The other Animals all looked at one another, embarrassed, until Gustavo growled at them and they jumped to move the heavy bed frame out of his way.

"I never really liked her that much, anyway," Barry said.

"She really did take advantage of us," Jeff said.

"I just went along with you guys so I didn't ruin the party," said Troy Lee. "I didn't enjoy even half of those blow jobs."

"Let's just put her in my closet until tonight, then a couple of us can sneak the bitch out to Hunter's Point and drop her off."

"On Christmas?" Drew asked.

"Can't believe she took all our money and now she's going to ruin Christmas," said Troy Lee.

"Our money!" said Lash. "That bitch!"

Nobody likes a dead whore.

"I do like a dead whore now and then," said the vampire Elijah Ben Sapir, derailing a perfectly good theme. He'd snapped the whore's neck right before she was completely drained so there would be a body. "But one doesn't want to be too obvious." He dragged the whore's body behind a Dumpster, and watched as the wounds on her neck healed over. He'd taken her in an alley near Tenth and Mission streets. He'd had the hood up on the oversized tracksuit he was wearing, so she'd been surprised when they'd ventured down the alley and he threw it back to reveal a very pale Semitic man.

"Look at-chew. Thought baby was a playa—" the whore had said, her last words. She'd only had a hundred dollars on her, which, along with the tracksuit and a pair of Nikes, were the complete resources the ancient vampire had at his disposal.

He'd come to the city in a yacht worth millions, filled with art worth millions more, and now he was reduced to making kills for petty cash. Of course he owned several homes around the world, and had stashes of cash put away in a dozen cities, but it would take some time to access it. And perhaps it wasn't so bad to have the wolf at the door, for a change. After all, he'd come to the City and taken a new fledgling in order to alleviate his boredom. (It's very hard to feel alive when you've been dead for eight hundred years.) And she had done that. He was not bored—and he felt very much alive.

He walked out of the alley and checked the sky. Dawn was threatening—he had perhaps twenty minutes until sunup. "Where does the time go?" He crossed the street and was buzzed into a hotel with a sign that read for rent, by hour, day, or week. He could smell the cigarettes, sweat, and heroin on the desk clerk, and he kept his head down so the hood covered his face.

"Do you have a room without a window?"

"Twenty-five bucks, like all the others," the clerk said. "You want sheets? Sheets are five more."

The vampire smiled. "No, I don't want to spoil myself."

He paid the clerk, took the key, and trudged up the steps.

Yes, he felt very much alive. One really can't appreciate what one has until it's gone. And without a significant loss, how would one enjoy the process of revenge?

The vampires sat side by side on the bare futon frame, watching as a five-legged bug limped up the big front window of the loft.

Tommy thought that the rhythm of the bug's steps made a for a danceable backbeat—thought he might be able to set music to it, if he knew how to write music. Suite for Angst and Limping Bug, he'd call it.

"Nice bug," Tommy said.

"Yeah," Jody said.

We should save it for Abby, Jody thought. She was feeling guilty about having bitten the girl—not so much because of the violation, because obviously the kid had been willing, but because she felt as if she really didn't have any choice. She had been injured and her predator nature told her to survive, whatever the cost, which is what bothered her. Was her humanity drifting away?

"The Animals are going to come for us now," Tommy said. He was feeling angry, betrayed by his old crew, but most of all he felt separate from them now. He felt separate from everyone. Tomorrow was Christmas and he didn't even want to call his parents because they were a different species now. What do you buy for an inferior species?

"It's just the Animals," Jody said. "We'll be safe."

"I'll bet that's what Elijah thought, too, and they got him."

"We should go get him," Jody said. She imagined Elijah Ben Sapir, standing in the full sun by the Ferry Building, tourists passing him, wondering why someone would put a statue there. Would the brass protect him?

Tommy checked his watch. "We'd never get there and back in time. I tried that yesterday."

"How could you do that to him, Tommy? He was one of us."

"One of us? He was going to kill us, if you remember. He kind of did kill us. I resent that. Besides, if you're covered in bronze, what does it matter if you're underwater? I was just trying to get him out of sight so we could think about our future without him being part of it."

"Right. Okay," Jody said. "Sorry." Future? She'd lived with a half-dozen guys, none had ever willingly talked about the future before. And she and Tommy had a supersized buttload of future ahead of them as long as someone didn't catch them sleeping. "Maybe we really should leave the City," she said. "No one would know about us in a new city."

"I was thinking we should get a Christmas tree," Tommy said.

Jody looked away from the bug. "That's a thought, or we could put some mistletoe up, put on Christmas carols, and stand outside waiting for Santa until the sun comes up and incinerates us. How's that sound?"

"Nobody appreciates your sarcasm, missy. I'm just trying to get a handle on normal. Three months ago I was stocking groceries in Indiana, looking at community college, driving around in my crappy car, wishing I had a girlfriend, and wishing that there was some potential for something to happen beyond getting a job with benefits and living the same life as my dad. Now I have a girlfriend, and superpowers, and a bunch of people want to kill me, and I don't know how to act. I don't know what to do next. And it's going to be that way forever. Forever! I'm going to be scared out of my mind forever! I can't deal with forever."

He'd been barking at her, but she resisted the urge to snap back. He was nineteen, not a hundred and fifty—he didn't even have the tools for being an adult, let alone being immortal. "I know," she said. "Tomorrow night, first thing, we'll hire a car, go get Elijah, and pick up a Christmas tree on the way back. How's that sound?"

"Hiring a car? That sounds exotic."

"It'll be like prom." Was she being too patronizing?

"You don't have to do that," he said. "I'm sorry I'm acting like a weenie."

"But you're my weenie," Jody said. "Take me to bed."

Still holding her hand, he stood, then pulled her up into his arms. "We'll be okay, right?"

She nodded and kissed him, feeling for just a second like a girl in love instead of a predator. She immediately felt a resurgence of shame over feeding on Abby.

The doorbell rang.

"Did you know we had a doorbell?"

"Nope."

"You can't beat a dead whore in the morning," said Nick Cavuto cheerfully, because apparently, everyone loves a dead hooker, despite what certain writer types might think. They were standing in the alley off Mission Street.

Dorothy Chin—short, pretty, and whip-smart—snorted a laugh and checked the thermometer probe she'd stuck in the deceased's liver like a meat thermometer into a roast. "She hasn't been dead four hours, guys."

Rivera rubbed his temples and felt his bookstore slipping away, along with his marriage. He'd known the marriage had been going for a while, but he was feeling a little brokenhearted about the bookstore. He figured he knew, but he asked anyway. "Cause of death?"