“Where’d you get this?” he snapped, oblivious to the comb-over hanging from his head like an open pot lid.

“In my desk, out there.” I pointed to the cubicles beyond his door.

“Well, Mr. Gomez-I mean, Felix,” he camouflaged his distress with a smile, “I wouldn’t be too concerned about this.”

“It looks serious to me. I’ve been in this business a while,” I lied. “British Nuclear Fuels. DOD. The EPA. Lawrence Livermore.”

Dr. Wong strained to keep his toothy grin while his eyes seemed ready to burst like the bulbs of overheated thermometers. “This summary is nothing to worry about, believe me.”

I offered my hand. “Then where should I file it?”

“I’ll take care of this.” He stepped back to the safe, peeled off the magnetic placard, and flipped it over. The reverse side read: SECRET OPEN.

Dr. Wong grasped the combination dial. He looked over his shoulder at me. “That’s all. I’ll take care of this.”

At last I was on a hot trail. In that safe sat the Tiger Team report. Gilbert Odin could pull his head off the chopping block; and I could wrap this case up, pocket my fee, and go back to California.

I left Rocky Flats, ate dinner-red enchiladas smothered with bull blood-and returned to the office late that evening. The building was empty and dark. Putting on a pair of latex gloves, I entered and removed my contact lenses. In the shadowy interior, everything looked remarkably clear to my vampire vision.

Like any resourceful private detective I carried a locksmith’s kit and readily picked the lock of Dr. Wong’s office door. The room still smelled like foot spray. I walked directly to the safe and inspected it. A chain looped from the safe’s lifting shackle and ran through an eyebolt along the baseboard. I didn’t see any wires for an alarm.

This was going to be easy. Closing my eyes to focus my attention, I placed my hands on the safe and delicately turned the combination dial, first to the right and then to the left. I heard and felt the faint clicks when the notches of each tumbler rotated under the bolt-release mechanism. Discerning the subtle differences between the three tumblers, I lined up the first tumbler, then the middle, then the third. Pressing the release button, I twisted the handle.

The safe clicked, and the door swung open.

I was as heady with pride as if I’d hit a home run.

But wait. Inside I found a box of Little Debbie chocolate snack cakes, a can of foot spray, and a dog-eared Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, dated 1986. Stacked to the right in folders marked SECRET were documents detailing rad-contaminated biological waste. These papers were dated from last year and described mice, pigeons, and a cat found dead inside the Building 776 glove boxes, an incident of no relevance to me. Next to these I found my bogus incident summary but nothing else about the nymphomania or the Tiger Team report.

Damn. My home run had just turned into a pop fly.

After closing the safe, I shed the gloves, replaced my contacts, and drove home, sour with disappointment. I could think of nothing better than to snuggle into the comfort of a warm coffin and forget the day. I unlocked my apartment and leaned wearily against the front door to push it open.

A stream of cayenne pepper spray splashed my face. My eyes burned. In the instant before I clamped them shut, I glimpsed the brilliant-red aura of my attacker. I bent over, gagging, and rubbed my face to wipe away the searing liquid. Something hard slammed into the back of my head. My thoughts exploded into a thousand colored sparks that quickly dissolved into blackness.

A BARKING DOG WOKE ME. I opened my eyes-they burned. I reeked of pepper spray. Pushing off the carpet, I sat up and noticed the morning sun trickle around the edges of my window blinds. Outside, the dog finally shut up.

A bent tire iron lay on the carpet. Somebody had whacked me with a blow that would’ve killed a human, and I’m sure that’s what they had intended for me.

With a headache that felt like an electric bell ringing in my frontal lobes, I staggered to the front door and locked the deadbolt.

I retreated into the bathroom to treat my wounds and wash up. I’d been hit so hard that my contacts had been knocked out. If I could’ve seen my reflection, I’m sure my swollen eyes would’ve looked like stewed prunes. Dried blood flaked from my scalp. On my head, I felt a crease atop a lump the size of my thumb. When I laid the tire iron against my head-only barely touching the tender flesh-the crease fit into the bent part of the tire iron. The angle of the blow coming from behind meant my attacker was probably right-handed.

Right-handed like the man who had come after me with the M16. Pranging me across the skull with this tire iron would’ve seemed a practical tactic to a man of his large, muscular size.

I sniffed the handle of the iron, smelling talcum powder and latex residue, then tossed it aside. The attacker had worn disposable gloves, so unless I discovered his name or Social Security number engraved on the metal, I couldn’t expect to find much of a clue on it as to his identity or motive.

He knew plenty about me, though. My home address. What kind of car I drove. For now, I was sure he thought I was dead, or close to it. Once he figured out that I was on my feet, he would attack again.

I put on a fresh pair of contacts and folded a compress over the wound. My head throbbed with an ache that four tablets of aspirin weren’t able to quell.

In the second bedroom, my desk had been smashed apart. Shattered drawers and torn folders lay scattered on the floor. The computer power cords and modem cable dangled over the desk, where my hard drive and backup had been. What he didn’t know was that he had taken a decoy.

Though that wasn’t exactly reason to gloat. There had been two attempts on my life-as close to a life as a vampire had-and my apartment had been pillaged.

I checked the kitchen and found my laptop safe behind the false panel in the pantry. I still had my files and I was still alive. The lump on my head started to throb.

What hurt worse than the lump or the nauseating headache was the humiliation of getting KO’d by the human goon who had ransacked my place. Being a vampire, I was heir to the legacy of the most feared ghouls in history, Dracula and Nosferatu. I was supposed to be the terrorizer, not the terrorized.

The attack left me obsessing. Bob Carcano had cautioned me about my refusal to drink human blood, accusing me of ignoring my vampire nature. Was he right? What consequences did that bring? My wounds hadn’t healed overnight, which worried me. Last year, I’d been shot in the back and by the following morning, I was fit enough for my Pilates class.

Had the lack of human blood in my diet affected my recuperative powers? Or was it my guilt? Maybe, too, my vampire senses had dulled, and that’s why my attacker had gotten the better of me. Or not. I wasn’t sure.

Dizzy and spent, I went into my bedroom and pulled the Murphy bed from the wall, exposing my coffin. I climbed in and spent the rest of the day listening to the built-in stereo while I medicated myself into a dreamy haze with ibuprofen and vodka tonics.

When the buzz wore off I remembered Bob’s invitation to The Hollow Fang party for tonight. A vampire party. They’re either as sedate as an art reception-I’ve been to one where the guests critiqued watercolors and noshed on scabs they picked off the corpse centerpiece-or they’re as raucous as an orgy choreographed by Attila the Hun. I wasn’t in the mood for highbrow conversation and scabs-or orgies, for that matter-but if I stayed here, I’d be looking at the same damn ceiling I’d been staring at since morning. Plus I should meet members of the local nidus. Can’t have too many undead friends.