He’d planned to leave it at that, but once he starts talking, he can’t stop. He and Claudine hit the road after she turned him, and he saw more of the world than he ever dreamed he would. Along the way she taught him how to survive as a rover—how to hunt, who to feed on, when to hunker down, when to run. After four years together his love for her burned as hot as it had in the beginning. He never once regretted turning, never once pined for his old life.

In the summer of ’04, short of money, they rejoined the carnival Claudine was with when they met. The owner’s daughter was a rover, and the show was a refuge for her and others who’d turned. Claudine ran her fortune-telling racket, and Jesse worked as a roustabout.

They’d been with the caravan two months when it set up in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Claudine needed to feed but was trying to hold off until they got to a bigger town, where hunting would be easier and safer. Their second night in Hot Springs, though, potential prey caught her eye: a drunk in overalls and muddy boots who’d been bum-rushed from the hoochie-coochie tent for spitting at one of the dancers.

Claudine resolved to stalk this drunk and take him if the opportunity arose. Jesse told her it was too risky, but she wouldn’t be swayed. She’d misjudged her hunger and couldn’t wait any longer. All right then, Jesse said, but he was going with her.

They slipped away from the carnival and found the drunk pissing against a tree. He staggered and sang and argued with himself as they trailed him. The moon turned everything either bone white or blackest black. They’d walked about a mile when the drunk swerved off the main road onto a narrow, overgrown trail that sloped downward through a thick wood where the treetops meshed overhead to form a tunnel. Barely any moonlight penetrated this canopy, just enough to speckle the ground.

Jesse offered to bring the man down for Claudine, but she drew her knife and trotted off to make the kill herself. Swiftly, silently, she gained on the drunk, catching up to him in a small, bright clearing. Everything was going as it was supposed to until a branch snapped under her foot as she raised her knife and the man whirled and dodged her strike.

“Help,” he bellowed. “Help!”

Claudine jumped onto his back, and his shout died in a gurgle when she cut his throat. She rode him to the ground and fastened her mouth to the spurting wound. He struggled, but in her bloodlust her strength more than matched his.

Footsteps approached from farther down the trail, and someone shouted, “Jim! Sing out, boy!” Three other men stepped into the clearing with lanterns and shotguns.

“What in the hell?”

“She’s kilt Jim.”