HE WAS SOMEWHERE INTO his second drink when his phone, lying on the kitchen table, rang. It was so unexpected, he nearly jumped out of his chair. He scooped it up, dropped it, and grabbed it again.

“Kiara?” he said into it.

“It’s Melody. I just woke myself in order to tell you, Crenshaw was waiting for her in the basement. It looks to have been a trap. She’s still alive, beat up and locked in that cold room. He’s got her gun. I can’t talk anymore.” The phone went dead.

In gym shorts and T-shirt, Owen slipped on his sneakers and grabbed Mrs. Hultz’s gun. He was in the garage, in the car, and starting it in less than a minute. His heart was pounding as he tried desperately to figure out what to do. He was a librarian, not a vampire assassin like the members of the solar cross. He whispered more curse words in the quick drive than he’d uttered in his entire life. When he got close to the house, he turned off the lights and coasted as quietly as possible behind Kiara’s car. Slipping out of the front seat, he eased the door closed and headed up the street. His respiration was fast and shallow.

He knew there was nothing he could do but blunder in through the basement window and hope the old man might have gone elsewhere. It was pitch black behind the house. Stumbling, and once falling to his knees, he nearly discharged one of his two bullets and lost the element of surprise. After tripping twice, he turned on the flashlight app of his phone. When it first lit the night, it shone on a white figure standing back in the yard amid a semicircle of birch trees, a naked woman with a snake around her waist. The form frightened him and he turned back to the house. He finally found the right window, took a deep breath, and let himself in. He gagged. Melody had been right; it stank like chopped meat gone bad, but on a supernatural level. “God,” he whispered to himself, and put the phone away so as not to give any warning. Lifting the gun, he peered through the dim light to get his bearings.