Romancing The Dead by Tate Hallaway Page B

added, “He’ll be back, try not to worry. I’ll let you know if he calls the office. Go home. Go to bed.”
    “Uh,” I said, not sure if “thank you” was appropriate given how caustic Walter was, but I said it anyway. I got a surprised “you’re welcome” as I turned away and headed down the street as fast as possible. I didn’t know what to make of Walter and company. Despite being a bit of a curmudgeon, Walter seemed in the know, supernaturally speaking. Larry mentioned that Sebastian was immortal, after all. Still, I supposed vampires had special banking needs. Maybe Walter was some kind of modern-day “Igor,” taking care of all of his master’s business that he couldn’t otherwise attend to during the daylight hours —except Sebastian could walk around in the sunshine. Maybe Sebastian used Walter because he did work with other paranormals and he could tell him about those Spanish doubloons or whatever he had sewn into the mattress in 1771.
    I shook my head. The more I learned about Sebastian’s other life, the stranger it became. William’s apartment was one block off fraternity row. All the houses this close to the university tended to look completely trashed. William’s was no exception. The paint on the trim was cracked and peeling. Beer bottles sprouted among the petunias and wild mustard. The porch sagged nearly to the ground. Creeping Charlie competed with crabgrass for the majority of the lawn. Virginia creeper covered so much of the house that it was almost impossible to tell what style it had been built in. It was a triplex, and to get to William’s place you had to go around the house on a cracked concrete sidewalk to the back. One bare bulb and a string of chili pepper lights illuminated a steep climb up rickety stairs, obviously built by the landlord to comply with some housing code or other.
    I always said a little prayer that involved winged feet when I heard the boards creak under my weight. Normally, heights didn ’t scare me, but I hated that I could see through the slats of the steps. Even though I knew it was impossible, I easily imagined falling through to the fern-covered concrete patio below.
    Knocking on the door brought a quick answer. Xylia let me in with a smile. She wore a “Meat Is Murder” T-shirt, denim cutoffs, and combat boots. “No Sebastian?” she asked, looking around my shoulder as though she expected he’d materialize out of the shadows.
    “He’s . . .” What? Lost? In trouble? On walkabout like Larry and Walter suggested? “Unavoidably detained.”
    “Sounds important,” she said and stepped out of my way so I could enter.
    Despite the dilapidated exterior, William had a sultan-chic thing going on. Indian gauze with mirrored coins draped the windows. The couches, of which there were several of various colors and sizes, were velour and festooned with brightly printed pillows. Candles glowed softly in the corners and from on top of bookshelves. Statues of various Indian Gods and Goddesses smiled down beatifically from between books on every imaginable religious/spiritual path, including UFOs and alien abduction. The room even smelled sweet, though not overpoweringly so, like cardamom and baking bread. Given all the candles and the amount of people shoved into a limited space, the place should have been stuffy and close, but thanks to a window AC unit, it wasn’t.
    Once I stepped into the light, Xylia’s eyes honed in on the bandages. “What happened to your neck?” Before I could answer, her mouth twisted into a grimace. “Oh. Right. Listen, I understand this is your business, but I just don ’t think sex that ends up with people getting hurt is a good thing. You shouldn’t let him do things like that to you.”
    “It wasn’t Sebastian,” I said, consciously resisting the urge to cover the bandages. After my conversation with Larry and Walter, I knew exactly how weak my response sounded. What else could I say? “A wind chime tried to choke me