Page 89 of How to Stake a Vampire

“She’s right,” Barney confirmed sourly. “He’s definitely been practicing his ritual down here.”

The subbasement was a maze of storage rooms and utility corridors. The low lighting cast everything in harsh shadows as we navigated the passages, the air possessing the dead quality of places that never saw natural light.

“This way,” Mindy said.

She hurried around a corner, Nigel following closely.

We found the ghost and the boogeyman in front of the door to what had once been a storage room.

It was currently hanging off its hinges.

Inside, boxes of documents were scattered across the floor, their contents spilled and trampled as if by someone in a fit of rage. Filing cabinets stood open, drawers pulled out and dented.

My stomach clenched at the sight of the dark stains splattered across the walls and ground. Bo pressed close to me, his tail down.

“Is that—?” I asked.

“Blood,” Barney confirmed. He took a careful sniff of the air. “Fresh. Maybe six hours old, which matches Mindy’s estimation of when they were last here.”

“Human or vampire?” Detective Johnson asked, his tone suggesting he didn’t really want to know.

Barney knelt beside one of the larger stains, touched it, and rubbed his fingers.

“Vampire,” he said flatly.

I studied his troubled expression warily. “What is it?”

“I can smell an artifact.”

That was not the kind of news I wanted to hear. I had a bad history with artifacts.

“I bet it’s the magic device he’s been using for his ritual,” Didi said.

Bo had been cautiously sniffing around the edges of the room. He froze all of the sudden.

“I think there’s something here.”

My pulse quickened as we joined him.

“We could do with some light,” Didi muttered.

Nigel obliged and brightened a little. The faint outline of a door appeared in the wall.

Bo sat down, tail sweeping the floor. “I was right.”

“Can you go through and see what’s on the other side?” Samuel asked Mindy tensely.

She nodded and headed for the wall, only to bounce right off it.

“Mindy!” Tentacles shot out of Nigel’s body as he tried to catch the ghost.

“I’m okay.” Mindy straightened and shook herself, looking confused.

“What the heck was that?” Detective Johnson asked uneasily.

Mindy approached the wall and traced spectral fingers across it.

“There’s a barrier. I think he had the wraith put it up.” She frowned. “He must have known I would come looking.”