He was apprehensive of this new world. The television box didn’t only inspire him with wonder. It intimidated him. It overflowed with images that his turn-of-the-century mind fought to comprehend; not even the Master’s gift had prepared him for it all. Perhaps, if he’d lived it, if he had experienced the changes as slowly, as deliberately as the rest of the world. But to be thrust into it like a naked foundling . . .

There was a voice in his head, and it whispered things that he did not want to hear. When he thought of moving on to the bigger city, away from this home that was never a home, this site of his misery and imprisonment, the voice said, Are you sure? And that kernel of doubt was enough to slow his advance. And when he thought of conquest and how the cities were like great gardens of fruit ever ripening on the vine, the voice said again, Are you sure? Is it time yet? Will it ever be? He’d struggled with the automobile as if it were some medieval dragon, while veritable children operated them with ease. This world was as alien to him as the moon—computers and calculators with their dancing blips of captured light and cameras that spewed color pictures and ovens that cooked in an eyeblink yet didn’t brown the meat. Even the tele­vision box was still an enigma—he could turn it on and off, turn it up and change the picture, but its workings were as arcane as a brujo’s spell. Yet such things were taken for granted in this world.

The voice was insistent and its questions were ones he could not answer. And when he ignored them completely, it changed its tact. One more mistake. One more and you might finally meet the end you’ve eluded all these decades. Ignorance of the laws or customs or currency will attract attention, and in this day and age you can’t afford that. Here, in a small town, one man has fought you to a standstill. What if there are more of him out there, not with crosses and stakes, but with guns like his that fire so fast they could chop you to pieces in seconds?

Begrudgingly, he agreed with the voice. At least on that point. Stiles’s impertinence had ingrained a certain wariness in him. He would be careful. He would approach everything slowly and deliberately, and he would plan before he struck. He already had a strategy of sorts in mind—he would stay in Isherwood as long as the food supply held, and he would use the time to learn. And only when he was ready would he venture to Indianapolis or maybe even Chicago. And there he would suckle on the teat of the city, thriving in its shadows. And his powers would grow, and the voice of doubt would finally fade. And then . . .

His body screamed with hunger, reminding him. One step at a time.