Daphne and I both scream a little, and she shakes all over like she’s trying to get spiders off of her. “What the hell, Auggie? Why isn’t that terrifying thing buried in a lead box, or trapped in a ring of salt? Your grandma seriously used to play with it?”

In the creepiest voice I can dredge up from the bottom of my throat, I intone, “Or perhaps the doll was playing with her!”

Daphne screams again, and then laughs, and finally points at Ximena’s front door. “All right, get out. Go have dinner—and text your mom so she knows you’re not dead.”

“Will do, boss.” I give her a sharp salute, but before I open the door, I say, “And, um, thanks. It’s nice having someone to talk to about stuff.”

She points a finger-gun at me and clicks with her tongue. “Like I said: anytime.”

The snow is falling heavier when I get out of the car, flakes cartwheeling on a sharp wind, and the neighborhood looks deserted. I hurry to the front door, and Daphne watches from behind the wheel as I ring the bell. Her presence is comforting—because as I stand there, all alone on the porch, an eerie, whispering sensation steals up my spine. It’s exactly what I felt when that vampire entered Sugar Mama’s, and I freeze, my skin tightening like a noose.

Maybe the neighborhood isn’t deserted after all.

6

Daphne’s car chugs away at the curb, exhaust piling into the air, and the feeling builds from a whisper to an itch. It tugs at my gut—and I look up. Above, an overhang protects the porch from snow; but one story higher, on the slope of the roof, crouched in the dark beneath a sky robbed of stars … I feel it. I feel him.

I don’t know how I know it’s a “him,” but I do—and I know that he’s moving, a shadow crawling among shadows, descending. It’s uncanny the way I can sense this, the hair on my neck rising and shifting as he comes closer, looking for a way down. He knows I’m here, too. He was waiting for me.

Stabbing at the doorbell, heart thudding, I swivel toward the street. Daphne is still watching, and it’s clear she knows something is wrong, even if she can’t see what’s waiting where the moon and streetlights can’t reach. If I run, the creature will pounce; I won’t even make it to the sidewalk. But maybe—

“Auggie?” Adriana’s voice spins me back around, the front door opening, and I practically knock her down as I barge into the house. “Uh, it’s nice to see you, too?”