“Like you?” I replied. “No, not so much.”
Her eyes sparkled again. “You may have found my weakness. I’m the kind of girl who likes a little flattery.”
“And here I was thinking you liked something completely different.”
She covered her mouth with one hand, and her cheeks got a little pinker. “Harry. That’s not how one talks to young ladies in the South.”
“Obviously. I mean, you look so outraged. Should I apologize?”
“Oh,” she said, her smile widening. “I just have to collect you.” Connie’s eyes sparkled again, and I finally got it.
Her eyes weren’t twinkling.
They were becoming increasingly flecked with motes of molten silver.
Cutie-pie was a frigging vampire.
I’ve worked for years on my poker face. Years. It still sucks pretty bad, but I’ve been working on it. So I’m sure my smile was only slightly wooden when I asked, “Collect me?”
I might not have been hiding my realization very well, but either Connie was better at poker than me or else she really was too absorbed in the conversation to notice. “Collect you,” she said. “When I meet someone worthwhile, I like to have dinner with them. And we’ll talk and tell stories and laugh, and I’ll get a picture and put it in my memory book.”
“Um,” I said. “Maybe you’re a little young for me.”
She threw back her head and gave a full-throated laugh. “Oh, Harry. I’m talking about sharing a meal. That’s all, honestly. I know I’m a terrible flirt, but I didn’t think you were taking me seriously.”
I watched her closely as she spoke, searching for the predatory calculation that I knew had to be in there. Vampires of the White Court—
“WAIT,” DEAN SAID. “Vampires of the White Castle?”
I sighed. “White Court.”
Dean grunted. “Why not just call her a vampire?”
“They come in a lot of flavors,” I said.
“And this one was vanilla?”
“There’s no such thing as …” I rubbed at the bridge of my nose. “Yes.”
Dean nodded. “So why not just call ’em vanilla vampires?”
“I’ll … bring it up at the next wizard meeting,” I said.
“So the vampire is where all the blood came from?”
“No.” I sighed. “This kind doesn’t feed on blood.”
“No? What do they eat, then?”
“Life energy.”
“Huh?”
I sighed again. “Sex.”
“Finally, the story gets good. So they eat sex?”
“Life energy,” I repeated. “The sex is just how they get started.”
“Like sticking fangs into your neck,” Dean said. “Only instead of fangs, I guess they use—”
“Look, do you want the story or not?”
Dean leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on his desk. “You kidding? This is the best one in years.”
ANYWAY, I WATCHED Connie closely, but I saw no evidence of anything in her that I knew had to be there. Vampires are predators who hunt the most dangerous game on the planet. They generally aren’t shy about it, either. They don’t really need to be. If a White Court vampire wants to feed off a human, all she really has to do is crook her finger, and he comes running. There isn’t any ominous music. Nobody sparkles. As far as anyone looking on is concerned, a girl winks at a boy and goes off somewhere to make out. Happens every day.
They don’t get all coy asking you out to dinner, and they sure as hell don’t have pictures in a memory book.
This was weird, and long experience has taught me that when the unexplained is bouncing around right in front of you, the smart thing is to back off and figure out what the hell is going on. In my line of work, what you don’t know can kill you.
But I didn’t get the chance. There was a sharp whistle from a coach somewhere on the field, and football players came rumbling off it. One of them came loping toward us, put a hand on top of the six-foot chain-link fence, and vaulted it in one easy motion. Bigfoot Irwin landed lightly, grinning, and continued directly toward Connie.
She let out a girlish squeal of delight and pounced on him. He caught her. She wrapped her legs around his hips, held his face in her hands, and kissed him thoroughly. They came up for air a moment later.
“Irwin,” she said, “I met someone interesting. Can I collect him?”
The kid only had eyes for Connie. Not that I could blame him, really. His voice was a basso rumble, startlingly like River Shoulders’s. “I’m always in favor of dinner at the Brewery.”
She dismounted and beamed at him. “Good. Irwin, this is …”
The kid finally looked up at me and blinked. “Harry.”
“Heya, Irwin,” I said. “How’re things?”
Connie looked back and forth between us. “You know each other?”
“He’s a friend,” Irwin said.
“Dinner,” Connie declared. “Harry, say you’ll share a meal with me.”
Interesting choice of words, all things considered.
I think I had an idea what had caused River’s bad dream. If a vampire had attached herself to Irwin, the kid was in trouble. Given the addictive nature of Connie’s attentions, and the degree of control it could give her over Irwin … maybe he wasn’t the only one who could be in trouble.
My, how little Irwin had grown. I wondered exactly how much of his father’s supernatural strength he had inherited. He looked like he could break me in half without causing a blip in his heart rate. He and Connie looked at me with hopeful smiles, and I suddenly felt like maybe I was the crazy one. Expressions like that should not inspire worry, but every instinct I had told me that something wasn’t right.
My smile probably got even more wooden. “Sure,” I said. “Why not?”
THE BREWERY WAS a lot like every other sports bar you’d find in college towns, with the possible exception that it actually was a brewery. Small and medium-sized tanks stood here and there throughout the place, with signs on each describing the kind of beer that was under way. Apparently, the beer sampler was traditional. I made polite noises when I tried each, but they were unexceptional. Okay, granted, I was probably spoiled by having Mac’s brew available back at home. It wasn’t the Brewery’s fault that their brews were merely excellent. Mac’s stuff was epic, it was legend. Tough to measure up to that.
I kept one hand under the table, near a number of tools I thought I might need, all the way through the meal, and waited for the other shoe to drop—only it never did. Connie and Irwin chattered away like any young couple, snuggled up to one another on adjacent chairs. The girl was charming, funny, and a playful flirt, but Irwin didn’t seem discomfited by it. I kept my responses restrained, anyway. I didn’t want to find out a couple of seconds too late that the seemingly innocent banter was how Connie got her psychic hooks into me.
But a couple of hours went by, and nothing.
“Irwin’s never told me anything about his father,” Connie said.
“I don’t know much,” Irwin said. “He’s … kept his distance over the years. I’ve looked for him a couple of times, but I never wanted to push him.”
“How mysterious,” Connie said.
I nodded. “For someone like him, I think the word eccentric might apply better.”
“He’s rich?” Connie asked.
“I feel comfortable saying that money isn’t one of his concerns,” I said.
“I knew it!” Connie said, and looked slyly at Irwin. “There had to be a reason. I’m only into you for your money.”
Instead of answering, Irwin calmly picked Connie up out of her chair, using just the muscles of his shoulders and arms, and deposited her on his lap. “Sure you are.”
Connie made a little groaning sound and bit her lower lip. “God. I know it’s not PC, but I’ve got to say, I am into it when you get all caveman on me, Pounder.”
“I know.” Irwin kissed the tip of her nose and turned to me. “So, Harry. What brings you to Norman?”
“I was passing through,” I said easily. “Your dad asked me to look in on you.”
“Just casually,” Irwin said, his dark eyes probing. “Because he’s such a casual guy.”
“Something like that,” I said.