Page 110 of My Roommate Is a Vampire

“Excuse me,” the throat clearer said. “But do you know these people?” The speaker looked about fifty years old, his mouth turned down at the corners in a disapproving frown. He wore a winter coat and dark fleece pajama pants, and a red wool hat with mittens that matched.

Of all the scenarios Reginald and I had run through over thepast twenty-four hours, none had included what to do in case of nosy neighbor interference. But it looked like we’d run through one scenario too few.

“I... I don’t know them,” I stammered. “Or, rather—I know who they are. But I don’tknow themknow them, if you know what I mean.”

“Hm.” The man’s disapproving frown turned into an outright scowl. “You’re here to buy drugs, I assume.”

My eyes widened. “I beg your pardon?”

The man pointed to the windows on the front of the house. For the first time I realized they were all covered up with dark sheets of plastic. “They’ve blacked out all the windows, they never come out during the day, and all manner of weirdos go in and out of this house all night long.” He counted out each of his neighbors’ perceived crimes against society on long, outstretched fingers. “I don’t know where you come from, but around here that points to just one thing.”

I paused, waiting for him to tell me what that one thing was. When all he did was look at me with a self-satisfied smirk, I guessed, “Does it mean... drugs?”

“It means drugs,” he confirmed.

“I don’t know anything about that,” I said very quickly, grappling for a plausible reason for my being there that would make this guy go away. “I just... I’m just here because...” I licked my lips—and said the first thing that popped into my head. “Because of their internet bill.”

I didn’t have to look up to know that Reginald was rolling his eyes at me so hard they were in danger of falling out of his head.

Incredibly, the man seemed to accept my explanation. “It doesn’t surprise me that people like these would fall behind on their bills,” he muttered.

“Exactly,” I said, trying hard to muster a laugh. It came out as more of a laugh-sob.

He clapped me on the shoulder, winked at me in a way that would in any other circumstances be the creepiest thing to have happened to me that day, and said, “Keep up the good work, hon.”

As he wandered off back to his own beige-and-white two-story house, I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths. I had to calm down. I hadn’t evendoneanything yet and I felt seconds away from bursting out of my own skin.

I chanced one more glance up at Reginald. He nodded and flashed me a double thumbs-up.

It was time.

“Here goes nothing,” I murmured under my breath, and knocked on the door.

Part of me had hoped Frederick would be the one to answer my knock. But when the door opened, I wasn’t surprised to see Mrs. Fitzwilliam—pale-faced, with no garish makeup this time—standing on the other side.

She didn’t invite me in. She also didn’t mince words.

“Did you bring it with you?” She glared at me, one hand on her hip, the other fanning her face as if the cold night air that was cutting right through my winter coat was too warm for her.

Now that I was there, I couldn’t help but wonder whether Edwina Fitzwilliam might have been a different kind of person before she’d turned. Had she been a good, kind parent to Frederick when he was small? I hoped so. I hated the idea of little Frederick growing up in a home with someone like this as his mother.

I patted the front pocket of my jeans, where I’d stashed my cell phone before getting in the Uber. “Yes.”

“Let’s see it.”

I fished out my phone and pulled up the photos app. “It’s right here,” I said, before hitting the play button.

My voice rose tinnily from my phone, and it took everything I had not to cringe right out of my skeleton at the sight of me gesticulating wildly in Frederick’s living room with a bag of donated blood in each hand. Somehow the clip looked even more ridiculous here, on my phone, in front of the very person I’d hoped to threaten with it.

But it seemed to have a profound effect on Frederick’s mother all the same. She recoiled, horror-struck. Her shaking palms went to her cheeks as she watched the video of me warning everyone of the looming North American vampire threat.

I pocketed my phone when the short clip ended. Frederick’s mother shrank away from me, inching her way back inside the house.

“If we agree to break the engagement and let him go,” she began in a whispery voice, her hand fluttering at her throat, “will you destroy that?”

She looked terrified. Fortunately for me, though, this was the easiest bargain I’d ever made. “Yes.”

“Tonight?”

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