The Sanguinarius recommended feeding captive vampires raw steak. Whoever wrote it had obviously never seen a 20/20 expose about slaughterhouse contamination and E. coli.

My nights off were almost worse than the nights I had to work. At least at the hospital I had to force myself to concentrate on something other than the hunger. I was struggling through a particularly bad night at home when I finally gave up and went back to Wealthy Avenue. Tears streamed down my face as I shook uncontrollably behind the wheel, like a drug addict in desperate need of a fix.

Nathan hadn’t called me that night, and it hadn’t occurred to me to call him before I showed up at his doorstep. I needed blood. I needed it badly. My hands trembled as I rang the bell to his apartment.

There was no answer. The window of the shop was dark, and no one responded to my frantic knocking.

Young men and women hurried up and down the sidewalk. The pumping of their blood drowned out the words of their conversation. Most of them looked young enough to have a curfew, but some could have been college students.

College students from other states, perhaps, with few acquaintances in their new surroundings. Like me, if they went missing, no one would look for them for days, possibly even weeks….

I was horrified at the thought, but I needed blood. Since I wasn’t up to hijacking a bloodmobile, I would have to find a donor.

I didn’t go back to my car. I needed to walk in the fresh air and open space.

I don’t know how long I searched. I was selective. One bar looked too dank and blue-collar for my tastes. It would be crowded with middle-aged men in flannel shirts watching sports on television. I wanted someone young. Someone beautiful.

I spotted her on the street.

She crossed against the light. Her pale, blond hair flew behind her like a banner in the wind. The way she clutched her coat to her chest accentuated her skinniness.

I had never felt this sort of attraction toward anyone before, let alone a woman. It was not an attraction in a sexual sense. It was an animal instinct, as pure and natural as breathing. I wanted her blood.

The girl in the black coat pushed through a small cluster of young men and women loitering on the sidewalk. As I approached, I read the name of the building she ducked into.

The covered windows of Club Cite were framed by blue neon tubes. The brick building had been painted black, but the paint job had not been kept up, revealing flecks of the original red brick. The place was dirty and run-down.

Once inside, I followed her down the stairs. The walls around us vibrated with a muffled bass line. She pulled open the door at the bottom and the entire corridor flooded with noise. The club was packed with young people, all dressed in black. Some were Dickensian, with top hats and walking sticks. More were swathed in torn fishnets patched with electrical tape. They all looked at me as though my blue jeans and freckled face disgusted them.