The Vampire's Revenge by Raven Hart Page A

before flying away was “You haven’t seen the last of me, McShane. When the time is right, I’ll be back. You take good care of that slayer, you hear?”
    “What the hell?” I muttered as I watched her disappear into the moonlight. That last part didn’t make any sense. Why would Eleanor want me to take care of the Slayer? She’d claimed to be terrified of Connie.
    Ginger was so happy she cried. She hugged me hard and even kissed the top of Huey’s head where Eleanor had pecked him. “You guys are the best!”
    I told her she should probably go into the garage and thank Otis and Rufus for their part in getting her back. Then she should have Rennie drive her to her apartment. I had to go find Connie for our usual nightly demon-hunting session.
    I also wanted to see if I could get a sense of whether she and Seth had done the deed the night before. I was going to dread the answer, whether it was yes or no, for different reasons. Either one was going to tear my heart out in its own extra-special way.
    Even more important, I had to warn Connie about Diana and Ulrich. I couldn’t remember if she’d ever met Diana and I didn’t even know what Ulrich looked like, so a lot of help I’d be. She’d be able to smell them out as vampires, but she might mistake them for double-deads who had taken over other people’s bodies.
    Oh, crap. The double-deads. What had just taken place between Eleanor and Ginger introduced a whole new wrinkle in the already thorny problem of how to get rid of the vampires who’d stolen human bodies. Connie and I couldn’t just kill them like we’d killed the more obvious monsters. If we did, the evil spirits might be able to take up residence in still another host and the body of the human spirit would be lost. Why the hell couldn’t anything be easy ?
    I had to reach Connie right away. She was on duty, so I called her on my cell phone.
    “Jones,” she answered tersely.
    “Where are you?”
    “At the Lazarus Point Marina,” she said. “There’s been an attack. A woman went berserk and started stabbing people with a steak knife. One of them is in critical condition.”
    “Could be one of the double-deads in a human body,” I said.
    “Just what I was thinking.”
    “Do you have her in custody?”
    “No. She’s still at large.”
    “I’m coming over there. If you catch her, and she smells like a vampire, don’t kill her.”
    “Why the hell not?” I could hear the wildness come back into Connie’s voice. She could pretend to be normal in front of the other cops when no vampires were around, but just talking to me was bringing out the monster in her. I could feel the murderous psychic buzz in her head even on the cell phone.
    “Because you might be killing an innocent host, that’s why. It’s complicated. I’ll be over there as soon as I can and I’ll explain everything then.”
    I could hear her grumbling even as I hung up. My car was at William’s so I headed toward the wrecker. It wasn’t as fast as the ’Vette, but it would have to do.
    As I turned to climb into the tow truck, I heard a very British, very female voice from behind me. “My, but you look in a hurry.”
    “Olivia!” I whirled toward the voice and a tall, thin blonde flew into my arms.
    “Jack! I came as soon as I could get away. You poor, poor darling.”
    I held her away from me to get a better look at her. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.” Olivia was the leader of the good European vampires and had worked closely with William and me in our fight against the old lords. It was the murder of her beloved sire Algernon that set off the renewed war with the Council, which had decided to become active again after having been literally underground for who knew how long. Olivia and I had had our differences, but I knew she loved William almost as much as I did, so she felt like family.
    “I can’t tell you how heartbroken I am about William.” She peered at me soulfully with her wide gray eyes. Her