Down These Strange Streets

IT’S STILL THE SAME OLD STORY by Carrie Vaughn

Bestseller Carrie Vaughn is the author of a wildly popular series of novels detailing the adventures of Kitty Norville, a radio personality who also happens to be a werewolf, and who runs a late-night call-in radio advice show for supernatural creatures. The Kitty books include Kitty and The Midnight Hour, Kitty Goes to Washington, Kitty Takes a Holiday, Kitty and the Silver Bullet, Kitty and the Dead Man’s Hand, Kitty Raises Hell, and Kitty’s House of Horrors. Vaughn’s short work has appeared in Jim Baen’s Universe, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Subterranean, Wild Cards: Inside Straight, Realms of Fantasy, Paradox, Strange Horizons, Weird Tales, All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories, and elsewhere. Her most recent books are Steel, her second venture into young-adult territory; After the Golden Age; and two new Kitty novels, Kitty Goes to War and Kitty’s Big Trouble. She lives in Colorado.

Here she takes us into Kitty’s world for a poignant look at how you don’t abandon old friends, even if—or maybe especially if—you’re immortal.

RICK AWOKE AT SUNSET AND FOUND A PHONE MESSAGE FROM AN OLD friend waiting for him. Helen sounded unhappy, but she didn’t give details. She wouldn’t even say that she was afraid and needed help, but the hushed tone of her voice made her sound like she was looking over her shoulder. He grabbed his coat, went upstairs to the back of the shop where he parked his silver BMW, and drove to see her.

The summer night was still, ordinary. Downtown Denver blazed. To his eyes, the skyscrapers seemed like glowing mushrooms; they’d sprung up so quickly, overwhelming everything that had come before. Only in the last forty years or so had Denver begun to shed its cow town image to become another typical metropolis. He sometimes missed the cow town, though he could still catch glimpses of it. Union Station still stood, the State Capitol of course, and the Victorian mansions in the surrounding neighborhoods. If he squinted, he could remember them in their glory days. Some of the fire from the mining-boom era remained. That was why Rick stayed.

Helen lived a few miles south along the grid of streets around the University of Denver, in a house not quite as old or large as those Victorian mansions, but still an antique in the context of the rest of the city. She’d lived there since the 1950s, when Rick bought her the place. Even then, Denver had been booming. The city was an ever-shifting collage, its landmarks rising and falling, the points around which he navigated subtly changing over the decades.

Points like Helen.

He parked on the street in front of her house, a single-story square cottage, pale blue with white trim, shutters framing the windows, with a front porch and hanging planters filled with multicolored petunias. The lights were off.

For a moment, he stood on the concrete walkway in front and let his more-than-human senses press outward: sight, sound, and taste. The street, the lawn, the house itself were undisturbed. The neighbors were watching television. A block away, an older man walked a large dog. It was all very normal, except that the house in front of him was silent. No one living was inside—he’d have smelled the blood, heard the heartbeat.

When he and Helen became friends, he’d known this day would come. This day always came. But the circumstances here were unnatural. He walked up the stairs to the front door, which was unlocked. Carefully, he pushed inside, stepping around the places on the hardwood floor that creaked, reaching the area rug in the living room. Nothing—furniture, photographs, bookcase, small upright piano in the corner—was out of place. The modernist coffee table, a cone-shaped lamp by a blocky armchair, silk lilies in a cut-crystal vase. They were the decorations of an old woman—out of place, out of time, seemingly preserved. But to Rick it was just Helen, the way she’d always been.

His steps muffled on the rug, he progressed to the kitchen in back. He found her there, lying on the linoleum floor. Long dead—he could tell by her cold skin and the smell of dried blood on the floor.

Standing in the doorway, he could work out what had happened. She’d been sitting at the Formica table, sipping a cup of tea. The cup and saucer were there, undisturbed, along with a bowl of sugar cubes. She must have set the cup down before she fell. When she did fall, it had been violently, knocking the chair over. She had crawled a few feet—not far. She might have broken a hip or leg in the fall—expected, at her age. Flecks of blood streaked the back of her blue silk dress, fanning out from a dark, dime-sized hole. When he took a deep breath, he could smell the fire of gunpowder. She’d been shot in the back, and she had died.

After such a life, to die like this.

So that was that. A more than sixty-year acquaintance ended. Time to say good-bye, mourn, and move on. He’d done it before—often, even. He could be philosophical about it. The natural course of events, and all that. But this was different, and he wouldn’t abandon her, even now when it didn’t matter. He’d do the right thing—the human thing.

He drew his cell phone from his coat pocket and dialed 911.

“Hello. I need to report a murder.”

SHE WALKED THROUGH THE DOORWAY, AND EVERY MAN IN THE PLACE looked at her: the painted red smile, the blue skirt swishing around perfect legs. She didn’t seem to notice, walked right up to the bar and pulled herself onto a stool.

“I’ll have a scotch, double, on ice,” she said.

Rick set aside the rag he’d been using to wipe down the surface and leaned in front of her. “You look like you’re celebrating something.”

“That’s right. You going to help me out or just keep leering?”

Smiling, he found a tumbler and poured her a double and extra.

“I have to ask,” Rick said, returning to the bar in front of her, enjoying the way every other man in Murray’s looked at him with envy. “What’s the celebration?”

“You do have to ask, don’t you? I’m just not sure I should tell you.”

“It’s just not often I see a lady come in here all alone in a mood to celebrate.”

Murray’s was a working-class place, a dive by the standards of East Colfax; the neighborhood was going downhill as businesses and residents fled downtown, leaving behind everyone who didn’t have anyplace to go. Rick had seen this sort of thing happen enough; he recognized the signs. Murray wasn’t losing money, but he didn’t have anything extra to put into the place. The varnish on the hardwood floor was scuffed off, the furniture was a decade old. Cheap beer and liquor was the norm, and he still had war bond posters up a year and a half after V-J Day. Or maybe he liked the Betty Grable pinups he’d stuck on top of some of them too much to take any of it down.

Blushing, the woman ducked her gaze, which told him something about her. The shrug she gave him was a lot shyer than the brash way she’d walked in here.

“I got a job,” she said.

“Congratulations.”

“You’re not going to tell me that a nice girl like me should find herself a good man, get married, and settle down and make my mother proud?”

“Nope.”

“Good.” She smiled and bit her lip.

A newcomer in a clean suit came up to the bar, set down his hat, and tossed a couple of bills on the polished wood. Rick nodded at the woman and went to take the order. Business was steady after that, and Rick served second and third rounds to men who’d come in after work and stuck around. New patrons arrived for after-dinner nightcaps. Rick worked through it all, drawing beers and pouring liquor, smiling politely when the older men called him “son” and “kid.”

He didn’t need the job. He just liked being around people now and then. He’d worked at bars before—bars, saloons, taverns—here and there, for almost two hundred years.

He expected the woman to finish quickly and march right out again, but she sipped the drink as if savoring the moment, wanting to spend time with the crowd. Avoiding solitude. Rick understood.

When a thin, flushed man who’d had maybe one drink too many sidled up to the bar and crept toward her like a cat on the prowl, Rick wasn’t surprised. He waited, watching for her signals. She might have been here to celebrate, but she might have been looking for more, and he wouldn’t interfere. But the man spoke—asking to buy her another drink—and the woman shook her head. When he pleaded, she tilted her body, turning her back to him. Then he put a hand on her shoulder and another under the bar, on her leg. She shoved.

Then Rick stood before them both. They hesitated midaction, blinking back at him.

“Sir, you really need to be going, don’t you?” Rick said.

“This isn’t any of your business,” the drunk said.

“If the lady wants to be left alone, you should leave her alone.” He caught the man’s gaze and twisted, just a bit. Put the warning in his voice, used a certain subtle tone, so that there was power in the words. If the man’s gaze clouded over, most onlookers would attribute it to the liquor.

The man pointed and opened his mouth as if to speak, but Rick put a little more focus in his gaze and the drunk blinked, confused.

“Go on, now,” Rick said.

The man nodded weakly, crushed his hat on his head, and stumbled to the door.

The woman watched him go, then turned back to Rick, her smile wondering. “That was amazing. How’d you do that?”

“You work behind the bar long enough, you develop a way with people.”

“You’ve been bartending a long time, then.”

Rick just smiled.

“Thanks for looking out for me,” she said.

“Not a problem.”

“I really didn’t come here looking for a date. I really did just want the drink.”

“I know.”

“But I wouldn’t say no. To a date. Just dinner or a picture or something. If the right guy asked.”

So, Rick asked. Her name was Helen.

RICK ANSWERED THE RESPONDING OFFICER’S QUESTIONS, THEN SAT IN THE armchair in the living room to wait for the detective to arrive. It took about forty-five minutes. In the meantime, officers and investigators passed in and out of the house, which seemed less and less Helen’s by the moment.

When the detective walked in, Rick stood to greet her. The woman was average height and build, and busy, always looking, taking in the scene. Her dark hair was tied in a short ponytail; she wore a dark suit and white shirt, nondescript. She dressed to blend in, but her air of authority made her stand out.

She saw him and frowned. “Oh hell. It’s you.”

“Detective Hardin,” he answered, amused at how unhappy she was to see him.

Jessi Hardin pointed at him. “Wait here.”

He sat back down and watched her continue on to the kitchen.

Half an hour later, coroners brought in a gurney, and Hardin returned to the living room. She pulled over a high-backed chair and set it across from him.

“I expected to see bite marks on her neck.”

“I wouldn’t have called it in if I’d done it,” he said.

“But you discovered the body?”

“Yes.”

“And what were you doing here?” She pulled a small notebook and pen from her coat pocket, just like on TV.

“Helen and I were old friends.”

The pen paused over the page. “What’s that even mean?”

He’d been thinking it would be a nice change, not having to avoid the issue, not having to come up with a reasonable explanation for why he knew what he knew, dancing around the truth that he’d known Helen almost her entire life, even though he looked only thirty years old. Hardin knew what he was. But those half-truths he’d always used to explain himself were harder to abandon than he expected.

With any other detective, he’d have said that Helen was a friend of his grandfather’s whom he checked in on from time to time and helped with repairs around the house. But Detective Hardin wouldn’t believe that.

“We met in 1947 and stayed friends.”

Hardin narrowed a thoughtful gaze. “Just so that I’m clear on this, in 1947 she was what, twenty? Twenty-five? And you were—exactly as you are now?”

“Yes.”

“And you stayed friends with her all this time.”

“You say it like you think that’s strange.”

“It’s just not what I expect from the stories.”

She was no doubt building a picture in her mind: Rick and a twenty-five-year-old Helen would have made a striking couple. But Rick and the ninety-year-old Helen?

“Maybe you should stick to the standard questions,” Rick said.

“All right. Tell me what you found when you got here. About what time was it?”

He told her, explaining how the lights were out and the place seemed abandoned. How he’d known right away that something was wrong, and so wasn’t surprised to find her in the kitchen.

“She called me earlier today. I wasn’t available but she left a message. She sounded worried but wouldn’t say why. I came over as soon as I could.”

“She knew something was wrong, then. She expected something to happen.”

“I think so.”

“Do you have any idea why someone would want to kill an old woman like this?”

“Yes,” he said. “I do.”

ONE NIGHT SHE CAME INTO THE BAR LATE DURING HIS SHIFT. THEY HADN’T set up a date so he was surprised, and then he was worried. Gasping for breath, her eyes pink, she ran up to him, crashing into the bar, hanging on to it as if she might fall over without the support. She’d been crying.

He took up her hands and squeezed. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, Rick! I’m in so much trouble. He’s going to kill me, I’m dead, I’m—”

“Helen! Calm down. Take a breath—what’s the matter?”

She gulped down a couple of breaths, steadying herself. Straightening, squeezing Rick’s hands in return, she was able to speak. “I need someplace to hide. I need to get out of sight for a little while.”

She could have been in any kind of trouble. Some small-town relative come to track her down and bring home the runaway. Or she could have been something far different from the fresh-faced city girl she presented herself as. He’d known from the moment he met her that she was hiding something—she never talked about her past.

“What’s happened?” he asked.

“I’ll tell you everything, just please help me hide.”

He came around the bar, put his arm around her, and guided her into the back room. There was a storage closet filled with wooden crates, some empty and waiting to be carried out, some filled with bottles of beer and liquor. Only Rick and Murray came back here when the place was open. He found a sturdy, empty crate, tipped it upside down, dusted it off, and guided her to sit on it.

“I can close up in half an hour, then you can tell me what’s wrong. All right?”

Nodding, she rubbed at her nose with a handkerchief.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked. “Bottle of soda? Shot of whiskey?”

“No, no. I’m fine, for now. Thank you.”

Back out front, he let his senses expand, touching on every little noise, every scent, every source of light and the way it played around every shadow. Every heartbeat, a dozen of them, rattled in his awareness, a cacophony, like rocks tumbling in a tin can. It woke a hunger in him—a lurking knowledge that he could destroy everyone here, feed on them, sate himself on their blood before they knew what had happened.

He’d already fed this evening—he always fed before coming to work, it was the only way he could get by. It made the heartbeats that composed the background static of the world irrelevant.

No one here was anxious, worried, searching, behaving in any other manner than he would expect from people sitting in a bar half an hour before closing. Most were smiling, some were drunk, all were calm.

That changed ten minutes later when a heavyset man wearing a nondescript suit and weathered fedora came through the door and searched every face. Rick ignored him and waited. Sure enough, he came up to the bar. His heart beat fast, and sweat dampened his armpits and hairline.

“What can I get for you?” Rick asked.

“You see a girl come in here, about this tall, brown hair, wearing a blue dress?” the man said. He was carrying a pistol in a holster under his suit jacket.

Some of the patrons had turned to watch. Rick was sure they’d all seen Helen enter. They were waiting to see how he’d answer.

“No,” he said. “Haven’t seen her. She the kind of girl who’d come into a place like this by herself?”

“Yeah. I think she is.”

“We’re past last call. I doubt she’ll come in this late. But you’re welcome to wait.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Can I get you something?”

“Tonic water.”

Rick poured the drink and accepted his coins. The guy didn’t tip.

Patrons drifted out as closing time approached, and the heavyset man continued watching the door. He kept his right hand free and his jacket open, giving ready access to the holster. And if he did see Helen walk through the door, would he shoot her then and there? Was he that crazy?

Rick wondered what Helen had done.

When they were the only two left in the bar, Rick said, “I have to close up now, sir. I’m sorry your girl isn’t here.”

“She’s not my girl.”

“Well. Whoever she is, she isn’t here. You’ll have to go.”

The man looked at him. “What were you in the war, kid?”

“4-F,” Rick said.

He was used to the look the guy gave him. 4-F—medical deferment. Rick appeared to be a fit and able-bodied man in the prime of his life. He must have pulled a fast one on the draft board to get out of the service, and that made him a cheat as well as a coward. He let the assumptions pass by; he’d outlive them all.

“If you don’t mind me asking . . .” the guy prompted.

“I’m allergic to sunlight.” It was the excuse he’d given throughout the war.

“Huh. Whoever heard of such a thing?” Rick shrugged in response. “You know what I was? Infantry. In Italy. I got shot twice, kid. But I gave more than I got. I’m a hell of a lot tougher than I look.”

“I don’t doubt it, sir.”

The guy wasn’t drunk—he smelled of sweat, unlaundered clothes, and aftershave, not alcohol. But he might have been a little bit crazy. He looked like he was waiting for Rick to start a fight.

“If I see this girl, you want me to tell her you’re looking for her?” Rick said.

“No. I’m sure she hasn’t been anywhere near here.” He slid off the stool and tugged his hat more firmly on his head. “You take care, kid.”

“You too, sir.”

Finally, he left, and Rick locked the door.

He wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d returned to the storeroom and found Helen gone—fled, for whatever reason. But she was still there, sitting on the crate in the corner, her knees pulled up to her chest, hugging herself.

“Someone was here looking for you,” Rick said.

She jerked, startled—he’d entered too quietly. Even so, she looked like someone who had a man with a gun looking for her.

“Who was he? What’d he look like?” she asked, and Rick described him. Her gaze grew anguished, despairing. “It’s Blake. I don’t know what to do.” She sniffed, wiping her nose as she started crying again. “He’ll kill me if he finds me, he’ll kill me.”

“If you don’t mind your coffee bitter, we can finish off what’s in the pot and you can tell me all about it.” He put persuasion into his voice, to set her at her ease. “I can’t help if I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“I don’t want to get you involved, Rick.”

“Then why did you come here?”

She didn’t have an answer for that.

He poured a cup of coffee for her, pressed it into her hands, and waited for her to start.

“I got this job, right? It’s a good job, good pay. But sometimes . . . well. I make deliveries. I’m not supposed to ask what’s in the packages, I just go where they tell me to go and I don’t ask any questions.”

“You told me you got a job in a typing pool.”

“What was I supposed to do, tell you the truth?”

“No, you’re right. It wasn’t any of my business. Go on.”

“There’s a garage out east on Champa—”

“Rough neighborhood.”

“I’ve never had any trouble. Usually I just walk in, set the bag on the shelf, and walk right back out. Today I heard gunshots. I turned around and there’s Blake, he’d just shot Mikey—the guy from the garage who picks up the drops—and two other guys with him. He’s holding this gun, it’s still smoking. He shot them. I didn’t know what else to do; there’s a back door, so I ran for it, and he saw me, I know he saw me—”

He crouched beside her, took the coffee cup away, and pressed her hands together; they were icy. He didn’t have much of his own heat to help warm her with.

“Now he wants to tie off the loose ends,” Rick said.

“Of all the stupid timing; if I’d been five minutes earlier I’d have been fine, I wouldn’t have seen anything.”

Rick might argue that—she’d still be working as a runner for some kind of crime syndicate.

“Have you thought about going to the police? They could probably protect you. If they can lock Blake up you won’t have anything to worry about.”

“You think it really works like that? I can’t go to the cops. They’d arrest me just as fast as they’d arrest him.”

“So leave town,” Rick said.

“And go where? Do what? With what money?”

“I can give you money,” Rick said.

“On a bartender’s salary? That’ll get me to where, Colorado Springs? No, Rick, I’m not going to ask you for money.”

He ducked to hide a smile. Poor kid, thinking she was the only one with big secrets. “But you’ll ask me for a place to hide.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just I didn’t know where to go, I don’t have any other friends here. And now I’ve dragged you into it and if Blake finds out he’ll go after you, too.”

“Helen, don’t worry. We’ll figure it out.” He squeezed her hands, trying to impart some calm. She didn’t have any other friends here—that he believed.

“You probably hate me now.”

He shrugged. “Not much point to that.”

She tilted her head, a gesture of curiosity. “You’re different, you know that?”

“Yeah. I do. Look, I know a place where Blake absolutely won’t find you. You can stay there for a couple of days. Maybe this’ll blow over. Maybe they’ll catch Blake. In the meantime, you can make plans. How does that sound?”

“Thanks, Rick. Thanks.”

“It’s no trouble at all.”

ONE OF THE UNIFORMED OFFICERS CAME INTO THE LIVING ROOM TO HAND Hardin a paper cup of coffee. Rick declined the offer of a cup for him.

“So she had a criminal background,” Hardin said. “Did she do any time?”

“No,” Rick said. “She was a runner, a messenger. Never anything more serious than that.”

“Prostitution?”

“No, I don’t think so.” He was pretty sure he would have known if she had. But he couldn’t honestly say what she’d done before he met her. “I know she saw a lot that she probably wasn’t supposed to see. She testified in a murder trial.”

“You said that was over sixty years ago. Surely anybody who wanted to get rid of a witness is long gone,” the detective said.

“You only asked if I knew why someone would want to kill her. That’s all I can think of. She didn’t have much property, and no family to leave it to even if she did. But I do know that sixty years ago, a few people did have a reason to want her dead.”

“Only a vampire would think it reasonable to look into sixty-year-old motives for murder.”

He hadn’t really thought of it like that, but she was right.

“Do you have any other questions, Detective?”

“What did she do since then? I take it she wasn’t still working as a runner.”

“She went straight. Worked retail. Retired fifteen years ago or so. She led a very quiet life.”

“And you said she doesn’t have any family? She never married, had kids?”

“No, she didn’t. I think her will has me listed as executor. I can start making arrangements.”

She rested her pen again. “Do you think she was lonely?”

“I don’t know, Detective. She never told me.” He thought she probably was, at least some of the time.

“Well, I’ll dig up what I can in the police records, but I’m not sure we even have anything going that far back. You remember anything about that murder trial she testified in?”

“1947,” he said. “The man she testified against was Charles Blake. He got a life sentence.”

She shook her head. “That still blows my mind. And I suppose you’ll tell me you remember it like it was yesterday?”

Rick shook his head. “No. Even I know that was a long time ago.”

In fact, he had to think a moment to remember what the Helen of that time had looked like—young, frivolous, hair in curls, dresses hugging her frame. When he thought of Helen, he saw the old woman she had become. He didn’t even have any strong feelings about the change—it was just what happened. His mortal friends grew old and died. He preferred that to when they died first.

Many of his kind didn’t bother, but Rick still liked being in the world, moving as part of it. Meeting people like Helen. Even if it meant saying good-bye more often.

Hardin’s gaze turned thoughtful. “If I were immortal, I’d go see the world. I’d finally learn French.”

Rick chuckled; he’d never learned French. “And yet vampires tend to stay in one place. Watch the world change around them.”

“So you’ve been here for five hundred years?”

“Not here in Denver, but here in the West? Yes. And I’ve seen some amazing things.”

“A lot of murders?” she asked.

“A few,” he said.

She considered him a long time, pondering more questions, no doubt. In the end, she just shook her head. “I’ll call you if I need any more information.”

“Of course you will.”

She smirked at that.

The police were in the process of sealing the house as a crime scene. Yellow evidence tags were going up, marking spots in the kitchen—the teacup, the table, spots on the floor, the counter. Yellow tape, fluttering in a light breeze, decorated the front porch. Time for Rick to leave, then. Now and forever. He paused for a last look around the living room. Then he was done.

He drove, at first aimlessly, just wanting to think. Then he headed toward the old neighborhoods, the bar on Colfax and the garage on Champa. The shadows of the way they’d been were visible—the outline of a façade, painted over a dozen times in the succeeding years. Half a century’s worth of skyscrapers, office complexes, and high-end lofts had risen and fallen around them. The streets had widened, the pavement had improved, the signs had changed. The cars had changed, the clothing people wore had changed, though at this hour he only saw a few young men smoking cigarettes outside a club. None of them wore hats.

If Charles Blake was even alive, he’d still be in prison. Did he have relatives? An accomplice he’d hatched a plan of revenge with? Rick could call the Department of Corrections, talk them into releasing any information about Blake. Just to tie off that loose end and finish Helen’s story in his own mind.

Or he could let Detective Hardin do her job. Hardin was right, and Helen’s sixty-year-old criminal life probably had nothing to do with her death. It might have been an accidental shooting. Some gang misfiring on a drive-by. Anything was possible, absolutely anything. Hardin didn’t need his help to find out what.

Time to let Helen go.

HE BROUGHT HER TO ARTURO’S.

Arturo was the master vampire of Denver, which meant he made the rules, and any vampire who wanted to live in his territory had to live by those rules. And Rick did, mostly. What he didn’t agree to was living under Arturo’s roof as one of his dozen or so minions. Instead, Rick kept to himself, lived how he wanted, didn’t draw attention, and didn’t challenge Arturo’s authority outright, so Arturo let him have his autonomy. A lot of the other vampires thought Rick was eccentric—even for a vampire—and he was all right with that. In the meantime, Arturo’s was the one place in the city Blake would never find Helen.

Arturo owned a squat brick building east of downtown. The ground floor housed a furniture dealer who did sporadic business, but his real work was deflecting attention from the basement. Underground, away from windows and sunlight, the city’s vampires lived and ran their little empire.

He walked Helen the dozen blocks from Murray’s bar to the furniture store, his arm protectively across her shoulder. She huddled against his body, glancing outward fearfully. Blake would never find them, not the way he moved, casting shadows, pulling her into his influence. But she didn’t know that.

In the back of the furniture shop, a concrete staircase led down, below the street level, to a nondescript door. Rick knocked.

“Blake won’t find you here,” he said.

“I trust you,” she said. She was still looking up the stairs, as if she expected Blake to appear, gun in hand.

What he really ought to do was put her on a train back to whatever town she came from. Tell her to find a good husband and settle down. Instead, he was bringing her here, and she trusted him.

The door opened, and Rick faced the current gatekeeper, a young woman in a straight silk dress ten years out of date, not that she would notice. Estelle hadn’t been above ground during most of that time.

Helen stared. To her, Estelle would look like a girl dressing up in her mother’s cast-off clothes, the skirt too long and the neckline too high.

“Hello, Estelle. I just need a room for a couple of nights.”

“Is Arturo expecting you?” she said, looking Helen up and down, probably drawing conclusions.

“No. But I don’t think he’ll mind. Do you?”

Pouting, she opened the door and let them in.

The hallway within was carpeted and dimly lit with a pair of shaded bulbs.

“Is he in his usual spot?” Rick asked over his shoulder.

“Sure. He’s even in a good mood.”

Helen looked to him for an explanation. He just guided her on, through the doorway at the end of the corridor and into a wide room.

The place had the atmosphere of a turn-of-the-century lounge, close and warm, dense with subdued colors and rich fabrics, Persian rugs, and velvet wall hangings. One of Arturo’s dozen minions, Angelo, a young hothead, was smoking, purposefully drawing breath into his lungs and blowing it out again—breathing for no other reason than to smoke. It wasn’t as if the tobacco had any effect on him. Maybe he liked watching the smoke. Or maybe it was just habit. He was only a century old.

Most of Arturo’s vampires were young to Rick’s eyes. Then again, just about everyone was.

Sated with the human blood that kept them alive, they’d most likely been discussing the evening’s exploits. Their latest mode of hunting involved finding a dinner party, inviting themselves over, mesmerizing the whole group, and then having a taste of everyone. They didn’t kill or turn anyone, which would draw too much attention, and the group would wake up in the morning thinking they’d had a marvelous—if strange—evening. Rick sometimes suggested to Arturo that he should open a restaurant or club and let the party come to him.

Arturo—by all accounts dashing, with golden hair swept back from a square face—lay in a wingback armchair, legs draped over one of its arms. He looked at Rick and raised his brows in surprise. “What have you brought for us, Ricardo?”

The dozen vampires, men and women, straightened, perking up to look at Helen like a pack of wolves.

“She needs a place to stay,” Rick said. “She’s under my protection.”

“Ricardo?” Helen whispered to him, and he hushed her.

“I’d just like to use the spare room for a couple of nights, if that’s all right.”

The young man—he looked to be in his midtwenties, a little younger than Rick appeared—considered, tapping a finger against a chin. “Certainly. Why not?”

“Thanks.”

His arm still around her shoulders, he turned Helen back to the hallway, where he opened the first door on the right and guided her inside.

“Rick? What is this place, some kind of boardinghouse?”

“Sort of.”

“Who are all those people?”

The room was absolutely dark. Helen gasped when he closed the door behind her. “Rick?”

He didn’t need to see to find the floor lamp in the corner and turn it on.

The room had a double bed with a mass of pillows and a quilted satin comforter, an oak dresser, the lamp, and not much else. The place was for sleeping out the day and storing clothing. A rug on the hardwood floor muffled footsteps.

Helen stared. “It’s a brothel. You’ve brought me to a brothel.”

If he argued with her, he’d have to explain, which he wanted to avoid.

“Do you mind?” he said. “I could find somewhere else.”

She hesitated before shaking her head and saying, “No. It’s okay. As long as it isn’t one of Blake’s.”

“It’s not.”

She squared her shoulders a little more firmly, as if steeling herself. “I think maybe I’m ready for that drink you offered earlier.”

“I’ll have to go back to the parlor for it. You mind waiting here?”

“I’ll be fine,” she said, wearing a brave smile.

He left the room, and Arturo was waiting in the hallway, leaning against the wall, his arms crossed.

“Ricardo.”

“Arturo,” he answered.

“You brought her here because you want to hide her. Why?”

“She’s in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“The straightforward kind. In over her head with the wrong people.”

“Small-town girl trying to make it in the city?”

“Something like that.”

“Hmm. Quaint. Well, I’m always happy to do a good deed for a pretty girl. But you owe me a favor now, yes?”

Rick ducked his gaze to hide a smile. He handled Arturo by letting him think he was in charge. “That’s how it usually works, yes.”

“Excellent.”

“I assume the alcohol cabinet is included in the favor?”

“What? You’re having to get your girls drunk first now?” Arturo said in mock astonishment.

“Thank you, Arturo.” Rick slipped around him and into the parlor.

He returned to the room with a tumbler of ice and a bottle of whiskey. Helen was on the bed. Her jacket was off and lying on the dresser, her shoes were tossed in a corner, and she was peeling off her stockings. Rick started to apologize and back out of the room again, when she called him over.

“I’m sorry, I just wanted to get comfortable since I’m going to be here awhile,” she said.

He set the tumbler on the dresser and poured a finger.

“Ricardo, is it?” she said. “Are you Mexican? Because you don’t look Mexican.”

“Spanish,” he said. “At least, if you go back far enough.”

“Spanish, hm? That’s romantic.”

He handed her the whiskey, which she sipped, smiling at him over the glass. “You only brought one glass. Don’t you want any?”

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Will you sit here with me?”

This was a turning point. He’d been in enough situations like it to recognize it. “Helen, I didn’t bring you here to take advantage.”

“Despite the bed and this being a brothel?” Her smile turned wry.

“You really will be safe here,” he said, though his protestations were starting to sound weak. Truth be told, he wanted to sit by her, and his lips grew flush from wanting to press against her skin.

She’d touched up her lipstick while he was gone. The top button of her blouse was undone, the hem of her skirt lay around her knees, and her legs were bare. She thought she was seducing him. But as soon as he sat on that bed, she wouldn’t be in control of the situation. She didn’t know that. And if he played it right, she never would know. So. What was the right thing to do, really?

She drained the whiskey and patted the bed next to her—right next to her—and he sat. He laid his arm across the headboard behind her, and she pressed herself against him.

“I don’t meet a lot of nice guys, working the way I do. You’re a nice guy, Rick.”

“If you say so.”

“Yeah, I do.”

Pressing her hand to his cheek, she drew him close and kissed him on the mouth. She was eager, insistent. Who was he to deny her? She tasted of whiskey and heat, alive and lovely. He drew the tumbler from her hand and set it on the floor, then returned to kissing her, wrapping his arms around her, trapping her. She scratched at the buttons on his shirt.

The fire that rose up in him in response wasn’t sexual. It was hunger. A visceral, primal, gnawing hunger, as if he hadn’t eaten in centuries. His only nourishment, his only possible release, lay under her skin. If he let that monster go, he would tear into her, spilling her over the bed, swimming in her innards to better feed on her blood.

There was a better way.

He worked slowly, carefully, kissing across her mouth and jaw, sucking at her ear as she gasped, then moving down her neck, tracing a collarbone, unfastening her blouse button by button, pulling aside her brassiere to gain access to a perfect handful of breast. She wriggled, reaching back to unfasten the whole contraption. When he’d first encountered the modern brassiere, he’d thought it was so much easier than a corset. But the undergarment had its own idiosyncrasies. And like undoing corsets always did, it gave them both a chance to giggle.

She sat up enough to yank at his shirt, and he let her pull it off and throw it aside. Then, once again, he pressed her to the bed and took control, peeling away her clothing—the girdle and garters were more pieces of modern clothing he was still coming to terms with—and running his cool hands over every burning inch of her, kissing as he went. Only after she came for him did he take what he needed, from a small and careful bite at her throat.

Her blood was ecstasy.

Her heart, aroused and racing, pumped a strong flow for him. He could have drained her in moments, but took in only a few mouthfuls. Not enough to completely satisfy, but enough to keep him alive for a couple more days. Vampires had learned this long ago—how much more efficient to keep them alive and producing. And how much richer to coax it from them, instead of spilling it.

He licked the wound, encouraging the blood to clot. She’d gone limp, and her breathing had settled. Propping himself over her, he turned her face so that he was looking straight down at her. Her eyes were wide, pupils dilated. Her brow was furrowed, her expression both amazed and confused. Maybe even hurt. Holding her gaze, he focused on her, into her, and spoke softly.

“You won’t remember this. You’ll remember the bliss and nothing else. I’m just a man, just a lover, and you won’t remember anything else. Isn’t that right?” Slowly, she nodded. Her worried expression, the wrinkles around her eyes, faded. “Good, Helen. Remember the good, let the rest go. Now, sleep. Sleep until I wake you up again.”

Her eyes closed, and she let out a sigh.

Dawn had nearly arrived. The room had no windows, but he could feel it. The warm and sated glow that came after feeding joined with the lethargy of daylight. He was safe and calm, so he let the morning pull him under until he fell unconscious, still holding her hand.

THE NEXT NIGHT, RICK HAD A MESSAGE FROM DETECTIVE HARDIN WAITING for him. He called back immediately.

“Hello, Rick?” she said. “Do you even have a last name?”

“Have you found something, Detective?” he said.

“Yeah. Charles Blake? I looked him up. Not only is he still alive, he got out on parole four months ago.”

The air seemed to go still for a moment, and sounds faded as he pulled his awareness to a tiny space around him—the phone, what Hardin had just told him, how that made him feel. Cold, tight, hands clenching, a predator’s snarl tugging at his lips.

He drew a couple of calm breaths to steady himself, and to be able to speak to the detective. “You think he killed her?”

“I think he hired someone to do it for him. He might have collected favors in prison and called them in when he got out. Guy was a real peach, from what I gather. I can’t go into too many details, but the crime scene is pretty slim on evidence, which speaks to someone with experience. The back door was unlocked. We think he might have come to see her earlier in the day. That must have been when she called you.”

How small, how petty, to carry a grudge over such a length of time. How like a vampire. And yet, how human as well. That grudge might very well have kept Blake alive all this time.

“How are you doing?” she asked. “This must come as a shock to you.”

It sounded like something she said to any victim’s family. He smiled to think she’d next offer to refer him to grief counseling. “I’m all right, Detective. It wasn’t a shock. I’ve been expecting this for sixty years. About Blake—do you know where he is? Have you arrested him?”

“I’m afraid I can’t discuss an ongoing investigation any further. I just thought you’d want to know about Blake.”

“Thank you. I appreciate it.”

They both hung up, and he considered. He could find Blake. He’d be an old man now, ancient. Not much to live for, after spending most of his life in prison. He’d exacted his revenge, and Rick didn’t think he’d spend a lot of time trying to get out of town or hide. And this was Rick’s city, now.

Detective Hardin hadn’t arrested Blake yet because she was building her case, searching for evidence, obtaining warrants. Rick had every confidence that she’d do her job to the utmost of her ability and that through her, justice would be served.

In this case, he wasn’t interested in waiting.

After killing Arturo and replacing him as master of Denver, Rick had transformed the lair. The parlor was now an office, with functional sofas and a coffee table, and a desk and bookshelves for work. He paced around the desk and considered. Blake would have a parole officer who would know where he was. The man might even be living in some kind of halfway house for ex-cons. After so long in prison, it was doubtful he had any family or friends left. He had no place else to go. And if he was right about Blake’s state of mind, the man wouldn’t even be hiding.

He flipped through a ledger and found a name, recently entered. A woman who’d run a prostitution ring in the seventies—with blackmail on the side. She’d served her time, she knew the system, and she owed him a favor.

“Hello, Carol. It’s Rick. I need to know who the parole officer is for a recently released felon.”

NIGHT FELL, AND RICK WOKE.

Helen had turned over on her side and curled up, pressing against him, her hands on his arm. She looked sweet and vulnerable.

He leaned over and breathed against her ear. “Wake up, Helen.”

Her eyes opened. Pulling away from him, she sat up, looking dazed, as if trying to remember where she was and how she’d gotten here. Her clothes were hanging off her, loose, and her hair was in tangles.

“You all right?” he asked.

She glared. “Did you put something in my drink?”

“No.”

She looked herself over, retrieving her clothes, fastening buttons, and running fingers through her hair. Wryly, she said, “You never even took your trousers off, did you?”

He answered her smile. “Never mind. As long as you’re all right.”

“Yeah, I’m fine. More than fine. You’re something else, Rick, you know that?”

“There’s a washroom across the hall.”

“What time is it?”

“Nightfall,” he said. “I’m about to head to Murray’s to see if Blake shows up. You should stay here.”

She closed up at the mention of Blake, slouching and hugging herself. He smoothed her hair back and left a gentle kiss on her forehead.

“I’ll be safe here?” she asked.

“Yes. I promise.”

“What happens if Blake does show up? What can you possibly do? Rick, if he hurts you because of me—”

“It’ll be fine, Helen.”

He washed up, found a clean shirt, ran a comb through his hair, and left the lair.

Blake did, in fact, show up at the bar that night. Rick kept his place behind the taps and watched him scan the room before choosing a seat near the bar.

“Bourbon,” he muttered. Rick poured and pushed the tumbler over.

Scowling, Blake drained the liquor in one go. After some time, when it was clear Helen wasn’t going to appear, he set his stare on Rick, who didn’t have any trouble pretending not to notice. Leaning on his elbow, Blake pushed back his jacket to show off his gun in its shoulder holster.

“So. Did she ever show up?” the man said.

“Who? The girl?”

“You know who I’m talking about.”

“Can I ask why you’re looking for her?”

“I just want to talk to her. We can work something out. You know where she’s hiding, don’t you?”

“Sir, I really can’t help you.”

Blake narrowed his gaze, looking him up and down—sizing him up, and Rick knew what he was thinking. He was thinking he was looking at a wimp, a coward, a young guy who’d sat out the war, who’d be easy to take down in a fight. Blake was thinking all he’d have to do was wave the gun around, break his nose, and he’d take him right to Helen because no broad was worth sticking up for like that.

Rick smiled, knowing it would make him crazy. Blake scowled and walked out.

Rick had the rest of the night mapped out. He knew what would happen next, how it would all play, a bit of urban theater, predictable yet somehow satisfying. Last call came and went; he offered to close up. After locking the doors, he set chairs upside down on tables, gave the floor a quick sweeping and the bar a wipe down, turned out all the lights, and went out the back, where Blake was waiting for him.

Blake lunged from the shadows with a right hook, obviously intending to take Rick out in a second and keep him from gaining his bearings.

Rick sidestepped out of the way. Blake stumbled, and Rick pivoted, grabbing Blake’s shirt, yanking him further off balance, then swinging him headfirst into the wall. The man slid to the ground, limbs flailing for purchase, scrabbling at Rick, the wall, anything. The sequence took less than a second—Blake wouldn’t have had a chance to realize his right hook had missed. He must have thought the world turned upside down.

Wrenching Blake’s arm back, Rick dragged him a dozen feet along the pavement in the back alley. The shoulder joint popped; Blake hollered. With a flick of the same injured arm, Rick flipped Blake faceup—bloody scrapes covered his cheek and jaw. Jumping on him, Rick pinned him, holding him with strength rather than weight—Blake was the larger man. He brought his face close to smell the rich, sweet fluid leaking from him. Rick could drain the man dead.

A floodlight filled the alley, blinding even Rick, who shaded his eyes with a raised arm. Squinting, he needed a moment to make out the scene: a police car had pulled into the alley.

“You two! Break it up!” a man shouted from the driver’s-side window.

Climbing to his feet, Rick held up his hands. Next to him, Blake was still scrambling to recover, scratching at the cut on his face, shaking his head like a cave creature emerging into the open.

The cop had a partner, who stormed out of the passenger side and came at them, nightstick in hand. He shoved Rick face first to the brick wall and patted him down. “What’s this? A couple of drunks duking it out?”

Rick didn’t speak and didn’t react. He could have fought free, stunned the officer, and disappeared into the shadows. But he waited, curious.

“What have you got there?” the driver asked.

“A couple of drunks. Should we bring ’em in?”

“Wait a minute—that guy on the ground. Is that Charles Blake?”

The cop grabbed Blake by the collar and dragged him into the light.

“That’s it, bring ’em both in.”

Rick rode in the back of the squad car next to Blake, trying to decide if he should be amused or concerned. Dawn was still a few hours away. He had time to watch this play out. Blake was hunched over, breathing wetly, glancing at Rick every now and then to glare at him.

Within the hour, Rick was sitting in a bare, dank interrogation room, talking to a plainclothes detective, a guy named Simpson. He lit a cigarette and offered one to Rick, who declined.

He said, “You were picked up fighting with Charles Blake behind Murray’s.”

“That’s right,” Rick answered.

“You want to tell me why?”

Rick leaned back and crossed his arms. “I expected to be thrown in the drunk tank when I got here, but you’re interested in Blake. Can I ask why?”

“What do you know about him?”

“He’s been bothering a girl I know.”

“Your girl?” Rick shrugged, and the detective flicked ashes on the floor. “That’s why you were beating on him? I don’t suppose I can blame you for that.”

“Is Blake dangerous?”

“Do you think he is?”

“Yes,” Rick said.

The detective studied him, but Rick didn’t give much away. If he needed to, he could catch the man’s eye and talk him into letting Rick go. It would certainly come to that if he was still here close to dawn.

Finally, the detective said, “You’re right. He’s the primary suspect in a murder case. You have anything else about him you want to share?”

This gave Rick an idea. “I might know someone who can help you.”

“If I let you go—I know how that works.”

“I’m the bartender at Murray’s—I won’t disappear on you.”

“And how good is this information of yours?”

“Worth the wait, I think.”

“You know what? You’re a little too cagey for a bartender. Is that all you do?”

Rick chuckled. “Right now it is.”

“I need evidence to lay on Blake if we’re going to keep him locked up—and keep him away from your girlfriend. Can you help me out?”

“Stop by Murray’s tomorrow night and I’ll have an answer.”

The detective let him go.

Rick knew he’d be followed—for a time, at least. He returned to Arturo’s by a roundabout route and managed to vanish, at least from his tail’s point of view.

Helen was waiting for him in the parlor, sitting with Arturo on a burgundy velvet settee. Rick calmed himself a moment and didn’t instantly leap forward to put himself between them. She was smiling, and Arturo wasn’t doing anything but talking.

“Ricardo! I was hoping you wouldn’t return, and that you’d left Helen here with us.”

Helen giggled—she held an empty tumbler. They’d probably been at this for hours.

“Thanks for entertaining her for me,” Rick said.

“My pleasure. Really.”

“Helen, we need to talk,” Rick said, gesturing to the doorway.

“Your friend’s a charmer, Rick,” she said.

“Yes, he is. Let’s go.”

She pushed herself from the seat. Glancing over her shoulder, she waved fingers at him, and Arturo answered with an indulgent smile. Rick put an arm over her shoulder and guided her into the safe room.

“Don’t be angry,” she said. “I needed to ask him if there was a phone.”

“Who did you need to call?”

“The police,” she said, and ducked her gaze. “I didn’t want you to get hurt, so I called the police and told them there might be trouble at Murray’s.”

And there was trouble, and the police had shown up.

“I’d almost taken care of Blake when the police arrived,” he said. He didn’t say, You should have trusted me.

She paled. “What happened?”

“He’s in jail now, but he’s not going to stay there unless they get some proof that he committed those murders. They know he did it, they just don’t have evidence.”

She paced back and forth along the foot of the bed. Her shoulders tightened, and she hugged herself.

“I think you should go talk to them, Helen. You can testify, Blake will go to prison, and he won’t bother you again. You’ll be safe.”

“I can’t do that, Rick. I can’t say anything. He’ll kill me, he’ll—”

“Not if he’s in prison.”

“But what if he gets out? The first thing he’ll do is come after me.”

“I’ll kill him first,” Rick said.

“Rick, no. I don’t want you to get in trouble over me. I don’t even know why you’re looking out for me, you barely know me—”

“I’m doing it because I can,” he said. “But if you go to the police, they’ll take care of Blake.”

She moved close, pressing herself to him, wrapping her arms around him, and resting her head on his chest. This again. She was so close, he could hear blood pouring through her veins, near the surface. She was flushed and so warm. He rubbed his face along her hair, gathering that warmth to him.

“Helen,” he said with something like despair.

“What’s the matter?” she said.

“I’m not . . . right for you. This is dangerous—”

“Why?” She stepped away. “What’s up with you? You’re so nice, but you’re not afraid of Blake, and you keep talking like I ought to be afraid of you. What aren’t you telling me?”

Such a large answer to that question. He shifted her, so that he could see her face, trace the soft skin of her jaw, then drop to trace the pulse on her neck. He should send her to sleep and make her forget all this. He never should have taken her on that first date. And life was too long for that kind of regret. It didn’t matter how immortal you were, you still needed friends.

“Have you ever read Dracula?” he said.

“What, like Bela Lugosi?”

“Not quite like. But yes.”

“Yeah, ages ago. I like the movie better.”

“Vampires exist. They’re real.”

She chuckled. “Sorry?”

He took her hand and placed it on his chest, where his dead heart lay still. “What do you feel?”

Her smile fell. She moved her hand, pressing it flat to his chest, his ribs digging into her palm. She stared at him. “What am I supposed to say? Tell you you’re crazy?”

“Lie still,” he said.

“What?”

He sat her on the bed, stacked up the pillows, and forced her back so that she reclined against them. He kissed her, and she kissed back, enthusiastic if confused. Taking in her scent, her warmth, and the feel of her blood, he let the appetite grow in him.

Planting a final kiss on her neck, he held her hand and drew her arm straight before him. No hypnotism this time, no shrouding her memory. Let her see what he was. He put his lips to her elbow—more kisses, slow and tender, tracing her veins with his tongue. She let out a moan.

He sucked on her wrist, drawing blood to the surface.

“Rick? What are you doing? Rick?”

“I said lie still.” He pushed her back to the pillow and returned his attention to her wrist.

Finally, he bit, and she gasped. But she lay still.

Her blood was not as sweet as it might have been—she was too wary. But it was still sweet, and she didn’t panic, and when he licked the wound closed and glanced at her, her gaze was clear. Uncertain, but clear. He was relieved. He folded her arms across her belly, wrapping her in an embrace, her head pillowed on his shoulder. She melted against him.

“I don’t understand,” she whispered.

“I don’t expect you to. But do you trust me to look after you if Blake goes free?”

She nodded. He kissed her hair and waited for her to fall asleep.

Rick brought her to Murray’s the next night, and Detective Simpson was waiting for them. Her hands were trembling, but Rick stayed close to her, and she stood tall and spoke clearly. Simpson promised she wouldn’t be charged with any of the petty crimes she’d committed, in exchange for her testimony. The case against Blake went to trial, and Helen was the prosecution’s star witness. Blake was convicted and sent away for a long, long time. Rick was sure he’d never see the guy again.

HE ONLY NEEDED A LITTLE DIGGING—A VISIT TO A PAROLE OFFICE, SOME obfuscation and inveigling, a deep look into an informant’s eyes—to learn which halfway house Blake was staying at, east of downtown. He drove there with a single-minded intensity. He wasn’t often wrong these days, but he’d been wrong about Blake, and he’d failed Helen. Petty revenge wouldn’t make that right. But it might help tip the scales back in the right direction.

The house was back from the street, run-down and lit up, and gave no outward sign of what it was. Rick wondered if the neighbors knew. He parked his car on the curb, stuck his hands in his pockets, and headed to the front door.

The house pressed outward against him; his steps slowed. The place was protected—he wasn’t sure it would be, given its nature, and the fact that people were always moving in and out. Did that make it a public institution, or a home? But here was his answer—this was a home. He couldn’t enter without invitation. By the time he reached the front door, the force was a wall, invisible; he could almost press his hands against it—but not through it.

Well. He’d have to try normal, mundane bluffing, wouldn’t he?

He knocked on the door. A shadow passed over the peephole, and a voice called, “Who is it? What do you want?”

“My name is Rick. I’m an old friend of Charles Blake, and I heard he was here. Can I see him?”

“Do you know what time it is?”

“Yes—sorry about that. I just got off work. Bartender.”

“Just a minute. I’ll get him.”

“Mind if I wait inside?”

After a brief, wary moment of waiting, the deadbolt clicked back, and the door opened. A gruff man in his forties stood aside and held the door. “Come on in.”

Rick did.

The living room was worn and sad, with threadbare furniture and carpets, stained walls, a musty air. A bulletin board listed rules, notices, want ads, warnings. The atmosphere was institutional, but this might have been the first real home some of these men had known. Halfway house, indeed.

“Stay right here,” the man said, and walked to a back hallway.

Rick waited, hands in pockets.

The doorman returned after a long wait, what would have been many beats of his heart, if it still beat. Behind him came a very old man, pulling a small oxygen tank on a cart behind him. Tubes led from it to his nose, and his every breath wheezed. Other than that, he had faded. He was smaller than the last time Rick had seen him, withered and sunken, skin like putty hanging off a stooped frame. Wearing a T-shirt and ratty, faded jeans, he looked sad, beaten. The scowl remained—Rick recognized that part of him.

The old man saw him and stopped. They were two ghosts staring at each other across the room.

“Hello, Blake,” Rick said.

“Who are you? You his grandson?”

Rick turned to the middle-aged doorman and stared until he caught the man’s gaze. “Would you mind leaving us alone for a minute?” He put quiet force into the suggestion. The man walked back into the hallway.

“Bill—Bill! Come back!” Blake’s sandpaper voice broke into coughing.

“I’m not his grandson,” Rick said.

“What is this?”

“Tell me about Helen, Blake.”

He coughed a laugh, as if he thought this was a joke. Rick just stared at him. He didn’t have to put any power in it. His standing there was enough. Blake’s jaw trembled.

“What about her? Huh? What about her!”

Rick grabbed the tube hanging at Blake’s chest and yanked, pulling it off his face. Blake stumbled back, his mouth open to show badly fitted dentures coming loose. Wrapping both hands in Blake’s shirt, Rick marched him into the wall, slamming him, slamming again, listening for the crack of breaking bone.

“You thought no one would know,” Rick whispered at him, face to face. “You thought no one would remember.” Blake sputtered, flailing weakly, ineffectually.

The front door crashed open. “Stop!”

Rick recognized the footfalls, voices, and the sounds of their breathing. Detective Hardin pounded in, flanked by two uniformed officers. Rick glanced over his shoulder—she was pointing a gun at him. Not that it mattered. He shoved his fists against Blake’s throat.

Blake was dying under his grip. Rick wouldn’t have to flex a muscle to kill him. He didn’t even feel an urge to take the man’s blood—it would be cool, sluggish, unappetizing. Rick would spit it back out in the man’s face. He could do it all with Hardin watching, because what could the detective really do in the end?

“Rick! Back away from him!”

Hardin fumbled in her jacket pocket and drew out a cross, a simple version, two bars of unadorned silver soldered together. Proof against vampires. Rick smiled.

Blake had to have known he wouldn’t get away with murdering Helen. What had he been thinking? What had he wanted, really? Rick looked at him: the wide, yellowing eyes, the sagging face, pockmarked and splashed with broken capillaries. He expected to see a death wish there, a determined fatalism. But Blake was afraid. Rick terrified him. The man, his body failing around him, didn’t want to die.

This made Rick want to strangle him even more. To justify the man’s terror. But he let Blake go and backed away, leaving him to Hardin’s care.

The old man sank to his knees, knocking over the oxygen canister. He held his hands before him, clawed and trembling.

“He’s dead! Dead! He has to be dead! He has to be!” He was sobbing.

Maybe leaving him on his knees and crying before the police was revenge enough.

Rick, hands raised, backed out of the line of fire. “I could have saved you some paperwork, Detective.”

“You’d just have forced me into a whole other set of paperwork. What the hell did you think you were doing?”

The uniforms had to pick up Blake and practically drag him away. They didn’t bother with cuffs. Blake didn’t seem to know what was happening. His mouth worked, his breaths wheezed, his legs stumbled.

“I take it you got your evidence,” Rick said.

“We found the shooter, and he talked. Blake hired him.”

He certainly didn’t look like he’d pulled any triggers in a good long time.

“So that’s it?”

“What else do you want?”

“I wanted to get here five minutes earlier,” he said. Not that any of it really mattered. It all faded from the memories around him.

“I need to ask you to depart the premises,” she said. She wasn’t aiming the gun at him, but she hadn’t put it away. “Don’t think I won’t arrest you for something, because I will. I’ll come up with something.”

Rick nodded. “Have a good night, Detective.”

He returned to his car and left the scene, marking the end of yet another chapter.

RICK HADN’T BEEN ABLE TO ATTEND THE TRIAL, BUT HE’D MET WITH HELEN every night to discuss the proceedings. She came to Murray’s, tearing up with relief and rubbing her eyes with her handkerchief, to report the guilty verdict. He quit his shift early and took her back to his place, a basement apartment on Capitol Hill. With Blake locked up, he felt safe bringing her here. He owned the building, rented out the upper portion through an agency, and could block off the windows in the basement without drawing attention. The décor was simple—a bed, an armchair, a chest of drawers, a radio, and a kitchen that went unused.

They lay together on the bed, his arm around her, holding her close, while she nestled against him. They talked about the future, which was always an odd topic for him. Helen had decided to look for an old-fashioned kind of job and aim for a normal life this time.

“But I don’t know what to do about you,” she said, craning her neck to look up at him.

He’d been here before, lying with a woman he liked, who with a little thought and nudging he could perhaps be in love with, except that what they had would never be entirely mutual, or equitable. And he still didn’t know what to say. I could take from you for the rest of your life, and you’d end with . . . nothing.

He said, “If you’d like, I can vanish, and you’ll never see me again. It might be better that way.”

“I don’t want that. But I wish . . .” Her face puckered, brow furrowed in thought. “But you’re not ever going to take me on a trip, or stay up to watch the sunrise with me, or ask me to marry you, or anything, are you?”

He shook his head. “I’ve already given you everything I can.”

Except for one thing. But he hadn’t told her that he could infect her, make her like him, that she too could live forever and never see a sunrise. And he wouldn’t.

“It’s enough,” she said, hugging him. “At least for now, it’s enough.”