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A PERFECT BLOOD
KIM HARRISON
Table of Contents
To the guy who likes remodelling even more than I do
I’d like to thank my agent, Richard Curtis, and my editor, Diana Gill, without whom the Hollows would be but a small dream.
The woman across from me barely sniffed when I slammed the pen down on the counter. She didn’t care that I was furious, that I’d been standing in this stupid line for over an hour, that I couldn’t get my license renewed or my car registered in my name. I was tired of doing everything through Jenks or Ivy, but DEMON wasn’t a species option on the form. Friday morning at the DMV office. God! What had I been thinking?
“Look,” I said, waving a faded photocopied piece of paper. “I have my birth certificate, my high school diploma, my old license, and a library card. I’m standing right in front of you. I am a person, and I need a new driver’s license and my car registered!”
The woman gestured for the next guy in line, her bedraggled graying hair and lack of makeup only adding to her bored disinterest. I glared at the tidy Were in a business suit who had moved to stand too close behind me, and nervous, he dropped back.
The clerk looked at me over her glasses and sucked at her teeth. “I’m sorry,” she finally said, tapping at her keyboard and bringing up a new screen. “You’re not in the system under witch or even other.” She squinted at me. “You’re listed as dead. You’re not dead, are you?”
Crap on toast, can this get any worse? Frustrated, I tugged my shoulder bag up higher. “No, but can I get a dead-vamp sticker and get on with my life?” I asked, and the Were behind me cleared his throat impatiently.
She pushed her thick glasses back where they belonged. “Are you a vampire?” she asked dryly, and I slumped.
No, I was obviously not a vampire. From all accounts, I looked like a witch. Long, frizzy red hair; average build; average height; with a propensity for wearing leather when the situation demanded it and sometimes when it didn’t. Until a few months ago I’d called myself a witch, too, but when the choice was between becoming a lobotomized witch or a free demon … I took the demon status. I didn’t know they were going to take everything else, too. Demons were legal nonentities on this side of the ley lines. God help me if I should land in jail for jaywalking—I apparently had fewer rights than a pixy, and I was tired of it.
“I can’t help you, Ms. Morgan,” the woman said, beckoning the man behind me forward, and he shoved me aside as he handed her his form and old driver’s license.
“Please!” I said as she ignored me, leaning toward her screen. Beside me, the man grew nervous, the spicy scent of agitated Were rising up.
“I just bought the car,” I said, but it was obvious this date was over. “I need to get it registered. And my license renewed. I gotta drive home!”
I didn’t—I had Wayde for that—but the lie wouldn’t hurt anyone.
The woman eyed me with a bored expression as the man