I grinned. “Oh, and always have a nine volt battery and steel wool on you. But those are things that would keep you alive in the literal jungle, not the metaphorical one. Things like, `Grave dust is more effective than buckshot against a zombie,’ those are a specialist’s survival guide.”

“Or that a single shot to the heart in the dead of night will only send a vampire into temporary paralysis?” Ed’s mom piped up. I stared at her, but I guess she had drawn a reasonable conclusion.

“Yeah, best to stake them in sunlight,” Hawk grumbled.

“The secret’s in the spices?” Matana said, the strange tenor in her voice could be what they mean by “cultured” in print.

“Oh, I know that one. `Sweeney Todd,’ isn’t it?” Ed asked, and there was some kind of hard edge in his voice. Good. I was afraid he was just going to let this Matana thing roll over him.

Ed’s mom made a mm-hmm noise, sounding amused. She had something bubbling on the stove that smelled good. “You didn’t answer the lunch question.” She changed the subject.

“I don’t think so,” I said, making half a decision. “I need a witch.”

“Really? Are we starting that again?” Ed asked, teasing.

“I need one to keep the other ones from interfering with me. I’d ask a wizard if I knew one who owed me any favors, but really, I need to send them a message.”

“It’s all about you, is it?” Ed raised an eyebrow.

Matana smiled. “If it was Maggie, Ed, it was about you, too. She was trying to hurt all of us.”

“I don’t think she’s that crazy,” I said.

Matana fixed me with her eyes. “Really?”

“You did always have a pair of rose-tinted glasses when looking at her,” Ed noted.

“Well, she did kiss like a crazy girl,” I sighed.

Hawk cleared his throat. “I do vampires, not witches.” He didn’t feel so comfortable with the turn of events.

“Yeah, hey, thanks, man. You need to go?”

“I need to clean my kit, and write up my observations. But usually I don’t leave them alive to find me again,” he said, pointedly looking at Matana.

“I could give you my word of honor,” Matana suggested.

I sighed. “Yours he might take. The thing inside you doesn’t care about such niceties. Let’s all stay honest here.”

“Niceties?” Ed asked.

“Hey, I’ve read a book or two. Hawk, we’ll keep Matana here…” I looked at Ed’s mom, “for lunch. I’ll have to go wake the disturbed lovebirds at some point, anyway, and get them home. Ed, you’ll drive me back?”

He nodded.

“That should give you enough time to get away,” Matana told Hawk.

“Stop twisting the tiger’s tail, leech,” I said, but I smiled as if to take the edge off. She did one of those neck-bow things, gracefully extending me the point.

Ed’s mom didn’t add any ingredients. She just poured things into the little pie pans as if she either liked leftovers or had known we were staying for lunch. She even had enough for Roberto and my sister to have some. I think it was a special superpower of being a mom. Even mine had done things like that once in a while.

Hawk made his goodbyes, and made sure I really did have his number on speed dial. Ed sat down on the recliner near the couch and had a moment of shut-eye, while his mom put things away and Matana drank her coffee. A very domestic, if weird scene.

I sat sideways in the seat next to Matana.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“I do have a specialized diet. That part of my work, is seeing how much or how little I can be… integrated with my hunger, and still in control.”

“What does that have to do with werewolf weight lifting or whatever it was?”

“Can a werewolf get fat? What you eat is a huge part of your body’s development. I can smell french fries all over you.”

“It’s my new cologne.” I needed a shower, too. “I’m guessing from your expression it just doesn’t attract the vamp girls?”

She shook her head. “You’re off limits, anyway,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Peredur’s interested in you.”

“Yeah, I kind of got that. So he likes french fries? And where do you know him from?”

“I asked him once about his diet, too. His… territory in this world is a large one.” She paused, thinking. Her fingers tapped against the table. “He won’t devour you, yet. You’re not powerful enough.”

“Thanks. I’m trying to be a small fish in a small pond. But who does he tell I’m off-limits? All vampires, or…? And why were you watching me that night?”

“Word gets around when a Dragon is in town.” She said it like it was some sort of rule, and in kind of a hip-hop fashion. I wondered for a moment what she was like when she was just her, and not half a bloodsucking creature of the night. “If you wanted to be a small fish, you shouldn’t have helped vanquish one of his rivals.”

“I didn’t vanquish anyone. I just wanted…” I was tired of this, “to do the right thing,” I trailed off.

“A valuable sentiment that’s gotten you far, far, over your head, little fish.” She smiled.

“Do you think Maggie needs to be,” I used her word, “vanquished?”

“Let me ask you something. Do you think you could just pack your things and move from one part of the country to another?”

I looked at her. “Are you changing the subject again?”

“No. Think about it.”

“Well, yeah, if I had a job, or needed a change of pace. I didn’t want to move too far away from friends and family, though. I have something to do, locally, but,” I shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”

“What would be the first thing you’d do in that new place?”

“Hook up my internet. Unpack my library.” I narrowed my eyes at her. “See who the local movers and shakers were so I could avoid them like the plague.”

“Does anyone actually track the plague and sidle away from it?”

“I don’t trust groundhogs or squirrels as a matter of fact,” I pointed out, ruefully. “I expect if you’re a mover and/or shaker, there’s a lot more in the way of rules. You had to ask Maggie’s permission, but you just mentioned Peredur had a mortal territory. What’s the process?”

She was nodding. “Maggie isn’t… what is the phrase? Small potatoes.”

“Even in a hashbrown world?”

She looked at me.

“Nevermind.”