Rule Number One of living with humans. Always wash the blood off before coming in the house.
Jez stood at the outdoor faucet, icy-cold water splashing over her hands. She was scrubbing- carefully-a
long, slim dagger made of split bamboo, with a cutting edge as sharp as glass. When it was clean, she
slipped it into her right knee-high boot. Then she daubed water over several stains on her T-shirt and
jeans and scrubbed them with a fingernail. Finally she whipped out a pocket mirror and examined her
face critically.
The girl who looked back didn't much resemble the wild, laughing huntress who had leaped from tree to
tree in Muir Woods. Oh, the features were the same; the height of cheekbone, the curve of chin. They
had even fined out a bit because she was a year older. The red flag of hair was the same, too, although
now it was pulled back in an attempt to tame its fiery disorder. The difference was in the expression,
which was sadder and wiser than Jez had ever imagined she could be, and in the eyes.
The eyes weren't as silvery as they had been, not as dangerously beautiful. But that was only to be
expected. She had discovered that she didn't need to drink blood as long as she didn't use her vampire
powers. Human food kept her alive-and made her look more human.
One other thing about the eyes. They were scarily vulnerable, even to Jez. No matter how she tried to
make them hard and menacing, they had the wounded look of a deer that knows it's going to die and
accepts it. Sometimes she wondered if that was an omen.
Well. No blood on her face. She shoved the mirror back in her pocket. She was mostly presentable, if
extremely late for dinner. She turned the faucet off and headed for the back door of the low, sweeping
ranch house.
Everyone looked up as she came in.
The family was in the kitchen, eating at the oak table with the white trim, under the bright fluorescent
light. The TV was blaring cheerfully from the family room. Uncle Jim, her mother's brother, was munching
tacos and leafing through the mail. He had red hair darker than Jez's and a long face that looked almost
as medieval as Jez's mother's had. He was usually off in a gentle, worried dream somewhere. Now he
waved an envelope at Jez and
gazed at her reproachfully, but he couldn't say anything because his mouth was full.
Aunt Nanami was on the phone, drinking a diet Coke. She was small, with dark shiny hair and eyes that
turned to crescents when she smiled. She opened her mouth and frowned at Jez, but couldn't say
anything, either.
Ricky, who was ten, had carroty hair and expressive eyebrows. He gave Jez a big smile that showed
chewed-up taco in his mouth and said, "Hi!"
Jez smiled back. No matter what she did, Ricky was there for her.
Claire, who was Jez's age, was sitting primly, eating bits of taco with her fork. She looked like a smaller
version of Aunt Nan, but with a very sour expression.
"Where have you been?" she said. "We waited dinner almost an hour for you and you never even
called."
"Sorry," Jez said, looking at all of them. It was such an incredibly normal family scene, so completely
typical, and it struck her to the heart.
It was over a year since she had walked out of the Night World to find these people, her mother's
relatives. It was eleven and a half months since Uncle Jim had taken her in, not knowing anything about
her except that she was his orphaned niece and that her father's family couldn't handle her anymore and
had given up on her. All these months, she had lived with the Goddard family- and she still didn't fit in.
She could look human, she could act human, but she couldn't be human.
Just as Uncle Jim swallowed and got his mouth clear to speak to her, she said, "I'm not hungry. I think
I'll just go do my homework."
Uncle Jim called, "Wait a minute," after her, but it was Claire who slammed down her napkin and
actually followed Jez through the hall to the other side of the house.
"What do you mean, 'Sorry'? You do this every day. You're always disappearing; half the time you stay
out until after midnight, and then you don't even have an explanation."
"Yeah, I know, Claire." Jez answered without looking back. "Illtry to do better."
"You say that every time. And every time it's exactly the same. Don't you realize that my parents worry
about you? Don't you even care?"
"Yes, I care, Claire."
"You don't act like it. You act like rules don't apply to you. And you say sorry, but you're just going to
do it again."
Jez had to keep herself from turning around and snapping at her cousin. She liked everyone else in the
family, but Claire was a royal pain.
Worse, she was a shrewd royal pain. And she was right; Jez was going to do it again, and there was no
way she could explain.
The thing was, vampire hunters have to keep weird hours.
When you're on the trail of a vampire-and-shapeshifter killing team, as Jez had been this evening, chasing
them through the slums ofOakland , trying to get them cornered in some crack house
where there aren't little kids to get hurt, you don't think about missing dinner. You don't stop in the
middle of staking the undead to phone home.
Maybe I shouldn't have become a vampire hunter, Jez thought. But it's a little late to change now, and
somebody's got to protect these stupid- these innocent humans from the Night World.
Oh, well.
She'd reached the door of her bedroom. Instead of yelling at her cousin, she simply half turned and said,
"Why don't you go work on your Web page, Claire?" Then she opened the door and glanced inside.
And froze.
Her room, which she had left in military neatness, was a shambles. The window was wide open. Papers
and clothes were scattered across the floor. And there was a very large ghoul standing at the foot of the
bed.
The ghoul opened its mouth menacingly at Jez.
"Oh, very funny," Claire was saying, right behind her. "Maybe I should help you with your homework. I
hear you're not doing so great in chemistry-"
Jez moved fast, stepping nimbly inside the door and slamming it in Claire's face, pressing the little knob in
the handle to lock it.
"Hey!" Now Claire sounded really mad. "That's rude!"
"Uh, sorry, Claire!" Jez faced the ghoul. What was it doing here? If it had followed her home, she was in
bad trouble. That meant the Night World
knew where she was. "You know, Claire, I think I really need to be alone for a little while-I can't talk
and do my homework." She took a step toward the creature, watching its reaction.
Ghouls were semi-vampires. They were what happened to a human who was bled out but didn't get
quite enough vampire blood in exchange to become a true vampire. They were undead but rotting. They
had very little mind, and only one idea in the world: to drink blood, which they usually did by eating as
much of a human body as possible. They liked hearts.
This ghoul was a new one, about two weeks dead. It was male and looked as if it had been a
body-builder, although by now it wasn't so much buff as puffed. Its body was swollen with the gas of
decomposition. Its tongue and eyes were protruding, its cheeks were chipmunk-like, and bloody fluid
was leaking from its nose.
And of course it didn't smell good.
As Jez edged closer, she suddenly realized that the ghoul wasn't alone. She could now see around the
foot of the bed, and there was a boy lying on the carpet, apparently unconscious. The boy had light hair
and rumpled clothes, but Jez couldn't see his face. The ghoul was stooping over him, reaching for him
with sausage-shaped fingers.
"I don't think so," Jez told it softly. She could feel a dangerous smile settling on her face. She reached
into her right boot and pulled out the dagger.
"What did you say?" Claire shouted from the other side of the door.
"Nothing, Claire. Just getting out my homework." Jez jumped onto the bed The ghoul was very big-she
needed all the height she could get.
The ghoul turned to face her, its lackluster bugeyes on the dagger. It made a little hissing sound around
its swollen tongue. Fortunately that was all the noise it could make.
Claire was rattling the door. "Did you lock this? What are you doing in there?"
"Just studying, Claire. Go away." Jez snapped a foot toward the ghoul, catching it under the chin. She
needed to stun it and stake it fast Ghouls weren't smart, but like the Energizer Bunny they kept going and
going. This one could eat the entire Goddard family tonight and still be hungry at dawn.