The Late Mr Steele.
Laura waited impatiently outside the door of Steele's apartment. She looked at her watch and adjusted a wisp of cobweb in her hair that was really starting to annoy her. She was about to press the button again when the door opened and Steele looked out, stepped back and said, "Laura? Please be Laura!"
She put her dead-white hand on his chest and pushed him gently back into the room, closing the door firmly behind her. "You're not ready? Twenty minutes and you're not ready?"
"I am, nearly. I just got distracted, thinking about the Jefferson case."
She raised her eyebrows. "Work distracted you? Do I have 'idiot' stamped on my forehead?"
He peered at her and shrugged. "It's a little hard to tell, under all that make-up. You do make a most convincing ghoul."
"We're going to be late." she said.
"We're not going to be late, not 'late' late, just Laura Holt late."
"Explain that if you dare." she said.
He smiled, "There are three kinds of late, your basic late, arriving after the time expected, Laura Holt late, arriving less than twenty minutes before expected and fashionably late, which can be anything up to an hour, depending on how fashionable you are. Tonight, I feel a great need to be fashionable in something, because 1860s Transylvania is no longer le dernier cri."
"You don't want to be a vampire?" she said, "I'd have thought you'd love to be a seductive creature of the night."
"Now you're talking! If you want a seductive creature of the night, no costume required, for either of us, and the cobwebs definitely have to go."
He moved closer, his eyes bright and his smile wicked. She almost let him kiss her, but then she thought of the party and held up the small bottle she had hidden in her shroud. "I brought holy water, so back off."
He raised his hands in surrender. "Cruel, Laura, very cruel. What's the point of being a vampire if I don't get to nibble on my favourite neck?"
"This party is important to the agency. A lot of important people are going to be there and I need you to hypnotise and enthrall them. You do that for me, and after the party, we can come back here and I'll unghoul a little."
"And the neck nibbling?" he said.
She smiled. "Foolishly, I forgot to wear a crucifix."
"Foolish is my favourite kind of virgin." he said.
"Do we have a deal?"
He nodded. Give me five minutes."
Fifteen minutes later, a darkly aristocratic figure emerged from the bedroom and flashed a sabre-toothed smile. "Come along, my lovely corpse. At least I have some body to go with."