"It's a nice story, Harry, but what's the point?" Thomas asked.

"My point is that there's a lot of my life you haven't seen. I have friends."

"Monster hunters, werewolves, and a talking skull."

I shook my head. "More than that. I like my apartment. Hell, for that matter I like my car."

"You like this piece of… junk?"

"She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid."

Thomas slouched down in his seat, his expression skeptical. "Now you've forced me to reconsider the monumentally stupid explanation."

I shrugged. "Me and the Blue Beetle kick ass. In a four-cylinder kind of way, but it still gets kicked."

Thomas's face lost all expression. "What about Susan?"

When I get angry, I'd like to be able to pull off a great stone face like that, but I don't do it so well. "What about her?"

"You cared about her. You got her involved in your life. She got torn up because of you. She got attention from all kinds of nasties and she nearly died." He kept staring ahead. "How do you live with that?"

I started to get angry, but I had a rare flash of insight and my ire evaporated before it could fully condense. I studied Thomas's profile at a stoplight and saw him working hard to look distant, like nothing was touching him. Which would mean that something was touching him. He was thinking of someone important to him. I had a pretty good idea who it was.

"How's Justine?" I asked.

His features grew colder. "It isn't important."

"Okay. But how is Justine?"

"I'm a vampire, Harry." The words were cold and distant, but not steady. "She's my girlfri-" His voice stumbled on the word, and he tried to cover it with a low cough. "She's my lover. She's food. That's how she is."

"Ah," I said. "I like her, you know. Ever since she blackmailed me into helping you at Bianca's masquerade. That took guts."