"I don't think this is a good idea." Slayer quickly glances over at me from the driver's seat.

I am quietly looking out the window at the passing scenery. Our car is trailing a cloud of dust, and the surrounding hills look brown and dead. Hard to believe that this will all look lush and green in a few weeks. Hopefully.

"Why not?" Of course I know why he's skeptical. I would probably think the same if I were him. "You haven't even really talked with Lygia. Why are you so sure she's a bad person?"

"Come on. You know as well as I do that she's a vampire. And if we've learned anything through the years it's that vampires are clever, and sometimes they're even good at acting all innocent, but a vampire who doesn't harm humans? That's a fairy tale."

I lay back my head and sigh. "We don't even know for sure that she is one of them. And we've found zero indications that she's ever hurt anyone. Every vampire we've hunted down in our lives we've found because there was a dead body that made us suspicious. But there hasn't been any suspicious rise in death rates in the area, or any murder with hints of supernatural circumstances."

Slayer keeps looking straight ahead at the road. "I know, we don't have any proof. But working in this business for over a decade gives you an intuition for these things. Don't tell me you haven't felt anything like that around her. Besides, maybe we've just met more vampires than we know, and we only ever found those who were stupid enough to get caught. You can't say that her reaction when we first met wasn't suspicious. As soon as she saw me enter the room, she flinched and got even paler than she already was when I saw her through the window."

I quickly check the time on my phone before replying. 6:52, so we shouldn't be late. "Well, you have to agree that you look kind of intimidating to strangers, with those black leather jacket and boots of yours. Maybe she thought that [i]you[/i] were a vampire."

"Or maybe I didn't hide my gun well enough, yeah yeah. Who knows. I'll trust your judgment for now. But I still think you're just into her and it's biasing you. I mean, a girl hanging out in your kind of cafe? [i]And[/i] she's a nerd, who you first notice because you see her coding on her laptop? She must totally be your type."

I don't feel like explaining to him that I first noticed her because my senses were tingling. "Nah, it's purely platonic. But you won't believe me anyway."

I turn my head and look outside. We've arrived in the town. People are milling about in small groups, on their way to get dinner or go home.

"I can't believe I'm really going to trivia night with you. With a vampire nerd girl on our team. When we started working together I'd never have guessed that our evenings together would be this interesting, when we aren't hunting down monsters."

I smile and look over at him. "Love you too, Slayer."