“Did he suffer much punishment for killing her?”

“He didn’t kill her,” I said. “I did.”

She froze, staring at me as if I’d suddenly announced I was King Kong. She said, “I owe you my freedom. Bill must think very highly of you.”

“I believe he does,” I said. To my embarrassment, she bent to kiss my hand. Her lips were cold.

“Bill and I can be together now,” she said. “Finally! I’ll see you another night to tell you how grateful I am, but now I have to go to him.” And she was out of the house and zipping through the woods to the south before I could say Jack Robinson.

I kind of felt like a very large fist had hit me upside the head.

I would be a total sleaze to feel anything but happy for Bill. Now he could hang around with Judith for centuries, if he wanted to. With the never-aging duplicate of his wife. I made myself smile with gladness.

When looking happy didn’t make me happy, I did twenty jumping jacks, then twenty push-ups. Okay, that’s better, I thought, as I lay on my stomach on the living room floor. Now I was ashamed that my arm muscles were trembling. I remembered the workouts the Lady Falcons softball coach had put us through, and I knew Coach Peterson would kick my butt if she could see me now. On the other hand, I wasn’t seventeen anymore.

As I rolled over to lie on my back, I considered that fact soberly. It wasn’t the first occasion I’d felt the passage of time, but it was the first occasion that I’d noticed my body had changed into something a little less efficient. I had to contrast that with the lot of the vampires I knew. At least 99 percent of them had become vamps at the peak of their lives. There were a few who had been younger, like Alexei, and a few who had been older, like the Ancient Pythoness, but most of them had ranged in age from sixteen to thirty-five at the time of their first death. They’d never have to apply for Social Security or Medicare. They’d never need to worry about hip replacements or lung cancer or arthritis.

By the time I reached middle age (if I was so lucky, since my life was what you would call “high risk”), I would be slowing down in perceptible ways. After that, the wrinkles would only grow and deepen, my skin would look looser on my bones and sport a spot or two, and my hair would thin out. My chin would sag a little, and my boobs would, too. My joints would ache when I sat too long in one position. I’d have to get reading glasses.