The room looked like the last guests had built a meth lab inside, but the curtains were thick and blocked out the daylight, except for a small crack.

Zach hobbled under Cade’s weight and dropped him on the far bed. He tried not to think about the sound Cade’s arm made when the burned flesh broke.

Out of the sun, Cade was able to move on his own again. He still looked like hell, but he managed to turn over and straighten his legs.

The effort seemed to exhaust him. Zach was about done, too. For a moment, they sat there, just breathing.

When Cade spoke, it sounded like his throat was filled with dust.

“Where are we?”

Zach ran a hand through his hair. More glass shook out. “Uh. I don’t really know, actually. Maybe five, six miles from the airport.”

Cade grimaced, either in frustration or in pain, Zach wasn’t sure.

“Don’t call Griff.”

“I won’t. I mean, I haven’t.”

“Right. You’ve done well.”

Cade lapsed into silence again. With his eyes closed, and his new, deeply aged face, he could have been a corpse. Zach was about to touch him, see if he was awake, when Cade spoke up again.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll need you to get something.”

“Cade, what’s going on? Was it those guys, the ones you said were—”

Cade hissed out a breath, and Zach shut up.

“We’ll get to that. But you have to do this first.”

“What do you need?”

Cade’s eyes finally opened, and he looked right at Zach.

“Blood,” he said.

Then he cleaned up as best he could, covered Cade with the bedspread, and got in the car. He headed to the area Cade told him: Pico-Fairfax, home to a large part of L.A.’s Orthodox Jewish community.

And at least four or five kosher butcher shops.

Several of the men in the bloody aprons behind the counters wouldn’t help him. They either said no or refused to talk to him once he said what he wanted.

But in the fourth place, a butcher shrugged and took Zach’s stolen cash for a bucket full of stuff he was just going to throw out anyway.

Getting the bucket back to the hotel room was almost harder than buying it. At every corner, he was sure it was going to spill and then he’d have to explain a stolen car full of blood to the cop who would inevitably pull him over.

But an hour and a half later, he made it back to the room.

Cade didn’t look any better when Zach pulled the bedspread off. He was still breathing, but the charred arm was oozing, and his skin was still drawn back on his skull.

He managed to get Cade awake by slapping him pretty hard. Cade’s eyes snapped open and fixed on Zach. His pupils had filled the whites, turning them black. His lips pulled back, and he lurched up.

Zach went backward, over the other bed. He stumbled to his feet, prepared to throw the curtains open, bring the sun into the room.

Cade was still seated. He was looking down, his face a mask of agony.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to—I wouldn’t—”

“I know,” Zach said. “I know. It’s okay. What do we do now?”

“Bathroom,” Cade said, through gritted teeth.

With Zach’s help, Cade peeled off the burnt remains of his shirt. It stuck to the skin in places, which came away like wet tissue paper.

Then Cade slid into the blood-filled tub, hunching so the liquid came up to his chin, his ruined arm covered completely.

His skin began to flush and loosen again. Zach stood back in awe as very small ripples appeared in the blood near the arm.

The level of blood lowered, and Zach saw the veins snaking out of Cade’s charred skin. Writhing like eels as they drank.

Cade looked up at him from the tub, eyes filled with red. He didn’t seem to really see Zach.

Zach stumbled backward. “I’ll . . . uh . . . I’ll just go now.”

He closed the door behind him as fast as possible.

He decided to check on Cade.

The tub was empty, except for a dirty red ring.

Cade stood by, completely restored. His eyes were clear, and his arm was healed.

He was also naked. Muscles corded and bulged under new, pale skin. He looked like a marble statue stolen from a museum.

For an instant, Zach considered going to the gym more often. Then he concentrated on looking anywhere else.

“You’ll need to make another shopping trip,” Cade said. “If you can manage it, Mr. Barrows.”

“Are clothes on the list?”

“Yes.”

“I had a hunch.”

Several yards went to secure the curtains to the walls, so the sun wouldn’t come in. Then Cade used half a roll to tape Zach’s ribs.

“You’ll be fine,” Cade said, tearing the last strip on Zach’s torso.

Zach felt the wrappings gingerly. Zach wasn’t convinced it would work, but he had to admit the pain subsided and he could breathe again.

“That helps,” he said.

“I’ve done this before,” Cade said.

Zach smirked at him. He couldn’t help it.

It was a lot harder to take Cade seriously as a creature of the night. The drugstore where he’d bought the supplies had a limited clothing selection. As a result, Cade was decked out in drawstring pants and a Lakers jersey, with flip-flops on his feet.

Cade caught the look. “What?”

“Nothing.”

Cade looked down at himself, then back at Zach. “You’re sure this was all they had?”

“You look fine.”

Cade almost said something else. Zach could see it. The big bad vampire cared about his appearance.

Somehow, Zach felt better about that than he did about surviving the explosion.

He checked the time on his spy phone—about the only thing he and Cade both managed to get out of the explosion intact. Almost six hours until sunset.

He stretched out on the other bed. “We’ve got some time,” he said. His eyes fluttered almost immediately. “I think I’m gonna . . . catch a few z’s . . .”

Cade poked him in the side, not gently. Zach’s eyes flew open and he sat straight up.

“What the hell did you do that for?”

“You might be concussed. It’s not advisable to sleep now.”

“Well, it’s not exactly advisable to nap next to a bloodsucking fiend, either, but I’m tired,” Zach said. “Fine. I’m awake. Probably safer that way, anyhow.”

“We’ve been over this before. You have nothing to fear from me,” Cade said.

“Yeah. You keep saying that. Guess I should just take your word.”

Cade was silent for a moment. “Something on your mind, Mr. Barrows?”

Zach shifted uncomfortably.

“How many people have you killed?”

Cade looked away, unwilling to meet Zach’s eyes. “I’ve killed in the line of duty. Some of it is classified.”

“Not what I meant, and you know that,” Zach said. “How many people have you killed?”

“You ask like a man who already knows the answer.”

“That woman told me you’re evil. A murderer,” Zach said. “Griff said you killed those people on a boat.”

Cade nodded.

“They’re both right,” he said simply. “I am a killer. I am evil.”

Zach waited for more, but that was it.

“That’s all you have to say?”

“What else do you want? I am damned. I am a horrific thing that deserves to burn. Nothing else I do will ever change that.”

“So you’re only doing this because you’ve been forced. You’re a slave. If it were up to you, you’d be out drinking blood every night. Is that it?”

“Believe what you want. You couldn’t possibly understand,” Cade said.

“God.” Zach stood up quickly, waving his arms at Cade despite the pain in his side. “You are such a fucking whiner. It’s always ‘Oh, poor me, I’m a vampire.’ Well, it doesn’t seem like that bad a deal, Cade. You’re superhumanly strong and fast, you can walk off a fatal injury and you get to live forever. And all you have to do is drink some blood. Sounds pretty fair. You’re going to be around long after I’m six feet under, and, I’m sorry, but skipping a suntan seems like a small price to pay. If I could do what you do . . .”

Zach noticed Cade was quiet. Painfully quiet. He stopped ranting.

From the expression on Cade’s face, Zach suddenly believed the vampire couldn’t lay a finger on him. No one looked like that without considering murder.

“You . . .” Cade seemed to search for a word large enough to contain his contempt. “You . . . people,” he finally spat out. “You think you know me. You think you know anything. Less than seventy-two hours ago, you didn’t believe I could exist, and now you think you know what I am. But you are right about one thing, Mr. Barrows: you will die long before I do. And if you are lucky, you will never know what a blessing that is.”

A long silence. Behind the taped-down curtains, the sun shifted a little farther west.

“Maybe you’re right,” Zach said. “Maybe I don’t know. Enlighten me.”

“What?”

“Tell me what it’s like.” Zach waved his arms at the hotel room, the cheap furniture. “We’ve got time,” he said. “What else am I going to do?”

Cade turned away again, dismissing him.

“I’m serious, Cade. Tell me about what you are.”

Cade thought about it. Then he nodded and started talking.

“It was 1867,” he said. “I was twenty years old.”