Hex Appeal (P.N. Elrod) (Kitty Norville 4.60)

“Me,” I agreed.

“Besides that sparkly gunk”—he waved at my hands—“what else can you do?”

“Fly without wings. Glamour.”

See the future.

I left that last talent out. It always gave rise to more questions than I wanted to answer, and with Jimmy, there’d be questions I couldn’t answer.

“If you can practice glamour, then why do you look like that?”

I tilted my head, allowed what I knew to be perfectly proportioned pink lips to curl. “You don’t like how I look?”

With his olive coloring, it was hard to tell, but I was fairly certain he blushed. Which was one of the reasons I looked like this.

“You look great,” he blurted. “It’s just … well … You seem kind of helpless and—”

“Flighty?” He shrugged. “The more helpless I appear, the dumber I act, the harder they fall.” My smile widened. “Or maybe I should say, the quicker they turn to ashes.”

Understanding blossomed. “It’s camouflage.”

“What else is glamour but that?”

“What do you really look like?”

Something he would never, ever see.

I stood. “You can tell me where we’re going and what we’re killing in the car.”

I headed for the door. When he didn’t follow, I glanced back to find his gaze scanning the room. “You don’t have a suitcase?”

I wiggled my fingers. “Everything I need is right here.”

* * *

The late-March sun rose through smoky Minnesota skies, casting dim rays across the still-snow-strewn parking lot. I hoped we were headed south.

“I thought you could fly,” Jimmy said.

“I can, but you can’t.” I cast him a quick glance. “Can you?”

Jimmy hunched his shoulders. “No.”

He never had answered my first question: What are you? I decided to rephrase. “What can you do?”

“Enough,” he said.

I wondered if he knew all he was capable of, or if he was still finding out. Some DKs were late bloomers, their special talents latent until puberty and beyond. Those were usually the most dangerous ones, too, as if all the years spent growing into a power made that power practically explode once it was ready to come through.

“You need to be more specific,” I said. “I’m not going into battle with an unknown weapon.”

He scowled, but he answered. “I’m faster, stronger, and damn hard to kill.”

“So am I.”

He looked down. “I’m a dhampir.”

“Son of a vampire,” I murmured. He didn’t seem happy about it, but then, who would be? Vampires sucked.