I ran my errands and picked up some dinner on the way back.  It was around the end of rush hour.  If I really believed in movie zombies, I would have been scared the way the wafting smell of french fries seemed to grab the attention of the other people on the bus.  After a day of work anyone might look a bit wan and glazed, like a sad diet doughnut.  Several people noted how good they smelled, and I just drew the bag closer to me.  I was getting a little nervous that either I would be mobbed if I actually started eating them, or that they would be cold by the time the bus lurched to my stop.  (And lurch it did; isn’t the rule that the lazy late driver gets the old, decrepit bus?)

Once I decided that the people on the bus were not going to start shambling off after me, moaning, “FRiiiiiiiieeeees,” I had too much time to think while I walked.  At least I had salty, oily, carbohydrate goodness to fuel me.

I was thinking about Rohana.  I was feeling strangely conflicted.  Half of me felt good, I mean, really good, like I should skip and dance and music from an old musical would swell up behind me and I’d grow a hat and a cane and, well, you know the rest.  Half of me was cautious and concerned because I didn’t really know a lot about her.  Did she have a dog?  A boyfriend?  A skeleton or something grisly in her closet?  She said she wasn’t a witch, but she was aware of them.  She knew Maggie.

Maggie.  The piece in the puzzle I kept trying not to think about, because I didn’t want to think her capable of making a simulacrum.  I didn’t want to be dragged into her war, and yet, I knew, I knew in a way that was impossible to clear from cynicism, that she still wanted something from me.

I was worried about Rohana, really.  I decided that as I came through the door, put my keys in my octopus cup, left my bag of hamburgers and processed poultry parts on the table and went to the bathroom.  The last block had been less dancing and Broadway and more this last little piggy.

Ahem.

Once my business was done, I sat and ate, only half-watching some things I’d saved on the recorder.  I really only watch things that have been recommended to me, but there were some neat stories out there.  Alas, the best of them always seemed short lived, but that could have been part of the appeal; a show past its time was always a sad thing.

I washed up some as I hate that hour-after-cheeseburger feeling.  Brushed my teeth, and parked myself in front of the tube for a while.  I felt myself getting pretty sleepy and so set my alarm so that I’d catch up with Ed around midnight, if only to yank his chain a little.

I slept through it, of course, deep  in uneasy dreams.  Something moon-like was chasing me, but only enough to get my adrenaline to pump and keep me uneasy.  It was playing with me, silver-white in the darkness, fast, fleet of foot.

I picked up the phone in a kind of automatic motion, without looking to see who it was. “Yuh?” I asked, sounding extremely insightful and witty.

“E.  I… didn’t think there’d be so much blood.”

“What?” Awakefulness was forced upon me like a deluge of water from a bucket.  It was less like when Maggie would snap sobriety into me, which I would rather describe as a forceful joining of my drunk and undrunk selves with the alcohol squished out of me, and more like jumping into a puddle and finding it was the Marianas Trench.  “Ed.  Ed, what happened?” He sounded weak and tinny over the connection, which, by the way, got excellent freakin’ signal.

“You were right.”

You know, usually I love to hear those words.  Those words are sweet, sweet words of vindication, an aperitif that led to a full course of redemption.  Somehow they were tasting of dust and clay, and old feathers, like the underworld in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

“You were right, E.  She attacked me.  I just… I…”

“Talk to me, Ed.  Use your words.”  I bit my tongue.  “What do you need?  Where are you?”

“I’m…” he wandered off for a moment, but just before I said something else, he gave me a street name I didn’t recognize.  “It’s a cul-de-sac off of,” and I remembered that as not too far from his mom’s house.  “I’m… I’m covered with blood.”

“OK.  You need help.  You need a new set of clothes.  It’s,” I looked at the clock above the television.  “It’s at least an hour before dawn.  Is she dead?”

“I…”

“Topor, it’s called.  You did a good job, pinning at least part of her heart, right?  None of that ‘Vampire with Brooklyn’ business?” I asked.  “What kind of stake?”  I fumbled for my keys, and slid into my shoes.

“That’s… that’s why I called, E.”

“It doesn’t really matter.  Oh,” I swore.  “I don’t have a car.  OK.  I’ve got to…” I tried to think of the people I could call for a ride.  The list didn’t quite begin and end with Ed, but once you took Maggie off the list, it was disturbingly short.

I’d have to call my sister.

“No, it does matter.  I didn’t do it, exactly.”

“Hey, this isn’t a court of law.  It’s absolutely self-defense, but there’s things we have to do.  I’ll have to let you go.  There’s a lot of calls I have to make.  Can you walk to your mom’s?”

“No, I mean…  Something else did it.”

“Wait, uh, what?”

“E. Promise you won’t laugh.”

I took a deep breath.  “Ed, after everything we’ve been through together, that’s one promise I can’t really make.  Hit me.”

“It was a unicorn.”

I almost laughed.  I exhaled a wheezy little squeaky thing and then caught my breath.  “A unicorn?”

“Yeah.  And it mentioned your name.”

After I hung up with Ed, I spent a while swearing aloud just to get it out of my system.  I like to think I had gotten pretty creative given that no one I knew personally had to work up swearing involving imaginary creatures of indeterminate virtues, well, except maybe the atheists in the crowd.

(I was never sure how to count myself.  I mean, how could you know of deities who interacted with mankind but were probably just things from Beyond and yet not really believe in them being effective towards yourself?  I figured it was like believing in the mailman.  At least the mailman delivers in answer to your stamped prayers.  Or some such oddity.)

I stomped around for a few minutes and woke up with some cold, carbonated caffeine and sugar.  Then I sat at my table and stared at the phone.  The minutes mocked me as the screen went into the, “Nothing’s happened! Let’s darken the display!” mode and I sighed and pulled it over to me.

“If this is my brother, I’m going to cut him into bloody gobbets and feed him to passing pigeons.”

“Love you too, sis.  How did you guess?”

“Oh, I say that whenever a phone call wakes me in the pre-sunlight hours.  Guess I just get lucky this time.  You have a preference for breed of pigeon?”

“You couldn’t tell a pigeon from a seagull without a professional.”

“A tall, dark, handsome professional who is paid to handle my eccentricities, you mean.  Some kind of birdwatching prince in search of a young American bride.”

“Still holding out for royalty?”

“Still playing D&D in someone’s mother’s basement?”

“Glad to hear nothing’s changed.”

“You could call our mother sometime.  You could let her know you still deny the need for constant psychiatric evaluation.”

“I wouldn’t want to put any kind of strain on her aging heart.  One psychotic in the family is enough.”

“Like telling her that you were in not one, but two unexplained and unusual accidents in a month?”

I sighed. “You took the call as her, didn’t you?”

“I had to.  After all, my plans wouldn’t come to their evil fruition unless I get to be the one to tell her of your unfortunate and untimely demise.  What do you need, anyway?  Are you in…” she gave it a moment of savored anticipation, “trouble?”

“Yeah, I need a ride.”

“The clinic’s not open until nine.  Who did you knock up, and was she homeless or merely drunk at the time?”

“Not that kind of trouble.”

“What is it, then?  Arson?  Rape?  Theft?” She paused.  “Murder?”

“Murder, definitely murder.”

“Brother of mine, in some ways you never disappoint.”  I heard her shift a little.  “Let me get my pants on and I’ll come by.  Still living in that little hovel on the East side?”

“Sorry, some of us haven’t found the right millionaire,” I pointed out.  It wasn’t a hovel.  It was snug and cozy, the way I liked it.

“You mean, like, any?” she laughed.  “Do I need my kevlar?”

“This is the wrong side of the highway for the body armor,” I sighed.  “In fact, I had a good police presence here just yesterday.”

“So you mean all the good drugs are gone?”

“Are we even related genetically?” I asked.

“Mom said she tried to sell you to the gypsies, but they returned you during the buyer’s remorse period.”

“Funny, mom told me you were the inspiration for“The Ransom of Red Chief.'”

“You’re still a charmer.  Well, working on it anyway.  Keep practicing.  Hold on.”  She put the phone down and said something in a quiet murmur.  Probably something like, “Jeeves, please get the car ready.”  She returned.  “Fine.  I have clothes and money, and you can bring the shovels.  Where are we burying her?”

“Somewhere in Boulder.  And why do you think it’s a her?”

“Because, my big brother, you’ve never been smart about women, so if you’re in trouble, it’s about a girl.”

“Huh.”  I shrugged.  “You’re probably right.”

“Of course I am.  I’m your little sister.  I know everything about you and you have to love me anyway.  Kiss, and bye now.  I’ll see you in about twenty.”

I was actually surprised that she was willing to help, but it had been a while since we’d seen each other.  I don’t really know what she was expecting to find, but I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, even if it turned out to be a unicorn.

Lion, and now unicorn.  The Small types had a sense of humour.  I had no doubt that it was the second Messenger.  The only question is what message it was sending… protection of my friends?  Potential for mayhem?  Mere mischief?  I only hoped it didn’t bring me a riddle.  I still hadn’t gotten the first ones figured out.

I brought some sheets for Matana’s body.  It was ridiculously hard to kill a vampire, and really, I didn’t have the time or patience for it.  I wanted some answers first.  The sunlight would destroy the traces of her blood, but until dawn arrived there would be a lot of questions if someone passed by or otherwise stumbled upon the scene.  I had wanted Ed to stay by the body so no one else picked her up, but I had sent him to his mom’s to wait for me.

Of course, I was hoping this wasn’t another set-up.  First Sylvia, and now Matana.  Neither permanent, but both would have looked terrible if seen by a judge.  I realized with a laugh that I was the kind of friend who would help a friend move bodies, apparently.

I made another call to a number I had in my phone that I’d only used one other time.  The person on the other end was far more murderous in nature and likely to cause bloody trouble than my sister.  Of course, he was also a treasure trove of vampire trivia I’d met on a BBS in the pre-Internet days, and I believed to have some experience in what I was about to try to do.

I did have the focus of mind to change my clothes into something I didn’t care about getting dusty, wet, and dirty.  It was just the kind of outfit to greet my fashion-conscious sister in, of course, which is what I did at the aggressive knock.

(I am pretty sure the doorbell works, but something about the door leads people to knock.  I am not certain if it’s the material, the layout, or something else, but people knock more on my door than press the little lit button that gives the pleasant chime and notification of their presence at my door.  I leave it as a mystery for another day.)

“You know, Goodwill does fifty-percent-off sales just about every Saturday,” she said.  “Or I think you can raid some Salvation Army bins.”

My little sister is about an inch taller than me, and whereas my dark hair makes me plain, hers, in the same color, somehow makes her look exotic.  She did things to it, I guess.  (I keep mine cut.)  She has a similar colour of eyes, more blue than on the green side, though.  She’s slim and athletic, though, from the cross-country style of nerdity.  (I have been made aware that there are two nerd sports – wrestling and cross-country.  I would like to put shotput in there somewhere, but that may be wishful thinking.)

I noticed that she wore tiny, sparkly heels, and in fact, a tiara.

“No wings?” I asked, looking up at her head.

“I’m the princess, dolt.”  She grabbed me in a hug I was unable to back out of, and then rubbed her knuckles lightly on the top of my head before letting me go.  I bore it without comment.

“Your place looks clean.  Did you fumigate recently?”  She looked around, mostly noting the bookshelves.

“I had a magical construct living with me for a while,” I said, blythely.

“Like a broom from that scene in `Fantasia’?” she asked.

“More like a blow up doll gone feral,” I smirked.

“Only you, big brother, only you.”  She opened up my refrigerator, checked in my medicine cabinet, and then looked at my desktop background before coming back to the table.  “Where are the shovels?”

“Strange places to be looking for them.”

“I’m just spying so I can tell mother what kind of pornographic, drug-addled nonsense you’re into these days.  Still dating Magster the Nagster?”

I grinned.  “No, we’re splits.”

“Hah!” she blurted, disbelievingly.  “Give it a month, you’ll go crawling back to her.  What happened to Happy Hillary or whatever model doll you were `dating’?”  She used her fingers for big air quotes.

“Doloise died saving me from a fiery end in a Dragon’s lower intestine.”

“I can’t even translate that one.  So.  Let’s get going?”

“Remember where Ed’s mom lives?”

“We’re burying that old hag?  About time!” She opened the door again, and I followed her down the steps.

“She’s a very pleasant person who makes excellent chocolate chip cookies.”

“You’re a man.  Chocolate chip cookies are just one of nature’s little ways of making you do tricks.  I hold out for brownies or real apple pie.  Or old-money.”

There was a man in a white suit waiting, leaning up against the car.  “Who’s that?” I asked.

“Jeeves.”

“Really?  I’ve always wanted a Jeeves.  Do they come in different colors?”

“His name is Roberto, and he owns the car, but I own him, so it’s fair game.  Get in back and give me the address, because we’ve got a satellite navigation system thing-a-ma-bob.”

I let myself in, while my sister spoke to her paramour du jour.   It had leather seats, with a warming unit, and an excellent sound system, although I’m too much of a white guy for Latin love ballads to look natural.  I don’t think it’s a racist thing, just a cultural expectation (which could totally be racist, I guess) thing.  I just wish I got the benefit of all the power and money implied of being “the man” sometimes, instead of all the guilt.  (Yeah, that’s a whole ton of assumed privilege just in that sentence.  I’m at least partially aware, not pure neanderthal, right?)

“Nice car,” I said into the silence that was broken up occasionally by the -cubi inspiring dulcet tones of the navigator.

“Yes, yes she is,” Roberto, aka Jeeves replied.  My sister had her hand on his arm, in a very dominant sort of fashion.  “I like to drive her fast, especially at night.”

I was hoping, in counter to one nausea-induced flurry of worry, that he was really talking about the car and not about my sister.  “Sorry for waking the two of you up,” I tried.

“We had not yet gone to bed,” Roberto said.

“Ah.”  I gave up my quirky conversational gambits and stayed quiet as the white lines of the highway dashed by in the headlights.

“So what’s the scoop with Ed?” my sister asked, turning to look at me.

“Which part?  The ‘I just found out he’s gay,’ part or the, ‘We’re rescuing him from a interlude with a vampire’ part?”

“You really do think you’re funny,” she said, flatly, looking back out the windshield.  “Anyway, I guessed the first part.”

“I have known a vampire,” Roberto said.

“Shh, Jeeves.  You will only encourage him,” she put a finger up to his lips.  He kissed it.

I did not throw up.

“No, really.  I have known a vampire.  She was very sexy.  She liked to bite my neck and call me names.”

I looked around for an air sickness bag, but seeing how far I had to reach to get to the front seat, gave up on it, and just steeled myself in the manly fashion.

My sister murmured something up front that made both of them chuckle in a knowing fashion.

My phone went off then, saving me momentarily.  “It’s E,” I said.

“E?  He goes by E?” Roberto asked.

“It’s a thing.  It’s like his gangsta name,” my sister explained.

“Hawk.  If you want to do it right, pin her wrists.  She’ll recover faster from that than her abdomen.  That’s why they did Christ that way.”

“I don’t think he was a vampire,” I said slowly.

“Evidence is against you.  I’ll be there in forty with the kit.”

Pride is a funny thing.  I mean, there are those with the hubris to suggest that pride and humour are probably some kind of opposite ends of a spectrum, but pride itself is, well kind of amusing.  Or maybe it’s just how malleable it seems.  I suppose there are extreme honour systems where pride reflects how well you’re able to hit the targets of your honour’s needs, but I mark that (in my off-the-cuff system) as being closer to a moral code, and pride and humiliation do connect with morality, but the nexus is not the whole of the map.

The idea that pride is your measure, however, is a strictly human one.

Humans play a lot of face games, in the idea that we present certain qualities of ourselves as the person we are under those circumstances.  Animals (and a lot of those that come from Beyond) may exaggerate their qualities for preservation (“I’m red! I’m poisonous!”  “I’m sixteen times bigger because my claws and scent are higher on the tree!”) but they don’t say, “I’m better.”  “Better” is found out by challenge, it’s not just something you can claim.

This is one of the place us humans and those Outside tend to clash.  They say, “I’m a slayer of Dragons,” for example.  They’ll have two Dragons’ heads to prove it.  We say, “I’m a slayer of Dragons,” and we mean we’re the type of go-getters who cut through red tape, and get things done.  They say, “I can kill you,” and there is no doubt in their mind that that is a possibility.  We say, “I can kill you,” and mean that we’re mad at you and well, we can try.  We’ve never killed anything outside maybe squishing a bug.  It’s not just the literal value, though.  You are what you say you are.

Matana is a vampire.  She’s not disguising herself.  She’s not really one of the —cubi, or a leannan sidhe, or a werewolf who likes to feast on the blood of her enemies, or anything like that, but because she’s not just the parasite, she might shade the truth a little bit.  She might hide herself, imply things, say she’s older than she is, that sort of thing.  (The really old ones follow my rule of thumb, by the way.  Once you’re so unnatural as to stop aging entirely, you’re not as stable.  Of course, aging at a significantly reduced rate is something the parasite just does, so it’s not one of the reliable methods.)

Doloise, on the other hand, wouldn’t even think of lying.  The problem is then in translation.

Doloise, if asked, “What can you do?” could not answer, “Shoot fireballs out of my butt.”  Unless, of course, she could.  She’d probably say, “The firey breath of the Dragon that designed me allowed me to bear his nethermark.”  Or some such poetic expression that would be the slang for explosive-bottom-blasting amongst her people.  It’s not like she’s saying it in some prideful manner, though, and I’m not sure what that would look like except for the occasional, “Of course I can (or can’t) do that.”

Until this morning, I didn’t think I could stake a woman through the wrists (in Ed’s mom’s backyard) in order to see if she could bear the dawn.  I would not have put it in my list of things I can do for pride.  It wasn’t on Heinlein’s list , although after having done it, I might have said it should be.

“You should just stake her.”

Hawk was a smaller man than I thought of him.  He had that lean, snaky look of someone who is used to looking over his shoulder.

“I don’t actually want her dead.”

“She’s a vampire.”

I sighed.  I had used that same sentence a couple of times, myself.

“I know,” I said.

Ed’s mom sat on the porch, peeling an apple.  It was her way of compensating for quitting smoking.  She did long, curly peels of apple, and she was extremely curious about what we were doing.  I had tried to convince her that she didn’t want any part of this, but she ignored my hints.

Roberto and my sister were watching early morning cartoons on the large television screen.  Or, at least that’s where I’d left them.  I wasn’t used to the second language mode and the voices weren’t what I had expected coming from the characters.

Ed had finished his shower and was waiting at the edge of the back porch, idly juggling stakes that Hawk had brought.  “I’d prefer it if I wasn’t actually involved in murder,” he said.  He probably meant it to be light, but it sounded kind of desperate.

“Killing monsters is different,” Hawk said.

“That’s a fabulous argument in la-la-land or wherever you come from, but Matana is kind of a person to me,” Ed said, annoyed.

“She attacked you,” I pointed out.

“E, shut up.”

“You want to come out here and do this?” I growled.

“Hey, you’re the doctor,” he said sarcastically.

It looked like real blood she was bleeding.  We got the silver chain wrapped around the stakes in her wrist just as the dawn broke.

She jerked on the chain, life returning to her body.

This was a pretty dramatic moment, as I’ve seen dead bodies, and it startled me to see reanimation.  It’s like one moment you’re lugging around a heavy  mannequin and then the next it’s a living, breathing human being.

Except it was a vampire.

The blood all over my shoes and hands flared in the sunlight, and then it was gone.  All of it except for an artful amount against the perfectly punctured hole in her chest.

“Should have staked her,” Hawk repeated.

“I appreciate that you didn’t,” she said.  She opened her eyes.  “Ah.  We recognize this binding.   Very European.  Classic materials.  I expected something different, E.”

I shrugged.  “Why mess with what works?”

“You could have maybe used some parallel cables?  CAT-5?” she suggested.  “They would have worked as well.”

“Hawk has family silver.”

“That’s his name these days?” she looked him in the eye, and he didn’t flinch or look away.

“M’name always,” he muttered.

“Have I passed the test?” she asked.  “Or are you going to complete the ritual?”

“I’m no wizard.  But you’re not going anywhere until we get some answers,” I said.

“I’ll bring the lemonade,” Ed’s mom said, cheerfully.

To place the scene in perspective, imagine the first few moments of dawn as the sun lights up the sky to the east.  It takes a little longer for the sun to actually make its golden way down into the valley, but we were nearer the plains portion of the city, when the sun’s rays touched Matana.  Night and day are strange things, metaphysically, but if you think that there is always a shadow, perhaps it makes sense. 

I was sitting on one of those outside lounge chairs like you’d have at a picnic or a barbecue, not like the type around the pool.  I was sipping fresh lemonade, and the remains of an apple crisp were next to the chair.  Hawk stood near the fence.  Ed was wearing sweat pants under his robe, and was leaned up against a pole near the porch where his mother sat.  My sister and her newest squeeze, Roberto, were crashed out on the couch.

“I would never have suspected lemonade to be so refreshing in the morning,” I pointed out.  There was a little sprig of mint in it to add some flavour.

“I would prefer coffee,” the vampire staked to the ground next to me complained.

“Well, it is chilly,” I noted.  “But it’s good.”

“We could use saltwater, instead,” Hawk grumbled.  He had finally caught on that I did not intend to stake the vampire.  Of course, the day was yet young, as they said.

“Joe?”  Ed’s mom got out of her seat, and put her knitting down.  I don’t know what she was knitting, but it looked like a silver net of some sort.  She was wearing a floral top, and some of those black pants that martial artists always seem to be wearing, and a set of sleek black slippers.  “Joe?  You go mind your own business, Joe.”  She yelled over the top of the fence.  “Go put your binoculars away.  We’re having a party, me and my son’s friends.”

“Y’didn’t invite me!” came a rough voice from somewhere in the next yard.

“Come around for apple crisps later,” Ed’s mom was adamant.  “I’ll fix you up.”

“‘Kay,” the voice agreed.

She turned back around.  “He’s a bird watcher,” she explained, “but this bird,” she feinted a kick towards Matana, “ain’t the type with feathers, and thus none of his beeswax.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Hawk noted.  “They are awfully nice apple crisps.”

“I’m glad you like them.  The secret’s in the spices,” she winked, and went back to her seat.

“Are you going to let me up?” Matana asked.

“You’re not bleeding, yet,” I pointed out.

“So I’m not human enough for you to let me go?” she asked.

“Why’d you go all vamp on Ed?” I asked.

“Why’d your pet unicorn up and skewer me like a kabob?” she retorted.

“What?” Hawk asked.

“It’s something I need to handle,” I explained.  “And it’s irrelevant.  I would be a thousand times more upset if you’d actually hurt my friend,” I focused back on the vampire.

“Thanks, E,” Ed said.

“No worries,” I shot back.

“He’s the one who started it,” she finally said, squirming as if to try turning away from me.

“What, did he sprinkle sugar on himself and do a little bat-calling dance?” I asked.

“Uh,” Ed started.

“I don’t believe in the, `He wore a short skirt so he was asking for it,’ defense,” I warned her, cutting Ed off. 

“I did want to see her fangs,” Ed explained.

“Oh.  Well that changes everything,” I said.  “C’mon, Hawk, let’s pull up the stakes and let them go back at it.”  I rolled my eyes.  “Not.   Maggie said something about you not being a threat.  What do you eat, Matana?  Only blood from virgins aged 16-19?  Some kind of special vintage requirement?”

She sighed and kicked a little with her feet, straining at the wrists.  “It’s not important.”

“You went vamp on my friend.  I have you staked in the sunlight.  You’re human enough that it isn’t killing you, but not human enough that it hurts you.  Anything I want to ask is important, or I’ll let Ed’s mom and Hawk work you over.”

“No point,” Hawk noted.  “It’s best to just stake ’em.”

“Oh, I think we could find something that would hurt,” Ed’s mom pointed out.  “I have some garlic saved up from the garden.  Or I could run the hose, making it cold running water.  Or spill poppy seeds.   Or something.  I’m sure we could find something.”

I looked at Ed.

He shrugged.  “Mom’s always had her own opinions.  Anyway, that’s maybe why I don’t find you so strange.”

“What do you do for a living, ma’am?” Hawk asked.

“I don’t know if that’s a polite question, but I’m retired now, honey.  I did a little bit of this and that, just enough to make the ends meet.”  She smiled.  “Nothing to worry you boys.”

“Spy,” Hawk, Ed, and I said at the same time.  At least two of us were kidding.

She laughed.  “Cook,” she countered.  “Housewife.  Couple of other odd jobs, that’s all.  Let me keep my mystery.”

“Proving my point, exactly,” I grinned, taking the edge off any retort.  “Could be worse.  You could be a writer.”

“Um,” Ed started.

“Shush,” his mom said, winking.

“The plot thickens,” I smiled again, and finished off my apple crisp, staring at Matana.

The vampire began to cry.  Just little sniffles, and the occasional jerk of her shoulders, twisted as they were.  She couldn’t quite turn away, anyway, and her face kind of scrunched.  I felt like a bit of a heel, but I was still pretty mad.  And pretty tired, all things considered. 

“It won’t happen again,” she said, finally.

“Only one way to make sure of that,” Hawk said, almost cheerfully.

“I didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know what?”

“A lot of things,” she admitted, but it was a distancing technique.  She was figuring out how much to lie, and how much truth to tell.  “He’s not…” she looked for a word.  “He’s not entirely what I expected.”

“I think she’s complimenting you, Ed,” I grinned.

“Trying to explain why he smells like bacon, are you?” Hawk leaned over near her.  “I’ve got you figured, vampire.  You got a little excited, went over the edge, and it would have been a tragic accident, I’m certain.”

It finally clicked why it didn’t sound right.  Matana was classy, held herself together.  “It’s the war, isn’t it?” I asked.

“The war?” Hawk and Ed’s mom both narrowed their eyes.

Matana nodded, very slightly.  She narrowed her eyes, too.  “I think I might be being played,” she admitted.

“Welcome to the club.”  I sighed.  “Hawk, let’s let her up.  Ed, go brew some coffee.  My sister likes it, too.”

“Bring her into the kitchen.  That way, if you still want to stake her, I can mop up easily,” Ed’s mom suggested, taking her knitting stuff and leading the way into the house.

Hawk pulled me away from Matana.  He knew, and I knew, that the hearing of the parasite inhabiting her was all psychic and that the vaunted hearing of sexy love muffin vampires still had to go through human body constraints.  On the other hand, I think the body language said a lot more than his hissed, “What are you doing?”

“The right thing, for the moment.”

“The right thing is to stake the,” and he used a word that didn’t actually rhyme with “vampire,” but more with the troubles at hand, “and have done with it.”

“Look, last night I would have gone down Colfax and gotten her a tattoo on the forehead that read, `There’s no such thing as a good vampire,'” I said, “and I wouldn’t have had a problem with it.  I’ve thought about it.  Spike and Angel had maturity issues, and Blade’s quest for mortality was as lethal as his counterparts’ quests for immortality.”

“What?” Hawk backed off a moment, looking confused at my point.

“They’re, um, fictional vampires.  Let’s not even get into the squishy sex fest types.  None of them are good.  But I am, or at least I’m trying to be, and I’m not going to make a permanent decision based on a temporary mistake.”

“She’ll kill, you know.”

“Yeah.  And then I’ll have you on speed dial, and you can do whatever you like.  But in the meantime, unless Ed wants to push the button, I think she was innocent of all but malice.”

“Huh.”

“And maybe malice, too.  I don’t know.  She seems fairly nice for a bloodsucking soul-destroyer.”  I made sure she could hear the last part.  She rolled her eyes obligingly.

Hawk muttered but helped me unstake her.   It was eerie to see a few drops of blood slowly roll back into her veins, like some kind of movie effect, as the skin drew itself together like tiny mouths closing from where the stakes had been.  It had been a very good apple crisp so I hadn’t wanted to lose it.  I looked away and got my bearings.

She dusted herself off.  She had been wearing a very nice red dress, and now it was a nice red dress with a perfect stain on it, and some damage about the bosom.  

“I want a shower,” she said, “and a cup of coffee.”

“I want answers,” I said. 

“I want a bite of that apple crisp.”

“I want a replica airplane and a Guinness,” Hawk joined in, with such a blank expression I had to actually focus to see that his mouth was crinkled as if he were joking.

“I guess if we’re making wish lists, I want a couple hours of sleep, a good meal, and to finish reading the latest X-men, but we’re here, instead.  Coffee and apple crisps seem to be on the menu.”  I followed them inside.

Ed’s mother had one of those television kitchens with the island in the middle that you could cook on, or install a stripper pole, or whatever amused you.  It had that much room.  And a skylight.  It was very clean, and there was a row of cookbooks all shapes and sizes on a shelf against the wall across from the oven.  They all looked very worn, and loved.  Kind of how my Guy Gavriel Kay collection is, really.  I really should get a second copy of The Summer Tree.

Ed’ s mom had set out some plates of apple crisp and was busy making some whipped cream from real heavy whipping cream.  I was used to the bottled kind, so I had to ask what she was doing.  Ed offered Matana some coffee.

“So, I’m like, out of ideas,” Ed said.  He was drinking his own cup, and pointed to the stack of coffee mugs in case Hawk or I were interested.  His mug read, “#1 of 1,” in a cursive-like font with a blue ribbon stenciled on it.

Hawk’s hand hovered over the mugs, but mostly I think he was evaluating which cute saying was going to least burden his macho image.  I had read most of them before when I had Thanksgiving with Ed and his mom.

“I think we’ll have turkey pot pies for lunch.  Will you gentlemen be joining us?” his mom said, as if that was what Ed was talking about.  She pulled out a rolling pin and some small ceramic pie plate things.  “And, of course, the creature of the night.”

“These are good apple crisps,” the creature of the night said. 

“Man, I want nap time so bad I can taste it,” I said, yawning in the middle of it.  “Ed, no one expects you to have all the answers.   We’re just the worst torturers in the world.”

“We didn’t make anyone listen to our rap duet.”

“True.  That would bring us up a few notches, but it’s not like Vogon poetry.”

“Fruity cereal does not rhyme with sex appeal.”

“I’ll tell you anything,” Matana said, “as long as you don’t ever repeat those words again.”

“See?  We’re not that bad.”  I sat down.  “So.  Where were you on the night of July 12th, 2004?”

She blinked.  “I was…”

I cut her off.  “Nevermind.  It was a test.  A  joke, really.” I paused.  “Do you really remember?”

She grinned.  “Now you’ll never know.”  She stretched out her legs.  “You magical dilettantes are all alike.  Soaking up every piece of information you can in order to trade it for more somewhere down the line.”

“Huh.  I like to put it in the same place I put all those books I read on survival skills.”

“You read books on survival skills?” this from Hawk.

“I know that for the best value I should kill and eat a bear rather than a rabbit.  I should be so lucky as to get stranded somewhere there’s bananas, hot springs, and coconuts, if those Discovery survival shows are of any use.  Oh, and avoid the tripod leaves.”

Hawk just smiled, blinked, and nodded his head slowly.  “Sure.”

Matana grinned.  “I think you broke him.”

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.”

“I kind of thought she was very…capable. Which is a form of insanity, I suppose,” I mused.

“Your insanity or hers?” Matana asked, seriously.

“Both, certainly. If you think that your limits magically are at least somewhat drawn by your perception of your talents. Mind over antimatter. Those perceptions are influenced by the observers as well. I might just be crazy because we dated so long. What does a big Mover want from someone who barely shows up as a blip on the radar?”

“The course of true love, and all that?” Matana teased.

“It was never true love. It was mutual lust for a while, and then mutual control struggles, and sometimes it was just mutual availability. I’m not complaining, but to categorize it as love would be inaccurate.”

“Who do you love?” Matana made it sound important.

“A ridiculous question, and I wonder why everyone keeps wanting me to answer it. Heck, I love Ed in his own way, well, in my own way because his own way isn’t the way I sway. Or swing. Or whatever. I love long walks on the beach in moonlight, or I did before I saw the projected numbers for kelpies in the San Francisco Bay area. I love chocolate ice cream, but in a way I love vanilla, too. I’d go out with strawberry, but I’d go down on Rocky Road, if you know what I mean.”

“Has the question come up before?” she asked.

“So it is all about me,” I finally grinned at Matana, daring her to say it wasn’t.

“The pieces of the puzzle with your touch on them, yes. I think there are bigger pictures you cannot see from your perspective. It is, as you say, a small fish’s view.” She granted it to me with the backhand. “But who you love is your own business. Do not let anyone take it as a vote for a faction, or even a vote against.”

“The witch war?” I asked.

“I refuse to participate. I should be granted the exemption given what I am.”

“Why are they after any of us? Isn’t this something Big Fish Mover Mags should be handling?”

“Whether or not you or I have any opinion in the matter, Magdalene may have chosen to include us in her resources. We are, of course, witnesses to the arrangement made about Sylvia.”

“Wait, about her?”

“She was the fulcrum to the event, and we but pieces on the game board. Once marked as a pawn, it is a long journey to become anything like a Queen.”

“I hate chess metaphors. Although, if it’s a checkers metaphor I jumped the wrong piece for sure.” I grinned.

“I am not at liberty to make judgments on your social life, am I?” she asked, but her smile belied the truth of her question. She was a woman, and a witch, and therefore she’d gossip without my permission if need be. She was also polite and ushered in the social illusion that she wouldn’t. Yeah, it sounds sexist, but I had only my own anecdotal evidence to prove it. Of course, I started it.

“What, you want a potshot-free zone?” I asked, making it sound like the entire thought was ridiculous.

“I cannot expect seriousness from you,” she said, as if it were a law of nature. I thought I heard a snigger from Ed’s mom in the kitchen, but I had been aware she’d been listening in, so I guess I was lucky I wasn’t getting her thirty-two cents.

“Probably true,” I pointed out. “Which is why I’m going to come back to the point. So, you’re alive and kicking, if still evil, because I am convinced that your predatory tendencies were artificially, in this case magically, enhanced in order to get you and Ed both in trouble. You’re too smooth an operator to just lose control.”

“Thank you, I think,” she said crisply.

I continued. “What do you know about the dead Sylvie situation?”

“I am afraid I don’t follow.”

“Afraid is fine. Sylvia’s body was last seen in a coroner’s van heading from my place, where she had fallen from a great height onto my rental car. I spoke with some mind-numbed police for a long time, and if it hadn’t been for,” I paused, “a friend, I probably would have had a bad time of it. I’ve been since told that it wasn’t really her, but someone’s knocking pins down and I don’t think we’re using bowling metaphors now.”

She sat there, looking at me, with one hand propping up her chin. She was watching me for who knows what reactions, or scents, or whatever it was the parasite gave her in the way of perception. She went very still, as if communing with her inner leech, then nodded, abruptly.

“A simulacrum could do it,” she said.

I sighed and banged my forehead against the table a few times. “Yeah, that’s what I got. So they’ve moved suspicion to me but managed to move Sylvia somewhere. Do you know what arrangement was made about her?”

“She’s become…” she pauses. “Do you understand the terminology when I say ‘Avatar’?”

“I have a feeling that if I say I saw it in 3-D you’re going to lose that vaunted self-control,” I grinned. “You meant more like an incarnation, right?”

Matana nodded.

“But not for a deity. I know the Shadow King is on the level of a deposed god, but the rule of thumb is the more powerful the more rules. So if you incarnate a deity into mortality, you’re gaining a lot of rules and a lot of power and a lot of fragility. That’s why they don’t do it unless they have a back-up plan.” I frowned. “What’s the back-up plan?”

“You’re ahead of me,” she admitted. “I haven’t gone that direction.”

“I have to think of it from the little fish’s perspective. For me, it’s a matter of what doors are opening and closing. The Shadow King closed his door into Peredur’s realm in exchange for marking me. He infused my shadow and made trouble with the -cubi because his realm is wrath, and lust and wrath work well together. That’s all conjecture. He helped the -cubi intersect somehow to this realm without opening a door, exactly, but if my guess is right, the bargain with Sylvie is to pull a Messenger through without actually opening anything except…her.”

“You aren’t asking, ‘Why her?'” Matana noticed.

“It’s not particularly relevant. I knew she had a certain weakness to the -cubi when I met her, and found out she was powerful. But I know this is just a me-oriented perspective. What am I leaving out and what’s the real goal here?”

“Would you like some more lemonade? Coffee?” Ed’s mom interrupted

I figured her interruption wasn’t just her being a good hostess. As people, real people, we’re allowed to be rude to our guests. It still means something, of course, but I’d been around enough to probably be counted as family and could get my own darn lemonade.

“Meaning you have a thought?” I asked her.

“I have lots of thoughts, dear, not the least of which is that your narcissism is oriented in such introspective analysis that you almost seem humble.”

“Uh, thanks, I guess. Oh, wait. I am interpreting that for a insignificant sense of well-being.” I smirked. “I don’t know if it’s unfair to suggest that I only really focus on the things I can change.”

“Well, it is the first step for a number of self-help and self-actualization manuals,” Ed’s mom mused. “I just listen and hear that your superpower is really super tunnel vision.”

“Can’t make popcorn with that,” I sighed.

“Oh, it’s a type of laser, for certain, intense in beam and focus,” she smiled. “Now, before I let Matana answer, I have two questions. The first is, are your cube-eye,” she said it carefully, “really creatures of lust or are they of passions? Because wrath is a passion, too.” She held out a hand while pouring the lemonade with the other, indicating for me to stay quiet. “The second is more philosophical. If what you’re saying about the idiosyncratic effects of observation on what you call magic is plausible and not just a new age handwave implying physics and that ineffable quantum,” she grinned, “do you really want to open yourself up to a bigger pond?”

“Huh. You were paying attention.” I thought about it.

“Every time you and Ed spoke, too,” she wasn’t quite smiling, but she wasn’t having me on, either.

Matana nodded slowly. “Fight Club,” she said. The corners of her mouth twitched.

I grinned. “Yeah, it’s the basis of all those rules in secret societies, too. Don’t open your mouth or ears unless you want to be bound by the rules. Heck, it’s part of the baptism ceremony in a way. It’s your opt-in to the whole cycle.” I sighed.

Matana shrugged. “I could tell you all sorts of East Coast gossip and manueverings. Presuming that I see more than what I’m involved in is, indeed, presumptuous.” She smiled a little, more genuine smile. I wish she weren’t the type I was attracted to, sometimes. “There are physical boundaries mapped to this world as well as,” she shrugged again, “others. Sometimes we attract the interest of things to which we are but krill, and their great eye sees past all of this.” She shivered.

“Yeah, great old eyes,” I muttered.

She nodded that strange nod again. “But to gain their attention is still to be but a flash in the waters they travel.”

“A flash as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced,” I said, smoothly. Alas, Ed was asleep, or he would have caught the reference.

“But it is still a flash,” she said. “And it still garnered attention. The worlds of Dragons,” she smiled as if to say, “for example,” and then continued, “are vaster and richer than many, and yet, that philosophy,” she used the word Ed’s mom had, “has that there are things that are Dragons to the Dragons.”

“Tarrasques,” I muttered.

Matana shrugged. She probably hadn’t played those editions. “Whatever they are called,” she said. “This area has a lot of activity, but not a lot of,” she chose a word deliberately, “leadership.”

“Great, is this the age of a hundred kingdoms or just the post-apocalyptic gang war stage?” I asked, leaning back. “We have some folks I’d consider serious Ms and Ses, and two Dragons I personally know of in the metro.”

“Maybe,” Ed’s mom asked, from where she sat back down with her knitting, “you should ask how you got involved with them.”

I looked at her for a moment. Why was she knitting? Who was she knitting for? I was suddenly seized with the desire, nay, the requirement to know. I was about to ask her, when my mouth closed and my mind went somewhere else. I opened my mouth again with effort. “Doloise said she had been misdirected…” I closed my eyes to try to remember. “Doctor of places in-between, compensated for a simple portal closed by one anchored to mortal blood. Compensated? Anchored? Huh.” Too many meanings for too many words, and I might have gotten them wrong. “Do the fey have doctors?” I asked.

Matana shrugged. “I suppose they must have healers.”

“Magical healing is mostly a myth, I thought.” Of course, I’d seen what had happened to Matana’s wrists, and felt that vision bring a little bit of dizziness. “It’s mostly a time dilation back to healthy or forward to healed, and time manipulation has its own side effects, right?”

Matana shook her head. “Attempting to quantify real magic like that would just leave you vulnerable.” She smiled.

“Even if I don’t have the language for the rules, it has rules,” I smiled back, but I was adamant.

She shrugged. Agreeing to disagree was the coward’s way out, right?

“So, this salon on the philosophy of knowledge is all well and good, but where does it leave us?” I asked, stretching.

“Close enough to lunch to start waking the lovebirds?” Ed’s mom asked, inclining her head towards the couch.

“Do I have to?” I whined. “Let me think if I have any smart questions.”

Ed’s mom raised her eyebrow and it clearly meant, “Do we have time for that?” I ignored her.

“Seriously. The truth is, I need to know what the Shadow King is doing, and what the Messenger’s goal is. Matana, what’s your plan?”

“Lunch,” she said. “And then telling Magda that I will return to my home as I find her hospitality wanting.”

“Peredur will just let you go like that?” I teased. I could see that I had struck a hit of some sort, but since I was just joking, I hadn’t meant it. Still, her smile faded and something was disturbed in her manner.

I frowned. I had gotten it backwards. She had told Peredur that I was under protection, and he thought it was some chick thing that I took to mean Doloise. So, in a way, she had stood up to a Dragon for me.

It didn’t mitigate the fact that she was still a bloodsucking mind-controlled creature of the night, but I guess I could spare a little bit of sympathy. “Hey, look, it’s none of my business,” I said, trying to brush it off lightly. “Man, this thing got messed up since Ed and I went drinking after the nymph business,” I said, shrugging.

“Nymph business?” she asked. Her eyes narrowed, as if she was suspicious.

“Uh,yeah. You know. Nymphs, related to goblins, premise of the horticulture `but you can’t make her think’ joke?” I shrugged. They weren’t any biggie – except that I seemed to be allergic to some of them. It was probably something to do with pollen.

“Aren’t they related to your cube-eye?” Ed’s mom asked, and Matana’s eyes went wide.

“No, they’re plant creatures,” I started, and Matana cut me off.

“Perhaps they’re what grows in the -cubi dimension,” she said, slowly. We pronounced it with less “you” in the word.

I didn’t understand why it was important. The nymph I ran into had been sown of wild 80’s magazines, which would be more Hall & Oates than regular oats. Yeah, yeah, I didn’t mention the joke aloud because it wasn’t funny. I shook my head. “There wasn’t any connection.”

“Law of magic,” Matana snapped at me.

“Coincidence still exists,” I said, wounded. Of course, it had been the third opening of the night of dubious portent. I still remembered the one in the bathroom of the bar. Huh. I wasn’t a rain god’s portal-causing cousin. Portals don’t love me and follow me and drown me in places unknown.

But, as I had just been schooled, I had a case of tunnel vision. If all you can do is close doors, everything looks like it has a frame. Or some such metaphor. That it’s knockable? Probably, but that wasn’t it. Doorknob? Hinges? Everything looks like it has hinges. That’s works.

Maybe someone had been trying to tell me something.

I was tired. Things were either making too much or not enough sense. Either way, I needed rest. I wasn’t going to leave Ed’s mom alone with Matana, though, and I’d promised Hawk I’d pin her down (although a little less literally) until after lunch.

I knew. I’d sic my sister on her.

With one thing and another, I didn’t get a great nap, but I got a nap, which was as important as anything. Ed woke me up for pot pies, Matana got a ride from my sister and the special of the day, and Ed was happy to report that Matana was rightfully disturbed by my family.

He was taking me home in fairly companionable silence. “So, what do you think about Matana leaving?” he finally asked.

“Do you think I believe her or did you have something else in mind?” I asked.

“Well, she could still withdraw from her classes. And what was with that? Werewolf physiology? Was that a,” he grinned, “shaggy dog story or something?”

“I thought it was an oblique reference about exercising her demons,” I offered.

He groaned, as if wounded. “Is that how werewolves work, too? Demons inside them?”

“I’m scared to speculate right now,” I said, yawning. “I think it’s similar, but a bit more magical. But it’s like the sixteen million different kinds of vampires, there are a lot of different kinds of werewolves, and reasons to mix the two.”

“I asked Matana about were-… you know, iguanas, and stuff like that.”

“What did she say?”

“She was quiet and then said that shapeshifting is not the manner of men.” He shrugged. “It sounded like half a quote, really.” He glanced over at me.

I shifted in my seat, thinking. “Huh. Maybe I do get the physiology bit, because in a way, we’re shapeshifting constantly. It’s just that except for what we term cancer, we only follow the map of our genetics.”

“So shapeshifting is magical cancer?”

“Or magical gene therapy,” I countered, grinning.

He gave another shrug. “Thanks for showing up.” He meant, “I didn’t mean to freak out on you.”

“Of course,” I said. It meant, “You’re welcome, bro.” It was quiet for a while. “So, a unicorn?” I asked, finally.

“Dude, it’s not the virgin thing,” he said quickly.

“So, there is a virgin thing?” I teased.

“You’re twisting my words, jerk.” He grinned a little, though. “We’re walking back to the house after drinks, and she’s not leaning on me anymore. She’s kind of spooking me out, and I see fangs like she’s Venom or something, mouth wide,” he shuddered. “It gets pretty bad, and we’re tussling, and then I look up, and bright as freakin’ day, except that it was after midnight, comes trotting up this mean looking beast like a Cadillac cruising down the street, and then it blurs and smacks into her with a powder-blue horn. This perfect hit, and it snorts your name.” He gripped the steering wheel a little harder. “There’s blood exploded everywhere, Matana is down, and I’m trying to find my phone. The thing lowers its head with this bloody horn, and then just stares at me.”

Ed wasn’t looking at me, or the traffic, just memory for a moment. He shook it off.

“Anyway, I called you. You were right, okay?”

“Can’t give you an `I told you so.'” I said. “It didn’t say anything else? Give you a riddle or something?”

“No, it was kind of unambiguous with a big splat.” He was quiet, though.

“There something else?”

“Dude, it was a unicorn.”

“I’ve never seen one,” I pointed out. “Wouldn’t have known they existed.”

“You’ve been talking Dragons. Dragon-this, Dragon-that, and they’re big in my mind. Huge. They’ve got the whole aura of shadowy awesome the Balrog has. Why can’t there be anything so beautiful? And it was. And it wasn’t. It was savage, and yet, refined. A sense of power. I can’t…”

“Can I trade in my ‘I told you so,’ for envy?” I asked.

He grinned.