There was a knock on the door.
"Who is it?" I asked.
"It's Damian."
"Go away."
"There's a vampire down here with one of Sheriff Wilkes's deputies. They say they have to talk to you or Richard. They aren't treating this like police business."
That got my attention. I stopped pacing and went to the door. Damian stood there, still wearing the vest that Barnaby had ripped all the buttons off of. When Colin's human servant died, Barnaby had given up the fight and flown away. Damian's suit was black in bright light and made his skin look unbelievably white.
"What did they say exactly?" I asked.
"Just that they had a message for the two of you from Frank Niley."
"Fuck," I said, softly.
"They're sitting in the kitchen with Dr. Patrick and Asher."
"Tell Roxanne and Jamil that the bad guys are here. I'll go down and talk to them."
"The man has a gun," Damian said.
"So do I," I said. I walked down the hall, and Damian fell in step behind me.
Jason called from the door. "Wait for me."
"Follow at your own pace, Jason. I'm not waiting for you to trip down the stairs."
"Don't let her get killed, Damian," he said.
I called back over my shoulder, "He'll do what I tell him to do." An hour or so of thinking about everything I had learned had not improved my mood.
I clattered down the stairs. Damian followed like a soundless shadow at my back. Why hadn't Wilkes and his men stormed the place? I'd really expected them to just start shooting if they found out we hadn't left town. What message could they have from Niley? And where did the vampire come in? Dolph hadn't mentioned anything about Niley traveling with a vamp. Dolph hated vamps enough that he would have mentioned it. So many questions, and for once, I was going to get them answered almost as soon as I thought of them. How refreshing.
The kitchen looked normal. They'd scrubbed the blood off the linoleum and placed a fresh lace tablecloth on the table. Deputy Thompson sat in one of the kitchen chairs. He was in civvie clothes, no uniform. A tall, thin vampire that I'd never seen before sat in the chair beside him. Dr. Patrick sat in the chair facing them with his back to the hallway, to us. Nathaniel took up the last chair. He was staring at the vampire.
Zane stood with his back against the sink. Asher leaned against the china cabinet close enough to Thompson that he could have touched him and certainly could prevent him from pulling the gun. The gun in question was a Berretta 10 mil in a shoulder holster. Same gun as on duty, just in a different holster. Letting Asher that close was careless, but Thompson didn't seem to think that.
He smiled at me, and the smile was confident, arrogant, like he had me where he wanted me, and I couldn't do anything about it. What was going on?
"How'd you find me?" I asked.
He stuck a thumb in the vampire's direction. "The local Master of the City told us he could still feel you in town. They helped us hunt you down. Evidently, you're easier to find than your boyfriend. Something about your power attracts them."
I stared at the vampire. His face was unreadable, pale and empty. His eyes were dark grey, his hair straight and black. It was cut short and smoothed back over his forehead in a pompadour. That was what they'd called it in the fifties. The hairdo matched the feel of him in my head. He wasn't fifty years dead yet.
"What's your name?"
"Donald."
"Hi, Donald, missed you at the wienie roast."
Anger flared across the vampire's face. He wasn't old enough to hide it. "You told my master that you were here just to get your third out of jail. Once you had accomplished that, you should have gone home. You pretended to leave town but did not. If you had simply left, we would have accepted the murder of our people. By staying, you show that you intend to possess our lands and my master's power."
"Have you talked to your master lately?" I asked. "Or more importantly, has he talked to his human servant lately?"
The vampire glared at me, but there was no power to it. "Colin is injured but not yet dead. But the Council will slay you for ... killing his servant."