We carried the groceries up to my apartment, and I dissolved the ward on the door so Eleanor could come in. I put the food in the fridge and the cabinets, very aware of how empty everything was. Then I pulled out the envelope and looked at my name written in a flowing script.
I tore open the envelope and found a hand-written note in the same hand.
Miss McLane,
I would be pleased if you could visit me tomorrow night at nine o’clock. 1743 Chelwood Lane.
Rodrick Barclay
I turned the paper so Eleanor could read it. Her brow furrowed, and when her eyes rose to meet mine, there was a look of concern on her face. I waited.
“Rodrick Barclay is a vampire,” she said. “He was one of Lord Carleton’s men. Came here with Carleton back in the 1880s.”
“Great. I wonder what he wants. Unfortunately for him, I have to work.”
Eleanor shook her head. “Talk to Sam. I’m not sure it would be good to ignore Barclay.”
“You’re not seriously suggesting that I go meet with him?”
“Not alone,” she said.
So, when I got to work that evening, I handed Sam the note.
“Eleanor said a guy dropped this off for me this morning.”
Sam read it and took a deep breath. “We can fiddle with the schedule. The question is, who do we send with you?”
“Seriously?”
He nodded. “I can drive you, but we need a fire mage to go with us. Someone who can put the fear of God into the bloodsuckers if necessary.”
I thought about it. “Sam, I’m not afraid of vampires.”
He opened his mouth as though he was going to say something, then stopped. Gradually he closed his mouth, then cocked his head to one side and gave me a raised-eyebrow look.
“I would be very grateful for a ride,” I continued, “and I think if you came along, your reputation would make it much easier to walk out of there. I really don’t want a fight.”
He leaned back and stared at me for what seemed to be a long time, then said, “All you feel is a tingle when you come through the door?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“I have that spell tied directly to a ley line.”
I wasn’t sure what he was getting at. “Yeah?”
“How much…” he stopped. “No, I don’t want to know. Okay, I’ll arrange the schedule. Come in at your regular time, and I’ll have someone relieve you at seven.”
Chapter 16
The following evening, Sam and I climbed into his SUV and headed out to meet Rodrick Barclay.
“I looked Chelwood Lane up on a map,” I said. “I assume Barclay thinks everyone owns a car.” Barclay’s home was on the northern edge of the city, in the foothills near the coast. Not only was it a long way from the nearest train station, it was a couple of miles from the nearest bus stop.
“Out in that part of town, everyone does own a car,” Sam said.
We got on the east-west freeway, then took the northbound freeway at a major interchange. Within ten minutes, we left the parts of town I had seen before. After we crossed the river, the mountains, with their snow-capped peaks, grew closer. When we got near the foothills, Sam took an exit onto a parkway going west.
As soon as we crested the top of a hill, I could see the ocean before me, dotted with small islands, the river to the south, and beyond the peninsula where I’d found the dead wolves, more ocean. The city was very pretty at night, and I wondered what it looked like in the daytime.
Sam took a right, and we began to wind through narrower and narrower roads, then through the forest, climbing into the hills. Finally, he turned onto a road that didn’t look wide enough for two cars to pass, and then we came to a stone wall with an arched gateway.
“This was Lord Carleton’s estate,” Sam said. “I wonder if all of his minions are still living here, or if Barclay won a power struggle.”
Sam stopped the car, leaned out the window, and punched a button on a speaker box.
“State your business,” the box said.
“Miss McLane to see Mister Barclay,” Sam said.
The big iron-barred gate swung open, and we drove through. The road wound through more trees, and then the landscape opened up to reveal a large expanse of manicured lawn and what I assumed were flower beds, dormant now that winter was approaching. We drove around the garden to the Georgian manor house that stood as the centerpiece of the display. Obviously, Carleton had built a home such as he had in the days when he was alive—three stories of red brick with enormous windows that were twice as tall as a man. It was not the sort of house conducive to those with a severe sun allergy, but since he was never awake when the sun was shining, it probably didn’t matter.
We parked in front, and the huge door opened. A man dressed as a butler stood there awaiting us.
“Cute little bungalow, don’t you think?” Sam said with a chuckle.
“I’ve seen houses like this in Europe,” I said, “but not too many of them in this country.”
Having spent the past nine years living in what most people would consider a fantasy palace—inside what was essentially a medieval walled city—I was probably not as impressed as most American women my age would have been.
“Have you met any of the ancient vampires before?” Sam asked quietly as we climbed the front steps.
“Yes. I’ve met two who were much older than Carleton,” I said. The master vampire I had killed in Austria was born in the twelfth century. His power was incredible, but he underestimated me, and I had been lucky. At the time, I was younger and very arrogant. After I got out of that scrape alive, my arrogance was greatly diminished. “Very scary. Not the sort of guy you’d want to anger.”
“Even if Barclay is only a couple of hundred years old, you do understand the danger we’re in. Right?” Sam said as we approached the door.
“Yeah. We’re on the same page.”
The butler was a vampire, of course, and looked to be in his sixties. I was aware that old vampires often rewarded their best servants by turning them, especially if the servant developed health issues.
The house was even more elegant inside than I would have expected looking at the outside. Hand-painted silk wallpaper, polished hardwood, parquet floors, cast plaster moldings, and very expensive artworks screamed money and eighteenth-century style. I felt rather shabby. I had put on my best white shirt and black trousers in anticipation of the meeting, but in that house, I felt I should be wearing a floor-length silk gown. Sam was dressed as he always did.
We passed a salon with at least twenty vampires and twice that many living humans having some sort of a party, and I saw more vampires watching us from the second- and third-floor mezzanines.
The butler led us into a large study with Persian rugs, ceiling-high bookshelves—particularly impressive when the ceilings were sixteen feet high—and a large desk. Two chairs sat in front of the desk with a low table between them. Two crystal glasses with a crystal decanter of what I assumed was water sat on a tray on the table.
“Miss McLane, Mr. O’Grady, how gracious of you to come,” the man behind the desk said. He didn’t rise to greet us. Dressed in a dark brown business suit with a red tie, he had piercing blue eyes and thick sandy hair that spilled over his collar. I judged that he’d been turned in his late thirties or early forties. Although it was difficult to tell with him seated, I guessed that he was in the six-foot range with an athletic body.
“Mr. Barclay,” Sam said with a slight dip of his head. He took the seat on the left in front of the desk without waiting to be invited. Following his lead, I took the seat on the right.
“Would either of you care for water, or something stronger?” the butler asked.
“Water is fine for me,” I said, and Sam nodded. I had no intention of eating or drinking anything served to me in that place. The butler poured liquid from the decanter into both glasses, then retreated to stand by the door.
“So, you’re the young lady everyone is so excited about,” Barclay said. He looked me over, and I couldn’t figure out from his expression if he was deciding whether to seduce me, merely drain me, or just kill me quickly and get it over with.
I fell back on my training. The Masters of the Illuminati had prepared me to rub elbows with royalty, heads of state, and captains of industry, all the better to get close to them and murder them. Barclay didn’t intimidate me, and I was confident that if he did try to kill me, he would get the worse of the conflict. I was less confident that Sam and I would make it out of the place alive if that happened. There were dozens of vampires in the house, plus their human servants, and the guards at the gate were armed with submachineguns.
“I wasn’t aware that I was such a person of interest,” I said, giving him a sardonic smile.
“The rumor is that you’re a Hunter,” Barclay said, “or some other kind of legendary warrior.”
“The rumor is that you’re a vampire. Don’t you find it amusing how such silly stories get passed around?”
The look Sam gave me was priceless, but Barclay threw back his head and laughed out loud.
“Oh, Miss McLane, I think I like you.”
“Most people find me charming.”
“So, you don’t deny it?”
“I absolutely deny it. I’m a bartender.” I leaned forward. “Mr. Barclay, I am a mage. I have a certain amount of training, and a certain amount of education. But I am not some sort of mythical creature seeking to save the world by going around slaying creatures of darkness. Now, why don’t you tell me why you invited me here tonight?”
Barclay gave me the once-over a couple more times, his sight lingering on my chest somewhat longer than was polite, then asked, “How much do you know about vampires?”
“More than I really ever wanted to.”
“Very good. The Master of the City has suffered the final death. Someone—we think it was a Hunter—delivered that fate. There are now myself and three other mature vampires who were his children left to sort out his legacy. In addition, someone seems to be trying to pit the shifters and magic users against us. That could create a very uncomfortable situation for everyone should such conflicts become more public. Are you with me so far?”