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the sofa, shaken to the core by that piece of information. Her formal name is Salena Abigail Saunders—after a long distant grandmother, according to her late father.
    "It says here," Heloise said with angst in her voice," the Gypsies thought he was a vampire. And I think he may have returned," She tapped the newspaper on the table by the tarot cards; the front-page story was about the female victims. Then she put her hand on Salena's wrist. "You must be careful girl. This isn't a New Orleans tourist attraction; your life really is in great danger."
     

Chapter 14
    In a daze, Salena hurriedly left Heloise's and drove home. Seriously, a vampire? There's no such thing. The first thing she needed to do was search for the family tree documents she'd come across years before. When her parents had died in an accident, she'd found it in their belongings. Having no siblings, she took that and the other mementos with her when she moved from the family's estate, in Philadelphia, to New Orleans. Her remaining relatives had thought she was crazy to move so far away, and, just maybe, they were right. At that time, though, she'd needed to get away from the pain of her loss. She knew her Masters Degree in history would help her find work in any museum wherever she decided to go; however, something pulled her to New Orleans. She used to think it was Eric.
    She spread the document out on her kitchen table and used her index finger to run up the line through her father's relatives. There it was—Abigail Saunders, born nee Abigail Adams in 1696, died in 1720. Salena was even more morose to learn her great-grandmother, to the tenth power, she counted, was only twenty-four when she died—the same age Salena is now. This disconcerting information brought fearful tears to her blue eyes—the blue eyes she'd inherited, along with her porcelain skin and black hair. She had teased her parents before, about being adopted, since her mother had been a redhead with green eyes, while her father had sported brown hair and brown eyes. Now she knows.
    She never knew, either, that her grandmother had been accused of witchcraft and had been killed for it. Salena thought about the history of witch trials and could remember certain events in colonial history regarding them, but she certainly couldn't remember anything about vampires . She had to get to the bottom of this—fast.
    She stepped out onto her small porch and sat on the swing; she always sat here to clear her head. Her tear stung eyes searched her yard and then her neighbors' yards—every corner, every shrub, every shadow—making sure nothing was there. My life is in danger? The words screamed in her mind. She had thought living alone in a largely populated city was dangerous enough. Now I have a fictional monster to fear? Vampires exist outside the tours and haunted cemeteries? She couldn't wrap her head around that even as she fingered where the bite mark had been on her wrist. Had been ...
    It was completely gone now.
    She needed more information, so she headed back inside to go through her history books. She never noticed the black cat sitting behind her.
     

Chapter 15
    Devin had followed Salena back to her home, contemplating what'd he'd seen at the Gypsy's house. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to overhear much of their conversation because a radio had been playing loudly in the background. He knew Salena was upset, and he overheard something about "danger from the past." However, he didn't hear enough to know what that means, unless it was referring to him, and he never learned how to read tarot cards; Gypsies and vampires weren't exactly friends.
    His questions remained unanswered, so, at her home, he had watched from his perch on the windowsill while she recovered something scrolled up in a drawer; it appeared to be a family tree.
    He loved how graceful she was when she moved through her house, and the sound of her voice was exquisite— it was soft and delicate like the sound of a gentle