A Girl's Guide to Vampires

'Someone who's what?'

'A vampire,' I mumbled, wishing now I hadn't brought the subject up. It was far better to go quietly insane on my own than to suffer the embarrassment of admitting I was being used by a creature whose existence I had long and vociferously denied.

'What? I couldn't hear you.'

'A vampire,' I said a bit more loudly, peeking at her from under lowered lashes.

She blinked at me. Twice. 'OK.'

I made scrunched-up lips at her. 'OK? Is that it? I tell you—that's me we're talking about, the skeptical one —that I'm having visions coming from a real, honest-to-goodness, card-carrying vampire, and all you can say is OK? You're not going to laugh or make fun of me or tell me I must be imagining it?'

'Idiot!' she said fondly, grabbing my sleeve and pulling me toward the stairs. 'It's because I know you that I know you must be going through hell experiencing something that's way beyond your control. Come on, Christian's waited long enough. Let's go see if we can't find the Dark One who's giving you all the trouble.'

'Wait a minute! You're not even going to question whether or not I'm really having visions? I thought I was going insane before I decided to believe in them! The least you can do is appreciate how hard this is for me!'

'Oh, I know it's hard for you. I know you must be wigging out at it, and squirming with embarrassment because now you have to admit that I was right about vampires all along, but I'll save my gloating for later.'

'How grateful I am for your tender mercies. That aside, how do you know that the one who is affecting me will be at the fair?' I asked, following her down the stairs, more than a little befuddled by her quick acceptance of something that still gave me the willies to think about.

'Has to be,' she called back over her shoulder. 'He's marked you. That's the first step in the Joining, and everyone knows they can't Join with you unless they're physically close.'

I looked down at my hands as we descended the second flight of stairs. 'I'm not marked.'

'That's what the visions are—his mark. If they're like what's described in the books, you're experiencing things that he sees and feels, basically all his strong emotions. Dark Ones can only do that with their true soul mate, so if he's projecting to you, that must mean he's marking you as his.'

Instantly I thought of Raphael.

'How many visions have you had?' she asked as we rounded the landing.

'Hmm?' I pulled my mind from the thoughts it was pursuing. 'Well, the one at Miranda's was due to the gin, I'm sure, so that leaves me a couple last night in the bar, and one just before we had dinner.'

She paused and turned around to face me. 'You had one before dinner? When?'

'When I was standing in the hall with Christian.'

'Christian?' She thought for a minute, then shook her head. 'Nope, can't be; we've seen him eat and drink. Hey!'

Her eyes met mine. A chill rippled down my back. I swallowed. 'Raphael.'

She nodded.

'The last vision happened when Christian was kissing my hand. Raphael was standing in the doorway, watching us.'

'Cool!' she breathed.

'It is not,' I snapped, pushing her to get her going. She stood where she was.

'When the first visions in the bar came, where was Raphael?'

The sensation of blood flowing down my throat, subduing the hunger howling inside me flashed into mind. 'He was. uh… feeding.'

Her eyes widened until I thought they'd pop out. 'Oh, that is so cool! He shared his feeding with you? Wow! What did it feel like? What did he do? Could you see everything?'

I closed my eyes for a minute and took a couple of deep breaths to rid myself of the remembered images. 'Yes, and I'd really like not to remember it, if you don't mind.'

'OK.' She thought for a moment. 'So you had a vision before Raphael came into the bar? Just before?'

I nodded.

'Well, then, there's your answer!' She started back down the stairs.

'Wait a minute!' I hurried after her. Christian was waiting for us at the door. 'Roxy, wait up—what do you mean, there's my answer? What answer?'

'Sorry, Joy's having a bit of vampire trouble,' she told Christian in a confidential tone that made me want to die right there on the spot.

Not surprisingly, he looked astonished by the news. 'Is she indeed?'

'Do you have to tell everyone?' I hissed, pinching her arm, flashing a reassuring smile at Christian. He just looked at me with a faintly puzzled frown between his brows, no doubt trying to calculate how much trouble it would be to bundle me away to the local loony bin.

'That's OK, Christian believes in vampires. Remember the 'more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio'? Joy's having visions,' she added. 'She's been marked by a Moravian. I was just explaining to her that it must be Raphael, since he refused to eat in front of us.'

'Wait a minute,' I said, remembering something she'd said that morning. 'You said just this morning that he couldn't be one because he had a beer at the bar.'

'Ah,' she said cannily, throwing open the door and charging out into the night. 'But did you actually see him drink the beer? Let's shake a leg, people. I want to examine Raphael up close. Imagine sitting next to him and not even knowing what he was!'

I grabbed Christian by the hand and hauled him with me as I ran after Roxy. 'But what did you mean when you said something was the answer to my visions?'

She stopped just beyond the stretch of graveled area that served as the hotel's parking lot. 'Think about it. You have visions seeing Raphael approaching the bar—'

'A man. I didn't see his face. It could be anyone.'

She gave me a condescending look. 'Hardly. OK, so you see this man approaching the bar, projecting his thoughts and feelings to you as he gets closer, right?'

I shot a quick glance at Christian, realized I was still holding his hand, and dropped it with an apologetic moue. 'You must really think I'm nuts.'

'On the contrary, I find this fascinating,' he said. 'Who knew there were such dark depths to Raphael? He seemed like a perfectly ordinary man to me.'

That set my hackles to rising a bit. 'He's anything but ordinary.'

His eyebrows went up. 'Indeed.'

'Do you want to hear this or not?' Roxy interrupted. I nodded. 'Where was I? Oh, that's right. So, you're having these visions of what Raphael or whoever is seeing and doing as he approaches. Did it get worse just before he came in?'

I nodded again, my skin prickling with the remembered sensation of danger approaching. I frowned for a moment, examining that thought. Why was it that when Raphael approached the bar I felt danger drawing closer, but when he was angry with me earlier tonight I felt perfectly safe with him? I asked Roxy.

'Easy,' she said, making an impatient gesture with her hands. 'He wasn't aware of you before he saw you, but he was afterwards. A Dark One would never harm their Beloved, you know that as well as I do. To get back to your visions—once he entered the bar and saw you, he must have recognized you for his soul mate, seen that you were picking up this thoughts, and closed them off to keep from distressing you further.'

I twisted my hands together as I thought it over.

'Makes sense, doesn't it?' Roxy asked Christian.

'It would appear to, yes.'

'But this evening…' She shot an appraising glance at Christian. 'Dark Ones are notoriously jealous about their soul mates. I'd suggest that in the future you keep your flirting with Joy to a minimum, unless you want to tangle with a really pissed-off vampire.'

He gave her a faint smile. 'That would, I admit, be a unique experience.'

She nodded. 'Any more questions? No? Good. Let's go, I want to check out the fair and see how many other