I smile. “Me, too. I sometimes feel like dancing is the only way I can be at total peace with myself. It’s like the world stops while you’re dancing. And nothing matters but the music.”
He pauses for a moment, then agrees. “I know what you mean. Sometimes I come here by myself. When the world is too much to deal with. I can escape for a few hours. Forget all the pain.”
He stops talking and stares at his hands. I wonder, not for the first time, what secret hurt he’s hiding and whether we’ll ever be close enough for him to share it with me.
I decide to confess. Maybe my humiliation will cheer him a bit.
“You know, I had my eyes closed,” I say. “Stupidly, I thought that guy who came up and started dancing with me was you.”
Jareth looks up, raising a perfectly arched eyebrow. “Me?”
“Yeah.” I’m hoping the bar’s dim lighting is hiding my blush.
“Would you . . . have liked it to be me?”
Gah! He did not just go there. Now my face is burning. “Uh . . .”
“You’re all red, my dear.” His smile tells me he’s enjoying teasing me, seeing me uncomfortable. Jeez. I should have never confessed that.
“It would have been nice if it was you, yes,” I say at last, not wanting to let him win. Let him turn red for a while.
But he doesn’t blush. He just looks thoughtful.
“Anyway,” he says, apparently wimping out and changing the subject. “You’re probably wondering why I asked you here tonight. And it wasn’t, unfortunately, to dance with you.”
“I figured,” I say. “What’s wrong?”
He picks up the salt shaker and fiddles with it, not meeting my eyes. “Kristoff,” he murmurs at last.
I cock my head. “You mean your vamp friend? The one whose donors you saw in the Blood Bar yesterday?”
“Yes.” Jareth nods. “I went to see him this evening. To let him know we’d spotted his donors and that he ought to let them go. I pounded on the door of his crypt, but there was no answer. I waited for a moment, then heard strange noises coming from inside. A . . . whimpering almost. So I broke down the door. I found him in bed, looking deathly ill.”
Concern claws at my heart. I’m thinking, “This is very strange.”
“I asked him what was wrong. He could barely speak.” Jareth shakes his head, looking pained. Evidently this guy is a good friend. “He says the last few days, he’s been bedridden. Can’t even feed anymore. And all his vampire powers seem to somehow have left him.”
“That’s weird.”
“Very. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Do you think he could have caught some weird disease? Like, because his donors were at the Blood Bar? Maybe they were infected by some other vampire and passed along the disease.”
Jareth shrugs. “It’s possible, to be sure. But unlikely. The Blood Bar is more regulated than one might think. It screens all its biters. I had to go through a rigorous blood test before I was accepted into the program.”
“So you think the two things are totally separate? Unrelated?”
“I wouldn’t go that far. It’s too much of a coincidence. Oh, and even stranger? His donors are dead.”
My mouth drops open in horror. “Dead?”
Jareth nods.
“But we just saw them two nights ago. I mean, sure they looked a bit on the pasty side, but . . . dead?” Suddenly this was getting pretty scary.
“Dead.” Jareth repeats. “And no one has any idea why.”
“Couldn’t they do an autopsy?”
“We could, but the humans have them, obviously. I sent some of my men to do recon and they learned that the girls’ parents are doing their own autopsy. And, unfortunately, they’re both going to be cremated immediately afterwards. So we can’t get to their bodies.”
“What would you need to find out what was wrong with them?”
“A sample of blood would probably do it. We have some talented chemists in our coven.”
An idea forms in my mind. “Do you know what funeral home they’ve been sent to? We could maybe sneak in and get the sample or something.”
Jareth raises an eyebrow. “You want to do that?” he asks. “It could be dangerous.”
“I laugh in the face of danger,” I quip, letting out a loud fake chortle. “Ha, ha, ha, ha!”
Jareth shakes his head, not able to suppress a small grin. Heh. Even he cannot resist Silly Rayne.
“Well, it’s not a bad idea. I’m told the bodies are at the funeral home. But they haven’t been worked on yet, so they still have their blood. We could go there before the place closes and hide out until after hours. Then we can get the blood sample.”
“Sounds like a plan, Stan.”
We leave Club Fang and head into the parking lot. Jareth suggests we take his black BMW and obviously I don’t argue. Leather seats and satellite radio set to an all-Goth, all-the-time satellite station is my preferred way to travel. We drive to the outskirts of town, to the funeral home. Neither of us say much in the car, but it’s a comfortable silence as Peter Murphy croons over the airwaves.
The funeral home is still open when we arrive. Dozens of cars are parked out front. Whoever’s having a wake tonight was obviously pretty popular. I wonder how many people would come to my funeral. Luckily, if I turn vamp I’ll get to fake my death and see for myself.