Part 9

My mouth was running before I even knew I was done being horribly girly and weak. Never before has this much s**t hit the fan for me at once, so I guess I should have expected to do things I normally never do, like faint and walk up talking about my grandmother.
“They all said she was crazy, seeing animals in people clothes and s**t all day, so they sent her to that asylum and let those quacks drug her up and she killed herself. Even Grandpaw believed she was crazy, but she wasn't, she couldn't have been, 'cause I'm not crazy I promise I'm not don't let them put me in one of those padded boxes, Trish, don't, please. We visited her once not a week before she strangled herself with the straight jacket and it was horrible. She wasn't mad when they sent her there but she was then. The boxes drive them all crazy you can see it in their eyes. It's not like I wanna see tigers in people clothes, it's never even happened before now, but don't let them put me in one of those boxes, Trish, don't, please, for the love of God kill me instead of those boxes. Anything but the boxes.”
I couldn't make myself shut up. Nothing is more incriminating than saying you aren't crazy, but I couldn't make myself stop. Everyone in the family says I am the spitting image of Grandmaw Jocey, and when I was six Grandpaw Mortimer let the doctors take her to the asylum for her delusions. He said she told him about seeing people with fur and animal features just walking around like normal folks, so he called the doctors and they took her away. She was only in there for two years before she killed herself in her cell, and after her funeral Grandpaw started getting on my mom about letting the doctors test me for the madness they claimed drove my grandmother out of her mind and into death. It was a lie though. Seeing things hadn't driven my grandmother to strangling herself with the sleeves of her straight jacket, being locked in that horrible dark box alone for days and weeks at a time drove her to it.
Not gonna lie, that's one of the main underlying reasons why I wanted to go to college out of the country. Grandpaw watched me like a bomb he expected to go off at any second the rest of his life, and I was not going to be put in a box and left to rot like Grandmaw. It was almost a relief when he died while I was in high school, but I could always see the fear in Mom's eyes, fear that she might one day have to send me to the asylum, and I could never have lived my life seeing that look every day.
It took me several minutes to figure out they each had one of my arms, Trish struggling to keep me still and Gordan not fazed by the flailing. Their lips moved, but I couldn't hear them over my begging. It clicked in my head that he had done this to me before, that damned blood sucking b*****d had turned my brain to mush and was ruining my life again. I was fine, better than fine, before his ugly a*s had crept into my life and fucked it all up. That pissed me off, and nothing clears up a case of hysteria and terror like good old fashioned bat s**t crazy woman wrath.
“I have to kill him,” I said and shut up, slowly sitting up and pulling myself out of their hands. Once they let me go I went to the bar, reaching over the counter to grab the bottle of Jack and one of the Batman shot glasses. Gordan had thing for Batman and drinking.
Thankfully, the man was back to looking like himself. That self looked like it was staring a gorgon in the face, but at least he didn't have whiskers anymore. “What?”
“It's his fault. I wasn't seeing s**t and visiting witches and being stalked in my dreams before he tried to kill me in that ally. I have to kill him.”
“You're talking about Puremount aren't you?” Trish took the stool to my right and downed the shot I handed her before she continued. “You're f*****g crazy, you know that? Do you know who you're dealing with?”
“No but he's been stalking me since Victorian England and he won't stop til he's dead. Or deader. I don't know I'm kinda brand f*****g new at this and already sick to death of it.”
“The Puremounts have been in power for over a thousand years in Europe. Right now there are four Puremounts established as queen or king of an area, the most powerful being his own f*****g grandmother, whom you have met, and their history is pretty f*****g bloody and vicious. So the baby of the family has a crush on you. He's only, like, two hundred years old, which is like a thirteen year old, but, you know, a thirteen year old who is instinctively able to kill the s**t outta you. Is killing him worth being tortured for the rest of your life? You can't even see a shifter without freaking out. Do you really wanna go toe to toe with a creature designed to hunt your kind? B***h, pour me another shot before I beat you over the head for being a moron!”
“Hey I probably wouldn't have even seen... whatever I saw if that fanged f**k hadn't come in and turned my life upside-down.” I poured us each another shot and knocked it back, coughing. “F**k I've been working with Gordan for how f*****g long before today? Or maybe it's your f*****g aunt and her God damned spelly necklace making me see s**t, but it's still that b******s fault 'cause I only went to see Krys because of him! I have to kill him, I have to.”
“I won't let you! There is no way you can kill Puremount and not spend the rest of your life being raped and eaten by whoever they want! And yes I said eaten! You're f*****g crazy if you think I will let you do that to yourself!”
Maybe it was the alcohol, but like a strike of lightening I had an idea that can only be described as super villain genius. I jumped from the stool and wobbled around Gordan, who was standing there staring at us like we were basket cases, and searched frantically for my briefcase. It had slide under the couch when I had fainted, so I sat on the floor and dug out the file the vampire queen had given me on the murders.
“The murders,” Gordan breathed. “It's perfect. We'll find the real murderers, get rid of them, and frame Puremount. His grandmother would have to execute him for breaking the law, and she couldn't hurt Jimmy without pissing off every witch, hunter, and shifter in the country.”
“I don't know about that last part but, yeah, frame him, that's what I was thinking.” I stood with the file and spread it out on the counter. “I mean I get it if you guys don't want to help me just give me what you got on the murders and I'll figure it out as I go.”
“No f*****g way. I don't trust you to not f**k it up. But you have to promise me that if something goes wrong and we can't frame Puremount that you'll give up on killing him. It either works or you're going into hiding.”
“Trish is right. This will need very careful handling. One wrong move and the jig is up.”
The last thing I wanted was to give up on my new and dearest goal. They just didn't get it. This was him or me, and I'd be damned if I didn't choose me, but my daddy was a con man and this daughter knew how to lie. “Fine. Either frame him or bust I got it.”
“Luckily for us, I do think Puremount is involved in the murders, just not directly. It will be easy to shift the blame to him as soon as the only evidence that could prove otherwise is dealt with.” Gordan slide another file across the bar. “He has two lackeys who have the authority to carry out actions in his name. I believe one or both of these vampires are reasonable for the murders and are using a shifter to place their kills during the daylight hours when they are otherwise trapped inside. Puremount cares so little for his servants it does not surprise me if they are working without his knowledge.”
“Wait so not all vampires can go out in the sun?”
“The weak ones can't. Really only nobility can go out during the day, but if a vampire is incredibly powerful they can manage just fine.” Trish grinned. “So if we kill the shifter and erase any trace of their involvement, Galina would have to assume Puremount did the body dumping and that his servants are lying to save him, since all the bodies were dumped after the sun had risen.”
“Exactly. So, um, what's a shifter?” Jimmy looked from Trish to Gordan. “And please don't say they're like were-wolves I might scream.”
“Well, we are nothing like were-wolves. We aren't ruled by the moon or cursed or any such nonsense. Silver though is something that can be very bad for us, like iron is for fairies.”
“You're f*****g kidding me there aren't fairies.”
Trish blushed. “Hey, my dad's a fairy.”
Jimmy pointed to the almost empty bottle of Jack still on the counter. “B***h, pour me another shot before I beat you over the head for being a moron.”
“We really shouldn't overload her, Trish, she might have an aneurism.”
“Shut up, fur-face, and get back to your explanation,” Jimmy snapped before downing the shot.
“It's a genetic mutation that is not contagious in any way that allows my kind to shift our physical appearances to that of a certain animal. The more powerful the shifter the more range and control he has of his body’s ability to change. You are either born one of us or you are not.”
“Thank the Lord for that.” The woman finished the bottle before another worrisome question occurred to Jimmy. “Wait, all those stories about vampires being able to turn humans is bullshit, too, right?”
Gordan and Trish shared a look before he shook his head. “No, a human can be turned, but it is a long, messy process involving weeks of regular blood transfusions and things no vampire has ever been willing to discuss that most people don't survive. It can't be accidentally done, but it can be forcefully done.”
It f*****g figured. I didn't have many hopes left, considering I was about ninety-seven percent sure I was gonna die before this was all over, but there was one I planned on clinging to til my last breath. Please, God, don't let them turn me into a blood sucking fiend of the night. It was a fate I feared as much as the cell that killed my grandmother.