"There were two of them," he said calmly. He did not sound like my little boy. He sounded years older. "I saw them climb over the wall. One of them looked in the window."

"And you threw your controller at him." My voice, still shocked, was now full of something close to awe. "Through the window?"

He nodded. "It hit him in the face. He screamed and fell down. When he got up, he was bleeding bad. I think some gla.s.s was in his face. Maybe his nose was broken."

Holy s.h.i.t.

"Then both of them ran off again. They jumped the wall, and that's when you came in."

My G.o.d.

"You need to get out of the sun, Mommy."

My son took my hand and led me away, out of his room and into the hallway. I could smell my own burning flesh. If I looked hard enough, I might even see steam rising off my skin.

I said, gasping, "Are you okay, honey?"

"Of course, Mommy."

I pulled my son in close and held him tight. Two men with crossbows. Vampire hunters. Here at my house. Following me.

"Who were those men, Mommy?"

"Bad men."

"Were they robbers?"

I nodded but didn't say anything. I pulled him in closer, and we stood like that in the hallway, holding each other tight, while the cool wind came in through the broken window, rattled the blinds, and eventually found us huddling together in the hallway.

Chapter Thirty-four.

Have you p.i.s.sed anyone off lately, Moon Dance?

It was nearly midnight, and, after working with a 24-hour gla.s.s service, I had contacted Fang and gotten him up to speed.

No more than usual, I wrote.

And you're sure one of them wasn't our vampire hunter from last year?

I shook my head, although I was alone in the room. I'm fairly certain. Randolph the vampire hunter worked alone, and this was a two-man crew. Besides, Randolph and I are on good terms.

Meaning what?

Meaning, I'm not very high on his kill list.

Randolph the vampire hunter doesn't sound very catchy.

Maybe not, but he's effective.

I still say you shoulda dropped his a.s.s in the ocean. Why leave it to chance that he might return?

A judgment call.

A judgment call you might regret, he wrote, paused, then added: Sorry, Moon Dance. I'm just very, very protective of you, and two creeps showing up at your house with f.u.c.king crossbows scares the s.h.i.t out of me. I mean, what if they had gotten a shot off at you, or your son?

It was nearly too horrible to contemplate, so I didn't. Fang sensed this and changed the subject a little.

Have you talked to Anthony about, well, everything?

Mostly. I told him that we were different. I told him that we were stronger than most people. He said something about being superheroes, and I went with that for now.

Except that might do more damage than good, Moon Dance.

For now, it's enough that he knows he's different and needs to keep it secret.

Baby steps, wrote Fang, obviously reading my mind.

Yes, baby steps. Also...

But I couldn't finish the thought. I stopped writing, but Fang, privy to my thoughts, had picked up on it. He finished it for me, writing: Also, you're tired of hiding who you are.

Yes.

Will you tell your daughter?

I think so. Yes.

How do you think they will take it?

I don't know, Fang. I only hope they don't hate me.

Well, I, for one, would think you were the coolest mom ever.

Yeah, well, you're also a freak.

I could almost hear Fang chuckling lightly on his end. On my end, I could hear Anthony snoring lightly and faint music issuing from Tammy's room. The house creaked from somewhere and I nearly bolted to my feet.

Just the house settling. Calm down, Sam.

Easier said than done.

Earlier, Kingsley had offered to come over, but the big guy had an important court hearing in the morning, and I a.s.sured him I would be fine. Fang had offered, too, but I politely declined. Truth was, I doubted they would be back. Whoever they were, the element of surprise was gone. If they were going to attack, they were going to do it somewhere else.

And just who were they?

That was the question of the hour.

A minute or two pa.s.sed before the pencil icon appeared again in the chatbox window, indicating Fang was typing a message, followed by: I've been doing some research into blood dealers, Moon Dance.

Oh?

He shielded his thoughts while he typed out his response. He didn't want me to know his sources, which was fine by me. We all had our secrets.

Apparently, there's a sort of hierarchy to blood.

What do you mean?

Degrees of desirability. For instance, animal blood is the lowest. Deceased human blood is next.

I recalled Detective Hanner's comment about gathering blood from morgues and hospitals. I shuddered.

I wrote, And fresh human blood is the most desirable.

Not quite, Moon Dance.

What do you mean?

There's another source of blood that's even more desirable than human blood. Vampire blood. Apparently, Moon Dance, your blood fetches a pretty penny on the open market.

Jesus.

I suspect Robert Mason is far more dangerous than you realize.

Chapter Thirty-five.

We were cuddling in front of an 80-inch Sharp flat screen TV, which was a little like cuddling in front of a portal into the fourth dimension.

The room was also equipped with surround sound speakers which made the sound seem to magically appear as if from nowhere. To this day, I haven't a clue where those speakers are embedded. Most important, the room came equipped, at least part time, with a beast of a man who, despite his size, was a h.e.l.luva cuddler.

We were cuddling and watching Matt Damon's latest spy thriller when Kingsley turned to me and asked, "Would you like a drink?"

If he was offering wine or water, he would have said wine or water. Drink was Kingsley-speak for a very different kind of red stuff: blood.

I sat up, reached for the remote, and paused the movie.

"It's really a simple yes-or-no question, Sam," he said good-naturedly. Kingsley was wearing a t-shirt and workout pants, and both were filled to capacity. It took a lot of man to fill out an oversized pair of workout pants, but somehow Kingsley managed to do it. He also smelled of Old Spice. Simple. Manly. Yummy.

I turned to him. "May I first ask where you got your drink?"

He rolled his eyes. "Jesus, Sam. I thought we discussed that."

"No. You gave me a song and dance about vampires using various willing and unwilling donors. So, tell me, was this a willing donor? I think I have a right to know who I'm consuming, don't you think?"

He turned and looked at me, his thick hair following over one shoulder. "Boy, I didn't see this coming."

Truth was, I didn't either. At least, I hoped it wouldn't. I knew there was a killer out there supplying blood, and I knew my current boyfriend purchased blood from...someone.

"If not tonight," I said. "Then another night. I need to know."

On the wall before us, Matt Damon used some impressive fight moves-and a lot of editing-to kick the unholy c.r.a.p out of a spy that looked remarkably like a popular Hollywood star. In the kitchen nearby, I heard Franklin the butler humming to himself. Kingsley's resident freak had a surprisingly sweet voice.

Kingsley said, "I buy the blood from a trusted supplier."

I couldn't read the mind of another immortal, but I didn't need to be a mind-reader to know who he was talking about. I said, "Detective Hanner."

His lower jaw dropped a little. For a man who was legendary for keeping his cool, this statement caught him by surprise. And it was all the admission I needed.

"How long has she been supplying you?" I asked.

He cracked his neck a little. Clearly uncomfortable. So much for openness in a relationship. "A number of years, Sam. I normally keep only a small amount on hand."

"And here's the million-dollar question, babe," I said. "Where does Hanner get her blood?"

"Donors."

"Willing donors?"

"Jesus, Sam. You're closer friends with her than I am these days. You tell me."

I shook my head. "You've known her a lot longer. h.e.l.l, you're even a customer."

Kingsley stood in one motion, so quickly that it boggled the mind. One smooth motion. Like a spring being sprung. "Look, Sam. I'm not keeping anything from you. It's just that your kind and my kind don't generally discuss this topic."

"The topic of blood?"

"Right."

"It's taboo," I said.

"Sam, we all have skeletons in our closets. Especially us." By "us," I knew he was talking about creatures of the night. "I have them, you have them. We all have them. We couldn't exist without collecting them."

"So, what's your point?"

"We don't dig too deeply into each other's lives, Sam. Dig deep enough into mine and you might not like what you find. And if I dig deep enough into yours, even in the short time you've been a vampire, I might not like what I find, either."

"So you just stick your head in the sand?"