Was it Jack's blood?

"Did he do this to you?" Diana asked.

He being me, I supposed. The fact that she couldn't even say my name wasn't as painful as it might've been. Not now, since I'd witnessed her metaphorically making her bed with Hugo and happily lying down in it.

"I lost your ring..." Will said. "I'm sorry, Mother."

Diana frowned and pulled at his b.l.o.o.d.y shirt. "Are you injured?"

"No. Not me. I had to kill him-"

Diana's hand tightened on the front of Will's shirt, then she went still. "You killed William?"

I got some satisfaction hearing the edge of panic in her voice. So, she still had use for me after all.

"No-I-"

Perhaps to hide the look of relief I saw briefly, she tugged on his arm and pulled him up. Will allowed her to help him into the house, mumbling, "I don't feel well."

Instead of helping the two of them, Hugo blocked the door with his naked body-crossing his arms and searching the yard one last time. Satisfied by the absence of threat, he stepped back and slammed the door shut.

Thirteen.

Jack "No," she said. "That's not possible. There's no such thing as a-a-"

"Vampire," I supplied.

Werm materialized beside me. "Yeah, there is."

"What the h.e.l.l are you? A ghost?" Connie squinted as if her eyes were deceiving her. Who could blame her? I was going to have to talk to Werm about his timing.

"I'm a vampire, too. It was me who just pushed you out of the way." Werm looked at her expectantly, like he was waiting for her to thank him. Seemed like he'd wait a long d.a.m.n time. She looked at us like she wanted to arrest us but couldn't figure out the charges. We hadn't killed anybody. Anybody she knew of, that is.

"How many of you are there?"

Werm flinched as Connie bent to pick up the gun. "Um, well, there's me and Jack and William, and-ow!"

I gripped Werm hard by the shoulder. "You're not helping, slick," I hissed into his ear.

Werm looked back and forth between me and the gun. "Huh-how can I help, Jack?"

"Take Sullivan's body to William's vault through the tunnels. You know where the entrance is in the oil pit. Tell Deylaud what happened, and stay off the streets for the rest of the night."

Before Werm could move, Connie snapped, "Don't even think about moving that body. This is a crime scene."

"Sullivan was the servant of a vampire, and his murder is vampire business. Let us take care of it," I said.

"No way," she said flatly.

"Are you prepared to tell your buds at the cop shop you witnessed a vampire tear Sullivan's throat out?" I asked.

There was nothing she could say to that. She rubbed her temples, pointing the gun into the air, and squeezed her eyes shut.

Connie was strong, but I was afraid she was reaching the limits of what she could take in one night. After all, a man she evidently cared about had just died a grisly death in her arms. And before his blood was dry on her hands she found out that one of her other love interests was a card-carrying member of the scare club for men-an evil dead community she never, in her wildest nightmares, knew existed. It was not a good night for her.

I nodded to Werm, who went to Sullivan's body, picked it up carefully, then disappeared into the garage. Connie had opened her eyes by that time, but she didn't try to stop him. Connie tucked the gun into the back of her jeans. She looked down at her hands, covered with Sullivan's blood, and that's when the reality of the whole situation hit her.

"Don't faint!" I said. I took two steps toward her so I could catch her if she started to crumple.

She glared at me. "I. Don't. Faint."

"Of course not. Sorry." Man, this was awkward. Now that the cat was out of the bag, so to speak, there was so much I wanted to tell her. To make her understand. But where to start? First it might be good to get Sullivan's blood off her hands. Licking seemed out of the question. I walked over to the shop sink and wet down a handful of paper towels.

She sat in silence as I awkwardly wiped at the blood. Finally she took the towels from me and finished the job herself.

"Do you want some coffee?" I asked.

"Coffee? You want to drink coffee at a time like this?" She was wild-eyed again, but her hands were steady. She threw the used wad of towels and hit the garbage can like Michael Jordan.

Sometimes I forget not everybody is a death-dealer like me. You do eventually get used to violence and gore. Connie was a police officer and she'd seen her share of ugliness and maybe even some genuine human evil. But there was no way she could be prepared for what I had to tell her now.

"Decaf?"

Connie sat at the old Formica table in the kitchen area and watched my every move while I made the coffee. I could tell that she was forming questions in her mind, and some answers of her own, along the lines of a vampire, now that explains a lot.

When I'd gotten the brew started, I sat down opposite her. "You must have a lot of questions."

"You could say that."

"Fire away. Not literally, though," I added, remembering the gun.

"You say you're a vampire," she said simply.

"Yes." So far, so good.

"And William and that weird little guy who appeared out of thin air right in front of me, and the monster who killed Sullivan, they're vampires, too."

"Right."

She nodded slowly. "I'll ask you again. How many of you are there?"

"Too many for you to arrest."

"Answer the question."

I sighed. "In this country? In the world? I honestly don't know the answer to that."

"Let's start with Savannah." "Normally, it's just me and William and Werm unless we have a guest or a transient pa.s.sing through town." I left Eleanor out of the mix: no use completely wrecking her already shaky reputation. And if I kept naming names it would look like we were making vampires right and left.

"Normally?"

"We have...visitors."

"Like the one who killed Sullivan."

"Yeah," I said. "Well, I mean, most of them are okay. But there's this other group that we never heard of before who kind of dropped in. We don't know much about them. Will's one of those."

She paused, thinking of more questions, I guess, or maybe letting it all sink in.

"You said Sullivan's murder is vampire business and that you'd take care of it." She flattened her palms on the Formica tabletop.

"What are you going to do?"

I hadn't really decided. But now that she asked, I realized I knew what I had to do.

"I'm going to kill him."

Could I really kill him or was I just blowing smoke up Connie's skirt? If nothing else, it would be a better experiment than the fight had been in determining whether the voodoo blood was stronger than five hundred or so years of drinking human juice. Gerard would be proud. I might as well play the guinea pig.

"You're going to kill him," Connie repeated. "Do you kill a lot of people?"

"Not a lot. Humans almost never, unless there are some special circ.u.mstances."

"And what would const.i.tute special circ.u.mstances?"

I was glad her hands were still on the table. I had a feeling she really wanted to go for the gun, and even though getting shot wouldn't kill me, I also knew that Will had been putting on a show earlier. Getting shot in the chest hurt like h.e.l.l, five hundred years of vamping around notwithstanding. Don't ask me how I know.

"Remember the serial rapist we had last year?"

Connie widened her eyes. "That never made the papers. How did you know about it?"

"We-William and me-we make it our business to know what's going on in this town. We have our ways. Anyway, I guess you remember how he just disappeared one day."

"Yeah. I remember. I helped with the investigation." Connie's eyes brightened. "What happened to him?"

"Let's just say he tasted a lot like chicken."

"How do you know you got the right guy?"

"Again, we have our ways. It's a mind thing. It's very hard for a human to lie to a vampire." Of course vampires ourselves are excellent liars. It comes with the territory.

"So you really killed that sc.u.mbag?"

"I really did." Then Connie did a remarkable thing. For the first time that night, she smiled.

I was a little surprised to see Connie approve of our vigilante justice. Make that a lot surprised. She'd always seemed to me like a just-the-facts-ma'am, by-the-book cop. That contradiction, or maybe misjudgment of her on my part, made me want to ask her a few questions about her philosophy of crime fighting, but now was not the time.

"Okay, then." Connie nodded slowly. "I'll take your word you'll deal with Sullivan's killer."

The automatic drip coffeemaker beeped, signaling the brew was done. I got up to pour us each a cup, feeling like I could relax a little. Connie had stopped looking like she wanted to arrest me-or worse. Now she just looked curious. Plus she'd said she would take my word, which meant she still trusted me, to some degree at least, and that alone made me happy.

"So, this vampire thing," she began. "That's what you were talking about when you said you were into something that wouldn't sit well with me? Something you couldn't just give up?"

This vampire thing. I almost laughed. She made it sound like a hobby. I took down two ceramic mugs from the cabinet overhead. "Yeah. I can't exactly give up being what I am. If I could go back to being human again, I would, believe me. But it's not an option."

"I guess it would explain why I've never seen you out in the daytime," she said. "That is, if that's even true about vampires."

"Yeah, it's true." I poured the coffee and gave her a cup. "A lot of the stuff you've seen in books and movies about vampires- the mirror thing, the having-to-be-invited-in thing-is true. I mean, there's a reason those things keep showing up in vampire stories: because most of them-not all, mind you-but most of them have at least a grain of truth. Sometimes more than a grain."

"So, you can drink coffee." Connie cradled the cup to warm her hands, then took a sip. "Do you drink blood, too?"

"Yeah. That's one of those grain-of-truth things." Boulder of truth, more like. Of all the fun facts about vampires, it was the blood drinking that really set us apart, even more than our general undeadness and superpowers. "I can drink things other than blood. Coffee, liquor, beer-by the grace of G.o.d-but all I can eat is..." I trailed off. Confiding in Connie was liberating, but I didn't want to take things too far.

"What?" she asked.

"Raw meat." I looked down at the table, not able to meet her eyes.

Sometimes I watch DVDs with Renee when it 's not a school night. She has several different versions of Beauty and the Beast-her favorite fairy tale-that she loves to watch over and over. You know kids. Anyway, in one of them, Beauty breaks the rules and comes out at night, when the beast is getting busy eating a deer-raw. Seeing him chin-deep in the animal's innards disgusts her so much she runs back into the castle as hard as she can go. I knew, without looking up, that was how Connie was looking at me now.

"Anyway, I almost never drink unwilling human blood," I said hastily. It was true. After all, the Wal-Mart incident wasn't my idea. I decided not to mention the supply of donated blood we got from the blood bank. "We can live on animal blood and for the most part we do. We don't kill innocent human beings. Honest. At least the good vamps don't. I don't. But there are these other guys..." I was running off at the mouth now. Not a good thing. I dared to glance back up at Connie. She was still with me, hanging on my every word.

"You mean like the creepy uncle of yours who came around back in the fall? What was his name?"

"Reedrek, only he wasn't my uncle. He's kind of like my grandfather but not my real one, not my human one, I mean. He was up to no good. In fact, he killed a couple of mortals while he was here and tortured William. So me and William took care of him."

"You killed him?" "No, but we kind of locked him up. Someplace where he can't do anybody any harm again."

"So, you're saying there are good vampires and bad vampires," Connie postulated. "Just like people?"

"Yeah, that's about the size of it."

"And you and William and this Werm are the good guys?"

"Of course," I said, more than a little put out, to tell you the truth. "How could you even ask that?"

"Sorry. I'm having a hard time digesting all this, Jack. I mean, I just saw you go all Dracula on that Will guy. You've got to give me some time to let everything sink in."

"I know. I guess I'm a little touchy. I never asked to be turned into a monster, but I accepted William's offer. If I'd known what I'd become, I would rather have died. But it's a hundred and fifty years too late to second-guess myself now. If I'm still not used to being a vampire, I can't expect you to get used to the idea of me being one in just a few minutes." I reached over and covered her hand with mine.

Connie stiffened and looked at my hand on top of hers. "I always wondered," she choked out, "why your skin was so cool. I guess now I know."