Page 38 of The Vampire Always Rises

From: Merrick

Following leads and trying to find a thief taker.

To: Merrick

A what, now?

From: Merrick

It’s the Otherworld equivalent to bounty hunter.

To: Merrick

Wow. You guys have that? Cool. Wait, are you driving while texting? You know that’s super dangerous, right?

To: Merrick

Also, don’t think I didn’t notice you continue to refuse to address the connection issue. Re: us. Stuffing me in your fabulous villa on the gorgeous Italian Riviera isn’t a solution.

To: Merrick

Your pool is seriously awesome, though. Kelso and I had a dip in it. Do you have the number of your pool cleaner handy? Kelso’s shedding a bit.

The response to the last was something in Italian.

To: Merrick

I ranche pallethrough the translator, and I agree.What ballsindeed. Hadn’t figured you were the braggart type, though.

From: Merrick

Stop texting me, woman!

Fine. We can do it this way instead. Hey, what’s the distance limit of mind-talking?

A sigh echoed in my head.I have no idea.

Merrick, we really do need to talk about this.

No, we don’t.

I understand that you feel it necessary to protect me—

This conversation is over. If you think driving while texting is dangerous, try driving while grinding your teeth.

Hrmph.

The balance of the day consisted of me taking naps, receiving the grocery delivery that Merrick had obviously arranged for Kelso and me, floating in the pool while trying to mind-talk to Merrick (he didn’t answer, so either he was ignoring me or he was out of range of my mental transmitter), and exploring the house.

“Let’s go see Merrick’s room,” I told Kelso that evening, after we’d watched a gorgeous sunset over the water. We had explored the grounds, and now turned our attention to the house. The room Merrick had given to me was done in shades of delft blue and white, while the other guest room was papered in pretty pale olive wallpaper.

“I’m interested to see what his room says about him. I bet it’s all monochrome modern furniture with straight lines and no curves, and possibly the heads of the bad guys he’s captured mounted on the

walls.” I opened the door to the master suite, flipped on the light, and promptly sucked in almost all the air available.

The furniture was a dark wood, mahogany most likely, while the soft furnishings were done in a simple black-and-white stripe theme. Very minimal, very clean, and utterly emotionless, as I expected. Only the walls belied the true passionate nature that Merrick clearly hid from others: they were covered in trompe l’oeil paintings depicting the glorious view of the Riviera coast directly outside the windows.

“This is ... hoppin’ hippos, this is just beautiful,” I said aloud, slowly turning in a half circle to take in the artwork. “I wonder if it exactly matches the view.”