I gave him a humorless smile. “I remember that.”
“Oh good.” His voice practically dripped sarcasm. “So now what?”
“Let me try your cell phone.”
He blinked at me but reached inside his suit jacket to retrieve it. He was slower on the uptake than normal. The result of the liquor, no doubt, but not particularly helpful. My own inebriation was long gone. There are a few benefits to my partially undead body.
“If I’m just being paranoid, it should work just fine,” I explained as he passed the top-of-the-line tech toy to me.
“And if it doesn’t?”
I punched the number for Alex’s cell phone. Vicki’s former lover had been at the wake, so she should still be close by. She was also a cop. She could find out if this was legit. If it wasn’t, she could get us help. Assuming I could get a call through.
He watched expectantly as I waited for the telltale ringing and instead heard only crackling static. Damn. I hit the “end” button and flipped the phone closed. The adrenaline that began to flow through my muscles was both invigorating and annoying. It wasn’t just danger that was making my body tense. The abrupt rush of fear from Dr. Scott had me alert and watching his every movement. Yes, I’d had my requisite nutrition shakes and no, I wasn’t hungry. But hunting is about more than just feeding and I was getting twitchy.
When I didn’t answer, he repeated his question: “And if it doesn’t?”
It wasn’t an if anymore—just a statement of fact. “We’re screwed.”
2
So, calling for help didn’t work. No surprise. I passed the phone back to him and he tucked it into the inner pocket of his suit jacket, his fingers trembling just the tiniest bit. I could hardly blame him, so I did my best to ignore it. Fortunately, now that I realized the situation, years of training and therapy kicked in and the dread of an unknown future faded into the background. “We need a plan.” My voice was nicely calm. I doubted that the good doctor had any clue just how impressive that was.
He raised a single, eloquent eyebrow.
“Dr. Scott, have you ever been kidnapped?” My voice was as coldly polite as I could manage. I was not hysterical, though I deserved to be. But I’ve been in life-threatening crises before. While you never get used to it, you learn control, to cope. Either that or you lose your mind. So far I’ve hung on to my sanity. Barely.
“Of course not!” he snapped.
“Lucky you. I have.” I forced myself not to shudder at memories I prefer to leave in the past. I’d been kidnapped as a child, by men who wanted my little sister to use her talent with the dead to find them treasure, like they’d read of a little boy doing in Florida. I had scars, physical and mental, but I’d gotten through it. She hadn’t. My sister’s ghost is a daily reminder of the experience. She’d attached to me after death and, much like Vicki—whose ghost had been the life of the party at her own wake—we weren’t really certain what business she had yet to complete while she was tied to this realm.
Oh, and I’d also been drugged and set up for a murder charge just a few short days ago. “Trust me, this is the fun part. It only gets worse from here. If you’re not going to help me, I suggest you stay the hell out of my way. Because I don’t intend to go down quietly.”
He took his time thinking about that. I knew he knew at least part of my history, medical and psychological. He was Vicki’s doctor, after all, and she knew the whole story. He’d also personally assigned the doctor who betrayed me after I was bitten by a vampire. In my opinion, if he’d vetted her a bit more carefully, she wouldn’t have been able to slip me a “roofie” and set me up for murder.
Bad things seem to follow me like a far-too-devoted puppy. I don’t know why. But my past experiences give me a certain insight in situations like this.
He was obviously thinking hard. While he did, he reached over to the bar and began fixing us each a drink. Scotch, neat, poured into little plastic cups. Liquid courage. I sniffed to make sure it wasn’t drugged. Still, I didn’t take a drink until after he did with no ill effects.
“How do you propose to do anything with us trapped like this?”
I didn’t answer him directly. Instead, I raised my face to the open sunroof. “Ivy. I need you.” I was pretty sure she’d answer. Ivy is always with me. Of course, since she was only a child when she was murdered, her power and her perceptions are limited. But I’d sent Vicki away to rest after the party, so Ivy was all I had available.
The temperature in the limo dropped precipitously. Magical barriers have little effect on the dead unless they’re intentionally set to keep them out. Dr. Scott started to shiver as frost began forming on the inside surface of the tinted windows. My sister was here. His eyes widened and I saw him withdraw a small spiral notebook and a pen from a jacket pocket. Yeah, in his position, this sort of thing was probably worth taking notes on.
I whispered quietly in case the backseat was bugged, “Can you blow a tire on the car for me? Maybe even pull the plug wires?” It was asking a lot. I knew that. But I knew she could do it . . . just. At least the tire. I wasn’t positive she knew what plug wires looked like. She was only eight when she died, and so far it seemed to me that what she had when she died was all she got to keep as a ghost.
The overhead light blinked once. It was a standard code between the two of us: once for yes, twice for no.
“You actually think that is going to work?” Dr. Scott didn’t bother to mask his incredulous expression.
“I wouldn’t ask her to expend the energy if I didn’t. That would be pointless and cruel. Beside, do you have a better idea?” I snapped out the words quietly but with whiplike precision. “I sure as hell don’t want to get into the middle of nowhere with them. Look, Doc, first rule of survival—stay in public when you can. Anything they want to do to you where there are no witnesses you don’t want to have happen.”
“Oh.” He took a long pull of his drink. It sloshed a little bit. His hand was shaking again—not much, and he was covering it well. But he was trembling with fear. I couldn’t blame him. “By the way, call me Jeff.” He gave me a sour smile, his voice thick with sarcasm and barely suppressed anger. “All my fellow kidnap victims do.”
I couldn’t deny we’d just stepped beyond the doctor-patient thing. “Okay . . . Jeff. Look, my hope is they’ll have to drop the spell to get in the trunk to get the jack.”
He glared at me over the rim of his second scotch. “And what if they use the jack and spare from one of the squad cars?”
I glared at him. Now he was just being difficult. “Then they’ll have to drop the spell to take off the old tire.” I paused and sighed. “Look, like I said. You don’t have to help me.” I turned my attention to the vehicles outside the window. “I wish I knew whether those are real cops out there. I don’t want to go to the state facility. But I don’t want to go up against the cops, either.” It was a hint and he caught on at once.
“Nobody has told me about any change in the Court’s order, and they would. But intruding on their thoughts is illegal.” He was getting angry.
“So is kidnapping.”
He didn’t have a response to that. “If they’re with the police, I’ll be as guilty as you.”
“If they’re the cops, I’m Aunt Jemima.” I pretended a certainty I didn’t actually feel. Most cops are good people. But they’re people. Which means there are always going to be a few bad apples. “Real cops would have stopped the car once we were out of a crowded area and told us they’ve received different orders. At the very least, they would have placed a uniform in the backseat. Right?”
He didn’t deny it, but his body language was angry, his back stiff, as he pretended to stare out the window, refusing to look me in the eye. “It’s wrong.”
“Fine. Then don’t do it. I’ll just have to take my chances. But stay the hell out of the way. Because I’m not going along with whatever they have planned for me.”
He didn’t argue, probably because he didn’t blame me. But his conscience wasn’t the problem; fear was controlling him. I could even understand it. I’d seen him hold it together in life-threatening situations before. But that had been on his own turf, in the hospital, where he was prepared for just about anything natural or supernatural. This was different. He wasn’t the one in control. And I’ve never met anybody who is really comfortable around ghosts.
“Are you ready?” I asked my sister’s spirit.
The overhead light flickered once in response.
“Wait. Let me see if I can summon nine-one-one mentally.” He set his drink into the little recess made for it. “Because if they really are police, you’ll be resisting arrest and I’ll be an accomplice. They’d have every right to shoot to kill. Both of us.”
He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know, so I didn’t comment. I just waited and watched. There wasn’t much to see. He leaned back in the cushions, closing his eyes, the very picture of relaxed concentration. That lasted all of thirty seconds or so, until he grabbed his head in both hands and screamed.
My adrenaline began racing anew as he doubled over and began throwing up everything he’d even thought of ingesting in the last twenty-four hours. That was the last straw. I spun in my seat and kicked the door with every ounce of strength, fully intending to pull the doctor out with me. The door mechanism gave way from sheer brute force, just as I expected, but I hadn’t anticipated the strength of the magical barrier. Normally, magic only prevents magical creatures from passing through. But this kicked the door right back at me as if it had reached the end of a bungee cord. The door caught my legs so suddenly and painfully that I tumbled backward, winding up crumpled against the opposite door, just barely missing the growing pool of vomit.