My parents live in La Mesa, a bedroom community east of San Diego. A drive that should take twenty minutes max, takes about forty with traffic, but for once, I'm in no hurry. It's the first time I've been alone-really alone-in days. The crying jag in Avery's car released some pent-up emotion, but while the sadness is gone, anger is just bubbling to the surface.

For the first time in my life, I know how it feels to want someone dead. If Donaldson is behind the fire, I might just reconsider Avery's notion that he needs to be killed. I'm not shocked that I feel this way, nor do I blame it on how I've changed. It has nothing to do with being vampire and everything to do with what Donaldson has taken from me.

It's a most human reaction.

Which is comforting, in a crazy sort of way.

At my folks', the reality of the fire hits me again. Their home is filled with silver-framed pictures, several of them of my grandparents taken in and around the cottage. I pick up one of them and hug it to my chest as I head for the bedroom.

My mom is a high school principal, my dad an investment banker. I'm an only child. I had a brother, Steve, two years older than me. He died at eighteen in one of the most senseless, devastating ways imaginable. He was struck by a drunk driver in the middle of the day in the middle of a crosswalk on his way to classes at Cornell University.

I don't know what makes me think of Steve now. Maybe it's because here in the house where we grew up, his presence is still felt.

Not in a maudlin "there's a shrine on top of the television" kind of way, but rather in an affirmation that life does go on after such a tragedy. My parents worked hard to make sure I didn't get lost in the depths of their inconsolable grief.

Which is what makes my parents so crazy about the lifestyle I've chosen. I know this. I just can't tell them why I feel the way I do. I can't explain that it's because of Steve's death I live my life as I do. He was killed minding his own business, without warning or reason. If life is so tenuous, I'll be damned if I spend it in safe drudgery.

But that's rather a moot point now, isn't it?

I find myself shaking my head. Maybe now, with eternity stretching out in front of me, I could stand to take a normal job if only to appease them in the short time we have left.

Because I know, it is a short time. Not that they are in ill health, but because I realize it is only a matter of years before they notice that their daughter is not aging. There will be no wrinkles on my face, no sagging body, no arthritic joints. How will I handle it? Will I have to disappear? How can I bear to watch as they lose another child? There must be another way. I must ask Avery.

Avery. My mentor, my guide. What would I do without him?

The smell of smoke in my hair and on my skin brings me out of my reverie. I slip out of my clothes and head for the bathroom off my folk's bedroom. I let the water run hot before I step into the shower. The steam is a balm to my spirit, as well as my body. I lather up and rinse off, and then I stand there for ten minutes, not thinking, not feeling. When I can stand the heat no longer, I step out.

The bathroom has turned into a steam room. I wrap a towel around my head and grab another to swipe over the mirror. It takes a minute for the glass to clear and another to digest the fact that there is no reflection beaming back at me.

The jolt is followed by an awareness that to no longer have to deal with mortal vanity is rather liberating. I towel dry my hair, finger comb it, and I'm done.

It only takes a few minutes more to change into jeans and a tee shirt and throw some clothes into a bag. My mother and I are the same size, and while her taste leans toward the sophisticated, she does have a stash of casual wear that I take advantage of now. I leave her a note telling her what I've taken. She'll have lots of questions, but there's no sense adding anything else. My parents will learn about the fire when they get back from Europe-soon enough.

Then I'm back in the car and headed for David's loft. He lives in the Gas Lamp area just south of downtown where gentrification is in full swing. The area, once a hangout for the homeless, now teems with restaurants, bars, loft apartments, and trendy boutiques.

The homeless are still here, of course, but relegated to the side streets now. Cops on horseback make sure they don't venture out where their presence might distress the new residents.

It's about four in the afternoon when I pull into the underground parking garage at David's. I realize I don't have his card key-

another casualty of the fire-so I press the intercom button and wait for him to answer.

He doesn't.

I press again. I know he's there, because I can see his Hummer parked in all its yellow splendor just across the lot.

Still no response.

Aggravation spikes. He wants me to stay with him, so where is he when I need him?

I back carefully up the ramp and park on the street. Grabbing my overnight bag, I look up at the security door, wondering how I'll get inside. I don't have that key, either. But as luck will have it, a woman appears just then, a cute little Lab pup in her arms. I hustle up the steps just as she opens the door. We exchange smiles, and I give the pup the mandatory head scratch before bolting inside.

David lives on the top floor of a twelve-story building. The elevator bumps to a stop, and I'm knocking at the door, calling out as I do. The door gives under my touch and I push it open. Obviously, he left it that way for me. He's probably taking the trash out or something, which explains why he didn't answer before.

David's loft was purchased with football money-a ton of it. The living room is comprised of walls of glass so that the view sweeps in an unobstructed arc north from downtown to the bay. That panorama is the first thing you notice when you step inside and it's simply an automatic reaction to wander to the balcony to take it all in.

So, I just stand there, watching sailboats bob and weave on the bay like frisky colts, waiting for my errant partner to put in an appearance. But my thoughts are not on the view. My emotions have once again shifted into overdrive. One moment I'm overcome by sadness at the enormity of my loss, and the next, bathed in cold fury at the thought that it was done deliberately.

Finally, I find myself glancing at my watch. I realize I've been here fifteen minutes, and still there's no David.

Something is wrong.

I step back inside and listen. The loft is eerily quiet. In fact, the stereo David always leaves on, has been turned off. I take a turn around the place, peeking into bedrooms, baths, the kitchen, and dining room, finally back to the living room.

He's not here.

Which doesn't make sense. If he decided to go to the store or to run a last-minute errand, he would have left me a note. And he certainly wouldn't have left the front door open.

I head back through the dining room, thinking I'll use the kitchen phone to try his cell, when I see them.

David's wallet, car keys and money clip are sitting on the bar in the dining room.

How could I have missed that before?

Something's definitely wrong.

I take a step closer and see something else.

My new vampire senses spring into alertness.

There's a smear, dark and viscous, on the corner of the glass table, and another on the rug just below it.

It's blood. I feel it.

And just as certainly, I know it can only be David's blood.