“Uh,” Brian checked his watch to determine what would be open, and did a quick scan of the neighborhood. “Sam’s.” The eatery was more outdoor walk-up window than restaurant, which suited what they wanted. Burgers were a specialty. Just about anything you could think of was on the menu, even a Thai burger, and the patties were so big, they were hard to bite. “This way.” He pointed east and started walking, going to the outside of the sidewalk, so that Valerie was closest to the shops.

“You know, ever since this happened, I’ve been meeting people like crazy,” he said, and he started to tick off the series of weird, too-coincidental meetings that had been brewing in his mind for weeks as Brian tried to think up logical reasons for it.

“Like I met this girl named Holly in Tracks, and it turns out her father was a watcher, but he was killed by a vampire slayer. And she can’t stand this woman I met named Julianna, who works at UNLV, but apparently she’s a watcher, too, and she slept with Holly’s dad. And they both knew this girl named Rhiannon who’s a slayer, too. It was kind of like watching an episode of Dallas: I was getting lost in all the relationships. Then I was sitting at the bus stop and this guy named Cian saw me knock something over, and he pretty much told me that telekinetics are usually better at it.”

He laughed a little.

“It seems like everybody’s connected.”