Tap, tap, tap.  Sofye jumped at the sound of the light knock at the door.   Who could be knocking?  She felt a thrill of fear and she suppressed the urge  to run and hide somewhere.  She forced herself to the door and stood on tip  toe to peek out of the peep-hole, her heart in her throat.  "Rick," she  squeaked, relief evident in her voice.  She flung open the door.  "What are  you doing here?" Before he could answer, "How did you know where I live?"   As he opened his mouth to answer her, "Are you stalking me?" 
    "Please," he stammered, "give me a chance to answer you."  He stared at  her nervously, shifting from foot to foot.  When she didn't say anything, he  continued.  "We had so much fun the other day that I just wanted to see you  again.  I sorta hung around the neighborhood until I saw you and your mom.   I got lucky, I guess.  You answered the third door I knocked on."
    Sofye had the picture of him going from floor to floor, they did live on the  fourth and top level, knocking on each door.  She grinned.  That was funny.   She opened the door wider.  "Come on in, I was just getting ready to get  something to drink.  You want some lemonade?"
    He peered in.  "Is your mom home?  Is it ok if I come in?" 
    Sofye shook her head.  "No, Mom's not home, but you can come in."  She  giggled.  "Unless you're going to make a mess on the floor." 
    Rick turned red, remembering how he'd spilled a soda all over one of the  video games in his excitement over killing the gorgon.  He put on a lopsided  grin.  "As long as you don't have any gorgons running around the room, I  think I can control myself."
    Sofye grabbed him by the hand and pulled him in.  "Come on in.  I don't  wanna be standing here, all day, in the doorway." She smiled to take the  sting out of the words and he gladly complied.
    He glanced around the small apartment.  Eliza had intended the  apartment for one.  While it was impeccably neat, the addition of Sofye into  her life did add to the general "clutter" of the area.  As he scanned the living  area, his eyes fastened on the computer.  "Oh, wow," he breathed, "that is  some computer."
    It was a very nice computer and Sofye was proud of the configuration that  Eliza had come up with.  She'd considered Otaktay a computer whiz, but  the system Eliza had put together and the things she did on it were simply a  level above anything Sofye had seen or heard of.  Rick pressed the shift key  and the large, hi-res, backlit LCD screen blinked on.  He brought up the  browser and accessed a benchmark site.  A couple of clicks and he whistled.   Turning to Sofye he asked, "Do you have any idea how fast your connection  is?  I didn't even know you could get DSL this fast."
    Sofye giggled.  "It's not DSL any more, Silly.  Mom said it's a T3 line."
    Rick's eyes got big.  "No way!" he whispered.  Shaking his head, he said,  "No one has a T3 for private use.  I don't even think that's possible."
    "Ummmm... you may be right.  I could have misunderstood.  She was on  the phone complaining about access speed and I just overheard part of the  conversation."  Sofye knew exactly what she'd heard but didn't want to make  an issue of it.  If it was different, it should probably be kept quiet. Many  times, Eliza has stressed her "Stay Invisible" rule. 
    "Ok," Rick said.  "Watch this."  A few key strokes and the snarling head  of a gorgon appeared on the screen.  "You go first."

    Sam Burns nervously took a sip of his scotch.  In spite of the codeine and  scotch was quite sure his memories of last night were accurate.  He sighed.   "I'm not going out of my mind.  I've uncovered a 20 or so year old  conspiracy, maybe found a cult of Satanists, been shot at and hit and saved  by a vampire."  He nervously rubbed his throat, unconsciously probing for  any tender spots.  "No, I'm not going crazy."  He looked at the radio  synchronized clock on the wall.  One fifty eight AM.  "If, in two minutes,  there's a knock on my door, I'm not going crazy." He sighed.  "Unless my  craziness makes me think there's a knock on my door."  He watched the  sweep second hand move towards the appointed hour.
    "This time I won't scare the hell out him," Eliza thought, looking at her  watch.  She tapped gently on Detective Burns' door and jumped when it  instantly opened.  "Oh," she giggled.  "You scared me."
    Sam grinned a crooked grin.  "I scared you!  Do tell!"
    The stood staring at each other.  "Can I come in, Detective Burns?"  She  smile her cutest little girl smile.  "I won't bite," she whispered.
    He shook his head in wonderment and stepped back, opening the door  wider.  Call me Sam, please, and guess what?  He didn't give her a chance to  answer.  "I got Pernod for you."
    "Oh, thank you.  One cube of ice, no water, please," she ordered as she  stepped inside.  She glanced around, instinctively, taking the room in.  His  drink on the end table made it clear that he'd been sitting of the sofa waiting  for her.  The sofa was angled more towards the door and closer to it than his  easy chair.  "Guess he's sort of nervous meeting me." 
    "Here you go," he said, handing her the drink.  "Please, sit." 
    "Thank you, Sam."  She sat on the other side of the sofa, leaving a good  two feet between them.
    Sam looked at her.  "I have got to be imagining this.  There are no such  things as vampires and she is far to tiny and cute to be a vampire.  This is.. I  am... It's crazy."  She raised her drink and took a sip, causing him to start. 
    She looked at him with luminous eyes.  "I guess you're thinking that one  or both is us is crazy, right?"
    Sam nodded.  "Yea, I guess I am."
    Eliza took another sip of Pernod, buying a little time.  "Why did you let  me come tonight?"
    "Other than the fact that you're one of the most beautiful women I've ever  met, most intriguing person I can imagine, and add that to the fact that you  saved my life - just a whim I guess."  They both smiled.  "Oh, and you said  you needed my help and would explain tonight.  I'm one of these idiots that  thinks cops are actually supposed to help people." 
    Eliza took a deep breath.  "Ok, and I want you to know that I'm not real  happy about you knowing about me.  You are "The Law" and that is not  good for me.  You are the first "normal" to know about my condition and  that violates everything I need to do to survive.  Even before, I firmly  believed that one should be invisible."  She took a sip of the Pernod and  realized her hand was shaking.  Sam could see her hand shaking too.
    "Oh. . ." he hesitated.  "You know, I don't know your name."
    "Eliza."
    "Eliza, I am not going to cause you any problems.  I really do want to help  you.  I want to help you because that's what I do and because you have  helped me.  You didn't have to take the risks you took that night.  There was  risk for you, wasn't there?"
    Eliza nodded.  "Some.  I did get hurt, but the chances of them killing me  were very slim.  The chances of them killing you were too damn good.  I just  decided to even things up a little."
    "That you did," he agreed.  "That you did."  They sat silent.  "Eliza," he  said, trying out her name.  "Would you do me a favor?"
    "If I can sure."
    "Ok."  He reached over to the end table and produced a miniature tape  recorder. "Would you record a few sentences for me?  Anything.  It doesn't  matter.  I just want to be able to know that you were really here, tomorrow,  when I wake up and start thinking the codeine pills are giving me really  weird dreams."
    Grinning, she took the recorder and pressed the record button.  "Testing,  one, two three," she intoned. 
    "Oh, come on!  You can do better than that."
    She sighed and smiled, showing a hint of fang.  "I am here.  I am real, but  I von't bite you on the neck" she parodied in her "best" Romanian accent.   She looked coyly at Sam, who grinned nervously. "Unless you ask real nice,"  she finished and clicked the recorder off. 
    Sam audibly gulped.  "Oh my god, is she coming on to me," he wondered  "This is crazy.  What the hell do I do now?" Standing, he asked, "Ready for a  refill?"
    Tossing back the last of the Pernod, she handed him the empty glass.
    "I know.  One ice cube, no water."
    Unable to resist another jab at him, she replied, "You catch on how to  please a girl real quick.  I just might keep you!"  She suppressed the urge to  giggle out loud. 
    He was clearly flustered and not sure what to say.  Sam did the smart  thing.  He said nothing and busied himself with the ritual of building drinks  for them. 


     Eliza gazed up at night sky.  A park at night was still one of her favorite  places to be.  This park was near the edge of town and very peaceful at  night.  Unlike some of the larger cities she'd lived in, there was no  overwhelming sense of danger and despair here.  The city park faded into a  state park with state maintained camping and facilities.  She turned from the  well marked city area onto a dimmer and more over grown path that led to  the climbing rocks.  The climbing rocks where a major reason she'd  picked this town to live in.  She liked the "hunting" opportunities that city  life  offered, but loved the wilder country and loved rock climbing, especially at  night, under the silver glow of a full moon.  That was good.  Very good.
     Once she turned off the main path, she accelerated to the climbing rocks  and scurried up the sheer face with the alacrity of fly on a wall.  So familiar  with the route, she spent the climb time considering her conversation with  Sam, tonight.  She'd realized that she was making him too nervous.  He was  still convalescing and the concept of Satanists and vampires was not an easy  concept to accommodate to.  "I can be a proper lady, when I have to," she  mused. She giggled.  "I just hate having to." 
    She stretched back and looked into the inky depths of the sky.  There was  no moon, but the stars provided more than enough illumination for her  sensitive vision.  She felt the warm glow of the evenings Pernod and the  even warmer glow of Sam's admiring glances, even though he'd been the  perfect gentleman.  A comment he'd made caused her to think that it was  more than the fact that she was a vampire that was making him stand-offish.   He had this archaic concept of not mixing business and pleasure.  Eliza  shook her head.  Why not mix business and pleasure.  If she didn't mix  business and pleasure, she'd almost never eat! 
    Thinking back to her five year stay in the desert, she'd even managed to  eat there.  No, it had not been fun, but it had been necessary.  She  remembered how she looked when she came out of the desert.  Her hair had  been almost down to her waist, dirty and matted, and she'd been under 95 pounds.  Her nails  were broken, cheeks sunken in, and frankly, she was a physical wreck.  She  wandered across a road one night, as she was hunting for something warm  blooded to eat.  She no longer gave in to desperation.  She knew it was only  a matter of time, and hunger didn't seem to be able to kill her anyway.  One  of the joys of being a vampire was being able to starve to "death" without  dying.  Wandering across that road, and fixated her on it and she'd simply followed it.  Her way out was less planned than her way in.
    She remembered the first time.  She been hunting and passed out from  hunger and weakness.  The desert is not a great place to find an abundance  of warm blooded meals.  She kept her wits about her enough to crawl to a  outcropping of rock and to roll into a shaded area.  The intense sunlight very  well may have killed her and she was more than aware of that.
    Actually, that had been her original intent, but she did have a well  developed sense of self-preservation and just giving up and letting go,  while it seemed like a good idea, was just something she couldn't do.  That  first  time, she awakened with excruciating pain in her cheek.  Reacting with  instinctive swiftness, she'd struck and felt the hot wash of blood in her  mouth.  What followed was neither conscious nor pretty, and when she came  to her senses, she realized that she'd just drained a vulture and consumed  most of it's putrid flesh.  The smell was making her gag and the concept of eating a  carrion consuming creature was filling her with self-loathing.
    She shuddered remembering that, but it wasn't the worst thing she'd done  to survive.  Five years.  She knew that now.  In the desert, time blurred and a  week, a month, a year, it was all the same.  The seasons seemed similar.   The days seemed similar.  It was all the same.  Night followed day, and day  followed night.  The moon and her needs were the only real indicator of the  passage of time and after the first dozen or so, they began to blend together.   It was almost as if she could feel the world spinning around the sun and  wasn't really part of it, except for the need to kill and consume something  alive. 
    She'd hated herself.

     She jerked upright.  A faint glow indicated the sun would be rising soon.   She stretched, trying to get a nasty kink out of her shoulder.  Sleeping on rock  was not the smartest thing a girl can do.  Standing up, she looked around.   At least a half hour before sun up.  No problem getting home in plenty of  time.  She stepped off the climbing rock, into empty space.  The initial rush  of air and the feeling of absolute weightlessness was, as always a thrill.   "This may be the best thing about being me," she thought.  "It can't get much  better than this."  She landed light as a feather and two blinks later was  standing in the alley behind her apartment. 
    The sounds of an awakening city met her ears.  In the distance, she could  hear the rumble of a garbage truck and the tinny sound of the cans being  emptied.  The lights across the street, the ones that were in the open, turned  off as the first rays of the sun hit them.  She sighed and let a momentary  depression wash over her.  So different, yet so much the same.  The constant  dance of life an death, the hunter and the hunted.  Would it ever end?  A  flash of insight, a momentary vision of her own mangled body, twisted,  broken, limbless and headless, filler her mind. It was so real, she could smell  it.
    She staggered and steadied herself against the brick wall of her building.   Her stomach heaved and she grabbed her mouth to keep from throwing up.   Sinking to her knees, she found herself sobbing.  "What's wrong with me?   What's wrong with me?"

       She had to move.  The sun was killing her.  She couldn't just give up and let all she was end like this.  She struggle to a sitting position and tried to focus. "Mommy, are you ok?" Sofye asked. 
    Eliza squinted and blinked.  One ray of sunlight had been hitting her in the face.  The curtain and been pushed back a little and there was a crack through which the afternoon sun was shining.  She groaned.  "Yea, I'm ok.  What time is it?"
    "It's three o'clock, Mom.  Are you sure you're ok?  You don't really look good."
    "Could you pull that curtain shut for me?  I really don't feel too good.  I didn't sleep well.   Bad dreams, I think...."
    Pulling the crack on the curtain shut, Sofye turned towards Eliza.  "You have bad dreams, too?"  She shook her head.  "That's the worst.  You wake up feeling all dragged out and like it was really happening.  What were you dreaming about, Mommy?
    Eliza lied back down and pulled the light sheet up to her chin.  "Umm.. The desert, I think.  That ray of sun in my face started it, I think."  She grimaced.  That sounded good but she didn't really believe it herself.  That has been part of it, but she knew there was more.  "Give me a couple more hours, ok?" 
    "No problem, Mom.  I was studying, anyway."
    Even though Sofye was on spring break, she still did home study.  She had really good grades and she worked hard for them.  She'd spent most of a day crying when she only got an A.  She wanted the A+.  She'd tried to talk Otaktay into letting her do extra credit to bring her grade up, but he'd refused.  He'd told her, in the real world, you took your shot and lived with the results.  Once a day is over, it's history, he'd told her.  She cried like her heart was broken and he'd held her.  He'd held her, but he hadn't changed her grade.
    Sofye leaned over and kissed the now sleeping Eliza on the forehead.  "Day, day, Mom," she said smiling.  Her "click, click" on the computer keys did not disturb Eliza's slumbers, much more peaceful, now.

    Sam Burns grunted and eased himself down into his office chair.  Glad to be off medical leave, getting back "in the saddle" was still a chore.  There were some phone messages, nothing urgent, and the steaming cup of coffee beckoned to him.  Sipping the coffee, he mused about his meeting with Eliza.  He was actually glad he had the voice recording.  At least that proved that she had really been there and it wasn't all a figment of his imagination. 
    Since Eliza's last visit, the night he'd made the recording, he'd done more research.  It became obvious that the Deacon was "bad news" and had connections to the town's most influential men, public and otherwise.  Normally, at this point, he call for help from the Feds, but there was this minor problem.  Her name was Eliza and it didn't take a genius to realize that federal involvement in a case concerning a vampire could end up being very bad for said vampire.  She'd saved his life.  No question about it, if she'd not stepped in, he'd be worm food.  Detective Burns' code of honor would never let him betray someone who'd saved his life.  The concept would simply not be entertained. 
    "Hey Burns! You ready to get you ass in gear?  Place has been crazy, and being short handed hasn't helped."
    "Yea, Captain, I'm ready.  The first couple of days was nice, but I was bored out of my skull after five days.  If you don't mind, I think I'll skip any more medical leave."
    They both chuckled. "Been there and done that.  I know exactly what you mean.  Here," the captain said, throwing a stack of open cases on Detective Burns desk.  "This will help you readjust."
    Sam looked at the pile and grimaced."Thanks a bunch Cap.  Love you too."
    "You need anything, just let me know Burns."  The captain returned to his office with a smug grin on his face.  Things would get back to normal now that Burns was back, and his desk looked much better with that stack of open cases on Burns desk, rather than his.  Life was good again.