"Messy."

"Messy. It would forever destroy the natural balance of supernatural life and death and stir humans to unite and hunt us all down."

"Poppycock! Talk about a worst-case scenario. You sound like a global warming campaigner or a social scientist. Vampires have bitten werewolves. I know that. I've seen the half-weres here; have even been attacked by them."

"War is one thing. Love is another."

"I didn't know that vampires and werewolves could love."

"Anything can love. And anyone can be destroyed by it. Witness your petitioner in the mirror. What can you do for her, except feel pity?"

"You might be surprised." I was getting angry. The supernaturals were as hidebound in this town as the humans. Still, I'd found a fount of knowledge and was determined to drink him dry. Excuse the expression.

He didn't seem surprised that I could see the dead in mirrors. I suppose that was a minor human talent these post-Millennium Revelation days.

"You do have some tricks, for a human," he admitted. "I don't know how you broke into Cicereau's office twice or how you managed to sandbag me once. It won't happen again."

"I know," I answered. "I was just lucky."

"And lucky that Haskell is such a loser that even a crime boss like Cicereau hates his half-were guts."

"Maybe you couldn't help Loretta way back then, but you helped me plenty."

"What did I do?"

"Nothing." I lifted my cocktail glass and waited for him to chime rims, projecting my most appealing girly vibes. "That was a big help."

He nodded and toasted my admission. He could have tipped Cicereau off about my ability to break and enter, but he didn't. That also left him on shaky ground if he wanted to squeal on me to Cicereau now.

"Tell me about being a daylight vampire. Does a guy like you get to rock around the clock? When do you eat, drink?"

"You looking for a dinner date?"

"Maybe."

Sansouci had spilled as many guts as he was going to this session, I figured. I might as well find out how personally dangerous he was.

He leaned back. "You still have a little blood on your lip."

"How careless of me." I pulled out the tiny, mirrored lipstick case that fit so well into one of the police belt's pockets, then dabbed at my lower lip with the tip of my little finger. It burned.

I checked Sansouci. He was sitting back looking stoic, but intent. I imagined he'd looked like this when he had witnessed the "preview" of my enforced Gehenna "act" with Madrigal.

I'd been magically suspended in air, nude, with a huge boa constrictor twining my legs and torso to hide the naughty bits. Madrigal had bent down as if to kiss me and instead extracted a ruby-jeweled apple from my mouth. Decadent remnants of Eve and Eden and the serpent and apple would certainly appeal more to a long-lived vampire like Sansouci than the werewolf nation.

I opened my tiny Lip Venom bottle, tilted it upside down on my fingertip, and dabbed it over my lower lip, painting on a stinging, sparkly swath of juicy cherry red over my nicked skin.

"Nice," he said. "I can smell the spices from here. They mix well with your blood type and natural female-in-heat scent."

My pulse raced again. The trouble with trying to seduce someone just a little is you can seduce yourself a lot. I'd assumed werewolves and vampires would have extra-sensitive senses of smell. I didn't know it was this keen until he'd told me.

"So how do you get your blood suppers? You're not into butchered animal byproducts-?"

"Shut your mouth! I have a harem." He sounded satisfied and smug, like a man trying to impress a new girl.

Okay. I could feel myself looking shocked. But that didn't ruin the moment. If anything, it got him explaining more.

"A daylight vampire has twenty-four hours to feed. No need to drain any single…source… to death. Just a shallow bite, a few minutes or hours of slow, sweet sucking and fucking and I'm good to go until the next assignation. No one loses anything but time."

"They must come to you, since you're on call with Cicereau."

"Sure. You want I should pencil you in?"

"I'm not a serial supper."

"For you, I've got time for a six-course meal with a selection of appetizers and desserts."

Girl! Irma was frantic. You have got to let me loose in this town. You don't want to be the six-course buffet, let me at it!

"Still can't hide the fact that it's a one-way street, Sansouci. They give and you take."

"I give too," he said.

I chose not to examine that claim. "Thanks for explaining a few things." It's always good policy to appreciate a source.

"Thanks for the drink." He snagged my almost full Albino Vampire glass as I rose to leave.

Something… my Lip Venom or my blood, had left a crimson swipe on the wide martini-glass rim. I had a feeling that Sansouci was going to be nursing my signature cocktail for quite a while after I left, girly-looking or not.

Oooh! Irma cooed. Shivers of fear and a strange anticipation.

I realized then that danger was indeed an aphrodisiac.

Sansouci wasn't a half-vamp, a juvenile delinquent, or a ham actor who'd hit it big and come back as a CinSim. He was the real deal, a Las Vegas 24/7 vampire, hungry for primal things like blood and sex. Including mine.

Irma had a point.

Chapter Twenty-two

By the time I left the Dead Zone I was a little zonked. Whether that was on pain, Albino Vampires or the stress of interviewing a vampire with no warning, I didn't know.

I also had a lot of hot new info to process.

Sansouci was a vampire, not a werewolf, and a hostage as well?

A hostage free to move about the city.

They'd done something like that in the Middle Ages, when knighthood was in flower and honor was a word that came with a capital H. Rulers would guarantee their word and their willingness to compromise by sending their sons to an enemy's court.

That's why Sansouci hadn't run with Cicereau's rabid werewolves to track me down and tear me apart at the Starlight Lodge in the mountains that night.

He couldn't.

I'd like to think he wouldn't, but he was still a supernatural, and they tended to prey on humans. The xenophobic militants who wanted the supers exterminated en masse might be, ah, right about that.

"Sansouci" meant "without care" in French. Insouciant was the English word for it. Happy go lucky. I imagine Cicereau had christened his hostage that in a taunting moment. Sansouci must have had a lot of cares over the decades, especially when his special charge, Cicereau's young daughter, had been marked for death.

I'd have to ask Loretta about that the next time I was able to play Alice in Mirrorland. I was thinking hard about a lot of things. If I could find out the identity of Sansouci's opposite number-the werewolf prince who was sent over to the vampires-I'd know more about the vampire/werewolf war and also satisfy the demands of Howard Hughes, the CinSims, and Snow, get myself out from under having to deal with that mostly unsavory crew, and maybe have some fresh clout as well as dollars to spend in the New Las Vegas.

Self-congratulation is always a dangerous game. For one thing, it lulls your instincts.

I knew that even as the snarling, fanged beasts darted from the shadows and went for my throat.

Shadows. Shadow.

"Quicksilver, attack!" I shouted, drawing the two new pepper spray containers from my patrol officer's belt like twin six guns.

The attacking canines were large and hunch-backed, maybe eighty pounds each, with huge boar-like, small-eyed heads armed with carnivore teeth.

They danced in and away, nimble circus dogs, attacking and retreating cannily, their jaws ajar and snapping…animated bear traps.