I asked, "So he really was a vampire?"
"Of course."
She said it so matter-of-factly that my next question died in my mouth. I was left stumbling over words until I finally said, "So how many of them are out there?"
She shrugged. "I don't know, but I don't think many. The ones who are really old and smart rarely kill anymore. They find other ways to get blood."
"So, um, how many have you killed?"
"Just three. Storm would have been the fourth."
"And he's the one who killed your parents."
"I hated him for so long." She paused, composed herself. "I spent the past three years hunting him."
"How did you find him?"
"I'm a hell of a detective," she said.
"Maybe you could work for me someday."
"Maybe," she said. "Anyway, if you meet the right people and make the right friends, yeah, there's a whole scene out there."
"Scene?"
"Vampire scene."
"Of course."
She leveled her stare at me. Her eyes, I saw, were lightly bloodshot. "But you took care of him for me."
"Spinoza the Vampire Slayer," I said. "So he's really dead?"
"Of course, you saw him turn to dust. That's what happens to them when they die."
I nodded. "Of course. Silly of me to ask."
Veronica's neck was surprisingly healed. Just a big red blemish. She saw me looking at her neck. Now she reached up and touched it self-consciously.
"It's hideous," she said.
"It's not that bad," I lied.
"You're a bad liar. The doctors tell me that it's healing surprisingly fast."
"Ah, youth," I said.
"Sure. Youth." She smiled again and stood. She reached out a pale hand across my desk. "I just wanted to thank you, Mr. Spinoza, for saving my life. I wouldn't be here today if it weren't for you, and a monster would still be out there killing innocent people."
"All in a day's work," I said, and shook her shockingly cold hand. I nearly winced at her icy flesh.
She saw my reaction and released my hand. "They're always cold now, since the attack."
"I, um, hadn't noticed."
"You're a bad liar, Mr. Spinoza."
I told her to call me if she ever needed any help or needed a job, and she assured me she would. At the door, she looked back at me and seemed about to say something, but decided not to.
As she turned to leave, I saw a fresh tattoo above her low-riding jeans. It was a tattoo of a black dragon.
I sat back in my chair and put my feet up on my desk and laced my hands behind my head, certain that I had just seen my second vampire.
The End