She poured herself a bowl of Count Chocula - she'd gone grocery shopping on the way home, and the chocolate vampire on the front of the box had sent her into a fit of giggles. How could she not buy a box or two? She giggled to herself again.

Mary: "Right- early, early breakfast, then nap. Or else before I know it I'll be laughing at James' jokes."

She finished the cereal, put on some quiet music and then laid down on the couch for a nap. The late afternoon sun filtered through the windows, creating a perfect warm spot for sleeping. She sighed contentedly and drifted off in a matter of minutes, her head filling with dreams of the final painting she needed to do in her latest series.

When she awoke, the room was dark. It felt like she had only been asleep for a minute, but hours had passed. Mary sat up, stretching, feeling a blanket pulling away from her. She looked down at it. It was the blanket from her bed again - Emily must have been home, but she was gone now. The house was silent.

It was too late to go back to the studio now. Mary used to like working there at night, but with all that had been going on, she didn't quite feel safe enough to be able to let herself go and lose herself in the process of creating art. Not even the commissioned, soulless art that Andy so liked to sell. She sighed, vowed to make time for work over the weekend, and then gathered up her books. She had been doing so much research and vampires and other things that go bump in the night, but it was cluttered in her head.

She spent the next several hours cross referencing her sources and notes. A tiny part of her was almost sad that the blue vampire had already been caught. There was something about the thrill of live, honest to goodness field research that just electrified her - although a nightly dose of adrenaline might not be the safest drug of choice. Not to mention the possibility of becoming someone's dinner.