At the time, of course, all she’d seen was that her band was finally getting a real break—and she wasn’t going to be there to experience it.
Merlin nodded thoughtfully. “I was just wondering…I mean, this is L.A. It’s not as if there isn’t plenty of murder, mayhem and scandal on a purely human level.”
“Merlin, what are you talking about?” she asked wearily.
“You might want to talk to Barrie. There have been a few mysterious deaths lately.”
Something hard seemed to fall to the pit of her stomach. This couldn’t involve her. Not already.
“Mysterious deaths?” she asked.
Merlin nodded. “They haven’t gotten a lot of coverage, because none of them have been on one of those trashy reality shows or even made Hollywood’s D list. These poor people have gone from this world unnoticed and unknown.”
“Like you said—this is L.A.,” Rhiannon said, frowning.
“Well, speak to your cousin, because she’s got contacts who have told her a few things. There have been three similar deaths, and all three corpses were discovered in a similarly advanced state of decay.”
“And?” She whispered the word, as if that could keep her fears from becoming real.
“The cops have been trying to keep the details out of the papers, but someone leaked one important fact,” Merlin told her grimly.
“And that fact is…?” she asked.
He winced. “I’m sorry, Rhiannon. The corpses were almost bone dry, sucked dry of…”
“Of?” she asked, even though in her heart she knew the answer.
“Blood,” Merlin said gravely. “Sucked dry of blood.”
Chapter 2
To a lot of people in L.A., it wasn’t all that late.
But to Rhiannon, after her wretched shift at the café, nothing sounded more welcome than her bed and a pillow.
Still, she knew she wouldn’t sleep if she didn’t try to talk to Barrie, though with any luck Barrie would already be in bed and wouldn’t answer the knock at her door.
To Rhiannon’s dismay, Barrie was up.
A single light was on in Barrie’s living room, where she had been sitting on her sofa and working. Her laptop was sitting on a pile of newspapers and magazines.
Barrie definitely tended to be a workaholic.
She had a good job in her chosen field, but she still wasn’t where she wanted to be in her career. At the moment she mostly got stories that ran under headlines—often handed to her whether she liked them or not—like “West Hollywood Woman Reveals Secret Behind Amazing Weight Loss.”
Barrie was a crusader; she had strong opinions on right and wrong. She wanted to be where the action was. She wanted to get off the crime beat and into issue-based investigative journalism, but her Keeper duties would always have to take precedence, and that was a problem.
Rhiannon sympathized with her. She knew how difficult it was, trying to have a real career and deal with this sudden shift in purpose.
“Hey, I didn’t expect to see you tonight.” Barrie grinned and rolled her eyes. “Merlin, maybe—sometimes he forgets the time. Thought you’d come home exhausted and ready to crash.”
“Am I interrupting?” Rhiannon asked her.
“No. Yes—but it’s all right, honestly.” She sighed. “I’m trying to come up with a story and an angle no one’s thought of yet, so I can take it to my boss and maybe—finally—get a green light.”
“Good luck,” Rhiannon offered.
“So, how did things go at the café tonight?”
“They sucked. Totally sucked. Some actors staged a vampire attack right out front to publicize their play and nearly gave me heart failure—and in all the fuss my tip jar was stolen.”
“You’re right. That sucks. Want a cup of tea?”
“I just had one, but sure,” Rhiannon said.
Barrie led the way into the kitchen.
All three of their houses might have been curio museums, filled as they were with Merlin’s collections from a lifetime of loving magic—and the bizarre. The main house held the bulk of it, because it was so large, with five bedrooms upstairs, a grand living room and a family room that led out to the pool. Tiffany lamps were everywhere, along with Edwardian furniture, and busts and statues, and paintings that covered the walls. Pandora’s Box had a Victorian feel, with rich, almost stuffy furniture, and a collection of sculpted birds, with the largest being a magnificent gesso rendition of Poe’s raven. It also boasted a few of Merlin’s old coin-drop fortune-teller machines.
Gwydion’s Cave, Barrie’s house, was decorated with old peacock fans, marble sideboards and rich wood pieces from the decadent days of the speakeasy. The service she used for tea was Royal Doulton. As she entered the kitchen, Rhiannon caught sight of herself in one of the antique hall mirrors, and though she knew it was distorted by the old glass, her own image troubled her.
She had the shocked look of someone who had stuck a finger in a live socket.
Barrie hummed as she boiled water and then looked at Rhiannon. “Something more happened than what you’re telling me, didn’t it? I always think of you as the go-getter among us. Nothing fazes you. But tonight you look…fazed.”
“What if that attack had been real? Would I actually have been able to do anything to stop it? I guess we didn’t think we’d be handling this kind of thing so quickly,” Rhiannon said.
“None of us did. But it’s not like we had a choice.”
“I know. I just want to play my music, you know? It’s all I’ve ever wanted. I missed my shot with the band, but at least I get to play at the café, you know? And that’s what I was doing when those idiots interrupted.”
“Listen to you, being so whiny.”
“Whiny?” Rhiannon protested indignantly.
“Yes, whiny. ‘Everybody but me gets to play in the band, while I’m stuck in a coffee shop playing for tips.’ Buck up, buttercup.”
“All right, all right, I have been whining. A little bit. But, honestly, I just wish…I wish we’d been a little better prepared. I mean, my dad is in great health. I never thought…”
“You never thought you’d have to be a Keeper until you were old and gray. I know. Neither did I. But here we are. So, what else is bothering you? Because I know there’s something.”
“All right, I came here to tell you, so…one of the actors was an Elven. I saw him when I was closing up my guitar
