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He gave aze back to the city “I’ve never been to Paris”

Which was an astonishing thing to hear from a five-hundred-year-old vampire

I sat next to him “Really? No fa-around-Europe thing? Did people even do that in the sixteenth century?”

“Maybe not with backpacks But New Spain sounded soto a seventeen-year-old third son of very minor nobility with no prospects in 1539 Madrid”

This was more detail about his past than he’d everthat he’d elaborate He didn’t

“Are you ever going to tell me the whole story?”

“It’s ive it to you in bits and pieces”

“I can see it now It’s going to be the end of the world, everyone will be dead, all that’ll be left are va to say to each other because you can’t stop being mysterious and secretive”

He sht this was funny

I looked at oing I have the show to do” I headed back toward the roof’s access door “I’ll find ”

“Break a leg,” he said

“Don’t say that when I’” Werewolves healed supernaturally quickly from horrible injuries, but I didn’t want to test if that included the injuries sustained fro?”

“Of course”

I left hiht, perched like Denver’s very own gargoyle

For the next few hours I had the shoorry about, and all other anxieties stayed outside the studio door

At this hour, we had the station to ourselves Except for a security guy and the graveyard-shift DJ, it was just ht The studio was like a cave, left dark and shadowy on purpose,from equipment: computer screens, soundboards,calls andthe board I had my space, with my monitor, headset, n lit, the universe collapsed to this room, and I did my job

“Hello, faithful listeners This is Kitty Norville, and you’re listening to The Midnight Hour, everyone’s favorite talk show dealing in supernatural snark Tonight I want to talk about ic What’s the true story, what’s the real picture? Is it pastel fairy god over a stack of crystals, or is it Faustdeals with the devil? What’s real, what isn’t, orks, what doesn’t?”

Once a week I did this, and had been doing it for going on three years I’d have thought it would start to get old by now Conveniently, the world kept producing h of it As long as that stayed true, I’d still have a job

The supernatural world was like an onion You peel back the layers, only to findto reach the

“I have on the phone with y froive us the accepted party line abouton the show”

“Thank you veryme, Kitty”

Olafson was one of the younger, hipper professors I’d had during h to appear on a cult radio shohich was good enough forwhat I expected hiic has been with hu It’s been a way to explain anything that people in early civilizations didn’t understand Diseases were caused by curses, a spate of bad luckwith the world By the saave people a way to feel like they had some control over these events They could use talisainst curses, they could concoct potions and rituals to coood luck”

“That’s still true, isn’t it? People still have superstitions and carry good-luck charht?”