Tempted in the Night (6 page)

He stared at her as if he was deciding whether or not to tell her the truth. "Yes," he finally said.

"Where was it?"

"Behind the bush."

She eyed him
suspiciously,
afraid she already knew the answer to her next question. "Did you stake it?"

"Stake it? No, I never even saw it."

She stared at him in shock. "This is important. Do you know if it was staked?
Because if it wasn't staked through the heart or decapitated, it's going to rise up."
She quickly did the math in her head.
"Tonight.
It's going to rise tonight, unless we stop it. Do you know where the body is? Can you take me to it?"

He was staring at her like she'd lost her mind. "Are you suggesting I take you to the funeral home and let you defile the deceased?"

"Fine.
Then you do it, but you need to hurry. You'll need a sword—damn. Mac and Dirk probably took both swords with them, but that's all right." A plan was coming together. "Do you still have my dagger and stakes?"

"You really are nuts, aren't you?" He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. "I'll call Mac and Dirk."

"No, wait." She snatched the phone from his hand and closed it. "We can do
this
ourselves. It's our fault this situation exists, but we can make it right."

He studied her and she held her breath, waiting for his decision. Then he grabbed his phone out of her hand.
"Go back inside, Jessica.
I'm not taking you anywhere."

She shot him a scathing look. "Fine, but when this body rises up and
starts
killing innocent people, it'll be your fault, because I tried to prevent it." She turned on her heel and headed for the door, almost reaching it before John called her name.

She stopped and turned to glare at him. "What?"

"You stake '
em
through the heart, right?"

She hurried back to the car.
"Yes, but there's a trick."
She opened the passenger-side door and climbed in.

"Get out, Jessica. I'm not taking you with me. Just tell me what the trick is."

She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him defiantly as he leaned into the car. "I'm not getting out and you're wasting time."

He glared at her, but she refused to budge. Then, muttering something vulgar under his breath, he climbed into the driver's seat, started the car, and they drove off.

John called himself all sorts of a fool for allowing Jessica to go with him, but there wasn't time to argue with her. He hesitated only a moment before pulling out the emergency light he was no longer authorized to use and placing it on the roof where the magnetic bottom kept it in place. With the blue-and-red
colored
strobe lights piercing the night, he stepped down harder on the accelerator and felt the power of the car as it surged forward.

"Where are we going?" she asked him.

"Rest Haven Funeral Home.
That's where Simon Brody's body was sent today."

"How do you know?"

"I saw the police report. His father is wealthy—practically owns the town. He didn't want his son being autopsied, no matter what the law says, so he arranged to have it delivered to Rest Haven earlier today. I don't think they've had a chance to bury him yet, so that's where we're headed."

Simon Brody woke with the worst hangover imaginable. Not only did his head hurt, but his entire body ached. He was in so much pain that all he wanted to do was slip back into sweet oblivion, but he knew he wouldn't. He was starving; it felt like he hadn't eaten in weeks instead of hours. He wasn't exactly sure whose bed he'd ended up in, but he hoped she had food in her kitchen—although he wasn't sure he could stomach just anything. Even the thought of eggs and bacon made him ill.

The sound of muffled voices filtered past the sleepy fog covering his brain, adding another irritant to his list of complaints. He couldn't help but half-listen to them as he tried to fall back sleep.

"I appreciate you letting me in here tonight… Fred, is it?" Simon recognized his father's voice and congratulated himself. Apparently, though he'd been too drunk last night to remember anything that happened, he hadn't been too drunk to find his way home. That was a bonus.

"Sure thing, Mr. Brody," a second male voice said with a considerable amount of subservient awe. "I understand."

Understand what
? Brody wondered, still not bothering to open his eyes. Not even caring why his father and Fred were in his room, he only wanted them to go away and leave him in peace. He was starting to feel worse than he had when he first awakened, if that was possible. The hunger was turning into actual, physical pain that couldn't be ignored.

"Right this way, Mr. Brody," Fred said, his voice growing louder as if they were getting closer.

"Have you worked here long?" the senior Brody asked politely.

"About twelve years."

"That's a long time. Don't you find it depressing?"

"Oh, I suppose so at times," Fred admitted.

From the sound of it, the two men had to be practically standing next to his bed, Simon thought, infuriated. Why wouldn't they go away?

"But it's also interesting," Fred continued. "I've seen shit… uh, pardon my language."

Simon heard his father's indulgent reassurance for the man to continue, which, to Simon's great annoyance, Fred did.

"I've seen stuff happen that just plain scared the
bejeebers
out of me."

"Really?"
His father's voice came from directly above him, like he was standing over him; lording over him, just like he always did. Hovering, watching.
Criticizing.

"Yes, sir," Fred went on. "There was one time, I was helping another guy prep a body, and it just sat straight up."

"No." His father sounded dismayed.

"Yep, straight up.
Damnedest thing I ever saw, but it happens. Don't mean the person
ain't
dead.
Just a delayed reaction of the nerves and muscles.
Like a camera's flash, all charged up and ready to go, but then you don't take another picture. That flash sits on the camera until something sets it off and then it discharges. That's all the muscles are doing—discharging, so to speak."

The story was ludicrous, but Simon could tell from the way his father's breath hitched and his heart started beating faster that the old man believed it. Simon wanted to laugh but then wondered how it was possible for him to hear his father's beating heart—or the way his father's pulse raced, sounding like an underground current of rushing water.

The pain now was crippling, and unable to ignore it any longer, Simon opened his eyes and stared into the shocked face of his father, who for once was speechless.

"Oh, shit," Fred said from elsewhere in the room, his voice little more than a muffled noise beneath the sound of hearts beating too fast.

Brady's vision faded to red and he became aware of nothing more than the hunger driving him.

Pulling to a stop in the front drive of the funeral home, John turned off the car and studied the building, noticing how too few outside lights and too many shrubs and trees cast dark shadows around the sides and front of the building. The cemetery, with its aboveground tombs, stretched out to the right while undeveloped acreage intended for future expansion was to the left.

John had replaced his confiscated
Glock
with an S&W .44
mag
, which he now pulled from his holster. He flipped open the cylinder and checked the six chambers to make sure they were loaded.

"Stay here," he told her as he reached for the door handle.

"Absolutely not," she protested, starting to open her door. "You brought me along to help. Give me my dagger and let's go stake a vampire."

He grabbed her arm and forcefully held her in place. "I said, stay here. If I need your help, I'll come get you."

"If you need my help," she countered, "you won't have the chance to ask for it."

He knew she was right, but he didn't really have a choice. "I don't have your dagger or stakes here, okay? All I have is this gun, so stay in the car, lock the doors and let me check things out first by myself." He was growing all too familiar with the stubborn set of her jaw and seeing it again wasn't helping his mood. "I mean it, Jessica. Stay in the car." He got out before she could protest further and pocketed the keys.

Walking to the front entrance, he wondered how he would get inside. As it turned out, the door was unlocked, which he found odd at this time of night.

He listened for a few seconds, but heard no sounds coming from inside. Moving forward as silently as he could, his senses alert, he began checking out each room as he came to it. The first two visitation rooms were empty. Standing in the doorway of the third, John took in the room's appearance at a glance. The soft glow from electric wall sconces lit the scene. Black drapes hung across the windows, providing a backdrop for the black-and-gold casket set before it. The lid was up and from where he stood, John saw that the casket was empty. Off to one side was a table with Simon Brady's framed picture on top. Beside it were several candles that had been left burning.

Chairs, covered in black cloth, stood in neat rows in the back half of the room. The chairs in the first couple of rows, closest to the casket, had been pushed aside and some had been knocked over—and lying in their midst was Franklin Brody.

John rushed to the old man's side. He was pretty sure the man was dead, but went through the motions of double-checking. When he went to press his fingers against the man's neck he spotted the two puncture holes. They appeared to be fresh—the blood was just starting to congeal.

Movement drew John's glance to the door, even as he trained his gun on the figure standing there. "Damn it—I told you to stay in the car."

"I don't like being out there alone," Jessica whispered, coming forward to kneel beside him. "Is he
… ?"

"Yes."

"What about the other guy?"

John looked to where she pointed and saw a second body. He went over to it and knew just by looking that the man was dead. Still, he checked for a pulse.
"Nothing."

"They'll have to be staked," she said, sounding all business.

He stared up at her in disbelief. "These men just died here. Do you mind?"

She narrowed her eyes. "You think I'm insensitive? Well, I'm sorry that they died, but frankly, I'm more interested in making sure that no one else dies because we didn't do what needed to be done." She walked over to one of the chairs, picked it up and smashed it against the doorframe, causing parts of it to break off. Selecting two of the longer leg segments, she carried them over to where John crouched beside the body.

Kneeling across from him, she stared at the body. "You might not want to watch this."

He reached for her arm as she lifted it and took the chair leg from her. "I'll do it.
In the heart, right?"
Staring down at the body, he couldn't remember ever looking forward to anything less than what he was about to do.

"I don't mind doing it," she offered, now sounding sympathetic.

"No."

"Okay," she conceded, reaching for the man's shirt. "It'll be easier if you don't have to go through the cloth as well," she explained, undoing the buttons and pulling back the left side. "Wait. What's that?" A bloodied piece of wood protruded out of the man's chest directly over where the heart would be. "Who would have done that?"

Jessica got up and went back to Franklin Brody's body, quickly undoing the shirt and pulling it back. "This one's been staked as well."

"We should get out of here," he said, taking her hand and leading her to the front door, where he paused long enough to look outside. Seeing nothing suspicious, he led her to the car and opened the door while she climbed inside. "I'm going to take a quick look around the grounds," he told her. "Lock the doors and please, this time, don't get out."

He slammed the door shut before she could protest and walked off, not bothering to see if she obeyed him.

Around the side of the building, everything looked normal, so he continued toward the back. He'd just turned the corner when the hairs on the back of his neck started to prickle. The shadows were thick, and John didn't see the figure until it stepped out into the open.

"You!
What are you doing here?"

"I came to finish the job that you interrupted the other night," the man from
Thompson
Park
said conversationally.

"You mean, stake Simon Brody before he turns into a vampire?"

"So, you figured it out." He sounded like a teacher pleased with a
favorite
pupil.

"What? That you're a vampire?" John made it sound like an accusation. "Did you think I wouldn't?"