Jeremy stood slowly, pulling up his pants with no trouble now, feeling like he stood outside of time.

This beautiful creature, this monster who had gloated at them all in the plaza, wept without hope into his 49ers sheets.

She had turned away again. Her ass was still obediently in the air and his come dripped out of her into an ugly gleaming puddle. All the porn sites called that Cream Pie and it was supposed to be sexy but it made him sick.

For an instant he was truly outside of time. She was fourteen and he was her father. He had fled in shame when his oldest daughter held up the sticky rice to show that she thought him a vampire. But he’d just satiated himself with his slavish younger daughter. Her enticing pìgu stayed raised as she waited on his desire, barely breathing, but he loathed her and himself; he was a monster, beyond redemption.

Just below her shoulder blade was a puckered wound, a dot of transparent ooze gleaming in its center. Jeremy blinked, confused.

He approached her tentatively.

She heard him coming but her eyes stayed closed. Her body seemed to welcome him to stab her again, as if destruction were a frayed blanket she burrowed into.

Jeremy sat by her head and put a hand on her hair. It was soft but tangled. She stopped breathing.

He stroked the arched line of her back, avoiding the weeping wound. “Does it hurt, there?” he asked, touching her spine near the place, realizing that he cared, wanting Sister Amanda to tell him in her shyly passionate way that God still loved him.

KerriAnne said nothing but she accepted his hand so he stayed at her side. When she spoke, her voice felt like mushrooms decaying in a nighttime grove. “I want, I just want you to, just…” Her voice dissolved in grief. She blurbled incoherent syllables, all with her ass still on display. Arousal stirred in Jeremy again, along with nausea and self-disgust; he felt like a rapist.

Wanting redemption, he tried to sweep her into his arms. Her eyes flew open and he looked straight into them, forgetting that vampire eyes can hypnotize. Her ass flopped down beside his thigh; he felt better with her leaking vagina less vulnerable, as though he had wounded her and now the wound was hidden.

He stared straight into those wide hazel eyes with their sharp epicanthic folds and their quavering longing. There was no trace of craft or guile. She waited as if his next words would decide her fate.

All the romance in his youthful heart burst free and he imagined this beautiful woman healed by his love. He would defend her against people who wouldn’t understand and he would carefully wean her off blood. They would travel the world like gypsies in colorful clothes, drunk with passion and having sex for hours. They’d stand on top of the Eiffel Tower kissing, unable to keep their hands off each other. She would dress in elegant fashion and he’d have on a beret and a scarf.

And, and he’d take her into the sunlight, she’d be so shy and scared, but the sun would heal that horrible wound and she would fly and carry her with him, urging him to fuck her again and again and …

And Sister Amanda would marry them, he thought dutifully, not wanting his fantasy to be as sinful as what he had just done.

Swept into promises far beyond what he was emotionally capable of keeping, he said intently, “I love you. You’re beautiful and I think you’re good at heart and I want you to marry me, I’ll never hurt you again, look we don’t even have to do it again until we’re married.”

When he said, “I think you’re good at heart,” her eyes closed. Her body held the words, savoring them, treasuring them. They had meant everything to her.

The rest of what he said seemed to bounce off and Jeremy found himself annoyed; didn’t she know what a tremendous sacrifice he had just made? He’d offered to marry her, he’d said they didn’t have to have sex again until they were married! What other man his age would be so noble, so proper?

But he said again the words she’d liked best: “You’re good, you’re so good, I bet you’re sorry for all the stuff you did.” She nodded eagerly, eyes closed, face joyful. Still acting on his dream fantasy, he went on, “I bet you could give up blood if you tried, you know what I mean? There’s…”

“I did! I did it all by myself!” she cried, like a child who has just cleaned her room. “Well, I, I mean, for three days I haven’t had any, and before that I really tried. Please don’t be mad at me.”

She’d begged him to punish her but this plea felt so different. He bent his head and kissed her, head spinning. Her lips were as cool as the rest of her, but she kissed back frantically. Her kissing was as clumsy as her sexual techniques had been sophisticated, as clumsy as his kissing was.

Jeremy swam in love. He had met the enemy and been captured and it was lucky that Sally Yan was not around to tell him what KerriAnne was like because KerriAnne was not like that anymore. The shock of the stake of wood had shaken her to the heart. She had ceased to exist, as lost as a mosquito in the collapse of a skyscraper. When Jeremy gave her life, she’d clung to his face and his voice, done anything to be worthy, to be forgiven.

Now her Salvation kissed her as if she was worthy and drawn into promises far beyond what she was emotionally capable of keeping, she murmured around his lips, “I’ll give up blood forever, I’ll never hurt anybody ever, ever again. And I’ll be your wife until the day I die, forever and forever if you want me, I’ll be yours, just yours if, if you really want me.”

Jeremy found himself saying staunchly, “I really do, I want you, you’re good, you’re amazing.” I’ll be your wife, she’d said … and he’d do it, he’d marry her and take care of her!

But KerriAnne saw his hesitation and wept, “You don’t have to, you don’t have to! Just, all I want is…” She wanted the love and respect of this boy on the edge of becoming a man. She would do anything, turn herself inside out to get it.

Her face brightened. “There’s another vampire like me, you said you wanted to find him!” she said eagerly. “I don’t know anything about him but I’ll help you if I can, I promise.”

His jaw clenched. She wilted at his anger; he wished she wouldn’t freak so easily. “I’m mad at him, not you. He could think and he looked different from the others. Like you did. And he … he killed my little brother,” he finished defiantly.

“I would never kill your little brother, I promise!”

“I know, fer Christ – will you just listen?” KerriAnne wilted again. She’s so delicate, Jeremy thought, but his irritation flushed away in a new rush of love. “I know you’re not like that anymore,” he soothed, kissing her. “Okay?”

She nodded her little-girl nod against his chest. “You know what, I bet?” she said in a little-girl voice, “I bet he was móguǐ even when he was alive.”

“Morgul?”

“Oh, sorry, I meant monster, he was probably a monster even when he was alive.” KerriAnne had not allowed Chinese to pass her lips for seven years and she darted a glance to see if he liked it. He smiled at her encouragingly. Greatly daring, she continued, “He was … like how, me, I, I guess I’ve always been a vampire.” She clung to him as she dared to say Sally’s words out loud and he stroked her hair tenderly as she trembled.

“That makes total sense,” he said, not understanding how she needed him to deny Sally’s words. “I never saw him again but he’s got to still be out there. The one vampire who truly is a monster.”

“I’ll help you find him!” She would earn his joy; he would see that she hadn’t always been a vampire. “I’ll scour the city, I’ll ask every one of the mindless idiots out there. A vampire like that, one of the zombies will know. And then I’ll bring you to him.”

After five years, could it really be that easy? Slowly he stood, still liking how she hated to let him go, and walked to his desk, opened the drawer he hadn’t touched in a year. He brought her a stack of papers.

“This is what he looks like,” he said.

She looked at the picture and smiled an excited smile, sure she was going to make him happy.

Jeremy was a good artist and she easily recognized the face.