Under Witch Curse (Moon Shadow Series) (22 page)

Maybe we should have brought a stake. Maybe that’s what Patrick had meant when he asked Mat for a spell. If she was thinking the same thing, she gave no indication of it, staring around with avid curiosity mixed with a healthy dose of wariness.

Searching for silver to sneak a peek in the room before entering was a waste of time. There would be no silver in the vamp cave. Besides, I wore so much silver on my person, the weight of it might very well block out anything less than a silver mine with the mother lode of finds.

I sighed and followed the two of them into the room. The door made no sound as the false lines in the bricks sealed behind us.

Joe rested limply in a hospital bed. He was still paunchy and had the high sheen of someone who tended to sweat too much. His eyes were nothing but hollowed shells, with lids that fluttered half open and then shut again. A light sheet covered all but his arms and face.

Before, his face had been a cross between that of a teen with acne and a boozer. Now it was shrunken with vague red spots. One arm was hooked to an IV dripping blood, of course. His shoulder was completely covered with a harsh red rash that extended partway down his chest. The rash reminded me of drops of blood oozing...

A roaring in my ears shut out everything else. Mat shook me twice before I stopped holding my breath.

“For crying out loud,” Patrick burst out. “He’s not a threat to you in this state. He has had plenty of blood and yet he withers!”

“How did he die?” I squeaked out.

“What?”

I waved at the vamp. “Die. How did he die?”

“Here in the hospital. Sepsis. Infection in the blood.”

“Aha. Wouldn’t blood infections be detrimental to a vamp?” Mat asked.

“Not much is detrimental after death. Only this. Whatever it is.” Patrick watched me watch Joe. “You shouldn’t have come if you weren’t prepared to deal with death.”

“Death doesn’t bother me,” I muttered. “Unless we’re talking about my own.” I set my backpack down and peered closer at the rash. Backing off, I let my focus slide away from it, seeing it peripherally. “What was it?”

“What was what?”

I pointed. “His tat. And where did he get it?”

Mat sucked in a breath.

Patrick frowned. “He did have a tattoo, but when you change, they don’t last. No impurities like that make it across, generally. Why?”

“Can you wake him up?”

“He is awake. He hardly sleeps. That is part of the problem. His cycles are mixed up. That’s one of the reasons I’m here during daylight instead of in my own home. He’d walk out into sunlight without me watching him. He has no sense of night and day. It’s as though he’s only half changed.”

“Joe?” I said.

His eyes blinked frantically. After a moment or two, they remained opened, but he squinted.

“He’s better when the lights are off.”

There were no windows. No lights with two vamps was too scary to contemplate.

Mat conveyed my thoughts on the matter. “Only if you leave the door to the hallway open. Wide open.”

Patrick not only complied, he raised the light level in the hallway with a dial that was outside the room. The switch was higher up than a person would normally expect.

“Where did you get the tat? And how soon was it done before you died?”

With a question to focus on, Joe revived a bit. Done setting the lights, Patrick adjusted the bed up so that Joe was half sitting. He was little more than a puddle of death.

“It’s a secret,” Joe said, the ghost of a smile lighting his decaying features. “I always wanted a tattoo of a vampire. I planned to become one after I died. I researched it. I knew I had to find one, and I did. Think about it. You can live forever!”

The actual shape of the tat was hard for me to identify, especially since it was only a rash. His chest did sport a longish humanoid shape, but it was more bat-like with long wings, one of which stretched across his shoulder. “Is that where the infection started?”

Joe frowned. “I don’t know. Who cares? I didn’t die and that is all that matters.”

My heart beat double-time. Patrick stepped away, staring at my chest, and it wasn’t because he was interested in my boobs. I couldn’t control my heartbeat. “Sorry,” I said. “Who did the tat? When and where?”

“I got it at church.” He chuckled weakly.

“You’re a
priest
?” Matilda screeched too close to my ear.

“Nah. Records and historical collections.” He straightened his shoulders. “Worked at the Library of Congress for two years, and that got me a job at the church to run their archives. Sorting old documents may sound like a measly job, but not just anyone can piece together and organize important stuff. Some of those old papers explained all about vampires, so when the time came, my decision was made.”

“Who did the tat?”

“A friend. I couldn’t visit any of the pro studios, because the bishop is always harping against all that stuff; drinking, earrings, tattoos. Bogus rules. The job didn’t pay shit either, and I wanted the best.” He rubbed two puffy fingers together, except he missed and ended up looking like he was flicking off something nasty. “My friend set me up. We met at the church. I didn’t even have to leave my late shift.”

“Who did the tattoo?” Mat repeated quietly.

“Zandy, my bud, set everything up for me. No girly shops where church members might see. Had to be secret. So Zandy and his friend met me at the church.”

And I had feared Zandy would run short of volunteers. My shock was such that I might never have moved except Patrick swore a string of curse words that started with the name “Zandy” and blistered my ears. Joe actually perked up, leaning forward as if to catch the stream of violent energy.

Hoping to settle my churning stomach, I paced away from Joe. “Was the church too holy to allow black magic?” That was possible. Magic in a church could go badly wrong. I had definite proof of that because I’d tried an innocent spell in a church once. “But why would it affect a vamp? Wouldn’t black magic be erased after death like most magic?” Blessings had affected the rogue vamp, but he was already changed. If a blessing worked against the rogue vamp, what would a construct of black magic do in a church?

I hovered over my backpack for a moment and then unwrapped the arrowhead from the silk. “What does an arrowhead normally do to your kind?”

Patrick shrugged. “Unless it’s blessed for some reason, nothing.”

“Here. Hold it.”

He stared at me, but I ignored the intensity and held out the silk with the arrowhead. Finally, he reached out and picked it up.

Nothing happened, at least nothing obvious. Malachite was a light protection against the evil eye and arrowheads were a defense against evil witchcraft, also known as black magic. My eyes weren’t evil and I wasn’t cursing him, but I was a witch. The blur around Patrick lightened. His glamour was suddenly stronger, as though blocking my eyes. If I tried, I could probably still see around it, but who wanted to see what was underneath anyway?

My attention slid to Mat, but I wasn’t certain how much she could detect beneath his glamour under ordinary circumstances. Now wasn’t the time to ask.

“Okay, let Joe hold it.” If it pushed away a curse, or evil eye, what would that mean? In and of itself, it was more likely to push me away as it had done with Patrick.

Joe accepted the arrowhead.

My stomach hit my toes, flipped and left town. Mat choked and almost turned it into a cough to hide her reaction.

Instead of blocking my witch sight, the arrowhead revealed a gaunt skeleton peering from underneath his odd and ugly glamour. He was hairless and nearly skinless. The view was blurry, but the guy was a walking corpse. It shouldn’t have been unexpected, but even Patrick’s true self wasn’t a corpse. It was more like a beast. A strong beast, not a half-dead human.

I swallowed and pretended nonchalance, completely ignoring Patrick’s burning stare. Had to hide the fear. Fear made me more attractive to a predator.

“Okay.” My voice was steady. Good. “What about holy water. Burns, right?” I accepted the arrowhead back onto the silk and dug out my holy water.

“It burns?” Joe parroted.

Patrick rolled his eyes. Not a pretty sight since the whites of his eyes were already whiter than human eyes. “Yes.”

“Oh well, that was before I died anyway,” Joe said.

The room was already silent. I swear even the IV stopped dripping at that point.

“You used holy water?” Mat finally managed in a near whisper.

I had read up on tattoos way more than she had. “The ink!”

Joe nodded. “It was too thick. Had to be thinned and the holy water was sitting right there.”

I squeaked. “He mixed holy water with black magic in a tattoo. On church grounds.”

Patrick lost patience. “Do you plan to explain what you are talking about sometime today or should I order in dinner?” His tone lacked the sense of humor I would have preferred to hear when a vamp mentions dinner, but at least his fangs weren’t out.

“Not funny,” I complained. But I told him about the robberies and the victims. “Zandy’s new customer appears to be a black magic user harvesting Zandy’s blood to create constructs. The victim ends up at the robbery site and by the time all is said and done, the victim and constructs are completely used up or dead.”

“And Joe was meant to be such a victim,” Patrick growled.

“Looks that way. He ended up with Zandy’s blood, holy water and a tattoo that wouldn’t turn into a construct. The holy water wouldn’t have been sterile so it probably caused the sepsis, which killed him. You tried to turn him and it didn’t take, not completely.”

“He didn’t turn because of the holy water or Zandy’s blood?”

Mat chewed her lip for an answer so I gave it my best shot. “I’d guess the holy water. Could be the church too. He’s not insane, but he never drank Zandy’s blood. I don’t imagine it was healthy for him though.”

“What if we removed the tattoo?”

I shivered. No way in any play book was I offering Tara’s services. Her gift of healing on a vamp would be black magic. It was too close to necromancy to even consider. “No idea.”

“If it contains holy water, I am not sure it can be removed,” he mused.

I agreed. “That would be a blessing, not a curse. And I don’t know how you can remove a blessing if you are one of the damned.”

“He is not cursed then. He is blessed.” Patrick laughed softly. He showed none of his usual restraint; his fangs gleamed.

Mat crowded closer to me.

He didn’t cease his awful chuckling.

“Pretty sure our tasks are done here.” My feet barely paused long enough for me to grab my pack on the way to full speed.

Patrick was still cackling, his voice floating after us as we tore down the hallway. “We need a curse that is worse than vampire blood. Now I wonder what that could be?”

Mat and I nearly knocked each other over shoving our way out the back door.

Chapter 29

White Feather was waiting at the back of the hospital, which saved Mat from having to drive me home. Gordon wasn’t with him. I was surprised Gordon had stayed away until White Feather explained, “He gave his word that he’d watch the store until she came back or he had to leave on a police emergency. It was a matter of living up to her trust, and he’s running a bit of a deficit in that area. ”

“He’s going to kill her,” I said.

“If this is her idea of payback, I’m guessing they’re even.”

I shook my head. “She didn’t expect him to find out.” When he lifted an eyebrow, I explained, “I’m private about my work. She knows that. She had no clue I’d call you to tell you where I was headed. And I had no idea Gordon would be right there listening.”

He thought for a long while before he said, “Thank you.”

I stared out the window. “It’s what I’d want you to do. I’m not used to answering to anyone. And I wasn’t asking permission.”

“I got that impression.”

I unclenched my fists. “I didn’t want you to find out the hard way if something went wrong.”

“No, that wouldn’t be good.”

I wasn’t sure I’d ever be entirely comfortable with this relationship responsibility, but I’d made my promises. I’d keep them.

It was easier to focus on the case than personal issues, so I ran through what had happened at Patrick’s lair. “All of the crimes are happening in close proximity to the nail salon. And whoever robbed Tam and Richard’s home obviously knew the nail salon’s routine. Mat’s place is down the block.”

“An employee at the bakery or salon? Their own kid, Kevin? Or are you thinking of an employee at one of the places that was robbed?”

I shrugged. “Mat doesn’t have any employees unless you count Gordon, and I suppose we can safely eliminate him. Right?”

His bland expression told me not to press my luck.

Instead of hiking Tent Rock after lunch, we postponed the trip in favor of carefully testing the auras on the samples White Feather had obtained from Gordon.

Despite enhanced witch forks, not even the barest of twitches indicated any kind of match.

The results weren’t unexpected, but it was disappointing. After everything was tested, we added some additional safety measures to the new holding area in White Feather’s backyard and stored all the samples.

As the sun went down, we finished securing the sand-packed enclosure. Since the sand was exactly the same as all the other dirt in the yard, a spell to blend wasn’t necessary, but I buried an arrowhead under the dirt to prevent the magic from attracting the eye of a witch.

Darkness and arrowheads reminded me of Patrick and his sick friend. Would they be roaming the night in a last ditch effort to locate a cure? What might they try? Joe wouldn’t hold on much longer.

I was glad to hurry inside where vampires couldn’t enter. Well, not unless Zandy fed one again.

My shivers weren’t only from the cold.

* * *

My priorities shifted overnight. Meeting with ugly vampires, one of whom wasn’t even a proper vampire because Zandy was dumb enough to offer black magic tattoos on church grounds, made me determined to limit my vulnerability to the coyote.