Dead and Kicking (13 page)

“That one.” Tess pointed to the second
picture. “I mean,
the second one.”

“
Okay. This might take a few minutes while I scan
the footage
.”

“Omigod,
Harry. This is so cool. We have our own talking super computer!”

“Shh! Don’t say that. His
ego is big enough to begin with.”

“So while we are waiting, tell me
about the vampire and why he is sleeping in our storage room and what the hell
happened to you last night?”

I brought Tess up to speed on
everything that happened in the last twelve hours or so. She sat back in her chair looking a little
overwhelmed.

“So he’s like your pet vampire or
something?”

“No, of course
not.”
Although I really wasn’t sure what Isaac was to me. “He’s more like my bodyguard now. He’s under a compulsion to keep me safe.”

Tess shrugged. “Well, I guess there are worse things than a
vampire bodyguard, and with everything that is going on, maybe it’s exactly
what you need.”

“Maybe, for
now.
It’s not like I’m planning on leaving it this way though. As soon as I can figure out how, I’ll un-compel him.”

“I don’t think that is
possible.” Isaac’s voice startled us as
he came around the corner from the hall.
“You are safer with me as your pet vampire,” he looked at Tess with a
wry smile, and she blushed, “if you try to un-compel
me, as you say, you will no longer be safe and therefore, I cannot let you do
it.”

“So you can’t be un-compelled because
that would go against what Harry has already compelled you to do?” Tess looked confused. So was I.

“Exactly. Quite the catch-22 as they
say.”

“I’m sorry Isaac.” And I was, but then again, I wasn’t. If I hadn’t done what I had last night,
whatever the hell I did, Isaac probably would have killed me, especially in the
state he was in.

“There is nothing for you to
apologize for. You and I are both
victims of Salvador’s games. And, truth
be told, I am quite happy to be here, to once again have a purpose.”

I wasn’t quite sure what to say to
that. Luckily, I was saved from having
to reply by Bryce.

“
Good
news. No sign of your friend on any of
the security cameras at or near Dante’s
.”

“That’s a relief,” Tess replied.

“But we still don’t know what happened
to Holly. How are we going to find
her?” I ran my hands through my hair in
frustration. “What about her cell phone?
Can’t you do what they do on all the TV shows and pinpoint where it is?”

“
I
might be able to track her using her phone’s GPS or by triangulating her last
position
.”

“Great. You do that while I go take a shower and get
dressed.” Another idea suddenly came to
me. “And can you run the video again for
Isaac?” I turned to look at Isaac. “I think that Salvador recognized the man
behind the zombie attacks, maybe you will too.”

It was late afternoon when we rolled
up to the spot where Bryce had tracked Holly’s cellphone. The black
Escalade
with darkly tinted windows looked very out of place for the neighbourhood. Tess and I jumped out, leaving Isaac to wait
behind the wheel. Although he could
manage the fading daylight - most vamps who were old
enough and powerful enough could - he would wait in the car unless we needed
him.

Isaac took the whole bodyguard thing
seriously, although I guess he really had no choice in the matter. Rather than argue with him, I figured it was
easier to just let him come along.
Besides, he provided the sweet ride.
It had been delivered to the firehall along with some of Isaac’s clothes
and other possessions sometime in the wee hours of the morning.

I looked around at the debris filled
street. We were in a very poor part of
the city near one of the more popular areas for the homeless. Holly had often come to this neighbourhood
with her hospital outreach program, bringing medical care and food, so it
wasn’t a surprise that she had last been seen here.

I was on edge, worried about Holly
and still a little blown away by the information Isaac had imparted on the
drive across town. He had watched the
security video and had in fact recognized the mage, as I suspected he
would. Just who that mage was though,
was the incredible part. According to
Isaac, the mage on the video wielding the dagger was Levy DiCastro.

Every young witch learns about DiCastro. He’s like
the boogeyman, his name used to frighten young magic users to stay on the white
side of magic. He was once a
high-ranking mage on the Conclave, the ruling council of witches. The Conclave consists of thirteen very
powerful witches or mages. The makeup of
the council can change from year to year based on a nomination/selection
process that ensures only the most powerful, white magic practitioners are
accepted, but generally, once you’re on the council you stay there for life or until
you decide to retire. Each year, one of
the thirteen members is selected to serve as the ‘Hammer’ or leader of all the
witches and mages. Levy DiCastro once served as the Hammer until he was ejected
from the Conclave for using dark magic.
It was a real scandal that tore a rift through the witch community. The interesting thing is that it happened
over one hundred years ago
. That would make DiCastro
over a hundred and fifty years old.

I didn`t have time to worry about DiCastro right now though.
Finding Holly was the priority.
Tess and I made our way across the vacant lot. There were cardboard ‘condos’ scattered
around amongst the abandoned shopping carts and the wreck of a burned out
car. Most of the improvised shelters seemed
to be vacant, their usual inhabitants out for the day, panhandling or dumpster
diving or whatever. We had made up some
sandwiches before we left home and we handed them out to anyone willing to talk
to us about Holly. So far we hadn’t had
much luck. No one had seen her.

“Maybe we should try calling her
phone?” Tess sounded as frustrated as I
felt.

“I guess it’s worth a shot, but Bryce
said it seemed to be turned off now.” I
tried Holly’s number. It rang once then
went to voicemail.

“Hello? Hello? Can’t talk now. Busy. Very busy.”

I looked around. The speaker was an older woman pushing a
laden shopping cart along the sidewalk.
She was dressed in rags on top of rags with a horrible looking curly,
red wig sitting on her head like a hat.
She looked like a nightmare version of Lucy from the old TV shows. She held something to her ear and spoke into
it and then shook it like it was broken, before putting it back to her ear.

“Hello? Can’t talk. Can’t talk. Busy, busy.” She spoke into the phone again.

“Excuse me?” I approached the woman I was now thinking of
as Lucy slowly, not wanting to spook her.
“Can you help me?”

“Busy! Busy, busy, busy.” She stuck whatever it was she was speaking to
into the pocket of the worn housecoat she wore and started pushing her cart
faster. “No time. No time.”

“Wait! Do you want a sandwich?”

The cart came to a halt.

“What kind of sammich?” She bounced on her feet, anxious, ready to
make her escape if necessary.

I rooted through the grocery
bag. “We have ham, peanut butter, tuna.”

“No cat food. No cat food.”
She started to push her cart again.

“Wait! Okay, no tuna. How about some nice ham? Or peanut butter and jelly?”

She stopped her cart again. “What kind of jelly?”

“Strawberry.” I hoped it was the right
answer.

“Strawberry. Strawberry is good. Don’t like no
grape. The ‘J’ should be strawberry. PBJ
is peanut butter and strawberry.”

“Well I have…” I looked in the bag, “two
of them. All yours, if
you can take a minute from your busy schedule and talk to me.”

Lucy grimaced, clearly thinking about
it. “Okay. Okay.
But don’t touch my cart. No one
touches my cart.”

“It’s okay. We,” I indicated to Tess and myself, “we
won’t touch anything.” I held out the
sandwiches. Lucy hesitantly let go of
her cart then scuttled over to snatch them from my hand. For a minute I thought she was going to just
take them and run, but she shuffled a few steps away, out of reach. She hastily tore the plastic wrap off one of
the sandwiches, stuffing half of it in her mouth.

Tess made a bit of a face and
whispered, “We should have brought some milk.
She’ll never be able to talk after that mouthful.”

I snorted a little laugh and then tried to cover
it by clearing my throat. “Ma’am, I was
wondering if you could look at this picture and tell me if you have seen this
woman in the last day or so?” I held up a picture of Holly on my phone for
her to see.

Lucy squinted at the picture and then
her eyes went wide. She hastily stuffed
the rest of the sandwich into her pocket and started to run back to her
cart. “No, no, no! All gone. All gone. Not here.”
She started pushing her cart along the sidewalk. “No talk. All gone.”

“Hey!” Tess shouted after her.

“Wait! What’s wrong?” I stuffed my phone in my pocket and Tess and
I hurried after her.

She pushed her cart around the corner
and into the mouth of an alley. Tess
caught up to her and grabbed for her cart to stop her.

“DON’T TOUCH MY STUFF!” Lucy yelled
at the top of her lungs and pulled what looked to be a plastic picnic knife out
of her pocket, waving it threateningly.

Tess threw her hands up in
surrender. “Alright,
alright. Sorry.”

“Please,” I said. “We just want to find our friend.”

“All gone. Gone
away. Hope she not come
back.” Lucy shook her head, but she was
looking off into the distance down the alley.

I followed her gaze, puzzled by what
I saw. I walked a little further into
the alley. The sun had almost set so it
was filled with shadows making it hard to see anything, but there was one
pocket of shadow where I could see furtive movements.

“Why would you say that about our
friend?” Tess asked Lucy. “Of course we
want her to come back.”

“No, not come back.” Lucy shook her head. “Not good.
Not come back.”

I looked at Lucy. Her eyes seemed to be tracking the same
movements I could see. After a moment,
she noticed that I was watching. “Do you
see? You see?” She gestured down the alley to where I could
see the diaphanous outline of a spirit. It was a man, dressed in a ragged suit,
wearing a rumpled old fedora. He paced
back and forth muttering to himself.
There wouldn’t be much use in trying to talk to him though. I’d seen this type of ghost before. I don’t know what they are really called, or
if there’s actually a name for them, but I call them ‘repeaters’, ghosts that
just repeat the same familiar action over and over, oblivious to anything else
around them.

“Yes, I can see him,” I said to
Lucy.

She looked at me with
astonishment. “You see. He go. Go, go, go. Had to go.” She
pointed at the spirit. “Not good. He come back. Not good.”

“What do you mean? Where did he go?”

“All gone. All, all
gone. Others go. Not come back.”

This wasn’t getting us anywhere. Obviously Lucy had a bit of the gift. She could see the ghost, but what did she
mean about having to go? I wanted to
question her more, but just then, my phone rang.

“Hello?” I didn’t recognize the number so I was
surprised when Salvador’s voice purred back over the line.

“My dear Miss
Russo.
So glad I was able to reach you.”
Even over the phone, his voice gave me the heebee-geebees.

“Magister, I’m kind of busy right
now.” I frowned looking over at
Lucy. She had reached into her pocket to
remove something and was talking into it.
From closer up, it looked like an actual cell phone. I gestured to Tess to take a closer look.

“I’m sure you are, but whatever it
is, it will have to wait. You and I have
some unfinished business to discuss.”

“We do?”

“Certainly,” Salvador’s reply sounded
surprised. “We did not complete our
dinner last evening so I’m afraid our deal is void.”

“What?” Did he mean the deal for the firehall? As far as I was concerned I had held up my
end of the bargain. “Wait a minute. I arrived for dinner last night as promised.”

“But we never ate dinner.”

“That’s not my fault.” Damn vampires and their
loopholes.

“Nevertheless,” Salvador continued,
“the terms will need to be renegotiated and as such, I require your presence
this evening. Say around ten?” Before I could answer, he hung up, leaving me
staring at my phone.

“Mine!” Lucy clutched at the phone in her hand. “Mine, mine, mine.”

“Yes, it’s yours.” Tess held up her hands trying to placate
Lucy. “I just want to see it. You can still hold it. Just hold it up so I can see it.”

Lucy warily held up the phone. It was a smartphone in a hot pink case. The screen had been smashed like someone had
stepped on it. Tess and I exchanged a
glance.

“Can I see the back of your
phone?” I asked Lucy, cautiously coming
to stand a little closer.

Lucy flipped the phone over, holding
it and gesturing like she was Vanna White. “My phone. Mine.”

“Yes.
It’s a lovely phone.” It
was. Only it used to be Holly’s. “Where did you get it?”

Lucy’s face became totally shut
down. She didn’t want to talk to us
anymore. “No. No, no, no.”

Tess huffed out a breath in
frustration. “This is getting us
nowhere.”

“Ladies,” Isaac’s voice startled us,
“sorry to interrupt.” Lucy froze, like a
deer caught in the headlights.

“Geez Isaac. How long have you been standing there? You scared the shit out of us.”

“I apologize. I sensed a change in your emotions, you’re
upset.”

“You sensed?” What was he talking about?

Isaac looked a little
uncomfortable. “It’s a side effect of
last night. I seem to be able to sense
your emotions, the strong ones, at least.”

“And you’re just telling me this
now?” Unbelievable! What else had I managed to screw up I wonder?

“Guys?” Tess interrupted,
concern in her voice. “Something’s wrong
with…” She pointed at Lucy who appeared
to be completely frozen, standing there, staring like she was a wax figure.

“Oh crap! Is she having a stroke or something?” I
asked. I stepped closer to her and waved
my hand in front of her unblinking eyes.

“I’m afraid that’s my fault as well,”
Isaac replied. “I didn’t want to
frighten her further.”

“You can do that? Just freeze her in place like that?” Tess was aghast.

“Using glamour,
yes.”
Isaac shrugged like it was no big deal.
I suppose to him, it wasn’t, especially for someone that hunted humans
for dinner.

“But how is that going to help
us?” I wondered aloud.

“I can try and read her memories of
the last day,” Isaac answered matter-of-factly, as if it was a normal
occurrence.

“Will it hurt her?” I frowned.
I really wanted to know what Lucy was babbling about, but I didn’t want
to do anything to damage her any further than she already seemed to be.

“Not to worry. She will feel nothing and will be unaware it
happened.”

“In that case, do it. Please,” I added, hopefully making it a
request rather than an order.

Isaac approached Lucy, a look of
compassion on his face. He placed his
hands on either side of her head, at her temples. “Be at peace, little sister. Close your eyes.” Lucy’s eyes fluttered
closed. “Think back to yesterday when you saw
Holly. You remember Holly.” Lucy started to nod. “Yes, that’s right. Just think back to when you last saw Holly.”

A few minutes later, Lucy, whose name
turned out to be Joanne, was on her way back down the alley with the entire bag
of sandwiches hidden in her cart. Isaac
had learned everything we needed to know.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t good.
Joanne had seen Holly yesterday, right before a familiar white van
arrived to round up more of the homeless.
The men in the van had been to the area before, promising jobs, beds and
food. They had taken a van load,
including our friend the pacing ghost.
None of the men or women that went with the men in the van ever
returned, but Joanne had seen several of their spirits lingering in the area,
including the pacing man. When the van
had arrived yesterday, Holly and her outreach partner, Oksana, questioned the
men. The men had gotten angry and forced
both Oksana and Holly and everyone else already in the van to go with them at
gunpoint. During the scuffle, Holly’s
phone had been thrown to the ground and one of the men had stomped on it. Joanne picked it up after the van had pulled away.