Page 24 of Soft Flannel Hank

Even vampires.

Hank took a sip of his coffee.

“You look like shit, Nat.”

“It’s good to see you too, Hank,” Nat shot back.

“You know what I mean.”

Nat looked like he was weighing what he wanted to say. It was comforting, in a way, that even with Nat’s superhuman strength and speed, his brain still worked at exactly the same pace as everyone else’s.

“I haven’t been sleeping well.”

Hank raised an eyebrow. “You’re dead, Nat.”

“Yeah. But I still sleep. Like the dead. Or I usually do.”

Nat swiveled his head, cracking his neck like a boxer about the enter the ring.

“You were a good detective, right? When you were on the force?”

Hank shrugged. He had been. But his pride in those skills was all tied up in all of his other jumbled feelings about that job, so it was hard to acknowledge it.

“Why?”

Nat sighed. Hank had known him a long time. Nat was normally what Hank would describe as a golden retriever of a man: loyal, enthusiastic, goofy as hell. He couldn’t remember ever having heard Nat sigh like that.

“I got a call from a Callum MacLeod from Georgia. Asked for my help.”

“And?” Hank asked.

“They’re looking for someone. He’s got a source that says she’s in the area. Supposedly, she stole all the money from the till on a Friday night. He owns a nightclub.”

“So why not just take it through the proper legal channels?”

“Come on, Hank. You know as well as I do that a group of vampires hunting for a notorious witch are probably going to handle things outside of the law.”

“Notorious, you say?”

It still felt strange to talk. Even after talking with Esther last night and Alice and Nadja that morning and Buck and the elders in the afternoon. His voice felt like an out-of-tune instrument with strings that were brittle and too loose. But while the talking felt strange, sitting across the table from Nat felt good. Just like sitting in the truck with Buck had felt good.

But it also still felt strange that Hank could hear a sentence that included the words “vampires” and “notorious witch” and not only take it seriously, but do so without any reaction at all.

Nat smiled widely, showing off his brilliant teeth. Hs fangs were retracted so that they looked like dramatically pointy canines. “Notorious.” He winked.

Hank grunted. “Surely there wasn’t that much money in the till that it’s worth chasing her all the way across the country.”

“Well, that’s the thing. There wasn’t. Couple thousand bucks. But that’s not why they’re after her.”

Hank raised an eyebrow, waiting.

“She was a bartender at the club. People would come to the club, vampires would have a little snack, then send them on their merry way. But this witch, she drugged the people’s drinks with some sort of potion or something, and it made all the vampires really sick.”

“And the people?”

Nat shrugged. “He didn’t say.”

Hank took another sip. He felt a familiar anger boiling in this body. The casualness with which some people were able to hurt others would never cease to enrage him. Human, vampire, werewolf. Witch. It didn’t matter. Some people lacked any semblance of a conscience. Those people were the reason Hank became a cop in the first place.