Academy going for more than two hundred years if we didn’t have “enough sense” to cooperate toward longtime goals? The truth, I figured, probably had more to do with fighting among vampire groups. There was no one established vampire society, and that gave a tightly organized force like Black Cross an edge.
Raquel asked Milos, “What was different that time?”
“There was this one vampire—Stigand, he called himself—who got them riled up. Made them band together. That one was dangerous.” A cold smile stole across Milos’s face. He had a different attitude toward danger than most people. “He brought ’em in after us. Killed a lot of good fighters that day and totally ruined our old HQ. Eliza took him out, though—hit him with a spray of gasoline and the flamethrower.” Chuckling, he added, “You should’ve heard him scream.”
Nauseated, I turned my head away from Milos and Raquel. I didn’t know whether I was hiding my disgust or keeping myself from seeing their pleasure in a vampire’s death. At first I wasn’t even looking at what was before my eyes, but then Black Cross training took over, forcing me to evaluate the scene and every person we passed.
Then quickly, I realized that I knew the man across the street. I knew him from my dream the night before.
It came back to me now in more detail: I’d been with Lucas in a movie theater, the kind of dream that’s half a memory—in this case, of our first date. But the theater wasn’t rich and plush any longer. It was run-down and littered, the seat upholstery ripped and the screen empty of any image. I had been looking around wildly for Lucas, and instead I had seen this man, the one with the reddish-brown dreadlocks.
The wraith, floating next to me, had whispered, The two of you have mutual friends.
In the dream I hadn’t known him. But I recognized him now.
“There,” I whispered. “Is that—is he—?”
“You mean, a vampire?” Raquel peered at him with interest, as did Milos.
My heart sank. Had I just identified a vampire to the hunters? A vampire who was passing by without their notice? Had I just gotten him killed?
The dreadlocked vampire was in his element, though. He strolled beneath one building’s dark-green canopy, nodded at the doorman, and went on in—safe at home.
I breathed out in relief, too loudly. Milos shot me a look. “You don’t want to fight? You’re with the wrong group.”
“Give her a break,” Raquel said. “It’s still scary for us, okay? We’ll get tough in time.”
“Maybe you will at that.” Milos kept staring at the apartment door. “We’ll have to do a stakeout here sometime—no pun intended. For now we check the back alleys. See who else is roaming around here and not nearly ready to go home.”
We continued searching the neighborhood, and to my immense relief, Raquel and I were able to split off from Milos. Raquel kept gushing on and on about how smart I was to spot a vampire like that, when he wasn’t up to anything and didn’t have any of the signs. It just made me feel like more of a traitor.
I cast around for something else to talk about and, almost at random, said, “Hey, where were you guys when we came back last night? You didn’t respond to Eliza’s call.”
“Oh. Dana and I were…”
“Were what?”
Raquel paused. It wasn’t like her to avoid a simple question. Ducking around a lady on the sidewalk who carried three big shopping bags in each hand, I repeated, “Were what?”
“We were off together on our own. Alone. So we’d have some—you know—some space.”
I shrugged. What was the big deal?
Then I saw the hesitation on Raquel’s face, and the hopeful light in her eyes, and I realized that I was just about the blindest person on the face of the earth. “You and Dana are—”
“Me and Dana.” Raquel grinned, the brightest smile I’d ever seen on her face, just for a split second, like she couldn’t hold it in any longer. But her uncertainty returned quickly. “That doesn’t make you feel weird, does it?”
“Some,” I confessed, “but only because you never said anything. After all the stuff we’ve told each other, you could’ve told me this.”
“You never know who’s going to be strange about it. Besides, you kept trying to fix me up with guys.”
“I tried to fix you up with Vic. One guy. Not plural.” My head was spinning a little. At least talking about her love life had distracted Raquel—and me. “I just never guessed.”
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