Ariel’s smile was tremulous and adoring, until she spied Kristi. Her expression changed quickly and she hurried away, as if hoping Kristi hadn’t recognized her like she’d obviously recognized Kristi.

Which was fine.

Kristi was late. Whatever Ariel was confessing to Father Tony had nothing to do with her.

She zigzagged behind the religious center and finally, nearly ten minutes late, reached Adam’s Hall, where she took the exterior steps two at a time. Inside the old building she clamored her way to the second floor, where the doors to her classroom were already closed.

Damn, she thought, yanking open the door to a room so quiet she was certain anyone within could hear a pin drop let alone her bold entry.

The windows were draped in thick dark velvet, the rectangular classroom lit by fake candles. A tall man stood at the podium. Her heart nearly stopped as he stared at her with near-black eyes, then glanced at the clock over the door.

She found one of the few empty seats and told herself he wasn’t glaring at her with eyes like embers, dark but threatening to glow red. It was all just a matter of lighting and her own vivid imagination. Because the classroom had been converted to a creep-a-thon, and the image that was cast behind him on the chalkboard from a slide projector plugged into his computer was of Bela Lugosi, dressed as Dracula, in white shirt and cape.

Bela’s picture disappeared, changed to another image, one of a horrible, hissing creature with needle-sharp teeth and blood dripping from his lips.

“Vampires come in all shapes and sizes and have varying powers,” Dr. Grotto said, glancing at the next picture, an old comic book cover with a cartoon image of a lurking vampire creature about to lunge at a fleeing, scantily clad blonde with a figure that would make Barbie envious.

Kristi tried to meld into the other students, but no such luck. Dr. Grotto seemed to single her out, to glower at her as she opened her notepad and laptop computer. Finally, he cleared his throat and glanced down at his notes. “We’ll start the term with Bram Stoker’s Dracula, discuss where he found his inspiration. In cruel Vlad the Impaler, as most people believe? In Romania? Hungary? Transylvania?” he asked, pausing for effect. “Or perhaps in other historical monsters such as Elizabeth of Bathory, the countess who tortured servant girls, then bathed in their blood to protect her own waning beauty? Myth? Legend? Or fact?” Grotto went on about the course itself and what he required. Kristi took notes, but she was more interested in the man than his lecture. He walked catlike from one side of the room to the other, engaging students, seemingly to mesmerize them. Tall and lithe, he embodied his subject matter.