After I dispose of his father's body. My exercise in cleanup is simplified by the fact 
that Riley has no carpet on his office floor. A brief search of the office building leads 
me to a closet filled with janitorial supplies. Mop and pail and bucket in hand, I return 
to Mr. Riley's office and do the job his secretary probably resented doing. I have with 
me-from the closet -two big green plastic bags, and I slip Riley into them. Before I 
leave with my sagging burden, I wipe away every fingerprint I have created. There isn't a 
spot I have touched that I don't remember.
  The late hour is such a friend; it has been for so many years. There is not a soul 
around as I carry Riley downstairs and dump him in my trunk. It is good, for I am not in 
the mood to kill again, and murder, for me, is very much tied to my mood, like making 
love. Even when it is necessary.
  Mayfair is a town on the Oregon coast, chilly this late in autumn, enclosed by pine 
trees on one side and salt water on the other. Driving away from Riley's office, I feel 
no desire to go to the beach, to wade out beyond the surf to sink the detective in deep 
water. I head for the hills instead. The burial is a first for me in this area. I have 
killed no one since moving to Mayfair a few months earlier. I park at the end of a narrow 
dirt road and carry Riley over my shoulder deep into the woods. My ears are alert, but if 
there are mortals in the vicinity, they are all asleep. I carry no shovel with me. I 
don't need one. My fingers can impale even the hardest soil more surely than the sharpest 
knife can poke through a man's flesh. Two miles into the woods I drop Riley onto the 
ground and go down on my hands and knees and begin to dig. Naturally, my clothes get a 
bit dirty but I have a washing machine and detergent at home. I do not worry. Not about 
the body ever being found.
  But about other things, I am concerned.
  Who is Slim?
  How did he find me?
  How did he know to warn Riley to treat me with caution?
  I lay Riley to rest six feet under and cover him over in a matter of minutes without 
even a whisper of a prayer. Who would I pray to anyway? Krishna? I could very well tell 
him that I was sorry, although I did tell him that once, after holding the jewel of his 
life in my bloodthirsty hands while he casually brought to our wild party. No, I think, 
Krishna would not to my prayer, even if it was for the soul of one of my victims. Krishna 
would just laugh and return to his flute. To the song of life as he called it. But where 
was the music for those his followers said were already worse than dead? Where was the 
joy? No, I would not pray to God for Riley.
  Not even for Riley's son.
  In my home, in my new mansion by the sea, late at night, I stare at the boy's photo and 
wonder why he is so familiar to me. His brown eyes are enchanting, so wide and innocent, 
yet as alert as those of a baby owl seen in the light of the full moon. I wonder if in 
the days to come I will be burying him beside his father. The thought saddens me. I don't 
know why.
  
  
  2
  
  
  I do not need much sleep, two hours at most, which I usually take when the sun is at 
its brightest. Sunlight does affect me, although it is not the mortal enemy Bram Stoker 
imagined in his tale of Count Dracula. I read the novel Dracula when it first came out, 
in ten minutes. I have a photographic memory with a hundred percent comprehension. I 
found the book delicious. Unknown to Mr. Stoker, he got to meet a real vampire when I 
paid him a visit one dreary English evening in the year 1899. I was very sweet to him. I 
asked him to autograph my book and gave him a big kiss before I left. I almost drank some 
of his blood, I was tempted, but I thought it would have ruined any chance he would have 
had at writing a sequel, which I encouraged him to do. Humans are seldom able to dwell 
for any length on things that truly terrify them, even though the horror writers of the 
present think otherwise. But Stoker was a perceptive man; he knew there was something 
unusual about me. I believe he had a bit of a crush on me.
  But the sun, the eternal flame in the sky, it diminishes my powers. During the day, 
particularly when the sun is straight up, I often feel drowsy, not so tired that I am 
forced to rest but weary enough that I lose my enthusiasm for things. Also, I am not 
nearly so quick or strong during the day, although I am still more than a match for any 
mortal. I do not enjoy the day as much as the night. I love the blurred edges of darker 
landscapes. Sometimes I dream of visiting Pluto.
  Yet the next day I am busy at dawn. First I call the three businessmen responsible for 
handling my accounts-each located on a different continent- and tell them I am displeased 
to learn that my finances have been examined. I listen to each protestation of innocence 
and detect no falsehood in their voices. My admiration for Mr. Riley's detecting 
abilities climbs a notch. He must have used subtle means to delve into my affairs.
  Or else he'd had help.
  Of course I know he had help, but I also believe he turned against the man who sent him 
to find me. When he realized how rich I was, he must have thought that he could score 
more handsomely by going after me directly. That leads me to suspect that whoever hired 
Riley does not know the exact details of my life, where I live and such. But I also 
realize he will notice Riley's disappearance and come looking for whoever killed him. I 
have time, I believe, but not much. By nature, I prefer to be the hunter, not the hunted. 
Yes, indeed, I vow, I will kill those who hired Riley as surely as I wiped him from the 
face of the earth.
  I make arrangements, through my American businessman, to be enrolled at Mayfair High 
that very day. The wheels are set in motion and suddenly I have a new identity. I am Lara 
Adams, and my guardian, Mrs. Adams, will visit the school with my transcripts and enroll 
me in as many of Ray Riley's classes as possible. It has not taken me long to learn the 
son's name. The arm of my influence is as long as the river of blood I have left across 
history. I will never meet this fake Mrs. Adams, and she will never meet me, unless she 
should talk about her efforts on Lara's behalf. Then, if that happens, she will never 
talk again. My associates respect my desire for silence. I pay them for that respect.
  That night I am restless, thirsty. How often do I need to drink blood? I begin to crave 
it after a week's time. If a month goes by I can think of nothing other than my next 
dripping throat. I also lose some strength if I go too long. But I do not die without it, 
at feast not readily. I have gone for as long as six months without drinking human blood. 
I only drink animal blood if I am desperate. It is only when I feed from a human that I 
feel truly satisfied, and I believe it is the life force in the blood that makes me 
hunger for it more than the physical fluid itself. I do not know how to define the life 
force except to say that it exists: the feel of the beating heart when I have a person's 
vein in my mouth; the heat of their desires. The life force in an animal is of a much 
cruder density. When I suck on a human, it is as if I absorb a portion of the person's 
essence, their will. It takes a lot of willpower to live for fifty centuries.
  Humans do not turn into vampires after I bite them. Nor do they change into one if they 
drink my blood. Blood that is drunk goes through the digestive tract and is broken down 
into many parts. I do not know how the legends started that oral exchange could bring