"Even my baseball wallpaper is gone," James says when we've reached his room. I study the place where I spent hours trying to beat him at all of his video games. Back then the floor was always littered with sports cards and electronic wires, but now there's nothing but dust. It used to be crammed with bookshelves, but now the only piece of furniture is a full-size bed covered with a navy blue spread. Unlike everything else in the house, it looks new.

"Sophie, what happened?" James asks.

As I take a seat on the bed next to Neville, I search for words that will make it sound less insane, but then realize that they don't exist. So I calmly explain the facts about the particularly demented way that Vlad has decided to proceed. The reactions are as expected.

"Ha-ha," James says flatly. "No, seriously."

"Seriously," I say. "He shoved his way into my house this morning to backhandedly propose."

"But why - "

"He thinks it will make him Mervaux," I say and then look to where Neville has put his head in his hands. "Will it?"

"If you were who he thought you were, I suppose," Neville says. "Oh, I should never have encouraged his delusions."

I'm thinking that that may actually be the understatement of the year, when James clears his throat.

"Uh . . . did you tell him no?" he asks.

I give him the death look to end all death looks. "Yes, James, I told him no, but for some reason he wouldn't accept 'Thanks, but no thanks.' I finally got him to agree to give me a week to think things over, but who knows if he'll stick to that." I turn to Neville. "What exactly happens at a vampire marriage?"

"The usual. You exchange blood before witnesses who will testify to the courts that it was done properly."

Right. Totally the usual.

"But he can't marry you unless you are a vampire," Neville says. "Human-vampire marriages are forbidden."

This gives me a tiny smidgeon of hope. "Violet said that you cannot make someone a vampire unless they agree."

"Ha! No one enforces that. Take me, for example. There I am, fresh from a wonderful performance as Oberon and feeling generous, so I agree to let the fan who has been sitting in the front row for the past ten shows back for a chat and an autograph. And what does she do? The crazy lady bites me. The next thing I know I'm staring up at her and she's saying that she has given me a very special gift and that now I am something called Vandervelde and she will make sure that I am offered a spot in the Danae because she has very powerful connec - "

He stops when he sees my face, which I'm sure is leeched of all color now that he's snipped the small thread of hope I was clinging to. He does his best to train his expression into something encouraging.

"But no, he is not supposed to, and I imagine he will not want to risk the Danae's displeasure. They do like enforcing rules even if they themselves do not follow them," he says before adding more brightly, "Worst-case scenario, he does make you a vampire, but you will still have to agree to marry him. Forced marriages have been held as unlawful in the vampire community for at least three decades."

"You mean centuries," James corrects.

"No, decades," Neville says cheerfully and then gives me a thumbs-up.

Yet another compelling reason for my Why I Should Not Become a Vampire list. The giddiness that came from finding out that everyone was still alive is starting to fade, slowly replaced by a simmering panic. A week is not much time. I need a plan. I need a plan and a big laser gun that takes out any vampires who want to marry me.

"We'll protect you," James says firmly, and while I admit that for a moment my heart melts like a microwaved Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, hiding behind vampire bunkers is only going to get me so far.

"There are five of us, and three of him if you include Ashley and Devon," I say. "There has to be a way that we can get him out of our lives for good."

At first no one says anything, and I wonder how I can be the only one who thinks Vlad has worn out his welcome on this planet.

"Before we can plan anything," Neville says, "we need to deal with - " The gong of the doorbell interrupts him, and the room falls silent; it's probably too much to hope that someone in this crowd ordered a pizza. One second Neville is sitting beside me, and the next he is at one of the small windows, leaning as far forward as it will allow. "I cannot tell from here," he says, "but I find it hard to imagine that he would ring the doorbell before coming to kill us."

I'm about to say that I wouldn't be so sure, but footsteps are already thundering up the stairs. James and Neville flank the door on either side, alert and ready to strike. Whoever is on the other side knocks lightly.

"Are you in there?" Violet chirps. "There is a woman at the door with a very large container. She is asking if Sophie is here, and would like to speak to James as well."

James looks at me questioningly.

"Um, yeah. Marcie knows you're living here," I say and then hold up my hands when he seems perturbed. "Sorry, but I kind of thought Vlad took precedence on the list of things to worry about."

Before he can answer, Violet knocks again. "Hello? I have told her I would return with a decision on whether or not she is to be admitted."

I'm sure that went over well. "We probably have a better chance of getting Vlad to leave town than getting Marcie to leave the door," I tell them.

"Okay," James says. "We'll be down in a second."

When we open the door, Marcie is doing her best to sweep fallen leaves off the porch with the side of her foot while holding a large foil tray of what I would guess is her famous baked ziti. As soon as she sees James she places it on the ledge and gives him a hug, rambling the whole time about how she knows he is a teenager now but she is going to do it anyway.

"I was so sorry to hear about your parents," she says when she pulls away. "Are you all right? Do you need anything? Sophie should have told me that you were back."

"I'm doing okay," James says, a little dazzled. "Thank you for the cake. And the card."

"Oh, you were always so polite," she says, and then looks at me for the first time. "Unlike some children I know."

So this is how she will wreak her vengeance; she will embarrass me to death. There's no great excuse for why I wouldn't have mentioned this to her, so I play the dumb teenager card. "Sorry," I say. "I forgot."

Marcie says nothing, just picks up the tray of ziti. "Can I put this in the kitchen?" she asks James, trying to peer around him.

"I'll do it," I say, eager to escape. After grasping the tray by its edges, I do my best to telegraph a message to James. If she steps foot in the house, we'll be lucky if she thinks James is a vampire rather than a serial killer.

When I get to the kitchen, I flip the wall switch. Yellow light floods the room, exposing a grimy tile floor and a row of empty shelves to my left, their contact paper curling up at the edges. I set the ziti down next to a familiar maroon cake pan - Marcie's previous offering - just as the refrigerator rattles to life. I stare at the metal handle, suddenly gripped by a perverse curiosity. After a few futile seconds, I give in, and then wish that I hadn't. One dark red pouch sits by the meat tray, looking lonely and viscous.

"Marcie went back next door," James says from behind me, and I whirl around to find him leaning against the entryway, watching me calmly. I slam the door shut, embarrassed to be caught rudely poking around in his refrigerator, but he just asks me if I want a drink. "I have water. Well, water and . . . I have water." While I'm still struggling to overcome my shame, he moves to the cabinet and grabs a novelty mug that says, "Don't Let the Bastards Get You Down." After filling it, he hands it to me. "This was left here, by the way. It's not a personal motto."

I take a sip. The water has a metallic edge, and I'm pretty sure that's dust I'm tasting on the rim, but I am nervous enough that I drink it anyway. "So how were you able to get rid of Marcie?"

"She spotted Neville and Marisabel on the stairs, and I told her we were busy working on a group project for school," he says. "I don't think she really bought it, but I still have enough sympathy points that she wasn't going to challenge me. But you might not want to ever go home."

I can only imagine. I look around for a place to sit down, but there are no chairs, only a precarious-looking folding table set up in one corner. Crossing my fingers that it doesn't collapse beneath me, I jump up and joke that maybe I could stay here.

He takes a seat beside me. "Why not?" he says. "Everyone else is. Just don't say that you want the bedroom with the purple curtains."

"I would definitely want the one with the bed," I say and then realize how that sounds. I wonder if I will ever be able to flirt intentionally, as opposed to just accidentally.

"Really?" he says, a little too innocently.

I can do this - I can say something flirtatious and mean to. "Or maybe not. You were always horrible at sharing your things," I tease, but then realize that was just an insult said with an eyebrow wiggle.

James leans in close enough that our arms touch and he smiles, slow and deliberate. "I've gotten better."

I think all of my internal organs just evaporated. "Why do you have a bed if you don't sleep?" I blurt. "It looks new."

"Yeah, that's not where I thought this conversation was going at all," he says before settling back against the wall. "I ordered it. I mean, I sit on it. And sometimes if I close my eyes and lie still for a long time I can . . . blank out for a little bit. It feels like sleeping." He rubs his eyes. "I guess I should get used to it."

In the midst of all the fighting, and preparing, and fielding my stepmother, we haven't had a chance to think about Vlad's big party revelation. "Do you want to talk about it?" I ask.

"What's there to talk about?" he asks bitterly. "I was stupid enough to believe Vlad, and then I was stupid enough to follow Vlad. It serves me right."

"But that doesn't mean - "

"It's fine, Sophie," he says in a way that suggests it's not fine at all.

Unsure of what to say, I look around the room. The previous owner left a decorative plate over the window. Pumpkins dance around the rim, and the central figure is an apron-wearing turkey. Someone went a little crazy at a Yankee Peddler Party.

"I should take that down," he says. "It's weird. And sometimes I think it's staring at me." Realizing that he's answered an unspoken thought again, he shoots me an apologetic look. "Sorry. Your opinion on the plate was very strong."

It's a little eerie how much I've started to take the mind-dropping in stride. "There are worse things, you know."

"Than inheriting turkey apron plates?"

"No! Worse things than being a . . . well, you know."

He doesn't answer at first, and I assume I've tried to push too far again. But then he says, "Like what?"

I hate it when people ask for examples. "Well, you could be dead dead, for one thing. And don't even say that would be better," I order before he has a chance to say anything stupid.

"I wasn't."

"Good. And you could be one of those vampires who looks like Batboy and has to sleep in the dirt of his homeland."

His lips twitch into the tiniest smile. "Tell me more, vampire expert."

I choose to ignore the subtle mockery in his voice as long as this makes him feel better. "You could get all bumpy when you want to, er, drink." I watch him, nervous that he can sense my lingering uneasiness with his new diet, and then point to my forehead. "Like a Klingon. Or an allergy victim."

"You sure do know a lot about vampires," he says, leaning close enough that our shoulders touch again.

"I know a normal amount," I say, embarrassed and more than a little distracted. "I can find you twenty people who know more. Most of them have book deals." I suddenly remember something else. "Oh! Oh! You could've lost your soul."

"Lost my soul?"

"Yeah. And while it doesn't completely rule out romance, it makes it trickier."

"We wouldn't want that."

"Nope," I agree before realizing that the atmosphere has suddenly turned . . . crackly? I don't know. What I do know is that his eyes are warm as he leans forward; this is either a kiss or a very slow head-butt. And as much as I would like to make out right now on this card table, I don't think that I can add another Serious Life Development to the pile. Not with everything else swirling around me.

"Vlad wants to marry me!" I blurt when he is only inches away.

He pulls back, obviously uncertain how to react. "Congratulations?" he tries.

"No, I mean, I want to figure out this Vlad thing before I can think of . . . anything else," I say.

"Oh," he says. "Okay."

"Right."

"Yes, right."

There's a moment of awkward silence. "So . . . any great ideas? I think that we should tell him there's a one-day boot sale in an abandoned warehouse and then pour molten lava on him from way high up in the rafters."

James just looks at me with an expression that I am choosing to interpret as admiration. "You are an interesting person, Sophie McGee," he says. "A strange, interesting person."

Says the teenage vampire who only buys furniture he doesn't actually need. "What's your idea then? Preferably something that can be done by Monday."