be different when they’re at home?”
I shook my head. They were terrible enough when they roamed the streets, pretending to be human.
“Not ready,” Cole said again. “Not yet. But we will be.”
I remember her at our first dance: tight mouthed, determined not to falter. Her dress was scarlet, a color far different from simple red. How deeply the vanished Ash must have loved her.
Nervously, we waited for the evening to begin. My burned hand tingled, my dreams the night before all of fire. Cole crossed her arms under her small, apple-like breasts, watching as the unholy materialized among the tables.
It had been years since I’d paid attention to the individual aspects of a vampire. At first I had scanned their ranks, looking for Maria. When she never appeared the rest of them took on a kind of uniformity. Male or female all were slender, all beautiful, all surrounded by subtle darkness. You would mistake them for portenos if your eyes didn’t slip across them when you tried to stare.
Five sat in the crowd that night: three women, two men. I recognized a cruel faced boy who had only appeared in the last decade. The others were strangers. Their ranks kept growing, new faces every year. They were making their own portenos now: a whole city, perhaps, lying beneath our feet. Did Maria live there too—hidden away all these years? She would no longer be the girl in the modest white dress, but something unholy and refined.
The music began. In the clubs, couples are expected to dance with strangers. After the first dance, Cole and I would be expected to switch partners. We had one chance. We waited for our song.
It came at last with accordion and bass: an Argentine Tango. No one bothered with the slow seduction of the cabezazo anymore, so we took to the floor, beginning our routine with the entrada.
I had started to dance on my slow fall from the priesthood, sneaking to Mr. Pepe’s during the week. Cole had taken ballet and yoga. The greatest trick we could pull off—her with her inexperience, I with my age, was the volcada—the falling step. Even then, it was only my years that made the feat memorable, for I looked incapable of performing it.
Cole danced stiffly at first, her teeth set. As she began her first firuletes—a small kick with her back foot as she turned, a quick hook to my leg before going into her backwards-eights—the vampires perked up. Over the heads of the other dancers I saw them rise, drifting towards one another. Their heads tossed back and forth, scanning the crowd.
“Shit,” Cole whispered. She grew even stiffer, faltering. I fought the urge to run. I could see them coming, their sleek, gleaming heads bobbing as they waded towards us.
“Shit!” Cole said again. It would all be for nothing if she lost heart now.
I could think of one thing to do.
“Surrender,” I whispered. I pressed, my leg on hers, driving her deeper into the crowd. She resisted. Her eyes flashed to mine:
Are you crazy, old man?
“Surrender,” I said. Another push. “Dance.”
At last, she did.
I remember the smoke of that night. The smell of her fear. Other couples were prettier, evenly matched, young. None danced more earnestly. None as if their heart and soul hung in the balance. A sheen of sweat bejeweled Cole’s forehead, snaring wisps of red hair. For the first time I thought her beautiful. For the first time we moved with a single purpose, no longer at odds—porteno and American, man and woman. We moved like two determined martyrs, knowing the danger and plunging ahead to the end: volcada. The fall.
Salida.
When the music stopped the laughter took me by surprise. The couples stood about, applauding one another, some already drifting back to their tables. Yet the room pulsed with raucous laughter. Cole shuddered, clambering up from out finishing pose.
Two vampires stood beside us: a man and a woman. They had been there all along.
I realized their laughter was in my head.
“Touching!” the female said. “How lost and tragic you are!” She bent towards me and sniffed, once, like an animal. The points of her teeth flashed.
“Sad, sad,” said the male. “As if we would take such as you.”
“You’re here now, aren’t you?” I flinched as Cole spoke. She stepped away from me, straight-backed and angry, her teeth very white as she matched the woman’s aggressive expression. “I know who you are, puta,” she said. “I recognize your disgusting hair.”
The female smiled too widely for