Table eight got their drinks, but they didn’t look too happy about it. They wanted to know where their Bacon Buckaroos were. I really hoped those were the bacon burgers. Everything on the menu had a stupid cowboy name, which went with the “theme,” like the posters of old Westerns on the wall and the gingham shirt and bolo tie I had to wear.

I ran back to the kitchen. “I need Bacon Buckaroos for Eight!” I cried.

“Sorry,” said another, older waiter, as he walked out with a tray of the burgers for his own table. “You snooze, you lose.”

“But—”

“Bianca!” Reggie yelled. “Table twelve doesn’t have silverware yet. Silverware! That goes out with the menus, remember?”

“Okay, okay.”

I went back and forth, back and forth, over and over. My feet ached, and I could feel the grease sinking into my skin. Reggie kept yelling at me, and customers kept scowling, because I didn’t get them their really awful food fast enough. It was like hell, if hell served cheese fries.

Excuse me. “Cheesy Wranglers.” That was what we had to call the cheese fries.

As the lunch rush began to die down, I hurried to the salad bar to do my “side work,” which meant this whole other job we each had to do in addition to waiting tables. Mine, for today, was making sure the salad bar was fully stocked. I grimaced as I saw that nearly everything was running low: salad dressings, croutons, tomatoes, etc. This would take me almost ten minutes to fix.

“This is not a good first day,” Reggie muttered into my ear, like I needed that news flash. Ignoring him, I hurried back to the kitchen to chop some tomatoes.

I grabbed the first tomato, picked up the knife, and quickly started chopping—too quickly. “Ow,” I whined as I shook my cut finger.

“Don’t bleed on the food!” said another waitress. She led me to the sink and started running cold water on my hand. “That’s a health code violation.”

“I’m no good at this,” I said.

“Everybody’s first day blows,” she said kindly. “Once you’ve been doing this a couple years, like me, you’ll have it down pat.”

The thought of spending two years at Hamburger Rodeo made me dizzy. I had to think of something else to do with my life.

Then I realized, that wasn’t what was making me dizzy. I felt bad. Really bad.

“I think I’m going to faint,” I said.

“Don’t be silly. The cut’s not that deep.”

“It’s not the cut.”

“Bianca, are you—”

Everything went black for what seemed like only a second, as if I’d simply blinked my eyes. But when I opened them again, I was lying on the rubber mat on the floor. My back hurt, and I realized that was because I’d fallen down hard.

“Are you okay?” the waitress said. She held a dish towel to my cut hand. Several of the other waiters and cooks were circled around, all tables forgotten in light of the drama.

“I don’t know.”

“You’re not going to throw up, are you?” Reggie demanded. When I shook my head, he said, “Have you sustained a workplace injury that requires us to fill out paperwork?”

I sighed. “I just need to go home.”

Reggie’s lips pressed into a line, but I guess he figured I might sue if he fired me for being sick. He let me leave.

The dizziness stayed with me as I waited at the bus stop, and throughout the long ride home. My pitiful few singles in tips were crammed in my pocket. If I hadn’t felt so awful, I would’ve been depressed about having to return to Hamburger Rodeo tomorrow.

Instead, I just tried to hold on—and not to think.

I tried not to think that I’d felt the same way the day Lucas and I were clearing out the destroyed Black Cross tunnel, and on a couple of days since.

Or that, lately, my appetite for blood—which had been growing sharper and sharper from the day I’d first bitten Lucas—had suddenly almost vanished.

Don’t freak, I told myself. It’s not like I’m pregnant or anything. We’d been careful, and, besides, this had begun before Lucas and I first made love. No, pregnancy wasn’t what I was scared of.

All the same, I knew something was happening to me. A change was coming.

Chapter Fifteen

“IT’S NOT FUNNY,” I REPEATED FOR THE FOURTH time, but I couldn’t keep from smiling as I said it.

“I know it’s not funny. We need the money.” Lucas was able to keep a straight face until he continued, “And Hamburger Rodeo is the challenging kind of job most people couldn’t keep for even four days.”

“Shut up.” I thumped his shoulder soundly, but I was laughing as hard as he was. Although it was embarrassing to drop an entire tray of glasses of water in front of the whole restaurant, at least I’d managed to soak Reggie in the process. I’d lost my job a couple of days after I’d come back from my sick leave, which would have worried me if it hadn’t been so hilarious.

Lucas was peeling back the cellophane on a couple of microwave pizzas, which was what we had for dinner most nights. Although we were free to shop for what we wanted now, instead of scraping by on the bleak rations Black Cross provided, we didn’t have cash for much. Also, neither of us knew how to cook. I didn’t mind, though. I wasn’t that hungry these days.

“How was your day?” I asked. Lucas didn’t talk about his job at the garage much; he just came home gasoline scented. I didn’t mind that, though. He always took a shower first thing and emerged warm, damp, and smelling just great.

“Same old,” he said shortly. “Listen, don’t worry about that hamburger place anymore, all right? You’ll find something better. You ought to fill out some applications at the bookstores in town. You love to read.”

“That’s a good idea.” Which would I rather recommend: Jane Austen or Bacon Buckaroos? No contest.

I thought happily about my potential new career in book sales as I finished setting the table, reaching down to the basket to grab a couple of glasses—until the dizziness crashed over me.

Everything went sort of grayish, and I could see spots in front of my eyes. A weird chill swept through my body. I hung onto the wall for a moment, trying to get my breath.

“You all right?” Lucas turned toward me, concerned.

I gave him a quick smile. “Yeah, just turned around too fast. That’s all.”

He didn’t look like he believed me, but then the microwave dinged, and he turned to collect our dinners.

Not for the first time, I wondered if I shouldn’t have told Lucas about the weak spells I kept having. I hadn’t even spoken to him about fainting at work. But saying something to Lucas would mean admitting something was wrong—really wrong—and I wasn’t ready to admit that yet.

We sat down to dinner, splitting between us the newspaper Lucas had brought from his job at the garage. It smelled a little like motor oil, the same way Lucas did when he got home. Weirdly, the smell of motor oil had become slightly sexy to me. I grabbed the want ads (just in case any bookstores were listing openings), the front page, and the entertainment section. Lucas took the sports pages, but he never read those first. Every evening, he went through the local news—scoured it really, paying close attention to each story. I figured he was trying to learn more about our new city, but I was wrong.

Lucas straightened up and pushed a page toward me. “Look at this.”

I looked. A woman had been found dead in a Dumpster downtown. “That’s sad.”

“Keep reading.”

I didn’t see how it was going to get any less sad. Then my eyes widened.

Sources say the victim’s throat had been slashed. The lack of blood at the scene has led police to conclude that she was killed elsewhere and dumped in the alleyway later. Anyone who saw a suspicious person or vehicle in the area between 10 P.M. and 6 A.M. is encouraged to contact the authorities.

My mouth was dry as I whispered, “A vampire.”

“A vampire who’s let us know where he’s working.” Lucas smiled grimly. “Which means a vampire who’s just made a big mistake.”

“You don’t mean you want to—to hunt this vampire?”

“He’s killing people.”

“But what are you going to do? Just—kill him first?”

Lucas was very still. “I’ve done it before. You know that.”

He’d killed a vampire to save Raquel during his year at Evernight Academy. Although I believed that he’d truly had no choice, and that Raquel might easily have been killed otherwise, the thought of hunting down a vampire and killing him in cold blood made me feel sick inside. “It seems like there should be another way.”

“Well, there’s not.” Lucas pushed back from the table, energized by the thought of action. “It’s not like there’s a vampire jail or anything.” Then he paused. “Is there?”

“Not that I know of.”

My unease must have showed clearly on my face, because Lucas covered my hand with his. “Once the vampire knows we’re after him, he might take off. Leave town. That happens a lot. The second they find out a hunt is on, they split.”

“Here’s hoping,” I said. “For his sake.”

Lucas gave me a lopsided grin. “That’s the spirit.”

“You really need this, don’t you? A mission. A reason for—” For being, I wanted to say, but the look on Lucas’s face stopped me.

“Hey. You’re my reason. Having a normal life—well, as normal as hiding out in a wine cellar gets—I’ve waited a long time for that. The fact that I get to live that life with you just makes it more perfect.”

“Okay, you don’t need a mission.” I folded my arms. I wasn’t actually annoyed with him, but I felt Lucas needed to know I had his number. “But you really like having one.”

Sheepishly, Lucas nodded. If the situation had been any less grave, I might have laughed. He looked so boyish when he got called out. It was cute, really.

I hadn’t become a master hunter during my six weeks with Black Cross, but I had learned a few key things, including the first rule: Never go out for a hunt unarmed. Lucas and I didn’t have the Black Cross arsenal to turn to. We searched around in the Woodsons’ garage to see if there was anything we could use; it worked on the same security code as the wine cellar, and was happily laser free. Obviously Vic’s parents weren’t going to have gallons of holy water stored near the riding mower, but whatever they had on hand would beat going on patrol with nothing but good intentions. Luckily, Lucas found some gear—including several wooden gardening stakes, which could serve if needed.

The garage was closed on Sundays, which meant that Lucas and I had the next day free. I’d come up with all sorts of plans for us earlier in the week, like maybe taking a carriage ride through the historical section of Philadelphia or maybe just staying in bed for hours.

Instead, we set out for the downtown neighborhood where that woman had died.

As the sun set, Lucas and I arrived in the alleyway. We couldn’t walk all the way down to the site of the murder; part of the alley had been sealed off with strips of yellow tape that read CRIME SCENE.

“We could duck under it,” I suggested. “Even if the police did see us back there, they’d just think we were going to see it because it was gross or something. On a dare, maybe.”

“Not worth the hassle. We know how things ended here. What we have to figure out is where it started.”

Lucas and I began making our way through the neighborhood, looking for a place where a vampire might scope out potential prey. Neon beer signs in the window of a nearby bar served as a pretty good guide.

“I’m going to go in,” he said. “Get a look at the crowd in there.”