It couldn't be true. It couldn't. The vampire Kieran bought illegal liquor from seemed rather certain, but the certainty had a certain cast of derangement to it — Kieran could not read most vampires that weren't Ishmael very well. (And honestly he could only really read Ishmael in that he could tell when the vampire was flirting with him.) So truly this was a lie, and Ishmael had just been scarce lately because he was scarce, not because he'd gone and done that.

It took him a few days to find Ishmael. The vampire being in the Jinxed Jackrabbit was actually rather lucky, and Kieran watched carefully until Ishmael was alone at the booth.

"Ran into one of your associates the other day," Kieran said as he slid into the bench seat across from Ishmael. His leg was bouncing under the table as he jittered it up and down; there was an unhappy cast to his mouth.