Chapter Twenty-Five: Clearing the Air (and Disposing of Bodies)

"Sweet Jesus... I thought you people like, crumbled into ash or something," Eva said. Matt had died relatively tidily, but Carlos hadn't, and in any case, now there were two vampire bodies to deal with.

Vera pursed her lips and snorted. "That’s only on TV because it looks cool. We're people - you said it yourself. What did you expect?" Vera wasn't happy with Eva… she was downright furious… but she also wasn't so petulant that she was going to give her the silent treatment. "I thought you'd dealt with vampires before."

"Yeah. I helped some other witches back in Memphis, but I never actually got up close to one. They kind of implied that disposing of bodies wouldn't be a problem."

"Yeah? Well newsflash, Eva, our bones are invincible and our cartilage and tendons aren't too far off. You're goddamn lucky to be alive... the only stab wound that gets close to our hearts is one that goes right between the ribs. Managing that, even on a magically-smooshed vampire's like a one in a hundred stab. You got lucky with Matt, really lucky with Carlos, and if you'd so much as scratched Lisa, I’d have beaten you to death with your own severed arms."

"Aww," Lisa said.

Eva looked up from her work bleaching the concrete patio. "Didn't recognize her," she said without much conviction. "Sorry."

"Fine. You can start being sorry by getting rid of this fucking evidence..." Vera gestured to the bloody body of Matt and the much bloodier body of Carlos, now wrapped up in cigarette-burn-spotted carpeting.

Despite what she'd just said, Vera did most of the work of getting Carlos and Matt's bodies out of the open and into the (former) church's creepy-ass basement. She'd wrapped them in rolls of discarded carpet to avoid getting more blood on her dress, which had actually fared pretty admirably. Then she hoisted them over her shoulder, one at a time, carried them down, and shoved them into the basement furnace, which fired up with a little finagling of the gas inlet and pilot lights. Then she stomped back up the stairs, her anger softening slightly when she spotted Lisa in the old chapel.

She was sitting on one of the several remaining pews, looking off into the vault of the ceiling. In the building's spotty lighting, it was a vast and shadowed space, any vestiges of anything holy since stripped from the structure. Vera thought she could see the pale spot on the wall where a crucifix had once hung, but maybe it was just the shadows. In any case, just being there made her sad. Carlos had plans for the place, lofty dreams, and now he'd never get to see them out. Vera had stabbed his heart and then held him down and watched the un-life slowly drain out of him, holding the witch spikes in place until he bled out. He hadn't been a saint, but he hadn't seemed that bad, either... and Vera had killed him to save Maxie... who, come to think of it, might not even deserve saving. For all Vera knew, she'd known about the whole thing... for all Vera knew, she'd helped Eva plan this fucking debacle. She clenched her fists, and Lisa couldn't help but notice her tension. She reached across and squeezed Vera's hand.

"Thanks for saving me," she said.

"I was so close to killing Eva... if Carlos hadn't come for her, I probably would have."

"I think we need to have a talk with Maxie," Lisa said.

"Yeah, I was thinking the same thing."

They left Eva scrubbing the last of the vampire ichor from the concrete floor. Lisa texted Salvador and he responded almost immediately that he'd pick them up as soon as his current ride was over. And, being so close to Brushland Heights and downtown, there weren't many places that people were going at three in the morning that didn't start or end near their location. He texted Lisa three minutes later that he was out front with his Lexus.

"Salvador's a good guy," Lisa said.

"Yeah, he's ok."

"You should wipe up, first..."

Vera took out her phone to check – she had steaks of violet-black vampire blood on her face. It looked like she'd been gargling with it, really, but she'd already washed her hands and there were only a few almost-invisible spatters on the deep maroon of her dress. A flash of memory flitted through her awareness, a flash of when she was straddling Carlos, clamping him down and preventing him from pulling out the witch spikes speared through his heart. He'd desperately reached up to claw at her face, and she'd pushed his hand aside and knelt down to his throat, biting him just like she would a human. And she drank from him, just like she would a human... not the playful nip of a vampire making love, but a cold display of dominance: I can take anything from you, even your blood, it said. Vera wasn't a creature of instinct, but when those instincts made themselves known, they were very primal.

She wiped her lips, a little dark streak trailing along her slim finger. Vera could still taste Carlos's blood in her mouth, powerful and rich like expensive espresso. It tasted amazing, but she felt wrong for having taken it, as if that violation alone was almost as bad as having killed him. Lisa regarded her, brow knit in concern as she wiped the blood away, blotting Vera's face and neck with a damp cloth. She licked one last streak from Vera's cheek, and whispered to her:

"Let's go."

They were two hours from sunrise and cruising through the city. Once they were outside of downtown, the roads were empty, and with the windows down and the wind in her hair, Vera could almost forget her violent, traumatic night. Almost – she could still taste Carlos's blood in her mouth. And she was still very mindful that she had to clear things with Maxie. She stretched out in the back of Salvador's car while Lisa sat in the front seat, chatting with Salvador about music and not much else.

Lisa was giggling, running her fingers through Salvador's hair and fiddling with his satellite radio. She was giddy and carefree an hour after Eva had almost killed her... after Eva had killed Matt and then inadvertently forced Vera into helping kill Carlos. Both Youngblood men were perhaps a bit arrogant and a bit manipulative, but certainly not worse than tens of thousands of other people in Palmetto City. They'd deserved better.

Vera realized with a start that they'd been stopped for thirty seconds or so, idling in front of Maxie's place. And Lisa was kissing Salvador's hand. What was wrong with her? She'd been coy with men ever since she turned. Was it something that Vera had never noticed before, or was it a recent thing, the product of her becoming a hot vampire? She cleared her throat and stepped out of the car, waiting another thirty seconds for Lisa to finish whatever she thought she was doing and step out of the Lexus. Salvador waved before he pulled back onto the road and Vera could see the little mark where Lisa had sucked from the back of his hand.

"Lisa, what the hell were you doing?" Vera said.

Lisa's expression was all bright-eyed innocence. She shrugged. "Me? Nothing. I just... well, I felt bad that I don’t have any cash to give Salvador, so I decided to make him a familiar. He said it was cool."

"You what? You made him a familiar?"

"Well... I gave him some red venom... and a teensy bit of yellow. It just kinda came out. Do you think he's good to drive?"

"How should I know? I can't believe you're making your errand boy a familiar."

"Our errand boy," Lisa said. "I thought you'd be happy."

Vera sighed. "We only get two familiars. I think you can choose better than a nice guy who drives you around."

"Salvador's more than just a Dryvr guy. He speaks three languages and he's a computer programmer. He says he does mobile APIs, whatever that means. He just does the Dryvr thing for money on the side and to meet people and learn the different parts of the city, since he's not from around here. He..."

"And how in the world do you know all that? From just this one ride?"

"We've been texting."

Vera huffed and stalked toward Maxie's front door. Maybe Lisa was still feeling the effects of the drugs they'd ingested earlier. That would certainly explain her behavior – normally, between the two of them, she was the more mature one. But maybe that was just a product of her relatively sheltered upbringing. Maybe bratty, beautiful, impulsive Lisa was the genuine article. Vera's hand hovered over Maxie's door before she committed to knock. She took a deep breath and gave the knocker three quick taps.

The dogs started barking. Maxie's bedroom light flicked on. The hallway light flicked on. The living room light flicked on. Then the porch light flicked on. All the way, Vera could hear her plodding across the floor in her slippers, yawning and grumbling to herself. Maxie pushed the door open, her dark curls of hair a wild mess and dressed in only her slippers and a way-oversized shirt.

"I do not give you permission to enter," Maxie said.

"What?!"

"You can't come in. Not unless you want to barge in against my wishes."

Vera pointed to the yellow-brown Volvo in front of the house. "Maxie, I want to come in to talk... and if you don't let me, I swear to God I'm going to tear your car into so many pieces that your front yard will look like a scrap depot."

Maxie gasped. "You wouldn't!"

Vera would. She paced over to the car and gripped the door handle. "I'm going to count to three..."

"Don't you hurt my car, Vera..."

"One… two…"

"Promise me you didn't kill Eva," Maxie blurted. Suddenly, she was tearing up.

Vera stopped counting, but she didn't release her grip on the handle. "I almost did, when she went to attack Lisa. But no, she's alive. We left her to clean up the mess she'd made. I assume, then, that you know what she was up to?"

Maxie sighed. "Maybe I'm an idiot, but... come on in, Vera and Lisa."

She invited Vera and Lisa inside and into the kitchen. Namaste, Maxie's rottweiler, was very interested in Vera's vampire-blood-spattered dress, and she kept on pressing her nose under Vera's dress and into her thigh. She pushed the dog's snout away and scratched behind her ears – enough of a distraction to Namaste that she could sit down without issue. And, of course, Maxie plugged in her electric kettle and started brewing up some tea. That was pretty standard for her with late night sit-downs.

While Maxie shuffled around the kitchen, Vera stewed. One of the many idiosyncrasies with being a vampire was that her autonomic nervous system didn't do much. Rather than the pulse-pounding thrill of adrenaline, the gut wrench of anxiety, or even the tingling heights of ecstasy, she had a cool and even keel, and her emotions had to simmer without release unless she was catapulted into a murderous frenzy or had recently gorged herself on blood. And she wondered whether she was too dangerous for humans to be around, whether vampiric powers and the hair trigger their instincts teetered upon made even 'good' vampires like her a liability. Maybe that was why the fear of vampires was such a natural thing to begin with. Maxie placed a steaming mug in front of her and somehow, strangely, that relaxed Vera a bit. She scowled at Maxie and Maxie sat stone-faced, her dark eyes locked upon Vera.

"Did you know Eva was going out?"

Maxie went to clack at her beads, forgetting that she didn't have them on. "I knew," she said. "I urged Eva not to, that it was dangerous, that we didn't yet know the lie of the land. But Eva reasoned that her magic wasn't going to be this powerful for another month – it's the full moon tonight. It's hard to argue with that..."

"No it's not," Lisa said. "Look, Maxie, I don’t know shit about witchcraft, but it doesn't matter how strong Eva thought she was – she had no idea what she was doing. She killed probably the weakest vampire in the whole coven, she tried to kill me, and then she almost got herself killed going against a much stronger vampire... and still not one of the more powerful ones. Vera saved my ass and Eva's ass both, and now Vera and I have to explain to he coven how the two vampires that we were last seen with..." Lisa indicated herself and Vera... "just disappeared! Eva doesn't have to explain shit to anybody, lucky her, but the two of us are in seriously deep shit now. A coven of twenty-seven vampires are going to notice if two are missing."

"Shit..."

Maxie hadn't thought of that. She was an inveterate witch, herbalist, hippie, and Volvo driver, but she was a neophyte when it came to internecine supernatural warfare. When Eva had proposed a 'kill the vampires' plan, she'd just gone along with it without considering that there might be more complexity to it than that... or that some of those vampires might be her friends.

Honestly, Vera thought that many of the vampires could be allies to the witches if they let them be and didn't try to kill them with silver spikes in ambush attacks. True, the vampire coven was some sort of demonic cult at the top, but she suspected that most of the rank-and-file vampires were just along for the ride. They'd signed up for the cool vampire immortality stuff, and the Abaddon demon-thing was one of those terms and conditions you did your best to ignore, a bit like converting religions to placate your wonderful fiancée's devout parents.

Vera thought about what she might have done in Eva's place. She sure wouldn't have rushed out and slaughtered the first two vampires she encountered... least of all, because the witches didn't actually have a vampire problem. They had an Abaddon problem. How would she, Vera Vera, deal with the vampire higher-ups, ancient and powerful undead oligarchs beyond her ability to fight, even ignoring their millions of dollars and armies of familiars? Vampires with wealth, power, and dozens of unquestioning servants at their beck? And hundreds of wealthy Juvechrome clients, some of them with real social and political capital, who didn't even realize they were chemically enthralled to those vampires? And this, Vera realized, might be the key: familiars were the weak point. She just couldn't imagine a vampire master skulking off to some secluded cellar to sleep. They were likely in mansions and luxury penthouses, surrounded by familiars in their service, and that might be exploited. But how?

"Damnit," Maxie said. She scowled, held her phone to the light, and shook it, as if this might accomplish something. "The time won't show. Why my phone show the time?"

Vera and Lisa shared a look. Things started percolating through Vera's mind, the beginnings of an idea. Maybe even a good idea. She took Maxie's phone and double-tapped the power button, which did the trick.

"I can never figure this damn thing out," Maxie said.

"And that gives me an idea," Vera said. "If we want to get at the actual baddies in the coven and not kill a lot of innocent vampires..." she looked pointedly to Maxie... "and I think that's most of us...  then we'll have to get a lot more information on them. And there are a lot more familiars offering a lot more actionable information than there are vampires, and the most important vampires have the most familiars, and some of those familiars are really old..."

Maxie's face scrunched up. "You… want me to disguise myself as a familiar?"

Vera and Lisa both laughed. Lisa tapped Maxie's phone. "No... she means that a lot of them are in their sixties and seventies or older, even if they look a lot younger than that. That means they're probably stupid with technology, which means we can fuck with their phones and they won't know."

"I'm not stupid with technology," Maxie said.

Vera took Maxie's phone, saw that it was pattern-locked, deduced the pattern from the smudge prints, and had the thing unlocked in two seconds flat. She handed it back to Maxie. "Agree to disagree," she said. "So... how do we bug their phones?"

Lisa cleared her throat. "We might know somebody."

OvidLemma

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