“Not that I mind seeing you,” Irwin said, “but in case you missed it, I’m all grown-up now. I don’t need a babysitter. Even a cool, expensive one.”
“If you did, my rates are very reasonable,” Connie said.
“We’ll talk,” Irwin replied, sliding his arms around her waist. The girl wasn’t exactly a junior petite, but she looked tiny on Irwin’s scale. She hopped up and said, “I’m going to go make sure there isn’t barbecue sauce on my nose, and then we can take the picture. Okay?”
“Sure,” Irwin said, smiling. “Go.”
Once she was gone from sight, Irwin looked at me and dropped his smile. “Okay,” he said resignedly. “What does he want this time?”
There wasn’t a load of time, so I didn’t get all coy with the subject matter. “He’s worried about you. He thinks you may be in danger.”
Irwin arched his eyebrows. “From what?”
I just looked at him.
His expression suddenly turned into a scowl, and the air around us grew absolutely thick with energy that seethed for a point of discharge. “Wait. This is about Connie?”
I couldn’t answer him for a second, the air felt so close. The last time I’d felt this much latent, waiting power, I’d been standing next to my old mentor, Ebenezar McCoy, when he was gathering his strength for a spell.
That pretty much answered my questions about River Shoulders’s people having access to magical power. The kid was a freaking dynamo of it. I had to be careful. I didn’t want to be the guy who was unlucky enough to ground out that storm cloud of waiting power. So I answered Irwin cautiously and calmly.
“I’m not sure yet. But I know for a fact that she’s not exactly what she seems to be.”
His nostrils flared, and I saw him make an effort to remain collected. His voice was fairly even. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning I’m not sure yet,” I said.
“So, what? You’re going to hang around here, butting into my life?”
I held up both hands. “It isn’t like that.”
“It’s just like that,” Irwin said. “My dad spends my whole life anywhere else but here, and now he thinks he can just decide when to intrude on it?”
“Irwin,” I said, “I’m not here to try to make you do anything. He asked me to look in on you. I promised I would. And that’s all.”
He scowled for a moment, then smoothed that expression away. “No sense in being mad at the messenger, I guess,” he said. “What do you mean about Connie?”
“She’s …” I faltered there. You don’t just sit down with a guy and tell him, “Hey, your girlfriend is a vampire. Could you pass the ketchup?” I sighed. “Look, Irwin. Everybody sees the world a certain way. And we all kind of … Well, we all sort of decide together what’s real and what isn’t real, right?”
“Magic’s real,” Irwin said impatiently. “Monsters are real. Supernatural stuff actually exists. You’re a professional wizard.”
I blinked at him several times.
“What?” he asked, and smiled gently. “Don’t let the brow ridge fool you. I’m not an idiot, man. You think you can walk into my life the way you have, twice, and not leave me with an itch to scratch? You made me ask questions. I went and got answers.”
“Uh. How?” I asked.
“Wasn’t hard. There’s an Internet. And this organization called the Paranet, of all the cockamamie things, that got started a few years ago. Took me, like, ten minutes to find it online and start reading through their message boards. I can’t believe everyone in the world doesn’t see this stuff. It’s not like anyone is trying very hard to keep it secret.”
“People don’t want to know the truth,” I said. “That makes it simple to hide. Wow, ten minutes? Really? I guess I’m not really an Internetty person.”
“Internetty,” Irwin said, seriously. “I guess you aren’t.”
I waved a hand. “Irwin, you need to know this. Connie isn’ t—”
The pretty vampire plopped herself back down into Irwin’s lap and kissed his cheek. “Isn’t what?”
“The kind to stray,” I said, smoothly. “I was just telling Irwin how much I’d like to steal you away from him, but I figure you’re the sort who doesn’t play that kind of game.”
“True enough,” she agreed cheerfully. “I know where I want to sleep tonight.” Maybe it was unconscious, the way she wriggled when she said it, but Irwin’s eyes got a slightly glazed look to them.
I remembered being that age. A girl like Connie would have been a mind-numbing distraction to me back then even if she hadn’t been a vampire. And Irwin was clearly in love, or as close to it as he could manage through the haze of hormones surrounding him. Reasoning with him wasn’t going to accomplish anything—unless I made him angry. Passion is a huge force when you’re Irwin’s age, and I’d taken enough beatings for one lifetime. I’d never be able to explain the danger to him. He just didn’t have a frame of reference. …
He just didn’t know.
I stared at Connie for a second with my mouth open.
“What?” she asked.
“You don’t know,” I said.
“Know what?” she asked.
“You don’t know that you’ re …” I shook my head and said to Irwin, “She doesn’t know.”
“HANG ON,” DEAN said. “Why is that significant?”
“Vampires are just like people until the first time they feed,” I said. “Connie didn’t know that bad things would happen when she did.”
“What kinda bad things?”
“The first time they feed, they don’t really know it’s coming. They have no control over it, no restraint—and whoever they feed on dies as a result.”
“So she was the threat that Bigfoot dreamed about?”
“I’m getting to it.”
IRWIN’S EXPRESSION HAD darkened again, into a glower almost exactly like River Shoulders’s, and he stood up.
Connie was frowning at me as she was abruptly displaced. “Don’t know wh—Oof, Pounder!”
“We’re done,” Irwin said to me. His voice wasn’t exactly threatening, but it was absolutely certain, and his leashed anger all but made the air crackle. “Nice to see you again, Harry. Tell my dad to call. Or write. Or do anything but try to tell me how to live my life.”
Connie blinked at him. “Wait … Wait, what’s wrong?”
Irwin left a few twenties on the table and said, “We’re going.”
“What? What happened?”
“We’re going,” Irwin said. This time he did sound a little angry.
Connie’s bewilderment suddenly shifted into some flavor of outrage. She narrowed her lovely eyes, and snapped, “I am not your pet, Pounder.”
“I’m not trying to …” Irwin took a slow, deep breath, and said more calmly, “I’m upset. I need some space. I’ll explain when I calm down. But we need to go.”
She folded her arms and said, “Go calm down, then. But I’m not going to be rude to our guest.”
Irwin looked at me, and said, “We going to have a problem?”
Wow. The kid had learned a lot about the world since the last time I’d seen him. He recognized that I wasn’t a playful puppy dog. He realized that if I’d been sent to protect him, and I thought Connie was a threat, that I might do something about it. And he’d just told me that if I did, he was going to object. Strenuously. No protests, no threats, just letting me know that he knew the score and was willing to do something about it if I made him. The guys who are seriously capable handle themselves like that.
“No problem,” I said, and made it a promise. “If I think something needs to be done, we’ll talk first.”
The set of his shoulders eased, and he nodded at me. Then he turned and stalked out. Warily, people watched him go.
Connie shook her head slowly and asked, “What did you say?”
“Um,” I said. “I think he feels like his dad is intruding on his life.”
“You don’t say.” She shook her head. “That’s not your fault. He’s usually so collected. Why is he acting like such a jerk?”
“Issues,” I said, shrugging. “Everyone has a parental issue or two.”
“Still. It’s beneath him to behave that way.” She shook her head. “Sometimes he makes me want to slap him. But I’d need to get a chair to stand on.”
“I don’t take it personally,” I assured her. “Don’t worry.”
“It was about me,” she said quietly. “Wasn’t it? It’s about something I don’t know.”