Even though she wasn’t hungry and had said that she wasn’t hungry, Xochitl did get a plate and like most buffet diners, piled it with far more food that she was actually capable of consuming.  She was already eating when Dominic returned to their table, balancing three plates.

“You know, you can make more than one trip,” she said.

“No need.”

He carefully set out the platters.  On the first, he had a Denver omelets and a piece of ham.  On the second was a waffle and two cheese blintzes, all covered in syrup.  The third plate had two pieces of buttered toast and a small pile of grits.  After sitting down, the FBI agent looked around expectantly.

“She’ll be around to get your drink order in a few minutes,” said Xochitl.  “We can go ahead and start eating.”

He frowned, but turned his attention to his food and began carefully cutting it into pieces.  The omelet, the ham, and the waffle were all transformed into small triangular bites.

“I got pancakes,” said Xochitl.  “I know I said I wasn’t hungry, but you can’t say no to pancakes.”

“I don’t really like pancakes,” he said.

“You’re kidding.  I’ve never actually met anyone who didn’t like pancakes before.  How about hotcakes?”

“That’s the same thing.”

“You have a waffle.  Don’t waffles taste pretty much just like a pancakes?”

“Waffles are airier,” he said.  “And pancakes are round.  I don’t really like round food.”

“Those blintzes are round.”

“They’re cylindrical, though granted, when I cut them up the pieces will be round—bite-sized though.  I don’t mind so much it they’re bite-sized.”  He looked around again for the server.  It was not a woman who waited on them but an older black man in a white apron.

“What can I get you to drink?” he asked as he approached.

“A glass of milk and an orange juice,” said Xochitl.

“Water,” Dominic said.

Xochitl was almost full before the waiter brought her drinks, though that didn’t cause her any discomfort, unlike Dominic.  He didn’t begin eating until he had his water, and by that time Xochitl thought that his food might well be cold, though he didn’t complain about it.  Just as she expected, he took a sip of his beverage after every three bites of his meal.  He ate his ham, then his omelet, then his waffle, blintzes, toast, and at last he started in on his grits.

“What is that?”

“Grits.”

“How can you eat that?  Nobody even knows what that is.”

“It’s grits.  It’s made of corn.”

“It doesn’t look like corn.”

“Of course it does,” he said.  “Look closely.  It’s very much like corn meal.  They shuck the corn, soak it in a weak lye solution, dry it, grind it, and reconstitute it with boiling water.  Some people eat it with sugar, but in the south we eat it with butter, salt, and pepper.”

“What are you talking about?  You’re not from the south.”

“I started eating grits when I was at Virginia Beach.”  He gave her a studied frown.  “If we’re done talking about my food, I’d like to know something about your case.”

When she had finished with her last article of clothing, her tie, she spotted the large manila envelope on the bed.  It was supposedly important enough for him to come back to the room for.  Opening it, she found half a dozen 8×10 reproductions of very old black and white photographs.  The first one featured a man standing next to an old time car.  Xochitl didn’t know anything about cars, but she recognized the man immediately.  It was Israel, the vampire.  He had shoulder length wavy hair and his trademark van dyke.

“When was this taken?”

“1926,” replied Dominic, standing up and walking over.  He pointed at the car.  “That’s a 1926 Pontiac Series 6.  And you see who that is?”

“Yes.  Israel, or Leopold Sansonne, as he was known then.”

“Wow,” said the FBI agent.  “How long have you known his name?  I just got that bit of information last night while you were asleep.”

Xochitl shrugged and flipped to the next picture.  It was a group shot.  It was three men she didn’t recognize along with the same vampire.  The next one was more of the same.  The fifth picture was Israel with an unknown dark-haired woman.  It was pointless looking at any more of the photos.  She didn’t know any of the people in them.  She started to shove them back in the envelope, but quickly scanned the last two anyway.  One of them stood out immediately and she grasped both edges, letting the rest of the 8x10s fall to the floor.  This picture was of Israel standing in front of a café of some sort with a short woman.  Wearing a knee length dress and a long string of pearls, she looked the part of a classic 1920s flapper.  Though her blond hair was cut into a cute little bob, she was easily recognizable—Novelyne.

“I knew she knew him,” said Xochitl.

“You might have given me either of those tidbits.”

“I don’t…”  She stopped and tugged on her lip ring with her tongue for a moment, trying to think of the right thing to say.  She had almost said, “I don’t know you well enough to hand over that kind of information to you.”  But that made her sound like a slut, because she apparently did know him well enough to jump into bed with him.  “I haven’t had a chance to tell you.”

Xochitl walked up Second Street and crossed Clark, only a few blocks from home, when she heard it—the cry of the wolf.  No, no, no, no; that wasn’t right.  The last night of the full moon had been the previous night.  It couldn’t be a werewolf.  The howl came again.  It couldn’t have been more than two hundred yards away— just to the north and east of her.  Damn it all to hell.  She hadn’t brought any silver rounds with her.  Why would she?  She heard the wolf howl again.  It was subtly different.  It was hunting now.  It had found prey.

She sprinted a hundred yards to the front of the Catholic Church, where she stopped and stared.  Even in the light of the single street lamp and the sodium bulb attached to the building just below the large cross, she could see wave upon wave of yellow and purple flowers across the newly planted beds in front of the church.  Ranunculus: a mixture Buttercup and Monkshood.  What idiot gardener had planted them?  Normally landscapers in Vegas put out little flowering annuals right about now.  No sense spending a lot of money, because the plants would wither under the desert’s summer sun.  But Ranunculus were perennials, so while they would grow just fine in the springtime here, it was just wasteful to see them dry up and die in July.  And who would plant Monkshood in a churchyard?  Monkshood, also called Aconite, Devil’s Helmet, Blue Rocket, Leopard’s Bane, Women’s Bane… Wolfsbane.

There was a scream!  It was right around the corner.  Xochitl raced as fast as she could around the building.  Her pistol was in her hand even before her mind registered that a werewolf was standing in front of her.  It was not in its wolf form, nor in its human form.  It was in that half humanoid, crouched shape that made it seem like a refugee from a B movie.  With horribly misshapen limbs and patchy fur, it gave impression of disease or… a curse.  Its long snout dripped saliva down upon the body of a woman lying below it. 

Skidding to a stop on grass still wet from the night time sprinkler, she emptied all seven rounds into the werewolf.  Glocks were great for shooting at convenience store robbers, but when you wanted stopping power, nothing beat a .45.  The wolf staggered back three steps.  He took one step forward again as Xochitl dropped the clip to the ground and slammed another into place.  Seven more shots right into its body.  The creature fell to the ground.  It looked at her and roared, not very wolf-like but scary as shit.  Then as the Goth detective shoved her last clip in and pressed the slide stop with her thumb, the beast jumped to its feet and turning, loped away, up Bridger Avenue.