Upstairs we found more red velvet wallpaper, more paintings of questionable artistic merit, more S&M-themed knickknacks, and no John. There were four bedrooms. Two were furnished as sleeping quarters, but seemed to be used only as dressing rooms. The third could best be described as a museum of vampire-fetish, and is best left undescribed in further detail. The fourth door was locked.

“This must be his,” I whispered to Cassandra. “Either that, or the stuff in here is even worse than the stuff in the last room.”

“I doubt that’s possible.” Cassandra’s gaze darted toward the fetish room. “Perhaps, though, I should wait in the hall. In case John returns.”

I grinned. “Good plan.”

I cast a simple unlock spell, assuming it was a normal interior door lock, the type that could be sprung with a hairpin. When that failed, I moved to my next stronger spell, then to the strongest. Finally, the door opened.

“Damn,” I murmured. “Whatever he’s got in here, he really doesn’t want anyone to see.”

I eased open the door, guided my light-ball around the corner, and found myself looking into…an office. An ordinary, modern home office, with gray carpet, painted blue walls, fluorescent lighting, a metal desk, two computers, and a fax machine. A whiteboard on the far wall held John’s to-do list: pick up dry-cleaning, pay property taxes, renew cleaning contract, hire new dishwasher. Not a single mention of sucking blood, raping the local virgins, or turning his neighbors into undead fiends. No wonder John didn’t want anyone coming in here. One glance through that door and all his image-building would be for naught.

I stepped out and closed the door behind me.

“You don’t want to go in there,” I said.

“Bad?”

“The worst.” I looked along the hall. “So he’s not here, and it doesn’t look like he’s slept up here in a while. So where does a culturally faithful vamp sleep? You didn’t see a mausoleum out back, did you?”

“Thank God, no. He seems to have had the sense to draw the line at that.”

“Probably because he couldn’t get the building permit. Okay, well…” I looked at her. “Help me out here. I’m not vamp-stereotype savvy.”

She paused, as if it pained her to answer, then sighed. “The basement.”

We stood in the center of the basement. My light-ball hung over the only object in the room, a massive, gleaming, ebony black, silver-trimmed coffin.

“Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, huh?” I said. “At least it’s not a mausoleum.”

“He’s sleeping in a box, Paige. It doesn’t get any worse than that. A mausoleum, at least you could fix up, add some skylights, perhaps a nice feather bed with Egyptiancotton sheets…”

“He might have Egyptian cotton sheets in there,” I said. “Oh, and you know, it might not be as bad as you think. Maybe he doesn’t sleep in there. Maybe it’s just for sex.”

Cassandra fixed me with a look. “Thank you, Paige. If those pictures upstairs weren’t enough to taint my sex life for weeks, that image will certainly do it.”

“Well, at least we know he’s not having sex in there right now. I think it’d need to be propped open for that. So what’s the proper etiquette for rousing a vamp from his coffin? Should we knock first?”

Cassandra grabbed the side of the coffin and was about to swing it open when her head jerked up.

“Paige—!” she called.

That was all I heard before a body struck mine. As I pitched forward, pain shot through my torn stomach muscles. I twisted and caught a glimpse of a naked thigh and a swirl of long, blond hair. Then a hand grabbed me from behind and a head plunged toward my neck.

I reacted on instinct, not with a spell, but with a move from a barely remembered self-defense class. My elbow shot up into my attacker’s chest and my other hand slammed, palm first, into the nose.

A shriek of pain and my attacker stumbled back. I scuttled around, binding spell at the ready, and saw Brigid huddled on the floor, naked, cupping her nose.

“You bitch! I think you broke my nose.”

“Stop whining,” Cassandra said, reaching down to help me up. “It’ll heal in the time it takes you to get dressed.” She shook her head. “Two vampires laid low in two days by a twenty-two-year-old witch. I am embarrassed for my race.”

I could have pointed out that I was twenty-three, but it wouldn’t have had the same alliteration. At least Cassandra had some vague idea of my age. Most times she was doing well if she bothered to remember names.

Behind us, the coffin creaked open.

“What the hell is—” John grumbled, yanking a sleep mask from his eyes. “Cassandra?” He groaned. “What did I do now?”

“They broke in, Hans,” Brigid said. “They were prowling around, looking at everything—”

“We weren’t prowling,” Cassandra said. “And we were trying very hard not to look at anything. Now get out of that coffin, John. I can’t speak to you when you’re in that thing.”

He sighed, grabbed both sides and pushed himself up. Unlike Brigid, he was, thankfully, not naked, or I’d have been unable to resist vocalizing comparisons with the statues out front. Though John was shirtless, he wore a pair of billowing black silk pants, cinched at the waist. I assumed they were supposed to look debonair, but I was having serious MC Hammer flashbacks.