He climbed back into the bed and pressed his lips against Keith’s cheek.

Keith lay awake as Gunther fell into a doze, feeling the slight warmth of pure capsaicin left behind in the shape of a kiss and wondering what the hell he was going to do now.

Chapter Nine

For the first time in two years, Keith dreamed about his old restaurant. He had thought that he would dream about it more than he did. It was as though even his subconscious mind remained too wounded to venture back into his own kitchen.

He knew he was in a dream. The department had trained him in lucid dreaming, trances, and astral projections as part of his basic course. But knowing one is in a dream and being able to control that dream world remained two different activities.

He stood behind the long, old-fashioned counter, regarding his sole customer, who sat drinking coffee and reading the paper. A snow goblin. A creature of made of angular bone with smoldering red slits for eyes. The goblin turned a page of paper, took a sip of coffee, and then shook a few dashes of hot pepper sauce into the liquid. He said, “I think we should check out that film festival.”

“Can’t. I’m working.”

The goblin folded the paper shut and said, “Not everything is about food, you know.”

“To me it is. This is my whole life. It’s everything I know.” He became aware of the fact that he hadn’t finished his prep work for the dinner rush. Customers would be coming in hungry and wanting to be fed. Shadows moved outside his restaurant’s front window, some stopping to read the menu posted there. Somewhere in the background he could hear the sound of the dishwasher playing reggae and clanking dishes together. He had to get to work. Keith went to pick up his chef’s knife from the cutting board, but he couldn’t find it. Instead his mage pistol sat atop a neatly folded bar towel. How could he have left it sitting out? He lifted it and slid it into the holster under his left shoulder. The goblin, Gunther, glanced up.

“You look good wearing that,” he remarked, tapping a cigarette out of a pack. “It suits you.”

He felt a slight bump, then a hand on his knee. The restaurant dissolved. He opened his eyes to see the inside of a plane cabin. The private plane used by agents on assignment. Gunther sat across from him, leaning forward, shaking his knee slightly.

“We’re touching down,” he said.

Outside Keith could see the flat expanse of the Boise airport. The evening sky had gone the color of cantaloupe and cured ham, tinged at the edges with lavender. A Provençal-flavored sky, Keith thought.

“I was dreaming,” he said blearily.

“Was it prophetic?”

“No, just a normal dream.” Keith shifted in his seat to pull on his coat. “You were in it though.”

“Was I?” Gunther sat back, apparently pleased by this information.

“You were made of bone.”

“How did I look?”

Keith thought of telling him. Frightening. Strange. The shape of his nightmares. Instead he said, “Good…You looked good.”

***

As was standard, a government car was waiting for them—a big one. Keith had never been to Idaho before. As far as he could tell everything had been made to accommodate at least a family of six. Especially the cars. Or rather, the SUVs. They crowded the roads and lined up in neat rows in the ample parking lots.

DuPree’s house was located in a section of the old town called The Bench, which was what the natives called the one bluff that bisected the city. Houses there were, like everything else, large. Even DuPree’s old arts and crafts style home, which must have been a mansion when it had been built in the early forties.

The house looked exactly like a place where a vampire would live. Surrounded by a wrought-iron fence posted with pressed tin Keep Out and Beware of Dog signs.

“Do you think he really has a dog?” Gunther asked.

“If the dog is as old as the sign, it must be a revenant by now.” Keith pressed the button mounted on the front gate. He expected a voice to come at him from some hidden intercom speaker. Instead the front door opened fractionally. A man’s pale face peeked out. He appeared to be in his mid-fifties with thick, gray-streaked hair and a thin, beaky face.

“Who’s there?” The voice was thin and reedy.

“NIAD.” Keith held up his identification. He didn’t know if DuPree could read it in the dark. Probably. “We have some questions to ask you.”

DuPree crept from the door, looking furtively to the now-dark sky, then toward the neighbors on either side, before he slunk down the sidewalk toward them. He was dressed in a black turtleneck and slacks, which made his spindly limbs seem even more spidery.

He gave Keith a long, suspicious look, then turned to Gunther. DuPree sniffed the air obtrusively, his mouth half open. When he did, his expression brightened considerably. He whispered, “You’re trans-goblin, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir. Gunther Heartman.” He, too, showed his ID.

“Oh, good.” DuPree seemed inordinately relieved by this. He unlocked the gate and Keith started through. DuPree leaped back.

“Please don’t come too close, Agent Curry. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I have a phobia of humans.” His voice shook slightly.

This was new. Keith didn’t think he’d ever heard of anything so ridiculous in his life. A hunter being afraid of his prey.

“May we come inside,” Keith said.

“I certainly can’t stop you, can I?” DuPree remarked. He said this without particular malice, just making a statement of fact.

After waiting for DuPree to lock the gate behind them, they followed him into his disheveled old living room. Books and papers were everywhere: stacked on tables and chairs, forming leaning, waist-high towers against the wall. Most of the furniture seemed to have been acquired in the forties as well. There were a couple of deco beige couches and silver modernist lamps.

“Please sit down.” DuPree indicated the only clear couch in the room. He kept well away from Keith. “Can I get you a soda? I have several flavors.”

“No, thank you. Would you mind showing your cuff, please?” The vampire’s nervousness was making Keith edgy. Gunther didn’t seem phased by it. “We need to verify that it’s working.”

“Could Agent Heartman do the cuff verification please? I mean no offense, Agent Curry, but if you come too close I might hyperventilate.” DuPree said this apologetically.

Gunther smiled easily. “Sure.”

He approached DuPree with no obvious caution or concern and this seemed to settle the vampire somewhat. Once Gunther had established that DuPree’s cuff was both present and sending out the correct signal, he took his seat beside Keith on the couch.

DuPree remained standing, hand on the mantelpiece of his empty fireplace. “What can I do for you?”

“We’re here about Janice Sounder. Her husband said she was supposed to be here visiting you.” Gunther took the lead.

“Yes, but she never arrived. I phoned several times, but she isn’t answering her cell,” DuPree said. “I even called her awful master, but he says he hasn’t seen her. I’m terribly worried about her.”

“Why is that?” Keith asked. He didn’t miss DuPree’s use of the word master—nor did he miss the fact that DuPree didn’t seem fond of Sounder. DuPree also appeared to be under the impression that Janice was still alive, but he could just be casting a good glamour. A person couldn’t trust body language when an extra-human’s real body wasn’t visible.

“Because she hasn’t arrived.” DuPree seemed to feel he was stating the obvious. “She was flying on a night flight, but you can never be sure about airplanes these days. Flights get delayed. I’ve been checking the news to see if there were any cases of spontaneous combustion.”

“What is your relationship to Janice?” Gunther asked.

“She wrote me a fan letter about ten years ago,” DuPree said. “We started a correspondence. At first neither of us knew the other was a vampire, but after a couple of years we discovered we were kindred spirits, so to speak.”