- Nina's stuck as she writes a scene about Zadia Bloodstone, her butt-kicking vampire heroine.
- Right then, her mom interrupts to tell Nina that Father Ramon is waiting. Slowly, Nina starts to move—she looks sluggish and sickly… as usual.
- Nina interrupts the third-person narrative to switch to first-person, which is what we get for the rest of the book. She decides that trying to write about herself the way she writes about the super sleek Zadia won't work.
- Nina tells us that being a vampire is nothing like the stories she writes about Zadia. In fact, it straight up stinks. She was bitten when she was fifteen in the 1970s, and she hasn't aged since.
- Being a vampire is hard, which is why they have the Reformed Vampire Support Group. Sanford (their leader) makes everyone carpool rather than take public transportation, so that nobody's tempted to bite a stranger in public.
- In Father Ramon's car sits Sanford (who's polite), Gladys (who complains), and Bridget (who knits).
- Sanford asks what Nina's been up to, and when she says she's been writing, he chews her out for promoting an unrealistic image of vampires and living in a dream world.
- Then Sanford gets a call from Dave (another vampire). He relays the news that Casimir isn't answering his intercom, and Nina suspect he's out drinking someone.
- Father Ramon has a spare key, so they head toward Casimir's place.