Inside it’s dark, the glass walls smudged with grime. The place is nothing like it was last night. Dust soaks the floors, lightbulbs busted in their sockets, the once-pristine sofa frayed and disheveled in the corner. The house is coming apart, and I know why. It’s the decay, the same kind I carry inside me, familiar as an old friend. Only, this isn’t my doing. This is compliments of Dracula. He’s only been back a day, and he’s already leaving his mark, trailing rot and sorrow in his wake.

There are only a few people here tonight, all girls again, loitering in corners, fussing with the vinyl collection, half the records split in two. I squint through the gloom, past a shattered dome lamp, but I don’t see anyone from last night. None of Rochester’s followers. No Rochester, either.

A song blares over staticky speakers. It’s the same band I saw earlier tonight at the Fillmore, this time the female singer crooning about wanting someone to love. Good luck with that. They might be calling this the Summer of Love, but from where I’m at, it looks like nothing but heartbreak.

I stick to the outside of the room, Dracula hovering over me, always so much taller than I remember. The three kids from the car are near the mouth of the hallway, as a couple others gather with them, listening in.

“That Lucy’s a real ghoul,” one of the girls says as she points at me. “She kept telling us how we’re all going to die. What a weirdo, right?”

Instantly, my cheeks flush as Dracula leans in.

“Such a mouth on that one,” he whispers, and his hand is suddenly on my arm. “You could fix that, you know. You could make sure she never talks like that to anyone again.”

“Tempting,” I say, wrenching away from him, “but no thanks.”

I drift past the beige egg chair that’s got a crack down the middle and the chartreuse love seat spewing out bits of its foam guts, everything fading here, everything going gray. Dracula tracks my every step, but I won’t look back. I’m still searching for a weapon, for anything that can stop him.

I keep walking, one hand searching blindly across an end table, coming to rest on an antique candleholder, the kind with a spike right in the center. This might work. This might be made of silver, something I can drive straight through the middle of his miserable heart. But when I clutch it close, it’s cold against my skin. If it were silver, it would feel like fire. After all, I’m a vampire too.

Dracula peers over my shoulder. “It’s only chrome,” he says, and he’s right.