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  “Have you brought many fares out this way?” I asked, trying to salvage the conversation.

  “Not one, little lady. Never. That may be the luck of the draw or somethin’. But I figure there’s not much call for it. Folks that live out here have their own means of transportation, and they’re a far sight fancier than this rust bucket. I did know a handyman who came out here for a job a few years back. No one ever heard from him again…”

  “What?” Hiram asked sharply.

  The cabbie barked a laugh. “I’m just messin’ with you! But you believed it at first, didn’t you? That’s ‘cause everyone knows the rich eat people like you and me for breakfast. If that were ever found out to be the literal case, I don’t think anyone would be all that surprised.”

  Hiram gave me an uneasy look. It was easy to read because I felt the same thing he was probably feeling. There was a palpable tension building as we got closer to Linus Crum’s estate, but I wasn’t exactly sure of the source of that tension. Sure, we were about to go face off with a centuries-old vampire. That was part of what we were feeling. But we weren’t entirely without a contingency plan. I had put in a call with Luka before we started out, so if Hiram and I suddenly fell off the face of the planet, he would at least know who to point the finger at.

  No, there was some other component to the apprehensiveness I was feeling. Something that maybe didn’t even stem from the case at all. I think part of it was that I did feel like an invader in a place I didn’t belong. It wasn’t hard to imagine dozens of sets of eyes peering down from the ornate windows all around us. The battered yellow cab could have had a spotlight on it, and it wouldn’t have been any more conspicuous than it already was.

  “Shirlings Avenue.” The cabbies harsh voice made me jump. “You want me to ring at the gate, or…”

  “No, we’ll be fine from here.” Hiram popped his door, then looked at me. “Hurry and settle up… I don’t want to be loitering out here by myself for long.”

  “We’re not going halfsies?”

  Hiram’s glower said we were not.

  I settled with the cab driver and joined Hiram by the shut wrought iron driveway gate. The cab’s headlights illuminated a long expanse of cobblestone drive, but the light petered out long before it made it to any house or structure on the other side of the entryway.

  “You will be the one doing the honors,” Hiram said in a hushed voice. He pointed to the intercom system that was set midway up one of the stone pillars beside the gate.

  “You think I’m going to announce our arrival?” I asked. “I want any element of surprise I can get. Ol’ Linus should be caught on his back foot when we’re flinging questions at him. Haven’t you ever read a detective novel?”

  “I lean toward non-fiction,” Hiram replied. “Still, how do you propose we get through the gate without ringing? I am not climbing anything.” He slicked down his shirt and made sure the creases were still crisp in his pants.

  “Relax, I know you well enough to never ask you to do anything that requires physical exertion.” I moved over to the black metal gate. “This thing would fall open to a well-timed tap from a flathead screwdriver.”

  “Do you have a flathead screwdriver?”

  “I can do you one better.”

  I pulled my ring of lockpick tools from my jacket pocket. The myriad bands of metal and delicate hooks caught and held the bright moonlight.

  “Those things make you far too happy.” Hiram hunched his shoulders and joined me at the business end of the gate. “Which reminds me, I’ve been meaning to get one of those security bars that go under one’s doorknob…”

  “Afraid I’m gonna creep up on you in the middle of the night?”

  “Not you, per se. But someone like you.”

  I thought I caught sight of a slight grin at the corner of Hiram’s lips, but he could have just been fighting a bout of queasiness.

  “Well, just so you know, those things can be defeated with a metal yardstick,” I said.

  “It disturbs me that you know that.”

  I returned Hiram’s grin, if that was what it had been, then turned my attention back to the job at hand.

  I flicked out the largest band of metal from my tools and gauged it against the gate’s locking mechanism. There was no doubt it would be an easy task. The lock wasn’t much more than an enlarged version of the snap locks they used on interior doors most of the time. The real question was whether or not there was an alarm rigged to the thing.

  Only one way to find out.

  I wedged my metal band against the gate’s latch bolt and then shimmied it from one side to the other until the old, heavy metal let out a satisfying thunk and popped open. If there was an alarm, it wasn’t one that we could hear.

  “You… couldn’t have done that any more quickly if you had the key,” Hiram said, pushing through the gate after me.

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m not certain it was a compliment.”

  “And yet, I’m taking it as one.”

  The cobblestone driveway was impressively long. At least a couple hundred yards of impeccably maintained and perfectly level stones that were wide enough across to drive three pickup trucks side-by-side, not that anyone ever would. It had a timeless quality, and there was no way to tell if the thing had been put in place last year or last century.

  The house came into view as soon as we pushed past the area of thick evergreen trees that lined the first half of the drive. It was a mansion as impressive as any of the others we’d glimpsed on the way there, but I couldn’t pin down one unique architectural style. The front, which was lit by a plethora of faux oil lamp pole lights, was rimmed with multistory columns from end to end. But, as we drew closer, I could see additions that included swooping gothic details and what looked like knife-pointed arched windows. The place was more like several mansions squashed together than one discrete entity.

  The effect was less Count Dracula’s lair and more like the whimsical meandering house that Ron Weasley lived in in the Harry Potter books.

  “So… anything else I should know before we do this thing?” There was a buzz in my voice that I didn’t like, and the tension that I felt the whole way here was starting to do funny things to my breathing.

  “A little late to be asking now, don’t you think? You seemed gung-ho to do this by the seat of your pants.”

  “Humor me,” I said. In reality, I just needed something to do with the nervous energy I was feeling. “Any rules when one addresses an ancient creature of the night?”

  “Well, for starters, you probably shouldn’t refer to them as creatures of the night. The same goes for bloodsuckers… Just try to address the man by his chosen name.”

  “Darn, I had murderous marrow muncher primed and ready since the cab ride. Thought he might get a kick out of that one.”

  “Probably not.”

  “Noted. So, what’s the deal with the fangs? They looked more like spiny shark teeth than the two dainty ones they always seem to have in the movies. Doesn’t seem like they’d be all that handy for discreetly sipping blood from a victim in a darkened alley.”

  “I’m not sure about the discreet part,” Hiram answered. “But my guess is that more fangs equate to a bigger hole. Which, in turn, equals more and quicker access to blood. Just do me a favor and try not to do anything that tests that theory, could you?”

  “That’s entirely up to Count Chocula in there.”

  “Oh, God… this is going to be a disaster.”

  “Just as long as it’s a disaster in our favor,” I said.

  “I… don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean.”

  We crossed a walkway between two of the many giant pillars and stood before the front door. It was a lavish thing, at least ten feet tall and gilded with intricate gold curlicues and flourishes, but it too looked like it was lifted from another structure entirely—perhaps a church or temple—and plunked down alongside the more modern façade of the house’s front.
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br />   “You want to do the honors here at least?” I asked.

  “You mean you’re not going to burglar your way right into the man’s home? I’m shocked.”

  “You think I should?”

  “God, no.” Hiram didn’t wait to debate the issue. He rapped firmly on the door, then glowered in my direction as we waited.

  We stood like that for several minutes, but there was no response from inside.

  “Maybe he’s out munching on the locals,” I suggested.

  “Give the man time,” Hiram said. “I doubt he is accustomed to many visitors, especially the uninvited variety.” He tried knocking again.

  When several more minutes elapsed with no activity, I moved closer to the door. “He had his chance.”

  “Maybe we could try back tomorrow—”

  Hiram’s words cut off the moment he saw my tools back in my hand.

  “So… this is how I die,” he said in a low theatrical tone. “I wish I could say I was surprised, but I kind of figured you would have a major part to play. It’s my own fault, really. I knew better than to get sucked into your—”

  “Can you do the whole death monologue thing when you’re closer to being killed?” I interrupted. “I need to focus for a minute here.”

  Hiram continued to mutter under his breath, but at least I could tune that out.

  The door’s lock took me longer than I expected. It wasn’t because it was overly complex. It was just that the thing was old. Maybe ancient. I hadn’t ever encountered anything quite like it. There was quite a lot of probing and trial and error involved, and when I finally coaxed the last tumbler into place and wrenched the bolt back, I was more than a little impressed with myself.

  The feeling didn’t last all that long.

  The door swung open from my hands, and we were greeted by what may have been the most striking woman I had ever seen. Her skin was as pale as porcelain, to the point that it almost glowed in the moonlight, and her features had a kind of otherworldly angularity to them that managed the difficult task of looking beautiful and utterly frightening at the same time.

  It probably didn’t help matters that she was caked in bright red blood from neck to knees.

  “They’re out here,” the woman hissed at someone behind her. “The hunt will not be nearly as interesting as we thought.”

  Chapter 14

  I probably should have been more terrified as the blood-soaked woman yanked us rudely into the house and slammed us both down to the floor. The sheer strength she displayed was enough to give anyone pause, and when you coupled that with the mouthful of deadly fangs she had on full display, it was a recipe for a full-blown panic attack.

  But all I could think about—at first, at least—was Hiram. I never actually wanted to get the guy killed. He was often a pain in my backside, but it was a comfortable and familiar pain that I had grown to think of almost fondly. And the fact that he was very likely going to be snuffed out by the object of his strange infatuation made the whole thing seem even crueler.

  “I’ve never found humans to be terribly bright,” the woman said, staring down at us with appraising eyes. “But, typically, they have at least a modicum of a survival instinct. You two…” Her words had a slight lisp to them, which made her insults strangely relaxing.

  “Her!” Hiram squelched. “She’s the one that dragged us here. I know full well how stupid it is to be bumbling about in the domain of a vampire! I tried to tell her…”

  “And yet, here you are.”

  Hiram shot a glance over at me but didn’t seem to have a reply.

  The female vampire’s nostrils flared delicately, and she tilted her head minutely in our direction. “You’re not the common variety of human. And it isn’t only your stupidity that marks you out.” She nodded toward Hiram. “Necromancer.” It wasn’t a question.

  She turned her gaze on me and studied more intently, before narrowing her eyes. It felt as though she were looking into and then through me, and I could barely refrain from squirming under her dark gaze.

  “You… are more interesting,” she said, leaning a little closer. “Shtriga?”

  “Uh, gesundheit.”

  The vampire stood back up and smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant smile.

  “Keep your secrets, then. It matters not.”

  “She’s a Necromancer, like me,” Hiram offered. The tone of his voice suggested he was eager to please and would likely offer up his banking PIN for the asking.

  “If she is a Necromancer,” the woman replied, “then she is nothing like you. Touching you was like handling a dead fish. But I can feel her energy snapping at me from across the room.”

  “He’s not lying,” I tried. “As far as I know, I’m a Necromancer. I only found that out less than a year ago.”

  The vampire shrugged. “Then you know nothing.”

  “And it matters not.”

  I jumped as a thunderously deep voice echoed across the large room at us. The female vampire stepped aside as a man—presumably, another vampire—loped into view from somewhere in the shadows.

  He was tall and had olive skin, and with his clean-shaven head and dark goatee, he was really giving off a generic Bond villain vibe. This guy was definitely not the vampire from my vision.

  “Source-sensitives or not, the punishment for their crime is the same.” He brushed his fingers lightly against the female vampire’s arm. “And it’s unseemly to play with your food, Ada.”

  “Wait, wait, wait. Your punishment for this is death?” I tried to inconspicuously position my legs under me so that I might be able to quickly rise from the floor when the moment came. “Even for vampires that sounds a little harsh. Maybe a steep fine might be more in order? Just a suggestion.”

  “A fine, you say?” The male vampire moved closer until he was looming directly over me. “How much do you think might be fair?”

  “Uh, I don’t know. A thou—ten thousand dollars?” I didn’t have ten thousand dollars, but even that amount seemed like an insult, given the extravagant surroundings.

  “Ten thousand dollars.” The man nodded judiciously. “That is how much you reckon the life of my brethren is worth?” He turned his attention back to the woman. “What do you say, Ada? Shall we toss Linus’s body into a dumpster as we go to the mini-mall to spend our newfound riches? This creature must have the right of it, eh? Ten thousand is more than enough to make up for their cruel murder of our friend. We are, after all, only heartless vampires, as she so astutely pointed out.”

  “I didn’t point—murder!? Linus is dead?” My head spun with the implications. Up until this point, I had at least been entertaining the idea that this aggression from the vampires was, in part, an act. I felt there was more than the possibility that they were only putting us in our place and letting us know exactly who was higher on the food chain.

  But if Linus had been killed…

  I stared at the glistening red blood that saturated Ada’s clothing, and it dawned on me that the mess hadn’t been the result of a messy lunch. Linus hadn’t just been murdered… he’d been murdered recently, and his friends had likely just discovered that fact.

  And now here Hiram and I were, serving ourselves up as the two most cosmically unlucky people in the world. Two Necromancers who just happened to be traipsing around on the property of a recently murdered vampire…

  “Go on,” the male vampire said. His eyes were the palest blue I had ever seen, and his hostile glare seemed to dare me to look away from him. “You were about to say how neither of you even knew Linus was dead, right? Continue. I’m so fond of a show with dinner.”

  “We—we didn’t,” Hiram sputtered before I had a chance to form a reply. “You must have heard us knocking on the front door. Why would we do that if we’d murdered your friend? Why would we even still be here at all?”

  “I heard no knocks,” Ada purred. “Did you hear anything, Tomás?”

  “I can’t say that I did, darling. Perhaps, it was because we were
occupied by some other frivolous activity. Like trying to find our friend’s head… It was probably something silly like that.”

  “His… head?” Hiram puffed out the words like a deflating balloon.

  “Yes, didn’t we mention?” Tomás asked with false cheer. “The person who stole Linus’s life also absconded with this head.”

  “No heads here,” I blurted before my brain had a chance to find a more polite way of phrasing it.

  “I beg your pardon?” The façade of calm fell away from Tomás for the first time, and I could see a swirl of rage and sadness in his expression that was almost enough to knock me back.

  “I just mean if we’d killed your friend, we obviously don’t have his head. Not to mention the fact that decapitation is likely to create a, um…” I gestured at Ada’s front. “A mess.”

  “A valid point,” Tomás replied, regaining some of his composure. “And if you two were your everyday, garden-variety humans, I might even find that somewhat convincing.”

  “But they’re more than that,” Ada said.

  “Right you are, my dear. On one side we have a Necromancer, and on the other… whatever it is she claims to be. I wonder what mischief a Necromancer could do with the recently removed head of a vampire. A vampire who had walked this earth for more than half a millennium, I might add.”

  “Nothing!” Hiram whined. “A Necromancer couldn’t do anything with a dead vampire. Our powers do not interact with your kind because—”

  “Because we are soulless beasts driven only by our base needs to feed and fornicate?” Tomás crouched down to look Hiram right in the face. “Is that what you were going to say?”

  Hiram’s throat clicked loudly as he gulped.

  “Or perhaps you were going to say that my kind is so far beyond you that your paltry magic has no dominion over us?”

  “That one.” Hiram’s words came out as a raspy whisper.

  “Ah, yes, I would agree with that sentiment, then. But such a thing still does little to exonerate you and your accomplice. You could have used your powers to do the deed, isn’t that so? That would explain the lack of blood on the two of you. Is that what happened? Did you summon some wraith to attack Linus? That’s it! You surprised him while he slept, and then, after it was done, you had your minion parade his head—”