Page 38 of The Vampire and the Case of the Perilous Poltergeist

Several things happened at once. Miller moved around to block Sidnee from leaving, Thorsen pulled out a pair of handcuffs and grabbed Sidnee’s arm as she turned, and Aoife materialised between Danny and me.

Aoife took in the scene, opened her mouth and let out a piercing banshee wail that made me slam my hands over my ears. I cried out as the noise cut through me. Miller was close to Aoife and, as a human, he took the brunt of the scream. He turned ghastly white and fainted dead away. Neither Danny nor I moved to catch him.

Thorsen was focusing on Sidnee and attempting to clamp the handcuffs onto her wrists. Sidnee, who’d truly had enough of faking human female powerlessness, turned on her heel and punched him in the face with her supernat strength. Thorsen went down like a sack of wet shit. She shook her hand and a small grin pulled at her lips. ‘Man, that was intensely satisfying.’

I checked Thorsen’s pulse; that had been quite some hit and hewasonly human. It thrummed under my thumb; yep, the prick was still alive.

‘He’s going to feel that when he wakes up,’ Danny remarked. ‘Nice one, Fletcher.’

‘Sidnee, please.’ She smiled.

Danny smiled back, ‘Danny.’

‘Thisis the time you two choose to get on a first-name basis?’ I huffed.

Sidnee chuckled then sobered and toed the unconscious man. ‘He’s a problem.’

I sighed. ‘Yep. He’s going to make trouble about what he saw here tonight.’

Danny pulled out some zip ties from his pocket and tied Thorsen’s and Miller’s arms behind their backs. When I quirked an eyebrow at his extra equipment, he said, ‘I used to be a boy scout.’ My expression remained blank so he expanded, ‘I’m always prepared.’

‘Ah. Good to know.’

Danny gestured to the small trail of blood coming from Thorsen’s nose. ‘I know you’re a new vampire, Bunny, but you seem to have a remarkable lack of bloodlust.’

‘I drink blood regularly.’ And also I was a secret hybrid who didn’t have any bloodlust at all.

‘Even so.’ He eyed me again. ‘My point is that you’re still not thinking like a vampire. You can use some mind-control hypnosis. Tell them they slept all night then we’ll send them back to their beds and no one will be any the wiser.’

I blinked. Could I mesmerise them? IfIcouldn't, Connor was still on Sitka for one more day. Maybe I could call him in to do the dirty work for me? ‘I’ve never done it. Do you think I should call in my boyfriend? He’s an older vamp,’ I explained.

‘What’s his name?’ Danny asked curiously.

‘Connor MacKenzie.’

His jaw dropped. ‘Jesus, you landed on your feet. He’s notanolder vamp, he’s one of the oldest vampires in Alaska, not to mention heir to the throne of the US vampires.’

‘Yeah. He’s really down to earth, though,’ I said lamely.

Danny looked amused. ‘I’m sure.’ His tone indicated he was anything but. ‘Even so, we don’t have the time or resources to smuggle him onto the campus right now. It’ll have to be you.’

Me. Right.

Evidently Aoife’d had enough of waiting for us to work through our issues. ‘Petrovich called me to help. He’s overthere.’ She pointed, then led us to the far corner of the room. She’d learned to modulate her voice because her speech wasn’t a screech; it sounded more human, though it still sent some spine-tingling terror racing down my spine.

We looked around the corner but still missed whatever we were supposed to see. Petty stirred the air and an icy wind encased us. Finally Aoife pointed to a spot under some large pipes. There, well-hidden, was a black attaché case. I ducked down and crawled on my hands and knees to pull it out.

Sidnee knelt down next to me, as did Aoife; she seemed to be as curious as we were. I went to flick open the clasps but Sidnee stopped me. ‘Wait. It might be a bomb or something. What if you open it and we all go kaboom?’

I drew back and Danny snorted with laughter. ‘This isn’t a spy film. It’s a case – it probably has papers in it.’

I looked at Aoife. ‘Can you ask Petty if this is a bomb?’ It never hurt to err on the safe side.

Aoife rolled her eyes. It was easy for the already-dead girl to be flippant but I wanted to stay alive – I didn’t have a mysterious second life like she did. This undead one was all I’d get. She turned her face toward the wall and spoke, although we didn’t hear anything, then she paused as though she were having a conversation, only we couldn’t see the person she was talking to. After a few seconds she turned back. ‘It’s not a bomb.’ The ‘well, duh’ was kind of implied.

I nodded, stared at the black case for another moment then flipped open the clasps.

‘Well, what’s in it?’ Sidnee asked me impatiently.

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