But it seemed he’d just been taking a minute to process what I’d said, because Lorcan finally hiccupped an, “Alright,” and clumsily slid out of the booth.

  I had to grab him to keep him from becoming a puddle of drunken vampire on the floor, but once I got one of his arms over my shoulder, it was pretty easy to steer him towards the door.

  “Thanks, Fifi,” Lorcan slurred, his Irish brogue coming out stronger as he patted the air with his free hand. “You’re a good friend an’ someday you’re going to find yourself a chap who deserves you.”

  I laughed, heading for the door. “If only you were psychic, Lorcan, and then I might believe you.”

  Chapter Two

  Roy put the rest of Lorcan’s cocktail into a to-go cup with a lid so he wouldn’t spill it in my car, which I thought was thoughtful and illegal, but I wasn’t really worried about getting pulled over. That was one of the perks of being a succubus—it was fairly easy to talk my way out of things.

  The night air outside the bar was cold enough to sober Lorcan up a little, and that meant I didn’t have to pour him into the passenger side of my 4Runner. Unfortunately, it didn’t sober him up enough to give him much back in the way of fine motor control, and after a few minutes of watching him fumble and fail to do his seat belt, I finally just reached over and secured it for him.

  Lorcan leaned forward as I clicked the belt closed, close enough that his nose almost brushed the side of my face. He pulled in a deep breath, obviously smelling me. I wasn’t too worried that he’d bite me, for a couple of reasons. I mean, there had been a time when I’d donated blood to him, but I hadn’t since Roy and I had started whatever it was we’d started, and even a bit before that. I didn’t think Wanda liked it when Lorcan fed from me, though she’d have thrown herself off a bridge before she’d ever have admitted it.

  And secondly, thanks to Poppy’s Repulsion potion, which I applied like perfume faithfully every morning, my succubus pheromones weren’t a concern anymore. Men just reacted to me like they would to any other woman, so it wasn’t likely that Lorcan would try for a nibble, especially since there was enough blood in his cocktails that I knew he couldn’t still be hungry.

  “Fifi,” he said as I sat back to do up my own seat belt. His voice was surprised, like he’d only just noticed I was there. “Oh, Fifi, you just can’t.”

  He sounded so forlorn that it was hard not to laugh. I sat back, clicking my own seatbelt in place. “I can’t what? Drive?”

  Lorcan sagged forward, clutching the strap across his chest. “Drive?” he asked as he opened his eyes wide and peering around himself, seemed to just now notice he was actually seated in a car. “No—no… I meant… you can’t allow that—that motley bunch of vampires into the Hollow. It’s just… well, Fifi, my dear… it’s just not right!”

  A little curl of guilt flared to life inside me. I’d thought I was humoring a drunk, but Lorcan seemed genuinely upset about this and had all night. He’d brought this exact subject up as soon as we’d seated ourselves at the bar and had ordered our first cocktails. Maybe I should have expected round two of this conversation, but I’d thought we’d settled it already.

  “Hey, hey it’s okay.” I patted his cold hand gently. “I did my homework, alright? The vampires,” I started.

  “What business does a vampire have living in Haven Hollow anyway?” Lorcan demanded.

  I smiled at him. “I’d imagine the same business you have here?”

  He shook his head. “Most vampires don’t choose to wander far from their vampire brethren. I was always the exception to the rule.”

  “Well, these vampires appear to be exclusions, as well.”

  He frowned at me. “I don’t like it one bit.”

  “Anyway, they’ve all been thoroughly vetted. The whole group is from Bucharest, and they don’t have any stake in local vampire politics, or what’s going on with Wanda’s… turning.” I wasn’t really sure what else to term it. All I knew was that Wanda had been a Blood Witch, then she’d been bitten by another vampire which had actually undone Lorcan’s hold on her and returned his ‘kiss’ to him so he was no longer psycho where she was concerned. Strangely though, severing the sire bond between them hadn’t done away with Wanda’s Blood Witch magic. And the line of vampires from which Lorcan hailed were certainly interested to know why. “I’d never put Wanda in danger like that, Lorcan, you know—”

  He waved an impatient hand like he was swatting my words out of the air. “Yes, yes, I know all that. The fact that they’re vampires is problematic enough, but it’s what they plan to do once they’ve moved here that’s the real trouble!”

  His face twisted into a mask of agony, as if even the thought of whatever he was thinking caused him physical pain. He clutched at the hand I’d patted him with, fingers tight enough that they might have actually hurt a human.

  “Lorcan,” I tried to soothe him.

  He spoke right over me. “Angelo let it slip that these Bucharest vampires have bought that three-story rotting hulk of a Colonial that sits on the hill at the end of town.”

  “Right,” I answered.

  Wow, Angelo, way to protect client privacy.

  I made a note to have a little chat with my brother the next day, about spreading information about our clients. Even though Lorcan was my friend, there was such a thing as client confidentiality.

  But getting back to the vampires and their recent purchase—Lorcan’s rather unflattering description of the house was actually fairly spot on. The house sat on a slope, giving it an excellent view of most of the Hollow, but that was pretty much its only selling point. It had always been considered a little spooky, at least as long as I’d lived in Haven Hollow, and the fact that it had stood open and uninhabited for years really didn’t help its reputation. The house still had great bones, but years of neglect had certainly taken a toll on it. I’d planned on arranging for the old place to be fixed up for my clients, have it fully repaired and thoroughly cleaned before they moved in. But the vampires had been staunchly opposed to that idea.

  They’d wanted any serious structural problems, rotting wood or broken support beams, addressed but anything superficial they’d wanted left alone. Why anyone would want to keep the cracks in the drywall, the squeaking floorboards, all the cobwebs and dust, was a question I couldn’t figure out up until the moment they’d told me why.

  Then I’d had a good laugh.

  Though, it did make more sense now as to why Lorcan was so offended by the whole thing.

  “Sorry, Lorcan,” I said as gently as I could without giggling. “You can’t exactly stop them. It’s their property, and they can do whatever they like with it.”

  Lorcan threw himself back in his seat, flinging his hands up dramatically. “It’s so tacky,” he all but wailed, and I couldn’t stop myself from smiling.

  He gave me a narrow-eyed look of offense, huffing angrily. “They are going to make me look bad just for sharing the same species.”

  “I think you’re exaggerating.”

  He turned and gave me a very pointed look. “I’m not.” Then he sighed deeply. “It’s bad enough with Wanda’s brothers and their clan moving in, but at least they have no intentions of making Haven Hollow… a circus.”

  I made some sympathetic sounds while checking my blind spot and finally pulling away from the curb. “A circus is a bit of a stretch, don’t you think?”

  “No, I don’t think!” he railed at me and then apparently realizing what he’d just said, decided to further explain. “I just cannot believe this family plans to run a haunted house out of such an elegant home—a home that should be protected by the council, I might add.”

  “Maybe you’re looking at it the wrong way.”

  He looked over at me, baffled. “What other way is there to look at it?”

  I shrugged. “Well, it might… I don’t know… it might be fun.”

  “Fun?” He fumed, as if he’d never heard the word.

  “Sure,” I answered with a clipped nod. “Haunted houses are lots of fun. Maybe you could view this whole thing as a way to bring people in Haven Hollow together.”

  “Says the person who sold them the property in the first place,” he grumbled. Before I could defend myself, he continued. “And it’s not just the lot of them moving to Haven Hollow, Fifi. They’re going to be housing ghouls and trolls, and all sorts of other… uncouth… uncivilized… brutes. Two,” he actually held up two fingers for emphasis, “Of Louisa Rutledge’s children are thinking of taking a summer job there, no doubt to run around on all fours and bay at the moon. At this rate, any supernatural bum in a thousand-mile radius will be showing up to take the easy route and flout themselves for the amusement of the mundanes!” Then he shook his head and rubbed his temples as if the idea of it all was causing him an aneurysm.

  “Don’t you think you’re maybe overreacting just a smidge?” I turned right, heading deeper into Haven Hollow central.

  He looked at me pointedly. “No.”

  I smiled—I couldn’t help myself. Sometimes Lorcan was just so dramatic. “I think it will be good for the supernaturals in Haven Hollow, especially the ones who never really get a chance to let their hair down, so to speak.”

  “Where trolls and ghouls are concerned, their hair should be kept in the most severe of top knots.” I smiled at him again and he shook his head, grumbling, “Alas.”

  Not everyone was lucky enough to have a mostly human form, like Lorcan and I did. It was my absolute belief that it would be good for those less fortunate to get a chance to mingle, without people screaming and running away.

  Lorcan made a noise of disgust at the back of his throat, and I had to laugh at the sheer amount of offense he’d managed to cram into it.

  “Think of it this way,” I tried to cajole him out of his snit. “This could also work as plausible deniability.”

  He breathed out deeply. “I have imbibed too much to attempt to ascertain your meaning, my dear. Please act as if you are conversing with that onerous beast as, at the current moment, my mind is, most unfortunately, operating at the beast’s level.”

  Of course, by the ‘beast’, he meant Roy. “Oh, Lorcan,” I said, shaking my head as I chided him, though it wouldn’t make any difference. Lorcan was Lorcan and had been for hundreds of years. “What I’m trying to say is this: if any… creatures ever got caught doing something not easily explained then we’d have an alibi with the haunted house.”

  “How so?”

  “Jeez, you really are pretty dumb at the moment.” I laughed, and he glared at me. “If someone saw a troll in his natural form, they’d just assume he was from the haunted house.”

  “Ah, I suppose you have a point.” Then he rubbed his temples again. “A point that feels as if it’s been driven straight through my ears.”

  “And not to mention the fact that a haunted house is a really good way to show that most supernaturals are harmless if the mundanes ever realize they’ve been living in a town full of monsters this whole time, you know? It would give them some positive connotations.”

  Lorcan slumped down until the seat belt almost touched his chin. “They’re Romanian, Fifi,” He grumbled.

  “So what?”

  “So, guess who else was from Romania?”

  “Um… Dracula?”

  “Bingo.”

  “So what?” I asked.

  “So… you know they’re going to play up the Dracula angle.”

  “Okay… who cares?”

  He sighed. “I care.” Then he looked at me and shook his head. “You wouldn’t understand because you aren’t a vampire. It’s just so… embarrassing.”

  “Dracula is embarrassing?”

  “He is.”

  “Hmm,” I answered while cocking my head to the side and appearing as surprised as I felt. “Who knew?”

  I rolled to a halt at a stop sign before continuing, drumming my fingers against the steering wheel. “These vampires could also become allies, you know.”

  “Allies?”

  “Right—people who could help you—”

  “I know what a bloody ally is, Fifi, blimey!”

  I laughed. “Well, I wasn’t sure.” He glared at me again. I laughed again. “Anyway, they could help you protect Wanda, so maybe… be nice to them.”

  “Ugh, how I hate it when people tell me to be nice to other people,” he grumbled, sounding all of five years old. “And Wanda doesn’t need protection… not when she has me.”

  I didn’t want to touch that conversation, so I strayed to another. “The group’s leaders, Marius and Mihaela actually want to hire Wanda to design the costumes for their haunted house.”

  Lorcan’s face made a weird expression when I mentioned Wanda, but he quickly turned his face towards the window as if he didn’t want me to witness it. He then groped blindly for his little milkshake cup full of blood cocktail and slurped at it without looking back at me. It was an odd reaction for him, and it made me wonder if everything was okay between the two of them. Their relationship could be well described as ‘tempestuous’, owing mostly to the fact that Wanda could be difficult at the best of times. But I supposed Lorcan was pretty difficult in his own right, as well. Regardless, the tight line of his shoulders, and the way he’d angled himself away from me made it pretty clear he didn’t want me to press him about it, so I let it go.

  “Hey, come on.” I elbowed him gently in the ribs. “Just think, if the whole dentist thing doesn’t work out for you, you could always moonlight as a performer—the demented dentist in a haunted house!”

  Lorcan turned to glare at me with all the outraged dignity of a cat with its fur ruffled the wrong way. “I’m not above biting, you know.”

  I tilted my head back with a grin, teasingly tapping the big vein there with one finger. “You’re welcome to, if you’re feeling a bit peckish.”

  I didn’t really expect him to take me up on the offer, he hadn’t fed from me for a while, after all. I figured he’d just say something teasing back, and it would maybe shake him out of whatever funk he’d slipped into. But, instead, Lorcan’s mouth flattened into an unfriendly line, his eyes cold.

  “You know I’m a one-woman man,” he snapped, and turned moodily back to the window.

  “I was just kidding, Lorcan, jeez louise.”

  My hands tightened on the steering wheel as surprise traveled through me. Lorcan had never spoken to me in such a clipped tone, and it brought me up cold. I felt like I’d been walking down a familiar staircase, only to find one of the steps suddenly missing under my foot, sending me lurching forward and flailing for something safe to grab onto.

  I knew he was feeling touchy about Wanda, but I’d thought it was just another part of our banter. I hadn’t meant to upset him. It seemed like every time I talked to a man these days, all I could say was the wrong thing.

  The rest of the ride to Lorcan’s place was in silence. When we arrived, he only gave me a terse “Thanks,” before he closed the door.

  I sat there for a long moment, my heart feeling tight in my chest.

  Chapter Three

  As Mihaela crossed the aggressively creaking floor to coo over a particularly knotted bit of cobweb, I had to admit that maybe, just maybe, Lorcan wasn’t entirely wrong in his assessment of the Romanian vampires.

  It wasn’t that Marius and Mihaela weren’t nice, because they were. I’d even have gone out on a limb to say they were the nicest vampires I’d ever met. It was just that their aesthetic for the haunted house had taken a sharp turn away from ‘high class funeral’, and firmly into ‘Addams Family’ territory. In fact, Mihaela’s floor-length black dress would have fit right in as a costume, and even Marius’s black suit and waistcoat made him look a little bit like a Victorian mortician.

  “Oh, darling,” Mihaela said in her overblown Eastern European accent, pushing her hip length black hair back over her shoulder. “It’z abzolutely perfect.”

  Marius grinned, stepping forward to slip his arms around her waist as they gazed around at what had once been the parlor, when the house had been in better shape. I had to admit, it was all a little on the kitschy side of things, but really, I thought the haunted house would be a huge success once they got it going. And it would fit right in with all the other Halloween themed tourist attractions in Haven Hollow, like Sweeter Haunts.

  “Oh!” Viviana squealed in delight over in the corner of the room, pointing up towards the ceiling. “This one has a spider in it! That’s a sign of good luck! How wonderful!”

  I glanced up at the spider web dominating the corner of the room over by the old fireplace, got a glimpse of the big spider squatting in the center of it, and barely suppressed a wince. At least Viviana had sounded excited, more like a teen girl discovering a kitten than an arachnid with a swollen looking abdomen.

  It was times like that when I had to remind myself that while Stefan and Viviana, whom I supposed were Marius and Mihaela’s children, looked like teenagers, they were both older than I was. Really, I should have been used to it. Lots of supernaturals aged much more slowly than humans, or they didn’t age at all, like Lorcan. Heck, Roy was over eighty. Wanda was a hundred and forty-one, and other than the faintest hint of lines at the corner of her eyes, you’d never have known she was what witches considered middle-aged.

  Stefan and Viviana had been turned young, and looked it. They weren’t biologically Marius and Mihaela’s children I didn’t think because they looked nothing like them, but they were actually siblings, from what I’d been told. They’d been attacked and turned by a renegade vampire at sixteen and seventeen respectively, and they’d never age a single day more. I couldn’t imagine being forever a teenager—talk about being dealt a bad hand of cards.

  The floor boards gave a low groan as I stepped forward, waving away a cloud of dust hovering in the air and fought back the urge to apologize. This whole tour felt so off to me. Usually, when I showed homes to prospective buyers, the homes were, well, tidy. I went to a lot of effort with staging, and making sure everything looked as welcoming as possible. Scented candles, faint music, little accents here and there—anything to make a room look and feel its best.