“I set the DVR. You want to see it?”
“Yeah, and I think it should be now.”
We hit fast-forward until Jo-Jo appeared on the screen. Then Saber rewound a smidge and hit Play. With Leno’s usual flair, he introduced Jo-Jo, and the curtains parted.
“Good evening, thank you. Yes, it’s true I’m a vampire. Hard to tell me apart from anyone else in L.A., isn’t it?”
The joke elicited chuckles, and Jo-Jo went on with some of the jokes he did during open mike night, and then juggled. Judging by the laughter, Leno’s audience thought Jo-Jo was hilarious, but why did Elise think this had increased business?
When Jo-Jo sat with Leno, I knew.
Leno got Jo-Jo to talk about his court jester days, rubbing elbows with royals. That’s when Jo-Jo said he had feared getting royally flushed when he came to St. Augustine, but that Princess Ci was one of the good ones. He mentioned my ghost tour job, then extolled the glories of living in a town where the local princess didn’t want to rule over other vamps.
“Aw, geez.” I dropped my head in my hands.
Saber was more succinct. “Shit. That’s gonna piss off the Covenant from coast to coast.”
“You think Gorman will show up at the tour tonight?”
“We’ll find out real damn soon.”
TWENTY
025
Gorman wasn’t lying in wait at the tour substation. Instead, a crowd of thirty ghost tourists chattered loudly enough to wake the, um, dead.
Janie in a Victorian costume and Mick in his Spanish soldier suit hurried toward Saber and me, and someone in the crowd yelled, “There she is!”
Saber thrust me behind him just as Janie and Mick reached us. Mick stood shoulder to shoulder with Saber against the stampede, and Janie huddled next to me.
“Back off, folks. Now.” Saber’s voice cracked across the space, and everyone froze.
“Wow, are you the bodyguard?”
“No, the boyfriend.”
The crowd laughed but fell back, and Mick spoke up.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is a ghost tour, not a rock concert. We need some order here.”
When the group energy downshifted from crazed to curious, I stepped from behind Saber and smoothed the skirt of my sapphire Regency gown.
“I’m delighted you all came out for the tour, but we do have a schedule to keep with the ghosts. So, please gather around me in an orderly fashion, and we’ll begin.”
I introduced Janie and Mick, and off we went without another incident. Okay, I did have writer’s cramp at the end of the evening from signing autographs. I felt like a fraud, impersonating a celebrity, but it would have been rude to refuse. Vampire superpowers I may not have, but I have manners in spades.
When the last tourist walked jauntily off, I hugged Janie and Mick.
“Thanks for your help, and for your anniversary gifts.”
“You thanked us in your phone message,” Janie teased. “I bet you sent a note, too, didn’t you?”
I nodded, and she rolled her eyes.
“You’re terminally polite, you know that?”
“You want crowd control help tomorrow, Cesca?” Mick asked. “I heard another thirty people signed up for that one.”
“You two don’t have something better to do?”
“Lots, but we can do that later, can’t we, Janie? It was kind of fun to be part of your entourage.”
I groaned. “Please, stop. I want this hubbub to die down.” We chatted a few minutes more, but Saber was getting antsy about the raid on Vlad’s place. After we’d parted, it dawned on me that Kevin Miller hadn’t been on the tour. Maybe he’d given up waiting for me to come back to work and had gone home, but my little voice nagged that something was off. 026
Candy was supposed to call with her raiding-Vlad’s-nest report, but hours dragged by while we waited. I gave halfhearted attention to my homework while Saber fidgeted, watched ESPN, played with Snowball until he wore her out, then paced. He was jumping out of his skin by the time midnight rolled around, but five minutes later, his cell rang. A quick check of caller ID, and he turned on the speaker.
“Candy, you guys good?” he asked.
A loud pop in the background, a little screech, and a curse crackled over the speaker. I shot out of my chair. One beat, two, and finally Candy spoke.
“Sorry, Saber. Crusher just opened some champagne all over me.”
I exhaled on a whoosh of breath as Saber pulled me down beside him. “I take it the night went well?”
“Well is relative. We’ve got some answers, and we’ve got Vlad in custody. That’s why I’m callin’ so late.”
“You made a capture, not a kill?”
“Got Vlad with a stun gun. I didn’t think it would work, but one of the guys on the task force nailed him. Once he was down, we got the silver shackles and guards on him and swept the building.”
“Candy, tell us what happened.”