Chapter 1:

I jerked awake, gripping the sheets of my tiny bed with trembling hands. The pub room I was staying in was grubby, infested with God-knows-what, and the window was stuck half-open, letting rain splatter over my thin blanket. Not for the first time, I wished I was at home, back in Vampire Mountain, asleep in my hammock (I could never get used o sleeping in a coffin; it felt too much like being dead). I lay in the dark for a few seconds, shivering. I couldn't remember my dream, but whatever it was about had woken me in a cold sweat. My T-shirt was damp and clammy with rain, the closest thing to a wash it had got in weeks.

I had arrived in town late last night, way past midnight. I was all but dead on my feet from walking for days; I had spent the last few nights under the stars, having used up the last of my cash. When I reached the small, dark town, I had staggered into the first lodgings I found, and planned to disappear the moment the owner mentioned money. Luckily, the pub landlord had taken one look at me and bundled me into a back room, with barely a word passing between us. I assumed it was so I wouldn't scare away his other customers; from the passing glance I had, they looked only marginally more respectable than me. With my shaking hands, red-rimmed eyes, and the layer of dirt coating my leather jacket and jeans, he undoubtedly thought I was a junkie in the early stages of withdrawal. In reality, I hadn't fed off a human in almost five months, and the last of my strength was draining fast. If I didn't drink human blood in the next few nights, I wouldn't survive.

A smattering of rain hitting my face woke me from my dark reverie. Grumbling softly to myself, I heaved myself out of bed, an act that would have been effortless for a freshly-fed Vampaneze. Blinking sleep from my eyes, I stumbled across to the window, rested my palms on the frame, and pushed. Nothing happened. Swearing under my breath, I put my whole weight on the frame and heaved; to no avail. I was just about to give up and go back to bed when a movement caught the corner of my eye. I froze.

It was a woman, walking down the road in front of the house opposite. From this distance she looked quite young, no more than twenty years old. She was huddled into her coat to ward off the cold and rain, and her dripping wet blonde hair was plastered to her scalp and hung dejectedly down her back. As I watched, she turned of the main street and cut through an alley between the two houses across from my window. Though it was dark in the alley and my eyes weren't at full strength, my sight was still better than a human's; not only could I still see the girl clearly, but I spotted something lurking in the shadows near the other end of the passage; the dark bulk of another person, hunched over menacingly.

I was into my jeans so fast I only half registered the fact that I was moving, until I suddenly found myself tumbling headfirst through the open window. I tried to grab the ledge, but misjudged it, and suddenly the ground, three storeys below, was hurtling towards me at an alarming speed. Fighting gravity's pull, I concentrated hard and felt myself slowing down. Ten feet from the ground, my somersault out of the window turned into a lazy forwards roll as my descent slowed to a crawl.

"What the…" I breathed, finding myself the right way up, and gripped the wall behind me to stop myself from tilting forwards.

My eye found the girl. She had stopped moving - no, she was walking, but very slowly. Realisation began to dawn. I noticed a man through the upstairs window of a nearby house; he was in the process of removing his tie, but was moving as slowly as the girl in the alley. I glanced at my watch to confirm my suspicions. Just as I thought, it read a quarter to midnight, but it was a full count of five before the second hand clicked forwards.

I can stop time, I thought, oddly calm. Perhaps, after becoming a Vampaneze and discovering you can time travel, there really isn't that much that surprises you. I can manipulate time…

No sooner had this thought passed through my head, than I began falling at normal speed. I plummeted the ten feet to the ground, before landing cat-like on the balls of my feet and rolling into a standing position. My heart was pounding, my head ringing. I was so caught up in the moment that I almost forgot the reason I had jumped in the first place.

Then I heard her scream.

I leapt into action. I had left my jacket, with the knife inside, in my room, but I wasn't worried. I would probably just have to scare the attacker, make him run away, save the girl - simple. I threw myself into a lurching run and plunged into the dark of the alley.

"Help! Help me, someone!" Came a girl's voice, and my heart went out. I willed my legs to go faster, my fingernails digging so hard into my palms I felt the blood trickle between my fingers. I reached the end of the alley and skidded to a halt; the girl and her assailant were nowhere to be seen.

Then I saw a flash of yellow; the girl's hair as she was dragged around the corner. I gave chase, skidding around the end of the passage, and almost crashed into the scene before me. A man had the blonde girl pinned against a wall, holding a hand over her mouth so she couldn't cry out. She was struggling, but the grip he had on her was too strong. She was holding her bag out of reach, and finally managed to toss it away; it landed near my feet. She must have thought that would get rid of him, but it wasn't what he was after, and he didn't let her go. He didn't look the kind of person to run off if someone like me showed up. I hesitated; in my state, I doubted I would be any use in a fight, but I couldn't just stand back and leave an innocent girl in danger.

"Hey!" I said, but the man paid no attention. He was running his unusually long fingernails across her cheek, and the girl was sobbing in fear, trying to flinch away from his touch.

"Hey!" I repeated, louder this time, and followed through with a thump to the shoulder. That got his attention. Keeping one hand on his victim's throat, h turned his bloodshot gaze on me, and I froze. His eyes weren't just bloodshot, they were blood-red, and the purple tint to his skin was unmistakable.

It was a Vampaneze!