Rock 'n' Roll is Undead (Veronica Mason (32 page)

I swallowed hard. “Sit down and shut up,” he ordered.

Danny sat me against the back of the car. My mouth was dry and my pulse thumped. I fidgeted from side to side as I waited for his next move. This beautiful summer night had turned into a nightmare.

“Come here.” Danny motioned to Buzz with his gun. “Now!”

Buzz ambled over, glaring at Frank and Danny the entire time. His jaw was set and his fists clenched. Rage flared in his eyes.

“Sit down.” Danny screeched out the vehement command. His mouth twisted and fangs protruded; his eyes red with a faint glow and full of hatred.

Buzz eased to the ground beside me, and the gravel crunched under his shoes. “Everything’s okay. Try to stay calm. Just do what they ask.”

“Stay calm?” Was he kidding? I’d never been this panicked. “What are they going to do?” I asked.

“I’m not sure, but I’ll get us out of this somehow.”

“They’re going to drain us, aren’t they? Why did I trust vampires?”

“They’re not all bad.” Buzz squeezed my hand.

“Maybe not, but I think we’ve found a bad apple now.”

“Our only hope is magic,” he said.

Magic? Yeah, we stood a better chance of my magic working than getting out of this situation. They had guns with silver bullets, fangs, and super strength. We had nothing.

Buzz and I sat quietly, waiting for their next move. Danny paced around the length of his car, mumbling under his breath. In contrast to his usually pale skin, his now scarlet red face twisted with anger and was covered with fury. Sweat broke out on his forehead like dew. Had he ever been sane? Had something just sent him over the edge? Trails of veins bulged at his temples and I thought he might explode at any moment. Knowing Kitty had been with someone so revolting made me shudder. A putrid, evil thing had lain waiting deep within Danny’s soul for us. I didn’t want any part of that malevolence. But there was no escape, as far as I could tell.

“How’s the singing career now, Ms. Rockabilly?” He said with not so much as a twitch of the lip. “Not going so well, is it?”

“Why are you doing this? At least let Kitty go. I thought you loved her?”

“You make me sick.” A sneer of disgust covered Danny’s face. “You thought you were too good for me, huh?” he asked, not answering my questions about Kitty. “I’ve got news for you. I’ll make it on my own. I don’t need you or anyone else. Oh, and by the way, I fixed the record producer for you. He won’t be in touch anytime soon.”

Oh, God. Chills ran down my spine. What had he done with him? I might have gotten the producer killed. With the gun pointed in my direction, I knew I’d gotten all of us into a pickle. My mind raced. My thoughts were muddled. Panic and shock consumed me. At that moment, I felt the unnerving horror and fear that the canary feels when the cat is perched on top of his cage.

“Did you kill Johnny?” I asked. At least talking to him would buy us a little more time on this earth. But I was almost afraid to hear his answer.

“The bastard. He took my position. I was supposed to be your new bass player. He left me no choice.” His sinister expression sent a shiver down my spine. Dark circles ringed his eyes and his mouth bent into the evil grin again. The zombie-like look on his face revealed the monster within him.

“But you found another band,” I said. “Why kill him?”

“A day late and a dollar short. Yeah, I found a band, but that didn’t make me any less pissed off. You think you’re so good. All of you.” He waved the gun and I ducked.

I continued probing for more answers. “So you killed the others, too?”

Chapter 56

Before he answered, a loud thud rang out. A deer sprang from the bushes and across the road, right behind Danny and Frank. Frank shot his gun at the animal, but missed. Why was I not surprised he had a bad aim? Instead, he hit Danny. He fell to the ground, clutching his leg and screaming like a little girl. Buzz jumped up in one fluid motion. With Frank’s attention focused on Danny, Buzz slipped up behind him, then sucker punched him in the jaw. The gun flew from his hand and landed across the gravel. Buzz leapt on top of Frank, wrangling him to the ground. Frank struggled, but Buzz landed another punch with his fist. There was a fire in Buzz’s eyes and it was sexy as hell.

My gaze turned to where Danny lay on the ground. With an evil grin across his face, he stared at his wounded leg. When I followed his stare, I noticed the wound instantly healed, as if it had never happened. The silver bullet may have slowed him down for a couple minutes, but he was back now. With a flash, he was beside me. His fangs protruded, then Danny snarled before pressing his lips against my neck and plunging into my vein. I gasped and sucked in air, attempting to squish the searing pain in my neck. This ass-hat really was going to drain me. Of all the ways to go, I never thought this would be one of them. Yet here I sat on the dirty blacktop literally having the life drained right out of me.

Danny released his hold on my neck and touched the blood dripping from my puncture wounds, then licked his finger.

“Yum, do I detect vanilla? The essence of your blood ignites my taste buds kind of like a flambé.”

What a smart-ass vampire. I’d like to flambé him.

Buzz was right. The only thing to save us was magic. While most of the spells I attempted to perform involved ingredients, I didn’t have that option now. I'd have to rely on the words alone. In spite of having a one-sided necking session with a sleazy vampire, the energy zinged around me. Just like I felt in my apartment before the book had disappeared, but much stronger now. Somehow, I felt it was due to the huge adrenaline rush I was feeling right now.

There were only a few spells I knew by heart. Why couldn’t that rumor about witches turning vamps into animals be true? Since I doubted casting a spell to make any warts Danny might have disappear would do me any good, I decided on the only one I remembered that might save us.

A power unlike I'd ever felt rushed from my feet into my chest. I called to the east, west, north, and south.

“Far away from me, that is where the evil spirits will be. Far away from me, that is where the evil spirits will be.”

The words were more than mere words; they tingled, gripped my insides, and made it difficult to breathe all at once. The more I repeated them, the faster my speech became. I sounded like an auctioneer.

A spark of red light flashed on my left, then a flash of blue on my right. Was it a fluke that this was happening? Normally I'd close my eyes to immerse myself in the spell, but there was no way I was taking my gaze off the crazy vamp next to me.

“Shut up.” Danny screeched. “I’m going to kill—” his sentence broke off and he inched away from me as if an invisible hand was shoving him further and further away.

Danny’s movements were sluggish, as if I’d spiked his drink. I looked to where Buzz was still struggling with Frank, but noticed Frank’s movements had slowed down as well. Frank had managed to free one hand from Buzz’s grip and he groped for the gun lying nearby, but with his reflexes lacking, Buzz pushed Frank’s hand away and grabbed the gun. I battled to keep the energy moving around me, because I knew this was what was keeping Danny and Frank at bay.

Raising his hand up high over his head, Buzz whacked Frank on the head, knocking him out cold. Buzz yanked a chain from his back pocket and slipped up behind Danny, wrapping the silver links around his neck and forcing him to the ground.

Tears streamed down my cheeks. I’d always controlled my emotions fairly well, but now I was a mess. We’d come close to death, but my magic had saved us. Oh, and a little help from Buzz hadn’t hurt, either.

Without thinking, I ran over and snatched the gun Danny had dropped. I hated any type of weapon and hated to touch the thing, but I wasn’t taking any chances. Once he’d secured Danny to the back of the car with the silver chain, Buzz pulled Frank’s arms behind him, yanking handcuffs from his back pocket.

“These fucking chains are burning. You’ll pay for this, bitch.” Danny screeched.

“Shut your blood chute,” I snapped.

“You have the right to remain silent….,” Buzz said as he put the cuffs on Frank.

I didn’t think Frank could hear him at the moment, but that didn’t seem to stop Buzz. Why the hell was Buzz reading the Miranda Rights to Frank? Citizen’s arrest?

Kitty got out of the car and ran over. “Oh, God, are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine. As you can see, Danny’s chained and won’t hurt us.”

“Yeah, I saw. I was terrified to get out of the car. The bastard had silver bullets.”

“Well it’s a good thing they were; the bullet slowed him down a little. The silver has an effect on them, too.”

“Yeah, good for them, not so much for me.”

Danny struggled to break free from the chains. I pointed the gun at him, my hands shaking.

“Don’t move or I’ll put a cap in your ass.” I’d always wanted to say that. I didn’t know if I could shoot him, but if he moved toward us, he was likely to find out.

“Why do you have handcuffs?” I called to Buzz.

“I’m an agent for International Paranormal Crime Investigators. I was assigned to this case.”

“What the what? You’re what? Assigned to this case? And you just so happened to be a fantastic bass player?” My eyes were wide.

“That’s why they sent me in undercover.”

“Undercover? Are you kidding me?” I asked.

“Would I kid you, Gorgeous?”

Buzz pulled his cell phone from his pocket and placed a brief call as I stood, stunned by the news. He’d been undercover the whole time, right under my nose.

Sirens whizzed as they drew near. Within seconds, police cars screeched to a halt on the road in front of us. Officers rushed out with their guns drawn.

“You can stop pointing the gun now, Veronica. The police won’t approach until you put it down. And you don’t want them to shoot you, do you?”

When he eased the pistol from my hands, my knees almost gave way from under me. Buzz walked over and handed the gun to another officer.

“I’m mad at you,” I said, poking him in the chest. “You lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie. You never asked me if I was with law enforcement. So technically, I didn’t lie.” He stood in front of me and smiled a quick boyish grin, then brushed a strand of hair off my face. Buzz smelled like fresh-cut wood and soap. Being near him set butterflies loose in my stomach, which was much better than the sinking feeling from almost being killed. But did he expect me to forgive him?

“I asked you if you were in the park and you said no. So you lied about that. It was you in the park, wasn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah, there was that.” He grinned. “I couldn’t tell you the truth just then. It could have ruined the chances of solving the case.”

“So you’d rather me be terrified, thinking I’d hired a crazed lunatic? Yeah, that’s much better. What happened to all that crap about me helping the mortician?”

“Pierce is an agent as well.”

“What the hell? Oh, this is great. Was this some kind of sick game the two of you cooked up?”

“Veronica, we couldn’t tell you. But when we discovered you were having visions, we felt they might lead us to the killer. Turns out, we were able to solve the murders. You needed someone to protect you.”

“Yeah, so you were using me. And all the while you were protecting me, and I use that term loosely, the FBVI thought I was the killer.”

“They didn’t think you were a killer once they found out we were on the case. We knew you didn’t have anything to do with it. We were on to Danny and ready to make our move. He came to us, though, as you can see, before we even had to. It all worked out in the end, huh?” He winked.

I waited until the ambulance sirens had stopped.

“It barely all worked out in the end. And just exactly what made you think it was Danny?”

Kitty spoke up. “Don’t let him kid you. They didn’t have a clue it was Danny. I was able to sneak in a call right before we left my apartment.” She wiped a tear from her cheek. “Danny’s crazy. He confessed to me right before kidnapping me. He said he’d killed the vampires. And he wanted to kill you.”

“But why did he kill them? And why did he want me dead? What did I ever do to him?”

“It was all about music, I guess. Anyone who ever wronged him in his whacked out, crazy mind. You because you didn’t hire him, and then there was the record deal. It was too much, I guess.”

“Why is Frank involved?” I asked.

“Danny told Frank you were firing him. They figured out Buzz was an agent. Frank didn’t know Danny wanted to kill you. He just thought they were going to scare you a little. At least that’s what he told me.”

“So apparently Danny did hold a huge grudge against me for not bringing him into the band. I should have known he was crazy enough to do something like this.”

“He was a lousy bass player and he knew it.” Kitty snapped. “Lousy in bed, too.” She sat on the car bumper and wiped her forehead.

Too much information.

Pierce wandered over after speaking with another officer. Or, Special Agent Pierce Tyler, rather. He still looked creepy, even if he was an agent. I’d never get the mortician thing out of my head. He’d forever ride around in a hearse, wearing a too tight suit, in my mind.

“Sorry about deceiving you.” He held out a hand.

I raised a brow, but didn’t take his hand. “Not a problem. I guess.”

“I had no idea Buzz would tell you I was a mortician. Obviously, you’ve figured out I’m not,” Pierce said.

“So I hear. Yeah, Buzz is a real jokester.”

“Hey, it was a last minute impulse. I couldn’t resist.”

“You think you’re a comedian, huh? Well, don’t quit your day job.” He was as funny as a baby diaper filled with pooh-pooh. “What about the bass in my apartment?”

“Danny’s feeble attempt to link you to the murder,” Kitty said.

“Oh, my God. I’m glad it didn’t work. And to think I let him change the lock on my apartment. He had a key. He could have come in and killed me while I slept.” I leaned against the trunk of the Bel-Air, wiping my forehead.

“I think that was his plan.” Kitty shook her head.

“Were you aware of the car following me?” I looked to Buzz.