Page 58 of The Vampire and the Case of the Malevolent Mermaid

‘Was it his fault?’

I shrugged. ‘It was both of them, I think. But my mum … she seems contrite. She wants to build bridges.’ I pressed my lips together. ‘My mum wants to be a part of my life, but my dad … he wants to control it.’ It was hard to speak about it, hard to remember the look on Mum’s face when she told me thathehad been responsible for getting me turned.

‘Same,’ she whispered, looking frightened. ‘My dad has always been super strict. He’s never told me that he loves me, he never hugs me. He’s old and he comes from a time when children should be seen and not heard.’

Her bottom lip wobbled. ‘As a born vampire, I’m super rare. I’m supposed to beprecious.’She shook her head. ‘I think he hates me. I’ve told myself he cared in his own way, but at best I’m an inconvenience, a force that divides Mum’s attention and takes her away from him.’

A tear slipped down her cheek. ‘I should have known something was up when he brought me and Essie cookies because I’m not allowed sweet treats – Mum’s always worrying about holes in my fangs. But he brought us cookies and I was so happy.’ She was sobbing now in earnest.

My heart ached for her and for myself. The situation hurt because it was so like my own. I stood up and went to cuddle her. ‘It’s not your fault,’ I said fiercely. ‘Something is wrong with him if you’re not enough.’

She cried her heart outand I held her through the storm. Finally she swiped at her cheeks. ‘The cookies contained some sort of sedative that knocked us out, fast. When we came to, we were in a bunker. The idiots didn’t cuff us and we were desperate to escape. After what felt like ages in total darkness, my vampire sight spotted a weird patch on the wall. It was a metal plate.

‘Tall and Skinny kept coming to check on us, to leer at us, and we were scared. When we were next alone, Essie shifted to use her strength as a tizheruk to pry open the plate. It led to a way out, but one of the kidnappers saw us as we climbed out and he chased us. We were so terrified – he said he’d shoot us if we didn’t stop.’

She swallowed hard. ‘Essie … she found something heavy, some metal or whatever, and before he could shoot us … she hit him over the head with it.’ Her lip trembled. ‘We didn’t expect him to die. We just thought she’d knock him out. But his head just crumpled like a melon.’

She bit her lip. ‘Essie didn’t mean to kill him. It was self-defence. We found his phone and checked where we were on Google Maps then called for the Nomo to come and hung up. Only when we searched his body there was no gun. He’d been bluffing the whole time and Essie had killed a defenceless man.’

I snorted. ‘He was far from defenceless.’ I’d seen him in a full rage, swinging at Sidnee and at Ernie. ‘And you believed he had a gun, believed he would kill you. That’s still self-defence, honey.’

Gunnar nodded. ‘She’s right.’

Kate slumped back in her chair. ‘Essie’s not going to jail?’

‘No, little lady,’ Gunnar murmured. ‘She’s not.’

She closed hereyes; relief painted over her features. ‘That’s good. That’s something.’

‘Your dad drugged you. He’s part of this,’ I said softly. ‘Is your mum too?’

She hesitated. ‘I don’t know,’ she said finally. ‘I really hope not, but … she loves him. If she had to choose between him and me, I think she’d choose him.’ She shook her head. ‘When I was nine, I found a backpack in Dad’s room, a pink one. I thought it was a gift for me and I was so excited. Since it was going to be mine, I looked through it. It had school books inside and a girl’s name – Casiah.’

She chewed her thumbnail. ‘I ran back to my room but I think he knew that I’d seen it because later that evening he gave me a lecture on privacy and what would happen to me if I didn’t respect his.’

Now she was visibly trembling. ‘For a while I thought he had another family, a secret one, and that I had a half-sistersomewhere and one day I’d meet her. But when I started high school, I asked around discreetly about a girl called Casiah – it isn’t exactly a common name. That’s when I found out she’d gone missing – but I still thought she was Dad’s illegitimate child right up until the time we met her ghost.’

Shuddering, she went on. ‘Essie and I were waiting for the Nomo like we’d decided, but then we saw the twins. They must have been killed near where we were kept because their spirits were stuck there. The big guy’s death woke them – he’d kidnapped them, too. And that’s when I finally put it together.’ She closed her eyes. ‘The dosed cookies weren’t my father’s first kidnapping … he’d kidnapped other girls.

‘Essie had killed the big guy and my dad was evil. That’s when we decided it was better for both of us if we just ran – we’d rather face a hypothetical beast than a real one. Only the beast beyond was real too.’ Her eyes were wide and she was breathing too quickly, in danger of hyperventilating.

I didn’t point out that, as a vampire, she didn’t need to breathe; instead I pushed her head between her legs. ‘Breathe slowly,’ I instructed. ‘Everything is going to be okay. You won’t have to live with him again.’ I looked at Gunnar and he nodded solemnly.

We would keep her from Cobalt Robertson. We would arrest him and throw away the key.

Chapter 35

Essie told the same story as Kate, almost without variation. We reassured her we wouldn’t be pressing charges against her for Donovan’s murder.

She told us a little more about the squalid conditions they’d been kept in and about the other guy who’d come to check on them. When he visited, he always had a headlamp and used it to look at them, running the light up and down their bodies. Essie told us that he was tall, slim, brown-haired and always armed.

‘He sneered at us,’ she said quietly. ‘He was brave while he was carrying his guns.’ She swallowed hard. ‘He scared me the most, even more than the big guy. Skinny’s guns were always cocked and loaded, one in each hand so we couldn’t rush him. You could see he was just itching to hurt us. Hewantedus to put a step wrong. He … he taunted us. He said that we’d fetch a far higher price because we were virgins, and that was all that was stopping him from “tasting our wares”.’ Fear bloomed in her eyes as she relived the moment.

‘We won’t let him touch you,’ Gunnar vowed. ‘Can you tell us anything else about him?’

‘I think his name was Bob. He spoke about himself in the third person like a total whack job. “Just give Bob a reason…” he’d say.’

Next to me Gunnar froze, tension and rage in every line of his body. ‘Did he touch you?’ he asked tightly.

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