A Girl's Guide to Vampires

considering-artpose. 'I painted it myself, naturally.'

'Oh. Did you?' I reminded myself that I wanted something from him, and thus to inquire how many other paint-by-numbers paintings he had done was not a good idea. 'It's very… unique.'

'Yes,' he said, baring his fangs at me.

'Um… you have a piece of something…' I tapped the front of my teeth.

Dominic looked all too human for a moment as embarrassment flickered over his face. He dashed into his bedroom area.

'Dark Ones do not eat broccoli,' Roxy muttered before turning her attention to what looked like a little altar made up of cheap-looking black and red candles.

'Looks like he's been shopping at Vampyrs 'R' Us,' I whispered.

She giggled just as Dominic reappeared with a food-particle-free leer. 'Mon ange, if you will sit just there, and Roxsee will sit there, and I will sit here, yes! Now we are all very comfortable, eh?'

'Sure thing,' I said to his earlobe approximately three centimeters away from my mouth. 'I just love being held squashed up against someone like I'm a mustard plaster or something.' I paused and sniffed delicately, then recoiled as much as I could with him holding me clamped to his side. My eyes started watering with the effort it took not to sneeze. 'What on earth are you wearing?'

A muscle twitched in his eyelid. 'For you, I am wearing the Marcheur du Nuit cologne. I have created it myself. I am thinking of selling it. It is very fragrant, is it not so?'

'Potent is the word that comes to mind,' I muttered, rubbing my nose. 'If you don't mind, Dominic, I'm really busy today, and I know you must be busy getting ready for the festival, so if we could get to the discussion that Roxy mentioned, I'd be grateful.'

'Mon ange weeps with pleasure?' he asked, flicking a fingertip across a path a tear had taken. I jerked my head back.

'No. I'm allergic to perfumes and colognes. Makes my… my…' I turned my head so he wasn't in the line of sight and sneezed into my shoulder.'… nose itch. Sorry. Hope I didn't get any on your hand.'

He withdrew his arm from where it had been wrapped around my shoulders and covertly wiped the sneeze off his hand while I discreetly blew my nose into the tissue Roxy handed me.

'So, about Raphael—'

'Mon ange, ma belle, always you are in such a hurry! I have so little time with you, can we not enjoy what we have together?'

I looked him dead in the eye, sniffing and mopping back tears. 'No,' I said, sounding like I had a pair of socks stuffed up my nose. 'We cannot. Raphael?'

He sighed a dramatic, put-upon sigh and tapped his long fingers on his chin for a minute while I sneezed three more times.

'I'm sorry,' I said, waving my hand at Roxy. She stood up and traded places with me. 'No offense, Dominic, but I'll be sneezing my eyes out if I sit next to you any longer.'

'She can do it, too,' Roxy said, her nose wrinkling as his musky cologne hit her. 'She once sneezed fourteen times in a row. Wet her pants doing it.'

'ROXY!'

'She was only ten at the time,' Roxy added, as if that made it better.

'If, for the fourth time, we could get to the subject at hand, namely Raphael's history…' I raised an eyebrow at Dominic. He looked peeved.

'And if I do this great thing you want of me, mon ange, what will you grant me in return?'

I glanced at Roxy. She was staring in horror at the painting. 'Roxy said you needed help reading runes tonight. I would be happy to do another session for you.'

'Your assistance would be most welcome to me,' he nodded, his eyes hooded, but not so hooded I didn't notice the calculating gleam in them. If I had anything more than a little spending money, I'd offer to bribe the info out of him, feeling sure that monetary gain held more sway with him than my own dubious charms. 'But this thing you ask of me, it is personal. You ask me to betray Raphael.'

I frowned. I didn't like hearing my feelings put into words, especially not words that came out of his fake- fanged mouth. Idly I wondered what Christian did with his fangs when they weren't in use.

'Such a personal sacrifice demands a much more intime gesture, do you not think?'

I stopped picturing collapsible canine teeth and glared at Dominic. 'No sex.'

'Mon ange,' he said, his hands fluttering gracefully. 'You stir my blood with your too vehement protestations. But no, it is not to the danse sur le coucher that I refer.'

Roxy snorted.

'Good, because it isn't going to happen. What exactly do you want, in addition to me reading runes tonight?'

He smiled, the calculating light growing in his eyes. He steepled his fingers together and made a little pout over them. 'Tonight, as you have mentioned, is the Festival of All Hallow's Eve. In celebration of this night most dear to all who live in darkness, we have arranged the Punkevní Cave to be open to those attending the festival.'

'That sounds like a good idea,' I admitted, wondering what the catch was. Maybe he wanted me to collect ticket money, or help out working the festival.

'We went on that tour a couple of days ago,' Roxy added. 'It was a bit damp and smelly, but fun. Although Joy barfed up her lunch at the end.'

I would have stopped her, but I figured the less attractive picture of me Dominic had, the better. 'I get seasick easily,' I said.

He looked momentarily disconcerted; then another of his smug smiles slid across his face. 'You will not suffer from mal de mer with me, mon ange. I will see to it that you are otherwise occupied during our boat ride.'

'Our boat ride?' I asked suspiciously. 'You want me to go on the tour with you? That's all?'

'That is all,' he said, spreading his hands wide.

I tried to find something objectionable about what he wanted, but couldn't. I gave in as gracefully as I could. 'All right. I'll read the runes and go on the boat tour through Punkevní Cave with you tonight, but that's it. We'll be even then, right?'

He smiled and touched his fingers to his lips.

Roxy glanced at her watch. 'Thank God the negotiating is over. Now you can dish with the dirt on Raphael and we can be on our way.'

I looked at Dominic. He leaned back, toying with the ruffles on his poet's shirt. 'There is not much to dish, I am afraid. I employed Raphael in Marseilles, where he had just been released from prison for the rape and killing of a prostitute.'

My jaw hit my knees. 'He what?'

Dominic made a moue and tsked. 'It is true. He forced himself on a woman of the streets, harming her here'—he waved at his midsection—'inside. She was sent to hospital, and later died.'

Roxy stared at me, true horror in her eyes. I blinked at her, then looked back to Dominic. 'Raphael? My Raphael? I just don't believe it.'

'Believe it, mon ange.'

I shook my head. 'No. Not him. I know him. He would never force himself on a woman. It must have been a mistake. He must have been falsely convicted.'

'I myself have seen his papers, Joie. You see now why I sought to protect you from him. The man you have chosen as your lover is a criminal—one who does not care for the women he uses for his perversions. Because he had survived repeated assaults in prison, I knew he had brutality and ruthlessness, both skills which would help him to keep others safe. That is why I hired him to attend to our security. The police forced me to do so with their accusations. They came to us and said, 'You have been here, here, and here, and that is near where women were murdered, so we must detain you.' Bah! They did not find anything to connect us to the