"For?"

"Garlic."

We head for the local supermarket, Lucky Foods. It's just off the town square-like most of the local businesses-but it seems to be closed. There's no explanatory sign on the door, either; I would have expected CLOSED DUE TO FAMILY EMERGENCY or BACK IN TEN MINUTES or something similar.

I walk up and peer through the glass plate of the front wall. Nothing but rows of stocked shelves and a deserted cashier station. I frown. "Something's not right," I say. "Jimmy wouldn't just close up shop like this, not without a note. He never takes a day off."

"True," Charlie says. "Let's check around the back."

There's a parking lot at the side of the store, and an alley at the rear. I can see Jimmy's truck parked there, right next to the loading bay. The rolling steel gate is pulled down, blocking off the back door, but it's not locked.

"Hello?" I call out. "Jimmy?"

No answer. I grab the bottom of the gate and tug. It rolls upward with a loud rattle.

"Jace," Charlie says, a warning in his voice.

"It's not breaking and entering if the door's open. Just entering."

"I don't think Jimmy will appreciate us just wandering into his closed place of business."

"I'm a concerned citizen checking upon one of my peers. Maybe he's inside and injured. Maybe he needs help."

"Maybe he's got a shotgun and an aversion to people disturbing his privacy."

But I'm already in the loading bay and reaching for the door handle. I don't have to look back; I know Charlie's right behind me.

The back door's not locked, either. I pull it open and look inside: nothing but a shadowy room, stacked high with cardboard boxes on wooden pallets. I can smell traces of rotting vegetation mixed with the syrupy sweetness of spilled pop. "Jimmy?"

Still no answer. But as I take a step inside, listening intently, I can tell there's someone here; I can feel the presence of another person close by, and it's not Charlie.

"Jimmy?" I call out again.

And then I hear a ragged whisper from somewhere in the darkness: "Jaaaaaace..."

I look for a light switch but can't find one. Charlie's right beside me now. "I think it came from over there. Jimmy? You okay?"

"Not ... okay," the voice says weakly.

I feel my way into the darkness, running one hand along the stacked boxes and taking slow, careful steps. My foot encounters something sticky that tries to persuade my shoe to stay and visit. "Jimmy? We're coming, all right? Just hold on."

"Over here," the voice rasps. Either Jimmy has a nasty case of laryngitis or he doesn't have the strength to speak; I can barely hear him.

We find him in the far corner of the storeroom. Charlie's dug out his cell phone, and the glow of light shows us the body of Jimmy Zhang slumped against a crate of bananas, the front of his shopkeeper's apron soaked in crimson. I kneel beside him and he moves an arm feebly, showing me he's still alive. "Jimmy? My god, what happened?"

"Found me," he murmurs. His eyes are slits, barely open. "So happy you found me. Everything ... fine now."

"If that's his blood, he's in shock," Charlie says. "I'm calling nine-one-one-"

"No, please," Jimmy says. His voice is so quiet I have to lean in to hear him. "No ambulance. Just need ... just need-"

"What? What do you need, Jimmy?"

His eyes snap open. They look as if every capillary in them has exploded; the whites are now bloodred. He opens his mouth wide, and I can see two long, very sharp fangs jutting from under his pale lips.

"Just need a drink," he says.

SIX.

I have Charlie to thank for my life. He grabs me by the collar and yanks me backward at the same instant that Jimmy lunges forward, and I go sprawling down the aisle on my butt. I don't have a real clear view of what happens next, but I can see the only light source in the room, Charlie's cell phone, go spinning wildly into the air. I hear a loud smack followed immediately by a thud, and then I'm in the dark.

With a vampire.

I scramble to my feet. "Charlie!"

"Get outside!" he shouts.

Outside. Sunlight. Right. I turn around and stumble toward the door, knowing that's our best chance. Strangely, every instinct I have is screaming for me to turn around and fight, but I know that's suicide. Charlie's got size, muscle, and Army Ranger training-I've got a smart mouth and a bad attitude. He stands a much better chance of holding off an undead shopkeeper than I do, and once I'm outside I'll have the advantage- Uh-huh. So why am I suddenly running the wrong way?

Because, apparently, sometimes doing the unexpected is the best strategy. Even when it's stupid. I mean, running full tilt toward a supernatural monster is bad, but doing so in the dark borders on the insane-in fact, it's so close to the border there's a little guardhouse there, with a full-time customs officer and a duty-free shop where you can get straitjackets at a killer discount.

My foot skids on the floor, and I go crashing to the ground again. Jace Valchek to the rescue, armed only with her deadly wit and astounding pratfall skills ... but a second later someone trips over me, and by the disgruntled unf! I hear on impact, it's Charlie. Vampires don't generally unf, I don't think.

All of which sounds terrible, except immediately after the unf there's a scream, coming from behind me. Jimmy must have leaped for Charlie's throat, except Charlie-thanks to me-was no longer there, putting newbie neckbiter Jimmy in a much longer leap than he was expecting. His touchdown point seems to have been the patch of sunlight coming in through the open backdoor-but from the sounds of Chinese cursing that follow, I guess he didn't get a fatal dose.

And now he's between us and the exit.

"Head for the front," Charlie whispers, and then he's gone. For a big man, he can move pretty fast-not to mention quietly.

I'm alone again.

I understand why Charlie took off like that-our chances are better if we split up, and if we try to take Jimmy on head-to-head he'll probably overpower us-but for a second I feel kind of abandoned. I feel- Zhang, hovering in midair, wearing a black three-piece suit. His skull glowing a faint green through his translucent flesh.

What?

I shake my head. Some kind of vivid hallucination? No. Not a hallucination. Something more familiar ...

I don't have time to think about it, so I don't. I make a beeline for the swinging doors that lead out to the retail area, not bothering with subtlety; I just put my head down and charge right through.

This time I luck out and don't crash into anything, as the door opens onto the main aisle of the store. I skid to a stop before I smack into the plate-glass windows at the front, and whirl around to make sure Zhang isn't right behind me. Somehow, it's hard to think of him as "Jimmy" anymore.

Charlie darts through a moment later. Late afternoon sunshine is streaming through the windows, and we stand as close to them as we can. In the dim shadows at the back of the store, I can see the double doors swinging back and forth, squeaking softly as they slowly lose their momentum. I've heard that squeak a hundred times before while I was shopping, but right now it's the eeriest, creepiest sound in the world.

And then one of the doors stops on the backswing.

It's too far away and too dark to see, but I know four fingers must be clutching the edge of that door. Four pale fingers, stained with their own blood. I wonder how long Zhang was in there, how long ago he was bitten. From his condition, I'm guessing I was going to be his first meal as a creature of the night. I might still be.

"We need to get out of here," Charlie whispers.

"You think?" I whisper back.

"I remember you," Zhang croaks. "You. Bloodhound."

I'm standing in bright sunshine, but it feels like someone just slid an icicle down my spine. Zhang still sounds like he has the world's worst sore throat, but that's not all that's changed. His diction, his accent is different; it's like he's an entirely new person. And the venom in his voice-he's way past angry, or even enraged.

Hatred. That's what I hear. Pure, black hatred.

Part of me wants to call back, to say Of course you remember me-I've known you for years. I'm the one who always makes bad jokes about your zucchini. I'm the one who makes sure you stock those vegetarian TV dinners and then complain about how bad they are. I'm Jace.

But I don't. Because part of me remembers him, too.

The person I remember didn't have a first name-just Mr. Zhang. He didn't own a grocery store and he didn't wear plaid shirts with the sleeves rolled up and I never joked with him about produce. Mr. Zhang was smooth and cold and powerful, and I'm pretty sure he sent me to hell once.

So I don't say anything. Because I'm also pretty sure he'd love to send me there again.

"Time to go," I say. There's a steam cleaner standing by the front door that you can rent by the hour or the day, and I pick it up. Make sure I've got a good grip on the handle.

"Jace," Charlie says. "What are you-"

"Hammer time," I say, which is a lame early nineties reference as well as a pun on an Olympic event, but I don't have time to explain either because I'm spinning around in a circle while holding onto the steam cleaner with both arms extended and then letting go.

SMASH!.

We leap through the shattered window. By some utterly amazing piece of luck, absolutely no one's on the street to see us do this.

We don't stop running until we hit the town square. Then we slow to a trot, try to ignore the few stares we get, and stroll at a not-too-hasty-but-definitely-determined rate back to my place.

"That went well," Charlie says.

"Oh, absolutely. What was your favorite part? I can't choose-there were just so many."

"Well, tripping over you in the dark while being attacked by a bloodthirsty monster is in my top three."

"Oh, yeah."

"Then there's the part where the guy I've been buying breakfast cereal from for the past couple of years tries to turn me into a protein shake."

"Also a contender."

"And let's not forget the whole breaking out of a locked store and bolting away like-like-"

"Small children running from a clown? Japanese extras being chased by a guy in a lizard suit? Panic-stricken penguins fleeing from a crazed nun?"

He stops his pacing and studies me for a second. "You know, I may have to rethink the whole you're-not-crazy thing."

"I thought a little nuttiness might help derail you."

"Derail me? Why would you want to derail me?"

"Because until about ten minutes ago, you were the biggest bad-ass in town. Now we're hiding from the guy that sells us toilet paper. It's kind of a shock to the system."

He abruptly sits down on the couch. "Yeah. I guess. I mean-goddammit, that guy was a vampire!"

"Pretty much."

I watch him carefully. Me, I've lived with crazy for a while, so I'm sort of used to it; but a regular guy like Charlie, whose beliefs and values sit firmly on a foundation of stable assumptions about the world, isn't used to this sort of thing. He's just found out what he thought was bedrock is in fact quicksand, and he's struggling to keep from going under.

He shakes his head. "Up until now, I thought I was handling this pretty well. Evil cults, messages from other dimensions ... but-but that guy was a goddamn vampire!"

"What gave it away? The blood-filled eyeballs, the overbite from hell, or the instant sunburn?"

Charlie glares at me. "I've never run from a fight in my life. Never. I tried to fight him. But it was like-like he was a robot, almost. Rubber over steel. Soft on the outside, but unbreakable underneath. Nothing I threw at him fazed him. And he was so fast ... fast, and strong, and impossible to hurt. It's as if he were-like he was-"

"A goddamn vampire?"

"I need a drink."

"I need a distillery. But we'll both have to settle for this." I grab a purple teddy bear from where it sits on the mantel and hand it to him.

"Thanks," he says wearily, "but I think I'm beyond being comforted by a stuffed animal."

"That's because you're not doing it right." I reach over and unscrew the bear's head, revealing a bottle sticking up from its neck like a glass spinal column. "You like scotch, right?"

"At this point, I like paint thinner." He lifts the bear and takes a slug, then considers the headless body in his hand. "Hey. That's pretty good."

"That's why it's stashed inside a plush toy. If I ever get burglarized, I want to be able to sit here and console myself with some quality booze. Now gimme-can't you tell he's a Share Bear?"

He passes it back to me and I take a pull. "Okay. Obviously, we need a plan."

"How about we sit here and drink until we pass out? That way, when he shows up after dark to drain us, we kill him with alcohol poisoning."

"Mmmmm-no. Unless we're drinking fermented garlic, I don't think that's gonna work. And the only source of garlic in town has just become inaccessable, anyway."

"We need to go back there, Jace. We can't let that thing kill or bite anyone-"

My phone chimes. I used to have a ringtone that played the theme music from The Bloodhound Files, but after my stay in the State Home for the Sanity Challenged I changed it to something a little less obsessy: Bauhaus's cheery little number "Bela Lugosi's Dead."

I pull out my phone, check the number. I don't recognize it, but it's local. I don't answer, though, just stare at the phone in my hand. Galahad whines.

"Aren't you going to get that?" Charlie asks.