Page 83 of How to Stake a Vampire

I clocked Barney’s death glare and hushed everyone.

The vampire waited until he had our undivided attention before speaking grimly.

“We stake him.”

25

STAKING 101

“I can’t believethere’s an entire training facility under our building,” I muttered as I descended the stairs to the basement of Hawthorne & Associates the next morning. “Why wasn’t I made aware of this?”

“It’s on a need-to-know basis,” Samuel replied cagily. “And until recently, you didn’t need to know.”

“Besides, you’ve been busy working out in other ways,” Didi remarked tartly, her heels clicking on the concrete steps.

My face grew hot. Samuel’s ears reddened.

Detective Johnson smirked. “I hear you two are at it like wild ani?—”

Samuel stepped on the detective’s foot.

“What they really mean is, they don’t trust you not to accidentally wreck the place,” Gavin said morosely while Detective Johnson cursed and hopped on his non-injured foot.

I shot the dragon newt a puzzled look as we reached the bottom landing. “I’ve never wrecked anything.”

Didi narrowed her eyes. “He meant himself. Someone got a little excited when he first learned about this place and tried to scan one of our clients in his distraction.”

Bo carefully edged away from Gavin.

“He tried to scan a client?” I asked skeptically.

“It was a pixie.” Samuel shuddered. “The copy machine broke. Mindy was livid.”

“That ghost didn’t stop wailing for a week,” Didi said, still eyeing Gavin accusingly.

The dragon newt had the grace to look guilty.

“Your workplace is a nuthouse,” Bo told me unhelpfully as we navigated a gloomy corridor.

“Ditto,” Detective Johnson said.

A reinforced steel door with a digital security pad appeared at the end.

Bo brightened when Samuel typed in a code. “This is very spy-movie-like. I bet this place looks like one of those secret lairs the good guys use.”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Samuel muttered.

The secret lair my Husky had been expecting turned out to be more like a high-end gym than a superhero training facility. It had padded walls, rubber flooring, and the kind of reinforced equipment that suggested the place saw some serious supernatural action.

“Wow.” Bo visibly deflated. “This place is a dump.”

He padded over to investigate a collection of chew toys that were clearly designed for creatures with much larger jaws than his.

“Those are for stress management,” Didi explained at my wary expression. “Janet comes down here for her howling sessions.”

“Every Friday at exactly three-thirty,” Gavin said promptly. “Sometimes on Mondays too, depending on how the weekend went and whether she crossed paths with a certain witch.”

Didi sniffed haughtily.