Never judge a book by its cover. They taught you that in kindergarten or second grade or whatever, whenever it was they drilled that little bit of advice into your brain. For instance, there was Bart, a kid who looked too small and too young to be much of a threat to anybody, much less a hungry flock of vampires in an alley. A demon who towered over him looked like it could effortlessly crush his skull, rip his head off and walk away without a scratch, just as scary, just as bad as it had been before running into a smart aleck teenage boy who talked big.
A gold chain hung loosely from his fingers. It swung back and forth as he walked and the pilferer gave off the impression of being proud of himself, smug. Bart didn’t think that it was important, that it meant anything. It didn’t look like much. Taken from a vampire he’d impaled in Skid Row, it gleamed prettily under the city lights.
They followed at his heels, a pack of hungry hyenas slobbering over a chunk of meat, a bone somebody had taken away from them. He smirked and ignored them until he couldn’t.
Jared took their attention from him. They saw him and one of the three snarled under his hood. The man who wasn’t human riled them up but their engrossment went quickly back to Bart as he cleared his throat to immerse them again.
“You guys want this back, don’t you?” Mocking, he dangled the chain in front of his face, letting them get a better look at what he’d taken from their dead friend. With Jared so close by, they were torn between going for the kid and lunging at the peculiar vampire who smelled too different to be one of them.
The taunting brat won out and the one closest to him growled and sauntered ahead.