I looked out over a dead city. The fires below gave a false sense of daylight, but it was still an hour before dawn. Smoke spiraled up from the flames, gray and black, hiding the stars and the moon. The fires were the old buildings that were now empty. That was where most of the vampires stayed during the day. Some thought that the fires would drive them out of the city. Van did. "You can eliminate the rats by burning out their holes," he told me once. He believed it, therefore I was supposed to believe it, too. But it had not worked so far.

Van was down there somewhere, among the abandoned buildings, riding the abandoned streets of this abandoned city. And I was up here alone, waiting. But not as alone as I had been only a few months before. Now I had little Sara to talk to, to break the dreary silence, to think about, to plan for. We were going to name the baby after myself. If it was a boy, we would name him for Van's father.

Van worked every night almost, and on those nights I just sat at the window, watching, or reading the books I had found in the apartment when we moved in. This place was nicer than our last place. Bigger. Plenty of room for a family. We could have never afforded it on what Van made, but it was ours now. Most of the wealthy had retreated from the city a while back, to big, safe houses in the country with electronic security devices. Those left behind took over the better apartments. The only security we had was hidden under our pillows at night.

I was tired, but sometimes I stayed up to wait for Van, so I could sleep with him. I hate sleeping alone. He would be home soon. Dawn was almost here. A hint of pale morning touched the horizon, out beyond the ragged skyline.

Van kept strange hours because he was a hunter. Hunters have no clue how akin to the vampires they really are. Both sleep the day away, huddled in the dark. Both prowl the alleyways at night.

Suddenly, as if summoned by my thoughts, he was at the door, letting himself in with his keys. "Thought I told you to keep the sofa in front of the door when I'm gone," he said irritably.

He locked the door behind him, two dead bolts and a chain lock, and then he pushed the sofa across the doorway, as if that would keep them out.

"We should leave the city," I said quietly, watching him.