As a child, I’d never been allowed the luxury of watching Dark Shadows reruns, and any reading I’d done was strictly of an academic nature. Flights of fancy were discouraged in our household. My Jungian-analyst father considered them a warning sign of an underdeveloped animus and they were a red flag to my career-feminist mother who taught these things would lead me to become another foot soldier in the unicorn-lover’s army. I sat down and fired up the modem. If they were looking down on me from the heaven they’d insisted couldn’t logically exist, I’m sure they shook their heads in disappointment.

In a bizarre way, it was their fault I had the courage to explore the possibility that I was a vampire. Occam’s razor was a theory my father constantly spouted around the house. God forbid an expensive item in our museum of a home ever be broken or misplaced. I’d always lie and say I wasn’t there, it was a statistical anomaly. Whenever I did this, my father would fix me with his best stare of paternal disapproval and quote, “One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything.”

In other words, if it looked like a duck, et cetera, I probably broke that lamp. Or, in the current case, if it looked like I’d become a vampire…

“Thanks, Dad,” I muttered as I lit another cigarette. I’d accepted the fact they did nothing for me physically, but the routine soothed my jagged nerves. I typed vampire into a search engine and held my breath.

Marginally more reliable than tea leaves or a magic eight ball, the Web offered possibility and anonymity, two crucial components to my quest for knowledge. Still, I felt a little silly as I clicked the first link.

The number of people interested in—and even claiming to be—vampires astounded me, but the amount of information their Web sites offered was negligible. I found one promising lead, a professional-looking site with an area to post messages. Figuring it was as good a place to start as any, I began to explain my predicament to the dispassionate white text area.

I’d never been good at expressing myself with the written word, and I felt sillier with each one I wrote. After several frustrated drafts, I gave up and shortened my entry to two fragmented sentences.

“Attacked by vampire. Please advise.”

I didn’t have to wait long for a reply. Before I could get up for a bathroom break, my e-mail program chimed.

The first response informed me I was a psycho. The second suggested I might be watching too many late-night movies. Another tried to lovingly counsel me away from my obviously abusive relationship. For people who were supposed to believe in vampires, they sure didn’t seem very open to the possibility one might actually exist.

I began deleting responses as they rolled in, until one subject line caught my eye.

1320 Wealthy Ave.

I recognized the street. It wasn’t far from where I lived. Just outside of downtown, it was a street where the college students spent money from home on Georgia O’Keeffe prints in poster stores next to bodegas where migrant families bought their meager groceries. I’d driven through the neighborhood, but I’d never stopped.