"Oops," Ioana cringed, and the three girls ran to the wall. It was a meter and a half tall, about 15 cm taller than them. Aurelia quickly grabbed a milk crate laying near the shed, and Ioana and Felicia fought to stand on it.

"Oh no," Felicia said as her heart sank.

She couldn't see the ball.

She strained her eyes, looking for it, seeing only the dirt road that ran steeply downhill, intersected only by a cross street with a corner lot that had Vasile's house. The dirt road terminated at Caspari's house.

"Felicia," Ioana grabbed her arm and pointed. "See that."

Felicia looked and saw what she was pointing at and then began looking around in an even greater panic as thick black dread began to spread throughout her body like some horrible disease. Maybe the ball hit one of the tires on Vasile's precious car. He was always there with his car, working on it, so he'd likely hold onto it so he could rant at her.

Like most houses, Ioana's grandmother's house was on a slight grade to keep the rainwater from going into its basement. As a result, when the ball went over the fence, it rolled down and somehow, through some of the worst luck, must have managed to roll right through a hole in Caspari's fence.

"Well," Aurelia poked her head between the arms of the two other girls. "That was an unlucky shot."

"That is the understatement of the century," Ioana said, her face pale. "What are we going to do?"

"Maybe it will roll back," Aurelia suggested.

"Sure, and maybe Caspari will quit eating people," Ioana said sarcastically.

"Don't be mean," Aurelia glared at her.

"I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do," Felicia was scared, but surprisingly it wasn't of Caspari.

Last month she borrowed Marcel's bike and lost it when she flipped off the bike. The bike went into a ditch that had water in it. The bike ended up getting washed away. She never found it. Marcel had been furious because their father had irregular work hours and couldn't afford to buy him another bike, so now Marcel had to walk to school instead of riding, which cut into the amount of time he could spend with Rodica.

It didn't matter that the ball was currently in the yard of a notorious moroi.

Felicia had to get that ball back.

"We gotta get that ball back," Felicia stated firmly.

"Are you crazy," Ioana said in shock. "That's Caspari's yard."

"I know."

"And he kidnaps and tortures children," Ioana said as if Felicia was completely ignorant of the gossip at school surrounding Caspari.

"I'm aware."

"And he probably killed that Mihail guy," Ioana insisted.

"Yup," Felicia looked steadily at the house, already figuring out she could crawl through the hole in the fence, and if she was quick, she could grab the ball and be out long before sundown. It was daytime, so Caspari was probably sleeping off his latest meal; blood takes a long time to digest.

"Maybe you could just buy Marcel another ball. He won't know the difference," Aurelia suggested sensibly.

"I can't. I have no money," Felicia pointed out as she reached into the pocket of her jeans. She pulled out a pink scrunchie and glanced at it critically. She loved adding little bits of pink to her outfits, like pink scrunchies, friendship bracelets, and belts. But that made her stand out, and the whole point of this mission would be to get in and out of Caspari's yard with the moroi none the wiser. True, he might smell her, but all the stories pointed to a moroi's sense of smell being diminished during daytime.

"Let me borrow your hair tie," she said to Aurelia, who gave Felicia her dull brown hair tie. She tended to rag on Aurelia for wearing boring clothes like the brown dress she was currently wearing and, of course, brown and black hair ties (why wear brown and black when PINK existed) but was thankful today as it meant she could go more thoroughly in disguise. Felicia pulled her black hair out of her face, putting her hair into a bun.

"And let me use your black belt," she said to Ioana, taking off her pink one.

"No, Felicia," Ioana gulped, her face whiter than her white-blond hair. "I was the one who kicked the ball into Caspari's yard. I'm the one who has to retrieve it."

"Ioana, you're pretty brave, but right now, we need stealth, and I'm much better at thieves and cops than you," Felicia pointed out logically. "My dark red t-shirt and blue jeans stand out less than your bright yellow t-shirt and white shorts."

Even if these blue jeans were too long for her, as evidenced by the hole she wore in the bottom. Her mama had hemmed them for her, not by cutting them to length but by just folding them up inside and sewing them. Which was great and all, but now the hem had started to come out. Felicia tried to fix it using double-sided tape, which somewhat worked, but sometimes it would fall out, and stuff would get caught on the tape.

Nothing she could do about that, but she resolved when this was over to secretly use her mama's sewing machine and cut these jeans to size and adequately hem them.

"Curse my awesome sense of fashion," Ioana exclaimed, but it was clear she was relieved that she had a practical reason not to go into Caspari's yard. She took off her black belt and handed it to Felicia reluctantly. Ioana felt guilty. "Wait here; let me get you some protection."

Ioana ran into her grandmother's house and came out a few minutes later with a dagger and a sheath. "This was my grandfather's, a priest blessed it, and he told me it can slay moroi and strigoi."

Felicia looked at Ioana. This was serious. "Are you sure? He just died."

"I'm sure," Ioana nodded. "He'd want it to be used to protect someone from the undead."

"Um, here, eat some garlic," Aurelia shoved a garlic bulb into her hands. Felicia dutifully ate the bulb, chewing it. It was really gross eating raw garlic, but she knew garlic had the magical property of thinning the blood, so if Caspari tried to bite her, hopefully, it would ward him off. Felicia didn't rub any on her, though, as he'd probably smell it. She put an extra bulb in her pocket for eating later, though.

Without warning, Aurelia grabbed Felicia in a tight hug, and Ioana soon followed suit, the three girls holding onto each other for dear life.

"Don't die," Ioana commanded, pulling away, unshed tears in her eyes. "Nobody else at school is cool enough to be my friend."

"I won't," Felicia reassured her as she climbed over the wall and waved at the two. The knife sheath was clipped onto her belt. It was a bit heavy, but it was better to have a weapon when entering the domain of a terrifying moroi.

Felicia walked slowly in the ditch beside the dirt road, leaning forward so nobody could see her from a window. She then ran low to the ground across the crossroad. Vasile wasn't in his front yard working on his car for once. She eventually reached the property line of the moroi's house.

Here she was, faced with entering the lair of the ghastly Caspari.

She crept slowly towards the vine-encrusted garden wall and slipped between a part that had crumbled long ago. She flattened herself against the ground and slowly headed toward where she figured the football would have gone.

She had to go over his vegetable garden and noticed oddly that the soil was rather dark and splotchy. Why he kept up the pretense of a garden when he ate the living puzzled Felicia. The deception was quite strong as the vegetables were all neatly lined up, and it was very apparent that Caspari did tend this garden. Was he merely doing it to belay suspicion, or was there another reason? Was it possible her brother was at least right about his garden, that it wasn't full of his victims?

Oh, this is totally blood, she thought and managed somehow not to upend her lunch. She could smell something rotting, like when Aurelia's cat died and they found the poor kitty in the crawlspace. The rank odour waffled up from the garden, leaving an acrid taste in her mouth.

Maybe he buried some of his victims in his gardens to eat later? Or perhaps he was somehow crossbreeding vegetables with human bodies?

Felicia's mouth went dry, and she shivered as she continued crawling through the garden. She stiffly looked about for the little white and black ball but saw that while houses inhabited by the living had their grade sloped away, the grade of this dugout was level and even dipping in a few places. He must get flooded quite regularly. Her cousin's house flooded as it was improperly sloped, and her aunt had to get a professional to come in and fix it. Perhaps Caspari didn't because the handymen don't service the houses of moroi. If that were the case, they would have more sense than most adults. Maybe all the handymen and other contractors were part of a secret society of men and women who knew the secret of the moroi and vowed never to tell anyone about it. They'd just watch or something.

Felicia would need to discuss this later with Ioana and Aurelia.

She soon found herself by a back entrance, a set of stairs that led down into the dugout house's basement. Dusty stone steps that were uneven led down to a small dirt entryway with bits of withered grass poking through various stones in the steps. A wooden door with a large chunk taken out of the bottom of it sat locked. Beside it was the football.

Felicia almost made the mistake of running down the steps, but what if Caspari suddenly came out? He might be crouching behind the door, looking for someone to devour. She gazed critically at the door and then looked back at the garden wall, beyond which was safety. Sure it was daytime, but this was a shadowy basement entrance.

But, if she didn't get the ball, she'd be faced with her angry brother.

Felicia smoothed her t-shirt and slowly walked down the steps, one hand a few cm away from her knife. She reached the bottom, and nobody jumped out. She carefully grabbed the ball and was about to make her way up when she heard a noise.

Someone was walking heavily in the garden, making big steps.

She looked up and saw a man holding something over his shoulder.

It was Caspari.