Bob read the temperature display of the closest blood transfusion machine. “One hundred and one degrees. Perfect. I like my victims to be a little feverish.”

He turned off the machines, the rhythmic click-clack giving way to the soft buzz of the torch lamps behind us. Grasping the bags by the corners, he placed them in a basket, which he covered with a napkin to trap the heat. “These are all type O-positives. I hope that’s okay?”

Now to share my ugly secret. “I’d rather have something else.”

Bob stopped in mid-stride. “Oh?”

“I prefer animal blood.”

Bob set the basket on the table. “Why? This is premium human juice.”

I dislodged the words from my mouth. “I’ve never dined on human blood. It has to do with the circumstances of how I became a vampire.”

Bob frowned. “You’re not the first. Does this aversion to human blood have to do with your war service?”

“It does.”

“Why must it bother you? Do you think the real perpetrators of the war-Saddam Hussein, President Bush, the oil barons, the arms merchants-lose any sleep over what they’ve done?”

“They weren’t there. I was.”

“They use money and power to distance themselves from their crimes.”

“That doesn’t mitigate my guilt. I pulled the trigger.”

He lifted a bag from the basket and placed it in my hand for me to experience the squishy feel of 450 milliliters of warm, whole blood.

“This was donated in the spirit of altruism, to share the gift of life,” Bob said. “It wasn’t shed in terror or under duress. Enjoy.”

Into my mind flashed the image of blood draining from the bullet hole in the Iraqi girl’s belly and staining my hands. The bag of blood turned into the girl’s heart, and I dropped the bag into the basket in disgust.

Bob sighed. His disappointment skewered me.

Someday I’d find the Iraqi vampire who had forced me into this existence. I’d repay him by chaining his undead carcass to a cement mixer and rolling it into a volcano.

“I wouldn’t be a gracious host if I didn’t accommodate my guests. There’s horse blood in the refrigerator. Let me heat it in the microwave.”

I was a poor guest but I couldn’t ignore the guilt that festered inside of me like a tumor.

Bob returned from the kitchen with a plastic carafe. I opened the carafe and poured. Steaming red blood flowed over the spaghetti and cutlets. The aroma restored my good mood. I stabbed a cutlet with my fork and smeared it in the blood.

Bob grabbed a bag of human blood and tore the corner. His fangs protruded from under his upper lip. “Not as good as sinking my teeth into an unsuspecting human’s neck and drawing a fresh meal. But who gets that opportunity these days?”

He squeezed the bag over his pasta and cutlets. The red fluid spread across his plate like marinara sauce. “I brought these samples from a blood-donor clinic in Colorado Springs. Part of an evangelical Christian workshop for teens where the young women pledged to remain virgins until marriage.”

“So that’s the blood of innocent maidens?”

“As innocent as you’ll find these days.” Bob twirled the bloody spaghetti over his fork.

Bob was a good cook, and the meal soothed me. I finished the cutlets, emptied the carafe over my plate, and sponged the blood with bread.

“You have a good appetite,” he said. “Vampires shouldn’t live on blood alone. The pasty-faced look is the result of an incomplete diet. I spiced the meat with Saint-John’s-wort and royal bee jelly.” He squinted at me. “Your complexion looks almost human. You use a Dermablend foundation?”

“It’s a vampire’s best friend,” I replied. “That and Maybelline.”

“We could talk makeup tips all night like schoolgirls, but I’d prefer to learn why you’re in Denver.”

Down to business. “You know I’m a private investigator,” I said. “I’ve taken an assignment for the Department of Energy.”

Bob put his fork down. His aura brightened several watts. He removed his contacts. The camaraderie disappeared from his eyes, replaced by the angry glow of his tapetum lucidum. “What did they hire you for?”

So far I had spurned Bob’s main course of human blood and now threw acid on the insult by provoking a reaction as if he’d caught me stealing. If Bob were to have confidence in me, I had to make him understand, so I told him about the nymphomania at Rocky Flats.

He gulped his Manhattan. The Dermablend may have hid the change in Bob’s complexion, but the more I spoke the brighter his aura became. “I don’t like this. You’re in danger.”

“How so?”

“Things have changed for us, Felix. Once upon a time, we could live in a castle, guarded by pathetic minions, and swoop out at night to feed on the necks of the local wretches. Now humans have technology. Their computers and DNA testing can track us across continents. They don’t need wooden stakes, they have assault rifles. A trail of desiccated corpses was once a monument to our power. Today, just one body with puncture wounds in the neck is enough to send a taskforce of forensic pathologists and district prosecutors on our trail.”

“I don’t intend to bite anyone at Rocky Flats, so don’t worry, Bob.”

“How many humans have you fanged?”

“Fanged? You mean converted?”

Bob snapped his fingers impatiently. “Yes, yes.”

What business was this of his, anyway? I hesitated to answer. “None.”

“And how many necks have you sucked on?”

“I’ve bitten three people.”

“I thought you didn’t like human blood.”

“I had to subdue them. I didn’t feed.”

Bob stared pensively. “Your behavior is irrational and unhealthy. Preying on humans and drinking their blood is our nature.”

“And if I don’t? Am I going to get kicked out of the vampire’s union?”

Bob got up from his chair and prepared another Manhattan. “By refusing to drink human blood, you’re turning away from your vampire side, the source of your strength. If you don’t drink human blood, you’ll lose your powers. It’s what nourishes the kundalini noir.”

“Blood, any blood, is all we need.”

“As if I don’t know what I’m talking about,” he said. “Why did you come here tonight?”

“Dinner. To meet you. To learn.”

“Then listen and learn. I was fanged in 1694. I haven’t done it all, but I’ve seen enough to know that it takes some effort not to give in to hopeless cynicism about this cycle of betrayal and death between us and humans.”

Bob drank from his Manhattan. “It’s a restless existence, this life as a vampire. Even if you come to a cordial arrangement with your human neighbors, how long can you stay in one place before they become suspicious as to why you don’t age and wither as they do? This gift of immortality becomes a heavy iron yoke. You’ll see.”

This allusion to the tragic life of a vampire ruined my appetite, and I let the remaining blood congeal on my plate. “Perhaps, but I’ve got a lot to experience before I become a jaded old bloodsucker.”

“Like myself?”

I knew better than to answer.

“We fill a need for humans,” Bob said. “This terror of being preyed upon excites them, it breaks the ennui of their dreary lives. That’s the mysterious beauty of this symbiotic relationship that binds us. You know the erotic allure of submission. The offering of a bare neck is not much different than opening one’s legs. Both are sensual, powerful. I’m sure you’ve done women. And if you haven’t already, you’ll get rid of your lingering homophobic reservations and do men, as well.”

I looked around Bob’s spartan accommodations. “And where are your women, your men?”

“I’m staying celibate this decade. After a hundred years or so, fondling genitalia and plugging orifices for the sake of an orgasm loses its novelty.”

“So I’ve got a while before I get bored with sex?”

“Don’t get flip. Because then you’ll get complacent. Let me tell you why I fear the Department of Energy. Somebody doesn’t want their secrets to get out.”