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handle these new powers,” Michael said. “I will teach you the rudiments. It will be up to you to learn them––or not.”
    Later that night, Michael led him to a pasture that contained a single, scrawny cow. “I purchased this for you,” he said.
    Overwhelmed by hunger, Terrill fell upon the unfortunate beast. The savagery of his own behavior amazed him. He didn’t just suck the cow’s blood; he tore the animal apart, and he delighted in its pain. When he was finished, he looked over at Michael. “You purchased it?” he asked. “Why didn’t you simply take it?”
    “Should I deprive a poor man of his livestock?” Michael asked, looking at him curiously. “Don’t you remember what you said last night? About pitying the poor?”
    “That was last night,” Terrill said.
    Michael looked disappointed, but not surprised. “Perhaps someday…”
    Disappointed or not, over the next few weeks, Michael was true to his word and taught Terrill to survive. Terrill learned that there were things he should do if he didn’t want humans hunting him down: avoid contact with humans as much as possible, try to feed only when necessary, and destroy all evidence. Move along after a kill. Try not to kill in the same way each time.
    “One last thing,” Michael said one night. “If you follow these suggestions and live long enough, you will need money. You can accumulate wealth by investing small amounts and leaving it with the bankers. You’ll forget about the investments, and then one day find that you’re rich.”
    Terrill nodded. When Michael left, Terrill didn’t try to stop him. The whole time the gray-haired man had been with him, he’d had to hold himself back. He’d never seen Michael kill a human, only animals, though he hadn’t stopped Terrill from tracking down Peter Martel and his former friends and dispatching swift and brutal justice.
    After they parted, Terrill saw Michael every few generations. It was as if the older vampire was checking up on him periodically. Each time, Michael––who by then was legendary among the other vampires––went away again.
    Terrill tried to live as Michael had suggested, quickly seeing the wisdom of his advice. He began to think of Michael’s suggestions as rules, though he didn’t formalize them as the Rules of Vampire until hundreds of years later.
     
     

 
    Chapter 6
     
    Jamie stayed in her motel room for a full day and night. She turned on the radio and TV, but there was little local news of any interest. The town newspaper was a weekly and wouldn’t be out for another few days. She had no way of knowing what had happened to Stuart.
    Was he dead? Had he Turned? Were they looking for her?
    What would Horsham do? Jamie wondered. He’d only mentored her for a few days, but she’d been so overwhelmed by the bloodthirst that she’d barely paid attention to him. He’d mentioned something about the Rules of Vampire––but then, he’d also scoffed at them. She was pretty sure one of the Rules was something along the lines of “Get out of town, fast.”
    Jamie was broke. The motel was going to kick her out any day now. She had nowhere to go. Thinking about that, she would have broken down and cried if she had still been human. But to her amazement, she was unworried. She’d deal with whatever came. She was stronger and faster than any human; better equipped to survive.
    The next day, it was cloudy and raining, and Jamie ventured out, protected by her hoodie. She walked to the local market and glanced at the headlines on the front pages in the newspaper racks, but there was nothing about a murder in Crescent City. A cop car drove by and slowed, but then kept going.
    She went into the store and looked around. When she’d first run away from home, she’d survived mostly by shoplifting, and the skills came back to her automatically. She lifted a box of L’Oreal hair color and was out the door before the clerk even knew she was there. She hunched her shoulders