Holly tried to run her hand through her hair, but it was stiff with dried slime and sweat. She smelled like ooze. If she were a sock, she'd throw herself out.
"Ms. Carver?"
She started at the touch of a hand on her shoulder. "What? Sorry. Yes?"
"Detective Macmillan." The man thrust a clipboard toward her. "I need you to sign this."
"Paperwork?" she said in a tone that made her sound as if she were dying. The police had already asked her ten thousand questions. Something about being discovered in a house full of dead bodies made them curious.
"Yes, ma'am." He gave a quick, rueful smile. Detective Macmillan was handsome, with dark, wavy hair and a slight scruff of beard probably due more to long hours than a bad-boy fashion statement. "The law moves in triplicate ways."
She gingerly took the clipboard. Staring at the form was useless. Between the pills and fatigue, the words were doing the can-can across the page.
Then the fire brigade arrived, big motors huffing. They maneuvered slowly, the long trucks navigating the narrow, overparked street with the skill of long practice. Bystanders thronging the road were forced to scamper out of the way.
"Where did all these people come from?" Holly wondered aloud.
"Murder brings its own audience. Supernatural murder is a chart topper." Macmillan shrugged. "If you sign the form, you get another cup of coffee. We practice only the finest in behavior modification theory."
He gave a microgrin that came and went in seconds, somehow all the more charming for its brevity. She couldn't help noticing the man knew how to dress, though his suit had the rumpled look of a long, hard day.
Holly sighed at the clipboard. "What am I signing here?"
"A burn order on the house. I understand you were the certified investigator on the scene. After this many deaths, we can't let it stand."
Holly nodded. The Corporeal Entity Law stated that only beings adhering to a recognized definition of physical life were entitled to a trial. Sentient houses, along with ghosts, wraiths, and some demon forms, were deemed nonadherent and could be exterminated without a court order. All it took was her signature and the big, bad house would go up in smoke.
After that evening's fun and games, Holly was happy to sign. She scribbled something approximating her name and handed the clipboard back to Macmillan, awarding him a smile of her own.
With a flicker of relief, Holly realized that her job at the Flanders house was officially over. Burn, baby, burn.
Alessandro stalked through the house alone. The paramedics had come and gone, leaving only the dead and the Undead. It was a welcome respite from the growing chaos outside.
He had demanded that the ambulance attendants treat Holly first. When he had lifted her from the floor of the bedroom she had fainted. In a moment of panic, Alessandro's heart had begun to beat for the first time in a century.
It was the equivalent of a vampire heart attack Only the strongest emotions could revive and Undead heart. In this case fear for the woman he held in his arms.
Something was wrong with Holly. After heavy exertion—whether it was running a marathon or wielding magic—exhaustion was normal. The yelps of pain were not. There was a flaw in Holly's powers, an important weakness.
She had never told Alessandro about the condition. Like many others, she was friendly toward him, but that did not make him her friend. Not really.
You would be a fool to expect anything else.
Still, something clenched under his breastbone, a dull, forlorn ache. Alessandro was not prone to brooding over his lost humanity—after six centuries he either staked himself or got over it—but Undeath had its limitations.
It branded him a killer. That led to social disappointments.
Fortunately they said Holly would be fine. Fortunately the house—one of the worst he had seen—was a distraction from his uncomfortable thoughts.
Instinct drove him through the rooms that he had not yet explored, making him open every closet and cupboard to make sure the house was dead. He would not be satisfied until he walked its boundaries inside and out. Such was the nature of his kind.
But Holly had done her work well. Now the main floor of the house felt empty, like the carapace of a beetle long dead. Even the dust seemed dryer, limply coating the walls with streamers of filmy gray. He searched the crawl space and the main floor until all that remained was one last corner of the upstairs.
There was not much to see. He walked down the hall, opening doors. The rooms were empty, mirrors of the ones he had already visited. He thought he was finished.
Until he noticed that one of the paneled bedroom doors hovered behind a haze. Another look-away spell. It was a simple piece of magic meant to keep things hidden from the curious, like the police, or a real estate agent, or even Raglan and his workmen. Alessandro had found traces of similar enchantments here and there, including the room where they had fought the ooze. The charm on this door was the only one still active.
Such spells didn't work on vampires, at least not ones as old as Alessandro. Or, if they did, not for long.
The presence of the spell meant that there was more going on than just a house gone rogue. He turned the handle, shattering the magic.
More indeed.
A body sprawled on the bare wooden floor. Alessandro stood frozen, his hand on the doorknob. The figure had collapsed on her stomach, her head turned toward him, eyes open, but unequivocally dead.
Slowly he stepped inside the room. Death did not shock him, but he was surprised. Usually the smell of a corpse was obvious to a vampire. Either the spell had hidden the stench, or it had blended in among all the other death in the house.
He switched on the overhead light. He didn't need it, but felt marginally comforted.
Sprawled just inches from his feet, the still, silent body told its story. She had been a student, judging by the Fairview U hoodie. Blond. Slim. Bare feet in bright white canvas shoes that were laced in a soft pink. She had probably been pretty, but a morbid hue stole her beauty. Alessandro guessed she had been about nineteen.
The police need to know about this. But the visuals held him; he was too affronted to move.
Her feet were lashed with yellow nylon rope, a wad of cloth stuffed in her mouth. Shallow slashes scored her flesh, signs of obvious cruelty. The last—so unnecessary—stiffened Alessandro's shoulders. There was a difference between a hunter and a brute.
Bending closer, he gave an experimental sniff. Cold. Dead a day, at least. No drugs that he could detect, just the sour residue of terror. Alessandro tasted the air again, letting his senses do their work. No more than a lick of blood remained in her veins, but there was only a spatter on the floor and her clothes. She had been sucked dry, her throat chewed open.
A news report, half heard, half forgotten, tugged at Alessandro's memory. Murders on campus. He had assumed it was a human affair. There had been no mention of neck wounds, but perhaps the police had held that information back.
No human did this. Behind the smell of death and fear was the stink of something other. A magic user.
But was it a vampire? No one he knew would do this, and Alessandro was the vampire queen's representative in Fairview. A newcomer to town would have paid his respects as soon as he or she arrived. No such overture had been made.