"Yeah, there's a guy I wanted to talk to without Karl along. Karl and this guy, they don't get along too well. So I started my shift a little early."

  "Oh, OK. How's Karl doing, anyway?"

  "He's all right," I lied. I cleared my throat, which didn't seem to do a lot of good. "Listen, uh, I wanna say something, and I'd rather not have a discussion about it right now. But if you need to talk about it when you get up, we can."

  She gave me a careful nod. "OK, sure. What's up?"

  I'd composed this whole damn speech in my head while driving, and now I couldn't remember any of it.

  "Christine, listen, I don't know what it's like to be a… vampire. I realize that. There's probably lots I don't understand about it, and maybe I never will. But I want you to be happy, babe – or as happy as you can manage to be."

  "Yes, I believe you."

  "So, look – whatever you do when you're out, whatever you need to do, is none of my damn business, as long as you're safe, and you don't hurt anybody else. That's what matters to me."

  Another one of those careful nods. "All right. Thank you."

  "What I'm trying to say is, what happens in the night stays in the night. As far as I'm concerned, it's don't ask, don't tell."

  She gave a little laugh. "You mean like that policy they used to have for supes in the military?"

  "Yeah, I guess. Something like that. I hope it works better for us than it did for Uncle Sam."

  She got up then, came over, and put her arms around me. "I think it will. Those people in the service didn't love each other. And we do."

  "You got that right, kiddo."

  She let go and stepped away. "Well, time for me to hit the hay. Will you still be home when I get up?"

  "I should be, yeah."

  She gave me a smile that didn't show her fangs. She's gotten pretty good at that, but if the fangs appear now and then, I'm going to try not minding. "I was just wondering. I don't have any discussions planned."

  "OK, fine. Goodnight, baby."

  "'Night, Daddy."

  After she left, I realized I was famished, the first time I could remember feeling hunger all day. I checked the fridge – good, we had eggs I could scramble.

  As the pan was heating, I idly picked up the magazine Christine had been looking at, which turned out to be the "Super-Special Undead Issue" of Cosmo. I started to smile as I looked at the cover stories: "7 Clues He's Batty Over You," "Is Your Coffin Clunky?" "A-Positive Or O-Negative: How To Know If He's Your Type," and "Sharpest. Fangs. Ever." Then I saw the one on the top left: "That Secret Place He Really Wants You To Bite Him."

  I haven't laughed so hard in quite a while. Too long, really. Too damn long.

The next night, I came in to work a little early. I was hoping to have a quiet word with Karl, but he didn't show up until our shift was due to start. When he plopped down at the desk opposite mine, I opened my mouth to speak but he beat me to it.

  "You seen the paper today, Stan?"

  "Just glanced through it. The comics, mainly. Why?"

  "There was an article about some company that's found a way to sell blood in powdered form. Just add water, and you've got yourself a nice snack, if you're a vampire."

  I didn't know where he was going with this, but I suspected I wouldn't like it when he got there.

  "That right?" I said, just to say something.

  "Yup. They've even got a name picked out for it."

  He was waiting, so I said, "What's that?"

  "Fang," he said and grinned at me, vampire teeth and all. "Gotcha!"

  He made a fist and slowly extended his arm across the desk toward me. After a second, I reached out and bumped it with my own fist. "We cool?" I asked.

  "We cool."

  "If you two soul brothers are done signifying," McGuire said from his office door, "I've got work for you."

  After last time, I knew better than to protest being assigned another case. Besides, a glance at the assignment board showed that every detective team, on all shifts, was carrying four or five open cases. Things were busy for the Supe Squad these days, and it wasn't even Halloween.

  We went back to the office, and McGuire handed me a slip of paper with an address on it. "Looks like a vamp, er, vampire attack. There was one last week, in case you didn't hear – Aquilina and Sefchik caught it. Compare notes with them, when you get a chance. Maybe we've got a serial fanger on our hands."

  As we walk out of the squad room, I said to Karl, "Think the boss should get some of that sensitivity training?"

  "Nah," he said. "I bet you could teach him all he needs to know."

  In the elevator Karl said, "You check your email yet tonight?"

  "Haven't had time. Why?"

  "I was just wondering if you heard from the same guy that I did – Mitchell Hansen."

  "That name rings a bell," I said, "but I can't remember why."

  "Dude's a reporter for the T-T, does a lot of their crime stuff."

  "That's right – he was bugging me about something a couple of months ago. And what does the Times-Tribune want to know this time?"

  "He was asking if I knew anything about snuff films," Karl said, deadpan.

  "Uh-oh. The Feebies are gonna shit when they hear about that. What'd you tell him?"

  "That, far as I knew, it's an urban legend. I said he should stop wasting his time – and mine."

  I nodded. "I'll tell him something like that if he writes to me. Good answer, by the way. You ever think about a career in PR?"

  "As a liar, I'm strictly amateur, man. Not ready to turn pro just yet."