According to his dad's journal, vampires had been through some of the worst epidemics in history. And apparently, during the days of the Black Plague, their biggest complaint had been rotten "food".

People fear what they can't understand and harm what they fear.

Vlad twisted his wrist, pinching his fingers together, spinning the bronze coin on the table. When it fell, he picked it up and did it again, counting. Thirty-two times it had fallen Slayer Society up. Twenty-two times it was down.

Dude, you're a vampire. EVERY day sucks for you.

Joss's ears perked up. He loved libraries. Nowhere else in the world felt so safe and homey. Nowhere else smelled like books and dust and happy solitude quite like a library did.

Vlad had found himself longing to encounter those of his own kind, to travel to the streets of Elysia-that far away world, but after a while it seemed more of a fairy tale than anything else. Like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, only with fangs.

Vlad's heart sank into his stomach, then squeezed its way down his leg and popped out of the hole in his shoe, where it struck the floor and broke.