his death, and it would take him regardless. Faith or no faith, acceptance or denial, death held him now and offered only one way of escape.

The young are rash. Theroen, twenty-three, with little practical experience outside the world of the church, found his faith tested, and found it lacking. He leaned his head back, bearing his neck to the creature that held him. Let it happen. Let his body be remade in this image, and so chase away the specter of death forever. What evil could it bring more than had been allowed within the sanctified doors of his very church?

“So be it,” Abraham whispered. His neck arched, teeth bared, and there was pain... pain like Theroen had never before felt. He screamed into the night, but his voice drained away with his blood.

* * *

“For ten years I raged in my hatred against humanity with tooth and claw and mind. I took women in pairs, quartets, more. Half a dozen a night I would drain to the last, that I might drown my hate in blood. I was the very image of Satan himself, presiding over heights of debauchery that Father Leopold could never have conceived. They bathed in each other’s blood, and I lapped it from their bodies, to the tune of their cries of passion. They loved it. Oh, they loved it.”

They were walking again. Theroen looked straight, down the road, unable to meet Two’s eyes. His hands were clenched into fists, his lips pursed into a thin white line. “They loved it, and I hated them for it. And I hated myself even more.”

“Theroen.” Two touched his arm.

“Do these things surprise you, Two?” He took her hand, tightened his own around it for a moment, let it drop.

“No. Not that you hated yourself for it. That’s no surprise at all. That’s not you, Theroen.”

“Is it not? Abraham did not instruct me in these things. His first attempt was a dismal failure. The very next night I awakened, horrified to discover myself on a stone slab in a mausoleum, and Abraham was there, with a human. He forced the man’s neck to my teeth, laughing at my screams, my prayers, my promises of atonement and reasoning with a God I had forever left behind.

“Oh, and his sweat was rank. Bitter. Disgusting. His screams mingled with my own, but I drank... and drank. I felt him pass into death, and I wept. Abraham looked upon me in disgust and left me there weeping, returning only near dawn to drag me back to the crypt where the coming sun paralyzed my limbs, battered me into sleep.

“It was four days before I drank again. I starved. The thirst raged until I could bear it no longer. I took another human, this time away from Abraham, who had once again left me to my own devices, appalled at my inability to accept the gift he had given me. There was a young woman, kneeling at the grave of her father, whispering, grieving.”

Theroen shook his head, his eyes distant.

“I took her like a storm, unfamiliar with my strength, desperate in my hunger. I broke her spine shoving her head backward, tore away the heavy garments at her neck, ripped most of her throat out with my teeth... all of this before she could even have been aware of what was happening. And when it was done, I was glad. I was glad to take something from these creatures of God, and leave them nothing in return.”

Two watched him, saying nothing. Theroen’s face was grim. There was no reminiscence in this tale, only the memory of events he would sooner have forgotten.

“It’s all rather torrid, really.” Melissa came up behind Two, touched her shoulder, looked at Theroen. “Sort of surprising, given your nature, Theroen. My first time was so cut and dried. You brought me to that nice man’s house in Brooklyn. His wife had passed away earlier that year and he wanted to die. We sat and talked, kissed a little, and then I took him. He died smiling.”

“You know less of my nature than you might think, Melissa. I’ve had four hundred years to study it, and learn it for myself.”

“Well, what I know of it is that you’re way too conservative to be a vampire, and you’re really good at getting Two all nerved up on her first night as one!” Melissa touched Two’s shoulder again, smiling, impish, unwilling to allow Theroen any more time in his melancholy.

Two laughed. “Actually,