If a vampire invites you to a second, darker, lonelier location, don’t go. That’s just common sense.…
… unless you’re already a vampire.
What’s the worst that can happen? Lamb could kill me, I suppose. He probably knows all the ways a vampire can die.
But I need information, and he’s the only one talking to me.
The heat was unbearable when we arrived in Las Vegas this morning, and the sky was so bright, I couldn’t open both eyes at the same time. But now that the sun is down, the night is warm and pleasant. I’m perfectly comfortable in my jacket. And Lamb seems fine in his cream-coloured suit. He seems more at ease than I’ve ever felt around Normals.
He’s giving me an insider’s tour of the Strip, pointing out each casino. Telling me what used to be there and what replaced it. Running down the highlights. The architecture. The infamy.
“All right, just about… here,” he says, and stops in frontof yet another grand façade, this one with a dark reflecting pool. “Some people miss the old days, before the tourists and Cirque du Soleil and celebrity chefs. Ring-a-ding-ding, et cetera. But Vegas only gets better for me.”
“How long have you been here?” I ask.
“Since the beginning.”
“When was the beginning?”
“Oh eight,” he says. “Nineteen oh eight. It took me almost three hundred years to make my way here from Virginia.” He’s smiling at me, face wide open.
I shake my head. I’m sure I look as dumbfounded as I feel. “But you’re so—”
Lamb stops. His hands are in his trouser pockets, and his head is tilted. He keeps looking at me like I’m something that needs to be examined—and smiled at—from all directions. “I’m so what, Mr.—what’s your last name?”
I can’t tell him my last name, and I can’t think of anything that rhymes. “Watford,” I say.
“Charles Watford. Even your name makes me homesick. Go on though, I’m so what—impressive?” He smiles. “Learned?”
Alive,I think.
“Open,” I say. “About… well, your history. Your…” I shrug again. “You don’t know me.”
“But I know what you are,” he says. “And you know what I am. I have plenty to hide—but not that.”
I nod. “I suppose that’s true.”
“Andyouhave plenty to hide, Chaz. Obviously. But not…that.”
He’s right. I’ve given him a fake name and false pretences, but he knows the truth about me. The truth even my immediate family won’t look in the eye.
“I keep waiting for you to notice,” he says.
“Notice what?”
He touches my shoulder and gently spins me around, so I’m facing the pavement. There are people everywhere, even though it’s well after midnight. Everyone dressed up in after-midnight clothes. Everyone a little tipsy. Everyone…
It takes my breath away when it hits me:
In every group of people, there’s someone moving too smoothly, someone’s face shining pearl-white in the spinning lights. With Normals. Without Normals. In twos and threes. In their element. A man looks down at me from a Cadillac Escalade and flashes a bloodless grin.
Lamb’s voice is just behind my ear. “Our town,” he says. “Yours.”
I turn to face him. His eyes are wide and playful, and his tongue is pressed behind his front teeth, as if he’s waiting for something. Still waiting for me to catch on.
Suddenly, there’s the sound of a violin playing, hot and sweet, all around us. A hundred jets of water erupt behind him. And then a hundred more. It’s spectacular!
Lamb is watching the show on my face. He laughs again, as easily and as openly as he’s done everything so far.
