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beginning to hate that word since it seemed to portend doom for him and his belongings. "I put it on the washing machine at the Laundromat with your keys, and then I realized that I didn't have change for the washer, so I went to the change machine. I was only gone a second, but when I got back your wallet was gone."
    Talon grimaced. "And my keys?"
    "Well, you know when you wash just one thing it unbalances the machine? Your keys ended up getting jarred off the top of it and they went down a small drain."
    "Didn't you get them back?"
    "I tried, but I couldn't reach them. I had three other people try, but they're gone too."
    Talon sat in stunned disbelief. Worse, he couldn't even get mad at her since she'd only been trying to help him. But he really, really wanted to be mad.
    "I have no money, no pants, no keys. Do I still have my jacket?"
    "Yes, it's safe. And I saved your Snoopy Pez dispenser from the washer too. And your boots and knife thing are right here," she said, holding them up from the floor by the bed.
    Talon nodded, feeling strangely relieved by the knowledge that she hadn't destroyed everything he'd had on him last night. Thank the gods his motorcycle had been left by the Brewery. He shuddered to think what she might have done to it. "Is there a phone I can use?"
    "In the kitchen."
    "Could you please bring it to me?"
    "It's not cordless. I always lose those things or I drop them someplace and break them. The last one I had ended up drowning in the toilet."
    Talon looked uneasily at the woman and the faint sunlight in the room. He wondered which one of them was the most lethal to him.
    "Would you mind pulling down the shades?" he asked.
    She frowned. "Does the sunlight bother you?"
    "I'm allergic to it," he said, falling into the lie Dark-Hunters used when caught in similar situations.
    Although he doubted if
any
Dark-Hunter had ever found himself in a situation similar to this one.
    "Really? I've never known anyone allergic to sunlight before."
    "Well, I am."
    "So you're like a vampire?"
    The word hit just a little too close to home. "Not exactly."
    She moved to the window, but when she pulled the shade down, it fell.
    Gray sunlight spilled across the bed.
    With a curse, Talon shot into the corner, narrowly missing the pale sunbeams.
    "Sunshine, I…" Starla's voice broke off as she entered the room and caught sight of him standing naked in the corner. She eyed him in an odd, detached way, as if he were an interesting piece of furniture.
    Talon and modesty were strangers, but the way she stared at him made him damned uncomfortable.
    In spite of the sunlight, Talon grabbed the pink blanket off the bed and clutched it to his middle.
    "You know, Sunshine, you need to find a man like that to marry. Someone so well hung that even after three or four kids, he'd still be wall to wall."
    Talon gaped.
    Sunshine laughed. "Starla, you're embarrassing him."
    "Oh, believe me, that's nothing to be embarrassed over. You ought to be proud. Strut it. Trust me, young man, women your age would love to have some of that."
    Talon snapped his gaping jaw shut. These were the strangest women he'd ever had the misfortune of being near.
    Gods, get him out of here.
    Starla looked up at Sunshine in the window. "What are you doing?"
    "He's allergic to the sun."
    "It's so cloudy outside, it's almost dark."
    "I know, but he says he can't be in it."
    "Really? So you brought home a vampire? Cool."
    "I'm not a vampire," he reiterated.
    " 'Not exactly,' he said earlier," Sunshine said. "What's not exactly a vampire?"
    "A werewolf," Starla said. "With his aura, it makes sense. Wow, Sunny, you found yourself a werewolf."
    "I'm not a werewolf."
    Starla looked really disappointed by the news. "What a pity. You know, when you live in
New Orleans, you expect to meet the undead or damned at least once in a while." She looked back to Sunshine. "You think we should move? Maybe if we lived over by Anne Rice we might catch sight of a vampire or