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especially with the surge in steroid
    hormones, like testosterone and oestrogen, our bodies switched to a kind of a dual
    metabolism. So we could metabolise normal food like normal people – fats, carbohydrates,
    proteins. But when we had enough iron in our systems, our bodies could use it ways we
    couldn’t yet fully understand. Marcus was still working on figuring that one out.
    Marcus was silent for a few seconds, considering the question. “Well, she’s female, and
    they store less iron than males, and she’s probably a vegetarian. She most likely hasn’t had
    her first hit yet.” Marcus’ use of drug terminology was strangely appropriate. It was how I
    had come to think of being a vampire – I subconsciously flinched at that word again. We had
    a set of unique receptors which responded in an unusual way to iron, that everyday
    substance, like an alcoholic responds differently to a shot of whiskey than a normal person
    would. Except maybe an alcoholic was not the best analogy. The craving was there,
    certainly, but our drug did not incapacitate us. Instead it made us invincible and powerful,
    strong enough to break boulders, and fast enough to run alongside speeding cars. I closed
    my eyes and recalled the heady rush, the clarity of vision, the enhanced senses, the
    sensation of muscles ripping through the sluggish air, the crystallisation of all pleasure and wonder into this perfect rush of being.
    Our father had explained the situation to us one day when we were twelve. The signs
    were all there that we were going to hit puberty soon, and he wanted the transition from
    slightly strange but mostly normal boy to utter freak to go as smoothly as possible, I
    suppose. He was a good man, my father, strong, obviously, but compassionate too, and
    intelligent enough to have figured out the basic metabolic reason for our unusual abilities.
    He had met my mother towards the end of her life, still youthful looking, another benefit of
    being able to use iron as we do. We heal fast, restoring aging and damaged cells rapidly, so
    we look as if we are just out of school, or in our early twenties, for most of our long lives.
    Adult, but never old.
    We were the inevitable result of their union, and our birth sapped whatever life our
    mother had left in her, and she died a few days later. My father, to his credit, never blamed
    us for her death, but set about educating his three small, precocious boys, and loving us as
    best he could. And when we hit puberty, and our lives changed forever, he was there to
    guide us through the changes, and reassure us that we always had a choice. We could
    harness the power, or we could let it harness us and become monsters. I like to think that
    we did the former, but sometimes I’m not so sure.
    And now Marcus was telling me that there was someone else like us out there,
    someone who would need guidance through the changes that she would inevitably go
    through, one way or another. My father had always worried that if we did not expose
    ourselves to the effects that huge doses of iron had on our systems, and learn to control
    them, that we would eventually succumb to some profound and overpowering instinct and
    actually kill someone and drink their blood. It made sense. There’s a lot of iron in blood.
    I imagined Rebecca biting someone’s carotid artery, responding to some deep,
    unacknowledged desire, and drinking their warm blood as it was pumped directly from the
    heart to her open mouth. I thought of how her family would react, and flinched again. It was
    bad enough knowing that you are a freak without everyone else knowing it too. I would
    have to do something to help the girl. I wondered, not for the first time if I was the right
    person to do it. I considered asking Marcus or Fergus to take over the task, but a stab of
    what could have been jealousy made me dismiss that thought. I would do this myself, and
    let the dice fall where they may.

    Rebecca
    Mark came bounding through the