Free Raw Deal (Bite Back) by Mark Henwick

out of her. And my thoughts were constantly being shocked back to realizing that I had the first evidence the colonel had sent me to find.
    There were vampires in America. Right here in Denver.
    And very good at remaining hidden.
    To be that, it was surely unthinkable that they’d casually bite someone and then let her go. So what was the deal here? Were they trying to turn her? Or had they been panicked into making a mistake? If it was a mistake, were they going to come back and fix the problem?
    And what would that mean—being taken away or being killed?
    I had to work this out for Valerie as well as for the colonel.
    She lived on Colorado Boulevard, up near City Park.
    We pulled up outside an apartment building that made me think Club Agonia paid better than the Denver PD.
    She sat, looking intently at the building, making no move to get out.
    “Hey,” I said, startling her.
    “Oh. Sorry. I’m kinda scared.”
    “It’s okay, I’m coming in with you anyway.”
    “Thanks.” She flashed a tight smile and we got out of the car. We must have been an odd sight walking across to the door, Valerie in her jeans and puffy jacket and me in my floaty vampire cloak. It was a shame there was no mist.
    Inside, she offered me coffee. I accepted and she walked into a small kitchen area, turning lights on.
    “Can I use your bathroom?” I asked. “I want to take the face off.”
    That got a nervous laugh and a wave down the corridor.
    Valerie’s apartment was a surprise. I’d expected somewhere scruffy, gloomy and full of angst. Instead, she’d decorated in light pastels and put up real paintings on all the walls, mainly of penguins in funny poses. Everything was spotlessly clean and tidy.
    I scrubbed my vampire face away.
    A cat greeted me as I came back out, demanding attention loudly.
    “I can hear you’re meeting Mr. Leo Pardner, the owner of the apartment,” Valerie said from the kitchen. “Leo for short. He normally doesn’t talk to strangers.”
    I scratched his ears and he shed hairs on my cloak, buzzing with pleasure.
    “Are the penguins your work?” I called out as the coffee machine spluttered to a halt.
    “Yeah. I’ve never seen one really. We watch a lot of wildlife on TV where I come from.”
    “They’re good paintings.”
    She smiled as she came into the living room with two mugs.
    We sat on the sofa and Leo claimed the space between us, which was fine by me.
    “Valerie—”
    “It’s not really Valerie. It’s just boring, odd, plain old Valery Hawks from nowhere North Platte, Nebraska.” Her name lost the tone at the end when she said it.
    I smiled. “Everyone has to come from somewhere. Can’t be that bad.”
    She groaned theatrically and rolled back on the sofa, clutching a cushion to her. “You know they have the biggest rail yard in the world?”
    “So?”
    “They have a tower specially so you can go see it. You know you’re running out of things to do when you climb a tower to go look at a railroad junction.”
    “Sounds real bad,” I agreed.
    “And being, well, different... You don’t understand.” Her eyes flicked to me and away again. She sat up. “Imagine going to school and you’re related to a quarter of the people in your class. You go out to eat and get one cousin waiting the table and another cooking the food. You go to a dance and every other partner is a damn cousin. What are you going to do?”
    “You can kiss cousins,” I pointed out.
    “ Not of the same sex.” She put her head in her hands. “Or anyway, not in North Platte.”
    I chuckled. “Well, you can’t be odd and boring, and hey, North Platte is sort of exotic for a Denver girl like me.”
    She glared at me, but without much heat.
    “Valerie, being bored is a privilege. Tomorrow, pack up and go home for a while. Please. Take a break.” I kept the French pronunciation of her name—it suited her.
    “I can’t leave Dominé.” She saw the expression on my face. “Look, she’s been good to me. You