“It’s very fetching. But the band broke up a long time ago. You haven’t learned how to keep up with the times is my point. But you’re young. That always takes a while.”

Brenda stopped circling and met me face to face. “And how would you know?”

“I know a lot of vampires. And I’m older than I look.” I extended my hand. “I’m Apollo,” I said, giving her the name she was most likely to have heard.

“No way!” she exclaimed. “The one-who-walks-by-day?” She grabbed my hand and squeezed, just a bit too hard.

“Oww,” I said.

“Sorry. My strength, it’s…”

“I know. It’s something to get used to, isn’t it?”

I’m something of a legend within the vampire community, if you hadn’t already guessed. I’m most often described as another vampire but without a sun weakness. I gave up trying to correct the misapprehension about three centuries ago. The name Apollo—Greek god of the sun—was given to me by a vampire named Magnus in the eleventh century. It certainly wasn’t because of my stellar physique.

“Wow, I cannot believe I’m talking to Apollo!” she gushed. “The one who made me told me all about you! You’re like, a legend!”

“This is a treat for me too, really,” I said. “Look, I have to pick up something from the train station, but I was wondering if I could ask a favor.”

“Anything!”

“Great. Because I need a place to crash.”

“O-okay. It’s not much…” She was already reassessing her opinion of me. That was fast. One of the drawbacks of being a legendary figure is that inevitably the legend outstrips reality. She probably thought I had magical powers and could leap tall buildings in a single bound.

“Brenda, I guarantee I’ve seen worse. I only need a place to stay for a night or two, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

“Sure, but… it’s just that I haven’t eaten yet…”

“Right. Tell you what, if you can’t snag a quick bite while I’m gone, you can nibble on me. We’ll call it my rent for the night.”

She brightened, provided that’s possible for the undead.

“You’d let me do that?”

“Sure. Just don’t go nuts or anything.”

“It’s a deal!”

“Great. I’ll be right back.”

I left her to her street corner and made my way to South Station, where I hoped my bag was where I left it.

As I found out later, around the same time Brenda and I were negotiating the rent for a night’s stay, something unpleasant showed up at Gary and Nate’s. Something that was looking for me.

*  *  *

Brenda lived in Chinatown, a short three blocks from the corner she was working. It was a second floor apartment above a restaurant that specialized in something called “hot pot,” which I later discovered means “come boil your own dinner.”

The word “apartment” needed translating, too. It was one room plus a toilet that had evidently been installed in a closet, with a bucket and a sponge instead of a tub. I wasn’t getting that shower. I might have credited Brenda with being far enough along to realize she didn’t actually need to sleep in a coffin except that the place was so small it nearly qualified as one.

It did have a bed, though. Clean sheets, too. This made some bit of sense, especially if Brenda brought any clients to the place. Vampires have an acute sense of everything, but their sense of smell is particularly exceptional. I imagined she washed her sheets after every appointment, probably at the all-night laundromat around the corner.

She shut the hallway door, cutting us off from the dangling bare bulb out there and plunging the room into total and complete darkness. (The windows were heavily shuttered, for obvious reasons.)

“I told you it wasn’t much,” she apologized, moving freely in the dark.

“Brenda, I can’t see anything.”

“Oh, sorry. I figured you could see like me.” A flame sputtered to life in her hands, which she marched over to a candle resting on the windowsill. “I don’t pay for electricity,” she explained. “No phone either.”

“That’s okay.”

“Boy, you’re really a lot like them, aren’t you?” she observed.

“Like who?”

“Humans. You’ve… ass… what’s the word I want?”

“Assimilated?”

“Maybe, yeah.” She sat down on the bed. “No strength, no eyes… and hey, your heart is still beating.” Good hearing being one of the aforementioned heightened senses.

I sat next to her. “I’m not a vampire. The truth is, nobody knows what I am, exactly. I sure don’t.”

“Wild,” she said, with about as much sincerity as one can say that particular word. “So, you don’t drink blood or anything?”

“Nope. I eat rare steak from time to time.” I polished off the last of the vodka and started to roll up my sleeve. “I assume you’re still hungry.”

Her eyes lit up. “Yeah. But, you know, only if you want to.”

A point about vampires. They can and do have sex. I’ve tried it. It’s not bad. A little cold, a little dry… it’s kind of like screwing a very lively statue. Usually the vampire is doing you a favor because they’re not particularly turned on by intercourse, although that’s not always true with the younger ones. Drinking blood, however, is an orgasmic experience nearly every time, hence her enthusiasm. Yeah, she had to eat, but there was more involved. In a lot of ways it’s more fun watching them eat than having sex with them.

“A deal is a deal,” I said, extending my arm. “I assume you know how to stop yourself.”

“Oh sure. Haven’t lost a John yet.”

“How’s that work?” I asked. “Do you wait until after they’re done, or during?”

“During, usually. That way we’re both having our fun.”

“And they don’t mind?”

“Nobody’s complained yet. And when I do it well, they don’t even notice.” I found it hard to imagine not noticing one is being bitten, but that’s me.

She held my wrist lovingly.

“Cheers,” I said.

With a grin, she bared her fangs and dug in. It only stung for a second. Then the two of us leaned back slowly onto the bed, Brenda in a blind frenzy of rapture and me watching her. Lying there, it occurred to me how very much she looked like Eloise.

Viktor is getting more talkative each day. He really isn’t a bad guy, despite all the poking and prodding. I assumed I’d be dealing with your basic mad scientist type—if there is such a thing—purely based on what he’s trying to accomplish. But he’s hardly mad at all, just a little loopy. Everybody on his team is friendly, actually, and comes in varying shades of loopiness. Best of all, they let me hang out in the lab even when my part is done. Which is great, because these guys are all very talkative.

    Today Viktor rambled on at length about my telomeres and how they don’t get any smaller. He feels this is very important, but unfortunately I can’t figure out why; the phrase in layman’s terms apparently doesn’t mean anything to him. I just nod and let him talk, hoping something of use will come out of it.

He’s obviously hoping I pick up on some of his excitement. I think that would make this easier for all of them, knowing I was happy to donate my freedom to the cause. And because every time I smile about something they start talking more, I’ve learned to accommodate them. If I’m lucky, soon they’ll start talking about the others.

*  *  *

I met Eloise in the winter of 1356 in France, while I was working in the castle of Enguerrand de Coucy in Picardy, the northern region near the border of the Holy Roman Empire. Picardy was almost perpetually snowbound, and the castle was 200 years old already at that time, so the damn place was as drafty as hell, but it did have a few things going for it. Foremost, it wasn’t Paris.