“I missed you,” I whispered, wanting to weep with longing. “I tried so hard to be strong, but now that you’re here, I . . .”

I . . . actually, I couldn’t remember how he had gotten here. Or why he was here. I also didn’t know where “here” was.

But I didn’t really care. His arms were around me, his hands moving over my body, his tongue stroking and teasing me . . .

I gasped when he shoved me down onto the bed. He followed me down to the mattress, his solid weight deliciously heavy on me, his touch rough and ruthless as he imprisoned my hands over my head and started kissing me with reckless hunger.

“He’s really not the altar boy he pretends to be, is he?”

“What?” I said, startled by the sound of a woman’s voice here in my bedroom—ironic, cold, a little malicious.

“Hmm?” His breath was warm and sweet as he nuzzled me, suddenly gentle again.

“Who said that?” It had sounded so familiar. I’d heard those words before. In exactly that voice. “Who’s here?”

“You remember.” Lopez looked down into my face. Even though it was dark, I could see how blue his thicklashed eyes were. I could see, I realized, because there were flames all around us. Illuminating everything. The bed was on fire!

He murmured softly against my lips, “She killed me.”

“This is dangerous.” I looked around at the burning bed. “We should do something about this. Don’t you want to know what to do?”

“Because of you,” he said. “She killed me because of you. Remember?”

I did remember! I had asked for his help one hot summer night in Harlem, and now he lay near death in a dark ritual space, a secret room consecrated to Evil, where no one would know to look for him.

“I went there for you,” he whispered.

“I know.” I started crying.

“No!” I wailed.

Lopez was standing behind me now, and we were in a long, dark, echoing tunnel underground. Stalactites hung down around us, creating a shimmering upsidedown forest of beautiful, tortuously twisted crystal formations.

“You like it here,” I mused. “I didn’t know that about you.”

He was trying to unlace my Regency gown. “The girl was a ringer for you in this dress. You should take it off.”

I felt him pulling on the fastenings of my gown. I also saw him lying in front of me, on the cold, damp floor of the tunnel. He had been given an ordeal poison and was dying of slow paralysis. Sweat beaded his face. He could barely breathe. He was looking at me, silently imploring me to do something about this.

“I did what I had to!” I said desperately. “You should go now!”

“Let’s get this dress off you first,” he said behind me.

“Am I really in danger?” I asked.

“I wanted to show you this.”

“What?”

Still lying on the floor, his neck was bleeding now. He showed me the fang marks on his jugular vein.

“No, it’s my carotid artery,” he said.

“This is your doing,” his killer said to me. “You have no one to blame but yourself.”

“You’re an evil bitch,” I replied.

“But she got in here, even so,” Lopez whispered, tugging at my gown.

I felt impatient now, wanting him to finish undoing my laces and take off my clothes. To shed the layers between us so we could embrace, naked and uninhibited. I yearned for that. But the more he yanked and tugged and tried to free me, the more knotted and tangled the laces got, and the heavier and thicker the layers of cloth became.

“Maybe I have to wear it,” I said at last. “Maybe this is just how it is.”

“It looks good on you,” he said judiciously.

I looked at the teeth marks on his neck as he lay dying on the filthy floor of the tunnel.

“There’s more to this, isn’t there?” I asked.

“You know the answer to that by now.”

I touched my neck and felt bite marks there. “Yes, I know.”

When I pulled my hand away from my wound, I saw there was blood on my fingers. “Is it safe?”

“Ask them.”

I turned in the direction of his gaze, and I saw a horde of vamparazzi stampeding through the tunnel, coming in this direction. I recognized Daemon among them, dressed as Lord Ruthven. He was surrounded by grinning goth girls and mean-looking guys in black leather. There was also a woman in white body paint, with a low-cut red dress and elaborate red wings. When she smiled, I saw a row of sharp teeth. She was with a guy who had wobbly fangs and a slight drooling problem.

“They think a vampire did it,” Leischneudel said, standing beside me. He looked hollow-eyed and frightened.

“Is it really blood?” Dr. Hal shouted, stampeding with the other vamparazzi. He waved a placard overhead that I couldn’t quite read. “How do you know?”

“I just hate vampires,” Thack said to me.

“Should you be wearing a white suit down here?” I asked, looking at his outfit.

“Don’t be absurd,” he replied. “I never wear white after Labor Day.”

“But—”

“Get her! Get her!” the Janes screamed, racing toward me with maddened expressions.

I gasped in fear and fell back a step, then turned to ask Lopez for help. But I saw him lying there, dying because of me, and I changed my mind. Instead, I turned and ran in the other direction, leading the swarm away from him. But I didn’t know where I was going. I was just staggering around in the dark, my legs heavy and unresponsive, the thick blackness of the tunnels closing in on me.

I tried to shout for help, but my voice didn’t work.

I looked over my shoulder and saw the vamparazzi coming for me, their flashbulbs going off, illuminating the tunnels. In the elusive light of their flashes, I could see an escape route, but my legs wouldn’t move. The Janes were stalking me now, their fangs drooling, blood dripping from their pouty pink mouths.

“Hey, can I get some photos of this?” Al Tarr asked me.

I found my voice. “Go away!”

Tarr pulled out his notebook, poised his pen over it, and asked, “So that’s my rival?”

He nodded toward Lopez, who leaned casually against a tunnel wall nearby, wearing grubby clothing, his hair too long, and in need of a shave. He looked dangerous and sexy.

“What’s he doing here?” the reporter asked, scribbling in his notebook.

“He’s always here,” I said. “You know that.”

“Does he know any good songs?”

“What?”

Tarr shook his head and kept taking notes.

I frowned when I saw that Lopez’s neck was still bleeding.

“What if there really is a vampire lurking around here?” I asked Tarr.

The tabloid writer looked surprised by that. “If there is . . .” He thought it over. “Well, then we gotta get some pictures.”

I shook my head. “I don’t have a camera.”

“Me, neither.” He prodded, “But you know who does, right?”

“Yes.” I looked over at the wall again, but Lopez was gone. I watched a Jane stalking past me and Tarr, her eyes glowing, her fangs dripping. I stood very still, not even breathing, hoping she wouldn’t notice me. After she moved on to another prospective victim, I nodded and said, “I know who has a camera.”

“Can you get it?” Tarr asked.

“Get it?” I repeated.

The sharp ring of the telephone jerked me out of a sound sleep. I flinched, my heart pounding, my brain disoriented and befuddled. I looked around in confusion as I pressed a hand against my thudding chest.

The phone rang again.

I groaned as I rolled over in my bed and glanced at the clock on my nightstand. It was a little after noon. So I’d had almost six hours of sleep. I scrubbed my face with my hands as the phone rang again. Squinting my stinging eyes against the sunlight that was filtering through the blinds on my bedroom window, I picked up the receiver and croaked, “Hello?”

“How did you manage to turn yourself into a suspect ?” Lopez demanded.

Since I had seen him only moments ago in my dreams (where I had done a little more than just look), hearing his voice on my phone confused me. As did his opening salvo.

I said, “Huh?”

“When I left the theater last night, you were a witness and maybe a target. Now you’re also a suspect,” he said in exasperation. “How do you manage these things?”

“Huh?”

He backed up a step. “Are you awake, Esther?”

“I am now,” I said irritably. “I think I liked you better in my dreams.”

“What?”

“Why did you wake me?”

“I didn’t know you’d still be asleep.” After a moment, he added, “Sorry. It probably should have occurred to me. I know they kept you at the theater until nearly five. And I also heard about what happened when you left. How are you?”

I winced as I sat up. “Ow . . . A few aches and pains, that’s for sure. I wonder how many women were in the pile-on?”

“Five were arrested.”

“It seemed like more,” I said wearily, sliding out of bed and stumbling down the hallway. “So you’ve talked to the cops today, I gather?”

“Yeah. Branson and I connected by phone a couple of hours ago. Which is how I know that you’re a suspect now.”

“I don’t understand.” I went into the kitchen to open a bottle of painkillers and pour a glass of water. “How? Why?”

“Funny, that’s what I said.”

“Well?”

“Apparently you made a poor impression on Detective Branson when he interviewed you.”

“Oh, good grief.”

“I’ve only seen a little of your work,” Lopez said. “But I’ve seen enough to know you’re a very good actress.”

“Yeah?” I perked up. “Did you see—”

“So why can’t you at least fake sensitivity and womanly emotion when the situation calls for it?”

“Whoa. Branson thinks that because I’m not distraught over the victim’s death, that means I might have killed her?” I swallowed three painkillers with a gulp of water.

“Something like that,” Lopez said dryly.

“You’re not going to disagree with me when I say he’s an idiot, are you?” I decided that caffeine was the essential chaser for my ibuprofen breakfast.

“Apparently he expected better of you, Esther,” Lopez said solemnly. “But then, he doesn’t know you like I do.”

“Hmph.” I started pouring water into the coffee machine. “Wait a minute. If I’m a suspect, that means ... They still don’t know who the killer is?”

“Right again.”

“Daemon’s not under arrest?” I blurted in surprise. It had seemed like a sure thing last night.

“No. They sent him home a couple of hours ago.”

“Hey! So I still have a job!” That made me feel energized, even without the caffeine.

“Well, for tonight, anyhow.”

I paused while measuring scoops of coffee. “You mean they still might arrest him?”

“If they think they can make a case,” Lopez said. “They can’t right now. But they still like him for this, so they’ll be trying. While also looking at other suspects. Such as—oh, for example—you, now that you’ve alienated Branson.”

“Oh, surely I’m not a serious suspect?” I switched on the coffee machine.

“No, but you did feasibly have a beef against the victim, who attacked you and then went home with your boyfriend.”

I gasped in revulsion. “He’s not my—”

“I know. But that’s one possible interpretation of the murder. And it’s one that Branson’s entertaining, now that you’ve pissed him off.” Lopez added critically, “That wasn’t smart, Esther.”

“Bullshit,” I snapped. “My whereabouts are accounted for. Leischneudel brought me home in the cab waiting for us outside the theater, and he stayed here until nearly four. Then we called for a taxi to come take him home. If Branson doesn’t believe me or Leischneudel, then he can check with the taxi cab company.”

“Oh, he will. But Branson thinks one possibility is that as soon as you were alone, you went back out by yourself—”

“At that time of night?”

“—and you found, confronted, and killed Angeline.”

“I wasn’t homicidally angry about my black eye.” I stretched a little, trying to wake up my stiff muscles. “I just wanted her arrested for assaulting me.”

Lopez said, “His theory relies on a level of ruthlessly effective time-management that I told him definitely doesn’t apply to you.”

“How thoughtful of you to stick up for me,” I said sourly.

“But it’s a theory that does fall within range of the estimated time of death—which is never as conveniently precise as they make it seem on Crime and Punishment.”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” I decided to redirect the conversation. “While you were listening to Branson theorize that I’m a murderer—”

“Okay, look, I told him there was no way—”

“Did you happen to notice anything else, detective?”

“Such as?”

“He never mentioned you being at the theater. Or Hector Sousa. Or a scary-looking guy in desperate need of a barber.”

“Oh. Right.”

“The cops have no idea you were there last night.”

“And I owe that, no doubt, to your shrewdly evasive and cunning conversational skills.”

“Okay, the subject never came up,” I admitted.

“That was going to be my next guess.”

“Things were so bizarre and chaotic when the cops were there—”

“Branson did mention that.”

“—that I don’t think any of the other actors even remembered they’d met you.”

“On the other hand, I think the cops who were there last night will remember for years to come that they’ve met all of you.”

“For all the good it did them. Why can’t they make a case against Daemon?” Realizing from the silence that followed that he was debating whether or not to tell me, I pointed out, “You know that Daemon will tell me if I ask him.”

“So go ask him.”

“But then I’d have to talk to him,” I objected, as the aroma of brewing coffee filled my little kitchen.

He laughed. “All right. That tabloid reporter who follows him everywhere will probably squeeze a lot of this out of him and make it public, anyhow.”

“Count on it. Tarr is persistent.” For no rational reason, I added, “He asked me out.”

“Tarr did?”

“Uh-huh.” I felt my face flush and wished I hadn’t mentioned it.

After an awkward pause, Lopez said, “I guess even tabloid writers get lonely.”

“I don’t like him,” I said quickly. “I turned him down.”

Another pause. A longer one. “Why are you telling me this?”

I really had no idea. Nor could I have explained why I asked, “Have you gone out with anyone? You know, since . . .”

“Adele Olson was seen leaving Daemon’s loft,” he said, retreating safely into cop mode. “Alive and alone, healthy and on her own two feet.”

I was embarrassed and appalled at my own behavior. The last thing I wanted was for Lopez to think I was playing games with him. Which was probably exactly what he did think now.

Fortunately, his information was surprising enough to distract me from my mortification. “She was seen leaving his place? Who sees someone at that time of night?”

“There were still some people on the streets. It was barely thirty minutes after she attacked you.”

I snorted involuntarily. “That was fast.”

I heard his puff of laughter and felt relieved that we were getting back on an even keel, as if my odd little outburst hadn’t just happened.

“I gather that Angeline turned out to be too crazy even for Daemon’s taste,” Lopez said. “He insists nothing happened between them.”

“They didn’t sleep together?” I said in surprise.

“He says no. Which happens to be consistent with the medical examiner’s findings,” he said. “Meanwhile, a thorough—very thorough—investigation of Daemon’s loft hasn’t yet uncovered any evidence to contradict his story.”

“What is his story?” I asked. “He just gave her a lift somewhere?”

“No—though he did give one to your friend, Al Tarr.”

“He’s not my fr—”

“After leaving the theater that night, Daemon’s car swung by the Exposé’s offices on Houston Street to drop off the reporter.”

The fact that Daemon had given Tarr a lift somewhere made more sense, I realized, than my vague assumption at the time, which was that Tarr was accompanying Daemon and his groupie home, and would watch TV or something in the living room while they ... I stopped there, realizing these were mental images I didn’t want to pursue now any more than I had on the night I’d seen the threesome drive away from the theater.

I poured myself a cup of coffee and asked, “Tarr went to work at three in the morning?”

“Sleaze never sleeps,” Lopez said dryly. “The tabloid is a twenty-four-hour-a-day operation. So Tarr checked in, did some work, then slept there. I guess they have a few cots on the premises, in case a hot new scandal—like this murder case, I suppose—requires their crack journalists to be on hand around the clock.”

“If Tarr makes a habit of sleeping at work, it certainly explains a lot about his appearance.”

“Doesn’t he shave, either?”

“Then Daemon went home?” I prodded, steering the conversation back on track.

The ride to Daemon’s Soho loft took only a few additional minutes, especially at that time of night. He dismissed the driver, then took Angeline inside with him. Within a few minutes of entering Daemon’s home, she damaged a twelve thousand dollar glass sculpture. She sulked about his distressed reaction to the incident, then got angry when she couldn’t drag his attention away from the damage.

“Apparently this sculpture wasn’t just something an interior decorator had picked out for him,” Lopez said. “Daemon described himself to the investigating officers as a serious art collector.”

“So vampirism isn’t his only pretension?” I sipped my coffee.

If Angeline’s casual destruction of a treasured work of art hadn’t already switched off his libido, then (as Daemon later told the cops) the tantrum that followed certainly would have done so. Just wanting to get rid of the girl now, he told her he wasn’t in the mood for company anymore and asked her to leave. She was insulted and offended, ridiculed him, and threatened to expose him as sexually impotent and incapable.

“But apparently he’s slept with so many women that he had no concern this would be taken seriously. Or, at least, that’s his story, and he’s sticking to it,” Lopez said. “And he got rid of her after a few more minutes. With some shouting and foul language, but without any violence—well, except for a little more damage that she did to his sculpture before leaving.”

That was the last he saw of her, according to Daemon. Investigation of his home revealed that the sculpture was indeed damaged, and Angeline’s fingerprints could be found on a few things in the living room, which is where she had spent her entire brief visit. So far, the police had found no evidence that she’d ever entered any other portion of the dwelling. Nor were there any signs of violence apart from the broken items accounted for in Daemon’s story (the sculpture and also the glass Angeline had been drinking from).

Two witnesses had already been found who saw her alive after that, when she left Daemon’s building and then walked up West Broadway. It was late; but it was a Friday, and a few people were coming home from nights out on the town. And apparently a woman on the street in a Regency gown was memorable, even on Halloween weekend in New York City.

“But no one knows yet what happened after that,” Lopez said. “One possibility, of course, is that Daemon followed her.”

“But he had just thrown her out,” I said, pouring a second cup of coffee.

“Maybe he’s lying. Maybe she walked out, for whatever reason. Then he followed her, trying to get her to come back, and things got ugly. Or maybe he did throw her out, but then he felt uneasy about her threats to expose and embarrass him, so he decided to go after her.” After a moment, he added pensively, “If so, though, he didn’t take her back to his place.”

“How do you know?”

“Even if Daemon spent hours cleaning and scrubbing his loft—which somehow strikes me as even less likely than his being a vampire—forensics would have found something if he had committed the murder there. There’s a lot of blood in the human body.” I heard a touch of frustration in his voice as he continued, “It happened somewhere else. I’m sure of it. And finding out where would be a big step forward.”

“You really don’t think Daemon’s the killer.” I could tell from his tone.

“No, I really don’t,” he admitted. “But it’s not my case.”

“It’s connected to your case,” I protested. “It’s probably the same killer.”

“Maybe.”

“Oh, come on. Exsanguinated murder victims found under—”

“Maybe,” he repeated firmly. “I’m about to head over to Manhattan South to read their reports, review Daemon’s interview, and examine their evidence. And I’ll see what I think then.” He added, “No one has more fun on a sunny Sunday than I do.”

“Did you go to Mass today?” I asked.

“What are you, my mother?”

“There’s no need to be insulting,” I said. “It was a friendly question.”

“Well, yes. That’s where I was before I called you.”

He waited, apparently expecting me to comment. I didn’t. I gathered from things he’d said in the past that his parents were fairly religious Catholics, and I knew from our . . . friendship that he attended Mass regularly. (And that his mother nagged him if he didn’t.) By contrast, I was a secular Jew who only went to Temple twice a year, at most (and only if my mother really nagged me). I probably shouldn’t be interested in his private spiritual convictions, given that I was trying to exorcise my fascination with him, but I was curious about just how religious he was and how much his faith affected his worldview.

I was also aware of the irony that, of the two of us, I was the one who believed in various mystical phenomena (with good reason), while he, who attended the Eucharist each week, was the steadfast skeptic.

Deciding I should stick to the business at hand, I dropped that topic and said, “I assume you’ve got an alternative theory about who the killer is?”

“I’ve got a few,” he said. “But I try not to fall in love with a theory when I don’t have any evidence to support it.”

“You think that’s what they’re doing,” I pounced. “You think the cops investigating Angeline’s death are so in love with their theory that the celebrity vampire killed her, they’re not even—”

“Don’t,” he said. “Branson’s already mad at you.”

“Oh, Branson’s a—”

“Let’s not make him mad at me, too.”

“But if the cops are overlooking—”

“Stop,” he said.

“They could miss—”

“Don’t you want to know about the blood?”

“What blood?” I asked blankly.

“That was the first thing I meant to tell you when I called.”

I recognized what he was doing. “Don’t change the sub—”

“The blood you drank,” he prodded. “Thinking it was—God help us—Nocturne wine cooler.”

“That blood? Oh!” Actually, I did want to know. “Yes! What about it?”

“Well, it’s definitely human.”

“Ugh.” My hand reflexively covered my mouth. “I think I spat most of it out. Maybe all of it . . .”

“And there’s nothing wrong with it. I mean, it’s healthy. You’re absolutely fine.”

“Oh, good,” I said with relief. “Er, I guess it’s not ... not . . .”

“The murder victim’s blood? No.” I could hear amusement entering his voice. “But it does belong to someone you know. Someone who, you’ll be pleased to learn, eats lean proteins and whole grains, has never smoked, and takes a multivitamin every day.”

“Who?”

“I’ve really been looking forward to telling you this . . .”

“Well?”

“It’s Daemon’s own blood.”

“You’re kidding!”

“No, I couldn’t make up something this good.”

“He extracts and bottles his own blood?” I said incredulously.

“And then pretends he got it from sexual partners in, er, unconventional practices.”

“I wish I could see your face right now,” he said.

“It’s contorted with amazement.”

“Apparently he’s been doing this for years.” Lopez was laughing as he said, “Daemon increased his, uh, production of snack food in preparation for having Tarr living in his pocket. He evidently thought that sheer quantity would convince the Exposé that his act is for real. Or something.”

“Maybe that’s why he looks so pale.” I had thought the actor had naturally dramatic coloring, but perhaps he instead had an iron deficiency due to frequent phlebotomy. “What do you call blood play if you only do it with yourself?”

“I don’t know. I’m wondering if it can make you go blind or grow hair on your palms.”

“So, with women, Daemon just, uh, does standard stuff?”

“I’m not sure anyone had a strong enough stomach to ask him for specifics about that. But whatever else he may or may not do, he doesn’t drink any blood other than his own.” Laughing again, Lopez added, “And he only drinks his own when he can’t get away with substituting Nocturne.”

“Talk about dedication to building an image,” I said in amazement. “He couldn’t just study acting and audition for roles, like the rest of us?”

“Hey, his masquerade got him a nice loft in Soho, a chauffeur-driven limo, some starring roles, and lots of tail.”

“Well, when you put it that way ... I wonder what sort of exotic, commercially viable creature I could pass myself off as?”

“I think you’re an exotic, commercially viable creature just the way you are.”

I cradled the phone against me ear and smiled. “Thank you.”

“What I’ve just told you is confidential, by the way.”

“Yeah, I guess so, considering how much trouble Daemon went to in order to convince the world that he habitually drinks blood and has ‘vampire sex.’ ”

“And what you and I talked about last night still goes,” Lopez said seriously. “Stay away from him.”

“But you don’t think he’s the murderer,” I argued.

“No, but that’s my opinion, not an established fact. And a bunch of homicide cops do still think he’s the killer.”

“What do they—”

“Daemon says he went to bed alone after Angeline left, and he didn’t see or speak to anyone until his personal assistant showed up around noon. That’s at least eight hours without an alibi. So the cops will be looking for proof that he’s lying and that he wasn’t innocently at home in bed for the rest of the night.”

“Instead of doing that, they should be looking for the real killer,” I said.

“They’re doing both.” Lopez sounded a little cranky. “Even if the investigating officers weren’t a little too in love with their current theory, they’d have an obligation to follow up on a suspect’s statement—especially a suspect who doesn’t have an alibi for the estimated time of the crime. That’s part of a cop’s job, Esther. Because, shocking as this may sound, suspects lie to the police. All of the time.”

“Ah. I see your point.”

“In that case, I should mark this date on my calendar,” he grumbled. “Sunday, November third, the day you saw my point about something.”

“I don’t think you got enough sleep last night,” I said.

“Until the cops on the case are absolutely sure about Daemon,” he said firmly, “I want you to view him as dangerous and treat him with sensible caution.”

I wondered how much higher ticket prices would go when the tabloids, fans, and scalpers all realized that Daemon, having been released without being arrested, was still under intense police scrutiny.

“And, as you may remember,” Lopez continued,“I didn’t get enough sleep last night because of a different theory. One which is, if anything, even more plausible today: The killer may be someone obsessed enough with Daemon to kill a woman who seems to be the object of his interest.”

Nearly being smothered beneath a pile of lust-crazed Janes ensured that I was taking that theory very seriously, too.

“That’s another good point,” I said encouragingly. “You’re doing very well.”

“Thank you so much.”

“Note how I am taking the high road and ignoring your tone.”

“Uh-huh.”

Thinking of last night’s attack made me realize that if I was going to do a show today, I should probably assess the damage to my appearance. Carrying my coffee cup, I went into my bathroom while I listened to Lopez reiterate the safety rules he wanted me to follow until the killer was in custody.

As soon as I saw my reflection in the mirror above my sink, I sucked in my breath on a horrified gasp.

“What’s wrong? Esther!”

Hearing the sudden alarm in his voice, I realized just how worried about my safety he really was. I said quickly, “Sorry. I’m fine. It’s nothing. Well . . .” I grimaced. “Not nothing. I just looked at myself in the mirror.”

“Oh.” His sigh of relief was clearly audible over the phone. “Did you grow fangs overnight or something?”

“It’s going to take a lot of effort for me to look presentable enough to do a show today.”

My black eye—Angeline’s legacy to me—felt better today, but it looked much worse, an ugly blossom of black, purple, and sickly yellow. There was a swath of stinging mottled red across my cheek, an abrasion made by someone shoving my face into the pavement last night. My complexion was ghastly pale with fatigue, and there were dark circles under my eyes.

“How’s your neck?” Lopez asked.

I pushed aside my sleep-snarled hair and took a good look in the mirror. “I think there’s an old Star Trek episode where people on an alien planet are dying of mysterious welts that look just like this one.”

“Let’s pause a moment to enjoy the fact that the guy who did that to you has just spent hours being questioned by over-tired cops who think he’s a murderer.”

Leaning closer to the mirror, I used my fingertips to gingerly explore the inflamed flesh, which was various shades of pink and blue, speckled with angry little puce dots. I said in appalled wonder, “You know, if he did have fangs, like a real vampire, this would be a serious wound. I’d probably be in the hospital now.”

“A real vampire?” Lopez repeated.

“You know what I mean.”

“No. I don’t. And we’ll have to leave it that way, since I need to go to work now.” He ended the call by saying vaguely that he’d be in touch again, then he hung up.

I held the phone against my chest for a moment, filled with mixed emotions. Then I went back into the bedroom, put the receiver into its cradle, and pulled my cell phone out of my tote bag to check for messages.

As expected, Bill had recently sent a text message notifying everyone that the show would go on and advising us to be at the theater at the usual time for a Sunday performance. The Vampyre bowed to tradition in that respect, keeping early hours this one day of the week. Our 5:00 P.M. start, though later than most other matinees, ensured that there were still plenty of restaurants serving dinner and trains running to the suburbs when our Sunday performance ended.

Bill had sent an additional text message to me. It said that Fiona wanted to speak to me about a stain on my costume. I deleted the message and wondered how good my chances were of avoiding the wardrobe mistress completely again today.

I took off my nightgown and put on my terrycloth robe, intending to go take a shower, when the land line rang again. My caller was Thack.

“I’ve read the news,” he said. “So I wasn’t sure whether I would still have to—er, would still be able to see The Vampyre today.”

I explained the latest development and assured him the curtain would indeed rise.

He prodded, “So Daemon Ravel has been questioned by the police in connection with murder?”

“Yes.” I assumed that most of the facts (as well as plenty of fabrications) were all over the Internet by now. So I said candidly, “The cops questioned everyone at the theater, but they were particularly interested in Daemon. They seemed to consider him a suspect.”

However, my candor stopped short of telling Thack that I was both a peripheral suspect and a potential target in this case. My agent was prone to overreaction, and I saw no productive purpose in mentioning those looming clouds to the man whose job it was to think optimistically about my future.

“Well, I certainly hope all those groupies whose adulation keeps Daemon Ravel employed are paying attention. This is what happens when you go around posing as a vampire,” Thack said censoriously. “Pretending to be an undead creature of the night. Wearing fangs and capes. Claiming to suck blood from the necks of virgins and—”

“I don’t think virgins are a key element in Daemon’s schtick.”

“Nothing good comes of playing with these appalling stereotypes. And I hope this will be a lesson to Mr. Ravel.”

“I don’t know, Thack.” I thought of Lopez’s recent enumeration of the professional and personal benefits Daemon enjoyed as a result of his masquerade. “He may view a scandal like this as just the cost of doing business.”

“When the music stops, the band has to be paid, Esther. The only respectable thing Daemon Ravel can do, now that he’s involved in a murder, is express public contrition over his revoltingly clichéd behavior and retire into quiet obscurity.” Perhaps remembering then that our show still had two weeks left to run, he added, “Er, after The Vampyre closes, of course.”

“Of course.” Since it was clear that Thack could easily be pushed over the edge into a lengthy rampage, I also decided not to mention that I’d been physically attacked by some of Daemon’s fans—including the murder victim. “I have to go, Thack. I’ll see you backstage after the show?”

“Yes. And if I have any appetite left after sitting through this play, I’ll take you to dinner.”

As soon as I hung up, I realized that I had forgotten to reserve Daemon’s VIP seats for tonight, so I called the box office and did it now.

“Yes, Daemon and I discussed it, and Victor was going to phone you to authorize it,” I lied cheerfully to the staffer who took my call. “You’re saying Victor hasn’t called? Really? Hmm. Do you think that his employer being questioned by the police on suspicion of murder could be why he forgot?”

I got the seats.

Next, I called Leischneudel.

At my request, he and the cops who’d driven us home before dawn had searched my apartment when they dropped me off. Though exhausted, I was following through on my promise to Lopez to take safety precautions. And given that I had just received news of the murder and been attacked outside the stage door, the cops seemed to consider my anxiety normal and my request reasonable. Leischneudel had offered to spend the night here, but I declined. I felt a little guilty about sending him home alone, knowing that Mary Ann wasn’t visiting him this weekend and Mimi was at the vet’s; and I sincerely appreciated his heroic struggle to protect me from the maddened Janes. But he was so overwrought with nerves and tension, he was making me jumpy, and I just felt too wrung out by then to cope with him bouncing off the walls of my apartment for the next few hours.

“Did you get any sleep after you got home?” I asked him now.

“Not really.” His voice sounded a little raspy over the phone, which was unusual for him and obviously a sign of his fatigue. “I was too wired, after everything. So I finally gave up, got out of bed, and called Mary Ann. Luckily, I caught her before she went to the library this morning. She’s working on a backbreaking research paper.”

His almost-fiancée was a graduate student, on a full scholarship, with a 4.0 GPA. Leischneudel was very proud of her.

“Is that why she hasn’t visited lately?” I asked. “Too much work?” Leischneudel had mentioned that Mary Ann had a heavy course load this semester.

“Yes. I haven’t seen her in three weeks. We talk almost every day, of course, but it’s not the same thing.” He sighed. “It was going to be hard for her to get away this weekend, because of this paper she’s working on. And I knew we’d be doing additional performances here for Halloween weekend, so I wouldn’t be able to spend much time with her, anyhow . . .” He made a rueful sound. “The way this weekend has turned out, I can’t decide if I’m glad for her sake that she stayed home, or sorry for my sake that she’s not here with me.”

“I know the feeling,” I said morosely.

“Anyhow, I’m glad I called her. Because, of course, when I told her everything that’s happened, Mary Ann knew exactly what I should do.”

“Oh?”

“Bring Mimi home!”

I smiled. “Of course.”

“So I went and picked her up a little while ago.”

“How is she?”

“She’s a lot . . .” He cleared his throat, and his voice started to sound more normal as he continued, “A lot better today. But temperamental about taking the medication they sent home with us.”

“Ah, but a man who fought off lunatic Janes last night can certainly confront one small cat today.”

“She has claws and fangs,” he pointed out.

“Fair point. And speaking of fangs, the cops let Daemon go.”

“I know. I saw Bill’s message.” Leischneudel said hesitantly, as if broaching a shocking subject, “I really don’t think he’s a vampire, you know. Daemon, I mean. Not Bill.”

“Well, I admit to a moment of terrifying belief in the Vampire Ravel when he was gnawing on my neck onstage last . . .”

“He should not have done that! That was so wrong.” Despite everything else that had happened since then, Leischneudel was obviously still shocked by that solecism.

“But otherwise,” I said, “yeah, I know he’s not a vampire.”

“And I really don’t think he could have killed that girl,” Leischneudel said pensively. “Not the way ... the way it was done.”

“No, I don’t believe he did it. And now we know he hasn’t been arrested for it.” Well, not yet, anyhow.

“After all that’s happened, can you do the show today?” Leischneudel asked with concern. “Will you be all right?”

“Yes,” I said firmly. “I’ll need to put antibiotic ointment on my abrasions, and slather pain-relieving liniment all over my aching body, and possibly get a rabies shot for the bite on my neck. As well as put a vat of stage makeup on my face. But I’ll be okay. And the show must go on.”

“There’s something you should probably know.”

I was surprised by how tentative his voice sounded. “Yes?”

“There are pictures of you on the Internet today. Photos. From last night—or very early this morning, I guess.”

I had a sudden memory of flashbulbs going off in my face. Both in reality and in my dreams, casting light in the darkness . . .

Leischneudel said, “They’re not the most flattering photos ever taken of you.”

“No, I suppose not,” I said absently. I hadn’t been at my best by 5:00 A.M., even before being physically assaulted.

Flashes of light illuminating the way . . .

What if there really was a vampire preying on people ?

“Pictures,” I murmured. What did that mean?

“I can hardly recognize you in some of them,” Leischneudel said, “and I know you, after all.”

Lopez had two victims, maybe three. Angeline was probably number four. All exsanguinated and left in underground locations.

Daemon’s involvement as a suspect ensured that Angeline’s murder would be complicated to prosecute successfully—impossible, perhaps, if the police took so much as a single misstep. Of course Lopez was being cautious and thorough. He had to be. It was his duty.

But I knew someone every bit as capable and dedicated as Lopez who didn’t share the constraints of his world.

Photos. Pictures. A clear image to analyze.

Yes, I thought with relief, I knew who could give me some clarity on the big picture here.

“So I’ll come by for you a little before four o’clock?” Leischneudel said.

“No,” I replied. “I won’t be here. We’ll have to go to the theater separately today.”

This suggestion met with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. “Separately?”

“It’ll be okay.” Trying to sound confident, I said, “All things considered, I’m sure there will be plenty of policemen on crowd control today.”

“But where will you be? I could meet you somewhere, and then we could—”

“I’m not quite sure where I’ll be,” I lied, not wanting to bring Leischneudel along while I asked a 350-year-old mage about vampires. “And I don’t want to make you late for work, if I’m running behind schedule.”

“Esther, are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I just have to go see a man about a camera.”