Vampire for Hire (33 page)

 
      
 
Flashing images appeared in my thoughts. Images I had never seen before. Images that weren’t mine. Memories that weren’t mine

 
      
 
They were
his
images.
His
memories. Mr. Wharton’s.

 
      
 
I saw a flash of a security guard wearing gloves and working on an electrical panel. Perhaps the panel that powered the security cameras. I recognized the guard easily enough, especially since I had found him dead in the cold storage box.

 
      
 
The next flash. Now the guard was standing over this very box, writing something, when his head suddenly snapped around, eyes thoroughly spooked.

 
      
 
The next image was the same guard heading through the back room. He was following me, but he wasn’t really following me. He was following Mr. Wharton. And for good reason.

 
      
 
Every now and then Mr. Wharton would knock something over, and each sound would cause the guard to jump...and consequently to investigate further. Deeper into the bowels of the back room.

 
      
 
Toward, I saw, the cold storage freezer.

 
      
 
Something else fell over—a marble Buddha, I think—and the guard nearly jumped out of his skin. But he continued on, doggedly, perhaps driven by fascination, or perhaps driven by the sick realization that tonight wasn’t going according to plan. That someone was watching him. That someone knew what he was up to. Perhaps at any other time he would have turned away in fear. But not tonight. No, tonight—or rather, the night in question—he continued forward, inevitably, toward Mr. Wharton and the ice box.

 
      
 
Thad the security guard paused when he heard another noise. A noise that came from the ice box itself. A thumping, knocking sound. I even had a brief, flashing image of Mr. Wharton reaching down
through
the box and rapping something inside.

 
      
 
Thad the security guard whined a little. He was also making small, gasping sounds.

 
      
 
From a perspective from somewhere near the ice box, I watched—or, more accurately, Mr. Wharton watched—as the terrified man reached down and slowly opened the ice chest.

 
      
 
I could see that Thad didn’t really want to open it, that he was scared shitless. But he seemed somehow
compelled
to open it. Like a man possessed. Which got me thinking.

 
      
 
Either way, as the lid came up, all hell broke loose.

 
      
 
The images jumped crazily. No, it wasn’t the image that jumped crazily. It was Mr. Wharton moving rapidly. One moment he was down by the ice chest, and the next he was hovering somewhere above the security guard. The ice box was open. Frost and mist issued out, swirling around the man.

 
      
 
Mr. Wharton’s attention shifted, and since I was seeing this through his eyes, his memory, my attention shifted, too.

 
      
 
To a shelf above the refrigerated box.

 
      
 
On the shelf, marked very neatly, were rows of stone tools and weapons; in particular, stone hatchets.

 
      
 
An arm reached up for the hatchet, and I was startled to see that it was Mr. Wharton’s arm. A very real-looking arm. But not entirely real. Although solid-looking, I could still see through it.

 
      
 
Ectoplasm. A ghost body.

 
      
 
Now that very real-looking arm, draped in a slightly dusty reddish dinner jacket, removed the hatchet from the shelf. No doubt this was a Native American hatchet, or another tribal weapon from somewhere around the world. My knowledge of such artifacts was slim to none.

 
      
 
But one thing was obvious: it was heavy-looking, and it was topped by a razor-sharp flint head. A weapon used, no doubt, in battle or for skinning animals.

 
      
 
Or, in this case, for murder.

 
      
 
Thad must have heard something. As he turned to look, crying out, the hatchet flashed down and buried deep into his forehead. Thad jerked and nearly bit off his tongue. His left eye popped clean out of his head, to dangle by its neon-red optical nerves. I next watched in sick fascination as Mr. Wharton worked the hatchet free from the dead man’s skull. When he did, Thad the security guard toppled into the freezer.

 
      
 
The ghost of Mr. Wharton calmly shut the lid, returned the bloody hatchet to its proper place, and promptly disappeared.

 
      
 
Chapter Forty-eight

 
      
 
I was at Heroes, where only one person knew my name, and that was just the way I liked it.

 
      
 
I had already picked up Tammy from school and dropped her off at my sister’s. Danny, remarkably, was with Anthony at the hospital. My sister had asked if I would be there as well, and I said I would as soon as I could. She didn’t like it but knew that only something very, very important would keep me away from my son.

 
      
 
Now, it was almost five and it had been a
helluva
day. Soon I would be heading out to Simi Valley, but first I needed my Fang fix. And since our relationship had graduated to the physical level, I paid him a visit before heading out. The bar was mostly empty and we could speak freely enough. I caught him up to date on the past few days’ activities.

 
      
 
“So the crystal egg was in the box,” said Fang. He wasn’t polishing the stereotypical glass; instead, he was cutting lime wedges.

 
      
 
“Yup.”

 
      
 
“Any idea where he was going to send it?”

 
      
 
“Hard to say with only an ‘M’ in the address. Could have been his grandma. A P.O. Box anywhere. And before you ask, his name was Thad.”

 
      
 
“Thad?”

 
      
 
“Yup.”

 
      
 
“Is that a real name?”

 
      
 
“As real as Fang.”

 
      
 
He grinned. “Pretty clever idea just shipping that sucker out right under their noses.”

 
      
 
“Would have worked, too, if Mr. Wharton hadn’t cleaved his skull nearly in two.”

 
      
 
“With a five hundred year old war ax. Very fitting, being that this was his museum and all.”

 
      
 
“And that he protects to this day,” I said.

 
      
 
Fang leaned across the bar. As he did so, his two canine teeth clacked together like two marbles. He said, “So did you unpack the box right there?”

 
      
 
“No. I left it for Ms. Dickens. She opened it with a few other staff members standing nearby...and when she did, well, she nearly wept.”

 
      
 
“A murder is one thing, but the theft of a piece of art is another.”

 
      
 
“It is to a small museum trying to make a name for itself.”

 
      
 
“Our world is weird,” said Fang.

 
      
 
“Tell me about it.”

 
      
 
His eyes crinkled a little. Maybe he got some squirting lime juice in them. “How did you explain that you knew the egg was in the box?”

 
      
 
“I told her I had a hunch.”

 
      
 
“Your hunches are pretty damn good.”

 
      
 
“Better than most,” I said.

 
      
 
He nodded. “So the ghost of Mr. Wharton killed the security guard.”

 
      
 
“He wasn’t going to let anyone steal from his museum.”

 
      
 
“Death by ghost,” said Fang.

 
      
 
“Our world is weird,” I said, and both Fang and I smiled at each other.

 
      
 
“So, it will go down as an unsolved crime?”

 
      
 
“No doubt,” I said.

 
      
 
“Would be hard to arrest Mr. Wharton,” he said, laughing lightly. He added, “Can a ghost still go to hell for killing?”

 
      
 
“You’ll have to ask God.”

 
      
 
He grinned again, and his eyes did this sort of sparkly thing that made my heart beat a little faster. Knowing my thoughts, he smiled brightly.

 
      
 
“Oh, give it a rest,” I said. “You have a nice smile, so what?”

 
      
 
“Whatever you say, Moon Dance.” He reached out and took my hands. “Have you thought about my request?”

 
      
 
“Not really, no. Too much on my mind.”

 
      
 
He nodded. “I understand. Things have been crazy.”

 
      
 
He squeezed my hands a little tighter. His hands were soft in spots, but rough in others. They were the hands of a man who poured drinks for a living, but worked on muscle cars when he could. They were also the hands of a man who had killed three people.