Dead Heat (Taz Bell Book 1) Read online

  It didn't take long to reach Morgan's, and when I got out of the car the parking lot looked no different than it had the last time I'd been here. As I strolled toward the bar I let my senses free for a minute or two, and all I found was two people in a parked car way on the other side of the lot. I had the impression of a male and a female, and as I pulled my senses back I couldn't keep from smiling. Necking was a good reason for two people to be sitting in a car outside a bar…

  The small breeze in the outer air was added to by the air conditioning inside, and as I walked to the bar it came to me that there wasn't any music playing. The live band must have taken a break, and they hadn't put on any canned music to replace the live. That could have been because there weren't as many people around the dance floor or in the bar itself as there had been the previous night, but the point didn't seem important.

  What took more of my attention was the fact that there was a different bartender on duty. I'd left my weapons in the car under the seat, of course, and I'd expected to exchange unspoken amusement with the bartender. As I took a stool at the bar I wondered if this was the other bartender's usual night off, or if he'd called in sick to keep from being in the middle of trouble. Then I remembered the gun he'd brought over when it looked like the biker wannabe would be giving me trouble, and knew the man hadn't called in sick.

  I ordered a rum and Coke without the rum, and the new bartender brought it to me without comment. He also charged me for the drink I'd ordered rather than the one I'd gotten, but that was perfectly all right. It wouldn't have made sense for me to come to a bar to drink soda while I refused any offers of companionship, so pretending I was drinking just added to my cover.

  By the time I'd finished half my drink I'd refused two half-hearted proposals, and the headache I'd had was just about gone. I've been hit in the head before and gotten a headache from the effort before, but these days the ache didn't last very long. Which was a lucky thing, since aspirin in all its many forms no longer worked on me.

  It also finally came to me that the music hadn't started up again, which must have meant that the band was off rather than just taking a break. The band was off, the regular bartender was off, and the crowd was noticeably thinner than it had been… It looked like Tuesday was a slow night for Morgan's, and the mirror behind the bar showed me only two people - besides me - who were sitting and drinking alone. Everyone else had someone to talk to, mostly someone of the same gender.

  I finished the rest of my Coke slowly, but by then it was after midnight and James still hadn't shown up. He'd made his appearance a lot earlier the night before, and that probably meant he wasn't coming at all. I ordered another Coke, finished about a third of it, then got my cell phone out of my shoulder bag and called Detective Allen.

  "Hi, Hon, it's me," I said when Allen answered. "I'm still at the bar, but it's so dead here that I almost passed away twice myself. Have you and your friend had enough time alone that I can come home? I do have to be up early in the morning, after all…"

  "You're sayin' James hasn't shown up and you don't expect him to," Allen responded at once, understanding exactly what I was doing and telling him. "I think you're also remindin' me that your partner will be out searchin' for the harpy in the mornin', when he thinks he can get a better location on it. Am I right?"

  "You sure are," I said, keeping my smile on the inside. "So how about it?"

  "Yes, all right, we'll call it a night," he decided after only a small hesitation. "Will you need me to be there in the mornin'?"

  "Wonderful!" I exclaimed, letting the smile come out. "But no, that won't be necessary. See you soon. Bye."

  Once Allen had echoed my goodbye I switched off, seeing the commiserative smile the bartender wore. He now knew that my roommate had had a hot date, and I'd come to the bar to be out of the way. That told him why I hadn't really been drinking and why I'd turned down those proposals, and he obviously felt sorry for me. He also went to the register and brought back more change to add to what still sat on the bar. Clearly he'd decided that I shouldn't have to pay for being a good guy, which was really nice of him. For that reason I left him a more than decent tip before heading for the way out.

  When I got back to the Saturn I turned on the car, then just sat for a minute waiting. As soon as I felt sure that the wait was over, I shook my head.

  "You shouldn't have done that, George," I said, speaking to the empty air in the back of the car while looking in the rearview mirror. "If I knew you were there, the harpy might have known the same."

  "I haven't been partners with the harpy for a year," George's voice came, the rear view mirror showing me the way he began to become visible. "Besides, even if the harpy did notice me, I'm nothing but a ghost. If a ghost decides to haunt someone, why would a harpy care?"

  "We don't know how intelligent that harpy is," I pointed out, really disliking the smugness in his voice. "For all we know the thing might have heard of us, and if so she'd probably do something to keep James out of the bar. Do you really want to be responsible for more people being killed in that way?"

  This time George didn't have an immediate answer, so I shifted into reverse and moved out of the parking space. If George had still been alive I would have pressed the point, but death had made my partner a little bit easier to reason with on certain matters. He'd come along to make sure I was all right, but that wasn't enough to keep him from feeling guilty if someone died because of him.

  It didn't take long to get back to the motel, and Freemont was smiling when he let me into the suite. It was obvious he knew there hadn't been any trouble, and we didn't waste any breath discussing the waste of time. We only had a few hours before we needed to be up and out, and I, for one, wanted to spend the time getting some sleep.

  I laid out fresh clothes before grabbing a quick shower and then getting into bed, but all the rush was a real waste of time. When the wake-up call came I still had trouble convincing my eyes to open and stay that way, which made me wonder if I might have stumbled over a new way to confront a harpy. What would the thing do if I yawned in her face instead of screaming? Would the shock of that kind of reaction freeze the harpy in place long enough for the rest of the team to kill it? Since everything is possible I supposed that reaction was possible, but the longer my eyes were open the less I wanted to test the theory.

  It was much too early for me to be hungry and Freemont was too … distracted to think about his stomach, so as soon as we were dressed we went down to the car. It was still dark out, of course, but that didn't stop Freemont from knowing where he wanted to go. He directed me to a side road rather than to the highway, and we drove south for a while before the road curved east. We continued east for quite a while, circling around the area where Morgan's was, and then the road turned north. We went north for about ten minutes, and then Freemont had me pull over.

  "Yes, this is the place I want to be," he said, his stare still on something I couldn't see. "This is where I should be able to - "

  The words broke off very abruptly as he gave all his attention to whatever it was he saw. He "watched" carefully for at least five minutes, and just as the sun began to come up he sighed and leaned back.

  "That helped quite a lot," he said, sending me that beautiful smile of his. "I can now pin down the harpy's location much more closely than before, but there's still a lot of ground to cover in the area. A circle with a circumference of about five miles."

  "That's closer than anyone else has gotten," I pointed out as I checked both ways before u-turning onto the road and back the way we'd come. "If the area is as open as you said, we might get lucky and be able to locate the right house with only a little sneaking around."

  "Detective Allen might be able to check without the sneaking around," George put in from the back seat. "At the very least he'll be glad to hear that we're making progress."

  I nodded without saying anything while Freemont did the actual answering in words, giving all my attention to driving. I'd put on my
sunglasses before starting back, but the rising sun wasn't what was giving me trouble. Tonight was the full moon, and I could already feel it calling to me. Not as strongly as it would call later, but the whisper was already starting…

  When we got back to our suite, I let Freemont call room service for breakfast before I tried to reach Detective Allen. It was still very early in the morning, and there was a chance he hadn't gotten up yet. If I'd reached his voice mail I wouldn't have been surprised, but he picked up on the second ring.

  "I hope you're callin' to say your partner found somethin'," he stated, not even bothering with a hello. The caller ID on his phone had told him who was on the line, and the desperation in his voice made it impossible for me to feel bothered by the abruptness.

  "Freemont was able to get the harpy's location pinned down to an area about five miles wide," I answered at once. "Does that count as finding something?"

  "That all depends on where the area is," Allen answered just as quickly. "If he still thinks the location is out of the city, that might not be bad at all."

  "The area is definitely out of the city, so you might want to get together with my partner and a map," I said. "My advice would be to find the center of the circle and then work outward, but there's no guarantee you'll find the nest near the center. It could just as easily be on the outskirts."

  "I should be able to come by with the map in a couple of hours," Allen said, now sounding thoughtful. "First I want to make sure that everythin' is set for goin' back to Morgan's tonight."

  "Going back to Morgan's tonight," I echoed, suddenly face to face with a subject I'd known would come up - but still hated the idea of. "I can't go to Morgan's tonight, Allen. There's … something else I have to do."

  "More important than catchin' the harpy?" Allen said, a touch of outrage in the question. "It can't be vampires again, I heard all about last night when I went back to the station. Can't you put off whatever it is?"

  "Wish I could," I muttered, hating, really hating the need to pull the rest of the words out of my throat. "Tonight is the full moon, which means I'll need the location of the closest deer herd, preferably in the most deserted wooded area. I'll … appreciate it if you would bring directions to the location when you come with the map."

  There was dead silence on the other end of the phone for almost a full minute, and then I heard a sigh.

  "Now I understand," Allen said, sadness heavy in his voice. "That's the real reason you didn't stay on the force in New York, and why… Of course I'll bring directions, no problem. We have a designated area a few miles outside the city that's kept stocked with deer, so - Please tell your partner that I ought to be there in a couple of hours."

  "I'll let Freemont know," I said, feeling like crap. "And Allen - thanks."

  "No problem," he answered, and then we both said goodbye.

  "Let Freemont know what?" George asked while our other partner simply sat on the couch with the fingers of both hands rubbing at his eyes.

  "Allen said he'd be here in a couple of hours with a map of the area," I responded, going to a chair to sit down. "He also understands now why I didn't call him when I felt the need for company. Once he thinks about it for a short while, he'll be really relieved."

  "And I think he'll be more disappointed than relieved," George disagreed, his tone downright stony. "If I were in his place that's what I'd be."

  I tried to smile at George to thank him for the support, but the smile didn't work very well. Freemont had already known about what I'd say and how I'd feel about having to say it, and that was why he still rubbed at his eyes.

  It looked like I would do best by staying in my bedroom during Allen's visit…

  Chapter Fourteen

  Breakfast for me consisted of more liver, almost raw and soaked in blood. My mouth watered hard when I saw the food, and this time when I finished the last of it I couldn't keep from licking my fingers. Freemont pretended not to notice; he just sat calmly opposite me at the table and ate his own food almost as eagerly.

  I left the table then and went into the bathroom to wash my hands and face and drink some water, then I went into my bedroom and lay down for a nap. I didn't have to nap on the day the full moon was due, but the time went easier if I did. Especially since I would not sleep again until tomorrow morning, when the moon went down. I always tried to keep from being out among people during the day, the memory of what had happened when I hadn't making me downright eager not to repeat the time under less suitable circumstances.

  Lying back on top of the covers and closing my eyes brought the memory of that time of trouble, playing like an unwanted video against the back of my closed eyelids. George, Freemont, and I had started our partnership not long before so we'd needed money even more than usual, but the rogues seemed to have taken the week off. For those reasons we agreed to go after an ordinary bail-jumper, a human male who was supposed to be on the dangerous side.

  When I'd heard about how dangerous the man was I'd smiled to myself, knowing perfectly well that he couldn't be nearly as dangerous as the rogues I'd been hunting. He was wanted for armed robbery and was suspected of having killed a few people even though there had been no evidence of the murders to hold him on. If there had been evidence of the murders he wouldn't have gotten bail, but as it was…

  So Freemont used his talent to find the man, and then George and I went after the fugitive. It was the day of the full moon, but I'd stuffed myself full of almost-raw meat so there shouldn't have been any trouble. The fugitive was hiding out in Jersey City after having changed his name, but he couldn't change the way he looked. George and I tracked him down in a bar where he was drinking with a lot of other unsavory types.

  I sighed as I saw myself walk up to the man and tell him to put his glass down and come along quietly. He turned just his head to look at me, then he did put his glass down and stand up. He was at least five inches taller than me and close to twice as wide, and the unblinking look in his dark eyes gave nothing of a warning. His arm came out of nowhere as he tried to backhand me, but I didn't go down the way he obviously expected me to. He was only human, after all, not a shapeshifter or a vampire.

  But the blow triggered something inside me, and the next instant I'd picked him up by the throat and had thrown him into the closest wall. I vaguely remember growling low in the back of my throat as I went after him, stalking over to where he lay on the floor near the wall staring at me with a dazed look in his eyes. I didn't yet have fangs and claws, but I vaguely remember thinking that that didn't matter. I was still going to shred him and then feast on his carcass.

  I was only a few feet away from my designated victim when he seemed to realize what was about to happen to him. The expression in his eyes went from dazed to terrified so fast that it looked like magic, and then he actually whimpered before fainting. All the other hardcases in the bar had scrambled to get out of my way, but what stopped me three feet away from the fugitive was the fact that a man like him had fainted from terror.

  Terror of me. He was only human, after all, and for that reason didn't stand a chance against me. But I was supposed to be the good guy, not him… And then I noticed George, hovering to the right with the most dreadful look on his face. It came to me that George had been trying to figure out a way to stop me, but hadn't been able to. He was at least as terrified as the fugitive, maybe more so. George had known exactly how I'd feel if I came out of the madness to find I'd -

  I can't say I regained full control of myself then, but I did get back enough to cuff the fugitive and drag him to our car. The man woke up on the way back to New York, but there wasn't a single word out of him. When I turned him over to the authorities he almost ran to the lockup, so desperate to get away from me that he preferred to be behind bars. I managed to remember to get a receipt for the delivery, but just turned the receipt over to Freemont before locking myself in my bedroom. Going to collect what was owed us was going to have to wait until the next day, when the possibility of an argu
ment before I got paid didn't send chills of fear down my spine…

  Falling asleep should have brought me nightmares of the time I'd been thinking about, but strangely enough it didn't. When I woke up I couldn't even remember having dreamed, not to mention having had a nightmare. But I did know that most of the day was gone, the rising impatience inside me saying more clearly than words that night was getting closer and closer.

  I went into the bathroom to wash my face again and get another drink of water, then went out to the sitting room to find Freemont reading and George gone off somewhere. I could smell the coffee in Freemont's cup and in the pitcher he'd had brought up, but as usual on the day of the full moon I had no interest in caffeine.

  "Detective Allen and I marked his map," Freemont said with a smile when he saw me. "Almost a third of the area is undeveloped and the rest consists mostly of private homes, but that's both the advantage and the drawback of that section of real estate. There are a lot fewer houses, but those houses belong to people with money and pull. Getting a search warrant for even one of the houses could be difficult. Warrants for more than one house will probably be impossible."

  "Tomorrow or the next day I'll go through the area myself," I said, sitting down in a chair. "I know you can't detect the harpy unless she's waking up or about to fall asleep, but her protective blanket of magic shouldn't also hide her scent if I get close enough. Where's George?"

  "He didn't say where he was going, but I have an idea about his plans," Freemont answered with a wry smile. "When he heard Detective Allen talk about the problem he'd probably have in getting a search warrant, I could almost see George climbing up on one of his soapboxes. I think George has gone to start checking out those houses, happily proving he doesn't need a search warrant."