I felt better after a hot bath and flicked on the TV to see if there was any news about the killings. I learnt it was early Thursday morning — days melted into one another when you lived among vampires, and I rarely took any notice of them — and no new deaths had been reported. It had been almost two weeks since the last body was discovered. There was the slightest hint of hope in the air — many people thought the reign of terror had come to an end. I doubted we'd be that lucky, but I kept my fingers crossed as I turned the set off and headed for the welcome hotel bed.

Sometime later I was roughly shaken awake. A strong light was shining through the thin material of the curtains and I knew instantly that it was midday or early afternoon, which was way too soon to be even thinking about getting out of bed. Grunting, I sat up and found an anxious-looking Harkat leaning over me.

"Wassup?" I muttered, rubbing the grains of sleep from my eyes.

"Someone's knocking at… your door," Harkat croaked.

"Tell them to please go away," I said — or words to that effect!

"I was going to, but…" He paused.

"Who is it?" I asked, sensing trouble.

"I don't know. I opened the door of my room a crack… and checked. It's nobody connected with the hotel, although… there's a staff member with him. He's a small man, carrying a big… briefcase, and he's…" Again Harkat paused. "Come see for yourself."

I got up as there was a round of fresh knuckle raps. I hurried through to Harkat's room. Mr. Crepsley was sleeping soundly in one of the twin beds. We tiptoed past him and opened the door ever so slightly. One of the figures in the corridor was familiar — the day manager of the hotel — but I'd never seen the other. He was small, as Harkat had said, and thin, with a huge black briefcase. He was wearing a dark grey suit, black shoes and an old-fashioned bowler hat. He was scowling and raising his knuckles to knock again as we closed the door.