What you do when someone casually announces that they know your most deeply guarded secret? You pretty much do what I did and stared all slack-jawed and stunned at Sammy.

She busy was sneering at Agent Blonde, who hadn't taken his eyes off of me. I considered lying to her, but something said that causally carried a shit-ton of weight and if you weren't careful, it was designed to crush you without warning. Sammy was tricky that way, especially when she was being this quiet.

"How long have you known?" I asked instead.

"Since your accident," she said. "I started to piece things together while you were gone. Something King said about needing someone like you for the night shift. I was going to say something snarky about vampires and something just clicked in my head. You know that feeling you get sometimes when everything makes sense even though it doesn't make sense, but you know that it's true? Don't answer that, just nod and pretend."

I took her advice and carefully nodded. Truthfully, I was freaking the fuck out and still didn't know how to react. Claude knowing that I was a vampire was one thing, but Sammy was a different situation completely.

"You're freaking the fuck out, aren't you?" Sammy said and I nodded again.

"Teeny tiny bit."

"Well, considering the shit that's going down with these guys, it's probably better that I already knew vampires exist, don't you think? That one over there," she was referring to Agent Blonde, "keeps trying to work his eye magic on me, but I keep looking away. Fucker."

"Wait a minute," I said, something occurring to me. "So you know the King is a vampire too?"

Sammy looked at me like I was a goddamned idiot.

"I know all about King," Sammy said, and literally waggled her eyebrows, something I'd never actually seen anyone do in person. "He can't keep anything from me you know. He doesn't want to. You on the other hand, are just the worst and I have some bones to pick with you about leaving me in places surrounded by vampires."

"You seem to be holding your own," I observed drily.

"If I can handle the perverts in here, vampires ain't got nothing on me," Sammy said. She stopped with her back deliberately turned to the agents, and Agent Blonde was left with nothing to glare at except for me. I wondered how long he could keep it up before he got bored and wandered away before realizing I had run out of fucks to give. I'd been beaten up by Harry de fucking Biers himself and my girlfriend was a bigger badass than he was ever going to be, so I had no idea who this blonde shit thought he was intimidating.

"So does this mean you're going to yell at me later?"

"Oh, so much yelling, but yes."

"How long have the Keystone cops been here?"

"Couple of days. They showed up the morning after the explosion at the club. Started asking questions about Beatrice. Lots of questions I didn't have the answer to even when fuckwad over there tried to put the 'fluence on me."

"They call it glammering."

"Is that with an E?"

"I think so. I think of it with an E. With an OU just sounds wrong. Way too 'glamourous' for fucked up eye powers, you know what I mean?"

"Glammering," she said, tasting the word. "Yeah, I see what you mean. 'Glamouring' just feels wrong. Right then: so he was using the old eye magic on me, but since I know that vampires exist and since my boyfriend is one, he taught me some tricks on how to avoid being glammered, or whatever the fuck you want to call it."

"As if calling it 'eye magic' is any better," I grumbled.

"You know they think you're terrorists, right?"

"That's the official story they want everyone to believe," I said. "Did they ask you about Louise?"

"Yeah, I thought it was kind of weird. I told them she was dead, but they kept asking if I had seen you guys together."

"Yeah, about that dead thing..."

Sammy slapped me on the chest with the back of her hand, more out of surprise than anything.

"No! Louise can't be a vampire. Didn't she have brown eyes?"

"You know what? I thought it was just me who thought that! Every time I think about her, I always remember her with brown eyes, but then when I was face to face with her it was always blue eyes."

"Eye magic," Sammy whispered conspiratorially.

Agent Blonde was still staring at me. I raised a fist and then with my other hand pretended to turn a crank, my middle finger raising slowly.

"What the fuck are you looking at?" I yelled at him. He pursed his lips and looked around at the other agents, clearly deciding if to be embarrassed or to come and show me who was really in charge.

I glanced toward the agent at the doorway, but he was only half-turned, an annoyed expression coming to his face. If he was going to be backing up Agent Blonde, then he really wasn't doing a very good job of it. The other agent with the workmen had turned towards us and just rolled his eyes.

"Just walk away Crowley," he said, clearly the one in charge of this particular operation. "They work here. They're not important."

"Maybe," Agent Blonde replied, "but he's one of the blood, and he works here. That doesn't raise any red flags with you?"

The other agent (I'm just going to call him Agent Orange because it's fun, but only if you get the reference multiple references I'm going for here), nodded to the workmen to keep working and beckoned for Agent Blonde to join him.

Sammy rolled her eyes at me.

"Shit starter much Bob?"

"All damn day," I smiled, watching Agent Blonde and Orange having a very testy conversation with not a few glances in my direction. "They might be here for a while. They seem to have a hard-on for Beatrice and they're looking for anything to pin the attack on her. There's like so many different layers of shit going on that I can't even keep track of them all, but apparently, we're supposed to carry on as if all this shit is normal."

"Normal? There's nothing remotely normal about any of this. I'm still dealing with the fact that vampires exist and now there's four of you in my store. You've bad enough just by yourself, and you're lucky I like you."

"Aww, that's the sweetest thing—"

Sammy stabbed my chest with a very pointed finger. "If you ever tell anyone I said that, I will fill your coffin with ghost peppers."

"I don't actually sleep in a coffin," I said.

"I know that, but the joke only works if it's a coffin," she admitted.

The agents had finished their argument with Agent Blonde stalking off to the back of the store. With barely a pause, he slammed open the heavy emergency exit door as if it was made of balsa wood, and exited into the alley, possibly to cool off.

Agent Orange glanced at me and then turned his attention back to the workmen. The hammering started up almost immediately.

"What are they even looking for?" Sammy whispered to me.

I knew, but I wasn't about to say it.

"They think Beatrice stole something and they want it back. Like really badly."

I thought about it for a second. There was no way Agent D'mallo actually thought anything the size of a sarcophagus could be hidden in the store, but this whole charade wasn't about finding anything as much as it was about making our lives as miserable as possible. These guys were just cluelessly following orders, thinking they knew what they were looking for, but they weren't exactly calling the shots.

I almost felt sorry for them, but only almost.

What I wanted to do was go over there and start punching, kicking, hitting until blood was flying. I could feel the rage burning deep inside and knew it for what it was, the need to lash out and fucking hurt somebody. The last three days at the hand of vampire agents like these guys being hurt over and over again had not put me in the best of moods. I had been helpless and now—

"You're grinding your teeth," Sammy whispered sharply. "Dial it down a couple notches dude."

I realized that I had been staring, was in fact still staring, and turned away to look at something else.

"Sorry Sammy, it's been a fucked up couple of days," I apologized.

"You're looking for a fight!"

"Don't be ridiculous!"

"You're totally looking for a fight! I know that look. I've seen it in the mirror lots of times."

"You don't know what they did to us."

"These guys?"

"What?"

"Was it these guys here? Blondie over there? Was it him?"

"Does it matter?"

"Of course it matters! If you're picking a fight, then you hurt the people who hurt you, not just random guys they happen to work with!" She glared at me, pissed off, then more quietly said, "Besides, you kinda suck at the whole vampire thing." I threw a startled look at her and she shrugged. "King told me. They'd kick your ass and you know it."

I glared at Sammy, betrayed, helpless and pissed off.

"Fuck you Sammy," I sneered at her and stalked off toward the entrance. Agent the Sikh gave me a wide berth, not even giving me an excuse to lash out at him.

"I just saved your life!' Sammy yelled after me. "You're fucking welcome!"

###AUTHOR'S NOTE###

CONTINUES...