Helens-of-Troy (38 page)

“God give me strength,” Helen
whispered. “It hasn’t even been a week and she’s taking over my
social calendar.”

“Yes, here it is,” Helena said, coming
back into the room. “They gave a talk to the grade three’s about
winter safety this week. You can read all about it.” She started to
hand the paper to Helen, and then remembered the sordid front-page
story of the missing animals in Troy. “Here, Helen. Let me take
that front page. I spilled some coffee on it earlier, it’s all
crinkled.” She removed the page and opened the newspaper to the
article. “Personally I think Cody is the better looking of the two,
but they’re really quite similar.”

Helen glanced at the picture. “Yeah,
they’re kind of cute,” she had to admit. She handed the paper back
to her mother. They reminded her of Davey Weiss from her own third
grade class. Blond and blue-eyed, a total one-eighty from the men
she was usually attracted to. That might be a good
thing.

“I know. You’d think they’d be off the
market by now, but they’re not,” Helena said, tucking the issue
under her arm. “I can’t imagine why.”

Helen grabbed the paper back from
Helena. “Oh, my God. Let me see that picture again.” She quickly
flipped through the pages until she found the right one.

“What is it, Helen?”

“I know them,” she gasped. “He was one,
now he’s two. St. Paul de Vence. They’re the wraith riders I
unleashed from that box.”

“You mean you weren’t lying about
that?” Helena exclaimed in disbelief.

“No, I wasn’t lying about that. Not
that part anyway.” Helen grabbed her mother’s arm. “Oh no, it’s
happening again.”

“What is it, Helen?” She looked at her
daughter’s face. “You’re going all wrinkly.”

“The accident. It’s replaying in my
mind. I can see the man in the Hummer. He’s blonde. He has a badge.
He’s one of them. A Dayton.”

“Are you sure?” Helena
gasped

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Hellsbelles! Can this day get any
worse? I mean, really…”

The upstairs phone began to
ring.

“Answer it, Mother,” Helen said. “My
head is killing me.”

“Let it go to the answering machine,”
Helena replied. She wanted to stay by her daughter until this
latest vision subsided.

“ANSWER IT!” Helen screamed.

“Okay, okay,” Helena replied, running
upstairs to answer the phone. She was out of breath by the time she
picked up the receiver. “Hello? Oh, hello Jacey…,” she answered,
“…of course we can come right over. What’s wrong?” She listened
intently to the hysterical girl on the other end of the
line.

“Helen,” Helena yelled. “You put that
migraine on hold and get your boots on.” She flew down the old
staircase, taking the stairs two at a time.

“What’s wrong?” Helen asked upon her
return. “I’m feeling kind of woozy.”

“I’ll woozy you to hell and back, if
you don’t hurry up,” Helena warned. “Can you hear that church bell
ringing in the distance? It’s summoning us, but not to
mass.”

“Mother?”

Helena threw her jacket haphazardly
over her arm and headed out the door, grabbing Helen by the hand.
Helen nearly slipped on the wet snow-covered pavement as Helena
pulled her along to the Lachey’s side door.

“Helen,” she began earnestly, “I need
you to focus. I mean really focus. Willie was right. Ellie’s life
is in danger.”

“What?” Helen replied, wide-eyed. “But
you said…”

“I didn’t know then what I know now.
Well, I knew part of what I know now, but that’s besides the point.
We have some very nasty people to take care of, Helen.

“You mean take care of as in…bringing
them to your clinic, right?” Helen hoped.

“I mean,” Helena clarified. “We have
some very nasty people that we have to kill. And for the record, I
don’t do that at my clinic.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Colin Dayton sat in the Chief’s black
leather chair with his feet upon the desk. He was flipping casually
through a paperback edition of “Big Poker for Big Winners” that his
brother Cody had lent him. The tattered corners of the pages
indicated that he wasn’t the first “Big Winner” to have read the
book.

“Need help with that?” Ryan joked. He
was sitting on the floor of the jail cell, watching the officer try
to concentrate on an instructional manual that was unfortunately
beyond his comprehension.

“Cody gave this to me.” Colin said
nonchalantly. “He found it. He thinks it’ll improve my game.” His
brother had been dragging him into high stakes games at the casino
lately, and the cards had not been in his favor. Cody thought he
just wasn’t paying attention, which might have been the case. He
was more of a roulette man himself. Less work. Spin the ball and
gravity does the rest.

“Why don’t you sit on the bed?” he
asked Ryan. “The floor’s got to be cold.”

“I’m sick of sitting on the bed,” Ryan
replied. He wondered if he was entitled to an hour of exercise a
day. He would have to ask his lawyer that, if he ever got
one.

“Don’t blame me if you get
hemorrhoids,” Colin shrugged.

Ryan rolled his eyes. “So where is the
Code-ster, anyway? Did he pull a bender in Vegas? Is that why I
haven’t seen your brother’s sorry ass around here?”

Colin took his feet off the desk and
wheeled the chair slowly over towards the cell. “What’s it to you,
you a cop?” he laughed, dropping the book through the bars. “Here.
You might as well get an education, courtesy of Troy’s finest. I’m
better off losing anyway. Cody’d have a snit fit if I ever beat him
at his game. Peace in the family and all that.”

Ryan glanced at the book. “It’s from
the library. With my luck it’s overdue and I’ll be fined on top of
the rest of the shit happening to me in this nightmare.” He flipped
to the back page, and found a card tucked in the library pocket.
“It’s totally overdue,” he said to himself, noting the book had
been checked out in 1970. They didn’t even use this type of library
card anymore. He glanced at the name on it and grimaced. Quickly
taking the card and tucking it into his shirt pocket, he then
closed the book and tried to throw the paperback directly on the
Chief’s desk. It landed on the floor, beside the waste paper
basket.

“I expected more from you,” Colin
said.

It was then Ryan noticed the face of
the vampire in the window, watching he and Colin with a look of
amusement on his face. “Shit. Not again.”

Colin turned around to see what Ryan
was looking at, and noticed the teenager outside.

The vampire tapped on the window and
waved at them.

“Come on in,” Colin indicated to the
teenager at the window.

“Are you crazy?” Ryan asked. “Don’t let
him in unless you’re going to arrest him. He’s the bad guy. Tell
him he’s not welcome.”

“The Chief won’t get re-elected if we
do things like that, will he?” Colin smirked. “Every vote counts.
This citizen of Troy is as welcome in here as you are.”

“I don’t think he’s a registered
voter,” Ryan tried to argue. “Seriously, tell him to take a
hike.”

“It’s not always about you, Ryan,”
Colin offered. “Maybe he wants to see me for something, ever
thought of that?” His cell phone began to vibrate in its holder. He
reached to his belt and pulled it out, “Troy Police. Officer Colin
Dayton here. He listened intently to the voice on the other end of
the line. “Okay, I’ll be right there.”

“I don’t believe this,” Ryan
sighed.

“What?” the vampire smirked as he
entered the room. “Do you think you’re the only one with
friends?”

“You,” Colin said to the vampire,
“whatever it is that you want, is it urgent? Or can I talk to you
later? I have to go deal with a…situation.” He put his phone back.
“Never a dull moment in this town lately.”

“I guess it can wait,” the vampire
sighed. “I’ll just stay here and keep Ryan company.”

“Can I trust you two to play nice?”
Colin asked, grabbing his coat from the back of the
chair.

“Don’t lock the door,” the vampire
requested, “I’m expecting another visitor.”

Colin nodded. “Just lock it up when
you’re done. And if you kill anyone, clean it up, will
ya?”

“Wha…t? Ryan cringed.

“That’s your job,” the vampire said to
the officer.

“I’ve been kind of busy lately,” Colin
sneered.

“You’ve been busy doing a shitty job,”
the vampire countered.

Ryan listened intently to their banter.
While he had to agree with the assessment of Colin’s work ethic,
for two people who had no reason to know each other, it sure
sounded to him like they did. “Do you two need some alone time?” he
asked.

“None of your business,” the two said
in unison.

“You’re not seriously going to leave me
here with him?” Ryan asked Colin. “You didn’t even frisk him or
anything. He might be carrying a syringe or something.” Geez, Stan
would make a better police officer, he thought to
himself.

Colin looked at the teenager. “I doubt
he’s got a needle. He doesn’t look the type. Besides, you need all
the friends you can get right now. Talk about the weather or
something. I’ll be back in an hour,” he said as he headed out the
door.

“Whadaya mean?” Ryan protested. “He’s
white and pasty and looks half-dead. That sound exactly like a guy
who’s got a needle.” He made a mental note to have a long chat with
Chief Cohen about the hired hands he was entrusting with his
precinct.

“So, how’s it going there, buddy?” the
vampire asked him. “Getting a little stuffy in here?”

Ryan tried to avoid his gaze. He wasn’t
in a making friends mood.

“Stop trying to ignore me,” the vampire
told him. “If you ever want to see your brother alive again, you
will listen, and you will do exactly what I want.”

“What did you do with Stan?” Ryan
demanded, his neck muscles beginning to tense up as he spoke. It
was a natural reflex action his subconscious used to prepare him
for a potential blow to the head.

“I stuffed him like canolli,” the
vampire said. He could intuitively feel the pulse of Ryan’s carotid
artery expanding as the adrenaline in him began to take hold. “Try
not to give yourself an aneurism,” he chided.

“What?” Ryan asked incredulously,
moving menacingly towards his adversary.

“Uh-uh,” the vampire cautioned. “Save
it. The orange flag is already down on this play. You’re in no
condition to try to out-wit me.” He paused. “Stan doesn’t like the
cold much, does he? Those red pajamas he wears are getting a little
thin.”

“Okay, I’m listening,” Ryan said,
sitting back down on the bed, feeling defeated. The vampire was
right. There was little Ryan could do in his current situation. His
lack of sleep was beginning to take its toll on him. Attempting to
kill the vampire, even if he knew how to do it, would be a tough
task to do alone. “If you’ve hurt him, I’ll kill you,” he said
weakly.

“Yeah, yeah,” the vampire taunted.
“Whatever.”

“If you don’t tell me what you’ve done
with him, I’ll find a way to erase you from this earth,” Ryan
promised.

“Maybe when you wake up, you will.
Besides, we had a deal,” the vampire reminded Ryan. “I’ll give you
Mini-You when you bring me the girl, remember?”

“I don’t remember agreeing to
that.”

“I don’t remember you not agreeing to
that. Here’s how it’s going to work, Ryan. Lucky for you, she’s on
her way over here, the girl you call Goth-Chic. Kismet has arranged
it so she’s coming to see you. That’s not the smartest thing she
could do, but she’s totally messed up in the head right now, thank
you very much, and she needs to talk to you because she thinks
you’ll understand. You can thank me later. I’m going to be nice and
count that as you bringing me the girl. See, I’m not all
bad.”

“What are you going to do with her?”
Ryan asked. If he could only tap into the vampire’s psyche, he told
himself, he might be able to stop his crazy plan to capture Ellie.
A plan that he was unwillingly a part of. Before he could even
attempt to help her, he had to somehow find out what had happened
to Stan. Blood was thicker than neighbors. Even
Goth-Chic.

“I’m going to go into the washroom and
I’m going to stay there, until the time is right for me to come
out,” the vampire said. “You are going to say nothing about me
being there, because if you do, if I get any indication that she
knows I’m here, I’ll just vanish. For as long as you live. They’ll
find Stan’s body next summer, after it has cured like
rawhide.”

Ryan stared blankly at him.

“Nod if you understand,” the vampire
said sarcastically.

Ryan raised and lowered his head in
agreement, and let out a long sigh. He stumbled back to the bed and
collapsed upon it.

What a mess he was in. Less than a week
ago he had been a happy-go lucky highschooler with a pro scout
dogging him for an easy scholarship. Betty had been over the moon
with that news. A free college education courtesy of the 30-yard
line. What could be sweeter? And now, now he was locked in jail
with a serious case of fright night taking control of his life. It
was getting to be too much for him to handle. He reckoned he knew
how Betty must be feeling right now. He felt the same, without the
benefit of medication.