“Yes. But I don’t think she understands what all it means.”
“Ah yes. That’s always this issue. You’ll have to tell her, then let her decide. And if she walks away you have to let her go.”
What he said made sense. I’d known it myself. This just put it out there. “Yeah, I know.”
“That’s the trouble with what we are,” he said gently. Sympathetically, like he’d been through all this before. Probably dozens of times, and I couldn’t even imagine that. I’d only been a vampire for fifteen years. I might as well still be twenty-five. “We can take what we want. You can make her want what you want. Some vampires would tell you it’s your right to use your abilities for that. But… I for one believe we can do better than that. I’m sure you’ll do the right thing.”
That was Rick. He wouldn’t tell you what to do, but he’d subtly give you this moral imperative not to disappoint him.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll work it out. Thank you.”
“Have a good night, Sam.”
And that was that.
Aaron was standing outside the door of his bedroom, arms crossed. “I like Rick,” he said. “I don’t want anything to happen to him.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“He’s right about the girl, you should just walk away.”
I glared at him. “And what the hell do you know about it?”
He shrugged, unconcerned. “You feel like ordering pizza?”
Yeah, that sounded like a good idea.
The boost of energy from the pizza delivery made me more jumpy, not less. Time to shoot up some virtual bad guys. When I logged on, I was surprised to find Ginny’s icon lit up.
“Hey, I thought you were going to be out all night,” I said on the headset.
She sounded amused. “The bridal shower got to be more than I could stand. They were about to start making wedding veils out of toilet paper when I left. I thought you might be logged in, and I was right.”
“What are we playing tonight?”
“How about something completely different. What have you got?”
“Borderlands?”
“Let’s do it.”
I felt better in seconds. Shooting bad guys with a good player at your side—even if you occasionally screwed up and shot each other instead—always made me feel better.
“So, you hear anything else from that reporter?” she asked.
“Yeah, actually. Jack’s out meeting with her again now.” In fact, it had been a few hours. I wondered if I needed to start worrying. “We’re pretty sure she’s not writing an article about the everyday vampire on the street.”
“Yeah? Then what’s she doing?”
“She’s either angling for an interview with someone more important than we are because she has the mistaken notion that we have some kind of influence, or she’s some kind of anti-vampire nutjob who’s going to try to infiltrate the Denver vampire Family and destroy us all.” Or, and worse, she was part of a rival vampire gang with designs on the Denver Family. That was what the Cook angle suggested. I was starting to freak myself out. “Or maybe I’ve been playing too many conspiracy-filled video games.”
“Are you worried?”
“Yeah, I guess I am. But I really don’t know what else we can do until she tries something or we get some clue as to what she’s really up to.”
“You want me to check her out?”
My brain skipped a beat at that, making me miss a shot I should have gotten. I hit pause. “How’re you going to do that?”