Rob Thurman - Nightlife

Annoyed, I puffed out air and grumbled, "Care to share with the class, Sherlock? Your leaps of logic tend to leave me motion sick."

An eyebrow rose. "Cal, it's obvious. A cross, what appears to be holy water. Our nutritionally challenged friend is after a…"

"Vampire," the man wheezed, his empty hand scrambling weakly at the alley floor. "She's a vampire." He coughed, sucked in a whistling breath. "A monster… a fiend from hell."

Well, how about that? Promise was a sister. "Is that a fact?" I commented neutrally, rising smoothly and planting a heavy foot in the small of the scarecrow's back to keep him down. "Did she happen to mention that when she hired you, Niko? That whole bloodsucking thing ever come up?"

"Mistress of the devil. Satan's scarlet whore," the voice rasped on from beneath my foot.

"Yeah, yeah, buddy," I said impatiently. "We got it. Zip it already."

"Queen of everlasting darkness…"

I sighed and delivered a short, sharp kick behind the nut job's ear. His head snapped forward and instantly he was out like a cheap lightbulb. He'd wake up with nothing more than a pounding headache, and I was betting it wouldn't be any worse than the one he'd given me. "You just can't reason with people these days. It's a goddamn shame."

Niko gave me a look of distinct exasperation. Was it disappointment for my silencing of the annoying fruit loop, my lack of the milk of human kindness for the overly mouthy of the world? Hardly. "Not quite as shameful as your sloppy footwork. An inch to the left will give you a much longer duration of unconsciousness. Did you even read that anatomy book I gave you, or are you using it as a coaster?"

"Actually it's propping up the kitchen table." Impatiently, I gave a nod to the shadows behind him. "Maybe your client could give us etiquette tips on that after she sucks out all our blood. What do you think?"

Raising his eyebrows, my brother gave an amused snort, then lowered his voice to a level for my ears only. "Do you actually believe that maniac, Cal? If she were one of the undead, don't you think I would have known, that you would have smelled her?"

I followed suit and answered with frustration, "I can't smell anything over her perfume. I'm half Grendel, not half dog."

"It is pleasant. Feminine and potent, yet fresh and clean," he mused. "Quite nice."

The voice of reason wasn't a hat I usually wore. "Niko, do you want to kill the monster or just date it?" I snapped with exasperation.

At that moment Promise stepped into view, a vision of tranquillity as her twilight-colored eyes lingered on the unconscious man. She shook her head, the silk around her shoulders shimmering from the movement. "Obviously a very disturbed individual, yes? A distant relative of my last husband. He has been following me for days saying the most bizarre things. Insane things."

"Then I suppose we should call the police and have him taken into custody." The sensible words hung in the air, but before Niko made a move to retrieve his cell phone, Promise held up a hand.

"Wait." She swallowed, a smooth motion under flawless pale skin. "Don't."

Niko's eyes darkened, the fascination with her perfume already a distant memory. He moved to her side, his face neutrally blank. Gravely apologetic, he said, "Ms. Nottinger, if you please." With the utmost care he cupped her chin and, using his thumb to delicately lift her upper lip, revealed exquisitely tiny pointed canine teeth.

I raised my hands and let them fall. "Jesus, Niko, are you the only human in this goddamn city?"

His old-world courtesy melting, Niko had already reached a hand into his coat to take out a long wooden stake. Knives, swords, stakes—he had it all and then some. It wouldn't surprise me if one day he pulled Jimmy Hoffa out of there. Keeping an eye on the deceitful Promise, I bent down and retrieved the cross from our stalker's slack fingers. I'd seen Niko handle any number of demonic creepy-crawlies over the years, so I didn't believe a petite 110-pound vampire would get the best of him. That is, unless her perfume overwhelmed him, I thought caustically. "Whatever you do, Nik, don't smell her," I drawled as I hefted the cross to shoulder height in my best traditional "Back, creature of the night" stance.

Before he could skewer me with a comeback or Promise with the stake, she touched his arm lightly. "It isn't like that, Niko," she said solemnly. "I swear to you. I may not be human, but neither am I a monster."

The point of the stake dimpled the skin over her breastbone. "Oddly enough that's what I imagine most monsters would say in your position," Niko countered without emotion, his hand holding steady. "Answer me this, then, Ms. Nottinger. Did all your husbands in fact die of natural causes or did they cut themselves shaving… perhaps with your teeth?"

I thought "natural causes" was covering a pretty broad range, but since the FBI had yet to register sex as a deadly weapon there wasn't much I could say. Watching carefully, I saw Promise's mouth firm and her chin lift. "I don't drink human blood. Not all vampires do. Not the younger ones. There are better ways now."

"Really?" I snorted. "And what are those better ways? Pigs' blood? I'll bet you drink it from a crystal goblet, right?" There was no way I could picture that, her aristocratic lips swilling the blood of livestock as if it were wine.

"Hardly," she said with withering scorn. Her disdainful eyes returned to Niko and softened. "My purse, Niko. Look in my purse if you would." When he didn't move she added simply, "Please."

He considered for a moment with unblinking icy cool, then held out a hand for the tiny purse that dangled from her arm. His other hand didn't move a millimeter from its position on the stake. Promise stood as unmoving as a statue as her purse was deftly rifled through one-handed. It was barely a second before Niko fished out a pill bottle large enough that it must have filled the purse entirely, and held it up to squint at it in the low light. "Iron. Quite a high dose, I would say." Of course Niko would know the daily recommended dosage of any vitamin or mineral. He took that entire theory of your body being a temple seriously enough to quote it ad nauseam every time I even thought about having a cheeseburger.

"Yes, iron. So simple, and yet it was the answer to a disease that has plagued my kind for centuries beyond the telling." Placing her hand on the stake, she gently pushed it away and Niko, unbelievably, allowed it. "Every day for the duration of my life. It, along with certain other supplements, allows me to live without drinking blood."

Niko tapped his chin with the point of the stake thoughtfully. "So you are trying to tell us that basically vampirism is nothing more than an iron-deficiency anemia? I find that rather difficult to believe, Ms. Nottinger."

A shadow of a smile curved her lips. "It is slightly more complex than that. The pills don't fulfill the same need, the same desire , as blood does. They don't allow me to retain the strength and the powers of a truly fed vampire, but it does keep my blood cells from devouring one another in a cannibalistic frenzy. And it lets me maintain my existence without blind, voracious killing."

"Always a good thing," I commented sarcastically. "I'm sure butchering innocent people would play absolute hell with your social schedule." Still, whether or not I swallowed her story, Niko and I had never been superheroes, never defenders of the blissfully ignorant public. We were trying to survive, that's all. Keeping our own asses intact was more than job enough, and as long as Promise wasn't tearing out the throat of some golden-haired cherub right in front of us, I wasn't going to be losing any sleep over it.

"Yes, I suppose it would, but I could always make a onetime exception." From her pointed gaze I had no problem guessing just who that exception might be.