The man laughed at her. Not one of those soft
kinds of laughs that made you smile, but he threw back his head and roared with
it. Birds left the trees over them. Even bugs and other creatures of the night scurried
away from the sound, and all she could do was stare at him.
“You think you’re insulting me? Not a chance.
I’m in love with Vinnie and think the world of her grandmother. And yeah, it
took me a while to figure out what I was feeling for Vinnie, but now I can
think of nothing but loving her. And we’re going to have children together too.
Raise them up to be loving and kind. They’ll know they’re loved too.” She
snorted at him. Things like that just didn’t happen to her kind. “You won’t be
able to see them, however.”
“Like I’d ever want to. Having my own was bad
enough. To touch another one now? No, thank you very much.” She looked at her
mother when she tisked at her. “You said having a child would change me. You
said that having a baby of my own would make me happy. Well, you didn’t tell me
the half of it. Yes, it changed me. Took away my free time. Made it so I could
no longer come and go as I pleased. And worse yet, she went on believing that I
liked her. Never. Not one day of her entire life. And when she killed my
husband and mate, I knew then she was going to die by my hand.”
The pain took her breath away. Amber looked
down at her chest and touched the wooden spike coming through her left breast.
When the burning started, making her dizzy and weak, she turned to see who
would have done such a thing to her and was startled to see her mother standing
there.
“You should know that I have the full
permission of the council to do this. Crimes against your own kind. Theft from your
own family. Murder. Death of a human without cause...the list is long, Amber,
and you are paying for your crimes.”
Amber couldn’t speak. There wasn’t enough air
in the world, much less her lungs, to draw even a short breath. As she fell to
her knees, the flames burned the spike enough that it fell to the ground, the
fire going out on the damp grasses almost as soon as it touched it. But the
fire in her, the burning up of her body, wasn’t going to be so easy to quench.
Just as she felt her mind explode with more pain, she saw her daughter smile at
her. Then there was nothing more.
~~~
“When the time is right, you’ll have to kill
my mate as well. I’ve been thinking that she’s going to be—” He knew what it
was as soon as he felt it. Stake through the heart. As he fell forward to his
knees he held his breath, hoping he’d be able to get out of this house before
he was—
“Are you all right?” Horrie looked at the man
he’d been working with. The man who was going to get him into the house no
matter what. “You hurting or something? Way you fell there, I thought for sure
that you’d been hurt. But the dead, we don’t get hurt. We can get gone but not
hurt. You ever heard tell of a man named Bennett? Him and his men, they’ll run
you off faster than a zipper can come down in a whore house. Been hearing about
them men of his for—”
“I’m not sick. I’ve been staked.” The man—Rudy,
he thought his name was—only shook his head at him. “I swear to you, I thought
for sure I’d been staked. Right through my heart.”
“Nah. Maybe you have some indigestion. Never
heard of it happening to those peoples like us, but you never done know about
some dead.” Rudy looked him over both front and back. “You don’t appear to have
no meat on you. You thinking that something hit you real hard like?”
“No, a
stake
, not a
steak
.”
“That clears things up,” Rudy said
sarcastically.
“You know, a wooden spike through my heart
kind.” Ruby told him he done don’t have a heart now...it took him several
seconds to work that one out, and when he did he asked if that was true.
“Sure enough it’s true. What you have a need
for a heart fer? You can’t die from it. Got no reason to be pumping that red
juice through you no more. I’m thinking that you just got yourself a little
pain, that’s all. I think they call it phantom or some shit like that.” Ruby laughed
again. “We being a phantom and all and getting some pains like that is sort of
funny. Don’t ya think?”
He rubbed his chest as he stood up. Horrie
knew that he’d felt it. Still did. But he was feeling hollow now, like
something important had happened and it had torn a hole in the fabric of his
being. As Ruby continued to tell him what he had planned for the house, Horrie
realized what it was.
“My mate.” Ruby told him he had it down to
kill her as well. “No. I think she’s dead. I think...I think someone killed
her.”
“Afore me? Well, if you had somebody else
doing it fer you, you should have done told me. I got to rearrange my whole
strategy now.” Ruby shook his head and just started cussing. “You have any idea
how much I been looking forward to that? Killing me a vampire would have been
great, don’t you know.”
“Well, you can go ahead and kill my daughter
if you want.” He nodded, but didn’t look none too pleased with that. “She’s a
vampire too, you know.”
“Yeah, but that mate of yours was older. Much
older.” Horrie wanted to point out that being the mom of his daughter that was
the only way it would work, but didn’t. The man looked really depressed. “I’ll
do it, but like I was telling you, I’m going to have to do it my way. No hurrying
up for me. I take my time.”
“Yes, of course, you’ll take your time.” As
the ghost faded away, no doubt to go and find him something pornographic to
watch, Horrie reached out for his mate and felt nothing. Not a soft connection.
Not even a wall, but nothingness. He knew then that she’d been murdered.
“My daughter had something to do with it, I
don’t doubt either. Money grubbing whore. Taking up with those necromancers and
now look at her.” Three ghosts appeared in front of him, but Horrie didn’t
bother moving. They were not anyone he had a beef with, and as soon as he stood
up, he knew they’d be on their way.
“Horatio Mower Graham?” He nodded. When
someone or even in this case, something said your full name, you had no choice
but to listen up and tell the truth. “We’re here to inform you that your wife
and mate, Amber York Graham, is deceased. Staked through the heart. By order of
the council.”
He waited for them to say more, at least tell
him the name of the person who had done the deed, but they only stared at him. When
it was apparent that they weren’t going to speak until he did, Horrie shrugged.
“What is it you want me to do about it?” They
looked at each other, then at him again. “I’m assuming one of you guys did it.
Well, thanks. Saved me having to find someone that could do it for me. She
gonna be coming here at some point? You know, to spend her days with me?”
“No. She’s gone, sent on to where she needed
to go to bother us no more.” He nodded. Figured she’d do something like that.
Just up and leave him to be alone with his own plans. Now how the hell was he
going to get into the house without her body to do some of the real work? “You
have nothing more to say?”
“Not that I can think of.” He pretended to
think on it then snapped his fingers. “Oh yeah. My daughter, is she dead yet
too? That’s the one I really want to have a piece of. No sending her over
without a farewell from her daddy dear.”
“Victoria has joined the Justice team of
Bennett.” He felt his body run cold. She did what? “She and her mate have made
some considerable donations as well. To the library as well as some of the
museums that are around the world. You should be very proud of her.”
“No. I’m pissed if you want to know the
truth. She took what was mine, and now she’s just giving it away like she don’t
have a care in the world.” One of them asked if she’d really stolen from them. “No.
But that crap in that safe was mine. I want it and as her dad, I think it
should come to me, not get donated to some place where it won’t earn me a
dime.”
“What need would you have for money? You do
know that you are dead, don’t you? And not taking very good care of yourself
either, if you don’t mind my saying.” He asked him what he meant. “You’ve not
been resting properly. Have you even once been back to your place of death to rest?
You can only get rejuvenated there. No amount of rest elsewhere will do the
same for you.”
“I was staked out in the sun by my own flesh
and blood.” The men looked at each other then back at him. “You want me to go
back there and lay down on the earth and rest? What if someone comes along and
finishes the job and sends me over?”
“Sends you to where, Mr. Graham? You have
amounted quite a few years onto your sentence here. I do not believe, unless
you are zapped over, you’ll be going anywhere so that you’d have anything like
that to worry over.” They all laughed. “You will soon be nothing more than
matter that will only stick to someone’s shoes if you don’t rest soon. Why have
you not consulted your book to see what to do?”
“I made the guy take that stupid thing back.
I can’t read anyway.” He told him it would talk to him should that be
necessary. “Yeah, so they said. And what do you mean, my sentence? I served up
my time when my daughter killed me.”
“She had the permission of the council to do
that, I believe. It was a case that was heard some time ago, and she fulfilled
her promise of making the event happen.” Event? His death was an event? Not
fucking likely. “As for the things you think should belong to you, I’m afraid
that is not going to come to you either. You are, as I have said, dead.”
“I fucking know that I’m dead, damn it. Why
does everyone have to keep telling me that? I’m not stupid, you know?” None of
them said anything, but he could see what they were thinking. “What the fuck do
you want, anyway?”
“We have come to inform you that Steele
Bennett’s man, Mitch Riley, has asked to zap you over, and we have told him he
has our permission.” Horrie felt like they’d staked him too. “That is all.”
Then they just left him. Horrie was suddenly
terrified.
Vinnie didn’t care for the way things were
going in the big building. People were running around like they had a clue what
she wanted, and since she really didn’t know, they didn’t fucking know either. Finally,
she put her fingers in her mouth and whistled. Every person in the big building
stopped and turned in her direction.
“I don’t want anyone to touch another thing.”
Several people leapt back from the pieces they were near, and a couple even set
the pottery or whatever piece they had in their hands down on the floor. “Good.
Now. I know that we have to inventory all of this, but the way we’re doing it
isn’t working out. I know for a fact that several pieces are on several
different lists. It’s either furniture or it’s not. There cannot be a list for
desk, office equipment, and wood.”
“Good for you.” Her grandmother patted her on
the back as she stood up as well. “We would like for all furniture to be put
over there, the pottery items here, and the crystal there. Any and all jewelry
will need to be brought to us and we’ll inventory it.”
“Thanks.” Her grandmother just smiled at her.
“What am I going to do with all this stuff? I can open several shops and never
put a dent in all the pieces here and in the house. I shudder to think what
might be in the other buildings.”
“You’ll do fine with it. And did I tell you I
have some things I’d like to get rid of as well? Since I’ve sold the house,
young Landon has decided that he wants some of the pieces but not all. He
abhors the dining room things. In fact, I told him I did as well.”
“Beth is going to let me put some of her art
in the shop as well. And apparently Addie is selling off most of her parents’
things as well. She called them stuffy. I think she’s going to come and see
what she wants of this too.” Grandmother nodded and took the first of what
Vinnie knew would be many boxes of jewelry. “That attorney for Steele, he said
we’d have to keep track of all these pieces in order to make it easier at tax
time. Owning all this free and clear, he said, doesn’t mean I won’t have to pay
taxes on it when it sells. I guess…do you suppose I’ll be able to move any of
this?”
“I’m to understand that Hugh is going to help
you out with putting the things online to sell as well. That will help, I
think. Even if they want you to hold it for them so they can pick up some of
the pieces, he said he’d make sure that they paid up front. And I think you’ll
do very well. People love old things. Look at us.” Vinnie hugged her
grandmother to her. “I’ve been wondering how you’d feel about what I did.”
“I’m glad you took charge, Grandmother. I
would never have gotten through this…” She stopped talking when her grandmother
shook her head at her. “What do you mean then?”
“Your mother.” Vinnie thought about seeing
her mother die. The stake coming through her chest as it, too, burned up. “Staking
your mother, I mean. That, I’m sad to say, wasn’t as hard to do as I thought it
would be. She...her mouth was spewing such things that I think it hurt me that
she was hurting you so badly. You have to know it was going to be easier for me
to do than you. And I know you told the council you’d take care of it. Killing
one parent for the good of us all was more than you should have been asked to
do.”
“I’m actually glad that she’s gone. I know
that sounds horrible, but it’s not like we were very close. I mean...I can’t
even remember the last time I spoke to her where she wasn’t asking me for
something, begging me to do something for her or to give her something I had. My
house...I can see where she’d want to live there. I guess. It’s nicer than hers
had ever been. Of course, she never tried very hard to make it so she had nice
either.”
“Your father and mother were the most selfish
people I ever had the misfortune to be related to. Most of the time I would
ignore her just so that I’d not have to listen to her tell me what she didn’t
have. And how she’d never get it. I swear to you, they were old enough to have
been able to save fortunes, but they never even tried. Why would you have an
electric bill that is well over a thousand dollars a month when you are not
using it? They were gone most of the night time, and why burn it during the day
when you are at rest?”
They sorted through some of the nicest things
she’d seen so far before she answered her. There were times when her bill would
come in for a little less than thirty dollars a month. Hugo used little when he
watched over her. And Gilda didn’t live with them. There wasn’t any need for a
phone, she had no heat bills to speak of, and no credit cards. The house had
been paid off for a very long time and her taxes were paid monthly, which was
little compared to what the house gave her monthly. Food wasn’t a real issue since
she never ate, and Hugo ate whatever he could find in the woods behind them. Most
of the time, he would have a deer dressed out and eat on that for several days.
She realized she was color coding the
earrings when her grandmother laughed at her. Vinnie had always been organized.
She thought perhaps it was because of the way she’d grown up. Chaos was hard to
thing for her, and she’d made sure that at least her living space had been
clean and things put away.
“I have a lot of money.” Her grandmother told
her she knew that. “No. I mean a great deal of money. I’ve been watching
markets for a long time, longer than most investment companies have been
around. I have stock in businesses that have been around for hundreds of years,
which I bought for pennies a share. Now it’s worth millions. I was on the
ground floor to a great many projects that paid off, as well as a few that
didn’t pan out as well as we’d hoped. Like you, I’ve saved and saved, but
now...well, with Mitch, I find I want to do things with the money. I’d like to
travel, I think. It’s more possible today with planes and such than it was when
I was younger.”
“Then you should do it. I have traveled a
great deal and seen things that are still a wonder to me. I don’t fly. There is
something so confining about that, but I do take ships. You can see so much
from the ground. And if I have troubles, I can always leave. I gained that
power long ago.” Vinnie asked her if she traveled that way as well. “Only if I
feel a need to get away. You do know that Mitch can do that as well? You’d have
to keep track of him for a little while, but he can travel the same way you
do.”
“He heals faster already. Much faster than I
thought him to.” She picked up a pair of ugly earrings and set them aside. She
knew they were expensive, but she didn’t want them in front of the new
showcase. “Also, I can see the clients, as he calls them. I didn’t...there are
more than I dreamed there would be.”
“There is a lot of meanness in the world.” Her
grandmother picked up the earrings and put them to her ears. “I think I’d like
to purchase these. I think them to be quite lovely.”
They worked through most of the night. The
workers, most of them shifters or other vampires, left one by one until around
sunrise, they were alone in the building. Vinnie was moving the things to the
safe that had been there when she’d opened the doors as her grandmother moved
to see what sort of progress was made on the other items. Just as she turned
off the light to leave with her, she saw her father.
He wasn’t near enough for her to see well,
but she could see that something had happened to him. His face looked like he’d
had a stroke—part of it was sagging badly—and his hair had fallen out as well.
Her father had always been a very vain man, and to see him like this was a
great shock. Telling her grandmother he was there, she told her to move along without
talking to him. She was nearly ready to do that when he said her name.
“They told me that you can see me.” She
didn’t say anything but did keep her grandmother close at her side. “I want you
to talk to me, damn it. I’m your father.”
“Are you? I thought perhaps you’d forgotten
that when you thought to have me killed in my own bed. Why is it you and Mother
only remember that when you want or need something from me?” He told her to
shut up and listen to him. “No. I don’t think so. I’m finished with you and
whatever plans you want me to be a part of.”
“I don’t have anything. And if you remember
correctly, you murdered me first.” She didn’t speak. It was obvious, even to
her, he didn’t have anything. “I want you to take me in. Let me...I don’t know,
haunt your house so I can have a place to rest. That guy, he said I’d have to
go back where you murdered me to rest, but I figure it’ll do me just as good to
rest where you are so I can shit on you every day.”
“Yeah, that makes it so appealing to me. No,
you’re not going to come to my home. I have a mate now, and you are not going
to be anywhere he is. Much less Grandmother.” He asked her what that meant.
“She’s living with me now. She sold her house.”
“That fucking bitch. She should have given it
to me. Damn it all to fuck and back, won’t no one do what’s right for me? I
tried to go back there to rest and I couldn’t get in it any more than I could
your house. What did you do, have one of them witches put you a spell on it? Tell
me which old broad did it and I’ll have a talk with her.” She told him who had done
it. “You’re in cahoots with the necros now, are you? I heard you were mated to
one. Your dearly departed mom, she was really disappointed in you.”
“I don’t care. I could care less what either
of you ever thought about me.” He just snorted at her, and when her grandmother
told to her ask him something, she did. “What were you going to do with all my
money, Father? You don’t have any needs…you’re dead.”
“Mother fuck, is that all anyone can fucking
say to me? I fucking know I’m dead. But I still have needs, don’t I? I have
rights too, and you as my kid are going to give them to me.” Vinnie had had
enough and started for the car that she had gotten a few days ago. “Where the
hell are you going? I didn’t give you permission to leave me yet. Where is that
boy?”
She started to ask him if he meant Mitch, but
she saw the other ghost coming toward her. She knew in that moment he was with
her father and he’d hired him. Putting up her hand, she stopped him in his
tracks.
“Do you know my mate?” The man in front of
the group shook his head and told her he didn’t care. “He works with Steele
Bennett.”
“Fuck. No way.” Vinnie told him there was a
way and he did indeed work with him. “He only told me to kill you. I can. I’ve
been hanging around for some time now.”
“You do and I’m going to zap you.” The man
backed up until he was a few feet from her now. He looked over at her father
and then back at her. “He knew that too. I think he meant for you to be zapped
as soon as you killed me. It’s the way he does things.”
The man turned to her father. There was a
circle around the man, red hot and all over him from head to toe. Aura, Mitch
had told her…they all had them, but few could see them like others could, like
they could. When he started toward her father, she moved her grandmother to the
car. It was time to leave. As soon as Grandmother was in the car, Vinnie turned
to see what was going to happen.
“You done did this to me.” Her father, always
a stupid man, told him he might want to think about his head getting his ass in
trouble with him. He, Horrie, told the man that he was powerful. “Powerful, are
you? I don’t think so, and the fact that you did this to me...you had me come
on out here to do the dirty work, and to hell with the fact that I might get
myself zapped.”
“So?” The fiery circle around the man burned
brighter, and either her father couldn’t see it or didn’t care. “Like you’ve
been telling me for days now, I’m dead. What do I care what happens to the
others now?”
Her father shot back from the blast that had
been aimed at him from the other man. It was something that Mitch had told her
today. You could protect what was yours if you were dead, but otherwise you had
to behave yourself. Three ghosts showed up as her father was being blasted
again. This time, Vinnie got in her car and went home. Whatever happened to him
now was out of her hands forever.
~~~
Mitch was in the kitchen when they came in
the house. It was later than he’d thought she’d be coming home, but the moment he
saw her face, Mitch knew Vinnie had had something terrible happen. When her
grandmother left them alone, he pulled her into his lap.
“Tell me.” She shook her head and told him it
didn’t matter. “But it does. Something happened and I want to know. I want to
help you.”
Vinnie let out a long breath, and he wasn’t
sure she was going to answer him. But when she did, he had to wait before
speaking.
“Some men showed up just as the hired killer
my father got to kill me figured out that you and I are mates. The man was
blasting Father against the wall.” He nodded. “Oh, and you should know that Grandmother
and I spoke. She’s going to take whatever she wants in the way of jewelry to
compensate for the sale of her things. I hope we can sell her stuff for her.”
“Me too. But back to this man zapping your
father. He was a ghost?” She nodded and leaned back on his chest. “So your
father hired another ghost to kill you for him, and this ghost didn’t know you
and I were mates and part of Steele’s team?”