A Perfect Blood

making my eyes wide and enjoying jerking the stiff man’s chain. “What did the I.S. officer say we were here for? Inspecting for fire-code violations?”
    Nina frowned, and Glenn pinched my elbow. “You like causing trouble, don’t you?” Glenn insisted, and I stopped. Maybe being ignored on the front steps bothered me more than I’d realized, but that had felt good, and now I was pretty sure that Mr. Calaway wasn’t a suspect. I didn’t want to walk around a museum with a serial killer. I had promised to be careful, right?
    Glenn stepped nearly in front of me, taking the upset man by the shoulder and all but leading him to the turnstiles. “We only need a few people until we know for sure if what we’re looking for is here, Mr. Calaway,” he said, giving me a glare to keep my mouth shut. “There’s no need to be alarmed, and we’re grateful that you’re letting us look around without a warrant . Ms. Morgan is exaggerating the situation.”
    I sighed, but got what Glenn was saying and resolved to shut up. If Mr. Calaway refused to let us in, we could lose a day in the courts getting a warrant. The thing was, though, I wasn’t exaggerating, and Glenn knew it.
    “Um, I’ll get the keys,” the curator said, his focus distant as he reached over the counter and brought out a ring of them. “I’ve got a key for everything.”
    Right at the front desk, I thought, thinking security was pretty lax. But who was going to run off with any of this stuff?
    Mr. Calaway started for the museum’s entrance, his pace fast and jerky. Glenn grabbed my elbow and propelled me forward, his grip a shade too tight and his shoulders tense. He wasn’t happy with me, but I didn’t care. Wayde was behind me, and Nina ahead, her eyes scanning, evaluating, searching, her motions both graceful and tense. I don’t think the vampire she was channeling had ever been in here before. It was like watching a cat, furtive and sleekly sexy at the same time.
    “This is our main room,” the man was saying as we took our turns going through the turnstile and entered the large four-story room. Tours fanned out from here, but it was the log cabin my eyes lingered on. As the curator started in on his memorized spiel as if we were tourists, I stared at the building, wondering why it drew my attention—other than its being a building inside another.
    “That is creepy,” I said to Wayde when I read the placard and found the log cabin had once been hidden inside someone’s barn and was a holding pen for slaves being moved and sold. “Something doesn’t look right,” I added as I continued reading, finding that it had been painstakingly reassembled here for instructional reasons. Kids ran in and out of it as if it was a playhouse, while serious adults tried to take in the atrocity it represented, and yet . . . something felt off.
    Nina rocked toward me. “It’s a fake,” she said softly, her eyes on the roofline.
    I looked at her, as did Wayde, leaving Glenn patiently listening to the curator and trying to wedge a word in and get this train moving.
    Nina shrugged, her hands loose at her sides. “There’s no moulage on it,” the vampire said, still not having looked away from the thick, dark timbers. “It’s a fake, a replica.”
    “But moulages fade with time and sun,” I said. “This thing is ancient.”
    “Ancient? No.” Nina reached out to touch the timbers, apparently blackened artificially, and not with the blood the sign said they were. “But something like this—something built to hold people against their will, to imprison lives, souls, and fears—tends to soak up emotion and hold it like a sponge.” Scrunching up her face, Nina looked at the chimney. “It will hold its emotion for a long time, and this has none.”
    A banshee might have soaked it up, I thought, but dismissed it. “A fake?” I asked, thinking it was unfair that they would try to pass it off as an original.
    Nina’s eyes flicked behind my shoulder, and I jumped when Glenn touched me, asking, “Rachel? Which way?”
    I took a deep breath and exhaled. Oh yeah. Fumbling for the amulet, I held it even with my chest and walked in a circle. There was only one direction where the glow strengthened, and I stopped, staring at a service-oriented area with no displays. An oversize door with no window and painted the same color as the walls was obvious, and I pointed. “There.”
    Mr. Calaway bustled past me looking positively relieved. “That