By Blood We Live

Miss Dale lifted her chin and eyed me. "I don't have any more steak." Her pulse was back. It was thundering. It was hot and heavy in my ears and I already knew I wasn't a nice guy. Wasn't that why I'd come here?

"I'll go." I reached behind me and fumbled for the knob.

"Oh, no you will

not." It was Miss Dale again, with all her crisp efficiency. She reached up with trembling fingers, and unbuttoned the very top button of her collar.

"Sophie-"

"How long have I been working for you, Jack?" She undid another button, slender fingers working, and I took a single step forward. Burned skin crackled, and my clothes were so heavy they could have stood up by themselves. "Three years. And it wasn't for the pay, and certainly not because you've a personality that recommends itself."

Coming from her, that was a compliment. "You've got a real sweet mouth there, Miss Dale."

She undid her third button, and that pulse of hers was a beacon. Now I knew what the thirst wanted, now I knew what it felt like, now I knew what it could do-

"Mr. Becker, shut up. If you don't, I'll lose my nerve."

Sophie is on her pink frilly bed. The shades are drawn, and the apartment's quiet. It's so quiet. Time to think about everything.

When a man wakes up in his own grave, he can reconsider his choice of jobs. He can do a whole lot of things.

It's so goddamn quiet. I'm here with my back to the bedroom door and my knees drawn up. Sophie is so still, so pale. I've had time to look over every inch of her face and I wonder how a stupid bum like me could have overlooked such a doll right under his nose.

It took three days for me. Two days ago the dame in the black dress choked her last and her lovely mansion burned. It was in all the papers as a tragedy, and Shifty Malloy choked on his own blood out in the rain too. I think it's time to find another city to gumshoe in. There's Los Angeles, after all, and that place does three-quarters of its business after dark.

Soon the sun's going to go down. Sophie's got her hands crossed on her chest and she's all tucked in nice and warm, the coverlet up to her chin and the lamp on so she won't wake up like I did, in the dark and the mud.

The rain has stopped beating the roof. I can hear heartbeats moving around in the building.

Jesus, I hope she wakes up.

Twilight by Kelley Armstrong

Kelley Armstrong is the bestselling author of the Otherworld urban fantasy series, which began with Bitten, and the latest of which, Frostbitten, comes out in October. She is also the author of the Darkest Powers trilogy, a young-adult series that began last year with The Summoning. Armstrong is currently in the midst of writing a five-issue arc for Joss Whedon's Angel comic book series.

Armstrong says that the most obvious appeal of vampire fiction is the mingling of sex and death. "But for me, the appeal has always been the concept of immortality," she said. "Particularly the problems with it, and the sacrifices we would-or wouldn't-make to retain it."

This story, which features Cassandra DuCharme from Armstrong's Otherworld series, was written for Many Bloody Returns, an anthology with a vampires-and-birthdays theme. "When I think birthdays in regards to my vampires, I think rebirth day, which is the anniversary of the day they became vampires and, each year at that time, they must take a life to continue their semi-immortality," Armstrong said. "Cassandra has never had a problem fulfilling her annual bargain, but this year, she does."

Another life taken. Another year to live.

That is the bargain that rules our existence. We feed off blood, but for three hundred and sixty-four days a year, it is merely that: feeding. Yet on that last day-or sometime before the anniversary of our rebirth as vampires-we must drain the lifeblood of one person. Fail and we begin the rapid descent into death.

As I sipped white wine on the outdoor patio, I watched the steady stream of passersby. Although there was a chill in the air-late autumn coming fast and sharp-the patio was crowded, no one willing to surrender the dream of summer quite yet. Leaves fluttering onto the tables were lauded as decorations. The scent of a distant wood-fire was willfully mistaken for candles. The sun, almost gone despite the still early hour, only added romance to the meal. All embellishments to the night, not signs of impending winter.

I sipped my wine and watched night fall. At the next table, a lone businessman eyed me. He was the sort of man I often had the misfortune to attract-middle-aged and prosperous, laboring under the delusion that success and wealth were such irresistible lures that he could allow his waistband and jowls to thicken unchecked.

Under other circumstances, I might have returned the attention, let him lead me to some tawdry motel, then take