Dead and Kicking (12 page)

“What?” Nash growled into the
phone. “Fantastic. We’re wrapping up here too.” He put his phone back in his pocket and
looked at me, taking in the distance I had put between us. “That was Dev. The bodies of the zombies at the second
attack site seem to have been dispersed as well.”

“I’m not surprised,” replied Isaac
with a smirk. “We should get Harry
home. That little top up you gave her
will not last long.”

I would have protested except for the
fact I could already feel the energy drain setting in again. Trying to avoid eye contact with either of them,
I squared my shoulders and made my way back to the SUV, my cheeks blazing.

I was being carried. Again. A part of me wanted to protest, but it seemed
the part that was exhausted won out. I
had fallen asleep on the drive home to the firehall. I was so tired I hadn’t even woken up when
Nash lifted me out of the truck. It
wasn’t until he stopped on the outside landing and began to argue with Isaac
that I roused.

“There must be a key in there. How hard can it be to find a key in that tiny
bag?”

“I assure you, there is no key in
here.” Isaac sounded amused.

“Hey, what the hell are you guys
doing rummaging around in my purse?” I
snatched the tiny clutch from Isaac’s hands.

“The door is locked. We need your key.”

“Just knock. Tess or Holly will let us in.”

“There’s no one home.” Nash was beginning to sound exasperated.

“What time is it? Of course someone’s home.”

“Look, it’s almost 5 a.m. They’re asleep, or no one is home. Where’s your goddam key?”

I frowned. Someone should be home. I thought Tess and Holly would be worried
sick about me by now. “I’m a witch. I don’t have a key.”

I struggled in Nash’s arms trying to
get him to set me down. Finally he
complied, setting me on my unsteady feet.
I placed my palm on the door and nothing happened.

“I don’t understand. The door should have unlocked.”

“I believe that you have drained
yourself to the point that you can’t even do a simple hedge magic.” Isaac looked at me, his eyes narrowed. Of course, my knees decided at that moment to
give out on me again. I fell back
against Nash who reached out to steady me.
Isaac indicated that we should step aside. “If you will allow me?”

I shrugged, not sure what he meant to
do and took a step back bumping into Nash again. Isaac slipped a small wallet from the breast
pocket of his suit and knelt down in front of the lock. He pulled out two small lock picking tools.

“Seriously?” Nash sounded affronted.

Isaac shrugged. “One should always be prepared.”

“Great,” Nash
muttered, “a vampire boy scout.”

There was a soft click and the door
swung open. Wow, that had been too
easy. I think we really needed to get
better locks. Isaac stepped aside and I
staggered in the door, calling to Holly and Tess, but there was no sign of either
of them. It was hard to believe they
weren’t up worrying about me like a couple of mother hens.

I turned to find Isaac waiting
patiently outside the door. “I —”

Nash put his hand up to my lips to
stop me from speaking. “You’re not
really going to invite the blood sucker in are you?”

I pushed his hand away. “Yes, I am. Come in Isaac.”

“Are you nuts?” Nash looked at me in frustration. “He works
for Salvador.”

I struggled to pull off the long
leather coat I was wearing. “Not anymore he doesn’t.” I smirked at Nash as Isaac helped me with my
coat like a perfect gentleman. “He works
for me.”

Nash grabbed me by the elbow pulling
me away from Isaac. “What the hell are
you talking about? What happened with
Salvador tonight?”

Isaac took a step towards us giving
Nash a menacing look. “You should unhand
the lady.”

If Nash had been in his wolf form,
I’m sure his hackles would have been raised.
As it was, he turned and growled at Isaac, pushing me behind him. “You keep out of this.”

That was it. I’d had about enough of the alpha male
crap. I pushed past Nash and Isaac and
headed towards the stairs. “You can both
stick a sock in it. I’m going to
bed.” I stopped and turned to
Isaac. “We don’t have a light tight room
right now, but if you need it, you can use the storage room down the
hall.” I turned to Nash. “And as for you, you can take your alpha –“

“I’m afraid that wouldn’t be a good
idea,” Isaac interrupted. “You really
must feed.”

“I wish you would quit saying
that.” I wrinkled my nose in distaste.

“Not saying it doesn’t make it any
less true and as I cannot assist you and as there is no one else here that can,
we must rely on the Detective for assistance.”

I frowned. I knew he was right no matter how much I
didn’t want it to be true. I was barely
able to stand. I had expended too much
energy tonight. I had never felt my aura
so drained. If I didn’t recharge I would
probably pass out and slip into a coma.
I needed to skim the energy I needed to replenish from the only one here
besides me with a pulse. Being a
werewolf, Nash would be able to give me more energy quicker without it really
affecting his own aura.

I looked at Nash. “And I suppose this is all right with
you?” In response Nash stepped up to me
and scooped me up over his shoulder.
“Hey!” I exclaimed in surprise.

“For once, maybe you should just shut
up,” Nash growled as he carried me up the stairs.

***

You know the feeling you get when you
wake up all nice and refreshed and then the memory of the night before and all
the stupid things you did slaps the grin right off your face? So do I.

I woke up snuggled and warm in my
bed. I felt fantastic. I was still half asleep when I rolled over, my
hand landing on a solid, warm body.
Momentarily surprised, I slid my fingers through the downy hair, feeling
the hard planes of a well-developed torso.
My hand slid further down only to suddenly be caught in a vice-like grip
around my wrist. I squeaked in surprise.

“Don’t start anything you’re not
prepared to finish,” the voice was rough with sleep. The hand released mine.

With a squeal, I leapt up and
scrambled off the end of the bed and stared in shock at Nash, looking all warm
and sleepy and completely comfortable in my bed. He grinned at me and then he raised an
eyebrow, looking me up and down. With
another squeal, I realized I wasn’t wearing a shirt and I quickly attempted to
cover my bare breasts with my arm. I
scrambled back to the bed and grabbed a t-shirt, holding it in front of my
chest.

“What the hell are you doing in my
bed?” What
was
he doing there? We
didn’t…We hadn’t…I frowned trying to remember everything that happened the
night before.

Nash sat up, chuckling. “You mean you don’t remember last night?
Ouch.” He feigned a wounded look then
winked at me. He swung his legs out over
the edge of the bed and started to push the covers off.

“Whoa! Wait just a minute.” I turned away, my cheeks red. I’m not a prude, I
just thought that one of us having seen the other naked already was
enough. Damn werewolves and their lack
of issues with nudity.

Nash laughed and stood up, pulling a
pair of jeans up off the floor. He
stepped into them and I snuck a peek – tell me you wouldn’t have done the same
– and discovered he had been wearing boxers in bed.

He walked towards me while buttoning
his fly, a gleam in his eye. He backed
me up against the wall and leaned in close, his mouth next to my ear. I took a long, slow breath, trying to still
my racing heart. He smelled wonderful,
like clean sheets and fresh grass and something a little bit earthy.

“Believe me, little minx, if we had
done more than sleep in that bed last night, you’d remember.” He threw me a smug grin and grabbed the shirt
I had clutched against my chest and walked out the door.

“Hey!” I scrambled to find some clothes to pull on,
settling on a cotton robe from the back of the door, and hurried down the hall
after him. The events from last night
were starting to come back to me, along with a sneaking suspicion about the
night before last. Wanting to cut him
off, I opted for the fire pole, beating him to the living room by a second or
two. I was rewarded for my efforts by
the look of surprise on his face.

“Nice trick,” he said.

“Listen,” I replied. “It’s not that I’m not grateful, but I don’t
know why you seem to think you’re my keeper or guardian angel or something
now.”

“You’re welcome.” Nash grabbed his coat from where it hung by
the door.

“I said I was grateful. Let’s just not make a habit of it.”

Nash snorted. “That’s fine by me.”

He slammed the door behind him,
leaving me wondering what the hell had just happened.

***

“There’s a vampire sleeping in our
storage closet.” Tess looked half
asleep.

An hour or so had passed and although
I'd only had less than four hours sleep, I still felt amazing. Better than I had in ages. And while I knew the half loaf of peanut
butter toast I had just demolished with a chocolate milk chaser had helped too,
I really had a lot to thank Nash for. He
had possibly saved my life or at least kept me from getting very sick. I frowned, trying to sort out my feelings
about Nash.

“Hello? Earth to Harry?” Tess waved her hand in front of my face,
snapping me out of my reverie. “Harry?”

“What? Oh yeah, the vampire.” I grimaced.
“Long story.”

“Must have
been.”
She sounded a little hurt.
“Didn’t you get any of my messages?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t get a chance to check them. What’s wrong?
And where’s Holly?”

Tess’s face fell and she looked close
to tears. “That’s just it, I don’t
know. She never came home last night.”

“What?” I was surprised. Holly was the reliable one of the three of
us. It was unlike her to not check in.

“I tried all her friends, the
hospital…no one has seen her since she went to do outreach yesterday for her
shift. She never reported back at the
end of the day.”

I hugged Tess. No wonder she was so upset. And then I went and disappeared practically
all night too.

“Don’t worry. We’ll find her.” I chewed my lip, thinking. “Maybe she went to visit someone back home?”
Unlike Tess and me, Holly still had family back in the small community outside
of town where we had grown up.

“I checked there too.” Tess sat down at a stool at the kitchen
counter. “I don’t know where she could
be. This isn’t like her at all,
especially with you going out last night to the Magister’s. You know she was worried about you. She wouldn’t have missed at least checking
in.” She looked up, a worried expression
on her face. “You don’t suppose she went
to Dante’s and…” She trailed off, unable
to finish.

“No, she wouldn’t have.” I frowned.
“At least, I don’t think she would have.” I rubbed her back reassuringly. “We’ll find out. We’ll find
her
.
I promise.” Now if only I knew how to keep that
promise. Maybe we could get…no, forget
that. I wasn’t asking Nash for
anything. But what would the police do? Surely I had watched enough cop shows to
figure it out.

“I have an idea.” I hurried over to the computer, Tess close on
my heels.

“Whoa, Harry. What the hell did you do to the
computer?” She looked in awe at the two
new monitors, speakers, and laser printer.

“Yeah, about that, we’ve had a
bit of an upgrade.”

“No shit.” Tess shook her head. “Where did you get the money for all this?”

“Would you believe a ghost and an
off-shore bank account?”

***

I filled Tess in on the Bryce
situation while I waited for the computer to boot up.

“Seriously? He’s in the
computer?” Tess looked at the computer
with trepidation.

“Well, he was. I’m not sure if he is now. I guess we’ll find out.” I patted the side of
the machine. “Hey
Bryce! You in
there?”

“
Hey!
Hands off sister!
”

Tess and I both jumped as the
disembodied voice came out of the speakers.

“What the…” Tess’s eyes were wide with surprise.

“Bryce! You can talk.” I was just as surprised. “And you sound like James Earl Jones?”

“
What? You don’t like? Check this out…Harry, I am…
your father.
”

“Ew, no. I
don’t.”

“That’s just wrong.” Tess shook her head again.

“
Fine,
then perhaps you prefer this? I am Bryce, human-cyborg relations
.”

“Ha ha! Yeah, that’s slightly better. It’s still kind of weird though.”

“So does this mean we can’t use the
computer anymore?” Tess looked at the
new set up skeptically.

“
Check
the bottom drawer
.”

Tess opened the desk drawer and
pulled out three tablets. “You bought us
tablets?”

“
One for each of you.
No shoe shopping or trolling online dating
sites on me, thank you very much
.”

“Hey!” Tess protested.

“Okay, that’s fine.” I interrupted,
“We need your help.”

“
How
can I be of service, oh Obi-wan?
”

“Ha ha. Very funny. You’re mixing up the characters. I can’t be Luke and Obi-wan. But seriously, Holly is missing. Can you help find her? Can you access
security or traffic-cam footage?”

“
You
bet. Tell me where
.”

“Outside
Dante’s.
We need to know if she went there last night. Do you think you could find footage of the
club’s entrance?”

“
Piece of cake.
I’ll need a current photo of Holly.”
Several
pictures flashed across the screen.
“Which of these looks most like her today?
” The pictures were all ones I had taken over
the last year or so that had Holly in them.