My eyes flicked to the airborne vampire.
Reginald had arrived before me.
That was good.
It was also my cue to get out of the car and approach the house.
“Thanks,” I said to my Uber driver. My hands shook so badly I struggled to get the car door open. The night had gotten colder in the forty-five minutes since I’d left Frederick’s apartment. Or perhaps it was always a few degrees colder this far west of the lake. I pulled my winter coat around myself a little more tightly as I approached the house to warm myself—and to try and settle my roiling nerves.
Reginald and I had agreed I would handle the talking at first. The video we made plainly showed that one of their own had been a part of this plot. If the vampires inside this house knew that said vampire had come with me tonight, it could complicate things in a way that could jeopardize both Frederick’s safety as well as Reginald’s. The idea was that he would stay safely out of sight and up in the air unless and until things went sideways—and I needed vampiric intervention.
I glanced up at him again as I approached the house. He nodded reassuringly. My stomach was in knots. A voice in the back of my head yelled at me to run, run, get away from here more loudly with every step I took.
But Frederick needed me.
So I kept moving forward, putting one foot in front of the other until, at last, I was at the front door.
Just as I was about to knock, my heart thundering in my chest, I heard someone clear their throat very deliberately, and very loudly, from about five feet away.
“Excuse me,” the throat clearer said. “But do you know these people?” The speaker looked about fifty years old, his mouth turned down at the corners in a disapproving frown. He wore a winter coat and dark fleece pajama pants, and a red wool hat with mittens that matched.
Of all the scenarios Reginald and I had run through over the past twenty-four hours, none had included what to do in case of nosy neighbor interference. But it looked like we’d run through one scenario too few.
“I . . . I don’t know them,” I stammered. “Or, rather—I know who they are. But I don’t know them know them, if you know what I mean.”
“Hm.” The man’s disapproving frown turned into an outright scowl. “You’re here to buy drugs, I assume.”
My eyes widened. “I beg your pardon?”
The man pointed to the windows on the front of the house. For the first time I realized they were all covered up with dark sheets of plastic. “They’ve blacked out all the windows, they never come out during the day, and all manner of weirdos go in and out of this house all night long.” He counted out each of his neighbors’ perceived crimes against society on long, outstretched fingers. “I don’t know where you come from, but around here that points to just one thing.”
I paused, waiting for him to tell me what that one thing was. When all he did was look at me with a self-satisfied smirk, I guessed, “Does it mean . . . drugs?”
“It means drugs,” he confirmed.
“I don’t know anything about that,” I said very quickly, grappling for a plausible reason for my being there that would make this guy go away. “I just . . . I’m just here because . . .” I licked my lips—and said the first thing that popped into my head. “Because of their internet bill.”
I didn’t have to look up to know that Reginald was rolling his eyes at me so hard they were in danger of falling out of his head.
Incredibly, the man seemed to accept my explanation. “It doesn’t surprise me that people like these would fall behind on their bills,” he muttered.
“Exactly,” I said, trying hard to muster a laugh. It came out as more of a laugh-sob.
He clapped me on the shoulder, winked at me in a way that would in any other circumstances be the creepiest thing to have happened to me that day, and said, “Keep up the good work, hon.”
As he wandered off back to his own beige-and-white two-story house, I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths. I had to calm down. I hadn’t even done anything yet and I felt seconds away from bursting out of my own skin.
I chanced one more glance up at Reginald. He nodded and flashed me a double thumbs-up.
It was time.
“Here goes nothing,” I murmured under my breath, and knocked on the door.
* * *
Part of me had hoped Frederick would be the one to answer my knock. But when the door opened, I wasn’t surprised to see Mrs. Fitzwilliam—pale-faced, with no garish makeup this time—standing on the other side.