Smokin' Seventeen (Stephanie Plum 17)

“It’s a curse,” Ziggy said. “I can’t help it.”

I clapped a cuff on one wrist and after some wrestling managed to get the second one secured.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” I said to Ziggy. “We are going to walk out the front door like normal people, and we are going to get into my car. None of us are going to turn into screaming maniacs.”

“Is it sunny?” Ziggy asked. “It looks like it might be sunny.”

“Lordy, lordy,” Lula said. “I’m closin’ my eyes and I’m stoppin’ up my ears. Look how pale he is. You ever see anybody that white? He’s gonna fry up to nothing.”

“He didn’t get fried when he ran down the street two days ago,” I said.

“I was running fast,” Ziggy said. “I think I was running between the sunbeams.”

Lula bobbed her head. “I heard vampires were speedy like that.”

“Is Leonard living here, too?” I asked Ziggy.

“No. They made him get out. He’s living in a cardboard box in the Pine Barrens. I just figured it was a shame to let the house sit empty like this. And I didn’t count on you finding me again.”

I had Ziggy by the elbow, and I was herding him through the living room. I opened the front door and Ziggy gasped.

“I can’t go out there,” he said. “It’s certain death.”

“It’s death if you don’t,” I told him. “If you don’t get in the car, I’m going to bludgeon you with the Super Soaker.”

“God might not like that … being it’s filled with holy water,” Lula said.

I muscled Ziggy out the door, into the sunshine, and he started shrieking.

“Eeeeeeeee!”

“I knew it,” Lula said. “He’s smoking. He’s melting. I can’t look no more.”

Ziggy was running around in circles, hands cuffed behind his back, not knowing where to go. He lost his balance, toppled over, and lay there in the mangy front yard, unable to right himself.

“Eeeeeee! Eeeeee!.” He stopped to catch his breath, and he looked down at himself. “Hunh,” he said. “I’m still alive.”

“Maybe it was the holy water I squirted on him,” Lula said. “Maybe it gave him divine protection.”

I hoisted Ziggy to his feet. “News flash. He’s not a vampire. Never was. Never will be. End of story.”

I marched Ziggy to the Shelby and stuffed him into the backseat.

“I still feel a little like a vampire,” Ziggy said.

Lula buckled her seat belt. “Maybe you’re one of them hybrids. Like you’re a vampire only not so much.”

“Yeah, that could be it,” Ziggy said.

I drove to the police station and checked Ziggy in with the docket lieutenant.

“Now that we know you’re not a hundred percent vampire you should stop trying to suck necks,” I said to Ziggy.

“I’ll try,” Ziggy said, “but it’s a hard habit to break.”

THIRTY-THREE

LULA WAS WAITING for me in the car when I left the police station. I got behind the wheel and looked over at her. “Are you sweating? Your arms and your chest are all wet.”