“Yeah, but I need to get my car. It’s going to take at least forty-five minutes to get back across town now—it’s rush hour. And then to get back to the train station. I can’t let him just sit there on the platform waiting all alone—he’s just a kid.”
Hayes pulled his keys from his pocket and dangled them in front of me. “So we’ll turn on the siren.”
“We’re going to pick him up in the squad car?”
Hayes was already heading for the stairs and the front door. “Do you have a better idea?”
Once I had buckled myself into the passenger seat and Hayes had pulled into traffic he looked at me, frowning. “I thought you said Nina was a vampire?”
I nodded, fishing a half-wrapped piece of Trident out of my purse. Better my breath smelled like purse lint and peppermint than barf. “She is.”
“So how does …”
“How does she have a nephew? Same way anyone else has a nephew. And yes, he’s a vampire, too.”
“Great. I’m going to go pick up a vampire. And now you’re going to have two vampires hanging around?”
I nodded. “It’ll be kind of nice, actually. Nina and I have been friends for ages, and I’ve never met any of her family. I think it might be fun having another member of the LaShay family hanging around—fanged as they may be.”
Hayes wagged his head. “I really don’t think I’m ever going to get any of this Underworld stuff.”
I filled him in on Nina’s history with Louis, and by the time I had finished talking, Hayes’s cheeks were flushed and we were at the King Street Station, the old trains groaning down the tracks.
“Whoa!” I said, pointing when we were lucky enough to find a nearby parking space. I grinned at Hayes. “You’ve got good parking karma. That never happens at rush hour.”
He ignored me and stepped out of the car, scanning the hordes of Caltrain riders as they strolled out of the station, beelining for their cabs and buses. “Okay, what are we looking for?”
“Who,” I said, coming around the car and grabbing Hayes’s elbow. “Louis is a who, not a what. And Nina says we should be able to recognize him right off.”
“Will he be carrying his graveyard dirt with him, or is he having it sent?”
I socked Parker in the arm and kept on walking, nodding to the janitor who was concentrating on pushing a broom across the tile floor in the train station foyer.
“You know him?” Hayes asked.
“I filed his papers just last week. His wife is going to be coming over from Canada early next month. I’m really excited for them.”
Hayes swallowed and lowered his voice. “So he’s … what?”
“Vampire,” I said. “Works the night shift.”
“I thought vampires were all hoity-toity. You know, big-time jobs or just independently wealthy or whatever.”
“Some are. But all of them are obsessed with cleanliness.” I smiled and beelined for the number seven train platform.
“Okay,” I told Hayes once we were waiting on the edge of the tracks, “he should be coming off any minute now.”
Hayes and I stood on the platform, examining the faces of all the people stepping off. I was looking for someone who bore a vague resemblance to Nina—pixie-nosed, a thick head of blue-black hair, fine-boned—when Parker sucked in a sharp breath beside me.
“That has got to be him,” he said, his blue eyes steady.
I followed his gaze and held my own breath, eyeing Louis as he stepped off the train. He was tall—exceptionally so—but shared Nina’s slim build and fine, elegant facial features. His marble skin was porcelain-perfect and made the inky black of his eyes, the rose-wine stain of his lips, stand out. The teenaged girls and young women exiting the train around him clamored to stay next to Louis, despite the fact that he was dressed like Bela Lugosi.
I was just thankful that he had decided against the cape.
“Is he wearing a tux?” Hayes asked, leaning into me.
“No. I think that’s an ascot. Tuxes have bow ties, right?”
Hayes furrowed his brow.
“Well, maybe that’s what all the boys wear where he comes from.”
“I’ll bet,” Hayes snorted.
Indeed, Louis was dressed in carefully pressed black dress pants with a well-tailored black dinner jacket. A red jacquard vest peeked out from underneath the coat, and a silky, patterned ascot was looped tightly around his pale, elegant neck. His dark hair was slicked back, showing off the same widow’s peak that Nina routinely brushed her hair over.
There was a thin line of black outlining his dark eyes. “He’s wearing makeup,” Hayes said. “Do you think where he comes from, all the boys wear eye makeup, too?”
I socked Hayes in the arm again and pasted a welcoming smile on my face. “Louis!” I called, waving my hands over my head.
Louis’s dark eyes scanned the heads of the group around him before settling on me. His expression remained blank, unfazed, but he headed in our direction.