"That's what witnesses reported."
"You mean the cherry syrup?"
Simon kept his expression neutral. "I was told he left here in a bloodied state after an altercation."
Mr. Denton set down his clipboard with the kind of deliberate patience reserved for dealing with idiots. "Kid couldn't figure out how to change the slushie bag. It exploded. The syrup got everywhere."
"You're certain it was just syrup?" It was entirely possible the vampire had employed some mind manipulation tricks to make the people around him believe that.
"Look, buddy." Mr. Denton leaned against the counter. "I don't know who told you there was some 'violent incident,' but Charlie's about as violent as a wet paper towel. Last week, Mrs.Henderson came in here with a nosebleed. You know what Charlie did?"
Simon waited.
"He fainted, and I had to mop around him while he was out cold on my floor. Took fifteen minutes before he came to, then he spent another ten apologizing."
Behind them, someone snorted. A teenage employee emerged from the chip aisle with a mop bucket.
"You talking about Charlie?" the kid asked. "Dude apologized to a door last week 'cause he thought he'd bumped into it."
Mr. Denton nodded. "If you're looking for dangerous criminals, you're wasting your time. Now, you buying something or not?"
Simon stood there, the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. Either everything about his intel had been wrong or this vampire wasextremelygood at putting on a show. Which would make him extremely dangerous. Simon couldn't let his guard down. "Where does Charlie live?"
Mr. Denton's eyes narrowed. "I don't give out employee information to random people. You want to harass my workers, get a warrant."
The teenage employee piped up again. "He won't be here tonight either. He's called in sick."
Simon turned and left without another word.
Outside, he pulled out his phone and scrolled through the Hunter Organization's database. Three victims drained in one night. Warehouse full of captives. Superhuman strength.
He cross-referenced with police reports from the last month.
Nothing.
No unexplained deaths. No missing persons matching the timeline. No warehouse raids.
Had someone messed with the police database?
His phone buzzed. Turner again.
Simon let it go to voicemail and started walking.
The cemetery gates stood open, as they always did during daylight hours. Simon's feet found the familiar path without conscious thought—past the newer sections with their uniform headstones, deeper into the older grounds where the oaks grew thick and the morning sun barely penetrated.
His mother's grave sat beneath one of those oaks, far enough from the main path that he rarely encountered other mourners. The headstone was simple gray granite, the way she would have wanted it. "Margaret Hale. Beloved Mother. 1978-2012."
Simon knelt in the damp grass and unwrapped the white lilies he'd bought from the all-night grocery. Already they were showing brown edges, but they were the only lilies they'd had. He placed them carefully against the stone, adjusting them twice before they looked right.
"Hi, Mom."
The words felt stupid. They always did, but he said them anyway.
"Hunt number one-eighteen should have been last night." He sat back on his heels, eyes tracing the familiar letters of hername. "Charlie Dracul. The Organization's been tracking him for weeks. Allegedly he's responsible for multiple kills. Allegedly he's the kind of monster that would?—"
He stopped. The kind of monster that would drain a woman in her own home. The kind he'd been too young, too weak, too human to stop.
"I had him cornered in a laundromat. I had my stake in hand." Simon's fingers found a piece of grass and tore it into small pieces. "And then he ran. But that's not the problem."
