She walks alone at night, when the cold moonlight can caress her skin and there's nobody there to see. She stays in the shadows, hiding from the ones who want to erase her from the earth.

She was here before them. She will be here long after they are gone.

She wears a cross on a long silver chain around her neck. It throws them off. They believe the old superstitions, the ones she helped start years and years ago. They don't think that a vampire will be hiding in this small girl's body, the one with muddy hair who wears a cross and tucks her head deep in the shadow of a cotton hood.

What do they expect? A long black coat? Red eyes and shark's teeth?

Her needle-thin fangs stay quite hidden behind pale lips, her moon-pale skin buried beneath layers of faded denim and cotton. She is invisible.

But some of these vampire seekers, they've gotten smarter. They've learned to look in unexpected places. The little boy in the candy shop, sucking on licorice; the thirty-something man in a car with tinted windows. The girl with muddy hair and a cross swinging around her neck.

They've learned to look for signs. Sunglasses in the dead of night. Sweatshirts in the heart of summer. Umbrellas on cloudless days.

And when they strike, there's no getting away. Vampires are no stronger than any human, no faster. Their only advantage lies in their deadly teeth. In a way, they are even more vulnerable than humans, with their guns and long gleaming knives. Skin that burns in the sun and eyes that sear under the slightest light.

Now she is alone. Now there is no one to turn to for help. And the seekers know it.