“I’ll bet.” He put his phone down. “What were you doing there?”
“Working.”
“You have a job? Huh. For some reason I thought you were unemployed.”
Mince always confused me with the old white lady up the street. “Not really. I’m going to lie low for a while, though. Hang around.”
“Good.” He nodded and went back to his phone. “Mikey relaxes more when you’re here, which means the rest of us don’t have to bounce around on eggshells.”
I laughed at his unique take on the saying. “Anything else going on?”
“Nah.” He gestured down the sidewalk. “Smokey is watching your house. You had a break-in.”
My mouth dropped open. “Really, Mince, you couldn’t have started with that?”
“What?” he asked my retreating back. “You always have break-ins!”
That was true, but still. The guy needed a lesson on what was noteworthy.
I crossed the street hurriedly when I spotted Smokey’s skulking figure in the entrance of the cemetery. He was harmless, but boy did he put out thecreepyvibe.
“Hey,” I said, nearing. “Did you get any pictures?”
“Yes.” He dug out his phone, touched the screen, swiped, and then angled it toward me. “That’s the human.”
He was talking like a magical person. That probably wasn’t good, since he was human and technically shouldn’t know about the supernatural.
The picture showed the back of a man’s head. Smokey swiped. The side of the man’s face. Smokey swiped. A blurry shot of the front. No help.
“Cool, thanks,” I said, leaning away.
“Do you want me to text them to you?”
Why, so I could memorize the mundane haircut? “I got it right up here.” I tapped my temple.
He nodded, like he had figured that was the case. I was magical, after all. I should be able to do superhuman things like remember blurry pictures. Little did heknow, the images were already forgotten.
“He was the one that broke in?” I asked, turning to face my house. A window glowed.
I hadn’t left any lights on.
My stomach fluttered again.
“No. He left right after you did. Were you followed?”
I frowned. “Not that I noticed. I looked when you texted.”
He grunted. I wasn’t sure what that meant.
“Another one walked in through the front.” He swiped and showed me a picture of my open front door. Then another. Then the door mostly closed.
“Cool,” I said again. Because really, what else was there to say?
“I took a picture of the person walking in. Then of him facing me dead-on. Then of him closing the door behind him.” Smokey’s eyes held a special twinkle, and also traces of fear.
“Vampire,” I said softly, knowing that was the cause of the twinkle. Also knowing that his mind had quickly moved on to theaswang,a supernatural creature thatdidn’texcite him.
He nodded slowly and glanced around, as cautious as if the cemetery had ears. And maybe it did, though Smokey would know best, since he practically made a second home of it. “I wasn’t supposed to mention whoit was, but my loyalty is to you, nothim.”Smokey lowered his voice. “It was the one who always hangs around with you. He let himself in, stayed in there for an hour, and then came out to speak to me.”
