Hex Appeal (P.N. Elrod) (Kitty Norville 4.60)

Pop-culture packaging aside, Ellinghaus was tough, just couldn’t get around during the day like some of the Dracs could. No shape-shifting, either, but I’d never heard him complain. He’d been in a long, lightproofed storage bench in the back of his home on the road for at least eleven hours and somehow managed not to look rumpled. I could admire that.

His occupation: keeping an eye on the witch so she doesn’t get damaged.

Vamps are a dime a dozen, but true spell-slingers are rare, though you wouldn’t think so with my pay scale. More and more, I’d been giving thought to going indie, usually on Friday, when the amount on the check left after Company deductions was only enough to cover basic living expenses. I’d signed a seven-year contract, though. Two more to go for either renewal (and a significant raise) or resigning with the usual confidentiality spell in place for life.

“Good evening, Miss Goldfarb,” Ellinghaus said. He leaned in through the open window of the cab and shut off the player. He’d made his entrance.

“Hey, Ell.” I’d tried for five years to get him to call me Marsha or even Mars, but he liked calling me “Miss Goldfarb.” Whatever made him happy.

“Where are we this fine night?” Used to waking up in a different place than where he’d gone to bed, he was only mildly curious.

“Still in Texas.”

“Where in Texas, if I may inquire?”

“About two hundred miles west of HQ. We’ve been knocked back to the Stone Age. No phone, no Internet. Sorry.”

He took that pretty well. I hadn’t. “Anyone else joining us?”

&n

bsp; “I don’t think so. No mentor called this one in.”

His solid form went ghostlike, and he rose straight up like a slow balloon. I should be used to that, but it’s cool to watch and just never gets old.

“Anything?” I asked when he came back to earth after a good look around.

“Lots of nothing. No cars on the road. I am thinking this is an orphan case, Miss Goldfarb.”

“It has that dump-site vibe, yes.”

He stalked over to the grave, stopping short of the barrier marked by the salt I’d put down, his head tilted, listening for activity. “Must be too soon,” he said.

Post-death incubation varied, anything from twenty-four to forty-eight hours. More than that, and it’s assumed the change failed. Then we back off and call an investigation team to process as a questionable death, possibly a murder.

We don’t get many of those these nights, but it happens.

Most of the time the vampire’s maker is standing by ready to mentor the newbie. In those cases we just fill out the paperwork, hand them a brochure about the benefits of working for the Company, and get out.

Then there are the orphans who, for one reason or other, don’t have anyone to show them the ropes. It’s shameful and wrong, like the casually cruel mouth-breathing morons who love playing with a new puppy, then abandon the grown dog on the side of the road to starve, go wild, or get killed in traffic.

When the Company finds the vamps who do that, there are penalties, severe ones. The CEOs take the Stan Lee trope of “with great power comes great responsibility” seriously. It’s the second-most-important rule in the greater community; ignore it at your peril. You make ’em, you take ’em.

I’d dealt with only a few orphans and counted myself lucky not to be around when the Company caught up with their makers. Word was that it got noisy.

Responsible vampires don’t pick out-of-the-way, long-neglected graveyards for their protégés. Some brainless jerk had dumped his or her table scraps.

Tonight’s case was going to be a bitch, I thought.

The wind kicked up, hot air sweeping through the long, drought-dry grass, making it hiss. The old church creaked like something trying to wake up. It must have been a tidy gathering place once upon a time, but a century of Texas weather had baked it to death. The structure leaned in the direction of the prevailing wind. The front door was on the ground and rotting, and I could see through to where the altar had been. No pews, perhaps those had been carted away to a newer, larger church.

This place was just sad. How many weddings, christenings and funerals had it seen? All that life past and gone, nothing to show for it but an ugly wreck and pale tombstones for people forgotten by time.

I’ve been in older cemeteries, scarier ones, ones that closed down the club for Gothic atmosphere, but there’s a special bone-dust creepiness to the ones in Texas. I don’t know if it’s the way the wind hits the lonely tilted markers or the fire ants, but I don’t like them.

“Should have brought more lights,” I muttered. I scrounged in my backpack for a flashlight but didn’t flick it on, else it would mess up my night vision. It felt good having a hunk of metal in my hand, especially one that doubled as a stun gun. I’d bought it on the Internet. Nifty toy.

Ellinghaus heard, of course. He could pick up the stirrings of a groggy neo with six feet of earth between. He gave a neutral grunt. “May I suggest a campfire and s’mores?”