Understatement.) He wasn't dressed crazily this morning, for a change. Her vampire boss - if you could call being a mad scientist a profession - was standing next to the big black sedan he occasionally - very occasionally, thankfully - drove. Here she stood with her suitcases and her stuffed backpack, and Myrnin. She'd left early, before her boyfriend was awake she'd actually sneaked away before dawn, so that she could be off without goodbyes that she knew would rip her heart in pieces. The voice made her gasp and turn, blinking away tears, because she'd actually forgotten that he was standing there. And she thought, from the way things were settling down now, that it might work lots better this time around, now that the town's founder Amelie was back in charge. But the surprising thing was that it did work, more often than not.

In turn, at least theoretically, the vampires protected the town and the people in it. a vampire community, with almost everything in some way related to them: to protecting them, making them money, giving them blood.

Didn't the Amish send their kids out on rumspringa, to find out what life was like outside and make a real decision on whether or not to stay in their community? So, maybe she was on a kind of vampire rumspringa.īecause that was what she was leaving, even though she definitely was not one of the plasma-challenged. You have to see the world before you can give it up to be here. It's time to find out, the more adult part of her said. she wasn't sure what she'd be any more, out there. How to adapt, and survive, and even thrive. because as crazy and dangerous as Morganville was, at least she'd learnt how to live in it. I can turn around, go home, go back where it's safe. She was finding it hard to catch her breath.

The weight of it felt suddenly unbearable, and the billboard dissolved into impressionistic swirls as tears formed hot in her eyes.

It had a 1950s-era couple (white, of course) next to a finned car as big as a boat, looking into the sunset. It seemed a lifetime ago, but here was the same old sign, faded and creaking in the dry desert wind. The billboard at the edge of the border of Morganville hadn't changed since Claire had first driven past it on the way into town at the tender age of sixteen.

Fall of Night by Rachel Caine