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Seth dug his fingernails into the palms of his hands. His hands paled with the force of squeezing nails into his own flesh. He threw his head back suddenly, breath coming fast, faster, fastest. The vampire pulled off of him, leaving him hard and still intact. “The wound has closed.”

Chualtalocal stood and went back to his mistress. The moment there was room, Seth collapsed to his knees, opening his hands slowly as if they hurt. There were bloody half-moons where his nails had bitten into his palms. But it had worked. Any distraction to keep him out of the clutches of the goddess’s pet freaks.

“I offer you hospitality, to you and your friends. You may have Seth if you like and finish him as his body seems to so badly need.”

I suddenly knew what she meant by hospitality. Somehow I didn’t think that was Aztec culture, though if I remembered correctly, hadn’t some of the Aztecs sent Cortes and his men women along with food and gold? Maybe this wasn’t any different. But I didn’t want to mess with it.

“Dawn is coming. I can feel it pressing against the darkness like a weight about to tear the night apart.”

She turned her head to one side and seemed to think, or maybe she was sensing the night, the air, something. “Yes,” she said, “I feel it, too.”

“Then if it isn’t too large an insult, can we skip the hospitality for tonight and get to the murders?”

“Only if you give me your word that you will return and taste our hospitality before you go back to Saint Louis.”

I glanced at Edward. He shrugged. I guess it was up to me. What else was new when it came to monsters? “I don’t agree to having sex with your people, but I’ll agree to a return visit.”

“You seemed to like Seth. I would offer you César, who your power seemed to like even more, but he does not make sacrifice, nor does he act as hospitality. It is his price for letting us come so near killing him twice a month.”

“You mean because he lets you nearly tear his heart out twice a month, he doesn’t have to make sacrifice or all the other stuff?”

“That is what I mean.”

It made me think better of ol’ César. I’d seen his show, and now I’d seen some of the behind the scenes stuff, and I had to say that it was a close call which was worse. Letting someone cut your chest open and touch your still beating heart, or letting vamps suck blood off of tender body parts and be offered for sex to strangers. No, come to think of it, I’d have rather had my chest cut open, as long as I knew I’d heal completely every time.

“It’s not that Seth isn’t lovely to look at. I’m sure it would be a pleasure to be with him, but I don’t do casual sex. Thanks for thinking of me though. I know the police spoke with you.”

“They did. I do not think they learned anything of value from me.”

“Maybe they didn’t ask the right questions,” I said.

“And what are the right questions?”

I was about to do something that the police wouldn’t like at all. I was about to tell the monsters, someone they had suspected at one point of being the murderer, details of the crime. But she needed specific details or how was she to recognize the marks of some Aztec bogeyman? I knew how the cops had done it. They’d been so general, it was almost useless to show up. I understood why they did it that way. Once I opened my mouth and let out details to Itzpapalotl, then she was contaminated. They’d never be able to slip her up in an interrogation, because she got the secret details from me.

What I knew and the police couldn’t was that they’d never interrogate the truth out of her. She was the kind of vamp that could sit in a dark room and watch the colors on the inside of her own eyeballs and be content. The only thing they could threaten her with was the death penalty, and if she was behind the murders, it was already a death penalty. One of the downfalls to a swift and certain punishment was that it took a lot of the give and play out of an interrogation. Once someone knows they are going to be executed, you can’t bargain with them.

“Can we clear the room out a little?”

“What do you mean?”

“Can we have