Down These Strange Streets Read Online Free

apologize for my friends,” he said instantly. Dahlia forced her rigid little face to relax and look a bit more welcoming. “They see a woman as lovely as you, they can’t regulate their reactions.”
    “You can, apparently?” Dahlia said, just to watch Melponeus flounder. He knew her better than she’d thought, because after a moment’s confused explanation, he laughed. For a few minutes, they had a wonderful time with verbal foreplay, and then they danced. “Perhaps later . . .” Melponeus began, but he was interrupted by a scream.
    Screams were not such an unusual thing at the vampire nest, but since this one came in the middle of an important social occasion, it attracted universal attention. Every head whipped around to look east, to the wing occupied on the ground floor by the kitchen.
    “Don’t move,” called Joaquin, to stem the surge of the crowd in the direction of the commotion. Somewhat to Dahlia’s surprise, everyone obeyed him. She found that interesting.
    Even more interesting was the fact that Joaquin searched the crowd until his eyes met hers. “Dahlia,” he said, in lightly accented English, “take Katamori with you and find out what’s happened.” Katamori had been something of a policeman a couple of centuries ago.
    Dahlia had to work to keep her face expressionless. “Yes, Sheriff,” she said, and jerked her head at Matsuda Katamori, a vampire who had an apartment near Little Japan. Katamori, who appeared just as surprised as Dahlia at being singled out, immediately glided to her side. They moved quickly to the door to the passage leading to the mansion’s kitchen.
    It wasn’t a wide space, and the carpet had been installed to deaden sound, not to beautify. Both the vampires were alert as they moved silently down the passage to the kitchen. The swinging door had been propped open.
    When the mansion had been built in the early 1900s, the builder could not have imagined that the kitchen would be used by non-eaters. The white tile floors and the huge fixtures had been maintained, even updated, once or twice during the century that had passed. When Cedric had bought the mansion at a bargain price (glamour had been involved), he’d left the kitchen as though it would still be needed to prepare a banquet. Normally, the stainless steel fixtures shone in the overhead lights suspended from the high ceiling.
    Now the stainless steel was splashed with red. The smell of blood was overwhelming.
    From where they stood just inside the doorway, Dahlia and Katamori couldn’t see the body because of the long wooden table running down the middle of the room, but a body was undoubtedly there. The only thing living in the kitchen was one of the half-demons, a skinny girl Dahlia hadn’t met before. The girl was standing absolutely still, very close to the corpse, if Dahlia’s nose was accurate, and her hands were up in the air. Smart.
    Dahlia enjoyed the smell of blood, but she preferred her blood to be fresh and its source living, as did every vampire but the rare pervert. Once the blood had been out of the living body for more than a couple of minutes, it lost much of its enticing smell, at least to Dahlia’s nose. From the delicate twitch of Katamori’s nostrils, he felt much the same.
    The girl’s feet were hidden from view by the old wooden table, originally intended for staff meals and food preparation. But the blood smell was emanating from the area around her, and red had splashed the gleaming range and refrigerator on the south wall. She was standing squarely in front of the refrigerator.
    The half-demon girl opened her mouth to speak, but Dahlia held up her hand. The girl closed her mouth instantly.
    “Is any of this blood yours?” Dahlia asked.
    The girl shook her head.
    Dahlia and Katamori looked at each other. Dahlia didn’t have to look up far to meet his eyes. He waited for her instructions. She was the senior vampire. She liked this silent acknowledgment a lot. Dahlia said,