The Keepers

As he led her quickly downward, she expected dank earth--with a coffin in the middle of the room.



But what she saw was nothing like her expectations. There was a canopied bed instead of a coffin, the floor was red brick with a Persian carpet, and there were attractive paintings on the walls, along with a massive entertainment center.



There was also a small kitchenette, complete with refrigerator.



Abigail, still wrapped in her sheet, was greedily drinking from a large pitcher.



Of blood.



Fiona could feel her eyes widening.



"Don't look at me like that," Jagger said to her. "It's pig's blood. You eat bacon, right?"



"I wasn't staring at you," she said. "I'm used to blood. I'm the Keeper, remember?"



He nodded and touched her cheek. He didn't say anything, but the look in his eyes seemed to wrap around her heart.



What the hell had they done? she wondered. There were going to be terrible repercussions from tonight. She was sure of it.



"I have to ask you to stay here, to...teach Abigail," he said.



"No! You...have to teach her," Fiona said.



"I've already been called about her corpse being stolen," Jagger said. "I'm the detective on the case, remember?"



She opened her mouth, desperately wanting to protest, but then Abigail made a slurping sound, and she knew someone had to do something.



"But I'm not a vampire."



"Make the change. It will help you," he advised. "Please, Fiona."



She nodded jerkily. "All right. And, Jagger, an assembly has been called for tomorrow night."



"Good. It will definitely be necessary."



"My sisters will be calling me soon."



"I'll be back as soon as I can," he swore.



With that, he pulled her to him and kissed her, hard.



And again, quickly.



Then he was gone, and she was left with a naked young woman slurping blood in the center of the room.



Billy was good. If Jagger remembered correctly, his major was engineering, but he might as well be majoring in theater arts, he was playing his part so well.



Tony was already there at the morgue, along with two beat cops, a few night-shift employees and a city security officer. Tony had started questioning Billy Harrington, but he took a break and pulled Jagger aside the minute he arrived.



"He was hit on the head with a computer keyboard. He doesn't know how or why someone took the body. Why the hell steal a corpse?" Tony asked.



Jagger jerked his head in a manner that suggested he couldn't fathom the question himself. Then he pulled up a chair across the desk where Billy Harrington was sitting, an ice bag pressed against his temple.



"What happened, son?" he asked.



Billy looked at him and shook his head gravely. "I was doing paperwork. The next thing I knew, I woke up on the floor with a cop standing over me."



Jagger stood up and turned to the remaining morgue personnel. "No one saw anything?" he asked.



"Nothing," said a buxom middle-aged clerk. "Nothing at all. And the door was still locked."



"There must be other doors," Jagger said.



Looking embarrassed, people ran to check other possible means of entry.



To his astonishment and vast relief, someone had actually forgotten to lock one of the doors where the bodies were wheeled in from the ambulances that brought them to the morgue. As accusations began to fly among the workers, guilt bit into Jagger.



He lifted a hand, stopping the flow of conversation, and sighed. "The crime scene unit will be here shortly. We'll do our best to settle this as quickly as possible, but meanwhile, be prepared. The press are going to have a field day."



Several people urged Billy to go to a hospital, but he adamantly refused. Jagger offered to take him home, and Billy agreed.



"You're going to take the kid home?" Tony asked him, incredulous.



"Maybe I can get him to remember something," Jagger suggested. "My guess is that something might come to him after a while, and I'll be right there to find out what it is. Go home, Tony, and let the night guys handle the scene. Get some sleep tonight. Tomorrow is going to be hell."



A few minutes later Jagger led Billy out to his car.



As soon as they were inside, Billy let out a sigh of relief. "Sweet Jesus, bless you," he whispered, his eyes closed.



Jagger marveled at the fact that so many vampires were religious; in fact, they were often some of a church's best attendees. They were always praying that they really did have souls.



"You're one hell of an actor," he told the boy.



"So are you." Billy frowned, then, and shook his head.



"Look, you can't still believe I'm the one who did this, can you?"



"Billy, if my thoughts were running in that direction, you'd be dead, along with Abigail. Dead--as in stone dead. Staked through the heart. But I do want to talk to you about that night. That frat boy really thinks he saw you, though he admitted he was drunk. But he also said you didn't originally intend to go to the party because you had something else to do."



"Yeah, I went to the meeting," Billy said, and he sounded genuinely lost. He twisted in the passenger's seat to stare at Jagger. "She's all right, isn't she? Abigail. You didn't whisk her away and--and stake her, did you?"



"No, we didn't stake her. I left her with Fiona."



"She's going to be so confused," Billy said.



"Fiona is the Keeper," Jagger said. "She'll manage just fine."



"Dead?" Abigail said, staring at Fiona. "What are you talking about? Vampires don't exist. They're just a myth. They're not real."



"Abigail, you woke up in a morgue, remember? You escaped by turning into mist," Fiona pointed out.



The girl strenuously shook her head. "No. No, no, no. They made a mistake. They thought I was dead, but I wasn't. I'm alive. You can see that."



"Abigail, you're a vampire now. You just drank a gallon of blood, and you'll have to keep drinking blood to stay...alive."



"I will not run around killing people!" Abigail exclaimed, horrified.



"No, you definitely will not. If you make a single kill, I'll consider it my responsibility to stake you through the heart and end your existence."



The girl stared at her, then leaped to her feet in horror, letting the pitcher she'd been holding slip to the floor. "You...you want to kill me." She gasped, pointing a finger at Fiona. "I know you--you're...you're some kind of a witch or a voodoo priestess or something. You own that shop that sells potions and things. You do tarot card readings--"



"That's my sister, I read tea leaves," Fiona said wearily. "And I'm not a witch."



"You are! You want to hurt me. Where--where's Billy?"



"Billy will be here soon. Abigail, I know this is really hard to comprehend, but please, think. You woke up in the morgue. Billy, Jagger and I were there, and we got you out. But you are not alive. You have become a vampire."



Abigail shook her head, looking as if she were about to burst into tears. "No! It can't be true. They just made a mistake."



She rushed forward, clutching her sheet to hold it in place as she fell to her knees at Fiona's feet. "I'm alive. They made a mistake. I'm a college student, for the love of God. Let me go home to the sisters! They raised me. They know me. They'll tell you I'm alive."



"No! Of all places you can't go now, number one is home," Fiona told her. "Come on, let's get you something to wear." She looked around and spotted a folding door.



"That must be Jagger's closet. At least we can get you a T-shirt or something." She opened the closet door, and just for a second, she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. She must be falling in love with the man. Just the clean scent of his aftershave, lingering lightly in the air, seemed to seep right into her. To remind her that she wanted to be with him. That she could be with him. That he wanted to be with her...



She pulled herself back, reminding her that she had a dead girl on her hands.



"All right, here's a shirt," she said and turned around.



Abigail was gone.



Jagger drove into the French Quarter and down his street. As he neared his gate, he hit the electronic opener on the dash. The gate slowly opened inward, allowing the car access.



He drove in, parked and got out of the car. Billy did the same.



As Jagger looked toward the house, he was astounded to see Fiona, who'd made the change, perched atop the wall toward the rear of the house. As he watched, she made a leap down to the street.



"Oh, hell," Jagger muttered.



"What?" Billy demanded.



"They're out!" Jagger said.



Moving faster than the human eye could follow, with Billy on his heels, he made a flying leap up to the wall himself. He was just in time to see Fiona adeptly landing on the sidewalk, and for a moment he paused to thank God that he didn't live on Bourbon Street, where a hundred tourists would have been there to see.



He jumped lightly to the street himself, searching the road, the houses, the darkness.



Then he saw her.



Abigail, stark naked, a block away and just walking down the street, looking lost.



He swore softly.



Fiona reached her before he could, catching her by the shoulders and quickly wrapping her in one of his long-sleeved tailored shirts.



A woman walked by, leading a yappy Papillon.



"Well, I never!" she declared. She was about sixty, dignified, plump, with graying hair.



The dog wouldn't shut up.



Jagger quickly walked over to her. "Good evening, ma'am."



"That's indecent exposure," she declared.



The dog kept yapping.



Ten feet away, Fiona and Billy were urging Abigail off the street.



Jagger stared at the dog first, and the animal went silent.



"Do something, or I'll call the police myself," the woman began.