“I don’t think snake shifters have buddies,” Lemuel said. “They just know people they haven’t tried to eat yet.”

“She doesn’t try to eat you?”

“They only eat living things,” Lemuel said, turning to walk back to the counter. “Did you want to pawn something, buy something, or were you just stretching your legs?”

“A little of taking a work break, a little of wondering about your energy drainage thing,” Manfred said, thinking if he didn’t say it out loud now he might chicken out.

To his relief, Lemuel smiled. “I should have explained,” the cold man said. “As I’m sure you’ve puzzled out, I’m a sort of vampire. I’m not what has become known in popular literature as a traditional vampire. I can feed on energy or blood or both simultaneously. That’s the best meal, but I don’t get it often.”

“Because the feed-ee dies if you do that?”

“Yes, the one I’m feeding on dies.” Lemuel smiled.

“And that night at the diner?”

“The strangers caused me concern. I estimated I might need to be as strong as possible in the near future. I tapped you.”

“Why me?” To Manfred, this was the most important question. Not that he wouldn’t have to think hard, later, about Lemuel’s diet and the fact that Lemuel hadn’t given him a choice, but this was the question that had worried him.

“I could tell you were an open-minded person,” Lemuel said, pale eyes on some small repair he was making to a piece of jewelry under a magnifying lamp. “Not likely to jump up and scream, ‘Oh sweet Jesus, another man is holding my hand!’”

Manfred laughed weakly.

“And I also believed that you would stay here, that you were not passing through, and that it was, therefore, the quickest way to let you know what I was.”

Manfred wanted to ask Lemuel if Olivia was his girlfriend, but in Lemuel’s presence he could see how silly that would sound. How intrusive.

“You are interested in Creek,” Lemuel said unexpectedly.

“She’s very attractive,” Manfred said cautiously. “I realize she’s younger than me, and I’m not going to, ah, initiate anything improper. But I would like to get to know her better.”

Lemuel’s eyes were almost white, now, when he glanced up. “She is a lovely child,” Lemuel said. “But I realize she is on the cusp of becoming a woman. If she decides to become a woman with you, you had better be damned sure she is fully aware and agreeable to every step of the process.”

Manfred replied with complete honesty, “I would never do otherwise.”

“Then we are not enemies,” Lemuel said. “And we may become friends, as I told the snake woman we were.”

“When were you born, Lemuel, if I can ask?”

“I was born in 1837,” Lemuel said. “My name was not Lemuel then.”