Page 104 of Never Invite a Vampire to Dinner

The kitchen is very quiet.

“It used to cost years,” he says. “Travel. Letters. Permission. Enough effort that no one had any reason to spend it on the question of whether the owners of Blackthorn House resembled one another.”

He glances at the phone.

“Now it costs an evening.”

“And two million people can help.”

“That,” Julian says, “is the part I dislike most.”

I put the phone on the counter.

“So what do we do?”

He answers immediately.

“I close the house.”

I freeze.

“The collection can go to Boston. The journals go with me. Arthur remains on the grounds and continues to be paid through the fund. I stop appearing in town, but gradually. Immediately would attract attention. Over a month, perhaps.”

He isn’t improvising. That’s the worst part. The plan comes out smooth and complete, an old tool lifted from its place on the wall.

“And then?”

“By the time they arrive, Blackthorn House is closed and there is no current Volkov to interview. They have six episodes about a family resemblance and a locked gate. Eventually the audience gets bored.”

“And you?”

“Lisbon,” he says. “For a while. It’s a great deal better than it was.”

The sea moves below the kitchen windows. I look at him. The book about the Newfoundland cod fishery has moved from my cottage to the end of my prep counter. There’s an apron of mine hanging beside this kitchen door and a hairbrush upstairs that he bought because I kept leaving mine at home. His name is written on my calendar twice before Christmas. And a week ago, Julian Volkov walked into my grandmother’s house without pausing because, after four hundred years, he has finally started to believe he is expected somewhere.

Now his answer to danger is to make all of it disappear.

He told me Black Harbor is the only place on earth where he isn’t a guest. His plan is to become one again. I could say that. I have the whole argument lined up in my head, and I think I could win. I don’t say anything.

Because I have known about this for thirty minutes and Julian has spent centuries knowing exactly what happens when somebody starts looking too closely. A man who has just been shown the end of his only hiding place is entitled to reach for the one thing that has always kept him safe without me trying to take it away from him inside the hour.

So I walk around the counter, take his cool hand, and put it flat against my chest.

“Okay.”

His eyes come to mine.

“Okay?”

“You’ve had thirty minutes and a shock and gone straight to the plan that has worked every other time. I’m not going to fight you about it at seven in the morning.” I keep his hand where it is. “I’m going to go and start on the hundred and forty covers for the Trasks. You’re going to think about it. And tonight I’m coming back and we’re going to talk properly.”

He studies me.

“You are being extremely reasonable.”

The suspicion in his voice almost makes me smile.

“I’m being strategic instead.”