Vampire Dawn

With the body now identified and most of the Fullerton Police Department looking deeply into Brian Meeks's personal and professional life, Detective Sherbet had asked me to lay low for a while and let his boys think they were doing some actual work.

I told him no problem, smiled warmly, and promptly looked into Brian Meeks's personal and professional life.

Since I knew the cops were currently turning his small apartment upside down, looking for anything and everything that could help identify the killer, that left his professional life.

Which is why I found myself outside the Fullerton Playhouse. Turns out that Brian Meeks had been an actor here in Fullerton, working primarily with local theater and community colleges. Which might explain why he lived in a one-bedroom apartment.

The Fullerton Playhouse is located on Commonwealth, near the Amtrak train station, and near what had been one of my favorite restaurants, back when my diet wasn't so one-dimensional. The Olde Spaghetti House will always have a special place in my heart. The fact that I would never again eat mizithra cheese spaghetti again was a crime in and of itself.

I parked in the mostly empty parking lot next to the wooden playhouse. A marquee sign out front read, "Elvis Has Not Left the Building: The Musical." Under the sign were the words: "The King is Back!"

Boy, was he ever. Last year, while searching for a missing little girl, I had teamed up with, among others, an investigator from Los Angeles. An investigator from whom I had received a very strange psychic hit. An investigator who vaguely looked and sounded like the King himself.

Turned out, the old guy had secrets of his own, secrets I would take with me to my grave, whenever the hell that might be.

Now as I sat in the parking lot in my minivan, shrinking away from the daylight, I closed my eyes and cleared my mind and cast my thoughts out and directed them toward the theater. Yes, I was getting good at this sort of thing.

Now, as my thoughts moved through the theater, I could see various people working together in small groups or individually. Actors and stage hands and set designers, anyone and everyone needed to put on a show.

So far, no hit. Nothing that made me take notice.

I pushed past the main stage to the backstage. Still nothing. I meandered down a side hallway and into a storage room. Props were everywhere. Rows upon rows of wardrobes hung from racks and hangers. Still nothing. I was about to snap back into my body when something appeared at the back of the theater.

A shadow.

It appeared suddenly from the far wall, scurried up to the ceiling, then down a side wall, then huddled in a dark corner, where it waited. I sensed that it always waited, that it was always afraid.

I shivered. Jesus, what the hell was that thing? I'd seen my fair share of ghosts and spirits, but never a shadow. Never this.

And it came from the mirror hanging from the back wall. No, not the mirror. Behind the mirror. There was a doorway there. A hidden doorway.

I tried to push through the secret door, but I was just too far away. My range is limited, and I was at the far end of it.

I snapped back into my body and, briefly disoriented, gave myself a few moments to get used to seeing through my physical eyes again. The sun was still out, which meant that the next few moments were not going to be very fun. When I had mentally prepared myself, I took a deep breath and threw open my minivan door. I dashed across the parking lot, keeping my head down, leaping over cement parking curbs like a horse at a steeplechase.

When I finally ducked under the marquee and into the blessed shade, I was gasping and clutching my chest and maybe even whimpering a little. The sun was truly not my friend. And that was a damn shame.

When the burning subsided enough for me to think straight, I pushed my way into the theater's main entrance.