A Girl's Guide to Vampires

"I see," he said, just as I knew he would. "Your passport will be held by the police. You may not leave Bransko until it is returned to you."

I nodded that I understood and sidled around him. I'd just made my escape, giving the police a wide berth, and was starting down the slippery pine-carpeted slope when Inspector Bartos called my name. I stopped and looked back at him.

"Who won the wager?"

"I did," I answered.

"Ah. And what was the victim's response when she lost?"

I stared at him, unable to answer. He nodded his head as if I had, and waved me off. I didn't wait for him to change his mind. I hurried down the hill, and raced for the lights and people of the fair.

"Where's Christian?" I asked Roxy a short time later. She was talking with one of the fair workers who had been drafted into Raphael's security force.

"Mmm? Oh, he left a while ago. Said he didn't want to listen to the bands again. I don't blame him. That Six Inches of Slime guy doesn't sound any better for having had his nose broken."

"Damn. Have you seen Raphael?"

"Nope. Did you see Raphael, Henri?" she asked the slightly overweight man who was nervously watching the crowd.

"He was here a few minutes ago. He was looking for Dominic and Milos," Henri said.

I pulled Roxy a little way from Henri and looked around to make sure no one was within listening range. This was the last night of the fair proper, and finding breathing space, let alone somewhere one could talk in private, was difficult. "Come with me," I ordered her, and scooted through the crowds until I was behind a line of portable toilets.

"What's gotten into you? Henri was telling me all the dirt on the bands. Why do we have to stand here?" she asked, glaring at the backs of the toilets.

"Because no one else wants to come here. Listen, I have something to tell you, but you have to promise to keep it a secret, OK?"

"Again? That's two major secrets in as many days. Do you have any idea what this is going to cost you in hush money?"

"This is serious, Rox. Tanya's dead."

She stared at me, her mouth slightly ajar.

I nodded. "Raphael found her, and I found him. He's gone to tell Dominic, I guess. I've already spoken to the police, but the worst thing is"—I looked around again to make sure no one was near enough to hear—"her neck was torn out."

"Tom out? Like an animal attacked her?"

"No," I said, watching her steadily. "Like a vampire killed her. There was no blood, Roxy, nothing. Somebody ripped into her throat and drained the blood from her body."

She put her hand over her mouth as if to keep from screaming. I know I certainly felt like it. "Oh my God, you don't think—Christian?"

"I don't know of any other vampires around here, do you? Oh, Lord, it's all my fault, too. I had no idea he would lose control so easily. I figured if he had lasted nine hundred years, he could last a little longer until we found him his Beloved, but I guess he finally realized that I wasn't she, and he went berserk."

"Oh my God," Roxy said again, her eyes huge. "Christian—who would have thought? He's been so nice to us."

"I have to find him. I have to find him and calm him down, and make him see reason. I have to make sure he doesn't do anything like this again."

"How are you going to do that?"

"I don't know," I wailed, heading back around the toilets toward the mass of humanity. "But I'd better do something pretty damn quick before anyone else figures out what happened, or the famed reclusive author C. J. Dante is going to find himself on the business end of a sharp stake."

Roxy and I searched the fair but did not find Christian. We saw Raphael and Dominic in grim consultation, a silent Milos standing with them. Arielle's tarot-card booth was dark and empty, so I assumed she'd been told of her sister's death. Roxy offered to go sit with her after I borrowed a nice couple's mobile phone and had no luck getting hold of Christian at his home.

"I talked to Demeter," Roxy told me after a quick confab with the aura photography woman. "She says Paal took Arielle to her trailer, and Renee is sitting with her. All the fair employees know about what happened to Tanya."

"It was bound to come out," I said, tapping my lip. I wondered aloud where Christian had gone, and how I was to find him.

"Easy. Call him," Roxy suggested.

"I just tried. His housekeeper, who I think I woke up, said he was gone for the evening and she had no idea when would be back, and could I please not call again this late because she had to be up early to get ready for the festival."

"Not that kind of call. Use your Vulcan mind-meld, or whatever you said you can do with Christian."

A cold chill raced down my arms at the thought of such intimacy with a man who could savagely kill another person. "No, thank you."

Roxy turned to look at me. "Why? What are you afraid of? He swore never to hurt you."

I rubbed my arms. "I'm just afraid, OK?"