"So, do you still need to sleep during the day?" Kingsley asked, or, at least, I think he asked. Words had a tendency to get muffled when spoken around a side of beef.
We were at Mulberry Street Ristorante in downtown Fullerton, sitting by the window, drinking wine and eating steak. Just like regular people.
Of course, one of us wasn't so much eating their steak, as slurping the bloody juice pooling around it, and the other wasn't so much eating his steak, as wolfing it down.
I nodded. "I'm still a creature of the night, if that's what you're asking. And, yes, I still need to sleep during the day. I'm still weak during the day. I still feel like crap when I have to get up and pick up the kids during the day. The medallion only gives me the ability to tolerate the sun."
"No more burning?" he asked between bites.
"No more burning."
Mulberry's was busy tonight. It was busy every night, as far as I could tell. It was our restaurant of choice, especially since the cooks and waiters here were used to my orders of raw meat, extra bloody.
Now, as I watched Kingsley tear through his meat in record time, something occurred to me. "Now I have a question for you."
"Shoot."
"Were you always this big?"
"Big...how?"
"Big, as in I've actually seen you turn sideways to go through doorways."
"Only some doors, and, no, the big part came later."
"How much later?"
"Over time. Decades. Little by little, after each transformation."
"You mean, you grew after each transformation?"
"Yes. At least, as far as I could tell."
"But why?" I asked.
"Survival, I think."
"But you're already immortal," I said, lowering my voice.
"A weak immortal doesn't get one very far, Sam. And remember, I can't turn into - " and now he lowered his voice to a low growl - "the thing I turn into, on cue. That happens only once a month, and generally in a locked room. And when it does happen, I'm often out of my mind. Gone to the world for the whole night."
"While something else takes over your body."
"Right," he said.
"So, being big in your daily life has its benefits."