So, is there a vampire in the Colonial Department?
As far as Lucian was concerned, this morning involved far too much loitering. Shirly came out of the restroom shaking water off her hands. “They’re out of paper towels,” she said. “And I don’t trust those dryer machines. Do you know that there’re subliminal messages in five out of every thirty-seven sounds we dismiss as mechanical white noise?”
“That’s not the kind of statistic I tend to know.”
“Well, you should. You don’t want to wake up some morning and find you’ve been hypnotized into doing something dreadful in your sleep!”
“I’ll keep it in mind.”
Shirly looked around suspiciously.
A bird tweeted. Some children yelled on the other side of the park. “So can we talk?”
Not again. Lucian sighed and pulled out his cell phone to check for electronic eavesdroppers. Unfortunately, the light shone green. He stuck it back in his pocket in disgust. “Yeah, we can talk.”
“I’ve been thinking, and I think the most valuable thing you could tell me is how to recognize a vampire.”
“Should I understand that to mean ‘tell you and thereby the entire internet’?” At least the crazy part.
“Hey! I told you I keep my sources confidential!”
Lucian rolled his eyes. “You don’t recognize a vampire. They mostly look like anybody else-the ones I’ve seen, at least.”
“Really? So the fangs and the incinerated by sunlight and the inability to face crosses and the turning into bats and the not reflecting in mirrors is just a myth?”
“I never saw any of that, no.”
“Could you have missed it?”
Lucian sighed and pulled a necklace out from under his collar, briefly showing Shirly the gold cross hanging on it before dropping it back under his shirt. “Since one of the vampires gave this to me, and the other one proceeded to laugh at him when he found out about it, I’m pretty sure on the aversion to crosses bit.”
“A vampire gave that to you and you’re wearing it? He could have put a spell on it. He could be watching us at this very moment. Aren’t you the one who’s so all-fired concerned about security?” Shirly looked horrified.
Lucian frowned. “He did claim there was a spell on it. Protection or something. But I don’t think he’d . . .” Would he? I don’t think the Professor would spy on me unless Mr. Brooke made him do it. Exactly how much have I irritated Charles by pulling his electronic bugs? “Drat.” I’ll have to ask Blake to look at it. Once he’s forgiven me for calling him at eight in the morning on a Saturday.
“Then I guess I’d better stop asking you questions,” said Shirly regretfully.
“Probably,” said Lucian, took the phone from his pocket, noted the persistent green light, and killed the program. Shirly kicked a stone on the path, frowning.
Lucian, unsure what else to do to entertain the girl, asked, “Want to get some ice cream?”
After all, that always worked to distract Chessie.