John Steakley - Vampire$

Adam came back in shortly and resumed his place in the triangle. He looked a bit nervous and stayed quiet. At last, Carl met Cat’s eyes and turned to Adam.

“If you’re gonna apologize that easy,” he said, “you’re not gonna be much fun to pick on.”

Annabelle returned to tell them that she and Jack were up to date and Cat thought she looked damn good, considering. A little pale, a little shook up, but overall just fine.

Maybe it was better to do it drunk.

And then again, he reminded himself, she’s already cried for all of them once.

Jack was sleeping comfortably, she informed them, and would continue to do so for another forty-three minutes on the nose.

Aha! thought Cat. So it took you seventeen minutes to get yourself together before coming back in to see us. Still damned good, Annie.

And he gave her a little mental pat.

But he was still worried about Jack.

“Is he all right?” Cat asked gently.

She looked at him, surprised. Then she smiled reassuringly. “You heard him, Cherry.”

He considered, thought back. “So I did,” he replied and smiled himself.

“Who’s that?” asked Adam, gazing past them out the leaded-glass window.

They all turned to look. A young lady with light blond hair and rumpled clothing was walking rather stiffly up the walkway to the front door. She was trying, all at the same time, to smooth out her dress, check her makeup in a hand mirror, and feel her teeth with her tongue to see if they were clean enough.

“Aha,” announced Carl, lifting his glass. “The press has arrived.”

“The reporter?” Adam asked nervously.

“Yep,” Cat told him. “Looks like she spent the night in her car waiting for us. Or part of the afternoon anyway.”

“Bless her heart,” mused Annabelle. “She must want this awfully bad.” She looked at Adam. “Relax, dear. We just won’t tell her you’re a priest.”

“Naw,” offered Carl. “She’ll find out if she’s any good at all. Better just make her keep that part tied down. Off the record or whatever it is they call it.”

“And if she doesn’t?” Adam wanted to know.

Cat grinned. “Our father’s met the press before, sounds like.”

“Oh, I think she will,” said Annabelle.

“But what if she doesn’t?” insisted Adam.

“Then,” snarled Carl, “we’ll knit her tits together.” He drained his glass. “Behind her back. Somebody wanna answer the door?”

Somebody did. Cat fetched her to the bar and offered her a drink. She declined, looking nervous and flustered and…

And incredibly beautiful, Adam realized. Incredibly beautiful and incredibly vulnerable and something else, too, as Cat had said. Imperial. Regal. As though touching her was possible but a horrible sin.

It was very strange. Adam saw her no more sexually than any other priest but her aura was still unmistakable.

My Lord, he thought to himself, what a reporter she’s going to make! People would tell her anything.

He rose from his stool to be introduced. Annabelle called him simply Adam Larrance. Her hand was cool and her eyes warm and friendly but also penetrating and assertive. Adam wondered how she learned so much so young.

There was an awkward pause after they met until Annabelle patted the stool next to her and she took it. Adam, feeling unreasonably at sea, nudged Carl Joplin beside him.

Carl glanced at him, read his unease, felt it necessary to provide a little in-character show of tedium, and then proceeded to explain to the girl what Adam was and what it meant and what she could write about it — which was zero.

He did not mention her tits.

He didn’t need to. One glance around her and Davette saw they meant it. They were polite and friendly and they liked her (she felt sure of that) but they were also quite firm. Don’t write about the priest. She tried comforting herself with the thought that she had never meant to. But there was no way around the fact that it changed things that these people had their very own priest with them.

These people! she thought and sighed. She had never seen any group like them. They had a glow of health about them that seemed to radiate for ten yards in every direction. Not physical health particularly, though all save round Carl seemed fit enough. And not really mental health or so much emotional…

Soulful health. Is there such a term? she wondered idly. For that’s what they seem to have. Soulful health.

She rather supposed thinking yourself a crusader for Right versus Wrong would do that to you.

“Is Mr. Crow in?” she asked Cat. Cat was caught napping.

“Huh?”

“Is Mr. Crow in?” she repeated, smiling.

“He’ll be down soon.”

They talked about Dallas. They were moving there, and Davette lived there. She had come all this way across the country just to see them.

“It’s not,” she reminded them, “the kind of story you run into every day.”

They talked about restaurants in Dallas and people they knew there and famous Texans in general. It turned out Davette was Davette Shands of the once-notorious Oilfield Shands family.

“But that’s all gone now,” she assured them with a self-deprecating smile.

I doubt it, thought Annabelle. This child has been rich all her life and always will be.

And then she thought, I can be a little bitchy, can’t I?

Adam smiled in reply to the banter but offered not one word himself.

“Offhand,” offered Carl, mixing himself another drink, “I’d say the kid’s met a reporter before.”

“Do you believe all reporters are dishonest, Mr. Joplin?” she asked.

Carl grinned, sipped. “That depends on whether it’s a reporter or a journalist.”

She sort of smiled back. “What’s the difference?”

“Well, a reporter lies to get himself a better story and a raise.”

“And a journalist doesn’t lie?”

“Well, yes. But only out of a deep sense of compassion and concern.”

She laughed gamely enough along with the rest of them.

Not bad, thought Cat.

Annabelle checked her watch. Jack was due in a few minutes. So they all chatted some more before he showed and heard an odd story from Davette. Seems she had been the editor-in-chief of her college newspaper but had quit last spring, in the final semester of her senior year. Quit school entirely, as a matter of fact, and gone home to get to work.

“I needed to get off my… rear,” she offered with a patronizing smile. “I needed to get out in the real world.”

God! groaned Cat to himself. I hate to be conned.

The great oaken door burst open and Jack Crow strode in, looking fresh and invigorated and thirsty. While Carl played bartender he met Davette, shaking her hand firmly and telling her outright what a beauty she was. She seemed a little taken aback after all the beating around the bush she was apparently used to.

“You wanna talk to me, do you, young lady?”

“Why, yes. If it’s convenient.”

“It is for the next coupla hours. Then we hit the road. C’mon.”

And just like that they left the room.

“What do you think?” Cat asked after they had gone.

“I’d like to know what she was kicked out of school for,” offered Carl.

“So would I,” said Annabelle.

“Please, God,” sighed Cat, “let it be prostitution.”

“It’s not the kind of job you can turn down,” replied Jack Crow with more than a little exasperation.

They were in the Zoo’s main corridor, leaning against opposite walls facing each other. Jack sipped from his drink.

“Why not?” Davette asked.

He thought about a reply, said, “To understand that, you’d first have to buy it.”