Past Due (23 page)

“
I see. And how did you know where I went after leaving the writer's home? I know you weren’t following me.”

She debated with herself for a moment before deciding to tell him. “I put a tracker on your car. How did you know I’d be at Derrick Malcolm’s house?”

“
Who says I knew?”

“
Derrick Malcolm. You told him you were expecting a friend.”

Josh gave her a rueful smile. “Sorry, that’s one I can’t tell you.”

“
Okay how about this one then. I know some vampires can have children, but how can a vampire have two shapeshifter children?”

“
They’re not mine.”

“
But he called you Dad.”

“
I adopted them. Their parents were killed by hunters. I found them shivering, huddled close to their parents' bodies.”

“
And you just took them home?”

“
Someone had to. Social services are hardly equipped to raise a shapeshifting child.”

“
And a vampire is?”

He looked smug. “I think they’ve turned out very well.”

Suddenly Frankie caught the scent of burgers and her stomach growled.

Josh looked amused. “If you’d like some real food I’m sure the boys have enough to spare.”

“
I’m fine, thank you.” She tried not to blush with embarrassment. “And what do you mean by real food.”

His eyes twinkled. “I get the feeling you live on a diet of junk food and ready meals.”

“
How do you know what my diet’s like?” she asked, feeling defensive since he also hadn't told her how he knew about Derrick Malcolm yet.

“
Just a guess, my dear, but I must say,” his eyes travelled the length of her body. “You look very good on it.”

Frankie checked her watch, wondering if she should leave and hope Josh passed the professor’s information on to her or stay until it came through.

“
Dad,” Mark poked his head around the door. “Dinner’s ready. We made enough for Francis,” he looked at her, “if you’d like to join us?”

An image of the shapeshifters feasting on the flesh of a cow while their ‘father’ drank its blood flashed through Frankie’s mind.

“
It’s Frankie. And that’s very kind of you, but I’m fine, thank you.”

Mark grinned. “Come on, you have to help us. If you don’t, Adam will eat it all and he’s nearly big enough to turn into a hippo already.”

“
Oi!” came a muffled cry of protest from deeper in the house.

Josh got to his feet and followed his son out. When she didn’t immediately follow he turned back. “Come on.”

Frankie followed him through to the back of the house and into a large kitchen. The place was rustic in feel, rather as you’d imagine a farmhouse kitchen might look. The flagstones on the floor looked well worn though cared for and Frankie wondered if they were the original tiles. The kitchen units were distressed pine and in the centre of the large room stood an old, battle-scarred pine table.

While the rest of the house was perfect, this was a room she could relax in. It felt homey. The feeling was reinforced when she spotted the two Springer spaniels dozing by the fireplace.

Josh and Adam had taken seats on the same side of the table. Frankie just had time to realise she’d expected Josh to sit at the end of the table, like the head of the household used to do but her thoughts were interrupted.

“
I didn’t know how you liked your burgers,” Mark said, sitting opposite his brother and placing a plate in front of the empty chair next to him. “I hope well done is okay?”

“
Um, fine, thank you.” She sat down next to him, thinking what a surreal scene this was, the human, shapeshifters and vampire all breaking bread together.

As well as a rather large burger there were bowls of coleslaw, potato salad and green salad on the table. As each bowl was passed to her, Frankie took a little to be polite.

Josh, who sat opposite her, had only a wine glass half full of blood. Frankie wondered who’s it was.

“
We’ve always eaten together,” Mark grinned. Frankie realised she must look shocked. “Ever since we were kids. Even now, if we’re in the same city, we eat together.”

“
You travel a lot?” Frankie asked, wondering why she thought that was the most relevant question right now.

“
Fair amount,” Mark told her, in between mouthfuls. “Adam and I have a couple of holiday parks. Nothing special, just camp grounds and outdoor activities, hiking, climbing, that sort of thing.”

“
Oh,” Frankie was well aware that when she looked back on this she’d kick herself but right now she couldn’t think of anything more coherent to say.

“
Any luck with the phone calls?” Josh asked.

“
Those calls will be monitored,” she told them.

Josh smiled at her, pleased she was sharing the information with him, even if it was old news. “I know. We’re using pay as you go mobiles phones which can’t be traced back to us.”

“
They're called burn phones, Dad,” Adam admonished.

Josh just turned to his sons and waited patiently for one of them to answer his question.

Adam and Mark took it in turns to fill their father in on their progress and Frankie finally had the chance to look the brothers over.

Adam was the older of the two; he was probably in his late thirties. Mark looked to be mid thirties. Both were about six feet tall, had thick brown hair and a muscular build. Adam wore a wedding ring but his brother didn’t and Adam appeared to be the more serious of the two while Mark’s grin never seemed to be far away.

It appeared that they were still waiting to hear from some people but so far they hadn’t found out anything useful.

Frankie ate the food, which was good, and listened to the conversation, which was bad. At least ‘bad’ from a detecting point of view since they hadn't learned much. She also found her gaze sliding to Josh and his wine glass. It was just so
strange
to see someone drinking blood.

When the meal was over Josh and Adam excused themselves to check messages while Mark cleared up. Frankie volunteered to help.

Mark began collecting their plates. “He’s not so bad, you know.”

Frankie began to help. Her raised eyebrows told him she didn’t believe him.

“
I know he comes off as arrogant and menacing, and I suppose in some ways he is but there are two sides to him.”

“
So what’s this other side like then?”

“
Well, when we were kids, he read to us in bed every night, and he’d leave work if we were sick. When we were young and still had to change at the full moon he always went hunting with us. And he was so protective.”

“
How so?”

“
Well, he insisted we go to normal school because he said we had to learn to blend in with normal people. We both hated it. Sure, we can see the logic now but as kids we just wanted to be with people who understood, you know?”

Frankie nodded. She knew the feeling only too well.

“
Anyway, couple of months after we started this guy in Adam’s year started picking on him. He didn’t tell anyone but Dad knew something was up. Then one day Adam came home with a shiner; he couldn't hide it anymore and the whole story came out. I don’t remember ever seeing Dad so angry”

Frankie had an awful feeling. “He killed the boy?” she breathed.

“
What? No! He put the whammy on him. Whenever this kid though of bullying anyone he’d burst into song, usually popular musical numbers. He was a laughing stock for a while. What made you think dad killed him?”

“
He said it had been over thirty years since he’d killed anyone out of malice.”

“
Oh.” Mark turned away and began to rinse the plates in the sink. “That was thirty three years ago.” He said quietly.

Frankie wanted to ask what happened but he sounded so hurt, she didn’t know how.

“
He found us in the woods,” Mark explained. “We’d been huddled by our parents' bodies for nearly a day when he found us, still in our cub forms. We were too young and too traumatised to change back to human form so we just stayed there. When Josh found us we were terrified, we thought the hunters had come back. He calmed us down and took us home and got the whole story out of us. It was just a couple of thugs with a bow and arrow taking potshots at the wildlife. When they came across our parents' they couldn’t believe their luck. Especially since they wouldn’t run; they stayed in front of us to protect us.”

“
They killed your parents with arrows?” Frankie couldn’t imagine the slow painful death they had suffered.

Mark nodded. “And once they’d fallen they just used them as target practice until they finally stopped screaming.”

“
Oh god.”

“
After we’d gone to sleep, dad went out every night for a month until he found them again. He put the whammy on them first, to make sure it was them.”

Thankfully Mark didn’t go into any detail about what Josh had done to them, maybe he didn’t know himself, but somehow Frankie couldn't bring herself to hate Josh for those murders.

“
So he’s a good friend but a bad enemy,” Frankie concluded, moving the conversation on.

“
Yeah I guess. Anyway, he likes you.”

“
Somehow I doubt that.”

Mark turned and grinned at her, “You’re still alive aren’t you?”

“
So are a lot of people; does he like them all too?”

Mark held his hands up in defeat. “All I’m saying is that you’re the first stranger he’s invited into his home in… well, as long as I can remember. He must see something he likes in you.”

“
He had your brother check me out, remember?”

He shrugged. “I said he likes you, I didn’t say he was stupid.”

Frankie brought Josh’s wineglass to the sink. “Who was tonight’s donor?” she asked lightly, surveying the viscous red liquid still in the bottom of the glass.

“
Oh, that was me.”

Frankie’s shock must have shown on her face. “He feeds off you?” Suddenly the gesture of taking two orphans in didn’t seem so altruistic.

“
Only sometimes, and we made him.”

Frankie began to think they had Stockholm Syndrome, or something very similar; he’d even made them believe it was their idea!

“
He used to get a couple of bags a week from the hospital when we were kids but sometimes there’d be an emergency and he’d have to feed the old fashioned way, on people. But he had to leave the house for that, it takes time and it’s hardly worth all the bother for half a cup of blood.”

“
That’s all he needs?”

“
Mostly. He’s quite old now,” he said as if that explained it. “And anyway, as we heal much faster than regular people, it just made sense to us that he should take blood from us when he’s caught short. Still took us three years to talk him into it. Eventually we began replacing his bagged blood with our own and after we’d been doing that for three months, we told him.” He grimaced at the memory.

“
Not pleasant?”

“
I’ll say. He hit the roof, almost literally. Anyway, he promised he’d take our blood when necessary if we promised to stop replacing the blood bags with our own blood.”

Okay, maybe she had jumped to conclusions. “I don’t mean to be rude, but isn’t it unusual for shapeshifters and vampires to get along?”

“
It is,” he agreed. “But Dad’s always got on well with the shifters. He’s sort of unique among vamps.”

“
Why?”

“
Not my story to tell, sorry.”

Josh scowled at them as he walked in. If this was what being liked felt like, she was just glad he didn’t hate her.

“
Our German friend emailed the details of the zombie ritual,” he said handing her a sheet of paper.

Frankie immediately took it to the table to look it over. The first stage was making two runes engraved with the demons symbol. The runes had to be made from clay mixed with ash from a corpse.

Frankie made a note on her pad to check for break-ins at crematoriums.

“
Why is the demons symbol on the rune?” she asked Josh, who was hovering behind her, watching.

“
A human doesn’t have the power to resurrect the dead so he siphons off a little from a demon.”

She carried on reading. One rune was placed in the deceased’s mouth, the other was held to the witch's forehead. The witch then placed his free hand on the corpse and recited an incantation three times which essentially directed the demon to reanimate the body.

She made a note to check if the police had found a rune in the corpse’s throat, then continued.

The body could be possessed by the witch placing the rune on his forehead again and reciting another incantation.

To end the reanimation, the runes must be rejoined. Frankie’s hopes soared; if that rune was in evidence, it was something that Bradley had touched and could be used to scry for him.

Her hopes were dashed with the next sentence though. Rejoining involved both runes being crushed and sprinkled over the zombie.

Frankie sighed and scratched the rune note out.

There had to be something here, though. She read though the information again.