The Urban Fantasy Anthology (Peter S. Beagle) (Kitty Norville 1.50)

“Right.”

“So all I’ve got to do is hit the right spot.”

“Yes.”

“Which means I need practice. How much time do I have?”

“A week.”

I take a breath. “I’m assuming you—and He—know a few good crossbow schools, ones with weekly rates.”

“We’ve got special tutors for that.”

I’m afraid to ask. “And what do these tutors usually do?”

“Kill vampires.”

“And you need me when you’ve got a team of them?”

“He’d spot them a mile away. They’re his kids, you might say. He’s been around 2000 years and he’s had kids and his kids have had kids—in the way that they have them—you know, the biting and sucking thing—and they can sense each other a mile away. These kids—the ones working for us—are ones who’ve come over. Know what I mean?”

“And they weren’t enough to throw off the—the ‘balance.’”

Now he laughs. “No, they’re little fish. Know what I mean?”

I don’t really, but I nod. He’s beginning to sound like my other uncle—Gian Felice—the one from Teaneck, the one with adenoids. Know what I mean?

I go home to my overpriced stucco shack in Sherman Oaks and to my girlfriend, who’s got cheekbones like a runway model and lips that make men beg, but wears enough lipstick to stop a truck, and in any case is sick and tired of what I do for a living and probably has a right to be. I should know something besides killing people, even if they’re people the police don’t mind having dead and I’m as good at it as my father wanted me to be. It’s too easy making excuses. Like a pool hustler who never leaves the back room. You start to think it’s the whole world.

She can tell from my face that I’ve had one of those meetings. She shakes her head and says, “How much?”

“I’m doing it for free.”

‘No, Anthony, you’re not.”

“I am.”

“Are you trying to get me to go to bed with your brother? He’d like that. Or Aaron, that guy at the gym? Or do you just want me to go live with my sister?”

She can be a real harpy.

“No,” I tell her, and mean it.

“You must really hate me.”

“I don’t hate you, Mandy. I wouldn’t put up with your temper tantrums if I hated you.” The words are starting to hurt—the ones she’s using and the ones I’m using. I do love her, I’m telling myself. I wouldn’t live with her if I didn’t love her, would I?

“And I live on what while you’re away, Anthony?”

“I’ll sell the XKE?”

“To who?”

“My cousin. He wants it. He’s wanted it for years.”

She looks at me for a moment and I see a flicker of—kindness. “You in trouble?”

“No.”