Sally reached the front door. Behind her, Lavinia shouted something important that was drowned out by Charla’s bellow.

Feet drummed down the stairs as she fumbled with the bolt and pulled the heavy wooden door open.

Lavinia’s strong hand grabbed her shoulder.

“Come on!” Sally belted and made to run out, but the hand pulled her off balance and she tumbled backwards into Lavinia’s arms.

It was Charla.

For a second she looked up into a bluff face seething with emotions, felt the hands which clutched her, trembling, ready to possess.

Repelled beyond words, she punched her elbow into the woman’s gut and wrenched from the loosening, shocked arms and out the door.

Used to being at home in the night, she wasn’t surprised that no pale hands tore at her as she tumbled down the black-speckled granite steps, smacked the sidewalk and rolled to her feet. The long descending hill was oddly empty but she saw a slip of white at the distant intersection and ran towards it, roaring her sister’s name.

Three vampires sprang from the shadows, identically wicked faces and black cloaked bodies filling the sidewalk. She ignored them and ran in leaping strides, at home in the night with Lavinia.

Cold hands grabbed her.

She wasn’t with Lavinia. That was what Lavinia had been shouting: “Babe, wait ‘til we’re together!”

More vampires joined the three. She had to stop chasing KerriAnne and fight, punching and biting, tasting again that acrid fluid. She smashed noses and pounded soft bellies and still a pair of fangs raked across her right arm, cutting like acid.

Lavinia’s voice bellowed, “I’m with you baby, we’re together, we’re at home, out you fucks, out!” But Sally knew she’d be torn apart before Lavinia could reach her.

And until she reached Sally, Lavinia would be just as vulnerable to the growing mob. “Go back, love, go back!”

But the mob did not grow.

Above the hissing babble, Walter’s voice called “Come here, here is where you want to be, you know our garden, come home, dear hearts!” He was siphoning off the vampires, calling them back to humanity.

And KerriAnne’s distant voice, coming closer, wailed, “Let her go, I command you! I’m your Queen, I command you to let her go!” KerriAnne was trying to save her too?!

The vampires did not let her go but perhaps they fought softer. She had a chance! She pushed towards Lavinia, punched out an arm in the direction of her voice. For a time drawn out like a throbbing violin string she strained as the vampires pushed her back…

Lavinia’s fingertips batted against hers and they fell to the sidewalk at the center of a hollow in the small crowd.

The crowd quickly dispersed, politely uninterested.

Jesse’s voice joined Walter’s as they stood side by side in their front door. “Our home is open to you, you know that, come home.” Pushing to her feet, Sally watched the last vampires disappear through the garden gate like sand into an hourglass.

“Smart … guy, that … Walter,” Lavinia gasped, dragging herself up. “I was … dumb this time.” Then she fell silent, looking over Sally’s shoulder.

Sally turned with dread and saw her vampire sister watching her. KerriAnne looked proud, like she waited to be praised. Jeremy Paxton, white as a sheet, stood beside her, an arm around her waist. His hollow eyes stared over Sally’s shoulder into the night.

Sally had longed for a second chance with KerriAnne. But she remembered Jeremy’s voice saying “You’ll help me find him. You’d better help me find him,” and pieced together what had happened. She felt exhausted as she faced the one who, like a cat, kept coming back. Does she want credit for saving me just now? Has she forgotten, now that she’s enslaved him, that I nodded permission to Jeremy to kill her?

Then a strange thing happened. KerriAnne looked tenderly at Jeremy as his ashen face turned to her. Breath catching, seeming close to tears, he nodded, as if in wide-eyed confirmation of something they both suspected.

And KerriAnne put her arms protectively around him, murmuring, “Oh sweetie.”

Then, righteous as an avenging fury, Sally’s problem-child sister stalked up to her and smacked her face a sharp crack.

Sally’s ears rang and her mind swam. “You bitch,” KerriAnne said, voice shaking with what seemed to be – outrage? “That’s all I have to say to you. You smug, superior bitch.”

Then she put her arm around Jeremy again and they walked unmolested down the street while Sally stared, unable to move or comprehend.

Lavinia put a tentative hand on her upper arm and she took it and moved against Lavinia’s side. Charla was nowhere to be seen but Tomás glared at her with sad hatred from the bay window. Walter had also vanished; Jesse stood alone in the doorway, looking shaken.

She looked at me like I was the evil one.

She held tight to Lavinia and wished that they could go alone to the Black Forest and do what they needed to do, without finding money for plane tickets, without setting up websites and blogs and without the complications of dealing with other people.

“You know what I want right now?” she said, snuggling into the comfort of Lavinia’s arms. “I want you to carry me through the skies to Germany. I want it to be just you and me again.”

Her eyes flew open. Lavinia spun her around. “Go get our stuff from that guest room,” she said, grinning excitedly, “And we’ll be in the air soon’s the sun’s up.”

Sally shivered, wondering why she dreaded going back into Jesse and Walter’s house.