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An ambulance was pulling away from the curb as Toby and Michelle arrived at the scene. As he watched it speed off, sirens wailing, Toby felt his pulse pick up in sympathy with his fellow paramedics on board. There was nothing like the adrenaline rush of trying to keep a critical patient alive long enough to reach a hospital, the single-minded focus that left no room for other concerns. Although investigative work had its own rewards, especially for someone with his abilities.
Admittedly, his particular talents hadn't been of much use with their current case. Six stores had been robbed in as many weeks, and nothing he'd picked up from the witnesses had moved the case forward at all. There’d been no indication of an inside job or of witnesses hiding details that they were afraid to reveal to the police. He’d even gone back and interviewed the witnesses from the first three cases, before IIB got involved, hoping something had been missed, but he’d come up empty.
Hopefully the seventh incident, if that’s what this proved to be, would provide a breakthrough.
Michelle, he noticed, was also watching the now-distant ambulance. She shifted her gaze to him, expression serious.
“Metro reported a gunshot wound,” she told him, pushing open the car door. “The security guard at the store.” She climbed out and slammed the door shut, turning toward Raffinata Jewellery. Toby followed suit and fell into step beside her, dodging the curious pedestrians who’d spotted the collection of police cars and stopped to gawk.
“Wait, that ambulance was from the robbery? I thought our guys weren’t into hurting people.”
“They usually aren’t,” she replied grimly. “Something must have gone wrong this time.”
A flash of Michelle’s badge got them a nod from the officer standing guard against the crowd. He opened the door and waved them inside.
The first thing Toby noticed was the distinctive copper scent emanating from the pool of blood just inside the door. He tried to estimate how much the guard had lost as he and Michelle stepped around it, and hoped the ambulance made good time.
The second thing he noticed was the lingering feeling of fear that permeated the store, colouring the thoughts of the people inside.
Theresa Liu, the Metro detective who’d worked the case before IIB took over, was already there. Dispatches' loyalties being what they were, she’d probably been called before IIB was sent word. She came to every robbery scene they did, ostensibly to make sure that it was actually related to the ongoing case and not something new. She was invariably polite and professional with IIB officers, but also clearly unhappy about the situation, a feeling she didn’t bother hiding.
Michelle headed straight for her, but Toby paused a moment to survey the rest of the store, trying to match the faces of the witnesses to the wave of adrenaline-edged impressions that had hit him when he stepped inside.
I can’t believe that happened right in front of us.
God, we could have died.
The guard just fell. He didn’t even have a gun.
What were those guys on?
I hope the police catch them.
The thoughts were accompanied by vivid replays of two masked men yelling and waving their guns wildly, and the startling, devastating sound of a gun going off, all of it tinged in heart-pounding panic.
There was also a second dominant memory that surfaced from the crowd: The gunman turning back toward the counter, gun raised, only to be tackled by one of the store patrons, both of them crashing to the ground, the gun going off a second time as it flew from his hand and went skidding across the floor, out of reach.
Toby began hunting for the man who’d taken down the gunman, finding him a few feet away from where most of the witnesses had crowded together. He was standing beside another man, the two of them speaking in low tones. Both of them, Toby saw with shock, were covered in blood, dark crimson stains drying on their hands and soaking into the knees of their jeans. The second man also had a smear across his shirt. The tackler’s black leather jacket, zipped most of the way up, served to hide any similar marks.
Toby thought back to the pool of blood at the store entrance, and focused in on the two men, curious about their take on events.
The first of the two men, smaller and fairer than his friend, projected the same scared-relieved feelings of the other witnesses. His thoughts jumped wildly between recalling the shooting, thinking about the necklace he’d planned to buy for his girlfriend, and replaying the memory of kneeling over the injured guard with his friend, the two of them exchanging terse remarks as they worked to keep the man alive with a professionalism that suggested training—paramedics or nurses, maybe.
Toby switched his focus to the friend and found—nothing. Trying to read the second man’s mind was like sliding over glass, or black ice. Toby didn’t bounce off of him so much as slip past and around, with no way to gain traction. He tried again, probing for some way in, but it was as if the man was wearing a mental cloaking device that rendered him entirely invisible. If Toby hadn’t been looking directly at him, he wouldn’t have known anyone was there. It was a disconcerting thought.
He didn’t realize he was staring until dark eyes met his with a startled look that quickly turned thoughtful. Flushing a little at being caught, Toby broke off his attempt to connect and turned away, moving to join Michelle for Liu’s briefing.
“According to the statements taken by the officers who were first on the scene, there were two perps,” Liu told them. “They were already wearing masks when they came into the store, and they pulled their guns almost immediately, ordering everyone to get down. The security guard near the door reached in his pocket, possibly to call 911, and one of the two immediately shot him. At that point, one of sales associates started screaming, and he swung around and aimed his gun at her. That’s when one of the customers tackled him. The gun went flying and the two suspects ran.”
“Who did the tackling?” Michelle asked, and Liu pointed her toward the dark-haired man.
“I take it he and his friend were also the ones who kept the guard alive until the paramedics got here,” Toby said. Even from this distance, the blood on their clothes was visible.
Liu nodded. “That guy saved a few lives today.”
Michelle was frowning. “None of this sounds like our suspects. Our guys are fast, in and out. They’re not worried about 911 calls.”
“I know.” Liu’s flat tone conveyed every bit of her annoyance at IIB’s presence without crossing into anything anyone could call her on.
“Maybe these are different guys,” Toby suggested, less immune to local resentment than Michelle was. He’d worked with Metro long enough to know they were just as professional as the IIB, and without the same resources to draw on.
“Let’s start talking to the witnesses,” Michelle said. “Hear what they have to say. Then maybe we can figure out whose case this is.”
“I think we should start with the guys who saved the guard,” Liu said. “Let them get out of here and get cleaned up.”
They conducted the interviews in the manager’s office, away from the rest of the witnesses. The two men introduced themselves as tourists up from Boston with their girlfriends for a few days. They’d stopped in Raffinata to pick up a gift while the women were doing their own shopping. Josh, the one who hadn’t done the tackling, was clearly still shaken by what had happened. His friend Aidan seemed relatively undisturbed, to Toby’s eye—which was only thing he had to go on, as Aidan’s mind remained as unreachable as before.
“Can you walk us through what happened next?” Michelle asked.
“We were at the counter looking at necklaces when two guys came through the door,” Josh said. “Apparently they had ski masks on before they came in, but I didn’t really notice them until they started yelling.”
Liu looked up from her notes. “What were they yelling?”
“Telling everyone to stay still and not do anything stupid. Things like that. Honestly, I was more focused on the guns they were waving around.”
Michelle and Toby exchanged glances, conveying their mutual recognition that none of this matched up with previous incidents. Either their guys had gone completely off the rails, or Liu’s dedication to showing up at every scene was going to pay off this time.
“Did you see what kind of guns they were?” Liu asked.
Josh shook his head, but Aidan spoke up. “The shooter had a P89. The other guy had a Glock 17.”
Police or military, maybe? Or former military. Possibly a combat medic, given what he’d done for the guard afterwards. A military background would explain a lot, although not why Toby couldn’t read him.
“What happened next?” Michelle asked.
“There was a security guard by the door,” Josh said. “I guess he must have moved or something, because one of them turned and shot him in the abdomen. The other guy yelled at him, but then one of the store clerks started screaming, and he turned to aim his gun at her.” He stopped abruptly, as if aware that the rest of the story wasn’t his tell.
“I hear she has you to thank for the fact that she wasn’t shot,” Liu said to Aidan.
He shrugged self-deprecatingly. “It was pretty easy to take him down. He wasn’t looking in my direction.”
“I don’t think I’d ever call rushing a man with a gun easy,” Michelle said.
Toby, who was watching as Josh replayed the scene in his head—had Aidan really moved that fast, or was Josh exaggerating it in his memory?—tended to agree.
“So you tackled the gunman and the two of you went down,” Liu said. “Then what?”
“He dropped his gun when I hit him. It went off and slid across the floor,” Aidan said. “His friend picked it up and made for the door, and he started struggling to do the same. I thought about trying to hold on to him, but the security guard needed help, so I let the guy go and then Josh and I started working on the security guard.”
“The gun went off twice?” Liu asked. Toby could hear her making a mental note to tell her officers to search for a second bullet.
“The second time was an accident,” Aidan said. “It was lucky no one was hit.”
“Do the two of you have medical training?” Michelle asked.
“We’re nurses,” Josh replied. “So is my girlfriend.” A buzzing sound came from his pocket. He pulled out his phone and glanced down. “That’s her now. Probably wondering where we are.” He offered them an apologetic smile. “We have reservations at Lee at eight, and we promised we’d visit the CN Tower first.”
Liu glanced at Michelle for confirmation, then said, “I don’t think there’s any reason to keep you. Thank you very much for your co-operation. We have your contact information if we need anything else.”
Further interviews fell along similar lines. Witness after witness came up and told essentially the same story that Josh and Aidan had already relayed. The masks. The guns. The yelling. The shooting of the guard and the heroic tackle that saved the sales associate. There were no notable differences between what they said and what the remembered.
Knowing these might be a new set of perpetrators, Toby paid particular attention during the interviews of the two sales associates, looking for signs that either of them knew, or had perhaps even helped, the thieves, but two of them radiated fear and relief, with no sign of complicity. One of them had developed a slight crush on Aidan, and not the one Aidan had saved.
It wasn’t until the fifth interview that something interesting happened.
One of the officers had brought in a couple, a man and a woman in their thirties. Their story was the same as that of the others, but when they reached the tackle, Toby picked up a stray thought from the woman: He was hit. He must have been hit. With the thought came a mental replay of the tackle, identical to the rest except that the gun didn’t go off as it flew from the suspect’s hand, but rather as he turned toward Aidan just as Aidan reached him. In her mind, it had been aimed straight at Aidan’s stomach as he pulled the trigger, and then the two men met and the gun fell.
Toby waited to see if she’d say something, but the woman dismissed the thought, telling herself that it had clearly been impossible, that she must have been seeing things.
He paid closer attention after that, waiting to see if someone else had seen the same thing, but if anyone had, they hid it well. Finally, the last witness came up, a lone man scoping out engagement rings for his girlfriend.
“Then this guy standing nearby tackled the guy with the gun. The gun went off as he took the guy down; I was sure he’d been hit. But he got up again, so I guess not. It’s lucky the bullet didn’t hit anyone else.”
“The gun went down while it was still in the suspect’s hand?” Toby asked. “Not after it fell to the floor?”
The man frowned in concentration. “It sounded like it to me, but everything happened pretty fast.”
They were interrupted by a knock on the door. A uniformed officer came in and held a quick whispered conference with Liu and Michelle. He left immediately, and Liu and Michelle turned back to the witness.
“Thank you very much, Mr. Singh,” Liu said. “We appreciate your co-operation. If we need anything else from you, we’ll be in touch.”
Michelle stood up after Singh had left. “They arrested two men three blocks away,” she told Toby. “Both armed. Looks like the guys.”
“But not our guys.”
“Probably not.” She turned to Liu. “I think this one is all yours, Detective.”
“Good luck,” Liu said. She offered a conciliatory smile, gracious in her victory. “I’m sure you’ll get them soon.”
“Thanks,” Michelle said ruefully.
Outside, the witnesses had left, including Josh and Aidan.
The two of them could have been wrong, Toby told himself. They probably had been wrong. This kind of situation played havoc with people’s memories, as he knew from experience.
So why couldn’t Toby read him?
Even if they were right and Aidan had been shot, the man was a hero. He’d saved multiple lives. What did it matter if he was also somehow mysteriously immune to injuries that would have left anyone else on the ground bleeding out? Toby knew better than anyone why someone might want to hide their abilities, avoid scrutiny and worse.
Had Aidan known that Toby was trying to read him? What if he knew other people with other gifts? Perhaps even other telepaths?
Maybe even Maya.
***
He was still mulling over the possibilities that evening when Oz showed up, large pizza in hand, to watch the Argos play. It made him bad company, he knew, as he acknowledged a half-heard comment of Oz’s with a distracted hmm, but he couldn’t shake the questions that the two witnesses had raised. What was Aidan? How had he done it? What did he know?
“Earth to Toby. Did you hear anything I just said?”
Toby pulled himself out of his contemplation with a start. He tried to replay Oz’s last words in his head and realized guiltily he had no idea what they were. “Sorry, Oz. I’m a bit distracted tonight.”
“I noticed. What’s going on?”
“Something weird happened on a case today.” Without quite meaning too, Toby picked up the surface flow of Oz’s thoughts and sat up straighter at what he saw. “Wait, did you say something about vampires?”
Oz directed a scowl at him that was half exasperation and half amusement. “You just pulled that from my mind, didn’t you?”
Toby gave an apologetic shrug and leaned forward to snag another slice of pizza. He didn’t think Oz really objected to having his mind read—he rarely did—but being annoyed at being ignored was fair enough.
Oz extended the scowl another half-second—long enough for Toby to bite into the lukewarm pizza, heavy on garlic and sausage, and realize it was only his second slice and that he was hungry—and then his expression shifted to one of eagerness. “All right, fine. So, I had a guy first thing this morning who swore he was attacked by a vampire last night. And get this: He actually had two holes in his neck. Like fang marks.”
And Toby had thought he’d have the strangest story to tell tonight. “There has to be another explanation,” he said reflexively. Whatever else might exist in the world, the idea of vampires was patently ridiculous.
“Like what?” Oz challenged.
Toby considered unlikely combinations of hallucinogenic drugs and large syringes. “Maybe he did it to himself. For the attention,” he suggested finally.
“Well, if he did, he’s the third one this week.”
“Seriously?” Maybe drugs and syringes were the right explanation after all, although Toby couldn’t imagine what the motive would be.
“I mean, I didn’t see the other two personally, but that’s what I heard. And apparently all three of them required fluid top-ups at the hospital.”
On the TV, a loud cheer went up as the Argos finally scored.
“That doesn’t mean it was a vampire.”
“How do you know it wasn’t?” Oz asked. “You exist. Why not vampires?”
Toby swallowed his last bite of pizza. “It’s not the same thing. You’re talking about one minor ability versus a whole supernatural being that contradicts everything we know about how the world works.”
“Minor ability,” Oz scoffed. “Think what you want, my friend, but as for me, I’m buying some garlic on my way home.”
“Is that why you got extra garlic for the pizza? To chase away the vampire?”
“Damn straight. Plus it’s delicious.” Oz demonstrated the point by grabbing another slice. “So, what happened to you today?”
Toby leaned back, replaying the scene again. “There was another robbery, at a jewellery store. One of the robbers shot the security guard, then a customer tackled the gunman.” A simple story, and he had his choice of a dozen perspectives to draw from in telling it, all basically the same. Except for the important part.
“What’s strange about that?”
He was hit. He must have been hit. “Two of the witnesses saw the customer get shot in the stomach mid-tackle.”
Oz’s eyes widened rather satisfyingly. “Wow. What did McCluskey say?”
I was sure he’d been hit. But he got up again, so I guess not. “The first one didn’t tell her and the second said he must have been mistaken.”
“Why didn’t you say anything? Tell her about the first one?”
He’d asked himself the same thing on his way home. Repeatedly. “Because Detective Liu was there, and because it’s not our case anymore. The MO didn’t match and they picked up two suspects before we finished the interviews. Metro is handling it now.”
“You could still tell her there’s a bulletproof man running around Toronto.”
Toby had thought about it, but— “He didn’t do anything wrong.” And yes, Toby trusted Michelle, but Aidan didn’t know her, didn’t know what she might do with that kind of information. Toby couldn’t even say for certain who she might feel obliged to tell, or what someone else might do if they knew.
“Are you sure about what they saw? Maybe they really were mistaken. How did he remember it happening?”
Toby shook his head, recalling the blank spot. “I couldn’t read him. At all. It was like he wasn’t even there. But he looked at me while I was trying to read him, like maybe he felt it.” Or maybe he’d just noticed Toby staring at him.
“Really?” Oz perked up at that. “Do you think he’s a telepath too?”
“I don’t know.” Although he had wondered. Could he prevent someone else from reading him if he blocked them? Create that slippery-glass sensation? He’d never had reason to try.
“Well, even if he’s somehow a super-healing mutant or a bulletproof alien, if he got shot, there’d be a hole in his clothes, right?”
“I’m not sure Superman ever ended up with holes in his clothes,” Toby said. He thought back to the interview, trying to picture what Aidan had been wearing. Blood-soaked jeans and that leather jacket. “He had his coat zipped up pretty high. He could have been covering up a hole.” Or a more standard injury, except that no one would be on his feet that long after getting shot. Even adrenaline could only do so much.
“Wow,” Oz said. He gazed at the TV for a moment, watching as the Roughriders took control of the ball. Again. “So what are you going to do?”
“What else can I do?” Toby asked, struggling to keep his frustration out of his tone. “Even if it were still an IIB case, this guy isn’t a suspect. He’s a hero. He saved two lives; it’s not like we’d be interrogating him. And I don’t think there are any laws against being bulletproof.” Although there was probably a laboratory somewhere that would be interested in the guy, if the wrong people found out.
“Come on, Toby. This is the first time you’ve met someone like you.”
Toby gave him a wry look. “Last time I checked, I wasn’t immune to bullets.”
“You know what I mean,” Oz said impatiently. “Someone with super powers. Maybe there’s a whole network of people out there with different powers. Maybe this guy knows some of the others.”
Toby thought again of the guy’s surprised expression when he’d tried to read him. Wondering whether Aidan had felt it, and how. “Or maybe the witnesses were seeing things and the bullet missed him,” he said, half-hoping that Oz would argue him into it.
Oz came through, with just the right degree of sarcasm. “Sure. And it’s pure chance that you couldn’t read him.”
“Probably not,” Toby admitted.
“What if he is telepathic too? Don’t you want to know?”
Eight o’clock reservations, Josh had said. That meant they’d probably be out in less than an hour. He glanced at the TV. The Argos were putting up a good fight, but it was pretty clear they weren’t coming back on this one. He stood up and grabbed his coat. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”
***
They only had to wait about fifteen minutes before they saw the two couples emerge from Lee. Aidan, Toby saw, had traded in his leather jacket for a blazer, and Josh was dressed similarly. The bloody jeans were gone, of course, replaced with something cleaner and sharper. The two women, one blonde and one brunette, were both in summer dresses, with no need for jackets in the early September warmth.
“That’s them,” Toby said quietly. He and Oz began a spirited discussion of where the Argos had gone wrong as they headed down the street toward the restaurant, trying make the meeting appear accidental.
Of course, if Aidan could read minds, it probably wouldn’t work.
“Oh, hey,” Toby said as they drew close, doing his best to sound surprised. He thought he could pull it off. He hadn’t done a lot of undercover work, but he’d observed. “That’s a coincidence, running into you guys again. How’d you like the CN Tower?” He looked to Oz, keeping his tone light. “These are the guys I was telling you about, the ones who saved that guard’s life.”
Apparently their act was good enough not to arouse suspicions, or else Aidan didn’t want to draw attention to their deception, because he greeted them with what appeared to be genuine pleasure, casually introducing the two women as Kat and Nora. Toby, in turn, introduced Oz.
“How’s the guard doing?” Aidan asked. “Have you heard anything?”
“Sorry,” Toby said with an apologetic gesture. “I don’t know. We ended up handing the case over to the local police.”
To Toby’s eyes, Aidan looked completely at ease, and so did Kat, who was looking at Toby and Oz with undisguised interest. Josh and Nora, on the other hand, looked distinctly uncomfortable, postures stiff, expressions cautious, as if they’d been caught doing something they shouldn’t but were hoping to get away with it.
“Right,” Aidan said. “You guys are feds, aren’t you? Mounties?”
“I’m with the IIB,” Toby said. “It’s kind of a multi-agency agency.”
“I heard you were a real hero today,” Oz interjected brightly to Aidan. “Tackled a gunman and everything.”
Aidan’s mind was still slick glass, but Toby honed in on the other three, hunting for reactions. Kat, who he took to be Aidan’s girlfriend, turned to him, resting a hand on his arm. Her mind radiated surprise and concern and an admiration that Toby hoped he might inspire someday in someone. There was nothing at all about mindreading or a miraculous imperviousness to bullets.
“You didn’t tell me that part!”
“It’s not a big deal,” Aidan said, with the same self-effacing tone he’d used during the interview to dismiss his heroism. Maybe it wasn’t so heroic, if you knew you couldn’t be hurt.
Or maybe the heroism came from doing it knowing that someone might find that out.
Toby dipped into Josh’s and Nora’s heads, curious about their frozen smiles, trying to get their take on the situation. Josh, he discovered, was reviewing the periodic table. Nora was reciting nursery rhymes. Both of them seemed to be avoiding his gaze. Clearly Aidan did know something about Toby’s abilities, and he’d told his two friends, but not his girlfriend.
“They told me about the guard getting shot, but not about Aidan taking down the shooter,” Kat said. “What happened?”
As Oz filled in Kat on Aidan’s heroics and Aidan continued to downplay it, Toby tried to send a message: Can we talk?
There was no reply.
“You could have been killed,” Kat was saying Aidan.
Aidan shrugged as if death were no big deal. “I couldn’t let him shoot anyone else.”
Toby wondered again if he had some sort of military background. It would make sense for someone with his kind of abilities, if they could be kept hidden.
“Look at the time,” Josh interrupted, sounding relieved. “We’d better get going. We’ve got those tickets.”
“Second City,” Kat told them apologetically. “It was so nice to meet both of you.” She looked up at Aidan. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”
“That’s the kind of guy he is,” Josh said with a just little too much enthusiasm. He gave Toby and Oz a quick smile, more genuine this time, perhaps reflecting his relief. “Nice seeing you again.” In his head, he’d moved on to the multiplication tables.
The four of them headed down the street, talking amongst themselves. Toby strained after them, hoping Josh and Nora would let their guard down, but all he got was a review of the food and anticipation for the show ahead.
“So?” Oz asked.
“I still can’t read him,” Toby said. “But he must have known I was trying, because he told Josh and Nora.”
“Nothing about his getting shot?”
“No, they were careful not to think about that.” Or anything else of interest.
“What about Kat?”
Pure, perfect sincerity. “I don’t think she knows anything about any of it.”
Oz frowned. “Weird. Why tell Nora but not his own girlfriend?”
Toby had wondered the same thing. “Josh said the three of them were nurses. Maybe he wasn’t quite as immune as we thought. Maybe he needed medical help from both of them.” Maybe Aidan didn’t trust Kat. Maybe he wanted to protect her. Motives were a lot harder to determine when you couldn’t just pluck them directly from someone’s mind.
“We could follow them to Second City,” Oz suggested.
“And what? Run into them again after the show? I don’t think they’d buy that.”
“We could all go get a drink. Maybe their guard would slip.”
“I don’t think Josh and Nora would go for that,” Toby said. “They were pretty stressed just from running into us once.”
“So that’s it?” Oz looked as disappointed as Toby felt.
Toby tried to think of ways he could get Aidan alone, to pose the question, but came up blank. “I guess so.”
***
The failed attempt at investigating ended his evening with Oz. Toby headed home, packed up the remains of the pizza, drank another beer, and watched the evening news before finally heading to bed, still wondering what he could have done differently.
Once in bed, he tossed and turned. The heat of the day had crept into his apartment, raising the temperature beyond what even the open window could cope with. That thought brought back Oz’s earlier story, and Toby spent a few minutes lying in bed staring at his window, wondering if he had any garlic in his kitchen, before telling himself not to be absurd.
Finally, restlessness drove him outside, to pace the streets. It was ridiculous to think he’d run into Aidan, he knew, but he couldn’t help harbouring a hope that Aidan had somehow picked up on his intentions, that he might arrange a meeting away from other people.
Toby turned a corner into a deserted side street and saw two figures pressed against each other in what was obviously a private act, one pushing the other against a building, only a few feet away.
“Sorry,” he muttered and started to turn back the way he’d come, and then he stopped as he registered what he was seeing. They weren’t making out at all. One had his mouth buried in the other’s neck, with the other figure slumping, possibly unconscious, held up only by the man who was—oh God. Instinctively, Toby took a step backward as the man slowly raised head and turned to face Toby, letting his victim slide to the ground in a heap. His face was twisted in a snarl, and unnaturally long, white teeth gleamed in the glow of the street lights.
Toby took another step backwards, wondering whether it would do him any good to run. Vampires could fly, right? Or move at super speeds?
Before he could put it to the test, there was a blur of movement and strong hands grabbed his arms, turning him and shoving him up against the wall. He caught a glimpse of black eyes and white teeth, and then gasped at the feel of hot breath on his neck. He struggled hard, trying to kick, to pull free, twisting his head to avoid the teeth, but the iron grip was unforgiving. As the teeth brushed against his neck, he closed his eyes, like a child hiding from the monster under the bed, and braced for those teeth to sink into his neck.
And then suddenly he was free, the man—the vampire?—in front of him gone. Opening his eyes, he saw the man rising to his feet in the middle of the street, where he had apparently been thrown. At the edge of the street, standing between the vampire and Toby, was a tall figure in jeans and a leather jacket.
The vampire—it had to be a vampire, with those teeth—was ignoring Toby now, focusing on the man in front of him. He rose with an angry roar, and then his expression shifted to something Toby thought might be fear. Without a word, he turned and ran.
The man in front of Toby turned. Aidan, of course.
He touched a hand to Toby’s arm. “Are you okay?”
“I think so,” Toby said. He raised a hand to his neck, feeling for holes. There didn’t seem to be any, and he sighed in relief. He didn’t want to think about what would have happened if Aidan had arrived a few seconds later.
“You wouldn’t have turned even if he’d bitten you,” Aidan said, as if he really could read minds. “It takes a lot more than that.” He sounded certain. Experienced.
“Is that something you know a lot about?” Toby asked. He hadn’t felt anything from the vampire during the attack, he realized. No stray thoughts or flashes of memory. Of course, he’d been too busy fighting to try. And he’d seen Aidan in the sun, right? Vampires couldn’t go out in the sun. Not in the stories.
Maybe Aidan was some sort of vampire hunter. Half-cursed or something.
“You should get home,” Aidan told him. “If anyone else realizes what you are, they might come after you. They know you’re a threat.”
Toby looked at him disbelievingly, remembering his own helplessness in the grip of the vampire. “What kind of threat could I be? I didn’t even know vampires existed until tonight.”
“You can identify us.”
Or maybe he wasn’t just a hunter.
“I wouldn’t have known what it meant if he hadn’t attacked me,” Toby objected.
Aidan gave a short laugh. “Yeah, life’s full of ironies.”
“Why did you save me if I’m such a threat? Aren’t you worried I’ll tell someone?”
“That’s up to you,” Aidan said. “Even if you do, you won’t find all of us.”
“I could find you,” Toby said, knowing it was perverse that he was arguing against his own survival. Except that he didn’t think Aidan was going to kill him—not the man who’d risked his cover to save a woman’s life, and then risked it again to save Toby.
“You could,” Aidan agreed. He turned as if to leave.
“Are you saying there are other telepaths out there?” Toby asked. The question he’d really wanted to ask. He could hear his own desperation, and decided he didn’t care if Aidan heard it too.
Aidan paused, then turned back to face him. “Not too many. You’re the first one I’ve seen in fifty years.”
“What happened to that one?”
Aidan hesitated.
“Anything you can tell me,” Toby said. “Please. I don’t know any others.”
A longer delay, Aidan clearly weighing something. Toby held his breath.
“All right,” Aidan said finally. He looked around the street, at the dark silence and the man on the ground. “We’ll get some help for him, and then we’ll go get a drink. I’ll tell you what I can.”