Andrea remained in the underground vampire community more out of necessity than anything else. Broke and lacking a degree, she found her rare blood type was the easiest and most lucrative way to make money. She moved to the Hollow to be near a friend she’d met through an online vampire pets’ community. She got a job in a boutique downtown that catered to riverboat tourists and the top one percent of Half-Moon Hollow’s socioeconomic caste. But her real income came from “protectors” who enjoyed her blood. She’d get a page, go to the client’s home, and offer up her veins. She said many of her clients were lonely and often asked her to stick around to talk for a while. They were generous and more than happy to pass her name on to other respectable vampires. Apparently, her line of work was all about referrals. The only occupational hazards were the constant need for turtlenecks and trying to fit enough iron into her diet.

I stuck with smoothies through the night, because after the Kahlua episode, I decided that alcohol and I weren ’t friends anymore. It was nice just to sit and talk as we discussed childhoods, family dynamics, and men—with the exception of the one man we both wanted to talk about. I deliberately skirted the issue of Gabriel and his relationship with Andrea, whatever that might be. It was cowardly, but Andrea seemed like my first shot at a friend who truly understood this new world I ’d been dropped into. I didn’t want to run the risk of alienating her.

“So, your experience hasn’t made you want to avoid vampires altogether?” I asked. “I’d probably be out burning the undead in effigy. Not that I want to give you any ideas or anything.”

“Vampires are just like humans,” Andrea said. “You meet good ones and bad ones. Pulse has very little to do with it.”

“Have you ever wanted to be turned yourself?”

“You know, I’ve never had a vampire offer to turn me,” she admitted. “They can feed off me if I’m undead, but it’s not as much fun, and the nutritional value of my blood drops. I guess they don ’t want to kill the golden goose, if you know what I mean.

But I like living. I’m not afraid of death, which seems to be a problem for people who get turned. No offense.”

“None taken,” I assured her. “I was afraid. I wasn’t ready to die. When I thought of the ways I preferred to die, I wanted to be a hundred years old and surrounded by generations of adoring descendants. Though a hair dryer and an ill-timed fall into a tub was far more likely. I never considered deer or drunk drivers.”

“Well, it’s certainly a more interesting story than a hair dryer and a bathtub,” she said. “What about you? Tell me everything.

Do you have a boyfriend or…”

“I’m definitely in the ‘or’ category.” I snorted. “Let’s see, the last guy I dated—is there a word for someone who’s sexually attracted to Muppets?”

Andrea’s elegant persona was destroyed as she laughed so hard martini shot out of her nose. That made me feel pretty good. I regaled her with my epic tales of dating men too bizarre to allow past second base—the jobless, the spineless, the one who brought his mama on our first date. By the time I got to Derek, the man with an unnatural interest in Miss Piggy, most of the crowd had drifted out. It was just us, Norm the teddy-bear bartender, and the Virginia-loving lager drinker.

I don’t think Andrea had been out on many girls’ nights, because she went whole hog on the martinis. Given the late hour, the amount of vodka consumed, and her regular blood donations, it was impressive that she was still upright. But once she started actually watching the Australian competitive darts championship on the big screen, I called for the check. We wandered out just as a gaunt, semimulleted vamp in a faded Whitesnake T -shirt came barreling in. Andrea, already unsteady on her feet, mumbled drowsily as she bumped into me.

“Excuse us,” I muttered, retrieving Andrea from her 130-degree lean. I had my droopy new friend tucked into her passenger seat when I realized I’d left my purse behind.

I jogged back into the bar, opening the door on Mr. Whitesnake literally holding Norm upside down by his ankles and shaking him. The lager drinker was nowhere in sight.

“Where’s the cash, you useless sack of meat?” Whitesnake snarled, his fangs in full play. Norm, who looked oddly resigned to this treatment, pointed to the wall behind the bar.

“Hey! Put him down!” I yelled, rushing to catch Norm when Whitesnake complied.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I demanded, setting Norm on his feet.

“Punching some nosy bitch in the face.”

“Wha—?” I managed before Whitesnake’s fist collided with the bridge of my nose. Whitesnake stood six feet tall and looked as if he’d been blown out from a straw, and yet the sheer force of the blow threw me back through the bar door and skidding into the gravel of the parking lot.

That did not feel good.

My face felt as if it were located somewhere near the back of my head. I sat up, rolling my neck. My stomach dropped greasily at the sound of my vertebrae snapping back into place. I was shaking off that new entry in the ick files and wondering how the hell Andrea was sleeping through this when Norm came flying out the door.

I loved that I was able to spring up and catch Norm’s pudgy form before he was a smear on the parking lot. I did not love the look on Whitesnake’s face as he came storming out of the bar.

“Run!” I hissed as Whitesnake advanced. Norm, obviously accustomed to this occupational hazard, scurried to his nearby car, found his magnetic Hide-A-Key, and pulled away in less time than it takes to say “Gratuity included.”

I turned my attention back to my face-rearranging buddy, who was seconds from slamming me like a rag doll into the hood of an old Mustang. Let me tell you, solid American engineering hurts. My legs flailed as I thumped back against the hood, landing a lucky kick to the side of his head. He flinched, letting me land another one, planting the toe of my canvas sneaker in his ear. It also gave me time to shove the heel of my hand under his chin, not to hurt him but to direct his breath away from me. How could someone who didn’t eat or, for that matter, need to breathe have breath that smelled like expired Parmesan cheese?

The breath, combined with chapped lips and eyes that were “I just ate special brownies” red, added up to someone I didn’t want hovering close to my nose. I gave Whitesnake another quick punch to the mouth, his teeth scraping deep across my knuckles.

I must have hit him hard, because one of his canines clacked to the ground.

I quickly surmised that fangs are the one thing we didn’t grow back, because he was really, really pissed about it. I barely got out an “Oh, cr,” before I was splayed over the hood, gaining intimate personal knowledge of the hood ornament in a manner I’d rather not discuss again.

With the pummeling, my head snapped back, and I caught a glimpse of Andrea dozing blissfully in the front seat.

“A fat lot of help you are!” I yelled just before Mr. Whitesnake took this lapse of concentration as an opportunity to try to crush my skull with his bare hands.

The popping noise my cranium made was something that would make my skin crawl for the rest of my long, long life. I made an embarrassing girlie squeal as I tried to pry his fingers away from my scalp. Having exhausted my limited fighting skills, I resorted to the one thing that always worked in elementary school.

I kicked Whitesnake in the nuts.

And I was thrilled to find that it worked on men both dead and alive. He crumpled to the ground, howling. I sat up, postponing running and screaming long enough to let my skull knit back together.

A bemused voice sounded from behind the car. “OK, honey, I don’t care what he’s done to you, you just don’t kick a man in his goods. It’s just not done.”

9

Try to avoid conflicts with other vampires until you can gauge their strength and control your own.

—From The Guide for the Newly Undead

The lager drinker had emerged from the bar to watch me get my ass kicked. How gallant.

“I’ll keep that in mind while I’m having my panties surgically removed,” I griped after snapping my jaw back into its socket.

I followed the sound of his laugh, focusing somewhat bleary eyes on the source of that smoky, smirky voice. It was one of those roguishly handsome faces, the ones that usually got me to do their homework in high school. Deep-set seawater-green eyes, high cheekbones, and a long patrician nose that had obviously been broken at some point. He was in his mid-thirties when he was turned, but the smile and the crinkles around his eyes gave him an impish quality. He was the first vampire I ’d met whose smile actually reached his eyes. And he was the only one I’d met who wasn’t wearing leather in some form.

“Jane Jameson.”

He grinned. “Like the porn star.”

I gaped at him. “What? No, Jane Jameson.”

“Oh, not as fun,” he said, making disappointed clucking noises. He grinned and stretched out a long -fingered hand. “I’m Rich—”

The introduction was interrupted when my now-recovered opponent sprang up from the ground and lunged for my throat. I stepped out of the way as “Rich” caught the guy by his collar and jerked him back into a sleeper hold.

“Now, that’s not very nice, Walter,” Rich said, folding Whitesnake’s arm into a painful origami formation. I could hear the bone creak toward breaking.

“That bitch broke my fang!” yelped Whitesnake, whose mystique was somewhat shattered by being named Walter.

“That’s no way to talk to a lady. Now, say you’re sorry,” Rich said, the mock patience in his voice in direct contrast to the snap-crackle-pop of Walter’s ulna.

“Gah!” Walter yelled, which was not the response Rich was expecting, judging from the way he jerked Walter’s arm up. I’d never heard a bone break before. It was an experience I ’d rather not repeat. Blech. I’d also rather not repeat what Walter screamed at Rich, which would guarantee me box seats in hell, as Aunt Jettie would say.