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Chapter 1

They called it You Bet Your Life Park, because that's what you were doing if you lingered inside the park after sundown, betting your life that you'd get out again It had been a nice quiet neighborhood once upon a tih-rise condos enclosed the park on three sides Visitors to the city often res didn't have any s A large outdoor pool was located in thethere in the suaroceries, ice, and gas to those who had need of such things

Large signs were posted at regular intervals throughout the park warning visitors to vacate the premises well before sunset Sns Duain, because the condos and apartments that encompassed You Bet Your Life Park were a sanctuary for the Undead A supernaturally charged force field surrounded the outer perimeter of the apart the vah the city

Regan Delaney didn't have any idea how the force field worked or what it was made of All she kneas that it kept the vaainst the law to destroy vampires these days, unless you found one outside the park, but the force field made that impossible Any vampire ished to leave the park and move to a protected area in another part of the country had to apply for a permit and be transported, by day, by a coan found the hardest to accept was that vaers, elephants, and marine turtles, and as such, they had to be protected froht was ludicrous!

It hadn't always been so, of course In her grandfather's day, vampires had been looked upon as vermin, the scum of the earth Bounties had been placed on them and they had been hunted ruthlessly Many of the known vao, the bleeding hearts had started crying about how sad it was to kill all those poorhearts argued, even vas and deserved to be treated with respect To Regan's astonishrown and vaiven immunity, of a sort, and put into protective custody in places like You Bet Your Life Park And since the Undead could no longer hunt in the city, the law had decided to put the vaood use For a brief period of tiiven to the vampires

The thought still h she had no love for ood conscience, condone throwing the In less than a year, the sa-heart liberals who had felt sorry for the poor,sorry for the poor unfortunate criminals who had become their prey, and so a ne had been passed and criain disposed of more humanely, by lethal injection

Unfortunately, the ne had left the Undead with no ready food supply In order to appease their hunger and keep thereed to donate whole blood to the vampire community until synthetic plasma could be developed In a fewcalled Synthetic Type O that was reported to taste and s A variety of blood types soon followed, though Type O remained the most popular

Taking a deep breath, Regan shook off thoughts of the past and stared at the lifeless body sprawled at her feet Apparently, one of the va on Synthetic Type O She felt a wave of pity for the dead ed ht even have been handsome Now his face was set in a rictus of horror His heart, throat, and liver had been savagely ripped away, and there wasn't enough blood left in his body to fill an eyedropper The corpse had been found under a bush by a couple who had been leaving the Park just before sunset Froht before

"Hey, Reggie"

Regan looked away froeant Michael Flynn Flynn was a good cop, honest, hardworking, and straightforward, a rarity in this day and age He was a handsome man in his mid-thirties, with a shock of dark red hair and a dione out on a number of dates with Mike in the last few months He was fun to be with and she enjoyed his coer to take their relationship to the next level, but she wasn't ready for that, not yet She cared for him She admired him She loved him, but she wasn't in love with him It was because he was the best friend she had in the city that she didn't want to co to bed with hiood friendship ruined when two people decided to sleep together

"So," Flynn said, "definitely a vaht?"

"Looks that way," Regan agreed, but she wasn't sure She had seen vampire kills before The complete lack of blood pointed to a vampire, but the fact that the victim's heart, throat, and liver had been ripped out disturbed her She had never known a va but blood from its prey

"So, you about through here?" Flynn asked

"What? Oh, sure" She wasn't a cop and she had no real authority on the scene, but in the past, whenever the depart, they had asked her to come out and take a look She had been a vaood one, but that had been back in the good old days, before vampires became "protected" and put her out of a job Fortunately, she had a tidy little inheritance froer if she didn't find another job soon

"I'll call you next week," Flynn said with a wink

Regan nodded, then et to work It gave her an edgy feeling, being in the park after the sun went down, though she supposed there were enough cops in the area to keep her reasonably safe froood to be part of a criood to feel needed Still, she couldn't help feeling guilty that she would be out of work in a heartbeat as soon as they caught the killer

She remembered the first time the department had requested her expertise Even now, years later, the thought made her wince with embarrassment After all the classes she had taken at the Police Acade, but no a could have prepared her for the reality of seeing that first fresh vampire kill At the Academy, the bodies had been dummies and, while they had been realistic, they hadn't coan had turned away and covered herin vain to keep her dinner down It had been Michael who had come to her aid, who had offered her a handkerchief and assured her that it happened to everyone sooner or later They had been friends froht forward