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In the limo, I felt for the scars that should have marred my neck and shoulders The vampire that attacked me hadn't taken a clean bite - he'd torn at the skin at my neck like a starved anies I pulled my hand away and stared at the clean pale skin - and the short nails, perfectly painted cherry red

The blood was gone - and I'd been manicured

Staving off a wash of dizziness, I sat up I earing different clothes I'd been in jeans and a T-shirt Noore a black cocktail dress, a sheath that fell to just below h black heels

That made me a twenty-seven-year-old attack victi a cocktail dress that wasn't mine I knew, then and there, that they'd made me one of them

The Chicagoland Vampires

It had started eight o with a letter, a kind of vampire manifesto first published in the Sun-Times and Trib, then picked up by papers across the country It was a co-out, an announcement to the world of their existence Some humans believed it a hoax, at least until the press conference that followed, in which three of thes Human panic led to four days of riots in the Windy City and a run on water and canned goods sparked by public fear of a varessional investigations, the hearings obsessively filmed and televised in order to pluck out every detail of the vah they'd been the ones to step forward, the va, blood drinking, and night walking the only facts the public could be sure about

Eight months later, some humans were still afraid Others were obsessed With the lifestyle, with the lure of immortality, with the vampires thelamorous Windy City she-va-out, and who'd ressional hearings

Celina was tall and sli enough to give the illusion that it had been poured onto her body Looks aside, she was obviously smart and savvy, and she kne to twist huers To wit: The senior senator from Idaho had asked her what she planned to do now that vampires had come out of the closet

She'd fa the most of the dark"

The twenty-year Congressional veteran had smiled with such dopey-eyed lust that a picture of hie of the New York Times

No such reaction from me I'd rolled my eyes and flipped off the television

I'd made fun of them, of her, of their pretensions

And in return, they'd made me like them

Wasn't karma a bitch?

Now they were sendingthe changes la, and repackaged e

They killed ed me

The tiny seed, that kernel of distrust of the ones who'd made me, rooted

I was still dizzy when the limousine stopped in front of the Wicker Park brownstone I shared with y, h to wade through Drugs, maybe, or a residual effect of the transition from human to vampire

Mallory stood on the stoop, her shoulder-length ice blue hair shining beneath the bare bulb of the overhead light She looked anxious, but see me She wore flannel pajamas patterned with sock monkeys I realized it was late

The limousine door opened, and I looked toward the house and then into the face of a man in a black uniform and cap who'd peeked into the backseat

"Ma'am?" He held out a hand expectantly

My fingers in his palm, I stepped onto the asphalt, my ankles wobbly in the stilettos I rarely wore heels, jeans being my preferred uniform Grad school didn't require much else

I heard a door shut Seconds later, a hand gripped aze traveled down the pale, slender ared to She smiled at ed from the limo's front seat