I was not alone, however. Dennis and Moshe sat on a bench opposite the art history building, watching me brush the dirty snow off of my pants and replace the grate with a few token twists on the screws.

“We were heading toward Main St, but then he just stopped,” Dennis said. “A few minutes ago, he stopped in his tracks, turned around, and came here.”

“I guess it’s cuz I found this.” I held up the charm. “But I didn’t use it. It hasn’t even been pulsing on its own.”

“You sure it works the way you think it does?”

“I wonder.”

Just then, the charm began its rhythmic throbbing. Although it was nowhere near my wrist or my heart, I recognized immediately that it was nonetheless in sync with my pulse. Moshe began to speak:

“Tomorrow night. Sunset. The diner in Applewood. Bring that.” He nodded at the charm. Then he closed his eyes and slumped down in the bench, unconscious. The charm, too, lay still.

Dennis and I looked at each other. “What was that all about?” I asked rhetorically.

“Patrick,” Dennis said.

“It’s about Patrick?” I was confused.

“Oh, I don’t know. But we haven’t found him yet.”

Previously, he seemed devoted. Now, with so many other things going on, it began to feel more like clinginess. He would need to get over this if he wanted to make any progress with me. Still, I didn’t want to minimize his concern. “He left this behind where I could find it. That suggests he knows what he’s doing—or he thinks he does. I bet we’ll get answers tomorrow night.”

“About Patrick.”

“About Patrick, about these things, about him,” meaning Moshe. I pushed at the vampire’s shoulder. There was no response. I shook him more forcefully, but still there was no movement.

“Check if he’s breathing,” Dennis suggested.

I could barely keep from snorting, in the humiliating laugh sort of way, not the holding in a sneeze way. “He’s not breathing.”

Dennis’s eyes became wide, and he said, “He’s not?” I stopped prodding Moe and looked Dennis in the eyes until his face turned red and he said, “I’m glad you were the only one here to hear that. How can you tell if he’s dead then?”

“He’d already be decomposing. It happens real fast with these guys. In an instant, if they’re completely depleted. Hey, do you have room in your house for him?” Dennis and Patrick don’t have a huge home, but they do have one more bedroom than I have.

“I guess,” he agreed. He didn’t sound very happy about it, though. Getting Moshe there wasn’t fun—it would have been much easier just to drag him downstairs and let him wake up in the tunnels—but so much was at stake now that we needed to keep him nearby. Eventually, we did manage to schlep his unconscious body all the way over. I left him in Dennis’s care and headed home.