very odd. This house feels like someone of a dark nature was here a long time ago. . . . Hmm." She entered, tossing me an amused look over her shoulder. "Of course I believe in Dark Ones. I haven't met one, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Are you interested in them?"
I thought of the large, blond, extremely deadly man my sister had married just a month before. I thought of his bigger, more deadly brother. I thought of the dark-haired murderer of my dreams. "Kind of. Not really, no. In a way."
She laughed and waved me forward into the house. "I don't blame you. They're fascinating, aren't they? Much more so than movies and books lead you to believe. Dark Ones are . . . ooh, so many things. Sexy. Mysterious. Sensuous. You know about Beloveds, don't you? How there's only one woman to redeem each Dark One, and they have to go through seven steps to save him, and that once they do, they're bound together forever and ever?"
"Yes," I said, my devil once again prodding me to do more than smile. "I know about Beloveds."
"Isn't it just the most romantic thing ever? I wonder what it would be like to have one as your lover. Wouldn't you think they would be intense? Kind of overwhelming, but in a good way?"
I remembered how Avery seemed wholly absorbed in Jas. "I think 'intense' is a good description."
"And then there's the bad-boy image. Who doesn't love a bad boy? Who doesn't want to redeem them, make them whole again, show them the power of love?" She sighed, then giggled and poked me on the arm. "Listen to us! Mooning over vampires just like a couple of teenagers with a sparkle fetish! Mysterious and romantic they may be, but they're not for the likes of us. Shall we get started?"
My nose wrinkled as I looked around the entry hall. Directly across from the door was a staircase leading up to murky gloom, the pale fingers of light that managed to fight their way in through the boards on the windows not doing much to light the interior. To my right was a large room that seemed to stretch the length of the house, the dark, stained wallpaper making odd patterns that seemed almost to move when seen peripherally. To the left was a narrow hall with several doors, no doubt leading to smaller rooms. Thankfully, the house was empty of all furniture, nothing but a few torn shreds of ancient newspaper and bits of twine lying in desolation on age-stained wood floors to mark its removal.
"Mice," I said, rubbing my nose against the smell of stale rodent droppings.
"Probably, but it doesn't smell too fresh. Dee says the house was fumigated last month, so there shouldn't be anything alive in here but us. At least . . ." She paused at the foot of the stairs, her face tight for a moment before she shook her head. "No, there's nothing here but us. I must be imagining things."
"Oh, that's not going to give me the creeps," I said, rubbing my arms as I looked around the gloomy room.
Diamond just laughed and ran up the stairs, turning on her camera as she did so. "Don't forget to get several different angles of each room. I'd like to piece together each room's photos into a panorama if possible. Buyers love panoramas."
"Anyone would have to be insane to want to buy this monstrosity," I muttered to myself as I twitched my shoulder aside just in time to avoid hitting a massive cobweb that drifted down from an ornate, but filthy, brass light fixture. "I can only imagine what a barrel of laughs the basement is going to be."
"Just imagine it all fixed up, filled with people and laughter," Diamond called as she started up the second flight.
"If one single mouse so much as sticks his nose out of the wall at me, I'm leaving!" I bellowed up the stairs.
A faint sound of her tinkling laughter was my only answer. Dammit, she even laughed nicer than me. Hers was all lightness while mine came out throaty, as if I were a five-pack-a-day smoker.
"My life sucks," I said to no one as I stomped loudly toward the back of the hallway, checking each room before heading toward the door Diamond had indicated led to the basement. "Everyone has hooked up but me. And what do I have, house? Huh? What do I have? I'll tell