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“Anyway, grub’s outside and I gotta go.” He grinned at me. “Big date tonight.”
“Date?” I blinked in surprise, because master vampires don’t date. Not unless forced, anyway.
“Witch,” he said succinctly.
“Isn’t th
at a little . . . unusual?”
“I’m like the master. I like to walk on the wild side.”
It took me a moment to realize what he meant. “I am not the wild side,” I told him flatly. “I’m about as far from the wild side as it’s possible to get.”
He raised a bushy black eyebrow. “If you say so.”
I opened my mouth, then decided I was too beat to argue. “Well, have fun.”
“Oh, I will.” He paused. “And just FYI, there’s a bunch of new guys on tonight. Well, not new new, but new to you.”
I didn’t know why he was bothering to tell me. The bodyguards were changed on a regular basis. Round-theclock security meant that some of them got stuck on the day shift, which was hard on vampires. At least I assumed that was why, after a week or two, they started looking a little peaked.
I nodded, but Marco just stood there, as if he expected some kind of answer. “Okay.”
“It’s just . . .” He hesitated. “Try not to freak them out too much, all right?”
“I freak them out?”
“You know what I mean. It’s those things you do.”
“What things?”
His eyes darted around the bathroom. “Talking-toinvisible-people kind of things.”
“They’re ghosts, Marco.”
“Yeah, only most of the guys don’t believe in ghosts, and they’ve started to think you’re a bit . . . strange.”
“They’re vampires and they think I’m strange?”
“And no popping out of nowhere in front of a guy. That takes some getting used to. I don’t think Sanchez has recovered yet.”
“The only place I’m popping is to bed.”
“Good plan.” Marco looked satisfied. “See you on the flip side.”
I rolled my eyes at the slang, which as usual for the older vamps was decades out of date, and let my head sag back against the tub. I really didn’t want to move now that I was warm and relaxed and actually starting to feel my extremities again. But the smells drifting in from the next room were making my stomach growl plaintively.
I couldn’t immediately identify the source, but it didn’t matter. If Marco had done the ordering, it had to be good. Unlike Pritkin, Marco didn’t worry about things like trans fats and cholesterol. When Marco ate, he ate big: pasta dripping in cream sauce, huge peppery steaks, mashed potatoes with gravy, and cannoli sweet enough to crack teeth. Often at the same meal.
The fact that vampires didn’t technically need to eat didn’t appear to worry Marco. He’d told me that one of the best things about finally reaching master status had been the return of working taste buds. And he’d spent the time since making up for all those flavorless years.
I decided that maybe I was clean enough. “Turn around,” I told Billy. “I’m getting out.”
He made a pouty face but he didn’t argue. Maybe he was hungry, too. I wrapped the towel around myself and started to get out of the tub.
But instead my hands slid off the porcelain, my knees bent and I slipped back into the rapidly cooling water.
For a second, I just lay there, more confused than worried. Until I kept on sinking. Then I snapped out of it and began to struggle.
