Page 66 of Be Still My Unbeating Heart

He went into the hall. Giving Whitby a reassuring wink, he lifted his chin and puffed out his chest and stepped into the kitchen.

“This Mediterranean style, y’all, it’s just todiefor,” a Texas voice twanged. “I mean, whoever thought of matching sunflower yellow with weathered timber—”

The man who had been speaking broke off as Bastian entered.

Bastian blinked at the newcomers in astonishment.

Three figures hovered in the air, the toes of their black shoes tipped toward the floor. They wore tailored burgundy suits. Aman and two women. Aside from their differences in ethnicity—the man was white, while the women had darker skin—they were almost identical. Hair the color of bone. Eyes shimmering violet. Pointed nails blood-red. Fangs pricking their lower lips.

They looked at Bastian, and their combined gazes pressed into him like knuckles kneading clay.

The Obliterati. The vampire council.

“Ah, we have our rogue,” said the floating man, speaking again with that cowboy twang. “Thank you, Inspector, for rousing him on our behalf.”

De Luca said nothing. His gaze went to Commissario Zappa, who stood by the stove, eyeing the vampire council with a mixture of apprehension and disgust. He looked gray and sickly in the gloom.

“Uh, hi,” Bastian said. “Listen, before we get into this, I want to start by saying there’s been a mistake—”

“Now, now,” the floating man said, wagging his finger, “let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There are formalities to which we must adhere. Without rules and laws, we’re just animals, wouldn’t you agree?”

When Bastian didn’t respond, the man said, “I am Jared, and these are my colleagues Ling and Emmeline. We are representatives of the vampire council, charged with upholding the Accords, which state—”

The council member named Ling picked up his thread. “—that no vampire may kill in destinations protected by the international agreement. That includes the Cinque Terre.”

“Any vampire found guilty of breaching this agreement,” said Emmeline.

“Shall face immediate termination,” finished Jared.

Bastian shivered at their uncanny delivery. They almost seemed to share a mind. They regarded him placidly, preternaturally calm,but that force remained in their gaze. It stiffened his joints, seemed to hold him in place.

“If that’s true,” he said, “you should be focusing your energies on finding therealkiller. Something is out there hunting humans, and it’s not me.”

Emmeline floated closer to him. “You deny the charge.”

“I didn’t kill those people.”

Zappa scoffed. “He was atbothmurder scenes, and still, he denies it!”

“Thank you, Commissario,” Emmeline said with a benevolent smile that verged on passive-aggressive, “we have noted the denial.”

Zappa fell silent, eyes bulging. He looked scared, and Bastian wished he could revel in the man’s fear, but the sight only made Bastian more anxious. The council’s presence had shaken even Aldo Zappa.

Bastian had to admit theywereunnerving. While their appearance bordered on amusing, their odor stained the air—a bleachlike scent that burned his nostrils. Had they been embalmed? Preserved? Just how old were they? As he looked at their spindly fingers, Bastian thought of Whitby’s story about the Obliterati’s method for killing vampires, and he almost felt the weight of those enormous rocks on his chest, crushing his bones to dust.

He shivered. Zappa was right to be scared, and Bastian realizedhewas scared, too. Scared in a way that he hadn’t been in years. He had so much to lose.

Ling’s eyes flashed at Bastian. “We have taken great care to examine all information pertaining to this case, and we find no evidence to disprove the charge.”

“The evidence is entirely circumstantial,” De Luca said, stepping forward.

“De Luca—” both Bastian and Zappa said at the same time, but the inspector ignored them both, keeping his gaze on the council.

“With the greatest respect,” he said, “I have spent the past twenty hours with Bastian, and I have witnessed nothing to indicate he is a danger. If anything, the people of Vernazza pose more of a threat tohislife.”

“You believe him to be innocent?” Ling asked, head tilting.

“Ispettore,” Zappa snarled, and he said something in Italian that Bastian knew was a threat. Bastian was more concerned by the way the council regarded De Luca with a brittle kind of intrigue, as if they wanted to unwrap him in order to find out what made him tick.