Vincent's eyes narrowed. "A mere oversight on his part. If he had refrained from trouble during the day then I would have been of use to him."
"Great, so you're only useful for what? Twelve hours in a twenty-four hour day?" I remarked. "Or do vampires not have to sleep and you were just napping in that wooden box I found you in?"
"My body may need to rest during the day, but my powers are yours." He nodded at the ring. "That will offer you all the powers you need. Tim forsook the powers by giving you that ring."
I paused and furrowed my brow. "Wait, so during the day I'm kind of like a vampire?"
"Yes."
"But without that whole sun-burning thing?"
"Perhaps your incessant questions are better directed at Batholomew," Vincent suggested.
"I haven't agreed to go with you to him," I countered. Vincent stalked over to me. I tried to slide away, but he grabbed my arm and swung me into his arms like before. "Hey! Let me down! I can walk!"
"Not as fast as me."
I yelped when he took off down the road, carrying me at warp speed to another adventure.
I grasped onto his arms as we sped through city blocks like they were standing still. Actually, they were standing still, but we were still going really fast. I did notice we weren't going as fast as we had on our escape from Warehouse Island. Still, by the time Vincent put on the brakes we were several miles from the river, and for me we were several blocks from any familiar area. All around us were old factory buildings, hulking skeletons of industrialization with broken windows for eyes and gaping doors for mouths. The only living things besides me and-well, just me, were a few stray cats. There weren't even any streetlights to help me see into the streets that wound their way around the large structures. The only open spot to see the stars lay behind us, and that was just a large loading and unloading area for all the goods they used to manufacture.
Vincent opened his arms and dropped me onto the road. I yelped when I hit the pavement, and rubbed my sore posterity as I scowled up at him. "Do you mind being more careful next time?" I snapped at him.
"I would," he coolly replied.
"Thanks, I appreciate it."
Vincent ignored my snark and walked over to one of the buildings that actually had a pair of steel doors that were closed. He pushed them open and revealed what I expected, a mad scientist's laboratory filled with crazy-looking machines and bright, flashing lights. Wait, what?
I scrambled to my feet and gaped at the scene. "What the hell-?" I breathed out.
"Follow me," Vincent ordered. He stepped inside and the doors began to close behind him.
I hurried in after him and just barely missed a free, and painful, hip tucking procedure. My mouth was still agape as Vincent led me into the bowels of the science that bubbled, boiled, fizzed, and popped around me. There were vials of questionable goop against the left wall and the right wall was covered with diagrams, papers, graphs, sketches, doodles, and equations. The center floor was filled to overflowing with machines I could only guess at what they did, and others I didn't want to get that far with their purpose.
Vincent was unfazed by the weirdness around us and took me to the rear of the factory floor. In the center against the back wall sat a desk, and at the desk sat a strange little man. He had long white hair that was tied in a tail and ran down his back. The man wore a white lab coat that was stained with all the colors of the rainbow and others that didn't suggest anything that pretty. He had a long white mustache with pointed ends, and heavy eyebrows that covered the upper halves of his eyes. I placed his age somewhere between geriatric and Jurassic. He was hunched over a paper furiously writing away by the light of a simple desk lamp.
Vincent walked up to the desk, but I lingered a few yards back beside a tall spire that was either a gumball machine or a torture device. The old man didn't lift his head when he spoke up. "What are you doing here, and with a girl, no less? Did you take a bite out of your partner and pick up a new bride?" the old man quipped.
"Tim is dead," Vincent calmly replied.
The man's head snapped up and those bushy eyebrows crashed down. "Dead? Then why aren't I dancing over your dust?"
"Because he passed the ring on before he died." Vincent half turned and gestured to me. "This girl now has the ring."
The old man, who I realized must be the legendary Frederick Batholomew, turned his eyes on me. I nervously smiled and gave a small wave. "Um, hi," I replied.
Batholomew stood so quickly that his wooden chair toppled over. He scurried around the desk up to me and snatched my left hand from my side. His eyes looked over the ring on my finger, and his face fell. "By God, it is," he muttered. He turned to Vincent. "What happened?"
Vincent shrugged. "He was killed because he didn't wear the ring. Perhaps he wanted to accessorize."
The old man scoffed. "Tim wasn't that foolish. He must have had a reason for giving this girl the ring."
"He didn't give it to me," I spoke up. The men turned to me with interested expressions, and I shrank from their intense gazes. "That is, he just kind of left it in a box under my bed. He said if something happened to him I needed to take it and go to some warehouse."
"Our headquarters, or they were before this foolish woman led a werewolf to it," Vincent explained.
I glared at him. "I didn't lead anybody to it! I just followed what I was supposed to do on Tim's letter."
Batholomew raised an eyebrow. "Letter? May I see this letter?"
I patted myself down and my face paled. "I think I lost it."
"I have it," Vincent spoke up. He pulled the letter from inside his jacket, but he stuffed it back in the inner pocket when Batholomew grabbed for it. "This is between the two of us," he insisted, nodding at me.
"I think as Tim's closest friend and ally I have as much right to see his last words as anyone else," Batholomew argued. I got the feeling these two didn't get along.
"Um, boys?" I spoke up. They glanced back at me, but this time I wasn't cowed by their eyes. "Could I have my letter back? And could somebody please explain to me what the hell is going on here?"
Batholomew frowned and his eyes dodged over to Vincent. "How much does she know?"
"Enough to survive," Vincent replied.
"And hold a job!" I protested.
"As I said, enough to survive," he repeated.
"What do you know about this oaf here?" Batholomew asked me as he nodded to Vincent.
I glanced at Vincent and stuck out my tongue. "More than I want to know."
Batholomew smirked and set his hands on my shoulders. He guided me over to a dirty chair in front of the desk, set me in the seat, and seated himself on the nearest corner of his desk. A small avalanche of papers fell to the floor, but he ignored them. "We seem to be off on the wrong foot," he commented.
"The wrong body," I muttered.
"Allow me to introduce myself." He slid off the desk, stepped back and bowed at me. "My name is Frederick George Arthur Phillip Bartholomew, but those whom I respect call me Bat."
I raised an eyebrow. "Bat?" I repeated.
"Yes, perhaps because I seem to have a wonderful flight of imagination," he guessed.
"Or perhaps your disposition is more batty than any fictional vampire," Vincent quipped.
Bat shot him a glare, but turned back to me. "And what's your name?"
"Liz Stokes."
"Short for Elizabeth?"
"Yeah."
"A very pretty name." Bat walked around the desk, righted his chair and seated himself. He clapped his hands together and frowned. "Well, now that we have that polite gesture out of the way let's get down to business. Judging by your answer to my earlier question can I safely assume you know nothing of what's happened regarding our mutual friend, Tim?"
"All I know is Tim was my roommate, and now he's dead and I'm somehow stuck with this walking corpse." I jerked my thumb toward Vincent, who rolled his eyes.
Bat coughed to hide a snort. "I see. That isn't muc
h to go off of to understand your current predicament."
"And what's my current predicament?"
"That you've fallen into the thick of the world of the supernatural and are now bound to a very foolish and dangerous fellow."
Chapter 5
My face fell and my hands shook. I balled them together in my lap, but I couldn't ball my emotions together. They were all over the place. There was fear, sadness, fear, confusion, fear, curiosity, and did I mention fear?
"Come again?" I asked him.
"You have fallen into the world of vampires, ghosts, goblins, and the like," he rephrased.
"Uh-huh, and how do I get out of this world?" I wondered.
Bat leaned over the desk and the lamp cast shadows on the creases of his ancient face. "I'm afraid there's no escaping this world. Once you've dived into the rabbit hole the only way to go is forward and hope nothing snatches you from the shadows."
I leaned back and cringed. "Have you taken your medication lately?"
His eyebrows shot up and he sat back. "Now that you mention it, no." He opened a top drawer, pulled out a plastic container of pills, and popped a few into his mouth. "There. All better."
"So there's a way I can get out of this mess?"
"Oh no, there's no way in hell you can escape this mess. Or rather, you are in hell and there's no way out."
I numbly stood and my shaky legs tried to collapse, but I grasped the back of my chair. "I-I think I need to get back to my apartment. I have some-um, some pants to fold."
Bat smiled and shook his head. "I'm afraid that wouldn't be a wise idea. You may as well accept that your old life has vanished."
I glared at him. "Um, no? I'm not going to throw aside twenty-well, a lot of years of living because of a one-night stand with Count Creepy here." I gestured to Vincent, who was amused by my title for him.
"You mistake my meaning, Miss Stokes. You are very much mistaken in my intentions toward you. I only want the best for you and that ring you wear." He nodded at the metal band around my finger. "After all, both of you are the only possessions we have of Tim, and I'm sure he'd want his friends and-" he frowned and glanced at Vincent. "-acquaintances to care for them."
"First off, I'm nobody's possession. Second, I think this is all some horrible dream and if I ran into a wall I'd probably wake up," I countered.
Bat smiled and waved his hand at the far wall to my right. "Go right ahead, Miss Stokes, but be careful not to hit too hard. We wouldn't want you to receive a concussion for nothing."
I looked at the wall and decided maybe this wasn't a dream. "Or maybe I just need a really long nap and I can decide what to do after that," I suggested.
"I have a comfortable couch somewhere in this mess," Bat offered.
"My bed would work better, and I wouldn't want to trouble you guys." I backed up toward the entrance. "I mean, I've been enough trouble and-" My back hit something hard, and I didn't need to look around to know it was Vincent's body. My face fell and I tilted my head back to find myself staring into his dark eyes. "You're not going to let me leave, are you?"
"We can't, Miss Stokes," Bat insisted as he walked around the desk. "It's in all of our best interests that you stay here, at least for tonight."
I glared at the old man. "You think I'm so important with this ring then why don't you have this stupid thing?" I raised my ring hand, grasped the ring and gave it a hard pull. It didn't budge, and the only reward for my effort was a sore finger. I pulled again, but with the same painful result. "Anybody have a can of grease or oil?" I asked them.
Bat chuckled and walked up to me. He pointed at the ring. "That's stuck to you until you can learn to get it off."
"Learn to get it off? I'm pretty sure rings are supposed to just slip off," I shot back.
"Not this one. This one is a very unique ring."
I rolled my eyes and dropped my arms to my side. "I know, I know, forged with blood and some voodoo magic to bind us."
Bat raised an eyebrow and glanced at Vincent. "So this bag of hydrated dust has told you some things?" he guessed.
"Only that I'm stuck with him, but not for how long and how I'm supposed to get out of this mess," I replied.
Bat chuckled. "I can possibly give you answers to both those questions, but I'm afraid you're not going to like them," he told me.
I shrugged. "You just told me I'm stuck in this weird place with two weirdos after being chased by some crazy guys with a werewolf. How can this night possibly get worse?"
"It can get worse because you are going to have quite a few more nights with such, shall we call it, fun?" he answered.
My jaw jutted out and I glared at him. "Come again?"
Bat smiled and walked over to my chair. He turned it toward me and gestured to the seat. "If you would care to sit down again I will tell you what I can about that ring, our mutual friend Tim, and that ring that is stuck on your finger."
I frowned, but walked over and sat down in the chair. I folded my arms across my chest, crossed my legs, and tapped a finger on my arm. "I'm listening."
Bat walked in the space between my chair and the desk. "First off, your partner here is someone whom you shouldn't trust," he told me. Vincent frowned, but remained silent. "Secondly, that ring is the only item keeping him from killing us both."
"Then this thing's not doing a very good job because he's already tried that twice," I quipped.
Bat raised an eyebrow. "Really? Was the bond awakened?"
"As soon as you tell me what exactly this bond is I can answer that." I jerked my thumb at the silent undead. For the first time I wished he'd speak up. "He told me I was stuck with him and he'd protect me. He also said this ring would give me some sort of vampire powers."
"For once he's told the truth," Bat mused. "The ring does give you abilities beyond those of a normal human being, but only so long as you wear it."
"Right now that's not a problem."
Bat frowned and seated himself on the end of his desk. "Perhaps I am going about this the wrong way. Let me start at the beginning with Tim. He inherited the ring a few centuries ago from the original owner, the human who's blood is encased in that ring."
I blinked. "Centuries? You mean years, don't you?" I asked him.
Bat smiled and shook his head. "No, I mean centuries. The ring granted Tim a sort of immortality. So long as he wore the ring and this fool protected him, he wouldn't die."
My mouth slowly fell open and images of our lovemaking flashed through my mind. I shuddered. "Okay, that's just creepy. He didn't look a day over thirty."
"The ring froze his appearance, though I wish his mind had aged a little further," Bat mused with a playful grin on his face. He shook himself from his thoughts and pointed at the ring on my finger. "It has done the same to your appearance, though you don't know it yet, and so long as there isn't another lapse in protection then you will live a very long and eventful life."
"What if I don't want to live forever?" I countered.
"I'm afraid that is not an option. Once the bond is created only death can break it."
I stood so quickly I knocked my chair over. "So what the hell am I supposed to do for eternity? Pick up Social Security until I drain it dry?" I angrily asked them.
Bat slid off the desk and walked around the desk to his chair. "I recommend a hobby or an occupation." He paused in front of his chair and tapped a long nail against his chin. His eyes lit up with mischief. "Yes, that may work."
"What now?" I asked him, perfectly expecting more wonderful news.
"With Tim no longer with us his business will need a new owner. I think you would suit the role perfectly."
"Um, no?" I replied. Everything else I'd been dragged into that evening had been trouble.
Vincent had of the same opinion. "She isn't competent enough to manage the business," he spoke up.
Bat shrugged. "Perhaps not, but you can teach her."
Both Vincent and I jerked back in surprise. "No!" we shouted in unison.
The old man sat down in his chair and grinned at us over his entwined hands. "See? You two are getting along famously already. This should make your partnership much easier," he commented.
"Are you listening to either of us?" I asked him. "I don't know what this business was, but if it had anything to do with Tim's death I don't think I want to work in it."
"I believe it was exactly why Tim was killed, or shall we say murdered," Bat replied. I flinched. That's how the cop had phrased it. "I see I hit the hammer on the nail. What can you tell us about his death?"
I cringed and hesitantly shrugged. "Only that the cops think he was murdered."
Bat leaned back in his chair and nearly fell over. "How interesting that the police would be involved. Tim's dealings were outside their capacity as enforcers of human laws."
I'd had enough with this talk of humans, vampires and werewolves. I nervously smiled and backed up away from the desk. "You probably have a lot to think about with Tim-well, with Tim not being around." I felt a lump in my throat at that thought. "So I'll leave you two guys alone to deal with this and just be on my way." I spun around and found myself staring into Vincent's coat. I jumped back and threw up my arms. "Come on! I have no idea what you guys are talking about or what you want from me, okay? I'm just a stupid office girl who had a strange roommate. That's it! Nothing special about normal old me!"
"Tim evidently thought you were special enough to room with," Bat countered.
I spun around and glared at Bat. "Tim's dead!" I shot back. I cringed at my own words and at the hurt expression on the old man's face, but I wouldn't give up my chance to leave Crazy-ville. I sighed and my shoulders drooped. "Please just let me go. I promise I won't tell anyone about this place, or Vincent, or anything I saw tonight."
I expected some suave words to try to coax me back, but Bat sighed and gave a nod. "Very well. We will let you return to your normal life," he agreed.
I narrowed my eyes and leaned my head toward him. "You're not fooling me, are you?"
"Fooling you?" he repeated.
"Yeah, tricking me. Making me think I can get out of here and then WHAM! You drag me back kicking and screaming and convince me to stay."
Bat chuckled. "No. You are free to go, and we won't stop you from returning to your old life."
I backed up away from the desk and my eyes flickered between the pair. "All right, then. I guess I'll be going."