With one huge drag, Miriam did what no human being could ever do, no matter how evolved their technique. She emptied the woman of every trace of fluid that was in her. The skin sank back against the skull, drew tight, crackling as it turned to dry parchment. The eyeballs withered, the clothes went slack around the body. And then Miriam came up, the corpse still popping and crackling as cartilage snapped and muscles twisted themselves into hard, narrow ropes.

Leo put her hands to her cheeks and screamed. Her eyes wild, she turned to run out the door.

Miriam was on her in an instant. She grabbed her collar, gave her a slap that snapped her head aside. “Shut up! You watch!” She glared toward Sarah, who was feeling the gorgeous postprandial levitation that came when you fed really well. Moral guilt had its limits. Now all was right with the world. Like an addict who has ridden the horse and lost, she was content with herself, made so by the charm of the drug that had seduced her.

“Sarah,” Miri said, “take Leo down and show her how to do a proper burn. And I expect to see no ash, do you hear me?”

“Yes, Miri.”

“I’m sorry, Miri!”Leo babbled, rubbing her cheek.“I panicked.”Leo went to the remnant, touched the skin that tented the face.“This is incredible!”

“It’s a small penalty to pay for eternal life, my dear. An occasional hobo goes to the Big Rock Candy Mountain.”

Leo frowned. “The what?”

“Gets released from the toils of a miserable life,” Sarah explained. Slang tended to enter Miriam’s vocabulary with a fifty to hundred year lag time.

Leo would not touch the remnant, so Sarah threw it over her shoulder and took it down. In the basement, Sarah said, “Having fun?”

“That’s not appropriate,” Leo said officiously. “A woman had to give her life.”

“For me? Maybe I ought to kill myself.”

“No, you have a right! Nature made you this way.”

“Miriam Blaylock made me this way.And she’s going to do it to you, too.”

“Miriam Blaylock is nature. And if she bloods me, it’s going to be the biggest privilege of my life.” They burned the remnant in a fire kept blue by Sarah’s careful attendance at the controls.

As they were starting to ascend the stairs, Miriam said, “Come into the infirmary, please.”

Sarah turned, surprised to find her down here. She was even more shocked when she saw that she was naked and all trace of makeup was removed. Her hair was coming back, a blond fuzz on her otherwise bald head.

Leo gasped. Sarah took her hand. “Don’t be afraid,” she said.

“But she’s—”