55.

Kingsley looked far more robust and pink than when I had last seen him.

We were at Mulberry Street Cafe in downtown Fullerton, sitting next to the window. It was raining again and the sidewalk was mostly empty of pedestrians. The rain had a trickle-down effect, if you will. Mulberry's was quieter than normal.

Kingsley was wearing a long black duster, and leather Sole gloves, which he removed upon sitting. His dark slacks were darker where the rain had permeated. His face had a rosy red hue and his hair was perfectly combed. He was clean shaven and smelled of good cologne. He was everything a man should be. Gone were the tufts of hair along the back of his hand.

Pablo the headwaiter knew me well. He looked slyly at Kingsley, perhaps recalling that my husband was usually the man sitting across from me. The waiter was discreet enough not to say anything. He took our drink orders and slipped away.

"I'm impressed," said Kingsley, glancing out the window. "Whenever I come here they seat me in the back of beyond."

"They happen to like me here."

"Pretty girls get all the breaks."

"You think I'm pretty?"

"Yeah," said Kingsley. "I do."

"Even for a vampire?"

"Even for a vampire."

Our drinks came. Chardonnay for me and bourbon and water for the counselor. Kingsley ordered shrimp tortellini and I had the usual. Steak, rare.

"You can eat steak?" he asked.

"No," I said. "But I can suck the blood out of the carcass."

"Should make for an interesting show."

"Yes, well, it's the only way I can participate in the human dining experience."

"Well, you're not missing much, "said Kingsley. "Food nowadays is entirely processed, fattening and just plain horrible for you."

"Does it still taste good?"

"Wonderful."

"Asshole."

He laughed. I drank some of my wine. Kingsley, no doubt due to his massive size, often garnered curious glances from both men and women. I think, perhaps, he was the strongest-looking man I had ever seen.

"Are we human, Kingsley?" I asked suddenly.

He had been raising his glass to his lips. It stopped about halfway. "Yes," he said, then raised it all the way and took a sip. He added, "But are we mortals? No."

"Then what makes us immortal? Why don't we die like everyone else? What keeps us alive?"

"I don't know."

"Surely you must have a theory."

He sighed. "Just a working hypothesis."

"Let's have it."

"I think it's safe to say that you and I hover on the brink of the natural and the supernatural. So therefore both natural and unnatural laws apply simultaneously. I believe we are both human...and perhaps something greater."

"Sounds lofty."

"Do you suspect we're something less?" he asked.

I thought about that. "No. We are certainly not less."

The waiter came by and dropped off some bread. I didn't touch it, but Kingsley dug in. "You mind?" he asked.

"Knock yourself out," I said. "So what are we, then? Some supernatural evolutionary hybrid?"

He shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine."

"Maybe we are super humans."

"Maybe."

"But during the day I certainly don't feel super. I feel horrible."

"Because our bodies are still governed by some physical laws, along with...other laws. Mystical laws perhaps, laws unstudied and unknown to modern science." He looked at me and shrugged. "Who put these laws into place is anyone's guess. But they're there nonetheless. For instance, one such law dictates I will turn into a wolf every full moon cycle; another dictates you drink only blood."

Kingsley spread liberal amounts of honey butter over his bread. He seemed particularly ravenous. Maybe it was the animal in him.

"Perhaps we are the result of a powerful curse," I suggested.

"Perhaps."

"That makes sense to me, to some degree."

He shrugged. "I'm not sure anyone really knows."

I suspected someone out there might know something. Be it vampire, werewolf or something else, something greater perhaps.

I said, "The curse angle could be why holy water debilitates a vampire."

He shrugged. "Sure."

"So to sum up," I said. "We are both natural and supernatural, abiding by laws known only to our kinds."

"And even much of that is open to speculation. For all I know you are part of one long, drug-induced dream I'm still having in the sixties."

Our food came. Kingsley watched me cut a slice of meat from the raw steak, swirl the slice in the splatter of blood, raise the dripping piece to my lips, and suck it dry.

"Sort of sexy," he said. "In a ghoulish way."

I shook my head, then told him about my adventures with the vampire hunter.

He slapped his knee when I was finished. "A Carnival cruise ship?"

"Yes, headed for Hawaii, I think."

"Then let's hope he stays there."

"Yeah," I said. "Let's hope, although he was kind of cute."

"Oh, God."

I reached down into my purse and pulled out the medallion. It was wrapped in a white handkerchief. I unwrapped it for him.

"What's that?" Kingsley asked.

"It was worn by my attacker six years ago."

"Your attacker?"

"The vampire who rendered me into what I am now."

"How did you get it?"

I told him about the vampire hunter, his dead brother, and the UPS package. When I was finished, Kingsley motioned toward the medallion. "Do you mind?"

"Knock yourself out."

He picked it up carefully, turned it over in his hand. The gold and ruby roses reflected brightly even in the muted light.

"So why did he give you this?" asked Kingsley.

"I think he was sort of feeling me out, seeing what he was up against. To him, the medallion had no meaning."

"And to you it does?"

I told Kingsley about my dreams. I left out the part where he ravaged me in the woods.

"Those are just dreams, Samantha," he said, studying the heavy piece, turning it over in his big hands. "I've never seen this before."

"But could you look into it for me?" I asked.

"I'll see what I can do," he said. "Do you mind if I take it?"

"Go ahead."

He pocketed the medallion. We continued eating. Outside, a couple sharing an umbrella stopped and examined the menu in the window. She looked at him and nodded. He shrugged. They stepped inside. Compromising at its best.

"Sometimes I think God has forgotten about me," I said.

"I know the feeling."

"That, in fact, I have somehow stumbled upon the loophole of life."

"Loophole?"

"Like you being a defense attorney," I said. "You look for an ambiguity in the law, an omission of some sort, something that allows you to evade compliance."

He nodded, "And being a creature of the night is the ambiguity of life?"

"Yeah. I'm the omission."

"Well, that's certainly one way of looking at it."

"What's another way?"

"To make the most of the life we're given," he said. "To see life�Deven for the undead�Das a great gift. Imagine the possibilities, Samantha? Imagine the good you can do? Life is precious. Even for those who exist in loopholes."

I nodded, thinking of Fang. "Someone told me something like that recently."

"It's good advice," said Kingsley. "In fact, it's good advice for everyone."

"So we are like everyone?"

"No," he said, reaching across the table and taking my hand. His was so damn warm...mine must have felt like a cold, wet, limp noodle in his own. Self-conscious, I almost pulled my hand away, but he held it even tighter, and that warmed my cold, bitter heart.

He said, "No, Sam. We are not like everyone else. I'm a wolf in sheep's clothing, and you're a blood-sucking fiend. Granted, a very cute, blood-sucking fiend."

56.

On a Wednesday night I broke back into Rick Horton's Gothic revival.

I found the same box under the same bed. The file on me now contained a photograph of my home and a picture of me getting into my van. The picture was taken with a telephoto lens from a great distance away. I studied the picture closely; I so rarely saw myself these days. My face was, of course, blurry, but my body looked strong and hard. A diet of blood will do that to you. The picture was taken during the day, and I could see the sunscreen gleaming off my lathered cheeks. My hair was hidden in a wide straw hat. I had probably been on my way to pick up the kids from school.

In another file, the same one I had seen the first time I broke in, I found a computer print-out that chronicled in excruciating detail the day in the life of Hewlett Jackson, Kingsley's now-murdered client. The paper had notes written in the margins. One of the handwritten notes said: "Not at work. No access." Another note said: "Not in front of his children."

Yeah, this would do nicely.

I pocketed it and returned the box under the bed. In the backyard, with his ferocious guard dogs cowering in the bushes, I wadded up the note in my gloved hands and carefully stuffed it in an empty cereal box in Horton's trash can.

Tomorrow was trash day.

* * *

The next night, Sherbet and I were in the same parking structure being guarded by the same rent-a-cop. The same two vehicles were in the same two parking slots. The only difference tonight was that there was no rain.

I extracted the wadded up piece of incriminating evidence from the cereal box and made a big show of it.

Sherbet took the crinkled paper from my hand and studied it closely. He then squinted at me sideways, studying me closely, suspicious as hell. I innocently showed him the cereal box where I had found the note. Finally, after some internal debate, a slow smile spread over his face.

"I think we've got our man," he said.

"I do, too."

"And you had nothing to do with this note?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about, detective."

"Let's go," he said. And go we did.