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Santini meant. “Baker and you want to go hunting.”
    Santini glanced at the stage, and yawned. “Sounds like a better bachelor party than this. Getting married in Vegas is a great idea. Thanks for thinking of it, Jebel.”
    “This town’s swarming with vamps,” Baker said. “Makes my skin crawl.”
    “Harmless,” Haven said. “Most of ’em,” he amended at Baker’s annoyed look. “We’ve got a truce with the sentient ones,” Haven pointed out.
    “What’s sentient mean?” Santini asked.
    “ You’ve got a truce,” Baker said.
    The three of them had formed their initial alliance to hunt and destroy a species of mindless bloodsuckers that inhabited the Southwestern desert. After a few years of killing what turned out to be a minor league nuisance of the monster world, Haven met Charlotte McCairn, vampire. Not only was Char a true vampire, she turned out to be an Enforcer, an ubervampire whose job it was to kill average vampires that got out of line. Char also felt a strong ethical need to police the rest of the underneath as well. And Haven was her enforcer.
    Through Char they’d found out about the whole underneath world. That not only did vampires exist, but so did sorcerers, demons, werewolves, all sorts of monsters. Vampires had peace treaties and neutrality agreements with some of these creatures, but sometimes these monsters needed killing. Vampires couldn’t do it—can’t upset the balance of power in the underneath world, don’t you know? Haven was happy to take on the bad guys Char couldn’t technically touch. It was a lot of fun.
    But vampires . . . Vampires needed something more complicated than merely killing. At least some of them. He’d tried to explain that to Baker, but Baker wasn’t involved with the vampire culture. Baker couldn’t understand.
    Haven looked around irritably at his friends. “Couldn’t we just get drunk? Get laid. Gamble. There’s a lot more to do in Vegas than kill vampires.” He focused his attention on Santini, really focused it, the telepathic way Char’d taught him. “What would Della think about you doing anything dangerous right now? She doesn’t want her groom to get killed before the wedding. You don’t want to go hunting right now.”
    Santini’s eyes only glazed over a little as he nodded slowly to Haven’s mental suggestions. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Don’t want to upset Della.”
    “You thought it’d be fun a minute ago,” Baker said. He gave them a disgusted sneer. “You two are so whipped.”
    Haven shrugged. “I’m learning to be subtle is all,” he explained. “We can’t destroy vampires no matter how many we kill. There’s other ways. Better ways.” He leaned over and put his hand on Baker’s arm. “Trust me.” I haven’t deserted the cause, he thought at the other man. Haven sat back and said, “Besides, I can’t leave now.” He glanced across the dim, almost empty room toward the door. “I’m expecting someone.”
    It would have been a nicely dramatic touch if the person he was waiting for walked in at that moment, but since it didn’t happen, Haven went back to sipping beer and dividing his attention between his friends, the club entrance, and the entertainment. Nearly an hour passed before the door opened, letting in desert heat along with a woman.
    Haven recognized her sharp chin and large mouth from the photo posted on her webpage. He didn’t understand anybody letting their picture be posted on the web, or even letting their picture be taken if they could help it. Her photo was on an innocuous personal website, one that was full of blog entries about her daily life. Haven knew very well that the blog stuff was complete fiction. This woman’s life was much like his own, too weird and secret for public consumption. He knew her by the screenname Moll, a name she used in sessions in a highly secure chatroom used by companions. Unlike the original members of the group, Moll had been recruited rather than having