Chapter Three

“Watch your step.” I pushed open the kitchen door and skirted around the hole in front of the threshold. A Loray demon’s head had leaked enough acid to eat through the worn wooden boards of the floor, leaving a burnt-edged gap that visitors had to hop over in order to enter. Claire had demanded to know why “that grisly thing” had been left there, and hadn’t seemed to understand my explanation about rare-poison extraction.

I made it as far as the fridge before a hand clamped over my mouth. I struggled, but the body behind me might as well have been carved from sun-warmed stone; I couldn’t budge him. Frenchie had his head tilted as if listening for something, but although I strained, the only threatening sound was the ancient fridge’s death rattle. As it had sounded like that since I moved in, I wasn’t too concerned. Louis-Cesare abruptly released me and drew his rapier. Before I could warn him about the house, he’d slipped through the door leading to the hall.

I stared after him for a few seconds, then mentally shrugged. I turned my attention to tossing out some perishables and pouring a week’s worth of cat chow into the two misshapen lumps in front of the fridge. Claire had suddenly announced some months back that she was going to be a potter. She’d bought a wheel and paints, and used the kiln at a craft store to fire them. The results were… unusual. But what they lacked in quality, she made up for in sheer quantity. We had the poor, deformed creations sitting around everywhere. The cats seemed to like them, though.

I hesitated, scowling at the last few days’ dishes in the sink, but in the end I went ahead and washed up. Housekeeping definitely wasn’t my thing, but Claire hated a mess. I’d probably done more cleaning since she disappeared than in the whole time we’d roomed together. For some reason, a dirty house made it seem that much more empty, as if I didn’t believe she’d be back to scold me about it.

I finished drying the last saucer and went in search of my unwanted partner. I found him safe and sound in the living room having a staring contest with Miss Priss. She was managing to look down her elegant feline nose at him despite being curled up on the couch. After a tense moment, she added to the insult by beginning to lick a dainty white paw as if bored. Jackanapes was less brave, the only indication of his presence being two narrowed green eyes that peered out from under the chintz curtains. He emerged when he saw me, but continued to stare suspiciously at the newcomer.

“They are yours?” Louis-Cesare asked after a pause. He seemed surprised that I’d do such a normal thing as keep a pet.

“No. Claire’s. She inherited this place from an eccentric uncle and didn’t think it fair to throw his pets out when they’d lived there longer than she had.” I took in his posture, which was still tense, almost battle ready. “Relax. The war isn’t going to follow us here. This place used to belong to a mage—it’s well protected.”

It was a serious understatement. Claire’s uncle Pip had warded the place like it was Fort Knox, despite the fact that most of his stuff wouldn’t have interested even a non-magical thief. He’d had the power to spare because the house had been built right on top of two ley lines, the vast rivers of power where worlds overlap. They crossed and pooled their energy right under the foundation, forming a deep well of power that Claire’s uncle had used for everything from providing the engine for his wards to fueling the portals he’d littered about the place. And because they had an alternative power source, his enchantments hadn’t decayed after he died, as most spells would have done. I resisted an impulse to invite the vamp to finish his solo tour.

“I’m going to go pack,” I told him. “You might want to wait here. The house doesn’t like strangers.”

“Very well. Be quick.” The vampire clipped every word, barely pushing out the correct amount of syllables as if it pained him to converse with me. It was something of a surprise—not that he’d feel the same instinctive animosity I seem to cause all vamps, but that he would show it. Most masters are excellent liars, right down to their facial expressions. Of course, maybe he didn’t think I was worth putting on a facade.

I blew him a kiss and sauntered upstairs at a deliberately slow pace. I found my backpack under the bed, with a few surprises still inside from my last expedition. I long ago decided that if the choice was either get in trouble for owning illegal weapons or die because I didn’t have one when needed, I’d gladly take the former. As a result, I never go on a serious hunt unaccompanied by my big khaki-colored knapsack. It looks like it’s been through a few wars, which it has, but it securely holds some stuff that isn’t exactly considered light magic. When people are trying to kill me, I don’t worry too much about what I throw at them.

I changed into a white T-shirt, a black leather jacket—since the demon goo had reduced my denim coat to so much lace—jeans and black boots. Then I packed a few essentials and emptied the contents of a hidden cupboard into the remaining space in the pack. If I was going after Drac, I was taking my whole damn arsenal with me.

I hefted a short sword, but regretfully decided I’d have to do without it. Nothing else was fitting in that pack. I propped the sword against the wall, where its surface reflected the vivid colors of the mural I’d recently completed. It had surprised the hell out of Claire, not so much for its postmodernist edge, but because the house had permitted it.

Claire was in a constant struggle for dominance with her legacy, which her uncle had given the personality of a crotchety old woman. Yellowing antimacassars remained on the furniture despite the fact that she hated them, because they reappeared whenever she moved them and shortly thereafter something of hers would go missing. Yet I’d slapped paint all over the place and suffered no ill effects. Maybe the house hadn’t liked the faded cabbage rose wallpaper, either.

I had just finished packing when I heard a yelp followed by a series of thumps. From the landing, I saw Miss Priss sitting in front of the cellar door, looking smug. I went to the kitchen and got the key and a lantern, since Claire’s uncle had never run electricity down there. Then I went to rescue the Senate’s great warrior.

He was at the bottom of the cellar steps, lying in a heap. The last person to piss off the house had been one of my clients, who had tried to go upstairs without an escort. He’d not only been transported to the basement but ended up stuffed into a small trunk in the corner. The trunk had since been moved—I was using it for a nightstand—so the vamp had fared better. The only obvious harm was to his hair, which had come loose from its clip and fallen all over his face.

“The house is a little… temperamental,” I explained as he got his long legs back under him.

“What is this place?” He looked around, eyes bright with interest.

I glanced at the dark cave, trying to see the attraction, but it looked as bad as always. The only saving grace was that the dim light hid the peeling, bilious green paint that had been applied around the time Eisenhower was president, and shadowed the rusting metal hulk in the corner. It didn’t help to conceal the heaps of crates, however, since they were scattered all over the place. Claire had been planning to clean them out, assuming that the house was amenable, for fear that they constituted a fire hazard. “The basement. The stairs automatically send trespassers here.”

“It is far more than that,” he said, picking his way through the crates to where an old set of shelves held bottles of various colors. Claire’s uncle had fancied himself an alchemist, but had never found the secret to turning lead into gold. Or much of anything else, according to her. “Your friend made this?” Louis-Cesare had picked up one of the delicate blue glass vials that had always reminded me of oversized perfume bottles.