I wondered sometimes what Mr. Crepsley was up to — he'd always been mysterious, but never this secretive — but in truth I wasn't overly bothered: it was nice to have him out of my hair.

Evra had to wrap up in layers of clothes whenever we went out. Not because of the cold — though it was chilly: the first snow had fallen a couple of days after our arrival — but because of how he looked. Although he didn't mind people staring at him — he was used to it — it was easier to get around if he was able to pass for a normal human. That way he didn't have to stop every five or ten minutes to explain to a curious stranger who and what he was.

Covering his body, legs, and arms was easy — pants, a sweatshirt, and gloves — but his face was tricky: it wasn't as heavily scaled or colored as the rest of him, but it wasn't the face of an ordinary human. A big baseball hat took care of his long yellow-green hair, and dark glasses shaded a lot of the upper half of his face. But as for the lower half…

We experimented with bandages and flesh-colored paints before hitting on the answer: a fake beard! We bought it in a joke shop, and although it looked silly — nobody would mistake it for a real one — it did the job.

"We must look like quite a pair," Evra said with a giggle one day as we strolled around a zoo. "You in your pirate costume, me in this getup. People probably think we're a couple of escaped crazies."

"The people at the hotel definitely do." I giggled. "I've heard the bellboys and maids talking about us — they think Mr. Crepsley is a mad doctor and we're two of his patients."

"Yeah?" Evra laughed. "Imagine if they knew the truth — that you're a couple of vampires and I'm a snake-boy!"

"I don't think it would matter," I said. Mr. Crepsley tips well, and that's the important thing. 'Money buys privacy, as I heard one of the managers say when a maid was complaining about a guy who'd been walking around naked in the corridors."