and teeth marks.” She didn’t mention the broken neck or the splattered blood. Claris couldn’t stand the gory stuff, even in movies. Maybe that’s how she managed to live and work in Olde Town; she simply shut out all the violence.
“Oh, an Otherworlder did this.” Claris’s tense shoulders relaxed a little.
At moments like this, Ari was most aware of the differences between them. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it surfaced from time to time. The term Otherworlder had been adopted by both communities, but it still defined a rift. Human vs Otherworlder. Ordinary vs magic.
“Maybe. We can’t rule out anything at this point.” Ari sipped her coffee and dropped the topic. “Thanks for the pick-me-up. I needed it. Can’t keep my eyes open.”
“You should go back to bed. Take a nap upstairs, if you like.”
“Tempting, but I have way too much to do. Ryan should call any minute.” Ari took another swallow of the cooling coffee. “Funny thing. I’ve known since Sunday that something was going to happen. One of those spooky feelings.”
Claris flashed her a knowing smile. “You mentioned that on Monday. Something about having an interesting evening the night before. Then we got sidetracked by the class and the tour bus. Is this murder connected? When you brought it up, I thought you meant good interesting, not bad interesting. Nothing that would lead to dead bodies.” Her hazel eyes lit for a moment as she added, “I keep hoping that one of these days you’re going to meet some hot guy. Maybe a tall, muscled superhero type.”
Ari grinned. Claris had harped on this theme since she and Brando, another childhood friend, found each other about six months ago. In spite of being a boy—and a wizard—Brando had shared in their exploits since elementary school. Luckily, he hadn’t adopted the common wizard trait of arrogant superiority. Or Ari and Claris had beaten it out of him years ago. Either way, he was one of the good guys.
At the moment, Ari was a loner with no immediate prospects. Her job didn’t leave much time or energy to date. A Saturday night now and then, but she hadn’t had a steady guy since an abrupt breakup three years ago. Ari was fine with that, Claris wasn’t.
“Not that kind of an evening,” Ari retorted. “Although the vamp I met probably has his share of women drooling over him. Dark-eyed, sexy dude.” Ari rolled her eyes. “Can you believe I said that? Never thought I’d think a bloodsucker was sexy. But he’s also…” She searched for the right word. “Unpredictable.”
“Who is he?”
Ari frowned. “Nobody you’d know. Andreas De Luca.”
Claris put the last of the herbs in place, her fingers moving with practiced precision, and turned to Ari. “Actually, I do know who he is. He’s a singer at Club Dintero. Voice like a dream. And yes, he is sexy. How’d you meet him?”
“Oh no, you first,” Ari said, staring at her friend. “Since when are you hanging out at vamp clubs?”
“I’m not hanging out.” Claris chuckled. “Blame Brando. He took me to dinner at Club Dintero last Thursday night. It’s a respectable supper club. Fancy waiters, candlelit tables. And the music was sooo romantic.” She lifted a melodramatic hand to her forehead and sighed. “He’s good. It was quite a performance,” she said, dropping the posturing. “Now you.”
Ari gulped the rest of the coffee, gratefully felt her synapses start to fire, and told Claris about the meeting, complete with details.
“He bit you?” Claris exclaimed when Ari finished. She reached out a hand. “Oh my God, are you all right?”
“It was only a scratch.” Ari downplayed the incident, even produced a chuckle. “If you’re asking if I’ll turn into a vampire, don’t worry. It takes a lot more bloodletting than that, followed by an infusion of vampire blood. How could you not know that?”
“I guess I did. I try not to think about those things. But this time we’re talking about my best friend.” Claris went back to fussing with her arrangements. “So, why’d he do that? And what did you do?”
Ari lifted a dismissive shoulder. “Nothing much. I kept in mind that I was the Guardian and tried not to overreact. He didn’t really hurt me. And what else could I do short of killing him? Slap his face?” She wondered what he would have done if she had. “Don’t know what his point was. That he’s big, bad, and scary? Testing my abilities? Or maybe it was his warped idea of