The Eternal Kiss: Vampire Tales of Blood and Desire

Other Boys by Cassandra Clare

“THAT’S THE ONE.” Bridget pointed with her fork. “That’s the guy who says he’s a vampire.”

Jennifer, who had been picking distractedly at her tuna salad, looked up at her friend and frowned. “Who’s a vampire?”

“The new kid. What’s his name. No, don’t look,” hissed Bridget, who lived in mortal fear that one day a boy in the cafeteria would catch her or one of her friends looking at him, and the outcome would be—well, Jennifer wasn’t sure what Bridget thought the outcome would be, other than some sort of unspecified disaster. “The one with the dark hair and the weirdo clothes.”

Gabrielle, who was staring openly across the cafeteria, raised her eyebrows. “Oh yeah. I think his name is Colin.”

“It is,” Bridget said. “He said so in English class. He just got up and said: ‘My name is Colin, and I just moved here. And oh yeah, I’m a vampire.’”

“He just said that? I’m a vampire?” Jennifer stared across the cafeteria, fascinated. The boy with the dark hair was sitting alone at a table, wearing a long black leather trenchcoat over a black shirt and black pants. He had black gloves on his hands, too, the fingertips cut off. He had a lunch tray in front of him, but there was nothing on it. Under the black, black hair, he was pale as blank paper. “What did everyone else do?”

“Mostly laughed. Then Mr. Brandon made him sit down.”

“He’s a poser,” Gabrielle said, and grinned. Gabby had a bright, white grin that had never needed braces. Jennifer often wondered how it was that the two of them were cousins who shared genetic material, and yet Gabby had gotten the perfect teeth and the blonde hair, and Jennifer had wound up with dishwater brown hair—something no one else in the family had—and four years of orthodontics.

“He never eats,” Bridget said, ticking off her points on her fingers. “He wears sunglasses everywhere. He’s super pale. And he never speaks to anyone. Maybe he is a vampire.”

“Or maybe he’s just a misanthrope,” said Gabby. “Anyway, if he was a vampire, wouldn’t he burn up in sunlight?”

“Oh, there’s no such thing as vampires anyway,” Jennifer said. “He’s just some crazy goth kid.”

“Oh yeah?” Bridget said. “Well, he’s looking at you.”

Startled, Jennifer glanced back in the boy’s direction. He had something balanced against the edge of the table, a sort of book, open as if he were writing or drawing in it. He shook his head as she looked at him and even at this distance she could see the green of his eyes.

There was something else, too. A feeling that as he looked back at her, something zinged through their gazes, some kind of connection—

Jennifer turned around and looked back at the other two girls at the table: Gabby with her eyebrows up, Bridget chewing nervously on the end of her red braid. “You’re blushing,” Gabby said.

Jennifer shrugged. “He is cute.”

Bridget grinned. “All vampires are.”

On the bus ride home, Jennifer thought about vampires. She didn’t know much about vampire legends: certainly less than the other girls in her school, who loved vampire romances and horror movies. She’d seen one vampire movie, once, when she was fourteen and over at Bridget’s house. For the next week after that, she’d dreamed about beautiful people with pale faces who would swoop through her window and take her away from her boring parents and her boring life. She would live in Paris instead of Pennsylvania and drink blood out of wine glasses, except it wouldn’t taste like blood—hard and metallic—but like something sweet and thin. Fruit punch, maybe, or black-cherry soda.

Not long after she’d been in a bookstore and asked her mother to buy her a copy of a teen vampire romance novel. Blood Desire, or something like that. She should have known better. Vampires and supernatural creatures and magic didn’t fit with her parents’ strict conservative worldview. Her mother had taken the book out of her hand and shoved it roughly back onto the shelf. Vampires, Jen was told, were not something girls her age should be thinking about; they were monsters made up by pagans and Satanists and had no place in a child’s bedroom.

What her mother really meant, Jen realized later, was that vampires were sexy, and she wasn’t supposed to think about sex, or boys. Unlike Gabby, Jen was never allowed to date—not even with a chaperone, not even a date to go to the mall in the middle of a Saturday with a million people around. She was forbidden to bring boys home, much less have them in her room. Sometimes Jen thought it was a wonder she was allowed to go to school at all, considering that there were boys there.

At home, Jen slipped in through the side door to find her mother in the kitchen, stir-frying onions in a pan. Jennifer slid onto one of the kitchen stools, twirling her backpack by one strap and watching her mother, thin and efficient-looking with her graying brown hair tied back in a braid and an apron cinched around her waist. None of the mothers of Jennifer’s friends, even when they did cook, wore an apron—not Bridget’s, whose mother only followed macrobiotic recipes she got off the Internet, or Gabby’s, whose crazy artist mother didn’t know how to make anything but Hamburger Helper. But Jennifer’s mom stayed home all day—she disapproved of her sister, who worked—so Jennifer figured she had nothing but time to cook.

“Hey, Mom,” Jennifer said. “I was just wondering …”

Jennifer’s mom half-turned, brushing a lock of hair away from her face and smiling. “About what?”

“How come Gabby gets to date,” Jennifer said. “You know. And I don’t.”

“Oh.” Her mother stood for a moment, poking at the onions in the pan. “Look, you and Gabby—you’re different.”

Her mother had said this before, and it always annoyed Jennifer. “Different how?”

“Well—Gabby can handle herself better.” Jennifer’s mother had her lips pressed together. Jen knew how much her mother hated having this conversation, but she couldn’t help it. It was like poking at a sore tooth. Of course, it was true that Gabby was more confident and self-reliant than she was, but how could anyone become confident or self-reliant when their parents kept them in a glass cage and never let them go anywhere or do anything?

“I can handle myself fine,” Jennifer said. “I’d just like to be able to—maybe—go on a date.” She held her breath.

She might not have bothered. “You know that’s out of the question,” Jen’s mother said. “Don’t be ridiculous.” She gave a little shriek as a puff of smoke wafted up from the pan. “Oh! My onions!”

Jennifer sighed.

In the library the next day, trying to research a book on Norse mythology, Jen kept feeling her gaze drawn to other books—books that had nothing to do with the topic of her essay. Books with the word vampire in the title.

There were more of them than she would have thought:

The Encyclopedia of Vampires, and The Massive Book of Vampire Myths, and Vampires through History. Jennifer was just reaching for the last one when a voice spoke from behind her:

“You know, most of those aren’t very accurate.”

She whirled around. Colin was behind her, leaning against one of the low shelves of books. Up close, his looks were even more striking. He had one of those sharp, bony, delicate faces, like a British film star. His hair was pure black, his eyes a bright and feverish green like a cat’s. There was a ring on one of his fingers. He couldn’t be married, she thought. But no, it was on the wrong finger. She thought of what Bridget had said—that he wore weirdo clothes, but she thought they suited him.

Jennifer took a deep breath. “What aren’t very accurate?”

“Those books.” He stepped forward and took The Massive Book of Vampire Myths down from its shelf. “It’s just going to tell you the same stuff. That vampires burn up in sunlight, don’t reflect in mirrors, can’t cross water or look at crucifixes …”

“And you don’t think that’s true?” Jennifer’s voice came out thin and high, almost a squeak. Standing this close, she could smell the scent that lingered on his hair and clothes. A faint charred smell, like a burnt match. Maybe he smoked.

“I think,” he said, “that for vampires to have been around for such a long time, they must be pretty clever. Too clever to let their secrets get out like this. I think they’d be much better off spreading false rumors about how they can be killed—garlic, stake to the heart. Once people believe them, once they think they’re safe …”

Jennifer shuddered. “You’re joking, right? Did you really tell Mr. Brandon’s English class that you were a vampire?”

He smiled. “Maybe I did. You have to admit it’s more interesting than the usual introduction. Don’t you think?”

“I don’t know.” Jennifer reached to put the book back on the shelf. “It all seems sort of …” She turned back around, but there was no one there. Colin was gone.

“Morbid,” she said, half in a whisper.

Jennifer stayed in the library for another half an hour, but Colin didn’t return. When the last bell rang, she went to her locker to get her books and found Gabby leaning against it, holding a notebook across her chest. She popped her gum as Jennifer approached.

“Bridget said someone saw you in the library talking to Colin,” she said.

Jennifer fiddled with her lock. “So what?”

“Did he say anything …” Gabby paused. “About, you know. Vampires.”

“No,” Jennifer said, partly just to be perverse and partly because she had felt a flash of resentment at Gabby’s interest in Colin. Colin was hers. Except, of course, he wasn’t. She jerked her locker door open—

And jumped back with a muffled exclamation as two books fell from the open locker and hit the floor at her feet. Gabby immediately bent and scooped them up. Both had lurid covers depicting a fanged male vampire looming over a prone girl in a long dress. “Blood Desire,” she read aloud. “The Vampire’s Secret. What is this crap?”

“Nothing. I was just looking for—” Jennifer broke off as something caught her eye. A piece of white paper fluttered, caught in the grille of her locker door. She reached to pluck it down.

I thought you might enjoy these, was scrawled on the paper in unfamiliar handwriting. There was no signature.

Gabby walked home with Jennifer, which was not unusual, especially for a Friday. Their houses were a few blocks from each other. Jennifer’s mother hadn’t wanted to move too far away from her sister even though they both lived in the same town. Gabby chattered about Colin the whole way home—about where he’d moved from, about the things he’d said in English class, and about whether or not he liked Jennifer. Jennifer barely paid attention. All she wanted to do was get home and read the books Colin had left in her locker.

She convinced Gabby not to come inside the house with her, claiming she had a headache. Locking the front door behind her, she raced upstairs to her room and flung herself on the bed, fumbling the books out of her bag. Their covers were even more lurid than she remembered—each one showed a powerfully muscled male vampire bent over the prone body of a woman, her back arched, her pale throat nakedly exposed. Unconsciously pressing her hand to her own throat, Jennifer opened Blood Desire and began to read.

She finished The Vampire’s Secret after midnight, having read straight through for six hours, not even going downstairs for dinner. But she didn’t feel tired. She felt alert and awake. Her mouth was dry, her heart pounding as if she’d been running. She was barely aware of what she had read—she’d taken in almost nothing of the stories—but images raced through her mind, as if they came swirling up out of dreams: pale bodies sinking back into darkness, dark hair blown on the wind, red fingernails scraping across the front of an old-fashioned white shirt, blood on an exposed throat, blue veins running under skin like a roadmap. Her own skin burned and itched. There was a pain in the side of her throat. Taking her hand away, she saw her fingertips stained red and realized she had dug her own nails into the skin of her throat until it bled. Her stomach twisted. Colin, she thought. I want Colin.

When Jennifer came downstairs that morning she found her father sitting at the breakfast table, half-hidden by a newspaper. Her mother was by the stove, flipping pancakes.

Her father lowered the paper with a smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. “Good morning, sunshine.”

Jennifer tugged self-consciously at the neck of her sweater. She’d worn it to cover the bruises she’d made on her throat with her own fingernails. “Morning, Dad.”

He frowned. “You look a little peaked, kid. Is everything all right? You feeling okay?”

Her mother, coming over to the table with a plate of pancakes. “Do you need to stay home from school, Jenny?”

Staying home from school would mean not seeing Colin. Jennifer’s stomach twisted, a feeling of nausea rising inside her. The sickly smell of maple syrup was overwhelming. “I’m fine. I just had a lot of homework to do last night.”

Her mother and father glanced at each other across the table, their eyes meeting in secret parental communication. “We were thinking of going up to your grandmother’s this weekend,” her mother said. “It’s been a long time since we’ve seen her. We thought you could take Friday off school.”

Jennifer’s grandmother lived hours outside the city in the middle of nowhere, a tiny house surrounded by trees, miles from the nearest town. And she was even more conservative than Jen’s mother. She banned all books from her house, not just the ones with magic or supernatural creatures in them, and all music and movies, too. She was terrifying—cold and rigid and strict. Gabby said everyone was afraid of her, even her daughters. Gabby hated going there just as much as Jen did; they’d always used the place as a threat to each other when they were little.

If you do that, they’ll send you to Grandma’s house!

“Is this because I asked you about dating?” Jen demanded, whirling on her mom. “It’s not like he even asked—”

She broke off, already knowing she’d said too much.

Her mother’s eyes narrowed. “So there is a boy. A specific boy?”

“No!” Jennifer backed away from the table. “There isn’t anyone.”

“Jen,” her father said. His voice was placating. “You know the rules.”

But what if you met him? Jen wanted to ask, but it was pointless. She thought of her parents meeting Colin, with his rings and his strange black clothes and his claim that he was a vampire. She could only imagine how badly that would go.

And it wasn’t as if he’d asked her out in the first place, anyway.

“I just don’t want to go away this weekend,” she said, her voice shaking slightly. “I have a lot of work. A big assignment—”

“Jen,” her mother said. Her voice was soft; she didn’t sound angry. “Whoever he is, just forget about him. Someday, when you’re older, there will be other boys.”

But Jen didn’t want other boys.

Colin was in his usual place in the lunchroom that afternoon, his feet up on the table, a black notebook spread out over his lap. As usual, there was no food on his lunch tray. Jennifer marched directly up to him, ignoring the stares of Gabby and Bridget from across the room.

“I read those books,” she said. “The ones you put in my locker.”

He lowered the notebook and looked up. His eyes seared into hers. “What books?”

Now he was playing with her. “You know what books.” She searched his face for any clue to what he was thinking, but it was unreadable. “Why are you so fascinated with vampires?”

Now he smiled. “Why not?” he said. “People have been fascinated with vampires for centuries.”

“But you,” she whispered. “Why do you care? Why do you know so much about them?”

“They’re human, but more than human. They don’t need to eat, to breathe—imagine being like that, so pure that you have only one need in the world, one desire.”

“Blood,” Jennifer said, and a shiver went up her spine as she said it. She was no longer aware of the cafeteria, the noise and bustle all around her, or even if people were staring. She was only aware of Colin, who was holding her gaze to his with eyes like green nails.

“Blood,” he said. “So simple, but everything. Imagine looking around a room like this—” His eyes slid around the cafeteria, slow and contemptuous—“and knowing you’re better than everyone in it. Better and different.”

Jennifer shook her head. “I can’t imagine that.”

He leaned forward, his elbows on the table. His grin was florescent-bright. “You should. You are better. Different. Special. I knew it the minute I saw you in the library.”

She swallowed hard. “I’m not, really. I’m ordinary.”

He shook his head. “Come out with me this weekend,” he said.

Startled, she could only stare. “Like—on a date?”

“Like on a date.”

“My parents …” she began. “They don’t let me go on dates.”

“That’s too bad,” he said. He sounded like he meant it.

“And I won’t be around this weekend,” she said, and then, hardly believing her own daring, added: “But—my parents, they go to sleep early. Maybe I could sneak out …”

“Could you?” A smile played around the corners of his mouth. “I’ll tell you what. You wait for me, tonight, in your room. I’ll come to you.”

Jennifer’s throat was dry. It was all she could do to nod in response.

Leaving the cafeteria, Jen drifted through the halls like smoke, like a ghost. More than one person walked into her, but she only swerved to go around them, or stared through them until they moved on, muttering to themselves. I’m seeing Colin tonight, she thought, over and over. Late tonight. He said he would come to me. In one of the vampire stories she had read the night before, vampires had soulmates, humans who were bonded to them with a mutually interdependent bond—both vampire and human needing each other. The vampire would do anything to protect its bonded human. She thought of Colin being willing to do anything to protect her. She thought of his mouth on her throat, and a shudder went through her. She almost had to stop and lean against the wall to keep herself from falling over.

“Where are you?” Gabby’s voice, bright as sunshine cutting through the fog in her mind. Jennifer looked up. Gabrielle was propped against the locker next to hers, a piece of her bright hair wound around a finger, her eyes inquisitive. “Earth to Jen.”

Jennifer swung her locker door open, avoiding her cousin’s eyes. “Sorry. I was thinking about something.”

“You’re always thinking about something.” Gabby tugged on her hair. “You need to take your mind off stuff. Want to go out tonight? See a movie? Something dumb, with cute guys in it.”

It was like Gabby was psychic. Jen bit her lip. “I can’t. I have … plans.”

“Plans? Plans with who?”

“No one.”

“Plans with Colin?”

Jennifer slammed her locker door shut. “Maybe.”

“Oh my God, you do have plans with him!” A look of surprise—and something more than surprise—washed over Gabby’s face. If Jennifer hadn’t known it was ridiculous, she would have thought Gabby looked frightened. “You’re not seriously going to go, are you?”

“Of course I’m going to go.”

Gabby chewed her lip. “I don’t think it’s a good idea—”

Jennifer turned away, cutting her off. “I’m going home, Gabby. I’ll see you later.”

Of course, it wasn’t as easy to get rid of her cousin as that. Gabby walked with her all the way home, talking excitedly all the way about Colin. Warning her that going out with him wasn’t a good idea. He was weird, he was too silent, he was too pale, he was too strange, he acted like a serial killer, he never talked to anyone. He was probably full of himself and boring.

“So I’ll be bored,” Jen said, keeping her eyes straight ahead as she walked. It was easier to disagree with Gabby when you acted calm and didn’t get mad. “So what?”

“So why subject yourself to that when you could spend the evening with me?” Gabby’s voice was wheedling. “Where’s the girl power?”

“Girl power doesn’t mean never going out with boys ever, Gabs. You go out with boys all the time.”

“I’m just looking out for you. Colin is—weird.”

“So he’s weird. I’m weird.”

“Not like him.” Gabby sounded unhappy. “I think he could be—dangerous.”

That did it. Despite vowing to stay calm, Jen whirled on her cousin. “Is this about Bridget saying he was a vampire? Is that what this is about? I thought that was a joke.”

“It was.”

“So you don’t think he’s a vampire.”

Gabby met her gaze, steadily. “No. I don’t.”

Surprise washed over Jennifer, and then something else—disappointment? It flared out quickly, and now she was angry again. “Then stop bugging me. I bet I can guess what’s really bothering you.”

“I bet you can’t.” Gabby’s blue eyes sparked with matching annoyance.

“You’re always the one who gets the dates. You’ve always got some cute guy panting after you. Now that I’m the one with the date, you’re jealous. You noticed Colin first, and you’re mad he likes me.”

Once the words were out of Jen’s mouth, she wished she could take them back. There was the strangest expression on Gabby’s face. She’d never seen her cousin look like that before.

“Let me tell you, Jen,” Gabby said, “whether you believe me or not, jealous is the last thing I am.”

Jennifer opened her mouth to shoot back that she didn’t believe her, then closed it again. Whatever else was going on—whatever was the real reason her cousin was acting so strange—it was obvious that Gabby was telling the truth.

Jennifer sat on her bed, looking at herself in the mirror that hung over her dresser. She had changed her clothes a dozen times, and finally settled on black jeans and a black sweater. Her hair was down, brushed out, with gel on the ends to stop it from frizzing. Between her dark hair and her dark sweater, her face seemed to hover in the mirror like an untethered white balloon floating in the darkness of the room.

He’s not coming.

It was almost midnight. There were books spilled out across her bed. She had tried reading to take her mind off waiting, but that had only made things worse. She’d tried finishing the vampire novel she was halfway through, but it had only made her skin feel hot and unbearably itchy. She could hear the clock in the hallway ticking—hear the snap, snap, of each minute passing. The air in the room seemed close and suffocating, too, as if she couldn’t quite breathe properly.

He’s not coming.

She wished she hadn’t told Gabby anything. It would be humiliating to have to go to school in the morning and admit that the date she’d fought so hard to defend hadn’t even happened because she’d been stood up. Maybe Colin had just been mocking her with all his talk about blood and desire and—

It came then, a soft rap on her window. She whirled around to stare; the floating white balloon in the mirror veering as if caught by a gust of wind. She heard the sound again and stood up, going to the window and throwing it open, leaning out into the soft spring night.

He was in the garden below her window, a black shadow against the neatly trimmed grass of the front lawn, face and eyes printed white against the darkness. He beckoned to her with his hand. Come down.

She came down, and he was waiting by the front steps. He put his finger to her lips, shushing her before she could ask him any questions. When he took his hand away she could taste the salt from his skin on her mouth.

He took her hand. She let him, and he drew her toward the front gate and out onto the street. It was empty, the white lights painted down the center of the road gleaming in the moonlight, the parked cars still as sleeping animals. Colin pulled her into the shadows between two cars and kissed her, hard and hungrily, pushing her back against the trunk of a neighbor’s Jeep, the handle of the trunk jamming into her back.

Colin’s hands were alternately cold and hot on her skin, sliding up under the back of her sweater. His mouth tasted like salt. She was dizzy, floating, cut free from everything. Her fingers scrabbled against his shoulders, his neck. She could feel his pulse hammering. His heart beats, she thought. His mouth found her cheek, the side of her jaw, her throat. Desire and fear flared up inside her and she whimpered.

Colin pulled back. His lips looked bruised in the dim light, his eyes hot. He said, “You’re right. We shouldn’t do this here.” He took her hand again. “Let’s go.”

“Where?” she whispered. It was all she had the breath to say.

He grinned, bright in the darkness. “You’ll see.”

The cemetery gate was unlocked. Colin pushed it open and slipped through, pulling Jen behind him. There was a gravel path running between the graves, lined with pale headstones. Some of the graves had flowers scattered across them, black in the shadows. Their feet crunched on the path.

Jen’s heart was pounding. “What are we doing here?”

“Relax.” Colin turned, holding both her hands in his, walking backward. He drew her after him, and she could have pulled away, but she didn’t want to. “I want to show you one of my favorite places.”

She let him lead her. “All right.”

The path wound under the trees, where the shadows were thick and dark as paint, and came out by the side of a small lake. Hills rose around the lake, spiked with mausoleums and leaning gravestones. Colin let go of Jen’s hand long enough to slide off his backpack. He pulled a blanket out of it, spreading it on the ground, and beckoned her to come and sit beside him.

For a moment, they sat in silence together, looking out over the lake. The wind had come up, and ruffled Jen’s hair, lifting it away from her hot forehead, cooling her burning skin. The moon shone down on the lake, making it glow. Jen had the feeling of floating away from the rest of the world, being something holy and apart.

“Come here.” Colin drew her down next to him, wrapping his arms around her, pressing their bodies together. She had never been so close to another human being; she wanted to lose herself in the moment, but kept marveling at how strange it all was—the feeling of the grommets on his jacket pressing into her skin, the cold air and the heat of his body, the slide of his lips across hers. He tangled his hands in her hair, raking his fingers down and through it. He drew up the back of her shirt in handfuls, and she felt the cold of his rings on her skin as he slid his hands under, fumbling with the clasp of her bra.

“No … don’t,” she whispered, but he just laughed, flicking the clasp open. He’d done this before, it seemed. His hands on her bare skin made her shudder.

“Relax,” he said, again, but Jen didn’t feel relaxed. She felt agitated—she didn’t know why—every nerve in her body humming. Her skin itched. She felt awkward suddenly, not at home in her body. Even her teeth felt too big for her mouth.

“I want to stop,” she said.

He pulled back just enough to look down at her, bewildered. His pulse was pounding. She could see it under the skin of his throat. “I thought you wanted this,” he said. “You didn’t want to go on a date. You said you just wanted me to come to your window.”

“Not for this,” she said.

He stared down at her. “Your teeth,” he said. His pulse was hammering now. She couldn’t look away from it, fluttering under his skin. Her stomach twisted, growling. She was—hungry. “Are those real?”

Jen blinked, bewildered. “What?”

“Baby, those are truly freaky.” He was grinning again now. “I love how you’re so into this stuff. I knew you would be the minute I saw you. So—you want to bite my neck?” He swept his hair back, leaving the pale side of his throat exposed. “Go ahead.”

He leaned down, closer to her, until all she could see was the blue veins under his skin, the beat of his pulse, and she could—smell the blood. Her ears roared, the sound of the wind driven out by the audible sound of rushing blood. Pale bodies sinking back into darkness, dark hair blown on the wind, red fingernails scraping across the front of an old-fashioned white shirt, blood on an exposed throat, blue veins running under skin like a roadmap—

When her teeth met in his throat, he screamed. No one ever screamed in the books, but Colin screamed. He tried to push at her with frantic hands, but she had her legs wrapped around him, her arm across the back of his neck. She clung to him like a tick as he reared up and then collapsed, his scream turning to a gurgle.

And then there was just the blood. It exploded into her mouth, hot and salty, and she felt her eyes roll back, her hands digging into Colin’s shoulders, kneading them the way a cat kneads its mother as it drinks milk. He was still struggling, kicking at her feebly, but it didn’t last long. She didn’t know it, but she’d opened his carotid artery with her teeth. He bled out in under a minute, going limp under her body, eyes open and staring glassily at the sky. She didn’t notice that, either. She was still drinking.

The blood was gone too soon. Suddenly there was no more of it pumping into her mouth, there was only the dry sucking noise her mouth made against his skin. She jerked back, revolted.

She stared. Colin lay twisted on the ground, his neck bent at an unnatural angle. She reached to touch his arm, then snatched her hand back. His skin felt papery and limp, his body light as a husk. His skin was a dull putty color.

“Colin,” Jen whispered. “Colin?”

The whites of his eyes were flecked with blood. She had made a mess of his neck. It looked like an animal had been chewing on him. No neat puncture wounds, just a ragged sort of hole. His clothes were drenched in blood. It was all over her, too. Her hair hung in sticky red tassels down her shoulders.

The worst part of it was that she was still hungry.

Jen wrapped her arm around herself and let out a wail, and then another one. They echoed through the silence of the cemetery like a fire alarm going off in an empty house. She was still wailing when someone stepped up behind her and put their arms around her from behind. She heard a voice in her ear, soft and soothing.

“Jen, Jen,” Gabby said. “It’s all right. Everything’s all right. Let’s get you home.”

Jen’s parents were waiting for them in the kitchen. All the lights were on: the room looked as bright and white as the inside of a marble tomb. Her father was leaning against the counter, her mother sitting at the table, turning a cold cup of coffee around and around in her hands. She looked up when Jen came in, Gabby leading her by the hand like a trusting child.

Seeing the blood all over her daughter, she paled. “Jen,” she whispered.

“I’m all right,” Jen said, automatically, but her mother was looking past her, at her cousin.

“What happened?” Jen’s mother asked Gabby. “Did she kill him?”

“He’s dead, all right,” Gabby said. “Colin.” She pointed toward a chair. “Sit down, Jen.”

Jen sat. A great feeling of unreality had come over her, as if she were floating through a dream she knew was a dream. She was in her house, but it wasn’t really her house. This was her kitchen, but not. These were her parents, but not. The words they said to her, to Gabby, had no meaning.

“Where’s the body?” It was her father, still leaning against the counter. His face was set, almost expressionless. For the first time, Jen noticed that there was a duffel bag at his feet.

“The cemetery. Up by the lake,” Gabby said.

“I’ll take care of it.” Jen’s dad hoisted the duffel, affording Jen a brief glimpse of what was inside—a shovel, a knife, some lighter fluid. Tools. She stared as her father patted her mother on the shoulder and went out through the side door, shutting it carefully behind him.

“I don’t understand,” Jen said, softly, not to anyone in particular, and not expecting an answer, either.

“Of course you don’t,” Gabby said, an odd sharpness in her tone. “You don’t know anything. You couldn’t possibly understand.”

“Gabrielle. Please.” Jennifer’s mother stood up. Her back was very straight, and she looked at Gabby with a sort of tired disapproval. “Now is not the time.”

Jennifer watched her mother with dazed eyes as she took a white dishtowel from the rack and dampened it under the sink. She came over to her daughter, and tenderly cleaned the blood from her face, even the crusted blood at the corners of her mouth, sponging the stains from her hands, turning the white towel pink. Jen sat silently, letting her mother minister to her as if she were a child and the sticky stuff all over her was spaghetti sauce or melted red Popsicle.

“He wasn’t a vampire,” Jen said finally, staring at the bloody towel. “Was he?”

“Of course not,” Gabby snapped. “He was just a stupid kid who thought all that goth stuff made him look cool. You’re the one who—”

“Gabby.” Jen’s mother’s tone warned.

“He said I was special,” Jen whispered. “Different.”

“You must have liked him very much,” said her mother. “Humans have a way of sensing when a vampire desires them. It causes them to feel desire in return.” Her voice was matter-of-fact. “It makes it easier to find prey that way.”

“You knew,” Jen whispered. “You knew what I was.”

Her mother patted the side of her face gently. “I didn’t know. I hoped the curse had passed by you like it passed by Gabby. Sometimes it skips a generation or two. Part of me hoped it had died out completely in the family. Seeing what my mother went through …” She sighed. “Hunting in the shadows, always fearing being caught. Your father’s had to clean up after her in the past. That’s why we moved here. To get away.”

“That’s why you wouldn’t let me go out with boys,” Jen realized. “Not because you were afraid for me, but because you were afraid for them.”

“We knew that if you did have the curse, if you were … what you are, it would start showing itself when you were a teenager. When you got interested in boys. The desire to feed on blood, it’s all tangled up with … with adult feelings. Romantic feelings.”

She still can’t bring herself to just say sexual feelings, Jen thought. Even though I just killed someone. Even though I’m sitting here covered in his blood, she thinks I’m a child.

Jen turned to look at Gabby, who was staring at her sadly. She looked so glum and miserable and ordinary. Jen almost felt sorry for her.

“You knew, too,” she said to her cousin. “Didn’t you?”

“My mom told me about the curse once she figured out I didn’t have it,” Gabby admitted. “Sorry I couldn’t tell you. But honestly, I didn’t think you had it, either. Not till Bridget started talking about Colin being a vampire and I saw how fascinated you were. It was weird, Jen.”

“Gabby warned us what was going on,” said Jen’s mother. “It gave us a little time to be prepared. See, you can’t control yourself right now, Jen. And that’s why you have to go live with your grandmother for a while. Someone will have to teach you how to be what you are.”

“I’m not doing that,” Jen said, turning back to her mother. “I’m not leaving here.”

Her mother looked startled. “We know what’s best for you—”

“No, you don’t,” Jen said. “You should have told me all this stuff before. You said you were protecting me, but you set me up. I killed Colin because of you.”

“And if you stay here, you’ll wind up killing someone else.”

“I guess you should have thought of that before,” said Jen. Gabby gave a startled laugh as Jen stood up, pushing her mother’s restraining hand away. “You called it a curse,” Jen added.

“It is a curse,” said her mother. “A family curse. Only the women in our family get it.”

“Maybe I don’t think it is one,” Jen said.

Her mother’s expression changed. Jen remembered what Gabby had always said about their grandmother—that everyone was afraid of her. Her daughters, too.

Her mother stood up, facing her. “You’re upset,” she said. “You should go to bed. We can talk about this in the morning.”

“Sure,” Jen said. “In the morning.”

She turned and walked out of the kitchen, up the stairs toward her bedroom. She caught sight of herself in the mirror that hung on the landing. Her clothes were stiff with dried blood. Her face was luminous, her eyes glowing. She looked—different. Under the blood, her skin seemed to shine. She was almost beautiful.

She smiled, wide as she could, showing the sharp tips of her needle incisors, the ones Colin had thought were so funny and so fake. She thought of the way his skin had crunched under her teeth when she bit into it, like the skin of an apple.

Her mother had been right. There would be other boys.