Page 35 of My Neighbor Literally Bites

"Hannah. Come look — but keep your hands off it."

She comes. Ben follows, and he swears under his breath when his light catches the thing. "That's no survey mark," he says.

"No."

"Then what is it?"

"A knock," I say.

Ben straightens slowly. "A knock from who?"

I look at Hannah first. Not for permission exactly, but because the truth belongs partly to her now too. She gives one small nod.

"Not Nathan's people," I say.

Ben's eyes narrow. "That's not an answer."

"No."

He looks from me to Hannah, then back to the wax pressed into the timber. His hand settles near his holster, not drawing, only remembering it exists. "Blackwood, I have men with rifles in my woods, a gate cut from the wrong side, and an old mark on my grandfather's map that matches the dead woman's trail. I am past patient."

"This was left by a vampire," I say.

The word seems to take the air out of the mine mouth.

Ben does not laugh. That is to his credit. He only stares at me, jaw hardening by degrees. "Say that again without making it sound like mountain rot."

"I can't."

Hannah steps in before the silence can turn dangerous. "Ben. It's true."

Ben looks at her then, and whatever he sees on her face does more damage than my words. "You knew."

"Not for long."

His gaze returns to me. "And you?"

"I am one."

For one clean second, there is no sheriff in him. Only a man standing in a world he has spent his life calling folklore. Then the sheriff comes back, battered but upright. "Does this explain the things I don't have reports for?"

"Some of them."

"Does it explain why Nathan's people came armed?"

"Yes."

He looks at the wax again, swallowing whatever first response wants out of him. "Then keep talking. Slowly."

"It's a claim," I say. "Someone marking that what lies below belongs to them now."

I step off to make the call I've been dreading since Hannah first said the word archive aloud. Elias answers on the second ring. I give him the place, the wax, the blood. He's quiet. "Don't let her go down," he says. "Not till I've seen it. I'm bringing someone who reads these."

They arrive out of the treeline within minutes while the lantern below is still a coal in the deep.

"I was already on the ridge," Elias says.

She's small and gray-suited, with the stillness of a person who stopped needing to fidget several centuries ago. She names herself before Elias can. "Vivienne Ashcroft, but call me Vivi. I keep records." A look at Hannah, frank and cold. "You're the one following Elspeth's trail. Brave. Or you haven't learned yet what it's worth."