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Sonia stared back, unimpressed.

Essen was down the hall talking baseball, Grillo in the john. Four in the morning was Douglas Bell’s dead hour, most patients having either screamed themselves to sleep or been clubbed into a good imitation of it. Long experience had taught her this much: Once glimpsed sprawled and snoring by the baseboard, Sonia became invisible. All she had to do was wait until the hall cleared, and she was free to roam unchecke

d.

“And what,” said the vampire, “is it you think I am?”

A struck silver tuning fork of a voice. Sonia shrugged. “Hey, buddy—I’m crazy, remember? Pleasures few and far between—maybe I’m getting off on jerking your chain.” She paused. “Probably just another hallucination, anyway.”

“Humor me.”

Blue fish-hook eyes, caught and twisting. Endless holes of sky.

What the fuck are you doing here, Sonia?

Essen shifted his considerable weight; her breath froze. But he stepped forward instead, slamming the rec room door behind him.

Okay.

She let her lungs thaw, and met the vampire gaze-on.

“Uno bevitore di sangui,” she said, levelly.

No response.

Well, that was worth a couple of yucks, she thought. Nothing much else on the old plate, so, hey. When morning came the shrinks’d grill him, like any other nut. They might even brush elbows at lunch, both doped flat-line. Smile vacantly at each other, drool a bit, move on—

“You’re Italian.”

Sonia shook herself loose, with a jerk. “Oh, no shit,” she snapped, reflexively. “I look like I’m from Utah?” The vampire didn’t blink. After a moment, unwilling: “Half.”

Now stop looking at me like that.

“And the other of some Slavic derivation, I venture.”

Sonia glanced away. The moon was a quarter stuck in grey dough—birthday money-bread, waiting for a baker.

Are you my present?

“Sun’ll be up soon,” she said.

“Very.”

While they were still mopping up in Kuwait City, a PFC in Sonia’s platoon had pulled requisition duty and done it so well they kept him there a month and a half. Then somebody nailed him diverting stuff—shipping a bazooka back home to Harlem, part by part. The Section Eight quota’d been filled that week, so he got stockaded instead. But Sonia could get behind what he was doing; once you’ve been armed, walking the street empty-handed again don’t really appeal. She’d stashed crates of willie pete eggs all over the Bronx, herself. Wrapped three deep in Glad garbage bags, and ready to go.

Just in case.

Because you never knew, right?

Ever.

She felt the vampire’s eyes tangle in her hair, like bats.

“Okay, say it comes up. Then what?”

He paused, considering.

“I burn,” he said, at last. “And you—watch.”