33. The Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915

Opening my eyes, I turned to Clive. "What reason would a vamp have for feeding on other supernaturals, rather than humans?"

"You couldn't find her?" Brows furrowed, he thought a moment. "She may have left the area again."

"Hm? She's not at the house right now. I'll keep looking. I was thinking, though. She has no way to know I can do this, so drinking werewolf blood wasn't done to confuse me. Why does she do it?" There had to be a reason she was going to so much trouble.

"Kink? Taste preference?" Godfrey volunteered. "Of course, I don't believe she drank anything but bagged blood or the occasional human when she lived here."

"Strength," Russell added. "I didn't absorb any wolf-like characteristics, but your blood made me stronger than human blood, Miss Quinn." Russell's deep, measured voice always focused the conversation.

The hand holding mine flinched. Barely, but I felt it. Clive didn't like being reminded that Russell had once fed from me.

"Scent," Euryale volunteered. When she noticed the vamps and I were staring at her, she pointed to Clive and said, "Your scent is different from theirs."

"I don't understand. All vamps smell different, just like you three smell different."

"Yeah?" Stheno leaned forward, suddenly interested. "What does that one smell like?" She pointed to Medusa.

I breathed in deeply. "Right now, she smells like new leather." I glanced down and found unmarked boots. "Sorry, but a sour tang of alcohol seeping through unwashed skin."

"Hey." Medusa looked equal parts outraged and embarrassed.

"We told you to get cleaned up." Stheno nodded to me. "What else?"

"Orange blossom shampoo, aloe lotion, the salmon she just ate, but now that I'm paying attention, you're right. The three of you do have a common underlying scent."

"Snake?" Stheno guessed.

"Yes." I turned to the vamps in the room. "But with these guys, I don't get anything—oh."

Nodding, Euryale said, "It's subtle, that coppery blood scent. The older and more feral the vampire, the stronger the stench. Polished, urban vampires like you three? It's barely there." She leaned forward and took another hors d'oeuvre.

Breathing deeply, I filled my lungs with the myriad of scents in the room. She was right. Blood was in there, but it was overpowered by the individual scents that made them who they were.

"Clive's always smelled like lemons and fresh linens drying on the line to me." I pulled his hand to my lips for a kiss. Strength, safety, and home. "Mine."

"That's very sweet, but he smells like you too," Euryale said. "He drinks from you. They don't. His coppery scent has a hint of fur."

"Really?" I kept Clive's hand trapped in mine. "That's fascinating. These guys have said that other vamps can tell we're together because of our scents, but I thought they meant because of sex—"

"We do," Godfrey interrupted. "You reek of it."

The gorgons nodded and my face flamed.

"Payback's a bitch," Medusa grumbled.

"Perhaps," Clive said, "we could get back to Euryale's theory on why Leticia is drinking the blood of supernaturals."

Euryale finished her glass and raised it again. At this rate, Godfrey was going to have a full-time job. He opened another bottle and refilled glasses.

"If this vampire doesn't know what Sam can do, then she's hiding from you," she said to Clive. "Has she ever seen you track by scent?"

"No, I—" He stopped to consider. "I don't believe so."

"1915?" Russell suggested.

Clive shook his head. "How would she know about that? It was local and had nothing to do with us."

Godfrey topped off the glasses and then placed three open bottles on the coffee table. "Ladies, my shift is over. I'll leave these here for your next server." With a grin, he dropped down on the couch next to me. "Everyone heard about that stunt you pulled."

Rolling his eyes, Godfrey elbowed me. "Your fiancé over there helped the human police track down a murdering pedophile who was kidnapping children from the Panama-Pacific Exposition."

"The San Francisco World's Fair? You were—right. Of course, you were here. I will never get used to how long you guys live. Ever."

"We, sweetheart, not you guys. Anyway, children were going missing but there was so much chaos. People were visiting from all over the country," Godfrey continued.

"And how would you know? You weren't living with us during that period," Clive said.

"My point. I was in Wales." He elbowed me again. "Now there's a good story. Ask me about it some time. Anyway, I'm in bleeding Wales and I heard about it, so you know everybody else did, too."

"Somebody tell the story. What happened in 1915?" I was surrounded by six people with more lifetimes of stories than I could fathom, and I wanted to hear them all.

Russell picked it up. "I was here, so I can tell it." He pulled over a chair and sat while the sisters filled their own glasses. "The Pan-Pacific Exposition lasted almost a year. Close to twenty million people visited the city during that time. I'd never seen anything like it."

"I've only seen pictures," I interrupted. "To have been here and experienced it." I shook my head. "The Palace of Fine Arts is on all my running routes. It's magical. To have seen all the palaces, the entire exposition…mind rightfully boggled."

"I felt the same way, Miss Quinn. I spent many nights wandering through closed exhibits. It was"—he stopped to think—"before and after, an extraordinarily singular experience." He gave his head a wondering shake. "I wish you could have seen it. I have a feeling you would have been beside me, walking the halls, as enthralled as I was.

"As Godfrey said," he continued, "people visited from all over. Transportation and communication being what they were then, travelers were away from home for weeks, sometimes months, at a time. By the time anyone realized people were missing, it was far too late to investigate."

"Wait. That's like H. H. Holmes and the Chicago World's Fair."

Nodding, he said, "Exactly. It was fertile ground for serial killers. And pickpockets and rapists and con men."

"And vampires," Godfrey cut in.

"Indeed," Clive agreed.

Russell continued, "Unlike when adults go missing, when children disappear, it's noticed right away."

I pulled my knees up to my chest. "How many children disappeared?"

"We arrived in the evenings to feed," Clive said. "The sun went down and families gathered in meeting spots to walk back to their lodgings. We saw parents shouting children's names, but more often than not, a child would arrive, out of breath from racing through a flood of other visitors. We were still there, though, when desperate families were looking long into the night."

"No. Most of us fed and left. I stayed to walk the exhibits. You stayed to make sure the children were found." Russell tapped the arm of the sofa beside Clive. "It didn't take long to realize we had a human predator. The first child was found with his clothes torn and bruises around his neck. Clive found his body dumped behind the Horticulture Palace. It wasn't as though Clive could carry the child back to the family or the proper authorities. He couldn't insert himself into the investigation. Then, as now, we did everything we could to remain unnoticed."

"What happened to the child?" My voice was small and scared. Even I heard it. I knew something about what that child had gone through and I hated thinking of one so young…

Russell didn't answer my question. He didn't have to. Instead, he said, "Clive waited with the body, staying out of sight while mentally influencing the human authorities to look in the correct place."

"Not all of them. I'd fed from an officer the night before. Normally, the link doesn't remain once we walk away, but I tried. Eventually, he came around the corner of the building, saw the child, and began blowing his whistle. The poor man was shaking so hard, he had trouble getting the whistle in his mouth."

Clive rested his hand on my knee. "It was maddening. The children were being taken during the day. I found the bodies, but I couldn't catch the killer before he hurt them. I couldn't stop it from happening." When he squeezed my knee, I leaned into him.

"But he noticed something about their scents," Godfrey said. "Which brings us back to the point of the story. The children were covered in a million scents, all the places they'd been that day and the days before, as people didn't bathe daily then"—he glanced at Medusa—"or now," he added with a smirk, making sure to keep his eyes averted. "They also all carried the scent of candy apples."

"A few of them would have been reasonable," Clive took over the storytelling. "There were food carts scattered all over the exposition and it made sense that they'd smell of fair food, but all of them? No.

"I searched. I couldn't find the killer, but I had to wait for nightfall. One evening, I finally found the right cart, although it was manned by the wrong person. I could smell him, the man who'd left his scent on every dead child, but I couldn't find him."

Russell picked up the story again, "Frustrated, he wrote a letter to the chief of police—slipped under his front door—saying he knew who was killing the children. He gave them a description of the cart, told them the man only worked during the afternoons." Russell turned to Clive. "I believe you included the types of pomade and aftershave he used as well. It took two days—"

"And one more dead child," Clive cut in.

"But they caught him. Strangely, though, he didn't make it to trial. He was found dead in his cell, drained of all blood. It was quite the mystery for some time."

I kissed Clive's cheek, and he wrapped his arm around me. Those poor children. It was a hundred years ago but my heart ached for them, for their last moments of fear and pain.

"And you believe," Clive said to Godfrey, "that Leticia not only heard that story but is now trying to muddle her scent to confuse me?"

"Makes sense," Godfrey responded. "She probably thinks that's how you found her in that cave up the coast. I'd imagine she's feeling proper paranoid about your tracking abilities right about now."

"We're willing to help you look for her," Euryale said.

The vampires looked surprised by the offer, but I caught Stheno's eye and smirked.

"Fine," she admitted. "We're bored and can't stand another minute in each other's company. Give us something fun to do, please." Stheno finished off her wine and slammed the glass down—thankfully, not shattering it—ready to go.

Euryale's expression was pinched and Medusa looked bored, but they were all sitting here, willing to help.

"I haven't found her yet." Jeez, no pressure, though, right?

"Well, hurry up. In the meantime…" She held up an empty wine bottle and shook it in Godfrey's direction.

"Oh, that's what's going on here. You guys ran out of your own wine so you're ‘visiting,'" I air quoted, "trying to drink all of theirs."

"How dare y—" Euryale began but Stheno smacked her arm.

"True, but we're willing to work for our wine, so tell us where to look."

"Come," Clive called.

A vamp entered carrying a case of wine bottles.

"Okay," Stheno said, "we're good." She waved her hand at me to hurry up. "Go find her."

I padded to the other side of the salon, dragged a high-backed chair into the corner, and sat, blocking out the voices in the room. Pulling my socked feet up, I rested my head against my knees, let out a long, slow breath, and revisited the mental net I'd thrown over the city. When my head started to throb, cool pain relief washed over me. Even while chatting with the gorgons, who were laughing uproariously, he was looking out for me.

I started with the Sea Cliff house but didn't sense her there. Slowly, painstakingly, I searched every corner of the city. Nothing. When I reached for the North Bay, my mind snagged on something odd and unnatural that twisted my stomach.