Albert looked at him a moment longer, then nodded and whispered away.
Cam glanced at me. "Tough customer. Must have been a bouncer."
I grinned and we went up the walk.
Ben Danziger opened to my knock. He looked Cameron over as hard as Albert had before stepping back. "Come on in."
Mara stuck her head out the kitchen door. "Would either of you like some coffee with your pie?"
"I would love some coffee, thank you, Mara," I said.
"Coffee would be very nice, thank you, ma'am," said Cameron.
"Oh, heavens, call me Mara. Even my students don't call me ma'am." She smiled and vanished back into the kitchen, calling out, "Go ahead. Ben will catch me up on anything I miss."
Cameron and I exchanged a look as Ben led us into the living room and waved us into seats. He sank himself into a big wingback chair by the fireplace. Cameron took a corner of the couch and I sat next to him, in spite of the vertigo his proximity caused me.
"OK," Ben started. "You think this young man's a vampire?"
Before I could reply, Cam let out a barking laugh and grinned to bare his teeth. "Harper can think what she likes, but I know. Three months ago I had perfectly ordinary teeth. Now I've got these. I used to get up in the morning with a pulse. Now I don't roll out of bed until sunset and you couldn't time the motion of a glacier against my heart rate."
Ben looked at him with a combination of skepticism and excitement fighting on his face. "Are you sure it isn't just a mental aberration?"
"I'm pretty sure."
"Come over here."
Cam ambled over to Ben, who reached out for his wrist.
"Damn, you're cold!"
"Yep. It takes about two hours for my skin to rise to room temperature if it's cold outside."
"Hmmm… I wonder why."
"Thermal inertia, I think. If it gets too warm, I start to smell a bit unpleasant up close. Summer's going to be a real treat."
"Well, you've got no discernible pulse in your wrist." He raised his hand up toward Cam's neck. "Do you mind?"
Cam bent forward. Ben placed his fingers against the side of his neck. "No pulse at the carotid."
"That's the jugular side. Trust me—I've learned my veins and arteries." Ben wrinkled up his nose. "Oops. Harper says I have bad breath. I don't know if that's part of the condition, or if I've just forgotten to brush in a while. I've sorta lost track of time. This thing kind of bums me out."
"I can imagine." Ben leaned back in his chair and Cam came back to the couch. "Well, you certainly seem to be… undead. Do you know what your body temperature is?"
"Not sure. Most regular thermometers won't register at all. I think it hovers around sixty, but that's just a guess."
"I think that alone would qualify you for dead. It's the undead part I'm wondering about. Maybe you're a zombie."
"Don't think so," said Cam, sitting back. "I do seem to have a will of my own and I don't have any interest in human flesh, just blood— though I don't really need much more than a cup or so most of the time. I don't like the sun. I don't cast much of a shadow, or a reflection—at least not that I can see. Sometimes I can make people think I'm invisible. Except Harper."
"What happened to your arm?" Ben asked. "You keep cradling it."
"Some jerk broke it earlier tonight with a crowbar, then Harper shot me."
Ben glared at me. "Shot you?"
I glared back. "He started to attack me."
"Hey, it's all right," Cam cut in. "I deserved it. Besides, it'll be OK soon. I heal fast."
Ben started toward Cameron. "Let me take a look at that."
He was staring at the closed bullet hole when Mara came in. He jumped when she spoke.
"What are you up to, Ben?" she asked.
"Looking at this wound. It's amazing."
"Ben. He's not a specimen. He's a guest. Don't be rude."
Ben looked sheepish and retreated to his chair as Mara set a tray of pie and coffee on the table. She handed out mugs and plates as she spoke.
"Harper says you're in need of a place to stay. How did that come about?"
"I… was sleeping in my car and a couple of featherless bipeds broke in," Cameron explained.
"Featherless… oh," she added and began laughing. "That won't do."
"He seems trustworthy enough," Ben suggested. "If it's all right with you, I'd be glad to have Cameron stay."
"You shan't stay up and examine him all night, now will you?"
"Mara…."
"Oh, all right. I don't mind. Albert says he's promised to be good and you can't make promises lightly to ghosts."
Cameron looked startled. Mara gave him a stern look, then broke up. "It's all right. Albert won't task you, though he'll probably follow you about. He's very protective. Do you need anything special?"
"Um, no," Cam stammered. "I don't think so. I'm kind of nervous without my dirt, but I think I'll be OK. This is still Seattle, after all. Especially in the basement, I think I'll be close enough to the dirt to be OK."
"What's this about dirt?" Ben asked.
Cameron was about to launch into an explanation about native earth when Mara passed him a slice of pie. Cameron gazed at it with nostalgic longing and refused.
"No?" said Mara.
"Oh, no. It looks delicious—it's just that… uh, I can't…," he stumbled.
"Allergy?" she asked.
"No, I puke."
Ben and I cringed, but Mara laughed.
"You're not very good at lying, are you?"
"Terrible."
"You'll have to learn. All right?"
Cameron nodded.
"Ah, well. I'm certain Ben will find a spot for this slice, too."
Ben looked up from his already half-eaten slice. "Hmm… well, OK."
"What do you do, Cameron?" Mara asked. "Aside from the obvious."
He sipped his coffee and answered slowly, "Urn, I was a student at the U."
"Are you graduating, then?"
Ben fidgeted. "Mara…"
"Oh, Ben. I shan't embarrass the lad by asking him awful questions like your sister did me. Don't be so silly. So," she continued, turning her bright green stare back to Cam.
"I… I'm on a leave of absence from school for a little while. For medical reasons."
"That's better."
"Thank you."
"What are you studying?"
"Well, I'm not sure if I'm going to go back."
"Whyever not? Learning's a marvelous thing, if you can manage to avoid an education."
"What?"
"The indoctrination. The interchangeable parts result. You know what I mean, I'm sure."
"Oh, yes," he replied. He played with his cup and sipped his coffee again. "That's one of the things that's been bothering me. I don't know what to do with myself—if I survive this. What do I do with my… Me?"
"You've a few things to work out first, I imagine. Still, knowledge for its own sake is worthwhile, if you can afford the tuition. There's a gentleman in one of my lectures—he's fifty-nine, I think—who's working on his fourth degree. He's got loads of credits, so he just keeps taking classes, and occasionally he completes a curriculum quite by accident and they give him another piece of paper. He's having a grand time."
Cameron looked thoughtful. "I hadn't really looked at it that way. I… have time."
"What are you going to do first?"
"I need to solve some problems. Harper is going to help me."
"Hey," I objected. "I haven't said yes yet."
Cameron grinned at me and the pie tap-danced in my belly. "You're not going to say no."