Crimson Death by Laurell K. Hamilton Page A

little sad to leave her without one more kiss. I’d had other female lovers, but never one that made me think words like
girlfriend
. Was Echo my girlfriend? I wasn’t sure what to call her, but I was beginning to want to call her something. I’d never had a woman make me feel like I wanted to hang a title on her. I’d had one who had demanded it, but I hadn’t wanted to call her my girlfriend. This time it would be my idea, and ironically, I wasn’t sure Echo would want the title. She’d take it if I wanted to give it to her, but she didn’t need it to feel secure, andmaybe that was part of why I wanted to give it to her. Romance can be very confusing.
    I left my girlfriend behind to make sure the live-in girlfriend of my ex-lover and current vampire servant didn’t harm anyone, while I went to have a date with our shared lover. I would have said
shared boyfriend
, but Echo really only had one person she dated, and that was Fortune, the love of her life and afterlife. Fortune was my girlfriend’s girlfriend, or maybe Fortune was my girlfriend, too. So did that make either of them my girlfriend’s girlfriend or just my girlfriend? Was Jean-Claude their girlfriend’s boyfriend? Or since everyone had at least occasional sex with each other, were words like
boyfriend
and
girlfriend
too old-fashioned to cover it? I was beginning to get a headache, and it wasn’t from the dance music.

4
    I CALLED E DWARD FROM my Jeep, because I’d finally figured out how to use the Bluetooth so that I could talk and drive at the same time. It was a little bit like being able to pat your head, rub your stomach, and jump on one foot at the same time while chewing gum, but much more useful and less silly looking.
    The phone had rung three times before I realized I hadn’t done the time zone math and it was probably the wee hours of the morning there. Had I learned anything that couldn’t wait until he was awake? No. I hung up, hoping he’d slept through it. I wasn’t used to Edward being half a world away from me. We’d never been more than about a five-hour plane ride from each other before. I guess Ireland wasn’t that much longer actually, but the time difference made it feel like more.
    I wasn’t surprised when his ringtone filled the car just moments after I’d hung up. I’d have called him back, too. “Hey, Ed . . . Ted,” I said.
    â€œI’m in my room alone; you can call me whatever you want.” His voice was thick and rough with sleep.
    â€œI forgot the time change. Sorry.”
    â€œJust tell me you found out something that will help.”
    â€œYes and no. There have always been vampires in Ireland, or at least for the last thousand years and change.”
    I heard the sheets move as he changed positions. “Say again.”
    I did.
    â€œHow do you know?”
    â€œFirst Jean-Claude told me, and then we had one of the vamps from Ireland in town.”
    â€œI didn’t know you had any Irish vampires in St. Louis.”
    â€œHe doesn’t consider himself Irish even though he was a vampire there for about a thousand years, give or take a few hundred.”
    â€œYou don’t have that many vampires that old, or you didn’t. Is it one of the Harlequin?” See, he really did know most of my business.
    â€œNo, it’s Damian.”
    â€œWhat? He doesn’t sound Irish.”
    â€œLike I said, he doesn’t consider himself Irish. He said,
I just died there
. He still thinks of himself as a Viking. He was what history calls a Danish Viking, and that’s still how he thinks of himself.”
    â€œEven after a millennium in Ireland.”
    â€œYep.”
    â€œOkay, I don’t have to understand Damian’s motives. What did you learn?”
    â€œHis old mistress, She-Who-Made-Him, literally, you can’t say her name without risking her invading your mind. She can do some