Fangtabulous (7 page)

“Oh, right.” Her face crinkled, and even her embarrassment looked stupid-cute on her.

Note to self: keep your friends close and your rivals closer
.

“Well,” she continued, “it was small stuff at first—women claiming their skirts had been blown up by freak winds on totally calm nights, tripping over invisible things poking up out of the ground, saying that hands had grabbed at their ankles, men reporting trouble breathing, a weight on their chests, seeing ghosts. Also, graves were disturbed, either from people tripping around in panic or from vandalism. Kids would dare each other to spend the night and come out with some real horror stories—or be chased out when Tommy caught them. That kind of thing.”

I had her go into the specifics with me on the way back—anything I might have missed on Ulric’s tour. As a guide myself, I should commit it all to memory.
And
come up with a really good reason why my tours could take pics of anything but me.

• • •

By the time my tours ended that night, I was stunningly thankful for my bonnet. Every time I caught a camera aimed my way, I found something fascinating on the ground or far off to one side or another. I also did my best to stay in perpetual motion, so that any blurs on camera would be easily explained. But it was exhausting being always on guard, and I was more than ready to get down to straightforward stealth.

We decided to divide and conquer. Eric and Nelson were already at the Morbid Gift Shop, helping Donato prep for his show. Eric was acting as a consultant (for free, at least for now), and Nelson … well, I wasn’t really sure exactly what Nelson was up to. He was definitely fascinated by the illusions and interested in picking up as many tips as he could. I suspected that he might be planning an act of his own for when we moved on. With the vamp thing going for him, he’d be a natural—water escapes, rising from the dead and all that jazz. But it wasn’t so smart a pursuit for a vampire in hiding. I’d have to have a talk with him.

Anyway
, Bobby and I planned to meet up with them later. First, we had a little recon to do at the Old Jail and the Howard Street Cemetery. Those were the spots so far where the disturbances seemed to be centered. Maybe we could figure out why.

We ditched our costumes for street clothes and moved out. I’d never been so grateful for skinny jeans in my entire life. And if my T-shirt didn’t have my signature bling, at least it was form-fitting and scoop-necked and a stunning green to match my eyes, not Puritanical poop-brown.

Bobby took my hand, and we walked out into the night like we were just two teenagers looking for someplace to be alone. It was nice. No one was trying to kill or capture us. The moon hung low—a Spielberg moon, where a boy might sit and fish for stars.

We sauntered through several streets, and a few twists and turns, over to the condos that had once been the Old Jail. We stopped in the exact spot where I’d been attacked the night before and waited to feel a ghostly presence. Unlike Rebecca earlier, we were completely sans religious symbols. Completely defenseless.

Nothing
. Not a tingle or a tweak, a sizzle or a strangle.

“Anything?” I asked Bobby, knowing the answer.

“Nada.”

“Think you can get us inside the Old Jail?”

“I don’t even need my mojo for that. Push enough buzzers, someone’s bound to let us in.”

Second note to self: never buzz someone into a building without knowing exactly who they are
. They might be some fearsome, fanged creatures of the night up to no good. Not in our case, of course, but you never know when someone might bust into your place to feng shui your furniture or rearrange your internal organs. Caution is just common sense.

“Well then, let’s go,” I answered.

We strolled right up to the front doors and, as it turned out, didn’t even have to wait to get buzzed in, because a guy—weaving a little, possibly from a trip to Brent and Marcy’s brew pub—held the door open for us when he let himself in. We thanked him. He nodded like a dashboard Elvis and went on his merry way, leaving us in the foyer to look around.

It looked more like an high-class hotel than a former prison. The only thing that gave it away was the tasteful sign back on the walkway talking about how the building fit into Salem’s history. No mention of the conditions folks had found within or anyone who might have died there, of course.

I wondered what Brent would make of the place, but with history as alive as it seemed to be in Salem, I wasn’t sure we dared find out.

“Let’s go deeper,” Bobby suggested. We took a set of stairs down to the basement level, and found nothing but a laundry and a lounge. Still, my hair seemed to literally stand on end.

“Static electricity?” I asked Bobby.

“I don’t think so. Hush for a second,” he said, though I’d already stopped talking.

Bobby closed his eyes and stood in absolute stillness. With no one else around, neither of us even pretended to breathe, so the only noise, the only motion, came from the single dryer still going in a corner, miraculously quiet for an industrial-grade machine.

“Stop thinking so loudly,” Bobby whispered.

“What? I wasn’t—”

Okay, so he was in receiver-mode, listening with all his mental mojo. I did my best to blank my mind.

Think nothing at all, nothing at all. Damn, he looks hot in those jeans; nothing at all. I wonder how soon someone’s coming back for those clothes in the dryer. There’s a nice couch in the lounge. Nothing at all, nothing at all.

“Gah.”

“Did you get anything?” I asked.

“Nothing at all,” he answered.

“Wanna move onto the couch?” I asked.

Bobby grinned at me. “I thought we agreed with Brent and Marcy on no more public displays of affection.”

“They’re not here.”

Bobby closed in on me, his grin getting wickeder and wilder by the second. Those amazing blue eyes looked into mine with so much love, so much feeling, that I got happily lost in them, forgetting ghost hunts and other ghastliness.

He backed me right into the dryer, which was humming along, until it vibrated against my back. Then he pulled himself to me, hands first spanning my waist, then moving down to hold my hips while he swooped in to kiss me. His lips closed on mine, firm and wonderful, and his tongue slipped into my mouth. I let mine duel with his, startling an intake of breath out of him. He was breathing in my air, but I didn’t need it. Anyway, I was too distracted by the press of those jeans I so admired. The motion of the dryer rocked me into him, but it might have had a little help.

Then something went
thump!
It was like a sneaker being tumbled dry, suddenly thrown against the side of the machine. It threw me forward, and I almost bit Bobby’s tongue. He drew back, startled, and the dryer gave another double-thump and seemed to shuffle toward us.

I admit it, I shrieked. Totally girly. It was a
machine
. But it seemed possessed.

Ba-da-bump. Bum-bum-bum-BUMP!

All of the sudden, the machine, which had gone airborne with the violence of its shaking, came down with a crash and opened, spewing clothes at us like someone had hit the eject button.

It was just at that moment, of course, that a girl walked in, an empty basket in hand, probably to collect the clothes that were all over the floor.

“Hey, what are you doing?” she yelled.

“We didn’t—” I started, at the same time Bobby said, “The machine’s possessed.”

“Possessed?” the girl asked, eyes about bugging out. “Bull crap. I’m calling security.”

Bobby and I looked at each other, had a whole conversation in a glance, and dashed for the door. Past the stunned late-night launderer, up the stairs, and out the front door.

The sillies struck me along with the night air, and I burst into uncontrolled laughter. “
It’s possessed?”
I breathed, the words barely intelligible through my giggles.

“You have a better explanation?” Bobby asked, indignant.

“No, but the look on that girl’s face—”

“Priceless,” Bobby finished for me.

A few more gasps and I managed to get the laughter more or less under control.

“Well, that was a bust,” I said.

“Not entirely. We found out the Old Jail has a demonic dryer. Makes our haunted apartment seem positively tame. What do you think we’ll come across in the graveyard?” Bobby asked.

“I say we go find out.”

Bobby offered me his arm, and with one final giggle, I took it and we were off to the Howard Street Cemetery.

“I take you to all the best places,” Bobby commented.

I squeezed his arm. “You sure do.”

We followed a long, tall, wrought-iron fence around and around, looking for a gate, even knowing it would be locked. It seemed better to play with the locks than try to climb the sheer vertical struts. We finally came across the gate and looked around to make totally certain the coast was clear.

If I were on my own, I would have just misted through the bars. But I couldn’t leave Bobby behind, so I waited and played look-out while he used his mental mojo to pick the locks.

With a small
snick
, the lock fell open, and the cemetery gate swung inward a touch. Bobby pushed it farther, and the gate creaked every bit as much as I’d expect it to. I think, actually, I’d have been disappointed if it hadn’t—like getting a fab dress home and discovering it was a whole different color than it had looked in the store.

I went to step inside, but Bobby dashed a hand to my arm to hold me back. “It’s just occurred to me—what if we can’t enter because of hallowed ground?”

“Won’t know until we try.” And I really, really wanted to try. Getting nearly strangled made this whole thing awfully personal for me.

Before Bobby could react, I stuck a toe in. Nothing happened. He relaxed his hold on my arm and I shifted to allow my entire foot to come down inside. I looked up at the sky. No lightning streaked down to strike me dead. No angels appeared before me with flaming swords barring my way.

“I think we’re good,” I said, surprised.

“Weird,” Bobby answered.

We stepped all the way in and Bobby closed the gate behind us, so that the cemetery would still looked locked up to anyone passing. As soon as it shut, the biting wind that had made Brent’s teeth chatter stopped, as if the iron bars were some kind of solid barrier against the elements. It was freaky … and this from a fanged fashionista on the run from the Feds.

“Stay together or fan out?” Bobby asked quietly.

“Fan out, I think, but stay close.” I didn’t know why. The breath-stealing ghost—Sheriff Corwin, as rumor had it—couldn’t hurt me, at least not that way. Yet something about this place made all my hair stand on end. By the time we left Salem, I’d look like the Bride of Frankenstein … and that so wasn’t the movie monster I wanted to be associated with. Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, maybe, though with a totally more modern hairstyle and a little more sense of decorum. Always best, I’d found, to leave more up to the imagination.

“I’ll go right,” Bobby whispered.

I nodded again, heading left, glancing at inscriptions as I went.

Sarah Jenkins
3 years old
Rest in Peace

James T. Essex
Lost at sea
1823 –1841

Faith Godsey
died of consumption
Age 34 years
God Rest her Soul

My eyes started to burn, and I realized there were blood tears forming at the corners, the only kind I was able to cry since being vamped. Hadn’t anyone lived to a ripe old age? Ah, there, I found one.

Charles Timmons
called home 1849
Age 65 years

But I wasn’t here for the dead—at least, not the ones who’d truly been called home. The cemetery was neatly cared for, the grass trim, if a little extra long right around the gravestones and monuments. No gnarly tree roots or skeletal hands rose up to trip me. All was quiet.

Yet I couldn’t actually say it was peaceful. The stillness had the feeling of a held breath of someone waiting in the shadows … an intruder, or someone hiding in fear of one.

“Hello?” I said tentatively into the night.

No answer. I reassured myself that Bobby was still not all that far to my right and moved forward another few steps, to a new row of graves. Something stopped me.

Jenny Coggs
1821-1827
An Angel called to Heaven

Six years old. Cripes.

One of the blood tears got loose of my lashes and started to fall, tickling its way down my cheek. As I raised a hand to brush it away, something tiny and cool, like a puff of fresh air, seemed to brush my fingertips and then to rest on my hand, as if to offer comfort.

I froze. I’d never believed in all those John Edward,
Crossing Over
type shows, but if I was right, the dead had now reached out to me … twice. Three times, if that dryer had been trying to get my attention.

“Hello?” I said again, even quieter, because I was afraid Bobby would hear and call out to see who I was talking to, thus breaking the spell.

Slowly, I squatted down, so as not to spook the spirit—if that’s what I was really feeling and not just the power of my own imagination.

The cold touch retreated, but I stayed in position, low and still, as I would with a timid animal I wanted to pet. “I won’t hurt you,” I whispered for good measure.

I waited. Then I dove deep. I didn’t have Brent’s powers of telemetry; I couldn’t touch grave dirt or headstones and know everything there was to know. I couldn’t read minds or manipulate objects like Bobby. What I
could
do was mist. “Ghost,” in a sense. I didn’t actually have sight in that form, not having physical eyes and all, but it gave me a special awareness of things—places of disturbance in the atmosphere, for lack of a better way to describe it. A sense of densities and patterns.