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"If you've had your fun, I suggest we get down to busi-ness," he shouts over the music.
"Hey, buddy," says my accidental dance partner. "She's dancing with me."
Jareth rolls his eyes. "She can marry you, for all I care. Have babies. Live happily ever after in a
white-picketed sub-urban McMansion. But for right now, I have important busi-ness to discuss with her
and she's coming with me."
He grabs me roughly by the arm and proceeds to drag me to the cafe side of the club.
"Get your hands off me," I protest, annoyed at his possessiveness. If I didn't know better, I'd say he was
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totally jealous. But that's stupid, right? I mean, we don't even know each other, really. Or like each other.
We shared one bite. And it was performed under necessity, not attraction. Well, not total attraction,
anyway. Okay, fine. I was attracted. But for him it was just part of our cover. At least I think so.
Still, for some weird reason he's making me feel totally guilty. As if I was, like, cheating on him or
something. Which is so stupid. We're totally not going out. We're not even friends. We're just partners
thrown together to solve a vampire mys-tery. After that's over, we'll part ways. Forever. And I do mean
forever.
Jareth still looks pouty as he sits down in his seat. I decide to make peace. Even if he doesn't have any
right to be pissed at me.
"I was watching you," I say. "You're an amazing dancer."
"Thanks," he says, still sounding a bit on the grumpy side. "It's something I enjoy."
I smile. "Me, too. I sometimes feel like dancing is the only way I can be at total peace with myself. It's
like the world stops while you're dancing. And nothing matters but he music."
He pauses for a moment, then agrees. "I know what you mean. Sometimes I come here by myself.
When the world is too much to deal with. I can escape for a few hours. Forget all the pain."
He stops talking and stares at his hands. I wonder, not for the first time, what secret hurt he's hiding and
whether we'll ever be close enough for him to share it with me.
I decide to confess. Maybe my humiliation will cheer him a bit.
"You know, I had my eyes closed," I say. "Stupidly, I thought that guy who came up and started dancing
with me was you."
Jareth looks up, raising a perfectly arched eyebrow. "Me?"
"Yeah." I'm hoping the bar's dim lighting is hiding my blush.
"Would you . . . have liked it to be me?"
Gah! He did not just go there. Now my face is burning. "Uh . . ."
"You're all red, my dear." His smile tells me he's enjoying teasing me, seeing me uncomfortable. Jeez. I
should have never confessed that.
"It would have been nice if it was you, yes," I say at last, not wanting to let him win. Let him turn red for
a while.
But he doesn't blush. He just looks thoughtful.
"Anyway," he says, apparently wimping out and changing the subject. "You're probably wondering why
I asked you here tonight. And it wasn't, unfortunately, to dance with you."
"I figured," I say. "What's wrong?"
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He picks up the salt shaker and fiddles with it, not meet-ing my eyes. "Kristoff," he murmurs at last.
I cock my head. "You mean your vamp friend? The one whose donors you saw in the Blood Bar
yesterday?"
"Yes." Jareth nods."Iwent to see him this evening. To let him know we'd spotted his donors and that he
ought to let them go. I pounded on the door of his crypt, but there was no answer. I waited for a
moment, then heard strange noises coming from inside. A . . . whimpering almost. So I broke down the
door. I found him in bed, looking deathly ill."
Concern claws at my heart. I'm thinking, "This is very strange."
"Iasked him what was wrong/He could barely speak." Jareth shakes his head, looking pained. Evidently
this guy is a good friend. "He says the last few days, he's been bedridden. Can't even feed anymore. And
all his vampire powers seem to somehow have left him."
"That's weird."
"Very. I've never seen anything like it."
"Do you think he could have caught some weird disease? Like, because his donors were at the Blood
Bar? Maybe they were infected by some other vampire and passed along the disease."
Jareth shrugs. "It's possible, to be sure. But unlikely. The Blood Bar is more regulated than one might
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