Page 75 of Be Still My Unbeating Heart

“There’s a locked room upstairs. I could hear movement inside.”

“Show us,” De Luca said.

Whitby led them back into the main hallway. They dodged between guests, then went through a door that took them into a back passage. It wasn’t decorated for the party, but it was the most elegant back passage Bastian had ever encountered, with a set of gleaming mahogany stairs to one side.

“This way,” Whitby said, running up the staircase.

They reached a landing lined with doors.

“It’s this door here.”

Bastian listened, hearing scrabbling sounds within. De Luca crouched before the door and removed a small leather pouch from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He took out two silver instruments, which he dug into the lock.

“You carry a lock-picking kit around in your tuxedo every night?” Bastian asked.

“Just when there’s a murderer on the loose.”

The lock clicked.

De Luca quickly stowed away the kit and stood, pushing the door inward. It didn’t creak, but Bastian shivered as cold curled out into the landing, wrapping freezing fingers around him.

“I don’t like it,” he said. “Something doesn’t feel right.”

De Luca went into the room. Bastian followed. He tried the light, but the darkness remained.

“No lights,” he said, casting his gaze around. His night visionpicked out the bedroom in sepia. The inspector was on the other side of the room, standing by a four-poster bed.

And there, right behind him on the bed, hunched a ghostly figure in a white shirt.

An emaciated man with sunken eyes, greasy black hair, and skin hanging in sallow creases.

“De Luca—” Bastian began, but before he could move, the man flew at the inspector, mouth open, strings of saliva spilling into the air as a pair of fangs sank into De Luca’s neck.

25

Red.

Red flashed in Bastian’s vision.

Red oozing from De Luca’s throat.

Red, roiling rage smoldering through Bastian’s veins.

Rage that only intensified as he saw the pain in De Luca’s face. Eyes on fire. Mouth open in a silent scream as the thing attached to his neck shrieked with pleasure.

Bastian howled as he burst forward and tore the man away from De Luca.

No, not a man.

A vampire.

Right here in the mayor’s house. Feeding on the inspector.

Fury descended like a curtain of hissing steam. Fury that had been denied too long and was desperate to make its terrible mark on the world.

Bastian threw himself at the creature with a cry. They collapsed onto the bed, a tangle of limbs and yells. Bastian used his full weight to pin down the man, and a primal impulse urged himto bury his fangs in the creature’s throat. Tear it out. Paint the walls red. Red like his rage.

But the man was strong. The fresh blood must have given him an edge, because Bastian found himself flipped onto his back, his skull pressed into plush pillows as the vampire bore down on top of him.