"Yes. Yes it will. Here you go." She holds out the warmed-up jar she's holding. It's got a paper towel over the top of it to prevent splattering in the microwave, and she can't smell it enough to bother her.

Bella holds her nose until he's done.

"The books claim that vampires invariably do the face thing when they drink blood, even if they don't mean to," observes Bella. She releases her nose, cautiously sniffs the air, and hefts her messenger bag as she heads for the end of the driveway. "One of them recommended putting a drop of blood in a suspected vampire's wine or something as a way to expose them."

"Once again," he says, "I suspect no other vampire has ever been quite so adamant about controlling their instincts."

"Is it very hard?" she asks. "...Also, do you have a phone? It might make more sense to have actual conversations during some other part of the day when you aren't inclined to be lurky."

"It was once. I hardly think about it anymore," he says. "And no, regrettably, I do not have a phone. Shortly I will not have a hotel room either."

"Why not? What happened?"

"Insufficient funds," he says dryly. "It's amazing how quickly the cash dries up once you stop killing people for it."

"...Ah. Do you have someplace else to crash?"

"Not yet. Hopefully I will manage something. It's not as though this town lacks nesting grounds. I do prefer my sordid little caves with working electricity, however, which makes the selection a little less broad."

"What do you need the electricity for? I'm storing and warming up your dinner for you and I thought you could see in the dark."

"Tea," he says with a flash of a grin. "A terrible vice for a bloodsucker, I know, but I can't help myself."

"Tea," she laughs. "To go with the accent. Why do you even have an English accent? Is it just an affectation to match the name?"

"Not quite," he says. "It's a change from my original but not as much as you might think. During all that accelerated growth, my main source of conversation was a computer whose speech synthesizer was as English as you please. I turned out ninety percent BBC to ten percent New York; it wasn't much trouble to hop to London from there."

"A computer taught you to talk?" she asks. "I'd expect that to leave you with odd linguistic habits that you don't seem to have. I suppose I'm not sure what I'd expect in particular; it'd depend on the program."

"Tony wrote the AI. He was as much of a thinking creature as I am."

"...And he wasn't backed up anywhere," infers Bella. "And the villains of the story got him too."

"Correct," he says softly.

"Shit. I'm sorry. What was his name?"

"Jarvis."

"You said it was a short list of people," she recalls vaguely. "Was it a two-person list?"

"Yes."