Jez smiled at him, showing her teeth. She could feel them grow as she went into feeding mode. Her canines lengthening and curving until they were as sharp and delicate and translucent as a cat's. She liked the feel of them lightly indenting her lower lip as she half-opened her mouth.
That wasn't the only change. She knew that her eyes were turning to liquid silver and her lips were getting redder and fuller as blood flowed into them in anticipation of feeding. Her whole body was taking on an indefinable charge of energy.
The skinhead watched as she became more and more beautiful, more and more inhuman. And then he seemed to fold in on himself. With his back against a tree, he slid down until he was sitting on the ground in the middle of some pale brown oyster fungus. He was staring straight ahead.
Jez's gaze was drawn to the double lightning bolt tattooed on his neck. Right. . . there, she thought. The skin seemed reasonably clean, and the smell of blood was enticing. It was running there, rich with adrenaline, in blue veins just under the surface. She was almost intoxicated just thinking about tapping it.
Fear was good; it added that extra spice to the taste. Like Sweetarts. This was going to be good. . . .
Then she heard a soft broken sound.
The skinhead was crying.
Not loud bawling. Not blubbering and begging. Just crying like a kid, slow tears trickling down his cheeks as he shook.
"I thought better of you," Jez said. She shook her hair out, tossed it in contempt. But something inside her seemed to tighten.
He didn't say anything. He just stared at her- no, through her-and cried. Jez knew what he was seeing. His own death.
"Oh, come on," Jez said. "So you don't want to die. Who does? But you've killed people before. Your gang killed that guy Juan last week. You can dish it out, but you can't take it."
He still didn't say anything. He wasn't pointing the gun at her anymore; he was clutching it with both hands to his chest as if it were a teddy bear or something. Or maybe as if he were going to kill himself to get away from her. The muzzle of the gun was under his chin.
The thing inside Jez tightened more. Tightened and twisted until she couldn't breathe. What was wrong with her? He was just a human, and a human of the worst kind. He deserved to die, and not just because she was hungry.
But the sound of that crying ... It seemed to pull at her. She had a feeling almost of deja vu, as if this had all happened before-but it hadn't. She knew it hadn't.
The skinhead spoke at last. "Do it quick," he whispered.