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the hill in a barrel. I did not fall, but I staggered, and do you know what that boy was doing all this time?”
    “What?”
    “He was rummaging my pockets. He was quite focused on his mission, I must say that for him. I was wearing my overcoat, you know, because it was chilly,and he was going through my pockets—ah, don’t look at me like that, Cole; you know what they say: Cold hands, warm heart.”
    “I was just thinking that if this was May in Missouri, you must have looked rather out of place in your overcoat. If the police had found you lurking in the woods, they might have thought you were a flasher.”
    “Maybe that’s where the police were, out looking for flashers, because they certainly weren’t looking for murdering robbers too young to even shave! That boy should have been home playing his video games, not out cutting honest men’s throats.”
    “But go on, Sandor.”
    “Yes. Well, he took what he wanted, and then he pushed me. I staggered a bit, you see, and he pushed me—and I lost my footing and fell. I rolled and slid down the side of the ravine, while that little shit got away with my wallet. I had to get Johnny to send a new driver’s license, and I had to call and cancel the credit cards! Did you know you have to pay for the first fifty dollars of whatever they steal? It’s a terrible cheat if you ask me.”
    “Did you chase after Gordon?”
    “I did not say that was Gordon. You’re getting ahead of the story. So I was lying there on my back, listening to his footsteps as he ran away, and I was looking up at the stars through the branches. They look like lace, you know—branches—and in the city the stars look faded—the ones that you can see. They must be quite determined to be seen at all, the stars in the city.”
    “Sandor.”
    “Sorry, sorry. Anyway, I was drained. Almost completely drained. Have you ever been drained, Cole?”
    “No. Not after the first time.”
    “Well, I was. Perhaps you remember how your heart pounds and how your head clears to make you an animal, with animal sharpness. The air becomes so clear, every sound distinct and separate. Do you remember that, Cole?”
    “Yes.” Of course he did. They all did.
    “Then also you remember how the Thirst drives you, how you can smell blood and flesh on the breeze, how you can hear the pulse of other beings, because all there is in the world is their blood and your emptied veins and your empty stomach and your empty mouth.”
    Cole nodded. He remembered—but he didn’t like to.It was something he lived to avoid.
    “My throat had healed, but I was empty, and in this state I smelled an omni before I heard him. He smelled of alcohol, and laundry detergent, and cigarette smoke, and leather.
    “And then—you know. I was on my feet and moving, low to the ground. I could not help it. You know how one cannot control oneself at times like that.”
    “Yes, I know. So that was Gordon?”
    “Yes. The poor fellow was drunk. He was coming down to cross the bridge but was too inebriated to walk properly. Just before I took him down, he collapsed—his knees folded right up, and together we tumbled down the bank next to the bridge. I remember he was holding beer cans, because they fell with us, and as I fed they were spewing into the dirt.”
    “Wrong place at the wrong time.”
    “Oh yes. Poor fellow. But I look at it this way; at least we don’t have a thieving murderer in our midst, because that’s who I would have gotten to first if Gordon hadn’t shown up at that very moment.”
    “Instead we have a drunken frat boy.”
    “Now, be fair, Cole; he’s not drunk now and never willbe again. Poor boy, I was completely wild. It was…regrettable.”
    Sandor’s voice was low now. There was a lot he was not saying, and didn’t have to say. Everyone knew it, because everyone had felt it at least once, although not to the death as Sandor had.
    Feeding to fill emptiness—it was glorious, it was gluttony, it was