Chapter Thirty-Three: Etiquette on Murdering Guests

When Moody tore out from Chapel House in his Rolls Royce, that gave Vera and Lisa a golden opportunity to leave the plantation. With the master of the house away, there was nobody with the authority or ability to keep two vampires under house arrest. Maybe Suleiman could have physically stopped them, but nobody was quite sure where he'd gone off to, and Carrie and Ebony were too busy reaching out to their familiars and various contacts to pay the new girls much heed. Vera and Lisa walked out into the humid night and jogged five miles to the edge of the plantation which, being vampires, wasn't particularly hard to do. There, they found Salvador's Lexus parked in front of the convenience store in the tiny town at the edge of the pine swamps - this was Vera realized with a start, where Moody's familiars lived, an antiquated but perfectly charming hamlet hidden from the rest of civilization.

"This place isn't on any of the maps," Salvador said, tapping his GPS. "My computer says we're still in the pine swamps."

"I'd love to talk about it," Vera sighed. "But can we please get the fuck out of here?"

"Yes, Mistress Vera," Salvador said with a grin. Vera rolled her eyes - she'd forgotten about that.

As they reached the end of the rural route and pulled out onto Route 17, Vera fished about her handbag for her vampire phone. She cracked the case along its seam with her fingernails and then pulled out the battery, stuffing the inert device back into the front pocket of her backpack.

Lisa looked aghast. "Vera! Erasmus has shit on you… don't you think that's going to make him mad?"

Vera shrugged. "I don't really care. Between iffy-quality video of a hot girl who looks kind of like me killing a guy and Moody figuring out what really happened to Carlos and Matt, I know which one I'm more worried about. We've bought ourselves some time, but I think Suleiman knows."

"Who?"

"Young and attractive-looking Persian guy?"

"Right… him. I think I, uh, got to know him the other night. I have no idea how that happened… I think those orgies kind of go off the rails after a bit."

Vera was inclined to agree - she'd had her share of indiscretions. But she wasn't quite ready to process the magnitude of those, of rutting in a vampire orgy with a dozen people… grinding, nibbling, thrusting, and groaning indiscriminately in the haze of pleasure. She wanted to feel angry at Lisa, but Vera hadn't put up much fuss, either. She lost herself in thought, brow knit and lips pursed as she watched the pine swamps pass. Meanwhile, in the front, something in Lisa and Salvador's hushed conversation perked her attention.

"Now that I've got the phone, I can upload the malicious code and infiltrate the coven's chat server to get around encryption and ping our towers whenever we want a location," Salvador said. Vera recognized the faint notes of cologne and fabric softener still on the phone. She picked up the faint smell of soot, too… a familiar scent…

"That's Charles Burnett's phone? Where in the hell did you get that? You lifted it off him in the atrium?"

Lisa nodded. "Everybody was too busy looking at the bodies to notice…"

Vera gasped. That familiar soot scent… it smelled like the burnt bodies in Chapel House's entry hall… it was the same smell that Salvador had smelled of on their drive to the coven temple the day before. "So… were you two going to eventually let me in on this little plan, or were you just going to leave me shitting myself?"

"I thought vampires didn't, uh, go number two," Salvador said. Lisa giggled.

"That's beside the point. You took the bodies and dumped them without my knowledge, and then you took Charles's phone for this phone hacking plan and you didn't tell me a goddamn thing…"

"Vera, there wasn't time!" Lisa insisted, reaching back to squeeze her hand.

"Next time, tell me," Vera said. She said it with enough force that she felt something ineffable click between her and the other two. Lisa gasped and Salvador very nearly swerved off of the road.

"What the fuck was that?" Lisa looked back, wincing as if she'd just stared into the daylight.

"I… um, I think I just gave you a master vampire command… technically… well, not just technically… I am the 'master' vampire who made you, and so I can make you do stuff… almost like a familiar would… I read it in…"

"You read it in Ghastly Spires," Lisa sighed. "Okay. Well, would you please not do that?"

"Sorry…" Vera sighed back. "Sorry. Exciting day, you know? So… ignore that. I promise I won't command you, Lisa… but please tell me if you've got a plan cooking, will you? Especially if, I don't know, my fucking life… un-life or whatever, is hanging in the balance?"

"There wasn't time," Lisa said with a pout. Vera could se her rolling her eyes in the sun visor's mirror. "Fine. Yes, I'll tell you. If there's time."

Barring another command, that was the close to an apology-slash-promise that Vera was going to get. She watched the swamps pass by in the dark, wondering how much time Lisa and Salvador's stunt had bought them. As the rural backroads turned into Route 17, she worried about finalizing her work with Pastor Mooney and smoothing things over with her father. She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn't notice that they'd pulled onto the old Cleves Highway until they were less than ten minutes from Maxie's.

+++++

"Why are we going to Maxie's?" Vera asked. Among the three of them present, she was the only one who'd spent any significant time with the witch.

Lisa waved her phone at Vera. "Have you checked your phone lately? She messaged me when Erasmus and I were going through outfits and he almost caught a glimpse at the screen… though he might not have known what he was looking at. Anyway, Maxie said she tried to message you like twenty times but you weren't answering. So… I guess she got my number from Hector and messaged me, instead. So I figured that if Maxie would have us, that would be a pretty safe place to go."

Vera hadn't checked her phone in just over a day and, when she finally did, it read:
11:11 pm
53 unread messages

"I don't want to lead anybody back to Maxie's place. For some reason, the coven can't quite find it, and I don't want them to."

"It's safe," Salvador said, his eyes flitting up to the rear view. "I've been checking - nobody's followed us."

Vera wasn't convinced but, she supposed, if they didn't have a working vampire phone on them to provide a location and nobody was within view behind them along the Old Cleves at 11 pm on a Tuesday, then it was pretty unlikely that they were being followed. By the time they arrived at Maxie's bungalow, it was half an hour to midnight. The night was unseasonably cool, clouds whipping in from the east and temperatures hovering in the mid-seventies with traces of salt and sea life wafting in the air from the beach a mile distant. Vera messaged Maxie when they arrived and she was almost immediately at the door to greet them.

"Thank the goddess," she said. "Vera, you just about gave me a fucking stroke. Why didn't you return my messages?"

"Sorry… I kind of got distracted, what with being under house arrest at the estate of a horny, sociopathic master vampire…"

"Well, come on in and we can talk about it. You can't have people worrying about you like that, Vera. Does your mother know?"

Ashley Vera knew next to nothing about the vampire side of Vera's life beyond the basic fact that it was there. That was something she'd slowly have to introduce to Ashley, and Vic might never be able to know about it. Vera was a bit surprised that Maxie, of all people, had been concerned for her - Maxie who, not so long before, had banished Vera from the house and then been lukewarm toward Eva's plan to kill all vampires. But maybe she'd been practicing more of her loving kindness meditation and was more favorably disposed.

Maxie padded into the kitchen and, of course, started brewing up some tea. She looked over her shoulder and gestured toward Salvador. "Who's your friend?"

"I'm the driver," Salvador said. He looked to Lisa and then to Vera, visibly pondering how much to divulge.

Maxie turned around, one hand on her hip and the other clacking at her bevy of beads. She squinted - examining Salvador's aura, if Vera had to guess. "You're also…" she pointed to Lisa. "You're her familiar, aren't you? I can see the aura lines connecting you as surely as I can see the ones between Lisa and Vera. You're here of your own accord?"

"Yes, ma'am," Salvador nodded. "I've always dreamed of doing something like this. It's… well, it's like being in an action movie, isn't it?"

Vera didn't want her life to be like an action movie. Exactly the opposite - she wanted things to be boring and safe most of the time. She wanted to get her excitement from sexual escapades, doing aspiring-doctor stuff, dabbling in psychedelics, and playing video games. Going toe-to-toe against ancient vampires and their demonic cult? That she could do without. She accepted a mug of tea, savoring the warmth and aroma.

"Gloria and I were going to do a bit of meditation before bed if you three want to join us. It's good for the aura and good for sleep. And after that, Ellen's room is free whenever you need it…"

"The vampires found…" Vera said.

Maxie raised her hand. "Meditation. Sleep," Maxie reiterated. "Whatever you've been through, it's over. Unless it's an emergency that I need to know about now, it can wait until the morning."

+++++

It was a night of weed and shrooms - Hector partook, he convinced Salvador to partake, and even Eva had some edibles, which calmed her visibly. She was there to oversee things, scowling at first and clutching too-tightly to Hector's hand, and then relaxing as the witching hour faded into the wee hours of the morning. Her dark eyes lost a bit of their razor-intense focus and, when Vera begged to nibble some of the intoxicants off of Hector, Eva even offered herself up in his stead.

"Maxie ins… she insists you aren't evil," Eva said.

"I'm not. That's why I'm in deep shit with the coven if they find out… when they find out any of it. Look, I just want to get high and relax for a bit."

Eva held out her hand, the back smooth but scalloped with tendons and coffee-dark in the mood lighting of Hector's room. "Then get it from me. You and Hector got a past, and I can already see the aura between you almost as clearly as what's between him and me. I don't need you making him your pet like your girlfriend and her toy."

Vera nipped the back of Eva's hand and lapped at some of her blood, taking in the pungent tang of THC and a bit of alcohol in her bloodstream. "I'm converting my pastor," she admitted after a minute, releasing her seal with a little smack. "I'm going to make him a better person and smooth things over with my family. And I promise that's the first and only person I'll ever force to serve me."

Eva inspected her wound, amazed that the blood had already clotted. "That's a slippery slope, Vera. And if I ever think you've gone too far down it… you know I'll put you down."

Vera nodded, the weed making her head go pleasantly woozy. "You can try," she said.

She awoke in Ellen's room the next morning, noting that Maxie had installed a blackout board for the window - thoughtful of her. She and Lisa were curled on either side of Salvador, and all of them were in only their underwear. She checked the time on her phone - plenty of time to get ready for work - and padded out to the wardrobe to see what she wanted to wear. Salvador was rousing behind her - he had his own regular nine-to-five to get to - and Lisa was still dead to the world. Well and good - Vera was going to take her pick of the wardrobe before Lisa could snag the best offerings. But Lisa was going to have her pick, nonetheless, since Vera had to wear something work-appropriate. She went with lavender lululemon leggings and a fitted tee that was snug but comfortable, frowning at the conflicting feelings that always arose whenever she glimpsed herself and wondered at how she could get used to something so strange so quickly. To filling out a slim but busty young woman's attire so fetchingly. But it was really comfortable attire, so it was hard to dwell on it much beyond that. She wandered out into the living room, squinting against the daylight, and helped herself to some coffee before finding a shaded alcove in the grotto of Maxie's living room to meditate - it really did help her deal with that primal vampiric core, and she'd certainly need to deal with it - if her hunch was right, she'd start hitting the early pangs of bloodlust a bit before the end of work.

"Are you sticking around?" Maxie asked.

Vera eased out of her meditation and cracked a single eye open. "No," she said. "I've got to pick up my scrubs before work - both of my pairs are at the apartment. But is it okay if Lisa and I stay here tonight?"

Maxie clacked at her beads and took a long draw from her teacup. "Yeah," she said eventually. "We'll hold your usual room here at Maxie Gomez's House for Wayward Witches and Vampires. We'd better stick together until this whole thing blows over… if this whole thing blows over. But you'd also better wake that girl of yours up if you're going to catch the nine fifteen going south."

Fortunately, Lisa could zip around at vampire speeds to get ready. She cursed Salvador for having left before she awoke but couldn't complain too much: until they were bringing in real vampire money, her familiar still had to pay the bills. They headed out with the expectation of catching the bus with time to spare, strolling through the neighborhood under dark umbrellas but no sunscreen - a storm had whipped in from the coast overnight, and now it was thoroughly overcast and hissing down rain. They made their way out past the old VW van and the usually-abandoned produce stand when they were intercepted by a young man, dapper in his gray suit, tweed driving cap, and big black umbrella, strolling out from the van.

"Suleiman?"

+++++

Vera could have sworn they hadn't been followed the night before… but with vampires, it was hard to tell. Suleiman could have easily driven through the darkest night with no headlights on, no problem, so driving down the Old Cleves highway a mile or two behind them list night would have been no trouble at all. He'd followed them all the way to the outskirts of the commune, stopping there rather than following Salvador's car all the way to Maxie's.

"If you don't mind my asking, what in the bloody hell have you lot got going on here?" Suleiman asked. He peered over his sunglasses and then slid them back up his nose. "What is this? You're starting your own little sanctuary here?"

Vera and Lisa shared a worried look - what would they tell him? "No… it's…" Lisa started.

Suleiman waved any explanation away. "I don't care," he said. "What I want to know is, one, how two fresh-fanged vampires are walking in the sunlight as easily as a man fast approaching his fourth century… and, two, how are you playing house in a neighborhood that's giving off more unwelcome emanations than the basilica?" He produced the torn scrap of Carlos's jacket and waved it testily. "I know you're up to something and, if you don't divulge it to my satisfaction, then bollocks to Erasmus Moody and Xia Wu… I'm taking this right to Sophia Clandest. And whatever those two might do, I assure you it will be a feeble half-measure compared to whatever our Lady will dream up." He waited, tapping the toe of his Italian loafers, burnished leather now crusted around the sole with grit and mud.

"Fine," Vera said. "You want to see, Mister Suleiman? We'll show you. Will you please follow me?"

That was all the welcome the vampire needed. He nodded, the tension leaving his shoulders, and tipped his cap. "Lead away."

Vera didn't have a plan. All shew knew was that letting Suleiman drive away to give Sophia Clandest their location and a reckoning of their misdeeds wouldn't do. Even if (as appeared to be the case) the other vampires couldn't step foot onto the 'holy ground' of the commune neighborhood, their familiars sure as shit could, and they wouldn't exercise discretion, especially if ordered not to. So she'd have to think of something. They turned the corner and were on Maxie's street now, the rain pattering against her umbrella and the nearby palmetto trees, the fall of raindrops in the grass a gentle hiss like static over the radio. They were almost at her house, rivulets of rain alongside the road carrying flower petals and grass clippings into the sewage drain. Vera stopped at Maxie and Gloria's mailbox, a gaudy, multicolored thing labeled 'Gomez/Henry' with a little circle of protective stones at its base. Suleiman squinted at the protective circle, nudging an oblong stone with an increasingly-waterlogged loafer.

"What is this?" he asked. Squinting, he turned to the house - above the hiss of rain, Vera could make out the activity of Maxie and Gloria bustling about inside… which meant Suleiman could hear it, too. "These… they're your familiars?"

"Mine and Vera's," Lisa said. "Four in all… we haven't had a chance to get them registered yet."

"Show me," Suleiman said and, without waiting, he started down Maxie's gravel driveway.

He knocked on Maxie's door - you didn't need permission to knock. When he tapped his toe, Vera could hear the water squishing inside his shoe. Maxie came to the door a moment later, a startled expression crossing her face as she took in her three visitors - two familiar and one strange. She didn't yet open the screen door, her dark eyes flitting between Vera and Suleiman. She clacked at her beads.

"Yes?"

"Aren't you going to see your mistresses in and out of this rain?" Suleiman asked.

"If they ask me to," Maxie said slowly, her gaze returning to Vera.

Vera smiled, and then she concentrated to extrude her fangs - this man is also a vampire, she hoped to convey. "This is our friend, Suleiman. He just wants to see our sanctuary and ask some questions about those poor dead vampires. You will see him in."

"Yes… of course, mistress," Maxie said with a terse smile. She unlatched the screen door and backed away. "Please, come in. I'll get you some slippers, Mister Suleiman."

They proceeded inside, Suleiman strutting in front of them like he owned the place. He stopped at the bookshelf, browsing through a few of the titles. He crouched and browsed a few more. He cast a less-than-confident glance to Vera.

"What sort of place…"

Just then, bedraggled and grumpy, Eva plodded out from the bathroom, freezing when she spotted Suleiman at the end of the entryway. "Who the fuck are you?" she said.

Fuck.

Suleiman hissed and shot forward in a blur of motion. If Vera hadn't been very nearly as fast, he'd have tackled and drained Eva before anybody could do a thing about it. Instead, she managed to catch his wrist and send them both tumbling into the sunken, cushion-lined living area, with Vera cracking the wooden back of an old couch in half with her hip before colliding with the vampire. She grabbed him by the lapels, her fangs extruding. Suleiman grabbed Vera's wrists and struggled against her, tearing his suit jacket in half at the back as he pried her hands away - as strong as she was, he was slightly stronger.

"You're no youngblood," he hissed, rolling on top of her. "Who are you?"

Just then, Lisa hit Suleiman with a cast-iron skillet hard enough to ring Vera's ears and dent the skillet. It bowled Suleiman over, but he managed to land on his feet, a tiny streak of inky blood trailing from his already-clotted wound. He leapt at Lisa, knocking her over and biting into her neck with a growl. Vera pulled him off, but he'd already dosed Lisa with crimson venom, and she was already reeling from intoxication. Vera sank her own fangs into him, but he pulled away before she could dose him - and, for all she knew, he'd already been exposed to the crimson enough in his long un-life that it would have little effect. He threw Vera against the fireplace, and she hit with the crack of brick, the skitter of masonry, and a little pain to boot. Before Vera could struggle to her feet, there was a great Whump!

At first, she thought it was something that Suleiman had done, but he was writhing on the ground even more helplessly than Vera. She found herself on the outside of a great field of force holding the vampire and everything near him down - Eva's spell. Only, this time, Maxie and Gloria were there, too, the three witches holding hands, the amulets about their necks glowing. And, despite their combined power, Suleiman struggled to his feet. Grunting, he took one heavy step forward.

"You're not welcome here!" Vera shouted. Suleiman stumbled back to his knees.

"Leave our home!" Maxie cried between chants. Suleiman almost collapsed, only boosting himself with one hand.

Eva took the initiative to charge him, unaffected by the field of the spell… but as soon as she'd stopped chanting, the effect had weakened. Suleiman raised an arm in defense, letting Eva skewer him through the wrist with a witch spike before pushing her. She tumbled back all the way to the dining room, smashing a chair and a table leg and then groaning as the table collapsed on top of her. Suleiman roared and the power of the spell faltered. Maxie trembled with fear and Gloria was red from the exertion. Suleiman coughed up black blood, but he struggled back to his feet and then leapt at Maxie, landing on top of the witch and sinking his fangs deep into her throat.

"No!" Vera cried. She blurred forward and grabbed Suleiman, tossing him back into the grotto with a mighty twist. He landed right on top of Lisa, still very much intoxicated by his venom, but not so much that she was unaware of her surroundings. She wrapped herself around him from behind and bit into his neck. An instant later, Vera leapt onto his chest and bit into the other side. And, though he thrashed and hissed, their combined strength was barely enough to hold Suleiman in check. As she struggled to contain him, Vera bit deep into his skin and drank of that dark, rich blood, injecting some of her own crimson as she did. And, when Suleiman's struggling slowed and Lisa was able to secure him by herself, Vera retrieved the witch spike from Suleiman's forearm and shoved it through the gaps in his ribs and right through his heart. A minute later, he was dead, fangs still extruded, his expression frozen in eternal surprise.

"Maxie! Oh goddess, Maxie!" Gloria sobbed.

Vera hobbled over to her, slowly regaining her bearings. She crouched and inspected Maxie's wounds - two jagged bites along her throat lined with traces of vermillion. Like her breaths, Maxie's heartbeat was slow but steady - a good sign. Suleiman hadn't drained her enough to cause serious blood loss. But, perhaps panicked, he'd dosed her with a lot of venom, most of it crimson. She was going to become a vampire if she survived the turning. Next, she helped Eva, who lay unconscious beneath the remains of the dining room table.

"Eva, you alright?" She started to come to the minute Vera nudged her.

Eva checked her limbs, wincing as she tried to stand. "No… not quite. But I'm not too bad, either. Bruises and sprains. What the fuck did you think you were doing, letting a vampire into our place."

"If I didn't, he was going back to Lady Clandest, the mistress of the coven, and bringing the full wrath of the vampires on the whole neighborhood. I had to figure out something in a hurry and let's thank our lucky stars that it worked."

"Yeah, about that." Eva blotted blood from her lip. "You got a pretty fucked up idea of 'it worked'. He almost killed me, almost killed Maxie, and just about gave Gloria a heart attack. And your girl got pretty beat-up, too."

"Well… it worked as well as it had to. When you're feeling better, you and Lisa need to deal with that body."

Hector wandered into the room, scratching his little chinstrap beard. "What the fuck, people? Can you please keep it… uh… what the fucking fuck is going on?"

"I'm running late for work is what," Vera said. "Please help the others with the body."

OvidLemma

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