American Vampire

Chapter Forty-six



I was driving.



My mind was still reeling from the phone call with Maddie. My mind was still reeling from my conversation with Kingsley. Reeling from my conversation with Saint Germain. Reeling from the possibility that my son could be saved. Possibly.



I was doing a lot of reeling and no doubt a lot of erratic driving, too. I forced myself to calm down. To focus.



It was early afternoon. My sister and daughter were with Anthony. I had work to do, and this was my time to do it, even if I was a royal mess.



I could head out to Simi Valley now, but I suspected I would be waiting a long, long time in the casino before anyone of note showed up. It was better to wait, and head out there later.



For now, I knew where to go. And it just so happened to be right around the corner, too.



* * *



I parked at the Wharton Museum and dashed across the parking lot, past the rich and not-so-famous dining at the Wharton outdoor cafe, and ducked into the main building, gasping for breath I didn't need, and feeling as if I had just run across hot coals.



"You okay?" asked the security guard at the door.



"I'm fine," I lied. Actually, I felt like shit.



He asked if I wanted some help and I waved him off and did my best to walk with some dignity toward the side offices, all too aware of a slight burning smell wafting up from my skin.



I've never felt sexier.



A few minutes later I was seated across from a shell-shocked Ms. Dickens. The old lady didn't look well, and I didn't blame her. A lot of bad luck had come her way. Granted, not as bad as the night guard I had found stuffed in an oversized Igloo.



"I guess the cat's out of the bag," she said. She was holding her forehead in her hands.



I nodded.



"No more hiding the fact that the sculpture was stolen."



"Sometimes there's more important things than stolen sculptures," I said. "Like dead people."



She looked up at me briefly, parting her hands slightly to do so. Her blank stare told me that perhaps she didn't subscribe to my philosophy. A stolen crystal egg, apparently, meant more to her than human life.



"Yes," she said, reluctantly agreeing. "I suppose so."



After a few more minutes of our strained silence, I asked her if I was still on the job. After all, part of my job description had been to help find the missing art piece before the official opening this weekend.



"Yes, of course," she snapped. "We still need to find it. We will just have to deal with the backlash of the theft and death. We've overcome tragedy before, and we will overcome this, too. The Wharton will be world famous someday. World famous. Mark my words."



I nearly stood up and cheered.



Now that we'd established that I still had a job, I thanked her for her time and left her at her desk, where she didn't move or acknowledge my departure.



The police had come and gone in the wee hours of the morning. With their initial investigation completed, the museum had opened on time and business was as usual. To a degree. The place was mostly empty; I felt as if I had it all to myself.



I headed deeper into the museum, looking for Mr. Wharton himself.



The resident ghost.



Chapter Forty-seven



I used my temporary security pass to enter the back room and although it was still daytime, you would never know in here. The place was dark and ominous, and knowing there was a ghost creeping around here made the fine hair at the back of my neck stand on end.



There were two security cameras back here, both placed in such a way that they could see anyone coming and going. The cameras could also see down the main aisle that led between all the side aisles.



Except the cameras weren't working for 20 minutes. Long enough for someone to come in and get out with a prized sculpture worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, or whatever he could get for it on eBay. Long enough to kill a guard and stuff him in a freezer.



As I stood there taking in the back room, I heard shuffling down a side aisle. A ghost? A murderer? Neither. A few seconds later, a young girl emerged. She looked thoroughly freaked out. I didn't blame her. A theft, a murder, a ghost and a vampire. Had I been anyone but me, I might have been freaked, too.



She saw me and gasped, clutching her throat. I smiled apologetically and she relaxed a little. She was holding a box of something. Small museum pieces, although I couldn't see what. She moved quickly past me with a forced smile, and left through the same door I had just stepped into.



Crime scenes can take hours or weeks to clear. The fact that the Santa Ana Police Department had cleared this one in a matter of hours was telling: it meant there was little, if any, evidence. The crime scene itself had been trampled to hell. If there had been evidence, it was probably gone.



With very little clues to collect, and with little hope of collecting anything of value, the museum had been given the green light to open for business with no apparent disruptions. That didn't mean the Santa Ana PD wouldn't take the murder case any less seriously. It just meant they had little to work with.



Although not on public display, many of the artifacts back here were still highly valuable and some were one-of-a-kinds. The muted, indirect lighting was no doubt UV and IR free so as not to cause any damage to the highly sensitive paintings and sculptures and various rare artifacts.



The lighting could be adjusted, I could see. The young lady had had it as high as it would go. Again, I didn't blame her. I reached over and turned it down low. No doubt Eddie - if Eddie was indeed watching me back in the control room - wondered why the hell I had done that. I wondered if he would believe me if I told him that it was to better see the ghost of Mr. Wharton.



Now with the room mostly in deep shadows, my senses sprang to life. Granted, it was still daytime, and I wouldn't be fully alive and alert until the sun set, but the cool darkness in the back room was the next best thing and I was feeling a little better.



I headed deeper into the room. The air around me was electrified. Little squigglies of light danced before my eyes. These supercharged particles emanated a glow that only I could see and it gave the room added light. At least for me.



All of my senses told me that I was alone in the back room. I walked slowly down the center aisle. I felt my mind reaching out before me, searching for something both physical and non-physical.



I was getting a lot of feedback. I sensed strange energy around a lot of the artifacts, for instance. Some of these relics had been acquired over the years - not necessarily by the museum, but by others - through force or coercion. These artifacts had a lot of negative energy around them, a darkness that surrounded them. Cursed, perhaps. Other artifacts and pieces of art had a lot of bright energy buzzing around them, light particles that swarmed like bees around a beehive, and I realized these were aspects of the owners' souls still attached to the artifacts. Perhaps forever attached.



Owner and art forever linked.



These were strange concepts that I was only now beginning to understand through my own strange second sight.



I soon found myself standing in the very aisle where the freezer box was located. There was still yellow police 'caution tape' around it. Although the police had gathered all the evidence they could early this morning, they could - and probably would - come back for a follow-up investigation, with the hope of acquiring additional evidence. Of course, the tape itself meant little to someone determined to tamper with the evidence. I wasn't going to tamper with the evidence.



Instead, I just stood there, getting a feel for the place. A man had died here not too long ago and I idly wondered where his spirit had gone. Was he still here, roaming the museum with Mr. Wharton?



I didn't know, but there was some strange energy around the ice box, and it very well could have been his spirit, but the energy was scattered and without much shape. I suspected the murdered security guard had gone on to wherever most spirits go on to.



It was then that I knew I was being watched, and not just by Eddie in the control room. Something had appeared behind me. Something that caused the hair on my neck to stand up.



I turned and was not very surprised to see a figure taking shape behind me. A human-shaped nexus gathered the surrounding light particles the way a black hole attracts all the heavenly bodies around it. Unlike a black hole, these light particles didn't disappear into a dimension occupied by only Charlie Sheen and Mel Gibson. These light particles formed a shape I readily recognized.



Mr. Bernard Wharton.



And when the last of the particles morphed into the shape of a fedora sitting slightly askew on its head, the entity before me nodded. I did the only thing I could think of and nodded back. In the control room, Eddie was getting quite a show. What Eddie made of the show, I didn't know or care.



And because I knew there wasn't any sound being recorded, I felt free to speak. "You know who killed the guard, don't you, Mr. Wharton?"



The figure before me didn't react at first, but then finally nodded, almost reluctantly.



I was about to ask the rather pointed question of who had killed the guard, but now the ghost was moving, flitting down the hallway and into another, darker room. I assumed I was meant to follow him and so I did - into the same dark room.



I didn't bother with the lights. I could see that we were in the shipping and receiving room. I knew this because there was a huge plastic bag filled with Styrofoam popcorn hovering over one of the tables, the shipping table, I presumed. There were computers, and crates and other random knickknacks. The room obviously doubled as a sort of storage room, too, with brooms and mops and cleaning supplies propped near the door.



Mr. Wharton led me deeper into the room to a work station off in the far corner. Random boxes were piled here, most of them opened and discarded. There were also packing supplies here and other boxes that appeared ready to be shipped.



He floated over to one of the boxes. I followed behind and looked down. The box was packed and taped, but the recipient hadn't yet been filled out. Correction, there was a single letter on the box, an "M", followed by a squiggly line, as if the writer had lost heart.



Or been scared to death.



Mr. Wharton stood next to me. Some of his crackling energy reached out to me, attaching itself to me, and as it did so, something very strange started to happen.



Flashing images appeared in my thoughts. Images I had never seen before. Images that weren't mine. Memories that weren't mine



They were his images. His memories. Mr. Wharton's.



I saw a flash of a security guard wearing gloves and working on an electrical panel. Perhaps the panel that powered the security cameras. I recognized the guard easily enough, especially since I had found him dead in the cold storage box.



The next flash. Now the guard was standing over this very box, writing something, when his head suddenly snapped around, eyes thoroughly spooked.



The next image was the same guard heading through the back room. He was following me, but he wasn't really following me. He was following Mr. Wharton. And for good reason.



Every now and then Mr. Wharton would knock something over, and each sound would cause the guard to jump...and consequently to investigate further. Deeper into the bowels of the back room.



Toward, I saw, the cold storage freezer.



Something else fell over - a marble Buddha, I think - and the guard nearly jumped out of his skin. But he continued on, doggedly, perhaps driven by fascination, or perhaps driven by the sick realization that tonight wasn't going according to plan. That someone was watching him. That someone knew what he was up to. Perhaps at any other time he would have turned away in fear. But not tonight. No, tonight - or rather, the night in question - he continued forward, inevitably, toward Mr. Wharton and the ice box.



Thad the security guard paused when he heard another noise. A noise that came from the ice box itself. A thumping, knocking sound. I even had a brief, flashing image of Mr. Wharton reaching down through the box and rapping something inside.



Thad the security guard whined a little. He was also making small, gasping sounds.



From a perspective from somewhere near the ice box, I watched - or, more accurately, Mr. Wharton watched - as the terrified man reached down and slowly opened the ice chest.



I could see that Thad didn't really want to open it, that he was scared shitless. But he seemed somehow compelled to open it. Like a man possessed. Which got me thinking.



Either way, as the lid came up, all hell broke loose.



The images jumped crazily. No, it wasn't the image that jumped crazily. It was Mr. Wharton moving rapidly. One moment he was down by the ice chest, and the next he was hovering somewhere above the security guard. The ice box was open. Frost and mist issued out, swirling around the man.



Mr. Wharton's attention shifted, and since I was seeing this through his eyes, his memory, my attention shifted, too.



To a shelf above the refrigerated box.



On the shelf, marked very neatly, were rows of stone tools and weapons; in particular, stone hatchets.



An arm reached up for the hatchet, and I was startled to see that it was Mr. Wharton's arm. A very real-looking arm. But not entirely real. Although solid-looking, I could still see through it.



Ectoplasm. A ghost body.



Now that very real-looking arm, draped in a slightly dusty reddish dinner jacket, removed the hatchet from the shelf. No doubt this was a Native American hatchet, or another tribal weapon from somewhere around the world. My knowledge of such artifacts was slim to none.



But one thing was obvious: it was heavy-looking, and it was topped by a razor-sharp flint head. A weapon used, no doubt, in battle or for skinning animals.



Or, in this case, for murder.



Thad must have heard something. As he turned to look, crying out, the hatchet flashed down and buried deep into his forehead. Thad jerked and nearly bit off his tongue. His left eye popped clean out of his head, to dangle by its neon-red optical nerves. I next watched in sick fascination as Mr. Wharton worked the hatchet free from the dead man's skull. When he did, Thad the security guard toppled into the freezer.



The ghost of Mr. Wharton calmly shut the lid, returned the bloody hatchet to its proper place, and promptly disappeared.



Chapter Forty-eight



I was at Heroes, where only one person knew my name, and that was just the way I liked it.



I had already picked up Tammy from school and dropped her off at my sister's. Danny, remarkably, was with Anthony at the hospital. My sister had asked if I would be there as well, and I said I would as soon as I could. She didn't like it but knew that only something very, very important would keep me away from my son.



Now, it was almost five and it had been a helluva day. Soon I would be heading out to Simi Valley, but first I needed my Fang fix. And since our relationship had graduated to the physical level, I paid him a visit before heading out. The bar was mostly empty and we could speak freely enough. I caught him up to date on the past few days' activities.



"So the crystal egg was in the box," said Fang. He wasn't polishing the stereotypical glass; instead, he was cutting lime wedges.



"Yup."



"Any idea where he was going to send it?"



"Hard to say with only an 'M' in the address. Could have been his grandma. A P.O. Box anywhere. And before you ask, his name was Thad."



"Thad?"



"Yup."



"Is that a real name?"



"As real as Fang."



He grinned. "Pretty clever idea just shipping that sucker out right under their noses."



"Would have worked, too, if Mr. Wharton hadn't cleaved his skull nearly in two."



"With a five hundred year old war ax. Very fitting, being that this was his museum and all."



"And that he protects to this day," I said.



Fang leaned across the bar. As he did so, his two canine teeth clacked together like two marbles. He said, "So did you unpack the box right there?"



"No. I left it for Ms. Dickens. She opened it with a few other staff members standing nearby...and when she did, well, she nearly wept."



"A murder is one thing, but the theft of a piece of art is another."



"It is to a small museum trying to make a name for itself."



"Our world is weird," said Fang.



"Tell me about it."



His eyes crinkled a little. Maybe he got some squirting lime juice in them. "How did you explain that you knew the egg was in the box?"



"I told her I had a hunch."



"Your hunches are pretty damn good."



"Better than most," I said.



He nodded. "So the ghost of Mr. Wharton killed the security guard."



"He wasn't going to let anyone steal from his museum."



"Death by ghost," said Fang.



"Our world is weird," I said, and both Fang and I smiled at each other.



"So, it will go down as an unsolved crime?"



"No doubt," I said.



"Would be hard to arrest Mr. Wharton," he said, laughing lightly. He added, "Can a ghost still go to hell for killing?"



"You'll have to ask God."



He grinned again, and his eyes did this sort of sparkly thing that made my heart beat a little faster. Knowing my thoughts, he smiled brightly.



"Oh, give it a rest," I said. "You have a nice smile, so what?"



"Whatever you say, Moon Dance." He reached out and took my hands. "Have you thought about my request?"



"Not really, no. Too much on my mind."



He nodded. "I understand. Things have been crazy."



He squeezed my hands a little tighter. His hands were soft in spots, but rough in others. They were the hands of a man who poured drinks for a living, but worked on muscle cars when he could. They were also the hands of a man who had killed three people.



"I regret the killings," said Fang, squeezing my hands a little tighter and reading my thoughts. "I'm not a killer, Sam."



"Then why do you want to be a vampire?"



"Because I want to be with you," he said, bringing my knuckles to his lips and kissing them lightly. "Forever."