Page 1 of Top Secret Vampire

Chapter 1

Reese

I’d only been back in my home town of Mystic Harbor two months when a seagull attacked me while I was walking on the shore. If I hadn’t almost stepped on shells placed in a pattern that wroteLeave Townon the path from my house to the beach, I’d believe the incidents weren’t related. But it wasn’t until my blender exploded this morning, sending shards of glass, metal, and my spinach smoothie all over the kitchen, that I realized I had a big problem.

What scared me the most was discovering someone had tampered with the device.

Now, I was convinced I had a stalker.

“You need to go to Monsters, PI,” my mother said as she helped me wash spinach smoothie off the walls, floor, and ceiling of my newly restored cliffside home. “A friend suggested it, actually, when I ran into her at the supermarket. Jane. Remember her? You and her daughter were friends long ago.”

Jane . . . Jane . . . I didn’t remember anyone named Jane, but it didn’t matter. I hadn’t stayed in touch with any of my friends from long ago, let alone their mothers.

“Why Monsters, PI?” I asked. “And . . . monsters?”

“You know.” Chuckling, she accidentally swiped green gook across her face while nudging a strand of her graying hair off her cheek. “Orcs. Gargoyles. Minotaurs.Monsters.”

About four years ago, yetis and orcs and ogres, plus all sorts of other creatures, had emerged from caves, below the ground, and from the sea, joining human society. I’d read all about it online and avidly watched the videos on my computer—when I wasn’t making sure I wrote my daily word count for my latest thriller novel. People had gone wild with excitement when the first demons and elves strode through town.

They insisted they came in peace, and who didn’t want to sit down and chat with a phoenix or a gargoyle? Me, for one, because I planned to incorporate creatures like these into my next book.

Treaties were formed, and monsters took jobs, bought property, and started raising families alongside humans. Some even began to date us. Now it was common to see a pixie flying a baby stroller above the sidewalk or run into a merman at the hardware store, Shriek & Nail. Yes, merman could shift their tails into legs, and my, oh, my, weren’t they hot with their teal-colored scales . . .

My fellow Mystic Harbor residents had gone all in on the monster theme, renaming their businesses to make monsters feel welcome, and our per capita monster population was higher than almost anywhere else in the world.

I’d yet to hear about Monsters, PI, however.

I frowned. “Maybe I should stop by and see—”

“Hello?” a woman called out from the front of my house. “Is anyone here?”

“It’s your aunt Beverly,” Mom said with a smile, flicking a green-stained hand my way. “Go greet her and bring her back here. I’ll keep working on this mess.”

“No need, Alice,” my aunt said in a breezy tone, strolling into the kitchen. “My, my, my.” Her nose twisted. “Are you decorating again, Reese?”

The slight edge of a sneer in her voice got my back up, but that was nothing new with Aunt Beverly. She put on a decent front, but I’d always sensed she didn’t like me, though I wasn’t exactly sure why. Although, one time she snapped at me for asking my mother to go to a movie with me. My mother had already made plans with her sister, and man, was my aunt pissed. She’d minced out something about how I didn’t need to monopolize my mother all the time, that she could spend time withherevery now and then.

It had been my mother and me since I was little, after she and Dad split. He was an archaeologist, so I hadn’t seen him much while growing up. He was either working on a dig or guest lecturing at one university or another. It was natural that Mom and I had grown closer together.

Too bad it hadn’t brought me and my aunt closer together as well.

“My blender exploded,” I said in a light tone, not rising to her taunt. “We’re cleaning up the mess.”

“Isthiswhy you couldn’t meet me for coffee, Alice?” my aunt asked, her lips pursing as she peered around my kitchen.

“Reese needed help.” Mom started rubbing down the wall directly behind the oven. “And I wanted to do this for her. We can get coffee another time.”

“Always Reese,” my aunt growled, though she spoke low enough only I could hear.

Had jealousy guided her behavior toward me all this time?

“Grab a sponge and start scrubbing, Beverly,” Mom said in a cheery voice, oblivious as always to how her sister was behaving. I could deal with my aunt’s attitude, but it somehow felt worse that my mother never saw it in the same way as me. “I was justtelling Reese she should go to Monsters, PI for help with her interesting situation.”

“She needs to see a private investigator for blender gook on the walls?” My aunt’s mouth screwed up, and she didn’t take the sponge Mom held out. “I just got my nails done, and I don’t want to damage the polish.”

“Then have a seat,” Mom said. “Reese made a pot of coffee, and she has one of those fancy machines that’ll give you the same experience you would’ve had at Mystic Mocha.”

She never seemed to notice her older sister’s snide demeanor, which used to bug me when I was a kid. When I brought it up, she told me her sister had reasons for being less touchy-feely and that I should respect that she wasn’t the type to act gushy about any child, not even her only relative other than my mother.

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