Jim Hines - Libriomancer

“Nice,” I said.

“You should see what I can do with rosebushes.”

I checked the nearby trailers to make sure nobody had noticed. The dog continued to protest our arrival to all who would listen, but either the neighbors had left for work, or else they had learned to tune out Ted’s pet.

Work. “Oh, crap. Remind me to call the library when we finish here.” I was supposed to open this morning. How many angry messages would be waiting on my machine when I returned home?

Lena opened the door and braced herself as a small, hyperactive beagle pounced at her legs, barking and sniffing. He didn’t appear aggressive, just happy. His entire butt wagged as he examined Lena’s sneakers.

Smudge shifted on my shoulder, watching the dog closely. “Watch yourself,” I said to Lena. “You know how dogs are with trees.”

She punched my arm, but did issue a stern, “Don’t even think about it,” to the beagle.

Ted’s home was unchanged from my last visit, well-kept and smelling faintly of barbeque. The living room was to the left, with a handmade entertainment center dominating one wall, and a decent collection of video games filling the shelves. On our right was a small kitchen and dining area.

I peeked in the fridge. No sign of blood, which was good. The freezer was bursting with venison packed into plastic bags, each one dated in black marker. “Ted’s a good hunter. He doesn’t bother to bring a bow or rifle, but ever since our ‘talk’ a few years ago, he’s made sure to pay for his hunting license every year. It’s amazing how quickly you start following the rules when someone sticks a cranial explosive to the base of your skull. He hasn’t had so much as a parking ticket since then.”

I walked down the hallway into the small utility room in the back, where peeling linoleum and the scent of antiseptic greeted us. The beagle grew even more excited, which I wouldn’t have thought possible. His collar and tags rang against the empty steel dish on the floor.

“Sorry,” I said. “No food until your owner wakes up.” I opened the storage closet to find a pile of rags and towels stuffed haphazardly onto the shelves. I dropped to one knee and reached past the towels until I found the tiny steel handle sunk into the back. A tug rewarded me with a metallic click. Standing, I pulled the entire closet, which swiveled out to reveal an aluminum ladder secured to the wall studs with what appeared to be old metal coat hangers.

Lena squeezed past, the brushing of her body against mine momentarily distracting me as she peered into the dark hole in the floor.

“Ted sleeps hard,” I assured her. I double-checked Smudge, who seemed far more anxious about the beagle than the vampire below.

She descended one-handed, holding both bokken in her other hand. I followed, and the beagle’s yips changed to a drawn-out, pathetic whine as he watched us from the edge of the hole.

The air below was damp and cool. A single incandescent bulb hung overhead. I found the chain and pulled, illuminating cinder block walls and a low ceiling lined with cobwebs and daddy longlegs. Ted’s makeshift cellar was the size of a small bedroom. A pair of metal support pillars were stuck into the middle of the cement floor, bracing the underside of the trailer.

Ted’s coffin rested on two wide logs, positioned like fat tree stumps. The coffin was glossy black, trimmed in silver, and looked entirely out of place in these dingy surroundings. The thing was polished so well I could see us both reflected in its surface. I wondered idly, not for the first time, how he had gotten it down here. Had he simply dug out a cellar and then moved the trailer into position on top, using his vampiric tricks to erase the curiosity of anyone who might have questioned?

Half of a Ping-Pong table was shoved against a wall. Ted’s old paddle and a single yellowed ball rested on the corner. He had painted a net on the wall, giving him a practice table where he could play against himself. A minifridge hummed beneath the table. An orange extension cord trailed up through a heavily caulked hole in the ceiling.

I checked the fridge and pulled out one of eight identical blue thermoses, each one dated like the venison from upstairs. I unscrewed the lid and took a whiff.

“Blood?” Lena guessed.

“Probably deer blood.” I stepped toward the coffin and pulled the detonator from my pocket. “Go ahead.”

Lena tucked one bokken through her belt, readied the other, and yanked open the lid. The black barrel of a sawed-off shotgun poked out. From inside the coffin, Ted shouted, “Who the hell are-?”

Lena slammed the lid back down on the barrel, pinning it long enough for her to grab the end. Ted swore as he struggled to control his gun. I crouched low, trying to stay out of the line of fire.

Lena’s lips tightened in a smile. She adjusted her stance and thrust the gun backward, ramming the stock into Ted’s body. Ted’s cursing grew in pitch and intensity as Lena twisted the shotgun free and set it on the Ping-Pong table.

“Since when do you sleep armed, Ted?” I asked.

“Isaac?” The lid opened, and his words turned wary. “What brings you out this way?”

“Three vampires tried to kill me at work yesterday. A Wallacea showed up at my house early this morning to finish the job.”

“A what?”

“Bug-eater.”

“Yet here you are.” He snorted and sat up, pushing the lid back. A rubber pad glued to the wall protected the coffin’s edge. “Maybe the next one will have better luck.”

Ted was a small, slender man with wild eyes, wilder hair, and a complexion that would have made Snow White jealous. He was wearing nothing but ratty gray sweatpants, revealing a lean, bony torso. A vivid red mark on his right shoulder showed where Lena had rammed the gun into him.

I tossed him a thermos. He unscrewed the lid and took a long drink. Bloodshot eyes flitted from me to Lena and back. I could see the tension in the corded muscles of his neck and shoulders. The longer we waited in silence, the more nervous he’d get.

He smelled like death and Old Spice, the latter being the best thing he had found to overpower the former. When he spoke, his lips peeled back to reveal pale, receded gums and gaps among his ivory teeth where his fangs had once been. “Who’s the fat chick?”

“Oh, good, Ted. Insult the woman who just took your gun away.” I raised the detonator, earning a low snarl. “Her name’s Lena Greenwood. She’s the one who’s going to humiliate you-again-if you give us any crap.”

“Yah, I know that name. Tree lover, right?” He pointed to the trapdoor. “Would one of you bring Jimmer down here before the damn fool jumps and breaks his neck?”

The beagle looked ready to do just that. I could hear his claws scraping the edge of the hole as he peered down at us, his entire body quivering. He whined piteously as I approached. The instant I held out my arms, he launched himself into the air. I nearly dropped the detonator, but managed to catch both it and the dog. I set him down, and he raced toward the coffin.

Ted dipped a finger into the thermos and offered the red-coated digit to the dog, who reared up and began lapping at the blood.

“If you’ve made yourself a vampire beagle-” I began.

“Nah, Jimmer just likes the taste.” He set the thermos in the corner of the coffin and stretched. Without looking, he grabbed a plastic lighter and a half-empty pack of cigarettes from a pocket in the coffin’s blue satin lining. “So what will it take to get rid of you so I can go back to sleep?”

“A clean blood test, for starters.” While he lit up, I opened the small pouch I had taken from the glove box. Inside was a compact plastic glucose meter, modified by the same engineer who had rigged his insulin pump to fight his vampirism. I uncapped a canister of blood test strips, pulled out a green one, and stuck it into the meter. “Which arm?”