Urban Shaman

made a pretty impressive wall of a man. “Then do your thing and find the broad.”

I looked at him. “My thing?”

“You got some kinda thing going on here, lady. Normal people don’t stick their heads out a plane window and see dames that need rescuing. So do your thing and rescue her. My meter’s still running.”

Oh, God. It probably was, too. “Hope you take credit cards.” I walked to the front of the church and around the pulpit.

I really, honest-to-God, expected to see the woman cowering in the back side of the pulpit. That she wasn’t came as a shock. “Well, shit.”

“What? You find your body after all?” Gary shoved off his pew and came long-legging it up to the front.

“No, you ghoul. There’s nobody here. I really thought she would be.”

“I’ll cut you a break and won’t expect a tip, just for the satisfaction of being right.” He leaned on the pulpit, grinning whitely at me. I had the sudden urge to pop him in those nice straight clean teeth. It must have shown in my face, because his grin got even wider. “You wanna try it?”

“No,” I said sourly. “I think you’d break me in half.”

“Only a little bit.”

“Gee. Thanks.” I backed up a couple steps and leaned on the edge of the…hell if I know what it’s called. Looked like an altar to me. All gilded and dour. It had probably never been introduced to a woman’s behind in its whole existence. Or maybe it had been. You always heard stories about the priest who’s a pillar of the community but turns out to be having affairs with half the congregation. Seemed to me if you’re going to sin, you might as well do it right. On the altar would be a nice big sin. “I thought she’d be here.”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Churches are supposed to be sanctuary, or something. I thought she’d be safe in here. Consecrated ground.”

“What century are you living in, lady?”

“The wrong one, I guess.” I thumped on the edge of the altar, annoyed.

The top slipped.

I leaped off it like it had bitten me. Gary’s bushy eyebrows went up. We both stared at the inch-wide crack at the edge of the box where the lid had pushed back. “You don’t believe in vampires, do you, Gary?”

“God damn it,” he said, “I was trying real hard not to think that way.”

“Kind of fits, though, doesn’t it? Scary-looking church, big old crypt in the middle, the living dead ris—”

“It’s past dawn,” Gary said hastily. “No vampires after dawn. Right?”

“There’s no such thing as vampires, Gary.”

He stared at me dubiously. I stared at the crypt dubiously. Funny how a second ago it had been an altar and now it was a crypt. “Well?” he demanded. “Are you gonna look in it?”

“Yeah.”

“When?”

“As soon as I get up the nerve.”

He prodded me in the small of my back, pushing me forward. I admired the resistance in my body. I felt like he was trying to move a me-shaped lead weight. I expected to hear my feet scraping along with the sound of metal ripping up hardwood. Instead, I stumbled half a step forward, then glared over my shoulder at Gary. “You’re a big strong man. Aren’t you supposed to be plunging into danger before me?”

“You’re forty-seven years younger than me, lady,” he pointed out. “And almost as tall as I am. And you’re in my weight class. And it’s your vampire in the coffin.”

“I am not in your weight class,” I said, offended. “You’ve got to outweigh me by at least forty pounds.” I edged a quarter of a step closer to the crypt. “And it’s not a vampire.”

“How much do you weigh?”

“Isn’t it rude to ask a woman how much she weighs?”

“Nah, it’s rude to ask how old she is, and I already know.”

Oh. Damn. I stepped forward, holding my breath. The crypt didn’t do anything. “I weigh one seventy- two.”

“No shit?”

“I’m almost six feet tall, Gary, what do you want me to weigh, a hundred and thirty? I’d be dead.” I peeked into the little hole the lid made where it had slid over. If there was a vampire in there, it was a very small, very hidden vampire. Or maybe it blended with shadows well. Vampires were supposed to do that, weren’t they?

I was scaring myself. “Give me a hand with this.”

Gary crept forward. “I outweigh you by sixty pounds.”

“That’s why you’re a linebacker, and I’m not. Push on three. One, two, three!”

I underestimated how much push we could provide. The lid shot off the box, crashing to the floor with a thud that rattled the rafters. I fell forward, shrieking, with visions of being sucked dry by vampires supplied by my too-vivid imagination.

Halfway into the crypt, I was met by another shrieking woman on her way out.

CHAPTER 3

My head hit the floor with a crack only slightly less impressive than the crypt lid had made. My vision swam to black, and my tailbone decompressed like a series of firecrackers. I wouldn’t need to visit the chiropractor after all.

Vision returned in time to see something bright and glittery arching down at me. I flung my hand up, barely deflecting the fall of a knife. My wrist hit the woman’s with the solid thunk that meant a week from now, after I’d forgotten this had happened, a bone bruise would color half my arm. The woman’s grip loosened and the knife glanced off my cheekbone instead of driving into my throat. I hit her again, and the knife skittered away, bouncing across the hardwood floor.

The woman shrieked again—or maybe she hadn’t stopped—and scrambled after the knife. I tackled her, flinging my arms around her. Her white blouse suddenly stained red where my cheek pressed against it.

Gary pulled her out from under me and to her feet, pushing her elbows in against her waist and holding her still. His hands looked bizarrely large in proportion to her waist. She winced and hissed, her head down as I got up unsteadily and touched my face. Blood skimmed over my fingertips and into my palm, coloring in the lifeline. I watched vacantly as it trailed all the way around the side of my hand and down my wrist. My face didn’t hurt. It seemed like it should.

“You got lucky,” Gary said. “She was gonna cut your throat right out. What should I do with her?”

I looked up, startled and vacant. “Oh, fer Chrissakes,” he said, “You’re shocky, or somethin’. Get something to stop the bleeding.”

That seemed like a pretty good idea. I looked around, silver catching my eye again. The knife she’d cut me with lay against the foot of a pew, a nice heavy butterfly knife. I picked it up and cut a piece off the altar banner, holding it to my face while Gary asked again what to do with the woman.

“Um,” I said, and then my face started to hurt. For a minute I was too busy blinking back tears to give a damn what Gary did. I croaked, “Hold her for a minute,” and tried increasing the pressure on my cut to see if it helped the pain any. It didn’t. I looked up through teary eyes. It had to be the same woman. She had hip-length dark brown hair with just enough curl to make me covet it. “You’re the one I saw from the airplane.”

She lifted her head to look at me, eyes wide. I dropped my hand from my face and the makeshift bandage fell to the floor as I gawked at her.

She was beautiful. Not your garden-variety pretty girl, not your movie-star kind of beautiful. She was the sort of beautiful that Troy had gone to war over. High, fragile cheekbones, delicate pointed chin, absolutely unblemished pale skin. Long-lashed blue eyes, thin straight eyebrows. A rosebud mouth, for God’s sake. There were very fine lines of pain around the corners of her mouth and eyes, and the nostrils of her perfectly straight nose were flared a little, none of which detracted from her beauty.