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Being stabbed, now that s something I definitely remembered. I lifted the
blanket that covered me. My wounds were carefully bandaged. Dried blood
stained the gauze wrappings, but I resisted the urge to poke at them. It
didn t take much to upset a fresh wound, and I didn t want to start bleeding
again.
I reached up and gingerly felt my face.Completely monster-free. Aching all
over, I sat up. My torn sweatshirt had been carefully folded on the arm of the
couch. I pulled it over my head quickly, trying not to dwell on the fact that
Nathan had seen me in my ratty, laundry-day bra.
Feeling better? he asked as he entered the living room.
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I could smell the blood in the mug he carried. My throat was a desert and my
stomach was trying to digest itself, but I turned my face away.
Drink, he said, holding out the cup to me. He must have sensed the reason
for my reluctance. Don t worry about it. I ve seen a few vampires in my
time.
Not like me.
Exactly like you. He knelt in front of me, and I hid my face. My bones
shifted under the mask of my fingers as he pressed the cup against the backs
of my hands. You need to drink this.
I heard the resolve in his voice and knew I wasn t going to win.
Don t look at me, I whispered.
Okay. He moved to the farthest corner of the room and turned his back.
The blood was warm, as Dahlia s had been, but thicker, as though it had
already begun to clot. It coated my tongue and left a faint taste of copper in
my mouth. It was like drinking penny-flavored Jell-O that hadn t set. This
repulsed me, but instead of gagging, I gulped half of it down. I felt
gluttonous. If I were drinking straight from someone s neck I probably
wouldn t have thought of manners, but it was much different sitting in
Nathan s living room, drinking from a mug like a civilized vampire.
I sipped the blood self-consciously and studied him. It was my experience
that people weren t nice to strangers. In med school it s every student for
his- or herself. In fact, most of us went out of our way to intimidate the
competition. The eat-or-be-eaten attitude had become so ingrained in my
psyche, that I d come to expect such behavior from everyone. But Nathan had
been nothing but helpful from the start, which was surprising considering he
was a week away from killing me if I didn t join his vampire cult.
It didn t seem right that a man so attractive would be such a complete
stickler for the rules. He must have worked for the IRS in a past life.
Of course, I didn t know much about Nathan s current life. In the brief phone
conversations we d had during the past week, he d revealed only generic
information about himself and hadn t given me much room to ask questions. If I
was going to trust anything he told me, I needed some answers.
There was no time like the present.
How old are you? I asked.
Thirty-two.
I meant including& I didn t know how to phrase the rest.
Oh,that, he said, and it sounded as if he didn t care to dispense that
information. I ve been a vampire since 1937.
I tried to conceal my disappointment. I had expected to hear he was hundreds
of years old, that he d walked the battlefield withNapoléon and discussed the
mysteries of the cosmos with Nostradamus, like the vampires in the movies.
That was the year The Star-Spangled Banner became the national anthem, you
know.
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I didn t know that. I wasn t an American at the time. He glanced over his
shoulder, and I immediately covered my face.
It s okay, he assured me. You re back to normal.
I leaned over a clear patch of the glass-topped coffee table to check my
reflection.
It s the hunger, he said as he straightened up the room. The worse it is,
the worse you look. The same goes for anger, pain and fear. It s very
animalistic.
How anyone could be blasé about his entire head morphing into
aHarryhausen-esque special effect was beyond me.
The scary part is that it gets worse with age. Some of the real old vampires
even get horns when they change, or cloven feet. But you can control it, with
practice. You just have to calm yourself, find your center, all that New Age
crap. It s very Zen. He took the empty cup from my hands and headed to the
kitchen sink.
New Age crap?This from the guy running the witchcraftminimart ?
Now, how about telling me what happened tonight? he called over the sound
of running water.
I shuddered. Can t we start with what the weather s been like?
No.
It was nothing, really, I said, trying to sound casual.
Nothing rarely stabs people. He came in and sat next to me on the sofa.
The scent of him teased my nostrils, and I rather seriously debated whether or
not to lean against him and inhale deeply.
I really need to get out more.
I needed blood.
Nathan frowned. You didn t hurt anyone, did you?
Okay, even if I had,did I look like I won that particular fight?
He looked relieved that he wouldn t have to chop off my head.
I followed a girl into a club downtown.One of those& Goth clubs. I lowered
my voice, as ifGoth were a dirty word.
Club Cite? he asked, and I nodded. That was very dangerous. Clubs like
that are full of all kinds of undesirables. People who think they re vampires,
wannabe vampires and vampire hunters.Amateurish vampire hunters, but with
enough knowledge to kill you, even if it is just a lucky accident.
I know that now, I said bitterly, remembering the metallic taste of
Dahlia s blood on my tongue. I took a deep breath. I met a girl there. She
told me she d let me I stumbled over the words. Drink her blood. I paid
her.
Nathan sighed and shook his head, reaching for one of the notebooks on the
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table. What was her name?
Dahlia. I looked over his shoulder as he flipped through the pages. There
were crudely drawn diagrams and notes in the margins. A paper clip held a
Polaroid in place at the top of one page. He handed the photo to me.
Is this her?
I looked at the photo. The woman did look like Dahlia, but a black Betty Page
wig covered her red curls. The eyes were the same.Hard and crazy. I wondered
how I hadn t noticed that before. I told him it was her and returned the
picture.
He stood, cursed and threw it down on the table. I shrank away, surprised at
his sudden vehemence.
I told you to come here if you needed blood! Why didn t you come to me? he
shouted.
I did! You weren t home!
You should have waited! He glared at me and braced himself for my next
retort.
Raising my voice had calmed me considerably. When I didn t respond, he swore
and turned away, running a hand through his hair.
Are you finished? I asked.
He sighed angrily. Yes,dammit . But you should have waited.
Maybe I should have. But I wasn t thinking clearly at the time. I scooped
up the picture. Do you know her?
Who?
I rolled my eyes and held up the photo. Dahlia.
When he sat beside me, he seemed to take up more of the couch than before. I
didn t want to give him the impression that I was intentionally trying to be
close to him, so I moved to the armchair.
I knowof her, he said, examining the notebook. She s a very powerful
witch.
A witch? I laughed.
Nathan stared at me in annoyance before turning his attention back to the
notebook. He laced his fingers together and brought them to his mouth, and his
eyes glazed in deep concentration. Watching him, I realized why I d been so
disappointed to hear he wasn t centuries old. Everything about him seemed
anachronistic, as though he d stepped from theMiddle Ages into the present. He
would look less out of place standing on a blood-drenched battlefield than
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