“Sure I can. In case you get hungry, you should know I’ve got a stake in my pocket with your name on it.” He took a few trial stabs with the needle, missing the vein each time. I didn’t know what to say. I was a little insulted he thought I was some wild, uncontrollable animal. “Here,” I said gruffly. “You’re turning yourself into a pincushion.” I took the needle from him and slid it smoothly into the only undamaged vein I could find.

“Heroin?” I asked, casting a disapproving look at the track marks on his wrists and the backs of his hands.

“Not that it’s any of your business, Doc, but no. I’m the cleanest donor in the city. And Nate’s not my only customer.”

In my opinion, his cleanliness was debatable. I didn’t say so and resisted the urge to wipe my hands on my jeans after I touched him.

“You should be more careful with the needles,” I said, trying to sound as concerned as I possibly could. “You can’t just poke around in your arm like that.”

“Duly noted,” he replied, too distracted with the intricacies of plastic connector tubing to pay my warning much heed.

I dropped onto the couch and averted my eyes. I didn’t trust myself to catch sight of his blood. I heard the water running in the shower and muffled singing.

“So are you and Nate like special friends now or something?” Ziggy asked.

“No,” I replied, “and if we were, I don’t think it would be any of your business.”

He laughed. “Hey, no offense or anything. I just wondered because you’re, you know, wearing his clothes and all.”

I looked down at the T-shirt and wrapped my arms around myself. “My shirt had blood on it.”

“Listen, I don’t care. I was just trying to make conversation.” He lit a cigarette then, and noticed my expression of utter longing, he held the pack out to me.

“No, thanks.” I waved them away, knowing I’d get no satisfaction from them. “It’d be a waste.”

“Suit yourself,” he said, tossing them on the table. “But a lot of vampires smoke, you know. It doesn’t matter much what you do when you’re dead. You can’t get cancer or anything.”

“Yeah, but you can’t get anything out of it, either,” I said, my voice wistful. The acrid smoke smelled better than baking cookies.

“Not true.” He held the cigarette out.

I took it and inhaled experimentally. He was right.

“It’s the blood,” he said. “Blood rules all.”

I passed the cigarette back. “But it didn’t do anything for me before.”

“Because you were craving blood,” he explained, prodding his arm where the needle entered his skin. I cleared my throat noisily, and he jerked his hand back with a grin. “It’s like if you were craving chocolate cake, and you just kept eating SpaghettiOs. The SpaghettiOs aren’t going to do it for you, you know?”

I hadn’t even known that vampires existed until I suddenly became one. Now some smart-assed kid was telling me, a doctor, the ins and outs of my own physiology.