I stared at her as she got out of the car, wondering if I had heard her correctly. “You . . . died?” I asked, getting out, as well.
“Yes. I got in trouble with—” She shot me a quick, unreadable look. “Well, let’s just say I got in trouble, and I paid the price for it. Although the near-death experience was very interesting, I learned my lesson, and ever since then, I’ve kept my mind open to everything and everyone, humans and other beings.” She hoisted her bag and pulled out her camera, giving the house an assessing look as she jangled a set of keys. “My, this is a big one, isn’t it? There should be four floors. How about you shoot the basement and first floor, and I’ll do the second and attic?”
“That’s fine. Er . . .” I followed after her as she tripped lightly up the front steps to the big double doors. I picked my way carefully, not trusting the half-rotted boards of the steps and porch to hold up under my more substantial weight. “When you say other beings, you wouldn’t happen to include vampires in that, would you? Or, what do they call them . . . er . . . ?”
“Dark Ones? ” She unlocked the door, pausing on the threshold to close her eyes and breathe deeply. “I always try to attune myself to the house before entering. It gives me a better idea of what sort of family would be perfect within its walls. How very odd. This house feels like someone of a dark nature was here a long time ago. . . . Hmm.” She entered, tossing me an amused look over her shoulder. “Of course I believe in Dark Ones. I haven’t met one, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Are you interested in them?”
I thought of the large, blond, extremely deadly man my sister had married just a month before. I thought of his bigger, more deadly brother. I thought of the dark-haired murderer of my dreams. “Kind of. Not really, no. In a way.”
She laughed and waved me forward into the house. “I don’t blame you. They’re fascinating, aren’t they? Much more so than movies and books lead you to believe. Dark Ones are . . . ooh, so many things. Sexy. Mysterious. Sensuous. You know about Beloveds, don’t you? How there’s only one woman to redeem each Dark One, and they have to go through seven steps to save him, and that once they do, they’re bound together forever and ever?”
“Yes,” I said, my devil once again prodding me to do more than smile. “I know about Beloveds.”
“Isn’t it just the most romantic thing ever? I wonder what it would be like to have one as your lover. Wouldn’t you think they would be intense? Kind of overwhelming, but in a good way?”
I remembered how Avery seemed wholly absorbed in Jas. “I think ‘intense’ is a good description.”
“And then there’s the bad-boy image. Who doesn’t love a bad boy? Who doesn’t want to redeem them, make them whole again, show them the power of love?” She sighed, then giggled and poked me on the arm. “Listen to us! Mooning over vampires just like a couple of teenagers with a sparkle fetish! Mysterious and romantic they may be, but they’re not for the likes of us. Shall we get started?”
My nose wrinkled as I looked around the entry hall. Directly across from the door was a staircase leading up to murky gloom, the pale fingers of light that managed to fight their way in through the boards on the windows not doing much to light the interior. To my right was a large room that seemed to stretch the length of the house, the dark, stained wallpaper making odd patterns that seemed almost to move when seen peripherally. To the left was a narrow hall with several doors, no doubt leading to smaller rooms. Thankfully, the house was empty of all furniture, nothing but a few torn shreds of ancient newspaper and bits of twine lying in desolation on age-stained wood floors to mark its removal.
“Mice,” I said, rubbing my nose against the smell of stale rodent droppings.
“Probably, but it doesn’t smell too fresh. Dee says the house was fumigated last month, so there shouldn’t be anything alive in here but us. At least . . .” She paused at the foot of the stairs, her face tight for a moment before she shook her head. “No, there’s nothing here but us. I must be imagining things.”
“Oh, that’s not going to give me the creeps,” I said, rubbing my arms as I looked around the gloomy room.
Diamond just laughed and ran up the stairs, turning on her camera as she did so. “Don’t forget to get several different angles of each room. I’d like to piece together each room’s photos into a panorama if possible. Buyers love panoramas.”
“Anyone would have to be insane to want to buy this monstrosity,” I muttered to myself as I twitched my shoulder aside just in time to avoid hitting a massive cobweb that drifted down from an ornate, but filthy, brass light fixture. “I can only imagine what a barrel of laughs the basement is going to be.”
“Just imagine it all fixed up, filled with people and laughter,” Diamond called as she started up the second flight.
“If one single mouse so much as sticks his nose out of the wall at me, I’m leaving!” I bellowed up the stairs.
A faint sound of her tinkling laughter was my only answer. Dammit, she even laughed nicer than me. Hers was all lightness while mine came out throaty, as if I were a five-pack-a-day smoker.
“My life sucks,” I said to no one as I stomped loudly toward the back of the hallway, checking each room before heading toward the door Diamond had indicated led to the basement. “Everyone has hooked up but me. And what do I have, house? Huh? What do I have? I’ll tell you what I have,” I said in a loud voice as I grabbed the doorknob. “I have a job that’s going nowhere, a deranged vampire murderer trying to drive me insane, and abso-friggin’-lutely no man on the horizons. I swear, what I wouldn’t give to meet someone—urf!”
The force of a brick wall bursting through the basement doorway and slamming straight into me not only drove all the air from my body but sent me flying backward, the brick wall falling with me in a tangle of arms and legs, and heads clunking together painfully. My camera fell to the floor, and the tinkle of coins and the smashing of glass warned that the contents of my purse had spilled out under the force of the impact.
It took me a few seconds to shake the stars from my aching head, but that gave my lungs time to reinflate after the brick wall—which I was amazed to see turned out to be a man—rolled off me.
He spoke in some lyrical language, stopping himself to grab my hand and yank me to my feet. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were there. Get out.”
“Huh? ” I said, rubbing my forehead where it had smacked against his. “Who are you? What are you doing here? We were told the house was empty.”
The man cast a glance over his shoulder to where a narrow stairway descended into the yawning blackness of the basement. “Get out now! He knows I found the exit that led to this place!”
“Who knows you’re here? Oh, man, if my camera is broken—” I ignored the man when he ran toward the front door, instead squatting to scoop up the small collection of coins, my now broken compact mirror, a tube of lipstick, and some sort of gray-striped flat round stone edged in gold, with a gold dragon embossed on one side. “What on earth is this? Hey, mister, this must be—holy Mary and all the apostles!”
Another man emerged from the blackness of the basement, but instinctively I knew this was no normal man, not with the way power and fury were rolling off him in almost visible waves. I clutched my things to my chest, stumbling backward to get out of his way, ignoring the pain of the coins and broken compact as they cut into the flesh of my palm, my eyes huge as his attention was momentarily directed my way. I froze, unable to breathe, but was instantly dismissed as he turned toward the front door, raising one hand as he bellowed out a word.
“Desino! ”