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  OTHER “VAMPIRE POODLE” MYSTERIES BY APRIL CAMPBELL JONES AND BRUCE ELLIOT JONES:

  MITZI MAGEE: VAMPIRE POODLE

  MITZI MAGEE: A NIP IN TIME

  OTHER NOVELS BY APRIL CAMPBELL JONES AND BRUCE ELLIOT JONES:

  THE TARN: A RYDER AND WILLOW MYSTERY THRILLER

  FEVER DREAMS: A BRACKEN AND BLEDSOE PARANORMAL MYSTERY

  BY BRUCE ELLIOT JONES:

  SHIMMER

  THE DEADENDERS

  BY APRIL CAMPBELL JONES:

  LIE LIKE A WOMAN: A BREE AND RICHARD MATTHEWS MYSTERY

  DIE LIKE A MAN: A BREE AND RICHARD MATTHEWS MYSTERY (coming soon)

  Copyright Rover Press 2012

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright holder.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the writer’s imagination or are fused fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  A VAMPIRE POODLE MYSTERY

  ONE

  “Sorry, Mister, your dog is dead.”

  I looked up at the werewolf standing above me, my heart sinking. “How do you know?”

  The werewolf shrugged. “Know a dead dog when I see one.”

  I caressed my poodle’s unmoving chest a moment. “Are you a doctor?”

  “No, but I play one on TV.”

  I blinked at him.

  He made a wolfish chuckle. “Pullin’ your chain! Actually, I play a werewolf on TV. In real life I’m a doctor. Trust me, the dog is dead.”

  I squinted up at him uncomprehendingly. Much of the evening had been incomprehensible I was now realizing. Like most of the week. The month. I was very tired. Hollowed-out.

  “You play a werewolf on TV…”

  “Local KC station. Friday Night Fright Flicks. I’m the host. ‘Wolfman Jack.’”

  I grunted, looked back down at my poor Mitzi, my eyes stinging, heartbroken.

  “The famous disc jockey? Was famous, anyway. He’s dead now. Like your dog. No sweat, though, I cleared all the red tape copyright stuff, the name’s free and clear for me to use.”

  Good for you, I thought wearily.

  I placed my palm over Mitzi’s heart, searching for even the smallest thump. Felt nothing.

  “No heartbeat, huh?”

  “No,” I sighed with growing irritation.

  “Could have told you so. I’m a vet.”

  “Really?” I said, reaching over gently to close Mitzi’s eyes with a thumb and forefinger, “when you’re not attending hotel Vampire Conventions?”

  The werewolf looked around the hotel roof. “This? Just a hobby.”

  I followed his eyes about the now mostly empty convention floor, strewn with paper debris, a few cigarettes. What had once been a bustle of figures weaving through a maze of dealers’ tables was now mostly a straggle of costumed witches and demons, vampires and werewolves lingering for last minute deals under defeated-looking strings of Japanese lanterns overhead. Hucksters were closing down their cardboard displays, packing their dealers’ tables of plastic stakes, iron crosses and pre-code comic books.

  The party was over, the majority of remaining guests lined up in single file waiting their turn at the buckled--but finally opened--elevator doors to the lobby. A small phalanx of police officers and blank-looking fire fighters temporarily barred the way, questioning the party-goers about what the hell had happened here tonight.

  I could hear the drone of a helicopter overhead but knew it was either the police or a news chopper. Ivan Kolcheck, The Vampire Prince, had long since departed with his entourage in his sleek, night-black dragonfly chopper. Taking with him my beautiful Clancy. The only girl in my life I had ever loved. Except maybe for my poodle Mitzi lying silently beside me. Now they were both--

  “Gone,” the werewolf reminded. “Dead as a doornail. “Shame.”

  I nodded without bothering to look up again at this jerk. Yeah, I thought, I can see you’re all broken up about it.

  Maybe he sensed it. The voice behind the wolf mask went mildly sympathetic. “Know how you feel, pal. Had a poodle myself once. Good breed of dog. Intelligent. Affectionate. Hard to lose ‘em. But at least she’s in a better place now. Right?”

  A better place.

  “You don’t know anything about her,” I muttered bitterly, “or what kind of place she might be in.”

  But he was just one of those oblivious guys who don’t take a hint. “Believe me, I know dogs.”

  “Not this one.”

  He made a conciliatory sound. “Like a member of the family, huh?”

  Why don’t you get lost? “Something like that.”

  “Sure. Tough break. How’d she die?”

  Leave me the hell alone! “Trying to save someone.”

  “No kidding?”

  “No kidding.” I caressed Mitzi’s flank, already growing cold.

  The werewolf’s shoes made a shuffling sound. “Yeah, a real shame. Look, you want some help? You know, bringing her down?”

  I glanced across at the impatient line of costumes threading slowly through the checkpoint of cops before the elevators. I had a dead dog, three dead vampires—two of them local--a stolen car and a town of burning citizens in my recent history. Cops were the last thing I needed.

  “How’d you get a poodle up here anyway? I thought dogs weren’t allowed in the hotel.”

  I stared almost dreamily at the elevators, the police blocking the only exit on the roof--nodding and jotting apathetically in their notepads as the next conventioneer tried to make sense of what had happened up here on the roof of a swank Kansas City hotel in the wee hours of the morning. They could explain nothing, of course.

  The Vampire Prince had conveniently erased all their memories of the evening. Like it had all been a bad dream.

  But I remembered.

  Why was that? Why had Ivan left my memory intact, to play over and over again? Was he sending a message? Your dog is dead and I’ll be taking your girlfriend with me, but you can keep your memory.

  I felt a sudden overwhelming sense of depression. Had a very real urge to stand up and throw myself off the roof, just to wake me up…impale myself next to the Alicia on the garden fence posts far below.

  “Tell you what, buddy,” wolfie was saying, “if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll open the vet clinic early this morning, put—what’s the dog’s name--?”

  “Mitzi.”

  “Cute. Put Mitzi on the table, have a proper look at her. Even run some routine test. If it’ll, you know, help ease your mind.”

  When I didn’t answer I sensed him looking up, following my gaze to the patrol cops.

  “I think there was a fire,” one of the witches was telling them.

  “Does it look like there was a fire?” from a sarcastic vampire behind her.

  “I said I think!” from the defensive witch.

  “All right, let’s all settle down now,” from the bored cop, “we did get a call about some kind of fire…”

  I kneeled there beside Mitzi recalling the fire vividly—how quick it came and even more quickly vanished; the same way Clancy vanished upward with the Vampire Prince to the belly of his sleek black copter… and off into the night. All those conventioneers crowded around me, and not one of them saw her leave, remembered Ivan’s battle with Alicia, or the flames roaring across the rooftop. Flames Ivan put out with a snap of his finger. That was the kind of power he could wield.

  “Don’t worry about it,” the werewolf said.

  I looked up at him.

  “The cops. We can take the fires stairs on the other side of the roof”

  “Fire stairs?”

  He nodded under the mask. “We’ve had some wild parties up here, had to deal with the police on several occasions. The dummies never remember where the fire stairs are on the roof level.” He nodded past the glistening swimming pool toward the other end of the roof. “Kinda hidden over there behind the cabanas. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  He pulled off his rubber mask, revealed a smiling face younger than I’d have guessed, and extended his hand. “Doctor James Feral. Call me Jim.”

  “Doctor Feral?”

  He spelled it for me.

  “Oh. Right. Okay,” I finally agreed, “thanks, I’d appreciate it.”

  “No problem, come on, big girl…”

  We got our arms under my poodle’s limp back and headed for the stairs.

  * * *

  Ferall’s clinic was only a few block from the hotel—he’d walked to the convention—and we lay Mitzi in the back seat of Mrs. Portman’s stolen Lexus and I drove the three of us through mostly empty downtown streets just brimming with the first brassy light of dawn.

  I was bushed and badly in need of coffee, but not so bushed I didn’t feel the familiar fingers of paranoia plucking at my back. Out of a roof full of hundreds of costumed conventioneers I happen to run into a fan of werewolf movies who also just happened to be a vet? How did I know Alicia hadn’t notified a few of her vampire spies even before she and Clancy checked into their fancy suite…spies that even now were looking to find and finish me off? How did I know that Prince Ivan himself hadn’t left a few goons behind for the same reason before droning off fo
r Chicago Land with my girl?

  “You don’t look like one of us.” the vet said from the passenger seat.

  I almost jerked the wheel. “Sorry--?”

  “You know, a fan. A geek. A Goth nerd. This your first convention?”

  “Yeah, it is,” and I glanced quickly askance to see if his eyes were glowing.

  “Thought so. You a True Blooder or a Twilighter?”

  I shrugged casually. “Just an old horror movie buff, I guess.”

  He was quiet a moment as we rounded a block, then he looked over at me again, morning light just creeping over the Lexus’ hood. “You seem nervous.”

  I kept the wheel steady. “Just tired is all. Little upset about my dog.”

  He nodded. “Sure. Thought maybe it was me.”

  I glanced up at the rearview: just empty streets. “You?”

  “Probably think it’s a little weird, a veterinarian being a vampire freak.”

  I cleared my throat. “Hey, whatever gets you through the night.”

  “Actually I think the whole monster convention thing is stupid.” And he made that wolfie chuckle again.

  “Oh?’

  “Do I look like the kind of guy who plays dress-up with a bunch of Halloween nerds on a Saturday night?”

  “Well…”

  “It’s a bunch of bullshit. Those people got no lives, Ed.”

  I felt a warning knot beginning in my middle. “So…why do you—“

  His hand clamped tightly over my shoulder. “The same reason you do, Ed!”

  When I looked he was smiling toothily.

  He leaned over closer, squeezed my shoulder hard. “Had you spotted the minute I saw you there on the roof!”

  “You did?”

  He chuckled, squeezed, winked. “The chicks, man! Like me, you heard about the great looking chicks at these cons! Came here to get laid! L-a-i-d, laid! I mean, the low cut gowns on some of those witch babes, huh? Nipple City, am I right?”

  I forced up a smile. “Well…”

  “C’mon, Ed!” He rocked my shoulder. “Good-looking guy like you! Brings that adorable poodle along for bait! Let the ole Doc in on it, Ed, how many times you score this weekend?”

  “Well…”

  The young doctor howled, slapped me hard on the back. “I knew it! Told the wife and kids you came for the movie memorabilia, right? Am I right?”

  He slapped his knee. “Horny devil! You’re a bigger wolf than me! Probably cleaned-out the gift shop of condoms last night, am I right?”

  You are not right. But I held the smile till my jaw ached; it was easier than arguing.

  “Yeah, man! Guy wants to get him some strange, these fanger Cons are the place!”

  He pointed at the windshield. “Turn left at the light.”

  * * *

  I sat in the little waiting room of the clinic while Farrel attended to Mitzi in his lab behind closed doors. I’d have preferred to stay with her but the horny doctor said I’d only get in the way--take a load off my arches in the reception area and try to relax. Janice, his assistant, wouldn’t be in until eight and it was only just past seven, but he’d put on some coffee for us.

  I sat there alone in one of the black leather, metal-arm chairs and stared desultorily at magazines on the end table. People. Us. Sports Afield. Not exactly my type of literature. And probably too beat to comprehend much anyway. Beat and unable to take my inner mind off the sight of tall, handsome Prince Ivan with his vampiric arm around Clancy’s slim waist as he guided her magically upward under the thrashing rotor wind of his private chopper. While I stood there on the roof. Just stood there. And did nothing.

  And I realized now just how much I regretted that.

  I should have rushed them. Should have made some attempt to tear Clancy from the vampire no matter what his other-worldly strength…even though Clancy’s eyes and posture had warned me otherwise. Warned me even as I warned myself that the handsomely superior Ivan needed only to lift a finger to cook me like a marshmallow as he wafted her away, my smoldering, gooey remains the last thing Clancy saw before disappearing into the chopper’s black belly.

  But so what?

  It was the last time she’d ever see me anyway, so what was the difference? I could see that in her eyes too. And the memory of it is what made me wish then I’d done something—anything—rather than to have her last memory of me be as a coward.

  I’d let them both down: Clancy and Mitzi.

  I should never have let my dog release her tenuous grip on the Vampire Queen’s wrist, drop Alicia from that roof…impale herself on that fence so many dizzy stories below. Because when Alicia had died with that wooden fence post through the heart, the part of her that lived within Mitzi died too…and took the rest of my faithful dog with her…

  “Ed--?”

  Feral poked his head out of the inner office door.

  “Sorry, old man, all out of coffee. Listen, this is going to take a while, why don’t you go back to the hotel, grab some breakfast or even a nap, I’ll call you the minute I find out anything unusual.”

  I didn’t want to abandon Mitzi, even if she was…

  “It’s okay, buddy, I’ll take good care of her. No appointments until ten o’clock. You go rest up, huh?”

  I slid behind the wheel of the Lexus reluctantly. I wasn’t just leaving my dog with a stranger, I was driving around in a stolen vehicle from Topeka, just waiting for a patrol car to swoop down behind me, rack lights flashing. On the other hand, this was KC Missouri, and Miss Portman’s plates said Kansas; maybe the local cops wouldn’t bother checking. And maybe they really had no reason to; old lady Portman had gone up in flames with those two cops at the Topeka roadblock—in flames and a puff of soft white smoke. I had no reason to suspect anyone else saw us get into the old lady vampire’s car, let alone steal it and drive across the state line to KC. I was probably safer in Portman’s car than in my own.

  Anyway, I was too exhausted to speculate.

  I drove back to the hotel.

  But pulling into the carriage circle before the hotel, I found myself reluctant to go inside again.

  If Ivan had planted those two agents of his to get to Alicia, God only knew who else he may have left prowling about, daylight or no daylight. And I was checked into that room next to the main suite. Fortunately I had no luggage or other paraphernalia with me and so no real reason to go back to the room and possibly get ambushed. I decided to find some little breakfast eatery away from the hotel, was just turning down a side street in the opposite direction when something began tugging at the back of my mind.

  It took me almost a full block to realize what, before I pulled the car gently over to the curb and sat thinking a moment. And listening.

  The downtown streets were normally quiet for this time of the morning, rush hour not quite underway yet, but that was just the point: this wasn’t a normal morning. A woman had fallen several stories from the roof of a modern hotel and impaled herself on the spiked posts of a wooden fence surrounding the east wing. I know. I saw it. Along with Mitzi and a convention character who called himself The Count. Saw her hit the pointed posts on her back, saw the bloody spears tear through her breast, saw her struggle and kick and finally die.

  But not disappear.

  Which meant she just might still be impaled there above the sidewalk.

  Which meant someone must have reported it by now. So where were the police, the ambulances?

  The small hairs began to stir on the back of my neck.

  I put the car in gear, made an illegal U turn and headed back to the hotel. I nosed the car around the corner and down the street leading past the east side of the building, keeping one eye on the row of spear-like fence posts running the length of the block.

  There were no police present. No ambulances. Not passersby.

  And no Alicia impaled on the fence.

  I pulled to the curb, got up and crossed the sidewalk to the garden.

  Even before I was halfway to the fence I saw what I think I’d subconsciously feared all along; it sent those little hairs on the back of my neck standing straighter. The fence wasn’t made of wood. It was made of cast iron, painted a shade of brown that made it appear to be wood from a distance. And cast iron doesn’t kill vampires.