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We can’t do it if you don’t say it.”
    He remained silent.
    She sat down on the bed, drew him down beside her. Then she saw that his face had changed, that he was not a sweating, nervous fool anymore, that there was something acute in his eyes, and something inside him that seemed to be in motion, as if he contained another, darker version of himself that had been waiting for this moment to reveal itself.
    His hands, which had seemed as soft and loathsome as the rest of this bloated maggot, came around her throat, and proved to be not at all maggoty. No, the pudgy fingers concealed iron.
    She felt her throat closing, heard her breath start to hiss. Outside, the wind hissed against the window. He rose up and plunged down on her, crushing her beneath his weight. He stank of cigarettes and stale, unwashed skin. His erection pushed against her thigh.
    “Fuckin’ cunt,” he snarled.
    “What are you doing?”
    “You stupid piece of filth!” His fingers pushed at her windpipe.
    “You’re killing me!”
    “So. The fuck. What?”
    She writhed. He was strong, dammit, real strong. “You’re a—”
    He smiled, thrust against her. “You’re number twenty-one, filth! You goddamn fuckin’ piece a shit, in this nice house, how dare you. How dare you!”
    As his fingers jabbed deeper and her windpipe threatened to collapse, her mind registered the truth: she had picked up a serial killer. He was strong, too. He was very strong. He was humping her, not entering her but thrusting against her as he killed her.
    She could let him. She could do that. But then where would she be? Sarah had taught her carefully: We do not die. No matter how shattered the body, it lives on. Twilight world. Half life.
    His eyes bulged with rage, and his breath went fast. She tossed her head and writhed. He was strangling her quite seriously now, and it was time to put a stop to that. His weight, however—and to her great surprise—prevented her from moving but one of his hands away.
    Incredibly, she actually was in trouble. Then his mouth came down on hers and covered it, and suddenly his sour, smoked breath was gushing into her, penetrating her with the spittle and phlegm of his soul.
    She lay still, and in his eagerness he shifted just a bit. This gave her the chance to use her hidden strength, and she exploded out from under him. He flew up and back and landed with a thud that shook the house.
    The vampire blood made you strong. It made you much stronger than anybody thought you would be.
    Snarling with surprise, shaking his head in confusion, he leaped at her. Her hands shot up as quick as the flicker of a falcon’s wing and took his wrists in a grip that he would not be able to break.
    His eyes bulged with the effort. He growled and shook and struggled until purple veins throbbed in his delicious neck. She watched, waiting until he bent down, preparing to throw himself back away from her. Then her knee came up and connected with his face. Howling, his teeth bared, he flew back ten feet into the wall, which his head hit with a sound like an egg cracking. As he sank down, she took handcuffs out from under the bed and snapped them around his wrists.
    She marched the astonished, spent man straight down to the basement and hooked the cuffs to an eye in the wall. It wouldn’t be long, now. She wasn’t cruel, she didn’t like them to suffer…although with this one, she was tempted to prolong his agony just a little bit. How pleasant it would be if all of her victims were as worthy of death as this one. She took the fleam out of its case. He stared at it.
    She went over to the furnace and pulled the firing lever. Then she started the high-pressure gas, which made a cruel hiss. She fired the thing, then adjusted the gas while her victim shook and kicked and snarled like a wild animal. She went upstairs and got his clothes, which lay in a pile in the music room.
    Entering it, she stopped. She stood surveying the intricate parquet floor, the