The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant (17 page)

4.

Freddy, or whatever remained of him in the red-eyed monster staring at us from across the church, let out a snarl and smashed his hand through the nearest pew. Splinters went flying, tearing through a few of the nearby ghouls, much to their confusion. Those things would have been on Freddy like drunks on an unguarded bar tap if he’d had a heartbeat, but whatever supernatural hunger drove them didn’t crave undead flesh. The working theory was that this instinct was woven into the magic that animated them, since without it, creating ghouls would just become a wild feeding frenzy on one another. They would still attack if they were commanded to, though I still wasn’t sure who was pulling their strings. They were definitely under someone’s control. That much was obvious. Otherwise
,
they’d have tried to devour me as soon as they caught a whiff of my scent, and this whole ugly incident would have been over already.

Quinn let out a low whistle. “That necromancer had some serious skill. This is quite a transformation. Pity, I imagine at least some of that blood staining your boyfriend’s neck belongs to the would-be magician. Or should I say ‘belonged’?”

That line was probably already clichéd in whatever century this dick was turned, yet for some reason, it got under my skin. Probably because I had already had the same thought moments before. Who all had been coming to the party? Nick, Bubba, Albert, and Amy. Amy or Bubba might have been able to fight off Freddy, but if he’d drank from one of them first, then the others were fucked. My stomach turned the longer I stared at the red streaks on Freddy’s skin and clothes. Stupid idiot. Why hadn’t he just stayed away?

“Hey, Quinn,” I called, working hard to keep my more fearful emotions off of my face. The only thing he was allowed to see was my anger, and I had plenty of that to spare. “When this is all over, I’m going to tear your limbs off and leave you with your dick exposed to sunlight. Then I’m going to get a mage that can heal you and repeat the process until I get bored.”

He glared at me. I think he imagined I would have started begging for my life by now. I probably didn’t fit into his expectations for how this was supposed to work. Welcome to the Krystal Disappointment Club, asshole. Tell my father and ex-fiancé “hi” at the next meeting.

“I’ve had enough of your mouth,” Quinn said at last. “I was going to kill you first, but I think I’ll let you live a bit longer while we subdue the man you seem to care so deeply for.” He raised his hands, the sleeve on his right arm falling back enough to reveal an ornate bracelet giving off a dark glow. At least that explained the ghouls. Undead couldn’t cast magic, but they could use enchanted items, if they knew how. “Ghouls, Beauregard, put our guest in more of a listening mood.”

Just like that, the murder switch in the ghouls’ brains was clicked on and they began rushing toward Freddy. I noticed the hulking form of Beauregard moving forward as well, but he did so at a much more casual pace. Thankfully, Freddy saw all of this too, though it seemed his sense of priorities was different. Rather than swatting at the ghouls bearing down on him, Freddy did what he’d always done best. He jumped, dodged, and evaded. He ran like hell. The only difference in this and the Freddy I’d known since high school, the one I started to . . . have feelings for, the one I’d been with only hours earlier, was that this Freddy didn’t try to get away from danger. He was running, all right, running straight at Quinn.

This, far more than the previous command, seemed to kick Beauregard into high gear. The large vampire clearly hadn’t been expecting Freddy to make a beeline for his boss. It took him so long to correct his course that Freddy was able to make it halfway to the pulpit. Then again, Beauregard didn’t intercept Freddy so much as crash into him, so the progress was definitely balanced with some setback.

Freddy surprised all of us, though. Instead of just collapsing like he had in his apartment, he flipped over the shoulder cracking into him and landed on his feet on the other side. As soon as his loafers . . . Oh, sweet heaven, he was still wearing those, wasn’t he? Anyway, as soon as his loafers touched the ground, he was off again, fangs glinting in the light as he snapped furiously. Whatever was driving him along, it seemed to be single-mindedly set on Quinn.

Beauregard was surprised by his opponent’s gymnastic talents, but that wasn’t enough to make him forget what his job was. With more grace than a man his size had any right possessing, he spun around, tried to grab Freddy by the arm. It was unsuccessful, though barely. The magic amping up Freddy was impressive, no doubt about it, but I could see why Quinn was relatively unconcerned. If his lackey had enough skill and power to keep up with Freddy, then the mastermind almost certainly did.

A few more failed swipes, a few more frantic steps forward, and Freddy was nearly in spitting distance of his goal. Unfortunately, that was because Beauregard got tired of pawing at him and took it to the next level. He surged forward, wrapping Freddy in a powerful hug that no amount of nimble movement was going to get out of, then threw the two of them to the ground. They met the concrete with a mighty crunch, and for a moment, the world was silent. Had either of them been living, the sounds of heavy breathing would have filled the air. Instead, there was only smug satisfaction practically echoing from Quinn, the clacking jaws of the pursuing ghouls, and a sullen quiet from the vampire pinned only a few feet away. He’d made it so close, though I had no idea what he’d thought would happen if he—

“NOW!” Freddy yelled, startling everyone in the room with a sentient mind. Well, everyone we’d all known about.

“
Ectorim Novendum, Bicradalio
!” The words were familiar, though not so much that I could place them. The voice, on the other hand, I knew in an instant. Neil’s spell echoed through the church, the force in his voice so strong I thought it was going to knock the dust from the rafters. I felt a soft pulse of magic from nearby, again familiar in a way I couldn’t quite place. As the words faded, I realized the world had gone silent again, but this time it was different.

This time the world had frozen. The ghouls stood, still as fucked-up wax figures and at least twice as ugly. Quinn was unmoving, which made the look of surprise on his face all the more appropriate. Beauregard was stuck as well, his head halfway up as he twisted his eyes to find the source of the voice. I followed his eyes to find a small figure climbing out of the back of the truck, chunking an enormous blanket back into the vehicle’s depths.

“Neil?”

“Hey, Krystal,” he called, giving me a wave. For a young man surrounded by ghouls, he seemed extraordinarily unconcerned.

I noticed one more area of movement, this one far more relevant to my situation. Freddy had peeled off the frozen form of Beauregard and was approaching my spot near the altar. His eyes still glowed with that strange red light, but there was something different in the way he was moving.

“Freddy? You okay in there?”

He reached down and pulled apart my chains with a small grunt of effort.

“No I’m not okay,” he said, his voice even and normal despite the strange glowing eyes and crazy-ass antics. “I was halfway here when I realized that in all the chaos I forgot to take the roast out of the oven. It’s going to be ruined by the time we get back.”

I grabbed that wuss by the shirt collar, pulled him close, and gave him a kiss that would make the dead stand up in their graves.

Sex pun absofuckinglutely intended.

5.

Author’s Note: Here, since I was on the scene once more, it only seems appropriate that I resume the duty of recounting the incident.

When Krystal finally let me go, which I was both happy and sad to have happen, the joy of seeing me not a monster was at last overcome with her need to understand just what the hell was going on. I could hardly blame her for that. It was a trait that likely made her successful in her career. Still, it was nice to, for once, know something she didn’t, and I was half-tempted to savor the moment. Then I noticed the sternness in her eyes and remembered that I was not only helping my girlfriend to her feet, but I was also helping an Agent. In this situation, I had no doubt which trumped the other.

“Spill,” Krystal said, once she was standing. “What the hell was all that? And why aren’t you some crazy, blood-hungry monster?”

“Neil proposed a spell that would have amplified my vampiric abilities by several fold, but we ultimately decided against it
.
Even though he said it would have made me strong enough to stand against them, I had to raise the point that I would still be . . . well . . . me. I’m not good at conflict, definitely not good enough to overcome two men who seem to relish it, even with a strength boost. He suggested altering the ritual to dull my human sensibilities, but when he and Amy looked it over to see if that was even viable, they realized that a big component of the spell was already mind altering. From there, Amy put together the working theory that Quinn had known I had a necromancer as a friend and was counting on us utilizing the spell to come save you.”

Krystal rubbed her ankles where she’s been bound, then stood up to her full height. She surveyed the room carefully, checking for threats. There were none she could discern, or at least none I could discern her discerning. Still, she walked over to Quinn and began to test his paralysis, or at least that was what I presumed she was doing by thumping him in the eye.

“So you didn’t use Mortis Invictus. Then what was all of . . . ” she paused pestering Quinn to gesture at the wrecked church and the frozen ghouls, “ . . . this?”

“Once we knew what they were expecting, it seemed like we might be able to use it to our advantage. Amy cast a spell to give me the scary eyes. A little creative tailoring and some blood from my fridge completed the image of a magically-altered brute.”

“Uh huh, but why?”

I held up my wrist to show her a tiny metal charm. “Amy taught Neil about talismans sometime back. She removed his collar, so he was able to use it to cast that undead freezing spell he used at the LARP from wherever the talisman was located. Evidently, with stronger vampires, you need proximity to be effective. Good thing the ghouls were weak enough to be taken at a distance. We didn’t know they’d be here.”

“That’s great, but what about—”

“All the dodging?” I said, gushing over her question. It was poor etiquette, but I was excited. I’d never really gotten to do the big reveal before. “Amy gave me a potion that enhanced my speed, perception, and dodging. She calls it ‘cat’s dexterity,’ or something like that. Turns out she makes more than just drugs for dragons.”

“Fred,” she said, taking in a long sigh that told me she was trying not to let her frustration get the better of her. I could have told just from her choice of words she was serious. I couldn’t remember the last time she called me something other than “Freddy.” “You aren’t getting it. My question is not how you all managed this little coup—it is why you bothered in the first place.” She turned away from Quinn, evidently satisfied he was truly held. His eyes lingered on her, somehow still managing to convey a sense of fury despite their unmoving status.

“I told you not to come,” she said. “I mouthed it at you when they were pulling me away.”

“I didn’t catch that.”

“Fine, but you still should have known not to bother. I’m an Agent, damnit, and I know you’re still learning what that means, but I’d hoped you’d have figured out by now that it’s a title given to people who can take care of themselves. Yes, I have some limitations that let me get captured more easily than others
.
I’ve been doing this for a long time, though. I survived just fine without someone riding in to play cowboy and save me from the train tracks.”

“I think you sort of mixed genres there. Dudley Do Right did the train-track thing.” I knew it wouldn’t help un-rile her. I just wasn’t sure what else to say. Krystal was the Type B Personality in our relationship. I so rarely saw her serious, even in dangerous situations, that I wasn’t used to calming her down.

“It doesn’t matter.” She thrust a finger in Quinn’s face, her exposed flesh mere inches from his mouth. “This is not a threat to me. He is an inconvenience. He is a dinner-plan wrecker. He is an apartment smasher. But that’s all. He’s an annoyance to me. To the rest of you, he is a very deadly opponent. You should have let me handle my own business.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I . . . I just didn’t want anything to happen to you.”

We were interrupted by sounds from the front of the church. A glance over showed us Amy, Bubba, and Albert had arrived and were trying to extricate Bubba’s truck from the pews smashed beneath it. They’d followed at a distance during the front-door-smashing bit. Neil was only along so he could cast his spell, and Amy had only consented to letting her apprentice do that much after laying several protection spells atop him. Between the magic and the armored blanket, an item none of us wanted to ask Bubba why he kept on hand, the amateur necromancer was probably safer than I was during the drive.

“You brought the rest of the crew?”

“They insisted. We care about you, Krystal. None of us was comfortable with sitting around while two vampires did who-knows-what to you. When we first met, you even told me that vampires were only assigned to really powerful agents, and you’ve never mentioned dealing with one.”

“That isn’t because they can kill me. It’s just because subduing them isn’t my specialty.”

“I didn’t know that. Neither did they. We were worried about you, and no matter how mad you get, I’m afraid none of us is going to tell you we regret what we did tonight because you’re standing here safe and sound. Maybe we were wrong, but we were the sort of wrong that ends with getting our friend back, and I think I speak for everyone when I say we can make peace with that.” Despite my brave words, I took a slight step back and braced tentatively. Krystal was a passionate woman; I was prepared to receive a emotional, if not violent, response.

She let out a long breath and ran her fingers through her hair. After a moment, she walked back over to me and placed her arms around my shoulders. “I know, Freddy. I realize it was well intentioned. This is just a touchy topic for me. I’m a little prone to overreaction.” She leaned in and gave me a kiss, not one like she had when she saw me, but one that still would have taken my breath away if I’d had any. Once she parted, she continued talking.

“I’m serious about this, though. You and the Scooby Doo crew have to rein in any cavalry impulses when my safety is all that’s on the line. Trust that I can handle myself in situations like this, especially against pissants like Qui—”

Later on, I’d be able to reconstruct the memory, noticing what my vampire eyes had seen and distracted brain had missed. The hot spray of her blood splashed across my face as her throat disappeared. It had happened in an instant, a pale hand reaching around from behind her, clutching her too-tan-for-the-season throat, and ripping it out. That would come down the line. In that moment all I felt was the sticky spurt of blood strike my face. All I heard was the moist gurgling of her next words oozing out of her now-exposed throat. All I saw was her fall sideways and flop to the ground, lifeless save only for an occasional twitch.

Once she was gone, I got a great view of Quinn, movements clearly unhindered and right hand coated in blood.

“I told you to stop talking,” he said, eyes on her body as the intermittent jerking began to slow, “but, like all women, you just didn’t know when to shut up.”