I was through with fucking around. The three men were deep in conversation, and none seemed to be paying attention to their surroundings. So I walked up to them.

"Renard, what the fuck do you want?"

A look of shock flashed across the man's face. Neither of the men with him were blood drinkers, and there was something uniform about all such creatures. The more that lackeys knew about us and about what we were, the more they feared us.

The two men with Renard looked at me with faces of abject terror, as two men might who ran across a wild tiger on a city street.

No wonder Phil hadn't been searching too hard for me.

There were three long seconds of silence. Renard seemed at a loss, and much to my relief none of the men looked in the direction of the restaurant at which Freya waited.

"Marion was a friend of mine," the man finally said with more bravado than I would have given him credit for.

"Marion didn't have any friends, you gullible halfwit." The dead man had surrounded himself with the young and the naïve, those ripe for exploitation. Even among his blood drinking comrades that was true. "Is this something you dreamed up on your own, or did Whitefarrow send you?"

A look of defiance leapt to the man's face. "I understand you've made some new friends in town."

I hit the fool in the throat as hard as I could. Like I said, young and naïve. Only a full-on idiot would have threatened me in that way. Poor, dumb Renard dropped to the ground, a sickly wheezing arising from him.

His posse wasn't so robust. One just flat-out ran, the other groped under is shirt before hauling out a pistol. I grabbed the man's wrist and twisted until it broke. When the pistol rattled to the ground, I kicked it to the curb.

"Get the fuck out of here," I told the man before taking a quick look around. There weren't too many people on the street, and no one seemed to have taken special notice of a fight that was over in less than a second.

I toed the fallen pistol into a storm drain. Guns didn't really frighten me. You'd be amazed the injuries from which I've recovered. But the right bullet at the right time could kill me, and someone seeing a pistol on the ground might be inclined to call the police.

I knelt beside Renard, my right hand around the back of his neck in a comforting gesture. "You alright buddy? Have a little too much to drink?" I said aloud for the benefit of any passersby.

He was still wheezing, but don't think for a second the blow was a serious one. The man would be up and around in 20 or 30 minutes, no worse for wear.

When I spoke to him in earnest, I spoke quietly with a firm but steady squeeze on the back of his neck.

"What year were you born?"

"What?" he croaked.

"What year were you born?"

"F ... fifty-five. Nineteen fifty-five." Like I said, Marion surrounded himself with young ones.

"You're a young'un," I said. "Still have family alive? Mom, dad? Brothers, sisters? ... Kids?"

The man gave me a frightened look, and I squeezed a bit harder. I'd needed to remind him that he wasn't in a position to threaten anyone's loved ones.

"My fight isn't with you," I said. "I'm sorry about your friend. But he sided with a man who intends me great harm." Then I squeezed a little harder. I'm wicked strong, even for one of my kind. "I'm going to let you walk away, scot-free. Don't ever come at me again. If I see or smell anymore of your lapdogs, I'm gonna come do you like I did your boy."

I stood and walked away. What else could I do? The last thing I needed was the police sniffing around, which is exactly what I would get if I snuffed Renard on a city street.

Besides, my little warning to the man might work. At the very least, it would win me a tiny bit of breathing space, hopefully enough to get Freya out of town and out of mind.

There was one drawback to that plan. As I said, nothing is beneath my kind. I wouldn't be able to let Freya out of my sight for the next day and a half.

Okay, maybe that wasn't such a drawback. Perhaps I could talk her into driving down to the Keys for the day. She already had indicated she intended to blow off her last day of meetings.

When I passed through the door into the restaurant, I nearly shit myself. Freya wasn't at our table, and for a few moments complete and absolute panic nearly gripped me.

Then I saw her, not 20 feet away, leaning over an elderly man and checking his pulse. I returned to our table without a single word of reproach, and when she joined me a few minutes later, I had thoroughly composed myself.

I'd been gone less than ten minutes. The ice in our drinks hadn't even begun to melt. I had no right, but I felt mellow and happy at the moment. Stress sometimes did that to me.

"Always on call, I see," I said as my friend took her seat.

"Just a little hyperventilation. A lot of elders are on so much medication that it's hard to tell."

"I'm an elder," I said. "What would you recommend for my condition?"

Something flitted across her face, a look that I couldn't divine. "A cold shower," she said.

That earned her a laugh. She'd diagnosed me perfectly.

"How was your vampire business?"

"Inconclusive."

"How so?"

"I thought I saw someone who worked for a former colleague."

"Was it really the person you thought?"

"It was," I said. "But we didn't get a chance to speak. I bumped into one of the colleague's partners, though. Our business sort of ended badly not long ago, and I wanted to make sure everything was okay. ... No hard feelings, and all."

"I'm guessing there were some hard feelings."

"Of the worse kind. But I think I smoothed things over, at least for the time being."

Freya gave me a wink. "You can be persuasive. What line of work are you in, anyway?"

"I consult."

"Oh? ... That's like me saying I diagnose."

I'd had this question before, so I gave her my canned answer. The truth is, I honestly understood it. A good friend in finance had explained the inner workings of money to me once. And there were parts of the banking and finance system that I understood quite well.

"Oh," she said when I finished.

"You sound surprised."

"Well ... I just ... you, ... well, I mean ...."

"Do you not think I work for a living? Or did you imagine I'm some sort of drug baron living down here in the sultry south?

"No," she said emphatically. "It's just ... you just seem to me to be a person of leisure. It's hard to imagine you in an office."

"I almost never am," I said. "I work when I want to and play when I like."

"I like the sound of that." Her tone was even and husky. My friend had a beautiful voice, one that melted my bones. There always was something husky and sensual about it. Now even more so.

"Are you still planning on playing hooky tomorrow?" I asked.

"I am."

"Want to drive down to the Keys?"

"I'd love to. When should we leave?"

"Right after dinner if you'd like. We could be to Key West by midnight and get up early to watch the sunrise. And I could have you back to the airport in plenty of time for your flight."

Something came over my friend. For a moment, she colored, and her breath caught. Then she nodded her agreement. It dawned on me at that moment, for the first time, that Fallon was absolutely right. Freya wanted something from me more than friendship.

How had I not seen that? I usually perceived people clearly. I think perhaps I too might have blushed a little at that moment.

***

I cycle through identities with a fair degree of regularity. Occasionally I would keep one for a decade or two, but in recent years I went through a new one every few months. When I rented a car and confirmed a room for Freya and me, my driver's license and credit cards all read the somewhat banal name of Tori Hind.

Freya knew me as Bess, and that was good enough. The drive out to Key West was delightful. The air was warm and soothing, and we split the driving. About an hour into the trip, I began to answer a series of questions from Freya about the various ways to kill a vampire.

"Are you worried that you might have to fight me off?" I asked.

"I dunno," she said. "You're young and tall, but I work out regular." She made a muscle for me to feel, which I did. "I think I could take you."

"Who's going to protect me?"

It was her turn at the wheel, and she gave me a sweet smile in the dark. "So, a wooden stake won't kill a vampire?"

"It might. Just think of vampires as souped-up humans. We're stronger, faster, and we heal far more quickly, especially at night. In the day? Not so much."

"What is it about the day?"

"I have no idea. It's just the way it is."

"But the stake?"

"Well, there is one certain way to kill a vampire. Take off their head. Decapitation"—I made a swooshing sound—"there aren't too many things that won't kill. But a really bad injury to the brain or the heart might do it. But it has to be bad. And during the day, we are somewhat more vulnerable, but even then it would take a pretty massive injury to kill one of us."

"Are you writing a book?"

"No. Should I?"

"You have a vivid imagination, lively and detailed. I love it."

"So you haven't tired of me being a vampire yet?"

"Not at all." She reached over and lay a friendly hand on my leg, except in the darkened vehicle her hand landed at the top of my thigh, and two fingers brushed lightly against my privates.

I know you're laughing at me right now. Here I am, ancient and sordid, the most squalid and sinful creature ever to draw breath, and there I was in trembling anticipation of this woman's every touch. It's all true. Freya had a power over me that I cannot explain, and it was a power of which she was fully unaware. Even now, her hand lingered in that spot just long enough that I nearly had an orgasm.

"Whew," I whispered.

"Do ... um?"

"Do, what?" I asked.

"Do vampires have orgasms."

It was like she struck me. I was glad it was nighttime. There were so many things I could say. "Under the right circumstances," was my final answer. "How about doctors? Do they have orgasms?"

"Under the right circumstances. ... That's what husbands are for."

It was not the first time that evening that Freya had mentioned her husband, who she twice before had expressed her love for. The comments seemed to be an attempt to remind herself rather than to convince me. The funny thing is that I believed her. She gave every indication of being a woman who loved her husband and two children deeply and sincerely. She described the fellow in the most glowing terms. He was warm, loving, supportive, and, like her, a successful doctor.

Why then was she with me driving to Key West?

The truth? ... I didn't care. I had lived nearly a thousand years, and I have in all that time taken what I've wanted. And I wanted her. But I didn't want to hurt her, and I didn't want to be hurt myself. I'm not often vulnerable, and I'm a craven coward when it occurs.

About her husband and her vows, though? I couldn't give two figs. If I thought there was a way of having her in which neither she nor I were hurt, I'd do it in a second and burn the entire world behind us.

"You are awfully nice for a vampire," Freya said apropos to nothing.

"Do you have a crush on me?"

"Stop," she said. "You're a vampire. They're supposed to be evil. ... Or is that another lie we've been fed?"

I had to think on that a moment. It was a difficult question, and I still was recovering from my near brush with an orgasm.

"It isn't really a lie," I said in all truth. "But it's not like you might think."

"What do you mean?"

"There are a lot of reasons we're not the most pleasant of people, and each one is sufficient in its own to make a person a jerk. Combined together, well ... the result isn't good."

"So, for instance?"

"Think of how we're made. Hollywood gets that almost right. When someone is drained and killed by a vampire, they die. But every once in a while, one of those comes back. I speak from firsthand experience; it is not an event for which anything can prepare you. The overwhelming majority lose their shit a little, and most run feral for a time. I was like a wild animal for many years after my second birth. It was a time both terrible and delightful."

"What ... um ... what made you come ...?"

"Back to my senses?"

"Yeah."

"I met a man, Nasr al-Din Najafi. He took me in, cleaned me up, and taught me what it was to be normal again. Well ... normal in a new way."

"He was a vampire?"

"He was. But a good man. A saintly man."

"So not all of you are bad?"

"No, but the odds are stacked against us. Think about the next hurdle. Once you've died, you can't go back to your old life. Some people try, especially people who died far from home. But being different frightens people, and sooner or later people start realizing you are different. Sooner or later, we all have to let go of the past. We have to let go of our roots."

"I'm not sure I understand," she said in a faint voice. Was she coming to believe my story?

"Freya, our roots are what we are. Disconnected from the values of their people, many folks drift and begin to believe that right and wrong merely are a matter of what an individual wants at a moment. And every society has assigned roles, ways of living and existing by which people of certain groups are expected to abide."

"Such as?"

"How many cocky surgeons do you know?"

"Oh, shit. They're all that way."

"So, Freya, what are the chances that only cocky people are attracted to practicing surgery? Or is it more likely that since surgeons have a reputation for cockiness that people around them accept and indulge that quality in them? Think of it: stern judges, absentminded professors, temperamental artists."

"And vampires are expected to act a certain way?" she asked.

"Every society has traditions and stories. I've met young people like me—folks who've had their second birth in the last hundred years—who have taken everything they know about being vampires from Hollywood movies."

"That is so cool," she said. "You have built a really intricate and believable world."

"We haven't got to the worst part."

"What's that?" There was an excitement in my friend's voice.

"The hunger."

"For blood?"

"Darling, you have no idea. It's the thing that bends and mutilates us. And it's the cruelest joke of all."

"Cruel? How so?"

"Because we don't need human blood. It's not what gives us our strength or our speed. It isn't what grants us long life. I've gone months, even years, without drinking blood, and it hasn't harmed me in any way."

"But you hunger for it?"

"In ways you can never imagine. It's worse at night, especially right as the sun sets. Just the smell of the stuff, the thought of it even, gets my heart to racing. Imagine fentanyl times one hundred, and that is the cruelty. We are each and every one of us born broken. And the cruel joke is that we can't even invoke the excuse that we need it to survive."

"Oh, my heavens," she whispered.

"If we aren't born evil, the hunger drives us down a road that makes it next to impossible to avoid."