Vayl, this is not a pleasant moment for me," I confessed. "No?" "Locked in a windowless, doorless room with a dancing, headless corpse and a secret sucker that can move fast enought to tear us both a new one if I miss?

We went to the door and I let Asha in. I expected an uberawkward moment when he and Vayl met. But Asha took care of that problem right away. "So you belong to Jasmine," he said in his melancholy voice. It somehow delivered Vayl his deepest condolences without bearing a trace of malice toward me.

Sounds good. Drive safe." He sighed, knowing I really meant, "Take care of my Mercedes.

So of course that was the moment my motherboard decided to do a short internal scan, throw up its hands, and screech, “Dear Lawd, a VAMPIRE has taken mah blood!” and initiate a general shutdown.

Cool! Now I can steal some rich old coot's Ferrari and go fishing for marlin with the same piece of jewelry.

Still enmeshed from the knees down, Vayl flopped off the cabinet before we realized he needed a hand down, falling fast and hard like a penguin who hasn't bought the whole flightless scenario.

Seriously?" I shrugged. "He can't suspect much if every time we're alone instead of talking I have my way with him." Cole shook his head. "You don't think it'll work?" I asked. He rolled his eyes. "Vayl might be a vampire, but he's also a guy. Who's about to be deliriously happy. Good God, if you work this right, he won't even be mad if finds out because of the way you decided to hide it from him.