The stewardess came, her smile fading as she laid eyes on Miriam. She had a cart full of boxed food and piles of plastic chopsticks. She stood close, handing food to the people jammed in the nearby seats.

Her blood had a soft, plain scent, like Beaujolais from an uninteresting year. Even so, it would be smooth and warm and wonderful as it went down. Miriam kept her eyes closed, barely breathing.

Never guessing that Miriam could see through her own eyelids, the stewardess took the opportunity to look long at the tall European in the old suit. Miriam worried that her makeup was too light. By now, her skin would be terrifying to a human. She’d appear as pale as a corpse. But she was also thirsty, so she had to interact with the girl, risk a moment of the creature’s attention. “Excuse me.”

The stewardess stopped. She organized her face into a carefully professional smile. “Yis,” she said, uttering what was probably one of her few English words. Yis. Nah. Okeh.

“Water,” Miriam said, pointing to a bottle with blue Thai writing on it.

The girl gave her the water and moved off nervously. The plane shuddered, the tone of the engines changing. Miriam fumbled with her water bottle. She knew that the sounds weren’t abnormal, but they still made her uneasy.

Again, the plane shuddered. It was heading down, definitely. Surely there wasn’t a situation. The engines were fine; she could hear that. But what if they were having control problems?

She took in breath, prepared to tighten the muscles that might be needed if she had to tear her way out of a crumpled fuselage.

But no, the plane was landing. Or more accurately, beginning its descent. She fumbled her itinerary out of her purse. Yes, the flight was forty minutes, and running exactly on schedule.

The flaps went down, making a terrific racket. Her startle reflex made her suck her water bottle so hard that it became involved with her teeth, and she accidentally shredded it. Water gushed down her front. Wiping her breast, she stuffed the ruined bottle down into the space between the seats.

She sat facing straight ahead, ignoring her accident. They didn’t notice, anyway. They were too preoccupied with their snacks.

The plane was so thick with the smell of human blood that she would have liked to have gone into some sort of feeding frenzy like a shark. Total indulgence.

She’d never been on an airplane while this hungry before, and she resolved never to do it again. She should have eaten that samlor driver. She closed her eyes. Time passed, one minute, then another. She found herself inhaling the smell of her seatmate. He was a plump little thing, just popping with sweet blood. Délicieux. The odor of his skin was lively. This was a tasty morsel, sitting here. She sucked in more scent.