"So, what would you like for dinner tonight?" I asked as the kids skipped beside me and tried to slide on the few ice puddles that remained in the parking lot.

"I nominate sushi!" Grace announced. "I want to see if the wasabi will make you turn purple."

Ian danced around me in his excitement. "I think it will make Mommy breath fire, like that Japanese guy."

"I-aan," Grace groaned, drawing her brother's name out as she does when she thinks he's being especially ridiculous, "I don't think it was the wasabi that did that. I think it was something like some leftover nuclear contamination."

"Well," said Ian, now breathlessly carried away with his idea as we stepped out onto the sidewalk, "what if it's nookyelar wasabi?"

"Hey," I shrugged. "You never know."

"How about Madame Thibault's nuclear étouffée," said Mrs. Thibault as she and JB caught up to us, "if you're in the mood for spicy seafood?" Belle Thibault may not have been up to making pancakes last Sunday, but the food she always made for the Atomic Bayou was much like her. Getting acquainted with either was not for the faint of heart, but well worth it.

"Yeah!" the kids cheered.

"Hi, Belle. I like what you did with your hair," I said, pointing out the fire-engine red streaks in her otherwise jet black bob that matched her ruby lebret stud and nose ring.

"Oh, that? Renee did that as a beauty school assignment," she replied with some understated pride in her eldest daughter as her youngest son explained to Ian what étouffée was in hopes of simultaneously exciting and disgusting him. Belle then cut to the chase. "Vicky, revealing what happened to you to the school was a good start, but people are still going to freak out when they see you at Mass and the other church functions. I suggest you come early and sit with us. I know it's not the same. Rob could cut his dreads. I could re-dye my hair. We could remove our tattoos and piercings if it were so important to us to look 'normal.' You don't have the same options, but…"

"People will stare at me." I didn't need any telepathy to know at what she was getting.

"Something like how they already stare at us, so you should blend in better if we stick together," she said, smiling.

I smiled back. We had just approached the intersection of 21st and Watson, where she and I would part ways, her and JB toward the high school, and my kids and me homeward. "Good idea. Shall we meet you at the Bayou at six?"

"Six it is," Belle replied, before doing a slight double take. "Good heavens, girl! You really do have fangs."

"Yep. Better tell Zoey there's one more vote against filing her teeth," I said. Belle's second child was going through a bit of a vampire stage. "I nearly got an unplanned tongue piercing this morning at breakfast. I'm impressed I even know how to talk with these things, and that isn't even the least of it. Getting used to my tail and feet, and trying to keep the background mental noise everyone makes down to a dull roar is…"

A sudden mental shout from a man driving a battered green pickup grabbed my attention. "Holy crap! Is that a devil-woman?"

"Oh no!" Amid the sound of screeching tires and a school bus full of screaming children, I dashed out into the street. I had to do something now. He didn't notice that the light had changed.

Strange. In a way, this took less concentration than moving that lighter's flame, but still, a half ton of steel is a half ton of steel. I set the truck down on the other side of the intersection, then felt myself just kind of… slip off.

"Mommy? MOMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!" Grace shrieked. I could see witnesses clutching their heads in torment, glass shattering, then nothing but the soft, white haze that blanketed me.