Even Vampires Get the Blues - By Katie MacAlister Page 0,74

one who is demanding I repay my father's debt."

It was my turn to do the eyeball pop. "You're kidding. Caspar is the one doing this? We're going to have to have another talk with him."

"Right now," Paen said, snatching up his coat and heading for the door.

All four of us trooped out and descended upon Caspar. Or tried to, at least. He didn't answer his door buzzer or the phone, and when Paen, driven by fury, scaled the outside of the building and deliberately broke into the apartment, he came up empty-handed.

"He's gone to earth," Paen growled a few minutes later, as I dabbed at the cuts on his hand made by the broken glass. "Search the flat. We may find something that says where he is, or what he's up to playing us against each other like this."

We found nothing. The flat was almost sterile in its pristine state, as if it were there for show and not really lived in.

"So what do we do now?" Clare asked when we returned disheartened to the office. She munched lilac blossoms like they were popcorn. "Just wait around for Caspar and Mr. Race to return? Do we have time for that? What if Mr. Race doesn't know anything about the statue? What if the demon who talked to Paen was wrong? What if Caspar won't cooperate?"

"Race is the only lead we have," Finn said.

"Yes, and we can't talk to him if we can't find him. Evidently he's en route, and no, he doesn't have a cell phone. I asked his housekeeper. So we're playing the waiting game for both him and Caspar."

"But we should be doing something!" Clare wailed, waving her hands around.

Paen jumped up from a chair and marched over to the window, staring out it with an expression of extreme frustration, anger, and a tinge of hopelessness that just about broke my heart.

I slumped into the chair that he vacated, the faint warmth left behind by his body sinking into mine until it made my soul want to weep. Life suddenly seemed so overwhelming, so bloody impossible. I had tried everything I knew how to do, and yet repeatedly failed. "This is beyond frustrating. Why can't I find that damned statue and manuscript? I've never not found anything I've looked for before, so why am I now having absolutely no luck? What is Caspar up to? Why is Race suddenly incommunicado when we need to talk to him? I tell you, it's enough to make an elf-girl cry."

"Poor sweet Sam," Clare said, gliding over to me. "Maybe you've lost your power?"

"Huh?"

Clare nudged the phone over so she could perch elegantly on the edge of my desk. "Because you... you know." She nodded to where Paen was standing at the window, careful to avoid direct light. "Maybe that caused you to lose your powers."

I pulled out a small mirror from my desk and checked. "Nope. Still half elf. And we were in the beyond today. I wouldn't have been able to do that if I'd lost my elfly powers."

"You went to the beyond?" she asked, slanting another glance at Paen. "Together?"

"Yes, not that it has any relevance to my sudden inability to find things," I said glumly, resting my forehead on the desk.

"But you lost that bird statue, too. That's incredibly careless and irresponsible."

I raised my head to glare at her.

"Which is not like you at all," she added quickly. "Perhaps someone has cast a spell or cursed you?"

"We'd see a curse, and surely Sam would be able to tell if someone cast a spell on her? Elves are notoriously hard to enchant," Finn said, taking his place next to Clare, and giving her shoulder a supportive squeeze.

As if her shoulder needed the reassurance that it was cherished... I dropped my forehead to the desk again. "I'm not cursed, and not enchanted. I'm just suddenly... ineffective. But that's going to change."

"You have another plan," Clare said, clapping her hands with delight. "I knew you'd come up with something, Sam. It's best not to put too much reliance on what a demon says. What are you going to do?"

"Desperate times call for desperate measures," I told the desk.

"I told you she wouldn't give up," Clare said to Finn. He started to protest that he never doubted me, but I held up a hand to stop him.

"I don't trust that demon who spoke to Paen," I said thoughtfully. "Not Caspar, the other one."

He half turned toward me. "Is there any particular reason