Fangtastic (8 page)

He didn't look convinced, but he was a
guy.
What did he know?

The vanishing meet-and-greet girl from the Tower—or Bleached Blond Vampiress (BBV), as I'd chosen to call her—turned out not to live in Tampa but in a nearby town called Lutz, which I wanted to pronounce like the ice skating move, lutz, as in klutz without the k. Bobby said it was supposed to rhyme with “shoots,” which made me wonder why they didn't just spell it that way then. While we were at it, I told him, the whole English language could totally use a make-over. In tough economic times, didn't it make total sense to drop the silent “k” from knife, and the “p” from things like psychology? Just think of all the paper that could be saved. I mean, books would be, like, a third shorter. Complete financial sense, right?

Bobby looked at me like I'd lost it and started arguing about all the money that would be blown updating dictionaries, thesauruses, spell-checkers, etc., but I thought he was just being a killjoy. I could revolutionize the English language.

Anyway
,
it turned out that BBV, Elise Radner, lived in a small white house with turquoise trim centered on a side street off the oddly named Dale Mabry Highway. If Dale Mabry was someone special, he was so obscure that even my brainy boy had no idea who he was. We cruised past the house, just surveying it this pass. No lights. No movement, except for the swaying palm tree in the front yard. A goth living in a perky place with palm trees … it was just weird. Bobby parked on an offshoot of the side street, car turned so that we could make a quick getaway if need be.

The cops needed probable cause and a warrant to enter the place, but we were totally covert ops. We didn't have to worry about things like that. Bobby and I pulled blue latex gloves out of a box in the glove compartment and pocketed them for when we got inside. Luckily, with Bobby's mental mojo, we shouldn't even have to touch the outside. The gloves would have been totally too conspicuous to wear strolling through the neighborhood, even if they did match Bobby's eyes and add a nice splash of color to my black-and-white outfit.

We tried knocking first—on a turquoise door that matched the trim. It would have seemed almost absurdly cheerful except that the door knocker was a little brass gargoyle clutching the ring in its talons and the door mat on which we stood announced,
Solicitors will be eaten. Everyone else, welcome!

“Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,” Bobby muttered, “for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.”

“What?” I asked, giving him back the look he'd given me in the car.

“Ah, nothing. Something I read once on a T-shirt. The mat reminded me of it.”

“Uh huh.”

Not surprisingly, no one came to the door to let us in. My vamp hearing couldn't pick up a thing from inside, so BBV wasn't making a run for it out the back door. The place felt dead.

“Door,” I said to Bobby.

He obliged, using his mojo to tumble the locks and turn the knob. He pretended, for anyone on the quiet street who might notice, to be greeting someone inside, pushed the door open with his knuckles, and walked in. I followed, bumping the door shut behind me with a hip.

It wasn't a very big house, but the entry led right into an airy floor plan. The high ceilings made it seem airy, anyway. A small dining room area was separated from the living room only by the placement of the couch—lime green with, what else, turquoise pillows. I scrunched my nose. The kitchen was visible from the rest of the house via a half-wall that doubled as a breakfast bar. Or, it would have been visible if not for the towering stacks of mail that blocked the view. The stacks didn't look disturbed; the bar stools still stood upright; dishes were in the sink, dirty but all in one piece. The place was intact. No signs of struggle. Not that I'd expected any.

Bobby and I pulled on our gloves.

“You want to take the bedrooms?” I asked him. I'd already had enough of tighty whities to last an entire night, although I suspected BBV was a thong kind of girl.

“Okay. Let me know if you find anything interesting.”

He disappeared into the hallway off the living room, and I started on the mail. Bill, bill, catalogue, catalogue, latest issues of
Modern Goth, Fangoria,
and
Rue Morgue
,
sales flyers. Not a personal letter in the bunch, though I did notice a few envelopes addressed to Kinesha Williams rather than Elise Radner.

“Hey, Bobby,” I called out. “Any Kinesha Williams connected with the case?”

He popped his head back into the hallway. “When I was working with Sid and Maya on the background checks, we looked up recent missing persons reports, especially for young people who'd gone missing within the last couple of weeks. Her name was on the list.”

“I don't suppose it was her roommate who reported her missing?”

“Elise?” Bobby asked.

“Yup.”

“No, it was her parents.”

“Elise was never questioned?”

“I don't think she came up. Kinesha had just moved out on her own, according to them. They didn't like her living alone. That's why they panicked right away when they didn't hear from her for a couple of days.”

“I don't think she got far,” I said sadly. I hoped she wasn't another victim of the killer kids.

It didn't surprise me that Bobby remembered all that from the missing person report. He had the kind of mind where if you just flipped through the phone book in front of him, he could probably reel off the phone number for the third, fourth, or tenth John Smith down the page without breaking a sweat. I was lucky I remembered my car keys.

With a frowny face, Bobby went back to what he'd been doing and I continued on into BBV's kitchen. The smell from the sink was nearly overwhelming. I'm not sure it would have been to purely human senses, but to mine—ugh. Congealed meatloaf, garlic mashed potatoes … my eyes watered blood. I nearly gagged and retreated, but something caught my bleary eyes on the small chef's rack that seemed to double as a bookcase.

I brushed away my bloody tears and squatted beside the books on the lower part of the rack. I ran my gloves over the spines. They stayed starkly blue, which meant that either Elise was a helluva housekeeper, which contradicted the evidence in the sink, or the books hadn't just been sitting around collecting dust. I wasn't interested in the cookbooks, but the others—
The Black Veil, The Madness of Mobs, Sanguine Seduction, Bacchanals,
and …
The Cult of Dionysus.

I wondered … could Dion be short for Dionysus? Had I maybe found a connection?

Footsteps approached. I grabbed the book off the shelf and turned to show Bobby, just as my world exploded. Agony flashed like a firebomb across my temple. My vision went purple with pain, and I fell to the ground. The book skidded away from me. I kicked out frantically, trying to catch my attacker in the shin, crotch, whatever I could reach.

“Cosette?” my attacker gasped.

Then I heard another blow fall and he
oophed.

Bobby!
I thought, trying to blink away the lava-lamp amoebas of purple pain so I could help.

I only got flashes of visibility—Bobby and …
Ballard
?
Yes, Ballard, with a gnarled wood cane flailing around ineffectively in an attempt to whack Bobby on the head and dislodge him. But Bobby had him in some kind of super hold we'd learned in training. Plus, human vs. vamp … Ballard had no chance.

I caught the cane as it flailed my way and yanked it from Ballard before he hurt anyone else. No wonder I'd gone down. Wood was like vampire kryptonite. Oh, Bobby had a lot to answer for when I started thinking in
Superman
references. Or maybe I was still woozy from the blow to the head.

“Everybody calm down,” I ordered.

I used the cane to stabilize myself as I rose to my feet again. Wood was okay as long as it wasn't breaking the skin. Speaking of which—I put my free hand to my head and it came away wet with blood. Which explained why my fangs were out in full force.

Ballard looked wild-eyed. “Cosette? What are you doing here? What—?” He caught sight of the fangs and went as stiff as a board. “Those aren't clip-ons, are they?”

Wow, I was totally hot at this covert stuff.

“I think the question is, what are
you
doing here,” Bobby asked, squeezing him for information … literally.

Ballard wheezed and Bobby lightened up just a bit. “Chill, chill!” Ballard croaked. “I was just checking on Elise. She never came to work today, never called in. She's not answering her phone. When I showed up here the door was unlocked, so I let myself in and found you. I thought Cosette was an intruder.”

“We never heard a phone ring,” Bobby protested, tightening his grip again.

“Her cell phone,” Ballard choked. “She doesn't have
a landline.”

“You're in the habit of bashing people over the head first and asking questions later?” I asked, not at all ready to let him off the hook.

He winced. “These murders have me on edge. I mean, first Dion goes off the deep end, then Elise disappears … For all I knew you were part of Dion's crew and Elise was lying dead somewhere. She isn't, is she?” he asked, eyes nearly bugging out at the thought.

I relaxed a little. I was no truth-teller, but he was either sincere or a wicked-good actor. I didn't think it was the latter.

“Why don't you let him go and we'll sit down and talk about it? Ballard won't try anything, will you Ballard?”

“No,
he
won't
,
” Bobby answered for him. I knew he was putting some of his special emphasis behind it, because I could feel his power wash over Ballard, charging the air like an electrical storm.

Ballard nodded his head in dazed agreement and Bobby let him go, guiding him over to Elise's small dining room table and chairs. We all sat.

“So, you and Elise work together?” I asked.

Ballard looked at me, focusing in on my fangs, which still hadn't retracted. I was used to pervy guys staring, but not at my mouth—not unless I was licking my lips or oh-so-casually applying gloss. I closed my lips over the fangs as best I could, trying not to think of blood so they'd retract. It was like trying not to think of shopping while at a mall. Not even
in
humanly possible.

“At the movie theater,” Ballard said. “Actually, she's my manager. It's really out of character for her to ditch. Can I feel them?” he asked.

I drew back, shocked, before I remembered we were talking about my teeth.

“Maybe,” I said, feeling really weird about it, “if you tell us what we want to know.”

Bobby gave me a look, like my fangs should totally be off-limits to other guys. I gave him a “get real” glance back.

“Like what?” he asked.

“Okay, she's your manager,” Bobby said. “How do you know where she lives?”

“We hang.” He looked back to me as he said, “Sometimes we hook up.”

“When was the last time you saw her?” Bobby asked.

“
That
way or, you know, socially?”

“Either one.”

“Last night at the club. Cosette—or whoever you are—you met her.”

I nodded.

“But then you disappeared,” he continued. “And she disappeared. Tonight you turn up here.”

He said it like a question I wasn't going to answer.

“I'm here and she isn't,” I said instead. “Moving right along—do you know of anywhere else she might be? If she wanted to get away for a while, where would she go?”

“I don't know. She's been kind of strange lately. Like, restless. She was starting to wonder whether Dion and the others had the right idea—striking out on their own, starting their own society. The vampire court wasn't getting her any closer to where she wanted to be. But that was before the murders,” he added quickly. “She's not a freak or anything like that. I mean, she wouldn't … ” But he trailed off as if he wasn't really so sure.

“Where did Dion and Elise want to be?” Bobby asked.

“Immortal. Forever young. All of that. Most of us in the
lifestyle
… well, we know that's what it is, a lifestyle, a philosophy, a way of being. But
they
were convinced it could be more. Now?” he asked, and I realized we were still talking about my fangs.

“Not yet,” I answered. “Did they ever ask you to join them? Do you know where they meet?”

“Elise sounded me out, but there was just something about Dion that didn't seem right. He'd changed, and not for the better. I don't know where they meet. You think they got Elise, don't you?”

“Define
got
,
” Bobby said.

“Shit.”

“If she isn't with them, where would she go?” I asked.

“You mean, if she were afraid or something? I don't know. Maybe her mom's. We hooked up there a few times, back when Elise had a roommate.”

“Kinesha Williams?” I asked.

He looked at me, fascination starting to turn to fear. “Who
are
you people?”

I just smiled, letting my fangs do all the talking. Fear
was fun.

“Yeah, Kinesha,” he said, swallowing hard. “She moved out last week. Said things were getting too weird.”

“Go figure. We're going to need Elise's mom's address,” I told him.

“Okay, but they're not close.”

He called the address up on his phone and recited it to us. “And yours,” I insisted. The look he gave me indicated he thought maybe I had ulterior motives, like a hook-up of my own. As if. I mean, he was hot enough, but compared to my boy, Bobby … Besides, he'd just hit me over the head with a cane. Not exactly my idea of foreplay.