"I'm about to put her on ice for the night," the attendant said. "Dr. Dewey will be in first thing in the morning to start the autopsy."
As he spoke, the corpse on the gurney jackknifed into a sitting position, the sheet falling to reveal her naked torso.
The young man opened his mouth to let out a scream, but Jagger leaped over the table in an instant, slipping behind him and silencing him with a hand over the mouth, pulling the door shut with his other hand.
Tina Lawrence glared around, a hissing growl coming from her lips.
Then she parted those lips to reveal dripping fangs.
Despite her calling in life and the way she'd died, Tina Lawrence was still beautiful. Her blond hair cascaded over the white flesh of her shoulders, and despite the terrifying distraction of her fangs, she had lovely wide blue eyes, which settled on the attendant with hunger.
He spoke from beneath Jagger's hold, his words muffled but audible. "She's alive. She's alive!"
Jagger stared at Fiona. "Take him--quickly. Silence him."
She hurried over to where Jagger was struggling with the attendant--both to hold him still and to keep from hurting him. She grasped the young man's arms, staring into his eyes. "Quiet now, quiet. It's all right. You're dreaming this. You're asleep at your desk, and you know that you have to wake up, that you have a job to do...."
She kept speaking softly. Jagger apparently assured himself that everything was fine and turned toward the corpse of Tina Lawrence, but as he did, the corpse leaped naked from the table, ready to pounce on Fiona and the young attendant.
Jagger slipped between them just in time.
As she continued trying to calm the attendant, Fiona saw that Jagger had taken a weapon from his jacket.
It was far superior to her own, a long stake, honed to a sharp point, even narrower than hers. He took Tina Lawrence into his arms, and, just before her newly grown fangs could tear into his throat, he struck hard, delivering the lethal blow directly through the wall of her chest and straight into her heart.
The corpse collapsed against him.
Despite her prowess with hypnotic mind control, Fiona began to lose the young morgue attendant.
He began to emit a low moaning sound and started to slip lower in her arms.
She had a feeling then that he must be a football player--a blocker or a tackle--with Tulane or Loyola, because she simply didn't have the strength to stop him from falling. Though she tried to hold him upright, she began to slip to the floor.
She heard Jagger swearing softly as he shoved the corpse of Tina Lawrence quickly back onto the table and came to help her.
But by then the attendant had passed out cold.
"We've got to get him back to his desk," Jagger told her.
"What if someone else is in the hallway? There are still people in the building," she warned.
"Get out there and make sure no one is coming," he told her. "Quickly."
"Why me?"
"Well, you obviously can't lift him."
"All right, all right, I'm going," Fiona said, and pointed an angry finger at him. "But you don't give me orders. I am the Keeper!"
"And you're going to have a hell of a lot to keep if you don't get moving," he told her.
She wanted to reply; she wanted the last word. But they needed to hurry. She rushed out into the hallway.
It was clear.
"Now," she told Jagger, sticking her head back into the autopsy room.
Luckily the attendant's desk was just down the hall. She rushed toward it, ready to fend off anyone who might come by.
Jagger had lifted the attendant as if he were no more than a ten-pound lapdog and was hurrying toward the desk. Just beyond the desk, Fiona saw a door opening. She rushed toward it just in time to see an older man in a lab jacket about to come through.
"Oh!" she said, staring at him, trying to lock her eyes on his and demand his attention.
Apparently she succeeded, because he stared curiously back at her.
"Hello," he said weakly.
She smiled. "You're so tired--you've been working very hard. Go and get your things, then go on home and have a nap. You're hallucinating, you're so tired."
"I'm so tired," he echoed. "You're a lovely hallucination."
"Thank you."
He was of average height and weight, with close-cropped white hair. He was usually very dignified looking, she was certain, but right now he was staring at her with wide-eyed wonder.
"You're daydreaming, sir. You have to go home. You need some rest."
"Yes, yes, but...why don't you come, too, and make this a really good daydream? An erotic daydream, maybe. Please?"
Fiona groaned inwardly.
"That wouldn't be a very good idea. You probably have a wife, and I think she's your daydream."
"All right."
He stepped back the way he had come, closing the door.
As she turned, she almost screamed herself. Jagger had come up quietly behind her.
"He's at his desk. He'll wake up confused. Poor boy may never be the same. He'll have some memory...but he'll just think that he imagined everything," Jagger told her. He was staring at her with amusement, and she could tell that he must have heard her conversation with the middle-aged man in the lab coat.
She pushed against his chest. Like a rock, but he moved back. "This is a disaster," she said, her voice a low and angry whisper. "You need to let me handle things."
"With what? A sledgehammer? So you could let the whole world know something was going on in here?"
Fiona ignored that. It was true that he had definitely...taken care of things.
But he was a vampire. And a vampire was normally loath to kill another vampire.
"The corpse?" she asked briskly.
"The corpse will have nothing but a tiny hole through the heart. If you had done this, it would have been obvious that someone had been here. Do you understand?"
"Your weapon is the right one. I'll see that I improve on my arsenal," she snapped.
"We need to finish up quickly," he said.
He hurried back to the autopsy room, checking the hallway after she followed him in, then closing the door.
"The sheet," he said, which irritated Fiona, since she was already returning Tina Lawrence to her original position on the table and covering her with the sheet.
Jagger just had to straighten it.
"Now let's get the hell out of here," he said.
He changed in a split second, appearing to be no more than mist, and heading out. Cursing silently, she did her best to make the change as quickly and efficiently.
Still, he looked impatient when she met him back on the street, though she couldn't have been more than a few seconds behind him.
"You could have caused a real problem in there tonight," he told her.
They had met on the street corner, beneath the shadow of a giant oak that dripped moss. He was tall, dark, lean, strikingly handsome--and deadly--in the glow of the flickering electric streetlight. Powerful in a way that was frightening, that stole her breath.
She wasn't afraid of him, she told herself.
She was the Keeper.
"I was there to see that the right thing was done," she said with dignity. "And I would have managed just fine--if you hadn't come in and messed everything up."
"I'm a cop, and I know how to manage any situation--especially one that has to do with vampires."
"I repeat. I am responsible. I am the Keeper. Your Keeper."
He bristled at that, and took a step closer to her. He used a body wash or aftershave that was subtle and masculine, and despite herself, she took a step backward, not sure if it was because she was intimidated--or because she found herself too attracted, too tempted to lay her hands on the broad expanse of his chest.
She forced herself to stay still as he took a step closer to her, pointing a finger and touching her just above her cleavage. "You are the Keeper. But you're overstepping your bounds. You're supposed to step in when we can't handle a situation ourselves. In this case, I was handling the situation just fine."
She shook her head. "I can't trust you to kill a vampire," she said, her words soft. "You have to trust me."
"A vampire has committed murder," she reminded him.
"That's not proven," he insisted. "Look--we're on it. Give us a chance, Fiona. Good God, learn from your parents. They were amazing, because they understood delegation."
"My parents are dead," she reminded him angrily.
She was surprised when he seemed to soften, when something in his eyes became gentle, almost tender.
"I'm sorry. Please, give me a chance...as a cop--and as a vampire. I will get to the bottom of this, but none of us will be in good shape if we get the city abuzz with rumors, and all the underworld starts getting edgy and worried. Please."
She nodded. "I don't want a panic erupting, either, but that's the point. I have to keep watching--that's what Keepers do," she reminded him. She was overwhelmed by the sense that she needed to get away from him. She didn't want to be this close, didn't want to be noticing his physique or realizing that his scent was extremely evocative. She wanted to be irritated from a distance; she wanted to solve the problem herself, because she was the Keeper.
"I have to get home," she heard herself say a little nervously.
"I'll drive you."
"I have my own car," she told him quickly.
"I'll walk you to it," he told her.
"I'm all right. This is my city."
"And like every city, it has crack houses, drug addicts and plain old thugs. I'm a cop--I do my job even when the denizens of the underworld aren't out causing trouble. I'll walk you to your car."
"Honestly, Jagger, I'm a Keeper."
"And a Keeper--just like a vampire, werewolf, shapeshifter, pixie, pooka, leprechaun or even a lamia--can be taken by surprise. Why the hell do you think our kind had to escape the old world, then flee places like Salem, to find a place where we could blend in? We're all vulnerable, Fiona, despite whatever strengths we have. We're all vulnerable--in so many ways."
