"I just don't understand why someone would pay for my services only to ignore my advice."
"Human nature," Lucas said. "We always think we know best, don't we?"
"Are you lumping yourself in with the humans now?"
He grinned with a flash of fang. "We've lived among them our entire lives. We aren't exactly inhuman. Vampires started out as mortal. We become turned and lose parts of ourself, but we are still mostly human."
"With perks?"
He laughed. "Definite perks."
I'd never been to the barrier of Midnight Cove. I gasped in surprise as Lucas pulled up to it. "Have you ever been out this way?" he asked me.
I shook my head. "I've never been outside of the town."
I felt him look at me in surprise. "You may feel disoriented for a minute or so. There's a lot of magic keeping the town running. When we pull through you will feel an abject...loss of it."
A frown pulled at my forehead. "Will my magic disappear?" I asked, feeling a sudden panic in my stomach.
"No. Nothing like that. But it may be a little harder to pull on if you need it. The regular world doesn't have a lot of magic in it. Some, but not nearly as much as the cove does."
"Why do you come out here?"
He shrugged and began to accelerate slowly. "There's a lot more to our world than just our town. The earth is a gorgeous, wondrous place. Plus the food is to die for."
That was exciting. The food was pretty good in Midnight Cove, but it was always the same thing. "Can't wait," I said and gasped as Lucas exited the barrier.
It was like a sudden absence of color and sound ripped over me. Everything smelled different. Less rich for a moment, more...unfamiliar. I took a couple of deep breaths and felt my stomach lurch. Lucas took my hand. "Just breathe through it. It will pass."
He took a left hand turn and I was bombarded by street lights everywhere. My stomach began to settle and I looked at out the window unable to keep from gaping. There were buildings and lights everywhere. More light than I'd ever seen in Midnight Cove.
"Are there different barriers in the town?" I asked.
"Several. Depending on which one you take, you could come out either downtown, where we are, into a suburban neighborhood, or right out onto the highway."
"Cool," I murmured and continued to gawk at the sights. "How much longer?"
"Just a few minutes."
We drove in silence for awhile until he turned into what appeared to be a large shopping area. Stores, boutiques, restaurants and other shopping areas were all over the place. Lucas pulled into a parking garage, paid the attendant and pulled into the first available spot. He reached into the back and pulled out a lightweight jacket. "The weather is different where we are too. It might be a little cooler than you're used to."
I accepted the jacket and shrugged it on. He came around and opened the door for me, offering a hand to help me out. I pulled the jacket closer. It was quite a bit cooler than I'd expected.
"Come on," he said and clasped my hand in his. "We have reservations in about fifteen minutes and we still have a little ways to walk."
I let him take my hand and allowed him to lead me further into the shopping plaza. What an adventure. I was grinning like a lunatic. People were milling everywhere around us, smiling and laughing. Every single person seemed human. No one had horns or fangs, or weird auras. It was amazing.
And weird. Living in Midnight Cove exposed me to all kinds of things I'd come to accept as normal. So, for me, seeing this many humans and no paranormals was not normal. Granted, we had humans in our town, and quite a few of them, but the ratio of paranormals to humans was way skewed. I gawked like a kindergartner at Disney World which forced Lucas to apologize to a couple of people as he pushed me inside the door of a restaurant.
"Everything okay?" he asked me.
"All of those people," I wondered aloud. "They wouldn't know magic if it hit them in the face."
"No," he said, trying to hide his smile. "They wouldn't. So we aren't going to show them. Right, Grace?"
I nodded my head. "Right. Just surprised, that's all."
Lucas rattled off his name to the hostess and she walked us back to a seat overlooking a massive body of water. The moon looked enormous against the backdrop of the sky and its reflection distorted in the rippling waves. A waiter brought us out a preordered bottle of wine and poured us a glass of wine.
