a neurological basis for your… uh… violent tendencies.”

“Gotta bad temper when I’m lied to.”

“Then why didn’t you escape when you had the chance? You could have sprung your boyfriend and ran away.”

Surprising color rose in her face. “She promised us sanctuary.”

Sanctuary? A word someone hunted or persecuted might use. Which was she? He thought it wise to say nothing— best not to antagonize her further. At least now he had an inkling of what her dilemma could be.

Her face rapidly composed itself back into a cool white mask. “Listen, I appreciate you returning my notebooks, but you tell that bitch I’m not giving up a drop of blood until Kurt’s in my bed.” She wandered over to the far side of the cell, pressing her ear to the wall. “He’d better be okay.”

She feared they meant him harm. Joe jotted down this thought. “I’ll speak to Doctor Loy.”

“I don’t trust your Doctor Loy.”

Well, that was one point they agreed on. He smiled slightly, in spite of himself.

She quickly picked up on this. “You don’t either.”

“Never said that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Clairvoyant?”

“Doc, you’re a scientist. You don’t believe in that crap?”

“Neither do you, I take it.”

A smile spread slowly over her face as she recited, a child repeating a lesson, “There’s nothing that can’t be explained scientifically.”

“You obviously read visual and aural cues and perhaps changes in body chemistry by scent. Let’s see what else you can do.” He produced a small rubber ball from his pocket, throwing it high into the air. “Catch.”

She leapt straight up to the twelve-foot ceiling without effort, snatching the ball from the air and closing her fist about it. As she touched the ground noiselessly, she opened her palm beneath his nose. Grains of material that had once been the ball littered the ground in front of him. “I didn’t come here to do tricks.”

Joe straightened up in his chair, staring her down. “Then why are you here?”

She gave him a blank look again.

“Are you in danger?”

She laughed.

“You find that funny?”

“You’re a very entertaining doctor, in so many ways.”

Joe ventured a chance. “You must be in trouble somehow or you would have set him free and high-tailed it out of here.”

“Haven’t you ever seen the scary movies? We get this really bad sunburn and all the Coppertone in the world won’t help.”

“You had an opportunity long before the sun rose. You must need our help.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“You want to be cured.”

“Think this is some kind of disease?”

“I don’t really know how to characterize your condition.”

She tossed her hair back and laughed. “I’m fucking immortal. I get to keep this face and body forever. Can you say the same?”

“You kill to survive.”

She shrugged. “I do you a favor by cleaning up the vermin. I’m not one of those poor deluded assholes in an Anne Rice novel who mopes around feeling sorry for myself. Listen my good doctor, I may not be old in terms of my own kind but I’ve lived a lot longer than you. Go ask some fellow mortals about this transient thing you call happiness— ask them about love too while you’re at it. Ask them if they’d rather be young, powerful and beautiful forever. Ask yourself.”

“You have a good reason to be here or you’d be long-gone.” He chanced another hypothesis. “Kurt’s in danger?”

She licked her bottom lip. “Take me to visit him and I’ll be real nice to you later.”

“I can’t do that and you know it.”

“Then you’re not the man I think you are.” She turned away, sauntering over to the bed to sit down, regarding him strangely. “You know Doc, you have a quality… ”

This took him aback. She enjoyed catching him off guard with these personal observations. Not unlike other women with their constant, damned analysis of personality.

“A certain glitter. I could be mistaken, but it’s usually so clear… ”

Trying to divert the conversation with some little mind-game? Annoying, but he wasn’t making the rules here. He was forced to play along. “What?”

She reclined on the bed, giggling. “You won’t like it. Mortals are like so many insects, constantly buzzing around, often annoying, sometimes loathsome but every once and a while this big, gorgeous butterfly floats into your view. A superior specimen… What I’m saying is— I see one of us inside of you.”

If she’d taking a flying leap and knocked him flat he wouldn’t have been surprised but this wasn’t something he’d ever expected to come out of her mouth. “You’re bullshitting me.”

“Told you, you wouldn’t like it—