“It won’t last long.”

“Does it affect you?”

“I get a breath of it, maybe feel a bit jollier than usual, but that’s about it.”

“You won’t eat me, will you?”

He didn’t even look at me, and I didn’t hear his response, although I’m sure it was comical. My head swelled, my ears becoming thick with muddy volume all around me, like everyone was speaking under water, and moving that way too.

“You okay, kiddo?” He laughed at me.

“I feel like I’m sitting on the very top peak of a roller-coaster,” I said, not sure if I’d actually said it.

He laughed again and sat back, nodding to the far corner of the room, darkly shadowed by the lack of light. “Watch carefully over there. It’s not easy to see, we’re pretty skilled at discretion.”

In the pitch black corner, a flash of white teeth caught my eye. Each wall was tightly packed with half-naked bodies; the girls, with their heads rolled to one side—necks exposed—were topless; their companions clothed.

“Are there any female vampires here?”

“A few.” He shrugged. “They usually pick the women off too, though.”

“Really, why?”

“Don’t know. Ask ‘em.” He shrugged again, shuffling forward on his chair to watch.

“Do you eat here?” I asked so casually it almost sounded like we were discussing Betty’s Burger cafe.

“I do. But not tonight.”

“Why?”

“Because I have you with me.” He reached across and folded my fingers into his. “I won’t make the mistake of walking away from you when we’re in a room full of vampires, ever again.”

The gluggy feeling of being filled up with too much water or oxygen dissipated, leaving me feeling slightly giddy. I sat forward, suddenly not so worried about the fact that, below, people were about to die; a feeling I think was owed to this drug. But it cleared my head in a way that made it safe for me to watch, to look below and see the beauty in the motion—the way the vampires seemed to move to a pulse; to hold their victims with what almost looked like love; to see the slender lines of the human’s throats, open and completely exposed; to understand the trust, the dedication to give their life over.

“It’s sort of...”

“Beautiful,” Eric finished for me; I looked at him, wanting to be disgusted, but too high to process that.

“Yeah. Sort of.”

We stood then and I wrapped my fingers around the red rail, feeling each nub of raised paint around it, aware of the sticky residue of sweat and maybe blood from nights passed. “Do any of the dancing one’s ever notice?”

“Nope. And if they do, we just kill them. But mostly, everyone’s high on one thing or another. Add the vapour-remedy to that—” he nodded to an air-conditioning vent, “and you pretty much get a peaceful, effortless kill.”

“Doesn’t that take away the thrill—the stalk?”

“That’s not what we crave, really. That’s kind of like, well, you know how some humans watch horror movies, because they like the thrill, and the ones who watch romance think the horror-watching ones are creepy and sadistic?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it’s like that with stalking your kill. Some do it, but it’s seen as a bit of a bizarre act—more for those who like that kind of thing.”

“Does David?”

“I don’t know his killing style, Amara. You’d be better to ask Emily.”

“How would Emily know?”

“She hunts with him.”

Oh, yeah. Right. Didn’t think of that. “So, if they’re all high—” I pointed below, “—do you get high too, when you drink their drug-laced blood?”

“Yeah.” Eric rested his face on the ball of his palm, his elbow on the railing. “But I’m not into drugs. I pick off the drunk ones—or the designated drivers.”

“What about David?”

Eric shrugged. “Dunno.”

“Do you think he could be here tonight?”

“Nope. This place is a little beneath Council members.”

“Is public sex?” I nodded toward a vampire and a human, practically fornicating in the corner, the kill still only a suggestion among the possibilities. “Do all vampires have sex with their victims?”

“You mean, is David out there, right now, fu—I mean, making love to some blonde?”

“Yeah.”

“Nope.” Eric shook his head. “It’s optional, but most of us do.”

“Even in public?”

“Yeah,” he said with a chuckle, his gaze floating to the couple below, now completely naked—their bodies slamming together. My ears burned, the embarrassment tied up beneath the weight of the drug, but still severe enough to show itself a little.

“Is that not bound to attract attention?” I asked.

“Only if the thirty-or-so humans doing the same is.” He pointed to the dance floor. “This is just one of those places, Amara. It’s an adult club—a seedy, drug infested, rave. You’re just so sweet and naïve, you’ve never heard of places like this, before.”

“I’ve never uh—” I felt stupid saying this. “I’ve never seen people have sex before either.” Aside from Emily and Mike, but that was so locked away it didn’t count.

His fingers went white around the railing. “Really?”

“Yeah. Is that...bad?”

It was almost like he became weightless, his body seeming to float above the ground, though he didn’t move. “I’m sorry, Amara. I didn’t realise. I’d never have brought you here if I’d known you were that sheltered.”

“I’m okay.”

“I know you are. But, I’ve tainted you, haven’t I?”

“Maybe a little.” I shrugged. It’s not like I really cared.

“I’m sorry.”

“Like I said, I’m okay.”

The spotlight flashed past, illuminating the vampires in a splendour of blood red before plunging them into darkness again. “That’s their cue.” Eric leaned on the railing again.

I picked a kill to watch, choosing the artistic appeal of a girl with long fiery-red hair, standing out among the crowd. Her perfectly white skin looked like porcelain; bare from the shoulders up, her spine arched over the arm of a vampire—his hold relaxed, but tight, like he was struggling with the weight of her slender body.