He nodded in agreement. “We’ll see what we can find out from here.” Alexander cupped his pale and once bloodstained palm. I stuck my combat-booted foot in his cradled hands and he lifted me up. I struggled at first but managed to grab on to a ledge and pulled my head slightly above it so I could peer in through a broken windowpane. My black fingernails were in stark contrast with the gray cement.

Breathless, I peered in. At first it was hard to see. My vision had to adjust to the dim lighting. A flickering candelabra sat on a wooden table, and then I spotted a flash of white hair.

“Over there,” I whispered to Alexander.

He adjusted his stance a few feet to our left to where I could now see clearly. Jagger was sitting with his back to me, his red-flamed Doc Martens boots resting up on a crate and his fingers woven together, supporting his whitehaired head. He was the king of this crumbling castle. Sebastian, however, was fidgety. Alexander’s best friend repeatedly pushed his dreadlocks away from his face, his many rings catching the candlelight. He didn’t see me; perhaps the glare from the light above them hid me or he was so deep in thought he wasn’t focused on anything else. He tapped his leg repeatedly, like a junkie waiting for a fix. I’d never seen him this frazzled.

“We’ll need to start tomorrow,” Jagger declared, “to get this thing up and running.”

“So soon?” Sebastian asked.

“What are we waiting for?” Jagger countered.

Sebastian drummed his black-painted fingers on the table.

But Jagger and Alexander now had a truce, and Jagger wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that — or would he?

“The Coffin Club is a success,” Jagger said. “So there’s no reason not to start one here, too.”

“This town isn’t filled with vampires,” Sebastian said. “Not like the other one, anyway.”