Prague Murder (9 page)

“Look, you need to take these and either confess or get yourself off because you need to eat and I need to eat, and Ingrid needs to eat and also nap before she starts having a tantrum.”

“Why would I care about Ingrid’s tantrum,” Igor the Vampire asked.

“You can die by fire right? Because Ingrid sets things on fire, by accident, when she's’ upset. We’re all at risk. Especially whoever she thinks killed that little squat dude Joe, because—let’s be clear—if burning witches at the stake to prove they were witches worked in the olden days, Ingrid might just bring it back to make murderers confess.”

Igor the Vampire looked at Emily like she was insane. And she got it. It sounded crazy. Even kids could control their magic better than what Emily just described but that didn’t change Ingrid’s reality. She’d set more than one person on fire.

And, you know, maybe Emily had set a few people on fire as well. She wasn’t
perfect
. She didn’t pretend to be perfect. She had confessed hadn’t she? To the Presidium types. They deserved a solid punch in the throat ball if they chose to ignore her when she had tried to be straight with them.

“Drink it or we’ll tell the Presidium doves where you are instead of letting them find you,” Emily said. She raised a brow at the pretty vampire and remembered that she had
probably
found the one. And just because she’d found him didn’t mean that she couldn’t appreciate how pretty the vampire was. But it did mean she couldn’t do anything else.

Damn it.

Dean should not be on that stupid job where he couldn’t text. She needed adorable texts from Dean, so she wouldn’t both hate Ingrid and want to vomit every time Emily was forced to steal Ingrid’s phone and catch up on the latest.

“You should drink that and talk to me about being a vampire,” Carol said. “I think it’s only fair.”

“Life isn’t fair,” Igor the Vampire said.

“So true,” Emily added as she shoved the truth serum directly into his palm. They stared each other down, but he wasn’t scary.

Vampire or not.

And in the end, he downed the truth serum.

Emily decided to wait extra long. She counted to ten which is way, way longer than it would have taken her to be well and truly confessional.

“Tell me if you killed the Joe guy out there,” Emily said when she saw how Igor the Vampire relaxed into his stool.

“No, I did not kill him or anyone else.” At Emily and Carol’s stare, he added clearly and precisely. “I have never killed anyone ever. Even as a vampire.”

“Do you have a girlfriend,” Emily asked.

Igor the Vampire stared and then gave her a suave grin, but when he answered it was a “Yes.”

“Is it Meredith?” Emily and Carol asked in unison.

Emily eyed the older woman and thought, I can’t be thinking the same thoughts as this chick. Ingrid needed to step in quickly. Otherwise, Emily might get infected and find herself giving up coffee and considering more than too many kids.

“Perfect,” Carol replied and then demanded, “Tell me how to become a vampire!”

Igor the Vampire opened his mouth and then closed it. Opened it and closed it again, and then shouted. “I won’t.”

He ran into the hall where everyone else was just in time to see the ghost throw Ingrid across the room.

“Oh man,” Emily said. “I’d totally punch that dead wench, but she doesn’t have a body.”

She hurried over to Ingrid and Cathy with Carol close behind as the ghost tornadoed around the courtyard and and then dove, head first, into the body.

“Ingrid, you hooker,” Emily said. “That is no way to get the ghost to confess to murdering that guy.”

Chapter 8

Before Ingrid got tossed around like trash,
Ingrid had pretty innocently desired to ask the ghost a few questions. Maybe see if poor dead Agnes knew anything that could help Ingrid get to her bed and some fruit dumplings.

So Ingrid and looked over at Cathy and then shrugged before hooking her arm through the older woman’s to hunt up the ghost. The woman wasn’t Ingrid’s usual partner, but she didn’t see how they’d get the ghost to tell them anything when people were assuming the poor girl was guilty already.

Had she just referred to the dead dove as a girl? She’d existed for centuries. Just because she was younger than Ingrid when she died did
not
make her a girl, and Ingrid needed to recognize that.

“Where do you think you’re going?” The new Presidium guy asked as Ingrid wandered about, looking for a sign of the ghost.

“The bathroom,” Cathy replied immediately. “But I’d like to speak to your bosses. How long do they intend to keep us here? This is getting ridiculous.”

Everything in Cathy’s tone proclaimed her a mother who was about to give her kid a thorough smack down.

The Presidium dove paused just as if he were that kid. He must know that Cathy wasn’t a magic user. As a normal, they really didn’t have any right to hold her,
and
there was no way that a non-magic user had committed the crime. Not with the way he’d fallen so fast and died so quickly. Ingrid had googled it, and you didn’t just die in a second from a stab wound.

Apparently humans were tougher than that. She wasn’t sure she’d believe it considering the number of bodies that she’d tripped over lately.

But the Presidium guy wasn’t tough because he stood there all gape-jawed struggling for an answer. It wasn’t like he could harass Cathy with the council for magic users that prevented terrible crimes with magic. She didn’t know of such things and wouldn’t have cared.

Given his loss for words and his frantic attempt to avoid Cathy’s mom eyes, Ingrid didn’t even have to try that hard to sidle behind him and then out a side door.

And because she was a crazy dove, she headed towards the courtyard. Where…it was said that the dead dove had been drowned. And where someone else had just been murdered. It made too much sense that poor Agnes was having a hard time of it.

“Hello, dead dove?” Ingrid called softly.

There was no reply. She tried to focus on her magic, but she really didn’t know what to do.

“Hey dead dove,” Ingrid said again. “I’m sorry someone else died here. Will you talk to me?”

Nothing.

Even though Ingrid’s tone was soft and inviting.

Ingrid couldn’t help but look around and see how the moon shown down into the courtyard which was rife with the darkness of the evening and even more shadows. Her eyes couldn’t quite adjust to the dark as if something was keeping her from being able to check her surroundings.

This was creepy.

Now that she thought about it, Ingrid wasn’t even sure that they’d moved the body. That blonde dude could be laying over there in all his…blood and guts.

Probably he wasn’t.

Probably something else had happened with him. The Presidium doves had moved him because they were…well…they weren’t cops. They were…something.

What was she doing out here? Why was she investigating? Why did she care?

Well…she cared because that poor dove had died. But couldn’t she just care
intellectually?
Was this really about a need for more fruit dumpling things?

Oh man.

This hadn’t become a habit, had it? This poking her nose in and deciding to find out more?

There was a crackling behind her and a flash, and Ingrid gasped like a Disney princess and wanted to run inside.

What had she been thinking?

She hurried across the courtyard away from that flash of movement, but there was another sound. And it rose into a howl. She skittered back from the center of the courtyard and towards the white convent wall. As far as Ingrid could tell, this place was a prison. She did not understand why anyone would choose to come and live here.

She slammed into the wall, closed her eyes, and turned her head to the right. Nothing.

She slowly, slowly turned her head to the left, rubbing her face over the stone of the wall and cracked her eyes.

And found herself staring into black holes with blood streaming from the eye sockets.

“Holy Mary Mother of Pearl,” Ingrid breathed, her voice choking on the words.
What had she been thinking!

What was she going to do? What was she going to do? Oh goodness! What was she going to do! She didn’t come up with a plan so much as carry on with the one she’d had since she didn’t know what else to do. Screaming and running to the wall for protection hadn’t helped. Why was she out here alone? What had she been
thinking?

“Hello,” Ingrid said, realized she couldn’t hear her voice and tried again. “Hello, Agnes.”

The black sockets blinked at Ingrid, and another tear of blood rolled down that translucent face.

“Oh gods,” Ingrid whispered. “Oh sweet gods of all that is alive.”

The ghost’s head cocked, and Ingrid stuttered, “I didn’t mean it like that. I mean the gods are gods of the dead too. Or you have special gods? I don’t know. I’m not a very good pagan. Oh my goodness, shut up Ingrid. I’m sorry. Oh my goodness. You’re just such a dead dove. You seem deader now.”

Agnes shuddered and rose a little higher to peer down at Ingrid. It was not a comfortable maneuver for Ingrid. In fact, it made her want to cower down and plea for it all to stop.

“I didn’t. I just. Look, I’m sorry.”

She coughed.

“It’s just that someone died. And I thought maybe you killed him. Because you went from being all a not terrifying dove to making me pee a little. And I’d really like to get back to my…”

Even Ingrid knew better than to say vacation. But when the ghost rose a little higher and drifted a little closer, it came out anyway.

As a squeak.

“Vacation.”

The wind increased inside the enclosed courtyard and it was possible that she might have peed a little more.

“Maybe you didn’t have those. Back when your parents imprisoned you in the convent for falling in love and then you got found out as a witch and you got killed.” She cleared her throat and then said hoarsely, “You probably didn’t have vacations then…”

The sound of howling began, surrounding Ingrid in a way that reminded her far too much of an excellent movie theater. She could hear the noise in the vibration of her teeth.

“Please stop,” Ingrid said, catching a flash of movement from the corner of her eye, and wanting to jump and skitter away, but there seemed to be no getting away from this ghost. “I’m kind of sticking my foot in my mouth. It’s not that we really think you killed that shapeshifter. It’s just that…”

Dead Agnes drifted back a little bit. It seemed that Ingrid had shocked a dead dove who had existed for centuries. It took a special kind of terrible to make a dead person feel bad about their existence.

If the howling and the wind died down a bit, it didn’t mean that Ingrid’s brain started functioning again. Because what she said next was, “I mean this is a little off-topic. But you keep coming back after you get exorcised. Why don’t you just stay in the dead world or whatever it is and find your lover?”

Agnes’s eyes flared red.

Well not red.

They flared with actual flames.

And then Ingrid yelped, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

And she ran towards the door she caught that movement out of her eye again, but she was too terrified to see what it was. She slammed the door open with her magic and skittered inside just in time for Agnes to pick Ingrid up and throw her.

Ingrid’s magic—instinctual more than thought out—cushioned her against the wall, but she curled into a ball, covering her head, and crying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” over and over again.

There was a howl and then gasps from the people around her, but she was too afraid to look up, tucking her knees closer and desperately wanting Gabe to be in Prague to hold her if she was lucky enough to survive.

* * * * * * * *

“What did you do to Agnes,” Igor the Vampire demanded.

Ingrid could feel that the ghost had gone, but she was afraid to move all the same. What if she came back? But then Cathy knelt down next to Ingrid and wrapped an arm around her, and somehow she was able to sit up. Emily stood in front of them as if she could somehow ward off the dead dove.

“Em, my best and favorite dove,” Ingrid coughed, wondering if she smelled like pee. It had been just a
little
bit of peeing her pants. “She can walk through walls.”

“I know. She’s inside the dead guy.”

“Is he still out there?” She was squeaking again, but things were
not
going how she had hoped they would. And the body had been close to her while she’d been antagonizing a ghost and what if…what if…those flashes of movements were the dead guy? What if he’d risen from the dead? Oh…oh no.

“Yep,” Emily said. And Ingrid didn’t need to be able to read minds to know that Emily knew that Ingrid was getting retroactively freaked out by the whereabouts of the body..