Page 47 of How to Stake a Vampire

A muscle worked in the vampire’s jawline. “Giles, I—” he started reluctantly.

“If he’s here, in Amberford, then your friends and the vampire community need to know what they’re dealing with.” Lord Chudwell’s voice carried surprising authority for someone’s whose head had just been inside my dog’s jaws. He reached over and took a gentle hold of Barney’s shoulder. “You can’t keep hiding from this, old friend.”

The room went dead silent except for the beeping of monitoring equipment.

“You know who L. B. is?” Samuel asked Barney, his voice a mixture of hurt and shock.

Barney looked down at his fisted hands for a long moment. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and hard.

“It’s Ludvik Bludworth. My great-nephew.”

Samuel cursed.

Didi’s eyes rounded. “Your great-nephew?!”

Gavin’s nostrils started smoking.

Barney’s next words lifted the hairs on the back of my neck.

“I thought—or rather I hoped—that he was long dead by now.”

Bo gulped noisily in the fraught hush.

“Why would you hope your own family member was dead?” Detective Johnson asked nervously.

“Because Ludvik is—” Barney stopped, searching for the right words. “Imagine the most entitled, spoiled vampire aristocrat you’ve ever met. Now imagine he’s also convinced he’s destined to rule over all supernatural beings. That’s Ludvik.”

I grimaced. “So he’s a giant prick?”

Samuel sighed. Lord Chudwell looked impressed.

The others gave me slightly disapproving looks.

“She’s right.” Barney sighed. “He’s the biggest and proudest prick of them all.”

Joyce, who’d been about to enter the room with a glass of water and some pills, spun smartly on her heels and retraced her steps.

Barney cast a chagrined look at the disappearing nurse.

“How long have you suspected he was the one we were looking for?” I asked cautiously.

The vampire shifted uncomfortably under our stares.

“Since the ghouls at Eternal Reserves told us about Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. It was his calling card back in the day when he was terrorizing human villages in Europe.”

Didi pinched the bridge of her nose. Gavin’s tail popped out.

Samuel scowled. “You should have told us, Barney. It could have prevented the other attacks!”

“No, it wouldn’t have,” Barney said with chilling confidence. “It’s clear from the accounts we’ve collected these past few days that Ludvik is far more dangerous now than he was the last time I saw him. Case in point, the speed at which he’s reported to move. That’s unnatural, even for a vampire.”

That sounded pretty bad.

“Can you tell us more about him?”

“Ludvik was always getting into trouble, even as a child.” The vampire’s voice turned bitter. “The society we lived in at the time didn’t help. It filled his head with stupid thoughts of vampire supremacy. He was forever coming up with harebrained schemes to ‘purify’ the bloodlines. He constantly picked fights with werewolf cubs and refused to associate with anyone who wasn’t a pureblood vampire. His parents covered for him every time, which didn’t help in the long run.”

“Let me guess,” Detective Johnson said darkly. “Rich vampire family with too much influence?”