A coldness slipped over her, giving her strength to do what she had to do. It was the same feeling she had always had when hardship threatened her life. The ice of determination had always seen Danika through. It had gotten her through school and helped her step over all the other television hopefuls to take and hold her own starring seat in front of the camera. She hated what she had done to Mila. But she would not let herself wallow in it. The act was done, and it told her something that she needed to know.

She wasn’t sick at all.

Danika turned off the gas on the kitchen stove, and considered pouring herself a bowl to take home. But the very thought of eating it made her stomach tremor again. Poor Mila had made this soup for nothing, because Danika didn’t need it. All of the news reports from the past few weeks that talked about people spontaneously changing, becoming … something else … becoming monsters … flashed through her mind.

No, Danika wasn’t sick.

She also wasn’t really human anymore.

Danika Dubov was a vampire.

“I can get through this,” she said to herself, as she took a paper towel and a bottle of Windex, and wiped down anything in the kitchen, bath and front room that she’d touched. She’d seen plenty of CSI shows and knew better than to leave obvious evidence that she’d been there. She took the Windex and her bloody shirt with her, using the paper towel to open the door to the apartment building hallway. She paused for a moment, and took one last look at the bloodied body of her sister.

“Now I just have to figure out how,” she said, finishing her thought as she closed the door.

— 5 —

The next day at the station, Danika’s trademark smile was fully back in place. She felt really good for the first time in a couple weeks, and while she’d been good at faking smiles the past few days, people could still tell that she was in better spirits. After the morning production meeting, Lon came up to her and put a hand on her arm.

“You seem a lot better today,” he said. “But are you really sure you can do the show? We can put on a rerun and give you the weekend to rest. I don’t want you to collapse in the middle of this one.”

Danika smiled and shook her head. “Sleep is the drug I needed, I think. Last night I slept like a log for like, ten hours. Today, I feel great.”

“Okay,” Lon said, still looking a bit skeptical. “I hope so, because you’ve got a circus today. Cheating husbands and love triangles always make for a crazy show.”

“Crazy, but fun,” Danika laughed. “Maybe that LaShondra woman will use those two-inch fingernails of hers on that ass of a husband when the lie detector test results are announced.”

“Just so nobody turns on you. Watch yourself.”

“People are predictably stupid,” she said. “I can steer them where I want the show to go.”

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”

— 6 —

The show went off without a hitch. And for the first time in days, Danika didn’t feel like hurling on the set, so she could truly enjoy her “ringmaster” role. She honestly loved pitting people against each other on camera. She was a natural at it — somehow she had always been able to gently corral two people over the course of a conversation and manage to generate a passionate fight without ever looking like the bad guy.

Today though, as she deftly directed two trailer park couples and the cleavage-rich mistresses who had driven a spike through the middle of marital “bliss,” Danika found herself looking at them all as cattle. She stared at their necks, and wondered if she could lead them into a dark corner and bite them, would she get the same kind of rush that she had gotten from killing Mila? Because that moment, despite how horrible it was that she had murdered her sister for it, was truly the best, most pleasurable moment of her entire life. Not that she could really feed on the guests on her show. She may have had a steady parade of candidates to choose from, but it wouldn’t take people very long to notice that there seemed to be a high mortality rate for her guests, and she certainly didn’t need that.

Danika knew and accepted that she was a vampire. It was a shock, but not unbelievable — vampirism was like the new AIDS. People were turning at an alarming rate; the news had been full of reports. Danika was pragmatic about it. She didn’t fret over how unfair it was, she just pondered whether she could do what she needed to do in order to survive as one. And she had questions. Like … how often did she need to kill? Did it have to be every day? Every week?

She wanted to know what to do in order to survive this silent, invisible transformation … but her new self didn’t come with an owner’s manual. And there was nobody she could really go to ask for help in sorting it out. “Help me, I’m a vampire and I need to know how often I need to kill,” wasn’t going to earn her anything except a lock-up.

“Earth to ’Nika!” Lon’s voice jolted her back to awareness. She’d been walking down the hall from the post-show recap and planning meeting, lost in her thoughts. “Still thinking about who did what with whose sex toy?”

Danika grinned. She’d come up with an impromptu question during the lie detector test, asking about whether the mistress had used the wife’s dildo when the husband snuck her home to his own bed. And she’d had to laugh at the answer. The audience had. The wife had shrieked and jumped out of her chair.

Animals. All … just … animals, with fancy clothes and expensive cars. They reached the double doors to the parking lot, and Lon pushed one open for her. “And on that note,” he said, “TGIF.”

Danika agreed. “Have a great weekend. See you on Monday for another amazing look into the dirty linen of the American Dream.”

— 7 —

Saturday slipped by like a dream; Danika ran errands, paid bills and did all the other mundane things that she never seemed to have time for during the week. She tried to fix herself a couple meals, but just the thought of forking a bite into her mouth made her stomach tremble. Ultimately, she scraped two plates of food straight into the trash. Other than that, she felt great, with no trace of the sickness she’d fought with for the past couple weeks.

When Sunday dawned, however, Danika got the answer to at least one of her questions. How long could she go without eating in her new condition? Just over two days apparently. Because she woke up with a dull ache in the back of her jaw, and a heat in her belly.

She showered and stalked into the kitchen, angry that she had seemingly lost control of her most basic function. She made a piece of toast, buttered it, and shoved it into her mouth, despite the rising swell of panic from her gut. As she chewed it, her saliva ran heavy, filling her mouth to the point where she almost needed to spit.

Danika didn’t spit. She swallowed. And smiled as her stomach rumbled in protest. She’d be damned if she’d let some freakin’ disease tell her what to eat.

But the toast didn’t help. The hunger remained, and grew as the day wore on. Sometimes she felt flushed and broke out in spontaneous sweat. Sometimes she shivered as if she’d just entered a freezer.

“This is ridiculous,” she complained. But she knew the answer was inevitable. The only question was how was she going to deal with the answer. It didn’t take too long to formulate a plan, but once she had it, she had to wait, until night began to fall. Then she drove to the south side of the city, and parked.

Clad in her oldest, grungiest jeans and T-shirt, Danika left the car on a side street, and walked down the alley behind Flynn’s Tavern. If there was one place she was going to find what she needed, it was here. Where the lonely and busted hung out and panhandled. Who would miss a lowlife?

She’d barely been in the alley for more than five minutes when she spied her first mark. He looked to be about fifty-five. He was tall, thin, had graying hair. She didn’t know how to choose a “juicy” one yet, but she figured this guy would do for starters. She could always trade up and find another if he didn’t give her the rush she needed.

“Hey,” she yelled, and the guy looked up at her with bleary eyes. “Can I ask you something?”

The man shrugged. “Whaddayou wan’?” he gasped. The cloud of alcohol from his breath washed over her like a wave.

“I just need a hug,” she lied. “It’s been a really shitty day.”

Danika held her arms out, and the drunk wandered right into them. This was too easy, she thought to herself. Then she put her lips to his neck, and rubbed them against the rough stubble at the edge of his jaw. He stank of sweat and booze, but he was warm. She could feel his pulse with her lips. He groped at her ass as she waited for the feeling she’d had when she’d hugged Mila — a building need, desire, the sharp ache in her jaw … but her stomach only gurgled angrily, as it had been doing all day.

She opened her mouth to bite him, but still felt no response. No heat, no rush, no hazy blur across the eyes. Nevertheless, she tried to go through with it anyway. Opening her mouth as wide as she could, she bit down hard on his neck.

The taste was sour, and the drunk’s yell of complaint loud.

He dove away from her, losing his balance in the process. “Wha da fuc’?” he yelled. “Fuc’n’ freak show.”

The man staggered to his feet and moved faster than Danika would have thought he could have in his state. In seconds, he’d disappeared around the corner of an apartment building. Danika fingered her incisors and frowned. Why hadn’t her vampire fangs descended? She’d done nothing to make them extend when she was with Mila; just the nearness of her sister’s flesh had brought them down.

Maybe her inner vampire was a lesbian? Danika snorted at the thought. She may have undergone a change, but she didn’t believe she could have changed that much. Maybe she just needed someone a little more her type. Someone who didn’t smell. Were vampires “turned on” by their food based on scent and looks? Another question.

She got back in her car and considered what to do next. She did not want to do the show tomorrow feeling like she had last Monday, so she had to address this somehow. Cars passed by on the side street, and Danika realized that her drunken mark may have gone for help, in which case, she should leave. But she didn’t want to go home. Not yet. If there was a chance she could put this disease to rest for another couple days … She started the engine, and drove a mile or two away before finding another dark street to park on. There was a bar on the corner, and a restaurant down the next block. She turned the key and killed the engine. “One more for the road?” she said to herself, before getting out to look around. Nobody was currently out, so she walked slowly towards the restaurant. There was a bus stop shelter near the corner. A perfect place to sit and wait!