Netherworld II: Blood Potion No. 9 Read online

  Netherworld II: Blood Potion No. 9

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Netherworld II:

  Blood Potion No. 9

  By

  Tracy St. John

  (C) Copyright by Tracy St. John, June 2012

  (C) Cover Art by Eliza Black, June 2012

  ISBN 978-1-60394-701-5

  Published by New Concepts Publishing

  Smashwords Edition

  Lake Park, GA 31636

  www.store.newconceptspublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

  Chapter 1

  The creaking of the old wooden stairs and the thumping of many feet warned me I was about to have company. I tucked my book under my arm and went to the mirror on the wall. Its luster had long faded with age but it still reflected well enough to make sure my upswept red hair maintained its pristine style. Yep. I looked pretty swell for a dead gal.

  I made my way across Rebecca Sanderson’s sitting room past the ornate armchairs. The skirts of my Victorian-era dress whispered across the Oriental rug lying upon the wide planks of the hardwood floor. Rebecca herself was long gone, not having become a ghost upon her demise as a tottering old lady. I often wondered what happened to the others not locked into Earth-bound existences. I wondered why I hadn’t gone where they had, why I was still stuck here.

  My name is Brandilynn Payson. I was murdered earlier this year by a vampire serial killer who had issues with women of questionable morals. But that’s another story.

  I sat down on the tufted sofa with carved wood trim and arranged myself just so. Fresh flowers graced the table in front of me, right next to the silver tea service. Their lovely fragrance still couldn’t mask the mustiness of age that comes with old houses and their furniture. It doesn’t matter how much you clean and air out an older place; it still somehow carries that scent of years past.

  I could hear my visitors near the first room down the hall of the second floor of the historic Sanderson Cottage, located on Goose Creek Island, Georgia. The whole island was once a summer retreat for the ridiculously wealthy, but now it’s a state park. All the cottages are still here, though the millionaires are long gone from this beautiful spot: the Vanderbilts, the Pulitzers, the Rockefellers, and the Sandersons themselves. Their winter homes remain, lovingly maintained and receiving their due appreciation from tourists.

  I looked over my dress with a critical eye. I’d changed its color and trim no less than a dozen times tonight, and I thought it looked pretty good. Ruffles at my neck, wrists and the hem. Emerald green to match my eyes and flatter my porcelain skin. Darker forest green details. Even the lace-up boots matched, though I kept them hidden under the sweeping skirt. I hate my size 9 ½ feet.

  No corset, of course. I’d died a size 4, working out and counting every calorie to maintain my figure, which my income hinged upon. Appearances were everything in the world I’d lived in. One of the nice things about being dead is never having to climb on an elliptical machine again.

  I closed my eyes and felt for the earth’s natural magnetic pulse. Sanderson Cottage sits a few yards from Goose Creek itself, a little stretch of water coming from the intracoastal waterway. Water is also a marvelous energy conductor, and I drew on the

  power it created. It fed my non-existent body, making me tingle at my fingertips and toes. I was almost ready.

  Steps approached from down the hall. A velvet cord in the open doorway kept the tourists out of the late Rebecca’s sitting room, allowing them to admire from afar the fine antique furnishings the Sandersons had used when they were new. As the small group of no more than ten persons at a time drew near, I opened the book I held as if reading it while I continued to draw energy. My prop was the latest collection of sonnets by the Bard himself, who still creates beautiful tapestries of words after all this time.

  One more gulp of energy, and I was ready. I opened my eyes and pretended to read my book as the tour guide and her entourage reached the doorway.

  The tour guide, a self-assured woman of about forty and still tan despite our being only two weeks from Halloween, had a clear voice with enough Southern twang to charm, but not enough of one for Yankees to make fun of. She sounded genteel, not redneck-y.

  “This next room was Rebecca Sanderson’s sitting room. The silver tea service was a gift to the family from President Cleveland.”

  A woman interrupted the guide’s spiel. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that her blond hair was going frizzy from our notorious southeast Georgia humidity. We were currently having a hot spell, a last visit from the past summer as so often happens in October.

  “Did the re-enactor’s dress come from Mrs. Sanderson or is it just a costume? It’s beautiful.”

  The tour guide, Bethany was her name, looked at the woman with well-played confusion. “We don’t use re-enactors.”

  I chose that moment to stand and leave the room via a connecting door to the small lavatory that no tourist saw. The extra power I’d drawn bled away a little at a time, and I knew I faded from sight a few steps from the washroom. I was rewarded by the gasps of the onlookers. I couldn’t help but grin as I listened to the excited chatter. Another stellar performance.

  They’d seen a real ghost all right, but not Rebecca Sanderson’s. I wondered if they’d be as excited to know they’d actually sighted a murdered escort. I’d been one of over two dozen victims of the Fulton Falls Ripper, now dead himself and unlamented.

  Another aged mirror greeted me in the not-so-well conserved bathroom (after all, who wants to look at the toilet Rebecca Sanderson once squatted on?). I played with my hair, smoothing my palm over the smooth parts, curling my finger around the curly parts. Bethany finished her spiel about Rebecca’s sitting room to the now breathless tourists, and they moved on, no doubt hoping to spot another spirit roaming around. Sorry folks, I was the only one, and I’d been hired to do it. Sightseers love a haunted house, and they paid good money to catch a glimpse of a ghost. We’re hard to see.

  A familiar voice spoke cautiously from the sitting room entrance, one that was thick with a down-home accent. “Brandilynn?”

  I tripped out of the bathroom, happy to see Lana Minchew. She was a round apple of a woman, heavy handed with her makeup, a terrible dresser, but an absolute sweetheart of a gal. She was also psychic, and one of the few living persons who could sense my presence and hear me.

  She wasn’t alone. Taylor Allen, a clairvoyant, and Taylor’s girlfriend Patricia Keith were also on the other side of the velvet rope. The trio of women made a very unlikely looking group. In contrast to cuddly, lumpy Lana, resplendent this evening in a ruffled orange polyester blouse and black leggings – no doubt in honor of quickly approaching Halloween – Taylor was no-nonsense casual with her short brown hair and slender body clad in a polo shirt and khaki slacks.

  Then there was Patricia. Imagine a young Katherine Hepburn, circa 1930, with sleek shoulder-length black hair, cool and elegant in a silk button-down blouse and pleated slacks, the creases precisely where they should be. That’s Patricia.

  Oh yeah, add her lily-white skin and almost black eyes which went red-rimmed wh
en she removed her glamour. Along with the fangs that appeared when she wanted you to be afraid. She’s a vampire.

  I was delighted to see them. “Hey, girls. I didn’t know y’all were coming on the tour.”

  Only Lana could hear me, of course. “Brandilynn says hi,” she told the other two. She turned back to me, looking slightly to the right of where I stood. “Actually, we just tagged along with the group because we needed to speak to you. Very nice job, by the way.”

  Patricia nodded, her smile doing little to soften the predatory cast of her expression. Vampires always look like they’re on the hunt for something to suck the blood out of. If you can look at one without a shiver going down your spine, you’re a better woman than me.

  Her voice was as chilling as a February midnight. “The dress is wonderful. Becky didn’t have anything with that many ruffles, but she would have loved it if she had.”

  Back when Patricia had been alive-alive and not undead-alive, she’d worked for the Sandersons as Rebecca’s secretary. She’d spent many winters in this cottage and loved it as one might a childhood home. Until this past spring, she’d used the grounds as her body’s daytime resting place. A skirmish with other paranormals had necessitated her to hide her coffin elsewhere.

  I like Patricia a lot during the daytime when she’s a ghost like me. She’s loyal to a fault and a great friend to have. As a vampire … well, I’m not a huge fan of vampires. Even now that I’m dead and don’t have to worry about them sucking me dry, they still give me the willies. I have to give Taylor all the credit in the world for her courage in having Patricia as a significant other.

  Getting a compliment from Patricia-as-a-vampire was a gold star day. I burbled happily from the unexpected praise. “I probably should have stuck with historically accurate, but I can never leave well enough alone.”

  Lana smiled, her hot-pink lipstick clashing horribly with her orange blouse. One of these days I’m going to make her go shopping with me after I wrest full veto power over her wardrobe and makeup choices. “You looked stunning, sweetie. We’re sorry to interrupt your fun, but Tristan would like you to go to the King George immediately.”

  My heart jumped with equal parts delight and nervousness. Tristan is Patricia’s older brother, my sweetie, and the head honcho of Fulton Falls’ vampire clutch. To say my feelings for him are complicated would be putting it lightly.

  That he wanted my presence at night when he can’t see me told me something was not going well. “What’s up?” Then I had a bad thought. “Is Dan okay?”

  Lana’s jolly expression never faltered, always a good sign. “Everything is fine. Tristan just needs you to run an important errand for him.”

  Taylor frowned slightly. She always seemed so serious. “I’d hardly call it an errand.”

  Patricia touched her shoulder gently. Her fangs glimmered into view against her lower lip for an instant, a sure sign she was either thinking blood or sex. Probably both. Yikes. Her tone held a warning. “We’ll let him bring Brandilynn up to speed. It will save time. Will you join him right away, Brandilynn?”

  “Sure. I showed up as Rebecca three times here this evening already. That should boost the haunted tour’s value.”

  Lana nodded to the other two women. “She said she would. Brandilynn, Isabella is waiting for you with Tristan.”

  I sighed. I really hated being channeled by the living, but it was the only way to communicate with them without having Lana around to interpret for me. “Okay. I’ll see you all later.”

  Time to materialize at Para Central, where Tristan conducted business when he wasn’t downtown at the county commission offices. The refined surroundings of Rebecca Sanderson’s sitting room smeared into a haze of lantern-lit colors for an instant before a paintbucket wash of gold and burgundy replaced it.

  I appeared on the raised bandstand of the old King George Hotel’s ballroom. Well, I would have appeared if there’d been any other ghosts to see me. But no, it was all the living and the undead here in Para Central.

  In its heyday, the King George Hotel had been the crown jewel of Fulton Falls, Georgia, which lies opposite the intracoastal from Goose Creek Island. The Big Fire of ’36 had destroyed the hotel, along with most of downtown. The current Fulton Falls was built on top of the old, leaving ruined structures crumbling in decay beneath the world of the living.

  Some of the more well-loved structures have their own afterlife, showing up to the dead in all their pre-fire glory. The old First Baptist Church, the original Fulton Falls Library, and the King George Hotel are such buildings.

  Ford County Commissioner Tristan Keith, alive back when the King George originally stood, has set about restoring the still intact, though badly damaged, ground floor of the grand old hotel. He works out of here during the night, along with a staff of vampires, shapeshifters, gargoyles and a few supernaturally gifted humans like Lana and Taylor. Most people don’t know about this place. Before I died, I had no idea there was a town beneath the town. Now it’s home to me and so many of the dead.

  I looked around the old ballroom, which was now more office space than a party place. Tristan and Patricia’s executive desks sat up on the bandstand. Large chandeliers hung overhead. The parquet wood floor gleamed. Burgundy wallpaper with gold designs dressed the walls. It was a fancy business center for the three rows of utilitarian desks that marched across the room, manned by Tristan’s staff. Paras of every type punched commands onto computer keyboards, answered ringing phones, and traded gossip over cups of coffee. Behind me, a giant dry erase board hung on the wall, every spare inch covered with scribbled notations of zoning issues, budget juggling to provide the local police with badly needed new patrol cars, and the bitter fight between the county and the city about the new jail’s location. The city wanted it near the courthouses for security’s sake, which made sense, but that would put it right on the scenic waterfront near the parks and tourist-friendly downtown, a huge no-no for most of Fulton Falls’ residents and the county commission.

  The ballroom, or Para Central as I call it, smelled of warm fur and dry reptilian scales. Underneath that was the hint of smoke from the long-ago fire, which was now familiar enough to me to be comforting.

  All that made little impact on me right now, because the first nice thing I saw was Gerald leaning against Patricia’s desk. He was her bodyguard and a very rare werepanther. Body-builder thick with muscle, this man-beast was absolutely gorgeous. An open denim vest displayed his dark mocha chest covered with subtle black markings to advantage. The fangs that indented his well-formed lower lip were gleaming white. Black-furred triangular ears parted the tight cornrows of braids that hung down his very broad back. Green-gold eyes glowed in the darkness of his handsome face. Gerald was a feast of eye candy, and I was gorging.

  It was odd to see him not hovering over Patricia. I couldn’t imagine anyone getting the best of her, but being the sister of Fulton Fall’s head vampire certainly put her at risk. She must have put her foot down hard for a girls’ night out tonight. Gerald looked bored and a bit morose as he perched on the edge of her desk, more like a puppy waiting for her return than a deadly werepanther. I suspected he was sweet on his mistress, a crying shame since she preferred to bat for the home team.

  My ruminations over this hot hunk of heaven ended at the sight of Augustus heading towards me. My heart leapt at his approach. He and witches are the only living creatures I know of who can see me.

  His voice was the sole unattractive thing about him. A squawking shriek, he’ll never be a contestant on American Idol. But his words were poetic once you figured out what he was saying. Beaks don’t form words nearly as good as lips.

  What I heard him say was, “Belubbed sabing grabes, bishun ub dordured byoodee.” What he actually uttered in that shrill voice to greet me was “Beloved saving grace, vision of tortured beauty.”

  I wrapped my arms around his neck in a heartfelt embrace as I tried to interpret his words. As usual, I wasn’t quite sure how mu
ch was compliment and how much was prophecy. Augustus is an oracle and usually talks in riddles. I debated how to take his characterization of me as a ‘tortured beauty’. Griffins, half-lion and half-eagle, are hard to understand even when you get past their inability to pronounce letters like V and F.

  A majestic creature, standing on all fours he still comes up to my chin. I spoke into the softness of the feathers that covered his eagle’s head. “Hi, Augustus. Having a good night?”

  His rigid beak allowed no smile, but I sensed contentment from him just the same. “The cool air was swift against face and wing. I am invigorated by the briskness of harvest time.”

  “You’ve been flying. I wish I could fly too. You make it sound so wonderful.”

  A cold, elegant voice flowed over my ears, bringing a thrill of fear along with desire. “I take it you’re talking to Brandilynn and not yourself, old friend?”

  I straightened and looked at my boyfriend. Well, the vampire aspect of my boyfriend. I love Tristan Keith with all my heart during the day when his body is dead and he’s a plain old ghost. But when he’s a vampire, all sharp with hunger, I’m a little freaked out.