Luxuria part nine
Disclaimers in part one
Tina was trapped and terrified. A few moments after starting Sense and Sensibility she was no longer in control of her body. She tried to call for help, to tell her mother, but she wasn't allowed. Only her dog knew. He barked and growled and ran and hid whenever Tina came near. Whatever controlled her made her go through her daily routines enough to keep suspicion away from anyone but the dog.
But then it had other tasks for her, down by the waterfront.
###
"But that's so great!" Coreen cried. "It means," Coreen paused.
"What does it mean?" Vicki asked, sarcasm in her tone.
"It means you can see without your glasses, right? And you can see in the dark?"
"I don't know," Vicki said. It had been pretty dark at Henry's place. He seldom bothered to turn many lights on.
"What do I look like?"
Vicki looked at her, really looked at her, without her glasses. She had been cringing away from using her un-aided sight but now she paid attention.
"I can't see your face. It's a blur of colors, like a wet watercolor. And you have a glow all around you that shimmers in color."
"Like an aura," Coreen enthused.
"Oh, God, I suppose so," Vicki said. Auras. Once upon a time, she'd been a hard-boiled skeptic. Now look at her. "But what about the things I can see? Things don't have auras."
"How do you know?" Coreen was practically bouncing. "How do we know anything? Maybe you just have to learn to read things."
Vicki put her glasses back on. "I don't have time to learn! That symbol on your hearth is Astaroth's name. That demon is trying to come through again. If I'd solved this a little sooner, your roommate might still be alive."
Coreen sobered, a little, as Vicki had hoped. "Now I've got a bad feeling that pentagram is already finished and Astaroth is waiting for just the right moment to make his final sacrifice. I'm going to try to make sense out of these files to find out where the sacrifice will be, and I want you to use your google-fu to figure out when the sacrifice will be. Okay?"
Vicki poured over the files looking for anything to tell her which murders were demonic. Crime scene photos didn't record any more symbols. The crimes occurred all over the city, with a slightly higher concentration in the west, but only slightly. She even tried placing all of the locations on a map of the city, but nothing resembling a pentagram resulted. The clock on her wall inched toward midnight, and she still hadn't heard from either Mike or Henry. Midnight. Would Astaroth try something at midnight? It seemed like a significant time. "The Witching Hour," the phrase came to her from somewhere.
Why didn't they call?
"Vicki, I think I've got something," Coreen said from the computer. "A black moon."
Vicki stood from her crouch over the table with the map, stretching her back. "What's a black moon?"
"You've heard of a blue moon?"
"Not very often."
"Well, it's a . . . oh, very funny. A blue moon is a full moon and a black moon is the same thing but with a new moon."
Vicki moved to her desk, where Coreen sat. "So, the second new moon in a calendar month is a black moon?"
"That's only one kind of black moon. The older meaning, the kind with real occult power is the fourth new moon in a season."
"A season? I don't get it."
"The time between an equinox and a solstice." Coreen grew more animated. "Calendars are invented by man. A season is a natural thing. Most seasons have three new moons, but every now and then there's a fourth one. That's what has real power, because why would a demon care about our calendar?"
Or our clock, Vicki thought. So maybe midnight didn't mean anything, either. She steeled herself. "When?"
Coreen swallowed. "Tomorrow."
I knew it!" Vicki cried. "So Astaroth has already completed his pentagram. He'll make the final sacrifice tomorrow night. We've got to figure out where."
###
In the upper room of the abandoned Annex, things were not going well. Mike huddled against the cold in his coat as Fitzroy pounded against the "glass" bricks with the tire iron Mike had brought. Whatever material they were really made of, it stood up to the vampire's increasingly desperate blows. Mike's feelings were on a roller-coaster. It wasn't the first time he'd seen Fitzroy fearful of the death dawn would bring him. Since then, he'd seen with his own eyes Delphine Guillame suffer the incendiary death Fitzroy faced in a few hours. He felt almost as frightened as if it were his own life in danger.
Which might well be the case, too. Mike hated how he always seemed to be in the dark about what was going on. Were they sacrifices, bait, or just indefinite prisoners?
"If brawn isn't going to work, maybe we should try our brains," Mike said.
"Oh, you think that's your forte, do you?" Fitzroy replied.
Mike clenched his jaw. "Information exchange. What is it you know about Vicki's tattoos?"
Fitzroy stopped pounding and studied the bricks, running one be-ringed hand over the surface. "They chip, but they don't shatter," he said. "I might be able to chip through."
Mike came closer, to see for himself. It was true what Fitzroy had said, his eyes eventually showed him the dark room almost as clearly as if a bright moon shone in. He saw the chips and considered the hour. Dawn came late this time of year, but Fitzroy wouldn't chip his way through those in time. It was not certain to work even with a lot of time.
"Vicki's tattoos?" Mike asked again.
"None of your business," Fitzroy replied, surly. He threw down the tire iron.
"None of my business!" Mike yelled. Great. That meant it had to do with sex. Or blood. Or both. "It looks to me like I'm stuck here, too. Everything is my business. Maybe if we can figure this out, we can find a way to save your life."
"How?" Fitzroy demanded with a dramatic gesture of both arms. Despite the cold, his coat was off, his white sleeves rolled up above the elbow, flashing in the gloom like semaphore. "What are we going to figure out that will stop the sun from rising? Stop the Earth from turning on its axis as it's been doing for over four billion years? How is your brain going to miracle this?"
"Not a miracle, just get us out of here. No one closed the door, so unless it was remote controlled, and there's no electrical power to this building, the only other option is magic, right?"
"It was magic," Fitzroy said, still surly. "I can feel it in the door."
"All right. That's information. Does your spidey-sense tingle for any other magic in the room? How about this?" Mike pulled forward the piece of plywood, and pointed to the small symbol burned into it.
"I saw that," Fitzroy said defensively, and maybe he had, but something in his almost childish tone made Mike think he hadn't.
"Vicki thought this was the symbol of Astaroth's name."
"That's right."
"It showed up at the site of at least one recent murder. Any thoughts?"
"I suppose it means this was a site of one of the ritual murders."
"Or is going to be. Okay." Mike put the plywood back against the wall. "What is it about Vicki's tattoos?"
Fitzroy said nothing, and for a long moment all Mike heard was the rain.
"Emmanuel visited her again," he said, finally. "Her tattoos burned her and he went up in flames. Like I'm about to."
Whoa. Mike remembered the redness he'd seen on Vicki's wrists. Why hadn't she told him? He struggled with the intense wave of jealousy that rolled over him. At least Mike felt he had Fitzroy's attention now, even if the vampire did seem increasingly despairing. He told him about the kid who murdered Coreen's roommate.
As he listened, Fitzroy rolled down his sleeves and put his coat back on. "He said she was warded against 'powers'?" Fitzroy asked, sounding almost normal.
"Against any power taking what it wanted from her. So, have you drunk Vicki's blood since she got those tattoos? And don't tell me it's none of my business."
Fitzroy was silent, a weak image to Mike's sight, in his dark coat. "No," he said quietly.
"And you haven't tried," Mike said.
Fitzroy leaned against the wall where the glass bricks were, and slid slowly down to sit beneath them. "There are things I will regret not doing," he said.
Mike stifled his impatience.
Fitzroy tipped his head back and said, in his usual irritating tone, "You asked about magic in the room, Celluci. There's some in the television set, the door, that symbol, and, I'm sorry to say, on the floor."
"The floor?" Mike resisted the impulse to pick up his feet.
"If you look closely, you'll see cracks in the concrete. They form the shape of a pentagram around the whole room."
Shit, shit, shit. "That's good," Mike said.
"Good?"
"It's the detective work I'm trying to get you to do. We were either bait, sacrifice, or else we were being kept here to keep us away from Vicki. Now we can rule the last one out."
"Probably not bait, either. Did I mention that I was Astaroth's choice for a final victim once a few centuries ago?"
"No," Mike said, matching the man's forcibly conversational tone. "But that might have been good information, too. Out of curiosity, how did you get out of it?"
"That option isn't available here, trust me. I'll be the sacrifice once the sun comes up."
Mike had been considering something. Now he hefted the rectangle of plywood and walked to stand beside the seated Fitzroy. He held the wood up: it covered the "glass" bricks with about an inch to spare on all sides. "No, by God, you won't."
###
Vicki called Mike's work number again. Mike had been on days and a cop's day shift started well before sunup. When she couldn't reach Mike, she called his new partner.
"Dave, this is Vicki Nelson. Can you get me Mike?"
"It's his day off, Vicki, sorry."
"I was afraid of that. Look Dave, we've never really had time to get to know one another-"
"I know."
"And there's no time now. I think Mike's in trouble. I need your help."
"In trouble where?"
"That's what I don't know. Can you have the guys be on the lookout for his car? I don't mean a national warrant, obviously, just in-house."
"Ms. Nelson, I don't think that's a good idea."
"What do you mean?"
"Look, whatever is between you and Mike is your business, but it's not any of mine."
"Didn't you hear me? I think he's in trouble."
"What kind of trouble?"
He's being used by a demon for a ritual sacrifice. "I can't explain right now."
"Uh huh. It's just that, you know, it's his day off. His two-day. And how he spends it isn't something I should be telling someone if he didn't tell them. It's not right."
"Dammit, Dave, this is not a lover's quarrel. You do know where he is. Would you rather have Mike PO'd at you or dead?"
"See, you should hear yourself. If Mike were really in that kind of danger, you'd tell me what it is and we'd be getting the whole force involved. I understand how you feel, really, but I'm not getting in the middle of this."
"Dave, listen to me. You're Mike's partner. You know he's been involved with some things with me that he can't tell you about. I know you know that. And you know me, by reputation at least. Give me the benefit of the doubt on this one, I'm begging you. Where is Mike?"
There was silence on the line for what seemed a very long time. "He left me a phone message last night. He said he was going fishing."
"Fishing?!"
"Yeah, I've heard of it. It's something white guys do when they need to think."
"Not in the dead of winter!"
"There's ice-fishing."
"Mike doesn't fish!"
"Just maybe there are some things you don't know about him."
Vicki ground her teeth. "Answer me one thing. Does Mike usually call you to tell you what he's doing on his two-day?"
"Well, no, this is the first time, but-"
"Thanks loads for your help, Dave." She hung up.
###
The rain drummed more loudly on the roof of the Annex as Mike faced Fitzroy in the dark.
"You can't," Fitzroy said. "You think I didn't think of that? I can't help you, and you have no idea what it will involve."
"It's not heavy. Yeah, I'd love to have a table to set it on, but I don't, so I'll have to hold it up."
"All day. Every moment. Celluci, Mike, I appreciate what you're offering, but it's not a solution. You'll have to stand there, still, for hours, barely moving, with your arms up. An Olympic athlete would have trouble doing it. You can't."
"Maybe I won't have to all day. Maybe we'll be found. Someone might see our cars, my partner might come looking for me, Vicki might find us somehow. A vagrant-anything could happen."
"So someone finds us and somehow opens the door. Then I die. It's still daytime."
"I can't believe you're arguing with me about this. Have you got a better idea?"
He was sorry when he saw the hopeless look that put on Fitzroy's face. The man shook his head and turned away. Mike almost put a hand on his shoulder. It felt like this was killing him, too. "I'm sorry," he said gruffly. "But what else can we try?"
###
Vicki stared out her office window at the rain. Somewhere beyond the overcast the sun would come up in minutes. Henry hadn't called, and there was exactly nothing she could do about it. Was he safe home in that luxurious bed they'd shared? Or had she failed him? She fingered the cross he'd given her.
Maybe he was piqued with her for calling a panicked halt to their lovemaking, but she'd had Coreen call him, too. She glanced at Coreen, asleep at her desk. Coreen had been worried too, but exhaustion had taken her. She'd had a hell of a day.
Alone for the moment, she cautiously removed her glasses. The night before her transformed from dreary into dreamy. Raindrops, millions of them, sparkled darkly, each alone and together, making her head spin with their beauty. She had to look away. In her hand, Henry's cross glowed brightly. Very brightly. She gripped it hard and thought a small but earnest prayer for his safety. Couldn't hurt.
Forgetting to restore her glasses, she glanced at her worktable full of crime files. Their auras writhed with grief and violence. Some of them had a dark theme that she was abruptly very curious about. She went to the table, and withdrew those certain cases, slowly, bracing against the impressions of violence and death that came with looking at them. She compared them to the others, and these definitely felt . . . abominable.
"This is it!" she yelled, waking Coreen with a start. "These are the ones."
###
"It's time," Fitzroy said.
They'd been sitting, not together, but not too far apart, against a wall. Mike got to his feet, lifted the plywood, and pressed it against the "glass."
Fitzroy positioned himself nearby, in front of the window.
"At least get away from the window," Mike said.
"No," the vampire said, quietly. "There's nowhere safe, and I'd rather go quick."
Horror flooded Mike. He couldn’t let this happen. He wouldn't. He gripped the wood harder, then relaxed minutely. He had to save his strength. "I won't let you die," he said.
There was a long moment of silence, and Mike wondered if Fitzroy were unconscious.
"Celluci," came his voice.
"Yeah?"
Another long pause. "Nothing."
Then Mike was alone with the rain, the dark, a sleeping vampire, and his own demons.
###
Continue to part ten.
Tina was trapped and terrified. A few moments after starting Sense and Sensibility she was no longer in control of her body. She tried to call for help, to tell her mother, but she wasn't allowed. Only her dog knew. He barked and growled and ran and hid whenever Tina came near. Whatever controlled her made her go through her daily routines enough to keep suspicion away from anyone but the dog.
But then it had other tasks for her, down by the waterfront.
###
"But that's so great!" Coreen cried. "It means," Coreen paused.
"What does it mean?" Vicki asked, sarcasm in her tone.
"It means you can see without your glasses, right? And you can see in the dark?"
"I don't know," Vicki said. It had been pretty dark at Henry's place. He seldom bothered to turn many lights on.
"What do I look like?"
Vicki looked at her, really looked at her, without her glasses. She had been cringing away from using her un-aided sight but now she paid attention.
"I can't see your face. It's a blur of colors, like a wet watercolor. And you have a glow all around you that shimmers in color."
"Like an aura," Coreen enthused.
"Oh, God, I suppose so," Vicki said. Auras. Once upon a time, she'd been a hard-boiled skeptic. Now look at her. "But what about the things I can see? Things don't have auras."
"How do you know?" Coreen was practically bouncing. "How do we know anything? Maybe you just have to learn to read things."
Vicki put her glasses back on. "I don't have time to learn! That symbol on your hearth is Astaroth's name. That demon is trying to come through again. If I'd solved this a little sooner, your roommate might still be alive."
Coreen sobered, a little, as Vicki had hoped. "Now I've got a bad feeling that pentagram is already finished and Astaroth is waiting for just the right moment to make his final sacrifice. I'm going to try to make sense out of these files to find out where the sacrifice will be, and I want you to use your google-fu to figure out when the sacrifice will be. Okay?"
Vicki poured over the files looking for anything to tell her which murders were demonic. Crime scene photos didn't record any more symbols. The crimes occurred all over the city, with a slightly higher concentration in the west, but only slightly. She even tried placing all of the locations on a map of the city, but nothing resembling a pentagram resulted. The clock on her wall inched toward midnight, and she still hadn't heard from either Mike or Henry. Midnight. Would Astaroth try something at midnight? It seemed like a significant time. "The Witching Hour," the phrase came to her from somewhere.
Why didn't they call?
"Vicki, I think I've got something," Coreen said from the computer. "A black moon."
Vicki stood from her crouch over the table with the map, stretching her back. "What's a black moon?"
"You've heard of a blue moon?"
"Not very often."
"Well, it's a . . . oh, very funny. A blue moon is a full moon and a black moon is the same thing but with a new moon."
Vicki moved to her desk, where Coreen sat. "So, the second new moon in a calendar month is a black moon?"
"That's only one kind of black moon. The older meaning, the kind with real occult power is the fourth new moon in a season."
"A season? I don't get it."
"The time between an equinox and a solstice." Coreen grew more animated. "Calendars are invented by man. A season is a natural thing. Most seasons have three new moons, but every now and then there's a fourth one. That's what has real power, because why would a demon care about our calendar?"
Or our clock, Vicki thought. So maybe midnight didn't mean anything, either. She steeled herself. "When?"
Coreen swallowed. "Tomorrow."
I knew it!" Vicki cried. "So Astaroth has already completed his pentagram. He'll make the final sacrifice tomorrow night. We've got to figure out where."
###
In the upper room of the abandoned Annex, things were not going well. Mike huddled against the cold in his coat as Fitzroy pounded against the "glass" bricks with the tire iron Mike had brought. Whatever material they were really made of, it stood up to the vampire's increasingly desperate blows. Mike's feelings were on a roller-coaster. It wasn't the first time he'd seen Fitzroy fearful of the death dawn would bring him. Since then, he'd seen with his own eyes Delphine Guillame suffer the incendiary death Fitzroy faced in a few hours. He felt almost as frightened as if it were his own life in danger.
Which might well be the case, too. Mike hated how he always seemed to be in the dark about what was going on. Were they sacrifices, bait, or just indefinite prisoners?
"If brawn isn't going to work, maybe we should try our brains," Mike said.
"Oh, you think that's your forte, do you?" Fitzroy replied.
Mike clenched his jaw. "Information exchange. What is it you know about Vicki's tattoos?"
Fitzroy stopped pounding and studied the bricks, running one be-ringed hand over the surface. "They chip, but they don't shatter," he said. "I might be able to chip through."
Mike came closer, to see for himself. It was true what Fitzroy had said, his eyes eventually showed him the dark room almost as clearly as if a bright moon shone in. He saw the chips and considered the hour. Dawn came late this time of year, but Fitzroy wouldn't chip his way through those in time. It was not certain to work even with a lot of time.
"Vicki's tattoos?" Mike asked again.
"None of your business," Fitzroy replied, surly. He threw down the tire iron.
"None of my business!" Mike yelled. Great. That meant it had to do with sex. Or blood. Or both. "It looks to me like I'm stuck here, too. Everything is my business. Maybe if we can figure this out, we can find a way to save your life."
"How?" Fitzroy demanded with a dramatic gesture of both arms. Despite the cold, his coat was off, his white sleeves rolled up above the elbow, flashing in the gloom like semaphore. "What are we going to figure out that will stop the sun from rising? Stop the Earth from turning on its axis as it's been doing for over four billion years? How is your brain going to miracle this?"
"Not a miracle, just get us out of here. No one closed the door, so unless it was remote controlled, and there's no electrical power to this building, the only other option is magic, right?"
"It was magic," Fitzroy said, still surly. "I can feel it in the door."
"All right. That's information. Does your spidey-sense tingle for any other magic in the room? How about this?" Mike pulled forward the piece of plywood, and pointed to the small symbol burned into it.
"I saw that," Fitzroy said defensively, and maybe he had, but something in his almost childish tone made Mike think he hadn't.
"Vicki thought this was the symbol of Astaroth's name."
"That's right."
"It showed up at the site of at least one recent murder. Any thoughts?"
"I suppose it means this was a site of one of the ritual murders."
"Or is going to be. Okay." Mike put the plywood back against the wall. "What is it about Vicki's tattoos?"
Fitzroy said nothing, and for a long moment all Mike heard was the rain.
"Emmanuel visited her again," he said, finally. "Her tattoos burned her and he went up in flames. Like I'm about to."
Whoa. Mike remembered the redness he'd seen on Vicki's wrists. Why hadn't she told him? He struggled with the intense wave of jealousy that rolled over him. At least Mike felt he had Fitzroy's attention now, even if the vampire did seem increasingly despairing. He told him about the kid who murdered Coreen's roommate.
As he listened, Fitzroy rolled down his sleeves and put his coat back on. "He said she was warded against 'powers'?" Fitzroy asked, sounding almost normal.
"Against any power taking what it wanted from her. So, have you drunk Vicki's blood since she got those tattoos? And don't tell me it's none of my business."
Fitzroy was silent, a weak image to Mike's sight, in his dark coat. "No," he said quietly.
"And you haven't tried," Mike said.
Fitzroy leaned against the wall where the glass bricks were, and slid slowly down to sit beneath them. "There are things I will regret not doing," he said.
Mike stifled his impatience.
Fitzroy tipped his head back and said, in his usual irritating tone, "You asked about magic in the room, Celluci. There's some in the television set, the door, that symbol, and, I'm sorry to say, on the floor."
"The floor?" Mike resisted the impulse to pick up his feet.
"If you look closely, you'll see cracks in the concrete. They form the shape of a pentagram around the whole room."
Shit, shit, shit. "That's good," Mike said.
"Good?"
"It's the detective work I'm trying to get you to do. We were either bait, sacrifice, or else we were being kept here to keep us away from Vicki. Now we can rule the last one out."
"Probably not bait, either. Did I mention that I was Astaroth's choice for a final victim once a few centuries ago?"
"No," Mike said, matching the man's forcibly conversational tone. "But that might have been good information, too. Out of curiosity, how did you get out of it?"
"That option isn't available here, trust me. I'll be the sacrifice once the sun comes up."
Mike had been considering something. Now he hefted the rectangle of plywood and walked to stand beside the seated Fitzroy. He held the wood up: it covered the "glass" bricks with about an inch to spare on all sides. "No, by God, you won't."
###
Vicki called Mike's work number again. Mike had been on days and a cop's day shift started well before sunup. When she couldn't reach Mike, she called his new partner.
"Dave, this is Vicki Nelson. Can you get me Mike?"
"It's his day off, Vicki, sorry."
"I was afraid of that. Look Dave, we've never really had time to get to know one another-"
"I know."
"And there's no time now. I think Mike's in trouble. I need your help."
"In trouble where?"
"That's what I don't know. Can you have the guys be on the lookout for his car? I don't mean a national warrant, obviously, just in-house."
"Ms. Nelson, I don't think that's a good idea."
"What do you mean?"
"Look, whatever is between you and Mike is your business, but it's not any of mine."
"Didn't you hear me? I think he's in trouble."
"What kind of trouble?"
He's being used by a demon for a ritual sacrifice. "I can't explain right now."
"Uh huh. It's just that, you know, it's his day off. His two-day. And how he spends it isn't something I should be telling someone if he didn't tell them. It's not right."
"Dammit, Dave, this is not a lover's quarrel. You do know where he is. Would you rather have Mike PO'd at you or dead?"
"See, you should hear yourself. If Mike were really in that kind of danger, you'd tell me what it is and we'd be getting the whole force involved. I understand how you feel, really, but I'm not getting in the middle of this."
"Dave, listen to me. You're Mike's partner. You know he's been involved with some things with me that he can't tell you about. I know you know that. And you know me, by reputation at least. Give me the benefit of the doubt on this one, I'm begging you. Where is Mike?"
There was silence on the line for what seemed a very long time. "He left me a phone message last night. He said he was going fishing."
"Fishing?!"
"Yeah, I've heard of it. It's something white guys do when they need to think."
"Not in the dead of winter!"
"There's ice-fishing."
"Mike doesn't fish!"
"Just maybe there are some things you don't know about him."
Vicki ground her teeth. "Answer me one thing. Does Mike usually call you to tell you what he's doing on his two-day?"
"Well, no, this is the first time, but-"
"Thanks loads for your help, Dave." She hung up.
###
The rain drummed more loudly on the roof of the Annex as Mike faced Fitzroy in the dark.
"You can't," Fitzroy said. "You think I didn't think of that? I can't help you, and you have no idea what it will involve."
"It's not heavy. Yeah, I'd love to have a table to set it on, but I don't, so I'll have to hold it up."
"All day. Every moment. Celluci, Mike, I appreciate what you're offering, but it's not a solution. You'll have to stand there, still, for hours, barely moving, with your arms up. An Olympic athlete would have trouble doing it. You can't."
"Maybe I won't have to all day. Maybe we'll be found. Someone might see our cars, my partner might come looking for me, Vicki might find us somehow. A vagrant-anything could happen."
"So someone finds us and somehow opens the door. Then I die. It's still daytime."
"I can't believe you're arguing with me about this. Have you got a better idea?"
He was sorry when he saw the hopeless look that put on Fitzroy's face. The man shook his head and turned away. Mike almost put a hand on his shoulder. It felt like this was killing him, too. "I'm sorry," he said gruffly. "But what else can we try?"
###
Vicki stared out her office window at the rain. Somewhere beyond the overcast the sun would come up in minutes. Henry hadn't called, and there was exactly nothing she could do about it. Was he safe home in that luxurious bed they'd shared? Or had she failed him? She fingered the cross he'd given her.
Maybe he was piqued with her for calling a panicked halt to their lovemaking, but she'd had Coreen call him, too. She glanced at Coreen, asleep at her desk. Coreen had been worried too, but exhaustion had taken her. She'd had a hell of a day.
Alone for the moment, she cautiously removed her glasses. The night before her transformed from dreary into dreamy. Raindrops, millions of them, sparkled darkly, each alone and together, making her head spin with their beauty. She had to look away. In her hand, Henry's cross glowed brightly. Very brightly. She gripped it hard and thought a small but earnest prayer for his safety. Couldn't hurt.
Forgetting to restore her glasses, she glanced at her worktable full of crime files. Their auras writhed with grief and violence. Some of them had a dark theme that she was abruptly very curious about. She went to the table, and withdrew those certain cases, slowly, bracing against the impressions of violence and death that came with looking at them. She compared them to the others, and these definitely felt . . . abominable.
"This is it!" she yelled, waking Coreen with a start. "These are the ones."
###
"It's time," Fitzroy said.
They'd been sitting, not together, but not too far apart, against a wall. Mike got to his feet, lifted the plywood, and pressed it against the "glass."
Fitzroy positioned himself nearby, in front of the window.
"At least get away from the window," Mike said.
"No," the vampire said, quietly. "There's nowhere safe, and I'd rather go quick."
Horror flooded Mike. He couldn’t let this happen. He wouldn't. He gripped the wood harder, then relaxed minutely. He had to save his strength. "I won't let you die," he said.
There was a long moment of silence, and Mike wondered if Fitzroy were unconscious.
"Celluci," came his voice.
"Yeah?"
Another long pause. "Nothing."
Then Mike was alone with the rain, the dark, a sleeping vampire, and his own demons.
###
Continue to part ten.