“And what is this?” Mellie asked, staring at the ground with the greatest amount of disinterest that I’ve ever witnessed from any human being.

“This is a dead body,” Broderick said to her, as if he were explaining to a child.

“What a shame,” She shrugged. “Well, now what we know what it is, I’d like to get on with my day.”

“There are TWO things I want to discuss here,” Broderick placed this foot atop the dead body and rested his arm on his knee as he leaned forward to look at us. We were standing in a clearing adjacent Frog Island park, a wooded area, and the sound of children playing just beyond the tree line. “First of all, our common room, at Howell’s. All of you are responsible for doing the dishes after you eat, ALL of you. The place reeks of lemon juice and rotting tomatoes, and I’m not going to stand for it. Are we clear on that?”

“It was NOT my turn to do the dishes!” Ralph protested angrily. “I specifically said, LAST week-“

“I don’t give two shits!” Broderick waved his hands angrily. “Someone’s going to do the dishes, or I’m going to blow a gasket and NO ONE here wants that to happen!”

“Why doesn’t the new girl do dishes?” Craven suggested, looking directly at me.

“Me?” I demanded. “Why don’t you do them?”

“Because I own the bar, sweet cheeks,” He snapped. “I provide the space, you all do the cleanup, that’s how it works.”

“Oh that’s how it works is it?” Rhea shot back. “You put more dishes in that sink than anyone here! I saw you gorging yourself on Cesar salad all last week, there was so much dressing I thought we were going to have a second flood!”

“ENOUGH!” Broderick’s voice boomed. I heard the sound of the children’s laughter dissipate for a mere second, but then started up again. “All of you, get together, make a schedule work something out. Get the dishes done, I won’t be working in a pigsty. Second order of business, there’s a dead body under my food and I want to know how it got here.”

“Maybe it’s someone who died there?” Rhea suggested.

“Oh, you are so very funny,” Broderick said with mock laughter in his voice. “Look at the neck, two puncture wounds, from vampiric incisors, you all know what that means. It means that someone is breaking the law, and I want them found.”

“Since when have you been such a stickler for the rules?” Rhea smirked, eliciting a look of sheer annoyance from Broderick.

“When people die of supernatural causes, you know what happens?” Broderick quizzed us. “Anyone? No? People start asking questions, and when people start asking questions, newspapers start writing stories, and when newspapers start writing stories, the Seeling AND Unseelie court start asking questions. When they start asking questions, well, we have a problem don’t we? I don’t want any higher ups lurking around Ypsilanti, especially now that we’ve got little Miss Diva here hiding right under their noses.

“I am NOT a diva,” Protested. “I’m—”

“The reason we’re all fucked,” Ralph finished my sentence for me. “We need to question the local vampires, see if anyone knows anything.”

“Well that would be a good start, wouldn’t it?” Broderick rolled his eyes. “There are exactly two vampires in Ypsilanti, one is Jasmine’s sister, the other runs a shop called ‘Blazing Spices’. Does anyone know where that is?”

“Yeah,” I spoke up, everyone turned to look at me. “It’s across from the Brick Dick—”

“Don’t call it a ‘Brick Dick’,” Broderick interrupted me. “It’s a water tower, just call it the water tower.”

“It’s a water tower that looks like a circumcised dick,” Mellie filled in. “Everyone agrees it’s a dick.”

“Blazing Spices is a store that’s been around for a while,” I continued. “It never did well, they sell ultraviolet strobe lights and garlic.”

“What?” Broderick looked legitimately confused. “Okay, whatever, Mellie, Ralph, go to ‘Blazing Spices’. Now whose going with me to meet with the ‘La Goule’ clan?”

Without a single word, I watched Craven turn on his heels and literally run from the clearing as fast as he could, Broderick shook his head as he watched the man disappear through the treeline.

“Again, whose going with me?”

“Not it,” Rhea said. That left Broderick looking in my direction.

“Okay sure,” I said. “I’ll go with you. What’s the problem?”

No problem at all,” Broderick sighed. “La Goule is headquartered in Ann Arbor, so I have to take you out of town. Don’t tell your mother.”

Broderick sighed as he hoisted the dead man over his shoulder and began to walk from the clearing. I followed him for a bit, finally reaching his car, parked in a gravel lot alongside about five others. For some reason it never occurred to me that he was literally carrying a dead body in broad daylight as if it were a piece of luggage, and perhaps even more disturbing is that no one noticed. Apparently, people only pay attention to themselves. Broderick asked me to open the truck, and then he unceremoniously shoved the corpse into his trunk alongside a bag of golf clubs and woodworking toolbox.

“Don’t say anything when we get in there,” He told me. “I’m only bringing you along so I don’t have to do this myself.”

“What’s so bad about it?” I asked as he left the park and took the freeway exit toward Ann Arbor.

“They’re vampires,” He said, keeping his eyes fixed on the road. The car hummed, and the road roared beneath the thin floorboards. You’d think he would have been able to afford a better car.

“Broderick,” I said as we flew down the freeway faster than the speed limit really allowed. “When are we going after my mother?”

“Your mother is a formidable woman,” Broderick answered, flipping on his turn signal and taking the exit ramp and blowing through a red light at the bottom. “She wants us to protect you, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do. There’ll come a time when we need to go for her, there will, but now just isn’t it. You’re stuck here, for the foreseeable. Doesn’t mean I won’t put you to work, there’s a lot to do around here.”

“Great,” I muttered. My mother was out there, somewhere and I was stuck in this hole in the wall town working for this idiot.

“I know you might not think much of me,” Broderick said, as if he were reading my mine. “And I just want to say…I don’t think much of you either.”

“Reassuring,” I rolled my eyes. He turned onto a side street and pulled into a residential area, immediately stopping to parallel park in front of a house with Greek letters affixed to the awning. “A frat house?”

“Delta Alpha Muh,” He said, throwing the car into park and opening his car door. “At least it is today.”

“What do you mean, today?” I asked, really confused. “Does it change?”

“Fucking often,” He muttered. We walked up the sidewalk and ascended the stairs and rang the doorbell. “Remember, keep quiet, I’m not going to answer a million and one questions today.”

He rang the doorbell again, and almost immediately the door flew open. We were met by what appeared to be a stereotypical frat boy in a button-up shirt covered by a blue sweater-vest, complete with the University of Michigan logo across the left breast. The guy that answered was a well-groomed picture of perfection, basically every frat boy ever.

“Broderick!” He said, smiling wide. “It’s been so long! How have you been?”

“Can it,” Broderick said, pushing his way into the house. “I need to talk to Samuel, where is he?”

I followed Broderick into the house, emerging into a beautiful wood-paneled foyer, photographs of fraternity members hanging on the walls, and a polished hardwood floor beneath our feet. The place was incredibly clean, not a speck of dust anywhere. Over our heads, a brass chandelier lit the area, including the stairs to our right. As I admired the scenery, a black haired boy emerged from the back wearing the same sweater vest and a pair of khakis.

“Can I help you, Broderick and…” He stopped to look at me.

“She’s not important,” Broderick practically dismissed me. “I need to talk to you.”

“If it’s just you that needs to talk to me, then why is she here?”

“Gods, Samuel, this is Jasmine, Jasmine, Samuel. Are we good now? We found a dead body in the park, over in Ypsi, two puncture wounds, clearly a vampire. You know that vampires aren’t allowed to hunt, it’s against the law. So what I need from you is a list of your people, where they were in the last forty-eight hours and-“

“You know what?” Samuel said with a smile. I noticed for the first time that his complexion was a little paler, just like my sister’s, and his eyes were a deep blue. Is this something I would have noticed in my previous life? How had I missed stuff like this? “I can certainly help you there, let’s go back to my office and I’ll—”

“THEME CHANGE!” A voice from a side room boomed. I nearly jumped two feet in the air.

“Theme change!” Samuel echoed. Throughout the house, I heard feet shuffling, and Samuel took off running, disappeared down the hallway. I became acutely aware of Broderick slamming his face into his palm as several students ran from the back carrying sheets of what looked like faux stone that they affixed to the walls until the place actually looked like Dracula’s castle, complete with lit braziers on the wall and what I hoped were fake blood stains. Suddenly, Samuel reappeared, but this time, he was wearing a black vest, black pants, and a red silk shirt with a floor-length black cape. His hair had been slicked back, and I swear he was wearing eyeliner.

“Welcome! Welcome to Castle La’Goule!” He shouted, spreading his arms in a dramatic fashion. “How might the Lord of Castle La’Goule help you on this lovely day?”

“Holy fuck Samuel, you know why we’re here,” Broderick snapped. “I need—”

“You shall address me as Lord Samuel of Clan La’Goule!” Samuel screeched. “Within these walls you shall pay respect to your benefactors!”

“Holy shit, okay, Lord La’Goule, what I need is-“

“THEME CHANGE!” The voice shouted again.

“What are they doing?” I looked up at Broderick.

“When you’ve been a live for a few hundred years you get bored,” Broderick told me. “Just…they get more bored than we do.”

The bleak gothic walls were taken away, suddenly replaced by a façade of a school hall, complete with lockers and desks. Samuel reappeared, this time dressed in a plaid skirt, a pair of stiletto heels and a white button-up top, tied at the waist.

“We’re sexy schoolgirls now,” He informed us.

“Come on, Jasmine,” Broderick sighed. “We’re leaving.”