Ares eagerly stepped off the bus, looking over his shoulder. He had been trapped against the window, begging for freedom from a middle-aged bag lady wannabe, who, like the rest of the miserable wretches on the bus, found him fascinating. She had sat down beside him only five minutes after he had gotten on and placed her hand on his leg. Ares’s eyes had bugged out of his skull in horror as his entire body convulsed with revulsion. He found her so utterly repulsive that he did not even have a food response and had to endure the entire monologue of her life in a failed attempt to seduce him.

Outside, Ares inhaled so deeply he had forgotten he knew how. The late fall air filled him like an empty cavity and blew away the last forty-five minutes.

He was never going to ride the bus again.

Ares tasted the air for hints of Alexandria. As a vampire, he had an incredible smell memory. He had noted the peculiarity of her scent earlier that day, a bit like sea foam and brine with a hint of lavender. He expected her to smell like patchouli, but perhaps she used some other hippie product.

Ares had to assume she hadn’t been by this way in the last hour or so—he couldn’t pick up her scent. He decided to continue to her house.

He looked around as he walked and found the area to be surprisingly charming. The park was lovely and much larger than he had anticipated. He decided to come back another night to get a better look around.

Ares turned off Bloor Street and headed down Parkside Drive to Westminster Avenue. He kept his senses sharp, not wishing to bump into Alexandria on his little excursion. He had anticipated some slum area, the kind university students normally survived in, but what he came upon instead was a comfortable middle class neighborhood. Alexandria’s house was no exception.

Ares got out his small, black leather notebook. One of the first things Docherty had taught him was that all good investigators take notes and pictures. The Detective had given him a notebook their first Christmas together (the Detective’s all-time favorite holiday, next to Halloween).

He got out his pen and jotted down some defining features of the yard and house:

-Small front yard, no tacky plastic animals

-Cracked walkway leading to front porch

-Wooden steps, possibly squeaky

-Trim needs repainting

-No car in driveway, garage present—smells of oil and gas. May have car.

-Some small prisms in windows

-Color: white paneling, red brick & white trim w/ black shingles

-Eastern white cedars on either side of front porch

-Small white fenced-in garden in front of porch. Front lawn needs raking.

-Rocking white wicker loveseat w/ small table and another wicker chair

-Fenced-in backyard

-Dark red door with lovely glass window design (looks like ivy vines. Perhaps she’s not as tacky as originally speculated).

Ares pocketed his notebook and scanned the area to make sure no one was in sight. He wanted to avoid suspicion, so when he spotted a couple walking across the street he decided to glamor himself. He pictured himself dissolving and disappearing into his surroundings. He became the house behind him, the yard and trees. He bled into the scenery with ease. He felt a lightness settle over him and knew it had worked. To the human eye, Ares was invisible.

He walked up the driveway without a sound. Another perk to being a vampire—he could be completely still and absolutely silent. He headed toward the fence and hopped over it. He landed quietly and scanned the area. To his surprise, the yard was fairly tidy. He had expected a salvaging yard; what he found instead were hand-placed flat rocks on the lawn that made a path to the backyard. Along either side of him were dormant shrubs and spent herbs and grasses from the season. He noted that many of them were native species while some were medicinal or culinary herbs. He got out his notebook, jotting down the information.

To his right, next to a boulder covered in old growth from the season, was a little sign that read “Grow Where You are Planted.” Despite what he thought of Alexandria, he found the sign endearing—tacky, but touching.

The back of the yard caused him to do a double take. With his acute night vision, it came alive. The garden was layered with small, native rocks dividing it as it rose to the back fence. Small, gently glowing spirit houses dotted the miniature landscape, and Ares noted the square solar panels on the top of each one. An artificial, yet tasteful, waterfall sang from the right-hand corner and ran into a small pool. The pond was medium-sized and dark, but Ares could see some scarlet and white shapes sleeping beneath the surface: goldfish.

Next to the pond was a statue of a girl in a nice Sunday dress, her head tilted as she silently serenaded the fish and garden with her fiddle. Ares admired the detail of her dress and the delicate ribbon in her hair. She was smiling a sweet smile, though if he concentrated hard enough, Ares imagined she held a secret in the corner of her lips.

He admired the time and effort that had gone into the garden. It was already trimmed and ready for the growing season with all the dead foliage removed. Every nook and cranny had been tended and manicured.

He had almost been taken in by the magick of the place when he spotted something peculiar: a circle of stones. At the center lay a raised slab of rock that appeared to be a table or altar with a single tea light resting inside a marble candleholder. Ares considered taking a photo, but without a dark setting he’d need the flash. He decided to sketch the stones instead as he mulled over some serious questions. Alexandria was involved in something occult related—the circle of stones clearly indicated that, but what kind of occult he would need to find out.

Some clue may yet be woven into the garden’s mysteries, but as much as Ares admired the horticulture, it was time to go inside. He was mostly likely going to obtain more vital information from the house anyway. He could linger in the garden another evening.

Ares regarded the house. A window would probably be the best place to enter, but he needed a window without a prism hanging in it, and she had quite a few. The prisms were an old-magick-turned-new-age-trend. Cheesy suction-cup trinkets with prisms hanging in them flooded malls, specialty shops, and even Wal-Mart these days, but while they were tacky, they had magick. They prevented Ares from getting in.

Prisms captured light and fractured it into color, but they also fractured negativity and prevented it from entering. Ares was a predator, and he was, in a sense, negativity. He found the prisms unnerving. The longer he looked at them, the more they distorted his vision. If he had any previous doubts about Alexandria being involved in the occult, they had fallen away—like he would if he tried to get into any of those windows.

He noted too that each window glimmered slightly when he looked at them a certain way. He strained his eyes, focusing closer than any unaided human eye could. She had drawn protective magickal lines along each windowsill. He stood back and let his eyes blur—the entire house had a reflective blue shield pulsing around it. It reminded him of reflections on water.

Ares turned away and considered his options. He would have to pick the lock on the back door. He reached into his coat and pulled out his black leather gloves and the lock picking kit the Detective had given him on their second Christmas together. He smirked. While he was unable to enter through a window, he suspected he’d be able to enter through a door if he focused on something positive, like puppies or kittens. He assumed the trick was that no one could enter the house if they intended it or any of its occupants harm. Ares did not have a lot of experience with witchcraft, but having quite a few years behind him as a vampire and an investigator, he trusted his instincts.

He approached the house and stepped quietly up to the backdoor. Ares took out a couple of needle-thin pieces from his kit and began working on the lock. He focused on happy thoughts and forced feelings of peace onto himself. He heard a click indicating the lock had released and turned the doorknob slowly. He neatly set the tools back into place and tucked the kit away.

The house was dark, which Ares hoped was a sign that everyone was either out or sleeping. He sniffed and listened carefully. He did not smell anyone, but what he did smell he had not anticipated. Ares suddenly panicked. He realized all too late that Alexandria had a dog. Just as he took a step inside, a black dog came thundering down the stairs to the basement, hackles raised, and jaws flapping as it barked the alarm.

Ares went bug-eyed. He tripped, regained his footing, whipped around and slammed the door behind him just before the dog reached him. She smashed into the door and it shuddered against her weight. Ares could hear her barking and clawing at the door.

Why hadn’t he smelled her outside? Was it part of some enchantment in the yard? Ares never would have entered and exposed himself if he’d know there was a dog in the house. He loathed dogs. The prejudice had started on their end. The moment he became a vampire, every domesticated animal turned on him. If anything, he preferred cats. Most of them tolerated him; some even seemed to like him. Horses and livestock fled from him, and a friend’s parrot tried to pluck his eye out once. Dogs, though, the city was full of them, stray and owned alike, and they gave him nothing but grief.

This really vexed his plans. He and the dog both knew that she was incapable of hurting him, but that would not stop her from trying. Ares admired her loyalty, annoying as it was.

Ares could easily dispatch the dog, but he had no interest in harming an innocent animal, nor did he want to blow his cover. He stared out into the garden, admiring it one last time, and decided he would have to come back another night.

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