CHAPTER 1.
  

    The body floated face down in the pool like an inflatable joke, something meant to scare people at parties and on Halloween. But to Madison Rose’s eye, it didn’t look like some plastic gag. It looked real. Dead real.

    A short, strangled screamed shot out of her as she  dropped her coffee, the mug splitting like a ripe melon when it hit the terracotta patio tiles. Kicking off her shoes, Madison took a running leap into the water and made her way to the body to check for life. Once close, she noticed it had been impaled through the chest with a large stick, the end protruding from the man’s back. Swallowing her horror, she checked his pulse. Finding none, she checked again. And again. It was no use. Madison made her way out of the pool. No matter who the man had once been, it was crystal clear to her that he was now a murder victim.

    After crawling out of the Dedham pool, she paced along the edge as the late February air nipped at her wet body, sending sharp needles of chill up her spine. She pushed her discomfort aside to concentrate. Because the Dedhams were vampires, she couldn’t call the local police. They would arrive and wonder why Doug and Dodie couldn’t be roused. When sleeping, the Dedhams looked and passed for dead. They were dead. How would Madison ever explain that to the authorities? She decided to call Mike Notchey.

    “Mike.” Madison spoke low into the cordless phone she’d retrieved from the kitchen wall. She clutched it in a trembling hand as water dripped from her clothing, forming a small puddle at her feet. “We have a problem at the Dedhams’.”

    “What kind of problem?”

    “Um, it’s not something I want to discuss on the phone. Can you get here more sooner than later?”

    “Hmmm.” He paused, thinking about his schedule. “I could be there in about an hour to ninety minutes. That soon enough?”

    “Not really.” She looked out the window at the body, wishing it would swim away or vaporize. She wasn’t picky. “But guess it’ll have to do.”

    “Sorry.”

    “I’ll have fresh coffee waiting for you,” she coaxed.

    “Then I’ll see you in an hour.”

    “And there’s left over pot roast,” Madison added to sweeten the deal. Dodie Dedham made a kick-ass pot roast – one of Mike Notchey’s favorite foods

    “Make that closer to forty-five minutes.”

    With only a minor twinge of guilt, Madison looked around the sunny and spotless Dedham kitchen – spotless except for the puddle she’d made. She’d lied about the pot roast. Coffee, yes. Pot roast, no. She’d done what she had to do, said what she had to say, to get Notchey to move faster without telling him the serious nature of the situation.

After mopping up the drips from the floor, Madison grabbed a large pool towel from the laundry room and went back out onto the patio. She stared at the body. It was still there, drifting gently on the tiny ripples made by a slight breeze. Lifting her gaze to the surrounding trees and foliage that covered the surrounding hillside, she shielded her eyes against the sun and scanned the area for any sign of someone watching. She saw nothing.

    It was just after two in the afternoon on a Sunday. Madison had spent the night at Samuel’s after working with him until almost four in the morning on Council matters. Samuel La Croix was the head of the California Vampire Council. Madison was employed by the Council to assist it and Samuel in its day-to-day business affairs – things that were often best handled by a live person during the day. Of course, to outsiders, it wasn’t called the California Vampire Council, but was known by a rather mundane company name. She also helped Samuel with some of his personal business matters.

    It was a good job. A lot better than her last as a waitress at Auntie Em’s, a diner in Culver City. The Council job paid much better and was more interesting. The Council even provided her with health and dental insurance, something that amused Madison considering vampires never got sick or had a cavity, but the gesture also touched her  with the thoughtfulness behind it. She’d never had health insurance before, except as a kid, and that had been provided by the State of Idaho for foster kids.

    The vampires even paid for Madison’s tuition at a local junior college. She took several classes during the week with an eye to transferring to a university the following year. As long as she continued to work for the Council, they would cover her education, and even encouraged it.

    Madison usually did most of her work for the Council mid-evening, either at the Dedhams’ or at Samuel’s, though sometimes she would have to make calls on its behalf during the day. It was a flexible job that was easy to juggle around her class schedule and homework, but once in a while she’d have to work through the night with Samuel or attend middle-of-the-night Council meetings. At times, working for the vampires was lonely and she missed being around the people at the diner. Being a loner most of her twenty-three years, it was something Madison would never admit to anyone, and barely admitted to herself. Nor could she tell anyone what she did for work. Not truthfully. When the people at the diner had asked why she was leaving, she simply told them she had been hired as the personal assistant to the head of a foundation. At school, she was pleasant enough, but didn’t encourage the friendship of other students.

    When she returned home from Samuel’s, Madison had grabbed the Sunday paper, a cup of coffee, and her iPod and headed out to the patio to read and relax before settling down to do some school work. Doug and Dodie Dedham lived in a charming and spacious home tucked into a hillside of Topanga Canyon. She’d come to live with them last October when her own apartment had been destroyed. The Dedhams had adopted her as their granddaughter and that was how she was introduced to outsiders. Like the job with the Council, living with the Dedhams was much nicer, but at times lonely because of the opposite hours the Dedhams kept to hers. Doug and Dodie were upstairs now, suspended in what passed for vampire sleep. Their bodies wouldn’t revive until the sun started to set. It was the same with Samuel. She’d gone to sleep in one of his guest rooms while he was still awake and left his sprawling villa in the hills above Los Angeles long after he’d gone to bed. Except for the couple of hours between sundown and her own natural bedtime, Madison and the vampires were often like ships passing in the night.

    Leaning against one of the posts that supported the patio roof, Madison wrapped the towel around herself tighter and studied the body. It was of a naked black man, slim but very fit, with muscled shoulders, a trim waist and strong legs. His black hair was cropped close to his skull. She guessed him to be on the young side, though she never looked at his face while in the pool and wasn’t about to do it now.

She shivered. This time more from fright than from cold. “Dammit, Mike,” she cursed into the air. “Step on it, will ya.”

    Michael Notchey was a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. He knew about the vampires and was friends with many of them, especially the Dedhams. When he arrived, they would figure out something together.

Madison and Notchey had become close friends in the past couple of months. Sometimes she felt they were becoming more than friends. Two weeks ago on Valentine’s Day, Mike had come over to watch a movie with her and had brought pizza. He claimed it was so she wouldn’t be lonely while Doug and Dodie were out on the town celebrating with theatre tickets and a late night supper at Scarlet’s, a vampire restaurant. After the movie, Mike had kissed her. It had been a long and passionate kiss, which he’d terminated abruptly. He’d left just as fast. Confused and frustrated, Madison watched him bustle out the door. There’d been no moments like it since, and Notchey acted as if it had never happened.

    Like Madison, Notchey was a beater. A beater was what the vampires called a living person. Beaters because the living had heart beats and vampires had none. Madison looked again at the body in the pool. Chalk up one less beater in the world.

    Besides the Dedham’s housekeeper, Pauline Speakes, Mike Notchey was Madison’s only regular human contact that she could talk to about the vampires. Since today was Sunday, Pauline was off work, otherwise she might have been the one to find the body. She’d been with Doug Dedham for many years, even before he met and married Dodie. Pauline would have known what to do. Although Madison was sure Pauline’s first call would also have been to Mike Notchey.

When it was no longer possible to ignore her chattering teeth, Madison decided to run upstairs to pull on some dry clothes. The dead man wasn’t going anywhere. Again, she looked around the Dedham back property, wondering if whoever dumped the body in the pool might be watching. As before, she saw nothing.

    It took Madison only a couple of minutes to slip out of her wet clothing, scrub herself dry with a towel and slip on a sweatshirt and yoga pants. She also pulled on wool socks and slippers. Drying her long brown hair would have to wait. So would the hot shower. Grabbing another towel and her brush, she started back downstairs to wait for Notchey. She was on the upstairs landing when she stopped in her tracks. Quickly, she reversed direction and covered the hallway to the master suite. She knocked. Receiving no answer, she opened the door a crack and peeked in.

    The Dedhams were on the bed cuddled together in the spoon position with Doug’s arm wrapped lovingly around Dodie’s middle. The Dedhams appeared in their late sixties, early seventies. Doug had been a vampire for a few hundred years, but Dodie had been turned less than twenty.

    “Guys?” Madison called to them. Since it was winter and daylight hours shorter, the vampires slept less than they would during the spring and summer. But even in February the sun wouldn’t be going down for a couple more hours. Madison closed the door and ran back downstairs to wait for Notchey.

    Walking through the house, Madison started towel drying her hair. When she got out to the patio, she plopped herself down onto a chair and bent at the waist, letting her long, dark hair fall forward while she ran it through the folds of the towel. When she came back up into a sitting position and tossed her damp hair back, she screamed.

    It was a short shriek, as of someone had come from behind her and slapped a hand over her mouth, cutting it off. It was a scream of surprise that turned into silent horror.

    The body in the pool was still in the pool, and it was still the only body in the pool. But it was no longer floating with its arms extended in a perfect text book display of a dead man’s float.

    Dropping the towel, Madison jumped to her feet and stared at the pool in disbelief. Her feet were frozen, as if the tiles had become quicksand and swallowed her up to her ankles.

    The body was at the far end of the pool, near the wide steps that led down into the shallow water. It was still face down, but its arms were over the edge, its head resting on the apron, as if someone had tried to haul it out of the water and been scared off. Madison looked around the back yard and wooded property and again saw no sign of anyone else. When she’d left the body to go inside to change, it had been near the steps, but definitely still in the water.

Finally loosening her feet, Madison took a few careful steps towards the body. Doing some quick calculations, she added up the time that had passed since she’d first seen the body, called Notchey and went upstairs. The man couldn’t be alive. No one could float face down that long and not drown. And there had been no pulse. In spite of her initial shock, she’d hadn’t been hasty in her determination. She’d checked thoroughly. She was sure of it.

    Then his right arm moved.

    Flying the few yards from the patio to the far end of the pool, Madison dashed to help the man she’d presumed dead.

Grabbing his arms, Madison tugged him forward, then remembered the stake in his chest. She didn’t want to disturb it and injure him further. His arms were cold and rubbery. His body limp. He certainly seemed dead. Had she not seen his arm move, she would never have believed him to be alive.

    At least his face was out of the water now. Madison knelt and gently placed her hands on either side of the young man’s skull and turned it to one side to assist his breathing. That done, she again felt for a pulse, but found none.

    Madison shifted to the side to get a good look at him. He was a young man with a smooth, handsome face the color of dark roast coffee. His eyes were open, staring at nothing. His jaw slack. Seeing his face, she had no doubt that he was dead now. Obviously, he’d been alive the first time she had checked for a pulse, but she’d not been able to tell. He had finally died in his effort to save himself.

    Madison felt horrible. If she had not made a mistake, he might have lived. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she berated herself for making the fatal mistake. As she wiped her eyes with the back of a hand, the dead man’s hand shot out and grabbed her other arm like a crocodile snatching an unsuspecting meal. Then it slumped to the ground.

    “Holy shit!” Madison jumped up and backed away, wrapping her arms around herself like a protective coil.

    With his eyes still wide with death, the man inched his arm forward, then let it drop again. With caution, Madison moved to get another good look at his face, confirming what she now suspected.

    Fangs.