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Subject: RP: A Monster Among Us    mf, vamp
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(Note: I am not the author, just the archivist.

The following story contains scenes of explicit sex.  If you're not
old enough to be here, you're not old enough to read it.  Scram.

This is an excellent fantasy novella.  Cleanly written and powerfully
done.  Forget Lestat; this is definately a different breed of vampire.)





A Monster Among Us:
A Tale of Erotic Horror 

by Trismegistus

Chapter One: Instincts

The man slipped his cigarette out the narrowly-opened driver's side 
window and hurriedly cranked it closed, crudely cursing the torrential 
rain outpacing the frantic windshield wipers.  His daughter sulked 
moodily against the far door, curled into a limber knot.  Her finger 
sketched a pattern on the fogged glass that had meaning only to her.

"Give me a smoke, Dad.  I'm out."  Her voice held a mocking, wheedling 
tone.

His voice was raw.  Damned sore throat just wouldn't go away.  "Damn 
it!  How many times do I have to tell you!  You're -"

"Too fucking young," she finished in sarcastic unison.  "That's bullshit, 
Pop.  It's part of my job, remember?  If I'm old enough to -"

"Callie!  Give it up!  Thirteen may give you the body of a woman, but 
not the brains."


The child began a surly retort, then smiled through the misty glass.  She 
stretched, reformed her coil at the man's side, lowered her head to his 
shoulder.

"You're the brains of this family," she purred throatily, her hand 
caressing his chest.  "But I'm the body, Daddy.  And my body wants a 
smoke."  Her hand deftly lifted the pack from his shirt pocket.

Muscles worked in his jaw as his daughter pushed the lighter into the 
dash, resumed her coil against the door, and smoked.  He said nothing.  
The thunk of the wipers, the heavy rattle of the driving rain on the car's 
roof, and his periodic raspy coughs were the only sounds for long 
minutes.  With a piteous sigh, she untwisted her gangly frame and 
reached for the radio.  She spun the tuner knob from station to station 
until she found the brand of heavy rock she wanted.

She flounced back into her curl, sullenly watched her father lower the 
volume.

"I'm hungry.  When are we going to stop?"

"Hungry?  What about that bag of chips you inhaled a few miles 
back?" 
 He saw the argument coming, was too tired to deal with it.  
"Look.  We'll be in Columbia in a half hour or so.  We'll get a room.  
You can eat whatever you want."

She wasn't ready to give it up.  ""It's Friday night," she said.  It had the 
air of both an accusation and a reminder.

"I know what night it is!" he shouted, then had to swerve quickly back 
into his lane.  A screaming horn and a wave of water accompanied the 
passage of the car to his left.

"Well?" she challenged.

"No.  Columbia's too damned small.  Shit, the burg probably doesn't 
even have a mall."

"It does too.  I saw a billboard that said so.  A brand new one with a 
hundred stores or something."

"Damn you, you little bitch!  I said no!  Quit hassling me!"

She glared savagely at him.

He gentled his tone.  "We'll wait until tomorrow.  We'll be in St. Louis.  
I told you about how dangerous small towns are."

"How much money do we have, Daddy?"

He hated that tone, the one loaded with an adult's sneering venom, the 
one she always used to remind him that, in many ways, she was far too 
old for her years.

"Enough."

"Let's see," she mused artificially.  "You broke our last hundred 
yesterday in Tulsa.  The motel last night was fifty something.  Two tanks 
of gas at around twenty each.  So.  If we stay somewhere clean tonight, 
we might have enough money for one more tank of gas - if we skip 
breakfast.  That about right?"

"We can use a credit card."

"An hour ago you explained for the millionth time why that was a stupid 
idea.  How come it's okay now?"

The patently false innocence was as bad as the sneer.  It was just another 
of the countless ways she mocked him.  He gripped the wheel until his 
knuckles went white.  He knew if he didn't squeeze as hard as he could, 
he'd hit her again.  He'd bounce that pretty little blonde head off the 
window.  He'd hit her and keep hitting her until . . .

He fought himself calm.  She had a point, after all.  That last batch of 
cards was totally stale.  It'd probably be less risky to let the crazy little 
bitch go ahead and have her way.  It'd shut her up and maybe provide 
them with a fresh supply of plastic on top of the cash.

He affixed a wide grin to his face, gave it to her.  "I never should have 
let them teach you math.  You're too fucking smart, angel."

She finally acted her age.  Her expression glowed with excitement and 
anticipation.  "So it's okay?"

"Sure.  Why not.  You need to blow off a little steam.  But just be 
damned careful, Callie.  Remember everything I ever told you about 
what to look out for.  Don't -"


She lunged across the seat, gave him a tight hug and a smack on the 
cheek.  "I know, Daddy!  I promise I'll be careful.  I mean, Jesus, I've 
been doing this for a year -"

"Nine months."  He scratched the persistent purple rash that'd shown up 
on his forearms last week.

"Well, that's almost a year.  And I've only made that one mistake."

He kept the smile intact with tremendous effort.  "Just remember how 
that turned out, baby."

He couldn't see the glitter of excitement in her wide blue eyes.  "Oh, I 
won't.  We can't go around leaving a trail of dead bodies behind us, can 
we?  That's bad for business."

She pulled away from his side.  "Can I go ahead and get ready?"

He shook his head.  He didn't remember ever feeling so tired.  "I don't 
think so.  Not until we check in and scope the mall out."

"Please?" she wheedled.  "Just my fingernails?  It'll save a lot of time 
later."

He couldn't block all his exasperation, but tried to act lighthearted about 
it.  "If it'll shut you up, go ahead.  Just don't ask me of you can do 
anything else until we get set up."

With a gleeful screech, Callie dove into the back seat and began digging 
through the litter and luggage.


Ahmed Toth felt tired and weak and depressed.  He sank gratefully onto 
one of the mall's scattered benches and surreptitiously eyed the grizzled 
sixty year old holding down the other end of the long seat.  He watched 
the man's shallow breathing, heard the faint constricted wheeze as he 
pulled Pall Mall smoke into his ruined lungs.

Emphysema, the wet burbling told him.  A fairly advanced case.  Surely 
diagnosed, yet the man refused to give up his tobacco.  Not that it'd 
matter if he did, Ahmed knew.  His nostrils flared slightly, inhaling the 
distinct spoor of impending death.  The man was dressed poorly, wore no 
wedding band.  Beneath the weathered skin around his eyes there was the 
unmistakable aura of unexpressed fear and grief and pain.

Ahmed nodded slightly to himself.  I can alleviate his suffering.  I can 
help him forget, for a while.  He needs me.

He was on the verge of making the initiatory gestures.  His lips were 
shaping a greeting smile.  But the old man abruptly stuffed his half-
smoked cigarette into the sand pot at his side, rose, and shuffled toward 
a wan younger woman exiting a religious bookstore.

So much for that one.  The slight man with the sensitive, sharply 
sculpted features sank back against the hard seat, sagged a little within 
his expensive suit.

This is a foolish place to be.  People seldom go shopping alone at this 
time of evening.  The crowd is thinning.  I'm too tired, too needy to think 
clearly.  I should go to the bar outside the convention center.  Right now.

Instead, he removed an ornate flat case from his breast pocket, extracted 
and lit a brown-papered cigarette, and inhaled deeply, savoring the rich, 
heavy smoke.  As he exhaled, he noticed the female child peering into 
the window of the pet store, sixty feet to his right.

It wasn't the fact that someone so young was wearing so much makeup 
that caught at his attention.  Nor was it her lithe, still developing body, 
wrapped in a midriff-baring shirt and denim mini-skirt.  Those things 
weren't important to Ahmed anymore, if they ever had been.  No.  What 
he noticed, instantly, was that she was using the polished window as a 
mirror - she was surveying him, not the tumbling knot of puppies 
beyond the glass.

He diverted his gaze, casually watched the ebbing flow of late shoppers, 
but remained fully conscious of the girl's oblique scrutiny as she casually 
meandered in his direction, pretending not to be aware of him.  He 
sensed something predatory about her, some covert purpose, and he was 
intrigued.  He was being stalked, and appreciated the implied flattery.

She paid no attention to him until she pretended to be drawn to a 
boutique behind him, and swerved to pass nearby.  She wrinkled her 
nose, paused in her purposeful march, and favored him with a distasteful 
downturning of her vivid scarlet lips.

"What kind of cigarette is that?"

"It's a Turkish blend."

"Is that where you're from?  You're a foreigner?"  She seemed enchanted 
by the thought.

"No.  I'm American, but my family was originally from Egypt."

She helped herself to part of the bench, dramatically widened eyes that 
bore far too much mascara.  "That's where the Pyramids are, right?"

"Among other things, yes."

"And the Sphinx.  And the Valley of the Kings.  And - oh, what's the 
name of the place?  Where all that Amon-Ray stuff is."

"It's pronounced Amon-Ra, and the city was called Thebes.  You seem to 
know a great deal about ancient Egypt."

She nodded, flipped a blonde curl from her face with a long red nail that 
was obviously false.  "I read a lot.  Can I try one of your cigarettes?  And 
don't you dare tell me I'm too young to smoke!"

"You must hear that a lot."

"From my Dad.  But I've been smoking for two years behind his back.  
We've been on the road and I haven't had one all day and I'm absolutely 
dying.  Mom knows, and she doesn't care."  She worked her long lashes 
flirtatiously and slid a few inches closer to him.  "Please?"

She was lying.  He smelled the tobacco smoke on her clothes and breath.  
Ahmed Toth smiled tolerantly, beginning to understand the nature of her 
ploy.  Dress provocatively.  Parade through the mall.  Attract sexual 
interest.  Involve a stranger in harmless but illicit conversation.  But then 
what?  What would her next move be?  He withdrew the sterling 
cigarette case and opened it for her.  "As you wish.  I began smoking at a 
young age myself."


She widened her eyes again at the ornate old holder.  "Damn.  This is 
really cool."  Her hand made deliberate, lingering contact with his as she 
fondled the case, then met his eyes.  "Is this Egyptian, too?"

He let her take it from him.  Her hands were so warm, so supple.  She 
overflowed with a vitality that flooded his every sense.  "As a matter of 
fact, yes.  From the British colonial period."

She closed it after taking out a cigarette, peered closely at the engraving, 
and ran long, dancing fingers over the relief covering its face.  "Those 
are hieroglyphs," she announced knowledgeably.  She handed the 
property back, waited expectantly for him to offer her a light.

He did.  She again held both his hand and eyes.  "Thanks," she said after 
inhaling deeply.  She sighed smoke without coughing.  "God, I needed 
that.  Kind of strong.  I usually smoke menthol, when I can get it.  But 
this tastes great."  Her eyes darted to the case as he slid it beneath his 
jacket.  "What do the words mean?"

She'd moved a few sly inches closer again.  He breathed her richness, her 
vibrancy, despite the nauseating overlay of her cheap, flowery perfume.

"The symbols - not words, actually - relate one version of the myth of 
Osiris."

"I never heard of him."

"You must read it some day."

"I'd rather hear it.  From you."  She'd lowered her voice, made it throaty 
and conspiratorial.  She allowed her heavy crimson lips to remain parted, 
made her eyes as seductive as the rest of her patented pose.  "We could 
go up to my Dad's room.  He's got some whiskey in his suitcase.  We 
could have a drink and talk.  And stuff."

"He doesn't object to his daughter befriending strangers and inviting 
them for a drink with him?"

"He's not there.  He's talking business with some creep in the hotel bar.  
They'll drink and talk until the bartender closes up around them.  We'd 
be alone.  Just you and me."

"Young lady!  I -"

"Callie.  Please?  I've been so lonely.  I really like you.  A lot.  You have 
the most beautiful skin.  I want to touch it.  All over.  I want you to 
touch me."  Her voice was little more than a pleading purr.

He matched her tone.  "I supposed your mother doesn't mind this, 
either?"

This little wimp was being a real pain in the ass.  Most old guys drooled 
all over themselves at the chance to jump her bones.  Still, there was 
something about him.  Something mysterious.  Something special.  She 
cranked it up another notch.

She took a deep drag of smoke, thrusting her ripening breasts at him.  
The powerful cigarette was making her tingle all over.  She studied the 
stain her lipstick left on the unfiltered cigarette, and felt herself
shiver.  She really wanted to do it with him.  It'd been almost a week.

"Mom's a hooker.  She taught me everything I know about sex.  And I 
know a lot.  I can do things you've never even imagined."

Her scent was filling him.  He could hear the accelerated thud of her 
heart, the hot rush of her impassioned blood.  This female child was 
truly aroused.  She wanted him.  He cleared his constricted throat.

"Is that what you are, Callie?"  He heard his voice assume the hypnotic 
rumble that was his own brand of seduction.  "A prostitute?"

He tried to tell himself how insane this was, remind himself that it was 
dangerous to allow his hunger to dominate his common sense.  But the 
florescent lights were becoming almost intolerably bright as his pupils 
inexorably dilated.  He had allowed the juggernaught to be set in motion.  
He'd teased himself too long, dallied beyond his ability to resist the 
impetus of events.  The bond he'd allowed to be established was 
irreversible.  The Hunger had him.  He had to have this child.  She 
needed him.

Callie found herself nodding in answer to his question, felt her heart 
lurch, her breast buds harden, her loins loosen.  Looking into those huge, 
beautiful black eyes of his made her dizzy.

"Yes.  But not for you.  I don't want any money.  I just want you.  I have 
to have you.  I've never felt anything like this before.  Can we go now?  
Please?"

At his faint nod, she started to leap to her feet, joy scribed over
her tart's face.  He made a slight, graceful restraining gesture with
one hand.  She froze.  She'd never seen a hand that perfect, with such
long fingers and carefully manicured nails.  When he spoke, she wasn't
even sure his lips moved, but his words tickled her insides.

"I have . . . special needs, Callie."

"I don't care.  I'll do anything you want.  Anything.  Just hurry, before I 
die."  She was anxious, terribly afraid that something would happen, 
something horrible that would take him away from her before it could 
happen.

"If you're absolutely sure, then lead the way.  I'll follow.  We mustn't be 
seen together."

Her nod was automatic.  Her mind was an utter blank, except for the 
image of those delicate fingers drifting over her body, that wide thin 
mouth kissing her like none of the others had ever done, could ever do.  
If she hadn't been so obsessed, if she'd been capable of thought at all, 
she'd have insisted that they go somewhere other than the hotel room.

As it was, she marched hurriedly down the wide corridor of the closing 
shopping center, oblivious to the tinkling muzak, the crowd gathering 
before the quadruple cinema, the inevitable stares directed at her.  
Nothing meant anything.  Nothing but the slender man of medium height 
trailing a few paces behind her.  She'd have walked out into the rain had 
he not halted her in the airlock, whispered sibilantly for her to wait while 
he brought the car.

Time lurched.  There was a brown cigarette in her hand.  How had it 
gotten there?  She felt so strange, so wonderful.  Maybe it was laced 
with acid or some other cool drug. She ate smoke with a shaking hunger, 
stared dully at her reflection in the dark glass.  Chronos lurched again.  
She was slightly shocked to find herself suddenly touching up her 
lipstick.  The cigarette had became a spent stub under her shoe.

Then there was a car in the wet black night.  She knew it was his, bolted 
with fawnlike clumsiness.  Her heart was full.  She flung herself through 
the open door, across the seat, into his arms.

His lips were hard as stone, as chill as the autumn rain, but his kiss filled 
Callie with bolts of blue fire until he broke the connection and pushed 
her away.  Her hands fumbled awkwardly at his groin, but he forbade 
that, too.

"Control yourself, my child.  You must be patient.  Pull down your skirt 
and make yourself presentable.  You must lead me to your room, 
remember?"

She nodded, still frantic with anxiety and desire.  There was something 
tugging at her mind, something she should tell him.  But it was 
something that would make him go away.  She veered away from any 
such possibility.  No.  Nothing was going to stop her from screwing this 
man.

The hotel materialized outside the car.  She clambered out, waited inside 
nervously until she saw him come through the automatic doors.  She 
blindly traversed the crowded lobby, not even noticing, as she pushed 
the elevator's call button, that she'd lost a fingernail somewhere.  She 
entered, held the door for an elderly couple, a solo businessman she 
didn't even bother smiling at, and him.  She pressed "3", leaned against 
the wall so her knees wouldn't tremble so badly, stared at him from the 
corner of her eye.  He was so damned beautiful that it hurt.  How had she 
missed seeing that before?

Then the room door was before her.  Room 345.  She fumbled with the 
key, made it work.  Inside, she waited without turning on the lights.  
Suddenly, he was standing before her, still smiling that gentle, 
mysterious smile.  Transfixed, she watched him remove his jacket, fold 
it carefully over the back of a chair.  But his eyes were burning.  Even in 
the dark, she saw them, felt them caressing her.

With a soft, forlorn cry, she threw herself at him, rubbed her body over 
his like a cat, thrust her tongue between his lips and thrilled at the 
wonder she encountered.  His teeth felt sharp as knives.  She explored 
his mouth, grinding the rest of her body against him with an impossible 
urgency.  Her passion soared, exceeded anything she'd ever experienced 
in her brief but wild life.

He was carrying her to the bed as if she were a leaf blown on the cold 
wind beating against the window.  He allowed her his mouth, but 
separated their bodies enough to open her shirt.  Her hands fought with 
his zipper, delved within.  She whined shrilly against his teeth as she 
extracted his rough-skinned, semi-erect penis.

His raspy tongue danced around hers with fantastic dexterity while she 
frantically jerked her skirt out of the way.  His mouth lifted from hers 
and she gasped for a breath she hadn't known she'd been without while 
she ripped off her newest pair of panties like they were tissue paper.  His 
round tongue licked her lips, her cheek, her throat, shooting explosions 
of white bliss rocketing through her like fireworks.

His penis became rigid within her massaging hand.  His mouth found 
and kissed her swollen breast.  She madly thrust his long, slender shaft at 
her flooded gate.  He had to help her.  The chill member speared her like 
a sand-coated candle as his tongue beat a fast tattoo over and around her 
begging nipple.

Deeper and deeper inside her he probed, deeper than anything had ever 
gone, deeper than anything was supposed to go.  She felt her muscles 
locking about him, already beginning to spasm, even before he'd reached 
the end of his first thrust.

"I'm coming!  Fuck!  I'm coming!" she screamed shrilly, not realizing 
the only sound she made was a strangled gurgle.  She ripped savagely at 
the back of his white silk shirt, shedding more glue-on nails.

He was bent with inhuman, nearly snake-like limberness.  She felt his 
teeth break her tender skin, just beneath her breast.  She felt the hot river 
of her blood released from her body, felt the ripple of his tongue as he 
drank her down.  What had been the most intense orgasm of her life 
doubled and re-doubled in intensity.

Just as she was losing consciousness, just as the impossible, undreamed 
of tidal surge of ecstasy was lifting her, about to dash her on the shores 
of nirvana, the room was filled with searing light.  A familiar, unwelcome
voice thundered moral outrage.

Oh.  Yeah.  Daddy.


Chapter Two: Errors  
  
There was nothing she could do about it.  No way to tell him it was 
okay.  Everything was okay.  This was different.  She was in love.  The 
wall-like wave she rode, helpless, crested on the shoals of her soul, 
crashed, broke her like a fragile shell on the beach of eternity.  She sank 
into the hot, wet, warm depths.  
  
But Ahmed Toth was free to respond to the blinding flash of the 
overhead light, to the intruder upon his loving feast.  He sensed Callie's 
fading shock, realized she'd placed him between the jaws of a trap, and 
that his raging, lusting hunger had compelled him into a blunder that 
could prove fatal.  His reaction was instantaneous and unthinking.  He 
was lost within his instinct to survive.  
  
The man's words were still hovering in the air as Toth sprang across the 
room.  As the blood began to seep from the small wound under the girl's 
breast, he stood a single step away from the intruder.  
  

Harvey Dorset's inner glee faded as the mark bounced off his little girl 
like a coiled spring.  The man moved too fast for Harvey to be able to 
track him with the .38 automatic in his hand.  He was still trying to 
release the safety when a steel band closed around his throat, picked him 
up like a puppet, and slammed him against the wall with stunning force.  
  
The gun slipped from his slack grip.  Harvey reflexively used both hands 
to try to break the grip of the one wrapped around his neck, still 
tightening.  His thoughts were clear - too clear, too sharp.  This was 
impossible.  It wasn't real.  This little guy couldn't be this fast, this 
strong.  
  
His vision was clear, too.  The face below him was unearthly.  The eyes 
were immense black oceans.  The thin lips, coated with Callie's blood, 
were drawn back in a silent howl, baring snow-white, inch-long fangs.  
  
His ears were as finely tuned as the rest of his senses.  He heard a loud, 
unpleasant snap.  He'd heard something a lot like that sound before.  A 
high school football game.  It'd been made by his leg breaking just above 
the knee.  There'd been that same weird inner vibration, too.  
  
He had time to brace himself for the pain.  It wasn't bad, really.  Nothing 
like the leg.  There was just a little flash of it, then it kind of faded into
a grey fog.  That colorless, wooly blanket of haze grew, covering more 
and more of him.  Physical feelings faded.  Vision faded.  Then sound.  
Awareness left last.  
  
Ahmed released his grip.  The corpse slid down the wall, rolled onto the 
floor with a series of limp thuds.  It came to rest in an unnatural half-
sitting position, its head bent at an angle obviously all wrong.  Its face 
wore a faintly apologetic smile.  
  
The vampire stared down at its victim.  He was utterly still except for the 
heave of his chest as he drew massive breaths.  His face wore an 
expression of deep sorrow.  He hadn't killed in a long, long time.  
  
They all look different when they're dead.  This one had been arrogantly 
confident mere moments ago.  He imagined himself eternal until the 
very end.  Now, his pitiful, evil life over, he looked like an over-sized 
human child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.  
  
He was here.  Now he's gone.  To heaven or hell or nowhere at all.  
Speak to me, dead one.  If you are able, answer me.  Tell me what you 
see, now that you are freed of eyes.  What you sense without the 
impediment of dull nerves.  Have I done you a great boon, or visited 
upon you the most vile of curses?  
  
There was no answer of course.  There never was.  
  
He returned to the bed, sank upon the mattress, stared out the wide 
window, lashed by rain, into the night.  The stirring of the girl beside 
him disrupted his silent vigil some time later.  He turned to face her.  
  
Her absurdly long lashes were just fluttering, would part within 
moments to reveal her azure blue eyes.  It was too soon.  She shouldn't 
have awakened for several more hours.  
  
It would be merciful to kill her now, turn the small death of sleep into 
the true death.  Send her to cross the Styx in the same ferry as her father.  
Allow them to continue in death as they had in life.  
  
But, if I do not, how will she react?  She will remember what I am.  
What will she do?  

He made no move.  The eyes below flickered, opened.  Awareness 
bloomed in them like a blue flower.  She saw him.  She knew him.  She 
smiled.  Her hand crept out, sought his.  
  
"You're warmer now."  Only he could have heard her bare whisper.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"That was really incredible, honey.  Did I pass out or what?  Jesus, I 
thought . . ."  Confusion flickered over her face, settled into a frown.  
"But I thought . . . something happened . . ."  
  
Alarm banished her puzzlement.  She sat bolt upright, made no effort to 
cover herself.  The suddenness of her movement dizzied her, fuzzed her 
voice.  
  
"Daddy.  Did he come in?  I saw the lights . . ."  Her words faded as her 
questing eyes settled upon the empty human husk against the wall.  
"Oh." she stared woodenly, expressionless.  
  
For the space of two dozen rapid heartbeats, she was silent.  Her eyes 
darted over the carcass.  When she finally spoke, Ahmed was shocked 
by her tone of voice.  It held only quiet wonder.  
  
"He looks so young.  He'd really like that."  Her head swivelled to face 
him.  She wore a crooked smile.  An odd light danced in her eyes.  "Did 
he hurt much?"  
  
"I don't think so."  
  
"Good."  She groped woozily for the clasp purse she'd thrown onto the 
bed.  She found the cigarettes inside with minimal fumbling.  The white 
tube in her mouth bobbed as she went on.  "He was an asshole, but I'm 
glad he didn't suffer much."  
  
He kept his voice neutral.  "Don't you feel any grief?  Any fear?  I've just 
murdered your father, child."  
  
She collapsed against the pillows, blew a feeble plume of smoke toward 
the ceiling.  "He raped me when I was ten.  And I'm supposed to be sorry 
he's dead?  No fucking way.  And it probably really wasn't murder.  He 
would have used his gun if he thought he had to.  He did in Detroit last 
year.  We threw the body in some river.  That makes what you did self-
defense, right?"  
  
"Not necessarily.  I'm sure any court would say that he was entirely 
justified.  He was defending you."  
  
Her laugh would have been mocking if she'd had more strength.  "Yeah.  
Right."  
  
Toth was disturbed.  This was all wrong.  He watched her through blank 
eyes.  
  
She touched the clotted blood under her breast, shot him a speculative 
glance.  "Did you drink his blood, too?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"I've had enough for now."  
  
Her hand, stripped of her false nails except for one little finger, noted the 
beating of her heart.  Her voice was puzzled.  "I'm not dead."  

"No.  Not even close."  
  
"So I'm not a vampire?"  She was disappointed.  
  
"Vampires are born, Callie, not made."  
  
"No way."  
  
"It's true.  Just about everything you've heard about my kind is pure 
fiction.  My heart beats.  I breathe.  I comb my hair in the mirror.  I 
adore the taste of garlic.  I've worn this crucifix since Pope Clement XI 
blessed it for me in 1709."  
  
She pondered.  "You were never like me?  Human?"  
  
"Never.  I was born what I am, just as you were."  
  
Callie giggled.  She felt more than a little sick - had since waking up.  
"Vampire babies sucking blood from Mommie's tit.  Too fucking weird."  
  
"You aren't afraid that I'll kill you."  
  
"Nope.  Bizarre, huh?  Here I am in bed with something out of a horror 
movie.  My old man's a pile of dead meat on the floor.  And all I can 
think about is you doing me again.  I'm really hot."  Her smile was 
dreamy.  "That feeling!  God!"  Her eyes went seductive as she turned 
them on him.  
  
He studied her calmly, unmoved by her coyness.  "I've made nothing but 
mistakes all night long.  I'm about to make another one."  
  
Her eyes widened momentarily, then her hands came toward him.  "If 
you're going to kill me, too, the least you can do is fuck me one more 
time.  I -"  
  
"No.  I'll regret this decision for the rest of my life, but you'll have to
die by someone else's hand."  
  
She paused, then snuggled against his legs.  "I'm not ever going to die.  
I'm going to be like you."  
  
"I just told you, that's not possible."  
  
She became urgent.  "But you've got to!  Don't you see?"  
  
Pain etched his features.  "I've tried, Callie.  Believe me I have.  I 
imagined there might be some hidden truth to the legends your kind tells 
about us.  There isn't."  
  
She compressed her lips grimly.  "Then I guess you'll have to try again.  
Just drink all my blood and give me some of yours."  
  
His smile was tired.  "I've watched all those movies.  They're pure 
fiction.  I'm not at all like you think I am, child."  
  
"Quit calling me that!  I'm no fucking little kid!"  She sat up too quickly, 
felt nausea welling up within her as she tried to reach another cigarette.  
What little color she had washed from her face, and her voice fell flat.  "I 
feel like shit."  
  
"You need to rest.  Sleep.  You'll be fine in the morning."  
  
"What's wrong with me?"  Despite her vehement protest, she sounded 
exactly like a frightened little girl.  
  
"Two things.  First, I took about a quart of your blood.  That's why 
you're dizzy and nauseated.  Your headache is a side-effect of an anti-
coagulant in my saliva."  
  
"You sound like a doctor."  
  
"I was once.  Now go to sleep."  
  
Her face twisted.  She lurched from the bed, arms clasped over her 
stomach, tried to stagger toward the bathroom.  "I'm going to be sick."  
  
Toth was surprised by the intensity of her after-sickness.  When she 
faltered, five crooked paces from the bed, and began to collapse, he 
caught her before she struck the floor.  His surprise became alarm.  She 
was unconscious.  Her pulse was weak, fluttered unevenly against his 
sensitive fingers.  Her breath was equally faint and shallow and fast.  She 
was running a dangerously high fever.  
  
He lay her back on the bed and continued his examination.  Her pupils 
were unresponsive, fully dilated.  He lightly pinched the base of a 
fingernail.  She didn't react at all to the excruciating pain.  Her left
breast was swollen, significantly larger than the other.  He lifted it. 
The precise puncture wounds beneath were the source of the swelling. 
They were violently inflamed, already seeping a clear serum.  Her entire
vaginal area was slightly puffy, as well.  She seemed to be having a
general reaction to both his saliva and sperm.  She was very ill.  Life-
threateningly so.  
  
No one in his experience had ever responded this way to his kiss.  He 
racked his memory, seeking other anomolies.  There were very few.  In 
France, nearly a hundred years ago, a youthful, decadent baron, dying of 
tuberculosis, had hemorraged massively the day after volunteering his 
blood.  Around the turn of the century, an aging London matron had 
suffered a massive coronary and died in his arms as he fed.  That was the 
end of the list.  Two events in his entire history.  
  
The first had been a reaction to the anti-coagulant, he'd later discovered.  
The man had been a hemophiliac.  The second death had also been due 
to an obviously pre-existing condition.  Perhaps his natural topical 
anesthetic had aggrievated her condition, caused - combined with the 
inevitable ecstasy - her heart to fail sooner than later.  He'd long since 
absolved himself of true responsibility for either death.  
  
The normal pattern was for his victim - lover was the way he thought of 
it - to become drowsy, disoriented, slightly ill, and then to sleep.  He 
helped that sleep, encouraged forgetfulness.  They inevitably - almost - 
awoke with the bite almost totally healed, only slightly itchy, and feeling 
a peaceful inner glow.  They never remembered him.  
  
He tenderly stroked Callie's sweaty brow with a damp cloth, and wiped 
away the remains of her tawdry makeup.  He eased her from her clothes.  
He searched her suitcase for nightwear, found only a skimpy negligee 
completely at odds with her now innocent, childish appearance.  He left 
her nude, covered her with every blanket he could find, and pondered his 
options.  
  
They were limited.  He could anonymously deposit her at Boone 
Hospital's emergency room, where she could be cared for properly.  He 
didn't seriously consider that possibility.  Too many disastrous near-
certainties would result.  In her current state, he couldn't effectively
alter her memory.  Even though she wouldn't be believed, the thorough local 
police would follow through.  He couldn't take that risk.  
  
He couldn't bring himself to even think about ending her life.  One 
murder was too many.  Compounding that was morally impossible.  He 
was responsible for her now.  He couldn't just walk away.  He'd killed 
her father and caused her grave illness.  He'd have to care for her 
himself.  
  
He eyed the stiffening corpse, breathed the distasteful scent of death, 
glanced at his watch.  Barely midnight.  He'd have to wait before 
disposing of it.  Waiting was something he'd never been good at.  
Ultimately, that character flaw was what'd gotten him into this perilous 
situation.  That and his insatiable curiosity.  
  
He indulged the latter trait as he waited.  He emptied the dead man's 
pockets, which had to be done anyway.  
  
Harvery Dorset carried a Florida driver's license.  He'd weighed two-ten, 
stood six-one.  He'd turned thirty-two a month before he died.  So 
young.  His wallet held twenty-odd dollars, a picture of a smaller, 
younger version of his daughter, and photos of two women.  Upon closer 
examination, Ahmed saw that while the blonde and the redhead looked 
radically different, they were indeed the same person.  The wife and 
mother, perhaps.  There was no permit for the handgun.  The weapon's 
serial number had been filed away.  
  
Keys to a rental car, a handful of coins.  The depressing miscellany that 
was all that was left of what had been a human life.  An unhealthy 
reddish- purple rash on the man's arms caught Toth's eye, but was of no 
significance.   Even had he fed on diseased blood, his vast intake of 
antibodies had made him impervious to any human disease he might 
have once been susceptible to.  
  
The suitcases, however, were intriguing.  After examining and 
discarding the clothing, Ahmed's sensitive fingers located three tiny 
packets tucked into the lining of the man's luggage.  Two held an array 
of credit cards bearing three different names, none of them Harvey 
Dorset's.  The third was a plasticine envelope of white powder.  He 
dipped a finger in it, touched it to his tongue.  Cocaine.  
  
He'd noted before that Callie's suitcase held two distinctly different sorts 
of clothing.  He took time to look more closely.  The first was what 
you'd expect to find a child her age wearing.  Fashionably ragged jeans.  
Shirts and blouses bearing labels which gave her status among her peers.  
Simple dresses and undergarments.  
  
The remainder, like the nightwear, was just as atypical.  Flashy, 
revealing attire.  Ridiculous five-inch heels to match.  Lacy 
undergarments.  Plus an array of condoms and sexual toys.  It seemed 
certain that the girl's sexual precociousness was anything but a secret 
from her father.  
  
Reinforcing that was the makeup case open on the desk before the 
mirror.  It was filled to the brim with well used cosmetics, more of 
which littered the counter top.  A case containing a diaphram and a half 
empty packet of birth control pills were in plain sight.  She'd made no 
effort to hide anything from him.  His cigarette butts littered the ashtray 
beside her red-stained ones.  
  
He leaned against the stub-wall dividing the bathroom and sleeping area, 
allowed an image to form in his mind.  Father and daughter, travelling 
the country.  Dad scamming as best he could, but employing his 
daughter's nubility as a prime source of revenue.  She'd entice a likely 
subject into their bed - a shared one, by all indications - and the loving 
Papa would discover Callie and her affluent older suitor banging their 
brains out.  
  
Shame, Harvey would say.  Would have said.  Do you know how young 
she is?  Do you know how many laws you're breaking?  What's it worth 
to you for us to keep our mouths shut?  
  
Plenty, Ahmed imagined.  Their victims would know they'd been set up, 
but what could they do?  They'd have been carefully selected for 
apparent docility as well as affluence, and Daddy had a gun.  It was as 
crude and vicious a con as he'd ever heard of, but was no doubt very 
effective.  Unless Callie selected the wrong being to run it on.  
  
The vampire settled back on the bed, checked his patient.  The 
inflammation beneath her breast was much less pronounced, but her 
fever even higher.  He hurried to the bathroom, began filling the tub with 
cold water.  He voyaged twice down the hall to the ice machine, filled 
two wastebaskets with hollow round cubes on each trip.  
  
After depositing the limp girl in her ice bath, he sat beside her and sorted 
through her purse.  She toted a professional's gear: condoms and 
spermicide, lubricant and cosmetics.  Her only ID was an outdated card 
from an elementary school in Chicago.  Her full name was Callian 
Louise.  She was thirteen years and three months old.  
  
Ahmed Toth was a little over seven hundred, as best as he could 
determine.   Vampires in general paid little heed to the passage of time.  
Nor did he.  His mother had mentioned, idly, that he'd been born shortly 
after Stragopulos had retaken Constantinople in 1261.  From his youth 
through the present era,  he'd observed uncounted human women Callie's 
age, and younger, carrying their babies in their arms, or in chains, or 
selling their bodies for pennies in the streets and alleys of the world.  
This was nothing new for him, nor was her plight especially tragic.  He'd 
been witness to much worse. 
  
He, like all his kind, knew that what the twentieth century deems 
"civilization" is but a very recent veneer, and a very thin one.  Children 
had been exploited throughout human history, by parents and strangers 
alike.  It hadn't ended, or really even slowed appreciably.   

But, if Callian's circumstances didn't impress him as being especially 
pitiable, they were nonetheless deeply saddening.  He found logic in the 
modern sentiment that someone of her years shouldn't have to bear the 
perilous burdens of adulthood.  He prayed that humanity would someday 
live up to that dream.  
  
He stared into her face.  Beneath its subsiding flush, it was that of a 
delicate, beautiful, intelligent child.  Instead of playing dolls with other 
children, she played with dildos and adult males.  Instead of crying at 
romantic movies, she'd stared callously at her father's dead body.  She 
was atypical, perhaps, for her time, but he'd met thousands like her over 
the centuries.  While it seemed a premature conclusion, he thought he 
rather admired the girl.  In many ways, they were similar.  
  
He fished her from the icy water and briskly towelled her dry, then 
returned her to the bed's warmth.  After he tucked her much cooled body 
beneath sheets and blankets, he set off to find a coffin for her father.  
  
He found something suitable on the loading dock of a just completed 
office building a hundred yards from the hotel.  He used the fire stairs to 
transport the empty cardboard box, designed to ship a bookcase, up to 
room 345.  
  
Fitting the corpse to the dimensions of the carton was an indelicate task.  
As he snapped bones like twigs and stuffed what had been Harvey 
Dorset inside, he wondered if the daughter's composure would have 
endured the grisly procedure.  He doubted it.  Few humans were as cold-
blooded, metaphorically, as he was, and the few who matched him were 
inevitably horridly insane beings.  He, on the other hand, was quite sane.  
  
He lifted his load as if it had less than a quarter of its actual mass and 
carried it easily the three flights of stairs without encountering anyone.  
It fit snugly into the big luggage compartment of his car.  
  
Callian had moved slightly upon his return, which he took as a positive 
sign.  The swelling of her breast was definitely less now, as was her 
fever.  She continued to stir restlessly until dawn.  Perhaps, he thought, 
she'd just been more sensitive to his contaminants than most.  He 
frowned.  More sensitive than anyone, ever.  There were just too many 
anomalies here.  
  
Still, assured she wasn't on the verge of death, Toth drew the drapes and 
lay down beside her for a nap.  He smiled tiredly as sleep drew near.  
What would she think if she awoke and saw him?  He had no need for 
coffins or the soil of his birthpace.  He relished the lick of spring dawn 
that crept up his body through the gap between the drapes.  And, above 
all, he breathed, just as she did.  
  
   

Chapter Three: Birth  
  
She was thirsty as hell and it felt like somebody'd glued her eyelids 
together.  She tried to go back to sleep.  Jesus!  What dreams!  They'd 
been as wild as that time in New York when that rich hippie 
photographer had got her stoned on pot laced with opium.  Her dry lips 
shaped a smile.  Vampires.  And sexy ones, too.  He bitten her.  Right 
there.   
   
Her eyes sprang wide.  There were two little bumps under her tit.  She 
saw the man asleep beside her.  Instantly, her eyes jerked in the other 
direction.  No dead Daddy laying there in a loose heap.   
   
She'd had to become adept at awakening quietly, even from her worst 
nightmares.  If she woke the asshole up, he always wanted to fuck.  She 
looked back at the man beside her.  
   
Okay.  What's dream and what's real?  He looks normal.  Skinny.  Not 
much taller than me, pretty good looking, just like in the dream.  Smells 
the same.  Shit - since when do I smell stuff in my dreams?   
   
She was still rubbing the twin scars, the only physical evidence she had.  
Dad's absence, weird though it was, had a couple of reasonable 
explanations.  Maybe he got lucky in the bar and made it with some 
local talent.  Or, if this dude had come up with enough green, Pop might 
have let him have her for the night.  Either option was fine by her.  
Anything that kept him away from her was alright.   
   
Callie slipped from the bed, barely bouncing the mattress.  She felt 
weak, like she had a bitch of a hangover.  Those brown cigarettes, 
maybe.  Yeah.  That explained a lot.   
   
She tiptoed unevenly to the bathroom, eased the door closed.  She 
flipped the lights on, and winced.  Too fucking bright!  She squinted as 
she turned them off.  Damn.  Must still be high.   
   
She drained three plastic cups of water.  Her eyes readjusted from their 
shock, and it surprised her that she could see so well in the gloom.  She 
lifted her breast, leaned toward the mirror and stared at the little red-
brown bumps.   
   
Thoughtfully, she used the toilet.  Okay.  I know for sure I went to the 
mall and picked that guy up.  He gave me that shitty cigarette and 
everything went weird.  I wanted to play mattress-hockey real bad.  We 
left and . . .   
   
She frowned.  From there, everything was real blurry.  Things she really 
might have really seen were all mixed up with crazy shit.  She shrugged, 

had another glass of water, and eased the door open.  She peeked around 
the corner.  Still asleep.   
   
Dad's suitcase was still open on the chair.  Callie crept to it, silent as a
bat, rooted through the jumble, and liberated cigarettes and matches.  
Eying the sleeper again, she spied his cigarette case on the bedside table. 
   
Better not.  Need to keep my head clear for a while.  But a snort of coke 
would be a good eye-opener.  The fucker scored two days ago and hasn't 
even gotten me buzzed.   
   
She lifted the baggie and snuck back into the bathroom.   
   
Dipping her sole surviving fake pinky nail into the powder, she expertly 
snorted, then braced herself for the wild rush and numb mouth she 
remembered so well.  It'd even made balling him a good time.  But she 
waited a long time, and nothing happened.  Not even a tingle.   
   
She did the other nostril.  Then the first again.  Zip.  The old man really 
got ripped when he bought this.  Probably baking powder or something.  
She grinned widely, clamped her hand over her mouth to block laughter.  
Served the bastard right.   
   
Tired, she sat on the toilet and lit a cigarette.  Okay, Callian Louise, 
think, damn it!  He got you stoned.  He fucked your brains out.  I'm 
pretty sure Daddy coming in right when that screaming orgasm began 
was real.  But, damn it, I'm *sure* he was biting my tit!  And I passed 
out.  And when I woke up, the old man was laying there on the floor.  He 
*was*!  I know he was!  I was sick, and . . .   
   
She dropped the cigarette into the toilet.  It sizzled for an instant.  So 
maybe none of it was a dream.  Maybe he *is* a fucking vampire!   
   
Pulled by her intrigue, she crept to watch him sleep, noted everything 
he'd predicted she would.  He's just another cock who likes young pussy, 
Callie.  Got to be.  But he must have some kind of bread.  That suit cost 
a wad.  And he was driving a new Beamer.  Looks like a decent enough 
guy, too.  And he's the best lay I've ever had.  Maybe . . .   
   
Keeping her eyes on him, she crept to the chair holding his draped 
jacket, dug the wallet from his pocket.  Ahmed Mohammed ibn-Tariq 
Toth?  Jesus.  Thirty-three.  Looks younger.  A local, which is bad news.  
Two hundred-plus in pocket money?  Not bad, Ahmed.  But no credit 
cards.  No business cards.  No pictures of wife or cousins or anybody.  A 
little bizarre.   
   
She resisted the urge to peel off a few bills for her emergency fund and 
put everything back exactly where she'd found it.  It was risky, trying 
something as stupid as this.  If the old man came back and figured out 
what was going on, she was going to be in deep shit.  But, if he was 
burning in hell ? . .   
   
Best to cover all the bases, Daddy always said.  If he was drawing flies 
in some ditch somewhere, she needed somebody to take care of her.  She 
had no illusions about what happened to teenage whores on their own.  
He'd made sure she saw them, over and over, so she wouldn't run away 
when he beat the shit out of her.   
   
And if he's still breathing, he's still a loser.  He's bound to take a fall
and drag me down with him.  If I can persuade this Egyptian stud that I'm the 
hottest thing since central heat, maybe I can get off the road, settle down 
and play house for a while.  Not have to live out of a fucking suitcase.  
Stay in one place as long as I want to.  Live like a queen.  Never have to 
turn a trick unless I got an itch he couldn't scratch.   
   
She slid across the carpet, disappeared into the bathroom carrying her 
makeup case and her favorite black teddy.  Leaving the lights off, she 
could still see plenty well to paint just the right face for her Ahmed.  She 
wrinkled her nose at the rank smell coming from the perfume bottle, 
though.  Smelled like camel piss all of a sudden.   
   
Fully adorned, wishing she had more fingernails to stick on, she 
slithered into bed and eased her body against his back.  He wasn't 
exactly cold, but he was sure as hell nobody to snuggle up to on a winter 
night.  A quick stab of rememberance from the night before - how cold 
he'd been, way up inside her.  She shivered, but not because she was at 
all chilled.  She slid her leg over his, laid her head on his shoulder, 
smelled his musky scent.   
   
It wasn't either sour or sweet.  Wasn't like anything she could think of 
but rich, moist loam in a flowerbed.  She recalled his kiss, his long raspy 
tongue, probing her mouth like a bee did a flower.  How it'd darted all 
over her as he crawled down her.   
   
And the bite.  She moaned aloud.  It hadn't been a drugged dream.  None 
of it.  It was the most real thing that'd ever happened to her.  She knew 
it'd changed her forever.   
   
Callie forgot her carefully planned seduction.  She slid atop her lover, 
sucked each breath that escaped him.  Her heavy red lips hovered over 
his.  She rested her middle on his.  Being this close to him, she began to 
almost re-experience the night before.  Each sensation returned to her, 
filled her.  She remembered everything.  Everything.  She had to have it 
again.   
   
She raised just enough to get at the underside of her tit.  She viciously 
raked a ragged nail right over the little bumps.  She smelled her blood - 
an alien scent, metallic, sharp and brittle.  Her nostrils flared as she drew 
the aroma deep within her.  And she saw his doing the same thing.  
Inhaling her.  Breathing her in his sleep.  Drinking the incense of her 
blood.   
   
And he stirred beneath her.  Beneath his closed, bluish-black lashes, his 
eyes moved.  The thin ascetic lips twitched, gave her fleeting glimpses 
of the teeth hidden behind them.  Between his legs, she felt an 
awakening quiver.   
   
She didn't think about what she was doing.  She'd planned none of this.  
She slid upwards, panting.  Kept his burgeoning tool trapped between 
her thighs.  She held the teddy out of the way, put her breast above his 
lips, and squeezed.   
   
A single drop of bright red blood made a thin line down to her nipple.  
Another followed the pathmaker, hung perilously.  It was reinforced.  It 
elongated.  It fell in glistening slow motion.  Beautiful.  So beautiful.  It 
struck his lower lips, shattered like molten red glass, trickled into the 
crevice that was his mouth.  Another drop followed.  Then a third.   
   
The tongue crept out, like a beautiful brown snake from its burrow, and 
savored her gifts.  The pupils of his closed eyes danced furiously, then 
settled into a foreboding stillness.  Between her legs, there was slight 
movement.   
   
Then, to her awe and delight, all hell broke loose.  His eyes sprang open.  
And they were as wide and blank as the gates of hell, black and bitter as 
a winter midnight.   
   
And his cock was inside her, raking her pussy walls like it had teeth.  
And it wasn't at all cold this time.  It was twitching and probing and 
fully alive.   
   
And his lips were pulled back from his fangs as his entire being seemed 
to give shape to an inhuman snarl of maddened lust.   
   
And he went for her throat.   
   
                        * * * * * * * * * * *   
   
It was nightfall.  Ahmed Mohammed ibn-Tariq Toth had been weeping 
for uncounted hours.  Callian's corpse lay as it had fallen, legs on the 
bed, torso on the floor.  Her blood had flowed from the parallel two inch 
gashes in her slender young throat in crimson torrents.   
   
He knew all this without having to look at her.  That he couldn't bear.  
Even now, the last of her life's fluid would be pooled in thick clots 
around her pretty head, a grisly halo.  Her lovely little face, its 
outrageous makeup intact, would be wearing the same religious bliss 
they'd all had during the ghastly years of his Rapture.   
   
He'd dropped her, stricken with pure horror, in his first nano-second of 
full awareness.  It'd already been far too late.  There was no stopping the 
gouts of her blood.  Its cloying reek inspired something akin to nausea, 
but vampires couldn't vomit.   
   
He had not slain, like a savage beast or otherwise, in two and two-thirds 
centuries.  He had believed he never would again.  He had nourished all 
life, worshipped it with the fervor of a fanatic.  Now, in less than twenty-
four hours, he had brutally murdered two humans.  He had been a fool to 
believe himself cured of the impulse to destroy.   
   
He saw himself as the most perverse sort of monster.  The kind of 
predator who takes only the tiniest delicacies from his hapless victims, 
then walks away from the carcass, distaining its virtually intact remains, 
leaving it to whatever scavengers that would make use of it.   
   
He was totally gorged.  He had feasted on more blood in those last 
moments than he normally consumed in a week.  He was still sluggish 
and thick-witted.  It took him long minutes to realize that something was 
drastically wrong in the room.  He stared emptily, trying to wrap his 
clouded mind around what his eyes told him.   
   
Callian's toes were moving.  Not in the slow, cramping rictus of death, 
but in the nervous tremors of sleep.   
   
I'm hallucinating.  That's it.  I've drugged myself on her blood, poisoned 
myself with self-loathing.  I'm ripping this vision from the nether realms.  
It's not real.  Can't be.  She's dead.  Stone cold, forever dead.   
   
But still the dainty feet, pale and uncalloused except at the heel and 
painted toe, continued their vitus dance.  And the immature calves began 
to do the same, their long muscles rippling spastically, the synapses not 
firing evenly - but firing nonetheless - like she was running in her sleep.   
   
He had to look.  He couldn't *not* look.  Every cell in his body rebelled 
and overrode his will, pulled his eyes remorselessly along her twitching 
form.  Past the smooth knees.  Past the violated vagina.  Over her 
smooth, bared abdomen and the tangled wreck of the black nightie 
covering her tiny breasts.   
   
Which moved.  Feebly, they rose and fell.  Callie was breathing.  
Weakly, but undeniably breathing.  Impossible.  All six liters of her 
blood had poured from her, much of it into him, yet still her lungs drew 
air.   
   
But it was her face that sent his spirit quailing, dashing itself against the 
horror-weakened cage of his sanity.  Her wetly painted, pouty red lips 
wore a faint smile.  The heavily made up eyes were focused upon him, 
and were no longer the crystalline blue of a spring morning, but washed 
out, pale as winter.   
   
The lips, scarlet as the blood - unclotted - staining the carpet, fought to 
shape silent words that resonated within his skull like shrill screams.   
   
"Help me," she begged.  "Please help me."   
 
 

Chapter Four: Hunger


He lifted her onto the bed, supporting her slack head as he would have 
an infant.  Her gaping throat wounds had closed.  Her severed cartoid 
artery had healed, pulsed erratically, faintly - but pulsed.  She seemed to 
lapse into and out of a vague semblance of consciousness.

She had no motor control whatsoever.  Her muscles trembled at random, 
sometimes locking into tight knots which must have been very painful, 
although her face showed only a mild peace.  Her skin was clammy, 
cool, lacked resiliency.  Where he touched her, his fingers dented her 
flesh, and it resumed its normal contours very slowly.

Toth laved the blood from her blonde curls with a dampened cloth.  Her 
blank eyes seemed to beg him to leave her gaudy makeup in place.  He 
made do with blotting her neck clean and rearranging the ripped teddy to 
cover her nakedness.

He sat tensely beside her until midnight, his mind a welter of conflict 
and confusion.  There was only minimal change in her condition.  She 
appeared marginally stronger, but he couldn't be sure that wasn't his 
imagination.  He couldn't escape the notion that there was something he 
should be doing to help her, yet he had no idea what it could be.

One thing became clear.  He had to get her out of the hotel, to a safer 
place where she could recover, for however long it took, without the 
threat of discovery.  There was only one such place - his own home.

He explained quietly.  She didn't respond, just continued her sleepy 
smile, her shallow, almost invisible breathing.  He first scoured the 
room, gathered everything belonging to both the girl and her father, and 
carried it all to his car.  Then, he did the same with her flaccid body.  
There was nothing to be done about the telltale blood stains.  They 
would be found and reported.

He was exiting the fire door when a young man rounded the corner of 
the building and nearly ran into them.

"Hey man," the intruder muttered in a surly tone, "watch where you're 
going."

Ahmed mumbled apologies and dodged around this potentially 
dangerous witness.  The man whistled lewdly, laughed.  "Nice piece you 
got there, dude.  A little young, though, ain't she?  What'd you do, bottle 
feed her a little too much champaigne?"

Toth gritted his teeth against his sudden rage.  The man had seen too 
much.  He'd remember the foreign-looking man and the young, 
unconscious, nearly naked beauty in his arms.  He forced a tight smile, 
made his voice as casual as possible.

"Something like that.  Say, do me a favor, would you?  Open the car 
door for me?  She's not as light as she looks."

Eager for another glimpse of succulent breast and thigh, the lad scurried 
to help.  With the rear door open, the vampire tenderly draped his burden 
across the seat.  The intruder stared raptly, his eyes burning as they 
darted over Callie's virtually nude body, bathed in the glow of the 
interior light.  He was as vulnerable as he would get.

He gripped the man's chin, forcibly turned his head to meet his eyes.  
The quick yelp of surprise and pain was shut off by a light squeeze to his 
throat.  For long seconds, their eyes were locked, and a palpable silence, 
anything but empty, hung between them.  The young man gradually 
relaxed.  Toth loosened his grip.  His voice seemed to emanate from the 
stillness of the night, a faint, susurrous, irresistable whisper.

"What is your name?"

"Tony.  Spath."

"Tony.  Let me explain to you what happened tonight.  Let me tell you 
what you will recall about your evening.  Okay?"

"Okay."

"You were out here, all alone.  You walked around the corner of the 
hotel, and encountered a very young, very beautiful woman.  She was far 
too young to be out alone so late, dressed so provocatively, seeming so 
friendly.  What is your favorite color?"

"Red."

"Just like the dress she was wearing.  Remember?  Can you see it 
clearly?  It was very short.  It displayed her breasts.  She seemed to 
enjoy the way you looked at her."

"Yes.  I remember."

"Good.  She asked you for a cigarette, Tony.  She invited you to her car.  
That one.  She seduced you.  You made love with her in the back seat.  
You remember everything about her.  The way her lips tasted, the way 
her tiny breasts felt beneath your hand, the crude things she begged you 
to do to her, and how wonderful it was when you did them.  You spent 
almost an hour with her.  Remember?"

A slack, happy nod.

"Then she asked you to drive her somewhere and buy her breakfast.  
Your favorite late night restaurant.  You did.  But you were sleepy.  So 
sleepy.  You told her to go ahead and eat.  You needed to take a nap.  
You fell asleep in the car, and you enjoyed a peaceful rest.  But, when 
you woke up, she hadn't returned.  Remember how disappointing that 
was?  She wasn't in the restaurant.  No one there remembered seeing her 
at all.

"Then you became worried.  She was so young - definitely too young to 
have made love with like you did.  That'd get you in big legal trouble.  
And, what if she said you'd stolen the car?  You decided to leave it there 
and walk back to yours and never tell anyone what had happened.  
Remember?"

There was vague fear in Spath's eyes.  "Yes.  Never tell."

"Here are the car keys, Tony.  You must do everything just like it 
happened.  I was never here.  You never saw or spoke with anyone 
except the sexy young woman.  Do you understand?"

"Yeah.  Sure."

He accepted the rental car's keys and shuffled off to live out a 
memorable night of debauchery he would never doubt was real.  Toth 
watched him until he entered the car and drove away.  He released a pent 
up sigh, grateful he hadn't been compelled to murder yet again.  The boy 
had been extremely easy to dominate, thanks to the alcohol and some 
mild hallucinogen he'd consumed.  Ahmed was confident that the 
witness was a witness no more, and he silently thanked the youth for 
solving the dilemma of what to do about the vehicle.  Now, a false trail 
was laid.  From the bloodstains in room 345, to some all night diner, 
where the car would be found, sooner or later.  It was feeble, but enough.  
And, even if Spath was tracked down by the persistent local authorities, 
nothing would endanger either the vampire or his charge.

Home was five miles beyond the city limits on the south side of 
Columbia.  It was a modest, reasonably secluded, century old farmhouse 
he'd renovated with his own hands.  He'd lived and worked there for 
seven peaceful, happy years, and had reluctantly put it up for sale the 
month before.  It was time to move on.  It seemed that it was always 
time to move on.

Ten years, a single fleeting decade, was as long as he ever allowed 
himself to stay in one location.  More than that, and, no matter how 
cautious he was, he started to become an anomaly.  His human neighbors 
inevitably  became more aware of the details of his life than was 
prudent.  He could act as if he were human - but could never become 
human.  Over time, no matter how diligent he was, his slight oddities 
became more visible.  Dangerously so.  Questions began to be asked.

He'd been compelled to tell uncounted lies over too many centuries.  
They weighed upon him as heavily as his years, his murders.  They 
blurred, like the years, became impossible to recall with consistent 
accuracy.  Lies were thus a liability.  When they became essential, it was 
a sure sign that it was time to go.

Those casual questions had begun.  Missourians were friendly people.  
He liked them.  But they expected a certain level of intimacy after they'd 
known you for so long.  He sometimes anguished over his inability to 
return the openness so freely offered him.  Yes.  It was time to move on.

Toth extinguished his headlights before swinging into his driveway, 
steered the BMW slowly up the crunching gravel path and into the 
detached carriage house-become-garage.  Before unloading Callian, he 
stepped outside, into the pitch black night.  Light flickered through the 
half-leaved hickories and oaks.  Music drifted faintly from the home of 
his nearest neighbors, a quarter mile to the east on the flank of the next 
ridge.  The Hennessies.  Roy, the eldest boy, was celebrating his 
eighteenth birthday, Ahmed recalled.  He'd been invited to sit with the 
parents and be entertained by the festivities.

But the vampire's finely tuned hearing detected no partiers strayed into 
the already tick-infested scrub forest between the homes.  The narrow 
valley and steep hillsides were devoid of human sounds.  The area 
throbbed only with the accelerated pace of nature in late April.  A glance 
around the yard evoked a quick smile.  The raccoons had invaded the 
ritual garbage he provided for the weekly trash pick up.  A single 
possum was still rooting through what the cagy coons had left behind.  
The moles had found his new daffodil bed a good hunting ground and 
left the intricate runes of their runs as a memorial of their passing.

He carried Callie's feather-light, unresponsive weight quickly across the 
lawn and into the darkness of his home.  Unlike the grounds, the interior 
had hosted no visitors.  The air smelled faintly damp and stale.  He 
mounted the stairs, two by two, and tenderly deposited his guest on his 
bed.  Her eyes were still open and unblinking, glimmering whitely in the 
darkness.  Her cramps had strengthened, become what he could only 
think of as minor convulsions.  He had no idea if that was for good or ill.  
But her smile, broader now, revealed no indication of pain.

"I have to go out," he whispered into her ear,, stroking her cool forehead.  
"I have to dispose of your father's corpse.  I will be gone an hour, 
perhaps two.  Rest.  Sleep if you can."

The thick fronds of her stiffly mascaraed lashes moved, as if in 
acknowledgement.  There was no other change in her.  He took heart 
from that as he left her, nurtured his hope as he rolled the car silently 
back down the driveway and turned toward the river.  Perhaps, by some 
arcane miracle, his bestial core had been spared the burden of 
responsibility for yet another death.

The Missouri River, wide and shallow, rolled sussurously through the 
darkened countryside, bordered by tilled black earth, fragrant with the 
moisture and life of spring.  The small waves and eddies generated by 
the unceasing current bounced starlight in unreadable patterns.  No late 
night high school or college lovers dotted the bankside road with their 
cars or blankets.  It was still too cool, too damp, for prolonged evenings 
of youthful frolic here.  Toth and the corpse had the night to themselves.

He methodically went through the man's pockets again to be certain they 
were empty.  He removed the watch and rings, hesitated, then decided to 
keep them for the daughter.  Once again, he noted the unusual blemishes 
marring the man's arms, but paid them no mind.

He straightened the broken bones, gave the dead man as much dignity as 
he could, making amends to whatever gods might exist, then floated the 
body upon the waters, watched it bob, just at the surface, then spin and 
submerge, like a heavy log.  Arthur off to Avalon.  Moses down the 
Nile.  Any sham of reverence would have been rank hypocrisy, but he 
paid such respect as he could summon.  He had already grieved.  He 
would bear the memory of Harvey Dorset with him as long as he drew 
breath.  More, he could not do.

Callian lay precisely as he'd left her.  Before approaching, he showered 
away the clinging scent of death and decay he'd absorbed during the 
funeral process.  Then, he joined the maimed woman-child in bed.  He 
was weary.  He slept soundly for nearly twelve hours.  He did not dream.  
He often wondered what that would be like.

And, when he abruptly awakened, it wasn't because he was completely 
rested.

                                * * * * * * *
 
She knew what had happened to her, more or less.  She had the vivid 
memory of his suddenly gaping jaws, of his fangs ripping into her 
arched neck, not her tit, as she'd expected.  She'd felt the first wild 
explosion of blood from her shredded arteries and veins.  She knew she 
was dying.  She'd totally fucked up.  Waking a sleeping vampire turned 
out to be a really shitty idea.  The bastard wasn't making love to her.  He 
was killing her.  And he didn't even give her time to come first.

She felt her heart flutter, falter, like it was confused by having nothing to 
pump.  Then it stopped.  From nowhere and everywhere, a dull greyness 
had seeped over her, and she knew nothing more.

Until she felt her heart again, struggling, barely moving at all, but 
refusing to quit its job.  That's all there was.  The grey blanket of 
nothingness still wrapped around everything else.  All there was in the 
whole universe was that feeble, hissing thud-thump . . . thud-thump.  
And even that promised to go away real soon.

She wasn't ready to die, goddamn it!  She tried to help her heart, keep it 
going by force of will, like her asshole dad cheered on stupid football 
teams.  It seemed to help.  At least she had something to do.  Then, she 
felt a whispery feeling that she figured must be her lungs making tiny 
breezes, like they'd forgotten what they were supposed to do.  She talked 
to them, too.  Go, you bastards.  Go.


And, little by little, she became positive that both those bodily functions 
really were responding to her wishes.  She'd had no idea she could do 
that.  Her body had always just been something she lived in, something 
that made her feel either good or bad, depending.  She fed it when it was 
hungry.  She had fun dressing it in sexy clothes and painting its pretty 
face, but she'd never really realized just how important it was.  If it died, 
so did she.

Funny how she'd never really thought about that before, about how it 
was really all there was.  When it was hung over, she hated it.  When the 
fucker beat her, she sometimes wished she was dead.  She'd resented the 
hell out of having to mop up its shit and piss and menstruation.  Now, all 
of a sudden, when it was more dead than alive, she realized just how 
much she loved it, what a precious thing it was - and how little she knew 
about how it really worked.  She gritted her psychic teeth and willed it to 
live like she'd never willed anything before.
 
And it did.  She *knew* she made it go on.  From somewhere, it came 
up with enough fluids to give her heart something to push.  Not much, 
she sensed, but enough to get by for a while.  And the liquid carried a 
little oxygen.  She became aware of vague pinprick feelings, like tiny 
lightbulbs burning out, and guessed that her body was letting parts of 
itself die so more important parts could live.  It seemed to know what it 
was doing.  Despite a fatigue like nothing she'd ever experienced, she 
refused to just drift away and trust it to do its job.  No fucking way the 
grey fog was going to trick her into relaxing.  Besides, she was hungry.  
Hungrier than she'd ever beenin her life.

Whatever fear she'd felt was banished.  She took a savage glee from her 
dire straits.  She would never die.  Never.

Sometime, after an eternity or two, she started getting bits and pieces of 
things that seemed to come from the outside world.  A faint sound.  A 
flicker of dim light.  After another ten or fifteen thousand years, that 
input became more readable, made more sense, then faded, but always 
came back, just a little stronger.  She heard what was maybe somebody 
crying, and wondered who it could be.  Then, she saw the fuzzy shape of 
what must be a face.  Ah.  His face.  Way above her.

She wanted to tell him it was okay.  She was going to be fine - but that 
she was hungry.  So hungry she almost couldn't stand it.  He had to help 
her find something to eat.  He didn't understand.  But he moved her 
body.

That was terrible.  She thought for an instant that the movement would 
kill her, overwhelm the precarious stability she'd thought she'd made 
rock solid.  But it didn't.  Her heart lurched unevenly, and she had to 
force her lungs to start up again, using what felt like her last iota of 
strength.  But it worked out, maybe even helped things a little after she 
got used to it.  She tried to say thanks.

Then, another geologic epoch later, he picked her up a second time.  She 
thought maybe he'd tried to warn her it was coming, but she wasn't sure.  
She'd been distracted by something new happening inside her, 
something kind of unpleasant at first.  It felt like her heart had started 
pumping ice water instead of whatever it'd been using for blood.  It'd 
taken her a while to become aware of the gradual change.  When she'd 
realized the newness, she'd tried to frown at the lobbing muscle in her 
chest, get it to go back to normal, but it didn't.  Couldn't, it seemed.  But 
its rub-dub, thump-thud had gotten stronger, so it must be okay.

She remembered feeling something like this before.  Ah.  Yeah.  When 
she'd been sick, after he'd fucked and bitten her that other time, she'd felt 
cold all over, from the inside out, like something real weird had been 
happening inside her.  This must be the same thing.  Sure.  She was 
turning into a vampire.  That had to be it.

So, while he was carrying her ten million miles, she just concentrated on 
keeping her machine ticking over.  It was really kind of fun.  It made her 
feel good to know she had so much control, so much secret power.  Like 
she'd always had over the guys who wanted to hose her.  But this was 
better.  A lot better.

She felt him putting her down, thought she heard his voice and 
somebody else's.  Then there was more movement.  Worse.  A jolting.  A 
rolling.  They must be in the car.  She didn't like the feeling one little
bit.  If she could have, she'd have puked all over everything.  But she 
couldn't, and it was hard to focus on her heart and lungs and she was 
afraid - really, truly afraid - that she was going to lose it.
 
The fear saved her life.  It poured fresh, raw energy into her.  She was 
able to sustain herself again.  It was hard.  Harder than anything.  It took 
everything she had.  But she did it because she had to.

Then the motherfucker did it again.  He picked her up.  She screamed, as 
loud and hard as she could.  You're killing me, you fucker!  Stop!  Stop!  
He didn't hear her.

The sick greyness buried her.  Her heart was gone.  Everything was 
gone.  She was dead.  Gone.  Except for her rage.  She was her rage.  She 
was a pinpoint of light in a black universe.  She burned like the only sun.  
And her heart was reborn.  Her murderous, killing anger had rescued her 
from oblivion.

She fed on it.  Its force was even more potent than her fear had been.  It 
was with something akin to a spiritual awakening that she realized that 
this incandescent wrath was her ultimate salvation.  With it, she became 
stronger than before.  It was her ally, her only lover, her god.  How had 
she not understood before?  It'd always been there, smouldering in black 
corners of her mind.  She'd just been too stupid to see what it was.  She'd 
turned away, even tried to make it go away.  It'd taken this to show her 
the truth.  Even before he put her down on what might have been a bed, 
she was back under control.

She kept her fury alive, fanned it, threw it whatever fuel she could find.  
Toth.  It was all his fault.  He'd ripped out her fucking throat and left her 
to die.  When she refused, he kept trying to off her - and couldn't.  Now, 
she and her god were too strong for him.  I'll get you for this, you 
fucking monster.  You'll pay.  God, will you pay.

He was trying to tell her something again.  This time, while she couldn't 
make out the words, she caught his emotions.  The bastard sounded sad.  
Ah.  Something about Daddy.  About having to leave.

Empowered my her rage, she shrieked at him, tried to gouge him with 
claws she didn't have.  Food!  Bring me food!  Feed me!

Again, he ignored her anguished screams.  But at least he left her alone.  
Alone, with her rage.  Alone with the brand new, undying hunger that 
was at its core.  She wouldn't die.  Not ever.  Not as long as it was in her.

It grew, little by little.  It was like each time her heart spurted its thin, 
cold gruel, its demands became louder.  Finally, it was all there was.  
The grey was gone.  But the horrid thing that had displaced it had 
displaced everything else, too.  Her heart and lungs were its voice.  
*She* was its voice.  She became icy blue shards of shattered soul, 
winking out, one by one.  She wasn't feeding on it.  It was feeding on 
her.

Then, she smelled food.  It was nearby.  Close.  Very close.  Close 
enough to bite.  If she could only move.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 

Chapter Five: Fatherhood 
 
Ahmed Toth came into violent consciousness because he was again in 
danger.  His hindbrain was already on the attack before his forebrain 
rose to meet it.  The beast was always the first on the scene. 
 
So his first awareness was of having Callie pinned to the mattress 
beneath them, of being in the act of again crushing her slim throat 
between his powerful jaws. 
 
But, this time, the beast within also stopped him.  The instinctive 
reaction was supplanted by a second one, of at least equal power.  His 
bear-trap jaws relaxed, closed. 
 
Callie was writhing sluggishly under his weight, trying to fight him.  Her 
mouth was working in a slow, fangless, weak mimicry of his own.  Her 
lips wore a glistening smear of red that wasn't her lipstick. 
 
She'd bitten him.  On the bicep.  It wasn't much of a wound, but 
somehow she'd chewed through his tough skin and brought blood.  She 
was desperately trying to feed. 

He froze.  This could not be. 
 
He'd seen that gnashing of immature teeth five times before, in the 
young of his kind.  He'd seen wounds almost identical to this decorating 
the limbs of the proud faces of the sires and dams of his race who'd 
managed, against all odds, to conceive and carry to term the single infant 
born every two or three hundred years.  It was the cause of universal 
rejoicing and celebration.  Such a birth demanded a pilgrimage to the 
ancient desert ruins of what humans now called Iraq. 
 
But never had this happened.  Never had a human shaped these basic 
chewing, sucking motions.  It was either a miracle or an abomination - 
or both. 
 
Another vampire might have reacted differently.  Another, filled with 
revulsion at the sight of something so perverse, might have wrenched the 
head from this deformity's shoulders, torn the nightmare creature limb 
from limb and scattered the horrid bits far and wide.  But Ahmed Toth 
didn't even consider such a response. 
 
His entire belief system rested upon the bedrock of his lifelong isolation 
from and essential proximity to humankind.  He required them to sustain 
his existence, depended upon them for everything - yet remained distant, 
separated by un unbridgable chasm, so broad and deep that its very 
existence they must never so much as suspect. 
 
Now, Callian had crossed that void.  Somehow, he had done what no 
vampire had ever done.  He had transported her, ferried her to his bank 
of the Styx.  For the first time in unknown millenia, since before the 
Eldest had first walked the earth, a vampire had been created, not born. 
 
And, long before his mind had even begun to assimilate this 
impossibility, his unconscious responded.  It could not deny the 
wordless cry shaped by those languishing half-human lips.  His body had 
no choice.  It fed her.  He felt himself lay back and guide his bicep to her 
lips, felt her chewing and slurping - and Ahmed Mohammed ibn-Tariq 
Toth was filled with an unfathomable peace he'd heard described, but 
had sworn never to experience. 
 
Toth had centuries before chosen never to attempt a mating.  He had 
many reasons for this decision, but the crux of the matter was that he had 
no love for his kind.  He strongly believed that the universe would be 
better off had his race never come to be.  He viewed himself as an 
unwholesome parasite.  His species took what they needed and gave 
nothing in return.  They brought no weal - only woe.
 
And he loved humankind as much as he loathed himself.  For all their 
hideous shortcomings - and he had graphically witnessed them all - they 
were the brightest and most beautiful creatures who had ever graced the 
universe.  They were abusive and cruel and weak, irrational and 
delusional and callous.  As well as being supernaturally creative and 
spontaneous and vivaciously alive, in every cell of their bodies.  He 
thought of mankind as reduced Olympians, with both their pettiness and 
grandeur contained within each and every member of the race.  He was 
transported by their genius and learning, yet mourned the everpresent 
blackness of their vices. 
 
And, to these beings which he worshipped, he was a demon incarnate.  
They had just cause for their hatred and fear.  He was a child's nightmare 
become real.  Every culture had legends of him and his kind.  And, as 
with all legends, there was more than a grain of truth.  Not in the 
hysterical magical tales of supernatural abilities, but in the tales of their 
murderous lust for blood. 
 
For almost the entirety of their long, long lives, vampires required, and 
consumed, very little physical sustenance.  But, during the period 
paralleling human pubescence, his kind appeared to go mad.  It was 
utterly unavoidable.  They were beings to whom the genetic call was 
irresistable.  So, for as long as fifty years, they rampaged through the 
human population, murdering and devouring as often as twice a day, 
often slaying for no known reason at all, and then becoming catatonic, as 
if dead, for as long as a month.  There was no cycle, no pattern.  The 
Rapture came, then the Rapture left.  Upon maturity, the new adults - 
mercifully - had no memory of how they'd spent their decades of 
nightmare. 
 
That era of madness was often deadly.  Most things which are fatal to 
humans - except for disease and poisons - are also lethal to vampires, 
although it takes more to accomplish the feat.  Human vampire lore for 
the most part emanated from those crazed by their Rapture.  A high 
percentage of adolescents - two dozen or more - had been found and 
killed by their intended prey.  As if held together by the life force itself, 
their corpses decomposed with amazing speed - thus giving rise to more 
legend. 
 
The few adult vampires living amidst humans were virtually never 
detected.  As had been the case for Ahmed Toth for the prior two 
hundred and sixty-eight years.  They were old.  In some ways, they were 
wise.  With very few exceptions, none ever killed without cause.
 
But Toth no longer fit within that category.  Like it or not, he had 
reproduced.  And the only creature even remotely as bloodthirsty as an 
Enraptured adolescent vampire was an adult feeding its young. 
 
It is feeding for two, after all.  And any infant requires enormous 
nourishment.  For Toth, the burden was doubled and redoubled.  Not 
only did he not have a mate to share his biological imperatives, but 
Callian was no seven or fifteen or even thirty pound infant.  She weighed 
over eighty pounds, and her appetite was massive. 
 
Over the week following Callie's miraculous rebirth, Toth became 
driven, was honed into a tool with but one purpose.  Every waking hour - 
and he slept almost not at all - was spent tracking prey, feeding, and in 
turn being fed upon.  He was faced with brutal choices, choices which 
were another reason he'd never mated. 
 
Which way was he to feed?  Was he to do the efficient thing and take 
one human, drain it entirely, dispose of the corpse, and kill again the 
next day?  Or was he to sip from a half dozen or more, hopefully 
managing to keep each one oblivious to his needs? 
 
Parenting vampires, unlike the Enraptured, are almost never caught.  
They are, in a way, almost as insane, but their madness makes them 
virtual geniuses at their task.  Toth was no exception.  His 
preternaturally acute senses, by human standards, became yet more 
attuned to his environment.  His strength grew and speed increased.  He 
still preferred not to kill, but he no longer had any aversion to it.  
Feeding his offspring was the only thing of any importance.  Because his 
survival was utterly imperative to insure hers, he was cautious, even 
brilliant. 
 
He engaged in an ancient ploy, especially suited to his current 
environment.  He sought and found numerous "affairs" with human men 
and women.  They, of course, assumed what he told them to believe; 
they were involved in a torrid physical relationship with an incredible 
lover.  To him, they were cattle.  Each night and many days, he travelled, 
sipping, from bed to bed.  A liter here, two there.  All to Callie, except 
what his own body assimilated. 

Only once did he have to make the assignation final.  He made a poor 
choice in his selection of Marilyn Hennessy, the sixteen year old 
neighbor girl, who had long harbored a crush on him.  At the last 
moment, she'd regretted succumbing to her desires and panicked.  She'd 
tried to break away, started to scream when he'd held on to her.  Her 
parents and brother were less than twenty yards away in the warm 
twilight. 
 
He'd clamped a powerful hand over her mouth and taken her in the 
throat.  That was the fastest way to feed, and was always fatal to the 
donor.  He'd stuffed her body into an ancient hollow oak a half mile 
away and was more cautious thereafter. 
 
                                * * * * * * * 
 
Where the fuck is he!  What's taking him so goddamn long this time!  
He's really getting off on porking that lawyer bimbo down the road.  I 
know he is, the lying asshole.  He thinks he can stick that ugly prong 
anywhere he wants to.  Wait'll I get back on my feet.  I'll show the son of 
a bitch what fucking around's all about.  I'll bring a whole line of studs 
home and make him watch me do them two or three at a time. 
 
At least he left me some cigarettes this time.  What's he afraid of, that 
I'm going to burn his house down?  Thinks I'm totally helpless.  Thinks I 
can't do anything for myself.  I'll show the cocksucker.  When he gets 
back, I'll be dressed and look like a wet dream come true.  Time to 
remind him how he met me in the first place. 
 
She slid with a thud from the bed to the floor, half crawled to the 
luggage piled in the corner of the room, and propped herself against the 
wall.  She had to do something to block out the hunger.  Just laying there 
in bed with nothing to do made it worse.  She siezed upon any and every 
possible distraction, trying to keep it under control.  She was afraid - yes, 
finally truly afraid - that one day, this insatiable new need would 
swallow the rest of her, destroy her entirely. 
 
So, the cigarettes and viciousness and makeup were only an excuse, a 
focus.  She knew this, in a secret place.  But she'd never admit it, not 
even to herself. 
 
Ahmed found her there, in the dark at four in the morning.  Her 
trembling, weak hands had made a disaster of her face painting, but he 
made no comment. 
 
"Hi." 
 
"Fuck yourself.  Go away." 
 
He sat on the bed, bloated and dull.  He sensed the awesome struggle she 
was waging as she compelled her body not to fly to him, slavering.  
Instead, she dumped more cosmetics onto the floor.  He wasn't sure 
whether to admire her courage or fear it. 
 
"None of these colors is right anymore.  Why didn't you tell me my skin 
color was going to change."  She was petulant, demanding. 
 
"I didn't know, Callian." 
 
"Don't call me that.  Nobody calls me that." 
 
"Sorry.  Callie.  But, as I said, this has never happened before.  You're 
very special.  You're the only human -"
 
"Bullshit."  But she did lighten up a little on him.  Special, he said.  "At 
least my complexion's smoother.  No more zits or freckles.  Guess I'm 
going to have to dye my hair, though.  Blonde sucks now.  Am I going to 
keep getting darker until I look like you?" 
 
He avoided more abuse.  "I doubt it.  What color are you considering for 
your hair?" 
 
She gave up looking for a lipstick she suddenly remembered losing in 
Tulsa, picked up another one.  "I don't know.  Black maybe." 
 
"Ah.  Midnight black.  You could let it grow, too." 
 
"That'd be sexy as hell, wouldn't it?  I'll keep growing, huh?  I can see 
me in a year or two with tits out to here and long black hair.  I'll be some 
kind of hot bitch." 
 
"You already are, Callie." 
 
She batted her thick, uneven lashes at him.  It'd been a long time since 
she'd looked at the world through mascara, and never with these greenish 
eyes, sharp as a hawk's.  "Really?  Or are you just saying that because 
you want to get laid?" 
 
"No.  I've known since that first night in the mall when I saw you 
watching me in the store window.  It has nothing to do with your sex." 
 
Her crookedly painted red lips smiled.  "Yeah.  I saw you looking.  You 
thought you were being so damned cool, but I knew you were tracking 
me.  You turned me on right away.  I knew you were different.  I just 
didn't know *how* different." 
 
Her expression softened even further.  Her voice was more gentle and 
lilting.  He'd been showing her how to use it, to persuade, to get what 
she wanted with it.  "Would you like to help me get dressed?  I really 
want to be pretty for you tonight.  I want it to be special, Ahmed.  Like 
that first time.  I'm strong enough now for you to fuck me.  I want you to 
make me come while I drink." 
 
Double your pleasure, double your fun, she thought a little later as she 
nipped at the cut he'd made for her on his shoulder.  She watched his 
thick blood begin to well more quickly from the wound, felt his surge of 
arousal lick way up inside her, deeper than any human had ever been. 

Her body responded, desire melding with her hunger, the two lusts 
become a single thing.  Her lips fastened to him like a lamprey and she 
gnawed his musky, rubbery flesh, sucked and swallowed and bucked 
wildly. 
 
She'd imagined the first time with him would be the best.  Surely 
nothing could ever top that.  But she was wrong.  Way wrong.  This was 
it.  Fucking and sucking at the same time - but not like the asshole had 
taught her. 
 
Oh, Daddy.  If you could only see me now. 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 

Chapter Six: Responsibility 
 
"So," she said, wagging the high heel dangling from her toe, "let me see 
if I've got this straight.  You're going to stay close, but it's my gig all
the way."  She wrapped her red lips around the cigarette, hollowed her 
rouged cheeks as she drew on it.  He couldn't tell if her eyes, under their 
makeup, were frightened or excited. 
 
"Close enough to help if anything goes wrong, but not so close that 
you'll see me." 
 
"So I'm supposed to do that silent shout thing if he gets out of line?" 
 
"Right." 
 
She flicked imaginary ash off her emerald green dress.  "You sure I look 
okay?" 
 
"Callie, I really don't understand why you want to do it this way.  It's not 
necessary." 
 
"You're the one who told me it was a good idea to use what I already 
know.  I know how to whore.  It'll make me feel more confident." 
 
"That's only half the truth, isn't it?  You feel like you're a prostitute 
because that's the only way you ever had value." 
 
"Lay off the psycho-babble, Ahmed.  You aren't very good at it."  She 
was getting good at keeping the anger - and the hunger - from her voice.  
She made her expression one of pleading, leaned earnestly toward him 
so he could see down her dress.  "Honey, I dress this way because I like 
it.  It makes me feel good.  Just like being with you does."  Next she 
turned coy.  "You're just jealous." 
 
He grinned widely, no longer having to restrain his amusement for fear 
of revealing his teeth.  "Thank God that's one curse no vampire has to 
bear, darling girl.  It's just that self-honesty is so crucial to your new 
existence.  You can no longer afford self-delusion.  It could kill you." 
 
She inhaled the harsh smoke of his cigarette, which was all she smoked 
any more.  She liked the taste, the way they looked.  "But lung cancer 
won't, huh?  Or AIDS.  I can fuck anybody I want now, and never worry 
about VD." 

Something was bothering Toth.  He kept it from his face.  It wasn't what 
she'd said.  He was accustomed to her obsession with sex, and the crude 
ways she expressed it.   No.  It was something else.  Something he'd read 
somewhere.  But there were other things to think about right now.  He 
laughed.  "Let's keep it simple for tonight, shall we?" 
 
"You're sure it's got to be a hotel lobby, not the mall?" 
 
He nodded sharply.  "And in Jefferson City, not Columbia.  Just in 
case." 
 
She ground out the cigarette.  "Let's get going then.  I'm ready to be 
weaned, lover.  Give me some real food.  I'm sick of your second hand 
shit." 
 
                                * * * * * * * 
 
Jesus fucking Christ.  What a rush.  It's been way too long, and never 
like this before.  Every swinging dick in here knows they can buy me.  I 
can hear it in their heads. 

Easy Callian.  Keep your shit tight, baby girl.  The old man - Ahmed, I 
mean - is somewhere close.  Just like always.  This is no time to screw 
up.  Be cool now.  You pick them.  Never let them pick you.  Don't start 
thinking with your cunt.  Stay cool. 
 
Not him.  Too smart.  Getting him to forget a piece like me would be a 
real bitch.  That one's too ugly.  He's too old.  Hey, now we're talking.  
Real cute.  Nice clothes.  Great ass.  A little wasted, but not too far gone 
to be a good time.  And . . . what's the word he uses?  Ah.  Suggestible. 
 
Sit on the couch, Callian.  Smile a little at him.  Fiddle some with the 
dress.  Look real nervous, like somebody's late.  Smile again.  Ah.  
Contact.  Here he comes. 
 
"Hello, miss.  Is everything all right?" 
 
"Oh!  Hi.  No.  I mean, well, maybe.  I'm supposed to meet somebody 
here.  I think it was here.  I hope he's just late." 
 
He sat.  He smiled that smile she'd seen so many times before.  "Is he 
someone special?" 
 
"Well, kind of, I guess.  We met last night, with my Dad.  He was really 
cool and talked me into coming here tonight.  Maybe I got the time 
wrong or something." 
 
"Well, his loss is my gain.  Where's your Dad?" 
 
Shyly.  Guiltily.  "He's busy at a meeting.  I kind of snuck out.  He says 
I'm too young to, uh, date."  She thrust her shoulders back.  "But he's 
wrong." 
 
His eyes raked her with barely concealed lust.  "You must have been 
really looking forward to seeing your boyfriend tonight." 
 
"Yeah.  He was going to take me someplace real nice." 
 
"You know, *I* could take you someplace nice, since he's not here." 
 
All innocence in those eyes, turned green now, naive and eager beneath 
the mascara.  "Really?" 
 
"Sure.  It'd be fun.  We could start by having a drink.  I doubt if the 
bartender would serve you, but I've got a bottle in my room.  You do 
drink, don't you?" 
 
Unfeigned excitement.  "I never have, but I'd really love to try." 
 
                                * * * * * * * 
 
Shit, she thought sluggishly, her hips still pushing.  Callie, you greedy 
little slut.  Now look what you've done. 
 
The body lay, pale and smiling, under her.  She'd really meant to take 
just a little, then leave him to sleep it off.  She'd lost control.  When she 
did that with Ahmed, he just ripped her mouth loose and pushed her 
away, but this poor fucker hadn't been strong enough.  And when he'd 
started to scream and yell, she did what she had to do.  She used the 
razor blade on his throat. 
 
He didn't bleed much.  Guess I got most of it.  What the fuck do I do 
now?  Twenty people saw me leave with him.  Too high a profile, just 
like the asshole said.  Now when John here turns up stiff, people with 
badges are going to start looking for me.  No good.  Dumb cunt. 

She did the smart thing - the only thing left to do, really.  She formed a 
mental picture of her vampire lover, called to him, imagined him turning 
and coming closer and closer.  Then, she disengaged her groin from the 
body and clumsily started putting her clothes on. 
 
Toth didn't knock, just slid through the unlocked door.  The instant she'd 
called him, he knew.  He'd hoped this wouldn't happen.  He knew it was 
too soon, but he was at the end of his immense endurance.  He couldn't 
keep up with her vast need.  It should have at least begun to taper off by 
now.  It hadn't.  It might even have grown. 
 
Even before her call, he'd scouted the building, formulated the basics of 
a worst-case plan.  By the time he stood over the body, he'd already 
decided what had to be done. 
 
"You're okay?" 
 
She nodded, brushed black hair from her eyes with a shaky hand.  
"Sorry." 
 
His voice was stern, cold.  "See how you feel?  That's the best reason for 
not draining a host.  Can you make it as far as the car before you pass 
out?" 
 
Anger brightened her dulled eyes.  "I said I was sorry, damn it.  And, 
yes, I can make it to the fucking car." 
 
"Good.  Hurry, but be careful about being seen.  I'll be there in a few 
minutes." 
 
Getting outside was the hard part.  She was dizzy and groggy, had to go 
slow and lean against the wall a couple of times.  But the night air 
braced her.  Her walk in her new heels steadied.  She forced herself to 
stay awake just to show the bastard.  She'd redone her makeup and was 
sullenly smoking when a weight dropped into the trunk startled her into 
alertness. 
 
"You scared the piss out of me!" she hissed as he climbed behind the 
wheel. 
 
He just drove. 
 
"What are we going to do with it?" she wondered as they crossed the 
bridge over the river. 
 
"What do you suggest?  It's yours." 
 
"How about doing what you did to Daddy?" she said, pointing down at 
the black water. 
 
"If you wish.  But, it's generally not a good idea to settle into a pattern, 
Callie." 
 
"Three weeks is long enough.  You're paranoid." 
 
"I'm alive.  If you get careless just once when you're on your own, you 
could be caught." 
 
"When I'm on my own?  What're you going to do, kick me out?" 
 
He kept his eyes on the road, headed north toward home - and many 
backroads where a body could be pitched into the river.  "No.  I won't 
have to.  If things progress as is normal, you will want to leave before 
too long.  We don't mate for life." 

"Yeah.  I bet punching the same piece for a couple thousand years would 
get real old." 
 
"We also don't mate for pleasure." 
 
"Maybe you don't."  It wasn't until she was fishing out another cigarette 
that she caught the implication.  "Hey.  You can't tell me you don't get 
off when we fuck." 
 
"As long as we're also feeding on one another, I'm aroused.  But I don't 
believe I experience the same things you do." 
 
"You don't come?" 
 
"Orgasms for me don't originate in the sexual organs, and aren't 
measurable by sperm alone." 
 
She mused, looking at her sexy manicure, about the color of that guy's 
blood.  "So I guess I'm still different that way, too.  The dude I drank 
made me come like a cannon.  I mean, the blood was a turn on, too - but 
no way near as good as his cock." 

She took smoke, clicked her nails together like castanets.  "They're 
almost as hard as yours now, and grow real fast.  I bet I could file one 
real sharp.  That way I can lose the razor blade." 
 
Later, as they watched the corpse sink into the rain swollen river, she 
hooked a slender arm around Toth's waist.  Her voice was as close to 
that of a child as he'd ever heard it.  "I killed somebody tonight." 
 
"You did." 
 
"I felt him die.  I was too wasted to pay much attention, though.  I'll 
probably have to do it again, won't I?  Sooner or later?" 
 
"I'm afraid so.  Just don't start enjoying it too much, Callie.  It's -" 
 
"Dangerous," she interrupted.  "Yeah.  I know.  I'll be real careful from 
now on." 
 
But it was too late.  She already liked it too much.  She had, ever since 
that guy the old man had blown away in Detroit.  She hadn't told Ahmed 
about that, or about the third kind of orgasm she'd had, the best one of 
all. 
 
Yeah.  I'll be careful.  Careful not to get caught.  Next time I'll pay more 
attention.  Then maybe I can back off for a while and practice leaving 
them alive.  Not yet, though.  Just one more time. 
 
                                * * * * * * * 
 
She paced the veranda nervously, burning cigarette after cigarette, 
glancing repeatedly at the pretty diamond watch she'd bought herself 
with the loot from her first kill's wallet.  The autumn breeze was cold, 
but didn't affect her at all. 
 
It's only an hour til dawn.  He'll be back any time now.  Shit.  How the 
hell was I supposed to know that some damned dog would dig it up way 
out there in the fucking boonies and drag the fucker's head home?  I 
hope he hasn't read a newspaper or been listening to the radio.  He's 
going to be real pissed, even if I'm the one who gets to tell him first. 
 
 
 

Chapter Seven: Farewell 
 
She knew she was in big trouble - again - when the BMW plowed 
through the last snowdrift and the garage door started closing behind it.  
She was able to read his thoughts a little better.  What she sensed was a 
quiet, determined anger.  But she also knew that she could handle him. 
 
She dropped the brush onto the vanity and turned to admire the coal 
black mane that hung almost to her tight little ass.  The wig was damned 
expensive, but hadn't cost her a dime, of course.  She made a pouty face 
at herself, knowing - truthfully - that she was the most exotic, erotic cunt 
in this half-assed town.  She especially liked the weird green her eyes 
had finally turned.  They looked like wild contact lenses, but were every 
bit as real as her 36-D tits. 
 
She'd even figured out how to get Toth turned on and keep him that way.  
Sex wasn't enough.  She'd been stupid not to believe him about that for 
so long.  The fucking fool never lied to her about anything.  But looking 
more like a full blooded vampire bitch and making him take her by the 
throat worked every damned time.  He'd thought the fake fangs she'd 
"found" at Halloween had been a joke, until she'd shown him that they 
really worked.  She'd sunk them into his neck, and he'd gone wild. 
 
So she swayed down the stairs through the luminous darkness that no 
human could see or appreciate.  She felt like a movie star.  She started to 
greet him, but held herself back.  He wasn't in any mood to be loved.  
Not yet.  She'd have to go slow and easy and careful this time.  He 
wasn't just angry, he was . . . weird. 
 
He dropped his briefcase onto the table and sank into his favorite chair.  
Just like any regular pussy-whipped husband tired from a day at the 
office, come home to his foxy old lady.  But the flat knife of his voice 
shattered her image. 
 
"What did you do in Kansas City Saturday night, Callie?" 
 
He knew already?  "I told you.  I went shopping." 
 
"You forgot to mention that you murdered two teenage prostitutes 
behind a bar on the Kansas side.  One for food, one for fun, wasn't it?" 
 
"Oh.  Maybe I did forget to tell you about that.  No biggie, though.  
Nobody saw me, either before or after." 
 
"You thought I wouldn't find out?" 
 
"I figured you wouldn't care.  What I do's my own business.  Isn't that 
what you said last time?" 
 
He studied her.  Such a beautiful child.  On the outside.  "How many is 
that now?  Seven that I know of.  How many more that I don't?" 
 
Lying to him outright never worked any more.  Besides, what difference 
did it make?  "I'm not sure.  Eight.  A dozen tops." 
 
He nodded thoughtfully.  "That's about what I guessed."  He crossed his 
legs after carefully lifting his cuff.  "And how many have you let live?  
Just the six when I was either present or nearby?" 
 
"Hey, Ahmed.  Come on.  How many humans did you off during your 
Rapture?" 
 
"I have no memory of it.  I told you that.  And, believe me, it is not the 
same thing." 
 
"Oh?  What makes you so sure?  All vampires go through a psycho 
thing.  I'm about the right age for it." 
 
He shook his head sadly.  "I want to believe that is true nearly as much 
as you wish me to, Callie.  But, that is not the problem, and we both 
know it." 
 
She flounced to her own chair, abandoning the role of sex kitten in favor 
of a comfortable slouch, sacrificing her poise for a cigarette.  "So you 
tell me what it is then, asshole." 
 
"The problem is that you possess the worst qualities of both our races.  
You're completely self-absorbed and malicious.  Humans have no 
importance to you, except as food and for sexual gratification.  In 
addition, you're powerful and bloodthirsty and potentially immortal.  
Enraptured vampires have at least the excuse of madness.  You're simply 
a killer.  You murder for sheer pleasure.  It is your only motive, beyond 
hunger.  You will kill for as long as you live." 
 
She blew a series of smoke rings.  "If this heavy little speech is a way to 
tell me to get the fuck out, just say so.  I'm ready.  I can take care of 
myself.  I've been thinking it's way past time to move on anyway." 
 
He shook his head, offered her a sad smile.  "It's not about that at all, 
darling.  I want you to stay." 
 
"You really want me to?" 
 
"I insist.  I am still responsible for you." 
 
She slipped the fangs in under the pretext of a yawn.  She grinned back 
at him, knowing how the sexy white curve of her teeth looked against 
her blood red lips.  That's all her lipstick was.  Fake blood. 
 
"So let's get it on, lover.  I've got something real special cooked up for 
dinner." 
 
He laughed, grimly.  "You amaze me.  I haven't laughed as much during 
my entire life as I have these last eight months.  It's too bad that it's 
almost over. 
 
She sighed semi-sincere regret.  "I know what you mean.  I'll never 
forget you." 
 
He leaned forward, filled with a sudden urgency.  "Do you understand, 
Callie?  How sorry I am?" 
 
What was he getting at?  She felt like she'd missed part of the 
conversation or something.  The idea of starring in fuck flicks had kind 
of been stuck in her head again and she hadn't been paying a whole lot of 
attention to the asshole.  "Sure.  No need to be so heavy, lover." 
 
"So you can forgive me?" 
 
She tensed.  "What the fuck are you trying to say?  What did you do that 
I have to forgive?" 
 
"It isn't anything I've done.  It's what I have to do.  Callian, I have to
kill you." 
 
He was serious.  She went cold, all over, but tried to act natural.  She 
thought hard, quick.  "If this's a joke, Ahmed, it's not very funny." 

"I'm afraid it's no joke.  I cannot let this go on any longer.  It shouldn't 
have happened in the first place.  There's never been anyone like you - 
and now I know why." 
 
She played it real cool.  She tossed away her empty cigarette pack, 
stood, sauntered to her purse for more.  "Honey, I really didn't know you 
were so pissed about it.  Maybe you're right.  Maybe it's not like the 
Rapture.  I know I've been a little wild, but if it's that big a fucking deal,
I'll quit.  I'll be a good girl from now on.  I promise." 
 
"You won't.  It's not entirely your fault, Callie.  You can't control it.  
You've tried that, haven't you?" 
 
Her back was to him.  Her long, sharp red nails wrapped around the grip 
of her father's .38.  She always carried it, just in case.  Okay, Callian 
Louise.  It's show time.  The cameras are rolling.  Let the shoulders sag.  
Make the voice real fucking sincere, cunt.  You'll only get one take.  "I 
can do it.  I can learn.  But I need your help, Ahmed.  You've been 
ignoring me, spending all your time on that AIDS shit.  Baby, I need 
you!" 
 
"I wish I could believe that." 
 
She turned, pleading all over her hauntingly beautiful face, the gun 
hidden by her handbag.  "We can do it.  I swear we can.  Just give me 
another chance." 
 
Toth sighed, shook his head with profound regret.  "No, Callian.  I'm 
terribly sorry.  I've given you too many chances already." 
 
She dropped her head, tightened her grip.  "I don't want to die." 
 
He was beginning some response.  She quickly raised the gun and fired.  
The round struck the back of his chair, but he wasn't in it.  As blindingly 
fast as she was, he was that much faster.  Her second shot was purely 
reflexive, fired at a flickering blur coming at her from her right.  There 
was a crash as an endtable went over and a seldom used lamp shattered 
on the inlaid oak floor. 
 
Her chest heaved with fear and excitement.  The revolver was still 
clasped in both hands, just like Daddy taught her in that other pitiful 
lifetime.  The cordite was harsh in her flared nostrils, but she inhaled it 
like some sweet incense. 

She couldn't believe her luck.  She'd hit the fucker right in the face.  He 
was crumpled on the floor, not five feet away from her, with the whole 
back of his head blown off.  His brains and blood had spattered the 
kitchen wall, trickled slowly, thickly down. 
 
Her hands were shaking, her heart thundering.  She giggled madly.  
"God!  That was great!  Got the fucker cold!  Son of a fucking bitch!  
That was the best yet!" 
 
She braced herself against the wall, stared hungrily at the motionless 
corpse as a deeper shudder rippled through her loins, evoking a long, 
throaty moan.  Her own kind of Rapture overwhelmed her as her 
orgasmic ecstacy spiralled her toward delerium.  It lasted a long, long 
time.  Her groans became shrieks as she used her hands on herself. 
 
She broke two cigarettes trying to light them, cursed rawly, stared 
hollowly at her victim.  She got the third going. 
 
"Got to get out of here, slut.  No hurry, though.  Let's see.  Pack your 
shit.  Call the airport.  Get a flight out.  Anywhere.  Chicago, maybe."  A 
shrill, eerie, insane laugh.  "Yeah.  Go show Mommie what her baby girl 
grew up to be.  Make her beg, like those whores in Kansas City.  Make 
sure she knows what's coming.  Then . . ." 
 
She shook herself alert, tucked the .38 back into her purse, and danced 
up the stairs.  She pored over her clothes and changed into her favorite 
red dress, then threw the rest of her pretty clothes into his biggest 
suitcase, swept all her makeup off the vanity into a smaller one.  She 
stood on tiptoe and dug the envelope holding her emergency funds from 
the high closet shelf. 
 
A few hundred bucks.  Not enough.  He won't need the two grand in the 
freezer I'm not supposed to know about.  Grab it on the way out.  Let's 
see.  Think, cunt.  Call a cab or drive his car?  The car, I guess.  Into 
town anyway.  Cab from there.  Yeah.  Okay.  Get everything loaded, 
then torch the fucking house.  The way vampires rot, there won't even be 
ashes left. 
 
She completely redid her face, blew herself a sweltering, deep red kiss, 
smiled lovingly into the mirror.  Time to go, you nasty bitch.  It's a big 
world.  Full of blood and death.  And it's all mine.  Forever. 
 
Heavy suitcases in hand, she tapped daintily down the stairs, humming 
happily.  Belatedly, she noticed that all was not as she'd left it.  Too late,
she saw that the asshole's body was gone.  Just as immensely powerful 
hands wrapped around her throat from behind, she realized the enormity 
of her blunder.  He'd warned her.  Vampires are damned hard to kill. 
 
                                * * * * * * * 
 
The Gathering was totally unlike that of a same-sized group of humans 
would have been.  The thirty-seven beings gathered on the desert sand 
under the light of a gibbous moon were utterly still, utterly silent, totally 
focused upon the thirty-eighth.  He stood upon what had, millenia 
before, been a mighty wall.  When he finally resumed speaking, it was in 
a whisper as faint as the chill breeze, yet all heard it plainly. 
 
"I do not know why it is so, yet the evidence is overwhelming.  I am not 
adept in the field of microbiology - of either humans or ourselves - yet I 
am certain that some or all of our bodily fluids - our anti-coagulant and 
sperm and blood - have an enormous impact upon the HIV retro-virus 
and its effect upon the human body.  My studies of samples taken from 
the HIV positive tissues of Callian Louise Dorset have shown an 
essential genetic alteration of both the virus and the lymphosystem of its 
host.  In effect, for unknown reasons, at least in this one individual, the 
onset of AIDS was prevented, and a state either indentical to or 
indistinguishable from vampirism is created." 
 
Ahmed Mohammed ibn-Tariq Toth adjusted the bandage swathing the 
back of his head.  He wore it from courtesy.  The small hole over his left 
eye was already covered with skin.  Most of his jellied forebrain brain 
had regenerated over the past month, but he still spoke slowly, with a 
slight slur.  Bone took longer.  Had Callian's bullet struck him lower, 
destroyed the brain stem instead of the frontal lobes, he knew he 
wouldn't have recovered. 
 
"Do you see how important this is?  To ourselves, and to humankind?  It 
seems probable that we have at our disposal a cure for AIDS, perhaps 
the most pernicious disease humans have ever faced.  We must come to 
a monumental decision; do we openly intervene?  Reveal our existence?  
And, of equal importance, is another fact.  Those of you who have fed 
upon HIV positive individuals may have unwittingly created human 
vampires, just as I did.  Who are they?  Where?  Are they 
psychologically capable of coping with what are innate abilities for our 
race?  Was Callian's madness unique, or typical of what might occur?" 
 
The ensuing silence stretched long into the night.  The Eldest finally 
rose.  He looked no different from any other, yet no one - himself 
included - could even estimate his age.  Ahmed bowed respectfully.  The 
gesture was returned. 
 
"You have terminated the existence of this . . . creature?" 
 
"It was necessary." 
 
The Eldest nodded, his sorrow clear.  "The child was not truly one of us.  
Still, we must mourn her passage as we do that of any of the People.  For 
all those no longer among us, let us grieve." 
 
The thirty-eight raised their voices as one, created the most ancient of 
sounds, the one by which humans had first learned to know them.  The 
ululating wail of primal grief could easily have been mistaken for the 
howl of a pack of wild beasts, but split the air with even more keening 
force. 
 
Once, during an enduring period of personal desolation, Toth had 
forsaken a Gathering.  Yet, as the group a half a world away had given 
voice to their racial isolation and despair, his hair had stood on end.  He 
had heard them with his soul. 
 
As did Callie, now, her horridly maimed and dismembered body buried 
beneath thousands of tons of fallen rock.  Her mad eyes, green as hatred 
and no longer even remotely human, burned evilly as her body ever so 
slowly healed.  And still her hunger grew. 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------




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