“So the vampire is where all the blood came from?”
“No.” I sighed. “This kind doesn’t feed on blood.”
“No? What do they eat, then?”
“Life-energy.”
“Huh?”
I sighed again. “Sex.”
“Finally, the story gets good. So they eat sex?”
“Life-energy,” I repeated. “The sex is just how they get started.”
“Like sticking fangs into your neck,” Dean said. “Only instead of fangs, I guess they use—”
“Look, do you want the story or not?”
Dean leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on his desk. “You kidding? This is the best one in years.”
* * *
Anyway, I watched Connie closely, but I saw no evidence of anything in her that I knew had to be there. Vampires are predators who hunt the most dangerous game on the planet. They generally aren’t shy about it, either. They don’t really need to be. If a White Court vampire wants to feed off a human, all she really has to do is crook her finger, and he comes running. There isn’t any ominous music. Nobody sparkles. As far as anyone looking on is concerned, a girl winks at a boy and goes off somewhere to make out. Happens every day.
They don’t get all coy asking you out to dinner, and they sure as hell don’t have pictures in a memory book.
This was weird, and long ex
perience has taught me that when the unexplained is bouncing around right in front of you, the smart thing is to back off and figure out what the hell is going on. In my line of work, what you don’t know can kill you.
But I didn’t get the chance. There was a sharp whistle from a coach somewhere on the field, and football players came rumbling off it. One of them came loping toward us, put a hand on top of the six-foot chain-link fence, and vaulted it in one easy motion. Bigfoot Irwin landed lightly, grinning, and continued directly toward Connie.
She let out a girlish squeal of delight and pounced on him. He caught her. She wrapped her legs around his hips, held his face in her hands, and kissed him thoroughly. They came up for air a moment later.
“Irwin,” she said, “I met someone interesting. Can I collect him?”
The kid only had eyes for Connie. Not that I could blame him, really. His voice was a basso rumble, startlingly like River Shoulders’s. “I’m always in favor of dinner at the Brewery.”
She dismounted and beamed at him. “Good. Irwin, this is…”
The kid finally looked up at me and blinked. “Harry.”
“Heya, Irwin,” I said. “How’re things?”
Connie looked back and forth between us. “You know each other?”
“He’s a friend,” Irwin said.
“Dinner,” Connie declared. “Harry, say you’ll share a meal with me.”
Interesting choice of words, all things considered.
I think I had an idea what had caused River’s bad dream. If a vampire had attached herself to Irwin, the kid was in trouble. Given the addictive nature of Connie’s attentions, and the degree of control it could give her over Irwin … maybe he wasn’t the only one who could be in trouble.
My, how little Irwin had grown. I wondered exactly how much of his father’s supernatural strength he had inherited. He looked like he could break me in half without causing a blip in his heart rate. He and Connie looked at me with hopeful smiles, and I suddenly felt like maybe I was the crazy one. Expressions like that should not inspire worry, but every instinct I had told me that something wasn’t right.
My smile probably got even more wooden. “Sure,” I said. “Why not?”