They were nothing. They were pathetic. Even Daniel was nothing, just a lad, a boy, mortal and afraid. Out there somewhere was my ideal victim. Out there somewhere was the person for whom I would put my existence on the line. Sometime in my future, a contest of wills would take place, and to the winner would go the spoils. That is what life is about now, Angelina, I thought. Survival. Perpetuating the species. Somewhere exists the perfect victim who will, when taken, fight me to the death and that fight will mean his life. Life in eternity. Yes. A companion in eternity.

Hope lightened my attitude for a moment. I was capable now. Ready. Fertile.

Still heavy with my excesses, I wrapped my cape around me and went outside, listening to the sounds of the neighborhood. The rain had stopped, leaving the streets glistening. The scent of fear was still clear on the air, but it was no longer sharp, acrid.

The child in the trap knew, somehow, that the danger was less likely this late.

I longed to go home, to slide quietly into my coffin, yet a curiosity held me, guided me toward the accumulation of men. I believe I had to test my superiority. And the limits of my un­reality.

I knew exactly where they were. Their auras redly illuminated the porch of a house down the block. I wrapped my cloak tighter about me and raised the music, feeling solid and competent, and walked down the center of the street toward them. I heard my cane tap and my boot heels scrape. I lifted my head and dared them to see me.

The child, like a lure, was cast out on the edge of the lawn. She was wrapped in a sleeping bag, with only the top of her head showing. She slept, but her sleep was troubled; the knowledge of her father and his large friends watching her was never far from her mind.

I sauntered down the center of the street, stopping in front of the child. I twirled around, scraping my feet on the gritty wet pavement, kicking my cape up around me.

The color of the aura around the porch changed. They sensed me.

“Listen,” I heard one man say.

“I don’t hear nothing.”

“Shut up.”

“What did you hear?”

“Shut the fuck up!”

“I saw a shadow.”

“Where?”

“Out there.”

“Will you guys shut up?”

I enjoyed them almost too much; I raised the music and danced in the street. I twirled faster and faster, knowing I was no longer real, knowing and hating the fact that I would never be warm again, knowing that my frigid, bloodless nostrils would never again smell a stew, that my icy fingers would never again feel the texture of anything but living flesh—I had traded the senses of life for the new sensual experiences of the eternal wasteland, and I danced with it, danced with the frenzy of the damned.