After Jay left, Kristi spent over an hour instant messaging different screen names and joining chats online, some of which were disturbing, others which were silly and just plain inane. She figured those were probably filled with kids just messing around on their computers when they were supposed to be sleeping. However one room, dedicated to blood in literature, as opposed to shape-shifters, werewolves, or vampires in the campiest and most twenty-first century of meanings, intrigued her. For the most part she lurked, watching the conversation between several of the participants. Whereas some of the chat rooms talked up the Buffy television series to death and another focused on the Blade movies, this one dealt with vampires in literature, and for a minute Kristi thought Dr. Dominic Grotto himself might be leading the discussion. There was a little talk about Count Dracula, the work of Bram Stoker, questions about Elizabeth of Bathory, the countess who bathed in the blood of her subjects, and even Vlad III, the Impaler, also known as Vlad Dracula, whom the discussion suggested was the inspiration for Bram Stoker in creating the character of Count Dracula. Some talk centered around Transylvania and Romania and fact versus fiction, and questions abounded about the drinking of blood.

But all in all, in this particular chat room, the participants seemed interested in more than trying to score some shock value; they seemed sincere in their quests, whatever they were.

Kristi poured herself a glass of Diet Coke, then made notes on everyone who partook of the chat and what their particular bend was. Or at least she kept track of the screen names they used, all of which, it seemed, included some reference to the subject. Since she wanted to blend into the group, she had signed in with the screen name of ABneg1984, though her own blood type was O positive and she wasn’t born in 1984. She used a couple of blind aliases to hide her true identity and asked a question or two every five minutes, just to keep the other users from thinking she was spying on them.

Which, of course, was the whole point of her being online at this ungodly hour.

It was a bit of a juggling act as she kept several screens open at the same time. They each were dedicated to a different live chat room, and, at first, she had a little trouble keeping up with all the conversations. Soon, however, she was getting the hang of it and clicked out of a few that seemed off topic. What she needed were other people online from Baton Rouge or at least Louisiana. There was just no way to tell by the screen names and as far as she could tell the chatters could be from anywhere in the known universe.

It was like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack, even though she tried to narrow down the rooms by mentioning Louisiana.