Casa Dracula 3 - The Bride Of Casa Dracula by Marta Acosta Page B

you?”
    I’d always been an ace at pop quizzes even when I hadn’t studied. The trick was to choose the most likely answer. Who was most likely to be at the top of any vampire power structure?
    I said, “He likes it when I call him George. Or President Washington. I’m Honey, his special friend, but he’ll be mad at me if he knows I forgot the key.”
    The security guard wanted so much to believe my story, but he had to ask, “Why don’t you go through the Presidential Properties building?”
    “Mrs. Smith spies for all the wives, you know. Some women want to neuter men,” I said and leaned low to give him maximum diversion. “But I admire masculinity. I honor it.”
    The security guard swallowed. I was about to say that George Washington liked it when I dressed in a trilby hat, see-through plastic platforms, and nothing else, when the security guard said, “I can let you downstairs. You want a flashlight?”
    “You’re fabulous!”
    He opened a desk drawer and took out a big metal flashlight. We went into the elevator and he sorted through his key ring, selected a small key, and inserted it in the lock. Then he pushed the button for the basement.
    When the door opened to a dark basement he said, “Do you want me to come with you?”
    “I’d love you to come with me,” I said huskily. “But then Mr. President would have to fire you. I know the way.”
    I walked into a hallway. The rooms off it were filled with machinery and office furniture. I glanced in one room filled with cleaning supplies and was about to leave when something caught my attention.
    Against the wall was a rack of hats and a shelf with bottles of expensive sunblock. A few seconds later I discovered a hatch in the floor under a blue industrial rug. I opened the hatch and saw a ladder leading down into darkness.
    I climbed down the ladder, feeling chilly dampness. It led to a narrow corridor. It was so utterly dark that even I couldn’t see. I turned on the flashlight and slowly made my way along the corridor, at the end of which was a narrow, low-ceilinged stairwell.
    By the time I had walked down three sets of stairs and along as many walkways, I had lost all sense of direction. I wondered how much farther down I had to go, but there were no more stairs. I turned a corner and saw grayness ahead. I had arrived at the vampires’ lair.
    It had looked impressive with the lights on. Now it just looked spooky. The darkness seemed to shift and move like a living thing. I wanted to know what was behind the arched doors. The one closest to the marble-topped conference table opened to a large lounge area, complete with sofas, a television, and a kitchenette filled with unmarked vials of blood. There was a full bathroom off this room. A vampire rumpus room, I thought.
    The next door was locked. At the far end of the cavern was another door, unlocked. I opened it and saw three small cells behind iron bars. Chains were bolted to the walls by the bare mattresses. In one cell there was a half-filled plastic cup of water, as if someone had been there recently.
    I’d taken too long already. I’d seen enough, so I hurried back the way I’d come along the corridors and up the stairs. As I climbed up the ladder and saw the dim light from the open hatch, I felt a rush of relief.
    I pulled myself out of the hatch and stood up.
    Mr. Nixon was standing there. “I was just about to send out a search party for you, Miss De Los Santos. People have gone down into the tunnels never to be seen again.”
    “I don’t doubt it. How’d you find me?”
    He pointed upward and I saw a small camera in the corner of the room. “I should be asking you how you found this building.”
    “I just sensed it,” I said, trying to sound sincere. “Sometimes I just sense things. How often do you keep prisoners down there?”
    “The person you heard was not a prisoner. He’s one of our own, a schizophrenic and a danger to himself and society. We were in the process of