“You must be Johnny Smith then,” the vampiress said. “You've been expected.”

Her voice continued to cause shivers to run down my spine.

Wow, I thought. He just gets worse.

She opened the ornate wooden doors wide, and gestured for me to enter the foyer of Tchiklvec Manor as I jokingly called it.

“How long have you known Vaclav? “ I asked her as I followed her towards the rear of the house.

“Oh, we’ve been seeing each other for a few weeks,” she told me. “He’s one of the most fascinating men I‘ve ever met really. So much history…

She smiled and glanced back at me, batted her thick eyelashes.

“Well, you probably know that.”

“Oh, yes,” I replied. “He certainly does have his stories.”

“He’s mentioned you a couple times.”

“Has he?” I asked.

“Yes,” she confessed. “I was expecting... I don’t know. Someone less distinguished. You have an aura about you. I don’t know what it is, but-”

“Really,” I asked.

“Yes.” she told me breathily. “You’re much more than I expected.”

“Thank you,” I told her, starting to grow a bit on edge. “I’m sorry to interrupt things. There was a situation at the building. One of those things that had to be dealt with ASAP.”

I realized that she hadn’t told me her name.

“Stephanie,” the woman told me smiling again, although this time she didn’t show off her impressive set of incisors.

“Just Stephanie,” I asked.

She closed her lips still smiling, offered me a bedroom glance.

“Just Stephanie,” she confirmed.

The atmosphere between us was getting a bit claustrophobic. And I could feel my temperature rising.

For a moment our gazes locked, and I couldn’t look away from her dark brown eyes. There was something about them, hypnotizing, alluring. I forgot everything for a moment, before I managed to shake it off.

“Oh,’ she smiled again. “I’m so sorry about that. I’m not completely used to this. I only died a short while ago.

It was odd to receive such a confession.

“You haven’t been-” I started.

“It will be six months next week,” she told me frankly, her mysterious allure shedding slightly. “This all, takes a kind of adjustment. You know what I mean?”

“I know a bit,” I told her. “I hired my assistant not long after she-”

I stopped. We hand been standing in the hallway for what seemed like a long time.

“Shouldn’t we continue on?” I asked her.

“Continue…?” she replied, seeming a little confused.

“Vaclav?” I said. “I’ve come to see him about the legal issues for 23 Pangbourne.”

I raised the file folder.

“Oh, yes,” she nodded, almost laughing, her voice getting a bit tinkly. “I’m sorry, he’s just through here, in the study.”

Her smile turned to a pout od disappointment. She sighed, and motioned me to follow her. On the plus side, I suddenly had a deep appreciation for Toni. I figured, after tonight with her I’d wake up with the same amount of blood that I went to sleep with. And that was a good thing. Thinking of that would keep me on the straight and narrow most definitely.

I had to chuckle to myself though. She probably drew more blood in the space of a month than any vampire ever did.

Vaclav was ensconced in his usual haunt, his personal study. Although for some people a study is a small room with a few books a comfy chair or two, not so for our vampire lawyer. Vaclav’s study was the centerpiece of his house. It had stories to it, it had ladders to help reach the higher levels of his bookshelves. It had a roaring fireplace. And from what I remembered, one that an actually featured real wood.

I did notice it spitting sparks onto the floor in front of it tonight.

Man, the room was warm.

And, as I had expected, seated behind a large wooden desk, which did not and would not have a computer on it, was the tall gaunt figure of Emily’s real estate lawyer, Vaclav. When Stephanie entered and I followed, he was leaning back, reading a book, a fairly hefty tome, a leather-bound hardcover.

When he saw me, his face brightened, and he slapped the book shut.