Playing With Vampires - An Izzy Cooper Novel (9 page)

A shiver ran up my spine. Suddenly I remembered the black shadowy mass that attacked me at the Marsh estate when I was a kid. “Maybe there’s something wrong with your camera, and its nothing but a flaw,” I offered hopefully.

“I thought of that, so I tried two recorders at the same time. It was still there.”

“Well you’re the expert. What does this mean? Am I being stalked by some kind of dark spirit or something? You do know I see ghosts, which means I should have seen this thing.”

Marty shrugged. “I have no idea. This is the first time I’ve encountered anything like this.”

Well some expert he was.

“So what do I do?” I asked, a little worried that I would never again have any sense of security while showering or going to the restroom.

“Maybe this is something you’ll want to take up with your grandmother. I have a feeling this is a witch thing. I’m limited to what I find with electronic equipment for my investigations.”

“I was wondering where you’d gone off to,” Aunt Mandy interrupted.

“Oh I had to use the restroom and got sidetracked by Jasper. My friend had a talk with Jasper for me,” I explained.

“Oh,” Mandy said, smiling at Marty. “I thought I knew all your friends on the mainland.”

Aunt Mandy was playing mother hen again. She thought it was her duty to inspect any and all of my friends.

“This is Marty Morrison. He’s a business acquaintance, “I explained. “Marty, this is my Aunt Mandy. It’s her daughter’s birthday party.”

“Nice to meet you,” Marty nodded.

I couldn’t help but notice how he could barely keep his eyes off Mandy, and she was positively beaming.

“The pleasure is all mine,” she said, adding a little seductive tone to her voice that I’d never heard before.

Warning bells started going off like crazy, which prompted me to end the meeting as quickly as possible.

“Thanks again,” I told Marty.

“Why don’t you invite your friend to come and have a drink with us?” Mandy suggested.

Now she had me in a spot.

Turning to Marty, she said, “I’m sorry that dinner is already done, but you are welcome to join us for a drink.”

“I’m sure Marty is much too busy,” I jumped in.

“Not at all,” he said, never taking his eyes off my aunt.

Sighing, I followed them back to the party.

The two of them were so caught up in each other, they practically ignored me the rest of the night. I was glad that Mandy was finally starting to come out of the shell she’d been in since her husband died, but why did it have to be Marty?

Why did it have to be a vampire?

I was pretty sure she didn’t know what he was, and had no clue of what she would be dealing with.

My aunt and Marty were stuck together like glue, so there was no opportunity to warn her. He even drove with her to drop me off at the ferry landing.

That was it. I was definitely calling my aunt tomorrow and having a big talk with her.

Before boarding the ferry, I pulled Marty aside. “You better be nice to my aunt,” I warned.

“Don’t worry. I’ll look after her good,” he said, a wicked smile on his face.

I was half tempted to invite myself for an overnight stay, but Mandy looked so happy that I didn’t want to cast shadows on her pleasure just yet. That could wait until tomorrow.

True, Marty was technically a person of interest, but that was mostly because he was a vampire, and lived or frequented the area around the crime scenes. I wasn’t really buying into the theory that Marty was good for it,

After all, it wasn’t as if I didn’t know who she was with, if something were to happen to her. Marty wouldn’t be that stupid.

“Is that thing still following me?” I asked in a low tone.

“I think so,” he said, pulling out the camera again. “At least it was during your last dance.”

When I looked at the screen, I saw the shadow hovering nearby while I was dancing with Bradley, the guy my aunt invited for the purpose of hooking us up. Of course that had
worked out about as good as all her other efforts. I just couldn’t get Mandy to understand that I wasn’t into dating nerds.

That was another thing I was going to have to talk to her about.

The two of them stood on the docks and watched as the ferry pulled away.

As the lights of Charleston Harbor retreat into the distance, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I might not ever see them again.

With a cup of coffee in hand, I found a chair in the lounge.

Looking around, I hoped to catch a glimpse of whatever Marty caught following me, but other than a woman with a diaper bag slung over her shoulder and a baby in her arms, there was no one. Most of the people crossing to Mystique Island would have remained in their cars.

“Well why don’t you show yourself to me … whatever you are,” I whispered beneath my breath.

Nothing happened.

The glossy cover of a magazine caught my eye. The woman on the front cover was wearing a pretty blue dress that real, everyday women rarely wore. Picking up a magazine, I began thumbing through page after page of photos, depicting clothes that I could never actually buy.

Twenty minutes later I noticed a chill. Glancing up at the windows separating the lounge from the deck, I saw that we were entering a fog bank. The mist had a strange - ethereal quality to it that sent a shiver up my spine.

Laying the magazine on the little table next to my chair, I got to my feet and started for the door.

As soon as I stepped onto the deck, it was like walking into a refrigerator. The air was unseasonably cold, much colder than it had been when we left Charleston Harbor. About ten yards away, I noticed someone sitting on one of the outside benches, but the fog was too thick to make out anything but a shadowy figure.

Taking a couple of steps in that direction, I was able to get a closer look. The figure was a woman, but there was something really strange about her. She was staring into the wall of fog, but there was a blank look on her face, as if she weren’t really present.

But that wasn’t the only high strangeness about her. She was also dressed weird, like someone from another time. The black bonnet she was wearing reminded me of something out of Victorian England.

“Hello,” I said, trying to get the woman’s attention.

I received no reaction at all.

Another couple of steps and I was standing right in front of her. “Are you okay?”

Finally the woman’s eyes focused on me. That’s when I saw the deep gash across her throat and it dawned on me why she looked so strange.

She was a ghost.

Instinctively, I took a step back.

I opened my mouth to ask her what had happened, but the woman put a finger to her lips. “Don’t. He’ll hear you,” she whispered.

“Who?”

“My name is Annie.” The woman smiled.

Before I could ask her anything more, her head flopped over and that is when I saw that it had been almost completely severed from her neck.

Screaming, I backed away until I felt the cold metal of the rail against my back.

“Shh … he’ll hear you.” The woman mouthed the words before dissipating into the misty air.

After the shock wore off, I took a deep - calming breath and returned to the lounge. Pulling the phone from my purse, I checked to see if there was any reception. Surprisingly there was. Cell reception on the ferry was usually hit and miss. This time was a hit.

I brought up Marty’s number.

There was a good possibility that Marty and Aunt Mandy weren’t going to be too happy about my interrupting them, but at least I had a legitimate reason.

“Hello.” Marty answered.

“Hey … did I catch you at a bad time,” I asked hopefully.

Marty chuckled. “Not at all. I just put on a pot of coffee and was getting ready to watch some TV. What’s up?”

“Where’s Mandy?”

“She called it a night and went home with her daughter.”

Marty didn’t miss my sigh of relief.

“I might have fangs Izzy, but I am still a gentleman.”

“I never doubted you,” I lied.

“Is that why you are calling?” He laughed.

“No. I was wondering if you have ever done an investigation on this ferry?”

“I haven’t had any reason to. Did you get a look at whatever is following you?” he asked.

“I don’t know. There was a ghost, but I’m not sure if she was what you saw following me or not.”

I explained what had happened and how the woman seemed to be from another time.

“That is strange,” he agreed. “As far as I know, that ferry is less than fifty years old. There couldn’t be some old Victorian ghost hanging out there. At least I wouldn’t think so. And you say she had a British accent?” he asked.

“I think. I can’t be totally sure it was British, but it was some kind of accent.”

“I’ll look into the history of the vessel tomorrow,” he promised. “You take care getting home.”

“Thanks … and I will.”

Ending the call, I scrolled down to Tim’s name. It was almost eleven but there was a chance he’d still be up.

He answered on the first ring. “Hey Izzy. Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. I’m surprised you are still up.”

“I’m more than still up … I’m still at work. We had a missing person’s report come in a couple hours ago,” he explained.

“And you think it might be related?”

“I don’t know. It’s a high school girl. She disappeared on her way home from cheerleading practice. Could be anything, but at this point we should assume that it could be related to our killer. It is likely she was on Anchor Avenue when she disappeared. At
least that’s the last place she was seen. Her name is Catherine. She was on her way to meet her father. He works at a gift shop on Anchor. She never arrived,” he finished.

With a new victim to deal with, I wasn’t sure I should bother him with a ghost story, but there was something about the woman that was bugging me. She’d been trying to warn me about something.”

I quickly explained to Tim what had happened. When I finished he was quiet for a long time.

“Tim … are you still there?”

“Yes, I’m here. Sorry. Did you say this ghost might have had a British accent?”

“I think so.”

“That’s interesting, and might actually add some weight to my theory.”

“What’s your theory?”

“Let me check out some things and I’ll get back with you later.”

By the time I got off the phone with Tim, the ferry was docking. The fog was even worse than it had been a few minutes ago. Driving home was going to be tricky.

* * *

Getting from my car to my front door took almost as much effort as it had taken to drive home. I was dead tired and suddenly felt like an extra in some zombie film. Like usual, I’d forgotten to turn my porch light on, which explained how I managed to trip over the box sitting in front of my door.

Sighing, I leaned down to pick up the box, and by some miracle, managed to find the right key to open the door. Kicking the door shut behind me, I flipped on the light and dropped the box on the table next to my front door.

The first thing on my agenda, after a glass of soda and a couple of cookies, was a shower and then crawling into my bed.

Flipping on the TV to a late night talk show, I was getting ready to enjoy the comfort of my recliner, when my attention was drawn back to the box I’d left by the front door. Curiosity took over. I abandoned my cookies and soda in favor of the box.

Since I hadn’t ordered anything through the mail, I had no idea what it could be. It wasn’t until I picked up the box that I started to feel some alarm. There was no postmark on it, or any label for that matter. My name was scrawled across the top in capital letters.

Undecided, I stood there holding it. There was always the possibility the box held some kind of explosive device that would blow me back to hell as soon as I opened it, though I had no idea why anyone would want to send me a bomb.

True, I could get a little snarky with people, but hardly enough to warrant blowing me up.

Where was Julius or Mister Grim when I needed them?

Squeezing my eyes shut tight, I began pulling the clear plastic tape away from the top of the box. When the box was free of tape, I opened the first flap, fully expecting an explosion.

Nothing happened.

Figuring I was fairly safe, I opened my eyes.

At first all I could see was a bloody mound of flesh. Recoiling, I nearly dropped the box. After getting over the initial shock, I looked at it again.

It was a severed nose. Someone had actually cut off a nose and left it on my front porch. There was a folded piece of paper next to the bloody body part. Setting the box on the table, I took out the paper and opened it.

Mind your business or your nose might be next.

What the crackers was this about?

I let the note fall back into the box and darted into the kitchen to get my phone. Ten minutes later, Ayden and the county forensic team were at my door.

“Are you okay?” Ayden asked, putting his arm around my shoulder in a rare show of affection.

“Yes.” I nodded. “Just shocked.”

“We’ll see if we can get a DNA on this, but I think we’ll find that it is going to match the missing girl.”

“Why is this person targeting me?”

A tired sigh escaped his lips. “It’s my guess that you must have stumbled onto something that is making the perp nervous.”

“That’s great. I don’t even know what that is.”

“Don’t worry. This was probably just a scare tactic. He won’t want to get too close to you if he thinks you are closing in on something. Just to be sure, Sheriff Bourne is going to post a deputy outside tonight.”

That brought me some comfort, but not much. I just wished I could figure out what it was I was close to figuring out.