October 31, 2007 (AP) -- A Dracula-like force is quietly sucking a nickel of every dollar's worth of electricity from homes across America. It's called vampire electronics, and it happens when devices like computers or cell phone chargers are left plugged in or on 'standby,' instead of being completely shut down.

removed as per the request of the Author

So long I've supressed this midnight hunger
And hidden from Night's dark embrace
I have not waltzed over Twilight's embers
Nor felt the moon's kiss on my face

And yet one look upon your hand's writings
Your drawing blood, and I am caught
They awaken, all my darkest cravings
And graces I had long forgot

And so I dance with light and shadows
I pray, and I am most afraid
For its from my tomb your visage tears me
Shreds all the safety I had made.

Reginald's revelations were followed by a long silence, interrupted only by the officiousness of the waiter. The spell once broken, they exchanged a number of more or less irrelevant observations. Ethel's mind returned, again and again, to the word he had not spoken. He had said nothing of the immediate bearing of his monstrous power upon her own life and that of Ernest Fielding.

Chapter 2

ALECK

(Lord of iLLumr)