Page 3 of Blood Magic

“I don’t know. They didn’t talk about anything…strange. I think he simply wanted an invite in so he could come and go as he pleased.”

“What made you believe he was a vampire?”

“You’ll see in the pictures. One of them is a close-up of her neck. She was bitten and though the marks were faded, I could see them. It wasn’t just that. There were lots of things. He only came at night, he wouldn’t touch food or drink, and he had a particular look about him. Listen, Ms. Silver. This has been going on for weeks. Strange things. And always, the guy in the picture is front and center. She changed, my Brenda. I can’t say how, exactly, but…” He blew out a long breath and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.

Finally, he lowered his hands, and though he looked exhausted, he also looked relieved. Someone believed him, and someone was going to help him. “I need you to bring her home to me.”

“I’ll do my best.”

After I asked a few more questions, I told him I’d be in touch and sent him out to speak with Max. And finally, I brought up the pictures he’d sent me. Would I recognize a vampire from a few images? No. I’d recognize a vampire by his scent—or by his absence of scent, I should say.

Vampires had a lot going for them when it came to avoiding detection. No scent, they were fast—some of the extremely old ones could even fly for short distances—and they were strong. Worst of all, they had the horrifying ability to “shade” their human victims. It was how they survived. They fed, but they put the humans into a state of forgetfulness for as long as the feeding lasted. The human would not remember being bitten. They wouldn’t remember having their blood sucked from their bodies. There would barely even be a wound left afterward, because the vampire licked it away. Simply licked it away. And he could make it a sexual thing, if the victim were unlucky enough, for whatever reason, to remember.

God, how I hated the parasitic monsters. I rubbed the side of my neck, shuddering, staring at the images Ferguson had sent me. The images were clear. There were three of them.

Brenda Ferguson was a small brunette with kind eyes and a wide smile. The man who sat beside her was slender, well-dressed, and very pale. But it wasn’t the paleness that told me he was a vampire. Not all vampires were pale, of course.

It was the look Paul Ferguson had captured in his eyes. That dead, yet somehow feral look that most vampires carried. They hid it well, but when caught unaware—by a sneaky photographer, for instance—a person could see something savage and ancient deep in their peculiar eyes.

Again, I shivered.

Fuckers.

“What the hell,” I whispered, “did you want with Brenda Ferguson, you son of a bitch?”

“I’m here with cookies,” I heard Lucy announce, and then I heard an instant flurry of activity as both Max and Joe were all about the cookies.

I got up and jogged from my office, not because of the cookies—though I’d certainly be getting my hands on those puppies before the two men gobbled them up—but because I needed to ask Ferguson a question before he left.

I gave my dog a quick pat as I jogged past him. Lucy brought him each time she came, and he was quite spoiled by all of us. I’d kept him at work with me a couple of times, but if I needed to take off to chase bad guys, I didn’t want to have to take him into danger with me. “Mr. Ferguson,” I called, and he turned at the door to wait for me.

“I had a question while you’re here.”

“Okay.”

“What did this man say to you? What did he talk to you about?”

“That’s the thing, Ms. Silver. He never spoke a word to me, not even when I said something to him. He completely ignored me, as though I were a fly buzzing around and he couldn’t be bothered—not even in my own house.”

“Did you ever—”

“Get pissed and slug the asshole?” He didn’t wait for my nod. “Only once. I shoved him, and it was like shoving a tree. He turned and looked at me, and I have to tell you, I nearly pissed myself. I called the police once, as well. Brenda was completely puzzled and very annoyed. She told them he was a friend and apparently her husband believed he owned her and she could not have male friends. I’m sure they were laughing at me as they left.”

I let him go, then, and walked back into the reception area to grab a couple of cookies before they were all gone.

I had a new case to solve, and that made me happy.

And hungry.