“I love windmills. Save the windmills!” a sexy girl with long red curls said. Her name was Nettie, and after we shouted at each other over the music about shops I should visit, she looked at me, winked an eye with silver shadow and glitter mascara, and said, “Would you fancy a blood wrestle?”

Which is how I found myself wearing a too-small flesh-colored bikini in a Plexiglas cube filled with strawberry-flavored fake blood. Grappling with a slick, laughing girl while a club full of vampires and their friends shouted was even more fun than I thought it would be.

And if we yanked each other’s tops off, and squished our breasts against the Plexi walls and then seductively licked fake blood off each other, it was because we were, at heart, people-pleasers.

And if the gossipy vampires got word back to Ian that I was having a wild time without him, then all the better. I’d made the mistake of caring for him, but he’d made the mistake of thinking that I would be laissez-faire about his philandering.

After our show, Nettie took me to a gym-sized shower room adjacent to the main club.

“This is a huge shower room for a nightclub,” I said.

“We use it for the Blade party the first Saturday of every month,” she said. “We pass out the X, put mixes of New Order’s ‘Confusion’ on a loop, and dance. The lads in their Speedos are a glorious sight when blood rains down. We got the idea from the movie. You must come.”

“I have to get back before that. I’ve got writing projects and deadlines. But next time I visit, I’ll come.”

“Cool,” Nettie said. “May I ask something?”

“Sure.”

“What are you? You drank a blood cocktail, but your tan looks as real as those lovelies.”

“Oh, I’ve just got a few quirks,” I said. “What about you?”

“My family’s been in service to the Family for generations,” she said. “My parents are rather stodgy, but there’s a lot of fun to be had with the vamps.”

“There can be.”

“So you and Wil?” Nettie asked, but it wasn’t really a question. “I went out with him. Girl of the Month and the occasional boy. Well, that’s our Wil. So irresistible.”

“I’m impressed by his activism,” I said, “but I just met him. He’s only showing me the town.”

“Well, if anything else should happen, he loves a firm-minded girl who can take charge, if you catch my meaning.”

“Sure.” I liked Nettie even though she didn’t seem to have a grasp of anything more serious than the next party. I knew this because she invited us to hang out with her friends on a houseboat the following night.

She said, “It’s my going-away party. I plan to get completely mental. Then I’m off to Canada for an assignment.”