The Eternal Kiss: Vampire Tales of Blood and Desire

“Hear me out,” Penny pleaded. “My art piece will be three paintings side by side. Different stages of the hunt.”

“No,” he said. “Just no.”

“What’s the problem?” she asked.

“It’s dangerous,” he said.

“Why?”

“I can’t tell you that,” Miles said.

The truth was that he didn’t want her to see him that way. Fangs unfurled. Eyes wild. Running and hunting. Crouching over the victim and drinking. The ecstasy. He couldn’t even bear other vampires to see him like that, which is why he hunted and lived alone. He was disgusted by how it made him feel. The power and blood lust were so overwhelming that he hated himself for the deliciousness of them.

“You are a stingy bastard,” she said, shoving the cheeseburger in her mouth. She had ordered it rare, and there was blood that dripped off of the edge of the bun and onto her finger.

The sight of it made him catch his breath.

He wanted to take her finger and suck the juice off. If he wanted to be her friend, he would have to leave right away. It was either that, or he would attack her.

He slid out of the booth.

“Where are you going?” she said. “We’re not finished here.”

He was confused because she was smiling. She didn’t look angry that he had said no. She was open and fresh. She smelled ready for anything. She put the burger down and noticed the burger juice on her finger and licked it off herself.

Miles almost howled. He could feel his teeth come out. He ran out of the diner. He headed for the park despite the fact that he had already fed here too recently for his liking. He could smell three other vampires in the area. It would be bad for all if there were too many deaths in one place, but Miles couldn’t help himself. He was blinded by desire. He had to feed.

He went deeper into the park until he found himself under a bridge, hovering over a man. The man was passed out asleep on cardboard, wearing a large hoodie, and wrapped in a tattered brown sleeping bag. Miles leaned over him and exposed the man’s neck. It was streaked with dirt. He smelled of urine, booze, and feces. This was not the blood that he wanted. He wanted the creamy neck of a fresh-smelling girl. He wanted the blood of someone who was healthy and not as sick as the homeless man. Miles yelled with frustration. He punched the brick wall of the bridge. He threw the man’s possessions all around, ripping every item he could find to shreds. The man was so drunk he did not wake up.

“What are you doing?”

“Keep it down.”

“You’ll get us caught.”

The three other vampires he’d smelled surrounded him under the bridge. Miles was so far into his rage that he thought he would kill them.

“He has the rage.”

“He needs to feed.”

“He wants sweeter blood than a derelict’s.”

They clucked at him. They felt sorry for him. They surrounded him and ordered him over and over again to feed on the homeless man. They wore him down.

Miles sank to his feet, plugged his nose up, and bit the drunk’s neck.

As soon as the first blood hit his system, he relaxed. He drank his fill and then disengaged. Exhausted he sat next to his victim, leaning his head against the wall of the bridge.

He would not be able to feed here for a while. And he owed those three vampires a debt of thanks. Since Penny had invited him to the diner that evening, he now had a new place he could go to hunt. In his blood craze, he had fantasized about going back there and grabbing someone. Anyone. Maybe even Stella. Just to have blood that was not so tasteless.

It had been a curse to meet Penny.

After a time resting, Miles stood up and walked toward the water fountain to clean his teeth of the bits of skin.

“Hey there,” one of the vampires called to him from behind a bush. “We saved you some girl.”

Miles turned.

Spilled around in front of the bush, he saw the big bag full of books. There was a sketchbook near an arm that hung lazily out of the bushes. And not far from that was a purse whose contents one of the vampires was rifling through.

He threw the things carelessly out on ground. Keys. Lipstick. Wallet. Cat-eye glasses.

The vampire stood up and shoved the wallet in his coat pocket, and as he did he took a step back and stumbled onto the spilled contents of the purse.

The glasses snapped in two.

If Miles had had a heart, right then it would have stopped.

It was the last time he ever made a friend.

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.