The Eternal Kiss: Vampire Tales of Blood and Desire

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.