“And you still have to show Eli what to do with the chickens, right?”

“Yeah, I guess.” I had forgotten that I should probably take Eli along to Artie’s. I had gotten used to doing this alone.

“Okay, well, why don’t you give me your keys,” Molly said to Eli, her eyes sparkling, “and I’ll drive your car back to our place? Scar can bring you back there after you’re done.” She held out her hand to Eli, smiling sweetly, and he automatically reached into his pocket, looking at me uncertainly.

When I didn’t say anything, he shrugged and handed her the keys.

“Great!” she chirped, pleased with herself. Vampires can be such jerks.

We spent the next eight minutes loading up my supplies, and at quarter after, Molly took a few experimental steps away from my radius. I felt her pull away from my area, and then suddenly she was vampire. Her skin glowed, and she reached up to stretch. Just to show off, she raced at full vamp speed to the door of Eli’s car, faster than I could follow with my eyes. “See you at home!” she called back to us, and I couldn’t help but smile. Then I looked over at Eli. Alone with the sex buddy/bartender/apprentice. Awesome.

He was staring after Molly with a look of curiosity. “Vampires really like what they are, huh?”

It occurred to me for the first time that he probably hadn’t spent much time around vampires, aside from the formal meetings with Will. “Some of them do. Just like some of you guys like being wolves.”

He looked over at me sharply. “None of us like being wolves, Scarlett. The pack is...like a support group for people who are all living with the same illness.”

“Even the kid with the chickens?” I said, smart mouth fully mobilized.

“We try to have fun with it. You make the best of what you’re given, Scarlett. You should know that by now.”

Touché.

Artie Erickson runs an art studio in the Valley, teaching pottery and watercolors to bored housewives and trés-bohemian grad students. (I know, “Artie” teaches “art.” It’s hilarious, let’s move on.) His building also has an enormous furnace, left over from the prior owner. The students do glassblowing there, and because it’s easier to keep the furnace running than to keep lighting it over and over, Artie also charges local businesses for its use. He had a deal with Olivia, and when she died, I made sure we could still do business together. He’s an okay guy, if a little snooty. Art people can be like that.

I don’t know how much Artie knows about the Old World or what I do, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t really want to know. The whole studio is gated, and the furnace is around the back through a short hallway. I tell Artie I’m coming; he unlocks the back gate and leaves the back door open. Then he sends me a bill for “waste disposal,” which I pass along to the appropriate Old World party. Technically, the entire thing, except for what I put in the furnace, is completely legal.

I explained the plan to Eli on our way.

“So do you even see the guy?” he asked me as we pulled into the parking lot.

“Not usually. Artie’s got a pretty good system. I doubt we’re the only ones who use his services for...questionable materials.” I shrugged, not taking my eyes off the road. “It’s a tough market for artist teachers.”

“Oh.”

I jumped out of the van to open up the gate and then got back in to drive through. Most of Artie’s classes and events take place during the day, so the parking lot was deserted, lit by a few weak streetlamps and the building’s emergency lights. We drove around to the back of the building, where I backed the van up to the enormous double doors leading to the furnace area and turned off the engine. Eli helped me unload the dead birds from the cooler compartment in the back of the van, including the poor backward-headed dove I’d completely forgotten about. Way to go, Scarlett. I flicked on the light switch inside the door and led Eli down the hall toward the furnace room. It was hot just stepping in the door, and Eli flinched at the heat. I handed him my own ziplock bags of dead birds and went up to the iron furnace doors, which were big enough to wheel a piano through. I picked up a nearby industrial-strength oven mitt and pulled open one of the furnace doors, gasping at the heat, and nodded to Eli, who threw in the baggies. Then I slammed the door, and both of us speed-walked out of the room, pausing in the hallway to catch our breaths.

I pulled my sticky shirt away from my chest, flushed with heat.

“That,” he panted, “was a really big furnace.”

Eli followed me back outside, and I clicked the little doorknob lock behind us. I was buckling my seat belt when Eli spoke up.

“Look, Scarlett, we should talk...” he began, his hands twisting in his lap.

I froze. “This isn’t a great time, Eli.”

“Yeah, well, it’s never a great time with you, is it? But we should talk about what happened the other night—what’s been happening.”

I waited, silent.

Eli stared at me and then scrubbed at his face with the heel of his hands. “Look,” he blurted, “do you want to, like, grab something to eat sometime? Maybe have a real conversation in which neither of us is drunk?”

My mouth may have dropped open a little. “You mean like...a date?”

“Yes. An actual date.”

“I can’t,” I said immediately.

“You can’t, or you don’t want to?”