The Last of the Red-Hot Vampires

staggering against him. 'You can't just leave like that. You're the Court police! There has to be something you can tell us about Hope.'

The Hashmallim flickered for a moment at the edge of the portal. 'In order to succeed, you must first destroy.'

Both the Hashmallim and the portal disappeared without any further ado.

'What in the name of Stephen Hawking is that supposed to mean?' I asked Theo.

'I have no idea. This Hashmallim wasn't particularly inclined to give answers, it appears.'

Slowly, the horror within me began to fade. Anger quickly replaced it.

'Sweet mother of sanity,' I swore, looking at the spot the Hashmallim had occupied. 'So help me, once I have your soul back, and this thing with Hope is cleared up, if I ever want to get involved in anything to do with the Court, you have my full permission to beat me senseless.'

Chapter 17

'This is downright creepy.'

'Meh.' I made a half-hearted shrugging motion to accompany the word, trudging along behind the group of people who chattered in excited whispers, occasional startled gasps punctuating their conversation.

Sarah stopped to give me a gimlet eye. 'Meh? Meh! This is not in the least bit meh!'

'You're talking to someone who has been to hell itself, and had a chat with the man in charge, not to mention facing down a gauntlet of Hashmallim, which in my humble opinion is a thousand times worse than the aforementioned demon lord. Something so simple as a haunted house holds no fear to the likes of me.'

'I almost liked you better when you were a pigheaded skeptic,' she answered, making a face.

'Oh, I'm still a skeptic…about most things I am. There are some I won't dispute fall well out of the bounds of what can be explained by existing science,' I answered, obediently stopping when the ghost-hunting group leader waved everyone to a halt. 'I haven't seen any proof yet that this house is anything other than extremely old and'—I sniffed the air—'evidently inhabited by a very large family of rodents. I wish Theo was here.'

'That's the third time in an hour you've said that—ooh, what was that?'

'Sorry, that was me,' one of the men in the group called out, sheepishly answering a cell phone that had made an odd buzzing noise.

'Fine, I'll take it back. I don't wish Theo was here—I wish I was with him, instead.'

'We'll wait here for the two missing members,' the group leader announced in a loud whisper. 'They're just outside the building. I'll go meet them at the door and escort them here. While we're waiting, let's take a few baseline readings of this upper floor. Those of you on the communication team may want to get into your meditative states and see if any entities contact you.'

'People in a new relationship are always so cloying,' Sarah said as she sank down gracefully into a lotus position, adopting a peaceful look on her face despite the cold, damp, and rodent-infested ambiance of the three- hundred-year-old mill we were presently occupying. 'You don't see Anthony and me clinging to each other.'

I plopped down next to her with considerably less elegance. 'You've been married sixteen years. I assume by the time Theo and I have been together that long, I won't mind if he spends the evening off doing mysterious things that he refuses to tell me about except to say that he hopes it will give us some direction regarding the whole Hope situation.'

'Hush. I'm meditating.'

I hugged my knees as I sat next to a softly humming Sarah, shivering slightly in the cold midnight air. We were on the top floor of one of the oldest standing mills in England, a notoriously haunted mill which had a checkered past that supposedly included several murders, three suicides, and during the 1970s, a rash of Satanic rituals. The interior of the mill wasn't anything special to look at—for the last hundred years it had alternately been used as office space, apartments, and, finally, storage. Although I didn't have the paranormal radar that Theo assured me would come with time, I didn't sense anything in the building that felt remotely different.

'Hey, look,' I said softly, nudging Sarah with my elbow. The group leader, puffing slightly at all the stairs, emerged from the staircase with the two latecomers in tow. 'It's Milo from the séance.'

'Mmmhmm. They belong to the group, I believe.'

'I'm going to say hi.' I got up and went over to the newcomers with a smile. Milo introduced his wife, who gave me a curt nod before exclaiming that she wanted to spend a few minutes communing with the spirits of the mill.

'The wife is a believer,' Milo said to me in a quiet voice. We moved to the other end the room, perching ourselves on a rickety metal table that lurked in a corner. 'I've tried to reason with her, but…' He shrugged.

'I know how that can be. I'm not saying I can't accept that there are some things that seem to escape logical explanation…' That was pretty much a given now that my life had become something outside of logic. '…but most people don't even try to look for a reason that things happen. If they see a light in the sky, it must be an alien.'

'Exactly,' Milo agreed, watching the group as they sat in a circle for a group meditation. 'Logic, that's the key to it. You seem like a very logical person.'

I smiled. 'It goes with the territory. I'm a physicist, you see. Logic is more or less my forte.'

'Really?' He turned an interested face on me. 'You don't happen to like puzzles, do you? The brain teasers? I am mad for them, but seldom have anyone to share them with, since the wife doesn't like that sort of thing.'

'Logic puzzles, you mean? Car A leaving Los Angeles at thirty miles an hour, and a train leaving Chicago at sixty, that sort of thing?'

'Well…somewhat. I used to belong to a logic puzzle group in university, but have lost touch with most of the members.'

'Ah. I'm not much of a puzzler, but those things seem to me to be set up to be easily solved if you just take the proper steps.'

'That they are.' He looked thoughtful for a moment, then a smile spread across his face as he nodded toward the group in front of us. 'Would you like to try one out?'

'A puzzle?'

'Yes. One to do with this group?'

I looked at the six people in front of us. 'You're kidding. Logical ghost hunters?'

'Something like that,' he said, laughing. 'Look, there are five members there, plus your friend Sarah. That's the makings of a logic puzzle.'

'I'll take your word for that.' I sat back on the table, pleased there was something else to do other than watch ghost hunters communing with spirits. 'I don't know if I can match someone who used to make puzzles, but I'll give it a shot.'

'That's the ticket! Let's see…you know their names, don't you?'

'Actually, I don't. I missed the introductions because I was in the restroom when everyone met at the local restaurant.'

'Perfect. I've known these folks for the last eight years, and I can tell you that each of them—this is excepting your friend, of course—live in different towns. Now, let me see, we need a third element, something you can't tell by looking at them…hmm. Ah, got it. Each one of these teams has members with a different supposed psychic specialty.'

I raised my eyebrows, looking them over again. With my newfound knowledge of things paranormal, I didn't see any signs in them that they were also 'in the know,' so to speak. 'OK. So I'm supposed to guess who has what psychic ability?'

'Supposed psychic ability,' he said with a wink. 'Name, psychic ability, and town, how's that sound?'

'Better than being bored,' I laughed. 'Let's do it.'

'Right, then. The psychometrist and Mr. Brand both like their tea without milk. The telepathist from Newberry and Mrs. Floring, the medium, don't get along well. The mind reader comes from St. Bartleby.'