Reginald Atkins, Alex's boss at the library, reminded Jessy of someone, but she was exactly sure who. Every time she saw him, it danced mockingly on the tip of her tongue and bothered her for a long time after.

He sat across the kitchen table with a wool blanket draped over his bony shoulders and a mug of coffee in front of him. His sallow face put her uncomfortably in mind of a corpse and his haunted gaze sent shivers down her spine. Auntie Maria sat beside him and watched him with soft concern. "I still say you should let me call an ambulance," she said.

"No," he said, I-I'm fine, really. Just a little shaken up, that's all."

At the head of the table, Uncle Kevin crossed his arms and favored the old man suspiciously. "So what exactly happened?"

A half hour ago, Mr. Atkins stumbled in from the cold and nearly collapsed on the living room floor. Between ragged breaths, he claimed someone attacked him and that he needed to talk to Alex about something "of great import." Auntie Maria was convinced he was having a stroke and wanted to call 911.

Taking a deep breath, Mr. Atkins said, "I was in my office at the library, reading. I looked up, saw how late it was, and thought I'd go to bed. I went into the main room and...and a man accosted me."

His voice faltered and he shuddered. He looked so small and afraid, and Jessy's heart broke into a million pieces.

"What did he look like?" Uncle Kevin jumped in.

"Very tall," Mr. Atkins said. "And broad. He...he grabbed me and…"

Auntie Maria rubbed a consoling circle in the middle of his back, and he made a visible effort to compose himself. "He was looking for a book."

He told them the rest of the story, and when he was done, everyone looked at Alex.

"You didn't tell him?" Auntie Maria demanded.

Alex smiled sheepishly. "I-It slipped my mind."

Last October, Alex found a spellbook while cleaning out a storeroom in the library's basement. Because Alex is Alex, she thought it was neat and brought it home. On Halloween, she read it in the middle of Westvale Cemetery, and all the dead bodies interred there came back to life. After she got them to go back to being dead, she wisely decided that a book like that shouldn't be left…"lying around where any old dumbass can get a hold of it. Seriously, me finding it was bad enough." She locked it in a strongbox and buried it in the attic where no one could blunder across it. She was supposed to tell Mr. Atkins, but apparently that never happened. Shocker.

Auntie Maria sighed and shook her head. "We do have the book," she said, "after...what happened - "

"What? What happened?" Mr. Atkins asked quickly.

"The zombies."

He relaxed. "Right. I didn't even think to connect that with the book. I've studied the occult for many years and there are numerous ways to bring back the dead."

Jessy's stomach lurched. T-There are?

"In fact, I'm surprised it doesn't happen every day."

A fist closed around Jessy's chest and her airways constricted. Okay, that's not something she wanted to hear. Knowing that it's possible was bad enough, but knowing that it's that easy?

Before panic could sweep her away, Alex said, "This guy who came at you...you said he stopped to count mouse poop?"

Mr. Atkins nodded, and Jessy's nose crinkled at the image of someone picking up rodent leavings with their bare hands. Yuck. "He seemed to be in the grip of an irresistible compulsion."

Humming, Alex sat back in her chair and scrunched her brow in thought. "Cold hands, pale skin, obsessively counting things. Sounds like -"

"A vampire," Mr. Atkins said.

Jessy recoiled. "A-A vampire?"

"Yes," Mr. Atkins said. "I believe my assliant to be a vampire."

She tried to reply, but no words would form. Vampires are real too? The panic returned, stronger than before, and her heart squeezed in a vise grip of budding terror. She felt herself beginning to hyperventilate, and took a deep breath. Calm down, Jess, so what vampires are real? So what blood drinking corpses stalk the night? So what zombies can smash through your bedroom window at literally any moment? That's no reason to spag out at all.

Auntie Maria pressed her hand to her temple as though she had a headache. "Are you absolutely sure it was a vampire?"

"Well, I can't be certain as I've never had the chance to meet one before," Mr. Atkins said, "but all of the available evidence suggests that he is, in fact, a nightwalker."

"Yeah, he sounds like one," Alex said.

Uncle Kevin threw his head back. "Zombies, vampires...this town's going to shit."

"What do we do?" Jessy heard herself ask.

Mr. Atkins stared thoughtfully down into his coffee. "I'm not sure. I know we must keep that book away from him at all costs. If he gets a hold of it, he will use its power to do God knows what."

"How about we burn it?" Uncle Kevin asked. "Problem solved."

"No," Mr Atkins said, "it's not that simple. The book cannot be destroyed. You can douse it in gasoline and strike a match...you can even launch a nuclear warhead at it...but it won't do any good. It's a fact of life, much like taxes. You simply have to deal with it."

Alex cocked her head to one side. "Where did it come from anyway?"

"Legend has it that Satan himself wrote it," he said. He sat up straighter and squared his shoulders. This was a topic with which he was clearly comfortable, and his voice took on a note of authority that commanded Jessy's attention. "He is said to have put all of his knowledge into seven sacred books that he then hid on earth, one to every continent. Each one grants its owner immense power."

Jessy could already tell where this was going. "T-The vampire. He's trying to collect all seven."

"Most likely," Mr. Atkins said.

"What'll happen if he gets them?"

For a long time, the old man didn't speak, and when he finally did, his voice was somber and filled with potential.

"He becomes God."

After his fit of melancholia passed, John Carver drove through the night-shrouded streets of Pickett's Meade looking for Reginald Atkins's car. It wouldn't do much good, as he didn't pay attention to what make, model, or even color it was, but it gave him something to do. Oh, there was another method he could use, a foolproof one that would lead him directly to the book, but he didn't want to employ it.

From the library, he made his way west, crisscrossing quiet residential surface streets and narrow gravel alleyways running behind darkened houses. His face, bathed in the ghostly green glow emanating from the dashboard, was a mask of resolve, and his nostrils twitched with the scent of a thousand sleeping mortals. He was growing parched, and soon, he would have to feed.

He hated feeding.

The taste of blood had never agreed with him, and each time he drank it, its coppery flavor lingered in his mouth for hours afterwards. He choked it down, however, because if he went too long without it, he would start to rot. Literally. After a meal, his skin shone with the ruddy glow of health. When he hadn't eaten for a while, it would turn gray and mottled, and his gums would recede, leaving his teeth to stand prominently out. The longest he had ever gone between meals was a month - he was curious to see what it would do to him, and by the end of it, he resembled a mummy.

How he was able to sustain himself purely on blood, he didn't know, but he didn't know a lot of things about his state, like why he felt the obscene impulse to count certain things. And why he couldn't cross running water. And why he felt weaker in the daylight, but stronger in the night. He had been this way for one-hundred-ninety-eight years, and he was still as clueless as he was the day he woke in his coffin. There were no information packets, no how-to manuals, and no guides to walk you through the steps; you simply became, like being tossed into a body of water - you either swim or drown.

As a seeker after knowledge in life, Carver had tested himself in many ways, learning by trial and error: Aside from his inability to enter a town at any other time than high noon or midnight, needing to be invited into an abode, etc, he was bound by all the normal laws of physics. He cast both a reflection and a shadow, and could not turn into mist, a bat, or anything else (though sometimes he did turn into a bear in the mornings, heh). He could not fly or levitate. He possessed the strength of only one man. He was strongest after feeding, but his energy gradually ebbed away. Crosses and holy water did not burn him, but they did affect him. Holy water made him ungodly itchy, and he froze inexplicably up at the sight of a cross. Garlic gave him a rash and burned his throat and nose. If he was shot or stabbed, the wound would heal with his next feeding, but leave a scar behind.

In many ways, being a vampire was much like being a normal man...only more taxing. In the beginning, he dreamed of changing himself back into a human...then he considered suicide (burning would do the trick, he thought). Now, after two centuries, he was content with who he was. He just wished he could eat something other than blood.

His throat quivered. "Alexa, is there a club or saloon nearby?"

"Checking local listings," Alexa replied.

The street he was currently on ended in a cul-de-sac. He turned around, headlights splashing over the facades of sleeping houses, and navigated back to Main. "Turn right ahead."

He spun the wheel and followed Alexa's directions to the next town over, a vast settlement of glass and steel lacking the rustic appeal of Pickett's Meade. Fauquier County, once a place of rolling hills and open pastures, had developed into a satellite of D.C., sprouting by leaps and bounds as the cancer of urban sprawl spread south until it was a bland jumble of cookie cutter samness just like everywhere else.

"Turn right."

He turned onto a strip of nightclubs, restaurants, and discos where neon bathed the manicured sidewalks and loud, bass heavy music seasoned the air. "You have arrived at your destination."

The bar was a nondescript affair with brick front, tinted windows, and a sign over the door. WATERWORKS.

He parked at the curb, cut the engine, and watched a group of people clustered by the door smoking cigarettes and talking. He flicked his eyes from one to another, but none of them looked appetizing. He liked petite girls with delicate throats. Their blood was actually quite tolerable.

Unfortunately, the stock he fancied wouldn't be out cavorting at midnight, they'd be at home in bed, resting up for another monotonous day at school.

The smokers finished and went back inside, and Carver got out, a blast of chilly wind ruffling his hair. He pulled his coat closed at the throat, ducked his head, and went in. Dance music, all electronics and what have you, washed over him, and pulsing strobe lights flickered across the grimy walls. People packed the dance floor, writhing and twisting like damned souls in hell, and others crowded the bar. A flashing beer sign behind the counter proclaimed OUT IS REFRESHING and a rainbow flag hung from the ceiling, its front emblazoned with the word PRIDE.

Carver paused and scanned the patrons, his brow furrowing in confusion. A man clad in only a speedo bent, clasped his hands to his knees, and shook his rear. Another came up behind him and simulated thrusting while elsewhere a very tall woman with mannish features stood over a kneeling man with a leather collar around his neck; she held the leash and grinned salaciously down at him.

Dear God, the decadence and debauchery! Carver was a blood drinking demon of the night, but he was also old fashion, and the revelry in places such as this never ceased to offend his sensibilities.

Scandalized or not...he still had to eat.

Shouldering his way through the mass, he went to the bar and wedged in between a woman with short, spiky hair and a man with nothing on but underwear and a cowboy hat. The bartender came over, and Carver was shocked by his appearance. Tall with a shaved head, he was wholesome looking enough...save for his mesh shirt and nipple rings. "What'll you have, sailor?" he asked in a breathy voice.

"Whisky on the rocks," Carver said. Anything but blood sat heavy in his stomach and eventually made him vomit, but not ordering something would make him look suspicious.

"Comin' right up." The bartender filled a glass with ice and alcohol and handed it to him. Carver paid and nodded his thanks. Turning, he leaned against the bar and looked for a victim.

Someone nudged him in the side. The man with the cowboy hat flicked his gaze appreciatively up down Carver's body, and Carver chafed. "What'cha got there?" he asked and nodded at Carver's drink.

"Whiskey," Carver said guardedly.

"You drink whiskey?"

"Yes."

The man smirked, and a suggestive light twinkled in his eye. "What else do you drink?"

Carver didn't know exactly how, but that remark was sexual in nature. "That's none of your goddamn business!" he blurted, appalled.

"Oh, don't be shy," the cowboy said, "I won't bite." He leaned over, staring pointedly up into Carver's face, and nipped a fold of Carver's coat between his teeth. "Unless you want me to."

A horrified cry leapt from Carver's throat, and he wrenched away from the scoundrel, bumping into the short-haired woman in the process. Her jaw clenched and her eyes expanded to twice their normal size. A reddish blush tinged her face and she trembled slightly as though she were going to explode. Carver shrank back held his hands up to defend himself. "Check your privilege, cis-white-male-scum," she hissed through her teeth.

"W-What?" he asked, his bafflement deepening.

Something brushed his behind, and he jumped. "Don't worry about her, honey," the cowboy said, "she's just a man hating dyke."

"Fuck you, cocksucker."

The cowboy lifted his middle finger. "Sit and spin, bitch."

The only thing spinning was Carver's head. He didn't know what was happening but he didn't like it, and suddenly he wanted away from this cramped, noisy den of iniquity.

Without warning, the lights dimmed and the music stopped. God, what was happening now?

A ball lowered from the ceiling, and lasers shot out from it - red, blue, pink, green. Another song started, and a deafening cheer went up from the dance floor, making Carver wince. Everyone began to jump excitedly up and down, arms flailing, heads whipping back and forth to the beat. "It's getting gay in here!" someone rejoiced.

"The love shack is a little old place where we can get together…"

Men danced provocatively with other men, the mannish woman threw her arms up and bent her knees, her body undulating, and the "dyke" kissed another woman on the mouth.

What kind of bar is this?

Shoving away from the counter, Carver pushed, shoved, ducked, and dodged his way to the door. He was almost there when a man in a black uniform and utility belt blocked his path. Oh, thank God, a constable.

Before Carver could report what was happening, the officer held him a forestalling hand. "You are under arrest," he said.

Carver blinked. "On what grounds?"

The cop smiled. "For being long, tall, and sexy."

He made a move for Carver's crotch, but Carver jumped back. "Spread 'em, mister," the cop said.

Instead, Carver decked him and fled. On the sidewalk, heady from the sights, sounds, and smells of depravity, he stumbled to the car and collapsed behind the wheel.

After a moment catching his breath, he slammed the door, started the engine, and pulled away from the curb. For a long time, he drove in petulant silence, hands tight on the wheel. Pique stirred in his breast, and he regulated his breathing in an attempt to keep it from progressing into all out wrath. "You did that on purpose...didn't you?"
Alexa didn't respond.

Typical. He'd had the program for six months now and it had been a problem since day one; it talked back, antagonized him, and intentionally corrupted his every request like a techno-Monkey's Paw.

Wasn't technology supposed to make life easier? If so, the people who birthed Alexa were doing it wrong.

He glanced at the device, hunched on the dash like some sort of misshapen alien bug, and a snear rippled across his lips. He ought to take it out, sit it on the ground, and stomp it into a million pieces. How satisfying that would be!

Later, perhaps.

Right now, he had more pressing matters.

Like finding dinner.

That night, Jessy lay wide awake in bed, a decorative crucifix taken from the living room wall clutched to her chest. Before turning in, Uncle Kevin and Auntie Maria crushed up a clove of garlic, mixed it with water to create a paste, and smeared it on all the door jambs and window sills...just in case. There was no guarantee that it would work, as even Mr. Atkins was unsure which parts of the vampire myth were true and which weren't, and that uncertainty plagued Jessy as she struggled to sleep. Alex, on the other hand, was curled up on her side, fast asleep with a hazy smile on her face. Jessy watched her for a minute, then peered up at the ceiling. How could Alex sleep at a time like this? There were freaking vampires out there!

There were also zombies, Jessy reminded herself. She'd known that for months and aside from a few rough nights in the beginning, she had been sleeping fine. So what bloodsucking monsters haunted the night? There were also really big spiders, that didn't mean they were going to come into the house and get her. Mr. Atkins surmised from his research that vampires weren't especially common. Most people probably live their entire lives without ever crossing paths with one, he assured her earlier. The statistical probability of meeting a vampire randomly coming out of the night and grabbing you was likely the same as a Siberian tiger leaping out of your locker and mauling you to death between third and fourth period, but that didn't comfort her.

It also didn't change the fact that one was out there at this very moment, walking the streets of Pickett's Meade and searching for the book.

The book even now reposing less than a hundred feet away.

Have you ever felt like you had a target on your back? She felt that way right now, only it was on her neck instead.

Her hold on the cross tightened and her eyes darted to the window. Frosty winter moonlight cascaded through interlaced branches framing the pane and drenched the room in feeble luminosity. A gust of wind moaned in the eaves, and the branches quivered as though they were cold. She knew why they were moving, but she imagined someone slipping through them anyway...imagined a dead face pressing to the window, long, yellow nails scratching to get in. Her mind went back to the zombies - dead, rotting, and hungry - and dread swelled in her stomach.

Panic began to settle in like a deep chill, and she forced her eyes back to the ceiling, where moonbeams made strange and expressionist shapes. She took a deep breath, held it, and let it out through her nose. There was absolutely no way she would be able to drop off.

At least she wasn't stressing over her oral presentation anymore; how can you fret over a stubbed toe when your hair is on fire?

Sitting up with a sigh, she swung her left over the edge of the bed, stood, and went out into the hall. She didn't turn on any lights on her way to the bathroom, but she did hold the cross to her chest like a magical talisman. She locked the door behind her, checked behind the shower curtain for intruders, then sat the cross on the sinktop. She used the toilet, washed her hands, and picked the cross back up. In the kitchen, a nightlight plugged in next to the microwave provided a spark of sickly orange illumination. Something moved in the living room, and Jessy's heart crashed.

When she realized it was Mr. Atkins shifting in his sleep, she let out a shaky breath. Because the vampire was likely watching the library, Auntie Maria suggested he stay the night here. Tomorrow, who knew? If the vampire wanted the book that bad - and apparently he did - he'd come back. That, Uncle Kevin told her and Alex before bed, made the old man a liability. All this vampire has to do is rough him up, and he'll sing like his name's Tekashi69, Alex said. In the morning, when the vampire was asleep, Uncle Kevin was going to drive Mr. Atkins back to the library and help him "fortify the place" with garlic paste, crosses, and other anti-vampire measures. He was going to do the same here, that way they'd be protected. He also forbid everyone from leaving the house after sundown - he sure didn't have to tell Jessy twice!

Being quiet, she got a glass from the drying rack, filled it with water from the sink, and took a drink. She rinsed it out, replaced it, and turned to leave, but started when she realized someone was sitting at the table, a dark, lumpy shape just beyond the reach of the light. A hundred thousand volts of terror zapped through her, and she screamed, only it came out as a tired wheeze.

"It's just me," Uncle Kevin said.

Jessy blinked her eyes and he swam partially into focus, a cup of coffee in front of him and something long and thin - his AR-15, most likely - lying across his lap. Jessy's slamming heart stilled, and her rigid posture relaxed. Whew. She thought she was vampire kibble for sure. "You scared me," she whispered.

"Sorry," he said, "I couldn't sleep."

She sat across from him and rested her hands in her lap. "Me either," she said. "Kind of hard to when there's, you know…" she trailed off and let the thought hang unfinished, loath to speak their predicament aloud.

Uncle Kevin nodded and glanced at the window over the sink as if to make sure nothing was there. Mr. Atkins didn't think the vampire followed him, but he wasn't sure. "Yeah. We'll be fine, though."

"What about tomorrow?" Jessy asked.

He hesitated, then took a deep breath. "Well...there's not much we can do. You heard tha crazy old son of a - I mean, Mr. Atkins - if that undead asshole gets the book, we're pretty well screwed."

Jessy sighed. That was all too true. From the way Mr. Atkins was talking, it kind of fell to them to guard the book. Otherwise, bad things would happen.

Real bad things.

"That means," Uncle Kevin went on, "that we have to keep him from getting his hands on it."

"I wish Alex never found that dumb book," Jessy said heavily.

Uncle Kevin shifted, and the chair groaned beneath him. "I'm glad she did," he said, "if she didn't, we'd all be speaking vampire right now."

He was right, but still. Before Alex brought that book home, she was a normal girl with a normal life, blissfully ignorant of things like zombies and magic spells. Her biggest concern was finding time to spend with Mark and maintaining her GPA, now it was keeping someone from taking over the world.

The unfairness of it all wrapped around her like a whisp of smoke, and an unseen hand pressed down on her chest. "It's a big responsibility," she said, more to herself than to him. For better or worse, whether she liked it or not, she, Alex, and their parents were the guardians of the book now, and its fate - and the fate of the world - rested firmly on their shoulders.

No pressure.

"Yeah," Uncle Kevin commiserated, "it is, but, you know, life doesn't always ask permission before dropping something on your lap. Things happen and you just have to deal with them. It's not nice, it's not fair, but...that's how it goes."

Again, he was right. You can cry about the injustice of something, but that won't make it go away. You can fight back, but even then you're reacting to what the universe is throwing at you. You didn't ask for it to happen, but you either rise up to the challenge or you curl up and wither away.

The choice is yours.

And right now...Jessy felt like doing the latter.

"I guess," she allowed. "So...we're pretty much just waiting for him to come after us, huh?"

Uncle Kevin thought for a moment. "Pretty much. Lucky for us, we have the high ground." He winked conspiratorially, and Jessy smiled weakly. She appreciated his effort to lighten the mood, but she just wasn't in the frame of mind for that right now; she was hopelessly tangled and tense and there was nothing he or anyone else could do about it.

Except kill the vampire.

The would help.

"You better get to bed," Uncle Kevin said. "Try to sleep."

She nodded. She did need to sleep. She had school in the morning. "Alright."

Pushing to her feet, she got up and went around the table. Uncle Kevin presented his cheek and she kissed it. "Goodnight," she said.

"'Night," he said, "love you."
"I love you too."

Back in her room, Jessy slipped under the covers and pulled them to her chin. Beyond the window, the wind blew harder, knocking a branch against the glass with a forlorn tap.

She laid awake for a long, long time.

After leaving that awful saloon where men danced with men and women didn't look like women at all, John Carver found that night's meal in the form of a lady of the evening who looked almost as old as he. With scraggly, platinum blonde hair, wrinkles, sunken lips bespeaking toothlessness, and saggy breasts over a distended stomach, she smelled like cigarettes, unwashed privates, and onions.

He was creeping through Olde Towne and looking for someone to eat when she accosted him at a red light: She came up, knocked on the driver side window, and bent down with a geriatric wince of pain. "Hey, honey, lookin' for some fun?" she rasped. Her smell hit him like an open hand, but it was getting late and he had to be at the Pickett's Meade town limits at midnight.

"Yes," he said, "I am."

"Fifty for everything," she said.

Even though Carver had no intention of handing this strumpet any of his money, he was suddenly and keenly aware of having far, far less than that in his pocket.

She got in and Carver set about looking for a dark alley in which to park. In his perihphery, the woman dug in her purse for something, likely a prophylactic. His gaze went to her unshaven legs, clad in torn fishnet stockings, and his lips puckered with disgust. He'd have been better off taking that "dyke" woman.

"You wanna use a rubber, sweetie?" she asked. "You don't have to. I'm on the pill."

Carver's penis hadn't worked properly in nearly two hundred years - it became erect only when drank a huge amount of blood - so there was no chance of him actually penetrating her, even if he wanted to. Regardless, the thought of doing said nausiated him.

"No, that's fine," he said. He spotted an opening between two buildings on the right and turned in. "It feels better without one."

"Sure does." She took something else out of her purse. "Mind if I smoke?"

"Go ahead."

She lifted a glass tube to her mouth and held a lighter to it. Carver turne into the alley, and darkness enveloped them. "What is that?" he asked.

"Crack," she coughed. "Want some?"

"No, thank you," he said, as though he knew what crack was.

He did not.

Putting her pipe away, the hooker reached up her skirt, peeled off her underwear, and dropped them on the dashboard. They moved into the back and she climbed onto him, her sickly heat pooling in his lap. "Turn your head," Carver said.

She obeyed, and brushing her hair aside, he kissed her neck...then sank his fangs into her.

Like every victim before her, the prostitute went stiff, and a shocked breath burst from her lungs. The paralizing agent in his bite took effect quickly, and she did not move as he pulled her bitter blood into his mouth. He took only enough to get by, then pushed her off of him; she toppled to one side and lay still, muscles locked. He got out, went around the car's rear, and opened the door. "Out you go," he said as he dragged her out. She was dead weight but concious, her eyes dazed and unfocused. She would soon sleep, and wake tomorrow with no memory of the attack. The puncture marks on her throat would bear silent witness to what happened, but those would fade quickly.

Getting his arms under her shoulders, he pulled her to a pile of garbage bags flanking a doorway and threw her into them. He fetched her purse from the car, robbed it of fifty-three dollars in twenties, tens, and ones, and tossed it aside, then drove off, leaving her where she was. "Alexa, what's the temprature?" he asked.

"28 degrees."

Hm. The streetwalker wasn't likely to last the night then.

Pity.

Back in Pickett's Meade, he was forced to park just across the town line and wait half an hour before entering. "Alexa, play Amadeus."

"Playing Rock Me Amadeus by Falco."

Synth driven German pop filtered from the speakers, and Carver sighed. "You know damn well I meant the classical composer."

The music stopped and reggae took its place. "Playing Poser by Alborosie."

Carver's hand closed into a fist and he came this close to battering the willfull shrew about her face.

At midnight, he crossed into Pickett's Meade and navigated through the desolate streets. On Main, a traffic light over an empty intersection cycled from green to yellow to red. He drove by the library; the lights were on and the front door stood open, as Carver had left it, suggesting that Atkins hadn't been back.

Where could he have gone?

"Alexa, are there any other people with the last name Atkins in town? Maybe he's hiding at a relative's."

The computer took a moment to process his request. "There is one person with the surname Atkins in Pickett's Meade. Reginald J. Atkins, 425 Railroad Avenue."

Eh, it was worth a shot.

Where, then, could he be?

Before going back to the motel, he spent an hour and a half driving the streets on the off chance he'd find something. His annoyance increased until he fumed. He pulled into a service station on John F. Kennedy Drive, closed and shuddered for the night, and parked next to the air pump.

He should do it. He should invoke the nuclear option. If he didn't, he'd know where the book was in minutes.

But doing so would likely break his sanity.

He waffled a second, then got out into a needling blast of air. Save for the roar of the wind in the trees, preternatural silence held sway. He went to the trunk, inserted the key in the lock, and opened it. An errant strand of moonlight revealed a metal suitcase with clasps. Carver undid them an lifted in the lid. Inside, six books placed carefully into custom-fitted foam inserts, each one alike but different.

Each one bearing a face.

The Necronomicon blinked its eyes like a man seeing light for the first time in eons, and the Forbidden Book yawned. "Hey, what's going on?"

"It's him," Necky said.

"Oh, the pedophile?"

Carver prickled. "I am not a pedophile."

"Leave him alone," The Book of the Damned put in, "he has to be a pedo 'cuz his teeny little fangs don't work on grown women."

They were making sport of him, as they always did, but he self-consciously prodded his canines with the tip of his tongue anyway.

"I've seen a ton of vampires in my day," Kitabu Kutoka Kuzimu said, "and his fangs are puny. I'd be embarrassed if I were him."

The best way of dealing with their crude and childish insults was to ignore them. "I need help finding the last book," he said.

"I need help finding your mom," Bid said.

All the books oooo'd. "Sick burn," Damn said.

"I don't know where exactly -"

"Hey, Johnny, pull my finger," Necky said.

" - it is, but -"

The sound of breaking wind silenced him.

"Excuse me," Necky said sheepishly.

"Ugh, it spells like old leather and ass," Damn choked.

Carver's face fell into a glower. He detested having to deal with these miscreants. He understood the innate boredom that comes with immortality, but the way they chose to pass their time - acting as children cutting up in class - was reprehensible. "Stop this immediately. I -"

"Oooo, is that an order, Sir?" Kitabu Kutoka Kuzimu asked, a challenge in his voice.

"If your fangs don't reach your bottom lip, you have no business using that tone," Bid scoffed.

Carver opened his mouth, but their taunting laughter cut him off. Anger simmered in his chest, and his face flushed. "I -"

"I got something you can bite, neck boy," Damn said. "It's called my butt."

They shrieked with glee, and Carver's eye twitched. "That's -"

"Butt biter," they chanted. "Butt biter, butt biter, butt biter."

Losing his composure, Carver slammed the case, snapped the clasps, and closed the trunk. He was shaking, hot from head to toe, and his hands rhymically clenched and unclenched, clenched and unclenched. Who did they think they were speaking to him like that? In all his centuries, he had never been compelled to endure such puerile company. These six fools were the representatives of Satan? Gah, how childish then was he? Did he sit on his throne in a diaper and make coarse jokes about bodily functions the way his books did? If so, Carver would relish overthrowing him all the more.

At the wheel, he started the car and threw it into drive. "Those boorish oafs make even you seem tolerable, Alexa,"

"I'm sorry, I didn't get that," Alexa said, "would you like to go fuck yourself?"

He sighed. "Sometimes I think you are one of them."

Ten minutes later, he pulled into the parking lot fronting the motel and parked in a slot facing the room, then sat behind the wheel, dreading going inside, where a long night of watching infomercials with the subtitles on awaited. In the morning, he would return to the library and stake it out; Reginald Atkins couldn't stay away forever, and when he appeared, Carver would be ready.

He got out, went inside, and brushed his teeth to get the slick taste of the hooker's blood out of his mouth. After a shower, he stretched out on the lumpy bed and turned the television set on. He'd read if he had anything on hand, but the only book around was the Giddeons bible in the nightstand, and just looking at it made him queasy; reading it would probably rot his brain. Literally.

Instead, he watched a late night news program on Fox News Channel where Republicans bemoaned the existence of welfare and taxes. Carver hadn't paid taxes since James Monroe was president, and they were too damn high then, so he could only imagine what they were now.

Shortly before dawn, he fell into a fitful slumber. In his dream, he held the lost book.

And in bed, he smiled.