Dead-Tective Box Set

  "What are you doing here?" he growled.

  I stumbled backward and my back hit a tower of crates. "T-Tim told me to come here. Something happened to him," I replied.

  Vincent straightened and raised an eyebrow. "What happened?"

  "H-he was murdered," I told him.

  Vincent's eyes widened and he hurriedly placed his hand over his chest. Whatever he felt it made his thin mouth turn up in a twisted grin. "So he's dead at last? How wonderful."

  "Wonderful?" I gasped. After fleeing from cops and sneaking around half the city to find this place this psycho from the box was the one I'd been waiting to meet? I cursed Tim for his stupidity in leading me here, but I wouldn't let anybody celebrate his death. My hands balled into fists and I marched up to Vincent. "Tim's dead, you idiot! Don't you know what that means?"

  "Yes, but you don't." Vincent lunged for me and his hands grasped my shoulders. He slammed me back against the crates with such force that their heavy frames rattled and the air was knocked from my lungs.

  I saw stars, but through those stars I noticed Vincent's eyes burned with an unnatural light. "What the hell are you doing?" I exclaimed.

  Vincent grinned and leaned forward to brush his nose against my cheek. I shuddered at the contact of his cold skin against mine. His nostrils flared. "The human beauty is so fragile. A single bullet and your light is extinguished." I flinched when one of his hands slid up my thigh and came to rest on my waist. He pressed his body against mine, pinning me to the crates. "You have such beauty, but I won't save it for eternity."

  "W-what are you talking about?" I breathed. "Tim just told me to come here and-"

  I jumped when Vincent tightened his grasp on my shoulders. My bones creaked under the strain. "Tim was an idiot, and I will thank him for these many years of slavery by draining you of every last drop of blood," he whispered. My heart skipped a beat and I wiggled in his grasp, but he was strong, unbelievably strong. His eyes traveled down to my neck, and then back up to my wide, scared eyes. "Wouldn't that be fitting revenge?" he mused. He was toying with me like a cat with a mouse. His amusement vanished when he glanced at my left hand. His eyes widened in fury and fear, and he pulled his face away from mine. "What are you doing with that?" he growled. I didn't know what he was talking about until I remembered the ring on my finger. "Take it off!" he demanded as one of his hands swept down to grab the ring.

  A bright, white light erupted from the ring. The heat was so intense I could feel the width of the narrow band etch into my finger. Vincent screamed in agony and I was released from his iron grasp. I dropped to the ground and raised myself up on my side in time to watch Vincent stumble backward. He clutched at his left hand where another intense light emanated. I realized he wore the same ring as mine. A few yards from me he collapsed to his knees and the light swallowed him. My only thought was to get the ring off before the same happened to me, so I grasped the ring in my hand and pulled. The ring slowly slid across my finger, and in the background of my struggle Vincent cried out in horrible pain. The moment the ring slipped off my finger the light vanished, but I was left with a searing pain in my finger. The ring dropped onto the ground and rolled away. I glanced down at my quivering hand and saw a few engraved letters on my skin fade into my body.

  I slumped against the crate wall and my breaths came out in haggard gasps. I heard Vincent groan, and I glanced over to where he lay. He was huddled in a tight, quivering ball, but he soon pulled himself from his cocoon and turned to face me. His eyes were full of a confusing mix of hate, anger, and fear. He struggled to his feet, but I was as weak as a lamb. I could do nothing but sit there as he towered over me.

  I expected him to attack me again, but instead his arms dropped to his sides and a sick smirk slid onto his lips. "So that's what he planned," he hoarsely whispered. "Smart boy."

  Chapter 3

  "Tim?" I croaked.

  Vincent's reply was to shuffle toward me, and I pressed myself against the crate. When he reached me he knelt down on one knee and looked me over. I cringed and prepared for death, but he did nothing. He only stared at me with those unblinking, intense eyes.

  His inaction made me mad. I was tired of being the mouse. "If you're going to kill me then do it," I demanded.

  "I wish I could," he quipped.

  I blinked in bewilderment. "But you-"

  "The circumstances have changed, and so have both of us," he interrupted. "What did Timothy tell you about our relationship?"

  The change in subject was so sudden that I habitually shrugged. My whole body ached with the motion. "He said you were partners."

  Vincent chuckled. "Is that what he told you? That we were some sort of a team? All for one and one for all?" I cringed, but nodded. He scoffed and his face twisted into disgust. "We were nothing of the sort." That was all I needed to hear from this psychopath. I slowly scooted along the floor, but Vincent slammed a hand against the crate next to my head that arrested my escape. "You're to go nowhere," he told me.

  I frowned. "If you're not going to kill me then what are you going to do to me?" I asked him.

  "I'm going to protect you." I raised a doubtful eyebrow, and he impatiently sighed. "You're a slow one, aren't you? Have you even figured out what I am?"

  "A psychopath?" I guessed.

  He smirked. "True, but that doesn't describe my species."

  "I just want to-ah!" A spasm of pain shot through my sore hand. I doubled over and clutched at my shivering fingers. Vincent grabbed my shoulders and held me still. I grit my teeth and raised my head to look at him. "What's going on?" I asked him.

  "The union isn't finished yet. Where is the ring?" he asked me. My eyes traveled to the fallen lantern. The ring had rolled up beside the glass casing around the flame. Vincent followed my gaze, and he left me to snatch the ring and return. "Put this back on," he instructed me as he held out the ring. I squished against the crate and shook my head. I wasn't going through that pain again. He sneered at me and shoved the ring into my palm. "Put it-"

  His insistence was interrupted by the sound of guns outside the warehouse. Bullets penetrated the thin walls of the old building and shot over our heads. I swung my arms over my head and ducked down. Vincent threw himself over me and pressed me to the floor. He stuck his head close to mine and his long teeth looked impossibly sharp. "Put on the ring or we're both dead!" he snapped.

  I was too panicked to argue, and hurriedly slipped the ring onto my finger. I clutched my hand as pain shot out from the band of metal and into my body. Vincent clenched his teeth and I heard his stifled cries as his pain mirrored mine. The gunfire outside was replaced by a more hideous sound of a large wolf howling. I heard the front door being ripped off its hinges and tossed aside. Clawed feet clinked quickly along the hard floor, and through the pain of the ring I imagined a far worse death than the one promised by Vincent. I feared I would be torn apart by some bloodthirsty hound. How wrong I was.

  The clinking claws came closer and rounded the corner of a nearby crate stack. I turned my head and my eyes widened when, by the light of the dim lantern, I beheld not a large dog, but a wolf creature larger than a man. It spotted us and raised itself onto its hind legs. The wolf thing tipped its head back and howled. The awful noise echoed through the metallic building and sent a shiver through my body. It dropped back down on all four legs and raced toward us.

  Vincent flew off me and jumped between the monster and me. When the beast was a foot from him Vincent kicked out a leg in a circular motion and knocked the monster's front legs out from under it. The wolf crashed head-first into the hard floor and slid into the crate of boxes behind me. The wooden boxes toppled over him. I crawled away, but the pain wracked my body so badly that I couldn't find the strength to stand.

  Vincent grabbed one of the crates and tore a long, jagged steak from the wood. The wolf beast burst from the crates and howled in rage. Its golden eyes fell on me, and I screamed when it lunged at me. Vincent tackled the beast from the side and the p
air of them rolled away from me. I backed up and my hand knocked into something hard but light. It was the lantern. I grabbed the lantern and swung it in front of me to watch the tussle.

  The beast righted itself and dove at Vincent, but he was too fast and dodged the thing's claws. Vincent slipped behind the wolf and raised the stake to plunge the weapon into the creature's back. The beast turned the tables by using Vincent's trick of round-kicking a leg to knock him off his feet. Vincent fell hard on his back, and the beast turned around to tear Vincent to pieces. I thought fast and threw the lantern at the beast's back. The flame hit the thing's fur and caught the hair on fire.

  The creature screamed and waved its arms in a futile attempt to to reach back and extinguish the flames. Vincent grabbed the stake and jabbed it into the creature's chest. The wolf released a long, terrible howl before it fell over dead. The fur continued to burn, and by its light I watched the thing transform from a furry demon to a barely-clothed man. Once the transformation was complete the fire was extinguished from the no-longer existing hair on his back. I was completely enveloped in darkness, still wracked with pain, and alone with Vincent.

  I shrieked when I felt myself lifted into a pair of strong arms. "Quiet," Vincent ordered me. He held me against his chest and dashed away from the front door and through the maze of crates. We quickly reached the rear, and he turned and slammed his back into a heavy metal door that led outside. I was grateful to be able to see where we were going.

  That is, until Vincent raced along the rear of the other warehouses. His speed was impossibly fast for a human. The ground sped by in a flurry of rocks, broken pieces of glass, and trash, and in a few seconds we covered a distance that would have taken me at least a minute to cross. I tried to free myself and get off this horrible ride, but he only pressed me harder to his chest. "Don't move," he growled.

  I stiffened and obeyed his command, especially when I saw how many cars and people stood in front of the warehouses. There were at least half a dozen cars and twice that number of men dressed in black suits. They had dark sunglasses over their eyes, and all of them were armed. Half of them stood at the entrance to the end warehouse, but the other half was spread out between the gate and where we stood behind the center warehouse. Vincent crept up to the front of the warehouse where stood a few crates, but any further and we'd be seen.

  We heard shouts from our former warehouse. The body of the wolf man had been discovered. The men who stood in front of the gate glanced in that direction, and Vincent took advantage of their distraction. He shot out of our hiding spot behind a few crates and raced to the gate. The chain-link gate was shut, but that didn't slow him down. The men in sunglasses noticed our escape and turned their guns on us. Shots rang out and bullets whizzed by our heads. Their aim must have been as bad as a Storm Trooper's because they didn't hit Vincent. At least, he didn't slow down, but my body felt pricked by dozens of pins. Then something hot dug into my shoulder as one of the men hit their mark, me. The bullet flew through my shoulder and my blood soaked my shirt.

  We were ten yards from the gate when Vincent leapt up into the air. The momentum of his prodigious speed flew us over the top of the barbed wire and onto the other side. He landed with a crunch on the pavement. The closed gate slowed down our pursuers and gave us a head-start down the river road. We entered the asphalt jungle before their cars left the warehouse island, and Vincent didn't have any trouble losing them in the maze of dark alleys and narrow, dingy streets.

  Regardless of the danger I was glad when he stopped us in an alley that showed off a splendid mix of dankness and squalor. My wound still bled and the pain was nearly as bad as what the ring had caused. I cried out when he set me down a little too hard against a brick wall. "Quiet," he commanded.

  I glared at him. "Quiet? There's a god damn bullet hole in my shoulder!" I snapped back at him.

  Vincent ignored my whining and ripped open my bloodied shirt sleeve. The blood had dribbled down my arm and chest, and covered half my body. I expected him to wrap it with the torn sleeve, but Vincent only stared unblinkingly at the wound. "Vincent?" I asked him. He didn't reply and I nervously shifted beneath his unwavering gaze. His hand shot out and grabbed my shoulder to hold me still. My eyes caught sight of his clothes and for the first time I noticed it was riddled with bullet hole. Those guys in suits hadn't missed, they'd shot him full of lead. He shouldn't have been alive, much less holding me down. My heart raced as I remembered how he'd earlier threatened to kill me. Vincent's sharp teeth gleaned in the weak light of the night, but his pallor stood out in the dark shadows of the alley. He looked like a creature of the night, like a- "Vampire!" I gasped.

  Vincent lunged forward and buried his teeth into my shoulder. I yelped and tried to jerk away, but he held me tight. The initial pain of his penetration melted away and was replaced with a sensual pleasure that spread out from my shoulder. My eyes widened as my body heated, and liquid pooled between my legs. I gasped for air and my face flushed with the creeping need that flooded over my body.

  My hot need was slowly replaced with lethargy as I felt Vincent pull my blood from my body. My head lulled to one side and I couldn't keep my eyes open. I thought I would lose consciousness, but a bright light shot through my closed eyelids. The brilliance burned with the intensity of the sun, and reawakened my mind and body. I heard Vincent cry out and opened my eyes in time to see him stumble to the opposite side of the alley. He hissed and snarled at my hand, and I saw that the ring on my finger was the source of the light.

  However, it wasn't the only source. His own finger was lit with the same light. He clutched onto his hand and ground his long, sharp fangs together to stifle his cries of pain. His light pulsed and stretched out into a long, thin beam of light that wound its way up toward the sky. It stretched over the distance of the alley and connected with my ring. My eyes shot open and I gasped when I felt an enormous amount of strength enter my body through the beam of light. The lethargy vanished, replaced by an energy that made me feel like I was on a thousand energy drinks, and they were all working.

  Vincent screamed and fell to his knees. His face turned a ghastly white and the flesh seemed to shrink and shrivel from his bones. For all his psychotic antics I felt sorry for him. The moment the emotion rose up inside me the light connecting us vanished. The world slipped back into the darkness of night. The energy in my body lessened, but the pain from my wound was gone. When I glanced at my shoulder I realized that the wound had disappeared. All that remained was the mess of blood.

  Chapter 4

  I heard a groan and turned my head to Vincent's dark shape on the opposite side of the alley. He still sat on his legs and his body shook with a violent tremor. A hoarse chuckle slipped from of his pale lips. "Quick learner, girl, but you nearly killed us both," he whispered.

  His weakened state and my healthy state emboldened me, and I scowled at him. "Me kill us? You were the one sucking me dry," I shot back.

  "Merely a survival instinct," he argued.

  "That nearly killed us both?" I pointed out.

  Vincent stumbled to his feet and I scuttled to mine. If he wanted to try his luck with me again then he was going to have to catch me first. "It was necessary to finish the connection between us."

  I blinked. "Come again?"

  He straightened and winced when his back erupted like a string of firecrackers. "I mean what I mean. We are connected."

  "I got that part." I paused, furrowed my brow, and shook my head. "Actually, I didn't get that part. What are you talking about?"

  He held up his left hand and showed off the ring that was identical to mine. "These pieces of jewelery were forged with more than metal. They were infused with the blood of an ancient vampire and a spiritually strong human. When a vampire and a human wear them they become bonded to one another. If one feels pain, the other will feel an echo of that pain. If one dies, the other dies."

  I held up my hands in front of me. "Wait a minute. If what you're saying is true,
and it sounds Cracker Box crazy, then you really are a vampire?"

  "Yes."

  "And if you tried to kill me you'd get hurt?" I guessed.

  "Yes."

  "And you're an ass?"

  "No."

  I shrugged. "I thought I'd try."

  "Very amusing." His face was as funny as the grave. "But we don't-"

  "Wait a minute." I held up my own ring. "If Tim had this ring and he's dead, how come you aren't dead?" I wondered.

  "He wasn't wearing the ring at the time of his death. Instead we find it on you," Vincent pointed out.

  "Why would he take it off? Better yet, how did he take it off?"

  "I do not know, but we have more immediate problems," he reminded me.

  I frowned. "Yeah, you're right. Those guys might find us again. I gotta get to the cops and-"

  "-and tell them what?" Vincent asked me. "You escaped from men in black suits who had a werewolf in their employ and were saved by a vampire?"

  I scowled at him. "I have to tell somebody about this. It's too big for me."

  Vincent frowned and tilted his nose up in disdain. "There is one person in this world who would be interested in what you have to say."

  "And who might that be, Count Chocula?"

  "Frederick Batholomew."

  "That's a mouthful."

  "His mouth is certainly a problem."

  "Why do we need to go to this person rather than somebody who might at least give me protection?" I asked him.

  "I am your protection, and Batholomew has other uses."

  I looked over the psychotic vampire and cringed against the brick wall behind me. "Hell no are you my protection. You've tried to kill me twice in twenty minutes, and for me that's a record for assassination attempts on my life."

  "I am satiated, and our bond is complete. You have nothing left to fear from me," he replied.

  I wasn't comforted. "Uh-huh, so you're supposed to protect me like you protected Tim?" I countered.