live and see and do! Won’t it be wonderful?”

Two thought it might, indeed.

* * *

“I don’t care for all of this antique crap.”

Melissa’s directness, something Two realized now was as innate to her being as Theroen’s composure, was regardless sometimes surprising. Two raised her eyebrows.

“No?”

They were sitting on the back terrace, looking out at the woods. The moon was huge tonight, reaching the bloated, red fullness she had seen promised not three nights ago. It hung low over the sky. The night was still young. Two’s earlier pain had made the time seem much longer than it had actually been.

“No. It’s pointless. Abraham buys the stuff without any thought, at least that I can tell. Mostly he doesn’t even do the buying. Theroen does, though Theroen detests a lot of it. That might be what Abraham has him doing tonight. Or it might be that he’s retrieving dinner for Abraham. He doesn’t hunt for himself anymore, you know, just relies on Theroen. Doesn’t even have to drink more than every once in a while. I think maybe the little blood he took from you, like you said? That might have woken up the thirst.”

“How does Theroen feel about bringing him victims?”

“Better than about buying him stupid furniture.” Melissa’s eyes gleamed. She grinned.

“It doesn’t bother him, then? Picking out a life to take like he was going to the grocery store?”

Melissa looked at Two, shook her head, smiling.

“That’s not how it is ... not for Theroen or even for me. We don’t have to kill, anymore. We don’t need that much blood. Abraham kills because he likes to, that’s all.

“But even if we still had to ... you don’t understand. You were asleep for the only real drink you’ve ever had. You don’t know how it is yet. You think a couple of drops from a finger are good? Wait until you’re a full vampire.”

Two remembered the taste of Melissa’s blood, of Theroen’s, of her own. It had been sweet on her lips, hot and powerful. It had left her breathless.

“You have to kill at the start, but you get over it,” Melissa continued. “Mortals die all the time. That’s what makes them so beautiful. They get all into their art and their music and their careers and everything, and then they get old and die. Or they die young. If we don’t bring them death, something else will, some other time. We are predators among them. And most of them? In that last instant before death? Most of them love us.”

Two shook her head, not in negation but confusion. It all seemed deceptively easy. It all seemed so right, and yet here she was sitting with a young woman talking casually about the slaughter of human beings.

“You’re only half. When he makes you full, Two, these things won’t concern you. Or at least, I doubt they will. Not past the first kill.”

“You said we’d be sisters. Did Theroen make you, then?”

Melissa laughed, not at Two’s ignorance, but at the idea itself, as if the very thought were absurd.

“No, my father is Abraham. My blood is Abraham’s blood. I only meant sisters in that our bodies are of similar ages. And both of us will have been reborn into darkness, as the poets put it.”

Darkness. Two could feel darkness at the back of her mind, beginning to gnaw at her again. The idea of a fix right now, after the nice warm bath, out on the patio with a friend, seemed dangerously appealing. Melissa cocked her head.

“You’re thinking about drugs.”

Two felt her face reddening, nodded. “Yeah. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I imagine it’s hard not to. I wonder if it’s like the thirst. If it’s like when we’re forced not to drink for a few days. It burns in us, Two. It’s all I can think about. Sometimes it’s like that even on normal days. Sometimes I’ll feed two... even three times a night.”

Two didn’t know. Of the thirst she knew only a vague desire, not a desperate need. Of the heroin, she knew nothing else.

Time passed. Several times Two was one the verge of asking Melissa for more blood, but stopped herself. She didn’t want to seem that weak. She could handle it until Theroen returned. Light shakes and a dry mouth. No worse than getting the flu, really, for the moment.

In the distance, in the trees, a howling. Two looked up, eyes widening. Melissa’s reaction was immediate. She stood and peered out into the forest.

“Oh, shit. I have to go, Two.”

Two