This time there was no way to keep the venom out of his voice. “I know they say to write what you know, but damn, Jeff … Ralph St. James? Night-Searchers? You’ve written the whole Dark-Hunter/Apollite vampire legend, and I really resent your making me a Taye Diggs clone. Nothing against the man, but other than the occasional bald head, the color of our skin, and a diamond stud in the left ear, we have nothing in common.”

Jeff took the magazine from Raphael’s hands, flipped to his story, and skimmed a few lines. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about, Rafael. This isn’t about you or the Dark-Hunters. The only thing they have in common is that the Night-Searchers hunt down cursed vampires like the Dark-Hunters do. That’s it.”

Uh-huh. Rafael looked back at the story again, and even with the magazine upside down his eyes fell straight to the scene. “What about this, where the Taye Diggs look-alike Dark-Hunter is confronting a Daimon who’s just stolen a human soul to elongate his life?”

Jeff made a sound of disgust. “That’s a Night-Searcher who found a vampire to kill. It has nothing to do with the Dark-Hunters.”

Yeah, right. “A vampire who just happens to steal human souls to elongate his life as opposed to the normal Hollywood variety where they live forever on blood?”

“Well, that’s just cliché. It’s so much better to have vampires who have really short lives and are then compelled, against their wills, and by a hatred fired by envy, to lash out at the human race. Makes it so much more interesting, don’t you think?”

Not really. Especially since he was one of the people caught up in that battle. “That is also the reality we live in, Jeff. What you just described is a Daimon, not a vampire.”

“Well maybe I borrowed from the Daimons a little, but the rest is all mine.”

Rafael flipped to the next page. “Let’s see. What about the cursed Tyber race that pissed off the Norse god Odin and is now damned to live only twenty-seven years unless they turn vampire and steal human souls. Substitute ‘Apollite’ for ‘Tyber’ and ‘Apollo’ for ‘Odin’ and again you have the story of the Apollite race who turn Daimon.”

Sighing, Jeff crossed his arms over his chest. He shook his head in denial.

“And what about this part here where the Night-Searchers sell their souls to the Norse goddess Freya, who is a vibrant redheaded femme fatale dressed all in white, to get revenge on whoever caused them to die?”

“No one is going to figure out that Artemis is Freya.”

Rafael growled at him. “For the record, unlike Artemis, Freya happens to be a strawberry blonde. But you were right about one thing. She is gorgeous and highly seductive. Definitely hard to say no to her.”