Bryan stuck a long finger in his mouth. "I took them out. They were tearing up my gums. I may get mine sharpened. I haven't decided."

Melanie shook her head. She knew Bryan wouldn't go through with it. He even opted for magnetic earrings instead of full piercings. She herself had five tiny silver studs that ran up and down both ears like Braille, and she had been thinking of adding more.

Whatever the reason, she should be grateful Bryan had ditched his fake teeth. Not only did the plastic vampire teeth he liked to wear make him lisp and drool, but they were the cause of at least two bar fights. It made him look ridiculouth ridiculouth.

"Did you bring anything to drink?"

Bryan produced a small bottle from a tattered backpack, "Wine. Blood red." He winked.

Melanie smiled despite herself. Bryan could be corny, but it was hard to deny his enthusiasm.

"I like your hair." He rested a hand on her thigh.

"I figured you would." She leaned in to kiss him. She liked the way he tasted, like smoke and Chardonnay. He was dry but sweet.

They met in a summer art cla.s.s. Night school, of course, because traipsing about in daylight would ruin his finely cultivated pale complexion. Bryan was deeply appreciative of Melanie's series of photographs of garbage cans. Of everything about Melanie for that matter.

On their first date, he stood nervously at the door and waited for her to invite him in. Later he would ask permission to kiss her. She chose what movies they saw and where they went to dinner. She decided when they were finished making love, even if he hadn't. He made her feel strong, and if that meant pretending tomato juice was blood and swearing off garlic, then so be it. Besides, this strange relationship gave her the days totally free to herself.

While Bryan playfully nipped at her lips like a puppy, she studied the turrets from an old castle-like house or church that rose dizzyingly above the legacy oaks on the hillside. Though the way the building sat precariously on the edge of the cliff sickened her, Melanie felt obsessed with locating the property. She imagined climbing into the house on a rope of spun gold, a wealth of untold treasures awaiting her discovery, but subsequent attempts to find it despite detours deep into the woods had proved fruitless.

Tonight, she noticed smoke pouring from a chimney, the first sign she'd ever seen of anyone living there. She had a.s.sumed it was long abandoned.

A not so distant howl interrupted them.

"Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make," Bryan said, doing his best Bela Lugosi.

Melanie snapped back to attention. "It's just Carl."

"You have no imagination." Bryan slumped in his chair and searched his pockets for a cigarette.

Melanie did not understand why so many of her dates had to include Bryan's minion or posse, or whatever he was calling him these days.

Suddenly, a large black shape landed on the patio, taking out a rusted metal chair. Melanie's cat, sleeping peacefully now in the shadows, screeched and ran up the nearest drainpipe. Melanie didn't even flinch G.o.d help her, this was becoming an all too familiar routine.

"What's up, suckas?" Carl picked up the broken chair and hurled it as far as he could. It landed on the soft ground by the river's edge. He watched it, disappointed, and brushed rust from his hands.

Tonight he was wearing a frilly white shirt and purple velvet pants. His naturally dark curly hair was bleached nearly white. Yin to Bryan's Yang. Melanie often tried to imagine Carl as he was in the Marines; scrubbed, shaved, and pressed into a uniform. The mental image always went up in a cloud of dust when presented alongside the real thing.

When Melanie met Bryan, he and Carl were already inseparable. Carl waited for Bryan after cla.s.s, and the three of them would drink coffee at the student union or catch the last showing at the Golding Theater. She began to wonder if she were dating both of them and how s.e.x would work.

Back then, Bryan seemed pretty unremarkable. He and Carl shared an apartment near the community college, volunteered nights at the local homeless shelter, and even wrote an article or two for the local paper. His hair was blonde and close cut, and without the goofy plastic Halloween teeth sticking out of his mouth like ill-fitting braces, he might be considered pretty attractive, or at least normal enough to sit next to on a bus.

Bryan always had a fascination for all things morbid zombies, ghosts, werewolves, serial killers but his first love was always vampires. After a recent 'pilgrimage' to New Orleans with Carl, he returned completely caped out, looking like a cross between Inspector Gadget and Count Chocula. Melanie hoped it was just a pa.s.sing phase and that he would soon find something else ghoulish to obsess about. Maybe even her.

In order to appease him, Melanie began ditching the long, flowing hippy dresses she loved for tighter, darker clothing. She painted her bright turquoise eyes with black liner so they'd look more baleful, and took right away to the endless supply of drugs and liquor that Carl provided. Melanie suspected visits into Bryan's albeit limited fantasy world might be the closest she'd come to an exotic getaway.

"What's the plan?" she asked. Though she already knew the answer, she hoped, just once, Bryan might add a change of venues to his limited repertoire. Maybe they could even leave the city, if only for just an evening.

"Where else?" Bryan grinned. "Anybody got any 'shrooms?" He rummaged through his backpack.

"Better." Carl dropped a small plastic baggy filled with white tablets on the table. Ecstasy Ecstasy.

His choice of drugs was getting progressively bolder but he had yet to produce something Melanie refused. She wondered if she had any limits; if there was nothing she wouldn't swallow.

Bryan smiled, and he and Carl let the small pills melt on their tongues, then washed it down with swigs of wine. Melanie secretly dropped hers in the back pocket of her bag she needed to be clear-headed for the walk to h.e.l.l House.

Blood and Sunlight is available now through Penumbra Publishing is available now through Penumbra Publishing www.penumbrapublishing.com