That time, I glanced at her. She was wearing oven mitts and holding the pan of rolls.
“He saved me, remember?”
“Allie, baby, get with the program. He’s a vampire.”
She froze, her eyes going wide before she backed away, tossing the pan on the kitchen table. Without, I noticed, putting a trivet under it. “Wait. What?Seriously?” She looked from me to Jared.
He shrugged, looking more than a little abashed.
“But—” Her brow furrowed as she met my eyes. “But, it’s daytime. And the sun is out.”
Clearly, my kid still has a lot to learn.
“Back off, girly,” Eddie said. He’d crossed to the table, and now he used a fork leftover from the morning to dig out a cinnamon roll. He took a napkin from the holder, opened it on the table, then dropped the gooey roll right on it. Then he took a seat and looked up at me. “If the kid wanted to harm her, he’s had plenty of chances.”
Since that was true, I backed off. But only a little.
“Don’t get too comfortable, though,” I added to Jared, brandishing the spatula stick and making a mental note to keep something wooden and sharp in the house. I mean, seriously? Demonsandvampires? This town was on a definite downward spiral.
“Why didn’t you say something?” Allie asked, taking a step forward, then another step back, clearly unsure how close she could safely get to this creature.
Jared shrugged. “What? I’m just supposed to say, ‘Hi, I’m a vampire. Demons want to kill you, but you should trust me?’”
Allie looked between me and Eddie, then back to Jared. “Um, maybe?”
“How old are you?” I demanded of the boy-vamp.
“I told you. Seventeen.”
“Yeah?” Allie asked, her head tilting as she looked him up and down.
“Let’s try that again,” I said. “How old are you?”
Jared squinted, studying me. Then he said, “One hundred and twenty-seven.”
I glanced at Eddie, whose brows rose as he said, “Huh. Young then.”
“Young?” Allie said.
“That explains the sun,” I said to Eddie.
“Hello?” Allie said. “Are you guys going to clue me in, or do I have to fly back to Rome for a class on vampires?”
“Yeah, the whole vampire thing is a little bit different than what you’re used to,” Jared said to Allie. He looked between me and Eddie. “You want me to explain, or you guys want to take the stage?”
I forced myself not to laugh. I still didn’t trust the guy, but I did like him. “You’re doing fine so far. Just give her the real deal and we’ll be cool.”
“Yeah, so the thing is vampires aren’t exactly demons.”
I started to lift a finger, but he raised a hand to cut me off.
“I’m getting there. The way it works is that way way way back, the first vampire was created when a man killed another man by slicing his neck and sucking his blood. Not the usual thing to do when you kill someone, and no one knows why he did it, yada yada yada, blah blah blah, it’s all supposedly written out in some mystical magical books that have long since disappeared. But apparently the guy he killed was a demon, and by sucking the blood he sucked in the demon, too.”
Allie shook her head, clearly baffled by this rambling explanation, but to her credit, she said nothing.
“Anyway, according to legend which nobody can completely verify, but’s probably true, this original vampire got lonely. I mean there were demons wandering around like the kind you hunt,” he added with a nod to me, “but that wasn’t exactly the same deal. They were different, right?”
“Different how?” Allie asked.
