Crave

by Karen E. Taylor

Genres: Urban Fantasy

Synopsis

Let the bloody games begin. . . As a vampire, Deirdre Griffin has roamed the world satisfying the exquisite, ecstatic craving for blood that is her life force. And at last, her lover has joined her, hungry for his transformation, prepared to feed with her for eternity. Yet, for the first time, Deirdre feels fear. . . From the farthest corners of the globe to the underworld of Manhattan, enemies are closing in. For a rogue vampire is on the loose. And he isn't just killing humans. Now, the hunters are the prey. But someone else is coming for Deirdre—someone she cannot possibly defend herself against. Blood of her blood, flesh of her flesh—and craving the tangy, acrid, deadly smell of vengeance. . .

Release date: May 26, 2011

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 481

Sample

He moved through the narrow streets like a shadow, in stealth and darkness, stalking an unsuspecting prey. I followed close enough to keep him in my sight, but also hidden, my presence merging with the night. His muscles coiled beneath the black sweater, his legs, taut and powerful, and his silvery hair glistened in the moonlight. I held back a gasp at the magnificence of this creature; I did not want to be heard. But my caution made no difference, he was oblivious to my presence. He remained a mysterious and nameless figure intent only upon the quick footsteps of his chosen victim, leading him around a corner and down a darker alley. I hurried to catch up with them, not wanting to miss the moment of capture.

Standing at the head of the alley, I squeezed tightly against its rough brick wall, watching in fearful anticipation. My legs trembled and the breath froze in my throat. Then, when I thought I could stand the waiting no longer, he struck, suddenly and ferociously. His hand snaked out and grasped the young man’s shoulder, spinning him around, silencing his protests with a single glance. His mouth came down on the man’s neck and my hand traveled to my own throat; my pulse pounded in excitement, my breathing quickened, my tongue darted out to lick my lips. The tangy, acrid smell of blood exploded in the air; its odor, enticing and invigorating.

He drank hungrily, silently, but his pleasure was almost tangible, as easily heard as the strangled moans of his victim.

“Ahh.” The slight whisper escaped my lips involuntarily and although it was barely audible, he heard and pulled away to face me. His mouth was bloodied, his canines, sharpened and lethal, and the ecstasy of feeding shone on his features. I do not need to fear him, I thought, he is of my own kind. But the internal reassurances did no good, and, in spite of myself, I shrank away from him, in awe and fright. A look of puzzlement flashed across his face, then he smiled and his eyes, with their intense blue glow, met mine and broke the spell under which his presence had held me.

“Mitch.” I murmured his name and slowly moved toward him, claiming my place at the man’s neck. Delicately, I placed my bite within the marks he had left and pulled deeply on the strong, rich blood. As I drank, Mitch stroked my hair with one hand. His other arm held me and the victim in an iron embrace until I finished my feast. Then with a few hoarsely spoken words, he calmed the man, urged him to forget, and gently deposited the now sleeping form on the sidewalk.

We linked arms and walked back down the alley to return to the pub. I nestled into his strong arm and glanced up at him, smiling. He kissed the top of my head and I sighed. Mitch had adjusted to his new life better than I had ever expected.

“So how’d I do?” It had been his first solo stalking since his transformation and the apprehension he had shown before we came out was now replaced with an exhilaration I knew all too well.

“At first I thought you would have been better off with someone older, someone slower perhaps. But you picked well, he was young and strong and you . . .” I sighed again. “You were perfect, Mitch. No, more than that, you were magnificent. You took my breath away.”

“Well,” he shrugged and pulled me closer to him, “I had a wonderful teacher.”

“Yes,” I said, “I suppose I should offer professional tutoring in bloodsucking. Such a valuable skill.” I tried to make my voice light and teasing, but the acid of the words splashed through.

We walked in silence until we were about a block from the pub. Mitch stopped and turned me around to face him. “What’s wrong, Deirdre? You’ve been edgy and nervous all day. It’s crazy, but I can’t help but think it has something to do with me. Are you tired of me this soon?” The anger and hurt in his voice made me want to cry.

“No, my love,” I reached a hand up to stroke his cheek, “it’s not you. I wish I knew what it was. I’m tired. Perhaps that’s all it is.”

“But we slept all day and just fed pretty well. You should feel great; I know I do.”

I gave him a sidelong glance. “You slept all day, you mean. I don’t sleep much anymore.”

“Why not? Do I snore?” His voice was slightly indignant.

“No, that’s not it,” I said with a small laugh, then sobered instantly. “I feel uneasy, like something is nagging at my mind, but I can’t pinpoint it.” I glanced up at the night sky, mentally numbering the remaining hours until dawn. “We’ll have to leave here soon, you know.”

“I know. Pete’s expecting us back at the pub soon so he can go home. It was nice of him to stay, while we ran out for a bite.” He winked at me and I smiled, but shook my head slightly, for both the bad joke and his misunderstanding of my words.

“No, I meant that we will need to leave England soon.”

“But we just got here. And everything is just starting to fall into place, the house, the pub, and you and me. What else could we possibly want?”

“More than four hours of darkness at night would be nice. You’ve never spent an entire summer at this latitude. I have and it’s an experience I am not anxious to repeat.”

“Oh, yeah.” He paused a minute and ran his fingers through his hair. “I was never real good at geography. Where should we go, do you think?”

I shrugged. “Any place is as good as another, I suppose, as long as we get at least seven hours of darkness. Any less than that and we might be in for trouble. What would you think about Spain?”

“Sounds fine to me.” Mitch’s face lit up with a mischievous grin. “I hear they have some great beaches there. You know, the ones where you can get a really good tan.”

A sharp wave of panic struck me. I remembered too clearly my own initial longing for the sun; how, after over a century of living in the night only, I still missed the warming rays and the brightness of summer days. “No beaches, Mitch.” My voice was imperative and harsh. I reached over and grasped his arm tightly. “You have to promise me, no beaches.”

“Okay, okay.” He disengaged my fingers from his arm, but kept my hand in his. “Bloody hell, Deirdre, I was only joking.”

“Please, Mitch, never joke about that.”

He must have heard the despair in my voice and said no more, but pulled me close to him, rocking me slightly for a few seconds. “Feeling better?” His breath tickled my ear and I smiled into his sweater.

“Yes, thank you. Now, we’d better get back to the pub.”

“Dottie, and Mitch, my boy,” Pete’s boisterous voice greeted us as we opened the front door. “Back so soon? I was just saying that you’d be a while longer. Trying to make a liar of me, are you?”

I shook my head slightly and smiled, knowing that it did no good to interrupt him. Mitch laughed, clapped Pete on the shoulder and stood next to him behind the bar.

“Sure,” Pete continued, “and now I suppose you’ll be sending me home right as I was in the middle of making the acquaintance of a new visitor; telling him the story of how you returned here with a new name, a new husband, and without an extra ounce of fat on your bones. Not that they’re not fine bones, mind you,” and he nudged Mitch, giving him a small wink, “but you both could do with a little fattening up.”

I tensed slightly at his mention of a visitor and glanced around the bar, seeing no one but the regulars. Catching Mitch’s eyes, I shrugged and asked the question I knew Pete was waiting to hear. “What new visitor?”

He looked around in confusion. “Why, he was just here, wasn’t he, boys?” The men around the bar nodded and Pete continued. “Probably stepped off to the gents; he’ll be turning up soon, no doubt. Real eager to see you, he was. Says he knew you both in the States.” Pete’s eyes narrowed in a fake scowl, “Seems to me, Dottie, that last time that happened you took off and left me for another man.”

“But I came back, Pete.”

“And that you did, Dot.” He drew himself a glass of stout, and walked around the bar, lighting a cigarette. “But this wasn’t the same man that dragged you away before. This one is older and has a trace of accent, not American, mind you, but someplace foreign.”

As he settled himself onto a stool to finish his drink, I moved back behind the bar with Mitch. “Do you remember his name, Pete,” I asked with a smile, leaning toward him, “or did you forget to ask?”

“Now, Dottie, don’t give me grief, I get enough of that from the missus owing to my poor memory. Vincent, it was, or something close to that.”

“Victor Lange.”

I knew Mitch well enough to hear the undercurrent of tension in his voice, but Pete merely nodded and announced triumphantly, “Yes, that’s the chap. Know him, do you?”

“Unfortunately.” This time, the anger in Mitch’s voice was unmistakable.

“Well, fortunate or not,” Pete said, glancing curiously at Mitch, “he’s here somewhere.” He drained his glass, stubbed out his cigarette and stood up. Taking off his apron, he tossed it to Mitch, then reached over to give me a delicate pat on my cheek. “Now, Dot, don’t you go running off on me again without notice.”

Although I knew Mitch and I would both be leaving soon, I nodded my head, thinking that we had less than a month before the nighttime hours would begin to dwindle enough to force us to move on. “Well, Pete,” I began, “we won’t . . .” But the rest of my answer went unsaid. The air seemed to thicken over me; the hair on the back of my neck rose. I could hear nothing, but felt the presence of someone standing close behind me, as clearly as if a hand had been laid on me. I quickly looked over my shoulder and around the room, but could see only those who had been there a second earlier, no one else.

Mitch walked over next to me and wrapped an arm around my waist, his familiar touch calming me only slightly. “Don’t worry,” he said, “we won’t leave you in the lurch. Now if you don’t go soon, your wife’ll be mad.”

Pete’s contagious laugh roared over the pub and almost rid me of the unsettling feeling of the invisible presence. “Right you are, my boy. See you tomorrow night.”

The rest of the evening passed uneventfully. I was still nervous; I thought that the patrons spoke too loudly and that the smoke of their cigarettes was unnaturally heavy, curling thickly through the dark corners of the room. I breathed my relief when last call had been made and the doors were finally locked. Mitch silently poured me a glass of port, handed me Pete’s cigarettes and began to clear the tables.

When I finished the wine, I lit one of the Players and sat at the bar to watch Mitch wash the glasses and the steins, admiring the grace of his movements and the strength of his hands. He looked up at me, his eyes met mine and he smiled. “What?”

“Nothing,” I said. Suddenly the nervousness fell aside and I felt at peace with myself for the first time since Mitch’s transformation. “I just like to watch you. You do that so well.”

Mitch laughed. “I know, you brought me all the way here just so I could wash dishes for your pub.”

I returned his laugh. “That’s right, my love, regular dishwashers don’t come cheap and you know how Pete is about spending money.”

He gave a noncommittal grunt and completed his work behind the bar. Then he pulled out a glass for himself and filled it and mine with tawny port. He took both glasses and sat down at the closest table. I followed and sat down next to him.

“So,” his voice had lost all of its humor and was intense and serious, “what exactly was that?”

“You mean right before Pete left? I don’t know. I’ve never experienced anything like it.”

“Wasn’t Max, was it?”

After having lived with the ghost of Max for over two years, I discarded that theory immediately. “No, it didn’t have his imprint, somehow.”

“I didn’t think so.”

I turned to him in surprise. “You felt it too?”

“Yeah.” He ran his fingers through his hair in a tired gesture. “But it was vaguely familiar.” Then he shrugged and touched my hand. “Another thing, what the hell is Victor Lange doing here? And where in bloody hell do you suppose he disappeared to?”

I shook my head and my eyes drifted to a corner of the bar, where the smoke of the night had collected and the darkness was impenetrable. Rubbing a hand on my face, I looked again and a shiver of amazement flowed over me. “Why that son of a bitch,” I whispered in a trembling voice, “he never left at all. He’s been here all night.”

“What?” Mitch looked at me in surprise, then glanced over his shoulder. When the figure behind the bar began to materialize into an almost recognizable form, Mitch jumped out of his chair, knocking his glass to the floor in the process. Its crash was the only noise for what seemed a long time. Then there was the sound of footsteps and suddenly Victor stood in front of us.

“Good evening, Deirdre,” he nodded, “and you too, Mitch. It’s good to see you again.”

Mitch and I just stared at him; neither of us ever had any inkling that what Victor had just done was even possible. Mitch cleared his throat and tentatively held out his hand. Victor shook it, grinning.

“Jesus, Victor,” Mitch said with a touch of both anger and awe in his voice, “how the hell did you do that?”

“Forgive me for the theatrics,” Victor began, ignoring Mitch’s question. He brushed a spot of invisible lint from his impeccably tailored jacket, and sat down at the table. “I did think that our meeting would best be conducted in private. We have a lot to discuss, we three.”

I glanced at Victor uneasily, then glanced away, feeling, as I usually did in his presence, shoddily dressed in my jeans and black sweater. He exuded an elegance and a confidence as easily felt as the power and magnetism of his being. Mitch was still staring at him and I could almost hear the questions racing through his mind. Was what Victor had done possible for us? And if so, how was it accomplished? But where I shrank away from the inhumanity of such a trick, Mitch, I knew, would pursue this new power effortlessly and relentlessly, as he had so readily embraced the unnatural life he had been given.

I shuddered and looked down at the tabletop. Victor reached over and lifted my chin. “Cat got your tongue, Deirdre? I do apologize for the abruptness of my appearance. I didn’t mean to alarm you.”

“No,” I found my voice and was amazed that it sounded even and calm, “it was just a surprise, seeing you appear like that. After all, we had been told you were here.”

“Yes, well,” Victor looked over to Mitch, “what if you pour me one of whatever you two are having and we’ll get down to business.”

Mitch walked back behind the bar to get the bottle and another glass for Victor. My mouth curved in an almost smug smile as I watched him; Victor might be elegant and powerful, but he could never be a match for the utter intensity and sensuality that Mitch possessed. A low noise escaped my throat, almost a purr, and I blushed, but Victor merely laughed.

“He is developing nicely, my dear. You’ve done a good job with his training.”

“What do you mean?”

“Come now, Deirdre,” Victor admonished, “I do have eyes and my senses are even more finely honed than yours. The glow of transformation still lingers over him. He will do well, and for what it’s worth, I approve.”

Mitch came back to the table and handed Victor his wine. “And exactly what is your approval worth, Lange?”

Victor looked up at him calmly. “Quite a bit, actually. As head of the Cadre, I have the final decision on most transformations, especially one such as yours, since you now both fall into the house of Leupold. Never underestimate the ties of blood, Mitch. As you grow older, you will eventually lose your human family, but your blood clan will continue. And,” Victor gave a low chuckle, “like it, or not, I am the head of that clan.”

“I’d like it a lot better if you could teach me that little trick you entered with.” Mitch sat down and leaned back casually in his chair. “How on earth do you do it?”

Victor gave me a puzzled look. “Deirdre should be able to teach you. It merely requires concentration and practice—years, or more properly, decades of practice. I wish I could take the time to teach you, but I’m afraid my business here is not pleasant and my time is short. I am needed back at the Cadre before tomorrow evening.” Victor stood up and brushed at his jacket again. “And, although I hate to interrupt your honeymoon, the two of you must accompany me.”

“Must we?” Mitch still sat in his relaxed pose, but the glitter of his eyes and the set of his jaw betrayed his animosity.

Victor glared coldly at him, and leaned over the chair, his posture threatening, his tone of voice even more patronizing than usual. “You do remember when you promised to perform a service for the Cadre at our discretion? Well, quite simply, Greer, we are now calling in our marker, and as you value your life and Deirdre’s, you will not refuse. A private jet is waiting for us at the airport and we will leave in an hour and a half. Be there.”

Victor turned to me and the anger in his eyes faded, replaced by something that could have resembled tenderness. Taking my hand, he kissed it; then he spun around and was gone.

Mitch looked where Victor had been standing and shook his head. “Do you suppose he’s actually gone?”

I laughed. “Your guess is as good as mine, my love. Shall we close up now and go home and pack?”

“Just drop everything and do as we were ordered? Give me one good reason why we should have anything to do with Lange.”

“I can give you several reasons, Mitch. We did promise to do the service for the Cadre, whatever it may be. I know that we were hoping never to have anything else to do with them, but so be it.” He nodded reluctantly, and I continued. “And Victor is right about the bond between the three of us, there is no way to deny that.” I stood up and smiled at him, reaching out for his hands. “Plus, if you stay in his good favor, he might even teach you his little parlor trick. I have no inclination to dissolve myself. And even if I did, I have no idea how to go about it.”

“Okay, okay, you’ve convinced me. But you’ll have to break the news to Pete.” He pulled me to him and kissed me, his lips cool against mine. Then he held me out and studied my face. “Deirdre, if whatever we are called to do is dangerous,” and he gave a small humorless laugh, “as I’m sure it will be, I want you to promise that you’ll let me bear the brunt of it. Don’t take any chances; I don’t think I want to exist eternally without you.”

“Nor I, without you.”

“So then, we’re agreed.”

“No,” I shook my head with a small smile, “not at all. But let’s not fight until we know what the situation is.”

“Okay, I guess I can live with that, but only for a while. And we’d better hurry, I’d hate to keep Mr. Lange waiting.”

We made it home, and were almost through with our packing when I finally asked, “Why do you hate Victor so much?”

Mitch looked up at me from his suitcase. “It’s not really Victor, you know; I could almost like him if it weren’t for . . .” He paused for a minute, staring at me. Then he looked away. “It’s the whole hierarchy of the Cadre. They sit in their underground warren, spinning their devious little webs, meting out their arbitrary justice.” He folded his last pair of jeans, crammed them on the top of the suitcase and snapped it shut. “They almost succeeded in making me crazy. They would’ve left me in that institution for the rest of my life and not thought a thing about it. They could very easily have doomed you to a hundred years of starvation and never once bothered to ascertain the fairness of the sentence. They’re immoral, inhuman parasites, living off of innocent people and I wouldn’t care if the entire lot died tomorrow.”

Well, I told myself, as I watched him stack our cases by the bedroom door, you asked for it. But I said nothing, and walked across the room, picked up the phone and dialed Pete’s home number.

“Pete,” I said when he answered, “it’s Dorothy. I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.”

“Leaving again, are you?” He sounded more amused than angry.

“Yes, I’m sorry.”

“And didn’t I know it when that Vincent chap turned up asking for you. I suppose you’ll be taking your husband with you too, leaving me with no help at all?”

“Yes.”

“Dottie, darlin’, you know if you didn’t own half the pub, I’d be firing you right now.”

“I’m sure you would, Pete. I’ll call you when we get there.”

“I’d appreciate that. But don’t you worry, I’ll do fine.”

“Thank you, Pete. You take care now.”

“And the same to you, my girl. Godspeed.”

I hung up the phone, stood for a minute with my back to Mitch and wiped away a few tears. A horn beeped on the street and still I didn’t move until Mitch came up behind me and wrapped an arm around my neck, kissing me softly on the ear. “We’d better get moving, Deirdre, the taxi’s here. Are you ready?”

I nodded and we went downstairs. We locked the house, loaded the boot of the taxi and made it to the airport with five minutes to spare.

The plane Victor had chartered was a small, sleek Gulfstream; Mitch and I were the only passengers evident. The seats were plush and comfortable and I settled in by one of the windows. Mitch sat next to me with a grim smile, outwardly relaxed and at ease, but I could feel the keyed-up tenseness of his muscles as he stretched his legs out. Even though Victor was nowhere in sight, the plane began its acceleration down the runway almost immediately and made a smooth leap from the ground into the night sky.

My sigh from the window was easily audible; Mitch reached over and took my hand. “Nervous?”

“No,” I said softly, turning to him, “not at all. I love to fly. But I was just wondering what it would feel like without the plane, how it would feel to just be picked up by the wind and carried away.” I gave a small laugh to compensate for the emotional outburst. “I guess we would find out soon enough if we were to crash.”

“Do you think we’d survive?”

“You know, I have no idea.”

Mitch was silent for a while. “My guess is we would. Unless,” and he chuckled a little, “we happened to land on a picket fence somewhere.”

I studied the view from the window. “I think we’re safe from that. We’re over the ocean already. But I suppose if you really want to know, we could ask Victor. I wonder where he is.”

Mitch gave a noncommittal grunt. “What is it with you and him, anyway? All of a sudden the two of you seem pretty chummy. You jump to his commands, express concern over his whereabouts. Personally, I don’t know why he even bothers with the damn plane at all; why doesn’t he just turn into a cloud and float back?”

“Mitch,” I turned from the window again and looked into his eyes, “don’t start. There is nothing between Victor and me. I married you and intend to stay married to you. I’m here to fulfill my commitment, nothing else. After that, we’re free to do whatever we like, go wherever we want.”

“Okay.” He shrugged, giving me a boyish grin, so at odds with his silvered hair. “I’m sorry. I just don’t like the guy.”

“I think you have made that more than evident.” My mouth twisted in a dry smile. “But,” and I reached up, kissing him on the cheek, “just put up with it for a while, for my sake.”

Mitch returned my kiss, then moved away from me and laughed. “I will say one thing for Lange, though,” he gestured around us, “he sure knows how to travel. This is quite a setup; how much do you suppose this put him back?”

“Actually, Mitch,” the door to the cockpit opened and Victor came out, “I own this plane. And, believe me, the convenience far outweighs the cost.” He went to the back of the compartment and opened another door. “Now that we are safely airborne, may I offer you a drink?”

Before Mitch and I even had a chance to agree, Victor had poured drinks and brought them over: red wine for me and a scotch on the rocks for Mitch. When I saw Victor’s choice for Mitch I started to laugh.

“What?” Mitch looked at me after taking a long drink. “Is something funny?”

“No, but Victor has a surprisingly good memory. He actually remembered what you drink when you’re angry.”

“Oh,” Mitch shrugged sheepishly, “I see.”

“Not that you don’t have the right to be angry.” Victor’s voice was smooth and conciliatory. “After all, you’ve hardly been away for more than a few months, and I have called you back. I do apologize for the inconvenience, but I want to assure you that this trip is necessary. And it was not just my decision to call you, it was a unanimous vote from all the founders.”

Mitch gave a snort. “And what could possibly be so difficult for that esteemed group to require our involvement?”

“We have our reasons, Greer, as I will explain, when you give me the chance.” Victor gave him a warning glare, then turned to me. “In the first place, at least six murders have occurred that lead us to believe that we are faced with a dangerous rogue vampire. Since we became acquainted with you, Deirdre, most of us have come to the realization that we have been weakened by our ritualized training.

“You,” Victor nodded at me, “have the advantage of being able to approach situations such as this from a fresh viewpoint. Being a rogue of a sort yourself, we hope that you can outthink our culprit, or at least anticipate his moves. In addition, Mitch, there is your police training—a highly valuable asset in this situation. Although, I must admit that your transformation has come as something of a surprise. We had hoped that you could cover the daytime and root this vampire out of his lair. But I suspect your new skills will only enhance your old detective instincts.”

Mitch shrugged. “And?”

Victor looked down at his hands for a moment. “And as you know, the Cadre has strict rules governing the killing of one of our own. None of us can attempt to catch and kill this vampire, without incurring the impact of our laws. But you two, since you are not officially part of the organization, can be given special dispensation in this one case only.”

“How convenient,” Mitch drawled. “I remember it otherwise.”

Victor bared his white teeth in a threatening smile. “Different circumstances, Mitch. We’re not talking here about an established house founder, but about an undisciplined murderer.”

“And Max wasn’t?”

“Max would have been dealt with our way. Let’s not begin to rehash a situation that, regretful as it may be, is now over and done with.”

Hearing the pain in Victor’s voice, pain not diminished by the time that had passed since Max’s death, I looked over at Mitch and pleaded with my eyes for him to drop the subject. Then I took his hand in mine and turned again to Victor. “All of that seems reasonable to me, Victor. We will do our best to help you.”

“Thank you, Deirdre. I knew you would. But I’m not quite through with the story. And this part may not be pleasant for you, my dear, but it is the most telling reason we wanted you.” Victor stood up, opened the overhead compartment, and brought out a large manila envelope. “The murders began to occur shortly after you and Mitch left town. Obviously, you personally cannot be held accountable for the deaths, but it seems that you are involved. All of the victims were last seen at the Ballroom of Romance.”

“What a surprise.” Mitch gave a small, derisive snort. The Ballroom had belonged to Max, been passed on to my ownership through his estate. And it carried nothing but bad memories for us both.

Victor sat back down and passed the envelope to Mitch. He took it, but did not open it. Instead he set it down on the seat next to him, as if leaving it unopened could delay the inevitable decision to cooperate with the Cadre. “You’re involved with the Ballroom, too, Victor,” Mitch said evenly. “After all, you’ve been managing it for Deirdre in her absence.”

“Actually, I turned it back over to Fred. After you left town, there was no need to keep him in exile and he does a good job.”

“But,” I said, “Fred is not a rogue.”

“That is true,” Victor chuckled, shaking his head, “and Fred, even with all his faults, is definitely not responsible for the deaths. We have,” he cleared his throat, “screened all the Cadre members, none of them are involved.”

“So where does the Ballroom enter into this?” I did not really need to ask; from the sickening twist of my stomach, I realized suddenly that I knew who the rogue was. I glanced over at Mitch, and his grim nod confirmed my thoughts. But neither of us said a word, we just let Victor continue.

“Ever since the unfortunate occurrences there, rumors have abounded that the club is haunted.” Victor raised an eyebrow in a half-smirk. “Humans, who can figure them out? Business is better than it’s ever been since the rumors started, even the murders haven’t kept them away, but only added to the mystique.”

“Haunted?” Victor’s choice of words threw me off balance. “How could it be haunted? Max is gone.” Mitch looked away from me, and drained his scotch, tensing at the tone o