Dead-tective (Book 1): Vampire Dead-tective (3 page)

Vincent lunged forward and he buried his teeth into my shoulder. I yelped and tried to jerk away, but he held me tight. The initial pain of his penetration melted away and was replaced with a sensual pleasure that spread out from my shoulder. My eyes widened as my body became heated, and liquid pooled between my legs. I gasped for air and my face flushed with the creeping need that flooded over my body.

My hot need was slowly replaced with lethargy as I felt Vincent pull my blood from my body. My head lulled to one side and I couldn't keep my eyes open. I thought I would lose consciousness, but a bright light shot through my closed eyelids. The brilliance burned with the intensity of the sun, and reawakened my mind and body. I heard Vincent cry out and opened my eyes in time to see him stumble to the opposite side of the alley. He hissed and snarled at my hand, and I saw that the ring on my finger was the source of the light.

However, it wasn't the only source. His own finger was lit with the same light. He clutched onto his hand and ground his long, sharp fangs together to stifle his cries of pain. His light pulsed and stretched out into a long, thin beam of light that wound its way up toward the sky. It stretched over the distance of the alley and connected with my ring. My eyes shot open and I gasped when I felt an enormous amount of strength enter my body through the beam of light. The lethargy vanished, replaced by an energy that made me feel like I was on a thousand energy drinks, and they were all working.

Vincent screamed and fell to his knees. His face turned a ghastly white and the flesh seemed to shrink and shrivel fro his bones. For all his psychotic antics I felt sorry for him. The moment the emotion rose up inside me the light connecting us vanished. The world slipped back into the darkness of night. The energy in my body lessened, but the pain from my wound was gone. When I glanced at my shoulder I realized that the wound itself had disappeared. All that remained was the mess of blood.

I heard a groan and whipped my head over to Vincent's dark shape on the opposite side of the alley. He still sat on his legs and his body shook with a violent tremor. A hoarse chuckle slipped from of his pale lips. "Quick learner, girl, but you nearly killed us both."

His weakened state and my healthy state emboldened me, and I scowled at him. "Me kill us? You were the one sucking me dry," I shot back.

"Merely a survival instinct."

"That nearly killed us both?" I pointed out.

Vincent stumbled to his feet and I scuttled to mine. If he wanted to try his luck with me again then he was going to have to catch me first. "It was necessary to finish the connection between us."

I blinked. "Come again?"

He straightened and groaned when his back erupted like a string of firecrackers. "I mean what I mean. We are connected."

"I got that part." I paused, furrowed my brow, and shook my head. "Actually, I didn't get that part. What are you talking about?"

He held up his left hand and showed off the ring that was identical to mine. "These pieces of jewelery were forged with more than metal. They were infused with the blood of an ancient vampire and a spiritually strong human. When a vampire and a human wear them they become bonded to one another. If one feels pain, the other will feel an echo of that pain. If one dies, the other dies."

I held up my hands in front of me. "Wait a minute. If what you're saying is true, and it sounds Cracker Box crazy, then you really are a vampire?"

"Yes."

"And if you tried to kill me you'd get hurt?" I guessed.

"Yes."

"And you're an ass?"

"No."

I shrugged. "I thought I'd try."

"Very amusing." His face was as funny as the grave. "But we don't-"

"Wait a minute." I held up my own ring. "If Tim had this ring and he's dead, how come you aren't dead?" I wondered.

"He wasn't wearing the ring at the time of his death. Instead we find it on you," Vincent pointed out.

"Why would he take it off?"

"I have no idea, but we have more immediate problems."

I frowned. "Yeah, you're right. Those guys might find us again. I gotta get to the cops and-"

"-and tell them what?" Vincent asked me. "You escaped from men in black suits who had a werewolf in their employ and were saved by a vampire?"

I scowled at him. "I have to tell somebody about this. It's too big for me."

Vincent frowned and tilted his nose up in disdain. "There is one person in this world who would be interested in what you have to say."

"And who might that be, Count Chocula?"

"Frederick Batholomew."

"That's a mouthful."

"His mouth is certainly a problem."

"So why do we need to go to this person rather than somebody who might at least give me protection?" I asked him.

"I am your protection, Batholomew has other uses."

I looked over the psychotic vampire and cringed against the brick wall behind me. "Hell no are you my protection. You've tried to kill me twice in twenty minutes, and for me that's a record for assassination attempts on my life."

"I am satiated, and our bond is complete. You have nothing left to fear from me."

I wasn't comforted. "Uh-huh, so you're supposed to protect me like you protected Tim?" I countered.

Vincent winced. "A mere oversight on his part. If he had refrained from trouble during the day then I would have been of use to him."

"Great, so you're only useful for what? Twelve hours in a twenty-four hour day?" I remarked. "Or do vampires not have to sleep and you were just napping in that wooden box I found you in?"

"My body may need to rest during the day, but my powers are yours." He nodded at the ring. "That will offer you all the powers you need. Tim forsook the powers by giving you that ring."

"Wait, so during the day I'm kind of like a vampire?"

"Yes."

"But without that whole sun-burning thing?"

"Perhaps your incessant questions are better directed at Batholomew," Vincent suggested.

"I haven't agreed to go with you to him," I countered. Vincent stalked over to me and swung me into his arms like before. "Hey! Let me down! I can walk!"

"Not as fast as me."

I yelped when he took off down the road, carrying me at warp speed to another adventure.

Chapter 4

I grasped onto his arms as we sped through city blocks like they were standing still. Actually, they were standing still, but we were still going really fast. I did notice we weren't going as fast as we had on our escape from Warehouse Island. Still, by the time Vincent put on the brakes we were several miles from the river, and for me we were several blocks from any familiar area. All around us were old factory buildings, hulking skeletons of industrialization with broken windows for eyes and gaping doors for mouths. The only living things besides me and-well, just me, were a few stray cats. There weren't even any streetlights to help me see into the streets that wound their way around the large structures. The only open spot to see the stars lay behind us, and that was just a large loading and unloading area for all the goods they used to manufacture.

Vincent parted his arms and dropped me onto the road. I yelped when I hit my butt, and rubbed my sore posterity as I scowled up at him. "Do you mind being more careful next time?" I snapped at him.

"I would," he coolly replied.

"Thanks, I appreciate it."

Vincent ignored my snark and walked over to one of the buildings that actually had a pair of steel doors that were closed. He pushed them open and revealed what I expected, a mad scientist's laboratory filled with crazy-looking machines and bright, flashing lights. Wait, what?"

I scrambled to my feet and gaped at the scene. "What the hell-?" I breathed out.

"Follow me," Vincent ordered. He stepped inside and the doors began to close.

I hurried in after him and just barely missed a free, and painful, hip tucking procedure. My mouth was still agape as Vincent led me into the bowels of the science crap that bubbled, boiled, fizzed, and popped around me. There were vials of questionable goop against the left wall and the right wall was covered with diagrams, papers, graphs, sketches, doodles, and equations. The center floor was filled to overflowing with machines I could only guess at what they did, and others I didn't want to get that far with their purpose.

Vincent was unfazed by the weirdness around us and took me to the rear of the factory floor. In the center against the back wall sat a desk, and at the desk sat a strange little man. He had long white hair that was tied in a tail and ran down his back and beneath his butt. The man wore a white lab coat that was stained with all the colors of the rainbow and others that didn't suggest anything that pretty. He had a long white mustache with pointed ends, and heavy eyebrows covered the upper halves of his eyes. I placed his age somewhere between geriatric and Jurassic. He was hunched over a paper furiously writing away by the light of a simple desk lamp.

Vincent walked up to the desk, but I lingered a few yards back beside a tall spire that was either a gumball machine or a torture device. The old man didn't lift his head when he spoke up. "What are you doing here, and with a girl, no less? Did you take a bite out of your partner and pick up a new bride?" the old man quipped.

"Tim is dead," Vincent calmly replied.

The man's head snapped up and those bushy eyebrows crashed down. "Dead? Then why aren't I dancing over your dust?"

"Because he passed the ring on before he died." Vincent half turned and gestured to me. "This girl now has the ring."

The old man, who I realized must be the legendary Frederick Batholomew, turned his eyes on me. I nervously smiled and gave a small wave. "Um, hi," I replied.

Batholomew stood so quickly that his wooden chair toppled over. He scurried around the desk up to me and snatched my left hand from my side. His eyes looked over the ring on my finger, and his face fell. "By gum, it is," he muttered. He turned to Vincent. "What happened?"

Vincent shrugged. "He was killed because he didn't wear the ring. Perhaps he wanted to accessorize."

The old man scoffed. "Tim wasn't that foolish. He must have had a reason for giving this girl the ring."

"He didn't give it to me," I spoke up. The men turned to me with interested expressions, and I shrank from their intense gazes. "That is, he just kind of left it in a box under my bed. He said if something happened to him I needed to take it and go to some warehouse."

"Our headquarters, or they were before this idiot led a werewolf to it," Vincent explained.

I glared at him. "I didn't lead anybody to it! I just followed what I was supposed to do on Tim's letter."

Batholomew raised an eyebrow. "Letter? May I see this letter?"

I patted myself down and my face paled. "I think I lost it."

"I have it," Vincent spoke up. He pulled the letter from inside his jacket, but he stuffed it back in the inner pocket when Batholomew grabbed for it. "This is between the two of us," he insisted, nodding at me.

"I think as Tim's closest friend and ally I have as much right to see his last words as anyone else," Batholomew argued. I got the feeling these two didn't get along.

"Um, boys?" I spoke up. They glanced back at me, but this time I wasn't cowed by their eyes. "Could I have
my
letter back? And could somebody explain to me what the hell is going on here?"

Batholomew frowned and his eyes dodged over to Vincent. "How much does she know?"

"Enough to survive," Vincent replied.

"And hold a job!" I protested.

"As I said, enough to survive," he repeated.

"What do you know about this oaf here?" Batholomew asked me as he nodded to Vincent.

I glanced at Vincent and stuck out my tongue. "More than I want to know."

Batholomew smirked and set his hands on my shoulders. He guided me over to a dirty chair in front of the desk and set me in it while he righted his own and sat down. "We seem to be off on the wrong foot."

"The wrong body," I muttered.

"Allow me to introduce myself." He stepped back and bowed at the waist. "My name is Frederick George Arthur Phillip Bartholomew, but those whom I respect call me Bat."

I raised an eyebrow. "Bat?" I repeated.

"Yes, perhaps because I seem to have a wonderful fight of imagination," he guessed.

"Or perhaps your disposition is more batty than any fictional vampire," Vincent quipped.

Bat shot him a glare, but turned back to me. "And what's your name?"

"Liz Stokes."

"Short for Elizabeth?"

"Yeah."

"A very pretty name." He clapped his hands together and frowned. "Well, now that we have that polite gesture out of the way let's get down to business. Judging by your answer to my earlier question can I safely assume you know nothing of what's happened regarding our mutual friend, Tim?"

"All I know is Tim was my roommate, and now he's dead and I'm somehow stuck with this walking corpse." I jerked my thumb toward Vincent, who rolled his eyes.

Bat coughed to hide a snicker. "I see. That isn't much to go off of to understand your current predicament."

"And what's my current predicament?"

"That you've fallen into the thick of the world of the supernatural and are now bound to a very stupid and dangerous fellow." My face fell and my hands shook. I balled them together in my lap, but I couldn't ball my emotions together. They were all over the place. There was fear, sadness, fear, confusion, fear, curiosity, and did I mention fear?

"Um, that doesn't really tell me how to get out of this world," I pointed out.

Bat leaned over the desk and the lamp cast shadows on the creases of his ancient face. "I'm afraid there's no escaping this world. Once you've dived into the rabbit hole the only way to go is forward and hope nothing snatches you from the shadows."

I leaned back and cringed. "Have you taken your medication lately?"

His eyebrows shot up and he sat back. "Now that you mention it, no." He opened a top drawer, pulled out a plastic container of pills, and popped a few into his mouth. "There. All better."