Mr. Crepsley and me fed mostly on deer. Their blood was hot, salty, and good. We had bottles of human blood to keep us going — vampires need regular doses of human blood to keep healthy, and although they prefer to drink directly from the vein, they can bottle blood and store it — but we drank from them sparingly, saving them in case of an emergency.

Mr. Crepsley wouldn't let me light a fire in the open — it might attract attention — but it was allowed in way stations. Way stations were caves or underground caverns where bottles of human blood and coffins were stored. They were resting places, where vampires could hole up for a day or two. There weren't many of them — it took about a week to make it from one to the next — and some of them had been taken over or destroyed by animals since Mr. Crepsley had last been here.

"How come they allow way stations but no shoes or ropes?" I asked one day as we warmed our feet by a fire and dove into roast venison (we ate it raw most of the time).

"The way stations were introduced after our war with the vampaneze seven hundred years ago," he said. "We lost many of our clan in the fight with the vampaneze, and humans killed even more of us. Our numbers were dangerously low. The way stations were set up to make it easier to get to Vampire Mountain. Some vampires object to them and never use them, but most accept them."

"How many vampires are there?" I asked.

"Between two and three thousand," he answered. "Maybe a few hundred more or less."

I whistled. "That's a lot!"

"Three thousand is nothing," he said. "Think about the billions of humans."

"It's more than I expected," I said.