And so our girl and boy collide, then careen in opposite directions, each having left a permanent mark on the other. We'll be seeing them one last time before saying our final farewells.

Thanks tons to the fearless and intrepid leaders Aquamarine_Jo and WhiteHare, and to all of the other wonderful folks who've shared their time and attention to help me make this story.

The stake went through her easily, with an oddly satisfying crunch, like ice breaking on a half-frozen puddle, or dry fallen leaves in autumn.

Dust drifts and settles across the floor, carrying the stink of sulfur, burning hair, melted plastic and clove. A rumpled heap of clothing lies steaming and empty. A faint glint of silver catches my eye, peeking from under a soiled dress hem, and some impulse moves me to fish it out, sending a cloud of acrid dust into the air and setting me coughing.

The pretty filigree silver bangle is set with turquoise stones, its tiny gaps and crevices clogged with powder. It's warmer than my fingers. Pointlessly, I wipe at it with my sleeve and drop the thing in the ashtray. My stomach clenches. I've just stuck my hands into the desiccated remains of someone I've killed.

I had to do it.

I don't know how long I've been sitting on the floor, curled into myself, nauseating waves of chill and heat washing over me. My ears are full of blaring din like a thousand car horns sounding at once - it's too loud to think. My eyes sting and itch from the drifting ash. The only light in the room is from the street lamps outside.

I need a drink.

Something like an icy feather grazes my arm. Green frosted eyelids and platinum hair shimmer in the lamplight. The rest of her is either opaque or invisible, a dark shape with a faintly glowing outline. Stephanie kneels beside me and pushes my hair out of my eyes.

"Are you alright?"

"I don't know. I can't tell. "

"Well, I'm glad you did it. I'm so tired of vampires. Score one for the humans." Her smile is grim but triumphant.

"I'm running out of humans. I seem to have more dead friends than live ones."

"And now you have dead enemies too."

I never thought of Lydia that way. She was annoying and a bit pretentious. Condescending. Irrational. Maybe even stupid. But that doesn't merit a fight to the death, does it?

"Is that what she was? My enemy?"

"No, I suppose not. She wanted to be like you, but got it all wrong."

"She tried to steal my life out from under me...I guess..." That makes her sound awfully villainous, but she wasn't really. More like pathetic. My outrage is faltering.

"What, Roger? You really aren't thinking clearly, are you?" Stephanie makes that little disgusted snort of hers, and shakes her head. "You each liked vampires more than you liked him. Be angry at her for trying to kill you, not for ridding you of that idiot."

She brings me tea and then brandy, wraps me in warm blankets, and makes empty and soothing chatter: the weather, pop music, fashion. I'm glad she's here. We sit in front of the television together, ignoring the drone of newscasters and weathermen, talking about nothing.

Although I'm exhausted and well-dosed with liquor, I can't sleep. Whenever I close my eyes, the scene replays itself: Lydia's face frozen in horror as her pale freckled skin purples across cheeks and eyelids, the lips turn brown, then black, then shred into tatters to reveal darkening teeth that crumble and fall in streams of grit. Her eyes boil away like ice thrown on hot coals, white fumes curling out of the sockets.

I've opened all the windows to get rid of the smell. Cold, damp night air blows through the flat.

A few hours later. I don't think I was asleep. Footsteps thump up the stairs and keys rattle at the door. Mitchell is home from his night shift.

He flips on the light and his eyes widen. "Jesus. What happened?"

I haven't moved from my nest of blankets on the sofa. Lydia's short geometric print dress lies in a crumpled heap on the floor, its cheerful triangles of bright red and magenta and white and black all soiled with pale grey-brown dust.

I gesture vaguely in the direction of the dust heap. "Lydia. I had to do it. She tried to recruit me."

"Wow." He shakes his head, annoyed. "That was stupid. They knew they weren't allowed to touch you. "

"She knew, she just didn't care. She didn't even tell Nick. Some of the things she said..." Exhibitionist. Martyr. Pervert. "And... and... now the flat reeks."

He gives a brief, businesslike sigh. Leaving dark bootprints in the dust settled around the armchair and tracking still more dust into the kitchen, he emerges shaking the folds out of a big black bin liner.

With a practiced, almost elegant circular swipe, he gathers the pile of clothing along with as much dust as he can, stuffs it all into the bag, throws her shoes on top, ties the thing shut, corner to corner, and sets it tidily against the wall. Only a broad round smudge is left on the floor, and a whitish trail of prints leading to the kitchen with a fainter trail back. Finally, he hoovers up all the dust. A well-worn routine.

I watch numbly, huddling under covers with my arms wrapped around my knees. When he's finished, he comes to sit beside me. My lips and fingertips are cold. An ashy haze hangs in the air.

"It went right through her like nothing," I tell him. "Like popping a soap bubble."

I don't get out of bed until close to noon, when I'm woken by a heavy knock on the door. I watch bleary-eyed from the bedroom as Mitchell opens it. Grant slouches there, looking bored, scraping dark grime from under his fingernails with a pocket knife. Engrossed in the task, he doesn't look up, though I think he might be half-grinning behind his whiskers.

"I ain't a little pitcher but I do have me some big ears. And the walls here are real thin . Y'all oughta know that Nick was mighty fond of that girl. It's a darn shame."

He looms in the doorway and the hall light behind him throws his even bigger shadow into the flat, dwarfing Mitchell in every dimension.

I put on my dressing gown, shrink into the furthest corner of the sofa, light a cigarette and try to look nonchalant. If anyone were paying attention, the tremor in my hand would give me away immediately. Nobody's looking at me though; this is vampire business.

Mitchell is all adrenaline and eyebrows. He crosses his arms and stares daggers at Grant. "You think standing there taking up space will scare us?" He feints toward Grant like a boxer ready to enter the ring. To my surprise, Grant flinches.

"Nick knew the deal." Mitchell continues. His voice is laced with poison. "As long as we didn't make trouble we were to be left alone. Lydia knew it too. Tell Nick whatever you like. Try using words he understands. Like 'breach of contract.' "

Grant folds up the knife and puts it in his back pocket. "Didn't know y'all had a contract, per se. Thought it was more of a, um, gentlemen's agreement."

"We're not gentlemen," says Mitchell through clenched teeth. "But let's not quibble: it was an agreement. We're obliged to keep them, and we should be teaching our recruits to do the same. Tell Nick that, too."

Grant wrinkles his thick coppery eyebrows as he considers this. He extracts a fat silver lighter from his front pocket and a cigarette from behind his ear. It looks like a toothpick in his enormous hand. He finishes half the cigarette before he speaks again.

"Fair enough. I'll tell him, all right. I won't make nothin' up, but I won't leave nothin' out neither." He smirks. "She got a few good licks in before she went. A damn waste, losin' a bright girl like that."

He drops the end of his cigarette on the floor, jams his hands into the pockets of his fringed suede jacket, and turns to go.

"Welp, I'll be seein' ya."

This book always helped. It's been read so many times that its cover is in pieces. Most of the last chapter has fallen out of the binding, and its loose pages must be tucked carefully back inside when I'm finished reading them. My eyes slide over the dear familiar words and pictures without taking anything in. I find myself gazing vacantly into the empty space past the book. Even Pooh and Piglet can't distract me today.

"I don't think you can actually read a book without looking at it." Mitchell takes it from my hands, being sure to stuff the last chapter back inside, and marks my spot with a playing card, and sets it on the coffee table. He's just finished the washing up after supper and leaves wet fingerprints soaking into on the dark red leather cover. It'll dry.

I catch his wrist as he turns to go back to the kitchen. "I feel like a murderer. Am I a murderer?"

He smiles. "Of course not. Self defense. She tried to hurt you. Anyway, she was already dead."

Maybe he's right, but I don't believe it. Coming from him, it sounds like an excuse. It's the depth of the chasm between us - bottomless, opaque, uncrossable.

"No she wasn't. That's a stupid vampire figure of speech. What happened was, I killed her. You can't kill a dead person. She was like you. And you aren't dead."

He shrugs. "It's not that simple. The people we once were? Dead. Gone from the world. I'm only what's left."

Stop hiding . Let's not be monsters. Please.

I plunge onward, trying to explain myself. "Fine. You're not that other bloke anymore. But I never knew him. I know you. I'm not the same as before I met you either. The girl I was: did she die?"

He inclines his head away from me, and closes his eyes with a pained expression. He's not ready to concede this, and I hear the note of frustration and annoyance creep into his voice.

"No, no, it's physical. When you become a vampire you actually die. Things are taken from you- "

Stop it. Stop it.

"-Yeah, okay. I think I'm past the beginners' lessons by now. But hey, don't you still feel this?" I lace my fingers through his and bring his hand to my lips as if to kiss it. I bite him instead, hard.

"Ow."

"See? You felt that. Because you're not dead." He's not arguing. I want him to. "How about this? Bet you feel this too." I elbow him in the ribs.

"Ouch. Okay. You win. You've made your point. "

"Have I? What is my point?" I want him to shove me to the floor and pin me there. I want the floor to be hard and awkward against my spine. I want it to hurt. Tie my hands. Gag me. Make it not my fault.

He doesn't do those things.

He grabs my wrists. "That's enough." As if he's scolding a misbehaving child. I wonder what he'd do if I kicked and screamed and thrashed. A dull roaring fills my ears. The air is too thick to breathe.

"Stop saying you're dead! Stop! It's not true. You wouldn't be talking to me then, would you?" Since he's holding my wrists, I kick him in the leg. "Did that hurt? Am I annoying you? Because dead people don't get annoyed."

"Are you finished?"

I need to calm down. I do my best to keep my voice level, though I'm nearly hyperventilating. "Don't fucking ask me that. You want some blindingly obvious human wisdom? Vampires are liars. That pile of dirt you swept up? That's dead. She's dead. Not you."

The itching in my throat expands into a cough, and another, and another. I cough until my sides hurt.

After the fit subsides, he dabs at my face with a handkerchief. He must think I've gone mad.

"And she was so easy to kill. I don't understand it."

"Killing is easy. It's boring. Death is everywhere - on the street, in your bed, under your feet. It's what we all have in common: either we have died, or we will die. Sometimes more than once. But okay, we'll call it... what I am... something else. Does that help?"

"I don't know." My throat is raw. Talking hurts.

"What would help? What do you want from me?"

"I want you to remember what it's like. Maybe you really can't understand it anymore.It costs. I'm less than I was before. But listen: You are alive. I believe that. I know it. And I can't bear to think of you dissolving into nothing."

It's not until he disengages my hand that I find I've been gripping his forearm so hard my fingers ache. He looks down at the little crescent-shaped marks I've left on him, and then back at me.

"I'm not afraid of being nothing. Being alive frightens me more."

"It should. It's terrifying to have something to lose. No matter how much you sacrifice, how hard you try to hold on, you'll lose it anyway. I love that you're afraid. We have that in common."

The next night. We drink the rest of a bottle of whiskey and stare at the evening news without following any of it. Very loud footsteps thump up the stairs. Someone pounds on the door.

"Mitchell! Open up! I need to speak with you!"

Nick's here. I'm too frightened to panic. The last of the liquor burns its way down my throat. My dark skirt is sprinkled with fallen cigarette ash. I left the good ashtray on the kitchen counter beside the sink. The stupid heavy glass one, already filled to overflowing, squats on the other end of the coffee table near the armchair, out of reach.

Mitchell takes his time answering the door. On the way, he retrieves the stake from his coat pocket and carries it casually at his side, like a newspaper or a hairbrush. Looking through the peephole, he relaxes, and turns to me to silently whisper, "Alone."

"I'm letting you in, okay?" he calls through the door. "You can stop knocking." The door opens and I smell earth and alcohol, piss and sweat.

Cutler staggers in, disheveled and hollow-eyed. His collar is undone, overcoat hanging open. A single vertical drip of blood on his white shirt has turned brown at the edges. Drying mud is caked on his shoes and smeared on his trouser cuffs. His watery blue eyes are shot with red. The voice is no different, though. He may as well be discussing rental contracts.

"Ah, you haven't run off. Good. I wanted to share something with the two of you." He pauses to mop his brow with a filthy handkerchief.

"I almost believed you had the right idea: don't go it alone. Find a special person. Someone you can trust, who's on your side. Now, someone like that, especially suited for you, the right combination of attraction and cleverness and ..." He bites his lower lip and sucks air through his teeth, "...a hand in a glove, a key to a lock, a flame to a fuse... doesn't come round very often. Perhaps once. If you're lucky. Twice would be statistically unlikely, wouldn't it?"

His grimy hand rakes through his hair, pasting it roughly back from his forehead. "Here's what I learned, or had to be reminded: one oughtn't be too attached. It's weakness. Whether you kill a girl or sleep with her, accept the deal you're offered, or not - you give something up either way." He takes a swig from a flask and with some difficulty wrestles it back into his coat pocket. "Isn't that right, Mitchell?

"But you must never invest too much. Because... Where's the advantage? Once she's gone, what about your investment? Doesn't matter! The door's shut. Only you knew what was once behind it. All the evidence: dust. No one saw or felt a thing. It never. Fucking. Happened."

"That's hilarious." Mitchell isn't even smiling. "Nick. It wasn't some sort of random accident. Lydia didn't fall down a well. She wasn't eaten by bears. And Josie didn't kill her. You did." He gives a brief meaningful glance in my direction. Nice try.

Cutler takes a step toward Mitchell but stumbles on the edge of the rug. He has to lean heavily on the back of the armchair to keep his balance. Little clods of dirt crumble from the edges of his shoes. We'll need to clean the floor again.

"That's an arguable point but I'm going to let it pass." Nick gestures toward each of us with the hand that isn't gripping the armchair. "The trouble you and your mates gave us when you first got here... Lack of discretion, trails of evidence, chaos to reorder... None of that's happened again, has it? There's no muss no fuss." He wipes his hands together as if cleaning them off, and almost falls over. "Nothing out of order. Nothing at all." His voice trails off into a nearly inaudible mumble.

"I ought to let you know: My plans haven't changed. I'll be leaving for Wales next week. Grant will be in charge. There's a big job ahead of me and I expect I shall be too busy to trouble myself with the goings-on here."

It takes one of us at each of his elbows to get him out the door.

Before he leaves for good, Nick's dull eyes fill with something like clarity for a moment, and he grabs me by the shoulder. "She thought the world of you, you know."

While I brush my teeth, Mitchell leans round the bathroom doorway. "We're finally rid of him. Nice going."

"Don't. It's not something I'm proud of." I take out my earrings and start toward the bedroom to get undressed.

"But you should be. You were too clever for her."

"I wasn't. I nearly let her kill me. Stephanie talked me out of it at the last minute."

He follows me into the bedroom, frowning. "You're not joking, are you?"

"No. I was just so tired."

"Tired." It's not a question.

"More than tired. I've run out of water in the desert at the edge of a hole a thousand feet deep and animals are chasing me and there's nowhere to go but in. And it looks sort of cool and peaceful down there. Remember when you almost let Albert stake you? I get it now."

His face darkens. "No, no! You've got it all wrong. That was completely different."

"I don't think it was. You were cornered. You felt hopeless. You gave up. So did I."

He sits on the edge of the bed, taking off his boots. One of his white socks has a hole in the toe. "Here's the difference: Your life belongs to you. You know where I got mine. It's stolen." He chucks his socks on the pile of laundry in the corner. The muscle in his temple twitches.

Abruptly, he wheels toward me. "I've killed hundreds of people. Why would Albert ever let me go? Tell me why."

I chew my lip. My face turns red. He waits an uncomfortably long time before answering his own question.

"Why? Because you asked him to."

I can't argue with that. I slip out of my blouse and bra and into the oversized paint-stained t-shirt that smells like his aftershave.

"So what's happened is we've spared each other. Are we even, then? In that case, I'm right back where I started: lonely, miserable, and ready to die."

"Jesus Christ, Josie. Is that what you want?" His face contorts in rage, or is it grief? He presses his fist against his mouth and takes it away, like a slow-motion punch, only his hand is shaking. "Fine. I didn't kill you because I wasn't hungry. Now's your chance." His eyes blacken, his face feral and alien.

"Why not? You can't frighten me." I push my hair back, tilt my head, and and bare my throat to him. "Go ahead. Do it." My eyes fix on the overhead light burning its shape into my retinas. All I can see is white.

"Aw fuck!" He shoves me across the room. "Get away from me!"

I land beside the armchair, my clothes speckled with crumbs of dirt from Cutler's shoes. The whiskey bottle has spun off of the coffee table and landed beside him, unbroken. He kicks it against the wall hard enough to break it. Only a black and white label holds together the fragments of shattered glass.

"Stupid girl. Why did I think you were any different? Just like all of them, weak and useless, giving up without even a twitch. A sorry little death wish."

A pale streak appears in the air beside him and swipes him across the face with an audible crack. Stephanie can't do him much damage but she's got his attention.

"Shut your mouth! You're all soppy apology when you meet someone with backbone, but show a little vulnerability and you just go in for the kill, don't you? You're disgusting. Have some fucking respect. Nobody's done more for you than she has, you ungrateful bastard. The very least you could do is have the tiniest bit of compassion for someone other than yourself."

"Is that all?" With his his head lowered in shame, his hair hangs shaggily over his face. I want to push it out of his eyes, but I don't dare move.

"No, as a matter of fact, it isn't. I know you don't want to hear it, but let me remind you: I'm dead. I'm dead! I'll never have anything like a life, thanks to you and your incredible lack of self control. Don't piss hers away too, you selfish piece of shit."

Stung, he sits beside me but drawn away, an invisible barrier preventing us from touching. He covers his face with his hands, and shudders without making a sound.

"Oh God. I'm sorry."

She tuts impatiently. "Quit saying you're sorry and get your head out of your arse. Be a decent human being for once."

None of this is fair. Nobody wins this. But I know hard he's tried, again and again, day by day, minute by minute.

"Give him a little credit," I tell her. "Right now he's showing quite a lot of self control."

He's sitting on the bed, looking down, nervously drumming his fingers on his knees. "You've got ... Do you know what I'd give to be human again? Do you have any idea? You have friends and a future and a place in the world. Why on earth would you want to throw that away? For Christ's sake, how can you think that's not worth anything?"

"What future? I'll get old, you won't. I'll die alone, weak, helpless, confused, in pain. Perhaps it's better to be like you. "

"Don't be stupid. Stephanie's right. I don't know how to be decent. Look what almost happened. I need you. If I lost you, what would I do? Where could I go?"

"You don't need me. You know right from wrong."

"Do I? Do you really think so? This: working, having a home, a routine, acting human - none of it is me! It's all you."

"No. You chose this, remember? We both did."

"I can't do this alone. The very idea of it terrifies me. Do you love that? Are you satisfied?"

Every door is locked. There's nowhere left to go.

The wounds, though invisible, are horrific, and they don't heal. I can barely comprehend what happened to him, but it was something like this: he was fully conscious while his humanity was torn from his body and eaten. What's lost can't grow back.

I used to think I could save him. I can't.

"Mitchell. I'm sorry." I can't hold the tears back anymore.

"Don't cry. It's alright. Sh."

"It's not."

He sighs. I bury my face in his shirt.

He pulls me close. "I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing. It doesn't help."

I curl up on the bed and cry extravagantly. No curse words are filthy enough. He sits beside me and strokes my hair. His hand shakes. The world doesn't care. No place is safe.

He's known all along. I've known too, but I've been ignoring it.

Left drifting after Lydia's sudden absence, Roger comes to see me. There's nothing he can say that doesn't make me hate him.

"Did you hear Lydia moved to Wales?" he asks me.

I saved your life and you don't even know it. I could kill you myself, with nothing but my nails and teeth.

"I did hear that, yes."

"It's like she's evaporated! Do you think something could've happened to her? Josie, they think I've got something to do with it! Isn't that ridiculous? The police even brought me in for questioning. It took hours! It was so degrading. I felt like a zoo animal."

"Did you get jealous, Roger?"

"What, me? Why would I?"

"Oh I don't know. Maybe because she left you? We both know Nick wasn't some minor fling. Had you ever been dumped before? Didn't it make you angry?"

"What are you implying? That I would harm her in any way? You know me better than that."

It's true. As much as he's disappointed me, he hasn't a violent bone in his body. Turns out I'm the violent one. And I'm not just playing at sadistic: I'd like to twist the knife a little more, and a little more still.

"No you're right. Maybe she doesn't want to be found. Perhaps she just wants nothing more to do with you. Still, I warned you about Nick. He could be up to all sorts of trouble."

"I should have taken him more seriously. I'm sorry I didn't believe you. You were right."

He's admitting it! I'm right and he's wrong! It's a miracle, but I can't even enjoy it. I want this conversation to be over.

"Roger, I'm sure she'll contact you when she's ready. Otherwise, it's her move, isn't it? You'll have to let her go. If I hear anything, I'll be sure to let you know. Now, I must go to work in a few minutes, but it's been lovely to see you. Sorry it couldn't be a longer visit."

After he leaves, I crawl into bed and lie perfectly still, as if crusted over with corruption that will foul the whole room if I loosen it from my skin. I didn't plan to be a murderer, or a liar.

Stephanie is fading. I know she hasn't gone. She still leaves hopeful cigarettes for me to find. I'll feel her touch my arm sometimes. She writes me notes: "The postman had a package addressed to you, but he went away without leaving a notice. Idiot." Or perhaps: "I said, this programme is rubbish. Why don't you read a book or something? Anything but this." Or simply: "The blue one. The yellow makes you look tired."

I'm having dreams where we're in bed and Mitchell dissolves, leaving only dusty sheets and a puff of cold air. Or I reach for him and my hand passes through a shape like a collapsing body, like a cylinder of old cigarette ash, and comes away coated in fine grey powder.

He doesn't understand what's changed. Stephanie is fading because I don't want to touch him. When I look at him, I only see ashes.

It will keep happening. We'll meet people, humans, vampires, ghosts, maybe even others, who knows , and they will be our friends. And one after another, they will be killed, or they will kill each other, or we will kill them, or they will kill us. Death after death after death. It won't stop. Perhaps some or even most of them will be justified. There will be piles of dust, corpses, blood, tears, empty dresses, lovers left behind who don't know what happened. And we will have to keep the secrets. I'll never stop resenting the lost friend, the missed opportunity, the boundary overstepped.

And meanwhile, I will grow older. My hair will turn grey, the crow's feet will deepen around my eyes, my joints will grow sore and stiff, my vision will weaken. I'll look like his auntie or his mum. I'll be sick and slow. I'll be a pervert of a different sort, a cradle robber.

Better if we end it before any of that.

Nothing really happens. I expected there to be some great shattering moment when the time became clear. Instead, it's week after week of teaching little girls and chainsmoking and plucking grey hairs and feeling sore when it rains. I grow sadder and sadder until simply looking at him makes me want to burst into tears. It's time to go.

Albert's friend has offered me a job with a dance company in Montreal. I'll be in a new country, full of strangers and possibilities. Today is the day. Mitchell takes both of my hands, squeezes them tightly and gives me a mournful smile. "This is the best thing. You're going to be fine."

Light slides through the curtains turning the air the color of honey. He puts on water for tea, leaving me sitting alone listening to the water running, doors opening and closing, mugs set down on the counter, steam rising from the kettle.

"Here. Hot tea, cold heart... Wait, that's not how it goes..."

I can't breathe. I want to take it all back. Someone has dug a hole in my chest and it's caving in. What will happen to him when I'm gone?

His fingers press into the back of my arms and his face is rough against my neck. "I'm sorry," I murmur into his ear. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

"Stay good or I'll be on the next plane home to come and... and whip you back into shape. You know how I am when I'm angry."

He smiles. "I'll bear that in mind."

I've been imagining this day since the beginning. Now that it's here, the inevitability washes over me like warm bath water. I'm okay.

There's nothing dangerous left between us, only the rendering of goodbyes: friction of skin against skin, kisses here and here and here, bodies arching and relaxing in familiar patterns. This smile, this closed eye, this birthmark, these fingertips, this rhythm. It's been months since we've been this close. I wish I could frame this moment and keep it behind glass.

His skin still tastes of honey and ashes, but his tears taste like mine: Salt. Just salt