The Vampire Next Door (11 page)

I… I can’t do this!
Morgaine ripped her spirit out of the building and back into her body so fast her head spun. She tried to run, but her feet wouldn’t move. Somehow, she lost her balance, let go of Gwyneth’s hand, and fell on her ass. “Dear Lord and Lady!”

*   *   *   *

“I do declare!” Gwyneth stood over Morgaine as her cousin breathed into a paper bag. Gwyneth had helped Morgaine over to the next apartment’s concrete steps, and they were partially hidden from the maker’s apartment by a parked car.

Morgaine’s breathing finally slowed and she said, “I felt a panic attack coming on. What did you want me to do? Lose my shit in there?”

“You wasn’t even in there. Not for real. It woulda made a mess in your panties though.”

Morgaine rolled her eyes. “It’s just an expression.”

“Just tell yourself it’s not real.”

“It was real enough. Look, sometimes I have panic attacks for no goddamn reason at all. Suddenly I’m in a vampire lair in total blackness—and, surprise, surprise, I freak out. You would’ve too.”

“Nope. I didn’t inherit the freak-out gene. Didn’t y’all say your mamma thought she was goin’ crazy a few times?”

“Yeah.” Morgaine hung her head. “That’s why she moved to a big city. Too many small-town people knew her business.”

Gwyneth sat beside Morgaine on the steps. She patted Morgaine’s arm as if comforting a child. “Don’t pay it no never mind. Y’all are perfectly safe. Ya hear?”

“I-I guess so.”

Gwyneth let out a big sigh. “So, this is kind of a pickle. If all went well with the astral projection and there was no magickal alarms or booby traps, we was plannin’ on going in for real.”

“I don’t think that’ll happen.”

“Why not? I can understand y’all not wantin’ to, but
I
can still go.”

Morgaine grabbed her wrist. “You can’t go in there by yourself! That’s really crazy.”

“I’ll be fine. As long as it’s daylight, he’s dead to the world… so to speak. Plus, we lugged all these supplies down here. Flashlights, candles, matches, a wooden stake, a camera…”

“So? We’ll just take them back home.”

“Do y’all really want to give up on Sly? ’Cause if you do, I doubt his maker—or V. Malvant, as we now know he’s called—will give up.”

Morgaine braced her elbows on her knees and covered her head with her hands as if she was expecting bombs overhead.

Gwyneth sat quietly and let that sink in for a bit.

At last, Morgaine sighed. “I’d still like to help Sly, but…”

“But what? Y’all are a powerful witch, Morgaine. If anythin’, V. Malvant should be afraid of
you
!”

Morgaine chuckled. “Yeah, and a few minutes ago the big, powerful witch was breathing into a paper bag.”

“Look, y’all can stand outside with the door open, and I can go inside. If anything happens you can hear me. But nothin’s gonna happen!”

“I can’t let you go alone.”

“Then are we both goin’ in, or are we givin’ up?”

Morgaine glanced over at the next apartment where the vampire lay dormant. “I’ll try it. If I start to flip out—”

“Y’all won’t flip out because there are only two options. Help Sly, or don’t help Sly. And if he means so much to y’all, we’ll help him.”

“He means the world to me, but I don’t get why
you’re
doing this.”

“Because
you
mean the world to
me
. Even though we’ve had our differences, we’re kin. And I want y’all to be happy.”

Morgaine smiled at her. “I love you, Gwyneth. You know that, right?”

“A’ course I do. And I love y’all too, knucklebrain.”

Jules Vernon glanced out the window and spotted the pretty Asian woman he had been expecting. While she pulled up to the curb in the moving van, he hopped up onto the ledge of his giant fish tank and watched the water sluice off his tail. As soon as his lower body shifted back to legs, he jumped down, grabbed the towel on the shelf beside him, dried off, and put on his robe.

Watching her out the window again, he was happy to see Lillian Chou helping the movers carry some of her things upstairs to her new apartment. Good. She wasn’t lazy. Perhaps she wouldn’t be high maintenance and could fix a leaky faucet herself.

He strode to the bedroom to get dressed so he could greet her and fill her in on some of the finer points of living in their neighborhood.

So far, Jules had been lucky. Nothing in the old building had broken, and no one had needed much of anything. But to get the job as the building’s super, he’d had to pretend to be handy. God forbid something really went wrong.

She had received her keys from him when she’d seen the place and given him the security deposit and first month’s rent in lovely, spendable cash. How was he supposed to check references with a thick wad of crisp Benjamins in front of him? Besides, she looked nice enough. Who needed a background check when the babe had a great backside?

Jules zipped up his blue jeans and threw on a dark green T-shirt that brought out the color of his green eyes. Women often commented on his eyes.

A quick look in the mirror, a fluff of his black hair, and he was ready to greet his new tenant. Almost… he grabbed the air freshener to mask the fishy smell in his apartment and sprayed it all around like a cloud of perfume. Just for good measure, he walked through it and scented himself with April freshness.

When he opened his door to the hallway, he had to wait for the movers to struggle by with her heavy wrought-iron bed. It reminded him of some of the balcony railings in New Orleans. Ornate scrolls imparted a feminine vibe. He fantasized himself handcuffed to those iron rails and almost chuckled. He was such a naughty fish.

Lillian, or Lily, as she had told him to call her, was hauling a suitcase up the stairs, so Jules trotted down to meet her and take it up the rest of the way.

“Hello, Lily. Welcome.”

“Oh, thank you so much, Jules,” she said when he grasped the heavy bag. “I am paying the movers by the hour, so I save money by helping.”

She had a hint of an Asian accent, but her English was quite good. She said she had lived in San Francisco for several years before moving to Boston.

“So, it’s just you and the movers? No friends or family signed up to help today?”

“No. My family is all in San Francisco. I’m so new to this city I have no friends and only one or two potential clients, so I had to hire help.”

“Listen, I may have forgotten to tell you something important when you came to look at the place. Our landlord is a recognizable celebrity and doesn’t want his whereabouts known.”

“A celebrity? Who is he? A rock star?”

“No, bigger than that—at least in Boston. It’s Jason Falco.”

“Who’s that?”

Jules’s eyebrows shot up. “Only the star pitcher of the Boston Bullets.”

“…and my son-in-law,” Sly added as he ascended the stairs silently.

Jules startled. “Where did you come from?”

“More importantly,” Sly said, “where did
she
come from?”

Lily flushed bright red. Jules thought he saw a wisp of steam waft from her ears.

“This is our new tenant, Lillian Chou. She goes by Lily. And, Lily, this is Sly.”

Eventually, Lily recovered enough to nod in acknowledgment and asked, “So, Mr. Falco lives in the building?”

“Yes, in the penthouse. You might not see him very often,” Sly said.

Jules shifted his weight from foot to foot. “He rides the elevator to the first floor and exits out the back usually. But if a lot of people come and go all the time, he’s more apt to be discovered and recognized, and then his nice private home could become a media magnet. Just do me a favor and keep visitors to a minimum.”

“My clients come one at a time, and I try not to have too many, but I do work from home. I hope that’s not a problem.”

“No, it shouldn’t be as long as they don’t hang around in the hallways.”

“Aw, no.” She laughed. “They never hang around.”

“Good,” Sly said.

“Everything should go well then. Where do you want your suitcase?”

“In the bedroom is fine.”

“Nice to meet you, Lily.” Sly waved and left as silently as he’d come.

Jules lugged the bag to the bedroom and set it next to the queen-size mattress. “Well, I guess I’ll leave you to it. I just wanted to welcome you to the building.” He stuck out his hand, and she looked at it hesitantly.

Eventually, she took it in her hot fingers and gave it a quick shake.
Cripes, she’s scorching.
And he didn’t mean that in a good way. Jogging across the hall, he couldn’t wait to plunge his hand into his cool saltwater tank.

*   *   *   *

Morgaine felt immensely better. Stronger. Her panic attack had lasted only five minutes. Sometimes the attacks went on for half an hour and she felt like she was dying. Sweating, chest pains, the whole nine yards. Just now, even with the stress of invading a vampire’s lair, her symptoms were fairly mild and short lived.

She stood, lifted her canvas bag, and said, “For Sly.”

Gwyneth nodded. “For Sly.”

They marched over to the vampire’s apartment again. Morgaine set the bag down and fished out what she needed. She handed Gwyneth the candelabra and a stake. She set the camera on the stoop and grabbed the flashlight and matches, plus a powder meant to unlock doors.

Gwyneth stood to the side while Morgaine positioned herself in front of the lock. She shook some of the powder into her hand, then blew it right into the keyhole. Standing, she closed her eyes, muttered her incantation, and heard a soft click. The door opened a couple of inches on its own.

“I’ll be jiggered,” Gwyneth whispered.

Morgaine put her finger to her lips, tucked the small plastic bag of powder into her pocket, then picked up the camera, turned on the flashlight, and crept inside.

Gwyneth followed silently.

Morgaine repeated the process at the door just inside, the one they had determined would lead to the vampire’s basement lair. After that door softly clicked open, Morgaine took the matches and lit Gwyneth’s candelabra.

Gwyneth pointed to herself and then to the door, meaning that she wanted to go first. Morgaine shook her head.

Gwyneth nodded frantically, as if insisting.

Morgaine finally acquiesced and stood aside. She supposed Gwyneth didn’t want to be mowed down like the last standing pin in a bowling alley in case Morgaine decided to run. Paralysis was more likely. If she lost her nerve again, Gwyneth might have to yank her out of there.
Don’t think about that. Think about Sly. This undead asshole wants to mess with my possible, maybe, future boyfriend. Well, screw him!

Morgaine took the first few steps down to the basement apartment. The air was warm, unlike Sly’s unheated place. Other than hers and Gwyneth’s quiet footfalls, all was silent. At the base of the stairs, an opening to the right revealed a tiny European-style kitchen. All of the appliances and counter space lined one side. She bypassed that and continued down the hall until thick carpet replaced the hardwood under her feet.

Her flashlight highlighted certain spots, but when Gwyneth’s candelabra entered the room, Morgaine saw the entire luxurious living room. They stood on a large, expensive-looking Oriental rug over dark hardwood floors. Gothic decor was evident, along with a touch of elegance. The room boasted Victorian velvet-covered furniture—not imitation stuff, either. Morgaine recognized the large, round ottoman as similar in style and quality to the one in the private sitting room at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Anger boiled under her skin to think about this jerk living in opulence while Sly had hidden behind a wall in a cold cellar for years. Even now, Sly lived a Spartan existence by comparison, but he didn’t seem to mind. Perhaps she shouldn’t have encouraged him to move into the first-floor apartment after all. Maybe this guy wouldn’t have discovered Sly if he’d stayed in his hidey-hole. But that was a moot point. He
had
located him, and Sly wouldn’t run from his daughter’s building—even for his own self-preservation.

Pictures. She needed pictures to remember the layout when all three of them returned to stake Sly’s stalker.
If
they could find and bottle the cure for Sly’s vampirism.

Morgaine found the light switch and flicked it on. She quickly took several shots of the apartment from the back all the way to the front door. A small corridor led back to two closed doors. Probably the bedroom and bath. She hoped a camera flash or turning on a light wouldn’t wake the undead. Probably not, but the anxiety she was trying to ignore invaded the pit of her stomach and she wanted to run.

She looked to Gwyneth and pointed to the back entrance. Gwyneth nodded and turned around. As Morgaine was passing the kitchen, something caught her eye. A map of the city on a bulletin board. She crept closer to take a better look. Pins were stuck in a few places, most of them near or on their block. Then she saw something else. A slip of paper with hearts all over it, pointing right at their corner.

Dear Goddess. I knew I might not be the only one who liked Sly, but I never thought my competition would be a vampire!

Suddenly thoughts of losing Sly to her cousin paled in comparison to what a vampire might do to take him away from her. Prickles crawled up the back of Morgaine’s neck. She zoomed around Gwyneth, forgot about hitting the light switch as she passed it, and tore up the stairs.