Ashayt vampires ... within a few months. Eresh vampires take much longer. Melissa still kills sometimes.”

“No. I don’t. She does.” Melissa’s voice was quiet.

“My apologies, Melissa.”

“S’okay. It’s weird, Two, but the stronger we get, the less we need. You’ll learn how to control that mesmerism stuff. Then you can keep them from remembering. They wake up feeling kind of crappy, figure it’s the flu... end of story.”

“You can purposely do that?”

“Oh, sure. One time I was with these two guys and this other girl, and we were all getting pretty into it, you know? And I was all hot and I started biting without even really thinking about it, and then the girl started freaking out, because this guy was like dripping blood on her, but he had his eyes closed and thought she was, you know... just getting off. So he keeps right on banging away at her, and I...”

Theroen cleared his throat. “Melissa, do you have any stories which might illustrate your point without requiring a detailed description of your various acts of debauchery?”

Melissa tilted her head, thinking. “No.”

Two laughed. “It’s okay. Sounds sort of fun, before the screaming anyway. But that only tells me what to do with something alive. Sean has, uh... moved on.”

Two tried to feel bad about this, and her mind made some token effort at guilt, but the truth was simple. This man was as much a killer as she was, and it was difficult to be remorseful about what she had done.

“Well, we could just leave him. The bite marks fade. I think it’s because there’s some of our blood even in our saliva, and it maybe heals the flesh it directly touches.” Melissa shrugged, an odd gesture with a body slung over her shoulder. “Don’t know. I’m no biologist. But a lot of people saw you. Not that any investigation would find us out, but maybe it’s better if the body goes away for a while.”

“I concur,” Theroen said. “Let’s take him into the woods and bury him.”

“With what?”

Theroen and Melissa exchanged another grin.

“You’ll see, Two. C’mon!” Melissa began moving up the road toward the edge of town.

* * *

The lack of shovels proved to be of little concern. Digging by hand is not, for a vampire, the difficult task that it is for a human being. Fingernails do not break, flesh does not cut or wear, strength does not flag.

Work proceeded rapidly. Melissa chattered at them in her fashion. Two and Theroen were mostly silent, half-listening, absorbed in the work.

“This is good for you to learn, anyway, Two. If you ever get caught away from someplace safe, and the sun’s coming up, you can actually dig down and go into the earth if you have to. It’s not the most pleasant way to spend the day, but it works. I had to do it once when I pissed off Theroen and he left me in the city. I was halfway through walking back when I realized that I wasn’t going to make it in time.”

At this, Theroen glanced up. “I have never left you anywhere you did not wish to be left, Melissa.”

A moment’s pause, and she shrugged. “Must be remembering it wrong. Anyway, it’s sort of funny. It’s not really the bugs or worms that bothered me, or even the difficulty breathing. It was the scent. I could smell everything rotting. It was pretty disgusting.”

Melissa stopped working for a minute, a far-off, quizzical expression on her face. “What the hell was I doing out there anyway? I could have sworn we had a fight, Theroen. You don’t remember anything like that?”

Theroen shook his head.

“Guess I’ll have to trust you. You remember everything.”

“Largely, yes. It’s of no real concern, Melissa.”

“I suppose.”

Theroen stood, brushed off the knees of his pants. The hole was done.

Melissa dumped Sean in with no more reverence than if she were burying a pile of junk. Two felt as if she should say something, shook it off. Human sentiment. She was no longer human. It was a waste of time, and Theroen and Melissa were no doubt hungry. She joined them, shoveling the dirt back over the body.

Finished. Less than an hour, and they’d managed to camouflage the hole quite well. Two’s watch said it was nearly two in the morning.

“Do you guys need to, uh... eat?”

Theroen grinned. Melissa laughed, wiping her hands on Sean’s jacket, which she’d said she would bring home and dispose of.

“Yes,” Theroen said, turning and walking away from the grave. “But that