“Joe, old son,” I said aloud to myself, “you need to go the hell back to Baltimore. You need to take in an Orioles game, get drunk. Maybe get laid. Either way, you need to get your ass out of this freak show of a country.”

How do you process something like this? I mean … these guys were actual vampire hunters. Or, to rephrase that, these total whack jobs were taking their shared delusion to an impressive level.

I found a second leather valise in the dining room. It was crammed with more stakes, pouches of garlic powder, jars of pure garlic oil, and bottles of water marked with a black cross. I opened the lid and sniffed. Far as I could tell it was only water. I looked at the cross again and then back to the babbling guy on the floor.

Holy water? I wondered. Well, why not? What the hell else would it be on a day like this? These jokers had the whole official vampire hunter kit.

Okay, I thought, lots of fruitcakes in the world. People’s beliefs are their own, yada yada.

But why did they think I was a vampire?

Because they think you’re a Red Knight, muttered my inner Cop. I thought about the knight. The eyes, the incredible speed and strength. The fangs.

I will rip your throat out and drink your life.

I’ll buy a lot of weird shit. I mean, my job kind of depends on a belief in weird, but I’ll only walk out onto that ledge as far as science will stretch. I’ll do mad scientists and radical gene therapy. Been there, done that.

But … vampires?

“No fucking way,” I said aloud. The echo of my words came back to sting me.

I didn’t even know where to go with that speculation. I’m hunting rogue nukes in Iran. These guys are European vampire hunters. There’s no couch for both of those things to sit side-by-side on.

“Shut up and check the house,” I told myself.

The kitchen was empty, and I saw only two cars parked outside. No guards with them, but then I hadn’t expected any. I’d check those later. There was no basement. When I came back into the living room I saw the guy with the leg wound slumped over and for a moment I thought he was dead, but I found a pulse in his throat. He’d simply passed out. Whether from blood loss, shock, or fear I couldn’t tell and didn’t much care.

At the foot of the stairs I stopped and cocked my head to listen. I was pretty sure that there was no one else here, but “pretty sure” is a damn poor excuse for certain knowledge. So I left Ghost in the hall, pulled the gun, and ran the stairs.

I found Taraneh and Arastoo Mouradipour in the bedroom.