“Parvati, how long have you been going behind my back to investigate these murders?” Jules’ sharp question scythed down Parvati’s barely-budding confidence.
If she told the truth, Jules would stop her investigation. And Parvati knew her investigation was the only thing making headway.
But the thought of lying further twisted Parvati’s stomach to the point she feared vomiting. And now, untruths would be useless.
“I told the shopkeepers four days ago,” she said softly.
Jules tilted her head, clearly surprised at Parvati’s honesty.
“You lied to me.”
Parvati flinched. Then, straightened. “I was trying to help,” she said.
“Help?” Jules scoffed. “Kid, you aren’t even old enough to vote.”
The door slammed open. Rukmini stepped out, face flushed with anger. “She’s doing more than you, Gran.”
“Rukmini,” Parvati hissed. Her grandmother and sister ignored her.
Jules turned to Rukmini, and observed her quietly for a second.
“You’re helping Parv, aren’t you?” Jules said.
Rukmini shoved past Jules, and stepped beside Parvati, then turned to face her grandmother, face set in a grim line. “Yep.”
Parvati’s mind ran through a myriad of emotions: embarrassment and fear, confusion and blighted admiration, self-doubt and gratitude.
“I’m trying to help you,” Jules said, “girls, you read what that vampire wrote when Mira was kidnap —” at Mira’s name, Rukmini’s firm expression faltered, and Jules hastily swapped her wording — “er, taken. The vampire, whomever they are, is gunning for me, and everyone tangentially related to me. They’ll go for you. And take the word of the best Vampire Hunter of her generation. You won’t stand a chance.”
You’re a helpless kid, Jules all but shouted. The words burned, partially because they were true.
“Perhaps,” Parvati said, “but now people know the cops won’t help.”
“Yeah,” Rukmini chimed in. “Now that Professor Smokes is involved —”
“Rukmini!” Parvati hissed, but the damage was done.
“You told the head of the Vampire Museum?” Jules stammered. “For how long have you been —” she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. You’ve dug yourself into this mess, and I’ll get you out, if I have to drag you by the ears.”
Parvati’s face flushed. “We know what we’re doing. More than you, apparently.”
“Parvati, please. I’m trying to —”
“Help?” Parvati said. “You treat me like a fool. You treat the town like it doesn’t matter.”
Rukmini tapped her shoulder, and Parvati spun on her. “What?”
“You’re raising your voice.”
“I’m raising my voice because our grandma apparently doesn’t care about all the people hurt, and kidnapped, and murdered —”
“Don’t act like I don’t care about the victims,” Jules said sharply.
Rukmini muttered something under her breath.
“Rukmini?” Jules asked. “Do you have something to add?”
“I said,” Rukmini sighed. “It doesn’t matter, dammit.”
“People don’t swear on insignificant matters,” Jules noted.
Rukmini stared pointedly at the ground, then drew a breath. “If you actually cared for the victims, you would have done something when Mira went missing.”
The words burned Parvati’s heart like acid on an open wound. But if she thought they affected her, it was nothing compared to the effect they had on Jules.
Their grandmother’s face crumpled: her shoulders hunched. She reached for the half-heart dangling from her choker.
Rukmini said the wrong thing, Parvati thought as she looked at Jules, heart gripped by terrible pity.
Jules looked to her, and when they locked eyes, it was like Parvati was staring straight into Jules’ soul.
There was fear in those eyes. Fear, and regret so deep it cut to the bone. And there was hope, too: the faint desire for reassurance.
Parvati’s fear melted away, replaced by concern. She almost took back Rukmini’s words. Said she disagreed with them, that Jules wasn’t responsible for poor Mira’s disappearance, and hadn’t done anything wrong in not looking for her.
But the last part would be a lie.
“I can’t help Mira,” Jules said, sounding like the words were being wrenched out. “I can’t do my job, because I’m terrible at it.”
The words had an effect on Parvati not unlike being hit by a train going downhill with its brakes cut. Her mind flashed to the portrait of Jules in the Bluewood Museum of Vampire History. To the praise and admiration held for her decades after her career ended.
How is that possible? she almost asked.
Rukmini beat her to it.
“But Gran, you’re a legend. You said so, like, thirty seconds ago.”
Jules seemed decades older than her eighty years.
“Grandma?” Parvati asked, stepping forward. “Are you alright?”
“Remember what I told you?” Jules asked. “In that old shop, before those murders?”
Parvati’s mind raced through their conversation. They’d said a lot, but she knew what line Jules was referring to.
“You shouldn’t be either exceptional or a nobody when studying vampires,” she repeated. “The exceptional draw their attention. The nobodies will be failures.”
“I was nothing if not exceptional,” Jules said morosely. She glanced around, then opened the door. “Come in, girls. We’ve got a lot to discuss.”
…
Jules insisted on making herself coffee before the conversation. She puttered about the kitchen, hands trembling more terribly with every passing second. Eventually, unable to watch her once-powerful grandmother struggle, Parvati helped her. She was alarmed to note how aged Jules’ looked.
What happened while you hunted the vampires? She wondered, not for the first time. What turned you away from this path?
And then: Maybe grandma is right. Maybe I should do something else with my life. Become a doctor, or teacher. I’ll still help folk that way.
The thought was so horrible Parvati spilled creamer on the countertop.
Eyebrows raised, Rukmini mopped it up.
But now, Jules’ coffee was ready. The family sat around the kitchen table. The quiet house and sprawling, underutilized kitchen seemed much too large for the three of them.
Jules sipped her drink. If the steaming beverage burned her tongue, she didn’t show it.
“I know I’ve kept you two in the dark about my career as a vampire hunter,” she said quietly. “But I don’t doubt you’ve managed to scour up more than most. What do you know about it?”
“Well,” Rukmini said, “it made you a millionaire. That, and you’re kinda famous. But that’s it. And you’re upper middle class instead of rich now.”
Jules turned to Parvati.
“Three hundred and fifty of America’s tamed vampires were only domesticated after you brought them in,” Parvati said. Hating how dry her mouth felt, she swallowed. “You killed approximately five hundred feral vampires, including the last American vampire Sovereigns. Well, last until —”
“Until Bluewood,” Jules said.
Parvati nodded.
“What do you know about my methods?”
Rukmini shrugged, but Parvati answered immediately.
“That you’d do anything to get the kill. Or save the vampire, as the case may be. Bribery, blackmail, all of it. You’d befriend Sovereigns and Soldiers alike, and, if they didn’t feel like turning, or you thought they were too evil to return to humanity, you’d kill them.”
“And the last vampire I slew? What do you know about her?”
Parvati considered. “That was the Sovereign who nearly burned down that Nevada town, wasn’t he? You stopped him with flying colors, by the way.”
Then, it struck her.
“That vampire,” she said, “Bill Six-Horns. He was a male. You referred to him with feminine pronouns.”
Jules took a very long sip of coffee. “The fire started, yes. I stopped it. But that wasn’t the end of the story. And Bill Six-Horns wasn’t the beginning.”
Parvati and Rukmini exchanged glances. Her sister looked as confused as Parvati felt.
She had just turned back to her grandmother, when the doorbell rang.
“Leave it,” Jules said.
The doorbell rang more insistently.
Once more.
Twice more.
Five times more.
And then, the person outside started pounding at the door.
Face a mask of irritation, Jules stood. “Parv?”
Parvati dangled a bag of salt. “Got it.”
The three strode to the door. Jules pulled it open.
Parvati stepped backward.
It wasn’t a vampire.
It wasn’t even the neighbors, or an overexcitable pizza guy.
It was the stocky mayor, Benedict Belfast, wearing his classic blue tuxedo and wine-red beret. Three bodyguards loomed over him. None of them were wearing masks or sunglasses, which meant Parvati could clearly see their eyes. Not a drop of red in sight.
The bodyguard’s faces were grim. One was squeezing a paper so tightly her knuckles were white. Benedict’s sunburn-reddened skin paled to the color of snow.
“I’m sorry,” Benedict said breathlessly. “But, Ms. Dawns, I really must come in. I need your advice on vampires.”
“For the last time, no,” Jules said, “besides, my granddaughters and I were in the middle of something. Can it wait?”
“About that,” Benedict said. He gestured to the bodyguard with the paper, which she handed to him. He gave the paper to Jules. She scanned it, then scowled at him.
“You got a warrant to enter my house?”
“You, ah, didn’t leave me much choice,” Benedict said. “Now, if you’d let us in —”
“Go shove that mandate up your ass,” Jules said sharply, but she stood aside.
“Wait,” Rukmini said, elbowing her way between Jules and Parvati. “Um, Mr. Belfast? Grandma, Parv, and I were having a serious talk. We’ll be done, in, like fifteen minutes. I swear.”
“It has to wait,” Benedict said. He glanced sideways at Jules. “Sorry, again.”
Jules turned to Parvati and Rukmini. Her brows were furrowed: her eyes were unmistakably damp.
Parvati felt as though her gut had been wrenched out.
She had never seen her grandmother cry.
“Girls,” Jules said softly. “I don’t know how long this will take, but I know you won’t listen to me.” Parvati opened her mouth to protest, but Jules held up her hand. “And I deserve it. I know that, too. Just be careful. Please, be careful. And before you – do whatever you plan on doing — rub salt on the car. Be careful not to touch the windows — if you put it there, the salt will damage its visibility.”
“Grandma,” Rukmini stammered.
Benedict coughed. Jules whirled on him with the fury of a lunging wolf. “You’ll wait a second,” she snarled. “Girls, go to my room. Check the floorboards under the bed. You’ll find what you need.”
Parvati and Rukmini exchanged bewildered glances.
“Go,” Jules said forcefully.
…
Parvati was so shaken, she almost stopped at her bedroom. She needed a moment to breathe, to reconsider today’s madcap rush.
But Rukmini was beside her, so Parvati had to be strong.
They went to the end of the hall, where their grandma’s room lurked.
“How do we get in?” Rukmini asked, looking at the dust-covered doorknob. “She always keeps her door locked.”
“That door, sure,” Parvati said. She knelt down, and poked at the yellowing siding of the hallway wall.
“Um, Parv —”
“There.” Parvati found the loose part of the paneling, a slightly overlarge line situated between the wall and carpet. She dug her nails in, and tugged at it. The wall creaked, and swung open, revealing a cramped hall, and the dimmed lighting of their grandmother’s room beyond it.
“I did not expect that,” Rukmini said.
“I found it about a decade ago,” Parvati explained. “I wanted to tell her about some bully, and she never opens the main door, so I figured she had another way of getting around.”
Parvati turned, and saw Rukmini gaping.
“This is the only such tunnel in the house, if you’re wondering,” she said. “Grandma made it when the house was first being built. She and grandpa found the idea of exiting their room via a secret passageway exciting.”
She slipped inside. Rukmini followed suit. The passageway ended at a seemingly-blank wall, but there was a method to the madness. Parvati pressed her hand against the leftmost corner of the wall, and it swung open. Parvati stepped through, and into their grandmother’s room.
Afternoon sunlight filtered through the shuttered window, and onto the rumpled bedding. A few of Jules’ favorite throwing axes leaned against her dresser and desk.
And it was the desk that caught Parvati’s eyes.
It wasn’t the stack of bodice rippers (both sapphic and straight), or the doctor’s manuals on handling prosthetic legs. It wasn’t the metals Jules won from various axe-fighting competitions.
It was the photographs.
One depicted the girls’ deceased grandfather, Reginald Dawns. Another depicted their grinning parents sitting around a sacred flame and wearing fancy Indian clothes. Devi Kalidas and Timothy Dawns had gotten married in the traditional Hindu way.
The one closest to the bed depicted the sisters during Rukmini’s thirteenth birthday. The kids were wearing those stupid cone hats. Rukmini was hugging Parvati so hard she’d lifted her off her feet.
Ignoring her twisting heart, Parvati knelt down and peered under Jules’ bed. She felt around the soft floor, until she found the loose square of carpet. Pulling it off, she found the hard floor. One floorboard was somewhat loose: she pried it open, ignoring the cold wood digging into her fingers.
There, glinting in the dim light beneath the bed, was a rusting bronze keychain, holding nearly two dozen keys.
“You’ve got it?” Rukmini called.
“I’ve got it,” Parvati said.
…
It was 3:50. 4:20, by the time they finished salting the car. Rukmini took some tampons, Midol, and two of Jules’ axes.
The drug dealer who knew Hector Blair lived in Chicago. Bluewood was so close to the Illinois city, it ran on Central Time.
Parvati figured it would take them about an hour to arrive. We should be done before sunset, she thought, glancing at the GPS.
What she failed to do was account for Chicago traffic.
Two hours, and two missed exits (the signage was horrible) later, the sisters pulled into the sleaziest streets of the Rainy City.
Only now Parvati noticed, with no small concern, it was twilight.
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