Jack shot straight up in bed, the intense burning in his throat almost more than he could bear. He looked around the room, only vaguely remembering where he was and what had happened to him. It was still dark outside, and glancing at the clock, he could see that it was only 5:15 AM. He remembered Giovani saying that older Vampires rarely slept, so he was hopeful that his brother would be available to tell him what to do about this condition. Pulling on his crumpled jeans from the floor and a T-shirt, he went out to investigate.Giovani was sitting on the couch, game controller in hand, steerin

"This time of morning, it's pretty easy to find a group of druggies all passed out together," Giovani was explaining as he drove his Corvette into one of the worst neighborhoods in town. "Before we go, we make it look like they all overdosed. No one asks questions. Hardly ever even makes the news."Jack was sitting in the backseat, a tight squeeze, but he had given Rob the passenger seat, thinking there's no way he could climb into the back with those long legs. "Okay," he said, hesitantly. He hadn't had any problem sucking the blood out of the corpse in the morgue, but this would be different

"Okay," Cadence said, trying to push the questions out of her mind. She knew him well enough to know that probing for answers would do her no good. Changing the subject she asked, "Is my breath atrocious?" She was very much aware that her breath was hitting him directly in the face. Since he hardly ever slept, bad breath didn't seem to be much of a problem for him, a fact that had her momentarily jealous."No, it's fine," he assured her, laughing. He honestly hadn't noticed, and with the possibility of kissing her very presently on his mind, he knew he wouldn't have minded tasting her mouth to

Though the messages from Aaron did make her feel better, Cadence was still extremely upset about the phone calls. It seemed so odd to her that this impersonator could call her from a Lincoln phone number at a bar, and then an Omaha number. Unless, of course, the second number was a cell phone and the caller was a college kid. That would make sense. Still, what kind of a sicko did things like that? As much as she tried to put it out of her mind and go to sleep, his words kept crawling through her brain. "I'll be there soon." If she could deal with the likes of Barbarosa, she could handle just about anything. Nevertheless, the idea that some psycho pretending to be Jack was about to show up outside of her door was extremely unsettling, and she suddenly wished she was not alone.

Sylvia knew all of the rules about going out to one's car at night. She had done the same thing hundreds of times, and nothing even remotely scary had happened. She knew not to dig in her purse, to have her keys ready, and to be prepared to hit the panic button if necessary. Unfortunately, her car was so old, there was no panic button. She had other ways of defending herself, however, and though she was a bit distracted, thinking about the difficult customers she had served that night, she wasn't completely unprepared.She was definitely caught off guard, however, when the force of a body slam