"Well, I guess it is pretty late for a school night, and we've been on the phone for over an hour. And they're going to bed ..."

"So? Your parents are just f.u.c.ked up, Angie. Mine wouldn't give a s.h.i.t."

"Yeah," Angie said, her voice an angry whisper, "and yours haven't been home for three days, Sara! I've got to get off the phone right now! I'll see you tomorrow."

The phone clicked off. Sara pushed herself away from the table and hung the receiver back on the wall. She stood staring at it for a while.

There was n.o.body else to call.

She looked around the kitchen. It was stupid, keeping all the lights on like this. Every room had at least one or two turned on. And the TV in the living room, playing some dramatic orchestra music. And upstairs, there were at least two radios on, tuned to two different stations.

She should just turn them off. She went to the living room, heading for the light switch, but ended up sitting on the couch instead, watching as a woman in an old black-and-white movie raised her palms to her face and screamed.

"Where are we going?" she asked. "You never want to leave the club this early."

He turned the key. The car snarled. "I gotta see somebody."

Sara watched the city lights blur together as the car forced its way down the road. The radio was barely audible over the locomotive-like engine.

"I've really come to love this car," she said. "I love feeling how powerful it is."

Alexander didn't say anything.

"And c.o.ke is just a perfect drug," she said. "I never feel afraid of anything anymore."

He threw his cigarette out the window with a lot more force than seemed necessary.

"What do you think of this dress?" She turned to give him a better view of the front, with its spaghetti straps and swooping neckline. He didn't look. "Most of my designer dresses hang too loose on me now. But there's a place on my way to work that stays open late. I never heard of the brands it sells but the styles are okay. And you can't go wrong with black. I got three new dresses in there, all black."

His fingers tapped along the steering wheel. His head darted from side to side as they drove, peering down every street and behind every large object they pa.s.sed as if expecting something to jump out and attack.

He parked the car when they reached yet another run-down neighborhood. The ride here had involved a lot of winding through darkened streets but it really hadn't taken very long.

"Hey," Sara said, "we've driven down this street before. It's pretty close to the club, isn't it?"

He got out of the car without answering.

"Yeah," Sara said. "I'm sure of it now. We could probably walk there from here. Of course you never park on the same street as where you're going, but it'll be close, right?"

The buildings were packed together. Alexander wound around a few corners and crossed a courtyard, Sara following a step behind. She blinked. There was flutter of movement in one of the darkened windows. Eyes seemed to pry out of the darkness there and from isolated hiding places all around. She tried to clutch Alexander's hand but he pulled free.

They walked down a very narrow walkway, finally reaching a side door. Alexander rang the bell and the intercom clicked on, but no voice came out.

"Biff," Alexander said. A buzzer sounded and Alexander pulled open the door. A set of stairs led up inside, but Alexander took Sara's hand and led her around behind them.

A rickety door with peeling paint looked like a broom closet, but behind it a short set of stairs descended into the bas.e.m.e.nt. Alexander flipped on a single dusty light bulb and Sara squinted in its dim, dreary light. They went down.

Close walls of pitted, crumbling concrete tunneled toward a single unmarked steel door at the bottom. Their footsteps echoed hollowly as they made their way down the creaking wooden staircase. The light was feebler at the bottom, such that the darkened s.p.a.ce directly below the stairs was lost to the eye, but Sara still squinted.

Alexander knocked three times. A m.u.f.fled demand from inside was unclear, but Alexander responded with the quiet a.s.sertion, "Just three." There was a long pause while they waited outside the door. Over the stale, humid, mildew smell of the old bas.e.m.e.nt was the scent- or maybe it was a taste, or some other sensation- of something else. Something unnatural, something ... wrong. Alexander stared at the door.

Finally, numerous deadbolts unlocked. The door drifted silently open, revealing a dark room and a featureless silhouette facing them. A raspy "Come in" echoed from the murky interior. The door closed behind them, and Sara noticed that there was some kind of combination lock attached to the k.n.o.b on this side. Apparently, a code had to be entered before the door could be opened.

Locked in.

The shadowy figure admitted them to a small area that had been created by heaping large boxes and pieces of furniture into piles and then draping them with blankets. The bas.e.m.e.nt of this place appeared to be one large open s.p.a.ce, and the occupant had sectioned off this part as a kind of entryway or buffer between the rest of it and the door. Sara's eyes adjusted quickly to the low light, as they usually did these days. The only illumination down here at all was a strange red glow from the other side of the improvised walls.

The occupant seemed older than Alexander, but it was impossible to judge his true age. He was about Sara's height, with long, stringy dark hair that fell to all sides around a large bald spot in the middle of his head. His remaining hair was quite thin, and it had clumped together into dirty ropes that left parts of his scalp exposed, like a rotting corpse with patches of hair falling out. Sara shivered when he looked at her; there was something about his eyes that made her feel like she'd been molested by his gaze.

Without a word, their host c.o.c.ked his head in the direction of an opening between two blanketed piles of debris. Alexander went in first, followed by the other one, who turned suddenly back toward Sara when she tried to follow. His hand appeared between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. His touch was so hot she was sure it would burn through the material of her dress as he pushed her backward. "Wait," he said.

The bright fluorescent light of the lecture hall burned through her eyes and into the back of her skull. Sara gave up and put on her Wayfarers. At least the black plastic sungla.s.ses matched Alexander's black T-shirt.

The other students filed in, wearing their Lacostes, Calvin Kleins and L.L. Beans, or else their legwarmers, headbands and minis. Soon the entire lecture hall was full of young people with all the best styles, and they all seemed to be staring at Sara. She slouched down a little more in her chair and tried to hide behind her book, hoping their attention would be directed someplace else.

Some were reading, of course. Textbooks and notebooks hid faces all around the lecture hall. Someone a few rows behind her was obscured by the Daily McCaffreian, their college newspaper, with the headline "Top 10 Signs Your Roommate is a Serial Killer."

A group of girls sat down together a few rows behind her. She heard some initial whispers and giggles, and then there was some hushed comment about her "pasty" complexion.

"So, wait," one said. "She poisoned him?"

"No," another answered. "Adam tried to poison him, but he framed Alexis. Try to keep up." The other girls laughed.

"What am I supposed to do? Tell the student senate I can't show up because I've got to watch Dynasty?"

"Well," another voice said. "At least you've got your priorities, don't you? Where would we be without your dedicated service? Thank you for your sacrifice." There were some snickers from the others.

The one who hadn't seen the show was quiet a moment. Sara watched from the corner of her eye as the girl gestured at her, raising her voice. "It sure is sunny in this windowless cla.s.sroom this morning," she said. The others chuckled, and then another one spoke: "That's why it's so hard to find the right page. It's so bright, we just turn to random pages we covered weeks ago." Their voices were getting louder.

Sara glanced back. The girls were young, athletic, and perfectly tanned. Some boys in the room laughed.

Pa.s.sing this cla.s.s was all that mattered.

The mob of townspeople were chasing her with their stakes and their torches. "Yeah, I used to have that hairstyle once," said another girl, "but then Daddy invented fire and we moved out of the cave."

The tears probably weren't visible under her sungla.s.ses, but the sniff when her nose began to run made it obvious.

At the top of the stairs she realized that she'd left her book behind. She ran out of the room without looking back.

"Sara, it's your mother."

Sara groaned as the machine played the message.

"Your father's lawyer called my lawyer, demanding that I send your college grades. I don't have your grades, Sara. I'm sure you know that, but your father says you told him that I do."

Her mother sniffed and then exhaled raggedly. Her voice got higher as she continued. "You knew your father would use this to hurt me. You knew."

More sniffling.

"So you're going to be like this, now? Setting me up so your father can ambush me? After all I've done? Sara, I've tried so hard to be your friend ..."

More sniffling, Then a deep breath.

"Well, you've always been a vindictive little b.i.t.c.h. So if that's the way you want it to be, then I guess that's the way it's going to be."

The machine beeped and clicked off.

Hunting will be easier when the change is absolute. But she can smell the blood. She can follow it. And she does.

Lovers on a park bench. They hear her. She pounces. The girl's almond eyes stare but the boy's fist catches Sara on the jaw. A fang cuts her lip before she bites, awkwardly tearing his smooth-shaven throat.

The girl runs. Sara chases but cannot catch her without her full powers. She turns back. The boy has disappeared.

CHAPTER 5.

Braving the Daylight MIGUEL SAT ACROSS the breakroom table from Sara. He looked like a Latin vampire straight from the movies, with his dark hair and that same unnatural translucence Alexander and Neil had. The world was filling with vampires.

His eye caught hers. "How are you doing these days, Sara?"

She shrugged, forcing a smile. "I'm just a spoiled suburban girl, Miguel. What problems could I have?" She turned her eyes to the tabletop. In the center was a squiggly circle drawn in black magic marker, faded from having been scrubbed with some chemical. Inside was written, "Forehead print. Alexander's dad. Here for proper a.s.s f.u.c.king on 6/22/83."

He gave her a sideways glance like a sinister character calling out from a doorway. "So what have you been up to lately?"

"Oh, you know," she replied, "just running around all night and being wild. I guess I'm living sort of like a vampire." She forced a few fake chuckles.

Miguel's face tightened. His squinting eyes narrowed further. "How long you think you are living like a vampire?" he asked in thickly accented English, peering into her face.

She shook her head. "I didn't really mean I think I'm a vampire, Miguel ..."

"I know."

"I just meant I'm staying up all night, sleeping late in the day, that kind of thing."

"I know. But you like them, yes?"

She shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. Sure." Her face got hot. This was too much attention.

"What do you like about them?"

She smiled. "What is this, an interview? I'm not a freak about them or anything- I don't think they're real. I just like the stories, that's all. You know, I just think it's a cool idea, turning into someone else." She laced her fingers together and tightened her grip, grounding herself to keep from floating away.

Miguel stared for a moment. Sara kept herself from floating but her vision turned inward. White letters suspended in darkness spelled out: Someone Else.

"Sara," Miguel said quietly, "I think you are in danger."

She forced her eyes toward his face again. He continued speaking without waiting for her to reply.

"I think you are getting involved with something ... something you don' understand."

She rubbed her eyes. "No, I'm ... I'm not superst.i.tious or anything like that, really. I just-"

He raised his palms at her and bowed his head slightly. "You think you are talking about just a story. You think you make a joke. I know." He inhaled deeply as he tried to form the words. "But that story is not the way it's really like. I think you are playing with something very dangerous, and you don' know how bad it is."

She stood up and gave him her sweetest smile.

"Don't worry about me, Miguel," she said. "I can handle the dangerous something. I'm one of them, now."

Sara hid from the sun, hunched down in a taxi headed to Skokie Valley Hospital. Her head ached. The sunlight burned through her.

"Yeah," the friendly driver was saying, "this a pretty good hospital. One time I take my boy here when he got a fever." Sara didn't recognize his accent; maybe Pakistani. "They give him some stuff"- he ran a finger along the back of his hand- "you know, in a vein? And it make him okay."

The taxi pulled into the hospital parking lot and proceeded to the main doors. People milled around the lobby inside.

Sara fumbled for her money.

"Hey," the driver said. "I hope you get fixed here, too. Looks like whatever you got makes you really tired."

She had just enough cash for a decent tip. "Thanks," she said.

The gla.s.s doors opened automatically and admitted her to the lobby, where she sat down on one of the tweedy couches. She took a few deep breaths, setting her bag on the low table next to a tattered Life magazine. The tubes and valves on the cover looked like a gas mask. "The Artificial Heart is Here," it said.

Sara rubbed her eyes. She couldn't face her father. She did look sick these days, and he was in the business of noticing such things. Worse, she'd be questioned. Hung by her wrists, stretched on the rack, burned with a hot poker as he demanded information about her cla.s.ses, school life, and any other potential successes he could brag about.

She swallowed and tried taking another deep breath but she choked on the plastic hospital smell. Her eyes and skin broiled in the sunlight penetrating the windows. No taxi could take her home now- she'd just spent all her cash. Finally she ran out through the parking lot and spotted the black two-door Benz 450 SL convertible with her father's country club decal on the back window.

Her key opened the door.

She started it and stepped on the gas.