. After all those years spent proving myself, could I really quit before I’d had proof that I’d done it? And, yes, of course, Dad’s here, and Father McAffery and Berger cookies. But after all this time, couldn’t it ever be Carrie’s turn? I mean, what I would be doing in LA would be nothing like her little Italian Rumspringa.

MUNCH

I couldn’t believe that I was standing around, undead, still waiting for a woman to give me some kind of marching orders—once you find yourself tasting rat’s blood on a lean night because the conventioneers have gone home, shouldn’t something be more different? But it had been long enough that I tried to assert myself. “Look, Darla, when you said you need me, that doesn’t include sex, right? Because I’m not the same fool twice.” But in just that moment that I voiced that thought, it became very clear that I was, that some instinct I hardly knew I still had, regarding her at least, would be happy to have her up against some wall or in some alley, her chilly body against mine. “Angelus won’t do it, and I need you to return the favor.”

“I thought you didn’t like it when I did that thing with my finger.” Maybe she just didn’t want to admit it. Disgust and eagerness battled it out across her face. If I had a dollar for every time I saw that expression on a woman’s face, I probably wouldn’t have had rats’ blood for dinner tonight. “Not that favor,” She frowned, and her nose almost disappeared, a fascinating bit of genetic sleight-of-hand that I hadn’t realized that I’d missed.”I need you to give me my unlife back.”

Doing something that Angelus wouldn’t admittedly swelled what I would still think of as my scrawny chest, but then I do know what it's like, inside and out, when someone bleeds out. Feeding is one thing, but this?

“Think fast, please,” she said, and that small concession to courtesy made aware that that was serious. “Not only do I not have forever, but I’m sure I can’t leave Drusilla at American Girl in the district.”

For a moment, I’m excited, then afraid, as it begins to dawn on me that Dru having a wild shopping day involved more than somebody getting smacked with an overstuffed shopping bag and a cold pit formed in my stomach.

“Stay with me,” I pleaded, suddenly desperate. “We’ll figure something out. After we retrieve Dru and her companion for Miss Edith.”

After finally getting the most out of my vampiric speed and strength by covering ground to the shopping center in DC, I surveyed the scene. It seemed quiet for one of Drusilla’s aftermaths, and I almost relaxed, since I could spy the lady herself cradling a doll with one hand and picking through expensive little outfits with the other, but Dru spotted me first and came toward me, as happy to see me as if it had been moments rather than months since we parted. I wondered if she might hold a grudge, but she held out her new doll and said “Miss Molly has glasses, too. Like yours, naughty Munchkin. Did you not see I would care when you left?” The smell of blood, and the little trail of blood and Dru’s still pretty, yet horrifying, human face hit my consciousness all at once, overshadowing the smell of warming and overpriced scones in the girls-and-dolls tearoom.

“Dru, what did you do?” I asked, as the monster inside picked up the hints of blood among the smells of coffee, cinnamon and new toys and thought “Yum!” to what I felt might be my etern