Demonic vampires were sensitive to sunlight. It didn’t kill them right away, but it did weaken them enough to allow others to more easily kill them with other means. Like swords.

“We can’t wait,” Naomi said. “Sooner or later, the vampires will notice that their comrade Claudine hasn’t checked back in, and they’ll figure out something is wrong. We need to attack before they’re on full alert.”

Sera pulled Naomi behind a bush with her as a vampire guard came around the side of the house. “They’re already pretty alert. Sneaking inside the Castle will be tricky. If we alert the vampires to our presence, they might kill the kidnapped boy.” She stole a glance at the vampire guard, who was decked out in enough leather and steel to make a hardcore biker get really, really excited. “If he isn’t dead already.”

“Jacob is alive. From what I could figure out, the vampires are holding him for someone else.”

“That’s an awful lot of vampires to guard one boy,” Sera commented. “Why do they want him? What’s special about him?”

“All I know is he’s a fairy-mage hybrid. And he’s only seven years old.” Her blue eyes shook. “We have to save him.”

“I might have an idea,” Sera said as a ghost passed through the gate.

The vampire was no longer in sight, so she rose out of her crouch and followed the weeping ghost. He let out a few gurgled sniffles as he floated in stuttered sways down the sidewalk.

“Hello,” she said.

The ghost kept moving, but his head twisted around backwards to scowl at her. “What do you want?”

“Are you all right?” she asked, giving him a cheery smile.

The ghost was not impressed. “Are you with them?” He sank enough venom into the last word to kill a woolly mammoth.

“The vampires?” she guessed. “No, most certainly not.”

He stopped, hovering in place as he looked her up and down. His gaze lingered on her sword. “You’re here to make trouble for them, I hope.”

“Yes.”

“Good.” A brief smile touched his lips—then was swallowed by a wave of pure melancholy. His magic was wobbling like a leaky rowboat in a thunder storm. “Those…beasts chased me away. Away from my friend. My only friend.”

Jacob most likely. Ghosts often made friends with children. Many Otherworldly couldn’t stand adults, but they adored children. So they made themselves selectively invisible: kids could see them but not adults. That’s where the ‘imaginary friend’ term had come from. Parents didn’t realize their children actually were talking to someone real—albeit a ghost.

“Where is your friend?” Sera asked the ghost.

“Inside.” He waved toward the Castle.

“Which room?”

“Who are you talking to?” Naomi asked, coming up behind Sera.

“A ghost.”

Naomi turned, scanning the area. “I don’t see a ghost.”

“He’s right there,” Sera told her, pointing at the ghost, who was trying to hold his breath. She refrained from reminding him that he didn’t have breath anymore.

“How can you see me?” He sucked in his cheeks, holding his non-existent breath until his head faded slightly. “I am invisible!”

Sera smiled at him. “I can see you.”

He parried her smile with a frown. “This has never happened before. I pride myself on my invisibility.” His hand faded out, then reappeared.

“You’re doing very well.”

“Don’t patronize me, girl. I’ve been turning myself invisible since long before you were born.”

Considering the modern look of his clothes, she very much doubted that. For once, though, she held her tongue.

“I’m a Magic Breaker and a Sniffer,” she told the ghost. “I can feel magic and break through it. I see things others don’t.”

“I once knew someone like that, long ago.”

“Oh?”

She couldn’t help but wonder if he meant a Dragon Born mage, one just like her. Could there be more in the world? Or was he actually older than his clothes suggested? She didn’t dare ask with Naomi listening. Death was the sentence for being Dragon Born—an abomination of magic, according to the Magic Council—and Sera happened to be pretty fond of living.

“Yes,” said the ghost. “She…was it a she?” He scratched his head. “I can’t quite remember. It was a long time ago. Back in my other life.”

Back before he’d become a ghost, he meant. Most ghosts remembered only pieces from the time before their death. Sera wished she could pump him for everything he might know about the Dragon Born, but his unreliable memory would make that basically impossible. Besides, right now she had a young boy to save.

“Tell me about your friend,” she asked him.

The ghost nodded happily. “He is a rare child. Such a marvelous imagination. Such heart. His magic is simply beautiful. He’s the best friend I’ve ever had. And then they took him.” His happiness crashed down, crunching beneath his anger. “Those dirty vampires stole him from his home.”

“You followed them here?”

“Yes. I couldn’t let him disappear. Not like the others.”

“What others?” Naomi asked. The ghost was so upset that he’d gone visible.

He shook his head, trying to rattle a memory free. It seemed ghosts didn’t have very good memories of their years after death either. Or this one was just being obstinate.