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dozen two-story sandstone colored buildings sprawled across a few acres, making it look like a community college not a learning institution for the newly fanged. Or maybe they did more here than teach the uninitiated.  
    The campus was illuminated by lamps giving off a soft, bluish, almost moonlight, glow.  
    Texas Red Oaks draped themselves over the campus, stretching upward in an attempt to scratch the night sky. In March, the woods surrounding Vampire Academy would be the color of blood as the leaves turned, then fell.  
    Someone had thought ahead.  
    I followed the octagonal orange signs for Orientation, wishing I had gotten more information from His Grace.  
    Being a vampire didn't make me feel more confident. In fact, it was the opposite. Being an insurance adjuster hadn’t made me a prime target for haters. Being a vampire did. Now there were groups out to get me. The Militia of God, Council of Human Creationism, National Association for the Advancement of Humans - vampires were among the equal opportunity hated.  
    But I had chosen this life, since the alternative had been so unpalatable. For heavens sake, I was only in my thirties. Maybe a few years of being a vampire would teach me walking into the sun was a much better idea. For now, I wasn’t crazy about the idea of shuffling off this mortal coil. (I told you I was an English major.)  
    An orange octagonal sign the size of a Volkswagen sat in front of the Orientation building, as if newly turned vampires were either myopic or a little dense.  
    The wind had come up in the last hour and now it pushed impatiently against the car as if prodding me to leave and walk the hundred feet or so to the building.  
    Instead, I sat with my hands clenched on the wheel, staring through the windshield, wondering if I could claim a sudden illness.  
    Vampires don’t get sick, do they? They leech off people who were alive. Well, I hadn’t leeched, a term the Green Book said was derogatory and not to be used.  
    My stomach clenched, the vampire equivalent of nerves, something I’d learned in the past two weeks. I could also tell when the sun was about to rise, because I felt as if a blanket had fallen over me, bathing me in a gray shadow. I was exhausted and had no choice but to fall on my bed in a stupor.  
    One thing about being a vampire I thoroughly enjoyed: I no longer suffered from occasional insomnia.  
    I got out of the car, beeped the alarm on, and grabbed my purse, slinging it over my shoulder and bumping myself in the butt like I always did. Since my purse was a mini-suitcase, the bump was substantial.  
    “One of these days,” my grandmother had told me BF (Before Fangdom), “you’re going to injure your back with a purse that heavy. You’ll be a stoop shouldered old woman.”  
    I guess I didn’t have to worry about being old anymore. Or carrying my laptop and case files with me.
    The wind was warm, a taste of the desert in the middle of an oasis city. Below it hovered a cooler breeze hinting at winter.  
    The sidewalk was curved, a serpentine approach to a rectangular building, so bland it could have been uprooted and placed anywhere to become anything: a Walmart, a library, a business.  
    A double set of glass doors greeted me, along with the orange octagonal sign again. Below it was written:  
    Fledgling Orientation
    Donor Orientation
    The second one floored me. Donor orientation? What are donors taught? Don’t get bitten too hard or you’ll wake up in the VRC like I did? Beware the eyes of Doug, or his libido. That, especially.  
    Did they send out mailings about Vampire Academy courses the general public could take? Things like: “Is your boss a vampire? Learn how to cope with his midnight calls.” Or: “Thinking of dating a vampire girl? Tips to know to keep yourself safe.” If they had, I might have known a little more about the whole species.
    I pulled open the door, fighting the wind as it pushed me into the building.