A Girl's Guide to Vampires

'Um. Well, it really wasn't any one person; there were a bunch of us there at the reading.'

'I see.'

This time I truly did have the feeling he saw. I had no doubt that he could see right through my pitiful blathering to the ugly fact that Tanya hated my guts. The PRIME SUSPECT light overhead suddenly acquired flaming red arrows that pointed directly down at me.

'I will need to speak with you later,' Inspector Bartos told me, making a final note before staring up at me with a cool, assessing look in his eyes. 'I will be able to find you at the hotel?'

I hoped the darkness was enough to keep the blush that heated my cheeks from being seen. 'Um… well, there or… uh… Raphael has a trailer on the far side of the fair. It's the blue one with a giant red hand painted on the side. If I'm not at the hotel, I'll be there.'

He pursed his lips and pulled his notebook back out of his pocket. 'You do not work for the fair but you read rune stones for them, you are the subject of wagering with members of the fair, and you are'—he flicked an unreadable look at me—'closely acquainted with a fair employee. Is that correct?'

I curled my toes up inside my shoes and wished I were anywhere else but where I was. 'Well, it sounds so suspicious when you say it like that, but really, it's all quite innocent.'

'You have known Mr. Raphael St. John for how long?'

'Well, maybe that isn't quite innocent. That is, it's innocent in that we're not doing anything wrong, but it's not innocent because we are… um… doing… not innocent things. Together. With each other, I mean.' I cleared my throat and tried to look like I didn't just admit I was a trollop.

'How long have you been acquainted with Mr. St. John?' the inspector asked again.

My blush cranked up another couple of notches. If it got any hotter, I could fry an egg on my cheek. 'About four days,' I muttered to my shoes.

'I could not hear you.'

'About four days,' I said louder, staring at his chin. 'Four long days. Very long. Action-packed, you could say.'

'I see,' he said again.

'Can I go now?'

He nodded and moved aside so he was no longer blocking the path to the parking area.

'No, I'll just go back the way I came,' I said, pointing through the trees.

He paused in the act of putting his notebook away and shot me a martyred look as he riffled through the notebook pages until he found the notes he'd just taken. 'You stated that you were on your way back to the hotel to take a bath when you found the victim.'

'Yes. But I don't want a bath any more. I'd rather—' This time my brain stopped me before I admitted any more damning statements.

'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.'