"Yeah, Cyn,” he interrupted. “I know what an artery is. The answer's no."

"No? Like in never?"

"No, like in never."

"Why? I mean, why veins, not arteries?"

"Human Circulation 101, babe. Veins go to the heart, arteries come out of it. Which means the blood in arteries is pumping, hence the human pulse, thump thump thump. When a hospital draws blood, they stick a needle in your vein. Same for a vamp, nice, smooth flow, no big deal. You pierce an artery and you've got a real mess on your hands, and a pulsing mess to boot. Not conducive to a quiet meal, if you get my drift."

"But wouldn't that make it easier? You know, faster?"

"So who wants fast? Think about a can of soda. You pop the top and drink it and it comes out at a nice easy pace. But if you stick a tiny hole in the side instead, there's too much pressure and it squirts all over the place. You can't control it and you can't drink it fast enough. Same thing with blood."

"Okay, so in the neck, you'd use the jugular vein, right?” she asked, remembering the feel of Raphael's lips against her neck. “Not the carotid artery?"

"You got it. Why you wanna know this stuff, Cyn?"

"Something I'm working on,” she said vaguely, her attention focused on shuffling through the images she'd printed off upstairs. She found the two she was looking for, pictures that showed quite clearly the location of the major veins and arteries in the human neck. Pictures that told her no vampire had put those holes in the necks of five dead young women in the county's very special paranormal morgue.

"Cyn?"

Lonnie's voice called her back to the task at hand. “Yeah, I'm here. Listen, thanks, Lonnie. That's what I needed. Oh, and about Mirabelle. She'll probably be staying with Alexandra after tonight. She'll be safer there until this whole thing with Texas is worked out."

"Alexandra?” Lonnie's surprise was obvious.

"Yeah. Duncan suggested it. That won't be a problem, will it? I mean you send blood over to Alexandra anyway, right?"

"Yeah, yeah I do. Let me know when you make the move."

"Great. Thanks, Lonnie. Talk to you later.” The microwave timer dinged as she was hanging up. By the time she had poured a fresh cup of coffee and sat down to enjoy her muffin, she was hearing the first sounds of life from the guest suite. Mirabelle was finally awake and no doubt starving.

While she waited for Mirabelle to finish her shower, Cyn pulled the cooler out of the fridge and quickly scanned Lonnie's note. In addition to his recommendation that Mirabelle drink both pints, he'd included instructions for bringing the blood to the preferred temperature. She was amazed that her life had reached a point where heating up a bag of blood for someone's breakfast seemed commonplace, but it was ready and waiting when Mirabelle walked into the kitchen.

"Thank you,” Mirabelle said softly, refusing to meet Cyn's eyes.

Cyn frowned, remembering Lonnie telling her the young vamp was embarrassed that she had to drink from a bag. “I'm going to run upstairs real quick and shower while you have breakfast, Mirabelle."

"Sure.” Her relief was evident.

"Good. So, here's the plan for tonight. First, you need some real clothes, so we're going shopping. Elke will be coming over from the estate to join us. She's one of Raphael's security team."

Mirabelle looked worried, so she added quickly, “Duncan doesn't think there's any danger, but he thought you might feel safer that way. And Elke's okay.” She paused thoughtfully. “Although, I wouldn't take her advice when it comes to clothes, if you know what I mean,” she said with a wink. “After shopping, we'll head over to the estate to visit Raphael's sister, Alexandra. If you guys get along, you'll stay with her. If not, we'll figure out something else. By the way, your meeting with Raphael's set for a week from today.” She tapped the sticky note she'd placed on the fridge. “I guess there's rules to this vampire thing. Who knew, right?"

She started up the stairs to her shower, but remembered Lonnie's instructions. “Oh,” she said, turning to make sure Mirabelle was paying attention. “Lonnie said for you to drink both pints of blood, but if you don't feel like a second one right now, we can stop back by here after we go shopping and before we head over to Raphael's estate. I don't know about you, but shopping makes me hungry."

"We're going to Raphael's?” The girl's face lit up with excitement.

Good grief, a teenage crush, Cyn thought. And on Raphael, of all people. “We're going to the estate, but we probably—hopefully, she added silently—won't be seeing Raphael,” she clarified. “Alexandra has her own house there."

"Oh,” Mirabelle said, somewhat deflated. “Okay,” she added hurriedly. “Thanks, Cynthia."

Cyn paused again, halfway up the stairs. “No problem, kid, and please, please call me Cyn. Enjoy your breakfast.” She even managed to say it with a straight face.

* * * *

By the time Cyn had showered and dressed in her usual working uniform of jeans, sweater and cowboy boots, Mirabelle had finished the first pint and was sitting in front of the television, flipping through channels. She looked up as Cyn entered the room, her eyes sparkling. “This is amazing, Cyn. You've got like every channel on Earth here!"

"Yeah. Five hundred channels and still nothing to watch.” A loud buzzer sounded, indicating someone at her downstairs door. “That's probably Elke,” she commented, but taking nothing for granted, she crossed the kitchen to the security monitor and brought up a visual of Raphael's buffed and blond security vamp, wearing the dark grey suit that was the uniform of Raphael's security team. “Hey, Elke! We'll be down in a sec."

Elke looked up at the camera with a scowl at Cyn's cheerful greeting. The two of them weren't exactly friends and they'd certainly never gone shopping together. But Cyn didn't want Mirabelle to feel anymore stressed than she already was.

"You ready to go?” she asked the girl.

"Sure!” Mirabelle flicked off the set and a few minutes later the three of them were cruising down Pacific Coast Highway, with Elke a silent presence in the back seat.

"We'll hit Third Street,” Cyn told Mirabelle as they passed the Malibu Pier. “It's a little cold for outside shopping, but we won't take long this time. Just some stuff to get you by for a few days.” She glanced sideways, appraising Mirabelle's figure, still pretty much concealed by the jeans and loose t-shirt which were all she had to wear. “You're a size eight or so, I think. Maybe a ten when you're properly nourished, but I bet you've lost some weight."

Mirabelle shrugged. “I haven't bought any clothes since my mother died. Jabril always insisted I wear what he picked out. Liz too, but she snuck around and bought stuff for herself. She'd figured out a way to get ahold of some of our money, but she never told me how. It didn't matter anyway. I never had the guts to go against him. My big rebellion was wearing an old silk nightgown of my mother's."

"Yeah, well, that's history. Off the rack will do for now, but once we find Liz, we're going to do some serious shopping."

"You think you'll find her?"

"Hell, yeah,” Cyn said, hoping it was true.

Silence filled the car for a few minutes. “Is there something I can tell Liz when I find her, to let her know you're with me? Something only the two of you would know?” Cyn caught Elke's look of surprise in the rearview mirror and gave her a dirty look back. What? Did the vampire think Cyn didn't know her own business?

Unaware of the silent exchange, Mirabelle thought for a moment. “Tell her I said we cows have to stick together."

Cyn glanced over, eyebrows raised skeptically.

"It's a joke thing from when we were kids. Liz'll understand."

Cyn shrugged. “Whatever you say. Listen, like I said, after shopping, I'm taking you by the estate to meet Raphael's sister, Alexandra. She's a lot older than you are now, but she was even younger than you when she was vamped. I don't know all the details, but she had kind of a rough time of it before Raphael found her, and then last month someone kidnapped her, trying to blackmail him. We got her back, but another vampire, a guy named Matias, died trying to protect her and they were pretty close. Duncan thinks the two of you might have a lot in common, that you might be able to help each other get through all of this."

"Okay.” Mirabelle was doubtful. “Are we staying there then? At her house?"

"Uh, no. Well, you are and, of course, Elke will stay too. But I need to look for Liz."

"Why can't I come with you?"

Cyn sighed. “Look, I know you want to help, but the places I need to go, the people I need to talk to ... they'll be reluctant to talk to me, much less someone they don't know. Plus...” Cyn scowled, trying to think of a nice way to say it and coming up with nothing. “I work alone, Mirabelle,” she said simply. “I'm sorry, but that's the way it is."

"But she's my sister."

"I know that, and I know you want me to find her as quickly as possible. So you need to let me do my job, okay?"

"Right.” The young woman sighed and looked out the window. “What do you think Lord Raphael will do?” she said finally. “I mean, when I go see him?"

"I don't know. Something formal and pretentious, I suppose.” She heard Elke snort a laugh from the back seat. “Those guys seem to love stuffy ceremonies,” she continued. “Besides you're the one who said he was a nice guy."

"Yeah, but he's also really scary."

Cyn laughed. “Well, we agree on that much anyway.” She slid into a lucky vacant spot on the first level of the parking structure and turned off the engine. “Let's go shopping."