“Run! ” Lore growled. He waved at the hounds standing there. “Take him home.”
They obeyed, crowding Helver into their midst before they ran in long, fluid strides. Lore stuffed the campaign money in his pocket, wondering how the hell he was going to return it to the vampires without starting World War III. They weren’t the types to laugh off a youthful prank.
He turned to face the humans running toward them.
The one in front was one of those cops that looked like a cop: tall, chiseled, dark-haired, somewhere between thirty and fifty. Lore knew him. He was one of the few human detectives assigned to cover the supernatural beat.
“Detective Baines!” Lore stepped in his path. At the same time, he pulled his jacket closed and zipped it to hide the weapons strapped to his body. All hellhound warriors went armed to the teeth. Human police often took that the wrong way.
“Who was that boy?” Baines demanded, slowing to a stop. His men stayed a distance away, as if they were afraid Lore would bite.
“Why did you let him go?” Baines’s voice vibrated with anger.
Lore’s blood felt acidic with disappointment in Helver, but pack was pack. “He’s not your arsonist.”
Baines gave him a hard look, as if taking a mental snapshot. “I want a name.”
“No.” Lore kept his expression blank.
“What’s your name?”
“Lore.”
“Lore what?”
“Just Lore. I don’t need two names.”
“Well, Lore-with-one-name, your boy might be a material witness.”
“He saw nothing.”
The evil was gone now. Just the memory of it hovered in the air, mixing with occasional spits of sleet. The jacko’-lantern orange of the fire mocked them, turning the sky to a sickly bronze. Nothing in nature had made that blaze.
“How do you know what he did or didn’t see?” asked Baines between clenched teeth.
“I asked him, and hounds cannot lie.”
Baines narrowed his eyes. “Won’t, you mean.”
“Can’t. It’s impossible for us.”
He raised a skeptical eyebrow. “No shit?”
“No shit,” said Lore. “We’re your dream witnesses.”
Baines held his gaze another moment, then grudgingly backed off. He lifted his chin, the gesture subtly aggressive, as if he were still burning to face off with more than words. It would have been a bad idea. Baines wasn’t small, but Lore could snap his neck in an instant.
The detective flexed his fists. “Thanks to you, I don’t have any witnesses. Yet.”
“Sure you do,” said Lore.
“Who?”
He nodded toward the fire. “The building itself. A few years ago, that clinic used to be a machine shop. It’s all concrete and steel.”
The detective’s expression tightened, understanding dawning in his eyes. “Concrete doesn’t burn.”
“Concrete walls can be subjected to gas flames at one thousand degrees centigrade for four hours without structural damage. That’s why they make fire walls out of concrete.”
Baines stared.
“I was renovating a warehouse,” Lore added. “I had to look it up.”
“No kid set that fire,” Baines conceded in a low voice.
“The walls are melting.”
Baines gave him a look. “What the hell does that?”
“A spell.”
Baines’s frown deepened.
Lore stared at the fire, feeling the echo of sorcery deep in the heart of the flames. The hellhounds had not faced this enemy before, but it was old and powerful. Now that he wasn’t chasing his foe, he could test the flavor of the leftover magic, rolling it over and over in his mind.
Necromancy.
Chapter 5
Tuesday, December 28, 10:30 p.m.
Talia’s condo
Talia might be dead, but she still had a bad case of the creeps.
The scent of blood swamped her brain, swallowing sight and sound. She hesitated where she stood, her vampire senses screaming that something was wrong. That much blood was far too much of a good thing. The elevator doors whooshed shut behind her, stirring a gust of recycled air. Stirring up that maddening, tantalizing, revolting smell.
And there was something oddly familiar about it, a specific top note stirring the memory like a complex perfume.
Talia blinked the hallway back into focus. This was her floor of the condo building, and home and Michelle were at the end of the hall. She fished her door keys out of her purse and started walking, the glossy pink bag from Howard’s banging against her leg as she walked.
Now her stomach hurt, her jaws ached to bite, but more from panic than hunger. That much blood meant someone was hurt. There were a lot of elderly people in the building. Many lived alone. One of them might have slipped and fallen, or maybe cut themselves in the kitchen. Or maybe someone had broken in?
Talia quickened her stride, following the scent. She pulled her phone out of her shoulder bag, the rhinestones on its bright blue case winking in the dim overhead light. She flipped it open, ready to dial Emergency as soon as she figured out who was in trouble. She was no superhero, but she could force open a door and control her hunger long enough for basic first aid. If there were bad guys, oh well. She’d had a light dinner.
She passed units fifteen-oh-eight, fifteen-ten, and fifteen-twelve, her high-heeled ankle boots silent on the soft green carpet. Fifteen-fourteen, fifteen-sixteen. She paused at each door, listening for clues. A television muttered here and there. No sounds of a predator attacking its prey.
Fifteen-twenty, fifteen-twenty-two. The smell was coming from fifteen-twenty-four at the end of the hall. Oh. Oh!
Fifteen-twenty-four was her place. Michelle!
She grasped the cool metal of the door handle and turned it. It was unlocked. The door swung open, and the smell of death rushed into the hall like the surf, drowning Talia all over again. That familiar note in the scent pounded at her, but she pushed it out of her mind, refusing to acknowledge that it reminded her of her cousin.
Instinct froze her where she stood, listening. There was no heartbeat, but that didn’t mean much. Lots of things, herself included, didn’t have a pulse. Reaching out her left hand, she pushed the door all the way open. The entry looked straight through to the living room, where a big picture window let in the glow of city lights. It was plenty of light for a vampire to see by.
“Michelle?” she said softly. There’s no one here. She must have left.
Talia couldn’t, wouldn’t, believe anything else. She slid her phone back into her purse and set it down along with her shopping bag. Get a grip. But her hands shook so hard, she had to make fists to stop them.
She left the door open behind her as she tiptoed inside. She’d lived there for two months, but suddenly the place felt alien. Lamps, tables, the so-ugly-it-was-cute pink china poodle with the bobblehead. They might as well
