Page 10 of Seph

“Come in.”

Crow put this vase of flowers—pink roses—next to the others. All roses: white, red, yellow, and now pink. He caught her looking and gave a nervous laugh. “You’ll have to get better quick, Van Helsing, or I’ll run out of colors. The flower shop in town is titchy, hardly bigger than your room here.”

“Why are you here? Why flowers?”

Crow sighed. “You only came to Pine Ridge to tail me. It’s my fault you got hurt. I feel terrible about that, honestly.” He gave her an appraising, admiring look. “For you to find me in the dead of night in a blizzard coming back from a hockey game... You’re the cream of the Van Helsing crop, aren’t you?”

Emily said nothing. Let him think that had been on purpose, not a coincidence. She’d been heading to this town. That counted. “I have technology that my ancestors didn’t.”

The vampire nodded and sat in the padded beige chair by her bedside. “I heard about your dad. I’m sorry. It wasn’t me, you know that.”

“It wasn’t any monster other than the tobacco industry.” She shrugged. “He ignored symptoms until the lung cancer was in his liver, spleen, and even the fluid around his heart.”

“Oh. So itwascancer? I thought that might just be for the papers, you know.”

“Right.”

Why are we conversing like this? This is so messed up.“What do you want?”

“Uh. Well. To check on you, ‘cause I feel bad you got crushed and nearly burnt to death, and you’re probably facing a heavy increase on your insurance premiums. And also... To ask you to leave when you’re well enough.”

“Huh?” Oh, it wasn’t a shock that Crow wanted her gone. But it was unthinkable that he’d bring her flowers and politely ask her to leave instead of simply snapping her neck and sending her out with the garbage.

“When you can walk and function, you’ve got to get out of here. Go to the California Crossrealms. Go back to London. Berlin. I’ll pay for it.” He leaned close, voice low and urgent, eyes darting around the room. “Please.”

“What? Why?” She sounded like an idiot. A perplexed idiot.Snap out of it! Control the ground, the questions, the upperhand!“No. You want me to leave so you can prey on these innocent people in this nice little town—”

“No, I want you to leave soyoudon’t prey on the innocent people in this nice little town!” he hissed back, reaching into his pocket.

Emily tensed, but Crow only pulled out a newspaper and spread it out over her lap.

“You can see what most humans can’t. Look.”

Emily stared at the paper, but the fine print was too hard to read. The bold black letters of headlines were clear enough, but they could have been news items from any small town.

The Pine Loft Coffee Shop to Expand

Library Welcomes Pennsylvania Author to Speak about Paranormal Romance Craze

Police Department Celebrates K-9 Officer

Night Market Vendor Wins State Fudge Cook-Off

But the pictures...

Minotaurs. Orcs. Vampires. A ghost! Some more obscure monsters that she couldn’t make out simply by staring at the photos, but her woozy mind knew they were not human.

“There are mums and kids here. Monster and human couples. Little families who want nothing more than to have a happy life! I can’t let you stay here and hunt these people,” he whispered, an edge of pleading in his voice. “And so help me, if you try to hurt these little families, the monsters in this town will not stand for it. At that point,you’llbe the enemy, and they will remove you. For some humans that might mean being dropped off at the city limits, but you? With the way you fight and track and bloody wellwill not leave a man alone?” His voice rose to an irritated shout, then fell like the crash of a wave, “You’ll fight, and you’ll get yourself killed, and I do not want that. So, please. Leave. Leave, so you don’t hurt them, and they don’t hurt you.”

“Why should I believe you? You’re Simeon Crow. You used to sign your name next to your victims in their own blood with a black feather quill—and leave it at the scene! You expect me to believe that you’re suddenly concerned about someone’s family?”

Crow leaned back, a dark smile playing on his lips. “I did do that, yeah. Jack the Ripper an’ all. It was time to be theatrical. Set myself apart from the ‘normal’ killers.”

Emily rolled her eyes and wished she hadn’t. Her temple throbbed, and she suddenly longed for a mirror. Simeon Crow was an evil, soulless thing that ought to be killed, but he was sinfully handsome with an air of lazy confidence that infuriated her.

And I probably look like one giant bruise.

I’ll stake him, then I’ll leave. Win-win. Where are my stakes? My hunting kit—oh, God, everything burned in the accident.

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