Chapter 29
River
“Are you sure this is the place?” I lifted a hand to shade my eyes, squinting in the sun.
“Yep.” Dylan glanced at me, then at the sleek, gray-walled house across the street and back again. “This is it.”
I shot her a side-eye as we crossed over. “How did you even find this guy?”
Dylan only shrugged, eyes straight ahead as we made a beeline for the front of the building. “I have my ways.”
I raised an eyebrow and she sighed. “I heard rumors of people disappearing from the hospital where he works by day. I staked out that building, clocked his scent as distinctly not human, then followed him home. Happy?”
“Unconvinced.” I gave the house a wary once-over, taking in the short-clipped grass of the lawn and the gray blinds in the windows—all drawn shut. “He could just be some loner vampire living undercover. What makes you think he’s this ‘Doctor’ everyone’s mentioned?”
“He’s a surgeon by day, a vampire by night, people have gone missing from his ward, and this is a mighty fine home for someone living on a public hospital salary.
” Dylan listed the reasons on her fingers, then craned her neck to look around for any passersby.
“He’s out right now so we need to get in and look around—see if we can find any evidence to confirm his identity. ”
I nodded, but found my jaw clenched tight.
Dylan motioned for us to head around the back, on the hunt for any easy entrance out of street view, and my mind churned as I followed.
If this guy really was the Doctor—if I could prove it—my role might shift from pure recon to something a little more…
direct. If we managed to unmask a real monster, I wasn’t going to wait around for Leyore coven orders.
I was fully prepared to kill him myself.
Keeping low behind the clipped hedges, we crept up to the back door. When we found it locked, Dylan did what Dylan did best: she disappeared.
“Where are you going?” I watched her sink into the shadows under the door, disappearing in a shroud of smoky tendrils. Two seconds later, I heard a latch flip on the inside and the door swung open.
Dylan greeted me from within, smirking with self-satisfaction. “Who needs a lock pick when you can travel through shadows?”
Impressive, I had to admit. She didn’t have to be so smug about it though. I pushed past her, slipping the door quietly shut behind me. “Show-off.”
The interior was flawlessly pristine. Polished floors gleamed in the dim lighting, reflecting the faint slivers of sunshine bleeding through the blinds—not a dust mote in sight.
Minimalist art hung on the walls, and all the furniture came in shades of gray, save for the black leather sofas and massive glass coffee table.
Dylan snorted as she inspected a strange, black water fountain display mounted to the wall of the living room.
“Villainous lair much? If this guy is a violent psychopath, he’s not doing much to hide it.
This whole place says ‘evil-evil-evil’.” The shadowy tendrils that drifted around her head undulated in time with her chanting.
She poked an inquisitive finger in the water fountain and I hissed over her shoulder, “Focus, please. We need real evidence. Villain-chic doesn’t count.”
“What’s got you so tense? You’re usually the happy-go-lucky one.” Dylan flicked a few droplets of water my way, assessing gaze giving way to a small smirk. “Does it have something to do with your new housemate, perhaps?”
She may as well have shone a spotlight in my face and shouted in my ear the way the question startled me.
“No! Laurie is simply a valuable eyewitness. This has nothing to do with her.” I stomped past the grinning vamp and made my way down the hall. “Let’s just get some evidence and get the fuck out. You coming?” When I turned around, Dylan had disappeared again. “Dylan?!”
“Over here.” She reappeared at the end of the hall, ahead of me and overly pleased with herself. “Catch up, slowpoke.”
I rolled my eyes and followed, making a mental note to chat to Amara about her wife’s ballooning ego.
We swept the ground floor in minutes: kitchen deserted, bedrooms neat, closet packed with pristine suits and silk pajamas.
No sign of anything suspicious—only that lingering, uneasy stillness—until we reached the last door.
Dylan pushed it open and we both peered down the concrete staircase disappearing into the dark. She met my eye with a quirked brow. “Creepy basement. Very villainous.”
“Just get moving already.” I swatted her shoulder and Dylan descended with a smirk.
I followed her down. The steps led to another door—unlocked—and then there we stood, in a mini laboratory reminiscent of the larger facility. Stainless steel tables lined the walls, each decked with vials, syringes, centrifuges, even a microscope with a blood-splattered slide slotted in place.
“Well.” Dylan preened as she looked around, ready to be congratulated on her deduction skills because this place was indeed very villainous. “I do believe I was right on the money this time.”
I rolled my eyes rather than dignify that comment with a response—then something else caught my attention.
A faint human scent, clinging to the cold metal lockers in the far corner.
I slipped past Dylan, following the trail like a hound.
It led me to one locker on the left and I cautiously swung it open.
Inside was… a man. Bound and unconscious, his clothes crumpled and torn, faint bruises blooming on his jawline. Something about him was oddly familiar.
“Uh.” Dylan peered over my shoulder. “Who the hell is that?”
I knelt and pressed a thumb to his neck, relieved to find his pulse weak but present. I studied his face, taking in blond hair, and a familiar silver scar slicing his cheek. I leaned in closer, squinted. I know you…
“Arlon?” My voice was a whisper, tainted with disbelief. The guy I met at the bar? What the hell was he doing here of all places? Wait—
Laurie had mentioned an Arlon, someone on the police force who had been helping her find leads. Was it the same guy?
Dylan wrinkled her nose. “Who?”
I opened my mouth to answer, then froze. Dylan went still beside me and the sudden narrowing of her pupils told me she’d heard it too.
Footsteps. Upstairs.
They were faint, muffled, but getting closer. A door creaked open and the sound echoed down the stairway. I picked up a scent—cloying and overly sweet, with an undertone of something significantly vampiric.
I met Dylan’s eyes. There was no time to hide. There was no point in hiding anyway. This laboratory was damning on its own, even without the bound blond stuffed into the locker. This demanded a confrontation. So we both straightened up, faced the staircase, and waited.
Clipped footsteps followed, one stair at a time, and I held my breath—until he appeared. The Doctor. Tall, well-dressed, and surprisingly thin, with snow-white hair and eyes the color of poison ivy. Those eyes took us in, unblinking.
“Ah. Guests.” His calmness was uncanny, his voice quiet and smooth. Utterly devoid of any sort of emotion. “Though, not who I was hoping for.”
I shifted on the balls of my feet, uneasy and unsure what kind of game he was playing. He simply stared at us, and we stared right back.
His features were severe, pallid skin pulled tight over sharp cheekbones. The barest hint of fangs poked from under his lips. He didn’t look at all bothered to find us in his sanctuary, just… mildly confused. Disappointed maybe, like he’d been hoping to find someone else.
“I’m expecting another guest soon.” He stepped fully into the laboratory and flicked the lights on, and I flinched when the fluorescent bulbs flickered overhead.
They washed his pale skin whiter and painted sharp shadows along the angles of his face.
He met my eyes, pupils lined with poisonous green, and clasped his hands behind him.
“So, I’m afraid I have to ask you to leave. ”
“Leave!?” Dylan’s voice rang out around the room, incredulous and irritated. “You have a human bound up in your basement, buddy. We’re not going anywhere until you explain exactly what he’s doing here.”
The Doctor’s placid expression never wavered. He glanced over at Arlon, still slumped in the locker, and shrugged. “You can take him with you. He’s not useful to me anymore—nothing more than bait.”
Bait?
Before I could piece together what he meant, the guy sniffed the air, his head turning toward the stairs. He cocked a pale, white eyebrow, a slow smile creeping across his face. “Ah. It seems my guest has arrived.”
I didn’t understand. Not until a new scent reached me—a familiar scent—and my stomach plummeted.
“No,” I whispered, but the sound barely left my lips before I heard them: footsteps thundering down the concrete stairs.
My blood turned to ice.
Laurie appeared in the doorway, glyph gun in hand, wide-eyed and inches away from where the Doctor stood—and the vampire man was smiling. A triumphant, unsettling grin spread across his gaunt face. Smiling, because his prey had taken the bait.
Now he had Laurie exactly where he wanted her.