Jody sat up. "I didn't do him, Tommy, I just spent the night with him trying to find out about how to be a vampire. And his name is Elijah."

"Oh, so now you're on a first-name basis."

"Oh, for the love of God, Tommy, would you stop thinking? You're taking what was an amazing experience and sucking all the life out of it."

Tommy fidgeted on his pile of rubble and started to pout, but winced when he tried to push out his lower lip and it caught on his fangs. She was right. He'd always been like that, always overthinking, overanalyzing. "Sorry," he said.

"You have to just be part of the world now," Jody said softly. "You can't put everything into categories, separate yourself from experience by putting words on it. Like the song says, let it be."

"Sorry," Tommy said again. He tried to push the thoughts out of his head, closed his eyes, and listened to his heartbeat, and Jody's heartbeat coming from across the room.

"It's okay," Jody said. "Sex like that does sort of beg for a postmortem."

Tommy smiled, his eyes still closed. "So to speak."

Jody stood up and crossed the room to where he was sitting. She offered him her hand to help him up. "Careful, the back of your head is kind of stuck in the dry wall."

Tommy turned his head and heard plaster cracking. "I'm still starving."

She pulled him to his feet. "I'm feeling a little drained myself."

"My bad," Tommy said. He could remember now, her blood pulsing into him, at the same time that his was pulsing into her. He rubbed a place on his shoulder where the punctures from her fangs hadn't quite healed yet.

She kissed the spot he was rubbing. "You'll heal faster when you've had fresh blood."

Tommy felt an ache, like a sudden cramp in his stomach. "I really need to eat."

Jody led him into the bedroom, where Chet the huge cat was cowering in the corner, hiding unsuccessfully behind the wicker hamper.

"Wait," Jody said. She padded back out into the great room and came back a few seconds later wearing what was left of her red leather jacket (really more of a vest now) and her panties, which she had to hold together on one side where they'd been torn off. "Sorry," she said, "I'm not comfortable being naked in front of strangers."

Tommy nodded. "He's not a stranger, Jody. He's dinner."

"Uh-huh," Jody said, nodding and shaking her head at the same time, making her appear like a bloodstained, bobble-head doll. "You go. You're new."

"Me? Don't you know some superanimal hypnotism to call him to you?"

"Nope. Go get him. I'll wait."

Tommy looked at her. On top of the blood that streaked and smeared her pale skin, there were gobs of futon stuffing stuck to her here and there, as well as white chicken feathers in her hair from one of the exploded cushions. He had feathers and cat hair stuck to his chest and legs. "We're going to have to shave him first, you know?"

Jody nodded, not looking away from the huge cat. "Maybe a shower first."

"Good idea." Tommy put his arm around her.

"But just washing. No sex!"

"Why, we already lost the cleaning deposit?"

"Those shower doors are glass."

"Okay. But can I wash your—"

"No," she said. She took his hand and dragged him into the bathroom.

It turned out that superhuman vampire strength came in handy when shaving a thirty-five-pound cat. After a couple of false starts, which had them chasing Chet the huge shaving-cream-covered cat around the loft, they discovered the value of duct tape as a grooming tool. Because of the tape, they weren't able to shave his feet. When they were finished, Chet looked like a big-eyed, potbellied, protohuman in fur-lined, duct-tape space boots—the feline love child of Golem and Doddy the house elf.

"I'm not sure we needed to shave all of him," Tommy said, sitting on the bed next to Jody as they considered the bound and shaven Chet on the floor before them. "He looks creepy."

"Pretty creepy," Jody said. "You'd better drink. Your wounds aren't healing." All her scratches, bruises, and love bites were completely healed, and except for a fleck of shaving cream here and there in her hair, she was as good as new.

"How?" Tommy asked. "How do I know where to bite him?"

"Try the neck," Jody said. "But sort of feel around for a vein with your tongue before you bite, and don't bite hard." She was trying to sound confident in her instructions, but she was in unexplored territory as much as he was. She was enjoying teaching Tommy about the particulars of vampirism, just as she enjoyed teaching him how to do grown-up human things like how to get the power and phone turned on in the loft—it made her feel sophisticated and in charge, and after a series of boyfriends for whom she had been little more than an accoutrement, whose lifestyles she had affected, from heavy-metal anarchists to financial-district yuppies, she liked being the pacesetter for a change. Still, when it came to teaching him about feeding on animals, she couldn't have been winging it more if she really could turn into a bat. The only time she'd ever considered drinking animal blood was when Tommy had brought her two large, live snapping turtles from Chinatown. She hadn't been able to bring herself to even try biting into the armored reptiles. Tommy had named them Scott and Zelda, which hadn't helped. Now Zelda was functioning as a lawn ornament in Pacific Heights and Scott was encased in bronze and standing next to the old vampire in the great room. The biker sculptors downstairs had bronzed them, which is what had given Tommy the idea to bronze Jody and the old vampire in the first place.

"Are you sure this is okay?" Tommy said, bending over Chet the huge shaved cat. "I mean, you said that we were only supposed to hunt the sick and the weak—the black auras. Chet's aura is shiny and pink."

"It's different with animals." She had no idea if it was different with animals. She'd eaten a moth once, whole—snatched it out of the air and downed it before she could think about it. She realized now that there were a lot more questions she should have asked Elijah when she had had the chance. "Besides, you're not going to kill him."

"Right," Tommy said. He put his mouth on Chet's kitty neck. "Like thith?"

Jody had to turn away to keep from laughing. "Yeah, that looks good."

"He tathes like thaving cream."

"Just go," Jody said.

" 'Kay." Tommy bit and started to moan almost immediately. Not a moan of pleasure, but the moan of someone who has his tongue stuck on the ice-cube tray in the freezer. Chet seemed strangely calm, not even struggling against his kitty bonds. Maybe there was something to the vampire's power over his victims, Jody thought.

"Okay, that's enough," Jody said.

Tommy shook his head while still feeding on the huge shaved cat.

"Tommy, let off. You need to leave some."

"Nu-ih," Tommy said.

"Stop sucking the huge cat, Tommy," Jody said sternly. "I'm not kidding." She was kidding, a little bit.

Tommy was breathing hard now, and a little color had come into his skin. Jody looked around for something to get his attention. She spotted a vase of flowers on the night-stand.

She pulled out the flowers and tossed the water on Tommy and the huge cat. He kept feeding. The cat shuddered but otherwise remained immobile.

"Okay, then," Jody said. It was a heavy, stoneware vase, something Tommy had picked up to hold some apology flowers he'd brought her from the grocery store where he worked. He'd been good that way, sometimes bringing home apology flowers before he'd even done anything to apologize for. Really, you couldn't ask for more than that from a guy—which is why Jody slowed to half speed as she brought the vase around in a wide arc that ended with it smacking Tommy in the forehead and knocking him back about six feet. Chet the huge shaved cat yowled. Miraculously, the vase did not break.