“Lonely?” she asked with a perception that made me uncomfortable.
“I just miss my sister,” I said, but we both knew it was a lame excuse. “Even though Jas lived in Washington, we used to talk almost every day.”
“Didn’t she marry a Scotsman?”
“Yes.” I grimaced as we hit a particularly bad rut, my head smacking on the roof of the car. Diamond didn’t need to know just what type of a Scot Jacintha’s new husband really was. Or the truth about Jas herself, for that matter.
“That must be very hard on you, having her so far away. You don’t have any men friends?”
For some bizarre reason, my mind turned to the dark-haired, green-eyed murderer. I would have to be dead not to have noticed that a bloodsucking fiend he might be, but he was also extremely easy on the eyes. “No. No boyfriend.”
“That stinks.”
I gave up all pretense of dignity. “It really does. I can’t tell you how hard it is to find a man these days. They’re all so . . . I don’t know, shallow. They’re just into themselves, or their jobs, and none of them seem to have any real depth. Is it so much to ask that a man be comfortable with himself? That he be able to look beyond his own needs and desires once in a while? All I ever find are guys with agendas.”
“Have you tried one of those online dating places?” Diamond asked as we crept down the long drive, past a wildly unkempt lawn dotted with downed branches from nearby scraggly alder trees. “I have a friend who had great luck with one.”
“Tried them. Dated the guys. Dumped them shortly thereafter,” I said grimly, staring out the window with an Eeyore sense of satisfaction at my misery.
“I’ll have to put my mind to it,” Diamond said after another minute of silence. “You’re a nice girl, Corazon. You deserve to be happy.”
I sighed morosely, not bothering to voice my agreement. I sounded pathetic enough without that.
“I think you should take Dee’s advice,” she added.
“What advice would that be?” I asked, faintly startled at the idea of taking my ex’s advice about anything, let alone my love life.
“That rising-to-the-top business. This job, now,” she said, nodding toward the looming house that cut with mottled black fingers into the sunny California sky, “this is a perfect example of how one can rise to the top. If you handled it right, it could do big things for you.”
“I’m not the agent; you are.”
“You can be my coagent,” she said, with a decisive little nod. “I think it would be a good thing for you to get out from behind the desk and start meeting people. I see lots of men in my job, successful men, just the sort you need.”
I glanced at the house, unable to keep from smiling to myself. “I appreciate the offer, Diamond, I really do, but I just don’t think that some sexy, urbane man is going to want either this house or me.”
“You don’t know until you try. I’ll tell Dee that you’re going to handle the sale of this house. It’ll do you good, and he won’t make a fuss when I tell him how much you need a man.”
I groaned to myself. That’s all I needed—Dermott knowing how desperate I was for a man in my life. Still, it was a nice offer, and I didn’t want to hurt Diamond’s feelings by turning it down. “I’ll think about it.”
“You’ll do more than think about it—you’ll make this your debut into the fabulous world of real estate. And, of course, man hunting.”
I laughed and pulled my hair back into a ponytail, checking my digital camera to make sure I had enough charge on the battery to take a good four or five dozen pictures. “It’s just a derelict house that’s been tied up in some huge probate battle for decades. It’s hardly going to work miracles either for my career or love life.”
“You’d be surprised what it could do,” she said with a little smile of her perfectly plumped lips.
She glanced at me as we bounced our way to a halt at the side of the monstrous old Victorian house. Once, perhaps, it had been the home of a lumber baron or railroad magnate.... Now it was falling down, its wood weathered and mottled with peeling paint, the windows boarded over, bits of shingles from the roof scattered around the unkempt and overgrown grounds.
“Don’t believe me?” Diamond asked.
“ ’ Fraid not.”
Her blue eyes narrowed on me. “You’re not one of those skeptics, are you? The people who don’t believe in anything supernatural?”
I clamped my lips together to keep from laughing hysterically. Part of me, what my mother used to call my little devil, wanted to tell her that anyone who had a shape-shifting sister married to a vampire could hardly be a skeptic. I squelched my devil and just smiled. “Not particularly, no.”
“Oh, good. I know I should be more tolerant, but really, how people can close their minds to the wonders of the world is beyond me. My great-grandmother once told me that a closed mind would be the death of me, and do you know, she was right? The only time I closed my mind to the possibilities, I died.”
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 wrinkle
d 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! ”
Automatically, I translated the word from Latin to English—halt—and for a second, it seemed as if the world had stopped rotating. Everything seemed to hold its breath. Time just stopped dead as I stared in horrified wonder at the man. A sudden dizziness overtook me as the air in the house was suddenly contracted, then exploded outward with the velocity and volume of a nuclear explosion.
I fell to the ground, my arms around my head, as the walls of the house itself groaned. I was going to die right then and there, without even finding someone to love.
“Damn,” I whispered to my knees, and consigned my soul to heaven.
Chapter Two
Heaven, it seemed, didn’t want me. I realized this when the furious, frightening man stalked past me toward the man with whom I’d collided, the same man who was even now trying desperately to wrench open the front door.
“You dare steal from me!”
The powerful man’s voice was as terrible as a nightmare, shrill and piercing little bits of my soul, making it feel as if it were being ripped from me.
“I would never do anything so heinous, Lord Bael,” the other man said, dropping to his knees in a penitent position when he realized the door wouldn’t open. “It was my master. He covets your tools, not I.”
“Your master is a dead man,” the one named Bael said, his words wrapped in such horrible tones, I didn’t for one minute doubt the veracity of the prophecy. “What is your name?”
“Ulfur, my lord.”
I watched the scene with terrified amazement. Was the powerful man named Bael some sort of a peer? He had a British accent, so maybe he was some visiting dignitary. I wracked my brain trying to remember who owned this house before it got tangled up in probate. Maybe the Bael person was the owner? If that was so, why hadn’t he contacted the agency to let us know he was going to be present for the initial inspection?
“Who is your master?”
“Alphonse de Marco.”
“I do not know this name. Where are my tools?”
“I do not have them, my lord,” Ulfur said, spreading his hands wide. He had a bit of an accent, too, something Scandinavian. Slowly I got to my feet, still clutching my purse and its spilled contents, watching the men warily, my gaze lingering for a minute on the larger of the two. He had short brown hair and a worried-looking face that was more interesting than handsome, and wore a pair of jeans and a dark brown leather jacket. From beneath the back of his jacket, I got a glimpse of something shiny, something bulky.
Clearly Ulfur was lying and up to no good. He’d no doubt taken something from the basement. I glanced down to my hands where the gold-chased stone was clutched with the coins, and amended that to he’d taken something valuable from the basement. It behooved me to tell the owner what Ulfur had done, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak. The English peer was just too . . . wrong. His presence felt bad, like he shouldn’t be there. Almost like he foreshadowed disaster.
“Where are they?”
The volume of his voice dropped, but I felt physical pain at Bael’s words, just as if they were etched with acid.
“I do not know, my lord,” Ulfur said again, his head bowed now. “I know only that my master sent me to find them before the lichmaster Ailwin did so.”
“Ailwin,” Bael snarled, and I heard the rain of glass, as if his very words had smashed the windows nearest us. “That name I do know. Jec
ha!”
My eyeballs just about popped out of my head when, as if by magic, a large, muscular woman suddenly appeared before the peer. “My lord Bael?” she said, bowing low. “What is your pleasure?”
“Ailwin,” Bael said, the word flaying me like a whip. I backed up down the hall, toward what I knew was the kitchen. I didn’t know what was going on, but it brought up all sorts of unpleasant memories from a trip to visit my sister earlier this year, and I’d be damned if I got caught up in something weird again.
I bumped into something that moved, and almost shrieked, wheeling around to see Diamond making shooing gestures toward me. “I did both floors upstairs. Are you done here?”
“Am I . . . no!”
“No?” She frowned. “Oh, for pity’s sake . . . don’t tell me you saw a mouse!”
“No. I saw them.”
“Them who?”
“The people out front. The two men who came up from the basement.”
“What people? Cora, are you teasing me? I told you that this house was empty.”
“Yeah, well, tell that to the basement people.”
“Tch ,” she said, pulling open the basement door. “Let me go down and see for myself.”
“They’re up here now,” I called after her disappearing figure, but she evidently decided to ignore me.
I tiptoed down the hallway until I could see the front doors. Bael was grinding out some horrible instructions about locating and torturing the person named Ailwin, going into sickening detail about what he’d like done.
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