“Nate jumped up and down, voice cracking as he talked. "It worked! It worked! My Taser worked! Ha! Oh yeah, oh yeah! I can't believe I got this thing on eBay!”

“Oh yeah. It would be terrible for you to have only one working fang. Your friends might want to call you Lefty”

“Ha," I said. "Oh, ha-ha. Yeah, ’cause they love me. You see how many vampires are up here? Zero, right?"One," said Eric, stepping out of the stairwell.”

“You coming?” he asked her, leaning in through the door. And then he finally really looked at me. He came to a complete halt—not just his body, but his energy. His eyebrows went right up. “Oh,” he said. I sort of flicked my hem at him, assuming what I fondly considered an enigmatic look. “This okay?” I asked. “Oh,” he said again, stepping inside the house. The screen door hit him when it closed. “Yeah. Yeah, that works.” It kind of looked like he was beginning to sweat.”

“Yeah, well, I tried to explain that my mind powers don’t work on Tuesdays.”

“Everything's going to be fine. She'll be back at work soon. Let's just keep the house clean." Oh yeah, I want to say, because a clean house will result in peace in the Middle East as well.”