I HADN’T MUCH CARED for Ziggy, to be honest. What disturbed me was that a vampire was murdered. It just happened to be him.

My personal dangers had escalated. The conspiracy behind the outbreak of nymphomania remained guarded by trigger-happy federal maniacs. Someone had tried to steal my computer and conked me on the head, and I’m sure that same guy had used me for target practice. Was he one of the vampire hunters prowling the streets of Denver?

My fingertips tingled. My vampire senses grasped a hunch and alerted me that perhaps-no, certainly-these events were connected.

If so, then time to reenergize my investigation and draw out those stalking me. My leads pointed to one man, the person at the center of the conspiracy behind the outbreak. Dr. Bigelow Wong.

I’d kept my distance, fearing that I would compromise my investigation if I pressed him too eagerly. My adversaries, whoever they were, weren’t worried by such concerns.

From my Internet source I learned that Dr. Wong had managed his dollars well during his career with the Department of Energy. He had recently bought a home in Tucson, Arizona, and moved his family there. While he waited for retirement, he lived alone in a high-rise condominium in the Park Hill neighborhood of Denver.

The condo building was new, accented with rounded corners and oval windows that repeated the architectural rhythm of the gently arched roof. Each story had recessed balconies and stuccoed walls, the floors alternating in pastel green and beige, and separated by narrow ledges that looked like icing squeezed between the layers of a cake.

Entrance to the building was through a small, unadorned lobby. Banks of mailboxes and an intercom occupied the wall to the left. An elevator stood on the other side of a partition of green-tinted glass. Access to the elevator was through a glass door, which was locked. I couldn’t very well ring Dr. Wong on the intercom and ask to be let in to discuss the outbreak.

Sifting through a trashcan under the mailboxes, I pulled out a piece of discarded junk mail. Standing against the glass partition, I pretended to read the mail and waited for someone to unlock the door.

The elevator chimed. Out stepped a young, stylish couple. They chatted about dinner plans with friends and exited, ignoring my presence.

I caught the door before it closed and went to the elevator, which I took to the third floor. Once there, I found Dr. Wong’s unit, number 313. I removed my contacts, slipped on leather gloves, and knocked on the door.

Someone called out in a bothered voice. “What is it?”

“Mr. Wong, this is maintenance.”

“It’s Dr. Wong. It’s late, why are you bothering me?”

“Excuse me, Dr. Wong, someone reported a gas leak and we’re trying to track it down.”

“There’s no gas leak here.”

“I wish I could take your word, but we need to play it safe.”

The lock snapped, and the door opened.

“Very well,” he groused. Dr. Wong turned away before we made eye contact. “You can be sure that the manager will hear about this tomorrow. I’m not paying those outrageous association fees to be bothered like this.”

His red aura bristled with spikes and signaled his annoyance. Spindly brown arms and legs jutted from his yellow T-shirt and baggy shorts. “Come in. Make it quick.”

I entered and shut the door. The living room opened to a kitchen. A cool breeze from the balcony swept through a sliding door and rustled the newspaper on the kitchen counter.

I put my hand on Wong’s shoulder. He spun around to parry my arm. My grip held him firm.

His eyes drew wide and his scowl went flat when I locked my vampire gaze upon him. I pushed him backwards onto a sofa seat.

I let go of his shoulder. Holding his hands, I kneaded the webs of flesh between his thumbs and index fingers.

Dr. Wong’s breathing eased. His muscles relaxed. His aura softened. I kept my gaze locked on his until his aura swirled around his body like warm syrup.

“Dr. Wong, tell me about Project Redlight.”

Though his face remained expressionless, he replied with a chuckle. “Redlight? That’s been my ticket to financial independence.”

Under hypnosis, victims’ answers were shaded by their subconscious biases. I had to guide the interrogation to get the facts I needed.

“Your success? In what?”

His chuckle resumed. “In DOE. What I know makes me very important…and dangerous.”

“Dangerous to whom?”

He pointed his nose to the ceiling. “The bigwigs. The men who run this country. The guardians of the truth.”

“What truth?”

“The world did go crazy.” He giggled. “I, Dr. Bigelow Wong, the nerdy, anal-retentive scientist, suddenly had to fight off the pussy. All those beautiful women who ignored me for so many years couldn’t drop their panties fast enough. Who would’ve expected? It was better than any retention bonus. For a few beautiful days, I was the Big Wong.”

“Yes, I know about the nymphomania. But what was the cause?”

His aura spiked again. Warning.

His hands suddenly pulled loose from mine, and he seized my wrists. I immediately yanked free and grabbed his shoulders. To subdue him, I had to use my fangs. I aimed for his throat.

Perhaps screwing the nymphos had contaminated him and this was how he resisted my hypnosis. But his aura remained steady and hadn’t changed to yellow, as had the infected radiological control technicians.

He acted cooperative. My fangs retracted. I caressed his eyes shut and cradled his face in my hands. As my aura melded with his, siphoning his psychic resistance and strengthening my hypnotic hold, his muscles relaxed. His pulse slowed. I asked again, “What was the cause?”

“Red. Redlight,” he whispered. “Hg-209.”

“What?”

“Hg-209. Red mercury.”

“What about red mercury?”

Wong started to raise an arm. I let him, and he motioned to a shelf of books on the opposite wall. “The cause was red mercury. And the EBEs.”

“EBEs?”

“My diary explains everything.”

DOE forbade any mention of classified information except in authorized documents. “You keep a diary?”

He wet his lips. “Yes.”

“Why?”

He tilted his head back toward the ceiling and replied in a quiet, smug tone. “Consider it blackmail against the gods.”

Carefully withdrawing my hands, I turned and followed the direction of his upraised arm. I didn’t expect to find a book labeled Dr. Wong’s secret diary. “Where is it?”

“Inside the copy of Audubon’s Birds of America.”

I found the volume. Tucked into a cutout within the color plates, was a slim composition book. I opened the composition book and found it filled with neat columns of handwritten notes. It was a diary. Could unraveling the conspiracy be this easy?

I maneuvered an ottoman in front of the doctor and sat. I would peruse the notes and ask Wong to explain everything. At last I’d find out about the Tiger Team report, Project Redlight, his trips to Area 51, the red mercury, and, now, the EBEs. By this time tomorrow I’d be at Rocky Flats, giving Gilbert Odin my report and collecting the remainder of my fee. Case closed.

I heard a thwack.

“Dr. Wong?”

He remained silent. His red aura faded, collapsing into his slumped form.

I shook him. “Dr. Wong. Dr. Wong.”

He tipped forward. Blood seeped across the back of his T-shirt. Wong’s aura faded to nothing. He was dead.

A tuft of stuffing curled from a hole in the upholstery. Something had punched through the back of the seat. A bullet?

I snapped a look over his shoulder, past the kitchen, and to another tall building beyond his balcony. My ears and fingertips tingled from my vampire senses going to maximum alert. I ducked. A bullet whizzed past. The lamp on the end table shattered.