I socked Parker in the arm and kept on walking, nodding to the janitor who was concentrating on pushing a broom across the tile floor in the train station foyer.
“You know him?” Hayes asked.
“I filed his papers just last week. His wife is going to be coming over from Canada early next month. I’m really excited for them.”
Hayes swallowed and lowered his voice. “So he’s … what?”
“Vampire,” I said. “Works the night shift.”
“I thought vampires were all hoity-toity. You know, big-time jobs or just independently wealthy or whatever.”
“Some are. But all of them are obsessed with cleanliness.” I smiled and beelined for the number seven train platform.
“Okay,” I told Hayes once we were waiting on the edge of the tracks, “he should be coming off any minute now.”
Hayes and I stood on the platform, examining the faces of all the people stepping off. I was looking for someone who bore a vague resemblance to Nina—pixie-nosed, a thick head of blue-black hair, fine-boned—when Parker sucked in a sharp breath beside me.
“That has got to be him,” he said, his blue eyes steady.
I followed his gaze and held my own breath, eyeing Louis as he stepped off the train. He was tall— exceptionally so—but shared Nina’s slim build and fine, elegant facial features. His marble skin was porcelain- perfect and made the inky black of his eyes, the rose-wine stain of his lips, stand out. The teenaged girls and young women exiting the train around him clamored to stay next to Louis, despite the fact that he was dressed like Bela Lugosi.
I was just thankful that he had decided against the cape.
“Is he wearing a tux?” Hayes asked, leaning into me.
“No. I think that’s an ascot. Tuxes have bow ties, right?”
Hayes furrowed his brow.
“Well, maybe that’s what all the boys wear where he comes from.”
“I’ll bet,” Hayes snorted.
Indeed, Louis was dressed in carefully pressed black dress pants with a well-tailored black dinner jacket. A red jacquard vest peeked out from underneath the coat, and a silky, patterned ascot was looped tightly around his pale, elegant neck. His dark hair was slicked back, showing off the same widow’s peak that Nina routinely brushed her hair over.
There was a thin line of black outlining his dark eyes. “He’s wearing makeup,” Hayes said. “Do you think where he comes from, all the boys wear eye makeup, too?”
I socked Hayes in the arm again and pasted a welcoming smile on my face. “Louis!” I called, waving my hands over my head.
Louis’s dark eyes scanned the heads of the group around him before settling on me. His expression remained blank, unfazed, but he headed in our direction.
“Hi!” I said, smiling brightly when he reached us. “It’s so nice to meet you!” I extended a hand that Louis looked at disdainfully. “I’m Sophie, and this is my friend, Parker Hayes. He’s a detective.”
Parker and Louis exchanged the universally male partial head bob while I chattered spastically. “I’m your aunt’s best friend. But I’m sure she’s told you that. Do you like to be called Louis or Lou or—”
Louis’s dark eyes raked over both Parker and me, the expression on his face that age-old vampire/teenager mixture of boredom and contempt. “Actually,” he said, slowly, “its Vlad.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What was that?”
“Vlad,” Louis said carefully, his fangs pressing against his ruddy lips. “I prefer to be called Vlad. Louis no longer exists.”
Parker looked at his feet, but I could see his apple cheeks pushing up into a quiet smile.
“Vlad?” I repeated. “Well, okay, Vlad it is. Are you excited to be here, Vlad? Have you ever been to San Francisco before? We’re really glad you’re here.”
Vlad blew out a bored sigh. “I was here during the big quake.”
“Nineteen-o-six or the eighty-nine quake?”
“Both.”
“Okay,” Parker said, clapping his hands. “How about we head to the car?”
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay alone with Count Dracula?” Hayes asked me once we returned to the police station parking lot.
“Be quiet, Parker. I’m sure he’s a nice kid.”
“Did you get that from his overwhelming silence or from his spitting glares?”
I rolled my eyes. “Look, this day has been long—really long. I just want to get home and get Louis—Vlad— settled. I’ll see you at the police station tomorrow?”
Hayes and I stood awkwardly staring at each other until Vlad blew out an annoyed sigh as he stood on the passenger side of my car. “Can we go now, Sophie?”
Chapter Seven
“So, is there anything in particular you’d like to do while you’re here, Vlad?”
Vlad ran his fingers over the dashboard, and I saw that his nails were painted black.
“I like your nail polish,” I tried.
Vlad glared at me, his eyes dark and flat.
“Aunt Nina got me a job at UDA,” he said finally.
“Really? That’s great! Doing what?”
“Mail room.”
I waited for him to elaborate. He didn’t. “Oh. Well, you’ll love it there. Everyone at the UDA is great. Like one big family, really. Did your Aunt Nina tell you that I work there, too?”
I felt Vlad’s eyes on me, taking me in. “They
“Yeah. I work for Mr. Sampson—he’s the head of the UDA. I’m his assistant.”
Vlad looked at me skeptically and shook his head. “No offense, but I can’t believe they’d let someone like you work at the Underworld Detection Agency. It just goes to show that the demon world is losing its foothold. No offense,” he repeated.
I frowned, staring at the road through the windshield. “No offense taken … kind of.”
Seventy-seven-year-old Mr. Howard, self-proclaimed ladies’ man and the building’s resident gossip hound, was nuzzling the ear of a giggling, gray-haired woman when we walked into the building vestibule. He pulled the woman—carefully stuffed into yards of cheetah-print spandex—closer to him and gave her a playful kiss on her wrinkled neck.
“Sophie Lawson!” Mr. Howard beamed when he saw Vlad and me. He quickly straightened up, a wave of pink creeping across his high cheeks. He looked Vlad up and down and smiled. “Well, hello, young man. Are you a friend of Sophie’s?”
Vlad remained expressionless, and I was secretly pleased that his deadpan demeanor wasn’t just reserved for me.
“Mr. Howard, this is Nina’s nephew, Vlad. He’s going to be visiting Nina and me for a while.” I leaned closer to Mr. Howard, stage whispering, “He’s very shy.”
Mr. Howard nodded and snaked an arm around his woman, then looked down at her, his gray eyes shining with lust as he eyed her heaving bosom. “Lovey, this is Sophie and her friend. Sophie lives in the apartment across the hall from me.”
The old woman eyed me suspiciously and offered a limp hand, her wrist-load of bangles jangling as she did
