“Where the hell is Angie? The glamour’s not going to hold much longer if she doesn’t get her ass back to the circle,” an agitated male voice warned.

“She’ll come back,” a calmer female replied. “She’s probably checking on the guy.”

The guy. That could only mean Cyrus. My heart pounded wildly in my chest. That someone else acknowledged his presence made my job suddenly too real.

“If she’s not back in five minutes, I’m going after her,” the male vampire declared. His footsteps thundered closer to the door than I found comfortable.

I backed away, glancing around for some way to secure the doors from the outside. A row of chairs was lined up waiting-room style beside a rack of pamphlets about natural family planning and how to pray the rosary. I grabbed the nearest chair and lifted it off the floor so its legs wouldn’t make a sound. With held breath, I eased the flat back beneath the door handles and slid it up until the rear legs were wedged against the carpet. It wouldn’t hold them indefinitely, but it would give them some trouble, if I was lucky.

Down the hall a little way I found another door. This one was plain wood, with rough edges and a flimsy doorknob. I tried the handle and found it unlocked.

Does no one care about security these days?

A set of stairs led down into a dark basement that, at first glance, appeared to be empty. My foot was on the second step when the rhythmic creak of bedsprings stopped me.

A woman gasped and a man groaned in the darkness. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I recognized that male sound.

I guess Angie was “checking” on him, after all. Unexpected jealousy burned in my stomach. I blamed it on the sputtering blood tie between us, and the fact I hadn’t exactly planned to walk in on him mid-coitus.

I flattened myself against the wall, praying I was out of sight of the bed, wherever that was. Charging down the steps and starting a fight would only get me killed, especially considering this Angie person apparently had something to do with the spell cloaking the place. I’d had plenty of run-ins with witches—well, at least one—and I didn’t feel like taking my chances with another.

It seemed like forever before they were finished, probably because of the awkwardness and embarrassment of the situation. I started to wonder how much time had passed, and if the vampires upstairs would come looking for Angie. I hadn’t heard any pounding on the doors yet, but I might have mistaken it for the pounding of the bed against the floor. They were really going for it downstairs.

Finally, their ecstatic noises ceased, and the bed creaked as Angie climbed from it. “I’ll be in the bathroom.”