Jack Kursed (17 page)

He looked to the right to
see two girls holding each other and crying. They were crouching at
the foot of a bed, leaning against the wall. When they made eye
contact with Jack they squealed and cried even more.

"Sara and Carrie? Get out of here, and
hold your breath. Someone left a ton of pepper-spray out
there."

They ran as fast as they could,
jumping over the fallen police officers.

It was tempting to kill
her. A simple twist of the neck would do it. But he didn't spend
fifty thousand dollars to simply kill the woman. Letting her live
was the best choice. She would be in jail and court for
years.

He leaned close to her ear.

"You'd better get used to
prison. Or I will find you and kill you."

Jumping to his feet, he
ran and crashed through the bedroom window as more police flooded
into the house. Broken glass cut his skin, but he healed before he
even hit the ground. He sprinted just out of sight of the house
before slowing to a walk. He strolled down the alley and rounded
the block.

There were ambulances
where Victoria was hit. He approached just in time to see two
paramedics loading a gurney into the back of an ambulance and
shutting the door.

He kept his head low as he approached
his truck. Tears ran down Tiffany's face as she watched him through
the window. He gestured for her to slide over before opening the
door.

"Jack! You're
okay!"

"Of course I'm okay."

"I saw Sara and Carrie. You saved
them. I wanted to hug them, but I stayed in the truck."

"Good."

"What happened to your
shirt?"

Jack looked down. His
shirt was riddled with tiny holes. Bullets wouldn't penetrate his
skin, but they had no problem with his clothes.

He looked at the house. Paramedics and
other police were helping the men Jack assaulted. The last thing he
needed was for any of them to catch a glimpse of him.

"Mosquitoes. A lot of
them. Buckle your seat-belt. We're leaving."

CHAPTER 8

The sun had nearly set when a knock
came at the front door. Jack opened the door to see Victoria,
dressed in sweatpants and a tank-top. She gave him a small smile
and shook her head.

"You owe me some jeans and
a shirt."

He laughed as he stepped aside to let
her in.

"And you cry to me about being
subtle," he said.

"Hey, it worked, didn’t
it?"

"Did it hurt?"

"No, Jack, getting hit by a bus
actually feels good."

"What happened?"

"It knocked me out for a while. But I
woke up in the ambulance before they could do anything invasive. I
had to drink from two nurses in the hospital."

"Were they women?"

"Funny. Everything go okay on your
end?"

"Perfectly. Everyone’s
alive, some a little more beat up than others. I keep expecting
people to show up with cell phone footage of me beating the shit
out of six cops."

Victoria waved
dismissively as she sat on the couch. "There’s footage of me
killing vampires at Camden Yards. It means nothing."

"I still think it would have all went
better if I just killed Simmons, or just let her kill those
kids."

"Why didn’t
you?"

He sighed as he sat next
to her. "The rugrat asked me not to, so I didn’t."

"Why are you doing all of
this? I don’t get it. Watching after a kid, it’s not really
you."

"Maybe I’m just bored. I
don’t know. She makes me laugh."

"Who’s upstairs with
her?"

Jack wished he had
Victoria’s senses.

"Two guys from the store,
helping put together a bed, a dresser, all that fun stuff.
Tiffany’s up there giving them orders."

"I didn’t know they did
same-day service."

"They do when you throw money at
them."

Victoria laughed. "So,
what’s next? You’re a foster-parent now. You gonna teach her how to
be a killer?"

"I have to admit, I still
wonder if I made a mistake. Tomorrow I’ll enroll her in school. But
how the hell do I get her a family? Put an ad in the paper? Go door
to door?"

"You’ll figure it out.
We’ve done some pretty bad things in our lives. Especially you. I’m
glad to see you finally doing something good for a
change."

Jack nodded, and they sat in silence
for a moment.

"Do you ever regret
anything?" she asked. "Anything we’ve done?"

"You mean, like, killing a witch
prematurely?"

She took a breath. "Jack,
come on-"

"I’m joking," he said with
a smile. "Regrets, no. Over in Germany during World War II I was
actually caught. Nazi scientists had me strapped to a table for
weeks, trying to figure out what I was all about. I went insane I
think a few times, not being able to sleep or even move. One
scientist got careless, and I broke free. I killed everyone in that
facility. Doctors, janitors, women. Do I regret it?
Nope."

Victoria felt a cold
chill, a rare thing for her. She had done her share of necessary
killing over her lifetime. But the ease at which it came to Jack
was unnerving.

"You might want to avoid that bedtime
story with Tiffany."

"That won’t be a problem,
since she won’t be getting any stories out of me."

One of the men helping
Tiffany poked his head down the stairs.

"Mr. Kursed, I think we’re
about...whoa."

The worker lost words at
the sight of Victoria. His eyes traveled along her. Victoria smiled
at him and waved politely. Jack marveled at how one moment Victoria
was the woman he knew, and the next she was a beautiful
thirty-year-old redhead, all the way down to the mannerisms and
body language. He hadn’t mastered camouflage like she
had.

"Hey, that’s my sister,"
Jack said. "Were you about to say something?"

"Uh, we’re done, if you
want to come take a look."

Jack and Victoria moved to the stairs.
She grabbed his arm when the helper was out of earshot, on the
bottom step.

"Hey. Do you really think
of me as a sister?"

"Of course. We spent a
hundred years together. We’re family, whether you want to admit it
or not."

"We haven’t talked in so
long."

He smiled. "Families
fight."

Jack saw that familiar
look in her eye. They knew each other so well it was sometimes
possible to communicate without words. He knew she was pleased. One
hundred years apart or not, he still recognized all her habits, her
twitches. He had no doubt she recognized his.

He crossed his arms and
smiled as he leaned in the doorway. The second worker had a cell
phone to his ear as Tiffany bounced on her new bed. The walls were
plain white, the floor hardwood, but it looked more like a kid’s
bedroom than before.

Spongebob Squarepants’
face was plastered all over Tiffany’s sheets. There was a dresser
in the corner and a computer near the window. A small flat-screen
TV was against the wall. A chest sat at the end of her bed, on top
was her camera and photo-album.

"It’s not much, but it’s a
start," he said.

Tiffany stopped jumping at
the sound of Jack’s voice. She froze and covered her mouth, like
she'd done something wrong. Her cheeks turned bright
red.

"I’m sorry," she said. "I
won’t jump on the bed anymore."

"I don’t care. Just don’t
break it."

Victoria leaned close to
his ear. "Did you say this isn’t much? It’s probably more than the
girl ever had."

"Eh. The walls need to be repainted or
something. Looks like an insane asylum in here."

Jack signed a few forms
and the workers showed themselves out. He watched Tiffany examine
her room, Victoria standing in the doorway next to him.

"You should have seen her," Jack said.
"Took a half hour to figure out her size. Then it took another hour
to convince her she could buy more than one shirt."

Tiffany looked up at them.
"I never bought clothes before. I just wore Sara and Carrie’s when
they got too big."

"I’m gonna make a pizza.
Wash your hands. I don’t want your filthy little paws in my
food."

"Pizza!" she shouted, and
darted past him into the bathroom.

Jack laughed as Victoria and he went
into the kitchen. He pulled ingredients out of the fridge.
Pepperoni, cheese, sauce. As Victoria sat at the bar, she wished
she could enjoy a meal with someone.

"You’re that girl’s hero,"
she said.

"Hero," he said with a
smirk. "There’s that word again." He wanted to change the subject.
"How’s that case of yours coming along?"

She shrugged. "Boring,
which is good for now. I don’t have any intel, which always sucks.
Following a doctor of some kind, but I have no idea why. Seems
harmless enough, except for his sexual appetite."

He raised an eyebrow. "You had sex
with the guy?"

"No, you ass. I told you,
I’m seeing someone. But I watched the guy have sex."

"Even better. How are you over here
now? You got people watching him?"

"Of course."

"I’m not sure what you’re
in to, but holler if you need a hand."

"So I can watch you kill
everyone in your way? No, thanks. I think you’ll have your hands
full with Tiffany."

"She’s just a kid. How
much trouble could she possibly get in to?"

"Just wait. Anyway, you’re
gonna have company in about five seconds."

There was a knock at the
door. Jack frowned. He didn’t like unexpected company or
unannounced visits. He didn’t like company or visits in
general.

He opened the door to see Officer
Derek Thomas, the police officer Jack met at the diner. He was
dressed in slacks and a white button-down shirt, looking
proper.

"Mr. Jack Kursed," he
said. "Good evening. You mind if I come in?"

Jack smiled the biggest fake smile he
could and stepped aside.

"Officer Thomas. What a pleasant
surprise. Come on in."

After introducing Thomas
to Victoria, Jack went back to the kitchen to continue making a
pizza. He kept an eye on the officer as he scoped out the living
room. Victoria sat on the couch, watching everything
carefully.

"So what can I do for you?"

"I'm not sure if you
heard. Andrea Simmons, Tiffany's foster-mother, was arrested today.
Looks she was in to some pretty bad things."

"I saw it on the news. Absolutely
crazy, holding those girls hostage like that. You're wrong on one
thing, though. I'm her foster-parent now."

Tiffany ran down the
stairs, but stopped halfway. The smile she wore turned into a frown
at the sight of Officer Thomas. She squatted on the stairs and
looked through the wooden supports like they were prison
bars.

"Please," she begged. "Don't send me
back to Miss Simmons."

"Go on upstairs, Tiffany,
just for a little bit. I'll come get you when dinner's ready," Jack
said.

Tiffany turned and took slow steps up
the stairs, hanging her head low.

"Oh, and Tiffany."

She stopped.

"You will never see Miss Simmons
again," he said with a smile.

The girl returned the smile and
vanished up the stairs.

"You shouldn't make
promises you can't keep," Thomas said.

Jack glared at the officer, but said
nothing, continuing to build his masterpiece.

"It's funny, about all
that," Thomas went on. "All the paperwork we can find says you are
the legal foster-parent, that Andrea shouldn't even have had her.
She says Tiffany ran away again, that she's the foster-parent. The
whole thing's a mess."

Jack shook his head. "Well, if she was
in to drugs, it's a miracle she can remember her own name. Drugs
are bad, you know."

Victoria laughed shortly, but caught
herself, turning it into a cough. Thomas stared down at her. His
body language gave away his attraction for the vampire, but he was
still not amused.

"Simmons and I actually
talked about me becoming Tiffany's foster-parent at the diner. You
missed it because you were staring at the waitress's ass. Don't get
me wrong, it was a beautiful ass. But Officer, you have to learn to
multitask, do two things at once."

"Don't insult me, Jack.
Did you know the state won't let a single male adopt a female
child, and vice versa. You can probably guess why. They're always
conscious about stuff like that."

"Until me. I'm a very special
person."

"Foster parents also don't
deal with each other. Everything goes through the state. We have
paperwork of Andrea releasing Tiffany, and you accepting her, all
in a few hours. Andrea denies all of this."