The fire spread upward, into the house itself, and he could see the orange glow through the upstairs windows. The roar of the flames was deafening now, drowning out the screams, and the heat forced him back.

The hate and anger bled away from him as he watched. The grief returned, but he would endure it. He had to. “Goodbye, Bart,” he said, wiping the sting of ash from his eye. “Don’t worry about Mom. I’ll find her.”

In his mind, Bart’s voice was no longer there. But he imagined a nodded reply, and that was good enough.

He looked around him. The vampires would not go near the fire, but it might attract their attention. He had to move soon. He ran to the next yard, found the doorway to the basement there. He rapped on it with his fist. “Can you hear me in there?” There was no answer. He pressed an ear to the cold metal. There were sounds from within, though muffled. Someone sobbing fearfully. The cries of an infant, and someone trying to hush it. He could almost feel the fear that emanated from inside, and he knew that asking for their help was useless. They would never open that door. And he couldn’t blame them.

You’re on your own, he told himself. Where to first? He looked around the yard, hoping for one of those signs, like in the movies, a telltale hoofprint or a broken twig or tramped-down path in the grass that would tell him where they took his mother. But he knew it wouldn’t be that simple. So where to? Who can I get to help me? Or maybe that should be, who’s left to help? Chris and Charlie are God-knows-where and Bart’s gone and Ted too and everyone else is a vampire.

Maybe not everyone . . .

Didn’t Mom say that Mrs. Moore was holed up in her own basement? Maybe she can help . . . that is, if that real estate bimbo hasn’t gotten to her already. Now, which street was it Mom said she lives on? Walnut? Oak? At least in that general direction. It’s a start.

He began to run but that felt too conspicuous for a vampire.

So he had to settle for walking very, very fast.

He harbored a slim hope that most of Isherwood’s undead had been trapped in the inferno back there, but he soon learned other­wise. He had gone just a few blocks, not even to Vernal Avenue, when he saw them, fleeting shadows, skittering from house to house in search of a fix. His immediate impulse was to hide, before they could see through his childish disguise. But again, it would have been too conspicuous. So he kept his reflexes in check. He walked down the sidewalk, in plain view, waiting for them to get closer. And when they grew within fifteen feet and saw the cast of his flesh they would simply pass him by. Del held any sigh of relief; he was not out of this yet.