No, Bela Lugosi's slo-mo sinister diction may seem hokey today, but in person, gliding to your bedside, he was mesmerizing. He leaned in and down, showed only the tips of his pointed canine teeth, and lowered his gaze to drink in the sight of my bare neck.

By now my silver chain bracelet had subtly shimmied up my arm. Even as he ogled my throat, it looped itself into a solid wide dog collar around my neck, blocking all ports of entry.

"Bah," Dracula said, recoiling. "Cheesy silver trinket! I only wanted to take a tiny symbolic taste."

"Bad taste is never symbolic," I said, my fingers tracing the smooth, defensive form my silver familiar had taken. It never failed to surprise-and defend-me.

"My master wants you."

"Isn't that Renfield's line?" I didn't mean to be a smart-mouth; I was just surprised that Dracula would admit to a master. He was "the Master."

"Renfield's words may, regrettably, live on, but the bug-eater ended with that blasted film. The message I bear remains: You must come with me."

"Now?" I couldn't believe I was asking that question, like I might consider it some other day.

"No. Never," I corrected myself. "We know all about you these days. You can't reverse your surname and pretend to be some Transylvanian nobleman, 'Count Alucard'! This is not sleepy old England between the World Wars of the last century. This is post-Millennium Revelation America. We're all on to you."

"Perhaps, Miss Street, but you have tried to trick my master. He's had time to discover your name and profession. He could choose to crush you like one of that pathetic Renfield's bugs. Instead, he is magnanimous. He wishes to employ you. You call yourself a paranormal investigator, do you not?"

"Barely. I just phoned the Yellow Pages today to order the ad. It'll take ages to show up. How would your master, whoever he is, know that?"

"We… he knows many things through many means."

"And how'd you know where to find me?"

"All my kind know Hector Nightwine and his Sunset Road estate. You are becoming known as his creature," Dracula announced with loathing.

"His part-time private investigator! I'm nobody's creature. What have you got against Hector?" I was puzzled, because Nightwine was a known admirer of CinSims.

"He has leased all three of my brides." Dracula positively hissed the last word through his fangs. "I am denied all… access."

"Oh."

I had to admit that the trio of willowy train-dragging thirties femmes fatales made a pretty good girl back-up group for Drac. They were the only vampire chick role models I aspired to. I made the height requirement, being five-eight flat-footed, but not the weight one. Lean and hungry (i.e., anorexic) is definitely not my look. I'm a substantial girl, more hourglass than swizzle stick. Still, it'd be fun to slink around in fangs and furbelows.

"Enough chitchat. Come with me." He extended a graceful gray hand.

Well, adolescent me had wanted to meet a gentleman vampire of the old school and now here I had one.

Don't go, Irma urged. You don't know where that walking corpse has been.

"Do not be afraid," Dracula said in slow formal tones, noting my hesitancy. "These days I only drink from those who pay for the privilege. I am the resident attraction at the Love in Vein Social Club."

"Then what are you doing here tonight?"

"My master occasionally needs me mobile. The night has always been mine. Sometimes what he wants from me is what I also want for myself… a beautiful but shaken young woman, a midnight mission, an opportunity to stretch my wings and my reach, as of old. To be powerful. To be irresistible. You will come with me, Miss Delilah Street, because you must."

He leaned nearer. I inhaled the stale scent of cigar smoke and raw meat and old blood. Then he withdrew. I wondered if the chicken garlic on my breath was slapping him in the undead kisser. Good! But I had a feeling this was an offer I shouldn't refuse.

"Not so fast," I told him. "Not in this outfit do I go anywhere. Turn your back while I change clothes if you want me to go with you."

No! Irma was kicking up an internal storm. You don't know where and you don't know who. You can't go.

Irma was my alter ego, the psychological crutch of a lonely kid, I figured, but she could get bossy. I didn't feel the need to heed her at the moment. The King Vampire in this town had called on me for help, no matter how rudely he had put it or how seedy his operation. I had to live up to my new business card: Delilah Street, P.I.

What kind of paranormal investigator would flinch from a CinSim vampire? Underneath all the props and persona, even Dracula was just an animated zombie these days. A lot of classic horror film creatures had been resurrected by the Immortality Mob to entertain the tourists. At least Mothra hadn't been sent to pick me up.

I thought about Quicksilver asleep below as I pulled a black knit turtleneck down over my black yoga pants. Old Drac must have some spell to put animals asleep, even big supernaturally strong wolfhound-wolf crossbreeds. Otherwise, he'd be at the vampire's throat.

I thrust my feet into a pair of black cowboy boot mules and grabbed the slim Baggalini uptown messenger bag I'd found so handy during my incarnation as a TV reporter. I slung it across my body and stuffed my cell phone. ID and some cash inside so my hands would be free in an emergency. Unfortunately, it had no space for wooden stakes or garlic garlands. But if someone found my body, I'd at least have a chance to be properly identified.

Of course, if I wound up dead, I hoped somebody would make sure I wasn't resurrected-even if my future as a Lilith stand-in was worth a fortune.

Couldn't count on Hector Nightwine for the job; he had an addictive profit motive. I'd need my new beau, Ric Montoya, to make sure I was dead and buried and kept that way. Ric had his unusual ways with the dead, but our relationship is anything but lifeless.

Bela was waiting, polite, his caped back to me, bare gray hand still extended. The other wore a white glove.

I put my own pale hand into that dead, ashen flesh. Icy. Icky.

Dracula turned slowly to face me, his arms lifting his cloak into black wings again. With those "wings," he clasped me to the formal front of his evening dress, the starched white shirt. His cloak curled around me, enclosing me in the scent of mothballs, must and cold decay.

With a swoop and a whoosh, I felt us break the "ground barrier" and fly through the window to soar into the warm night air. His arms remained around me, but the cloak folds unfurled, fanning out like giant wings as we sped through the night sky. I eyed the gorgeous glitter of Las Vegas a hundred and fifty stories below.

Being in Dracula's arms felt like waltzing with a marble pillar; his skin and bones formed one hardened, heartless surface. It was odd to fly vertically, as if we stood on an invisible floor, but it certainly eased my horizontal phobia, if not the acrophobia any human being with a brain would feel in this situation.

The wind chilled my ears. I curled my toes to keep my mules from falling off and braining some unlucky tourist below.

I distracted myself during the terrifying flight by wondering who could send Dracula as an errand boy. Certainly not mobster Cesar Cicereau of the Gehenna Hotel-Casino and werewolf syndicate. I wasn't sure from our last encounter whether he now preferred to forget me instead of tearing my throat out, but I was pretty sure he'd never want to hire me.

The Strip lights below had dimmed. We were dropping toward a square black blot in the lightscape. I squinched my eyes shut, sure we would smack hard into that rectilinear bull's-eye.

Instead my soles touched roof, the dangling heels first, then the toes. Note to self: Never wear mules for night flights with the dead. Nun-like lace-up oxfords would have been better. At least Drac and I were once more on solid ground.