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government knows we’re not a bedtime story; the last thing we need is for well-meaning hippies to declare us an endangered species.”
    He was being funny. I liked it. The red wine brought a little color to his face and made him look softer, warmer, and more like an ordinary guy instead of a powerful creature who had been crippled.
    “Good point,” I said. “We’re close enough to extinction as it is. But far be it from me to try and bring us back from the brink.”
    “Oh, I don’t know about that. Once in a while I get the feeling that I’m the last of my kind, alone in a godless universe. And then I …” He was hunting for a word. “
Detect
someone. Or I learn of someone, like you. And I find myself speculating about mysterious characters in the news, thinking that perhaps I’m less alone than I think.”
    He said it like it was a pleasant thing to consider. But then again, he was a little drunk.
    We chatted that way for the better part of an hour while I waited for him to sober up, or for Cal to return. I didn’t know which would happen first and I didn’t want to leave him to his own devices. Ian Stott might not have been helpless by any stretch of the imagination, but it unsettled me, the way his eyes wouldn’t focus behind those lenses, and I worried for him.
    My distress over his condition could’ve been as simple as plain old empathy. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t his fault he couldn’t see. It wasn’t his fault that he made me feel vulnerable, like if his sight could be taken from him, then mine could be stripped from me, too.
    It wasn’t fair, but life isn’t fair—and as far as I know, neither is anyone’s afterlife. I hope I’m wrong and there’s a heaven or a hell, and that in the long run, everyone gets what’s coming. Then again, if we all get what’s coming to us, there won’t be anybody left to see the flash of light and the puff of smoke. So I guess I don’t really want to know. Sometimes I think I don’t want to live forever, or live however long a vampire can make it last, but then I wonder what happens next and I’m too chicken to die.
    And then I see someone like Ian.
    “Forever” loses a lot of its shine when you can’t see a damn thing.
    At half past one, Cal returned. He didn’t come inside to interrupt; I saw him through the window, milling around in the cold. He stomped his feet and tugged an oversized scarf tighter around his neck, and I would’ve felt sorry for him if he hadn’t been too hip to wear a coat.
    I could hear him, too—or sense him, or feel him, or whatever. He was sending out a psychic inquiry, the details of which I couldn’t discern. But I got the gist. He was asking if all was well and if it was time for him to escort his boss home. I don’t know if it was a school night or what, but Ian took the hint and signaled for the check.
    I let him get it. He’d done most of the drinking, anyway.

2
    I an and I said our good-byes, and I said I’d give him a status update and a cost estimate within a few days. He agreed to this because—as he’d made clear—he was a man with reasonable expectations.
    He knew better than to think I could fix his problem tonight. I’d need to pin down locations, study security systems, confirm specifics, and decide what equipment I might need to acquire. I own quite a selection of useful devices and helpful tools, but sometimes I have to order online just like everybody else.
    There are faster ways to steal things, but none of those ways are very conducive to flying under any mortal radars.
    Sloppy thieving leads to broken or damaged loot. Broken or damaged loot leads to a poor reputation; a poor reputation leads to fewer jobs; fewer jobs lead tolower rates; and lower rates lead to less money and eventual homelessness, starvation, et cetera.
    Sure, I’m enlarging the problem to show detail, but you see how I think.
    I could sit here and complain about it—the way I live in permanent consideration of how every