Page 44 of To Catch A Rogue
That earned him a long, slow look. Then she returned her attention to the job. "Do you get the feeling this is too easy?"
Charlie started feeling the lock with the lock pick. "My guess is this is a shell. There's probably a tunnel beneath the house, leading elsewhere."
"Or it's a trap."
"Always the pessimist." The lock popped and Charlie froze.
Nothing moved. No noise came from within.
"Ready?"
"When you are."
* * *
Lark was right.Breaking in was easier than expected.
Charlie slid the window up, and then slipped over the sill. He turned and offered Lark a hand.
Her nose wrinkled. "What's that smell? It stinks like the fish wharves after a hot day in the sun."
Charlie breathed in and instantly regretted it. "It smells like something died in here somewhere."
They shared a look.
"Dead bodies," Lark whispered. "My favorite."
They slipped through the upper story, silently searching rooms. Then they stole downstairs. The smell seemed to be everywhere, as if someone had dragged the body through the entire house.
But why the hell would they—?
Charlie stopped in his tracks in the middle of the foyer as the scent fused with his memories. The heat drained out of his face. "Oh, shit."
"What?" Lark whispered.
A door slammed shut behind them.
Charlie spun around, flipping both razors into his hands. He could hear dozens of doors slamming shut throughout the house, and locks bolting as if the entire house was on some sort of mechanized timer.
"It's not a body," he hissed. "It's avampire."
Heels stalked across the hallway at the top of the stairs, and moonlight glimmered on silvery hair as Dido strode into view. Claws skittered on the timber floors beside her, and Charlie swallowed when he saw what yanked on the leash at her side. He could smell it even from here, the rotten flesh scent almost making him gag.
Dido had a vampire on a leash.
Both of them took a step back.
"What have we here, Ivan?" thedhampirwoman purred. "Trespassers?" She stalked along the upper balcony toward the elegant stairs that curved down to the lower level. "Perhaps... a pair of eavesdroppers listening in where they shouldn't have.... Did you think I would lead you directly toward your precious duke?"
It had been a trap from the start.
Both Balfour and Dido must have known they were in the study.
The vampire hissed as it caught their scent.
"Charlie," Lark whispered in a hoarse voice.
Charlie couldn't take his eyes off the creature. It wasn't the first time the Company of Rogues had faced vampires; when Byrnes and Ingrid were trying to track Zero, the firstdhampirterrorizing London, she'd had several of them on leashes. They'd killed a number of them, but Byrnes had admitted they'd been lucky.
