“No. I had a name. I asked Theo to check him out. She found out he was a vampire—and not just any regular bloodsucker either. He’s the abducted brother of the Reverend Samson D. Kline. He was trained and allowed to grow up before he was turned; now he’s at the right hand of a very dangerous master vampire, the one who took him. When I found that out, I called Vivian to tell her to forget the deal, but Beverley was there sobbing, and Vivian was treating her so badly.”
“Are you saying that’s why Theo was run off the road? Why her home and her business were sacked?” Celia asked.
Vivian nodded emphatically. I hated it that she was enjoying this so much.
“Yeah,” I said. “In the truck ride to the doctor’s, Theo whispered to me that it had been him who ran her off the road. It was probably him, or maybe those beholders if they do that kind of thing, who sacked her apartment and office.” I forced my head up and met the eyes of everyone in turn. I’d done this, and I had to own it. “What happened to Theo is my fault.” I saw a mixture of horror and surprise on their faces. All except Beverley’s.
“Wait,” Beverley said. Her dark hair was now loose, a little wave where the pigtails had been. With those big blue eyes looking up at me, she seemed so grown up. “You took on a vampire for my mom?” she asked.
She seemed impressed. But I didn’t deserve her admiration.
“Beverley, I haven’t even seen him. I took Vivian’s money, asked questions, and ended up spending some on Theo’s hospital bill. I thought it would be helping everybody out all around. Get a killer off the streets, with justice served, and the money would help me take care of Nana.” I smiled at her. “I wanted everything to be good. To work out. But…I can’t do this. I can’t defeat a vampire, especially not one of his caliber.”
“Why not?” Johnny asked. Everybody turned to him, as stunned as if he’d just proclaimed himself Elvis.
“What do you mean ‘why not?’” Celia interjected. “Seph’s not an assassin.”
He crossed his lean arms. “She’s got all she needs to be the Lustrata.”
“A lust-what?” Celia asked.
Despite my badly wanting to know what it was myself, lights had flashed in the hallway. “There’s a car coming up the drive,” I said.
Vivian went hysterical, straining against the cords and shaking her head and blabbering on though we couldn’t understand any sound she made. But I remembered her saying we’d all get killed if we didn’t get the wooden box from her car. Taking a handful of her hair to make her be still, I pulled the gag down. “Who is it?”
“It’s him, you idiots. He’ll rip through all of you and save me for last. You should’ve gotten it out of the car. I told you. I told you!” I jerked the gag back up.
“Kill the lights,” Johnny said and started down the hall. Celia flipped the switch, and we fell into darkness again.
Vivian mumbled. I thumped her in the head. “Shhhh.”
“It’s cool,” Johnny announced. “It’s the doc.” Celia flipped the lights back on. I started to the door, then stopped and looked back at Vivian.
“I’ll watch her,” Erik said, crossing his arms bouncer-style.
“Thanks.” I glanced at Nana, who was turning pages in the Codex; then I joined Johnny at the door.
“I’m gonna get that box from her car,” he said.
“Wait. What is a lustra-whatever?” That seemed more important than finding out what beholders were.
He turned and regarded me with a sly, approving smile. “Tell you later.”
Dr. Lincoln stepped up onto the porch. “Sorry I didn’t make it out sooner,” he said. “I got called out to treat a mare that had gotten herself stuck in a deep, cold mud-hole. My cell phone showed your number so, it being a Saturday night, and knowing how nocturnal wæres are, I drove by. Saw the lights and stopped.”
That he had gone to the trouble impressed me. “You should be in bed, Doc.”
“Yeah. So should the lot of you, I bet. And none of you have been saving the life of a little girl’s pony, either. Being a hero like that makes me feel too good to sleep.” He yawned. “Or it did. I guess the long drive and late hour sucked the adrenaline right out of me. Anyway, I thought I’d check in on her.”
“Please, come on in.”
“Sure.” He paused. “Hey. I noticed the lights went out. If you’re having power fluctuations, the machinery won’t function properly and—”
“Oh! We’re not having power fluctuations. We were just turning them out, then we noticed your lights in the drive.” I didn’t want to offer any more details, so I quickly herded him toward the steps, hoping he didn’t see Vivian tied up in the kitchen.
“I’ll take him up,” Celia said, coming down the hall.
I stopped. Didn’t she trust me with Theo anymore?
She must’ve seen the question in my eyes. “Beverley needs to talk to you,” she whispered, and gestured toward the darkened living room.
“Oh.”
Beverley sat on my couch with her knees pulled up under her chin and her arms tight around them. “You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said, even as she was shaking her head no.
I sat beside her, close but not touching. “You know…my mom left me too.”
Her head popped around, eyes wide in the dark.
“She’s still alive; she just left me. I haven’t seen her since I was about your age.”
“Why’d she leave?”
“She kind of ran away to be with her boyfriend.”
“What about your dad?”
“I never knew him,” I said, knowing she could relate to that as well. Her dad had died trying to save Lorrie from the wærewolf that attacked them in a park after an anniversary dinner. Lorrie told me about it once. Beverley, six then, had been left with some close friends for the weekend. “We’re alike in that way, Beverley. Our parents are gone. I’m so sorry I couldn’t do a better job of protecting your mom. I know everything’s a mess right now, but I swear, if you want to stay here, I’ll make it legal and get custody of you. I’ll protect you and I’ll do the best I can for you.”
Even in the dark, tears glistened in her eyes, but footsteps on the porch made me twist to glance out the window. Johnny’s shadow was unmistakable. He came inside carrying a box. I relaxed back into my place. “You don’t have to decide now,” I said to Beverley. “Think about it. For as long as you need to.”
She launched herself at me, throwing her arms around me, crying. She’d cried so much lately, it was a wonder she had any tears left. I held her until she calmed. Nana’s silhouette shuffled through the dining room and into the living room. “Persephone?”
“Yeah?”
Beverley moved away from me.
“You’d better come and have a look at this.” Nana blew smoke at the ceiling.
I moved forward. “What is it? Contents of the box?”
“No. I don’t think they’ve opened that. But I think I found something in the Codex. Something that might be useful.”
When I entered the kitchen, the wooden box on my counter demanded my attention first. It was the box I’d seen in Vivian’s office at the coffee shop. “Just a second, Nana.” I went to Vivian. “You’re blackmailing the one who marked you. The threat of whatever’s in that box is your moneymaker, isn’t it?” I jerked down the gag.
She smiled with false sweetness. “A security blanket lined in gold.”
“Then explain why a witch with such a lucrative vampire connection takes a job managing a coffee shop?”
She licked her gag-dried lips. “Because of the standards of the Elders Council. Every Elder selected in the last fifty years has been an active member of the community. Being a successful businesswoman is like gold.” I reached to replace the gag; she jerked away. “If you’re smart, you’ll let me go and let me take the book and box with me. Otherwise, you’re inviting the wrath of Menessos.”
I knew that name: the master vampire who had made Goliath. I forced the gag back up. “What’d you find?” I asked Nana.