To hell with it if anyone saw the car and recognized it. He’d already wasted time checking the martini bar down the street from his building. The heavy oak door at the front of the house stood open. Sebastian leapt the four steps leading up to the door and paused in the doorway, taking in the scene. A still-wet smear of blood stained the thick carpet. Not enough to indicate serious injury to the vampire who’d lost it, but enough to show someone had been hurt. A table had been overturned, a marble paperweight marked with blood lay to one side. Used as a weapon. He could only hope by Ian. A cellular telephone lay on the floor. He recognized it. Stepped into the room to snatch it up, his eyes and ears open. No sign of anyone still in the house. No sound. Nothing useful. Gone. Damn. He looked at the front stairs, at the thick grass around them, the sidewalk. Nothing. No marks. No tracks. He turned and ran up one side of the block, scanning the ground – ah! Blood on the pavement. He bent, dipped a finger in the thin smear and brought it to his lips.
