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his basement. Just like the night I’d died.
    I yanked at the thick ropes binding me to the rusted iron headboard. I remembered suspecting Kieren of Vaggio’s murder. I remembered Brad promising to never leave. How empowering it had felt, the way he’d thirsted for me.
    Were those his lips nibbling beneath my breast? Didn’t they feel divine?

“Come morning at Sanguini’s, Miz Morales’s Endless Love van had already been towed for repairs. But The Banana — a yellow 1970 Cutlass convertible that had belonged to Uncle D — was now parked behind the Dumpsters and covered with a tarp. It hadn’t been there yesterday morning.
    Bradley? God, I hoped not. So far as I knew, he really had left town. Detective Zaleski had swung by the Moraleses’ last night to report that APD had searched Brad’s house and it had looked like he’d packed up and shipped out for good.
    The werecat Ruby? Possibly. It would’ve been nothing for her to snatch Uncle D’s keys. Zaleski had also mentioned that her DNA in Uncle D’s bedroom had been a match to that at Travis’s murder scene and on one of two sets of partial remains — identified as missing police officers — that had been found behind the bushes in my backyard. The medical examiner had determined that scavengers had gotten to the bodies.
    Partial remains — where my little-girl sandbox had once been. It was all too gross and depressing to think about.
    Just then, I heard a car engine and, running to the alley, spied the back end of a gleaming SUV with Illinois plates, turning west into the neighborhood. Black, not beige like Brad’s Ford Expedition, and much, much bigger.
    I heard a footfall behind me and, fisting my hand, spun to face —
    “Mornin’, Miss Quincie. Morning light. Lighter. Sure is bright, awful bright outside. Aren’t you awfully bright?”
    Mitch. He was a dear pal and an Austin celebrity who, at sixty-plus, served as an unofficial ambassador for the local homeless community. He was also an early victim of one of Bradley’s “experimental” dishes and a full-blown vampire — one of many if I didn’t do something about it. And soon.
    This morning I noticed that Mitch had traded in his famed flannel pj bottoms for camouflage cargo pants and that his latest cardboard sign read:

    “That’s a very rectangular sign,” I said. “And your handwriting’s improving.”
    Color me new to supernatural small talk.
    “Yep, yep,” he replied. “Mitch wrote the words like they looked in his head. You got any to spare? Not words. No, not . . . Hardly anybody, nobody’s out anymore.”
    Any blood to spare, he’d meant. I remembered the first glass of wine that Bradley had offered me, a ’99 Sonoma Zinfandel to wash down his rigatoni marinara. The bottle had been cold, refrigerated, as had nearly all the wine he’d served up, even though reds should be kept at room temperature. Contaminated and recorked — of course! Bradley had kept his own stash — for me, for himself — in the restaurant kitchen.
    “Let’s see what’s in the fridge,” I said, reaching for my keys. It seemed foolish to let Mitch leave thirsty. Or me, either. “We’ve got to hurry, or I’ll be late for school.”
    He puttered inside after me. “I see you look, that you’re looking like a regular girl again. Who’d you chomp?”
    It had been Mitch who’d explained that after my “first bite,” I’d be better able to control my blood lust and hide my demonic features — the red eyes and fangs.
    “Kieren,” I replied, shoving away the memory. The way his breath had become short and ragged. The way I hadn’t needed to breathe at all.
    “Gonna miss, miss that boy. Too bad he’s dead.”
    I froze with my hand on the fridge handle. Had Mitch heard something? “What?”
    He looked confused. “Didn’t you drank, drink, suck him dry?”
    “No, he’s . . .” Thank God Mitch had only been assuming. “I stopped in time. Kieren’s alive. He’s safe.” Or at least he