Phyllis removed her sunglasses. She gave a wan, fangless smile that said: I’m here with bad news, let’s make the best of it.

I stood aside. “Phyllis, I can’t say it’s good to see you”-I motioned to the other vampire-“or your friend.”

The blonde took off her sunglasses and folded them into a pocket.

Jolie surprised me by making the introduction. “This is Nathacha De Brancovan.”

Nathacha glanced at our naked feet, my open shirt, and the clothes scattered by the chaise longue. Jolie had lingering fang marks on her shoulders and neck. I’m sure I had plenty of my own.

Nathacha’s undead eyes smoldered with disdain, first at Jolie, then at me. “Am I interrupting?” she asked in a dismissive French accent, more a statement than a question.

The last conversation I wanted to have was with someone from the Araneum. I already had enough grief; I didn’t need to parade my troubles in front of an audience to feel worse. “Would it make a difference if I said yes?”

“Of course not,” Nathacha answered.

The dog strained to get in. Phyllis held the leash tighter. Nathacha entered first. No question about the pecking order here.

Nathacha swooped toward the chaise longue and gave the discarded clothing another once-over. She didn’t step close, like she was afraid of contracting sex cooties. She circled behind my desk and pushed my executive chair adjacent to an ottoman.

Phyllis took another chair from in front of my desk and turned it around, careful not to scoot close to Nathacha. These two may be from the Araneum, but they sent out a vibe like a pair of magnets repelling each other.

Phyllis sat and clipped the dog’s leash to the chair’s chrome tubing.

After unbuttoning her coat, Nathacha relaxed into her chair as if we were here for a long meeting. With her shiny pewter blouse, black flared pants, and black slides with stiletto heels and long points, she might have been mistaken for the senior editor of a fashion magazine. She crossed her ankles across the top of the ottoman, claiming her presence as the alpha bitch.

Phyllis said to me. “Close the blinds.”

I didn’t like the mystery or taking orders. “Any reason?”

“Just close them,” Nathacha said.

I wanted to tell her to get off her Frenchie ass and do it herself, but if this was bad news, I better keep my mouth shut and not make it worse. I went to the windows and shut the blinds. The room became twilight dark.

Phyllis pulled a filigreed cylinder from the pocket of her wind-breaker. She held the cylinder in her hand like a baton. The cylinder resembled the message capsules the crow brought but was the size of a rolling pin.

My previous messages were tiny swatches of parchment. What tome did Phyllis carry in that cylinder? I’m sure we needed the darkness to keep the vampire parchment inside from bursting into flames.

Phyllis shook the cylinder, implying that I should take it. I’d rather hold a live grenade.

I grasped the cylinder. It weighed about a pound, same as a live grenade.

Nathacha said, “Open it.”

This was a moment when I wanted to push the fast-forward button. I only wanted to deal with the aftermath and skip the thorny details along the way.

The faceted rubies on the cap of the cylinder made for an easy grip. The cap twisted off. The horrendous odor of rotted meat belched out. I let the air clear before peering inside the cylinder. It held a rolled sheet of parchment.

I gave the cap to Phyllis. I tapped on the end of the cylinder like it was a bottle of ketchup. The edge of the parchment slid out. I pulled it free. A rubber band kept the parchment in a roll. I clipped the rubber band with a talon. The parchment uncurled with a snap and released another gust of funky smell.

Jolie tugged at my shirt. I sat beside her on the chaise longue. She took the cylinder from me.

I read the parchment. The writing was in calligraphy. The top two lines read:

Mémorandum

Des mesures disciplinaires pour Felix Gomez

Great, the damn thing was in French. Disciplinary measures? If this was punishment, the Araneum should’ve at least had the balls to give it to me in a way I could understand. The writing started neatly enough but a third of the way down the page, the lines became sloppy as if the author had gotten rushed. Spots and smears of brown ink-or blood? — marred the copy.

This parchment was thicker than the onionskin messages the crow brought. There was a watermark along one long edge. I held the parchment to the overhead light. The watermark was a faded tattoo of the Virgin of Guadalupe, something a barrio gangster would wear on his back. Despite what he might have done, I pitied the guy the parchment had come from. Vampires don’t willingly donate their skin.

“What’s this about?” I asked.

“Felix, this is the second time that you’ve failed the Araneum,” Nathacha replied.

Failed. The word hit me like a gob of spit.

She added, “Because of you, we lost Carmen Arellano.”

My face heated with anger. “I’ve owned up to that. Her loss means more to me than it does to you.”

Jolie put her hand on my thigh.

“I don’t doubt it.” Nathacha’s words dripped with a patronizing tone. “At least one consequence of this fiasco is that we don’t have to worry about Dr. Hennison or zombies.”

“I wouldn’t be too smug,” I replied. “The fire destroyed his lab, but on the other hand, we lost clues on how to track a future reanimator. What chemicals and equipment should we be watching for? What about his psychotronic diviner? Dr. Hennison managed to make one. How much longer before another reanimator starts poking into the astral plane?”

Nathacha kept her tombstone expression on me. “Like I said, a fiasco.”

My kundalini noir jolted from the insult. “How was that my fault?”

Jolie’s hand groped for mine.

“Because your investigation was, as you say”-Nathacha snapped her fingers-“une absolue fuckup.”

Jolie let go of my hand. She jumped to her feet. “That’s enough.”

Phyllis, Nathacha, and I seemed to lurch forward as if we’d all collided together. Even the dog noticed the outburst and tucked its head behind Phyllis’s legs.

“The Araneum set Felix up.”

My mind whipped from anger to confusion, then whipped back to someplace in between. I started to rise but Jolie kept me down by pushing her talons into my shoulder.

She said, “The Araneum knew all along about Phaedra’s powers but they didn’t warn Felix.”

Phyllis frowned and her eyebrows clenched. Her eyes swiveled from Jolie to Nathacha and back. “How do you know?”

Jolie pointed the cylinder at Nathacha. “Because she told me. The Araneum learned that Phaedra’s powers were the strongest they’d seen. They knew about her unstable personality and decided she was too dangerous. It was her idea”-Jolie jabbed the cylinder at Nathacha-“to confirm the Araneum’s suspicions. She had them send Felix and not warn him.”

My anger curdled into disgust. “Why?”

Nathacha answered, “Because if Phaedra could read your mind, she’d get all your secrets. If you didn’t know, she wouldn’t know. It was a tactical decision. For the greater good.”

Phyllis kept her aura smooth, but it glowed hot like the flame from a blowtorch. “What part of this greater good said not to tell me about this? Felix reports to me.”

Phyllis, Jolie, and I kept Nathacha in the cross fire of our gazes. She’d come here to lash me to a burning stake, and instead the fire licked her feet. But if she regarded this change in situation as more than an inconvenience, she didn’t show it.

Jolie kept her back straight and defiant. “Felix, just so you know, I wouldn’t have done it.” She meant killing and skinning me. “Please forgive me for keeping what Nathacha told me from you.”