Chapter One

It was a high-pitched scream that woke Elvi. Piercing and full of terror, it ripped her from sleep and had her moving before she was quite awake. She started up abruptly only to curse and drop back down when her head slammed into the wooden lid of the coffin.

Groaning at the pain vibrating through her skull, Elvi closed her eyes against the stars dancing before them and pressed a hand against her forehead. She'd really cracked herself good and would have liked to clasp her head in both hands and roll around in agony for a moment, but the casket wouldn't allow it.

And then a second terrified shriek reminded her of why she was awake.

She reached out with the hand not holding her head and gave the coffin lid a shove that sent it flying open. She then had to release her head to get up. Climbing out of a coffin was a two-handed job, and ridiculously strenuous first thing in the morning. Especially before her first bag of blood.

Elvi cursed her way out of the contraption, her bare feet slapping on the hardwood floor as she hurried out of her room without even bothering to grab a robe to cover the white cotton nightgown she wore. Another scream cut the air as she raced up the hall. A fourth was being issued just as she burst into Mabel's room. Elvi slammed the door open, uncaring that it crashed into the wall and probably left a lovely hole.

She spotted Mabel at once, standing on the bed in her robe, backed against the wall, silver hair a chaotic mass around her head and eyes wide with panic. The woman was waving a body brush wildly in the air at a bat that was swooping just as wildly around the room near

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