Private I Vampyre: Ch 17/ 24

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Chapter 17

After we dropped Delilah off at Wayne’s place, and after a nice, long, undisturbed, sleep, I left Greg at home to go out a-questing for the witches.

That sounds so much more interesting than it was.

Okay, maybe it was a little interesting, because if they had a card, maybe they were registered at the telephone operators. A short phone call later, and I was in front of their little shop. The damn thing had been hard enough to find. I had to go all the way into downtown, up Columbus and right at Randolph. It took me a few confusing moments before I realized it was actually in the Illinois Central Railroad yards. Strangely enough, there were patches of greenery between the massive cars and storage units filled with trees. And here I was thinking it was just a bunch of railroads Mr. Burnham had claimed for himself.

Nope. In a little section not yet plowed over for railroad use or for the public as a place to hold large functions, there were a bunch of little shops that had nested in amongst the beech trees, with a sprinkling of rowan and ash between them. The whole place made me want to snort in disdain, but considering what I was, I guess I didn’t have the high ground to scoff.

So now here I stood outside Ms. Laura and Linda’s magic shop, which seemed very worse for wear, what with the ‘you’re the devil’s advocates’ etc. written all over it.

I rolled my eyes and made to knock on the door when a spark and sharp pain, like an electrocution from a doorknob, spiked up my arm. “Ow!” I cried, hunching over my hand and backing away from the damn door. It hurt a hell of a lot more than a damn doorknob spark should have. I heard whispering on the other side of it and looked up in time to see the white lace curtain flick behind the diamond glass windows. “Hey, anyone in there? Can you make whatever buzzed my hand off stop?”

The door opened, and a tall, pretty and very, very pregnant brunette with short hair was glaring down at me, brandishing a broom. How cliché. The anger didn’t sit well with her face, which was incredibly gentle looking, even as the eyes narrowed at me. “And why would we do that, creature of evil? So you can devour us?”

“Ew, no,” I wrinkled my nose.

It must’ve thrown them, because a bleach blonde peeked around the brunette’s shoulders. “‘Ew, no’? What kind of a demon are you?”

“I’m not! Why does everyone think I’m a damn demon?” I rose, flexing my hand and crossing my arms.

“Our wards protect us against all things of evil or the demonic,”

“Oh… um… that would be my hand…” I raised it, embarrassed just a little. “I’m not a whole demon, just my hand…”

“Does that mean… you’re the White Ghost!” the blonde said, a little excited and a little afraid.

I nodded.

“We speak of you when we meet with the others during the full moons, trying to decipher what you belong to, as far as good or bad…”

“And?”

“We don’t know,” they admitted, looking a little lost.

I sighed, sweeping off my hat and running my hand over my scalp. “If you ladies ever figure it out, or maybe if you figure out how to get rid of the evil part, will you let me know?”

“Um… sure…” The poor things looked so confused.

“So, does this mean I can come in?”

“Certainly not!” the blonde cried. “Laura’s pregnant, we can’t chance any evil energies infecting the baby.”

“Okay, whatever, but I need to talk to you both about a customer you had a few years ago, a very influential man. I don’t think you’d want to discuss business out of doors where anyone can hear,”

“And why would we tell you about our customers?” the one who could only be Linda asked haughtily.

“Well, because I’m trying to keep some people, including myself from being killed by one of the things you might’ve set my friend up with.”

They glanced at one another warily. “And who would your friend be?”

I looked around, scanning for life or unlife or whatever else might be out there. The place was so charged with dormant magic it was like trying to see in a fog. I sighed. “Mr. Carey?”

They both paled, and Laura sagged against the wall. “We can’t let you in, but we’ll still talk…”

We ended up sitting on either side of the door frame, them pushing cups of tea out to me, and me listening as they spilled the beans on exactly what Drew had asked of Sherwood. It wasn’t at all pretty, but then, when was dealing with demons a pretty thing?


A couple hours later, I was driving home pondering what the two women had told me. And it was a little frightening.

To summon a demon, you had to go through some channels no human normally went through, then you needed a sacrifice, because to be honest, nothing in our world can stand a good blood offering.

But the channel was the scary thing, because the only persons Drew could have gone through were either Greg or Max. And Greg would most certainly not bring another demon on his turf on purpose. And therein lay the problem, because Max was very, very dead.

She was the old master of the city before Jeff took over, and boy she was as scary as she was beautiful. Tall, black hair, storm colored eyes, pale skin, red lips, full figure… she was enough to get any man… or thing… she wanted. But she’d tried to get the werewolves and the human mafia pitched against one another so she and Sherwood could take over completely. I put a stop to her evil scheme and she was killed in a duel for the city against Jeff.

She almost took me with her, but hey, surviving and living well is probably pissing her off as she rots in hell.

And now, she was probably laughing her undead ass off.

Only she could give me the information I needed as to who she went through to get Sherwood over here, because if I had that, then we could perhaps send out a warning, or at the most, drag his ass back here and put a couple slugs into it and send him limping home to his maker. I hoped.

I drove to Jeff’s. Hopefully, he could help me with this, being as old as he was, and perhaps he was there when Max had done the summoning or whatever and could tell me what was to be done. And who knows, maybe we could get away with it without having to do a sacrifice.


At Jeff’s place in the Cemetery on Pulaski, right near my place, in fact, I walked down the large, broad stone steps and knocked on the huge door. Angela met me at the door. “Mochrie, how good to see you again.”

I swept off my hat. “Indeed, we always seem to meet in odd circumstances.”

“Something tells me this one is no different,” she cocked her head at me.

I shrugged, sighing as she led the way through the entrance hall where hundreds of vampires always seemed to congregate, only this time it was empty. How freaking weird! I blinked, amazed at how large the place actually was when it wasn’t filled to the portholes with vampires. I contemplated shouting out something just to hear the echo, but that would have been silly. Angela led me down a few flights of steps to Jeff’s chambers and knocked on an ornately carved wooden door.

She opened it and strode in, beckoning for me to follow before she bowed out, leaving me alone in Jeff’s living room, looking around. I walked over to the fake fireplace, wishing it were real because the place was damn cold, and looked up at the stuff on the mantelpiece. There were cracked clay pipes, an old mantel clock that seemed to have stopped working, a few very old books, and above them all, a massive painting. There was a man and a woman with their child. The man was Jeff, dressed in very old finery, possibly 1800’s? He looked as he always did, stoic but faintly amused. His hiding face. And the woman seated next to him was small and plump, blonde, with a bright smile contrasting him wonderfully. In her arms she held a plump little child with dark hair and a bright face.

The kid looked very familiar, but I didn’t have time to think why, because Jeff came out from a side door, looking very perturbed. “Am I here at a bad time?” I asked.

“No, no, no, don’t worry,” he shook his head, making his hair fly every which way, and motioned for me to sit. “What is on your mind, Colin?”

I pulled out my notepad, sighing again. “I’m afraid I have some bad news. Delilah and I were attacked last night, a hit designed to take me out before they went on to get Greg. Greg is okay, and Delilah is fine, but the hit nearly worked. If Delilah hadn’t slapped a fingerbone loaded with a quick dissolving silver dart out of my hand…” Jeff paled, but motioned me to continue.

I told him about Delilah’s interrogation and our subsequent investigation of Mr. Carey, who had come to the same conclusion. Something made me pause in my narrative, though. “Delilah said that something non-human was behind the war in Europe… What did your friends you left to talk to say?” I asked hesitantly. He stiffened slightly. “Jeff?”

“Something non-human is key in the German’s war on Europe. My contacts overseas are convinced that someone with a lot of knowledge is aiding Herr Hitler, though we don’t know who, because not just were-creatures are being attacked. Vampires, were’s, lesser demons… everyone is being discovered. The ones somehow not fit enough to be kidnapped are exterminated, usually the revenants or the non-predatory weres.”

“Non-predatory?”

“The avians, the birds… the foxes, the horses…”

That boggled my mind how diverse the were’s were, but hey, it was a whole species. Why the hell not. I wrote it all down in my trusty notebook.

“Thankfully, the were’s and the vampires have banded together, momentarily, with the fey to make sure none of our secrets are spilled to those monstrous creatures the Nazi party calls scientists,” Jeff snarled, rising to pace. He looked more like a caged tiger than a man.

“Well, you may not enjoy this, but it will definitely make your and your fellow’s jobs easier, because I happen to know who might be behind the information leak to the Nazi’s…”

“Who?” he demanded, suddenly in my face.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You can’t get rid of him yet. I need some answers from him first…”

“I can’t promise that, Colin,” he said quietly, raising the hairs on the back of my neck.

“Give me your word that you’ll do your best to keep him alive until I can question him in person.” I felt myself get a little crispy at the box I was sticking him in, but hell, I’ll get over it and so will he.

“Fine, you have my word.”

“Good…” I sighed. “It’s Sherwood.”

His eyes narrowed even further. “How can you be so sure?”

“I spoke with some witches, and Carey, just to be sure, but I need you to try and tell me how Max got a hold of him in the first place.”

He sat down, rubbing his palms together. “That’s right, she called Bradley out of the dark to service Drew… He couldn’t do it, didn’t have the psychic weight to throw around to even get Bradley’s notice, but she did… curse her…” he spat.

I almost asked him again why he cared so much about Drew, but stopped when he spoke again, heavily. “I was there when she summoned him, but I don’t have the exact name to summon him by, and I don’t think that even if I did, you’d want me to raise him…”

“Why?”

“It takes blood, Mochrie… human, and I don’t think we know anyone we’d care to spill a drop for that bastard son of a devil’s whore,” he growled.

I sat back, sighing. He was right. “I spoke with two witches today, Laura and Linda… they said they knew a way around the blood sacrifice, but it would take more power than any of us had just laying around…” I rubbed my hand across my face.

“You know… there are ways of getting mass amounts of power without spending any of ours… but we’d need a very good conduit. Someone who can channel without being affected… and could survive such a transaction…”Jeff scowled.

“A sensitive?” I asked, frowning.

“No, they’d have to be more than a sensitive. They’d have to know how to use the power given, as well as how to control it. Like a slim blade, utter control.”

“Who do we know who has that control?” I wracked my brain. No one I knew was psychic enough to do this kind of thing and survive it. Wait… yes there was. Jeff looked at me as I looked to him.

“Delilah…” we said together.

“Shit, Jeff, we can’t ask her to do this…” I said heavily. “She could die, couldn’t she?”

“Possibly… but I’ve never heard of a were surviving a lightening strike,”

“What?!” I shouted.

He shrugged, a little embarrassed. “I’ve heard of it happening accidentally, but never on purpose. Harnessing that amount of raw elemental power, using it to basically force yourself around the set doors…”

“I am not asking Delilah to get struck by lightening just to get Sherwood over here and tell him to knock it off at his assassination attempts.”

“What choice do we have?” he asked quietly.

I glared at him, then at the floor. “This isn’t fair, not to her.”

“Life is not fair to anyone, Colin, you should know that by now.”

I looked away and didn’t argue. I couldn’t, because he was right on so many levels now it wasn’t funny at all. We were silent for a while before I turned to him, a question obvious in my eyes. “So what do we do? I can’t ask her to make this kind of sacrifice… not when she’s just getting her people to safety…”

He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Then we are at an impasse. You can’t ask her to do the only other thing to bring Bradley here for questioning, and we won’t do a blood sacrifice for him, so… nothing will happen. There’s nothing we can do.”

I thought hard, hating the feeling of uselessness. “We can do one thing. We can warn the others.” He frowned at me as I rose, taking the idea and running with it. It was a good one, too. “We can warn everyone in Europe, from the revenants, to the were’s, to the Fey, to get out of where they lay and head for the hills. The German war machine may be quiet now, but everything is pointing at something big. They’re hunting down the supernatural critters for a reason.”

“But what reason?” Jeff asked.

“A whole new race of soldiers? Super-fast, impervious to most disease?” Jeff’s jaw dropped. “If they were undead, they wouldn’t need to eat or sleep or fear sickness… and you could make as many mindless freaks as you wanted…” I felt the bottom fall out of my stomach as the possibilities hit me. Hard.

“Are you sure this is possible?” he whispered, looking ill.

“They’re hunting the strong, killing the weak? You said so yourself, that we had to kill our own before they fell into the hands of the Nazi scientists…”

“Gods preserve us…” he rose. “We must warn the others… I’ll send out the word, and hurry the ships carrying Delilah’s people… but Colin,” he paused, looking back at me. “This won’t solve your problem. You and Greg will continue to be attacked from every shadow, and now… possibly the ones you love as well. They aren’t safe anymore, Colin…”

“Jesus…” I hadn’t thought of that. Shit. “Where can I take them? They won’t all fit in my place, and I’d rather take my chances than stick Ryan in the same city block with Greg for a long period of time.”

He smiled briefly before he went back to his serious face. “Bring them here, it’s safe, with many charms and spells to protect it. Nothing as good as your heavenly and demonic charms.”

“Yeah, and that worked real good when Clive decided that he’d make a try on Greg’s life,” I snorted, picking up my hat and shoving my notepad into my pocket. “I’ll bring them over real quick, hopefully they won’t put up too much of a fuss. Jeff?” I froze. So did he. “One of them is Karen’s little sister… she’s only 16… will she be safe here?”

“I swear no harm will come to her while she’s in my keeping,” he said firmly, gripping my arms tightly before clapping them. “Now, to battle Colin, we have loved ones to protect and enemies to thwart!” he cried, hurrying off the way he came.

I chuckled, going out the front door and piling into my car, my mission firmly in my brain. Get Ryan and the others to Jeff’s, give Delilah a call and give her the good news/ bad news on her people, then go home to Greg and prepare for a big wait.

We couldn’t move forward with Greg’s or my own protection. I couldn’t ask Delilah to potentially kill herself just to question a demon we were almost positively sure was responsible for the Nazi’s coming to power in the first place.

And this was only the 3rd of January, 1935. I sighed, feeling fatigue creeping up on me as I drove back home and parked, shutting down for the night.

I locked us both away, Greg pouting at once again being confined to his room. I still hadn’t told him Ryan and I were, well, Ryan and I again, and for some disturbing reason I felt bad about it. I pushed it from my mind, feeling sleep creeping up on me along with the dawn and decided it would all be best considered tomorrow night after a good sleep.

That was two years ago.