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as she crept along, now and then getting a glimpse into somebody’s lit kitchen: an ancient lady in a bathrobe, sitting hunched over a cup of coffee. A woman in a nightgown, ironing a pair of striped trousers. A young man with all his hair standing up, walking to and fro as a tiny baby screamed on his shoulder.
    Shadow flitted past them, unseen and unknown.
    Here was the house with the unlocked iron gate; she had learned that if she ran down the steps at the side of the house, crossed the lower garden and ducked through a hedge, she emerged just above the tallest of the bamboo thickets. Now she dropped down the steps in three bounds, silent, and crept into the darkness on the other side of the hedge.
    There she stopped, listening, until it began to grow light. She felt her way forward, taking infinite care. A voice spoke from the other side of the bamboo thicket.
    “I don’t think she’s coming back tonight.” That was Darlene.
    “She has to come back sometime,” said Julie. “Little bitch.”
    “But it’ll be daylight soon,” said Darlene, with a trace of whimper in her voice.
    “I don’t give a shit, okay?” said Todd. “She broke my fucking nose. I’m going to kick her ass.”
    Shadow grinned. She found a comfortable position and settled back to wait. The sky paled; the roar of the waking city rose from down on Highland. Finally she heard Darlene again, crying.
    “Look, who needs her anyway? We have to get back.”
    “It’s not like we’re
really
going to die if the sun hits us,” said Todd.
    Julie, sounding outraged, said, “We’re creatures of darkness. It’s the principle of the thing, you know? She affronted the Kindred!”
    “Whatever,” said Todd.
    About ten more minutes passed before he exhaled loudly, said, “This is crap,” and got up. Shadow peered through the bamboo and watched the three of them trudging sadly down the street, in their white pancake makeup and black polyester cloaks.
* * *
    Shadow had Sunday and Monday nights off. When she’d had the Impala, she’d gone driving. She’d head out Santa Monica as far as the beach, where she’d walk beside the dark water, or go to some of the clubs out there.
    She didn’t feel like staying home that Sunday night. The nearest club was down on the Boulevard, just off Orchid; she left early, before sunset, and instead of going straight down Highland took the back way, all the way up and over the hill on the other side, emerging behind Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Once or twice, through the quiet residential section, she thought she heard footsteps echoing her own. When she turned and looked, though, there were no coven members swirling their capes; only a man, indistinct in the twilight, walking along without drama.
    The club, The Pearl Diver, had been there since the 1940s and had originally had a South Seas theme. All the tuck-and-roll banquettes had been torn out, though, and now it looked vaguely industrial. There was a bar, there was a platform for the DJ’s equipment, there were a few chromed steel tables and folding chairs; all the rest was dance floor.
    It was usually pretty quiet on a Sunday. Shadow liked it that way. She didn’t go to meet people. She liked to dance, but by herself; she liked to drink, and that was safest done alone too. But it was good to do these things in a public place, in a pool of colored light, to music so loud she felt its vibration in her bones.
    Shadow ordered a vodka on the rocks, on the grounds that it had fewer calories than other drinks. It was pure, it was volatile; one drink and her exhaustion drained away, and she was out on the floor and jumping to the music. Her hair flew, her knees and elbows pumped, and she didn’t give a rat’s ass who might be lurking in the darkness at the edge of the dance floor. She was
moving
.
    At some point she was in a bright warm place and the DJ had just put on Buzzcocks’
Ever Fallen in Love?
There was someone dancing beside her, suddenly. She looked up at