Circus of the Damned

“Hi, Dolph, what’s up?”

“We’re at the lawyer’s office that your friend Veronica Sims gave us. Nice that she called you first and not us.”

“She called you second, didn’t she?”

“Yeah.”

“What have you found out?” I didn’t bother to keep my voice down. If you’re careful, one side of a conversation isn’t very enlightening.

“Reba Baker is the dead woman. They identified her from morgue photos.”

“Pleasant way to end the work week,” I said.

Dolph ignored that. “Both victims were clients with dying wills. If they died by vampire bite, they wanted to be staked, then cremated.”

“Sounds like a pattern to me,” I said.

“But how did the vampires find out that they had dying wills?”

“Is this a trick question, Dolph? Someone told them.”

“I know that,” he said. He sounded disgusted.

I was missing something. “What do you want from me, Dolph?”

“I’ve questioned everyone, and I’d swear they were all telling the truth. Could someone have been giving the information and not remember?”

“You mean could the vampire have played mind games, so that the traitor wouldn’t know afterwards?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Sure,” I said.

“Could you tell which one the vampire got to if you were here?”

I glanced at my boss’s face. If I missed another night during our busiest season, he might fire me. There were days when I didn’t think I’d care. This wasn’t one of them. “Look for memory losses; hours, or even entire nights.”

“Anything else?”

“If someone has been feeding info to the vampires, they may not remember it, but a good hypnotist will be able to raise the memory.”

“The lawyer is screaming about rights and warrants. We’ve only got a warrant for the files, not for their minds.”

“Ask him if he wants to be responsible for tonight’s murder victim, one of his own clients?”

“She; the lawyer’s a woman,” he said.

How embarrassing and how sexist of me. “Ask her if she’s willing to explain to her client’s family why she obstructed your investigation.”

“The clients won’t know unless we let it out,” he said.

“That’s true,” I said.

“Why, that would be blackmail, Ms. Blake.”

“Isn’t it, though?” I said.

“You had to be a cop in a past life,” he said. “You’re too devious not to be.”

“Thanks for the compliment.”

“Any hypnotists you’d recommend?”

“Alvin Thormund. Wait a sec and I’ll get his number for you.” I got out my thin business card holder. I tried to only keep cards I wanted to refer to from time to time. We’d used Alvin for several cases of vampire victims with amnesia. I gave Dolph the number.

“Thanks, Anita.”

“Let me know what you find out. I might be able to identify the vampire involved.”

“You want to be there when we put them under?”

I glanced at Bert. His face was still relaxed, pleasant. Bert at his most dangerous.

“I don’t think so. Just make a recording of the session. If I need to, I’ll listen to it later.”

“Later may mean another body,” he said. “Your boss giving you trouble again?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“You want me to talk to him?” Dolph asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“He being a real bastard about it?”

“The usual.”

“Okay, I’ll call this Thormund and record the sessions. I’ll let you know if we find out anything.”

“Beep me.”

“You got it.” He hung up. I didn’t bother to say good-bye. Dolph never did.

I handed the phone back to Bert. He hung it up still staring at me with his pleasant, threatening eyes. “You have to go out for the police tonight?”

“No.”

“How did we merit this honor?”

“Cut the sarcasm, Bert.” I turned to Larry. “You ready to go, kid?”

“How old are you?” he asked.

Bert gri

“What difference does it make?” I asked.

“Just answer the question, okay?”

I shrugged. “Twenty-four.”

“You’re only four years older than me. Don’t call me kid.”

I had to smile. “Deal, but we better be going. We have dead to raise, money to make.” I glanced at Bert.

He was leaning back in his chair, blunt-fingered hands clasped over his belly. He was gri

I wanted to wipe the grin off his face with a fist. I resisted the urge. Who says I have no self-control?

Chapter 33

It was an hour before dawn. When all the Whos down in Whoville were asnooze in their beds without care. Sorry, wrong book. If I get to stay awake until dawn, I get just a tad slaphappy. I’d been up all night teaching Larry how to be a good, law-abiding animator. I wasn’t sure Bert would appreciate the last, but I knew I would.

The cemetery was small. A family plot with pretensions. A narrow two-lane road rounded a hill, and suddenly there it was, a swathe of gravel beside the road. You had seconds to decide to turn in, that this was it. Tombstones climbed up the hill. The angle was so steep, it looked like the coffins should have slid downhill.

We stood in the dark with a canopy of trees whispering overhead. The woods were thick on either side of the road. The little plot was just a narrow space beside the road, but it was well cared for. There were still-living family members to see to the upkeep. I didn’t even want to imagine how they mowed the hillside. Maybe a rope-and-pulley system to make sure the mower didn’t roll over and add another corpse.

Our last clients of the night had just driven away back to civilization. I’d raised five zombies. Larry had raised one. Yeah, he could have raised two, but we just ran out of darkness. It doesn’t take that long to raise a zombie, at least for me, but there’s travel time included. In four years I’d only had two zombies in the same cemetery on the same night. Most of the time you were driving like a maniac to make all the appointments.

My poor car had been towed to a service station, but the insurance people hadn’t seen it yet. It would take days or weeks for them to tell me it was totaled. There hadn’t been time to rent a car for the night, so Larry was driving. He’d have been with me even if I’d had the car. I was the one bitching about not having enough help, so I got to train him. It was only fair, I guessed.

The wind rushed through the trees. Dry leaves scurried across the road. The night was full of small, hurried noises. Rushing, rushing, towards… what? All Hallows Eve. You could feel Halloween on the air.

“I love nights like this,” Larry said.

I glanced over at him. We were both standing with our hands in our pockets staring out into the darkness. Enjoying the evening. We were also both covered in dried chicken blood. Just a nice, normal night.

My beeper went off. The high-pitched beep sounded very wrong in the quiet, windswept night. I hit the button. Mercifully, the noise stopped. The little light flashed a phone number at me. I didn’t recognize the number. I hoped it wasn’t Dolph, because an unfamiliar number this late at night, or early in the morning, meant another murder. Another body.

“Come on, we gotta get to a phone.”

“Who is it?”

“I’m not sure.” I started down the hill.

He followed me and asked, “Who do you think it is?”

“Maybe the police.”

“The murders you’re working on?”

I glanced back at him and rammed my knee into a tombstone. I stood there for a few seconds, holding my breath while the pain ran through me. “Shiiit!” I said softly and with feeling.

“Are you all right?” Larry touched my arm.

I drew away from his hand, and he let his hand drop. I wasn’t much into casual touching. “I’m fine.” Truth was, it still hurt, but what the hell? I needed to get to a phone, and the pain would get better the more I walked on it. Honest.

I stared carefully ahead to avoid other hard objects. “What do you know about the murders?”

“Just that you’re helping the police on a preternatural crime, and that it’s taking you away from your animating jobs.”