“Mostly myth, although witches can enchant water with certain spells that vampires find… uncomfortable.”
“Witches? As in, broomstick riding, spell-casting, fortune-telling—”
“Wait, is this still the lightning round? Because witches are a topic all their own.”
Charlotte blinked rapidly, then sighed. “Okay, we’ll save witches for later. What about walking in daylight?”
“A feat made possible by… witches.”
“Seriously?”
“Witches and vampires have a long, complicated, and mostly symbiotic history which I’ll tell you more about after the lightning round.”
“When you go to someone’s apartment or house, do you have to be invited in?”
“We haven’t for a good seventy or eighty years now.”
She cocked her head and smirked. “Witches?”
“You’re an excellent student,” he said with a wink. “That spell was born of necessity in modern times. As cities became more crowded, with a high percentage of renters and property turnover, tracking down owners to ask for permission to enter became more challenging. So, for the vampire who can afford it, there’s an easy fix.”
“Sounds like witches do a lot of favors for you guys.”
“For which they’reextremelywell-paid, I assure you.” Dorian sighed, still bristling about Marlys’s exploitative prices.
“What about stakes?”
“Deadly. But only when they’re made of wood, and only if you manage to pierce the heart, like I told you last night. Otherwise, you’ll just piss us off.”
“Can vampires be killed by anything else?”
“Several things,” he said with a wry laugh. “Forgive me if I don’t readily disclose them.”
She peppered him with a few of the other popular myths—sleeping in coffins, turning into bats, no reflection in the mirror—which Dorian quickly dispelled. But soon they reached the end of the lightning round, and in the heavy pause that followed, he knew whatever came next was going to alter her reality forever.
She knew it too. Her face had changed, the playfulness dimming from her eyes. More than anything, Dorian wanted to hit the proverbial pause button, take her into his arms again, and kiss her until she’d forgotten that he was a vampire, forgotten she’d ever wanted to know about the dark world that existed alongside hers.
But it was too late for that.
“Dorian,” she said somberly, “how do you get your… blood supply?”
“Vampires are not required to feed from live humans,” he said, hoping to put her at ease.
“But some do anyway, right?”
“Yes—usually through a consensual arrangement with a human donor. Of course, the system is imperfect, and the balance of power isn’t exactly even, but we have laws that forbid the killing of humans. For the most part, they’re honored.”
“Do you? Drink from live humans, I mean?”
“Not in… many decades.” Sensing this wouldn’t be enough to satisfy her, he added, “Vampires only need to feed about once per week. I have an arrangement with a local hospital for blood bags, and short of that, I occasionally consume the blood of demons.”
“Demons?”
“They’re entities of hell, bound to human vessels but void of human souls. Since the vessel itself is human, their blood still contains the same basic nutrients, though it’s not winning any points for taste.”
“Holy shit.” She shook her head, her voice dropping to a shocked whisper. “Everything you tell me is crazier than the last. All of it.”
“It isn’t a simple conversation, Charlotte. There is so much you don’t know. You claim you want answers, but perhaps it’s not—”
