I pressed myself into the wall. I didn't think it was possible to get any closer to it, but I was wrong.

"Holy crap," I said.

She laughed. "What, no 'oh my god, please don't hurt me?'"

"Holy crap! You're actually a vampire?"

"Didn't you already know that? You're the one who figured it out."

"I was just screwing around. Trying to surprise you . . ."

"Well, you did. No one's ever guessed it that quickly. Congratulations."

A vampire. A real, honest-to-god vampire. I knew I was supposed to be screaming and praying right now; after all, this woman was about to poke holes in me with her teeth. But I'd seen enough vampire movies to know how this worked. She'd bite me, suck some blood, and leave me in the alley, and I'd wake up a few hours later with a headache and no clear memory of how I'd gotten there. Compared to muggings and murder, that sounded pretty good.

"I can't believe you're a vampire," I said.

"I can't believe you're not scared anymore." She looked genuinely annoyed. "What's wrong with you?"

I glanced around the dark alley and wondered who or what might be living behind that garbage dumpster. I said, "Can you leave my phone where I can find it? I'm not sure where we are and I'm going to need someone to pick me up later."

Her lips pursed in a barely-suppressed smile. "I think, maybe, I am a little attracted to you."

"You're just saying that so I won't fight you."

"You'd be surprised how much I like to fight." She stretched up as tall as her five feet would allow her and put her arms around my neck. The butcher shop smell grew stronger, and not exactly pleasant, but I didn't care so much with the whole length of her body pressed against mine.

"This is going to be so good," she said.

"Uh-huh," was all I managed. My head was starting to swim.

"Come down where I am," she said. "I don't want to scale you like a monkey. How old are you, anyway?"

"Sixteen." I sat down on the asphalt and let my head rest against the building. Parva situated herself across my lap. I was dopey enough at this point that I didn't get all that excited about it.

"Hm," she said, her voice low and soft. "You're tall for sixteen. Thought you were older."

"Yeah."

"Nate."

"Huh?"

"Pay attention."

"I'm trying," I said. It wasn't easy, the way she had her face buried in my neck like she wanted to inhale it.

"Pay attention, because you were wrong about something and I need to clear it up."

"Okay."

She slid a hand under my chin and tilted my face to look at her, and I realized that I'd been zoning out with my eyes focused somewhere across the street. Then she leaned in close enough that I could feel her breath on my face when she spoke.

"I am a serial killer," she said.

It took a moment for this idea to work its way through the fog in my brain. When it did, the part of me that comprehended things deeper than logic finally came to terms with what I'd known all along. I wasn't leaving the alley alive.

I snapped out of my stupor so fast that I managed to knock Parva back a little. She seemed annoyed, but not troubled, as she regained control over me and pinned me to the brick wall.

"No," I said.

"Oh, yes," she said. She was so calm that I shivered. "Fifteen minutes before I picked you up I was taking some guy apart behind a Save-a-lot. He was about your age. Smoking a blunt on the curb. All alone."

"But why?"

"There are all kinds of vampires in the movies, Nate. Didn't you ever see one where the vampire was bad?"

She was too close. That smell, the sour meat odor, was even stronger and more pungent than before. It was coming from her shirt, and when I focused on the shirt again in the dim light of the moon, I realized it wasn't really tied-dyed red. It was, or used to be, plain white.

"Oh, my god."

"You're only just noticing?" She rubbed her nose against my ear in a gesture that would have been romantic if she wasn't freaking crazy. "Now let's hear the rest of it. Oh, my god, please don't hurt me."

"I have a feeling that if begging you was going to work, that last guy would still be alive," I said.

"If begging me was going to work, thousands of people would still be alive."

I believed her. I finally believed everything she was saying. She wasn't crazy, not really. She was sane to the point of detachment.

"Don't you ever . . ." I swallowed, trying to think of the right word. ". . . spare anybody?"

"And erase your memories like a space invader? I don't do that."

"But what if I promised not to fight you? Wouldn't it be easier for you if I didn't---"

"Weren't you listening before? I like it when you fight."

Did she? Screw that, then. I took several deep breaths and forced myself to relax. I wasn't brave or anything. I was embarrassed. I didn't want to give her the satisfaction. She was going to kill me one way or the other.

"Then I'm not going to fight you," I said.

She smirked. "That's very cute. But unless you're a yogi, you'll fight eventually."

"Will not."

She gave me a look like she might have given to a naughty puppy. Then she leaned in and kissed me, right on the mouth. I tried to tolerate it until the stench of meat became a flavor: it was blood, human blood on her lips. I tried to wrench my face away, but she wouldn't let me. My stomach churned and I tasted my own bile. I struggled until I was positive I was about to throw up. Only then did she pull away and let me breathe. I gagged and spit, trying to rid my mouth of the taste of blood.

"You're a psycho," I said. She rolled her eyes, and I knew I'd disappointed her with such a cheesy, B-movie line. "I mean, how low is your self-esteem?"

"Excuse me?"

"I get it. You're evil and unstoppable. Why do you have to make me puke to prove it? Daddy issues?"

This was not the right thing to say. Cold fire flashed in her eyes and for a second I fully expected her to tear my head off right there and end the suspense. "Don't psychoanalyze me, you little prick."

"Someone needs to." I was humiliated when my voice shook, but there was no going back. "You clearly need therapy. You kill people, for god's sake. You can't convince me that's necessary."

She spoke through her teeth. "What if I told you it was? That I needed to kill in order to live?"

"Then I would tell you you're a coward. Because if I had to kill people in order to stay alive, I would have let myself die a long time ago." I forced myself to smile. "But I think you kill because you can't stand to have anyone judging you. So you're a coward, anyway."

She punched me in the face. This was not the punch of a five-nothing girl. My jaw cracked and my head bounced off the wall. Stars flared behind my eyes. Blood filled my mouth faster than I could spit it out, along with the fragments of teeth she'd crushed. I was dead. No matter what, I was dead. All I could do now was piss her off so bad that she got it over with quickly instead of dragging it out. I made myself laugh.

"Truth hurts," I said.

"You more than me." She punched me again, harder this time. My thoughts swirled in and out of reality. Later, when I thought back to the crap I said to her under duress, I was amazed at the arrogance.

"You like it," I croaked. "If you didn't like it, you wouldn't be putting up with it. So you're, what, the strongest woman in the world? That's gotta suck when you're a closet masochist. There's no one on the planet to hold you down and make you feel like a---"

She punched me again. Then again. Her face was so contorted with rage that I no longer recognized it. My cheekbone shattered and I felt, to my horror, my skull crunch in the back. My vision blurred and darkened. This was it. This was the way I was going to end. I was terrified and furious at myself for letting a cute girl trick me with nothing but a wink and a handshake. But deep down inside I was also a little bit proud. I was fighting, but not the way she'd expected.

Then she stopped.

Even though my eyes were open, I couldn't see her anymore. But I could feel her breath on my face, very close.

"You think you can judge me?" she said. "You don't know anything. You don't have a clue." She laughed once, without mirth. "I was going to kill you, but maybe I'll teach you some empathy instead."

She put one forearm across my chest and grabbed my chin with the other hand. Then she jerked my face to the side and stabbed her teeth into my neck. Bright pain jolted into my body, flared in my throat, and crawled up my face and through my chest. Tears sprang to my eyes and I groaned. The pain---I had no idea it would feel like this. Movies had not prepared me. And what really terrified me was the way the pain inched its way through me and left numbness behind. My arms were already paralyzed. Soon I knew my legs would go the same way.

"Stop," I said, trying to sound at least sort of commanding, but my voice came out as a whisper. Parva chuckled against my throat, then drew back and said:

"Problem?"

The fire was burning its way through my guts. I said, "It hurts."

"I have bad news. It's about to get worse." Twin hot needles buried themselves in my neck again, and a second wave of pain began at their epicenters. My body jerked between hers and the wall, and I tried to stoically endure but a groan still escaped me. Then the groan got louder, louder, until I shouted at her to stop, begged her to stop because I knew I couldn't take it anymore and stay sane. I begged until the paralysis finally clenched my jaw and I could no longer speak. But I could still moan, and tears could still squeeze between my eyelids. And I could still pray in my mind for God to hurry up and let me die.

Then she dropped me. I slumped into the road as fire ate its way through my body. I couldn't move. All I could do was moan in agony while Parva watched my pain. Reveled in it.

Eventually, the pain began to burn out. But as it did, my heartbeat weakened and my breaths grew shallow. I tried to remember how to get enough air, but I couldn't. And then I couldn't remember why it mattered if I got enough air or not. It was over. After all that, I was dying anyway.

I thought of my mother, and how angry and heartbroken she was going to be when my body was found. Then her image in my mind blew away like ashes and all I could remember was Parva.

One last breath. One last desperate grab at life. Then, as the energy that animated me was depleted and the last breath was released, I felt Parva put something on my chest. Something hard and small.

"Here's your phone," she said. "It's right where you can find it."