Read On a Darkling Plain for Free Online Page A

“You aren’t in any position to make demands.”
    “Because of that popgun?” He snorted in derision.
    She stared at him. After a moment, he sensed that she was trying to take control of him again, but this time the magic didn’t work at all.
    Abruptly feeling bored with the situation, perhaps even a little sorry for this woman who wanted so badly to be tough and wasn’t especially good at it, he said, “Can’t we just talk like a couple of reasonable people? What will it hurt? If you’ll fill me in on what’s bothering you, maybe I can even help you.” He smiled sardonically. Right, help the prince’s people, who shunned him. They’d certainly given him a lot of incentive to do that!
    The woman grimaced. “All right. We — the clans — need to get to the bottom of these murders. I saw you in the bar and decided to see if you knew anything about them.”
    He held up his hand. “Whoa. You lost me. What murders?”
    She blinked in surprise. “The triple murder at the aquarium, and then the double one on Siesta Key. You must have heard about them on the news.”
    He shrugged. “Afraid not. I don’t pay much attention to the news.” Why should he? The stories were about the living, not creatures like himself; although, come to think of it, tidings about the doings of other undead wouldn’t have been all that relevant to his solitary existence either.
    “Well, the killings were... strange/’ she said, “for all kinds or reasons. The police obviously don’t understand how the murderer could have done the things he did and gotten away clean. And each of the victims had twin puncture wounds in the jugular vein or the carotid artery.”
    Dan frowned. “Like the bite of a vampire.” A careless vampire, or one unconcerned with secrecy, to be precise. Ordinarily Kindred licked the wounds they had inflicted when they finished drinking, which caused the fang marks to close instantly. “And you’re worried that whoever it is will give away the Masquerade.”
    “You got it,” she said. A pickup truck, its radio blaring a satanic anthem by Cannibal Corpse, its cargo bay full of whooping teenage boys waving beer bottles, hurtled down the street separating the beach and the bars.
    “Not entirely,” Dan said dryly. “What made you think I might be involved? You know I’ve been living quietly in this town for years now, hunting about as discreetly as anybody else.”
    “But there’s something different about you,” she said contemptuously, “something cold and nasty. People say you’re crazy, maybe crazy enough to unmask us to the kine without caring that you’re jeopardizing your own safety as well.”
    Dan had heard this kind of disparagement of his character, or at any rate his demeanor, before, but had never had any idea what the Kindred who offered it were talking about. Probably nothing real. Generally speaking, vampires were no less self-righteous and self-deluded than humans, and perhaps it was only to be expected that they rationalized their snobbery by convincing themselves that he was some sort of freak. “Well, whatever you think of me, my mother loved me,” he said ironically. “And you’re barking up the wrong tree, so why don’t we break this off. I don’t want to delay your little manhunt.” He began to turn away.
    “Hold it!” she barked.
    Sighing, he pivoted back to face her. “What now?” he demanded.
    “You admitted that no one can vouch for your whereabouts at the time of the killings,” she said.
    “And you,” he replied, “have pretty much admitted that you don’t have a shred of evidence to implicate me. You just suspect me because I’m not one of your sissy prince’s snotty little bunch of ass-kissers.”
    To his surprise, she snarled like an angry dog, her lengthening fangs gleaming even in the darkness. His intuition told him that, for some reason, his slighting reference to her leader had really gotten under her skin. “I don’t need evidence,” she said,