Part 45 (2/2)

”I'd suggest you wander around and search for him, but you can't move in here. I guess we wait until he tries something. Why is it so smoky?”

Dean nodded toward the other side of the room. ”There's a smoking section.”

”And it's got one of those invisible barriers to keep the smoke away from the rest of us.”

”It does?” After the events of the last week, he wouldn't have been surprised.

”No. I was being sarcastic. I could create a barrier, we do it all the time when we have to contain some of the more noxious site emissions, but it would be fairly...” The spatial demands of a beefy young man in a Queen's football jacket caused an involuntary pause. ”... obvious by the end of the evening when the smokers started suffocating in their own toxic exhalations,” she finished, shoving her chair back out from the table.

The arrival of the waitress stopped conversation until the arrival of the drinks.

”Three seventy-five for a gla.s.s of ginger ale?” Claire tossed a ten onto the girl's tray. ”I could buy a liter for ninety-nine cents!”

”Not here,” the waitress said tartly, handing back her change.

”You don't go to pubs much, do you?” Dean asked, putting his own change back in his wallet and his wallet in his front pocket.

”What was your first clue?” She took a mouthful of the tepid liquid just as Sasha Moore stepped up onto the small stage at the other end of the room.

Dean pounded her on the back as she choked and coughed ginger ale out onto the table. ”Are you okay?”

”Except for a few crushed vertebrae, I'm fine.” Eyes wide, Claire stared at the woman in the spotlight. All masks were off. She was danger. She was desire. She was mystery. And no one else in the room realized why. Claire couldn't believe it. Sasha Moore had done everything but sit under a big neon sign that said, ”vampire,” and no one made the connection although everyone responded. Brows drawn down she watched Dean s.h.i.+ft in his seat. Everyone. ”There are none so blind...” she muttered.

”What?”

”Nothing.” Claire half expected Sasha to rely on the ”rabbits caught in the headlight” effect that predators had on prey, but she played it straight. At the end of the first set, after a heavily synthesized version of ”Greensleeves,” she acknowledged the applause and cut her way easily through an adoring audience to the table.

”A soft drink?” An ebony brow rose as her dark glance slid from Dean's beer to the gla.s.s in front of Claire. ”If you don't drink beer, the house wine isn't bad.”

”I don't drink wine,” Claire told her.

Sasha smiled, her teeth a ribbon of white in the darkness. ”Me either. So, is he here?”

”We haven't seen him.”

”Then I guess you'll have to stay until the end.”

Although she'd been about to say that they might as well leave, Claire found herself responding to the challenge. ”So it seems.”

Dean glanced from one to the other and realized there were undertows here strong enough to suck an unwary swimmer in deep over his head. He didn't understand what was happening, so he let instinct take over and did what generations of men had done before him in similar circ.u.mstances; he opened his mouth only far enough to drink his beer.

”So how was she?” Austin asked, his eyes squinted shut against the light.

”Pretty good, I guess.” Claire lifted the cat off her pillow and got into bed. ”They made her do two encores.”

”Ah, yes.” He climbed onto her stomach and sat down. ”The creatures of the night, what music they make.”

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