Halfway to the Grave

  “Money. So that’s why you hunt vampires. You’re a hit man!”

  I was so amazed by this new information, I opened the screen while only wearing my bra and panties.

  He cast a leisurely look down the length of me before meeting my eyes.

  “Yeah, that’s right. It’s what I do. But don’t fret. You could also say I’m a bounty hunter. Sometimes my clients want ’em back alive.”

  “Wow. I just thought we were going after people who had pissed you off.”

  “And that was enough for you to kill for, someone who might have looked at me cross-eyed? Blimey, but you’re not particular. What if I were chasing some nice sweet thing that’d never hurt a fly? Still be all right with it then?”

  I snapped the screen shut and found my mother’s words coming out of my mouth.

  “None of you are nice sweet things. You’re all murderers. That’s why it didn’t matter. Point me at a vampire and I’ll try to kill it, because at one time they’ve done something to deserve it.”

  It was so silent outside the screen, I wondered if he’d left. When I peeked, he was still standing where he’d been before. A flicker of emotion passed over his face before it became blank again. Suddenly uncomfortable, I retreated back inside to don my revealing costume.

  “Not every vampire is like the ones who killed those girls Winston told you about. It’s just your bad luck to be living in Ohio at this particular time. There are things going on you don’t know about.”

  “Winston was wrong, by the way,” I said smugly. “I looked up those girls’ names the next day, and none of them were dead. They weren’t even missing. One of them, Suzy Klinger, lived in the town next to mine, but her parents said she moved away to study acting. What I don’t know is why Winston would make that up, but far be it for me to understand the mental workings of a ghost.”