Charming by Elliott James Page A

five-ten, they were dark, barrel-chested, no-necked, and silent. I was mentally referring to them as Burly and Surly. They were also Dvornik’s nephews.
    I had pressed a little and found out that Dvornik had a twinsister who was also a kresnik, and I briefly imagined someone who looked like Fred Flintstone in drag except with a mustache and a chain saw, but I cut that out when I found out that the sister was dead. Even though Andrej and Andro had a psychic mammy, they hadn’t inherited the old psychic whammy. The brothers apparently served full-fledged kresniks as support staff. If the scar tissue under their eyes and around their knuckles was any indication, that didn’t just involve fetching coffee and taking memos.
    The Knights Templar also have soldiers who aren’t bound by the geas, although they’re called lay servants or sergeants depending on whether they serve as rear support or in a combat capacity. They’re mostly people who don’t come from a bloodline proper but have been orphaned or woken up from the Pax Arcana by some kind of traumatic experience.
    When I’d said hello to Andrej and Andro, they’d just stared at me. Sig had looked somewhere else and explained that they didn’t speak much English. I don’t know any Croatian, but I’d tried saying “Guten tag,” which means “Good day” in German, and “Jak sa wy robiacy,” which I’m about 70 percent sure means “How are you?” in Polish.
    They just kept staring at me. They were related to Dvornik all right.
    Fortunately or unfortunately, Chauncey “Choo Choo” Childers didn’t mind filling in the awkward silence. I wasn’t really sure what to make of him. He was definitely the source of the marijuana reek, and he talked with a breezy self-assurance that I wasn’t sure I trusted. There was something impersonal about his friendliness, like it was a kind of armor that he hid behind while observing the world around him dispassionately. He chatted about his interest in feng shui and made fun of his failed attempts to become a priest. Apparently he had filled outforms at various Web sites that offered to ordain you for free, but even though he was legally able to perform wedding ceremonies in most states, he still couldn’t make holy water that burned undead flesh.
    Choo was talking about potpourri when I tuned all the way back in. “You just put rosemary, sage, cedarwood, and fennel in a bowl,” he said. “Evil spirits can’t stand the smell.”
    “Can living people?” I asked.
    He brayed that loud horselike laugh which apparently hadn’t been an accident the first time. “It’s just nature, man,” he said. “It smells like being in the woods.”
    “Huhn,” I grunted noncommittally. That was the sort of thing that people who haven’t spent a lot of time in the woods say. Then I made the mistake of turning around and talking to Sig and Dvornik. “That apartment building you visited this morning… was it around here too?”
    “It was a government assisted living complex on the other side of town,” Sig answered tensely. “Why?”
    “I was just wondering if all the vampires in that alley knew each other before they were turned,” I said. “It might explain why they were backing Ellison instead of reining him in. The guy was reckless.”
    “Look who’s talking,” Dvornik sneered. “The cowboy who had to get his ass saved by Sig.”
    “I get a little impulsive this close to a full moon,” I admitted.
    Sig snorted, but Dvornik was undeterred. “You sound like a woman blaming her lack of control on her period.”
    “It’s not the fear for my immortal soul, or being hunted by professional killers, or the anger-management issues that I mind so much,” I said. “It’s the bloating.”
    Choo chuckled and Sig smiled politely, but Dvornik wasn’t giving up that easily. “Is that supposed to be some kind of joke?God only knows how old you are, and you act like a teenager. You even dress like a twelve-year-old. It’s