Gianna and Flip exchanged concerned glances. Eilidh was being weird again. She'd been zoning out, acting a little confused, on and off, since yesterday. It was probably grief, but still, it was disconcerting.

Flip said, "Eilidh. Why don't you go and have a wee lie down? You don't seem quite yourself."

"A wee lie down? I'm a centuries old vampire not a little old lady! I'm fine. I'm just…a little out of it, I guess. So would you be!"

"Alright, alright, keep your hair on!" Flip held her hands up in surrender and took a couple of steps backward. "Nobody's questioning your right to be upset, we're just concerned for you, that's all."

"Oh, for the fiftieth time, I'm fine! Leave me be, Flip, just leave me be. I'm so tired." Eilidh flopped dramatically onto the couch and closed her eyes.

Flip and Gianna went into the barely used kitchen of Gianna's apartment to give Eilidh some space for a while.

"Flip, I'm worried about her. What was that last night? She forgot that Gianna was dead? That's not right. There's something wrong with her. Do you think it's a spell?"

"I don't know, hon. I don't know who would want to put a spell on her. And what would be the point? What could anyone possibly gain from Eilidh losing her memory occasionally? It's just blank spots. It's not like it's all the time."

"Not yet, maybe. But what about that disease that the humans get? Alzheimers? I read that starts with momentary memory loss and then builds up until the person no longer remembers how to perform even the simplest of tasks. They lose their language, they're confused all the time. The don't know who they are or who their family is?"

"As you said, that's a human disease. Vampires's don't get it. There is something called The Tediums though. That's when older vampires get so bored and jaded with their unlife that their mind starts to slip. They forget things, they get confused, in the worst cases, they forget they're vampires and they either walk out into the sun or they refuse to drink blood anymore. But, Eilidh doesn't have that."

"What makes you so sure?" Gianna asked.

"Well, she loves being a vampire. Sure, she's old enough for it but has she ever talked to you about being bored with her existence? She certainly hasn't said anything like that to me."

"Well, no. She hasn't. But, maybe whoever killed Reagan is coming after the whole family. Perhaps they put a spell on Eilidh so that she'll forget about Reagan completely. There's plenty of witches around that could pull that off. And I know she's pissed some people off in the past. We vampires have long memories. Maybe someone from her past is taking revenge for something."

"Well, it's possible, I guess. But honestly, if anyone was going to be the victim of a revenge attack for the past it would be me, not Eilidh. She's done some shitty things, like all vampires, but she's never even killed anyone, that I know of. Me, on the other hand…well, let's just say I do have to watch my back. But Eilidh never has."

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"You two know I can hear your every word, don't you? You'll have to go farther than the kitchen if you want to talk about me without my knowledge."

*****

Flip and Gianna made their way back into the living room to sit with Eillidh.

"Yes, we know you can hear us, but we thought you were getting some sleep."

"Well, I'm not. Look, everyone has memory lapses every now and then, it's nothing to be worried about. I don't have the Tediums, I'm not under a spell and I certainly don't have a weird human disease that rots my brain. And we've got far more important things to worry about right now."

"I want to know who killed my daughter. And why. Are you two going to help me find out? Or are you going to keep harping on about a nonexistent problem you think I have?"

Both Gianna and Flip nodded in agreement. "Of course we'll help," said Gianna. "But, isn't that what the Arcane Guild is for? Isn't that their job? Maybe we should leave it to the experts."

Flip snorted. "The Arcane Guild will send out an investigator but trust me, if there's no threat to them or their own security, they're not going to do much more than a cursory investigation. They don't care."

Gianna replied "Surely that's not true. The Guild exists for the benefit of the supernatural races. They look out for us, that's their job."

"Honey, I don't know what propaganda you've been reading but I know people who have worked for the Guild and those bastards do not have our best interests at heart. They're out for all they can get. Just like everybody else. If it turns out that Reagan's killer is a threat to them, then yes, they'll help catch him but if it turns out he was simply after Reagan for some reason, we're on our own. Personally, I think we should bypass them altogether and find this bastard ourselves."

"But, where do we even start?" Eilidh had been quiet during this exchange but she knew Flip was right. The Guild wouldn't care so it was up to them.

Flip had the answer to that. "We start by talking to Reagan's allies, her friends, if she had any. We want to know what she's been doing in the last few months. Who she had contact with. Who she might have pissed off. Who she was sleeping with. She's not been close to us, so she was probably close to someone else. Gianna? You spoke with her regularly. Who was in her life?"

"Well, I haven't heard from her in maybe three, four weeks? But before that she'd been hanging out in Hawaii. She'd been seeing a guy there but she was a bit secretive about him. I just assumed he was married, or maybe someone high up in the Guild who didn't want it known he was seeing someone outside of the Guild."

"What made you think it might be someone from the Guild? Other than the secrecy part, I mean."

"I dunno, it was the way she spoke about him. As if he was important. Not just to her but to vampires in general. She mentioned that he was working on something big that would change the vampire community for the better, but she couldn't share any details yet."

Eilidh rose to her feet. "Why didn't you mention this before, Gianna! If we'd known about this guy we could have done something before he killed her!"

Flip quickly came to Gianna's defence. "Elidh, come on. Reagan was always seeing someone. If we had known about him it wouldn't have crossed our mind that he would kill her. Or that he could kill her. We don't even know that this guy did! He's just a place to start looking."

Eilidh visibly drooped as she hugged Gianna. "I'm sorry. Flip's right. I don't know why I said that, I really don't. I'm sorry."

Gianna smiled back at Eilidh and assured her that it was fine, she knew Eilidh was just upset. Then she asked "So, how do we find this guy?"

It was Flip who again had the answer. "We go back up a mountain to see a guy."

"And when we find him?" Gianna asked.

"We kill him," Eilidh said with an elegant shrug of her shoulders.