A Girl's Guide to Vampires

"No. If you won't come with me to see Christian and let him knock off some of those blinkers you're wearing, I'll go by myself."

"You will not."

"Oh, really? And just how are you going to stop me, have me arrested?"

"If I have to."

I looked at Inspector Bartos. He smiled. I gaped at him. "You wouldn't dare!"

His moustache smiled, too.

"Ha ha ha, you guys are so funny." I started to edge away, picking up speed quickly until I called the last few words over my shoulder. "Well, I think I'll be taking a little walk now. See you both later."

I dashed off, Raphael's sexy chuckle caressing my ears. I didn't for one moment believe Inspector Bartos would arrest me on Raphael's say-so, not even if my growing suspicion about the two of them was true, but I really didn't want to leave Renee at the rune table long.

I passed Arielle's table and paused for a moment to see how she was doing, and to tell her that I'd be sending Renee back to help her as soon as I could.

"I am fine, thank you," she said with a watery smile. Her eyes still looked red and swollen, but all in all, she was holding up remarkably well. I spun around and dashed through the line of people waiting to have their cards read, almost mowing down Henri in the process.

"Sorry, Henri. I'm in a bit of a hurry." He muttered an apology and stepped back as I threw myself back into the crowds. I headed toward the west garden, but suddenly made a detour when I saw Dominic slobbering over the hand of an extremely buxom woman dressed in fishnet stockings, PVC, and fake blood running out of an equally fake wound on her neck. Considering Tanya's death, it gave me a bit of the heebie-jeebies, but I swallowed my revulsion and waved to catch Dominic's eye.

"Mon ange," he said, looking a bit embarrassed about being caught fawning over another woman's hand. "I thought you were reading the runes now?"

"Just taking a little break. Renee's covering for me. I just wanted to let you know that I'll read them until nine, and then I'm calling it quits."

He smiled and reached for my hand. I snatched it back and turned around, running smack dab into Henri again.

"Sorry, Henri. Guess I'm two for two with you, huh? Did I hurt your toes? No? Great. See you later!"

Off I went again at a fast trot, or as fast a trot as I could manage in the huge horde of people that had descended upon the well-groomed grounds of Christian's castle. I veered around a maze, realized I was going in the wrong direction, turned around, and raced around the corner to head to the west.

"Damn!" I rubbed my nose where it had smacked into Henri as he barreled around the corner toward me. I blinked back the stars, and glared at him. "Oh! Henri, are you following me?"

Henri, a nice guy with warm brown eyes and a rather shy smile, looked horrified. He stammered out a feeble excuse, which I trampled over brutally. "Tell Raphael I don't need a nursemaid." I zipped past him, heading in the right direction for the west gardens. "And stop following me!"

He followed me anyway. When I stopped to face him, my hands on my hips, he told me he didn't dare ignore Raphael's orders. "He was very adamant that I should remain with you if you left the rune table."

Henri was about my size, but he had a friendly puppy air about him that kept me from laying into him. Besides, it wasn't really him I was angry with—that delight was reserved for Raphael.

"OK," I told him. "You can come with me, but you have to stay out of my way. And no snitching to Raphael what I'm doing."

"Snitching?"

"You can come with me, but you can't report back to him where I've been or whom I've spoken with. OK?"

"OK," he nodded, obviously relieved.

Christian was overseeing the tapping of several oversized kegs of beer arranged in sort of an informal beer garden. Long trestle tables and benches had been placed within the walled garden. Due to its distance from the main stage, the garden was relatively quiet… for the moment. As soon as the beer garden opened its doors, I had no doubt it would be just as mad as the rest of the festival.

"Christian!" I bellowed across the garden and waved to get his notice. One of his servants, a big beefy guy with a wicked scar down one side of his face, stood blocking the entrance and wouldn't let me in. Christian turned and motioned for him to let me pass. I told Henri to wait for me, smiled at and scooted around the behemoth at the gate, trotting down a line of tables to where Christian stood directing the placement of kegs. He'd had torches set along the perimeter of the garden, the flickering light of which cast a medieval feel to the whole setting.

"Christian!"

He turned to face me, his face as pleasant as ever. I examined him closely for a minute, looking for signs that he'd suffered some sort of difficulty, but his eyes were warm, and the ever-present smile lurked just behind his lips. "Are you all right? I've been worried sick about you! Where have you been?"