“You catch on quick,” I said.
“So, is there some sort of vampire war that the rest of us mere mortals aren’t aware of?”
“You’ve been watching too much True Blood, detective. Vampires live discreetly, kill discreetly. The ones I know enjoy their anonymity and try like hell to exist in the real world.”
“So, why would someone want us to think this was a vampire attack?”
“A good question, Detective, but one I don’t know the answer to. At least, not yet. And the girl—”
“You mean ghost.”
“Yes, the ghost doesn’t know anything. She didn’t see who attacked her.”
Sanchez shivered a little. “Kind of creepy to think that these woods are full of vampires and ghosts.”
“And nervous cops with guns.”
“Touché ,” he said. “And you promise to wipe my memory clean of all of this later?”
“If you want.”
“I very much want.”
Chapter Seven
We were at Zov’s Bistro.
Yes, the same Zov’s Bistro where I often saw one of my favorite thriller writers. I loved his books, but I didn’t love his fake hair. He was here now, eating with his wife, and looking very serious while he did so. That was okay. I liked my thriller writers looking serious.
“Do you read his books?” I asked Allison as we were seated.
“Whose books?”
“His books.” I pointed at the little man, and told Allison his name.
“Never heard of him.”
I stared at her. “Do you even like to read, Allison?”
“I read magazines.”
“Books, Allison. Do you read books?”
“Not really. They’re kinda, you know, boring—wait, I did just read a book.”
As she said the words, I saw the book in my mind’s eyes. Yes, Allison and I were deeply connected. Too connected. “You read a book on witchcraft?”
“On Wicca,” she said, lowering her voice. And this might have been the first time I’d ever heard Allison lower her voice. “There’s a difference.”
“Enlighten me.”
She was about to when the waitress came by and took our drink orders. White wine for me, red for Allison. I would have preferred a margarita, or something fun and foofy. Sadly, my body barely tolerated the white wine.
Zov’s Bistro was a quaint, upscale restaurant with reasonable prices in exchange for uncommonly good food. At least, that’s what I was told, since I hadn’t eaten regular food in seven years. No, I came here for the ambiance...and sometimes a raw steak. Raw steaks didn’t always do it for me. The blood that pooled around the steak had been warmed and seasoned and so wasn’t pure enough. Anything impure—i.e., not blood—was liable to get a violent reaction from me. And by violent, yes, I mean projectile vomiting.
The local writer, I noted, was staring at me. I remembered back in the days when he was bald. He looked good bald. He looked serious and kind of sexy. Like a literary Burt Reynolds. The fake hair looked disturbing. And it wasn’t just a little fake. It was a massive pile of it. Thick and proud and weird. In a way, I admired him for it. After all, if you’re gonna get transplants—and not fool anyone in the process—then, by God, you might as well go all in.
“You seem way too fixated on the poor man’s hair. I think it looks nice,” said Allison, picking up on my thoughts. Generally, I didn’t close my thoughts off to Allison. Lately, I’d been thinking of her more and more as a sister.
“I’m glad you think so,” said Allison, “because there is a good chance that, in a past life or two, we very well could have been sisters.”
“You’re losing me.”
“It goes back to the book on Wicca...and someone else.”
I saw the old lady in Allison’s mind. And it wasn’t just any old lady...
“Since when do you see ghosts?” I asked.
“Since last week.”
She told me about it. Allison had been hired by a man to help him find his daughter’s killer. She had done so, and strangeness ensued. “But I’ll tell you about him another time,” she added.
However, I had already caught her thoughts regarding him. I shook my head at the wonder of it all, and said, “Fine. Tell me about the old lady.”
“She’s one of us,” said Allison.
“What the devil does that mean?”
Allison gave me another image, this time, of the old lady looking not so old. She was younger now, our age, mid-thirties—although I would forever look in my late twenties. At this younger, more youthful age, the woman looked frustratingly familiar.
Allison was nodding. “See, you recognized her, too.”
Our drinks came and Allison dove into hers. Literally. Head first. When she pulled away, wine sparkled on her lips. Lips that were smiling contently. The girl liked to drink.
“What’s going on, Allison?”
“We’re soul mates, Sam. We’ve always been soul mates, and so is Millicent. There are three of us. Bound together throughout time and space.”
“I just met you last year,” I said, sipping my wine. I had to sip it. If I drank it too fast, I’d get stomach pains. Who knew vampires would have such sensitive stomachs? Granted, it could be the thing that lived within me who had the sensitive stomach. The thing that I kept alive with each consumption of blood. Knowing that I was simultaneously keeping something wicked and hideous alive, while at the same time keeping myself alive, was something that, to this day, I hadn’t quite wrapped my head around.
“Yes, we just met,” said Allison, “but we were supposed to meet. It was destiny.”
“You were the fiancé of a murder victim,” I said. “Destiny arranged for your fiancé to die so that we could meet?”
Allison looked down immediately into her wine. The strangeness of her fiancé’s murder did nothing to diminish her loss, and I reached out and took her hand and apologized from my heart. “Sorry, that was harsh.”
“It’s okay, Sam. And I can’t begin to understand how the world works, or how the Universe works, or even how God works. For all I know, they’re all one and the same. But, somehow, someway, we came together, but this time, as friends.”
“And we were sisters before?”
“Often,” said Allison, perking up a little. The wine might have had something to do with that. Hers, I noted, was nearly half gone. “And sometimes, brothers. But we’ll call that a failed experiment.”