(15) Two vampires, a ghoul and a shifter.

"Flashlight, check; map, check; pry bars, check; anything else I need?" Linden asked.

"Me, check," Piers replied with a laugh. "No, that should do it. We're both strong enough to move the stones I think, once we find the kitchen corner."

"Then let's do it."

At Piers' nod, they slipped out of the back door of the manor house. "All clear," he said once he'd scanned the area. "No humans and I'm not sensing anything else."

Quickly crossing the back lawn to the trees, they moved quietly for a few minutes before figuring they were far enough away to walk normally.

"I feel like a spy on a mission," Linden commented with a laugh.

"'And your mission, should you decide to accept it—'." Piers intoned.

"Find the dungeon, free the prisoners, escape undetected."

Piers grinned. "Be weird if that was really the truth."

"We should be so lucky. You know if we really do find it, it'll be filled with rats and spiders and other yucky things like that." Linden gave a mock shudder. "Renfield I ain't."

"You'd make a cute, sexy Renfield," Piers told him with a smile.

"Thanks, I think." A wistful look crossed Linden's face, there and gone in a flash.

"Buck up, old chap," Piers said in his best bad British accent. "You'll find someone."

"I just wish—" Linden shook his head. "Not going there," he declared, more for himself than for Piers. "Enough of that. We'd better hurry, the night's a wasting."

"It is, and we have lots to do. Race you there."

"Umm, sure. Point me in the right direction. I'm just following you, as always."

"Straight ahead. Just don't—"

"Fall into the lake. Right, got it."