The sun was melting into the horizon in a lake of fire when a knock sounded firmly on my door. I checked through the peephole and was surprised to see Mirabelle standing there in the hallway.

  “Mirabelle, this is unexpected. What brings you here?” I said, pulling the door open.

  Mirabelle glanced around her as if she wanted to make sure she hadn’t been seen, then came in and sat on the sofa, setting her oversized handbag down on the coffee table. The handbag rippled, and a white cat crawled out.

  “Hello,” I said to the cat.

  “I’m Snowdrop. Pleased to meet you.” Her voice in my mind was high and light.

  “Likewise,” I said. Mirabelle looked shocked.

  “You can hear her?”

  “Clear as a bell.”

  “I brought her with me because I don’t dare leave her alone,” Mirabelle said, worry puckering her face. “Not until we find our missing familiars and figure out what’s behind all this.”

  “Hey, Snowy! Long time no see, dollface.” Barney strolled into the room, tail held high.

  “Hmmph!” she turned her back on him and began washing her face with her paw.

  Barney glanced at me and shrugged. “There’s some history there,” he said to me.

  Snowy paused in her grooming and shot him an icy look. “I’ve moved on, thank you. I’m seeing an American shorthair who’s more cat than you could ever hope to be. And I hope that Siamese hussy gave you fleas and ticks.” Then she went back to vigorous face washing.

  Barney sauntered back out of the room, looking not at all bothered. What a player.

  “I might have known he was the one who told you,” Mirabelle said, scowling. “That trouble-maker.”

  “You got that right,” I said. “May I offer you something to drink?”

  At her expression of horror, I said hastily “I meant a normal drink, for heaven’s sake! Bottled water, soda, juice, I think we have some wine coolers. My Thralls are human.”

  “Oh, of course that’s what you meant,” she said, looking relieved. “No thank you, though.”

  I settled into the chair facing her. “So how can I help you?”

  “First, let me apologize for last night,” Mirabelle said. “I do want your help, but we’d have to keep it quiet. Our community isn’t used to working with vampires. I’ve heard that you have very progressive views on inter-species cooperation, and I appreciate that. It’s just the timing is awkward. If you have a minute, I’d like to explain.”

  “All right,” I said.

  “Our coven is in turmoil right now. My mother passed away two months ago, after having served as High Priestess for the past forty years. The transition period when a new High Priestess steps in is always a challenging one, but this is an especially troubling time. First of all, there was some controversy surrounding my selection; it was voted in by the Coven Elders, but my sister felt that her daughter should have gotten the position. It’s true that my niece has very strong powers, but she isn’t capable of leading the coven. Aside from the fact that she’s too young and inexperienced, she also doesn’t have the personality for it.”

  I couldn’t have agreed with her more.

  “I also heard your sister say something how you’re all about to lose your homes?”

  “Oh, that won’t happen. A rival coven is after our property, and they’re taking us to court over the land rights, but they won’t win.”

  “Why would they want your property?”

  She wrinkled up her face in distaste. “They’ve had their eye on the property that Bay Breeze was built on since the early 1900s, because it’s built on what’s known as a Nexus of Power. Basically, there are areas of the earth where magical power is concentrated, and witches always congregate there. Our land is among one of the more powerful Nexuses, and so the Palmetto Coven would love to have it. A rancher originally owned the property, a human who didn’t know about its magical properties. Now, the rancher inherited the property from his father. The Palmetto High Priestess has taken us to court, claiming that she has new documents claiming that there was a new will which cut the rancher out entirely and left the property to his brother. Apparently, the brother’s descendants are claiming they really own the land – and we already know they would sell in to the Palmetto coven. The will is a fraud, there’s nothing to worry about.”

  “And yet, you look worried,” I said.

  “The land is very precious to us. The location is perfect, our power is very strong because of where we live, and the loss of the land would be a tremendous blow to our coven. December Cornwall, the High Priestess, is known for fighting dirty.” She sighed. “We’re hoping she hasn’t managed to get to the judge.”

  “So how does this relate to the missing familiars?”

  “I suspect that either December is behind it, or, frankly, I hate to say it, but Narcissa can’t be ruled out. My sister would benefit by undermining me and making me look weak; December would benefit by distracting us and causing us to turn against each other.”

  “What about Leona? Did she want the position of High Priestess?”

  “Oh, no. She’s never been interested in power. She flits from one thing to another, one job to another. And she doesn’t like conflict, which pretty much comes with the job description. She made it very clear to my mother from early on that she wouldn’t want to be High Priestess.”

  I nodded. “All right. What is that you want me to do?”

  “I know that you can read minds, and you can compel people to tell you the truth,” she said. “I’d like you to question the people that might have any knowledge of what happened.”

  I considered this. “Well, as I mentioned last night, I normally am very reluctant to use those powers, but given that your familiars are missing and in grave danger, I’ll make an exception. Tell me some more about what’s going on.”

  “Well, the familiars have disappeared at night. Normally, they roam around the subdivision freely, and sometimes they go over the subdivision walls, but they always return by morning. Over the past month, half a dozen of them have not returned. With the first couple, we thought they might have just had an accident, been hit by a car, taken by a wild animal – it can happen, of course. However, the fact that they are not dead, and the fact that so many of them disappeared…” she glanced nervously at Snowdrop.

  “Last night another one disappeared. It was an orange tabby named Pumpkin. His owner last saw him in the afternoon, he told her he was going to go out for a bit and promised to be in before dark. He never came back. We have video cameras in place all around the perimeter; we’re reviewing it, but we haven’t found any footage of him yet. We also have security guards. I’d like you to speak to the head of security, Thomas Diamond, and see if he knows anything. Then, I’d like you to speak to the veterinarian who treats all of our familiars. She works in the community, but she lives in Bay Breeze and she’s also a witch. I’d also like you to talk with the woman who sells us all of our pet food. Those two women are the only thing I can think of that all the familiars have in common.”

  She wrote down the names and addresses of everybody concerned, and told me where I could find them, and gave me her cell phone number.

  “I’ll get started tonight,” I told her.

  She thanked me and left.

  There was one thing I needed to do before I put my Sherlock Holmes cap on. I told Camille I was going to go lie down in my room for a little while. Then I locked the door and lay down on my bed.

  I needed an update on what Andreas was up to these days, but I couldn’t bear to look in his head.

  I’d made the mistake of doing that a month earlier, and caught him in the middle of torturing a Thrall.

  Remembering it still sent a wave of nausea and despair rushing through me. I felt a cold sweat popping up on my forehead as I struggled without success to banish the memory from my mind.

  For me to read a person’s mind without them knowing it, especially a vampire as powerful as Andreas, requires a lot of concentration. It had taken all of my strength to quickly pull out of Andreas’ mind at the time without being noticed. Ever since then, when I wanted to check in on Andreas, I read the minds of his servants. I’d met several of them, which meant I had access to their minds.

  Ironically, it was Simon who had originally recruited me to kill Andreas several months earlier. Although he had promised his mother that he’d never kill Andreas, he hadn’t promised that he wouldn’t recruit someone else to do it. When Andreas tipped over the edge to madness, Simon felt that he had no choice.

  After he got me to agree that I would assassinate Andreas, Simon then ordered me to Compel him to forget what he’d asked me to do, in case Andreas read his mind.

  I was completely alone in my mission, alone in the world, and I felt it every minute of every day. I was simultaneously dreading and yearning for the day I killed Andreas; I just wanted this to be over.

  I lay on my bed and slowed my breathing, and entered the mind of one of Andreas’ Thralls, a man named Blaylock.

  Blaylock was in Andreas’ inner circle, and he’d helped Andreas make his travel arrangements for the upcoming meeting in Georgia. I wanted to make sure that everything was still on schedule, and see if I could find out anything more about Andreas’ plans.

  What I saw when I entered Blaylock’s mind shocked me.

  Blaylock was hurrying down a stone hallway, towards Andreas’ bedroom. He was planning to kill Andreas.

  Shock rippled through me. Could this really be happening? Had Andreas gone so far that even his servants were ready to turn on him?

  Blaylock was leading his sister down the hallway, a woman named Theresa. He was pulling her by the arm, and she was sobbing. Andreas planned on killing her, and he’d ordered Blaylock to deliver her to her doom. I could see Andreas’ face, the gloating grin stretching his handsome features, as he told Blaylock to fetch her from her room where she was doing needlepoint.

  Andreas was going to make Blaylock watch what he did to Theresa. Yes, he’d finally gone too far. I’d known that would happen. He was escalating. First he’d started pitting his Thralls against each other, torturing them emotionally. Then he’d started torturing them physically. Then torturing and killing them.

  Now, he was torturing and killing them – and making their loved ones watch while he did it.

  My stomach clenched as Blaylock walked into the room. He was desperately trying to block his thoughts from his mind, so he’d be able to kill Andreas before Andreas knew what was about to happen.

  He’d fail. The older a vampire, the stronger his powers. Andreas could read anyone’s mind except mine – and I was basically a mutant, so I didn’t count. A mortal like Blaylock stood no chance.

  Andreas was in his bedroom, which was massive. There were half a dozen bodyguards with him The walls were stone. There was an entire table of instruments of torture laid out, next to a wooden table with manacles at the head and feet area. Blood stained the floor around the table.

  Theresa stumbled in to the room weeping and shaking, her face buried in her hands.

  Blaylock moved quickly, pulling a gun from his pocket. The bullets were coated with silver.

  Before he could shoot, two of Andreas’ bodyguards sprang forward, grabbing him and restraining him.

  Theresa didn’t move; she stood still, shoulders heaving, crying hopelessly.

  “He’s gone crazy!” Blaylock screamed at the two men as they wrestled him to the ground. “He’ll kill your families too! Don’t you see? You can stop him! Don’t do this!”

  But they ignored him, binding his hands quickly, and I pulled out of his mind, shaking and nauseous. Tears ran down my face. I climbed out of bed, ran into the bathroom, and dry heaved into the toilet.

  Vampires did not kill or harm their Thralls in any way. Vampires protected and cherished their Thralls. They depended on them to help keep their existence a secret. Any attack on a Thrall was taken very seriously.

  Andreas hadn’t pushed his inner circle to rebellion yet, but it was only a matter of time – and who knows what would happen then?

  I wondered if I could get away with bringing this matter to Simon’s attention. Would it be enough cause for him to break his vow, and take direct action? Would it get me out of having to kill Andreas myself?

  I was afraid that even this latest offense wouldn’t be enough. The family bond of loyalty was incredibly strong, as was their deathbed promise to their mother, who always held out hope for Andreas’ redemption.

  If I went to Simon and told him what I’d seen in Blaylock’s mind, he’d want to know why I was spying on Andreas in the first place. Andreas could deny everything. I might just end up stirring up trouble, and putting Andreas on guard that he was being watched.

  I had no choice. I’d have to carry on as I’d originally planned.

  I felt sick about what was no doubt happening in that room back in France. Oh, Blaylock was no innocent. He’d been present in the room when Andreas was torturing other thralls. I knew because I’d seen Blaylock standing there, through Andreas’ eyes. Blaylock had helped drag the victims in, had helped hold them down and chain them – and now he was about to experience what they went through. The thought of Blaylock’s death gave me no sense of satisfaction, though. I wanted this over. I wanted Andreas dead.

  Chapter Five

  The nightmarish scene at Andreas’ castle weighed heavily on me as I headed out. I still felt sick and queasy as I drove over to the veterinarian’s office to interview her. It was after hours, but fortunately, she had one overnight shift a week at the veterinary clinic that she owned. That gave me a chance to talk to her when she wasn’t at her house in Bay Breeze, which was good, since I needed to interview her on the down-low.

  Luck was with me when I arrived. The front office was empty, and I Compelled the receptionist to let me in the back, and then I Compelled Dr. Fischer to answer my questions truthfully.

  Unfortunately my luck ended there. She had heard about the disappearances, but she didn’t know what was behind them, or who was behind them. She’d given all of the familiars their regular annual checkups at various times over the past year, and they had all appeared healthy and normal.

  She’d also checked the psychic connection between the familiars and their witches, as a matter of course, during their office visits. That had also come up healthy and normal.

  The faint feeling of sickness that had come over me when I was in Blaylock’s head didn’t let up. When I got to my car, it got worse; for a minute I thought I’d vomit. I leaned on the car, dizziness swirling around my head, for a full minute, waiting for it to let up.

  This can’t be happening to me, I thought. Vampires never get sick. Never. We never get the flu, we never get a fever, we heal from our injuries at warp speed – so why did I feel as if I had food poisoning or worse?

  The dizziness finally passed, but I felt a strange sense of weakness. I clenched my fists and opened them; they felt as if they’d fallen asleep and didn’t belong to me.

  This was the worst possible timing. I couldn’t afford to suffer bouts of dizziness and weakness when I was about to go up against Andreas. Could the witches somehow be behind this? Somebody who didn’t want me to find out the truth about the familiar’s disappearances? If so, I had a wide field of suspects to worry about.

  My next stop was at the home of the pet shop owner, a woman named Carmel Montez. She was only half witch, Mirabelle had told me. She didn’t live in Bay Breeze; she owned an apartment above the pet shop, which was located on a side street off the main road through town. It was an old Victorian building with a wooden staircase leading up the side. The front of the building bore a big sign that read “Pet Paradise”, with a painting of cartoony pets lounging under cartoony palm trees.

  I walked up the wooden staircase and knocked on her door. After a minute I heard footsteps, and the door opened. The pet shop owner was small, with an angular face and brown hair with choppy bangs that looked as if she cut them herself. She stood there in her pajamas and slippers, blinking at me.

  “Yes? What do you need?” she asked. She had the odd, fuzzy energy of witches buzzing around her, but it felt muted and strange, probably because she had one human parent.

  “I need to ask you about the familiars,” I said, Compelling her. “They’ve been disappearing. Do you know anything about it?”

  “I don’t,” she said. “I’ve heard about it. It’s very upsetting. Is there anything that I can do?”

  “Forget I was here,” I told her, and her face went dull, eyes glazed. I left, frustrated. I was striking out all over the place.

  I was far from done, though. There were still people that I needed to interview.

  December was high on my list. My challenge would be getting her alone. High Priestesses were always powerful witches. It wouldn’t be as easy to sneak up on her and compel her.

  She was a realtor, though. The easiest way to get to her would be to arrange a house showing. If I showed up at her office and made the appointment myself, she’d sense I was a vampire and be suspicious. However, I could have one of my Thralls call her up and set up a fake appointment to look at houses. I’d hang out at the home they were going to on the night of the appointment, and Compel her when she showed up.

  Frustrated, and feeling like a failure, I headed back to my apartment.

  As I drove, I called Mirabelle and told her what I’d come up with so far.

  The chief security guard was on duty tomorrow night, she told me. If I came to the subdivision late at night, I could catch him alone while he was working at the front gate and compel him to talk. In the meantime, she had no news either. The witches with the missing familiars still reported that their familiars were alive, but all of their locating spells were failing. It was clear they were being held somewhere by a powerful witch, but who? And why? There had been no requests for ransom, no threats received.

  Then I told her about my odd bouts of light-headedness.

  “Is there any possibility that this is witch related?” I asked her. “When I think about it, I didn’t start experiencing this until after I came to visit your coven. Is it possible that someone there just hates vampires, or they heard of my powers and perceived me as a threat?”

 

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