"You ask an impossible thing. It cannot be done. You have found the outer orbits of my powers and I am afraid I can go no further, my friend."

"Holmes, you do not have to read it if you do not want to. It was a suggestion, not a death sentence." I said as Holmes gingerly handed back my much thumbed through copy of "Dracula".

"Was it?" Holmes said seriously. "Never mind. The book is meaningless to our cases. There is no vampire…Watson you look awful, my dear fellow."

"I couldn't sleep last night. But what do you mean? Last night you were connecting Longstreet, deceased, to Long, living, and tracing them, or him, or whatever it might be, back to the very origin of vampires and today…"

"Why did you not sleep?"

"Dreams. And you didn't answer my question."

"Dreams of what, exactly?" I stopped eating my breakfast and regarded my friend over his cup of coffee.

"Does it matter?"

"Call it curiosity."

"I call it unlike you, Holmes. First vampires and now dreams. If this gets out your reputation for logic and reason above all else may suffer."

"Unlikely." He set down his cup and regarded me. "Now. You will tell me about your dream and I will tell you the newest clue that has found its way into my hand."

I frowned, but after a moment, I answered him. "It wasn't so much a dream as a sensation – as if I were being watched as I slept."

"And Mrs. Watson?" Holmes asked, his face a mask of concentration.

I shook my head. "I had come home late last night and found I was not tired. Not wanting to wake her, I made a few notes on the case before falling asleep on the couch in my study. It seemed to me…"

"Yes?"

"I heard a voice, calling to me."

"My word, Watson, you are blushing."

"I can only imagine that you'll now tell me I've let my imagination run away with me between vampires, empty tombs and anemic patients who may or may not have risen from the dead."

Sherlock Holmes did not smile, but said in a grim, low voice, "That, my friend, I do not believe I will do."

"Holmes…?"

"But now," Holmes continued, ignoring my questioning look, "As promised, I will show you the newest clue that has found its way into my hand…That is if you're done with breakfast?"

"Yes."

"Good. Take your coat."

"We're going somewhere?"

"To see someone."

"Where?"

"The morgue."

To Be Continued…