Scary Dead Things - 02 (27 page)

“Despite your motives, what you did tonight was very...
disrespectful
, Gan,” I said in a stern but otherwise emotionless voice.

She turned to face me, but then actually averted her eyes. Yes! She had no doubt been read this riot act before. No matter her age or station, I was learning that there were still some kid parts in her brain. And regardless of the attitude, most kids know when they've done wrong, especially when they get called out on it. I remembered this very well from my own childhood. The thing with parents is knowing which buttons to push on a child. If I was right, and Gan's reaction told me that I probably was, she'd been ingrained to react like Pavlov's dog at any mention of disrespect from any person in authority. Since I was technically one such person and she was on my turf, I was hoping I could instill a similar reaction in her. Thus I pressed onward.

“When I first arrived in your land, James...the Wanderer, asked me to stay where I was. I was new to the land, and there were dangers about. I did as I was asked (
sorta
) because it would have been both foolish and disrespectful to do otherwise.” I glanced over and saw that her eyes were downcast. Oh yeah! Every fish just needs the right bait to be caught.

“Think about that, Gan,” I continued. “The same is true of you. You don't know this city. Trust me when I say there are many dangers here (
her being one of the biggest
). I didn't ask you to stay with Starlight as a punishment. I asked you to do it because this is my land, those are my rules, and (
time for another Oscar moment
) ...because I care about your safety. You
disappointed
me tonight, Gan.”

Her eyes were still downcast, but I could have sworn my sensitive vampire ears picked up a small sniff from her. She finally said in a very small voice, “I am sorry, Bill. You are right. I have acted shamefully. I will not do so again.”

Wow, I gotta remember to browbeat kids more often. Now the question was whether or not she meant it. That was a big
if
, as I was sure that, sooner or later, she was going to remember who was who on the vampire food chain. But for now at least I could let out a nice, long sigh of relief.

Then, as we neared our destination, a thought hit me. “Starlight, speaking of disrespect, where the hell is Dusk Reaper? Wasn't he supposed to be helping you?”

She hesitated for a few seconds, no doubt debating between the lesser of the two evils of covering for him versus ratting him out. Once upon a time, it wouldn't have been much of a choice; however, these days I was holding a lot more cards than he was. I just waited for her to make the decision I knew she would.

“He...wasn't very helpful,” she finally said.

“I gathered that.”

“He pretty much just went down to the bar.” Not too surprising. The loft was located in the third floor of its building. The second floor was kept bare for the purposes of a little extra noise insulation, as well as storage. The ground floor was home to a small but fairly popular lounge. It provided both enough sound to cover some of the nastier goings on in the loft, as well as occasionally served, in times of need, as a convenient hunting ground for the coven.

“What about after Gan left?” I asked.

“I went to get him. But he told me that he'd stay behind. You know, just in case Gan came back.”

“How
noble
of him,” I remarked. Unfortunately for Mr. Nobility, I still had just enough anger in me from the events of the past hour to ensure that I was going to enjoy having a little
talk
with him when we got back.

* * *

We entered the loft, and Dusk Reaper's visage was waiting there to greet our return. Unfortunately, any talk I planned to have with him would probably need to be postponed...indefinitely, due to the
oddities
of the situation. Those oddities mostly consisting of his head staring up at us from the floor, minus any sign of his body.

Just so that I don't come across as getting overly desensitized to this sort of thing, I should probably point out that my immediate reaction was to yell, “HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!”

Starlight's reaction was even worse. I had mentioned before that she was no actress. Well, judging by the way she was screaming, she might have actually made a pretty good extra in a
Friday The 13th
movie.

Gan, of course, had to put both of us to shame by keeping her shit together. In an almost bored voice, she remarked, “I see the assassins have arrived. I would have expected them sooner.”

* * *

After I had gotten Starlight to stop screaming, no easy feat, I led her into the kitchen. There, I sat her down at the table with a fifth of tequila I had procured from one of the cabinets. I ordered her to take a few shots to calm her nerves. That would keep her out of my hair for a few moments until I could clear my mind.

I returned to find Gan examining the crime scene.

“Be careful with that, Gan. It could be dangerous,” I said lamely, not really knowing what danger a disembodied head posed. But hey, it was the best I had at the moment.

“Do not fear, Dr. Death,” she responded without looking up. “They are no longer here. If they were...you would know.”

If that was meant to reassure me, it failed badly. However, just to make myself feel a bit better, I closed and locked the front door anyway. It wasn't much, but if they came back, it might give me just enough time to kiss my ass goodbye before they broke in.

That being done, I turned back towards Dusk Reaper’s head. I had seen enough dead bodies by this point, so the shock didn't last too long. There was also the fact that any mourning period I might have had for him ended about ten seconds after finding his remains. He was a douche, no two ways about it. I would miss him about as much as I missed having crabs (
not that I ever had them, mind you
). Still, there was something odd about his death. It took me a moment, but then I realized what it was.

“How come he's not dust?” I asked no one in particular.

“His body is,” Gan answered. “Look over in the corner.” She pointed into the living room, and sure enough there was a small pile of ash lying there.

“Yeah, but his head...” I replied.

“Father's assassins are well trained in this. There are times when an enemy’s fangs are simply not enough to send the correct
message
.”

“Yeah, but how?” I asked. “Every vamp I've ever seen get dusted...well, it was kind of a package deal.”

“Your inexperience shows, my love,” she answered, again going back to that
my love
bullshit. I guess we were past the whole disrespect thing already. “They would have removed it in one quick strike with a sharpened silver blade coated in a special poison. The body immolates, but the head remains.”

“Oh. That’s pleasant to know.”

“That is not the worst,” she continued.

“No? Sounds pretty much like
the
worst
to me.”

“Your friend was lucky. They let him die.”

“Not really following you here, Gan.”

“If they had placed his head immediately into blood, they could have kept it alive,” she explained. “That is a fate reserved for the worst offenders.”

I gulped. “How long could they keep it alive?”

“For an eternity, if so desired. Imagine an existence such as that. Unable to do anything but tolerate the whim of your captor. Unable to even die unless granted mercy.”

Whoa. Considering that the elder vampires weren't particularly known for their mercy, that didn't sound like much fun.

“Do you think your father has that in mind for any of us?” I asked, really hoping that the answer that was popping into my mind wasn't the one she was going to say.

“If father is angry enough, then that fate would be reserved for you as the leader of your coven.”

“I was afraid you'd say that.”

“Yes. Thus, it is in your best interest to avoid that fate.”

Talk about stating the obvious!

* * *

Oh crap! I had forgotten about Sally! She was supposed to drop Gan's clothes off here. Not good. I could feel panic settling in as unwanted thoughts started filtering into my head. OK, calm down. Freaking out wasn't the most productive thing to do. I pulled out my cell phone. It was at least one action I could do, rather than stand there in a state of confusion. However, it rang before I could even start to dial.

“Hello?” I answered, half-expecting a heavily accented voice to state, “We have your whore!”

Instead, Sally replied from the other end, “Bill? Are you OK?”

“Yeah, I'm fine. You?” Wow, two whole sentences without a barb at each other. That’s almost a record.

“I'm not quite sure I'm what you'd call OK. Whatever you do, don't go back to the loft!”

“Too late.”

“What’s there?” she asked, although the tone of her voice suggested she already knew.

“Dusk Reaper's smiling face. Unfortunately, the rest of him decided to skip town.”

“Same here. I decided to stop off at the office first.”

“How bad?”

“Bad. Three severed heads, and at least four other members of the coven seem to be missing.”

Goddamn it! I had thought the office would be safe, considering it was usually staffed pretty heavily with vamps. If these guys had just turned a good chunk of my coven into confetti, it meant they were even better than I thought.

“Are you still there? At the office, I mean?” I asked.

“Are you fucking retarded?” Ah yes, we were back to normal again. “I'm standing right in the middle of the busiest street I could find.”

“Good. Any idea how they found us?”

“Public records...for vampires, at least.”

“What do you mean?”

“Boston! They have most of our addresses on file,” she said.

“You think they'd rat us out?”

“If one of the Draculas asked?”

“Yeah. Sorry, stupid question,” I replied. “Wait, you said
most
.”

“Exactly. Covens are supposed to report all of their holdings, but it's kind of an unwritten rule to tolerate a few off-the-books safe houses.”

“Alright. Don't say anything over the phone.”

“This isn't
Mission
Impossible
,” she sniffed. “I'm pretty sure they aren't tapping us.”

“You have an office full of beheaded vampires, and you're telling me that a little paranoia isn't warranted?”