She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Startling green eyes in a luminous triangular face and a come-hither glance that smoldered, plus a willowy body that gave off heat like a furnace. When he spied her across the room he forgot all about his date and took Jane back to his place instead.

She had almost killed him that night, but in a manner he didn’t mind. She was insatiable, riding him when he claimed he could not possibly go again. His prick seemed to have a mind and motor all its own.

Jane worked as a nurse on the night shift. He asked her how she stood the hours.

“You get used it. Besides, the pay is better and most of the patients are asleep.” She kissed him, long and hard, biting his bottom lip playfully. “I’m a regular creature of the night.”

She could hardly function before four or five in the afternoon. The first time he tried to shake her awake before noon, she threw a pillow at him, growled something unintelligible, and rolled over, burrowing under the covers.

They were married seven months later. He wanted to honeymoon in Hawaii, but she didn’t like sunny places.

“I burn so easily,” she explained, running a palm over one pale arm. “You don’t want me to wind up miserable and sunburnt on our honeymoon, do you? Besides, it doesn’t matter where we go. We’ll never leave the hotel room.”

She had been right. They went to New Orleans instead.

The fighting began before the plane landed.

“I wasn’t ogling anybody,” he said for the fifth time.

“I saw you. Every time that slutty stewardess bent over, you had to stare.” She was near tears. “Bastard.”

All the warning signs were there, but he didn’t see them. By the time Nell was born, his marriage was hell.

Then things started happening.

“You don’t even need a secretary!” she said. “And certainly not some twenty-year-old tart with skirts so short you can tell she’s not even a natural blonde!”

“April’s just a kid. I didn’t even hire her. Jack did.”

“Then make Jack fire her! If you’re not fucking her, then why can’t you get it up for me?”

Christ, did she think he was a machine? No man could keep up with her appetite.

An iron skillet flew off its hook above the stove and smashed into the wall behind him.

“What the fuck—“

Jane leaned against the sink, pouting, with her arms on the countertop. She did not move, yet dishes kept flying.

“You shouldn’t make me angry, Richard.”

He ducked as the flour canister sailed at his face. He fled.

When he finally got up his nerve to come back home, the kitchen was spotless.

“How did you do that?” he croaked.

“Do what?” she said.

He couldn’t even find shards of broken pottery in the garbage. The flour canister sat on the counter. It wasn’t even cracked.

Two days later, April Sheffield was crossing the street when the brakes on an oncoming Lexus failed. She was killed instantly.

And that was just beginning.

There were the dreams…. Oh, god, the dreams….

At first they were tinged with an eroticism that made his groin ache. No vision at all, only darkness and a touch so cold it burned his flesh. The impression of weight bearing down on him, pinning him to the bed, and something soft and smooth flickering at his throat

By the time he found the dead baby in the garbage, he was certain he was losing his mind.

He would never have found it except that he’d lost the electric bill and was afraid he’d accidentally thrown it away. He went out to the trashcans at the curb to check. When he opened the twist-tied bag, a small blue-white face stared back at him. At first he thought it was one of Nell’s old dolls. Then he poked its stomach with one finger and it squished.

He couldn’t remember if he screamed. The only thing that he remembered clearly was running into the house and grabbing the phone.

Jane took the handset away from him before he could punch 911.

“I see you found my midnight snack,” she said. “Have you ever tasted a baby’s heart? Of course not. Silly of me to ask.”

He stared at her for a moment, then stumbled to the bathroom. He fell on his knees and vomited into the toilet.

“Oh, don’t get so upset, darling,” she said, leaning in the doorway. “The poor thing wasn’t going to live anyway. I did it a favor. And where I got it, nobody is going to miss that one.”

She leaned near enough for him to smell her perfume. Poison.

“And if you think you’re going to tell anybody about this, you’d better think again,” she whispered, flicking her tongue in his ear. “Nell’s looking particularly juicy these days. You wouldn’t like to find her body in with the coffee grounds and liquor bottles, would you?”

He tried — once — to tell the only person he thought might believe him. But as soon as he stepped into St. Michael’s, he smelled her perfume and looked up.

She hovered in the shadows of the vaulted ceiling. She seemed to be clinging there by her red fingernails, her toes curling into the molding. She looked down and smiled, wagging a finger back and forth.

“Can I help you?” The priest asked.

“Can you see…” Richard licked his lips. “Do you see anything wrong with the ceiling?”

The priest looked up, frowning.

“No. Is it a crack?”

“Never mind, Father…. Thanks anyway.”

“You won’t leave me,” Jane had said. “How would you get custody of our daughter with a story like that? Look at you. You’re a wreck. You’ve lost so much weight that your sister thinks you’ve got cancer or something. You’ve missed so much work they think you’re an alcoholic. How do you think you’ll get sole custody?”

By last Halloween, Richard had been desperate. He left work early and picked Nell up from school. He took her to Lilly’s.

“If Jane calls, tell her Nell isn’t here. Promise me.”

“What—“

“For God’s sake, just promise me! And if she shows up, don’t let her have Nell, understand? I’ll be back in an hour. Maybe less.”

She was asleep, as he expected, and she always slept like the dead. He hoped to help her sleep that way permanently. But when he drew back the hammer of the pawnshop .38 Special, she opened her eyes.

And yawned.

“Richard, what are you doing?” Her voice was thick but calm. “Do you think you’re going to kill me? With that?”

Why hadn’t he just pulled the fucking trigger?

“Wouldn’t you rather fuck me, sweetie?” She threw back the covers and displayed her naked body. Her fingers slid over her breasts and down between her legs. “One last time?”

The thought of touching her made his stomach curl into a hard knot and brought bile to the back of his throat, yet his penis hardened. He moved to the bed, not wanting to and feeling tears slip from under his eyelids.

No, no, no…

His mouth — oh, dear God, his mouth — was on hers, her tongue down his throat. She tasted like hot, dirty pennies.

As he slammed into her with a fury not his own, he understood at last. He was bewitched, possessed.  Someone — or something — used his body, had been using him all along. He was merely allowed along for the ride.

When it was over, she looked at him dispassionately.

“Well,” she said. “That’s that. Goodbye, Richard.”

He felt pressure under his arms as he was lifted from the sweaty sheets. He hung in the air, unable to make a sound.

“You look like a fish.” She opened and shut her mouth, mocking him. “What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?”

Something grabbed one of his arms and pulled. He screamed without sound as his shoulder was wrenched from the socket.

He spun and slammed into the wall hard enough to crack the sheet rock. Before he could even begin to fall, the force grabbed him again, turning him upside down and flinging him like a child’s toy.

The floor came rushing at him and his nose burst with a sickening crunch against the polished hardwood.

Oh, sweet Jesus, no!

He opened his eyes and the pain stopped. He blinked the dream away.

Yellow eyes were inches from his face. Luci sat on his chest, watching him as if he wanted -- badly -- to pounce.

“Aw, fuck!” At least, that was what he meant to say. It came out more like: ah fuuh. His lips didn’t seem to be working, and his tongue was thick, uncooperative. His body spasmed, trying to lift his arm to knock the cat from his chest, but his arms wouldn’t move. He looked at them and saw that he was tied to the recliner.

No, not tied. Taped. He was duct-taped to the chair.

He smelled it again, that scent…. That familiar, cloying fragrance. But this time his brain located the name.

Poison. Jane’s perfume.

“Hi, honey,” she said cheerfully. “I’m home.”

She reached over him plucked the remote from the table. She pointed it at the television and the screen jumped to life.

“I can tell you’re surprised to see me,” she said. “Guess you didn’t watch the news.”

She perched on the arm of the sofa as she flicked through the channels. Luci blinked at him, then leapt onto the floor and into Jane’s lap. He rubbed his head against her cheek.

“Hello, sweetie, I missed you, too.” She scratched Luci’s ear and the cat rumbled like a small engine. “I prefer the news on Four, don’t you? No, I forgot. You always liked that slutty blonde on Twelve. Doesn’t matter, really. It’ll probably lead on every channel. And it’s just five after six. Perfect timing.”

“—on the scene with a live report from Cumberland Heights Mental Institution.” The local anchor looked somber while another picture popped up behind him. “Phil, what’s the latest?”

“Paul, as we reported earlier, three female inmates made their escape just after noon, leaving one guard dead and two others critically injured. Two of the prisoners were recaptured almost immediately less than a mile from the hospital—“

“Stupid bitches,” Jane said, not taking her eyes from the screen. “I knew they’d fuck up.”

“W-whaaa aa… “ Richard’s mouth was dry and tight.

“Sssh. I want to hear this.”

“No, the names of the escapees and the guards involved have not been disclosed as yet,” Phil was saying. “But sources inside the hospital say that the prisoners apparently used a doctor’s car to make their escape.”

Luci jumped down from Jane’s lap and sat licking a paw.

“You say the prisoners were all female?” Paul the anchor asked. “The one still at large, is she considered dangerous?”

“Well, Paul, the attack on the guards was vicious and bloody, according the EMTs called to the scene. There’s no word on what sort of weapon was involved—“

Jane raised the remote and the picture died.

“Waa—“

“What is it, Richard?” Jane looked at him. “Do you want to ask me something?”

“What’s…wroooo-”

“What’s wrong with your tongue?” She was always good at reading his thoughts. In the beginning, he thought it was a sign of true love. “Oh, I dropped a handful of your little pills into the Jack Daniel’s. Not enough to kill you. Just enough to make you harmless. I knew you’d go right for the bottle as soon as you walked in the door. I can see that much hasn’t changed. You look like hell though. Guess you won’t need a costume this Halloween, huh?”

She stood up and straightened the white coat over her hips. She fingered the blue embroidery on the breast pocket that read, David M. Jackson, M.D.

“How do you like my mine? Davey won’t be needing his coat so I borrowed it. I guess they haven’t found him yet. At least not anything they could identify.”

Richard strained his eyes toward his feet. Like his arms, they were thick with bands of silver tape. His heart pounded, every beat like a fist against his ribs.

She lifted a black satchel onto his chest. Richard wondered if the bag had belonged to Davey, too. She opened the clasp, rummaged inside and pulled out a long needle.

Richard’s eyes bulged. He began to jerk, his hands opening and closing spasmodically.

“Oh, don’t be such a baby,” she said. “I’m a registered nurse, remember? This won’t hurt at all if you don’t piss me off.”

“Waaa…waar you gon do?”

“What am I going to do?” Jane smiled. “Why, the same thing I used to do to all my patients on the ward. I’m going to take a little blood. Well, maybe not just a little… All of it, as a matter of fact.”

He screamed a hoarse, grating sound.

She clamped a hand over his mouth while the other pinched his nostrils shut.

“I can tape your mouth shut if you want,” she said. “But I hoped you’d be a good little boy. Now, as Dr. Davey was so fond of saying, we can do this the hard way or we can do it the easy way.”

Her hands were cold iron against his mouth and nose. His lungs burned and panic surged. He remembered the feeling from the last time, crawling away from her and begging please… please stop… don’t…

“Blink once if you want to play nice. You do! Good. I was hoping we’d have time for a little chat. I’m sure there are lots of things you’d like me to clear up. It seems the least I can do.”

She removed her hands and he sucked air into his lungs.

She brought a foil packet from the bag and tore it open. The smell of alcohol hit him as she swabbed the tiny napkin over his inner arm.

“I suppose it doesn’t really matter… It’s rather like using a sterile needle for a lethal injection. Stupid, but they still do it.”

She dropped the used wipe back into the satchel.

“God, your veins are shot to shit. You look like a heroin addict.”

If he could have spoken, he would have told her he’d been a human pin cushion for the last year.

Why was she doing this? There were thousands of ways to kill him… why this way? Dear God, why? Did she need human blood for some black ritual?

She threw back her head, elongating her slender white throat as she laughed.

“Oh, Richard… You still have it all wrong!”

She slipped the needle into his arm and he felt only the tiniest nip of discomfort.

She leaned close to him, her cold lips grazing his ear.

“I’m not a witch. I’m a vampire. I told you that from the beginning. When I said I was a creature of the night, I didn’t just mean I wasn’t a morning person.”

She pushed the end of a catheter onto the needle and attached it to a clear plastic bag. Richard’s eyes watched the slow seep of red through the tubing.

“What, you don’t believe me? You always did read too much. Well, you can shove Bram Stoker and Anne Rice up your ass. The truth isn’t very romantic. Not anymore. Not with AIDS and Hepatitis B and God knows what else out there. Those things wouldn’t kill me, but even a mild case of food poisoning is no picnic. Nobody does the fang thing anymore. It’s passe, not to mention unsanitary and messy. And blood stains are a bitch to get out.”

She sat back on the sofa’s arm. He could barely see her from the corner of his good eye.

“They got a few things right, though. I mean most people forget that Dracula pranced around in daylight, he just didn’t make a habit of it. And these days it’s even easier. We’re a twenty-four-hour society. You can live your whole life at night without much trouble. They’ve done amazing things with sunscreens now, and those blue-blocker sunglasses are fantastic.”

When one bag filled, she replaced it with an empty one. She glanced at him and apparently read the next question in his mind.

“No, I didn’t have to let them take me to that hell-hole of a hospital. But I was bored.” She twitched her shoulders. “I’m sure that sounds silly to you, but when you’re three hundred and forty years old, there’s not much you haven’t done at least twice. I’d never been tried and committed to the loony bin, so I thought I’d try it. I don’t recommend it, though. Mind-fucking the psychiatrists was fun for a while, but my roommates drove me bats. So to speak.”

She looked at the blood bag and tapped the catheter with a fingernail.

“This is gonna take all night,” she sighed.

She stuck another needle in the other arm.

“Almost forgot. Is the cooler still in the garage?”

He stared at her.

“Don’t tell me, then. You’re such a bad loser. I’ll find it myself.”

She disappeared. He heard doors open and close, then the sound of ice clattering against plastic. She brought the cooler back with her and laid the fat red bag on the glittering ice. The other two were full now, and she replaced them as well.

“Waa…. Waa abou’ ‘ell?” He was lightheaded, but speech came easier now. Maybe he was sobering up. He figured most of the whiskey and Percodan must be in the cooler by now.

“Ah, little Nell.” Jane sighed, running a hand through her hair. “Well, she’s tainted of course. But being half yours, she might turn out to be just a feeder.”

“You… won’…” God, his mouth was dry.

“No, I don’t want her. Lilly can have her. Does that make you feel better?”

He nodded. A tear slid down his cheek and she brushed it away.

“W-why?”

She looked down into his face for a long time, still cupping his cheek.

“Because I loved you, sort of.” Her tone was soft, wistful. “As much as I was able. Eternity gets lonely.”

She bent down and kissed him tenderly, sweetly, on his lips.

God, her mouth was so cold… Was it because she was hungry? She had always been hot to the touch before.

“Besides, you were the best fuck I had in centuries. You can be proud of that much. You have no idea how many men died in the saddle, so to speak. Their hearts just couldn’t take it.”

“You won’… get away w-w-”

“Oh yes, I will. You think I’m gonna leave you taped to the recliner? When they find you, you’ll be in an empty bathtub with your wrists open. I’ll let a little blood splash around for effect, but they’ll assume most of it went down the drain. I’ll bet Lilly didn’t want you to be alone tonight, did she? Face it, sweetie, you’re a poster child for the suicide hotline.”

He sighed. His chest seemed heavy and both eyes were equally unfocused.

She changed the bags again.

“Lilly probably begged you to come over and hang out with her and George the talking asshole. He made a pass at me once, did you know that? He fucks everything that stands still long enough for him to stick it in.”

He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, she was gone. He heard water running upstairs.

He closed his eyes again.

When she came back, her hair was short and blonde. She wore an Anne Klein pantsuit and the enormous silver earrings he’d given her for Christmas three years ago. She twirled around on sleek Italian pumps.

“How do I look?” She dropped a L’Oreal box into the black bag. “Can’t leave any evidence behind. Richard? Richard, honey, can you hear me?”

She pulled his right eyelid open and peered into his pupil.

“It won’t be long now.”

He had one more question. He struggled to hold it in his mind and prayed she would read it as she always did.

Please…. Tell me one more thing…. Who was it inside me when I fucked you?

She smiled.

“Didn’t you know?” She bent and scooped the cat into her arms. “Lucifer. Luci, for short.”