The reluctant renfield, p.1
The Reluctant Renfield, page 1
THE RELUCTANT RENFIELD
VEGAN VAMP MYSTERIES #8
CATE LAWLEY
CONTENTS
1. Boone-Sized Dog Doo
2. Better the Mento than the Coke
3. Queen of the Mean Girls
4. Tall, Dark, and Apparently Handsome
5. Dirty Dreams and Terrible Tears
6. The Hug That Never Was
7. Superior Vampire Talents
8. Better than Poetry and Flowers
9. Ninja-Level Sleuthing
10. Hugs, Hugs, Everywhere Are Hugs
11. The Magical Gods of Magic
12. Zombies?!
13. Better Than Sex…Maybe
14. Supply Raid
15. Innocence and Rebirth
16. The Creepy Cabin in the Woods
17. None Shall Pass
18. Unexpected Consequences
19. Wembley’s Mysterious Disappearance
Author’s Note
Also by Cate Lawley
About the Author
ABOUT THE RELUCTANT RENFIELD
Sleep tight. Don't let the nightmares bite.
Bitsy, an old acquaintance of Mallory's, is having dreams featuring everyone's favorite vegan vampire.
Odd, uncomfortable dreams. Nightmares, even.
Those dreams? They’re real. Visions of the future featuring one person as the star: Mallory. When Bitsy foretells a murder, she needs help stopping the killer. Mallory, Alex, and Bitsy join forces to hunt down a future murderer and to save the world—or at least their corner of it.
For Duke, one half of the bloodhound pair that inspired Boone’s character.
May he chase the most intriguing scents and hunt critters to his heart’s content on the other side of the rainbow bridge.
1
BOONE-SIZED DOG DOO
Wembley and I had been roommates for several months now.
We’d established certain patterns of behavior.
He fussed over my supposed inability to eat regularly, and then he made me a tasty shake.
I cringed over the fact that he was dating my mom, then he made some inappropriate comment about their activities that made it clear he didn’t need my approval.
He hid his blood supply in the garage, and I pretended it wasn’t there when the cops stopped by…or just in general.
What we didn’t do was avoid each other.
Not for days at a time.
Certainly not for weeks.
Ever since he’d come back from that cruise he’d taken with my mother, Wembley had barely been present.
He was physically gone a lot, which wasn’t so odd. He flipped houses and his latest project was on the other side of town on the western edge of Austin. But even when he was home, he wasn’t really here.
There was a distance growing between us, and I didn’t like it.
I’d just explained all of this in great detail to Boone while I bathed him in the backyard. May in Austin was more than warm enough for outdoor baths. Heck, flip a coin, and sometimes even February was toasty enough.
“What are your thoughts?” I asked as I shut off the hose.
He turned his head to look at me. His ears were extra droopy and his expression long-suffering.
“Oh, right. Sorry.” I held up the huge bath towel I’d brought outside like a shield.
The sound of flopping ears and flapping bloodhound lips followed.
Boone was polite like that. Not only did he listen to all of my personal woes, he also refrained from shaking doggie water on me after baths.
I peeked around the huge towel to find him patiently waiting to be dried, his mournful expression gone. So I chucked the towel on top of him and started rubbing. He liked this part almost as much as being brushed.
Alex claimed I bathed him too frequently, but Alex also didn’t know how ripe Boone smelled when he went too long between baths. Stale bloodhound was not an odor anyone needed to experience.
Besides, I used a special shampoo that was specifically formulated for frequent baths. And Boone had agreed (via tail wag) that he liked the massages he got when he was all soaped up.
And we’d negotiated a special treat for days when I really didn’t want to clean the tub of dog hair and it was warm enough to bathe him outside. He put up with the cold water from the hose, and in return he got control of the remote for the day. My opposable thumb, his TV choices.
When I’d gotten him as dry as a single huge towel could manage, I asked him again, “So what do you think about the Wembley situation?”
He blinked at me, and I realized I hadn’t asked a question he could actually answer.
“Do you think something’s up?”
He didn’t wag his tail, which was the agreed-upon signal for agreement. But he also didn’t sit and stare at me, which was generally his way of conveying disagreement. He wouldn’t look at me, choosing instead to look at some point over my shoulder.
Was he avoiding my question?
Did Boone know something I didn’t?
He might be a dog, but Boone was no garden-variety four-legged fur ball. He’d once been a djinn’s companion, and the resulting effect of that special bond was a lingering ability to understand human speech, as long as I was around. That part was a mystery. I didn’t have the same bond with him as his djinn handler—I was no djinn—but I acted as a sort of stand-in so far as his ability to understand language was concerned.
I was about to travel down the paranoid path of “what did Boone know that I didn’t?” when I realized he wasn’t staring over my shoulder.
Well, he was, but there was someone behind me, and that someone had likely caught Boone’s eye.
That stealthy someone happened to possess a key to my home—and my heart.
I smiled at Alex. I wasn’t expecting him today. We had dinner plans tomorrow, but nothing today. But I was always happy to see Alex.
Even when he wasn’t smiling back at me.
Before I could ask about his too-serious expression or unplanned visit, he said, “We have a case.”
Four words and all my concerns over Wembley’s possibly odd behavior disappeared.
“I haven’t heard anything from Cornelius. Am I officially assigned or helping off book?” Because Cornelius liked to blow hot and cold where I was concerned.
To the best of my knowledge, I wasn’t currently banned, but that could change at any moment. Especially since I was an independent contractor.
I typically got a call or text when I was directly assigned a case, and I hadn’t this time. But then, when I acted as Alex’s second, he usually briefed me himself.
But Alex was acting oddly. He wasn’t jumping into the details of this new job. He was just standing there, watching me.
“Alex?”
“Bitsy thinks something might have happened to her neighbor.” Alex was eying me like he expected a specific response.
Except I had nothing. Confusion that Alex was acting so oddly, alarm for the mysterious neighbor. Just the regular sorts of reactions when an acquaintance expressed concern for another person’s safety, but no actual response.
And that was all Bitsy was to me, an acquaintance. I barely knew her.
Except for that one time when she attacked me, drank my blood, and then became my own personal minion for the blink of an eye. And not the cute, bright yellow, cartoon version. More the free-will-challenged, persuasion-afflicted variety.
So…she probably didn’t qualify as an acquaintance any longer.
Because of our history, Bitsy and I had a connection. One that made her, me, and everyone who knew of it deeply uncomfortable.
The bright side: distance had resolved that pesky minion issue.
She didn’t live anywhere near me, so I’d sort of forgotten on purpose about it all. It wasn’t as if I had some deep desire to cultivate my own personal Renfield. The exact opposite.
First, persuasion, even the accidental variety, was icky.
Second, no one wanted another person’s slavish, mindless, devotion. No sane, normal person, anyway.
And third, even if I was twisted enough to want my own personal minion, I wouldn’t choose Bitsy. She might not have an obsession with eating bugs like Dracula’s fictional underling, but that might be all she had going for her. She’d willingly chosen to become a vampire. That alone disqualified her as a rational, reasonable, or likeable person.
The only vamps I knew and liked—Wembley and Gladys—hadn’t been turned willingly. Or in Wembley’s case, there hadn’t been anything like full disclosure.
Hey big bad Viking dude, if you wanna live and keep running around berserkering and pillaging, you just have to do this one tiny little thing (lie). It won’t hurt at all (bigger lie). And it’s way better than all the drugs and torture that we’ve jacked you up on till now (monstrously huge lie).
Enhanced folk in the time of pillaging Vikings sucked.
My heart broke every time I thought about Wembley’s life before his change. That dude hadn’t lived in easy times, and they hadn’t been made any easier by the crazies around him who took advantage of his strength, skill, and loyalty.
Gah. And now I was back to thinking about Wembley, when I should be grilling Alex.
I turned my attention back to my oddly uncommunicative significant other. “Whatever you’re worried about telling me, just say it.”
“You haven’t been in touch with her?”
An odd question given that he knew I’d love to avoid her for the indefinite futur e.
“No.”
“Have you been thinking about her?”
And that was just beyond weird. Also, Alex knew the answer. If something, or someone, was on my mind, I talked about it. Usually with him. I wasn’t known for my verbal self-control.
But he asked, so I answered honestly. “Definitely not. I can’t even remember the last time I gave her two-seconds thought. Why?”
Except as soon as I asked, I knew why. You don’t ask a person if they’ve been “thinking” about their sort-of, kind-of minion unless you suspect they’ve been using their woo-woo persuasion on said minion.
“Bitsy’s been having dreams. For a while now.”
Was he asking if I’d dreamt about her? I eyed him curiously and replied, “I don’t do dreams.” Wait, that wasn’t right. I’d had all those Santa dreams around Christmas. Before I met the actual Santa. “Not since Santa.”
“That you remember.”
I considered the implications of this conversation. Alex was in investigator mode. My boyfriend had checked out for the moment, leaving behind an emergency response investigator who thought I might be having dreams, perhaps unknowingly, that were influencing a woman.
A woman who was having nightmares and had a neighbor who’d encountered difficulties of some kind.
Difficulties of the dead variety?
Was this a murder investigation?
What was happening right now?
As my concern ramped up to actual anxiety, I decided it was time for some real talk.
“Am I a suspect?”
Alex’s expression softened. “You’re a lead, not a suspect.” He closed the distance between us and pulled me into his arms.
I took the comfort, but I wasn’t fooled for a moment into thinking I wasn’t in some serious, Boone-sized dog doo.
2
BETTER THE MENTO THAN THE COKE
Turned out, Bitsy wasn’t living all that far away.
Initially, she’d moved out to Waco and not just to get away from me. She’d been the victim of a pretty nasty character here in Austin. The whole mind-control, minion episode had only happened because she’d attacked me while in a traumatized state and snacked on my blood. It wasn’t as if I’d been all, Please drink my blood, vampire lady.
Austin hadn’t been a place she’d wanted to linger even after removing me from the equation entirely.
But Waco hadn’t worked out so well for Bitsy.
She hadn’t “acclimated.” The local enhanced scene had been problematic in some undisclosed way, so she’d quickly moved back to the Austin area. Just to be safe, she’d moved to Georgetown, north of Austin. Since I was southeast, we were still pretty far apart. Over thirty miles.
So Cornelius was telling me as I delivered a squinty-eyed look that I hoped was full of judgment and disdain. “You didn’t think it might be a good idea to tell me that Bitsy was having dreams about me? Or that she was still in the area? You know, just in case I decided to hit the farmers market in Georgetown.”
If they had a farmers market, and if I shopped at farmers markets…or at all. Between Wembley and grocery deliver, my grocery store outings had diminished to almost nonexistent.
“Are you suffering a bout of indigestion, Ms. Andrews? Might I offer you some ginger tea?”
Jerk.
Was I not allowed a fit of pique? This was serious stuff, and I’d been left out of the loop. Bad enough he was the guy who gave the head nod yay or nay on almost all work that came my way. Add in the condescending tone I was sure he used just to push my buttons and that definitely made him a jerk.
I refrained from accepting his offer—even though ginger tea did sound good—and dropped into one of the two chairs parked in front of his desk. Alex sat in the other and had been from the moment Cornelius invited us to take a seat.
Since the big boss man wasn’t talking, not about the important stuff, I decided to dig. “What exactly am I doing in these dreams?”
He inhaled, as if readying to speak, and then he said nothing. He shook his head.
“Seriously? You think I’m doing some sort of magical mind meld with her while I sleep and influencing her to do something nefarious to her neighbor, and you can’t be bothered to tell me what I’m doing in her dreams?”
“No one is accusing you of sending Bitsy telepathic directives. Not to harm the neighbors or otherwise.” Still no hints as to what I was doing in those dreams.
Cornelius Mann was a close-mouthed control freak who never learned to share as a kid. Assuming he’d been a kid…a really, really long time ago. That no-sharing nonsense extended into so many areas of his grown-up life, most especially the not-sharing of information.
While it was good, great in fact, that no one believed I was masterminding evil acts via mental telepathy, it was also concerning that both Alex and Cornelius refused to disclose the content of Bitsy’s dreams.
How bad were they?
I turned to Alex for answers, since Cornelius was being so tight-lipped and Alex was my boyfriend. He was supposed to be on my side.
“There are coincidences that need to be explained.” He didn’t meet my gaze as he supplied that non-answer. So much for him being on my side.
“Coincidences? Like Bitsy’s dreams, the content of which no one is keen to reveal.” I held up a finger, then counted off the rest with my remaining digits. “Bitsy’s neighbor’s as yet unexplained disappearance. And my demonstrated ability to influence Bitsy’s actions.”
Three fingers. There were three fingers worth of coincidences.
That was a finger or two shy of being problematic in my mind.
And that wasn’t even taking into account that a lot of time had passed since Bitsy had walked around like my own personal minion. Months.
Also, what was the deal with this neighbor guy? He was missing—maybe. Cornelius had at least let that tidbit slip earlier.
But missing didn’t necessarily mean anything bad had happened to him. Maybe he took a trip to Vegas, or shacked up with his girlfriend and lost track of time, or was playing hooky from work and not answering his door. There were so many options. Options that didn’t include actual danger to the man.
Cornelius scowled. “We’ve made cases with less evidence.”
I rolled my eyes. “Right, because the Society has such a stellar history of just behavior. That was then, Cornelius. Back in the days when an accusation was enough to get someone hung—or at least get their mind turned to mush while witches picked out the truth from their memories. The whole idea of reform is to rely on evidence, and you’ve got none. You have a bunch of circumstantial mumbo jumbo.”
Apparently, I was pissing off the big man, because he came back at me with all guns blazing. “You want evidence of your wrongdoing? Perhaps it’s time we discussed your habit of blood sacrifices.”
Nuts.
Not that my little ritual with Tangwystl was in any way connected to whatever the heck was happening to Bitsy’s neighbor, but how did he even know about it?
And, dang, did he have to make it sound so nefarious?
I snuck a glance at Alex. He looked surprised.
Since I was in a relationship with the man to my left and not the one across the desk, I directed my response there. “It sounds bad. And, well, maybe it is? The first time was an accident, if that helps.”
The rapid thud of my heart in my chest eased when I saw Alex’s lips twitch with suppressed humor. When he replied, all he said was, “You accidentally made a blood sacrifice?”
I saw no signs of judgment. Or worry. Or stress.
Because he trusted me.
“This is a serious matter.” Cornelius’s tone conveyed a sense of gravity that Alex’s hadn’t. The big boss man was annoyed. About the blood sacrifice or being ignored? Hard to say.
With his focus still firmly fixed on me, Alex said, “Now is probably a good time to explain. In case you weren’t aware, blood sacrifice is frowned on.”
