My dearest Cassie,
It has been more than twenty-four hours since my capture, but I believe I have made progress towards securing my release.
I have spoken with Miss Jameson. While I am as convinced as ever that a union between us would be disastrous, I am gratified for confirmation that she is not as stuck in the old ways as her parents. While my rejection has stung and offended her, she has enough self-possession and self-worth to not want any man who does not want her. I believe she will eventually become an unlikely ally in my attempts to earn back my freedom.
I hope you are faring well—and that you do not interpret my silence as anything other than what it is. Specifically: me, trapped in a terrifying dungeon in the suburbs with no way to escape.
All my love,
Frederick
From: Nanmo Merriweather [[email protected]]
To: Cassie Greenberg [[email protected]]
Subject: Your terms
Dear Miss Greenberg,
I, Mrs. Edwina D. Fitzwilliam’s assistant, write you on her behalf to inform you that you have left her with no choice but to agree to your demands.
Please come to the castle located at 2314 S. Hedgeworth Way in Naperville, Illinois, at eight o’clock tomorrow evening. She will release her son to your custody if, and only if, you destroy all existing copies of your vampire exposé in her presence. The motion picture you have created has the power to destroy everything we have worked so hard to establish since leaving England—and while choosing her son’s betrothed is important to my mistress, nothing is more important to our kind than to live in secret.
We will see you tomorrow evening. （Also, please do not reply to this email. Mrs. Fitzwilliam does not know how to check her email. All of her emails therefore bounce directly to me and, frankly, I have enough work to do already without also keeping up with her pettier correspondence.）
With kind regards,
N. Merriweather
“I can’t believe she’s still got Nanmo doing her bidding like this,” Reginald tsked, shaking his head. “The man is four hundred and seventy-five years old, for crying out loud. It’s embarrassing.”
“Yeah,” I said, not knowing how else to respond to that. I was so far out of my element I couldn’t even see my element anymore.
“Well, I guess the important thing is they bought it,” Reginald said. “I’m at once surprised, because this really is silly, and not at all surprised. I’ll fly you there tomorrow at eight.”
“No,” I said very quickly, holding up my hands. “I’ll just take an Uber.”
Reginald stared at me from his vantage point on Frederick’s black leather sofa. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not safe for you to go to this by yourself.”
I paled at the thought of showing up to this rendezvous without vampire backup. “Oh, I know that. It would be suicide to show up at that house alone.”
“It would,” Reginald agreed.
“I just meant if I fly there with you, I’ll be too distracted by my first-ever flight without an airplane to be able to keep my head on straight for what I might have to do once we get there.”
Reginald leaned against the sofa cushions as he considered that. “Fine,” he said. “It’s true that flying for the first time can be a lot. So sure. Take an Uber. But don’t get out of the car until you see me hovering in the sky just on the other side of the basketball hoop.”
I frowned at him. “Basketball hoop?”
“You’ll know it when you see it,” he said, before muttering something about suburban hellscape under his breath that I didn’t quite catch. He stood up and made his way to the front door.
“I’ll see you tomorrow night,” I said, trying to convey a confidence I absolutely did not feel.
Reginald paused, then turned to face me, his expression unreadable.
“Please be careful,” he said, his voice softer than I’d ever heard it.
My eyes felt suddenly damp. “I will.”
“Good,” he said. And then, in the mocking tone I was much more used to hearing from him, he added, “Because if something happens to you tomorrow night Frederick will kill me a second time.”
* * *
2314 S. Hedgeworth Way was located at the end of a small cul-de-sac, a beige-and-white two-story house that was nearly identical to all the other beige-and-white two-story houses on the street. It had an American flag flying from a flagpole and—yes, there it was—a basketball hoop mounted on a slightly darker beige-and-white shed off to the side.
Only the two-foot-tall stone gargoyles mounted on either side of the garage—and the six-foot-tall vampire suspended in midair about ten feet above the basketball hoop—distinguished this house in any way from its neighbors.