Always the Vampire

We started by greeting Elizabeth, the redheaded teen ghost at the City Gates, then crossed the street to the Huguenot Cemetery. The group gobbled up the stories of Judge John B. Stickney and Erastus Nye, and of the Bridal Ghost when we reached the Tolomato Cemetery. We spotted orbs in both locations, too. I suspected the orbs in the Huguenot Cemetery were caused by the reflections of headlight beams, but who was I to spoil the fun?

After leading my tourist troupe through most of the square mile of the historic district, almost an hour and a half had passed, but no one seemed tired.

“Our last stop,” I said as I paused before a house on a downtown side street, “is Fay’s House. Now Fay might be our crankiest ghost, but she’s also one of my favorites.”

I relayed what I knew of Fay’s life and death, and saw a hand shoot up.

“You have a question?” I asked the young man.

“Isn’t this where the French Bride killer shoot-out and capture went down?”

“Yeah,” another man said. “And you caught the guy, right? You’re the vampire Nancy Drew.”

I blushed at the reference, especially since I fervently hoped my Drew days were over, but answered the question.

“It’s true I was here, but the police made the arrest.”

“Have you worked any more cases since then?” the first guy asked.

The case of the vanishing vampires at the comedy club hadn’t made the news. Saber had arranged a quiet cover-up, with the public blessedly none the wiser. I wasn’t about to change that, so I waved off the question.

“The papers exaggerated. I’m more interested in mystery reading than mystery solving any day.”

“You’re being far too modest,” Millie put in. “Our guide is also a whiz at interior decorating.”

Which Millie knew because she’d seen my place during the housewarming in August. I smiled and thanked Millie, and caught the strange old couple suddenly beaming at me like I’d created a cure for cancer. Talk about easily impressed.

I led my group back to our starting place near the waterwheel, ran through my closing spiel, and turned to put my lantern away as the group dispersed.

Except for Millie who edged closer on a Shalimar cloud.

“Cesca, dear, do you have a minute?”

“Of course,” I said as she darted a gaze over her shoulder.

The rest of her party stood ten feet away chatting easily, so why did Millie look frightened?

When she didn’t speak up, I moved deeper into the shadow of a towering pink bougainvillea.

“What’s wrong, Millie?”

She stepped closer. “Did Maybelle Banks say anything special to you at bridge club last week?’

“Not that I remember. Why?”

Millie bit her lip, and now I was thoroughly mystified.

“It’s silly, really, but she said she’d do my astrology chart to see how compatible I am with Dan.”

“And she forgot to do it?”

“Oh, no, she did it, and it turned out quite wonderfully. The thing is, I asked her to do your chart as an anniversary gift from me.”

I blinked. I’d celebrated my first anniversary out of the coffin on August thirteenth, but Millie hadn’t given me an astrology chart.

Millie straightened and gave me a rueful smile. “I’m making too much of it, I’m sure. Astrology is fun, but it’s not a science, right?”

“Millie, what is it you’re trying so hard not to tell me?”

“It-it’s just that Maybelle said she did your chart three times and had very odd results,” Millie said in a rush. “That’s why I got you a different gift.”

“Odd results how?”

Millie gnawed on her lip again, looked over her shoulder again, and finally spit it out.

“My dear, you disappeared entirely from your own chart.”





By the time I soothed Millie, promised to be careful, and sent her off with Dan and the rest of her party, it was nearly eleven thirty. I set off for the Cordova parking lot where I’d parked, taking the Orange Street route. The walk took me past the oldest drugstore, the Love Tree, and the Tolomato Cemetery, but I paid no attention to the hovering ghosts. Instead I thought about how I could rearrange my schedule once Cosmil’s friend Lia hit town.

Thursday Maggie and I had a meeting with the florist and a cake tasting. Friday we were leaving to meet Maggie’s friends in Fernandina Beach for the bachelorette weekend. Amelia Island was less than two hours north if the traffic was with us, and was convenient for her Florida and southern Georgia friends. The weekend was a must do, no room for negotiation.

If Lia arrived before Sunday, Triton and Saber would just have to start training without me. I’d allow nothing, no one, no how to stand between me and— “Aaarrrggh!”

I squealed at the man suddenly looming in my path. He smelled like jalapenos and cheap cigars. My very own stalker, Victor Gorman.

“Surprised you, huh?”

I hadn’t seen him since he’d tried to kill me. Or was it when we caught him breaking into a hotel room? Didn’t matter. Between his bad breath and his gravely voice, ripe with malicious overtones, my last nerve threatened to snap.

“Gorman, what now?”

“What were those two vampires doin’ on your tour?”

I blinked. “What two vampires?”

“The old, wrinkled couple.”

Did he mean the ones who’d stared at me?

“Gorman, those people had to be eighty.”