Jody focused on two of them whispering in the corner. "I told you, this is a babe-fest. Did you see the redhead?" He sneaked a look.
His partner said, "I think I saw her at Compulsive Cleaners last week."
"Compulsive Cleaners, I was going to try that. How are the odds?"
"Lots of gay guys, but a few babes. Mostly they smell like Pine Sol, but it's hot if you like latex gloves."
"Cool, I'll check it out. I think I'm going to quit going to Adult Children of Alcoholics, everybody's looking to blame, no one's looking to get laid."
Jody thought, I don't know if I want to hear quiet desperation this clearly. She changed her focus to the women in the room.
A six-foot-two brunette woman in a black choir robe and Kabuki-like makeup was complaining to a washed-out blonde wearing a tattered wedding dress. "They want to be tied up, I tie them up. They want to be spanked, I spank them. They want to be called names, I call them names. But try and drink a little of their blood, and they scream like babies. What about my needs?"
"I know," said the blonde. "I asked Robert to sleep in the coffin one time and he left."
"You have a coffin? I want a coffin."
Christ, Jody thought, I've got to get out of here.
Tabitha clapped her hands. "Let's get the meeting started!"
Those who were standing found seats. Several men tried to shove their way into the seats next to Jody. A skinny geek with peanut-butter breath leaned in to her and said, "I was on 'Oprah' on Halloween. 'Men who drink blood and the women who find them disgusting. If you want, you can come by my place and watch the tape after the meeting."
"I'm out of here," Jody said. She jumped up and headed for the door.
Behind her she heard Tabitha saying, "Hi, I'm Tabitha and I'm a bloodsucking fiend."
"Hi, Tabitha," the group said in chorus.
Outside Jody looked up and down the street wondering which way to go, what to do. She paused by a phone booth, realizing that there was no one she could call. Tears welled in her eyes. Why even bother to hope? The only person who had the slightest idea how she felt was the vampire who had made her. And he had made it clear that he wasn't interested in helping her — the evil fucker.
I should set him up with my mother, she thought, then the two of them can look down on humanity together. The thought made her smile.
Then the phone rang. She looked at it for a second, looked around for someone else who would answer it, but except for a guy standing by his car a couple of blocks away, the street was empty.
She picked up the phone. "Hello."
A man's voice said, "I thought you would show up here eventually."
"Who is this?" Jody asked. The man sounded young, his voice was unfamiliar.
"I can't tell you that yet."
"Okay," Jody said.
"Bye."
"Wait, wait, wait, don't hang up."
"Well?"
"You're the one, aren't you? You're real. I mean, you are a real vampire."
Jody held the phone away, stared at the receiver as if it were an alien object. "Who is this?"
"I don't want to tell you my name. I don't want you to be able to find me. Let's just say that I'm a friend."
"That's how most of my friends are," Jody said. "They don't tell me their names or how to find them. It keeps my social calendar pretty clear." Who was this guy? Who could possibly know that she was here, right now?
"Okay, I guess I owe you something. I'm a med student at… at a local college. I did some research on one of the bodies… one of the bodies of the people you killed."
"I didn't kill anyone. I don't know what you're talking about. If I am who you think I am, how did you know I'd be here? I didn't even know I would be here until an hour ago."
"I've been waiting, watching every night for a couple of weeks. I had a theory that you wouldn't have any noticeable body heat, and you don't."
"What are you talking about? No one notices anybody's body heat."
"Look up the street. By the white Toyota. It's running, by the way. If you make a move to come toward me, I'm gone."
Jody looked more closely at the person up the street standing by a white car. The car was running. The man was holding a cell phone and looking at her through some very large binoculars.
"I see you," she said. "What do you want?"
"I'm looking at you through infrared glasses. You're not giving off any body heat, so I know you're the one. My theory was right."
"Are you a cop?"
"No, I told you, I'm a medical student. I don't want to turn you in. In fact, I think I might be able to help you, if you're interested in being helped."
"Talk," Jody said. She held her hand over the phone and focused on the guy by the car. She could hear him talking into the cell phone.
"They gave one of the cadavers to our department after the coroner was done with it. It was a male, about sixty years old, the third victim, I think. I noticed that there was a clean spot on his neck, as if it had been washed. The coroner hadn't put that in his report. I took a tissue sample and put it under a microscope. The tissue in that area was living. Regenerating. I cultured it and it started to die, until I added something on a hunch."
"What?" Jody asked. She didn't know what to think. This man knew she was a vampire, and strangely, she felt an urge to attack. Some protective instinct wanted her to hurt him. Kill him. She fought to stay calm.
"Hemoglobin. I added some human hemoglobin and the tissue started to regenerate again. I ran it through the sequencer. It's not human DNA. It's close, but not human. It doesn't produce heat, doesn't seem to burn fuel the same way that mammalian cells do. The coroner said that he was the one that had drained the blood from the body, but he'd never done that before. And I knew that the guy had been murdered. I made a guess. I saw the ad in the Weekly for a vampire support group, so I've been watching."
Jody said, "Suppose I believe what you're saying. Suppose I believe that you believe this bullshit, how could you help me? Supposing I wanted to be helped?"
"My major is gene therapy. There's a chance I could reverse the process."
"This isn't science. I'm not saying that you're right about your theory. There are a lot of things that you don't know, that can't be explained by science. If you don't know that by now, you will. What you're talking about is magic."
"Magic is just science that we don't know yet. Do you want me to help or not?"
"Why would you want to do that? As far as you know, I kill people."
"So does cancer, but I still work on it. Do you have any idea what kind of competition there is for jobs in my field? It's an all-or-nothing field. I could end up getting my PhD and giving saccharine enemas to rats for five bucks an hour. What I learn from you would put my resume at the top of the stack."
Jody didn't know what to say. Part of her wanted to drop the phone and go after him. Another part wanted to accept his help.
She said, "What do you want me to do?"
"Nothing yet. How can I get hold of you?"
"I can't tell you that. I'll call you. What's your number?"
"I can't tell you that."
Jody sighed. "Look, Mr. Scientific Genius, figure out something. And by the way, I really didn't kill those people."
"Then why are you even listening to me?"
"I guess this conversation is over. Get in your car and get comfortable with asking rats to bend over. Good-bye."
"Wait, we could meet somewhere. Tomorrow. Someplace public."
"No, it has to be at night. Someplace private. You could have cops everywhere." She watched him as she talked. He had put the binoculars down and she could see that he was Asian.
"You're the killer here. Would you meet you someplace private and dark?"