" "Well, if he's got any doubts about that, I'll just stroll over and show him my fangs." "Well, if he's got any doubts about that, I'll just stroll over and show him my fangs. He looks like my type of guy." I dropped into a phony French accent. "A nice '58 type O, ze very good year for ze hemoglobin..." "Do that and you might be surprised at who winds up with the blood loss. Not all the bulges under that jacket are muscle. See the one under his arm?" "What, you mean the shoulder-holster? Since when do guns worry us?" "They should worry us a lot when they don't fire lead. That one's a dart gun adapted for six-inch wooden spikes. And he's reeeal good with it. Fast, too." "Well, what are we going to do about him, then?" Decker was staring at us, a distinctly mean look in those dark eyes. Even so, he was a handsome devil, with the kind of sharp, clean face you see on the cover of GQ--except his was just battered enough to keep from being too pretty. His hair was as dark as his eyes, scraped hard back and tied into a pony tail you could see when he turned his head. My fangs began to hurt just watching him. I'd only been half-joking in my offer to give him a nibble. "I don't know what you're going to do, but I'm killing the sonofabitch," Beau growled. "I played it legal the last time, but I'm not taking chances with that psycho again. He's toast." I was rather surprised at that homicidal announcement. Beau usually went out of his way not to hurt anybody; with his strength, he didn't need to. As for his "victims," he never took more than a pint or so. And they were usually moaning too loudly to notice. "I know this is a radical idea," I suggested, "but how about just talking to the silly sucker? It's not very macho, but..." "Talk?" Beau looked incredulous. "Amanda, you don't talk to men like that. When they make up their minds, they use cast iron sheets. And Jim Decker's mind is made up." I cut another glance toward the subject of our discussion. He'd shifted his full attention to me, staring with a fixed and unpleasant gleam. I had the feeling that he'd caught onto my vampiric status. |