The next morning, I pried myself out of bed early, and boy, did it hurt. But I knew my duty, and I knew my nemesis.

After rushing through a bath, I threw on some clothes. By the time I crossed the hall and knocked on Conrad’s door, I felt almost human.

Not surprisingly, he didn’t answer.

I knocked again, and when he still didn’t answer, I opened it and stuck my head in.

“Hello?”

Conrad was lying in bed, but I saw a slit of yellow eye. He shut it again and groaned, so I knew he was awake.

“Good morning!” I finished coming in the room and closed the door behind me.

“Mera, you smell fine, and you sound fine. Why are you here?”

“I need your help.”

He grabbed his phone from the nightstand, glanced at it, then dropped it. “At seven in the morning? On a Saturday?”

“It’s Christmas stuff.”

He took his second pillow and crammed it over his face. His voice was muffled, but I still heard him growl, “If you try pulling the ‘we’re packmates’ card, you’ll have an instant alpha fight on your hands.”

Huh. There went plan A.

“Can I pull the white-knight card?” I asked.

He moved his pillow enough to glare at me with one eye.

“I’m up against a powerful and fearsome opponent.”

He removed the pillow. “Who?”

“Darius.”

He let out a bark of laughter. “No. Hell no. Not a chance. You want to try picking a fight with a vampire? While it’s still dark out? Leave me out of it.”

“I’m not picking a fight with him! It’s reconnaissance. And I have to do it now because he’ll probably go to sleep once the sun rises.”

“Are you actually going to try to invade his room?”

“Well, not invade—”

“It was nice knowing you.”

I moaned as I walked over to his bed. “Come on, Conrad. What can I do to bribe you?”

“Why don’t you use those three Christmas agents you trained so well?”

“He doesn’t like them, and I don’t know if he could sense they’d been there. But he likes you!”

“And I would like to keep it that way.”

“The man sings Michael Bublé! He’s a blood-sucking softy who knows the true meaning of Christmas. He’ll understand.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“You’re saying you’ll help?” My voice squeaked with excitement.

“I’m asking what you want me to do.”

A less squeaky me said, “I want you to go sniff his door and tell me if he’s in there, then watch my back. Let me know if you smell him coming. You don’t even have to go in the room.”

“If he’s close enough I can smell him, he’ll hear you, Emerra.”

“Then I’ll pretend I was playing around in the back hall.”

“You’ve thought of everything. Have you picked what you want on your gravestone?”

“Meh. They can use the old one.”

He thought about that for a second. “I don’t think you had one.”

“Pretty please, Conrad?”

He muttered a word that would have stopped Ms. Elstein’s heart cold, then followed it up with, “I have to get dressed.”

Since he was mostly covered by his blanket, I hadn’t realized it before—not only were his arms bare, but I couldn’t see any tank straps over his shoulders.

“Are you naked?”

“Wha—? No. I’m just not wearing a shirt.”

“Oh. Then what’s the big deal? Lots of guys don’t like sleeping in a shirt. And with all your fur, it’s not like you’re actually naked.”

“Mera.”

“Right, right. Body shy wolfman. I’ll wait outside.”

I dinked around in the hall for a minute. Then the door opened, and Conrad emerged, dressed in his usual jeans, T-shirt, and solid flannel shirt cuffed up to the elbows.

“You owe me,” he said as we walked down the hall.

“Yes, sir.” I bounced up to his side. “What do I owe you?”

“We’ll figure that out later.”

We both naturally slowed as we approached Darius’s door. Me, because I was nervous about the mission. Conrad, I assumed, because he wanted to give himself time to smell anything out. The hall leading from our rooms to Darius’s was not long—not as long as I would have liked, anyway—and we got there too soon for my comfort.

I glanced at the back stairs, but there was no sound or movement.

“Conrad?” I whispered.

“Something’s off,” Conrad said.

I stared at him in concern.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“I smell peppermint,” he said.

“Pep—peppermint? Is he hoarding candy canes or something? Is it the kind you’d put in cocoa?”

“No, it’s the kind that’s an oil you’d put around a room when you didn’t want a lycanthrope to smell what’s inside.”

We both immediately turned around.

We weren’t fast enough.

Darius went from not-there to right-there before we could blink. Vampires were fast, but that kind of speed must have required magic.

He was standing six inches in front of me, and he was smiling so that I could see both of his fangs. Until that moment, I had no idea they could extend so far.

“Emerra, Conrad, good morning,” he said softly. “You’re both up early.”

And my hero, the fluffy white knight, took one giant step backward while putting a hand on my back to prevent me from doing the same.

I laughed awkwardly. “Ah ha. Ha. Yeeaaah. Good morning, Darius!” I chirped the last bit, based on the idea that excessive cheer helped with bluffing. I had no evidence of this, and it had never worked before, but that never stopped me from trying.

I went on, “Is breakfast ready yet? That’s…uh…that’s why we’re here. We were going down the backstairs.”

“You weren’t facing the backstairs.”

“I…forgot…something.”

“Like the fact I can tell when you’re lying?”

“Yeah. I left it in my room.”

From behind me, Conrad let out a grunt.

Darius didn’t even twitch. “I appreciate the fact that you’re acting on behalf of Jacky—”

“How did you know?”

“I was in the library while the two of you were talking. You should really learn to moderate your voice. But whether you’re doing this to help Jacky or not, I do not take kindly to people who enter my rooms without permission.”

“Fine. May I go in your room?”

That threw him. After he blinked, he said, “No.”

“Pretty please?”

It turned out that vampires were harder to persuade than wolfmen.

“No.”

“A tie! That’s what men get when people don’t know what to get them. A big, ugly, tacky Christmas tie!”

“There are worse things in this world.”

He started to turn away, but I blurted out, “You just don’t want us to see that you leave your dirty socks all over the floor.”

He turned back. His eyes were narrowed, but there might have been a hint of a smile at the edge of his lips.

“Don’t go into my rooms,” he said. “I will know if you’ve been there.”

“Yes, Darius,” I grumbled.

He nodded to us, then turned and walked down the hall. As he passed my room, I saw that my three ghosts were awake and watching us.

Behind me, Conrad let out a sigh. “That went about as well as I expected. I’m going down for some coffee. Mera?”

“Anna and the boys are up. I’m going to get them set up somewhere, then I’ll come and join you.”

Conrad waved to me and went back along the hall. I went over to Anna.

As I got closer, Jan said, “He leaves his socks on the floor?”

I knelt down. “Well, it’s got to be something, right? Why else would he be embarrassed about letting someone see his room?”

Jacob said, “Maybe you should’ve asked permission first.”

“You could understand him?”

Anna laughed. It’s disconcerting when a child laughs at your screw-ups.

“It’s kind of obvious what happened,” she said.

“Oh, because you’ve never been naughty.”

“I was a good girl!”

“Yeah. You probably were.” I stood up. “Come on guys. What would you like to do while I eat breakfast?”

“Can I go find Kappa?” Jan asked.

“Let’s start with something that doesn’t involve chasing Kappa.”

“Can we watch the computer?” Jacob asked.

“You mean YouTube?”

“Yes!”

I groaned as I thought about it. Jacob was swiftly on his way to becoming an addict, but his favorite things to watch were instrumental music videos, especially street musicians. That seemed pretty harmless.

“All right. But only until I’m finished with breakfast.”

In his excitement, Jacob broke away and ran toward the front stairs, but, like always, he stopped in front of the Christmas tree on the great landing.

When we got there, Jan said, “The lights.”

“I’ll get them.” I went over and pressed the large button with my socked foot.

Mrs. Park was right; foot-tap switches were the greatest thing since peppermint mochas.

I stepped back and gazed at the tree with the children.

“It looks so different,” Anna said.

“Kind of magical, right?” I said.

She nodded.

We went downstairs and over to the library.

Iset was more than happy to set them up on the spare computer. She’d even built Jacob a playlist in her spare time. While she did all the work, I crashed into one of the armchairs and put my arm over my eyes.

I felt movement beside me, then heard Iset’s beautiful voice.

“How are you feeling, Emerra?”

I moved my arm. “I’m just tired. I had trouble sleeping last night, and I had to get up early this morning.”

Iset sat down on the armchair beside me. “Ah, yes. How did ‘Operation Darius’ go?”

“You knew about it?”

“He had to prepare for it last night, and he left me rather abruptly this morning.”

“Geez. Did you know his fangs get, like, this long?” I held my hands a foot apart.

“I think you’re exaggerating.”

“Barely! And I would remember, since they were right in my face.”

“You’ll have to forgive him. I don’t think he was actually angry, but he’s been under a lot of stress lately, and he wanted to get his point across.”

“Stress?”

“With everything that’s been happening down in town, it’s hard to blame him. Darius takes his responsibilities seriously.”

“How is it his responsibility?”

“Wherever Jacky goes, strange things follow. Part of Darius’s job is making sure that the people around Jacky stay safe. Now we have ghosts and monsters. We don’t know what we’re up against, and we don’t know if they’re related. There’s been little he can do. He doesn’t talk about it, but I think it’s been weighing on him.”

A gentle smile crossed my face. “He spends a lot of time with you, doesn’t he?”

“He does. Since it’s rare for me to rest, I’m usually awake during his most active hours, and it’s nice to have someone else around.”

Which meant that she was likely to know more about him than anyone else.

Cue evil laughter.

“Iset, have you ever been in Darius’s room?”

“You mean since he’s moved here?”

Once again, I felt the surreal sensation of having to adjust to a timeline that was completely foreign to me. Darius had been there forever, but so had Iset, and the mummy’s forever had a little more “ever” than the vampire’s.

“Yeah.”

She rested her bandaged head on her knuckles. “At least once. Maybe twice.”

“Can you tell me about it?”

“I don’t think it’ll help you. It was simple, tasteful…meticulously clean—”

“No dirty socks?”

“No.”

“Ugh.”

“He left almost nothing out, but I do remember he’d brought in some of his own art.”

“Posters?”

“Fine art.”

“Oh, right. He has taste. Did he have a DVD collection or anything? Figurines?”

“This was around the nineteen-twenties, Emerra. And while he enjoys a movie every now and then, I don’t think he’s a big fan of television.”

I groaned. “Then what does he do with his spare time?”

“Music.”

I looked up at Iset.

“He doesn’t have a lot of spare time, but when he does, he spends it either practicing the piano or listening to his collection of music.”

“What kind of music?”

“Mostly classical.”

“Do you know anything about his collection?”

“I know it’s extensive.”

“Does he have any favorite artists?”

“Many. Beethoven, Vivaldi, Williams, The Piano Guys—but I don’t think—”

“But you don’t know specifically which albums he has?”

“Emerra, you’re getting a conniving look on your face. Before you go planning another foray into forbidden territory, perhaps I should warn you, it won’t do any good.”

“Why not?”

“Because Darius is a man of independent means. He doesn’t pay rent, he’s been saving and investing for decades, and he’s still getting fees from the FBI. If there’s an album he wants, he buys it. He owns the best noise-canceling headphones there are. When it comes to his hobby, there’ll be nothing he wants that he doesn’t already own.”

For a while I gazed at nothing while tapping on the arm of the armchair.

“Emerra?”

“Hmm?” I said.

“Did you have an idea?” she asked.

“I did, but even if it falls through, at least now I know his favorite hobby. Instead of a tacky Christmas tie, Jacky can buy him a tacky piano key tie.”

Iset laughed and stood up. As she passed my chair, she put her hand on my shoulder. “Go get some breakfast, child. Plotting against anyone usually goes better on a full stomach.”

She had a point. I thanked her and left. As I passed the sitting room, I heard Darius’s phone ring.

“Hello?” he said. “Yes. Good morning, Deputy.”

I stopped by the archway.

There was a long silence, then Darius said in a weary voice, “Another one?”

My chest seized up, and I had to close my eyes to stop the hall from swaying. He had sounded so much like Anna…

“No. Thank you for telling me. I’ll be in later if I can. I’ll text you if anything comes up. Look after yourself, Crook.”

I heard him place his phone down on his desk.

I was leaning against the wall, and I didn’t bother stepping into the room when I said, “Someone else is missing, aren’t they?”

There was a pause.

“Yes.”

I pushed away from the wall and walked into the sitting room. “I have to tell you about my dream.”