him but didn’t know what else to do. Casting out tentatively, I felt no malice or violence, only haste. He sighed in frustration, wishing he’d taken a different route and left my pretty, frightened plight for somebody else to handle.

“I’ve got to be in Lake Forest Park in an hour,” he said, “but I can take a detour and drop you. Who lives in Greenwood?”

“My sister.”

“Come on, then.”

Not moving, I stared out in indecision. Jumping in right away with him would have looked unusual. But his frustration mounted.

“Look, there won’t be another bus this time of night. You either stay here or come on.”

Obviously the prospect of staying in an alley wouldn’t appeal to any young mortal girl. I stepped out and followed him, half jogging to keep up. Three blocks away, he unlocked the passenger door of a newer Ford pickup and reached out for my hand.

“Watch your dress getting in.”

His manner affected me somehow. On a normal hunt I’d never have chosen a victim like this. Though slightly condescending, he had no motives besides taking me somewhere safe. Even in a rush, he’d stopped to help one person in this crowded city.

He hopped in and slammed the driver’s door. The street was fairly dark and quiet. Reaching out, I stopped his hand from sliding a key into the ignition, and I focused my thoughts, touching the edge of his own.

“Wait, not yet.”

He turned at my words, seeing me through a downy white mist. I pressed a suggestion into his mind.

You’re so tired. You need sleep.

“What are you . . . ?” he mumbled.

Sleep.

His eyelids grew heavy, and his head lolled back against the seat. His body went limp except for his chest, which continued to rise and fall.

I scooted across the seat and moved up for his throat.

He looked so peaceful, so helpless, that I stopped.

Changing my mind, I lifted his wrist instead. No tearing or ripping this time. Using my eyeteeth, I punctured the large blue vein above the callused curve of his palm. Carefully, keeping the holes as small as possible, I drew down on his wrist, drinking blood and absorbing life force while his heart beat quickly. My mind filled with visions of a farm in Nebraska and a hard-faced mother who never laughed, a soft-eyed sister who dreamed of being a dancer, and a stocky chestnut horse named Buck . . . his memories, his past treasures.

Once I had taken enough, I pulled out and used my fingernail to connect the little holes on his wrist, making the wound into a jagged cut—messy, but he was not bleeding badly.

My focus turned to his thoughts again, taking him back to the moment he’d rounded the corner and seen me up against the wall. I erased the memory.

No frightened girl had waited for him, only an empty street. But in his haste he’d stumbled and cut his wrist on a broken bottle. The pain didn’t bother him at first, but then it grew worse. He got in the truck and felt dizzy. He must have passed out.

Opening the passenger door and pressing the lock button down, I let go of his altered memories and hopped down into the street, leaving him to sleep peacefully a little longer.

Numb shock faded as I ran through the night. Then euphoria began to rise inside of me. This was it. Their secret.

I didn’t mourn for all the lives needlessly lost in my ignorant past, but instead, I rejoiced for those saved in my future. I didn’t have to kill. I never had to kill.

This was the way of the vampires who existed before my generation. They were not murderers, not slavering hunters who wiped out whole villages, merely survivors who used what gifts they had, like everyone else.

Where had they come from? Where did I come from? Perhaps Philip was right and we came from black spirits who roamed the void before some great god created the earth. Perhaps not. There was no one left to teach me. Perhaps I’d find out one day.

None of that mattered. I didn’t have to kill anymore. We were a new breed, Philip and I, like our predecessors. Would Philip care? Would he evolve? I couldn’t wait to bring him outside and show him what I’d discovered.

I waved down a taxi. This state of limbo had to end. The undeclared war was over. Nobody really won, but it was over just the same, and it was time to go on. I kept mulling over