He blew a stream of smoke in my face, but extended his left arm. I jabbed a silver needle into the skin and pressed the drop of blood to the test strip. The meter beeped a few seconds later, the screen reading 23.

“Am I clean, boss?” Ted asked with a scowl.

“You’re within normal range.” The green strips were calibrated for Stokerus vamps. Anything under 60 meant Ted was sticking to his nonhuman diet. “The bug-eater who tried to kill me used to be a Porter.”

Ted paused in mid-drag. “They turned a Porter? That’s ballsy.”

“What’s going on, Ted? Why come after us now?”

“Don’t ask me.” He sucked his finger clean, then dipped it into the thermos again for the dog. “If it was up to me, I’d have sent someone to off you years ago.”

I sighed. “And if I’d followed orders, I’d have left your ashes in the bonfire pit at Camp Gichigamin.”

He didn’t answer.

“You’re here because I convinced the Porters you could be useful to us.” I leaned closer. “If you’re going to give me attitude instead of answers, then you’re not useful anymore.”

His attention shifted to the detonator.

“Go ahead, take it. I can make another. Any libriomancer can.”

“All I know is you aren’t the only one with problems,” he said sullenly. “Vampires have been disappearing for a few months now. We figured they’d been dusted, that maybe another idiot was trying to play slayer. It happens every once in a while. They don’t usually last long. But then a few of the missing vampires showed up again and started causing trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?” asked Lena.

“Hunting humans. Fighting and killing other vamps.” Ted chugged the rest of the blood, then licked his lips, leaving a faint residue on his beard and mustache. “That’s nothing new. Every newborn vampire thinks he’s hot shit until someone else pounds the shit right out of him and shows him what’s what, but this is different. One of these upstarts even slew her own sire.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” I said.

“Nah, the way I hear, this was a southerner. They don’t mess with their makers. They can’t.” He lit another cigarette and flicked the first butt into the corner.

“Southerner?” Lena asked.

“Sanguinarius Henricus.” Another relatively young bloodline, one which had arisen from Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire series. “Ted’s right. Harris’ vampires are intrinsically incapable of acting against their masters.”

Ted wouldn’t hesitate to lie to me, but he was a lousy actor. The shotgun, the chain smoking, the twitchiness in his hands . . . everything suggested he was genuinely spooked.

“They say you’re the ones behind this,” Ted commented. “Maybe even old man Gutenberg himself.”

“‘The biggest liar in the world is They Say,’” I muttered. “Douglas Malloch.”

Ted stared. “Who?”

“Never mind. Get dressed, Ted.”