“Meaning I’m not sure yet,” I said.
“So what? You’re going to hang around here butting into my life?”
I held up both hands. “It isn’t like that.”
“It’s just like that,” Irwin said. “My dad spends my whole life anywhere else but here, and now he thinks he can just decide when to intrude on it?”
“Irwin,” I said, “I’m not here to try to make you do anything. He asked me to look in on you. I promised I would. And that’s all.”
He scowled for a moment, then smoothed that expression away. “No sense in being mad at the messenger, I guess,” he said. “What do you mean about Connie?”
“She’s…” I faltered, there. You don’t just sit down with a guy and tell him, “Hey, your girlfriend is a vampire, could you pass the ketchup?” I sighed. “Look, Irwin. Everybody sees the world a certain way. And we all kind of … well, we all sort of decide together what’s real and what isn’t real, right?”
“Magic’s real,” Irwin said impatiently. “Monsters are real. Supernatural stuff actually exists. You’re a professional wizard.”
I blinked at him, several times.
“What?” he asked, and smiled gently. “Don’t let the brow ridge fool you. I’m not an idiot, man. You think you can walk into my life the way you have, twice, and not leave me with an itch to scratch? You made me ask questions. I went and got answers.”
“Uh. How?” I asked.
“Wasn’t hard. There’s an Internet. And this organization called the ‘Paranet’ of all the cockamamie things, that got started a few years ago. Took me like ten minutes to find it online and start reading through their message boards. I can’t believe everyone in the world doesn’t see this stuff. It’s not like anyone is trying very hard to keep it secret.”
“People don’t want to know the truth,” I said. “That makes it simple to hide. Wow, ten minutes? Really? I guess I’m not really an Internetty person.”
“Internetty,” Irwin said, seriously. “I guess you aren’t.”
I waved a hand. “Irwin, you need to know this. Connie isn’t—”
The pretty vampire plopped herself back down into Irwin’s lap and kissed his cheek. “Isn’t what?”
“The kind to stray,” I said, smoothly. “I was just telling Irwin how much I’d like to steal you away from him, but I figure you’re the sort who doesn’t play that kind of game.”
“True enough,” she agreed cheerfully. “I know where I want to sleep tonight.” Maybe it was unconscious, the way she wriggled when she said it, but Irwin’s eyes got a slightly glazed look to them.
I remembered being that age. A girl like Connie would have been a mind-numbing distraction to me back then even if she hadn’t been a vampire. And Irwin was clearly in love, or as close to it as he could manage through the haze of hormones surrounding him. Reasoning with him wasn’t going to accomplish anything—unless I made him angry. Passion is a huge force when you’re Irwin’s age, and I’d taken enough beatings for one lifetime. I’d never be able to explain the danger to him. He just didn’t have a frame of reference …
He just didn’t know.
I stared at Connie for a second with my mouth open.
“What?” she asked.
“You don’t know,” I said.
“Know what?” she asked.
“You don’t know that you’re…” I shook my head, and said to Irwin, “She doesn’t know.”
* * *
“Hang on,” Dean said. “Why is that significant?”
“Vampires are just like people until the first time they feed,” I said. “Connie didn’t know that bad things would happen when she did.”
“What kinda bad things?”
“The first time they feed, they don’t really know it’s coming. They have no control over it, no restraint—and whoever they feed on dies as a result.”