“Huh?” I felt his eyes on my face. “What big question?”
I glanced across at Cruz and smiled. Okay, so I was enjoying this a little. Sue me. “What am I?”
“Oh. Oh, yeah. I mean, you’re not, like, a vampire? God, that feels like such a stupid thing to say.”
“No, I’m not a vampire. Kind of the opposite, actually.”
“What’s the opposite of a vampire?”
“I’m a null.”
“You’re annulled? What?” he asked, confusion in his voice.
“No, no, two words. A. Null.” I spelled it. “It’s what people like me are called, although there are only a handful of us. I’m sort of a blank space, I guess. A dead spot in the supernatural world. There’s something around me—an energy or field of some kind—and when someone from the supernatural community enters it, they lose whatever was supernatural about them. Think of it like a bubble that I live in. I’m the center, and the bubble moves as I move.”
After the vampires and werewolves refused to help the witches in their time of need, after the witches discovered that magic hadn’t just adhered itself to humans but also to silver and a whole class of plants, after the many battles that resulted, evolution took another step and came up with nulls. Theoretically, I think we were supposed to restore balance. It sort of worked. Nulls are the wrecking ball of the supernatural world: we swing in and out of situations, creating damage and chaos. But sometimes in a really useful way.
Cruz was silent, and I looked over at him again. He was staring straight ahead, different reactions flying across his face. I almost felt sorry for him—when this had all been explained to me, my parents had just died and I was half in shock anyway. The concept of magic actually made about as much sense as living in a world without my mom and dad.
“But you’re...human, right?” he finally asked.
I shrugged. “For the most part.”
“How big is the bubble?”
“I’ve never gotten out a tape measure. Maybe ten feet? If I get really, really upset, it expands. And whatever was magical in that range is lost until it leaves the bubble again. A vampire, who was originally descended from humans, becomes a human again, with all the vulnerabilities. A werewolf becomes a human again, too. The magical part of speciation just disappears. Get it?”
“Yeah, I guess. So that animal in the clearing last night—”
“The werewolf,” I supplied.
“Yeah, okay. It was a wolf, and then it got too close to you, and that’s why it changed back?”
I nodded. “Yes.” The wolves actually love changing because of me rather than by themselves, because with me, it’s instantaneous. When they change back and forth naturally, it’s very painful and takes a few minutes. “And I bet after I left, it became a wolf again and ran off. Am I right?”
“Yeah.” A thought occurred to him. “Wait, it could have hurt me! How could you leave me alone with it?”
I shrugged. That hadn’t really occurred to me. “I was trying to get out of there. Besides, you had a gun. Shooting the wolf wouldn’t kill it, but it’d definitely back off. Probably. You were fine.” He still looked indignant, but he’d get over it. I pulled off the freeway. “We’re almost there, Cruz. You gonna stand by your word?”
“Sure I am. I’ll wait in the car. I want to think about all this and maybe ask some more questions.” He set his jaw stubbornly. “But then you and I are going to make a new deal. You’re going to help me solve this murder. Be my guide.”
My turn to be shocked. “Who am I, Jiminy Cricket? You don’t even know for sure that those killings were related to the Old World.”
“Maybe not. But you do. After all, you were there.” I felt his gaze on me without looking over. “Why were you there?”
I changed the subject. “What do I get out of this?”
He smiled smugly. “I won’t arrest you, and I won’t tell a soul about you or your world. When the case is solved, you just go back to your life.”
I thought this over. I could point out that telling anyone about the Old World would end up getting him killed, but I didn’t think it’d be such a good idea to threaten him. At the same time, though, I don’t work for free, and running around town playing detective sounded like a lot of work. It could even interfere with my TV schedule.
On the other hand, if he really set his heart on it, Officer Cruz could really put the big suck on my life. Having a cop follow me around forever would pretty much guarantee that I’d lose all my freelancing gigs, not to mention my retainer.
This is what I get for saving his goddamned life. “Fine. Deal.”
Chapter 5
It was nearly midnight when I finally pulled into Dash’s driveway. Dashiell and his wife, Beatrice, owned a gorgeous Spanish-style mansion in the richest part of Old Pasadena. I know that movies and TV shows always depict vampires as these suave, debonair seducers, and Dashiell is probably the vampire I know who is closest to that persona—rich, kind of mysterious, definitely suavish. He’s got the sophisticated killer thing down pat, which I suppose you’d need to run a big city, even a dumpy (supernaturally speaking) city like LA. In my experience, though, most of the vampires are more like Molly—frozen in time, trying to cling to the person they were while alive. If they can even remember that person.
But if any of them give me hope, it’s Beatrice. She’s one of my favorite vampires—both a gracious hostess and the only vamp I’ve ever met who seems sympathetic to my strange situation. Once, at the lavish Midsummer’s Eve party that Dash throws for the supernatural community, she found me sitting by myself in the backyard, playing with the fringe on my dress and wondering what had possessed me to come. “Oh dear, you don’t really fit in anywhere, do you?” she’d said, getting close enough to pat my shoulder. She’d taken my hand, pulled me up, and said, “Come on, I’ll introduce you to some fascinating vampires who will be thrilled to be in your presence.” Even then, I’d liked that she didn’t treat me as either something scary or a hired-help cockroach, which are the two vibes I usually get from the undead.