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“My name is Samuel,” the vampire said. “And I believe yours is Dominic, yes? But you prefer Nick.”
“Nick is fine,” he said. “How did you know that?”
Samuel smiled, and he didn’t look at all like a bloodthirsty vampire. He looked like he was somebody’s father. Or an uncle. Someone you could trust. He was unusually handsome, but it wasn’t supernatural. It wasn’t enough to make him stand out in a crowd.
“I made it my business to know,” Samuel said. “You interest me, Nick, and I like to know as much as possible about those who interest me.”
“Why am I so interesting?”
Samuel laughed, and it sounded completely normal. “You are a void, Nick. I haven’t seen one of your kind in my city for decades.”
“How did you find out about me?”
“Oh, the witches, of course. They panicked and flailed, as they tend to do, and it didn’t take long for word to get out. Clucking hens who just noticed a wolf who slipped under the fence.”
It must have been Cara. Nick didn’t want to believe it, but she was the only one who knew. She told her family, and someone decided to tell the rest of the world. He knew she was going to ask her family for help, but he never thought she’d put him in danger.
Brett could have died because someone gave away his identity. He was probably in an ambulance right now on the way to the hospital, and Nick wasn’t even with him. He left him lying there on the floor.
Nick made an effort not to spiral. Cara wouldn’t have done that. There had to be more to the story.
And Brett would be fine. He had to be.
“Why did the witches tell you about me?” Nick asked. He was careful with his phrasing, since he didn’t know the nature of the relationship between them, and he didn’t want to be obvious about his ignorance.
He doubted Cara or her family would be friends or allies with vampires, but he couldn’t be sure of anything anymore.
Samuel still hadn’t dropped his smile. “Witches think they can trust their own. As if being born into a community means you’re all the same. As soon as they discovered your presence in the city, the news spread through their network like lightning. They don’t feel the need to keep secrets from each other. Witches trust witches.”
“But someone told you.”
“Someone told me.”
“Why?”
“People have many reasons for the things they do.”
“Very informative.”
Samuel’s smile grew.
“So why didn’t the witches come for me first?”
“To put it simply, you terrify them. Also, their usual methods don’t work on you. Tracking spells are useless when dealing with a void. Fortunately, vampires use more traditional routes. Meeting people, making connections, doing the legwork.”
“It didn’t take much time for you to come for me,” Nick said. “The witches haven’t known for long.”
It was easier than he expected to pretend that he knew what was going on.
“Do you think so?” Samuel said, smiling. “Personally, I thought our response time was lacking. We had to wait an entire hour before we could begin our search. It would have been sooner, but we could do little to track you down until night fell. ”
“Why does that matter?” Nick said.
Samuel tilted his head slightly, examining Nick. “You expect me to believe that you know nothing of our plight? The sun is our weakness. Every man, woman and child knows that. Even the humans know, and they depict us as such in their books and films. Do not insult me by pretending to be a fool.”
Nick hesitated. It was real. It was all real. Vampires couldn’t survive in sunlight. The myth was reality. How many other stories were real?
He couldn’t ask any of that, so he just said, “Of course.”
