THE NIGHT INSIDE

Debut fiction, vampire-style, set in and near Toronto. Graduate student Ardeth Alexander finds herself kidnapped and imprisoned with Dimitri Rosokov, a vampire who's recently awakened from a century's sleep and who is now hungry. Ardeth is his meal, periodically, while their captors film Rosokov killing prostitutes for snuff films. A bond arises between Ardeth and Dimitri, and she explains the modern world to him—he's been asleep a long time! She grows weaker but foresees that she too will be used in a snuff film and, like the dead prostitutes, be taken to the woods, have a stake driven through her heart and her head lopped off. How to survive? She asks Dimitri to do the full job on her and change her into the undead. He agrees, seemingly kills her, and when her ``dead'' body is taken to the woods, the gravedigger—at Dimitri's posthypnotic suggestion—fails to behead or stake Ardeth. She awakens underground, arises as a new being, and, as the two had planned, helps Dimitri escape. In Toronto, they separate and go underground while Ardeth learns the ropes about feeding and Dimitri accustoms himself to city life. But they're intent on vengeance against whoever hired the snuff-film team, and it turns out that that same person is still looking for them. That happens to be a wealthy woman with AIDS who needs Dimitri's blood both to live and to make millions with an AIDS cure—and even more millions by granting immortality... Enjoyable characters but narrowly focused story that doesn't advance the genre. May Baker take a bigger bite next time she feeds.