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

She twitched and went still, staring at me.

I pointed at the folded sweats atop the cooler. “There are some clothes; put them on.”

She hesitated.

“Now!” I roared.

That made her jump. Ellinghaus, too, a little. You can try a kindly, soothing approach, but in some situations it’s just going to prolong things. Most people respond to a direct order, at least until they pull themselves together enough to start asking questions. When they do, I go from bear to teddy bear.

“What’s your name?” I asked after she pulled the top on. It hung halfway to her knees. The pants would be too long and big in the waist, but she could roll the legs and hold the rest up until I found a better size.

“You first,” she snapped.

Anger was good, much better than panic. We were close enough that I got a clear look at her in the light spill from the back of the ambulance. She was strangely familiar, though I was certain I’d never met her before. It’s that out-of-context recognition where you know the face, just from some other location. I told her my name again and repeated my question.

“I’m—I’m Kellie Ann Donner. Have I been in an accident?”

Oh, crap.

I glanced at Ellinghaus. He put his hat on and took off his sunglasses. He never takes off his sunglasses.

“What’s going on?” she demanded, tears beginning to tumble. “Who are you people?”

* * *

I hate being off the grid. There was no way to let HQ know about the volatile situation we’d gotten into. Not that they’d change procedure, that was set in stone, but at least someone back in the bullpen could pass word up to management so they could start figuring out what to do.

That flutter in my gut came back. Why me? I wondered. Perhaps I’d had an inkling of this way back in my head, inspired by the news reports.

A week ago, Kellie Ann Donner, a night clerk at a roadside gas stop in Alabama, had inexplicably walked off her job and vanished. While it is a rage-making and horrible fact that many young women go missing and are never found again, this one caught the public imagination due to the efforts of the franchise owner, who raised holy hell with the media about his missing employee. He insisted she was a bright, responsible girl and posted a half-million-dollar reward for her safe return, no questions asked. The hometowners beat the bushes for her, and hoards of private investigators, pseudo-psychics, reporters, and other helpful crazies wanting a crack at that cash were on the case. It was like the community shark-hunt scene from Jaws—the movie, I’d not read the book.

CNN and other networks picked up and ran the story, that lady lawyer needled the Alabama authorities nightly on her show for not trying hard enough to find the girl, and the blurry video showing her departure had gotten more than a million hits on YouTube.

I’d seen it. From a high angle, the camera recorded the store’s door opening, Kellie Ann seemed to speak to someone coming in, only no one was in front of her. For exactly twenty-two seconds she stopped moving, staring at something unseen, then left her spot at the counter and went outside. An exterior security camera caught her walking up to a plain white van, no plates visible, and getting in. Its door seemed to slam shut on its own, and the van drove off. You couldn’t see the make or who was driving.

Poof, gone.

>

The store, lights bright on the side of a lonely two-lane, stood empty for an hour until a patrol car pulled up, and the officer, seeking his usual coffee-and-donut break for his shift, radioed in the first report of the mystery.

The Company was keeping a close eye on this one. We were certain in the bullpen that a rogue vamp was behind it since he wouldn’t show up on camera. The twenty-two seconds of blank staring would be when he’d hypnotized her. She’d be docile, under his complete control, perfect for a living blood bank. But who would be that stupid?

For a week now, Kellie Ann Donner’s face had been impossible to avoid. Moderately pretty, a birthmark just off the right corner of her mouth, she smiled at America from her high-school prom picture while friends and family put on a brave front and wore yellow ribbons. Bunches of flowers were left before an improvised shrine at the gas station. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of other people went missing that week in America, but this was the one that caught the public imagination—along with that half-million-dollar reward.

And now she was a vampire.

The inviolable rule was about to be shot to hell and gone.

Soon as the Company CEOs got my news—well, there had to be protocols in place. The simplest solution came to me, and I wanted to be wrong and hope they’d not go there. It wasn’t Kellie Ann’s fault. She was a victim. No need to make it worse.

In the meantime, I was in charge of getting her safely to our HQ in Dallas.

* * *

“Yes, Miss Donner, you’ve been in an accident. I’m here to help you.” I held hard to my professional patience.

Again, she wanted to know who we were, and I told her. Disorientation and short-term memory loss are normal. The latter usually includes how they died. The geeks think it’s a protective mechanism that kicks in because no one wants to remember that sort of thing.