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here," Giuseppe said, his voice so low I had to lean in to hear him. We were a few yards away from the nearest vampire, but I knew how good their hearing was. "Has he threatened you?" He looked so worried. But of course he would--how long had he been living with Rinaldo's terror?
    My breathing was very shallow. I felt light-headed. "Not exactly . . ." I said. "But I wanted to know if you've ever met him. I mean, in person."
    I met his incredulous stare, willfulness winning out over pragmatic fear by a hairsbreadth.
    "Is this for one of your societies? "
    I'd heard that emphasis on the last word before, but usually from my father or Troy. I had never expected to hear such derision from one of my students. Of course, I had provoked him. I shook my head slowly.
    "I promised someone I'd help them. I just need some information."
    "So why come to me? Why here?"
    Breathe in, Zephyr. "I . . . It was thoughtless to ask you here. I apologize. I thought you might know because--"
    "I don't know anything about Rinaldo, Miss Hollis . I don't know why you think I do. Now, if you pardon me, I have work."
    His eyes grew brighter for a moment, and his irises turned black. Inhuman light pulsed behind them in a fluid, mesmerizing dance that would have put me entirely in his power had I not been immune. After a shocked moment, I pretended to relax and angle my neck toward him. I hadn't been the object of a vampire's Sway for so long I had almost forgotten they could do it. If only I'd thought to wear some garlic--then I could reasonably pretend to not be affected, since the root tended to impair younger vampires.
    Surreptitiously, I reached into my pocket and gripped the silver switchblade. Was Giuseppe really planning to bleed me? But after a few seconds the light dimmed and his eyes returned to their normal light brown. A warning, then.
    The harsh set of his mouth softened. "So maybe you remember how dangerous this is," he whispered. And then, louder, "Let her pass!"
    He stalked away. The other men in the tunnel seemed to lose their rigid focus on me.
    Well, there's nothing dishonorable about a retreat. Otherwise known as getting the hell out of here before I'm eaten alive. Quickly, I picked up my bicycle from where it had fallen earlier and hurried to the exit. I wanted to run, but it seemed undignified and anyway, I didn't want to do any more damage to my reputation than I had already. I could hear the whispers now: "That night-school teacher got ran out of the tunnel by a bunch of suckers. And she teaches 'em, too, the sap."
    I was underneath the outer scaffolding and about to reemerge into daylight when a large icicle came loose from a wooden plank above me. Before I could duck, someone snatched it out of the air with inhuman speed. Sudden alarm burned away the fear and left me angry and battle-ready. I whirled on my rescuer, the switchblade in my palm before I was aware of even grabbing it. He stood half in the sunlight, perfectly still, as though flaunting his Otherness. And he was Other in more ways than just the obvious, for though his skin turned almost gray in the light, it was chocolate brown in the shadows. He held the icicle in his left hand. None of the ice melted around his fingers, and it looked like nothing so much as a stake. An incongruous picture. When it became obvious to even my slow brain that this man had no intention of attacking me, I relaxed and nervously pocketed the blade again.
    "Th-thank you," I stammered. The man was older than most of the other workers here--well, at least his appearance was older. From his graying hair and beard, I judged him to be at least fifty when he turned.
    "You're that teacher, right? The vampire suffragette? What do you want with Rinaldo?" he asked, after looking at me for an uncomfortably long moment.
    I cursed to myself and attempted to come up with a plausible, innocent explanation. Like, "Oh no, I was asking about my brother named Rinaldo, not the infamous mob boss. How silly!" Also,