"Dingy, unsanitary, cheap?" she filled in archly.

"Not you," I temporized with a tact I didn't know I had in me.

"I think you might be surprised." She popped a cranberry from the muffin into her mouth and crushed it between white, white teeth. "This is a palace in comparison."

"In comparison to what?" I asked with genuine curiosity. All I knew about Promise was the here and now. Her history, her past… it was a mystery.

Her hands began to pink in the spill of sun reflecting on our table, and she quickly tucked them back under her cloak. "To where I was born." Her face was as smooth as always, but beneath that, I thought I saw an almost imperceptible tightening.

I couldn't remember precisely when I found out vampires were bom and not made, how old I was. I thought it was our first year on the run. Maybe. Part of that time was a little fuzzy. Two years in the tender loving care of the Auphe will do that to a person. I hadn't remembered any of those two years when I'd returned, still didn't, not consciously anyway. But it was clear that in the muck and slime beneath the conscious, something had lingered. For months after I'd reappeared, I'd slept under the bed, a tightly wedged fetal ball with a knife in hand and nightmares that were never remembered in the light of day.

Sixteen then. I would've been sixteen when we ran across the vampire children in the park. They were playing beneath a midnight sky. Running, jumping, laughing, they were just like human kids, except they were faster. And they could jump higher. Flat-footed they would leap into the branches of a tree, swing, and giggle. They were cute… bows, barrettes, and tiny baby fangs. It could've been a scene from one of those creepy horror novels with all the velvet, homo-erotic vampire nooky, and tormented vampire children who could never grow any older. And for a second I'd actually bought into that. Sickened, I'd stood beside Niko and waited for them to drop out of the tree and drain some night jogger dry.

Then we saw their mother.

Or maybe it was their nanny, babysitter… Who knew? There were quite a few kids, and as long as vampires lived, I couldn't believe they'd breed that fast. Whoever it was, she was pregnant. A pregnant vampire, elegant in white maternity wear—no black velvet for her. With glossy blond hair coiled on her head and large, dark eyes, she was the picture of contentment and impending motherhood. That is, until she saw us. Hormones—it was the same for pregnant humans and pregnant vampires. Cranky, cranky, cranky. She must've sensed we were different from the average park goer, whether it was the Auphe in me or the hunter in Niko. We ran. What else were we going to do? Stake a mom-to-be? As options went, it wasn't so hot. To sum it all up, vampires reproduce, not recruit, and pregnant vampires can still run pretty damn fast.

Live and learn.

"Where were you born?" The waitress refilled my cup with more coffee-flavored sludge. I dumped three sugar packets in it and waited for it to cool. Caffeine and sugar, they were my new best friends.

"Seven hundred years from here," she said obliquely before giving me the shadow of a smile. "I'm an older woman. Don't tell your brother."

I was sure he already knew. I was sure he knew more about Promise than I would ever know. "You know Nik," I offered, curling up one side of my mouth. "He's mature for his age. A geezer on the inside." I rolled the mug between my palms. "Seven hundred years, huh? That means you used to… you know…" Lifting my upper lip, I bared nonexistent fangs.

"Yes," she replied simply. "I once did." From the nineteen hundreds on, most vampires discovered a different way to live. That was a story I'd already heard from Promise. They had discovered what drove the vampire thirst for blood, and it wasn't that different from a human condition known as porphyria, which caused a sensitivity to light and a less proved craving for blood. Some vampires even thought they and humans might share a common primitive ancestor. A genetic mutation had occurred, a species had split, and voilà: Humans clubbed their prey by day to eat the flesh, and vampires clubbed their prey by night to eat the flesh and drink its blood. After some time that blood didn't satisfy the physiological need. It was too different from their own. Who did that leave? Yep, you bet. That's when the humans became the prey. Hey, no hard feelings. It's just biology. The mammoth in his boneyard no doubt laughed his woolly ass off. After all, turnabout is fair play.

But science does march on. For the better part of the last hundred years, the majority of vampires depended on massive doses of iron and other chemical supplements to fill the need for blood. That wasn't to say some didn't still indulge. Blood became like alcohol, not needed for survival, but a pleasurable vice nonetheless. Of course, there are always psychos… in every species, in every walk of life. The vampire ones needed the kill more than they needed the blood.

But that was the psychos. Still, you couldn't escape the fact that any vampire over a hundred years old had once drunk blood. Human blood.

But that had been a hundred years ago for Promise, and I was all out of stones in my roomy glass condo.

"Seven hundred years, huh?" I drawled. "No wonder you're so short." It was an exaggeration. The top of her head reached Niko's chin, which put her at about five six. It wasn't tall by any means, but it wasn't short either… quite.

"I'll have you know I was an amazon in the old days, a veritable giant," she said with mock outrage. Then she rested her fingers lightly on the back of my wrist and went on to say softly, "Thank you." She didn't have to elaborate. I knew why she was thanking me.

"I'm a lot of things, Princess." A lot of nasty, nasty things. "But a hypocrite is not one of them."

An emotion, so fleeting that it was impossible to identify, shimmered behind her eyes and then was gone. "No, never that," she responded sadly. Straightening in her chair, she moved on briskly. "Now, let us plan a little romantic strategy for seducing your succubus."

"Flowers and candy?" I said with a grimace.

"Oh, Caliban." Eyes bright with humor, she shook her head. "The only use a succubus would have for flowers is to lay them on your grave."

Sounded about par for the course.

It was hours later when I realized Promise hadn't gotten around to telling me where she was born, the place that made that diner look like a palace. Unintentional oversight? Doubtful. Promise wasn't the type for unintentional anything. Always careful, always discreet, every action analyzed before it was performed… every word considered before it was said.

It was too bad that this time her carefully considered words hadn't done me a damn bit of good.

Goodfellow's weight settled next to me on the park bench as his long legs stretched out to bask in the nonexistent sun. "You rang?"

Oh, I'd rung all right. Pride, dignity… I'd flushed it all down the toilet and sent out a big fat SOS. I wasn't big on asking for help, yet here I was. For the first nineteen years of my life, Niko had been the only one I'd turned to. Then we had met Robin, a stranger, who oddly enough wanted to help us. That was a first. It had only taken him risking his life a few times before I actually believed it. And even when I'd believed it, I'd remained reluctant to accept it. A year later it was still difficult for me… admitting I needed someone besides my brother. Lifelong habits, they die hard, don't they? Shifting my weight, I tapped irritable fingers on the wrought-iron armrest before admitting reluctantly, "I need some help."

"I gathered that." With hands locked behind his head and eyes hidden behind sunglasses, he clucked a smug tongue. "My expertise in all matters is legendary. Many worship at the altar of my brilliance and who can blame them?"