The Mammoth Book Of Vampire Stories Written By Women

Sondra opened her mouth, then shut it again when Walters ran his cat-coloured gaze across her. She'd been about to say He looks like him, and point to Officer Walters; horrified, she put a trembling hand to her mouth and prayed McShaw wouldn't see her shivering. Was there that much of a resemblance? No, of course not.

Of course not.

Open your legs.

Walters was the last of the two to go out the front door. She didn't know why the tense words came, but when he looked back at her, all she could say was, "He wants the twins."

He nodded. "I know." Before she could close the door, he reached back through the opening and placed his fingers lightly on her wrist — a speed search for the hot pulse of life just below the skin? — then glanced surreptitiously towards his partner's retreating back, as though he were her colleague in some great and secret conspiracy. "I'll be in touch," he whispered.

I will fill you with blood and fire.

Sondra slammed the front door and stood trembling with anticipation and terror.

The babies were bathed and fed and put down for the night. They lay crowded against each other in the playpen — she couldn't afford a crib — content and quiet, like two halves of a whole. Sondra watched them for a while, knowing they wouldn't close their eyes for hours, wondering what they'd be like when they grew up. Right now they were small for their age, but would they catch up later? Go through one of those amazing growth spurts that parents were always crowing about and paediatricians predicted with nauseating regularity? She wished she could think of a way to keep them small and safe for ever, by her side and without the sweet, dangerous offering of the rest of the world.

After a while she went into the bathroom and stared at herself in the mirror. Her image was shell-shocked and pale, a thin face with prominent cheekbones and a nondescript nose, hazel eyes undercut with purple shadows of exhaustion. Budget shopping and constant worrying had made her gaunt and graceless, left her mouth an oversized flesh-coloured slash across the bottom part of her face. Even her brown hair was nothing special — cut to shoulder length, then falling into a stupid wave that made the ends go in all directions. What was it about her that drew them? Why her ?

"Because you are one among millions, Sondra."

She spun with a slow-motion movement that felt like she was trying to turn underwater. "You!"

Officer Walters gave her a handsome smile. "I told you I'd be in touch."

Sondra took a step backward, felt the sharp edge of the cheap drawer pull dig into her spine. For a moment she thought it was teeth and her knees tried to buckle; she locked her muscles and felt behind her for reassurance — an old, bent brass handle, that's all. "How-how did you get in?"

"The door was unlocked."

"That's impossible," she said hotly. "I didn't"

He was standing in front of her before she had time to form her next word, the width of the room no more than a blink between them. Whatever she was going to say broke off when his hand, cool and white and alarmingly powerful, reached up to cup her jaw. His thumb skated delicately along the line of bone, then skipped up to trace her lips. "I think you left it open for me…"

"No!"

"Didn't you?" Walters leaned over her, his face only an inch away. His breath was thick and meaty but not unpleasant, a cool, unnatural draught against her cheeks. He looked different than he had earlier, as if the chunky, donut-plied town cop were only a costume he donned to give stereotypical service to the public job and complement his partner's rotund figure. The basic features were still there, but now he looked like a predator, something long and sleek and dark; a panther, slipping through the night that was her life and ready to ambush its quarry.

"Please," she heard herself say. She wanted to cry but her eyes were as dry as her mouth. "Don't touch me."

"You don't mean that," Walters murmured against her neck as he grasped her upper arms and pulled her from the bathroom and into the cramped kitchen. Sondra tried to turn her head and made the monumental mistake of locking gazes with him. Immediately she felt like she was dropping through space, an exhilarating dive from a hundred-storey building and no concern about the unyielding earth rushing up to crash into her; she would have tilted sideways except that he was pressed fully against her now, holding her, the temperature of his skin bleeding through both his clothes and hers.

"Open yourself to me, Sondra."

His voice had deepened and twisted and sounded so much like the other's that a moan of dread made it past her lips. Shivering violently, she could be lying face down on a blanket of finished leather for all the heat she felt from his muscular chest, the hard plane of his stomach, the firm pressure of his thighs. Her heart was slamming in her chest long before his fingers hooked around the collar of her blouse and tore it open.