I smiled again. “The stakes do.” And at least a werewolf had the speed to make them a practical weapon. “The cross would need to be blessed before it is in any way effective.”
“And another myth hits the skids.” He pulled into a parking spot outside the café. “Do you want me to come back tomorrow? You were pretty solidly asleep for a while there.”
I hesitated, then shook my head. “You need to know what Marjorie told me so you can warn all those involved.”
“All?”
I climbed out of the truck and walked across to the front door. “Does the name Frieda Andersen mean anything to you?”
/> He shook his head. “What has she got to do with it?”
“Everything.” I ushered him inside then walked across to the coffee machine. “Drink?”
“Strong black would be good.”
“Instant okay? Or do you want the real stuff?”
He smiled, and this time it reached his eyes. He really did have nice eyes when they weren’t cold and filled with hatred. “Instant is real as far as I’m concerned.”
As I put the kettle on, he leaned on the counter, watching me for several seconds before adding, “Tell me about Frieda.”
I did so as I made our drinks. He accepted his mug—a basic, no-nonsense white one—with a nod of thanks and then said, “Isn’t thirty years a long time to wait for revenge?”
“For the average person, yes. But we’re not dealing with that.”
“No, I guess not.” He drank some coffee and surprise briefly touched his expression. “Your instant is a whole lot classier than ours.”
“That’s because we don’t buy supermarket shit. Would you like some cake?”
He glanced at the cake fridge and said, “Are those brownies as good as they look?”
“Better.” I grabbed a pair of tongs and got a couple out. “So you were never told about the Andersens?”
He shook his head. “I would have been only one when it all went down, and my parents have never mentioned it.”
Meaning he was only a year older than me. Nice. “Marjorie gave me a list of names, but she only knew the whereabouts of a couple.”
“I gather you took notes?”
I nodded and got my phone out. “I’ll send you the recorded file if you’ll give me your number.”
He did so. His phone beeped as it received the file. “Thanks,” he said, after glancing at it briefly. “Did Marjorie tell you much about the Andersens?”
“Not a whole lot, but from what she did say, I suspect they might have been a pod.” He raised an eyebrow, so I quickly explained what that was and then added, “It might be worth chasing down Frieda’s birth certificate. If our vampire is her father, that should give us his name.”
He nodded. “There’s one thing that puzzles me in all this—if our vamp was a witch in life, why would he have even bothered to turn?”
“Many believe that the process of turning cures the flesh of all its previous ills. Whether that’s true or not, I couldn’t say.” I shrugged. “Would there be some kind of record of the Andersens in the reservation’s archives?”
The Faelan Reservation had, like most of them, diluted the restrictions and requirements for non-werewolves to settle within the reservation just over fifteen years ago—something Belle and I had discovered when we’d been researching the area before we’d decided to come here. But the stricter rules had certainly been in place at the time the Andersens had been here, and that meant they would have been fully vetted by the council beforehand.
“I’m not sure how long the records are kept, but I’ll get someone to check.” He raised the half-eaten brownie. “This is extraordinary, by the way.”
“All thanks to kitchen magic,” I said. “Which is not, in any way, connected to real magic—just in case you’re thinking I’m trying to spell you or something.”
“I wasn’t. I’m too busy simply enjoying.”
So was I. For the first time since I’d met him, he actually appeared relaxed in my presence. His aura still ran with grief, but the flashes of distrust and hatred had muted. They certainly weren’t gone, and would no doubt flare back to life with one wrong statement or move, but it was at least a step in the right direction.