I suddenly heard something that I’d never expected to hear in Vaclav’s house. It was the sound of a telephone, but not the ring of his old rotary dial. It was the musical ring of a cell phone.

“Oh,” he stopped and rose to his feet. And sure he enough, he picked up a mobile receiver and answered it.

I looked over to Stephanie and raised my eyebrows.

She just smiled.

“Hello?” Vaclav was saying. “Oh yes, yes of course, one moment.”

I looked up at him. He seemed out of sorts for a moment, then straightened up

“I apologize, Johnny, Stephanie, I have to take this in private,” he told us. “You know how it is, confidentiality and all that. You two feel free to carry on without me while I attend to this business.”

“Of course,’ Stephanie replied. And we both watched as he exited the room.

I turned back to her and we shared a silent moment that grew little awkward as it stretched on.

“I-”

“The-”

We both started talking at the same time. And then she laughed a bell like laugh.

“How are you handling you’re new-“

“Life.”

“I guess that’s a good description as any.”

She offered me another look. Then she got up. And turned away.

“It’s really very different,” she told me, then turned back. “Everything, every sense I have is different, some more intense, others I have lost much of, and miss a great deal.”

She wandered over closer to the book case near the fireplace, put her finger on a book. Then looked back at me.

“Could you come over here,” she asked.

Although I found her brief confession a bit odd, she didn’t seem dangerous. And what would she attempt in Vaclav’s house, his study? I got up, walked over to her. She turned around and regarded me.

“When I look at people, they appear very different than when I was human,” she told me :”It’s hard to explain. I’ve done research of course. I’m going to be like this for, I guess it could be a very long time…”

“That’s what I hear.”

“But tell me about you,” she said to me. “You’re different as well, you’re not like a normal living person. Or one of the re-animated.”

I stopped, raised a hand.

“No, there’s nothing special about me.”

Her eyes widened. She looked over at the fireplace, then back at me.

“Oh now,” she replied almost breathlessly. “There’s something about you that is so different. You’re part of something that is so important.”

Before I knew it she was right in front of me, and the cool touch of her hand ran down my cheek. My gaze was locked on hers. I couldn’t look away.

“No,” she told me. “There’s something special about you. Something very very warm.”

“That’s probably the fire that your feeling,” I tried.

“Oh I’m feeling a fire. But it’s inside you, Mr. Johnny Smith.”

I tried to move away, but she grabbed my arms, held me fast.

“So tell me,” she demanded, her face, her body now very close to mine, her deep brown eyes looking straight into – no through – mine. “Why are you so hot?”

“I think I’ve had enough of this.”

I tried to pull away. No, that wasn’t happening.

“No, tell me, I have to know. Tell me. You can tell me what is going to happen to me. I know it.”

I tried to twist away again. She pulled me closer instead. Her soft if cool body pressed up against mine, our faces were almost touching, or would have if I wasn’t trying as hard as I could to prevent it.

“You don’t smell like anyone else,” she told me as she breathed in what I breathed out..

It felt like I was in the grip of steel. I could feel the heat from behind me. We had somehow moved much closer to the fireplace..

“You smell of blood that is not your own,” she told me. “So much blood!”

“Let me go,” I told her. “Stephanie, this isn’t a good idea.”

I was beginning to get frantic.

“Vaclav!” I called out.

“Shush,” she told me, held me close, tight, hard. “Tell me about the blood and the fire. Mostly the fire. I want to know what it is?”

“I don’t know anything. It doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

I tried again to break free. Frantically, I managed to pull one arm from her grip. But only for a moment.

She pulled me back to face her, and look into those dark dark eyes again.

“Oh, it has to,” she told me, voice now cracking with emotion. “You’ve seen what it looks like. Where it leads. Is there no way I can avoid it?.”

“I-”