Jacob shook his head. "No. They'd make me cut my hair."

He picked Jennifer up off the porch and she put her arm around his neck. Mrs. Carmody watched, open-mouthed, as he brought her to the car and lowered her into the seat. Jennifer stared at Mrs. Carmody through the windshield even though the afternoon sun hurt her eyes. Jacob dropped in next to her.

"Okay," she sighed. "I see a pattern."

"What pattern?"

"Elliot was here in the afternoon. He left here, went to this biker bar you talked about, and then you lost track of him. Grayson broke into my house at one or two in the morning, right?"

"I arrived at about one fifteen."

"Sometime after that, the kids get sh-sh-sh... the kids..." she choked up. "Howard gets the call half an hour before my house is trashed. Mrs. Carmody calls them and the say they're 'busy.' There's something going on here."

He sighed. "I thought you'd see it."

"We'll start with the biker bar."

"We?" said Jacob. "What we? You're going to-"

"If we're going to do this, it's going to be as partners. I'm not your princess to lock up in a tower. Did you see what they did? It's never going to stop, no matter where I go. I'm sick of looking over my shoulder every day, and I'm not dragging my sister into it. She's out and she can stay out."

"Jennifer-"

"They killed my husband, Jacob. They killed Krystal. I have as much a right to see this through as you do."

Jacob nodded in silence. In between looking ahead or glancing at the mirrors, he stole short looks at her, keeping his face a mask. She folded her arms as she looked out the window, doing her best not to break down any more. Images of Krystal bubbled into her mind.

My best big sister teacher.

Jacob let her have her quiet. It was broken when they pulled up to the house and there was a PFPD cruiser sitting in the drive with the lights going. Jacob pulled up next to it and got out. Ellison Carlyle, Grayson's little brother, leaned on the car.

In this case, little brother was a tad misleading. Ellison was over six feet, narrow and lean. Jennifer opened her door but Jacob motioned for her to stay in the car. Ellison stood, and adjusted his hat and mirrored aviators. The safety strap on his holster was unsnapped.

"Jacob Kane, ain't it?" said Ellison.

"Yes, officer. Is there a problem?"

"Where were you last night?"

"He was with me," Jennifer loudly insisted.

"All night?" said Ellison.

"Yes," Jennifer said.

Ellison's gaze shifted between Jennifer and Jacob. "Doing what?"

Jacob remained calm. "That's not your business, officer. Is there a problem?"

"Yeah, there's a problem. My brother's in the hospital and we got two dead kids. I'm wondering where you were at the time."

"I'm sorry to hear about your brother, but I don't know anything about that."

Jennifer pushed herself up out of the seat, grimacing as she shifted her weight onto the ankle that hurt the least. After closing the car door, she ignored Jacob's motions to stay back and hobbled over to him. Jacob folded his arms across his chest. Ellison was about the same height, and Jacob didn't look much bigger, but there was something about him that made Ellison appear mousy by comparison.

"Anything else, officer? You're on my property."

"Might be," Ellison said. "Where you say you were, again?"

Jacob's jaw clenched. "I was home all night."

"With me," Jennifer added.

"You wouldn't be lying to me," said Ellison. "Would you? 'Cause maybe I got somebody that says you ate at the Wham with your sister and this guy wasn't there. Maybe I got somebody that says he was out on Route 62 in an '86 Dodge."

"Do you?" Jacob said.

"You might have those things, but my landlady called you last night to report a break in. What about that?"

"Yeah," Ellison said. "I sent a cruiser by, we took a look. Animal damage."

"What?"

"Rogue coyote," Ellison said. "Getting to be a real problem in this part of the state."

Again Jacob asked what a.s.sistance he could provide.

"Yeah, you can tell me where-"

"I did. Do you have a search warrant?"

"Nope. Not yet."

"Did somebody call you?"

"No."

"This is private property. The property line is down there." Jacob pointed down the hill. "You're trespa.s.sing."

"What are you planning to do about it?"

"I'll call the police," Jacob said.

Ellison nodded with a smile as he cracked his gum. "Alright, alright. I got things to do, places to be. Police work, you know? I'm a busy man. I'd give you my card but I think we'll be seeing each other. By the way, you need to fix your taillight."

Ellison drew out his nightstick and smashed the Aston Martin's taillight. Ellison nodded and grinned as he pulled his cruiser around and tromped on the gas, sending a spray of gravel towards Jacob and Jennifer. She stumbled while trying to avoid it, and Jacob caught her as she lost her balance.

"That was very juvenile," Jacob sighed.

"He's very juvenile," Jennifer said. "What now?"

Jennifer clenched her teeth and started hobbling towards the house. She stopped, and sighed. "Go ahead."

He picked her up and carried her inside. "Now I need to think. You need to get off that leg."

"I have phone calls to make," Jennifer said. "I don't want to call her parents, but I have to."

"I know. Let me take you upstairs."

Again, he carried her up the staircase and lowered her to her feet just inside the door.

"It's your room now," he said. "I'll have Faisal see about getting you some clothes."

"Please tell me you don't already know what size I wear."

"I don't."

"I need you to do something for me. Don't move."

"What-"

Putting all her weight on her good leg, she lifted up on her toes and kissed him. His eyes widened in shock. She resisted the urge to press against him, or even open her mouth, but it was good and warm and she needed it.

There was still a raging storm of anger and sorrow spinning through her, but now a ray of light pierced it. As she sat down on the bed and weighed calling Katie or Mrs. Summers first, she knew she would sleep in a strange house tonight, but at least it wasn't an empty one.

To be continued...

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Chapter One.

The dead man in the bathroom is beginning to smell.

I've slept in this smelly little apartment as long as I can. I lucked out this time. This isn't the kind of place where neighbors nose in on each other. A three floor brownstone. I'm on the top floor. I've been sleeping in the closet for the last three days, since this guy brought me home.

I knew he was my mark when I tasted the drink he bought and felt the gritty texture of the crushed up pill meant to knock me out. I could feel it in his eyes. Hear a little voice whisper this one. I played woozy, let him tuck me in a cab and bring me back to his lair.

I gave him a chance. I controlled myself that long. I played at being drugged, stumbled around, slurred my speech. He could have changed his mind and called me a cab or just put me to sleep on the couch and I'd have been gone by the time he woke up, holed up somewhere else for another day. When I pretended to pa.s.s out he started pulling off my clothes. I stopped pretending.

I dragged him, kicking and screaming, into the bathroom and pinned him down in the tub. The look of absolute confusion on his face stings my memory like his hot blood stung my tongue.

I ignored his pleas and protests and the confusion and shock as a skinny, five foot two girl overpowered him and bound him with a belt and opened his wrists with a razor from his medicine cabinet. I caught as much of the blood as I could in bowls, drank some then and kept the rest in the fridge until it started to thicken up. After I drank my fill and licked myself clean like a cat I washed off the rest with cold water and washed him, too. It left a red ring around the side of the tub and a rusty streak around the drain.

Last night I went thirsty.

If I don't kill again in the next day or three, it'll start to get me. I feel the thirst in my stomach first. It's not a rumbling or a sensation of hunger, it's more a cold place that wants to be filled up. From there, it spreads. It goes to my lungs next, a constant feeling of suffocation, like I'm just about to draw a breath but can't. Then it gets in my veins. They harden up. I can feel them crack when I move.

Then it gets in my head like my skull is full of cotton b.a.l.l.s and razor blades. Then I have no choice but to feed. If I don't, I make a straight line for the nearest warm body when I wake up. Man, woman, child, it doesn't matter. I'll wake up in a pool of blood holding a corpse with its throat torn open and a hole in my memory between the time the hunger took over and the feeding ended.

I can't fly. I can't turn into mist or walk through shadows or become invisible by turning sideways. I've never seen a bat in person, and dogs don't particularly like me, much less wolves. There's only a few differences between me and you. I'm stronger. I have a theory on that. Human beings have a kind of preservation instinct that keeps them from hurting themselves. The human musculature is much stronger than most people realize. Strong enough to tear itself apart if it's not held in check. I don't have that limit. I go all out, all the time. Maybe a little more.

That's the main difference. The other is the obvious one. I have no pulse. I do not breathe. My flesh will eventually cool to room temperature, even if I warm myself up. I've tried everything: electric blankets, s.p.a.ce heaters, warm baths. Every night when the sun sets I wake up and I fall asleep when it rises. I do not dream, nor can I wake up on my own. If sunlight touches my flesh it begins to smoke and sizzle and after maybe a minute I will burst into flames and die. The touch of the sun itself is the only thing I know of that can keep me awake during the day.

I have no way of knowing for sure, but I'm fairly certain I could be mistaken for a corpse if someone found me while I was sleeping. I don't have nightmares because I don't dream, but sometimes when I'm awake I get a flash, an unwanted imagining. In my mind's eye I see the bright lights greeting me as my eyes open during my own autopsy, my chest spread open in a standard Y-incision as the doctor weighs my organs.

Nothing scares me more than that, except the thought of what comes after if I actually do die, whether I just cease to exist or go to h.e.l.l as punishment for the monster I've become. I'm not sure which scares me worse.

I get a taste of that every time I try to remember the person I used to be. My name is Christine, but I don't know my last name or where I was born or how old I was before... this. Looking at myself in the mirror I see the corpse of somebody I'd like to know but will never meet.

Yes, I can see my reflection.

I don't even have fangs. How's that for a ripoff? If I want to feed it's either my teeth or a sharp instrument.

My meager belongings all fit in my pockets. I have a pair of jeans and a t-shirt I wash semi-regularly, usually in the sink. I don't have much a problem with odors; I don't sweat, and my hair doesn't even grow. No other, ah, bodily functions either.

I don't have any money or identification, but I don't really need it. I carry a makeup kit I stole a while back and soon I'll steal another to replace it. After I've combed out my hair I go for a goth girl look. I tried to make myself look alive once, put on some foundation and blush and rouge, but I ended up looking like a circus clown. If I go for a dark palette I at least look somewhat alive in the right light. I can't do anything about the dark veins or the waxy texture of my skin.

The other thing I carry with me is a picture. There's another girl with me. A tall redhead. I barely come up to her chest. We're standing together in an airport but I don't know where it is. I don't know their names, or why I have a picture of myself with her, how I knew her or where she is now. When I stare at it and try to remember all I get is a numb dull blackness and I have to stop, fold it in half, and carefully put it in the change pocket of my jeans.

At some point, I wore a ring on my left hand. There's still a slightly paler band around my finger where it used to be. I don't know if I was married, or if it was just a cla.s.s ring. I'm pretty sure I went to college. I'm the right age and I get little flashes now and then. I like to read. I only get the chance when a guy's apartment has books in it. Or they have a Kindle. I love those, if I can figure out the pa.s.sword.

I realize I'm stalling. I double check the garbage bags I used to wrap up the corpse in the bathtub and hope the smell won't draw any attention for a few days. I hope that the police will call it a suicide when they find him and they won't start looking for me.

I stop at the door, and rest my hand on the k.n.o.b. I'm going to go out and find someone to murder. I would cry if I could make tears.

Before, when I was new at this, I used to pray. I figured if by some cosmic joke this could happen to me maybe there was some greater force out there that could turn me back. The more I had to kill to keep myself alive, the more d.a.m.ned I felt, until I realized what a joke this is. I've never met another like me. Nor have I met any werewolves, or seen a ghost. I might be the only one in the world.

All I know is this: I don't pray anymore, but I want there to be a G.o.d so I can hate him. He let this happen to me.

Out on the street, the air is cold. I can't really feel my body cooling down but I know it is. I'm aware of heat, of cold, of the breeze in my hair, but I don't feel them, not really. It's the same when I get hurt. I sense injuries but I don't feel pain. If I try to eat everything tastes like ash and the textures are excruciating. Eating a saltine cracker is like chewing up razor blades and a bowl of soup might as well be acid. It's even worse when it inevitably comes back up.

What I can feel is the pulse of everyone around me. Walking down the sidewalk means a constant bombardment of sensation. The sound of breathing, the feel of body heat and a constant shivering sensation as I feel the blood pumping through the people as they get close to me.

I slice through the crowd with ease. People move out of my way and look at the ground when they pa.s.s and they don't know why, and I can feel their shivers, see the hairs p.r.i.c.k up on the backs of their necks.

I have to go to a different place tonight. If too many guys disappear after visiting the same club people will start looking, and they will notice them all talking to me, or worse, leaving with me. Then the grainy surveillance camera stills come out on the news, and then they find me. I have no illusions about what would happen. I'm not indestructible. I'll die if someone shoots me. Even if they take me alive, they won't believe me. They'll leave me in a place with windows, and come morning find a charred, greasy stain where I used to be.

So after tonight, I will move on. I will not stay the night. I will take a bus to another city. Somewhere north, maybe, where the days aren't so long. I often wonder if there's a way I can get into Canada. Just go and go until I hit permafrost. Maybe I can dig in and let it freeze me and this will be over.

There's a line to get into the club. It's worse now, the hunger. I can feel it pulsing in my throat as the ba.s.s from inside rolls up my legs. I don't want to stand in line and wait for the velvet rope. I can't pay the cover.