The nefarious necklace, p.1
The Nefarious Necklace, page 1
The Nefarious Necklace
A Vegan Vamp Mystery
Cate Lawley
Copyright © 2017 Catherine G. Cobb
All rights reserved.
For Duke and Boone,
who continue to provide me with at least as much laughter as sticky bloodhound drool
Bonus Content
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Contents
1. Conquering the Door. Or the Blood. Maybe Both.
2. A Different Sort of Vampire
3. A Mary-less Bloody Mary Lunch
4. The Gladys Equation
5. Daisies, Dates, and Dead Bodies
6. Baby Fangs Strike Again
7. Used Car Salesmen Numbers One and Two
8. Bed, Bite, and Bye
9. (No) Dancing Naked in the Moonlight
10. The Love Machine
11. The Scooby Gang
12. Shiny, Sparkly…a Clue!
13. And Then the Lies Begin
14. Whodunit?
15. Bounties, Bad Guys, and Bingo
16. Whodunit? For Reals
17. Not Quite Dead
18. How Unvampy Can a Vamp Girl Be?
19. Sleight of Hand
20. Smoke and Mirrors
21. Ninjas and Karate Kicks
22. Singing Swords and Swinging Swords
23. Skullduggery Revealed
24. The Mysterious Ways of Society Justice
Bonus Content
Also by Cate Lawley
About the Author
1
Conquering the Door. Or the Blood. Maybe Both.
The door to the garage was innocuous enough.
It was an off-white color that was bright, but not startlingly so, and it was equipped with a generic, utilitarian doorknob. There was nothing inherently frightening or threatening about it. It was a pleasant, normal sort of door.
What was on the other side, however, made my skin crawl.
Commercial-grade refrigerators were meant to be filled with carrot juice and vegan shakes, not bottles of blood.
Granted, the sight and smell of blood didn’t make me want to puke anymore, and that was a big improvement. But a fridge full of blood was still creepy. And gross. Every time I thought about that huge fridge of stasis-preserved human blood lurking sneakily in the shadows in my garage, I got the willies. As a vampire, that was downright embarrassing.
So here I was, standing in front of my own door, hesitating to enter my own garage—but trying to tackle the problem.
“Wembley!” I hollered.
If I couldn’t get over my blood aversion, then I needed to have a chat with my vamp roomie about his blood-storage choices. It might be the coward’s way out, but my garage shouldn’t give me the willies. And there had to be a way to conquer my aversion besides living with the equivalent of a blood bank.
My phone chirped with my sometimes-partner Alex’s ringtone. I gave the garage door a narrow-eyed look, then decided Society business should probably come first.
As a newly inducted member of the Society for the Study of Paranormal and Occult Phenomena—the local governing body for the magically enhanced community—and a contractor for the chief operating officer, Society calls hit the top of my priority list. And I was honest enough with myself to admit that working with Alex was fun.
I answered my phone on the second ring. “Hey, Alex. What’s up?”
“I have a case for you.”
I did a fist pump, then blushed when I saw Wembley had finally emerged from the back of the house and was watching me with interest.
Enthusiasm for my job was hardly a reason for embarrassment, but Wembley didn’t help by smirking and saying, “Alex?”
I shrugged and then turned away from both Wembley and the garage door. A case was reason enough to celebrate, so I headed for the fridge and carrot juice. “You have excellent timing. I was about to have a chat with Wembley about his garage stash.”
Wembley’s discontented murmurings faded into the background as I ducked my head inside the fridge.
“Which stash is that? Food or equipment?”
Since I’d personally benefitted from Wembley’s cache of weapons, it would be more than a little hypocritical to complain about that particular stash. Tangwystl, a living sword with a surprisingly vocal thirst for blood, had been stored in that very same cache until she’d made her way into my hands.
“His food stash.” And there were the heebie-jeebies again. If I could just get the skin crawling to stop, maybe I’d graduate to being an almost normal vampire. Who was I kidding? That wasn’t going to happen.
“Ah.” Alex paused then in a brisk tone said, “So about that case. Regular Society terms, your usual rate. Are you free?”
Alarm bells went off. No details, a phone call rather than a face-to-face visit… I smelled hinkiness. I set down the bottle of carrot juice on the kitchen counter. “What’s the job? And who are we working for?”
“That’s the beauty of this one. It would be your first solo assignment.”
Since I was new to enhanced living and barely understood how the Society operated, I translated that to mean Alex didn’t want to touch this particular case with a ten-foot pole. “Again—what’s the job and who’s the client?”
“Technically your client would be the Society, but Gladys—”
“Nope.” I grabbed the juice and took a fortifying drink, thought about it, and then drained half the bottle. Gladys had that effect on me. Just thinking about working with her again had me comfort drinking.
“You don’t even know what the case is. At least—”
I didn’t hear the rest, because I hung up on him. Maybe that had been a tiny bit harsh? But Gladys… Nope. Not too harsh.
Gladys was lovely. I adored her. We’d always gotten along well, and I’d even go so far as to call her a friend. Of a sort.
But taking her on as a client, even an almost client—nope. I’d already had Gladys as a client, twice over, and I had no desire to repeat the experience. Unless her life was on the line, I didn’t want to have anything to do with the case.
And I would not feel badly about hanging up on Alex. If anyone could persuade me to do the unthinkable, it was Alex. He wasn’t the type to use his powers for evil, but dumping Gladys on me was well within his moral code.
Abruptly ending the call was an act of self-preservation. I took a sip of carrot juice. While Gladys wasn’t a physical threat, I had to consider my emotional well-being, too. I stared at the my carrot juice and hoped the guilt wouldn’t last long.
The doorbell rang.
“Nuts.” I flagged Wembley as he emerged for the second time from the back of the house. Boone, my recently adopted bloodhound, trailed sleepily behind him. “Don’t answer that.”
Persistent knocking ensued.
Wembley stood in the living room, obviously weighing who he wanted to piss off less. On the one hand, his roomie with the baby fangs and the bloodthirsty sword with the secret-not-so-secret crush on him. On the other, his older-than-dirt friend with mega-wattage wizard power and a sword that possessed no allegiance or opinions.
Wembley shrugged and shot me an apologetic look a split second before he headed to the front door.
In moments like these, I couldn’t help thinking there wasn’t much of the Berserker Viking left inside Wembley. That guy would have faced the wrath of Alex’s sword just for the fun of it. Then again, that guy probably wouldn’t be any fun to live with. It seemed there’d been a lot of anger and drugs involved with being a Berserker.
“I’ll remember this the next time my mom and I chat,” I called out from the kitchen. “Don’t think I won’t.”
He didn’t turn around, but he did briefly pause before he opened the door.
Ugh. Wembley and my mother. How had I let that happen? Then again, I hadn’t really. Wembley had been a sneaky son of a gun and chatted her up on the phone when I wasn’t around.
Alex walked in, greeted Wembley politely, then turned to me. “You have the manners of a belligerent teenager.”
Boone sat down next to him and gave him a forlorn look until Alex rubbed his ears.
“Traitor,” I said to the hound. Turning to Alex, I added, “No, I have manners. They’re just absent when shady people try to manipulate me into doing unsavory things.” I caught Wembley making a hasty exit down the hall to his bedroom and called after him, “I wasn’t kidding. Chat, me and my mom. I won’t forget, Wembley.”
Alex’s eyebrows rose. “Wow. He really is taking your mom out?” When I nodded, he added, “No wonder you’re in a mood.”
A mood? My eyes narrowed. At least Alex had the grace to look mildly regretful.
Boone sighed, looked at me, then Alex, sighed again, and then wandered away.
It was handy having a hound who understood human speech, especially when he sided with me. Giving up ear rubs was a pretty big deal for him and was a nice showing of solidarity. Granted, he was probably headed to wallow in my bed and spread his slobber generously on my duvet right now, but he’d still earned a little extra with dinner tonight.
“This mood I’m in is definitely telling me to pass on your case. But thanks for the offer.” I gave him a look that made it clear I was not thankful.
“Look, I know Gladys can be challenging, but she has a legitimate complaint and none of the emergency response crew have time for this type of case. I’d look into it myself , but I’m otherwise occupied.” Alex rubbed his neck. “Please? As a favor to emergency response.”
Emergency response crew were a bizarre combo of paramedic, fireman, cop, and assassin. Since I could never be entirely certain they were coming to save and not exterminate me, they weren’t my first choice to call in an emergency. And I wasn’t particularly interested in doing any favors for them.
Alex, on the other hand, I’d always call him in an emergency. He had come through on more than one occasion, and he put others’ safety—who was I kidding? my safety—above his own pretty regularly these days. That couldn’t help but have an effect on a girl. Great. I owed him, and he was talking favors.
“If Gladys’s complaint is legitimate, then why isn’t the big boss man ordering one of you emergency response guys to investigate?” Seemed like a reasonable question to me, but Alex looked frustrated by it.
“The Society is stretched a little thin right now. You do recall that we recently lost our CEO?”
Of course I recalled. Hard to forget since his dead body had been buried in Gladys’s new herb garden—while she’d thrown one of her Divorced Divas parties practically on top of the corpse. That was the kind of thing that happened when Gladys was involved.
I shook the image of the dead former CEO’s naked dead body right out of my head. “I don’t see the problem. You take over as acting COO, Cornelius acts as temporary CEO, and when a new CEO is voted in, Cornelius goes back to being the COO. Easy-peasy.”
“Think about it, Mallory. Cornelius is more bureaucrat than politician, so he wants nothing to do with the executive position. The CEO was murdered, his assistant and wife executed for the crime. That makes continuity of leadership much more difficult. Unless Cornelius can pull a rabbit out of his hat, Texas might be looking at significant change in the near future.”
“I gather from your tone that significant change means terrible things will happen.”
“Blaine Waldrup and Oscar Hayes are the only candidates that Cornelius has found for the position.” I didn’t recognize the names, but Alex looked displeased. “There is also a segment of Society members who are using the current instability as an opportunity to test boundaries, which is in turn keeping emergency response busier than usual.”
My head was starting to hurt. Emergency response was overtaxed, and I’d bet the normally efficient Cornelius was gonna have a heck of a time. “How is Cornelius supposed to find good candidates when the position pays the equivalent of a teacher’s salary?”
“That’s a generous estimate. I’d say more along the lines of a new teacher in an underfunded school district, maybe.” Alex’s jaw firmed. “The attraction isn’t the money, and the problem isn’t about finding candidates but finding the right candidate.”
“So the lure is power and prestige and…” Words failed me, because I didn’t get it. Alex had once explained the Society in terms of a governing body, with the COO as the sheriff and the CEO as mayor. But CEOs were usually paid better than a poorly paid teacher, and where was this mysterious prestige?
Alex sighed. “Look. Austin is a hub of enhanced living, one of a few in the U.S. Each of the hubs concentrates power in its region.”
“So controlling Austin is kind of a big deal?”
Alex crossed his arms. “Yes, it kind of is. Cornelius is doing his best to ensure that a reasonable candidate takes over the CEO position, one who will continue to modernize and give some consideration to humans, and that’s consuming his time. He won’t make a play for the position himself, unfortunately, and finding another remotely reasonable choice is proving difficult. Long story short, we’re all very busy.”
“Way to lay the guilt trip on, Alex.” Worse, now I felt like a heel for hanging up on him. I finished off my carrot juice, screwed the cap on, and then made myself say the words. “Fine, I’ll take the job. What’s Gladys done now?”
“Maybe nothing. Gladys is the complainant, not the chief suspect this time.” Alex’s arms dropped to his side, and he frowned. “She claims her friend Bitsy has disappeared.”
My ears perked up. “A missing person case?” Suddenly, Gladys didn’t seem nearly the problem she’d been a few minutes ago. My very own missing person case! I blinked at the look on Alex’s face and assumed a more serious mien. “Uh, I mean, that’s unfortunate.”
Getting my first solo case put me one step closer to sleuthing ninja status. Now, if I could just solve it, maybe I’d make it past baby ninja-in-training status.
2
A Different Sort of Vampire
It turned out that Bitsy Jenkins might be missing. Or she could have done a runner. Or taken a vacay.
After Alex briefed me, I figured it was the uncertainty of the existence of a crime that got it assigned to me rather than the emergency response team’s caseload. But I refused to let my enthusiasm wane.
As I drove to Gladys’s house in the ’burbs, I considered the information I had.
Bitsy lived alone in an apartment in South Austin, not too far from both my house and the Society’s headquarters. She worked as a waitress at a popular café and hadn’t been to work the last three days. She was single and had no surviving family that she acknowledged. She was a newish vampire—whatever that meant. Being familiar with Alex’s perception of time, that could mean she’d been transformed last month or a few years ago. Although Alex didn’t have a timeline for her transformation, he did know that Gladys and Bitsy had met at a Society orientation. Since orientation was for the newly turned and the new to Austin, Bitsy was one or both of those.
I really needed to make one of those orientations. I’d missed the last one when the Society’s CEO had shown up inconveniently dead in Gladys’s bed. She was my life-coaching client at the time and, in her mind, I was the natural person to turn to in a crisis.
Attend orientation…or save Gladys from being executed for a crime I’d been pretty certain she hadn’t committed? Unlike some vamps, I hadn’t lost my moral compass when I’d been turned, so I’d opted for saving Gladys.
Since becoming a vampire, my life had acquired some unusual complications, and I hated to say that digging up the former CEO from Gladys’s newly planted herb garden—where she’d “temporarily” stashed him—hadn’t been the weirdest thing I’d ever done.
I pulled into Gladys’s drive and couldn’t help but admire the picture-perfect yard. Unlike many of her neighbors, Gladys did most of her own gardening. Whether it was the heat or just Texas culture, in my experience, most yardwork in the ’burbs seemed to be done by teenage children or yard services—not by women like Gladys.
Gladys’s glorious head of bright red hair poked up above her well-groomed shrubs.
I waved as I climbed out of my Jeep.
Gladys gave me a brilliant smile. By the time I reached her, she’d removed her gardening gloves and extended a beautifully manicured hand. “Mallory, I’m so glad to see you. I can’t believe the Society assigned you to the case.” A brief flash of consternation passed across her face. “I thought Anton was going to chuck me out on my rear when I insisted on seeing his boss. And Cornelius, well, he didn’t seem to take my concerns seriously.” Her expression brightened. “It was Alex, wasn’t it? He put in a good word for me, I’ll bet.”
Anton, or mean Mr. Clean, as I thought of him, was hardly a welcoming sort of guy, and he’d been a royal pain in my tush since day one of my vamp life. He put “killer” into the emergency response job description, literally. He was an assassin by magical classification. It wouldn’t shock me if Anton had recommended quietly disappearing Gladys. If there was no Gladys, then there was no complaint and therefore no problem.
I really didn’t like that guy.
