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I forced myself to hold my phone upright again, and I took a picture of the mantasp Grove and Binx had killed.

“Sarge is sure taking a long time to radio us back,” April said, punching through the awkward silence.

“Yeah, right?” Brody held his radio up and squinted at it, overacting. “Maybe I ought to repeat what I said since Sarge never responded.”

“Maybe,” April agreed. “Once the scene has been recorded; we should drag the mantasps out of the street.”

Everyone murmured their agreement but no one followed me as I picked my way up the road, heading towards the still smoking pile of ash the seventh mantasp had left on the sidewalk next to Tutu’s.

An emotion I didn’t want to label—if I had to guess I’d say it was probably disappointment—filled my gut with a cement-like weight. I tried to ignore it as I crouched down and took a picture.

I can’t blame them. Vampire slayers are practically the supernatural’s assassins-for-hire, and I’ve been so tongue tied it’s not like I’ve been the best ambassador for us.

But…Blood?

I’d taken this job because I wanted to show my family—to show slayers that blood and death weren’t our only lot in life. That we could do more than destroy.

I adjusted my mask and my hood—it was kind of stuffy for me with the hood up and the mask on—then stood up and took a picture of Tutu’s.

I just have to keep trying. If I can show them how competent I am with my job, maybe I can change things.

With that resolution, I squared my shoulders and followed the mantasp’s trail up the street pausing when it led into an alleyway. “Backup?” I called.

I should have asked in a complete sentence, I just couldn’t muster the will I needed at the moment.

“Coming,” April called. “Come on, Clarence. You’re coming with.”

Clarence made a wheezing noise in response.

I studied the dim alleyway—it looked like the mantasps had either been dumped or somehow transported to the alleyway because I could see a few claw marks on things, but there wasn’t a ton of destruction.

The alleyway reminded me.I should make a report about that vampire. The Department of Supernatural Law Enforcement will want to know that a vampire of elder caliber has shown up in town.

CHAPTERSEVEN

Considine

After spending a full night and day observing my new—temporary—city, I judged it was finally time to return home to my safehouse.

I tamped down on my vampire powers, lowering myself to the level of some stooge that had been turned maybe only seventy or eighty years ago, and changed into a more modern outfit inside an empty storage unit I’d rented years ago—I had similar units, warehouses, and empty buildings in all the cities the Dracos children occupied.

With my benign costume in place, I made another circuit of the area around my apartment building before I finally went inside.

It was early in the afternoon, and the sun was obnoxiously bright but I didn’t feel it. As powerful as I was, I hadn’t felt the dampening effect the sun had—the way it muted a vampire’s senses, the pain it caused—for at least five or six centuries. But I also didn’t feel the baking, warm sensation humans felt from it. I couldn’t even remember what that felt like.

I must remember to act weak in the sunlight if I truly want to sell my front. What do weak vampires do in the sunlight?

I half shook my head as I climbed the stairs of my apartment building. I was vaguely aware that most vampires avoided sunlight, but I didn’t intend to impede myself in that way.

I’d witnessed a lot of pathetic mewling and complaining among Vígí’s offspring while staying with him, so being generally pathetic and useless was seemingly my best option if I wanted to blend in.

I exited the stairs pausing when I saw humans clustered in the hallway.

One of them was the chirpy human who lived next to me. She was easy to recognize with her bright red hair, and fetching green eyes, though her blood was so neutral smelling it bordered on downright boring. She clutched a cup of some foul, green concoction so hard her knuckles were white, as if she were… afraid?

Her partner in conversation was another young woman who was weighed down with a gigantic diaper bag on her left shoulder and a squirming toddler on her right hip. She rocked from side to side, dark circles under her eyes, and the ponytail her hair was gathered in appeared to be in the process of falling down.

“Did… did you take Mia to the park?” My neighbor asked, her voice pitching higher and higher in noticeable anxiety.