15
MARKULA
I remain crouching but raise my face to the night sky, chin sticky with blood — sweet and mildly astringent like a good wine, but heavy like cream. We do not have to hurry; we’ll be gone long before the police show up to question anyone about the missing pediatrician, and I’ve not had a meal this decadent in a long time. The others seem to agree — the sound of feeding scratches at the fabric of the night.
I lick my lips and watch the back of Dawn’s head as she runs off, the slight cut of her shoulders, the flip of the skirt she so brazenly lifted for Draynor, the black boots that have molded themselves to her calves. The silk of her pale arm in the moonlight.
The others cannot smell her, or hear her, or feel her. They feed. And though I am aware of her, my senses are not as
