Amber woke up and found it hard to move, it took her a while to realize where she was, and that she had been chained to the bed, Talbot came in with a tray of food.

"What happened?" Amber asked.

"I told you this was a terrible idea, and now look at where you are," he said.

"What happened? What's going on?" Amber asked.

"2 weeks without food, what do you expect to happen? Last night, you passed out in the cellar, Brom found out you'd gotten loose and chained your wrists to the bed as well," Talbot said.

"Did I get you in trouble with Brom?" Amber asked.

"A little, the bloody fool took out a pair of surgical scissors and hacked my face up," Talbot explained.

Amber looked at him for a while, looking for strange markings from the scissors.

"I don't see anything," she said.

"Another power of the vampires, for some reason, when he hacked up my face, there was some blood, but then the marks disappeared, instantly," Talbot told her.

"I'm sorry I got you into trouble with Brom, I didn't think I'd drag you into this," Amber said.

"Well...I think we better concentrate more on how we're going to get you out of here," Talbot said.

"Huh?"

"Well, Brom knows quite a number of the ruthless vampires around here, and you better believe me, you don't want to stick around for the party tonight," Talbot said.

"What's going to happen?" Amber asked.

"Well, in every one of Brom's parties, they bring in a mortal, and everyone takes turns drinking blood from them, until the point they're about to die, and then have the mortal drink from one of them...sort of a sacrifice, and you know what that makes you," Talbot said.

"Then what?" Amber asked.

"Then...they grab you, and put you down some grate in the street and by morning, you fry and turn to ashes, it's not good," Talbot said.

"So how are we going to get out of here?" Amber asked.

"TALBOT!"

"Uh-oh."

Brom came in the doorway and unchained Amber.

"Where we going?" Amber asked.

"There's going to be a party tonight, and you're going to be the center of attention," Brom said.

"And I'll bet I know why," Amber mumbled.

*************************************************************************************************

Amber looked on in shock, there must've been 40 vampires at the get-together, and she knew they all pretty much came for the same reason.

"All these mosquitos are going to bite into me? You sure there's enough to go around?" Amber asked Talbot.

"Don't worry, you remember what I said about being turned into a vampire for the sacrifice at dawn?" Talbot asked.

"So?" Amber asked.

"There's a way to kill them before dawn," Talbot said.

"How?" Amber asked.

"Follow me."

Talbot led her to a tower not too far from Brom's estate, in the basement of the tower was a long row of coffins.

"They all stay here?" Amber asked.

"Most of them, they're not too up on time as we are, I think we could slip in a warning about something that'll bring the sun up sooner and have them get back into their coffins," Talbot said.

"Then what?" Amber asked.

"On the roof of the tower is about 4 barrels of kerosene, we could pour it all over the coffins and set them on fire, it'll only kill them temporarily, but should be long enough to kill Brom," Talbot said.

"What's Brom got to do with this?" Amber asked.

"He'll be the one to turn you into the vampire, if we can kill him before dawn, it'll remove the curse, and you'll return to normal," Talbot explained.

"Let's go," Amber said.

********************************************************************

Talbot and Amber broke into the main room screaming for the vampires to get back in their coffins.

A female vampire saw Amber and grabbed her by the neck.

"What's the matter with you, little one?"

"The sun is coming up, we must return to our coffins before it's too late!" Talbot exclaimed.

"What do you mean? It's only 5:30, the sun doesn't come up for quite a while," another vampire said.

"Day is coming sooner now, the sun will be up within a matter of minutes, if we don't get back into our coffins, we are all doomed!" Amber said.

"Are you pulling our legs?" another vampire asked.

"Do you want to stick around and find out? Move!" Talbot exclaimed.

All the vampires hurried back over to the tower and shut up in their coffins, Talbot and Amber poured the kerosene all over and brought down a lantern, the building went up in flames in a mere matter of minutes. Just as they thought they had gotten away with it, Brom grabbed Talbot, snapped his neck, and threw him across the yard, then he grabbed Amber and shook her violently.

"You thought you could get away with this, did you? Now you pay!" he screamed.

*******************************************************************************

Off in a distance, Amber heard someone calling her name, she opened her eyes to see Duncan shaking her to wake her up. At first she calmed down, but when she remembered where she was, she kicked him in the eye and jumped off the bed.

"Amber, what in the devil's gotten into you?" Duncan asked.

Amber didn't answer, and attempted getting out of the room, but Duncan grabbed her and threw her back, Amber ran around the room with him following, until they both fell when the dresser dropped on them.

"Amber, have you gone insane? What's going on?" Duncan asked.

Amber popped up under a pile of books with a cross in her hand.

"Amber..."

"Don't come near me!" she screamed.

"What?" Duncan asked.

"You heard me! Don't come near me!"

"Amber, what the devil's wrong with you?" Duncan asked.

However, it didn't take him long to realize she was on the verge of hysteria.

"Amber, tell me what's going on around here...I come in here because you're screaming like the living dead," Duncan said.

"Tell me something...what are you?" Amber asked.

"What?" Duncan asked.

"Your family history has a record of the Undead in it, are you one of them?" Amber asked.

"Amber, where did you get this bloody idea from?" Duncan asked.

"Joe told me how several of your ancestors haven't died because they're already dead, but they still walk the Earth, are you one of them?" Amber asked.

"Amber, I don't...wait a minute, wait a minute, you stay here and don't do anything drastic, I'll be back," Duncan said.

As Duncan headed out of the room, in came Richie.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"I have no idea, but I think I'm about to find out, you stay here with her and make sure she doesn't do anything any of us will regret, I'll be back in a minute," Duncan said.

******************************************************************************

Duncan kicked in Joe's door and hopped on the bed and grabbed him by his collar to get his attention.

"What's going on?" Joe asked.

"What have you been telling Amber?" Duncan asked.

"About what?" Joe asked.

"You know about what, what did you tell her about my family?" Duncan asked.

"Oh that...nothing, I was just messing with her mind," Joe said.

"Yeah and it worked too, she thinks I'm a vampire, now what the hell did you tell her?" Duncan asked.

"Nothing, that brat just came across your family tree records, and as it turns out, there are several people in there who don't have death dates who lived a loooooooooooooong time ago, so I just told her the only thing that would make sense, now can I go back to sleep?" Joe asked.

"Fine, I'll have to settle this one myself it looks like," Duncan said.

Duncan headed back into Amber's room to find Richie with her in his arms, trying to console her.

"Richie, if you don't mind, I have to speak with Amber alone," Duncan said.

Richie got up and stepped in the hall without saying a word, Duncan closed the door and turned to Amber, her face was bright red with tears rolling down her face.

"Hey now, none of that, now Amber, tell me what's going on here," Duncan said.

"Yesterday, I came across the records to your family tree, and every 7th relative has no death date meaning they didn't die, and you're the 7th relative in this generation," Amber explained.

"And you figured I was the same as all my other relatives...look Amber, yes some of my relatives have proven to be vampires, but I'm not one of them...I thought I proved that when I go out in the sunlight," Duncan said.

"But Joe said that by mixing and Immortal like you and an Immortal like the vampires, it's impossible to tell what will come out of it," Amber replied.

"Amber, there are a few things you need to know about Joe, one thing is when he finds someone he's not too fond of, he loves to pick at their brains, and you apparently are no acception. Now apparently I've only heard half of this whole shenanagin, what Joe told you, why don't you try telling me what you figured afterwards?" Duncan asked.

"Well...At first, I didn't want to believe him, so far just about everything he's told me's been a croc, but then I started thinking, so many myths of how to kill vampires have been false, maybe the one about being exposed to sunlight is too. And then I thought, you've known Richie for so long, if you were a vampire, he probably was one by now as well," Amber said.

"Listen Amber, my family tree is ancient, the last record was done 120 years ago, you can't go by it...and despite a bunch of myths on how to kill a vampire, the one about sunlight isn't false. And you've seen me enough times in daylight to know that if I was one, I would be dead by now...and as you can see, I'm not."

Amber didn't reply, she just rolled back her eyes and fell on the bed.

*************************************************************************************************

By 6:00 the next morning, the sun was already on its way up, the skies were light purple, which shone in through the windows. Amber woke up to see Richie standing next to the window.

"You came back."

"I never left, Mac told me what happened last night, after you passed out, I came in to see what the whole ruckus was about, after that I just stayed here all night waiting for you to wake up...there's just one thing I don't get," Richie said.

"What?" Amber asked.

"What was it that got you into that crazy frenzy last night?" Richie asked.

"A nightmare like you wouldn't believe, I dreamt that we were all stuck in a mixture of Dracula and Interview with a Vampire, only it was like I was Claudia, you were Louie, Duncan was Lestat, and we were trying to get away from him and the gang of the undead before sunrise," Amber said.

"No kidding, that's what you get for listening to Joe, I learned to stop listening to him a looooong time ago," Richie said.

"No kidding, I'm surprised Duncan listens to him half the time," Amber replied.

"There's only one more thing I want to know," Richie said.

"What's that?" Amber asked.

"How fruity did I look with fangs and a bad manicure?" Richie asked.

"Worse than you could imagine, and Duncan, he...he looked like his relative on the living room wall, only with a much better shave," Amber replied.

*************************************************************************************************

"Everyone get down here!" Duncan called.

"What's going on now?" Joe asked.

"I just got a call from Amanda, she's at the airport and she wants us to get there immediately, move!" Duncan said.

"Wonderful, I wonder what she'll say about this place when she sees it," Amber said.

"Anything but it's nice," Richie replied, jumping onto the banister.

Richie slid down the banister and was halfway out the door when Duncan grabbed him by the back of his jacket.

"Not so fast, Rich, I'm driving," Duncan said.

"Be my guest," Richie replied.

"We can get back to this later, let's go get Amanda!" Amber said.

"Boy, she sounds more excited to see her than I do," Duncan laughed.

"I wonder why," Richie rolled his eyes.

Within a few minutes, they were off to the airport, finally they were going to find out why Amanda had them meet her in Germany.