The three days stretched into four, at the end of which Freya decided she no longer could put off her commitments. I'd learned much about my sweet friend in the interim, enough to know that she'd never once played hooky in her life. One time wouldn't hurt anything. Four days really wasn't all that much time in terms of an entire life.

My vampirism still was a running joke between us, but her attention to my body continued to be, at least in part, clinical. She examined my every nook and cranny. This was a rational woman, a scientist. That there was something unique about me did not mean I was one of the undead. But I know she sensed there was something. And whatever she suspected she left unsaid.

She finally did, out and out, tell me that I was not as old as she first had surmised. She suspected, I think, that I was younger even than Fallon, who was 21. I continued to stick to my story of being 800 and some years old, telling her the simple truth: I had an unageing body. It did not irk her when I did so.

My tiny FO notebook, now my prize possession, grew more robust and detailed during those days. My friend was a veritable orgasm machine, churning them out as fast as I could record them. I also had begun to take notes, in a shorthand of my own creation, recording the particulars of each engagement, what seemed to excite her and what did not.

It was all quite strange, I know. But I enjoyed doing it. Perhaps it was Freya's influence on me that I wanted to be more scientific in my approach to life. I was going to miss her body, everything about her.

During all that time, I caught not a whiff of Renard or anyone in his crowd. That didn't mean they weren't around. That group sometimes used civilian detectives to do their dirty work. But I didn't fret too much. I could deal with anything they threw at me, and it now was highly unlikely that they could connect Freya with me.

People had tried in the past to blackmail me with threats against my friends. It hadn't ended well for them. But that didn't mean I didn't worry about it now. My enemies were everywhere. It would only be a few weeks until I reached Chicago, but it wasn't clear whether it would be safe for me to see Freya there.

Still, my visit to her city was something about which she and I talked. I promised her that my business in Chicago was not a pretext just to see her. I don't think she cared one way or the other.

Our parting at the airport was an affectionate one, and after I saw her off, I picked up my Kawasaki, attended to a few affairs, and headed north.

***

My first real destination was Houston, where a colleague kept his base of operation. He dealt in various things that someone like me needs. I would remain Tori Hind for the time being, but my next persona was primed and ready for when I reached Chicago, where I would assume the handsome moniker, Amal Creedence.

I had not drunk blood in over a month. Usually, going a long time without swigging the stuff made abstinence easier. But like any addictive substance, there were triggers. Being around it, smelling it, speaking often of it, sometimes did that for me. I jested frequently about my nature and my cravings with Freya. All the while, my appetite was growing.

I pondered what I should do. In the old days, plucking prey off the street was a quick and easy solution to that problem. The downside of a human banquet was that it left a very human corpse. It was one of the reasons that people like me so often lived nomadic lives in days past. Bodies start to stack up in one locality, and the next thing you know ... well, mobs, pitchforks, and all that those represent.

The tragedy is that humans contain quite a lot of blood, and very few vampires that I have met can finish a serving, or anything close to it, in one sitting. But our manner of feeding is messy, not the least bit surgical or precise as you see in movies. To bite someone sufficiently to extract blood leaves a person so badly lacerated that they very soon bleed out. It is death by exsanguination, save only half or less of the body's volume actually is consumed.

The wastefulness and silliness of it irked my obsessive streak. I tried very hard not to feed in that way unless other means were unavailable, or unless someone ticked me off. In that case, I didn't hesitate to drain someone completely.

A large syringe or two contains enough blood to sate me for a short time. Knocking some poor boob over the head and extracting a bit of his fluid is far more humane (and far less likely to draw unwanted attention) than ripping out his throat.

Sometimes I just did it the old-fashioned way, of course. In that case, men never see women as a physical threat, and many is the time that I've walked the rough areas of some large city at night, hoping that a felonious halfwit would come and try to have his way with me. It never ended the way the fellow hoped.

Don't get me wrong. I'm no great moralist. Have I engorged myself on innocents before? I have, many times. Did I feel guilty afterward? Not even a little. Would I do it again? Yes, if I felt the need.

If I have no moral compunctions over bloodletting, you might ask, why don't I feed every day? That is a wonderful question.

When I feed, the hunger goes away, at least for a short time. During that period, I am more myself. My thoughts are clear, my temper is even, and I make better and more informed decisions. But there are drawbacks. The more one feeds, the more one needs. And the harder it is to stop.

And I don't want to be an addict. I don't want to be dependent on something that grants me neither strength nor sustenance. Many of my fellows see blood drinking as some sort of ritual, some natural right, some .... Well, justifications abound. It's like talking to toddlers sometimes.

Who would want to live such a life if there were an alternative?

I try not to be wasteful, strive not to leave a trail of bodies that can be traced back to me, and do my best to live something approaching a dignified life. That last part is never easy. I try to limit my feeding frenzies to no more than a few days, a week at the most, just enough time to experience some rest untainted by that constant craving. To feed longer is to risk not being able to stop.

My first pitstop was Atlanta, where I met a nice young man at a midrange chain restaurant and suggested that he might get lucky if he followed me to the back parking lot. I took a pint of liquid red gold from the unconscious man's right butt cheek and thanked him with a kiss on the forehead. He seemed a good guy.

The next morning, I picked up some money from a safety deposit box and was straight on the road to Montgomery, where I relieved a pushy asshole of a pint of blood through a syringe to his neck and lifted all the cash in the fellow's wallet.

I no longer lived hand to mouth, having learned something of the management of money some years before. But some people just beg to be robbed. And I saw no reason to be wasteful. The dead and the stupid either don't need or don't deserve cash.

After uneventful stops in Mobile, New Orleans, and Beaumont, I reached Houston three days later. It was a pleasant trip, one I could have made in a much shorter time. I have little need of sleep, but hunting is something that's only practical during nighttime hours, so I did make some stops.

During that time, I sent and received several somewhat formal but affectionate notes from Freya-Lynn via text message, and to my delight I found what turned out to be several sweet and passionate messages from Fallon on Instagram. Who would have guessed love letters could be sent in such a way?

The drinking of blood did something for me during my road trip to Houston. As I drank, I felt a certain calm overcome me, as I always did.

But perhaps the word "calm" doesn't quite describe the sensation. We are very much like human beings in every way. In fact, in most every discernable way, we drinkers of blood are human. But there are some facets of our lives that cannot be explained or described to outsiders, not even by use of the most subtle analogy. There simply was nothing to compare to my drinking of blood and the sensations it elicited.

It calmed me, but it often laid bare things to me. It was ever the case, upon the drinking of blood, that the silliness or bone-headedness of certain of my thoughts and actions became clear. I often found myself chuckling at some of the ridiculous fancies and lamebrain conclusions of the sober me.

It filled me with great and undeniable joy that none of my thoughts or actions related to my two new friends appeared silly or aberrant by the time I reached Houston. On the contrary, it was one of those rare occasions when the intoxicated me and the blood-sober me agreed with one another in complete harmony.

It was a beautiful moment, one that I had to guard against spoiling. I knew how I could be. Once I sobered up again, and the hunger kicked in, the impulse to murder Freya-Lynn's husband would rebound with great passion. When I wanted something, I wanted it. And it often was difficult to control my single-minded desires.

Note to self: don't murder Freya's husband.

***

Konrad, my connection in Houston, was helpful as always. He even helped me acquire a new car, one that I had registered under the name of a corporation of which I, under various guises, was the only shareholder. It was a large sport sedan—an Audi, if you're curious—with a powerful engine and comfortable seats, the only two things I admired in an automobile beyond simple dependability.

All of the gizmos were quite a surprise. While Konrad went off to serve some other of his illicit clients, his wife Mae showed me how to work the navigation systems, synch my phone to the car, and accomplish various other tasks. The wonders of the modern world never ceased to amaze.

I had a few things I needed to do in Kansas City, and there was a short stop I needed to make in Saint Louis, but I won't bore you with the details of those things. There was no real bloodletting involved as I went, and there was just a little sex. I doubt what transpired on that stretch of my journey would be of any interest to a discerning reader.

I felt especially good upon reaching Saint Louis, and spent a few days drying out. I would be in Chicago on business, so I didn't know when I would have a chance to see Freya. I didn't want it to be while I was coming off of a bender. My moods at such times simply were too unpredictable.

I'd exchanged a few more texts with the object of my desire, and made sure to find out, for certain, where she lived and where her offices were located. I wasn't sure exactly how to phrase the text, but I made it clear, in a roundabout way, that though Chicago was a big city, I didn't want to stumble inadvertently across her and the family.

It didn't mean two mustard seeds to me whether her husband knew I was fucking his wife. Hell, I'd happily tie up the guy and make him watch. But I did worry that such a revelation might hurt Freya's feelings, which meant a great deal to me. So I was careful in what I wrote. Some people, I found, think nothing at all of reading the text messages of others, especially members of their own family.

When finally I pulled into Chicago, it was toward morning on what otherwise portended to be a thoroughly miserable and overcast day—namely, a typical autumn day in Chicago. It wasn't my favorite city, but neither was it the place I liked least. There were many redeeming values to the joint. The finest of those was that I knew the area fairly well, having lived there a time. And let's not forget that it's a city where an extra body or two showing up was not met with surprise and panic.

There are some places that are better than others for killing people. Washington, D.C., for example, was a place in which you could perpetrate a killing or three without too much undue worry that the police there might bumble into you. Chicago, on the contrary, had a very good police department. But they also had a lot of crime. So, dropping bodies there wasn't a big point of concern for me.

I opted to take a room in the Loop. It wasn't clear exactly where to start my search, but I wanted to avail myself of public transportation, and the Loop was the best bet. Stashing my car in a parking garage a few blocks away, I took a room in one of the nicer downtown hotels, a place called The Strand. As a rule, the finer establishments have better security and are more respectful of the privacy of the clientele.

I wasn't too worried about violence. (I never am, I suppose.) But good security would be ideal. No doubt, Isolde would be on the lookout for me. Marion's severed head had been a not-to-subtle calling card. Thus, my first stop after having gotten settled into my room was at the hotel security office, where I approached the only woman working.

I never hesitated to pull the sister card, and I spoke quietly with the woman, who seemed to be some sort of shift manager, telling her that I was hiding from a violent ex-lover, and that the man had made use of snoops and private detectives to track me down before. I then asked that if anyone made enquiries about me, or anyone who resembled me, that she let me know right away. She at first refused the slim stack of hundred-dollar bills I offered, and relented only when I insisted in the strongest terms. She seemed a good and an honest person.

My search for Isolde or for any sign of her people went on for two days without interruption. As I have said, people like me are predictable in their habits. Chicago being a large city, I did see a few of my kind, but none were among the crowd I knew to associate with Isolde or her master. I didn't trouble myself to make inquiries with those blood drinkers I saw. It was dangerous to tip my hand, and, honestly, I didn't have the best reputation among my own people.

I looked for the typical: a certain kind of nightlife, rumors of strange activity, and reports in the newspaper of missing young women or recently discovered bodies. I am, when the moment so seizes me, the most gregarious of people. And having invested well in recent years, I had cash to spare in my search. It was no trouble to find people who wanted to talk to me.

Many years had passed since last I saw Isolde. How long had she made this city her home? It was tough to say. There was little sign of her at first, and there didn't seem to be an unusual number of bodies clogging the streets.

It may well be that she kept a low profile, or had found a way of disposing of inconvenient corpses. I know that at any given time she would have a small handful of followers in her company, five or six blood drinkers and a dozen or more flunkies. That number didn't account for any casual hires, people who worked for money but knew nothing at all about who or what the boss was. As you no doubt know, the existence of my kind was not widely known, and among those who did know it is not widely acknowledged.

On the afternoon of the third day of my search, I got a lead. A text message from the nice woman at the security office, Maya Stovall, said that a local private investigator recently had approached The Strand and several other area hotels, looking for someone who fit my description, claiming that she was a teenage runaway passing herself off as an adult.

That didn't fly with my friend in security. Anyone who saw me assumed me to be somewhere north of 25 or 30. Even Freya, who knew something of the human body (especially this human body), at first had thought me of that age.

The information Maya provided was a start. The name of the detective in question was Elliot Huber, and after thanking Maya, I looked him up online. The fellow was a retired Chicago cop. His business seemed to be typical, lots of runaways and cheating spouses. For just a moment, it flitted through my mind that Huber would be the kind of chap Freya's spouse might hire to check up on our extracurriculars. It gave me a laugh.

It being not long after noon, I grabbed a quick bite and hopped on the L to an area near Wrigley Field where Huber kept his office. It was not quite the shabby sort of setup I'd imagined. The façade was handsome, and broad squeaky-clean windows gave me a clear view of the busy offices within.

I watched the place for a time. Nothing stuck out. I have a remarkably good memory for faces, so I took up a spot at a café and watched for another hour. I didn't see Mr. Huber, whose face was prominent on his website. But I did see several unnamed people who were in the photograph with him. Clearly part of the staff.

I would come back later, after dark, and have a snoop around the place. Getting into buildings was my forte, and folks always left things laying around. Until then, I had a few hours to kill and would dig around some of the drinking establishments in the area.

Before I left, I took a quick recce around the building to get a sense how best to let myself in. Coming around into the alley behind Huber's offices, I noticed a number of vehicles parked there that somehow seemed out of place. Before I had a chance to ponder why, I heard someone step behind me. And then everything went dark.