Page 41 of Ophelia's Vampire

She has a point, but I’m not quite ready to let it go. Not when the walls of this beautiful, empty place already feel like they’re closing back in, not when she’s brought a warmth and a light to the house that hasn’t been here since… well, since I bought it decades ago on some ill-conceived urge to settle. To find a place I might call my own after all my centuries of wandering.

Idiocy, all of it.

Idiocy and self-delusion and a hundred other nonsensical things I have no business letting myself slide into.

“I’m good in the van,” Ophelia says softly, and then, before giving me time to convince her otherwise, slips out through the front door. “Good night, Cas. I’ll see you tomorrow at eight.”

The farewell, called back over her shoulder, is one more reason it’s better she goes.

I could almost make myself believe there’s more behind it, if I were the same foolish creature who stood with her on that rooftop seven years ago. I could hear those soft words and think she’s as sorry as I am for the evening to come to its end.

But I would be lying to myself.

Though the evening was pleasant, and though I’m glad we’ve found this steady ground between us as we work together, that’s all it need be.

That’s all itis.

A business arrangement. A partnership.

With a sigh at my own foolish, fanciful thoughts, I turn away from the door and start up the stairs, wide awake tonight, and knowing sleep won’t be finding me anytime soon.

15

Ophelia

Breath fans out in a small, ephemeral cloud in front of my face as I keep my hood pulled up and my gaze carefully averted from anyone I pass on the sidewalk.

The college neighborhood is still busy a little before ten at night, mostly students coming to and from campus, heading to nearby apartments, or ducking into the handful of shops still open at this hour. I doubt I’ll run into anyone who will recognize me, but it’s always a good rule of thumb to stay under the radar when doing surveillance work.

Apparently Cas got the same memo, because he’s driving an unremarkable grey sedan tonight instead of the sleek, ostentatious thing he drove me home in the other night.

We parked just across the street from the building Audra told me Devin likes to hang out at, and arrived minutes before we saw him step inside with a group of college kids around his same age. Despite making a couple circuits of the building, we didn’t find any open doors or windows to let ourselves in to get a look at whatever he’s up to in there. And since neither Cas nor I were particularly keen on doing any breaking and entering tonight, we’ve decided to wait until he comes back out to see if we can tail him and get any more information.

I approach the car, knock on the window, and Cas startles slightly, eyes jumping from where they’d been trained on the building’s front door to meet mine through the glass.

Good to know this ancient, formidable vampire can still be surprised sometimes.

The doors unlock with a click, and I slide in through the passenger side before handing one of the black coffees I’m carrying to Cas.

“Any movement?”

Cas shakes his head and takes a long sip, letting out a soft hum as the cheap black swill apparently earns his approval.

“Do you feel it?” I ask, speaking before I think. “The caffeine, I mean. Does it affect you?”

He glances at me with one brow raised, and I almost blurt an apology for what might have come across as a rude, prying question, when he shrugs.

“Not really. But I like the warmth of it.”

I nod, considering that. “Sorry. Just curious. Samuel—my stepdad—doesn’t really care for human food and drink, but Cleo practically lives on espresso.”

Cas takes another sip. “A personal choice, usually. Once a vampire is a few decades old, human food becomes less… disagreeable to the constitution.”

“And you’re more than a few decades old, I take it?”

I try to offer the question lightly, teasingly, but the long look Cas gives me makes me think it was a step too far. Breaking his gaze, I fix my eyes out the window, across the street to the door we’re watching.

Stupid. So stupid. We’re not here to get to know each other, and me prying into his past is probably completely out of the realm of anything he’d want to share with—

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