Vampire Dawn Part 3

And that's when the knife appeared, wrote Fang.

Yes, I wrote, feeling drained, despite this being the middle of the night.

And they cut his throat, wrote Fang.

Yes.

This doesn't sound like a vampire.

No, I wrote.

It sounds like a sick son of a b.i.t.c.h.

I waited before replying. Finally, I wrote: There's more, Fang. I saw...other bodies. At least two more. Both hanging upside down.

Jesus, Sam.

They were suspended over a tub of some sort.

A tub?

Yes.

They were collecting the blood, Fang wrote.

That's what I think, too.

But why?

I thought about it for only a moment before I wrote: If I had to guess, I would say that he supplies blood for vampires.

Chapter Nine.

Kingsley was waiting for me outside Mulberry Street Restaurant in downtown Fullerton.

He looked dashing and ma.s.sive, and I think my whole body sighed when he smiled at me. A big, toothy smile. Confident smile. Deep dimples in his cheeks. His ears even moved a little. The way a dog's might. He was wearing a scarf that matched his eyes and I think I might have mewed a little. Like a kitten.

"h.e.l.lo, beautiful," he said, smiling even bigger.

"h.e.l.lo, Mr. Observant," I said, grinning, and came to him. He wrapped a strong arm around my lower waist and pulled me into him, lifting me a little off my feet. I wasn't entirely sure he knew he had lifted me off my feet. One moment I was standing there, the next my heels were free of any gravitational pull.

He set me down again. "G.o.d, you smell good."

"For a dead girl?"

"You're very much alive."

"Well, that's good news."

He planted a big, wet kiss on my lips that I didn't want to end. At least, not for the next two or three hours. When we separated, I noticed an old man watching us. h.e.l.l, I would have watched us, too.

"You hungry?" asked Kingsley. I noticed his five o'clock shadow was looking more like a three-day growth. The surest indicator that a full moon was rising.

"Hungry enough to suck you dry," I said.

Now he shivered. "With talk like that, we might just skip dinner."

We were seated immediately at our favorite table near the front window. The waiters here knew my preferences and, after giving us one of their finest white wines-one of the few non-hemoglobic beverages I can enjoy-they brought us our meals. Salmon for Kingsley. Steak for me. Rare.

Very, very rare.

Rather than use a knife and fork, I used a spoon, and, as casually as I could, I dipped it into the warm blood that had pooled around the meat and brought it to my lips. I tried not to feel like the ghoul that I was.

Just a girl with her man, I told myself. A man, of course, who just so happened to be bigger than most men. And far hairier. Especially at this time of the month.

Kingsley, suffering from no such eating restrictions, went to work on the salmon. Although the defense attorney dressed immaculately, he ate like a pig. And, yeah, I was jealous as h.e.l.l.

The waiter came by and filled my wine gla.s.s. Since I had taken precisely three sips, the filling part didn't take long. Kingsley ordered another beer, and when the waiter was gone, I said to him, "I found another medallion."

"Another what?" he mumbled around his salmon. Or, rather, I think he said.

"Medallion. You know, like the one before. But this one is inlaid with emerald roses, rather than ruby."

Kingsley's lips were shiny with grease. His impossibly full lips. His longish hair hung just below his collar. He was the picture of the maverick attorney, who just so happened to look like a ravenous wolf, too. "Tell me about it," he said.

And I did. I told him about the case I had taken on around Christmas, a case in which I had helped a sweet man find a family heirloom, of sorts. A sweet man who just so happened to be a h.o.a.rder, too. For payment, I was permitted to pick anything I wanted from his piles of junk. I had cheated. I had used my intuition to hone in on something particularly valuable, something that had lain hidden and mostly forgotten under piles of c.r.a.p.

A box. With a medallion.

A medallion that was a near-exact replica of the one I had owned six months ago. And that medallion had contained powerful magicks. So powerful, in fact, that it had reversed vampirism.

"So the question is," I said. "Can this medallion do the same?"

During my recounting, Kingsley had finished his salmon and was now working on his cubed rosemary potatoes. The fork in his hand looked miniature. "Do you have the medallion with you now?" he asked.

I did. I showed it to him. Kingsley immediately frowned. A frown for Kingsley meant his bushy eyebrows came together to form one long incredibly bushy eyebrow. "You should have left it at home," he said, glancing around.

"And miss seeing your bushy eyebrows come together?"

"I'm serious, Sam. Stuff like this..." he lowered his voice. "You, of all people, know the lengths some people-"

"Or vampires."

His long eyebrow quivered. "Yes, Sam. Vampires. Some vampires will kill-"

"And kidnap."

"Yes, and kidnap for these things."

I set it on the table and mostly covered it with my hand. "And what is this thing? Another immortality reverser?"

Kingsley shook his head sharply. "No. There was only one of those made."

"And you know this how?"

"I know some things," he said.

"Because you've been around longer than me."

"A lot longer than you, Sam."

"Fine. So only one of those were made. Then what's this?" I moved my hand aside, revealing the shining medallion again. It caught the overhead chandelier light and returned a thousandfold, and the three emeralds within twinkled like green stars. Or like lime jello. Which so happened to be Anthony's and Tammy's favorite jello.

Kingsley glanced briefly at the medallion before reaching across the table and covering my hand with his own. h.e.l.l, he covered most of my wrist, too. And some of my napkin and plate. Big hands.

"I don't know yet," he said. "But I can tell you one thing."

"And what's that?"

"It's valuable as h.e.l.l. Which means..." And his voice trailed off.

Unfortunately, I knew the ending to this sentence all too well. "Which means some people will kill for it."

"Some people," said Kingsley, "or some vampires."

Chapter Ten.

"You tampered with evidence. What were you thinking, Sam?" scolded Detective Sherbet.

"I was thinking about finding our killer."

We were in his gla.s.s office. Some of the officers on duty were watching us from outside the office. One or two were shaking their heads in a way that suggested they did not approve of me or of the department using my inferior services.

"Your men don't like me," I said.

"They see it as a slap in the face, a blow to their ego," said Sherbet, sitting back in his chair. He laced his thick fingers over his rotund belly. The rotund belly was looking a little more rotund these days. This time, however, I shielded my thoughts from him. He didn't need to know what I thought of his belly. He went on, "They don't understand why I brought you in, so they see you as a sort of indictment on their own abilities."

"If they only knew," I said.

"Truth is, sometimes I wish I didn't know, Sam. I mean, isn't this kind of stuff supposed to just be in books and movies?"

I said, "Someone told me recently that if enough people believe in something, put their attention on something, then that something becomes a reality."

Sherbet immediate shook his head. "That doesn't make sense," he said, which didn't surprise me much. Detectives lived and died by things that made sense. Cold hard facts. "Who told you this?"

"My guardian angel. Actually, my ex-guardian angel."

Sherbet blinked. "Please tell me you're kidding."

"Sadly, no. He visited me over Christmas. Expressed his undying love for me, in fact."

"Please stop. There's only so much I can handle." Sherbet ma.s.saged his temples. "We sound crazy, you know."

"Maybe we are," I said.

"Crazy, I can accept. Guardian angels, not so much. Can I really can read your mind, Sam?"

"Yes."

"And you can read my mind?" he asked.

"If I wanted to."

"My head hurts, Sam."

"I imagine it does."

He looked at me some more. As he did so, his jowls quivered a little. His nose was faintly red. "How do you do it?" he finally asked.

I didn't have to be a mind reader to know what it was. I said, "One day at a time. One minute at a time."

"If it were me, I would go bugf.u.c.k crazy."

We were quiet some more. The smell of coffee seemed to permanently hang suspended in the air of his office, although I could see no coffee cups. Outside his gla.s.s office wall, I could hear phones ringing, phones being answered, the rapid typing on keyboards.

"Back to you tampering with evidence," said Sherbet. "Officially, I have to ask you to never do that again."

"And unofficially?"

"Unofficially, I have to ask you what you learned."

"He's not a vampire," I said. "At least, I don't think he is."

"Then what is he? Why does he drain the bodies of blood?"

"Think of him as a supplier."