“Among other things.”

“Speech?”

“Yes.”

“Consciousness?”

“Obviously.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Emotions?”

“Your emotions are your own. Vampires can’t influence those.” He let his eyes fall to their hands. “Other than by normal means, that is.”

Natalie pulled her hand away and the water fell, splattering on the ground until he swept it up and returned it to the happily gurgling fountain in the corner. “None of that.”

“You liked George well enough.” He was surprised by the stab of envy toward his human facade she had been so at ease with.

“George was a liar.”

He felt his fangs drop but was careful to conceal them from her. “No, he wasn’t. Only about his name because I thought you might recognize it.”

“Were you following me?” She was relentless. “Were you following me that night? Did you follow me after? Why bother meeting me in the bar? What was the point? Were you just messing with me?”

Why did the woman get under his skin so? Baojia stifled a growl. “I had an assignment. I needed to know more about you.”

“So, I’m an assignment?”

He couldn’t decipher her tone of voice. It was angry, but there was a hint of something…

“You have friends in my world—people I respect—who would like me to keep you safe. I have promised to do this. As I said before, I keep my promises.”

“Have a vampire keep me safe?” She threw up her hands, suddenly sounding resigned. “Have a vampire keep me safe from other vampires? I guess that makes sense, right? Or I’m going to wake up in the psychiatric hospital soon and this will all be over.”

The key was to appear as normal as possible. He knew it must have been a shock. He was still young enough to remember his own horror and incredulity when faced with what he had thought were only horror stories meant to terrify a child. The jiangshi of childhood nightmares had come to life on the streets of old San Francisco to kill his attackers and eventually claim him.

“Maybe you’d like to call Dez now.”

“Maybe you could tell me what all this has to do with those murdered women? It was a vampire who was killing them, wasn’t it? But I’m supposed to trust you?”

The frustration began to rise. “I think you should call Dez.”

“I think you should answer me!”

“Well I think—” He clenched his teeth to stop yelling. Why did she cause him to yell? In the car the night before, he’d thought Luis was going to drive off the road. He’d probably never heard Baojia raise his voice in anger. Or raise his voice, period. “I think lots of things. But right now, I want you to call Dez. She will be able to explain this better than I can. And you trust her. So why don’t we just call your friend so we can get this cleared up and get back to finding some answers about dead bodies turning up in the desert? That sound like a plan, Natalie?”

Her face was flushed and her eyes blazing, but at least she didn’t look scared anymore. “Fine.”

“Fine.”

“We can call from my house.”

“Nice try. We’ll use my office here.”

“Asshole.”

“Stubborn brat.”

“Kidnapper.”

He couldn’t stop the smile. “You could do this all night, couldn’t you?”

“Yep.” She spun around to stomp away, but then turned back. “I don’t know where your office is.”

The office in the house had been specially equipped for immortal use. There was a rotary phone with a speaker attachment and an old-fashioned answering machine.

“Wow. You guys are really into the retro thing, aren’t you?” Natalie eyed the phone with disdain.

“It’s our amnis. Because our energy is electrical in nature, we tend to short out more modern equipment. Old cars are okay, but new ones we need drivers for. Rotary phones are fine. Mobiles? Nope.”

“So that’s why you don’t [y y, b have a mobile phone.” She looked around. “Computer?”

He shook his head. “There is some voice-command software that an… associate of mine is working on that would enable our kind to use computers without breaking them, but it’s still in the trial stage. She was a bit of a computer nut as a human, so she has a hard time living without one.”

Natalie was still examining his office with a frown. “I thought you said you were in security. Surveillance. That kind of thing. How could you possibly… Oh, was that a lie, too?”

“Not a lie.” He opened a cabinet to reveal video monitoring equipment. “I have humans who set it up, then all the monitors are put behind insulated glass for me. I can see but not touch. It’s the hands-on work and intuition that I use the most. I’ve been doing security for a long time.”

He heard her pause. “How long?”

“Over one hundred twenty years.” Why did that suddenly seem so old? “And I’m relatively young for a vampire.”

“Wow.”

He looked over his shoulder so see her gaping at him. She might also have been checking out his ass. He tried not to laugh. Not bad for an old man, eh? “I told you I became a citizen a long time ago.”

“Are you really from San Francisco?”

“Yes. All that was true.” He lifted the phone and dialed the Kirbys’ number. “I told you I didn’t lie.”