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Elyssa smiled a sad little sh with this crazy plan" She sighed "Lock and load tihtened I felt an intense urge to visit the bathroorabbed the keys to the van

"Let’s roll"

Chapter 32

We drove southeast to a part of Edgewood bordering between ghetto and hipster The rogues had taken over an old school, gutted and turned into large luxury lofts years ago According to Elyssa’s information, beneath the school lay an expanded basement where a boiler roo cha looked oddly out of place, as the original designer had an obvious enthusiasn Points and spires adorned the roof The ere ornate affairs with gargoyle faces and sye dark-stained wooden door guarded the e

In short, it looked like the perfect place to find vah plenty of non-va at a bar across the street and sounds from an indie band at another venue down the way echoed in the cool night air Stacey took her pack or pride or whatever the terroup of mismatched feline creatures to a dark adjacent lot She’d help Nightliss into the building so the little cat could scout it for us I parallel-parked the van on the street

Shelton poked his head out the sliding door on the side and whispered soers The closest street la the van hidden in darkness

Elyssa stared hard at the rogue co so out alternate routes or oodbye letter to her parents in case we all died I felt pretty useless so I leaned over her shoulder She was drawing her name with little hearts around it

"Seriously?" I said

She flinched and gaveto hear back from the felycan"

"She has a na kind of attached to your little cat wo really tired of people judging others just because they’re not pure human"

She turned away from me and drew a crooked heart next to her naood intel"

"That’s a lot of vaothic structure

A gaggle of vampires, all dressed to kill, or at the very least to drink blood, waltzed toward a waiting stretched Hummer I had to admit the vamps kne to style I peered at thenize any of the ones who’d attacked ood look Then I noticed the little boy va mournfully on froh to drink alcohol noa driver’s license

The sliding door on the street side of the van opened and htliss followed and juainst hers and meowed happily

I took a deep breath and uttered a few choice curse words at her surprise entry

"Less than twenty vampires remain in the compound," she said, her face more serious and coo into the basement which is now one cavernous room filled with beds and partitions A locked door at the back of this area blocked her way, but one of the resident cats told her he had hunted rats down there before The vampires only recently locked that door I would betsohtliss a pointed look "When you say ’down there’, do you oes towas once an old church There’s a crypt beneath the basement"

"Stupid vampires and their flair for the drarin "Why,at all if you cannot do it in style?"

I gave Stacey a funny look She hardly sounded like a seductress when she broke into the Queen’s English And the incongruity of her attire only added to the bizarre vibe I got from her Really, she should have been born French

"Hoe get into the door?" I asked

"More importantly, what kind of door and how is it locked?" Elyssa said

Stacey smiled sheepishly "While my kin could detail a mouse down to the nu htliss said the door seeh admittedly h her pouch "I guess I can handle it" She pulled out what looked like a lock-pick kit

"Nightliss also says that one of the va his finger at so on the wall next to it"

"An electronic lock?" Elyssa tossed the lock picks back into her pouch "Just great"