“I’m a legal vampire executioner, Mr. Wilcox, but you have to break the law to bring me to your door.”

Those pale eyes blinked at me. “You can look me in the eyes.”

I smiled, and tried to shove it all the way up into my own dark brown eyes, but was pretty sure I failed. “Mr. Wilcox, Barney, you haven’t been dead two years yet. Do you really think your weak-ass vampire mind tricks will work on me?”

“He said people would be afraid of me,” and this was almost a whisper.

“Who said?” I asked. I leaned forward just a little, keeping my hands still, trying to be pleasant, and not spook him.

He muttered, “Benjamin.”

“Benjamin who?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Just Benjamin. The old vampires only have one name.”

I nodded. Old vampires had one name, like Madonna, or Beyoncé, but what most people didn’t know was that they fought duels to see who got to use the name. A powerful vampire could demand that another lesser vampire give up the use of a name he’d had for centuries, or fight for the right to keep it. I didn’t say that part out loud, because most people, even us vampire experts, didn’t know it. It was an old custom that was dying out as the modern vampires kept their last names, and duels were illegal now that vampires weren’t. Dueling was looked on the same under the law regardless of whether the participants were alive or undead. I would have bet a lot of money that this Benjamin wasn’t old enough to know the history behind vampires having only one name.

“Where can I find Benjamin?”

“I thought you were so powerful that no vampire could resist you.” There was a flare of sullen anger in his pale blue eyes. There was temper in there, under the tears.

“I would need a connection with him, someone who was metaphysically joined with him in some way, so I could follow the psychic connection. Someone like you.” I let the hint of threat ride into that last part.