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Howard told a joke.
    “I heard through a journalism professor at the college that Hempel started a blog where he’s going to share everything he knows. He’s already reposted the article he published in the News .”
    Sarah was staring at Howard, her head tilted to the side as though if she strained hard enough she might understand. James didn’t want her to understand.
    “Hempel’s also self-publishing a book about his vampire hunt. Seems anyone can publish any crap they want these days.” Howard turned to Sarah and spoke to her as if she could understand. “Luckily, no one pays much attention to the indie books,” he said.
    James felt the worry crawl up his spine, rung by rung, until it rested in the smile he wouldn’t drop so Sarah wouldn’t guess something was wrong. He smiled the way a madman in the mental ward smiles, amused by something only he can see.
    “The blog is up, James. I’ve seen it myself.”
    “That’s not good,” James said.
    “What’s not good?” Sarah asked.
    James shook his head, unsure what to say.
    “Tell her this,” Howard said. “Timothy is having a hard time. I need you to talk to him, James. I think he’s depressed.”
    James turned to Sarah. “Howard thinks Timothy is depressed.” He said the words quickly, hoping they flowed to the right cadence, no strange offbeat in his tone.
    “Depressed about what?”
    James relayed Howard’s words: “About looking like he’s fourteen when he’s eighteen now. He had a crush on a girl in one of his classes and she wouldn’t give him the time of day because she thought he was a little boy.”
    “Will you talk to him, James?” Howard asked.
    “Of course,” James said.
    James opened the door, and Howard scampered away free and wild as any wolf roaming the plains. As he shut the door, James felt weighed down by a black-hole worry about the damage Hempel could cause if he went through with his plans to share his knowledge about vampires with the world. Should he tell Sarah? Did she need to know that Hempel was on the hunt again? James thought back to that day, just five months before, when he had gone into the sunlight and survived, proving to Hempel that he wasn’t a vampire, though he was. Hempel had been convinced, and James was no longer a suspect. He had taken himself out of the running for Hempel’s Vampire of the Year award. So why did he feel nervous knowing about Hempel’s latest plans?
    Sarah walked to him, pressed her head against his shoulder, held his hand in hers. She looked wistfully out the window the way Howard left. “How did Howard come to adopt Timothy?” she asked.
    James shook his head, pressing away his fears about Hempel so he could concentrate on his wife. “I think Geoffrey turned Timothy,” he said. “I don’t know that for a fact, but Timothy was left to fend for himself the way I was—completely abandoned. He was all alone like I was, afraid of what he had become. He needed someone to help him.”
    Sarah sat on the sofa, patting the cushion beside her.
    “Tell me,” she said.
    James sat next to her. He slid his arm around her waist, pulled her close, breathing in deeply, savoring the scent of strawberries and cream. He could live forever wafting in that delicious fruity haze. He pressed Sarah’s cheek to his chest, and he stared over her head out the window as he remembered.
    “It was about four years ago now. I was living in Washington State at the time, teaching at the University of Washington Seattle, when I got a call from Howard saying he found a vampling, a young one, living alone and frightened in the woods.
    “‘He’s just a boy,’ Howard said. ‘I tried to help him, but he was too afraid to come to me.’
    “‘Afraid?’ I said.
    “‘It was a full moon,’ Howard explained. ‘I heard the boy crying and I saw the blood on his cheeks so I tried to talk to him, but he was frozen with fear when he realized he understood a talking wolf. He ran away as quick as a flash, and