Maybe she was trying to distract me from thinking about the inevitable, or maybe she was trying to distract herself. I don't know. But my mind kept wandering to things I'd seen and things I'd done in my extended life.

I wanted to share those things with her. I had five hundred years of anecdotes to draw from, so it should have been easy to just start talking about any one of them. But I couldn't, because I kept remembering how she'd reacted when I'd told her about my coming across and about leaving, so I could see the world.

Her disapproving face kept coming to mind. And I kept hearing the echo of her disappointed words in my head: "I don't think I like you anymore." She didn't think I should have run off, because she wouldn't have. She would have stayed and been responsible and done her duty. And if she couldn't understand my desire to see the world, how could she appreciate any of the things I'd seen or done?

At one point, I must have dozed off, because I thought she'd curled up next to me, her head on my chest, my arm around her shoulder. We were somewhere other than the church, sitting not on my bed, but on a couch — maybe the couch in her apartment — and I heard her voice, light, casual, and curious.

"Vachon?"

"Hmm?"

"Tell me a story?"

"Like 'Once Upon A Time' or 'In A Galaxy Far, Far Away'?"

"No. Like, tell me one of your best memories."

"That's not a story."

"Tell me anyway."

"Okay," I said, smiling indulgently. I pulled her a little closer and said, "One of my best memory... is from just a few months ago—"

"Have I heard this before?"

"Don't interrupt the story teller," I told her before continuing. "It was the night when a great ball of fire fell from the sky just outside Toronto—"

"I have heard this story. In fact, I'm pretty sure I was there."

"You were. What's your point? You said you wanted to hear about one of my best memories."

"Being in a plane crash and losing your hand is one of your best memories?"

"Well, that was a part of it, but, no. The best part was meeting the woman brave enough to sneak back into that dark, deserted hanger—"

"I fainted."

"Very few wouldn't have, under the circumstances. But when you woke up, you pulled it together pretty quickly. I was... impressed." It was a good memory. It was the night that changed the course of my life.

"Let me rephrase my request," Tracy said. "Tell me your best memory that doesn't  involve me."

"Think that well of yourself, do you?" I smiled like an ass and she softly whack me on the arm. I deserved it.

"Alright. My best memory... before we met... that you don't already know?"

She nodded.

"Well... um... okay. When I was about twelve—"

"No, not a mortal memory. I want one from after you became a vampire."

I frowned and shook my head. "You're getting kind of specific about this. Is there a particular memory you're fishing for?"

"How could there be? I don't know all your memories, let alone which ones you consider good." She had me there.

"Hmm, well... how about this then: the first night after our master had left us, I left the Inca. I ran and flew for what seemed like hours. I didn't have a destination other than away from where I'd already been—"

"You didn't go back to your troop's encampment?"

"No. I had no reason to. I knew I was no longer a soldier as much as I knew I was no longer human. Those men were nothing to me anymore. If the circumstances had been different, though.... If a man is turned unwittingly," I explained, "his first thoughts would naturally be to return home to his family and friends. Of course, that never ends well for the family and sometimes not even for the friends."

"That's terrible," she said.

"That's the First Hunger," I said, almost with a shrug.

"But don't you have that as soon as you're brought across? Isn't that the first thing you do, feed?" she asked and I was enjoying her curiosity.

I shook my head. "I can see why you might think that, but no. For quite a while, there is no hunger — I think because of the exchange of blood between master and convert. The First Hunger comes... later. For me, it came that second night. Maybe my exertion from traveling so far, so quickly, brought it on sooner; maybe I'd have lasted another day, if I'd just been lounging about. But, as dawn approached, the First Hunger grew quickly and began to drive all my instincts.

"But I'd seen no people, nor any wildlife big enough to interest me that night. What I had run across, though, had been amazing. I found a spider spinning a web and I think I sat there watching it for an hour or more. It was fascinating — so beautiful, so intricate, and the spun strands glistened in the moonlight as if they were coated in diamond dust. And I saw the most amazing flowers — flowers that I'd undoubtedly seen as a soldier as we'd hike from the coast inland, but simply failed to take note of. But with my new vampire eyes, I couldn't helped but see them. I didn't understand what I was seeing, of course — I knew nothing about light or wavelengths back then — but I Was seeing colors in the darkness, new colors that I had never seen as a human. And I could even see that some parts of the flowers were warmer than other parts — it reminded me of iron being heated in a forge.

"Even if I'd never gotten to see any more of the world than that, I still had seen things no mortal would ever see. I wasn't even thinking about being a vampire — I was simply thinking how glad I was to be alive and to be free of any obligations that would have kept me from this new adventure.

"But, like I said before, as dawn approached, the hunger began to grow. Before long, I knew I had to feed before the rising sun forced me under ground. I pushed on further, not knowing if I would run across any people or if I would be forced to feed on some animal — though, without a doubt, I knew no frog or bird could satisfy me.

"When dawn approached, I seemed to feel it in my bones. The need to get out of the light was greater than the hunger that was gnawing at my hollow insides, so I chose a spot and began digging in the dirt to make a hole in which to crawl and spend the day. I was nearly done when I heard an approaching heartbeat. I heard it before I heard the crunch of vegetation beneath feet. I heard it before I even realized I'd heard it.

"The hunger drove me towards the sound and the beating called to me like a siren, but even in my desperation to feed, I was still able to move silently through the forest. As I neared the thrumming of blood through veins, I stopped, waited, and watched, allowing my prey to approach me. It was a girl — an Incan girl — not young, not a child, but not quite a woman yet either. I could see the heat of her body as I'd seen the heat of those flowers earlier, only there was so much more of it; she glowed like a candle flame and like a moth I was drawn to it. I could not take my eyes off of her. I remember her so clearly — she was perfect — long, dark hair; large, brown eyes; skin a smooth as polished wood. She walked like she had not a care in the world, like, as if at any moment, she might start dancing to some tune only she could hear.

"I had no idea what she was doing in the forest, alone, in the growing pre-dawn light. It seemed such an odd thing. But then she kneeled and placed a basket on the ground. I watched as she plucked snails off of plants and from beneath dew-covered leaves, and then placed them in her basket. She was gathering them when they were plentiful, because once the sun rose they would disappear to wherever snails shelter once the dew begins to evaporate.

"This girl, she came so close to me as she plucked up one last snail — so close that I could have reached out and stroked my hand across her cheek, but I did not move. I don't know how she never saw me amongst the foliage, but she didn't. She placed that last snail into her basket and then stood up and began to walk away from where I was kneeling in the damp earth. I stood up, too, and in two paces I was behind her. My right arm slid around her waist and my left hand covered her mouth. I didn't realize how cold my body was until I pulled her against me and felt the heat of her from my thighs to my chest. She screamed against my palm, but I only pressed my hand more firmly against her mouth and soon she ran out of air and couldn't pull in enough through the tiny space left where the side of my finger pressed up against her nostrils.

"I felt her pulse increase and with it the heat of her body. And all I could think of was how much I wanted that heat inside me, how much I wanted to feel the pulse of her blood coursing through my own veins. I hadn't realized how dead I was until I held that vital, vibrant girl in my arms. In that moment, I realized that the First Hunger wasn't for blood so much as it was for life; I felt it in my entire being. I needed her life inside me — I need this girl's entire being to fill the lifeless void inside of me. And if I could not have it, then I would succumb to the very death from which my master had sought to spare me. It was her death or mine. Her survival or mine. This stranger. This come-caracoles. This girl who could not see diamonds in spider webs or flowers in entirely new colors. She would live her entire mundane life right there, within a mile of where she was born, doing nothing but collecting snails at dawn and grinding corn or drying meat each day, and then going to bed with the potato gruel that sustained these people filling her belly, never feeling a fraction of what I'd felt during my first night as a vampire.

"What was a life like that worth compared to the possibilities that lay before me?

"My fangs pierced her skin and I felt as much as heard her flesh tearing. And then hot liquid flooded my mouth. I gulped it, feeling the warmth running down my throat and filling my belly. It was the most glorious feeling. Images, like forgotten dreams flickered through my mind, but all I could concentrate on was the blood — the taste, the smell, the very feeling of it flowing over my tongue. I had never eaten a more satisfying meal as a mortal. I had never tasted food as rich and flavorful as this creature's blood.

"But too soon I felt my skin begin to burn as pinpricks of sunlight began finding their way through gaps in the leaves. I knew I had to get back to the spot I'd dug, but I was still hungry — for the taste as well as for the sustenance — so I lifted the girl off her feet and carried her back to my hole. I covered us both up with leaves and dirt, and then spent the day savoring every last drop of blood I could suck from her body, that in death was still warmer than my own.

"That evening, I rose from the ground, feeling more alive than I ever imagined possible. I left the empty girl where she lay, my bed now her grave."

After a few moments, Tracy asked, "Didn't it bother you at all that you'd killed a person?"

"I was hungry."

"But she was a human being. And you just... killed her."

"That's what vampires do — or at least did, before bottled blood," I explained.

"So, you don't feel bad at all about it?"

"I'm not Nick Knight. I don't feel any worse about it than you do about the cows that provide your steak."

"I don't personally slaughter those cows," Tracy countered.

"And you think that makes it better? Murder-by-proxy is still murder."

Tracy narrowed her eyes at me, but said nothing.

"I suppose," I said after a few moment of silence, "that a part of my brain knew that it was murder; she hadn't been a threat to me or anyone I knew, she was Incan, but not an enemy soldier. But I had been hungry. Was I supposed to starve?"

"No, but... you could have eaten a guinea pig or something."

"You mean a few dozen guinea pigs. And I suppose it would have come to that had I not run across that girl. But vampires don't hunger for guinea pigs — at least, that's not the preference we're born with — and whatever blood we taste first, that's the blood we crave from then on. Have I eaten other things? Sure — when I've been desperate. But I'll take a nice, warm body any day."

And there it was, that look; she's disappointed with me, again. That look was going to be the last thing I'd see....

Slowly it came back to me, that I was lying in bed at the church, waiting to die. I opened my eyes and saw Tracy sitting beside me, facing me, still looking disappointed.

"Still here?" I asked.

She nodded.

"How long?" I asked. How long had she been here, sitting with me? How much longer did I have?

"Oh, the sun'll be up soon."

I didn't know what hurt more, my body bleeding out or the look in her eyes. I didn't think I could bare to see her watch me, so I told her, "You'd better go."

"I can stay; I don't mind."

"I'm not gonna make another night," I knew. I wasn't sure I'd last the day. "You don't want to see this," I told her. I didn't want to see it either.

I watched sadness overcome the disappointment on her features. I wonder if she had anything more to say to me. I don't think we've talked about the weather yet. And then she surprised me by saying, "You told me once, the day you became... what you are...  the woman who made you..."

"She rejoined the sun. Or... something. I always wondered what that would feel like." It occurred to me that I might just go and find out. If I could muster up the energy.

And that's when I saw Knight lurking in the shadows behind a stack of empty wine crates. Had he come to see if I was still alive? Did he know Tracy would be here? Had he come to make sure I didn't make any deathbed confessions to her?

Maybe I should have — at the very least, it would have given us something to else to talk about — but instead I just told her to go and thanked her for trying to be my friend, even if all I did was disappoint her.