Charming (4 page)

From what Sig was saying, Baldy was one of those vampires who invest the taking of blood with a sense of sexual intimacy. The fact that he was choosing the kind of women who wouldn’t soon be missed also suggested that his acts were premeditated, not sudden surrenders to an overwhelming compulsion.

Even for a vampire, it takes a certain kind of sick mind to have sex with the buffet table.

On the other hand… I had no idea what drove Sig or any proof that what she was saying was true.

“So how did you know he was going to be at a bar tonight, much less here?” I demanded. “And why do you even care? What exactly are you?”

Most supernatural beings don’t much care about what happens to normal humans as long as it doesn’t significantly affect their way of life. Even the ones who enjoy living among humans and have human friends usually accept that humans are part of the food chain and don’t get more than upset in an abstract way when bad things happen to food people. They might think it’s a sad event, but they don’t cry about it, any more than most people cry when thousands of deaths occur in a foreign country.

It was odd that Sig cared, and it was even odder that she assumed I would share this character flaw.

“I’ll trade you answers for answers,” she said. “If I ask the first question.”

I didn’t agree right away. Trades, like riddles and true names, are still taken very seriously in the supernatural community. There were things I was not willing to tell her under any circumstances. On the other hand, as long as she asked first, I could just end the game by refusing to answer. If I asked first and she gave me information in trade and
then
I refused to answer, all heads were off. I mean bets were off. Maybe.

While I was mulling her offer over, Mike Spraker ignored Renee, who was waiting on his section, and made a point out of coming up to the bar. He only wobbled slightly.

“Howdy,” Mike said. He was a regular and looked it, a skinny but paunchy stick of a man with graying brown hair and a
scraggly-ass beard. He smelled of sour sweat, beer, and failure. His voice was jaunty and a little too loud as he ordered a Rob Roy.

I made the drink without comment, though it was a little more exotic and expensive than Mike’s regular beer and chaser. He tried to look casual as he put his elbows carefully on the bar and turned his head sideways and, oh, look at that, just happened to notice the attractive woman standing there.

“Damn,” Mike said loudly, going for a breezy attitude but trying a little too hard. “What’s the point of comin’ to a bar if the only good-lookin’ woman in it is going to spend all night talkin’ to the hired help?”

Mike didn’t see the looks being shot at him by two apparently unattractive women who were close enough to overhear him. He was too busy avoiding my eyes.

“There isn’t one,” Sig said. “Go away.”

I put Mike’s drink in front of him while he tried to think of the wrong thing to say. “Mike,” I called in a tone that cut through the fumes and made him look at me.

“It’s on the house,” I said deliberately, holding eye contact. “Last one.”

Don’t make me take away whatever dignity you have left
, my expression added.

After a moment Mike nodded and skulked off.

Sig looked at me exasperatedly. “So you get all up in a heat-seeking vampire’s face, but with Mr. Lonesome Loser there you show diplomacy?”

I shrugged. “Mike’s harmless.”

“No,” Sig corrected. “He’s powerless. There’s a difference. If there was anyone left who trusted him, he’d use them horribly. That man’s a bottomless pit of selfish need.”

I looked at her speculatively. Maybe she had a gift for seeing
deeply. Then again, maybe she’d just loved an addict before. “All right,” I agreed. “Answer for answer. You ask first.”

“What are you?” she asked.

I hesitated. That was fast. “I’m the child of a werewolf.”

She didn’t hesitate at all. “Bullshit.”

Like vampires, werewolves can’t reproduce the old-fashioned way, although they are living beings and fully capable of having sex. The complication is that transforming into a wolf is one hell of a shock to the system, and most people who have been bitten by a werewolf don’t survive their first full moon—their heart stops before their new body fully develops the ability to regenerate. Anyone who is too old or too young or too unhealthy doesn’t stand a chance, and the effects of all that tissue-tearing and muscle-ripping and stepped-up cellular production and electron-shifting are especially brutal on a fetus and the surrounding sac it needs to survive.

“It’s true,” I said. “My mother was past due with me when she was bitten by a wolf, and she delivered me soon after… before the next full moon. She died during her first transformation. I didn’t change.”

Her eyes narrowed. “This isn’t another question. This is clarification. Are you a werewolf or not?”

I shrugged. “That depends on who you ask. I don’t shift shape. I don’t have infra-vision. Silver only gives me a mild rash after several hours of contact, and human flesh gives me indigestion.”

Silence.

“Sorry, that last part was a bad joke,” I said. “I’ve never had any urges in that direction.”

“I saw you deal with that vampire,” she said. Again, not quite another question.

I nodded. “I’m stronger and faster than your average human.”

“You also knew there was something different about me as soon as I walked into the bar,” she persisted.

Was I really obligated to give this specific an answer? I sighed. A trade is a trade, and I didn’t have a convenient label to toss her way. A half-human vampire is called a dhampir. What I am is so rare that there’s not even a word for it. “My senses of smell and hearing are also acute. Also, my hobbies include hiking and scrapbooking, and I like long walks on the beach, sunsets, foreign films, and hot fudge sundaes. Is it my turn yet?”

She could figure out by herself the part about me healing fast and not aging. None of that even started until I was in my late twenties.

At which point the knights who had reluctantly trained me and educated me and finally, grudgingly, accepted me as one of their own because of my family name… turned on me and tried to kill me. They’re still trying. But Sig’s question definitely didn’t demand that specific an answer.

“So you don’t change form,” she mused. “I guess that makes you some kind of a neuter.”

“That’s not what your mom said,” I replied.

She grinned for the first time. “That doesn’t really work with females.”

“That’s not what your mom said.”

Sig took a sip of coffee and made a pleasantly surprised face. I make a good pot of coffee. “Ask me a question,” she commanded.

I obliged and picked up where I’d left off. “How did you know to be here tonight?” I wanted to know what she was, but if the bar had a big target painted around it and was likely to
draw attention from any nearby knights, I wanted to know that more. And I thought there was a pretty good chance that one question would answer the other.

She grimaced. “I have a friend with a gift for precognition—don’t ask me for a name because that’s not mine to give. This individual had a vision of a vampire in a bar. I pestered my friend until I got a few more details.” Her eyes narrowed. “I was told to look for a place with an idiot for a bartender.”

“I can’t believe this,” I said, careful to make it a statement. I didn’t want to waste a question on something of the are-you-kidding or what-the-hell-is-your-problem variety. “You’re pissed because I didn’t know about missing women who the police haven’t announced yet. Because I’m not assuming that some strange blonde whose species I don’t know and whose motives I can’t guess is someone I should trust.”

“I’m holding you responsible,” she snapped, “because if you hadn’t butted in, the vampire wouldn’t be on the loose right now. You chose to interfere in my business.”

“You brought your business into this bar, which is my business,” I shot back. “Literally. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but there is no bouncer around here. Part of my job is keeping this place peaceful, and I honor my debts.”

“Good!” she said, as if she’d won whatever argument we were having. “Because you owe me. If your senses are as good as you say they are, you can help me track down the vampire later.”

Sig polished off the coffee like it was a shot of whiskey and turned around to leave. Apparently that comment about me helping her wasn’t a question.

“Hold on,” I protested. “I still don’t know what you are or why you’re so emotionally involved in all this.”

“No you don’t,” she agreed.

And she walked out again.

It was her loss. If she’d stuck around and bothered to earn my trust, I could have told her how I’d palmed the vampire’s wallet while I had him pinned to the bar. His name, if the license wasn’t a very good fake, was Steve Ellison.

Now, a reasonable person might wonder why I stole the wallet after moving to Clayburg to avoid trouble. In fact, a reasonable person might even go so far as to point out that my behavior and my stated goals were incompatible. Reasonable people can be real pains in the ass that way. All I can say is, I have never claimed to be a reasonable person. For those of you keeping score at home, I have also never claimed to be a good person, a smart person, or a particularly stable person. The truth is, I stole the wallet because the vampire’s behavior was setting off all kinds of internal alarms, and old habits die hard.

I know John Charming is an unfortunate name. Believe me, I’ve heard them all. No, I’ve never been turned into a frog. No, I haven’t slain many dragons lately. How could I? They’ve been hibernating close to the Earth’s core for over a thousand years. No, I don’t have any unusual shoe fetishes, glass slipper or otherwise. No, my kisses won’t bring women out of any comas, though I hope they might perk them up a little.

But make no mistake: the reason there are so many stories about “Prince” Charming is that there was never one man—the Charmings were an entire family line standing between humanity and all other for generation after generation, and in the old days it was common to give any monster killer in a story royal status. That is a heavy burden, but I carried my name proudly for as long as I was able. And I am still that man. No matter what else is in my DNA, no matter what my old order says, no matter what titles have been stripped from me or how long I am forced to run and hide… I am still that man.

I think.

4

L
ater that night I made the last round of drinks free so that I could close out the cash register early and actually shut the bar’s doors on time for once. Sandra and Renee and our dishwasher, Greg, weren’t supposed to go home before me because Dave had some fond illusion that there’s honesty in numbers, but they didn’t argue when I offered to close up by myself. I figured the odds of the vampire’s coming back to find me after he figured out that his wallet was missing were around fifty-fifty, whereas the odds of my coworkers’ telling Dave that they’d left early were roughly zero.

One of the hardest things on the nerves is to wait for a fight that may or may not happen, at least if it’s a fight you’re not sure you can win. I don’t care who you are, how tough you are, or how many fights you’ve been in… unless something’s seriously wrong with your brain chemistry, you’re going to feel tension. Regrets and doubts and rage crawl out from under the subconscious like ants from under a hot rock. What separates
a warrior from a brawler or a maniac or a doormat is how he or she handles those feelings.

Me, I’ve got this thing I do when my mind starts to spiral before a fight. I unfold my fingers and concentrate on them one by one until my feelings narrow into focused calm. The finger-counting is a neuro-physical trigger, a mild form of self-hypnosis that I’ve trained my mind to react to after decades of practice and meditation. I associate each finger with a specific phrase, and if I have time, I recite them to myself like mantras.

Pinky: I’ve been in this kind of situation before. Fourth finger: I’ve felt these feelings before. Middle finger: I’ve survived them every time. Index finger: Everybody dies eventually. Thumb: That includes my enemies. Then I fold my fingers back into a fist. I won’t say that it eliminates fear altogether, but it steadies me.