Greg, Almost Forgot About Those Stakeout Puns

Magistrate had swarmed the manor like fleas on a werewolf's hide by the time I lumbered up to the front of the house again. Quick little buggers. No, I couldn't risk getting hexed on sight for sneaking in through the backyard, what're you, looney?

Propped against the property wall were official and well-polished Magistrate brooms. But more pressing was the apparent Philadelphia Gas Works van parked up on the sidewalk, lights flashing. Uniformed clad techs were cordoning off the sidewalk. Not that they needed to. Any human lingering at this hour would instinctively veer away. Nobody wants to stumble into a potential gas explosion.

A knot tightened like a collar around my throat at the sight of that van. It was impossible to tell actual city PGW vehicles from Philadelphia Guardian Witchery vehicles from the outside. Same metal boxes, signage, colors, flashers. But instead of gas meters or tools, you'll find more herbs and potions for Society first aid. Amulets and charms. Athames in place of scissors. Not a trace of silver. Lots of blood bags.

I didn't need a tour of the inside to know the van wasn't here for a gas leak.

I slithered toward Dmitri's front gate, slouched, hands buried deep in my pockets, carefully trying not to draw any attention from the distracted witches or wizards working from the van. They appeared as human technicians, but up close, with a vamp's sharp vision, the shimmer of the illusion spell was obvious (knees and transfiguration may be shot at this point but at least these peepers still worked alright). Odd to send only witches out to this scene. There are vampire officers who'd be more appropriate—

A rough manacle of itchy fabric lassoed me by the shoulders.

"Halt your skinny, ghost-white ass right there, you weaselly fuck."

Fangs. Octavius.

I spun. "Hey buddy."

He stomped toward me, dreadlocks swinging, but scowl planted firm, as he shook his head. "Think you can just roll up into my crime scenes whenever you want?"

"Oh," I threw a thumb over my shoulder, gesturing to the house. "This is your..." my mouth dried. I swallowed. "Crime scene?"

Octavius balked. "Feeling okay? You're acting weird. Is that a limp?"

No, you crotchety, half in the bag children's magician. I wriggled under the spell of his enchanted scarf trapping me. The glowing wool held but didn't tighten, and I knew he could easily make it squeeze me tighter than a boa constrictor if I fought it. But I needed to get inside. My muscles twitched. They were sore. Tense. I left Isla inside. I left her like some kind of lousy chump. Idiot. I had to get in there. See her. Get her out.

"Oh. Am I?"

"Been standing here for thirty whole seconds and you haven't mentioned my shitty degree," he tugged on the scarf, "stop backing up like that. Feeling fidgety?"

Translation: Why're you clearly sneaking into a crime scene, vampire? Sweet hell I wasn't in the mood to play this little game tonight, dancing around what we both really meant to say. I pinched my nose. "Listen, bud, I'm on a case. I need—"

"Aside!" barked a witch.

We jumped out the way as a levitating stretcher was ushered up the garden path. Octavius to the east of the gate, and me, how silly of ole me, I jumped to the west. The wizard grumbled as he was forced to call back his magic threads to make room for the stretcher as the witch rumbled through. I rolled my shoulders, smirking and feeling undeservedly smug.

Till I saw that Sloane laid on that stretcher.

Octavius sucked a sharp shot of air in threw his teeth.

"Slater? She manages Irwin's," his side eye drilled a stake straight through my temple, "which you already knew."

Manages Irwin's? Of course. That her surname was Slater? Had no idea. Assumed she'd taken Dmitri's after their union, I guess.

"What happened?" I asked, ignoring him.

Sloane lay on her front. Her skin was ashen, even flaking slightly in places. Like a nuclear sunburn already peeling. She was unmoving. Deathly still. Blood drenched her glamorous suit. Horrendous and painful and all I could do was breathe a sigh of relief into the cold night air and shake a couple pounds of dread off my chest.

Because it wasn't Isla.

"Amateur staking," grunted the witch, blowing a gray lock of hair from her face and not bothering to censor herself or wait for Octavius' inevitable protest to withhold details from me. "Lucky they missed her heart. Unlucky there's silver in the wound." She lifted away a tatter of Sloane's shirt to reveal her back. A silver chain, thin, likely a necklace, poked out from between her shoulder blades. Not from a cut or wound. The tear from where she'd been staked had healed over (she had time to tear it out herself before losing strength, I wonder?) causing the chain to weep out from unbroken skin. But not unblemished. It was around this chain the nasty peeling and dried flakes seemed their worst. "Gnarly as a Baphomet bonfire on the summer solstice, but beyond our skills to remove right now, with how quickly she's healing. Got to bring her to Penn. Now. Stop gawking!"

She slapped away Octavius' hand as he made to grab the chain.

"Be sure that gets bagged once it's removed, and that it's sent to my desk this time!"

"Were any others hurt?" I said.

Witch nodded her head back over the wall. "Oh yeah, couple of dead donors inside, couple of live ones too," then, to Octavius. "Not my job."

Nausea and anger and panic all stormed through me like an angry mob, punching their pitchforks and torches against my intestines. Poking holes in my throat. Scorching my cold, dead heart. Manically squeezing and strangling every useless organ in my chest cavity in a sickening and unfamiliar and paralyzing kind of pain. I felt Octavius staring incredulously at me, saying nothing and judging hard.

"Bethesda is with the girls now. They're unhurt. But the boys," the witch whistled. She pulled a notepad from a pouch around her waist. "I'll remind the ER about the chain but you're going to need to fill this out."

Octavius' attention snapped back to her, grabbing the notepad. "Shit better not get lost."

His voice faded. I didn't need to hear it. The girls are unhurt. But the boys...

Guess Julian hadn't survived the night. Oh nooo, how unfortunate.

I ducked around the witch and onto the property.

"Hold the fuck up, the hell is wrong with you!" grunted the wizard as I slipped away from him. "This is an attempted staking, not a birthday party, I can't let you trample all over my crime scene!"

I'm faster than Octavius. I made it into the front garden as the witch forced him to finish the paperwork. With a pair of girls was a black glad witch, her uniform pointed hat stitched with the emblem of the Magistrate, a third eye hovering menacingly above the scales of justice. The gals were the young donors Julian had teased when we arrived. One peered up at me through her tangled hair for moment, then cast her gaze down quickly, what I'd guess to be an embarrassed blush blooming on her cheeks. She was the one Dmitri had tossed so callously down the stairs.

No sign of Isla.

"We hid upstairs," said the other girl, voice loud and grating on me. She wiped snot on her sleeve. "When we heard the window break and Caleb start screaming, we just—" her voice warbled. "We hid in a bathroom! We stayed until you found us there!"

She broke into sobs. The officer halfheartedly patted her on the shoulder, encouraging them both to keep talking. But it was useless. I pitied the poor girls for the many horrors they'd probably endured in that house, but they had nothing valuable for me.

Nobody stopped me from slipping under pathetic caution tape and an even more pathetically weak ward to enter the manor. It was obvious the house had been ransacked while I was out. Whole place reeked of the copper and decay of old blood, left to rot in the beams and carpets and wallpaper. The stench of death was faint and new but so, so obvious. I covered my nose.

The culprit, or culprits, who'd been partnered with that wolf had been speedy, it seemed. The portrait of Dmitri's truest love, Lady Rosemond, was gone. The frame remained right where it'd always been, albeit askew, but the portrait itself had been cut right out, leaving strips of canvas clinging to the gold.

Why in hell's fangs take it?

I'd figure it out later.

The house was still and empty. Though with the gathering witches out front, I knew it wouldn't stay this way for long.

Isla wasn't where'd I left her. Again I felt the claws and flames of panic and anger licking my insides. Don't be a dolt, old boy. Course she wouldn't've stuck around. The Magistrate would've found her. She'd be outside with the rest. I crouched in the spot I laid her, restlessly poking at the bits of broken glass and wondering if any of the blood on the ground and walls was hers... Although I could still catch the lingering scent of mint and orange shampoo in the air, I couldn't hear or sense her pulse at all. Even her gloves and purse were gone.

Where'd you fanging go, woman? I promised I'd be back for you.

"I interrupting a moment?" said Octavius from behind me.

"Fang off, I'm not in the mood."

"Fuck you too, man."

Glowing hands pulled at threads on that scarf of his, weaving them into cat's cradle-esc ball. With a flick of his wrist the thread ball detached and floated up above our heads. Octavius snapped his fingers and a blast of warm light flooded the room. I hadn't even been bothered by, barely noticed frankly, the lack of light in the house. But I bared my fangs and hissed at the wizard for fanging blinding me.

"Put that shit away," he leaned close, frowning as usual, and whispered: "Want to tell me why your soggy ass is at the house I'm called to for a six-six-nine, of all things, one night after I saw you last, Greg?"

"Told you," I said, rubbing away the spots in my eyes, "I'm on a case. Following a lead."

"Was it him?"

He pointed to Julian's otherwise ignored corpse.

"Part of it."

The valet was impaled on the table. Well, slightly impaled, with the edge of the glass dug into his back holding him up. Arms and legs certainly weren't doing that for him. One arm had been ripped clean off. Shreds of pulp and meat hung in bloody ribbons from the open socket. The stench of death already clung to his still warm body. Warm and dried out. Whatever Sloane and Dmitri hadn't gobbled was in brown pool on the rug. Bloody swipes of handprints stained the glass behind him, the only things left on the cleared table.

Cleared...

I ducked under the table (Octavius grumbled something). The candle sticks that had blown out were scattered about, like someone had swept an arm over the table and knocked them to the floor.

No sign of Rosemond's bones.

They weren't small enough to fit in Isla's tiny purse, were they? Swear I remember a skull being there.

"You do this?" said Octavius.

I closed my eyes, drew in a deep, useless, calming breath. I did not need to get stuck in a Magistrate station being questioned on the legitimacy of my PI's license tonight. Again. "Don't know what you're talking about, just got here."

I paced around the room. No Isla. No bones. Lots of broken chandelier crystals, globs of Julian, candles, and knick-knacks from a busted shelf. No bones. I toed Julian's severed arm. Nope, nothing under there either.

"Who the shit invited you in then?"

Couldn't help but smirk. He had me there.

"You got me. I was invited to dinner," I said. Octavius pointed at Julian again and opened his mouth as if to speak. "No, it wasn't him. Least not for me. His master did it."

"Yeaaah," the wizard said, drawing out that ah and standing akimbo. As I continued to pace the room like a caged cat, he also nudged the arm with his heel. "Vampire ain't home. Looking pretty suspicious."

I shouldered past him and veered down the hall. Followed the air of death. Scene in the living room wasn't as gruesome. Not that it was better. Caleb, poor lad, had his head beat in at some point. A werewolf, in the living room, with a candlestick.

I felt Octavius sidle up beside me. His ball of light followed, hovering harshly above us.

"The stake," he pointed at a bloody chair leg on the floor, "I presume. Don't touch it, you ass," he sighed into his palm. "'Aight, so, what happened here? They argue, probably 'bout the club. Donors were likely collateral damage. Husband gets pissy about the raid while his wife was running the place, so, fit of passion, he tears up a chair and—" he mimed an aggressive stabbing motion. "Stakeout. Sure. Why not?"

Stakeout. I winced. Had to admit from the outside looking in that's exactly what he could play this off as. Especially if Sloane didn't pull through to tell her side. Hell knows Dmitri's not exactly known for his clarity and honesty at this point. No witnesses, the gals all hid upstairs like the frightened little mortals they were. So a marital fight turned violent. Too bad that was batshit.

A cold breeze tickled my cheek.

"Patio door's open."

Octavius nodded. "Yeah, I see that."

I didn't see any bones. No trace of Isla.

Had Julian taken her coat when we came in?

I zipped back to the foyer. Gone from the living room in just over a blink.

"Damn it, Greg, stop doing that!" called Octavius from the other room.

Empty coat rack. Isla's leopard print pelt had flown the coop with her.

Should I be relieved she at least had enough wits about her to take her jacket when she ran into the cold? Or was she just being careful not to leave a trace of herself behind?

The door to the library was ajar. I popped in. It wasn't a mess, exactly. That wouldn't be fair to the state in had been in before. But it wasn't right either. Not how we left it. The Goosebumps stack had fallen over. Paperback horror novels were scattered across the floor. Some looking like they'd been stepped on. I skipped around them and ventured to the mantel. Something caught my eye in Dmitri's little shrine to his long-lost love. Rather, the lack of something.

Amidst the lovely needlepoint insect creations the old vamp accredited to Rosemond, was an empty circle of space. A little ring of dust the only evidence one of the needlepoints had been taken at all. The unfinished moth.

"Unless there's something I'm missing."

Octavius leaned against the library doorframe, blocking my exit. His little ball of light hovered just over his head, giving him an eerie, green halo. It cast the library in an uneasy mix of light and shadow. Like this damn case. For every clue illuminated, another splotch of darkness, an unanswered question, mars the whole picture.

Like Isla.

Damn my everything was sore. I rubbed my neck, not offering Octavius any quips as he studied me flouncing through his crime scene.

"Where's the rest of your crew?"

He shrugged. "Taking their sweet time, I guess."

"Why you letting me have a looksie, huh?"

"Curious what you're looking for."

"Nah, friend, I'm keeping the private in private investigator tonight."

"Any scoop on those books I asked you about yet?"

Books? He was pestering me 'cause he thought I might lead him to cursed books of the undead in a vampire's house? I huffed. "It's been a night."

Octavius threw his hands up, clearly exasperated. His orb flickered. "Where is she, man?"

Fangs. This about Lily? Did the Magistrate get wise to her role in the pesky vampire/werewolf real estate hustle? Never thought they'd be interested. She's human and an unregistered donor. No paperwork meant no legal obligation to investigate her disappearance, hence why I was here.

Or Isla. No. Can't be Isla. How in the hell would Octavius know about Isla?

"Who?"

"The—" The wizard's phone rang, sharp and shrill. Checking, his shoulders sagged and scowl deepened. Which was impressive, given what a grump he was naturally. "Got to take this," he grumbled.

Octavius moved into the hall in an effort to shield his conversation. He probably knew it was useless, but A for effort old pal. I followed in his shadow, keeping my steps light and silent. If he ignored all the hairs that stood up on the back of his neck as I creeped, he'd probably miss me sneaking out altogether.

"No, she ain't here," he mumbled into the phone. "No, Naz, I haven't," he paused. "I know I owe you, but I wasn't expecting to find a staked vampire and double murder scene when I got here! Bodies, yes. Not fresh bodies."

Wasn't expecting all this? That's interesting. What brought you into the vampire's den then, wizard?

"Listen I got bigger fish, alright, I'll send somebody else out for her. You're like six months pregnant, no, you don't have to go—hello? Damnit."

Octavius turned sharply on me, eyes glowing green. He extended a finger. Thin threads of yarn lashed out from it and caught me by the hood of my sweatshirt. The fabric weaved together, stopping me in my tracks.

When he spoke, his voice was low and gravelly.

"You weren't here earlier tonight?"

Couldn't quite decide if that was a statement or a question. Shook my head.

"You don't know who else was or where they may have gotten to?"

My eyes narrowed. "No."

The thread of yarn in my hood sizzled. It burned green before fading into a series of sparks and embers. Think I just failed a truth spell.

Octavius sighed. "Greg, I mean it, whatever you're doing. Whatever this case is, pull out. I don't care what kind of damsel in distress bullshit lured you in his time, drop it, man, for your own good. Forget I asked you about the books."

That burn reignited in my chest. It wasn't the same nauseating dread as before. He was insinuating I knew more. He was right, the bastard, but I refused give Isla away. And I had no right to feel that way. Woman was hiding something from me. I wouldn't be surprised if, whatever it was, she wasn't too keen on the Magistrate learning about either. That and she'd hadn't been straight with me since day one. And yet, when the spells came to hexes, some feral beast in my chest wanted to hold on to her and all her secrets so damn tight.

I ripped what remained of the thread out my sweatshirt.

"If you want to close this case go with the domestic route," I said, trying my darndest around my fangs to keep my voice even, "Dmitri will fight it and you'll have one of the oldest vamps in the city hunting you, but, that's your problem. Easier than dealing with those pesky vamp/wolf politics you love so much."

The glow in Octavius' eyes cooled. "This is all because of real estate?"

I tsked. "What else?"

Octavius shot me an unusual glare of annoyance and what I'd guess was pity. "Nothing you can't figure out for yourself. Go out the back at least, you dumb bloodsucker. Sun's almost up."

Speak Philadelphian: Penn. Founded in 1751 by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Bond, Pennsylvania Hospital was one of the earliest established in the United States. Home to America's first surgical amphitheater, first medical library, and the first successful wooden stake removal surgery performed on a vampire. It remains a prestigious teaching hospital to this day, producing some of the nation's top doctors, and witch doctors with specializations in curse removals and medicinal potions.