The night she first met him, for example. She had only recently returned to England. She hadn’t seen one of her own kind in twenty-five years. In those days she still hoped that they had migrated to America, seeking a less organized community. She was miserable with loneliness, an unwanted creature in a world she could not love.

That night it had been cold, the rain pounding and the wind blowing. She was toying with Lord Hadley, a foolish old man. His estates were vast and full of itinerant workers and others of the dispossessed. She longed for the freedom to roam unhindered in such lands. She had accepted his invitation gladly. And this glorious young man had appeared at dinner. He had about him all the important signs: the arrogance, the determination, the intelligence. A predator.

She had drawn him to her feet that very night, to teach the poor inexperienced thing a few secrets. The rich hunting of the estate could wait now that she had the opportunity to possess its heir.

She had taken rooms in the town of Hadley and visited him each night. Two weeks later she had started his infusions. If only she had known then how weak he really was; he had been intended to last the longest. Look at him now.

In those days she used india-rubber tubing and the hollow needles made for glassblowers. It was a great advance over the past method, in which she simply used her mouth and hoped for the best. Although she knew nothing of immunology then and would never have thought to test him for tissue rejection, John had not died. His wound had become infected, but that always happened. He had gone pale, but they did that too. Unlike so many, he survived. Together they had depopulated Hadley. The old Lord had hung himself. The estate had reverted to the wild.

He was a delighted child in those days. They went to London to join the bright social whirl of the declining Regency. God, how times had changed.

John. She remembered the time he had burst in on her disguised as a policeman. And the time he had chosen their victims in Glasgow and the next morning she discovered it was the Lord Mayor and his wife.

They used to ride to hounds. He had taught her that there was a thrill in challenging fear. She had accepted a little bit of the lesson to please him. How fine he had looked mounted, his boots gleaming in the morning sun. She remembered the mad dash of the horses, the smells and the noise and even the unaccustomed sweetness of danger. He had once leaped onto her horse at full gallop and tumbled them both off into a ditch—and made love to her with the bracken bobbing about their thighs and the huntsman’s horn echoing in the distance.