“What the—?” He pumped the gas pedal a couple of times and tried once more, then cursed with frustration when nothing happened.
Lissianna bit her lip as he tried again. “Maybe we should call a taxi.”
“It was working fine on the way out here,” Greg muttered, trying once more, then a tapping sound on the window made them both jump and glance out at Father Joseph. The priest stood on the pavement outside the driver’s door.
Greg rolled down the window when he gestured and the man asked, “Problem?”
“It won’t start,” Greg muttered, trying again.
Father Joseph watched him turn the key, and frowned when nothing happened. “It must be the starter. It isn’t even turning over.”
“No, it isn’t,” Greg agreed, sitting back in his seat with a sigh.
The old man hesitated, then said, “I was just going to pick up some supplies. I could give you a lift. Where were you going?”
“Oh, that’s sweet, Father, but it’s probably way out of your way,” Lissianna said, then mentioned the area her mother lived in.
“Oh!” Father Joseph exclaimed, brightly. “That isn’t far from where I’m headed. It must be providence. Come along, I’ll have you home in a jiffy.”
Turning away without waiting for a response, he walked to the van with the shelter’s logo on the side, and Greg glanced at her in question.
“It
is
getting late,” he said. “And I could call the garage and have them take the car in to have a look at it while we sleep today.”
Sighing, Lissianna nodded and unbuckled her seat belt.
“I hope you don’t mind, but as it’s on the way, I thought I’d just stop at the suppliers on the way out.”
Lissianna glanced toward the front of the van at Father’s Joseph’s words, then out the window as he turned off the highway. By her estimate, they were less than five minutes from her mother’s house.
“I suppose it would have been just as quick to stop on the way back, but I could really use a hand loading the supplies, and as you wouldn’t be with me on the way back…” He sent an apologetic glance toward Greg. “You wouldn’t mind, would you? I can turn around if you—”
“No, of course not, Father,” Greg assured him. “We appreciate the ride. It only seems fair to help you with your supplies.”
Lissianna smiled faintly at the polite words. She knew Greg well enough to recognize that while he was disap
pointed at the delay, he felt it would be rude to refuse to help when the man had saved them the price of cab fare to her mother’s.
“Here we are.”
Lissianna glanced out the window, frowning as he started up a long driveway leading to a large white house. There were no signs anywhere that would indicate it was any kind of business. It was also in the middle of nowhere from what she could see as she glanced around. There were no neighboring houses in view. Lissianna began to feel a bit uncomfortable all of a sudden.
“This is the lady who embroiders our logo on all the towels, sheets, and pillowcases, Lissianna,” Father Joseph announced as he parked in front of the house. “She’s one of my parishioners, a very sweet old lady.”
“Oh,” Lissianna murmured, and felt herself relax.
“It does take a little longer than a mechanized place would,” he went on cheerfully as he turned off the engine and undid his seat belt. “But she’s a widow and needs the money, so I bring all the sheets and towels to her whenever we get a new batch.”
“That’s kind of you,” Greg murmured, unbuckling his own seat belt.
“Actually, I’m glad to have you two with me,” he babbled on. “She often tries to get me to stay for tea, and I’ll have an excuse not to stay with you two along.”
Lissianna murmured politely, then undid her seat belt as Father Joseph opened his door and got out.
“He seems a nice old man, but he’s pretty chatty, isn’t he?” Greg muttered once the door closed and they were alone.
“He’s been suffering insomnia the last week or so,” Lissianna explained apologetically, but wasn’t at all sure
the man wasn’t chatty whether suffering insomnia or not. He worked days, she worked nights. She really hardly knew him.
“Well, the sooner we grab those sheets, the sooner we get home,” Greg said, reaching for his door handle, then he paused, and asked, “How much sunlight can I take at this stage of the game?”
Lissianna glanced toward the skyline, noting that the first fingers of dawn were creeping up the sky. She shook her head. “I’m not sure. But this shouldn’t take long and we’re only five or six minutes from home. You should be fine.”
Nodding, Greg opened the door and got out, then held the door open and offered her his hand as Lissianna climbed out of the bench seat and scrambled over the passenger seat to get out.
It was obvious that the sweet old lady who embroidered the linen had been waiting for them, the door was already open and Father Joseph was entering the house by the time Greg closed the van door. They hurried to catch up to him and heard him speaking as they approached, then he paused and glanced back at them as they started up the porch steps.
“She says they’re all done, and she was just packing them away,” he informed them as they reached the door. “She’s gone back to put the last of them in the boxes. It’s this way.”
Lissianna closed the front door so all the heat didn’t escape, then followed the men down the hall. At the end of the hall, Father Joseph paused to open the door and held it to usher them in. Lissianna murmured, “Thank you,” as she followed Greg into a small dark room, lit only by a tiny lamp on a table by the door. She nearly stepped on Greg’s heels when he suddenly halted.
“Go on,” Father Joseph said, and Lissianna glanced
back, then froze at the sight of a gun in his hand. She stared at him blankly for a minute, confusion reigning in her mind, then turned back and stepped to the side of Greg to peer around him. She wasn’t at all surprised that there was no little old lady who embroidered linens in sight. Lissianna was surprised, however, when she recognized the man standing in front of them, pointing a second gun at Greg’s chest.
“Bob.” Lissianna peered at the man
with surprise.
“Dwayne,” he corrected with irritation, and she recalled that she’d wanted to call him Bob that night in the parking lot, too, and he’d had to correct her.
“Do you know this guy?” Greg asked, easing to the side and drawing her with him as he repositioned them so that they faced both men, rather than having a gun at the front as well as behind them.
“Yes,” Lissianna answered absently, her concentration on trying to infiltrate Dwayne’s thoughts as she watched him shift closer to Father Joseph’s side so they both stood blocking the door. Unable to get past his alarm and wariness, she sighed, then realized what Greg had asked her and how she’d answered and grimaced. “Well, no, not really.”
“Which is it?” he asked dryly. “Yes, or no, not really?”
Lissianna shrugged helplessly. “Sort of?”
He rolled his eyes, then glanced at Dwayne, as the man said, “I was dinner last Friday.”
Greg arched an eyebrow and turned to Lissianna to whisper, “I thought I was dinner last Friday night?”
Exasperated that he even cared at a time like this she whispered, “I had Chinese last Friday. You were an unexpected appetizer, and Bob was just anemic.”
“Dwayne,” Greg corrected, not bothering to keep his voice down anymore.
She shrugged. “He looks like a Bob to me.”
“Yeah?” he asked. “Funny, I would have said he looked more like a Dick.”
Despite the situation, Lissianna grinned at the play on words. Dwayne found the insult a little less entertaining.
“Hey!” he snapped. “I’m holding a gun here.”
“It’s all right, Dwayne.” Father Joseph patted his shoulder, then explained to Greg. “Dwayne and I met last Friday night outside a bar downtown. One of our clients had told me there was a new boy on the streets and that he was eating out of the Dumpsters behind the bar. I went there looking for the lad to see if we couldn’t help him, but as I approached the Dumpsters, Lissianna came walking from behind them. I was startled to see her, of course and hailed her. We spoke, and she claimed she was there with her cousins to celebrate her birthday. When I explained why I was there, she offered to help, but I sent her inside because it was cold out. Then I checked around the Dumpsters for the boy and instead found Dwayne.”
Greg turned to her, one eyebrow arched as if to say, “You picked him up in a bar?”
“Yes, I know.” She sighed, then added defensively, “It was Mirabeau’s idea.”
Her gaze slid back to Dwayne and Father Joseph then, and Lissianna mentally chastised herself for her stupidity. It wasn’t for picking up strangers in bars, though she sup
posed that sounded seedy and cheap, but she’d obviously messed things up badly that night. Lissianna had forgotten all about Dwayne being behind the Dumpster when she’d hurried back into the bar to avoid any sticky questions from Father Joseph. She supposed that explained how the anemic man had managed to recover and leave the parking lot by the time she and the others left the bar moments later. Lissianna had wondered about that at the time, but hadn’t put together Father Joseph’s presence and the man’s apparent recovery.
Lissianna shook her head, thinking it was rather amazing she’d survived to reach two hundred if she’d made many mistakes like that over the years. Perhaps she should stick to intravenous feeding in future, at least until Greg cured her of her phobia.
“Dwayne was in a bad way,” Father Joseph announced, drawing her attention again. “He was weak from lack of blood and disoriented. I put him in the van, thinking he was drunk and needed help. I was going to take him to the shelter for some coffee, but once in the van the interior light revealed the marks on his neck, and I brought him back to the rectory instead.”
The priest glared at Lissianna. “I’d seen marks like that before…on the necks of some of those poor souls at the shelter. When I asked them about it, they always gave me the most ridiculous answers; they’d accidentally stabbed themselves with a barbecue fork, or they fell on a pencil…twice.”
Greg turned an incredulous look her way, and she rolled her eyes.
“You try and think up something to explain it then, if you’re so smart,” she hissed in a low voice, not wanting the two men to hear her.
“Dwayne’s explanation,” Father Joseph continued
dryly, “was that he’d pulled the plug of his charger for his penis enlarger out of the wall by the cord and it had snapped up and caught him in the neck.”
Greg’s mouth dropped open, and Lissianna winced.
“Well, the man had a cucumber down his pants and a fake tan,” she said with irritation, forgetting to keep her voice down this time.
“I did not!” Dwayne cried, blushing bright red, then ruined the denial by adding, “Besides, how do you know about the cucumber? Did we do something behind the bins after all?”
“No,” Lissianna snapped, more for Greg’s sake than Dwayne’s. She then leaned toward Greg to whisper, “I knew the same way I knew he was anemic.”
“By biting him?” Greg asked with disbelief. “Just where did you bite him?”
“By reading his mind,” she hissed under her breath.
“Oh, right,” Greg said, apparently recalling that while she hadn’t been able to read
his
mind, everyone else had. And her not being able to do so had been something of an anomaly.
“I began to put things together while Dwayne was eating the cookies and drinking the juice I brought him,” Father Joseph told Lissianna. “The bite marks on the people in the shelter, his bite marks, and your presence at the shelter as well as in the parking lot that night. I added it all together.”
Lissianna sighed wearily, wondering why she’d never noticed that Father Joseph was so blasted long-winded, then realized it was probably because she usually didn’t see much of him. She’d seen the man more in the last week than in the whole time she’d worked at the shelter…and all—she now realized—because he was trying to catch her out as a vampire.
“I added it all together,” the priest repeated. “And the only thing that made sense was that you were…” He paused, then said, “…a vampire.”
Lissianna just managed not to roll her eyes at his dramatics.
“I knew then that you had been sent to me by God. That I was the only one who could keep my flock safe from the soulless demon you are.” He stared at her, his expression solemn. “But…I didn’t know you well. You work the night shift, and I rarely even saw you, but you look so…nice,” he said the word with a sort of horror, obviously distressed that she didn’t fit the image he had of an evil blood-sucking vampire. “And then the very idea of vampires actually existing was incredible. Impossible. But what other explanation was there? It all fit. Still, I had to be sure first. I had to know for sure that’s what you are, before I did anything drastic.”
“So you brought the garlic mash to the shelter to feed to me, and blessed the watercoolers so they would be filled with holy water, and littered my office with crosses,” Lissianna realized.
“He did all of that?” Greg asked with surprise. “You never mentioned any of this.”
Lissianna shrugged and silently wished she had. Perhaps he would have picked up on the fact that Father Joseph suspected she was a vampire. Looking back on it, Lissianna supposed she herself should have realized something was up, but really, at the time he’d had such believable explanations. Besides—as he’d pointed out—until the past week, she’d really hardly known the man as more than someone to say hi to on her way in to work. Though she’d heard a lot about him, and most of it came down to the fact that he was zealous in his devotion to God.
One of the things Lissianna had learned through the centuries was that there was nothing more dangerous than a zealot. She didn’t doubt that, to Father Joseph, her being a vampire was the equivalent of the devil himself. Convincing him that she was a “good” vampire was out of the question, but she might convince him she wasn’t a vampire at all. After all, his tests had failed.
As if having read her thoughts, he said, “Yes, I did all of that. Imagine my amazement when none of it worked.”