Page 18 of Ophelia's Vampire

If I were in a better mood, maybe I could enjoy it. But even the bright sunny day can’t to anything to dispel the clouds that have been hanging over me for weeks.

Sixweeks. Six weeks of no answers and barely any progress.

Things in the city have been quiet, at least when it comes to the covens or any rogue vamps causing trouble. There have been no leads, no arrests. Nothing but speculation and rumor.

And even with the contacts I’ve spoken to—the former friends and acquaintances, and the leads Cleo’s sent me—I haven’t been able to dig up a single thing that’s been helpful in getting closer to the truth of it all.

Absently thumbing through a stack of records near the front windows, I keep my eyes trained on the coffee shop across the street, waiting for the familiar face I’m hoping is about to show any minute now.

It’s the most action I’ve seen on the case in weeks, enough to snap all my instincts back into high-gear.

I’ve taken a couple other minor jobs while I’ve been here to break up the tedium and frustration of getting nowhere with the Bureau’s investigation, but none of them have been much of a challenge.

A banking vice president who wanted proof her ad exec husband was cheating on her with the head of his creative department. A bit of work for a partner at a law firm who wanted to prove one of her lead attorneys was secretly meeting with opposing council on a big tech merger case. Easy, garden-variety work I could do with half a brain and one eye closed. People aren’t nearly as clever as they think they are, and downright careless in covering their tracks.

Well, most people. With the notable exception being whoever’s behind these supposed attacks.

Cleo’s already broached the topic of calling me off the assignment, but I haven’t given up, not yet.

There’s something here. I can feel it in my bones.

I don’t know if they’re instincts I was born with, or simply ones that have been shaped through my years on the job, but they’re screaming at me now. In every dead end I hit, there’s a prickling at the back of my neck, a roiling in my gut that’s never steered me wrong before.

The three attacks that kicked off this whole investigation happened in quick succession. Three victims in the space of a week, all reporting the same thing. Theverysame thing, in a way that’s almost too perfect to be entirely believable.

The dead of night. A quiet, secluded spot. A vampire.

No description given, the attacks happening too quickly for the victims to get a good look at the perp.

Or so it’s been reported.

The news coverage dried up in the past couple of weeks as the cases have gone from hot on the public’s mind to lukewarm to nearing cold as no fresh developments have come out.

Still, I was sent here to do a job, and I’m done spinning my wheels. I wantsomething, some answers for Cleo, anything other than the radio silence I’ve been met with so far.

And today that means talking to Cassandra.

Since I’ve been in Boston, Cassandra’s been ignoring my calls and taking days to answer my texts, always with a ready excuse why she’s unable to meet up. She’s avoiding me, and that’s fine.

Because today I’m coming to her.

Her schedule’s taken me two weeks to get down, and there’s still not much consistency in it. If she works, I have no idea what she does, other than it seems to involve a lot of appointments in coven-owned high rises and private estates in some of Boston’s wealthiest neighborhoods.

And a coffee habit, apparently.

From my vantage point in the record shop, I watch as she approaches the front door of a bougie little coffee place. I hold myself back as she orders and takes a seat at a table near the front of the shop.

Then I’m moving. Across the street, into the shop, the bells over the door jangling lightly when I step inside.

Cassandra sits facing the front door, and her eyes widen when she spots me. She half-rises, but whether because I move too fast or she’s not interested in making a scene, she sinks back down into her chair as I reach her table.

“Hey Andie,” I say, reaching for the nickname she sometimes went by when we were in school.

It might have been a mistake.

Her brow furrows and she crosses her arms over her chest. “Phee. Didn’t expect to see you here.”

I fight a flinch and take a mental note. She knows, or at least she used to know, how much I hated going by ‘Phee.’

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