39.

It was late.

The kids were with my sister, and I was alone in a parking lot, hidden behind some bushes and beneath an overhanging willow. The digital clock on the car radio read 11:22 p.m. Too late for an attorney and his secretary to be working cases.

The engine was off, and the windows were cracked open. Even vampires need to breathe. Actually, I wondered about that. I held my breath, timing myself. A minute passed. Two minutes. Three. Four. Five. I let out my breath. Well, hell. You learn something new everyday.

Just what dark voodoo was keeping me alive then? Didn't my brain and blood need oxygen, too? Maybe I just didn't need as much, and the only reason I seemed to breathe on a regular basis was that my automatic nervous system didn't know enough to shut off. I felt my heart. It was beating, very slowly. I timed the beating. Ten beats a minute. Ah, hell. I should be dead a hundred times over.

But I wasn't. I was very much alive. But how, dammit?

Maybe it was better not to think about it.

I was alive. Perhaps I should have died six years ago, but I didn't. Something kept me alive, and for that I was thankful. Now, not only could I watch my kids grow up but I would probably outlive my grandchildren and their children's children.

Jesus.

I ask again: what the hell kind of dark magic is keeping me alive?

Danny's firm is a small firm. He owned it with a partner, where it occupied the entire second floor of a very plain professional building. Danny specialized in auto accidents. A classic ambulance chaser. He made good money at it, but sold his soul.

I used to give him crap about it long ago, until I realized he actually enjoyed the work. He enjoyed sticking it to the insurance companies. Now he enjoyed sticking it to his secretary.

The night was cool. Trees above me swished gently. The partial moon appeared and disappeared through a smattering of clouds.

There seemed to be a hint of light coming from one of the building's upstairs windows, but it was difficult to tell as the blinds were shut. I sipped from a water bottle. The water was lukewarm. I discovered that I liked lukewarm water, which was a refreshing change from the nightly dosage of chilled hemoglobin.

I thought of the vampire hunter. For the past few days I had been watching my tail, and was confident no one was following me.

Staking out anyone�Deven your husband�Dcan be boring work. I held up my hand and studied it. My skin was white, almost translucent. Purple veins crisscrossed the back of my hand. My nails were thick and hard. Like my hair, they tended to grow slowly. I touched the center of my palm with my left index finger. The sensation sent a slight shiver up my right arm. Flesh and bone. I was three dimensional. I could feel. I could laugh. I could love my kids.

So why couldn't I die? And what gave me my unnatural strength?

I turned the rearview mirror my direction.

There was nothing in the mirror. Nothing at all, save for an image of the driver's seat headrest. My clothing moved as if occupied by the Invisible Woman. Fairly disconcerting. It was as if the mirror refused to acknowledge my existence. I turned it away in disgust.

"Well, I'm here, dammit," I said to the mirror. "Whether you like it or not."

Or perhaps I was saying this to Danny. Or the world.

So a creature called a vampire had attacked me one night. It tainted my blood with his. Because of that taint I was forever and irrevocably changed.

It had to do with the blood. I thought of blood now. It was the lifesource. Without it, we die. Well, without a lot of other stuff we die, too. Without your head you die. Without your heart you die.

How could something in my blood change me forever?

Blood connected everything, flowed through everything. Blood infused throughout the entire body.

The blood, I realized, was the key. My blood, my tainted blood, was keeping my body unnaturally alive�Dand would, apparently, keep it unnaturally alive for all eternity.

My God, I thought.

And then I wondered: was I still a child of God. Or was I rendered into something evil?

I didn't feel evil.

The street was quiet, but not empty. Across the street, the door to my husband's building opened. Two figures emerged. One of them was my husband and the other was a woman. I didn't recognize the woman. He had mentioned acquiring a new secretary a few months back. I hadn't met her. This girl was tall and angular, with straight, blond hair. She wore a very tight white skirt.

They walked together into the adjoining parking lot. He led her to a little red convertible with its top down. At her door my husband put his arms around her waist and gave her a very long, and very deep kiss. They held that position for well over a half a minute. Then she disentangled herself from him, got in the car and drove away. He watched her leave, then turned toward me, and I held my breath. For one brief second I thought he might have been looking at me. Then he turned away, reached for his keys in his pocket, got into his Escalade and left. To drive home to his wife and kids.

Numb, I stayed where I was, the engine off. I was surprised to discover that my hand had unconsciously reached inside my jacket for a gun that wasn't there.

40.

Danny and I were lying in bed together.

He was under the covers and I was on top of them. As usual. He was naked and I was completely clothed. As usual. Heat from his recently-showered body emanated from his skin. He had removed the scent of her. What a guy. In the dark, I could see his pale shoulders clearly. I could also see that he was looking away from me, eyes open and staring up.

I rolled from my side onto my back, staring up at the ceiling along with him. The ceiling crackled and swirled with the secret particles of light that only I could see.

"I saw you with her tonight," I said.

"I know."

"You haven't kissed me like that in a long time."

He said nothing. The particles of light seemed to react to the tension around us, swirling faster, agitated.

I said, "You knew I was there and you kissed her in front of me anyway?"

"I saw you immediately when we stepped outside."

"So you gave her a particularly long kiss."

"Yes."

"Why even bother coming home?"

"My kids are here."

My voice started shaking, and I could not hide the fear and the hate. I wanted to rise up and pound his goddamn chest, make him hurt as much as he was hurting me.

"Do you love her?"

"I think so. Yes."

"Do you love me?"

"I don't know. I used to." He paused. "I do not think I can love what you have become. I've tried. I honestly tried. But...."

"I repulse you."

"Yes," he said. "You sicken me and scare the hell out of me, and when I touch you it's all I can do to not gag."

"Words every wife wants to hear."

"I'm sorry, Sam. I really am. I'm sorry that you were attacked. I'm sorry it has come to this. But a marriage is between a man and a woman."

"I am not a woman?"

"I don't know what the hell you are. A fucking vampire, I suppose. And what is that?"

"I'm still the same person."

"No, you're not. You drink blood in the garage like a ghoul. I have nightmares about you. I dream that you attack me in the middle of the night, that you attack our children�Dthat you just lose it and slaughter us all."

I was crying now. Sobbing and crying and completely out of control. This was my worst fear, and it had come to pass. The love of my life was leaving me, and I didn't blame him for one second.

He ignored my crying. In fact, he turned his back to me.

And then I lost it. Just lost it.

In a blink of an eye I was on top of him. Both hands snaked down around his throat, faster than any cobra, faster than he could defend himself. I pinned him to the bed. "You fucking take my kids and I will kill you, you son-of-a bitch. Do you understand? I will hunt you down and kill you and tear you into fucking shreds."

My voice was hysterical, shrieking, piercing. I saw my hands around his muscular neck�Dmy narrow, pale, strong hands. His own were struggling with mine, trying desperately to pry me loose, but no luck. I didn't know if he was getting any air, and I suddenly didn't care. He kicked and convulsed, and still I strangled him, still I cursed and screamed at him. Now my arms shook with the effort. One more second, one more pound of pressure per square inch, and I would have killed him, and I would have enjoyed it. At least, in that moment.

Then I released my hold and he rolled off the bed, falling, coughing and gagging and spitting up. His body wrenched with the effort to breathe.

My heart was racing. "Don't you ever take my kids away, Danny," I whispered. "Ever."