Laws of the Blood 2: Partners by Susan Sizemore Page B

in front of her and took a seat on the opposite side of the table.
    “You used to say please and thank you, Char-lotte.”
    “Stop calling me that! And thank you,” Char added, almost automatically. She was even more hungry than she was polite, so Char the Enforcer set about eatingThanksgiving dinner provided by charity in a homeless shelter while a mentally disturbed companion looked on with folded hands and a benign smile. Char was not used to surreal these days, even though surreal came with the territory. People who grew fangs and liked blood with their sex really should not be too freaked by anything the universe threw their way.
    “You’ve been out of the loop, Char—”
    “Don’t say it.”
    “Almost as much as I have,” Della finished. “Things don’t stop being bizarre unless you live in the weird every night.”
    This—advice?—made a certain twisted sense to Char, even though she resented Della reading her mood and thoughts so well. “I’ve never lived in the weird, as you put it.”
    “I remember.” Della gave her a look of pure hatred. “Jimmy kept you sheltered.” There was nothing benign in her smile anymore. “Jimmy’s gone now.”
    Char was tempted to taunt back that at least Jimmy Bluecorn wasn’t dead, but she wasn’t that unkind. And talking about their equally lost vampire lovers would only hurt them both. “Tell me about your missing people,” she said. “You think they were killed?”
    “Throwaways always getting killed. Drugs kill ‘em. Drink. Weather and accidents and violence.”
    “Your people, though.” Char looked around furtively. The other people in the room were giving them plenty of space for private conversation. She supposed you learned how to give and get privacy in such a communal world, but Char still settled for euphemism in this roomfull of mortals. “They went into the night?”
    Della laughed. “I haven’t heard that term in a while. Haven’t heard anything from the community—until somebody decided to use me to find her lost cub.”
    “But did you decide to help?” Char pushed her empty plate aside and leaned across the table to grasp Della’s wrists. “Why send those news clippings? What about your missing people?”
    “Some of the ones who didn’t come back should have.”
    “You think they were killed?”
    Della nodded, shook her head, and shrugged.
    Char almost screamed at the futility of trying to hold a conversation with this woman. She shouldn’t have come to Della. Then again, she hadn’t consciously come to Della. She recalled setting out to check the city on her own . . . then she was here.
    “What’s wrong with the city?”
    Della smiled in a most disturbing fashion. “You feel it. Places you can’t go.” She touched her forehead. “More holes in your head than there should be.”
    Char considered a moment before answering. “It’s what I don’t feel that’s . . . bothering me.” She almost said scaring but remembered in time that Enforcers weren’t scared of anything.
    Della’s smile turned to laughter. She said, “Magic’s in the air.”
    Char formed a question, but someone across the room caught her attention before she could speak. Her gaze shifted from Della to the small, compactly built man who had just stepped away from one of the groups. He wasdark-haired, his saturnine features enhanced by a goatee. A black T-shirt showed off muscular arms covered in colorful tattoos. He picked up a battered jacket and slipped into it while Char watched.
    “I know that man,” Char said. She just didn’t know where she knew him from. “Who is that?” she asked Della.
    Della barely glanced the man’s way. “Been sniffing around. Undercover something, but he doesn’t smell like a cop.” She looked at him directly this time and smiled a slow, thoughtful smile. “Got the gift, though.”
    Interesting, Char thought. She didn’t think she’d ever met the wiry, tattooed man, but she definitely knew him from