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this to gain my freedom, how would you hold me to it?”
    Sandor smiled. “The shackles and chains are quite solid, I can guarantee. And do not try turning into a bat, your wings would be shattered before you could pull them out. You see, I’ve learned these things. As for your promise, you will pay me first. You will let me have a flagon of your blood that I might then drink before you have quite completely drained mine.”
    She shook her head, straining to pull the chains from the wall, until she sank back again, exhausted.
    “It will be night soon enough,” Sandor said. “I have watched you, Countess. I know you will need to have blood before dawn. You may feel strong now, but as the hours go by you will weaken. You will see, Countess.”
    Sandor strode to the chamber’s window and peeked through its heavy drapes. “Indeed,” he continued, “the sun is just touching the western horizon. In not many more minutes it will be down. And that is when the lust comes on you, does it not? The desire—the need —to drink? I know you have tried to banish it from you, to deny your nature, but always it comes back. That prostitute, Lili. That doctor who you had thought might cure you. As I have said, Countess, I know your secrets.”
    “And I have said, perhaps not all of them.” She fixed him with her dark, deep eyes. “You say it is sundown?”
    He opened the curtain so she could see too. “Yes,” he answered. “Now comes the starvation. Unless, of course . . . ”
    He held out the flagon, a knife in his other hand pointing toward the vein in her wrist when, suddenly, both wrist and arm dissolved into a white mist. A mist that expanded to include her whole body, swirling, flowing, now surrounding Sandor.
    It echoed her words, “ Not all my secrets ,” as thousands and thousands of tiny droplets, each with its own tiny teeth, started the night’s feast.
    James Dorr has two collections, Strange Mistresses: Tales Of Wonder And Romance and Darker Loves: Tales Of Mystery And Regret , (Dark Regions Press) and his all-Poetry Vamps (A Retrospective) (Sam’s Dot Publishing). He is an active member of SFWA and HWA with several hundred individual publications to his credit. Dorr invites readers to visit his site at http://jamesdorrwriter.wordpress.com for the latest information and news.

SKIPPING STONES
     
    A. J. BROWN
     
    “Flat stones, Cadence. You have to use flat stones.”
    Remy ran his hand through the sediment just beneath the water’s surface. Sand washed away with the slight current of the river as he pulled his hand out. Four black rocks, smooth and flat, lay in the palm of his hand.
    He looked out over the narrow neck of the river. Tree branches stretched across the water from both sides. Thick moss hung down like heavy strands of hair on a hag’s head. Remy had tied the target to one of the thicker branches so it would dangle close enough to the water.
    Remy turned to his daughter, took in the eyes that were odd: one wide and one like a slit across her face. He took in the way one side of her lip pulled down, the scars on her face and arms where flames had licked her skin. His heart cracked and he clinched his teeth to bite back the anger welling up in his chest. He released a long breath, relaxed.
    “You do it like this,” he said, and held his arm out to his side and at an angle. With a flick of his wrist he let the rock go. It skipped across the water, went into the air, skipped again. “Damn it, I missed. But, you get the picture, right?”
    Cadence nodded, her once-curly blonde locks clung tight to her skull. The one good blue eye shimmered with excitement as she took a stone from Remy, held her arm at an angle and tossed the rock. It plopped into the water and sank.
    “Ah man,” she said, lowering her head.
    “Try again.”
    The second rock sank as well.
    Remy held the last rock out for her. “One more, kiddo.”
    Cadence took the final rock, one a little bigger than the others.
    Remy stepped