"Just drink," he said.

I c.o.c.ked my head. "What are you up to?" But when I opened the thermos, the blood didn"t smell like blood. Instead it smelled like . . . pineapple? I hesitantly took a sip. If I ingested anything but blood I"d get horrible cramps.

But to my shock and delight, though it was blood that flowed down my throat, all I could taste were coconut milk and pineapple juice. I stared at the thermos, then at him. "By the G.o.ds, you did it!"

"Yes, I did," he said, a victorious grin spreading across his face. "I finally figured out the spell. I thought pina colada might be a nice change for a first try."

Morio had been working on a spell for some time that would allow me to taste foods I"d left behind when I died.

"Well, it worked!" I laughed and perched on the open windowsill, one knee pulled up to my chest as I leaned back against the frame. As I drank, my taste buds doing a Snoopy dance, it occurred to me that this was the first time in more than twelve years that I"d tasted something other than blood.

"I could kiss you for this."

"Go ahead," Camille said with a wink. "He"s good."

Snorting, I set down the thermos and wiped my mouth carefully. More often than not, I ended up with a few spatters around my lips and I preferred not to look like some blood-crazed monster.

"With all due respect to your darling husband, I think I"ll leave his kisses for you. Not really my type," I said, winking at Morio. "No offense intended."

"None taken," he said, grinning. "Next time we"ll try for some sort of soup flavor. What"s your poison?"

"Hmm . . . beef vegetable would hit the spot."

Happier than I"d been in a while, I glanced around the room. "While you guys eat your pizza, I"ll start clearing some of this junk out of here. Iris and I found something curious. Don"t trash anything that looks like it might have belonged in a bedroom or to an elf."

I piled a stack of magazines in a box and carried them out, dumping them into the room across the hall. Smoky ignored the pizza and pitched in, helping me, as did Morio. Iris and Camille perched on a bench, digging into the Hawaiian-style pie.

As we worked, Camille alternated between eating and filling me in on what I"d missed during the day. With the summer solstice so close, the time in which I could be awake and active had been severely curtailed. I was down to around eight hours per night between sunrise and sunset. I"d sure be happy to see autumn and winter again. It sucked having to be in bed by five thirty in the morning.

"We finally got the wedding invitation from Jason and Tim. They"re holding it during the night just so you and Erin can make it." She picked up another slice and held it overhead, letting the strings of mozzarella trail into her mouth.

"I"m glad they"re finally getting hitched. They make a good couple."

Tim had won my respect a hundred times over when I"d had to turn his best friend, Erin. I"d sworn never to sire another vampire, but Erin would have died otherwise, and she made the choice. That"s how I ended up with a middle-aged human vampire daughter. Tim was her best friend. He"d come through when Erin and I"d needed him most, and my respect for him had soared.

"By the way," I said, "Erin"s selling the Scarlet Harlot to Tim. She can"t work there during the day, so he"s taking over. He"ll open a computer consulting business on the side, now that he"s graduated from college. He"s decided to give up his job as a female impersonator altogether and focus on other things."

"I know. He told me," Camille said. "I"ll be sad to see Cleo Blanco fade away, but then again, I never did think he made a very convincing woman. He"s much better looking as a man. Although, he did a good job lip-synching to Marilyn Monroe"s songs."

She licked her fingers and then added, "Oh, yeah, Wade called shortly before we left home. He said he has something he needs to talk to you about. I told him to drop by the bar, so he"ll be over in a bit."

s.h.i.t. I didn"t want to talk to Wade. We"d been arguing a lot lately and distance definitely helped the heart grow fonder in this case. Whether it was the summer heat, or the overdose of sleep, I didn"t know, but we"d been getting on each other"s nerves and the problem wasn"t showing any signs of easing up.

"Great," I mumbled. "Smoky, can you help me carry this rug? I can lift it, but it"s so long it"s unwieldy for one person."

Smoky obligingly propped one end of the rolled up Persian rug on his shoulder and I did likewise to the other. We carted it across the hall and tossed it onto the ever-growing pile of debris.

"Where"s Delilah? We need to get some of this c.r.a.p out of here before we end up with a fire. One stray spark and this place would go up like a match." I kicked at the rug and it shifted.

"Patience, patience," Smoky said. "Let me cast a frost spell in here. I can saturate everything with a layer of moisture and make it harder to burn."

I groaned. "And turn it into a breeding ground for mold. Oh, go ahead. At least I won"t worry so much about fire then."

An hour later, we"d cleared the bedroom of everything that didn"t seem to belong there. We"d uncovered a bed, dresser, trunk, writing desk, bookshelf, and rocking chair. Everything pointed to the original occupant as being a female elf.

"Who lived here?" Camille asked, picking over the remains of the second pizza. Smoky and Morio had settled into eating, and I could see that the other three pies were about to become history.

I shrugged. "I haven"t the faintest idea. n.o.body at the OIA filled me in on whoever it was that held the job before Jocko."

Iris sat in the rocking chair, rubbing her hand over one of the polished arms. "Would the OIA have that information if you asked them?"

Camille shook her head. "Chances are, even though the organization"s back up and running, the files were most likely lost during the civil war."

I had to agree with her. "Yeah. Most of the personnel have either been fired or arrested, depending on their loyalty to Lethesanar. Except, interestingly enough, the director of the Otherworld Intelligence Agency. Father told us he was a double agent, but I didn"t know whether or not to believe it. d.a.m.ned if the information wasn"t correct, though."

"Jocko"s dead. He He can"t very well help us," Camille said. "Any of your waitresses might know?" can"t very well help us," Camille said. "Any of your waitresses might know?"

"Doubtful, but that gives me an idea." I jumped up and headed for the door. "I"ll be right back. Meanwhile, you guys search the room and see what"s in the closets, in that desk. Look for whatever you can find. Check under the mattress, too."

I hurried down the stairs. While Chrysandra and Luke had come to work for me after after Jocko"s death, there was still one person who remembered the gentle giant. Peder, the daytime bouncer, had been around during Jocko"s time. I flipped through the address book that we kept behind the counter and then picked up the phone, punching in his number. Jocko"s death, there was still one person who remembered the gentle giant. Peder, the daytime bouncer, had been around during Jocko"s time. I flipped through the address book that we kept behind the counter and then picked up the phone, punching in his number.

Like Jocko, Peder was a giant. But where Jocko had been the runt of his family, Peder was smack in the middle of being height-weight proportionate for his race. After three rings, he picked up.

"Yef?" His English was still limited and his accent was atrocious, but I knew Calouk, the common dialect used throughout the more uncouth members of Otherworld, and I switched to it immediately.

"Peder, this is Menolly," I said, my lips tripping over the rough words as I translated my thoughts into Calouk. "I know you worked for Jocko, but do you by any chance remember who was the bartender before him? Did an elfin woman run the bar? Her name would have been-"

"Sabele," he said. "Yeah, Sabele was the bartender before Jocko. She went home to OW, though. She vanished one day. Never said nuthin"."

Vanished? That seemed odd, considering the locket and diary left behind. "What do you mean, vanished?"

"She quit. That"s what Jocko told me when he came here."

That didn"t ring true. I was fairly certain Peder wouldn"t lie to me, but that didn"t mean that what he said was accurate. Giants weren"t the brightest bulbs in the socket and Peder wasn"t the on the gifted end of the spectrum.

"Are you certain? I found a few of her personal things upstairs while cleaning out one of the rooms. Items I doubt she would have left behind."

"That"s what Jocko told me. He said . . . he said the OIA told him that Sabele deserted her post. She was really nice, though. I liked her. She never made fun of me."

His tone told me that-like Jocko-Peder was sensitive to ridicule. Giants were surprisingly emotional, not like trolls or ogres. Oh, they acted like oafs, but they could be caring oafs.

"Do you know if she had any friends around here? A boyfriend, maybe? Or a brother?" The image of the male elf"s face from the picture in the locket drifted to mind.

"Boyfriend? Yeah, she had a boyfriend. He used to come into the bar a lot. I thought they went back to OW together and got married. Lemme think . . ." After a moment, Peder sighed. "All I can remember is that his first name was Harish. And her family name was Olahava. That help you any?"

"Yeah," I said, jotting down the two names. "More than you know. Thanks, Peder. And by the way, you"re doing a good job. I appreciate it." Everybody needed strokes sometimes. Even giants.

"Thanks, boss," he said. I could hear the glee in his voice.

As I replaced the receiver, the door opened and I looked up to see Wade wander into the room. His shocking bleached-blond hair was even whiter thanks to a dose of peroxide, and he"d given up the gla.s.ses he used to hide behind. He was wearing a pair of PVC jeans-G.o.ds know where he got hold of those-and a white T-shirt. I blinked. When had he gone glam?

A psychiatrist until he"d been bitten and turned, Wade Stevens was the leader of Vampires Anonymous, a support group for the newly undead. He"d become my first vampire friend when my sister Camille insisted I join the group.

Lately though, he"d been on edge and snippy and I had no intention of wasting the energy to find out why. I had enough problems to deal with, without adding a moody vampire to the list. Anyway, I wasn"t the coddling type. His mother did enough of that.

In fact, his mother was one of the primary reasons I"d stopped dating him. A vampire herself, she was the perfect antidote to any spark of attraction I"d had to Wade.

He leaned across the bar. "We need to talk."

"I"m busy," I muttered. Avoidance wasn"t my usual M.O. but I had no intention of ruining my mood. "Can we do this later?"

"No. We need to talk now now," he said, his eyes shifting toward red.

Whoa. Touchy, touchy.

"Fine. In the back, where the customers won"t overhear us." I led him into the office and closed the door behind us. "All right, what"s so d.a.m.ned important that it can"t wait for a few hours? Or days?"

I waited, but he remained silent. Irritated, I started to push past him, intending on returning to the bar but he stopped me, barring my way with his arm.

"Fine. I"ll just tell you straight out, because I don"t know how else to do this. I"ve thought this over and over for the past few weeks, but there"s no way to get around it. I have to put some distance between us or you"re going to ruin any chance I have of becoming regent of the Northwest Vampire Dominion."

I stared at him, unable to believe what I was hearing. "You"ve got to be joking."

"No." He waved me silent. "I"m asking you to quietly withdraw from Vampires Anonymous. Don"t show up at the meetings. And don"t contact me in public . . . keep all of our communications in private. You"ve become a liability to me, Menolly. And to the group."