"Are you all right?" Larry touched my arm.
I drew away from his hand, and he let his hand drop. I wasn't much into casual touching. "I'm fine." Truth was, it still hurt, but what the hell? I needed to get to a phone, and the pain would get better the more I walked on it. Honest.
I stared carefully ahead to avoid other hard objects. "What do you know about the murders?"
"Just that you're helping the police on a preternatural crime, and that it's taking you away from your animating jobs."
"Bert told you that."
"Mr. Vaughn, yes."
We were at the car. "Look, Larry, if you're going to work for Animators, Inc., you've got to drop all this Mr. and Ms. stuff. We aren't your professors. We're coworkers."
He smiled, a flash of white in the dark. "All right, Ms... Anita."
"That's better. Now let's go find a phone."
We drove into Chesterfield on the theory that, as the closest town, it would have the closest phone. We ended up at a bank of pay phones in the parking lot of a closed service station. The station glowed softly in the dark, but a halogen streetlight beamed over the pay phones, turning night into day. Insects and moths danced around the light. The swift, flitting shapes of bats swam in and out of the light, eating the insects.
I dialed the number while Larry waited in the car. Give him a point for discretion. The phone rang twice; then a voice said, "Anita, is that you?"
It was Irving Griswold, reporter and friend. "Irving, what in blazes are you doing paging me at this hour?"
"Jean-Claude wants to see you tonight, now." His voice sounded rushed and uncertain.
"Why are you delivering the message?" I was afraid I wasn't going to like the answer.
"I'm a werewolf," he said.
"What's that got to do with anything?"
"You didn't know." He sounded surprised.
"Know what?" I was getting angry. I hate twenty questions.
"Jean-Claude's animal is a wolf."
That explained Stephen the Werewolf and the black woman. "Why weren't you there the other night, Irving? Did he let you off your leash?"
"That's not fair."
He was right. It wasn't. "I'm sorry, Irving. I'm just feeling guilty because I introduced the two of you."
"I wanted to interview the Master of the City. I got my interview."
"Was it worth the price?" I said.
"No comment."
"That's my line."
He laughed. "Can you come to the Circus of the Damned? Jean-Claude has some information on the master vampire that jumped you."
"Alejandro?"
"That's the one."
"We'll be there as soon as we can, but it's going to be damn close to dawn before we can get to the Riverfront."