hungry enough to scoop him up now and feed again without giving it another thought. I 
wasn't reasoning anymore as I looked at him. I saw only blood.
  
  And as if he knew it, indeed sensed it in full, he stiffened, glared at me fiercely for 
one moment, and then tossed the thick envelope at my feet and danced back frantically 
over the loose sand. It seemed his legs might go out from under him. He almost fell as he 
turned and fled.
  
  The thirst subsided a little. Maybe I wasn't reasoning, but I was hesitating, and that 
did seem to involve some thought. Who was this nervy young son of a bitch?
  
  Again, I tried to scan him. Nothing. Most strange. But there are mortals who cloak 
themselves naturally, even when they have not the slightest awareness that another might 
pry into their minds.
  
  On and on he sped, desperately and in ungainly fashion, disappearing in the darkness of 
a side street as he continued his progress away from me.
  
  Moments passed.
  
  Now I couldn't pick up his scent anymore at all, save from the envelope, which lay 
where he had thrown it down.
  
  What on earth could all this mean? He'd known exactly what I was, no doubt of it. 
Venice and Hong Kong had not been coincidence. His sudden fear, if nothing else, had made 
it plain. But I had to smile at his overall courage. Imagine, following such a creature 
as me.
  
  Was he some crazed worshiper, come to pound on the temple door in the hopes I'd give 
him the Dark Blood simply out of pity or reward for his temerity? It made me angry 
suddenly, and bitter, and then again I simply didn't care.
  
  I picked up the envelope, and saw that it was blank and unsealed. Inside, I found, of 
all things, a printed short story clipped apparently from a paperback book.
  
  It made a small thick wad of pulp pages, stapled together in the upper-left-hand 
corner. No personal note at all. The author of the story was a lovable creature I knew 
well, H. P. Lovecraft by name, a writer of the supernatural and the macabre. In fact, I 
knew the story, too, and could never forget its title: "The Thing on the Doorstep." It 
had made me laugh.
  
  "The Thing on the Doorstep." I was smiling now. Yes, I remembered the story, that it 
was clever, that it had been fun.
  
  But why would this strange mortal give such a story to me? It was ludicrous. And 
suddenly I was angry again, or as angry as my sadness allowed me to be.
  
  I shoved the packet in my coat pocket absently. I pondered. Yes, the fellow was 
definitely gone. Couldn't even pick up an image of him from anyone else.
  
  Oh, if only he had come to tempt me on some other night, when my soul wasn't sick and 
weary, when I might have cared just a little-enough at least to have found out what it 
was all about.
  
  But it seemed already that eons had passed since he had come and gone. The night was 
empty save for the grinding roar of the big city, and the dim crash of the sea. Even the 
clouds had thinned and disappeared. The sky seemed endless and harrowingly still.
  
  I looked to the hard bright stars overhead, and let the low sound of the surf wrap me 
in silence. I gave one last grief-stricken look to the lights of Miami, this city I so 
loved.
  
  Then I went up, simple as a thought to rise, so swift no mortal could have seen it, 
this figure ascending higher and higher through the deafening wind, until the great 
sprawling city was nothing but a distant galaxy fading slowly from view.
  
  So cold it was, this high wind that knows no seasons. The blood inside me was swallowed 
up as if its sweet warmth had never existed, and soon my face and hands wore a sheathing 
of cold as if I'd frozen solid, and that sheathing moved underneath my fragile garments, 
covering all my skin.
  
  But it caused no pain. Or let us say it did not cause enough pain.
  
  Rather it simply dried up comfort. It was only dismal, dreary, the absence of what 
makes existence worth it-the blazing warmth of fires and caresses, of kisses and 
arguments, of love and longing and blood.
  
  Ah, the Aztec gods must have been greedy vampires to convince those poor human souls 
that the universe would cease to exist if the blood didn't flow. Imagine presiding over 
such an altar, snapping your fingers for another and another and another, squeezing those 
fresh blood-soaked hearts to your lips like bunches of grapes.
  
  I twisted and turned with the wind, dropped a few feet, then rose again, arms 
outstretched playfully, then falling at my sides. I lay on my back like a sure swimmer, 
staring again into the blind and indifferent stars.
  
  By thought alone, I propelled myself eastward. The night still stretched over the city 
of London, though its clocks ticked out the small hours. London.
  
  There was time to say farewell to David Talbot-my mortal friend.
  
  It had been months since our last meeting in Amsterdam, and I had left him rudely, 
ashamed for that and for bothering him at all. I'd spied upon him since, but not troubled 
him. And I knew that I had to go to him now, whatever my state of mind.
  
  There wasn't any doubt he would want me to come. It was the proper, decent thing to do.
  
  For one moment I thought of my beloved Louis. No doubt he was in his crumbling little 
house in its deep swampy garden in New Orleans, reading by the light of the moon as he 
always did, or giving in to one shuddering candle should the night be cloudy and dark.