Going to the police station was not like I thought it would be.

For one thing, you couldn’t simply walk in, like you saw them do in TV shows. I mean, it makes sense when you think about it. Security would be an issue when it came to police stations.

And when Agent Vasil finally managed to get us inside, the detective who introduced himself to us didn’t come off anywhere near as smart as the police detectives in those same shows. The way Moran talked made it sound like he was a regular old guy doing a regular old job—not the illegitimate son of one of the Holmes brothers come to find his place in the world of crime fighting. Also, he lacked a super-humanly attractive female partner.

On the other hand, you could tell he was doing his best. I liked that.

“The whole room’s been processed. I have the reports in front of me. Lots of incidental information, but very little for leads. Our biggest break is the bloody fingerprints. They were all the victim’s blood, and most were smeared, but we got a few clear partial prints. I’d love to match them to someone.”

“You haven’t matched them yet?” Darius asked.

“Not yet.”

“Have you asked for any prints to eliminate them?”

“A few. I’ll have to talk to the niece about who else might have been in that study.”

“Do you have a list of people they might belong to?”

Detective Moran flicked through a few papers, then pulled one out.

As Vasil looked at the list, Moran said, “The niece gave us hers, and we’ve tracked down some others. No matches so far. If we find whoever those fingerprints belong to, that’ll be a real break, but right now, our problem is finding people to run the prints against.”

“I take it there aren’t that many people with a motive.”

“It seems like Wayde was pretty popular. It could have been a theft gone wrong, except for two things—first, there’s no sign of anyone breaking in, and his niece said that the professor was always careful about locking up his house when he wasn’t home—”

I broke in. “But he was home. He had to be.”

The detective gazed at me.

“That’s how he got shot,” I added.

“It’s true that there’s no evidence the body was ever moved, but before he was shot, he was at a meeting—one of those clubs that intellectuals get into. He left early. If it was a robbery, then the thief would’ve targeted his house when he was supposed to be gone, but then Wayde came home and surprised them.”

“What’s the second reason you don’t like that idea?” Darius asked.

The detective looked back at him. “Because, at the moment, we don’t think anything was taken—although, I admit, that might take a while to verify.”

“Why?”

I almost made a joke about trying to find something in a messy room, but then I remembered I wasn’t supposed to have seen that room. I clamped my mouth shut.

The detective explained, “Wayde had a lot of stuff, and he didn’t keep paperwork for most of it. If they took only one item, we may never know.”

“Is the niece helping you?”

“As much as she can, but she doesn’t know the collection all that well.”

“Could he have gone home early to meet his murderer?” I asked.

“That’s another option we’re looking into. We’re trying to get access to his calendar as we speak.”

“Ha!” I put my hands on my hips. “I’m pretty good at this.”

A smile broke through Moran’s blocky features. “I’m sorry, but who—”

“She’s with me,” Darius said.

“With you how? She’s not an agent.”

I was offended by how certain he sounded. I could be an agent. Why couldn’t I be an agent?

“I’m consulting her as an expert,” Vasil said.

Oh. That was even better. I’m so good the agents have to come to me.

“An expert?” Moran said. “She’s young enough she could be my daughter!”

“She could be, but she isn’t.”

“I think I’m a little confused. What does any of this have to do with counterfeit artifacts? Are you budging in on this murder?”

“Sorry, Detective, you won’t get out of it that easily. She’s all yours.”

“Then why are you here?”

“We’re investigating whether or not Wayde was connected with some counterfeit artifacts coming into the country. I’m afraid I can’t give you all the details, but I can tell you that Wayde wasn’t the main suspect.”

“Do you think it might have something to do with his murder?”

“I doubt it. The people I’m after aren’t usually murderers, but I promise you that if I learn anything or have any reason to suspect they’re connected, I’ll let you know.”

“Thank you. I would appreciate that.”

“That being said, do you mind if I continue with my investigation? I’ll try to keep out from under you, but I don’t want to lose any time.”

Moran leaned back in his chair, folded his arms, and stared at the vampire. “You know, you’re very polite for an FBI agent.”

I grinned. “I know, right?”

Moran’s eyes flicked over to me, and he smiled.

Darius said, “I regret the insinuation that my fellow agents have no manners.”

“Don’t you mean ‘resent?’” I asked.

Moran said, “Or maybe he regrets it because he knows it’s at least partially true.” He waved his hand. “Nevermind. The answer is, I don’t mind, and I couldn’t stop you if I did.”

“The study is your crime scene,” Darius pointed out.

“And it’s already been processed. Just be careful when you go tromping around there. If you want to remove anything, you’ll have to inform me and St. John.”

“St. John?”

“Miranda St. John is his niece.” The detective copied down a phone number to a post-it note and passed it to Darius. “Once the government is done with their bit, and presuming she isn’t arrested for murder, she’ll inherit everything.”

“Is she his closest family?”

“No. His sister, St. John’s mother, is still alive. He made out a will favoring his niece.”

Darius forgot himself for a moment; when he put his finger over his lips to puzzle over that last bit of information, his arm moved too fast for a human. Fortunately, Moran didn’t seem to notice.

“That’s interesting,” Vasil said. “Did she know she would be inheriting?”

“That’s hard to say. She says she didn’t.”

“Huh.” The vampire puzzled for a little longer, then looked up. “Thank you for your time, Detective.”

“It’s not a problem. You’ll tell me if you learn anything?”

“The moment I do.”

Darius stood up from his chair. I stood up as well, ready to follow him, but he only took one step before he turned around, almost bumping into me.

“Detective,” Darius said, “may we look at the body?”

“You don’t need to do that. I have the report. One shot, upper-chest, from about four feet away, slight downward angle. It got his heart.”

“All the same.”

Moran’s head twitched to the side. “We’ve done the autopsy. There were no artifacts stuffed in a handy body cavity, so why—”

The air between the three of us grew heavy. It felt like an invisible blanket was pressing down. Darius’s tone dropped, and there was a quiet timbre to his words that made my ears ache.

“Detective, may we look at the body?”

There was a silence.

Moran mumbled, “Yes.” He blinked and shook his head. As he went on, his voice sounded more natural. “I’ll call down and let them know that you’re coming.”

He pulled out his phone. The invisible blanket lifted.

“Thank you,” Darius said. “Should I give you my contact information?”

Moran dialed and put his phone to his ear. “I got your number when you called me—Hello! Yes.” He waved to me and Darius as we headed over to the stairs.

Once we were in the stairwell, I looked around to make sure I was alone with the vampire before saying, “You were doing some weird voodoo mind trickery, weren’t you?”

“You felt that?”

“Yeah.”

“Technically not voodoo.”

“Voodoo, woodoo, who-do? You do! Does it matter? Magic is magic.”

“Voodoo is a specific kind of magic, and I don’t practice it.”

I thought about that for a bit.

“Voodoo is real?”

“Yes, Miss Cole. Voodoo is real.”

“Whatever. Do you have the fabled hypnotic powers or not?”

The count frowned.

“Vasil?” I prompted.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I’ve wondered. The problem is that the strongest hypnotic powers are supposed to be over the people we’ve fed from. I don’t know the people I’ve fed from. If I have any influence, it’s far from perfect.”

“Would you ever use your hypnotic powers on me?”

“I doubt it. I’ve only ever tried to use them under very particular circumstances.”

“What kind of circumstances?”

“When I thought it might save someone’s life.”

There was a quiet note of some deep emotion when he said that. I couldn’t tell if it was sadness or resolution, but my heart whispered with sympathy.

I lowered my voice. “Why did you do it to Detective Moran?”

“That wasn’t hypnotism. I was only trying to persuade him. I do that more often—though it’s usually during an interrogation. And I did it this time because I really have no excuse for why we would need to see the body.”

“Why do you need to see the body?”

Darius stopped in front of the door at the bottom of the stairwell. “I don’t. I want you to see it.”

We stared at each other for what felt like a minute. Vasil’s stoic expression softened.

“Emerra, have you seen a dead body before?”

“Ha! Sure! I mean…no. Well, yes? I mean, I am a dead body, and there are mirrors—”

“You’re not a dead body. You’re far too lively for that.”

“I lived in a hospice.”

Darius shut up.

Right. I had managed to silence the vampire. The only thing left to do was continue blathering.

“Toward the end, I lived in a hospice. There was a death almost every day. I never saw the body, but you could hear it happening. They whispered—the nurses and caretakers—you’d hear them whispering. I don’t know why they thought it should be a secret. It used to bug me. A bunch of fast-walking footsteps and whispers.”

I fell silent, but in my head I added, And then you’d wonder if you’d be the next secret.

I managed a smirk. “I’m pretty familiar with death. Not as familiar as you, of course—how long have you lived with Jacky? Nevermind. Anyway, I’m more familiar with death than most people. I can handle it.”

Count Darius Vasil watched me for a while, then nodded. “All right. But if you need to leave, tell me.”

My tongue felt too clumsy to say anything, but I returned his nod with a much more enthusiastic one of my own. Not a corpse. Too lively. I had to remember to stay that way.