The Last of the Red Hot Vampires - By Katie MacAlister Page 0,49

didn't. I mean, we did, but that's not all we did." I tried to sort out my unusually tangled thoughts. "We didn't start out the evening that way. I went to bed not long after you, and woke up in a crypt."

"A crypt? What crypt?"

"One in the ruined abbey we saw two days ago. I wasn't alone in the crypt - there was a woman named Noelle, who was some sort of demon wrangler or something. She said she was there to administer the third trial. She summoned a demon, and I was supposed to subdue it."

I thought Sarah's eyes were going to pop right out of her head. "Oh my god! A demon?" She scrabbled in her purse for the minirecorder she carried around to make notes on book ideas. "Start over again. I want to get all of this down."

I told her about the trial, how Theo had shown up, and how my experience with the demon had at last dropped the blinkers from my eyes.

"About time, too," Sarah said with no little satisfaction.

"I'm willing to concede you were right, and admit you won the bet, but any 'I told you sos' will be summarily ignored."

She grinned. "Fair enough. It's worth swallowing them to get you to admit you were wrong. Proceed."

By the time I had described our time spent with the demon lord, Sarah was taking frantic notes on a tiny notepad. "This is incredible material. I can't believe you had the balls to talk back to a demon lord! So, what was this curse he put on Theo? It can't be too serious - he looked fine a few minutes ago. And obviously, if you guys spent the night together, I take it that none of his various and sundry parts were harmed."

I looked past her, out the window. It was sunny and fairly warm. An hour earlier, Theo had stepped outside the pub to greet the Dark One who had come to see him, only to end up with a nasty burn on his arms and face. It seemed that about one thing, legend was correct - vampires and sunlight didn't mix. "No, nothing was harmed in the way you mean...unless you call having your soul ripped from your being and a curse damning you to eternal vampire-hood harm. Which, it need not be said, I do."

Sarah did her googly-eyed impression of a pug. "You're kidding!"

I lifted an eyebrow at her.

"Oh dear god, you're not kidding! Theo is a vampire?"

"Could you speak a little louder, Sarah? I don't think everyone in the village heard you."

"He's a vampire?" Her voice dropped until it was a husky whisper. "He can't be a vampire - he's an angel."

"No, he's the son of a fallen angel, and evidently there is no rule that says nephilims can't also be vampires. I am told the correct terminology is Dark One. That's why the Christian person is here - Theo's hoping to get some information from him about how to go about changing back to his normal self. Or as normal as an immortal person can be."

"This is absolutely astounding," Sarah said, her eyes distant as she poked a scone with her butter knife. "I can't believe this is really happening, but you're the last person on earth who would ever try to pull my leg about something like this. A vampire! You know, Portia..." She looked up at me. "There are some drawbacks to having a boyfriend who is a Dark One."

Theo found me five minutes later, wiping my eyes and hiccupping with the aftereffects of laughter that was only slightly tinged with hysteria.

"I'm delighted to see you're so amused about the situation," he said, handing me the napkin that had fallen from my lap.

"It's better to laugh than go outright insane. Did you get all the information you needed?"

Theo turned and gestured to the man in the doorway. "Yes, thanks to Christian."

"We did not have the opportunity to be introduced earlier," Christian said, coming forward and taking my hand. He made an old-fashioned bow over it that should have seemed hokey, but was quite the opposite. "I am delighted to make your acquaintance. It is not often I meet a Beloved who is also a member of the Court of Divine Blood."

"Beloved?" I sent Theo a quick, embarrassed glance. "We've only just...that is, we're not really...we're not...oh, crap." I glared at Theo. "Would you like to tell the man that we only just met, and have not yet established if