levitating. Augustus might have told you
that.”

If he started laughing at me again, I would
take a bite out of him. However, he seemed to know something about
the subject. I said, “If it was just a matter of lifting off and
moving the way I wanted to, I wouldn’t have half the problems I
do.”

“Are you religious?”

Another sudden change of subject. Maybe
Arthur had an attention disorder or something. My head spun from
trying to keep up with him.

I drew a steadying breath. “I can’t say I am.
I believe in God, though his accountant for souls seems to have
fallen asleep on the job.”

Arthur’s gaze went distant. He nodded. “Ah
yes, the great mystery of why some spirits depart at death and
others remain to haunt the living. And then there are the vampires
like you – excuse me, dear lady, like the body you inhabit – who
are caught in a kind of in-between existence. Do you ever hear the
singing when that body dies for the day?”

His question startled me. How did he know
about that? “Each time I leave this body I hear it. Have you ever
heard it?”

“I’ve heard it mentioned by vampires. They
say it is the sound of purest exaltation. The voice of joyous
deliverance, the sweetest breath of heaven.”

I thought that was the perfect description of
what I heard. I sat frozen, awestruck to know it wasn’t just
me.

Arthur’s smile seemed benevolent. Kind, even.
With a tone that was downright paternal, he said, “To fly, my poor
trapped girl, is to ride the wings of your soul, to be uplifted by
exaltation. Exaltation.” He sighed. “I do love that word. Think on
that deathsong the next time you try to fly. Hear it. Feel it. Soar
upon its melody.”

With that he stood, bowed, and left the
office. I gaped after him.

The man was so weird. I couldn’t figure out
if he was supposed to be friend or enemy. Crazier still, I didn’t
know if I disliked him or not. And I still had no idea how he and
Augustus were connected.

* * * *

The next day was Saturday. Since Taylor
assisted Tristan, she was as nocturnal as the vampires. He had been
advised of my request for her help, so he let her go home early
Friday night to get some sleep before tracking Ryan’s travels.

She and Lana showed up at Para Central about
mid-morning. They collected the pocketwatch and started out in
Lana’s little car. I tagged along to see firsthand what Taylor
might uncover.

It was no surprise for Taylor to be drawn
straight to the hospital. Since Ryan went to work more days than
not, of course the watch would lead us there. Patricia sat in the
passenger seat, rubbing her thumb over the watch’s cover and
concentrating. After a couple of minutes, she directed Lana out of
the parking lot.

We ended up at the Episcopal church where I’d
been brought up. I assumed it was the same one Ashley’s family
attended these days. I reported that to Lana, who shared it with
Taylor. Taylor tried again.

This time we went to the Coastal Pediatric
Center. I guessed this was where pre-Zoo Flu Ryan had practiced.
Another dead end.

“I’m getting nothing else,” Taylor sighed.
“This isn’t telling me anything.”

I felt disappointed but ready to go with
another tack. “Lana, let’s head for Highway 17, out by Pate’s
Corners.”

“Where that shifter was found dead? Good
idea.”

Taylor agreed with the change in tactics. We
took a little drive.

Luck was with us. The crime scene unit had
apparently finished their work first thing that morning because all
the ‘Do Not Cross’ yellow tape was gone. Lana parked by the side of
the road and we got out of her car.

“You can see where the police were tracking
in and out, there to your right,” I told Lana.

She pointed out the path to Taylor, and the
two women headed for the spot where the shifter’s body had been
found. I stuck with them in case they somehow wandered off. They
did not, and we were soon at the scene.

“This is it,” I told Lana.

“You can tell from how trampled everything
is,” she said. She wrinkled her nose at the brown stains that
remained on the needle- carpeted ground. “Poor man.”

I swore I still smelled the rot that had
begun to take hold of the body that had been removed. The stench of
decay did not depart easily.

Taylor took the watch back out. She
concentrated so hard that she frowned. Lines creased between her
brows, and I had an urge to warn her about premature wrinkling.

She shook her head. “Nothing. It was worth a
try though.”

“Darn it,” I sighed. I’d hoped she would pick
up on Ryan having been near the area, like at the country club or
something.

I heard something crackle in the brush a few
yards away. It sounded big and it moved in our direction. At that
moment I noted all bird cries in the area had gone quiet. Lana and
Taylor exchanged a look.

Lana said, “Maybe a deer? Or a wild pig?
Should we call out in case it’s a hunter?”

Taylor peered in the direction “It shouldn’t
be since this is county land. Better safe than sorry. Hello!”

The noises ceased. The woods went silent with
an unnatural stillness. Lana and Taylor looked at each other again
with real alarm in their eyes. A feral pig or one of the rare bears
in the area were not things to mess with.

I said, “Hold on and I’ll check it out.”

Lana whispered my message to Taylor as I
rushed towards where I’d heard the noise. I didn’t bother skirting
the dense foliage, letting bushes and underbrush pass through my
insubstantial body.

I hadn’t gone far when I trotted right
through a human. I gasped as I found Cliff Tattingail behind a tree
with several palmettos springing up around it. He was hidden so
Taylor and Lana couldn’t see him from their position.

He watched them through the scope of a
shotgun he pointed in their direction.

I stared at him in shock. Surely he just
spied. He wasn’t aiming – right? That’s what I told myself as I ran
my hands over and through him, searching for his cell phone. Yep,
right there in his hunting vest’s breast pocket. Thank goodness for
twenty-first century technology and everyone’s insistence on
carrying it everywhere they went.

I sucked down the phone’s power fast, getting
that lovely tingling sensation throughout my body. I concentrated
and sent all the power I’d stolen into my arms, giving them some
semblance of physical strength. Then I shoved Tattingail as hard as
I could.

He yelled out and dropped his gun as he
flailed to avoid landing face-first in the palmettos. Their leaves
are sharp enough to cut skin. I was a little disappointed he
managed to throw himself to one side instead. Still, it meant he
was out in the open where Lana and Taylor could see him. Best of
all, his gun no longer trained in their direction.

Lana cried out, “Mr. Tattingail! What are you
doing out here?”

He got to his feet, picking his gun up. He
propped it up on his shoulder and glared at my companions. “I’m
minding my own business! Maybe you should tell me what
you
are doing here?”

Taylor folded her arms and gave him cool
eyes. “You were hunting on county property and out of season. That
won’t look good seeing as how you’re trying to win a spot on the
county commission.”

The Tats reddened. I wasn’t sure if it was
anger or embarrassment at being caught. His tone was pure bluster
as he replied. “I was hunting on club property, which is allowed
even at this time of year. I must have accidentally left it. I was
about to let you have it for trespassing.”

He kept the rifle shouldered, but Lana and
Taylor eyed it anyway. As did I. His comment about ‘letting them
have it’ worried me more than I care to say.

It didn’t help my concerns that he knew who
they were either. “You think you’re so smart, tied to that unholy
vampire. Well, he’s leaving soon. I’ll clean out the vermin
infesting this county of all paras ... even the ones who look
human!” He gave both women a scathing look. “You better watch
yourselves and the enemies you make.”