He paused, as if searching for words. “I needed a hobby.”
It was a simple explanation and it made perfect sense. It was so easy to get caught up in vampire hunting, easy to forget that one was still alive and should experience life as much as possible. Violet knew, as did all Searchers, just how short and unfair life could be. It was one of the reasons she approved of Ada’s European trip in the spring, why she was so happy to see her friend married to a man who knew the importance of living as well.
Violet, unlike Samuel, did not possess any hobbies at the moment. Nor lovers, but that wasn’t something she would tell Samuel, although he would have likely guessed that by now. An attached woman did not share a bed with a man even if it was completely platonic.
Well, neither did unattached women, but sometimes sacrifices had to be made. She stole a glance at him. His profile reflected in the streetlamp only reinforced her notion that he was far more attractive than he knew.
He was hardly a sacrifice.
Nor was he arrogant at all. Part of her wanted to send a cable to Ada and Max’s California hotel to remind Ada of that fact.
Before she could ruminate on that further, a slight throb at her temples had her stopping dead in her tracks. When Samuel did the same, his eyes meeting hers, she knew he felt it, too.
“There’s one nearby,” she said quietly, and he nodded.
“Are your stake and mallet at the ready?”
“Always,” she said. “Now let’s find that undead bastard.”
****
The garish, hand-painted sign outside the sprawling but rundown home declared it to be a genuine haunted house, with frequent séances held; the admission was less than Samuel would expect. Despite the gravity of the situation, he couldn’t help but quickly make the conversion from pounds sterling to dollars and cents. Should he believe in ghosts, he would probably consider the cost highway robbery. Twenty-five cents to see something that didn’t exist was simply outrageous.
He and Violet moved quickly through the snow and crowds of people who still wandered the streets at this late hour. He patted his gloved hands against his coat pockets, reassured by the familiar feel of his stake and mallet.
His temples pounded as they approached the house, and a quick glance at Violet and the knowing look in her green eyes told him that she felt the same. There was a supernatural being in there, and for all Samuel knew there may well be a ghost, but ghosts didn’t eat people. As long as he didn’t have to sit at a table while some charlatan bilked the gullible of their money, ghosts could do as they please.
The next thing he did was check that he had some money on his person. There was a short queue huddled under the house’s awning on the front porch, and he had to resist the impulse to push them out of the way and demand entrance.
Even when vampires were nearby, the queue was sacrosanct.
Violet didn’t press on ahead of the others, which he appreciated, but the vampire in the vicinity still had all of his senses on high alert. Urgency swept through him, and not for the first time he wished he could explain the situation to everyone around him so they would let them in to take care of the problem.
She tilted her face to his ear. “Part of me thinks we should offer to pay their admission so we can get in faster,” she said softly. Her breath tickled his ear.
He counted at least five people ahead of them. “I don’t have enough money on me for everyone,” he said.
“Damn.” The unladylike epithet surprised him. “I hate waiting.”
But before either of them could grumble further, the small group ahead of them walked through the house’s doorway, and Samuel and Violet stood before an outlandishly-dressed man wearing an old-fashioned beaver hat dyed green and a heavy black fur coat. Samuel supposed the effect was supposed to be eerie or startling, but he just looked foolish. His beard, unfashionably long and streaked with gray, only added to the effect.
But he wasn’t a vampire, at least. Still, Samuel had to wonder if the man knew there was a vampire on the premises, or even if he was under a bloodsucker’s thrall.
“Evening, sir,” the man said. He nodded his head and tipped his hat at Violet. “Madam.” His accent had an odd twang that Samuel couldn’t place, not unlike Tremblay’s, but stronger.
“Good evening, sir,” Samuel said, his voice as confident as he thought it would be had he ever set foot in a court of law. “Two admissions, for me and the lady.”
“The missus, I expect?”
“Newlyweds,” said Violet, piping up.
“My féliçitations to you both, and that will be fifty cents, sir,” said the man, holding out a gloved hand. The index finger was nearly worn through. Samuel removed a fifty-cent piece from his overcoat pocket and placed it in the man’s palm.
Once the coin was stowed away in the proprietor’s heavy coat and cheap paper tickets were handed over, he said, “They’ll be holding a séance after midnight, if you’re inclined to stick about, sir.”
“I don’t believe in such trifles,” Samuel said. “A walk about a haunted house is sufficient.”
“But I do,” said Violet, smiling brightly, keeping up their ruse.
“It won’t do to upset the missus so soon after the wedding,” the green-hatted man said, with another tip of his head to Violet. “I’d sit in on the séance if I were you.”
“I shall consider it,” Samuel said, and they were finally waved through.
The house’s foyer was dark, lit with flameless candles haphazardly fitted into dingy wall sconces. The carpet was wet with melting snow, its color indistinguishable in the semi-darkness. But Samuel didn’t care about those details, and he knew Violet wouldn’t, either.
There was a vampire in here, somewhere. Possibly mingling with the other people waiting to see a ghost, if the sounds of voices and nervous laughter in other rooms were anything to go by.
Hand-lettered signs, difficult to see in the dim light, instructed guests to only look in rooms whose doors were open, that divining tools were strictly forbidden without express permission from the house’s medium, and that deliberately frightening other guests “by means of leaping from darkened corners” would result in being thrown out. Nothing about avoiding vampires, of course.
“Where should we start?” said Violet. She unbuttoned her coat. Almost immediately a man, shorter than the one guarding the front door but dressed in black to match, appeared from a darkened room off the foyer.
“May I take your coats?” he asked, his accent the same as the other. Samuel was itching to ask what it was but didn’t dare to.
Violet shook her head. Her weapons were probably concealed in it, or her coat was at least hiding them. “No, thank you,” she said.
Samuel likewise demurred. The man shrugged. “Suit yourselves, then.” He pointed at a staircase, the steps covered in a grimy runner that matched the carpet. “Look upstairs if you like, the next séance starts in about twenty minutes, if you want to sit in.” He wiggled his eyebrows in a way that Samuel guessed was supposed to be spooky. “Ask the spirits a question.”
Samuel—and Violet undoubtedly as well—just wanted to find the bloodsucker and stake him. Or her. The question was finding out where it was hidden and stake it in a way that wouldn’t draw attention from the poor sods letting themselves be fleeced in the hopes of contacting Great Aunt Martha from the great beyond.
He and Violet ascended the creaking staircase, following both the sounds of voices and their vampire senses. “This will have to go down as the most difficult staking in recent memory,” Violet said, her voice a whisper. “There are far too many people here for our comfort. Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll be new enough to being undead and won’t sense us.”
“Maybe we’ll get really lucky and there won’t be any civilians to see what we’re doing.”
“That, too.”
Of course, not having any civilians around would mean a boatload of vampires instead. There were only two of them. Samuel didn’t know which
would be worse.
More flameless candles sputtered from their holders as they walked up the stairs, hands in their coat pockets ready to brandish stakes and mallets. An unexpected chill had both of them shivering once they reached the landing, and Samuel’s eyes met Violet’s.
“Did you feel that?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Must be that spectral activity,” she said. “Or a good hoax.” She pointed up at the ceiling, where a grimy vent was barely visible in the semi-darkness.
Samuel didn’t care. It wasn’t as though ghosts were actual threats, if they existed.
The landing had two staircases leading to opposite corners of the house. Both looked to be lit up, permitted to be explored. It would be easier and quicker to split up and investigate each wing of the house separately, but it simply wasn’t safe to do so. He remembered what he walked into back in the spring, that grand Mayfair home and grievously-injured Adaline Sterling. Another five minutes, and she wouldn’t have survived.
Just like Bert Radcliffe.
“Right or left?” Violet said. “I can’t pick up which part of the house the vampire’s in.”
Neither could Samuel. “Right.” It was the side he was closest to. If something popped out, he would be in the best position to exterminate it.
The sound of voices grew louder as they crept along the grimy carpet. Aside from the blast of frigid air at the top of the stairs, which was undoubtedly just part of the theatrics, they hadn’t seen anything that might indicate the damn house was actually haunted. If he had come here and paid twenty-five cents admission expecting to see ghostly activity, he would be very put off by now.
The doors on either side of the short corridor were closed; the only light offered was that spilling from a room at the end. Samuel and Violet looked in and saw a round table set with chairs, where two women and a man, seated at it, were turned away from them. Facing them was a pale-faced, white-haired man, garbed in black like the men downstairs. A set of dogeared tarot cards rested on the tabletop in front of him.
The small group’s giggles sounded mechanical and none of them turned around when the floor issued loud creaks, announcing Samuel and Violet’s entrances. But the white-haired man looked up, exasperation on his face.
Oh, hell.
He quickly fixed his gaze on each of the three around the table, and their chatter and laughter abruptly ceased, like a flameless candle whose switch had been shut off. Samuel and Violet immediately readied their stakes and mallets.
The vampire’s fangs extended and he stood up, jostling the table as he did so. None of the three enthralled people noticed. His eyes took on a deep red color and he hissed, vaulting himself over the table and the three people seated there at the two of them.
Oh, this was not good.
****
The vampire crashed into Samuel, knocking him off-balance. Samuel quickly righted himself and pushed back, managing to get a swipe at the bloodsucker’s face with the point of his stake. The vampire snarled and pushed him into the wall.
Violet withdrew a small vial of holy water from her coat pocket and splashed it at the back of the vampire’s head. The smell of burning hair, then flesh, quickly assaulted her nostrils, and the vampire turned around to face her. She held out her stake and mallet. “Come over here,” she said, her voice a deliberate taunt.
He advanced on her, red eyes boring into hers. Being a Searcher, descended from vampires and dhampirs herself, Violet wasn’t terribly worried about being enthralled. Still, she tore her own gaze away as a safety precaution. He sprang at her, grabbing her wrist and squeezing until she dropped her holy water vial. A few drops landed on the back of his hand, and the smell of burning flesh so close to her nose made her gorge rise. The tiny glass bottle shattered on the floor, and before Violet could register what was happening he grabbed her arm with nearly enough force to wrench it from its socket.
Hands outstretched, he froze, the expression on his face shifting to one of terror before it collapsed on itself. He quickly disintegrated, leaving nothing but a pile of oily gray ash inside his black clothing.
Samuel held up his stake and mallet triumphantly.
“Much appreciated,” Violet said. “Thank you.”
“The holy water was a nice touch.”
“I never leave home without it.” She tried to rotate her arm, and the muscle screamed in protest. That was going to hurt for a long time.
They looked at the empty clothes on the floor, then at the three people waiting for their séance, still enthralled.
“Can you break a thrall?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Too far removed down the vampire chain.”
“Me, too.” Left alone, they would eventually snap out of the thrall. “Can you sense any other vampires in the house? I can’t.”
“I think we cleared him out. Do you suppose the men downstairs know the medium was a vampire?”
“It’s possible.” Violet would worry about that in a few minutes. Right now, there was the matter of the vampire remains to deal with, as well as the three sitters who could fall out of their trances at any second. “What do we do about him right now?” She nudged the vampire’s dusty black frock coat with her booted foot.
Samuel looked at the window. “I suggest we just dump everything out there.”
It wasn’t a great plan, but it was the only one they had. There wasn’t a fireplace in the room, and neither of them could exactly gather everything up and walk out of the haunted house like nothing had happened.
Violet just hated to touch vampire remains. The greasy dust always left her gloves stained. “All right,” she said.
The window opened on squeaky hinges, and she cringed at the noise. They couldn’t spot a broom to sweep up all the ash, so they settled for shoving the clothes out the window. They could go around the house and collect them for proper disposal when they left.
Samuel shut the window with an unavoidable loud bang, and the noise seemed to startle the three people around the table back to reality.
“Where’s Mr. Gregoire?” one of the women asked.
Samuel and Violet edged to the doorway. “I don’t have the foggiest what you’re talking about,” Violet said. “We came here to sit in on a real séance and come to find there’s no medium.” She sighed dramatically and looked up at Samuel with what she hoped was an imploring look. “Darling, you promised me there would be ghosts.”
He looked slightly taken aback at the whining tone in her voice but played along. “They must be preoccupied. Let’s go, my love.” He offered his ash-stained arm to her, and she looped her hand over it and they walked out of the room.
“What is this awful mess?” they heard someone exclaim behind them.
It was tense as they walked down the stairs, and the man who had offered to take their coats looked surprised to see them. “Everything all right? I heard a bit of a commotion upstairs.”
And he hadn’t come running to see that his patrons were safe. “I didn’t hear a thing,” Violet said. “Including ghosts. Are you sure this house is actually haunted?”
“Oh, Mr. Gregoire assures us it definitely is,” the man said. “He’s the house’s owner and a real medium.”
“I regret to inform you that we did not see a medium upstairs,” Samuel said.
Violet held her breath, waiting for the man’s reaction.
Instead of anger, he looked surprised. “There wasn’t?”
“No.” Samuel pinned him with a stony stare, but the man didn’t flinch.
“That’s odd. Mr. Gregoire must be around here somewhere.”
“Have you worked for him long?”
Now the man looked a little taken aback. “No, just a couple of weeks. Me and my brother, we started working for Mr. Gregoire when we came here from Halifax. You met him. He takes the admissions. First job we were offered. Why do you ask?”
“I’ve worked for my share of dodgy employers,” Samuel said smoothly. “I recommend that you
and your brother look for work where your employer doesn’t take off in the middle of the night.”
They hurried away and out of the house before the man could respond. Samuel nodded to the green-hatted ticket seller, and they quickly walked into the night.
When they were a safe distance away, Violet started to giggle.
“What’s so funny?” Samuel asked.
“This whole situation,” she said. “It’s just so ridiculous. Who goes to such an elaborate setup to enthrall people to drink their blood? It’s utter madness.”
“We really should investigate those brothers,” Samuel said.
Her mirth faded. “How do you propose we do that?”
He exhaled, an angry sigh of frustration. “I don’t have the faintest clue. Damn it, why are they getting more aggressive? Are they bored? Is that why they’re moving into haunted houses?”
“We’ll have to find Tremblay and ask him,” Violet said. She paused under a streetlamp, the yellow light highlighting her silver hair peeking out from under her hat. Even with the smudges of vampire ash on her coat, she still managed to look angelic. “Do you feel that?”
“Do I feel what?”
“How far removed are you from your dhampir ancestors?” Most Searchers were descended from the vampire-human hybrids; the only thing that bound them to their long-ago vampire forebears was the ability to sense and track them.
Samuel shrugged. “Great-great-great-great grandson, I believe.”
“Maybe it’s just me.” She turned her light eyes to him. “Great times three. But I can feel more vampires are here, I just can’t sense them nearby. Sam, concentrate.”
He closed his eyes, trying to tune out the sounds of Niagara Falls’ nightlife, the damnable cold in the air, the faint but icy winter winds. When he cleared that from his mind, he felt it. Fred Tremblay’s words at the hotel restaurant echoed back to him: It’s giving me a hell of a headache nearly every time the sun goes down, stronger than I’ve ever felt at home. Niagara Falls may very well be crawling with vampires for all I know.
A faint vibration rang through his head, down his spine to the rest of his body, like a plucked harp string. He would have written off the sensation as an impending chill from all the travel he’d done over the last few days, but there was something … different, somehow. Like something vital inside him had been knocked off-kilter.
The Falls (The Searchers Book 3) Page 4