“It’s about food, not about sex,” I said, more or less lying. It was about food, but quite often it was also definitely about sex. “Pam and I talked about girl stuff.” I smiled at Pam. I was aiming for “winsome.”
Pam gave me a very level look in reply. I could imagine her looking at dead kittens that way. She said, “I love the color of Sookie’s toenails. We talked about pedicures.”
“So you two talked about your toenails while Mr. Northman fed off this woman, in the same room. Cozy! And then, what, Mr. Northman? After you had your little snack, you just gave her some money and sent her on her way? Did you get Mr. Compton to escort her to her car?”
“Money?” Eric asked. “Detective, are you cal ing this poor woman a whore? Of course I didn’t give her any money. She arrived, she volunteered, she said she had to go, and she left.”
“So what did she get out of your little transaction?”
“Excuse me, Detective, I can answer that,” I said. “When you’re giving blood, it’s real y very pleasurable. Usual y.” Of course, that was at the wil of the vamp doing the biting. I shot a quick glance at Eric. He’d bitten me before without bothering to make it fun, and it had hurt like hel .
“Then why weren’t you the donor, Ms. Stackhouse? Why did you let the dead girl have al the fun of feeding him?”
Geez! Persistent. “I can’t give blood as often as Eric needs it,” I said. I stopped there. I was in danger of overexplaining.
Ambrosel i’s neck whipped around as she sprung the next question on Eric.
“But you could survive just fine on a synthetic blood drink, Mr. Northman. Why’d you bite the girl?”
“It tastes better,” Eric said, and one of the uniforms spit on the ground.
“Did you decide you’d like a taste, Mr. Compton? Seeing as how she’d already been tapped?”
Bil looked mildly disgusted. “No, ma’am. That wouldn’t have been safe for the young lady.”
“As it turns out, she wasn’t safe, anyway. And none of you knows her name, or how she got here? Why she came to this house? You didn’t cal some kind of
We al shook our heads simultaneously, saying no to al these questions at once. “I thought she came with my other guests, the ones from out of town,” Eric said. “They brought some new friends they met at a bar.”
“These guests are inside?”
“Yes,” Eric said, and I thought,
“Then let’s take this inside and meet these guests,” Detective Ambrosel i said. “Do you have any objection to us coming inside, Mr. Northman?”
“Not the least in the world,” Eric said courteously.
So I traipsed back into the house with Bil , Eric, and Pam. The detective led the way as if the house were hers. Eric permitted it. By now the Las Vegas contingent would have cleaned up, I hoped, since they’d certainly heard what Ambrosel i had said when Eric went to the door.
To my relief, the living room looked much more orderly. There were a few bottles of synthetic blood, but they were al positioned adjacent to a seated vampire. The big windows in the back were open and the air quality was much better. Even the ashtray was out of sight, and someone had positioned a large bowl over the worst gouge marks on the coffee table.
Al the vamps and the humans, ful y clothed, had assembled in the living room. They wore serious expressions.
Mustapha was not among them.
Where was he? Had he simply decided he didn’t want to talk to the police, so he’d departed? Or had someone entered through the French windows in the kitchen doors and done something terrible to the Blade wannabe?
Maybe Mustapha had heard something suspicious outside and had gone to investigate. Maybe the kil er or kil ers had jumped him once he got outside, and that was why no one had heard anything. But Mustapha was so tough that I simply couldn’t imagine anyone ambushing him and getting away with it.
Though “Mustapha” might not fear anything, in actuality he was the former KeShawn Johnson, and he was an ex-con. I didn’t know why he’d been incarcerated, but I knew it was for something he’d been ashamed of. That was why he’d adopted a new name and a new profession after he’d served his term. The police wouldn’t know him as Mustapha Khan … but they’d know he was KeShawn Johnson as soon as they took his fingerprints, and he was scared of prison.
Oh, how I wished I could communicate al this to Eric.
I didn’t believe Mustapha had kil ed the woman on the lawn. On the other hand, I’d never been completely inside his head, since he was a Were.
But I’d never heard senseless aggression or random violence, either. Rather, Mustapha’s top priority had always registered as control.
I believe most of us are capable of moments of rage, moments when our button’s been pressed to the point where we lash out to stop the pressure. But I was sure that Mustapha was used to much worse treatment than anything that girl could have handed out.
While I was worrying about Mustapha, Eric was introducing the remaining newcomers to Detective Ambrosel i. “Felipe de Castro,” he said, and Felipe nodded regal y. “His assistant, Horst Friedman.” To my surprise, Horst rose and shook her hand. Not a vampire thing, handshaking. Eric continued, “This is Felipe’s consort, Angie Weather- spoon.” She was the third Nevada vampire, the redhead.
“Pleased to meetcha,” Angie said, nodding.
The last time I’d seen her, Angie Weatherspoon had been dancing on the low table, enjoying Felipe’s regard. Now the redhead was wearing a gray pencil skirt, a sleeveless green button-up blouse with tiny ruffles on the deep
