Circus of the Damned   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

Allhe had to do was stare at me.

"What do you do in your spare time?" Richard asked.

I shook my head. "I don't have spare time."

"Hobbies?"

"I don't think I have any of those, either."

"You must do something besides shoot large snakes in the head," he said.

I smiled and glanced at him. He leaned towards me as much as the seat belt would allow. He was smiling, too, but there was something in his eyes, or his posture, that said he was serious. Interested in what I would say.

"I'm an animator," I said.

He clasped his hands together, left elbow propped on the back of the seat. "Okay, when you're not raising the dead, what do you do?"

"Work on preternatural crimes with the police, mostly murders."

"And?" he said.

"And I execute rogue vampires."

"And?"

"And nothing," I said. I glanced at him again. In the dark I couldn't see his eyes, their color was too dark for that, but I could feel his gaze. Probably imagination. Yeah. I'd been hanging around Jean-Claude too long. The smell of Richard's leather coat mingled with a faint whiff of his cologne. Something expensive and sweet. It went very nicely with the smell of leather.

"I work. I exercise. I go out with friends." I shrugged. "What do you do when you're not teaching?"

"Scuba diving, caving, bird watching, gardening, astronomy." His smile was a dim whiteness in the near dark.

"You must have a lot more free time than I do."

"Actually, the teacher always has more homework than the students," he said.

"Sorry to hear that."

He shrugged, the leather creaked and slithered over his skin. Good leather always moved like it was still alive.

"Do you watch TV?" he asked.

"My television broke two years ago, and I never replaced it."

"You must do something for fun."

I thought about it. "I collect toy penguins." The minute I said it, I wished I hadn't.

He grinned at me. "Now we're getting somewhere. The Executioner collects stuffed toys. I like it."

"Glad to hear it." My voice sounded grumpy even to me.

"What's wrong?" he said.

"I'm not very good at small talk," I said.

"You were doing fine."

No, I wasn't, but I wasn't sure how to explain it to him. I didn't like talking about myself to strangers. Especially strangers with ties to Jean-Claude.

"What do you want from me?" I said.

"I'm just passing the time."

"No, you weren't." His shoulder-length hair had fallen around his face.