We'd covered a lot of distance since that night in the cemetery. First we'd fled at top vampire speed, me on Mr. Crepsley's back, invisible to human eyes, gliding across the land like a couple of high-speed ghosts. That's called flitting. But flitting is tiring work, so after a couple of nights we began taking trains and buses.

I don't know where Mr. Crepsley got the money for our travel and hotels and food. He had no wallet that I could see and no bank cards, but every time he had to pay for something, out came the cash.

I hadn't grown fangs. I'd been expecting them to sprout and had been checking my teeth in the mirror every night for three weeks before Mr. Crepsley caught me.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Looking for fangs," I told him.

He stared at me for a few seconds, then burst out laughing. "We do not grow fangs, you idiot!" he roared.

"But… how do we bite people?" I asked, confused.

"We do not," he told me, still laughing. "We cut them with our nails and suck the blood out. We only use our teeth in emergencies."

"So I won't grow fangs?"

"No. Your teeth will be harder than any human's, and you will be able to bite through skin and bone if you wish, but it is messy. Only stupid vampires use their teeth. And stupid vampires tend not to last very long. They get hunted down and killed."

I was a little disappointed to hear that. It was one of the things I liked most about those old vampire movies: The vampires looked so cool when they bared their fangs.

But after some thought, I decided I was better off without the fangs. The fingernails making holes in my clothes were bad enough. I would have been in real trouble if my teeth had grown and I'd started cutting chunks out of my cheeks as well!

Most of the old vampire stories were untrue. We couldn't change shape or fly. Crosses and holy water didn't hurt us. All garlic did was give us bad breath. Our reflections could be seen in mirrors, and we cast shadows.