Cass ran her fingers along the edge of the wings, longing in her eyes. The shop was one of those horrid places that catered to people too high to care what they spent their money on. T-shirts emblazoned with Santa Carla hung in rows next to racks of scarves covered with tiny mirrors and baskets piled high with snack food.

Marko was palming miniature snickers bars.

"Fairy wings?" David asked. She shrugged but when Paul drooped his wrist into a limp parody of self-mockery, she reached over and hit his hand hard enough that he let out a low whistle and shook it.

"Trying to kill me?" he asked.

"Don't do that," she said.

"Fairy," he said with a shrug.

She looked at him, her hands back on the wings, her fingers tracing out the swirls painted on the fabric. "People think fairies are so sweet," she said quietly. "All fluttery and cute and nice, but they aren't. In stories, they lead people over cliffs and into swamps just for fun."

David threw money down on the counter. "Sound like my kind of creatures," he said. "Take a pair."

The clerk smoothed out the wrinkles bills and twitched them left and right until they stacked up neatly. "There's not enough," he said. His voice squeaked at the end of that when David turned to look at him. "The fairy wings are $19.99," he said. "Plus tax." The last came out in a near whimper as David moved closer to him at the long, glass counter and made a show of looking down at the figurines and jewelry tucked away for safekeeping within in then back up at the boy.

David leaned over and said, "How much did you say they were?"

"$19.99," the boy squeaked.

"Who has money for our Cass?" David asked. He kept his eyes on the clerk as the reek of fear began to seep out his pores. "I don't want her to go without."

Marko pulled three snickers bars out of an inside pocket of his jacket, found a twenty-dollar bill wedged in the bottom, and tossed it down. A dull, brown stain crept along one side, remnants of a long-forgotten meal.

The clerk eyed the candy with trepidation, opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it. He picked the money up, made change, and slid it towards David. David smiled, baring just the edges of his teeth. "Thank you," he said as he pocketed the change. "Cass. Get your wings."

Cass pulled a pair off the rack, her hand shaking a little. Maybe she wasn't used to presents, or maybe she was smart enough to know David always had a reason for things he did, and it usually involved hurting people. Dwayne helped her slide the wings on. The white lines of the cheap elastic that held it in place looked garish against the black bustier she still wore, and the trailing wings seemed out of place. She moved to glance at herself in the mirror toward the back of the store and Paul deftly moved in the way and shifted her toward the exit. She went to push past him and he blocked her again. Dwayne gave her a more direct shove toward the doorway and she went, though she managed to stomp her foot down on Paul's toes on the way out in a fit of pique he had to smile even if she was wrong.

"We don't reflect," Dwayne murmured in her ear as they slid into the crowd. "Don't be obvious."

Her mouth formed into a silent, "Oh," as she realized. Some things took getting used to. Sleeping during the day was impossible to ignore. The pain of sunlight immediate. Even the urge to feed became second nature almost at once. But that you couldn't eat garlic, that you couldn't go into a home uninvited, that you didn't cast a reflection: those all surprised you again and again. There were things he missed still. He'd liked wild roses, once.

David took her by the elbow and Dwayne stepped very slightly to the side. "Fairy girl," he said. "Time to play."

She blinked at him very slowly, once, then again, and then she grinned with wild, feral delight.

"Go find dinner," David said. "We'll be watching."

The crowd was thinner tonight. It was Sunday. People had jobs the next day. People had classes. People had responsibilities that tied them down, kept them from running through the crowds like she did, a wisp of a girl in black and white who darted and wove until she stopped in front of a group of young men at one of the gaming booths. Dwayne wasn't sure what it was about that particular group that had caught her eye. They looked like every other bunch of dull, normal souls to him, but she'd flitted past college boys and surfers lying about the waves they'd caught and picked this group out.

He glanced at Paul who shrugged. "She still have blood on that shirt from yesterday?" Marko asked.

"Nah," Paul said. "She washed it out in the springs when we got up."

She smiled at one of the men with a fragile, gamine charm Dwayne had never seen her use. It left a bit of a sour taste in his mouth, and Paul stirred uncomfortably next to him, but one of the men stopped throwing darts at balloons and turned to leer at her. Dwayne heard a low snarl.

"You get to eat him later," Paul said. "Chill."

She set a hand on his arm and ducked her head and became, somehow, several years younger. Maybe it was the wings. Maybe it was the curve of her shoulders. She transformed herself from predator to prey and then looked up at the man with so much raw gratitude in her eyes Dwayne wanted to be sick.

"He just promised her food," Paul said.

He bought it for her too. Cass trailed after him after he elbowed a snickering buddy and traipsed over to a fried dough vendor. Dwayne heard himself snarl again as the man handed her the paper plate and Marko snickered at the sound. "Let the girl have some fun," David said.

"Fun," Dwayne said. "Right."

"She is, though," Paul said.

Cass had ripped off a piece of the dough and was holding it in front of her mouth as she looked up at her mark. She laughed at something he said and then scuffed her toe on the ground. The man set a hand on her back then, when she didn't pull away, ran it down over her ass and let it sit there. He had a soft look to him. Dull brown hair, boat shoes. Dwayne glanced at Paul. He'd been so thin when they'd found him, and so angry it was amazing he hadn't immolated himself with the sheer force of his rage. For a year, every victim he'd picked out had looked the same. Dark hair. Weathered skin. Blue eyes.

He'd refused to drink from the original whose lookalikes he'd hunted. David had, and he had, but Paul had stood back and just watched the man die. He'd been less thin by then, but no less angry. He'd spit on the body when they were through. Dwayne had hated a lot of people in his life but never enough to resist the urge to feed. Never enough to stand there and smell the blood and smell the fear and just stare down with contempt at the begging victim until it was over.

Paul's next victim had been a pretty red-head who'd flirted with him in the line for the carousel. He'd never talked about it. Dwayne had never asked.

Cass twisted as if she were uncomfortable, and the guy she was with narrowed his eyes. She tipped her head toward the sand, agreeing to whatever he'd suggested, and began to pick her way down the stairs.

Marko wandered over behind them, just another guy on the boardwalk, wholly uninterested in whatever unpleasant transaction might be going on over fried dough, but as he pretended to be looking at the missing posters he reassured Cass. She could have torn the man's throat out on her own, of course, but she seemed just wary enough to need a reminder family was there. Family was always there. By the time she reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped onto the sand, she was giggling. The sound might have been too young, too fake, too awful but it didn't have any real nerves sitting behind it. Marko ripped one of the signs down, shoved it into a pocket, and they all padded along the sand behind the couple.

He kept his hand on her ass the whole way.

They waited until she was over by the bridge to reveal themselves. "I don't know," she was saying. "I like to have a good time, but - "

"You led me on," he said. He had the nerve to get angry. "That was a bitchy thing to do, girl."

"She's like that," David said. He stepped out of the shadows and snapped his fingers. "Cass."

She took a step away from the mark and brushed her hand over her hips as if cleaning off dirt then crossed her arms.

"She got a price?" the guy asked. "Shit, man, I thought she was just - "

"She does," David said. "Everyone does."

The man reached into a back pocket to pull out his wallet, thumbed through worn bills, held some out. David plucked them from his hand and folded them neatly. No reason not to take cash when offered. Then he tipped his head toward the man. Her victim probably thought Cass had been ordered to get to work, not given permission to go first. She ran a hand along his thigh and he let out a low laugh. "That's more like it," he said, and leaned up against the side of the retaining wall, getting comfortable for what he thought was coming.

Dwayne could hear something ugly come out of the back of his throat when she knelt down, her hands at his waist, fumbling with his belt.

"Oh yeah," the man said. Then she bit and he screamed. It was a gurgling, horrified, wonderful sound. His hands, which had been reaching for her hair, spasmed in the air, and tried to push her away as she ripped through the fabric of his pants, ripped into his thigh, and found the artery that pulsed there with perfect accuracy. She looked up and his scream got louder. She'd shifted, and his blood stained her face.

"Surprise," she said. "But thanks for the fried dough."

Then she put her face back down, lapping and sucking at the blood and Dwayne fell on him as well, and then the rest of them too.

They lasted longer when you left the throat intact, and his death was slower than some, but at last he was nearly gone and David tore the last drops of blood from his neck and they let the body fall. Dwayne bent down to rip the offending hand off, twisting it until the bones snapped, then shoved it in what was left of the man's mouth. He had to break the jaw to get it to fit, but with a little work it went and he straightened up.

Cass was human again, blood running down her neck, her teeth stained red. He grabbed her wrist and yanked her toward him, and she laughed and tipped her face up with so much mischief in her eyes he held back until she could whisper, "Does betrayal always make it taste better?" and then he gave into the bloodlust.

She reached up and ran her bloody hands through his hair and pulled him down to her with sharp force. He grabbed her at that implicit permission to start and shoved her back up against the wall where her victim had leaned, kicking his body out of the way. He pinned her there, leaning against her to hold her in place as she tried to drag his mouth all the way to hers. He wanted her neck, though, and the blood staining her chin, and the way she tugged and pulled on him just made him more determined to hold off until she was desperately hungry.

Hunger made everything better.

He pushed her chin up with his head the same way he would if he were going to feed and sucked at the base of her throat where some of the blood had pooled, then ran a tongue along her collar bones. That pulled a whimper out of her so he did it again, but by then she had her fingernails gouging into the back of his neck and he couldn't stand it any more, waiting be damned, and his mouth was on hers.

The waves slapped against the sand with a steady and quiet lap, recede, lap, recede as he lost himself in the sweetness of this. He still didn't understand the way she pulled at him. Still didn't understand the way even the slightest touch of skin against skin felt electric. But, oh, did it make this better than with even the most willing and eager girl he'd ever known, than with even the closest of brothers.

David cleared his throat.

Dwayne reluctantly eased Cass down. When he turned, he saw Paul zipping his fly and Marko rather casually brushing sand off his knees. They all stood, shaking off the post-feeding haze, until Cass said, "I have blood on my shirt. Again." The peevish, petulant tone made Marko laugh and that broke the spell.

"Go rinse it out at home, girl," he said. He sniffed at himself. "I could use a bath after that one too. Bleh."

Bikes were fetched, she pulled herself up behind him, and Dwayne kicked the stand up, ready to go, but when he looked over at David, waiting for the signal, he was taking a sheet of paper from Marko and nodding. "You all go," he said, and slipped the paper into a pocket. "I'll be out late."

"Beer?" Paul asked.

"Bourbon," Dwayne said, and Paul gave a quick two-fingered salute before he tore off toward town and a liquor store sure to judge his hair and his boots even as they took the money he handed them. Everyone, as David had said, had a price.

At the caves Marko stripped down, tossing boots to the floor, leather chaps over them, then pants shimmied off and flung in a pile with his jacket. He frowned at his current shirt, made a face, and threw it down. That one would disappear, replaced by another one in his endless line of white tees. Vampires didn't exactly go to the laundry and stand around with the good people of Santa Carla, fishing quarters out of their pockets for the machines and asking if anyone had extra detergent they could spare.. When things got ripe, they moved on.

Dwayne had his own jacket and boots off and his hands at the button of his jeans when he realized Cass had stopped in the entry to this odd little cavern with its spring and was hanging back. He jerked his head toward one of the old concrete pylons that served as good bench when you needed to unlace things but she still hesitated.

Marko had flung himself, naked, into the water, thrown his head back, and groaned. "This is the life," he said, and stretched his arms out along the edge of the spring. "Eat a good meal, have a good soak."

"Cass," Dwayne said. "You have blood in your hair."

She reached up to touch it, then edged forward so she sat at the very edge of one of the pylons and began to unlace her boots. She set first one aside, then the other, then took off the wings. Her hands hesitated at the zipper on her top before pulling it down and wriggling out of the tight fabric. She had a tank under it, once white, now stained from the feed. She took a deep breath, seemed to steel herself, then pulled it off with one quick motion.

"Damn," Marko said. "Nice tits."

She glared at him.

"Hey," he said, holding his hands up in a gesture that would have been surrender if he weren't smirking quite so broadly. "Not like tits are usually my thing but I recognize a good pair when I see them."

"Because you eat them," she said.

He shrugged. "Sometimes you want the crunchy bits, sometimes the squishy bits."

Dwayne slid down into the water and closed his eyes. You always ended up smelling of rotten eggs after this, but it was worth it. The heat soaked into his skin and down into his bones and drew everything down into languid ease. He could hear Cass pulling off her pants and walking with deliberate steps until she stepped in after him. "Rinse your hair," he said without opening his eyes. He wanted to hold off this first look at her as long as he could. He wanted to savor the anticipation.

The water splashed as she dipped her head down, then again as Marko batted water at them both. Dwayne flipped him off, eyes still closed, but then Cass' foot had brushed against his and, remembering the anticipation of Christmas morning, he peeled open one eye. He remembered the anticipation and also the inevitable letdown that followed. Christmas had always been a disappointment. You saw ads on the television showing other people's homes filled with tinsel and paper. That wasn't what it had been like for them. His mother had put up a tree once, and he'd cut construction paper into circles to try to look like ornaments. It hadn't worked.

Cass was not a disappointment. She had her arms crossed over her breasts and the rest of her was hidden under the water, but there she was: pale skin, a scar running along one shoulder, jaw set defensively. "Well?" she said. The word was a wall. It dared him to say anything. It expected rejection or, maybe, worse than rejection, the half-compliment that really put you down, that kept you in your place. The coy 'you'll do' that let you know you weren't really that special.

He leaned over and nipped at her lip. "Marko's right," he said. She unbent just a little, and he ran a hand down her back along the nodules of her spine. Her skin was magic, spreading whatever intoxicant she was through him and he pulled her closer just so he could touch more. She shuddered, then pulled one hand off her chest and set it, oh so tentatively, on his thigh.

He might as well have been fourteen again. How could such a small thing command so much attention?

"Relax," he said when she tensed even more. His mouth brushed her ear. "It's just a bath."

"We don't bite," Marko said.

She actually gaped at him at that, then laughed, and then she was splashing him back. Her self-consciousness might not be gone, but it was less. By the time Paul appeared, bag in hand and boots off in seconds, she and Marko were in a full-fledged water fight while he sat back and watched. It wasn't bright in here, and the fire that lit the place caught the water that slid down her neck and chest as she moved and turned it into glitter. He wanted her so badly he thought he might explode. He wanted to watch her ride one of his brothers. He wanted and wanted and wanted and none of it was going to happen tonight.

He took a deep breath.

They had eternity.

"I bring tiny bottles of bourbon," Paul said.

"Tiny?" Marko asked.

Paul held up one of the little train bottles and Dwayne snorted. "That's barely enough to wet your throat," he said.

"Well, I have lots of them," Paul said. "There was a sale. But if your majesty can't be bothered, more for me."

He tossed one to Marko, who unscrewed the lid and threw back the whole of the contents in one swallow, shook his head, and let out a delighted "oof."

Dwayne held his hand out and took the first bottle Paul handed him without a word. Cass seemed less sure. "I've never," she said as her fingers closed around the bottle. "Alcohol bites like the serpent."

"It does what?" Marko asked, obviously completely taken aback. Dwayne felt the same surprise. It was odd to see a woman who'd been drenched in blood not an hour before seem uncertain about something as trivial as a drink.

"It bites like a… a viper," she said. Her voice trembled a little and she hadn't moved to open her drink. "It leads you to the devil."

"Hell, yeah," Paul said. "That's the point."

"Oh, honey," said Marko. "You're already here. We are the devil. You might as well enjoy the spread."

She twisted the top off and sniffed at the contents. "You don't have to," Paul said but she shook her head and a defiant scowl took the place of her hesitation.

"Why should he get to take something else from me?" she asked, and drank the whole thing in a series of gasping swallows. She threw the empty bottle down and Marko raised a fist into the air and hooted with delight.

"Another one?" he asked.

"Why not?" She held her hand out imperiously and Paul set another one of the miniature bourbon bottles in it. She downed that one just as quickly.

Paul threw Dwayne a worried look. He nodded and tugged her a little closer. You couldn't go from teetotaler to two shots in rapid succession and not end up very, very drunk. They couldn't die, so she wasn't exactly at a risk for drowning, but slipping under the water and being unable to breathe wouldn't qualify as one of life's better experiences.

"Where's David?" she demanded, apropos of nothing. Dwayne raised his brows and shrugged. David came and went as he pleased. He'd be back by sunup. Until then, maybe he was off draining a preschool. Maybe he was setting things on fire. Who cared?

"Top secret head vampire stuff?" Paul asked with the same indifference. "Above my pay grade to worry about that shit."

"There's others?" Cass asked.

"Oh, yeah," Marko said. He opened another bottle, drank it, and tossed the empty again. "Tons. But who cares?"

Dwayne distracted her from any tedious pursuit of David and his endless crap by dragging her mouth to his. One hand on her back, one at her head, and this time the kissing was slow. This time, without the rush of the kill driving them, he settled down to enjoy what had always been a prelude in the past. How young had he been the last time he'd kissed a woman and not been counting the minutes until he could get her pants off?

Time was so vague. It was hard to know.

She was on his lap, hand trailing fire and magic over his skin as she felt along the planes of his chest, when Dwayne heard the tread of boots come in, stop behind his head. He didn't turn until David squatted down.

"So," he said. "Ellen."

Cass froze.

Dwayne turned to look at the missing poster David had unfolded and held out for them to see. Cass looked back at him from the bad black and white photocopy. She was eighteen. He hadn't thought to ask. She was from Gilroy. That was a bit funny. She was wearing a loose shirt in the photograph someone had picked for this missing sign, and had hunched her shoulders in such a way it hung forward, obscuring any hint of the breasts Marko had so admired earlier, but it was undoubtedly her. She was Ellen Grace Johannessen. Missing. Missed.

She looked up at David with raw fear in her eyes but defiance in her voice. "I'm not going back," she said.

. . . . . . . . . .

A/N - Much love to breenieweeie and coffeequeen73 for alpha reading this for me.