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back. Duh. That was when my body started to protest and pain rushed through me in a wave fast enough to make my stomach roil. The paramedics raced my way with bags in tow. One of them smiled at me and I recognized him.
    But then he frowned at just about the time the ground raced up to meet me. I don’t remember whose arms caught me as my nose connected with the curb.

3
    “ You look terrible!”
    The glare I shot Dawna was probably less than effective, what with the dark glasses and all, but I glared at her nonetheless. I had already been in a foul mood. Having her criticize my appearance didn’t help. Of course she looked perfect. She was wearing a hot pink tailored business suit that showed off both her coloring and her figure. She’s half Vietnamese and exotic looking. She also has the best fashion sense of anyone I know. I swear she missed her calling as a stylist to the stars. Instead, she works as a receptionist in my office building. She seems to like it most days. God alone knows why.
    “I didn’t mean it like that! You know I didn’t.” She shot me a stricken look. “It’s just you’re pale, even for you. And you’re limping. And what’s with wearing sunglasses indoors?”
    “Headache.” I stuck with a one-word answer because I really didn’t want to talk about it. Not even to Dawna, who is one of my best friends in the world.
    “Still? Shouldn’t all of this have healed by now? I mean, I’m just a plain old human, and I’ve never had a headache last for more than a day—let alone two weeks.”
    I grabbed my messages and started for the stairs. Maybe if I kept moving we wouldn’t have to continue this conversation. Because if it went on much longer, I wasn’t sure I could remain civil. I know she’s just worried about me. But that didn’t make me any less frustrated. I didn’t want to take my mood out on her and wind up saying something I was going to regret.
    “I have another doctor’s appointment tomorrow evening.”
    “Evening? Do doctors even do evening appointments?”
    “This one does.”
    “But…,” she started to argue when the phone rang. Since she’s the receptionist, she had to answer. I pretended not to see her signal for me to wait and hustled up to my third-floor office.
    It had been two full weeks since the “incident” at the grade school. Normally the vampire side of me kicks in, healing injuries in minutes, days at the most. But it hadn’t. Oh, the road rash was gone. But the bite mark was still swollen and sore, with nasty bruising, and there was this huge, black bruise on my thigh that was seriously ugly and simply would not go away. And then there was the headache. It was hideous: blinding pain, light sensitivity, nausea. I’d been to the clinic on campus, a chiropractor, and four specialists so far and nobody seemed to have a clue. It was frustrating as hell. Almost as frustrating as dealing with the insurance company.
    I opened my office door. As usual, I had to push my way through a buzz of energy that prickled my skin. I have some serious wards on my office because of the weapons safe that holds all the tools of my trade, some of which are seriously valuable and would qualify as major magical artifacts. I’d hate to lose them. So I keep them protected.
    I closed the door in a none-too-subtle hint that I didn’t want to be disturbed. Dawna would probably be annoyed, but she’d respect my privacy. Dottie … well, I’d learned early on that Dottie does pretty much whatever she pleases. Still, she doesn’t undertake the steep flights of stairs without good cause. In a week or so the construction folks were supposed to show up to install an elevator. We’d had to wait until we could get one that wouldn’t lose the building its “historic” status.
    God, how I hoped my head would be better by then. I didn’t even want to think about how painful the noise would be otherwise.
    “Don’t think about it,” I told myself sternly. “I could be fine by