"Sure," Jody said, staring at the vase. Great vase, she thought. Elegant, fragile porcelain was all well and good for the collector's case or the tea party, but for the girl who finds herself in need of a vessel that can deliver a wallop, Jody was suddenly sold on the sturdy value of stoneware.

"Tastes like cat breath," Tommy said, pointing to Chet. The punctures from Tommy's fangs had already healed. "Is it supposed to?"

Jody shrugged. "What's cat breath taste like?"

"Like tuna casserole left out in the sun for a week." Being from the Midwest, Tommy thought everyone knew what tuna casserole tasted like. Having been born and raised in Carmel, California, Jody knew it only as something eaten by the extinct people on Nick at Nite.

"I think I'm going to pass," Jody said. She was hungry, but not cat-breath hungry. She wasn't sure what she was going to do about feeding. She couldn't very well try to live off Tommy anymore, and regardless of the rush and the sense that she was serving nature's cause by taking only the weak and the sick, she didn't like the idea of preying on humans—strangers anyway. She needed time to think, to figure out what their new life was going to be like. Things had been happening too quickly since Tommy and his friends had taken down the old vampire. She said, "We should get Chet back to his owner tonight if we can. You don't want to lose your driver's license—we may need a valid ID to rent a new place."

"A new place?"

"We have to move, Tommy. I told Inspectors Rivera and Cavuto that I would leave town. You don't think they'll check?" There had been two homicide detectives who had followed the trail of bodies to the old vampire, and ultimately the discovery of Jody's delicate condition. She'd promised them that she'd take the old vampire and leave town if they'd let her go.