When I was finished, he studied my face. “We haven’t much time to find him, or his power might soon exceed yours.”

“Yeah. I came to the same conclusion.”

“We can try another of my contacts. I did not get the feeling Mrs. Banks was withholding anything.”

“She wasn’t, but if you’d just talked to her husband, you wouldn’t have gotten what we did. Your other vendors might be the same way. Not many people want to get mixed up in vampire politics.”

“This is hardly politics.”

“Everything with you guys is politics.” I watched his face again, but still got nothing.

I sighed and threw up my hand for a coming cab. Seeing it was a female driver, I shoved Darius toward the street. “Stick your hand up!”

“I do not lower myself to jumping around like a fool to hail a taxi. I will simply call—”

I flung his hand up and shoved him forward again, making him take a step. The cab flashed its lights and pulled into the public parking area.

I hastened Darius that way. “This is faster.”

“You engage in life like a simpleton.”

“Engage in life? You need to go back to studying how the people of this time speak. That was a big failure, right there.” I reached for the door handle, but suddenly his hand was there. He scoffed and pulled it open. I was pretty sure he was thinking simpleton again.

I rattled off the address as Darius got in. He smoothed his tight black shirt over firm pecs. This had to be his “dressed down, I might have to fight” look. Some people wore sweats; this too-handsome vampire wore cotton with a designer label and stylish jeans.

“How do you expect to move in those jeans?” I asked.

“How do you expect to move in leather?” he replied, not looking at me.

“With aplomb.” I smiled. He didn’t notice.

After a moment of sitting in traffic, he asked, “Why did you seek out the dog?”

“You mean Red?”

Darius turned his flat stare on me, something I was now realizing indicated confusion. “Mr. Nevin.”

“Is that Red’s last name?”

His brow lowered. “Roger.”

“Oh.” I laughed. “Hurts to say his first name, huh? Afraid that will imply you’re friends?” His expression darkened. “What is up with you two?”

After a moment of staring at me silently, jaw clenched, he lowered his voice and leaned toward me. “Since he became alpha, an unusually large amount of my children have been killed. It is a widespread problem. That is why I now have a safe house. American police are unaware that I am not human; they only know that I own the property. Anyone caught breaking and entering will be apprehended. The human world’s judicial system comes in handy, especially when the perpetrators mostly live in that world.”

“Why don’t you kill them when you see them? It seems like you just wait for them to kill you.”

“Your magical law enforcement does not mind our presence so long as we play nice. That is easy to do most times. It is only when we are caught…” He paused as the song changed on the radio, not wanting his voice to be heard in the silence. “Feeding,” he continued, “that there is the problem.”

“With houses, how could they catch you?”

“I am surprised at the lack of common knowledge about us, given how long we have been around. I hope it continues this way.” He gave me a warning look.

I rolled my eyes. Knowing about their habits was nothing compared to knowing about unicorns. I was already under the informational thumb.

“Large-scale changes are becoming more common, given our dwindling numbers,” he continued. That was when they created new vampires, I knew. “There is more power in numbers, as you can guess—and less chance of an ambush that would cripple us. Mr. Nevin is very organized, however, unlike his predecessor, and he has been more effective than we would like.”

He paused for a moment, looking out into the night. “Then there are the newborns. It takes a lot to quench their thirst, and it is hard to control them for the first few decades. They make a great many mistakes and are often caught in the act. Mr. Nevin has trained and nurtured extremely capable employees. We need to make some changes. Give them something else to do.”

The way his voice changed, and his eyes darkened, gave me warning shivers. I was right not to choose the side of the shifters. I had every reason to believe the vampires had something in the works, and whatever it was, I didn’t want to be anywhere near it.

I hoped I wouldn’t be anywhere near it, anyway. After what Red had said, I was a smidgen concerned.

“Okay, then. Well, I wasn’t there to see Roger. I was there to see Red, the guy who was cowering in the booth. He’s great for information. And before you ask, I told him what I did just to help him out. He’s a good guy but very low status, so he’s dumped on a lot. Besides, they seemed like they already knew the guy was dead.”

The cab driver’s eyes widened and flicked up to the rearview mirror. Her fingers tightened on the steering wheel.

“Which movie was that?” Darius asked smoothly.

My mind went blank. “‘Thriller’?”

“I believe that is a song… Or did you mean the music video, perhaps?”

“Yes?”

“Here,” the cab driver said as the car stopped on the familiar street. Darius drew out a wad of money, peeled off a bill and handed it over. The lady grabbed it, barely looking, before turning back in disdain. “Do you got anything smaller?”

“What’d you give her?” Peering around the seat, I spied a hundred-dollar bill.

With his thumb, he flicked off bill after bill. Hundreds kept flashing by. Rolling my eyes, I dug out a twenty I’d found lying around Darius’s house. They would never have noticed it missing. Clearly. “Here. Keep the change.” I handed over the money and captured the hundred. Without flinching, I stuffed it into my pocket. “Let’s go.”

Out on the sidewalk, I paused in front of the familiar house before feeling my body go rigid. I stooped, peering through the partially opened door from a distance, and then started walking. No magic surrounded the outside this time, but the residual feel vibrated off the house like a swarm of bees.

I kicked the door open. It tore off the heat-warped hinges and half crumbled onto the floor. The house I had been inside five days ago was no longer a house. It was a shell. Someone had magically burned out the inside until there was nothing left.

Chapter Fifteen

“How is the roof still intact?” Darius asked as he filed in behind me. “And the walls?”

I reached around and tapped my back. He took hold of my belt, which was close enough. I stepped forward, heard the moan of the badly charred floor, and felt it give a little. It didn’t break. I took another step, pausing when he was forced to follow me. It held under his weight, too.

“This was a well-contained magical fire,” I said, running my hand along the wall. Black flaked away.

“Hellfire?” he asked through a tight throat. “The dog said that the mage you killed could do hellfire.”

I scowled back at him, a knee-jerk reaction, since he hadn’t shown up in the bar—at least not publically—until after Red had told me that.

My focus snapped back in front of me. “Not hellfire, no. That rumor is false. He didn’t have the power. How long were you there for that conversation?”

He didn’t respond. Then I remembered his stalking human friend, who must have followed me into the bar and kept the text messages rolling. How annoying.

“He could create fire, though,” I said. “That’s what burned away my eyebrows, in case you haven’t made the connection. It seems someone else has the same ability.”

I scuffed the ground with my toe. The carpet had been largely burned away and parts of the wooden floor beneath were blackened. In a small spot near the wall, a hole had burrowed.

“The floor should be worse off. Magical fire can easily be contained from rising, but it has to sit somewhere. There are very few who can suspend fire in midair. Very, very few, and none, that I know of, are human.” It was only a half lie.