Undead and Unreturnable (23 page)

I shrugged. "Got no idea, doll. But one thing at a time."

"Oh. All right."

"Now remember," I whispered as we peeked into the front window. "Fact-finding. And if the woman's here, we'll save her."

"What if there's no woman here, just the bad guy?" Laura asked.

"You'll recognize him, right?" I asked Cathie.

"Too damned right I will."

"Okay, well, then we'll pull back and call the good guys and wait for them to come."

"What if he leaves before—"

"One thing at a time, okay? We don't even know if anybody's home."

"Nobody's in the living room," Laura observed.

"Just a minute," Cathie said, and flitted through the window. We hid (in plain sight, in the front yard), feeling like idiots (at least I did) while she phased through the house. She popped out through the garage and said, "He's not here. But there's a woman in the basement!"

"Pull up the garage door," Laura suggested.

"Everything's locked," Cathie fretted.

"I'm sure I can pull it up—" I began.

"But you guys," Laura protested, "he'll
see
it!"

"Who cares? Do him good to get a really big scare. Maybe he'll do something stupid."

"And maybe he'll run away and we won't catch him."

"Well, we can't just leave that poor woman down in the dark by herself, thinking she's going to die."

"Goddamned right!" Cathie said. "One of you break something and get in here! All I can do is float around going
booooooooo
. Cross of Christ!"

I picked up one of the bricks lining the sidewalk and tossed it through the front window. The noise was tremendous. Not to mention the mess. Cathie and Laura stared at me, shocked.

"Maybe this way, he'll think it's just kids." It was lame, but it was all I had. "Maybe he won't think the cops are here if he just sees a broken window."

"Oh. Good one." Cathie floated approvingly away, and Laura carefully hoisted herself up and into the living room.

"Watch the glass," I warned her and then cut myself a good one and cursed. Luckily, I bled as well as I read: sluggishly.

"Down here!" Cathie called, and darted into a closed wooden door.

What's funny was, I was starting to get used to the smell of the refinery—we'd been driving around the neighborhood a good twenty minutes, after all. But Cathie was right, it blotted out everything else. If he was killing women in the basement, I couldn't smell it from the kitchen. I couldn't even smell the kitchen from the kitchen.

Laura and I hurried down the stairs, which were predictably dark and spooky until Laura found the light switch. Banks of fluorescents winked on, and in the far corner, we could see a woman with messy, short blond hair, tied up and gagged with electrician's tape. Her outfit was, needless to say, a mess.

"Ha!" Cathie screeched, phasing though the wood-burning furnace and zooming around in a tight circle. "Told you, told you!"

"It's all right," Laura said, going to her. "You're safe now.
Er
, this might sting a bit." And she ripped the tape off the woman's mouth. "It's like a Band-Aid," she told her. "You can't do it little by little."

"He's coming back—to kill me—" Mrs.
Scoman
(I assume it was Mrs.
Scoman
) gasped. "He said he—was going to use his special friend—and kill me—" Then she leaned over and barfed all over Laura's shoes.

"That's all right," Laura said, rubbing the terrified woman's back. "You've had a hard night."

"If those were my shoes," I muttered to Cathie, "I wouldn't be able to be so nice about it."

"Oh, your sister's a freak," Cathie said, dismissing
ShoeGate
with a wave of her hand. "I've only known her a couple of days, and I figured that one out."

"She's different and nice," I said defensively, "but that doesn't make her a freak."

"Trust me. Having been killed by one, I recognize the breed."

"You take that back! You can't put someone like Laura in the same league as the Driveway Asshole."

"Will you two stop it?" Laura hissed, struggling with the tape. "You're scaring poor Mrs.
Scoman
! And I am not in the same league as the Driveway Asshole."

"I just want to get out of here," she groaned. "I want to get out of here so bad. Just my feet. I don't care about my hands. I can run with my hands tied."

Then I heard it. "Move," I told Laura. "The—we have to go now."

Cathie darted up through the ceiling.

"What?" Laura asked.

I started to rip through the tape with a couple tugs, tricky because I didn't want to hurt Mrs.
Scoman
. "The garage door just went up," I said shortly.

Cathie swooped back into the basement. "He's back! And boy, he is freaked out. Keeps muttering about the damn foster kids, whatever that's supposed to mean."

"Hurry," Mrs.
Scoman
whispered.

"Please don't throw up on me. If I do it any faster or harder, I could break all the bones in your hands."

"I don't care! Do my feet!
Break
my feet! Cut them off if you have to, just
get me out of here
!"

"Carrie? Do you have friends downstairs, Carrie?"

"Oh, great," I mumbled. "The predictably creepy killer has arrived."

Cathie pointed at the man—I couldn't see him because we were as much under the stairs as beside them—walking down the stairs. "Time's up, motherfucker," was how she greeted him, and damn, I liked the woman's style.

"Why did no one think to bring a knife?" Laura asked the air.

"Because we're the
hotshit
vampire queen and devil's daughter, and we don't need knives. Unless, of course, the bad guy ties up his victims with
tape
. Then we're screwed." Ah! I finally got her feet free and went to work on her hands. Because she would have had to run past the killer to escape, I shoved her back down when she tried to scramble to her feet. "It's okay," I told her. "We've got it covered. We really are the
hotshit
—never mind. I'll have this off in another minute."

The killer turned and came into the basement. Saw us. (Well, most of us… not Cathie.) Looked startled, then quickly recovered. "Carrie, I told you, no friends over on a school night."

"My name isn't Carrie," Mrs.
Scoman
whispered. She wouldn't look at the killer.

Cathie stepped into his chest and stood inside him. "Asshole.
Jerkoff
. Tyrant.
Fuckwad
," she informed him from inside his own head. "Loser. Virgin. Dimwit. Ass-hat. God, what I wouldn't give to be corporeal right now!"

"It's overrated," I mumbled.

"I can't believe this loser's
face
was the last thing I saw."

"You aren't the foster kids," the psycho
nutjob
killer said, looking puzzled. "I thought the kids at the end of the block broke my window again."

"Score," I said under my breath, tugging away. "What did I say? Huh?"

"Yeah, you actually had a good idea," Cathie
snarked
. "And we're not calling the police right this second why again?"

"Why did you kill those women?" Laura asked, the way you'd ask someone why they picked a red car over a blue one. "Why did you steal Mrs.
Scoman
?"

"Because they're mine," he explained, the way you'd explain about owning a shirt. Everyone was being all calm and civilized, and it was freaking me the hell out. I could smell trouble. Not a huge talent, given the circumstances, but it was still making me twitchy as a cat in heat. "They're all mine. Carrie forgot, so I have to keep reminding her."

"Psycho!" I coughed into my fist.

"Did you really," Laura began, and then had to try again, "did you really strangle them until they pooped, and then make fun of them after you stole their clothes?"

"Laura, he's crazy. You're not going to get a straight answer. Look at him!"

Unfortunately, looking at him didn't help: he looked like a lawyer on casual Fridays. Nice, clean blue work shirt. Khakis. Penny loafers. Not at all like the slobbering
nutjob
he obviously was.

Then he fucked himself forever by saying, "It sucks when you get the bra off and find out they don't have a decent rack. I don't mind them lying about that other stuff, but tell the truth about your tits, that's what my dad used to say. Otherwise, it's like lying."

Then, of course, he was dead, because Laura leaned down, picked up a chunk of wood off the pile, and broke his head in half. I screamed. Mrs.
Scoman
screamed. Even Cathie screamed, but I think she was happy. I wasn't. I was in Hell. I think Mrs.
Scoman
thought so, too.

I used my vampire
mojo
to convince Mrs.
Scoman
she had escaped and had no idea why the killer was dead, or who had killed him. I reminded her to tell Nick and the task force the killer's address. We thought she'd make out okay… none of the killer's blood was on her. It was all over Laura.

"Okay," I said on the way home. "I'm a little concerned."

"I lost my temper," Laura said, looking out the window. "I'll be the first to admit it."

"Freak!" Cathie sang from the backseat.

"That's another thing," I snapped, glaring into the rearview mirror. "You're supposed to disappear and be in heaven or wherever you people go after I've fixed your problem."

"Yeah, I know, but I kind of like this."

"What?"

"This." She waved her ghostly hands through my head. I shuddered, and the car swerved. "How cheated was I? Repeat after me: promising life cut short."

"Yeah, but…" I paused delicately. "You're dead. It's time to move on."

"Look who's talking. Besides, I helped you, right? I could get into the house when you guys were standing out on the lawn like jerks. I think I could be pretty good at this. Anyway, I think I'll hang around."

"Oh, Christ on crackers."

"What?"

"Good to have you aboard!" I said with fake heartiness.

"She's still here?" Laura asked. "That's odd."

"Don't try to change the subject! You murdered that guy. He was just standing there, and you killed him!"

"Killed him dead," Cathie agreed. "Like a big blond roach motel. She's a freak, but I'm totally in love with your sister right now."