It's Valentine's Day in Philadelphia, and our favorite former criminal necromancer turned (kind of? Sort of?) Private Eye-la refuses to spend it alone.
When a certain workaholic vampire (kind of boss? Sort of fling?) simply won't take the hint, Isla...
Billy lives in Amish country. Smack in the middle of rural Pennsylvania. Rents a small cottage on a farm down by a creek from a decent family, about two and half hours outside the city. Keeps to his own business and the family keeps to theirs. This is firmly human territory, not that there's many people around at all. Next farm is miles off. Center of town even further.
Can see why Billy liked it out here, to be honest. It's peaceful. Quiet. Secluded. No city crowds. No hustle and bustle. No stressing about hiding your horns (or fangs) from nosy neighbors. Nothing but farmland and stars and bullfrogs, and occasionally some dogs barking and cows mooing in the distance.
A whole field of corn—and not much else—partitioned Billy's cottage from the main residence. Created a nice little fence, actually. Other side of the house backed up to the creek, with a woody hillside beyond that. Provided just the swellest natural cover to obscure the uncloaked form of a six and a half foot tall minotaur drinking a beer by his bonfire.
Billy, of course, must know there's a quaint park bench posted up on the opposite bank of the creek. It be plain as day in, well, daylight. But nights are pitch black out here. Even with the thick copse of trees lining the shore all dead and naked this time of year, if Billy bothered to look across the water, I'd be nothing more than a shadow in the gloom. Meanwhile, his gold hood ornaments twinkled brighter than the moon in the fire's glow.
I texted Phoebe.
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Sorry, Phoebe, my gal, it was too late for that. About one necromancer with a strangle hold on fangs too late. Isla's consumed more of my thoughts over the last few weeks than I'd consumed her blood. Been making mistakes and stupid decisions out my tomb since meeting that woman. What's one more? (Ah, see, there she was again).
Across the softly rippling water, Billy tossed another log on the fire. Was he shirtless? In this weather? His open and ratty flannel jacket was bursting at the seams, all worn down and threadbare in the elbows and shoulders. Looked like it wouldn't stretch across his burly chest to button even if he wanted it to.
A sheen of sweat still glistened on his furry chest. Or maybe that was baby oil. He spent the last hour and half in his opened garage lifting weights and snapping strategically posed photos of himself "mid-workout."
Phoebe told me about the photos he'd sent Isla. Told me all about his calls and texts and how fervently he pursued her leading up to Valentine's Day. Information she offered up in exchange for the lurid details of what happened between Isla and me that night. Details I did not disclose. Phoebe still made me swear not to tell Isla 'we' blabbed anyway. Not that I planned on it. Isla'd already been subjected to that bastard's nonsense enough, I wasn't about to rehash it with her. Based on the minotaur's dating profile, Isla wasn't the only recipient of those photos either.
What? It wasn't an expedition to dig up, really. I knew what service the elder Ms. Mulversmitt used. I knew Billy's type. And I may be pushing three hundred, but I knew how to snag a few stock photos to fill out my own account. (Didn't even have to lie about my favorite films in the sign-up questionnaire, Casablanca was a classic after all).
