I smiled at his wit, but I let him talk.

"I make several hundred sets of fangs every year. Uppers and lowers. Sometimes double fangs. Occasionally I make a pair in gold or silver. I think you'd look great with silver canines."

"You've read about the other killings around California?" I asked.

"I've heard about them, yes. Of course. From friends and acquaintances like Peter Westin. Some vampires are excited by what's happened. They think it signals a new time; perhaps a new Sire is coming."

I stopped him. A sudden chill ran through me. Something he'd just said. "Is there a leader of the vampires?"

Barreiro's dark eyes narrowed to slits. "No. Of course there isn't. But if there was, I wouldn't talk to you about it."

"Then there is a Sire," I said.

He glared at me and began to move about again.

I asked, "Could you make tiger's teeth — for a man to wear?"

"I could," he said. "I have."

Suddenly he lunged up at me with surprising speed. He grabbed my hair with one hand, an ear with the other. I'm six-three and a lot heavier than he was. I wasn't ready for this. The small man was swift and he was very strong. His open mouth moved toward my throat, but then he stopped.

"Don't ever underestimateus, Detective Cross," John Barreiro hissed, then let me go. "Well then, now are you sure that you don't want those fangs? No charge. Maybe for your own protection."

WILLIAM DROVE THE DUSTY WHITE VAN through the Mojave Desert at close to a hundred miles an hour. The Marshall Mathers LP was playing at maximum volume. William was really pushing it along Route 15, heading toward Vegas, the next stop on their tour.

The van was an ingenious idea. It was a damn bloodmo-bile with all the requisite Red Cross stickers. He and Michael were actually certified to take blood from anyone who volunteered to give it.

"It's up ahead a couple of miles," William told his brother, who was sitting with one bare leg out the open window.

"What's up ahead? Prey, I hope. I'm bored out of my skull. I need to feed. I'm thirsty. I don't see anything up there," Michael whined like the spoiled-rotten teenager that he was. "Don't pull any Slim Shady shit on me. I don't see a thing up ahead."

"You will soon," William said mysteriously. "This should snap you out of your funk. I promise it will."

Minutes later, the van pulled into a commercial parachute center known as a drop zone. Michael sat up and whooped loudly and beat on the dashboard with the palms of his hands. He was such a boy.

"I feel the need for speed," Michael yelled, doing his best imitation of the young Tom Cruise.

The brothers had been parachuting since they got out of prison. It was one of the best legal highs around, and it took their minds off killing. They hopped out of the van and headed inside a flat-roofed concrete building that had definitely seen better decades.

William paid twenty dollars directly to the pilot for a ride in a Twin Otter plane. There were two of them sitting near the tiny runway at the airstrip, but there was only one pilot and no one else at the parachute center.

The pilot was a dark-haired girl not much older than William. Early twenties at most. She had a tight, sexy body but a mean little weasel's face with badly pocked cheeks. He could tell that she liked his and Michael's looks, though. But hey, who wouldn't?

"No boards, so you're not sky-surfing. What are you boys into?" the pilot asked in a strong Southwestern accent. "Name's Callie, by the way."

"We're into just about everything!" Michael volunteered, and laughed. "I mean that too, Callie. I'm serious. We're into just about everything that's worth getting into."

"I don't doubt it," Callie said, and held Michael's eye for a few seconds. "Well, let's do it, then," she said, and they climbed up into one of the Otters.

Less than ninety seconds later, the small plane was pounding down the hardscrabble runway. The brothers were laughing and hollering at the top of their voices as they donned parachutes.

"You guys really seem pumped up, I'll give you that. You're free-fallers, right? You're both certifiable," Callie shouted over the airplane noise. She had a throaty rasp that William found, frankly, a little irritating. He wanted to rip a gaping hole in her neck, but that didn't seem too smart at this particular time.

"Among other things, yes. Take her up to sixteen thousand," William shouted back at her.

"Whoa! Thirteen thousand's plenty. You know, temperature at thirteen thousand feet's under forty degrees. You lose 'bout three degrees every thousand feet. Hypoxia sets in at sixteen. Too much for you thin-skinned boys."

"We'll tell you when it's too much for us. We've done this kind of thing before," said Michael, a little angry now, his teeth bared, but maybe she took it for a seductive little smile. It wouldn't be the first time that had happened.

William slid the pilot another twenty dollars. "Sixteenthousand," he said. "Trust me. We've been there before."

"Okay. You'll be the ones with frostbitten fingers and ears," Callie told them. "I warned you."

"We're hot-bodied boys. Don't worry about us. You an experienced pilot?"

Callie grinned. "Well, we'll just have to see, won't we? Let's just say that I'm probably not losing my cherry up here."

William watched the gauges to make sure she took them high enough. At sixteen thousand feet, the Otter leveled off smoothly. Not too much wind up here today, and a view to die for. The plane was practically flying itself.

"This is not a real good idea, guys," the pilot warned again. "It's cold as a motherfucker out there."

"It's a great idea! And so is this!" William shouted.

He took her on the spot. He bit deeply into Game's exposed throat. He held her neck firmly with his teeth and strong jaw. He began to drink, to feed at sixteen thousand feet.

It was the height of sado-eroticism. Callie screamed and kicked, struggled fiercely, but she couldn't get him off. Bright red blood splattered around the cockpit. He was so powerful. She tried desperately to get out of her cramped pilot's seat and dislocated her hip.

Callie's knees cracked against the instrument panel several times, and then they stopped suddenly. Her brown eyes glazed over and became still as stones. She gave in. Both of them greedily drank her blood. They fed quickly and efficiently but couldn't come close to draining the prey inside the cockpit.

William then opened the plane's door. He was struck with a blast of freezing-cold air. "C'mon!" he yelled. The two brothers jumped out of the plane — free-falling.

It was a bad name for what they were experiencing. The sensation wasn't like falling, it was more like flying your body.

When the two of them went horizontal, they were soaring at about sixty miles an hour. But when they went vertical, they zoomed up to over a hundred miles an hour, closer to a hundred and twenty, William figured.

The thrill was incredible, absolutely amazing to experience. Their bodies trilled like tuning forks. Callie's fresh blood was pumping through their systems. The rush was otherworldly.

At these speeds, the slightest leg move to the left jolted the body to the right.

They got vertical quickly and stayed that way. Almost all the way down.

They still hadn't pulled the cords on their chutes. That was the best thrill of all: the possibility of sudden death.

The wind pushed and pulled incredibly against their bodies.

The only sound they heard was the wind.

This was ecstasy.

They hadn't opened their chutes yet. How long could they wait? How long?

The only thing that kept this from being perfect, William was thinking, was the absence of pain. Pain made any experience better. Pain was the secret to pleasure, which so few understood. He and Michael did, though.