Page 16 of Blood & Bones

“Do you think she stays here?” Camille asked.

I shook my head. “Too much chance of the sun coming through the windows. She’ll need a private place…” But then I stopped. “These buildings generally have basements, don’t they? And what better place for a rogue vampire to hang out than in a dingy, old basement that might easily have a hidden room—or a room that could be fixed up to hide in?”

“Good thought,” Delilah said. “But the front door’s locked, and my guess is you need a key to even get into the foyer.”

“I can solve that easily enough,” I said. In my work with the OIA, I’d been known to pick more than one lock. I didn’t have my lock picks with me, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t figure out a simple deadbolt.

“I have another suggestion,” Camille said. “We ring the intercom and find someone to let us in. If they’re students, chances are someone in the building’s ordered pizza.” She darted up to the door and pressed the nearest button.

“Hello?” A voice echoed out of the intercom.

“Pizza delivery,” Camille said.

After a brief pause, the buzzer sounded, and Camille opened the door, giving us a nod. We followed her in. I glanced around. From what I could tell, the building had sixteen apartments, four on each side of the hall. To our right, a stairwell led both upstairs and down. Camille turned and headed down the stairs. I hustled to slide in front of her.

“You don’t want to be first in case she’s down there,” I said, keeping my voice low. We had the ability to lower our voices to a point where most FBHs—full blooded humans—couldn’t hear us. Even though I’d been turned into a vamp, I could still access that part of my bloodline.

She nodded, hanging back to let me take the lead.

We reached the basement, which was closed off by a door, but it was unlocked. Apparently, security wasn’t one of the main priorities of the building. As we entered the massive basement—it took up the entire footprint of the apartment building—I pointed to the bare bulb overhead. It was on, which meant somebody had been down here. Whether it was the maintenance man, or someone else, I didn’t know.

The basement consisted of several rooms. A row of large cubicles took up the entire wall to our right, each one closed off by a door that was made up of a frame with chain link instead of wood, so you could see through. Each one had a number on it, and I assumed it corresponded to one of the apartments. Lockers, I thought—storage for the tenants. The cubicles weren’t huge, but big enough to hold a bicycle and some boxes.

I quickly moved down the row, peeking into each one, but there was nothing alive in there. Just various boxes and a few small pieces of furniture.

To our left, the furnace churned out heat. Next to the furnace were three washers and dryers, which a sign over them sternly warned residents that any one tenant was allowed to use only one washer and dryer at a time. They were coin-operated, and another sign warned against using any Canadian money.

Ahead of us stood a long wall with three doors, dividing the basement in half. I looked around, but aside from some boxes covered with spiderwebs, there was no sign of anybody hiding here. Then again, if a vampire was smart, they weren’t going to hide their lair in plain sight. I headed for the door to the left, Camille and Delilah silently following me.

As we approached the door, I pressed my ear against the wall and listened. Nothing. But then again, I couldn’t expect to hear breathing if a vampire had made her next here—we didn’t breathe. I gently took hold of the door and opened it a crack.

As I peeked inside, a mound of what looked like moldy cardboard boxes kept me from entering the room. Floor to ceiling, the room was jammed with them, and there was literally no room for anyone to slither in. I shut the door with a grimace. Somebody was a hoarder; that was clear. Camille rolled her eyes, but said nothing.

We moved to the middle door, and again, I listened, then tried to open it. But the door was locked. I shook the knob and the door rattled, but it didn’t budge.

Camille motioned for me to move back. She was gearing up to cast a spell—I could tell—and I stopped her, holding my finger to my lips. The last thing we needed was for the door to implode, or for something else to backfire. With her magic, that was a good probability.

I didn’t have my lock picks with me, but I did have a credit card, and the lock was a simple spring latch, by the looks of it. I slid the card in, jimmying it around until it bent at just the right angle to open the door. As I heard a faint click, I pushed the door open enough to get my hand through, reaching around to fully unlock it on the other side of the knob.

By now, if someone was on the other side, they knew we were here, so I shoved the door open, following it. Again, a single bare bulb lit the room. But this time, we got lucky—or, at least, I thought we did. Inside, a six-foot long, two-foot-wide box rested on two sawhorses in the center of the room. The lid was open. A soft cushion of blankets filled the interior. Vampires didn’t have to sleep in dirt, like Bram Stoker had penned, but we did need darkness. And the box offered that.

Camille began searching the rest of the room. A bunch of furniture filled the rest of the room, most of the pieces covered by a plastic tarp. They had been shoved to the side, save for a sofa, which had been stripped of its plastic, and a tea table sitting next to the sofa.

While Delilah and Camille examined the room, I quickly checked out the last room. It stored cleaning and plumbing supplies, and nothing else.

I returned to find Camille going through a suitcase full of slinky clothes. “Well, I’ll say this for her—she’s got sexy tastes. And she’s a size zero. I couldn’t get my thigh in some of these!” She held up a bodycon dress that looked like it would barely fit a teenager, let alone an adult woman.

I snorted. “Yeah. I could wear them, but I wouldn’t, even if I wasn’t covered with Dredge’s artwork. Not my style.”

“Her name is Vera Skyles,” Delilah said, holding up an envelope. It was addressed to a Vera Skyles, and the address was in some swanky condo building in downtown Seattle. It was postmarked several months ago, and was from some months back. Delilah opened the envelope and slid out the letter, scanning it.

“What does it say?” I asked.

She winced. “Vera had a lawsuit going on with some vampire who owns a club in the Underground, it looks like. This letter is from a lawyer, telling her she might win the lawsuit but that she should think about it, because the vamp’s enemies often disappear. But there’s no proof he had anything to do with those disappearances.” She looked up at me. “I know what I’m thinking.”

I knew what she was thinking, and I was thinking that she was right. “If her lawyer warned her off a lawsuit, then the danger was probably real. That would explain why she’s a rogue. When a vamp goes after you in retaliation, it’s not likely they’re going to hold your hand once you turn. They’ll leave you a rogue, which is a death sentence in itself.”

If Vera had been suing a vampire, and he turned her in punishment, chances were he had cast out in the streets after she transformed. Which almost guaranteed her erratic behavior. Rogue vamps either were vampires who had gone mad, or they were usually fairly newly minted, without any guidance to help them suppress their feral nature. Which meant that Vera was a victim herself. But that didn’t change anything regarding what we needed to do.