Need by Todd Gregory Page A

handle.
    They weren’t drunk, but they were well on their way. I could smell the alcohol seeping through their pores, and the sweet smell of marijuana hung around them. They’d left Bourbon Street to smoke a joint in their car, I surmised, and now were on their way back to have another drink.
    It would almost be too easy to feed from them.
    I started down the steps after them but stopped myself. I wasn’t strong enough to handle them both—I’d given too much of my blood to Jared. I cursed myself again for a fool. I could handle only one person, and I needed darkness and seclusion to manage even that.
    I listened for Jared, and heard his shallow snoring.
    But I could smell the couple’s blood, could hear the pounding of their hearts, and could feel the desire growing within my chest. There was still time, I reasoned, but I needed to hurry.
    As I watched the couple hurriedly walk toward the lights and noise of Bourbon Street, out of the corner of my eye I thought I again saw movement in the windows across the street.
    I stared through the darkness. The pink clouds had cleared, exposing the velvety bluish black of the night sky and the sparkling of hundreds of stars. The sliver of a moon hung, barely casting any light. It’s amazing, I reflected for perhaps the thousandth time, how dark New Orleans gets at night .
    Miami was always so bright you could hardly see the stars at night.
    The light from the streetlamps barely penetrated the darkness, and the dampness of the air created a hazy halo around the glowing lights.
    Had I really seen something? Had something actually moved in the window, or was I just imagining things?
    I swallowed and walked across the street.
    Vampires have much more powerful night vision than humans. The first time I’d experienced it, it had kind of freaked me out. That first night after my conversion, when Jean-Paul took me out to feed from the house on Orleans, was forever burned into my memory. It was Ash Wednesday, and the sun had already set. It had rained all day, so the streets and sidewalks were slick and wet. Water dripped from the overhang as I stepped out onto the steps. A cold wind was blowing from the direction of the river, and Bourbon Street sounded muted. But despite the gray fog and the darkness, I was stunned at how vividly I could see. The thick fog was simply like a veil of gauze, and the glowing streetlights seemed to dance with vibrant, living light. I stood there, with the water dripping onto the side of my face, enrapt, looking first one way, then another, unable to fathom and comprehend how amazingly beautiful everything seemed.
    â€œCome with me, my dear.” Jean-Paul had smiled at me and taken my hand. When I reached the bottom step, he leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “You have all eternity to see the beauty of the world. Come on, it’s time for you to feed.” He led me down to the corner of Dauphine Street, and we turned left. My tongue kept feeling the incredibly sharp points on my incisors, and I could hear a lot of hearts beating ahead of us. He led me to a bar called Good Friends. There had been only a few people there, besides a cute blond bartender who couldn’t have been much older than I was. Jean-Paul ordered us each a glass of absinthe, which he taught me how to sip while he decided which of the few other patrons would be perfect for me to take my first drink of human blood from.
    My preference would have been the bartender. He was so beautiful, with his blond hair and golden skin, with his perky little butt inside his black shorts.
    But Jean-Paul finally settled on a dusky man in his midthirties, who kept looking at us over the rim of his glass of vodka and soda. He got up and joined us, introducing himself as Matt. He said he was from Iowa—Des Moines, to be exact—and came down for Mardi Gras every year. He was tired, worn out from the five days of excess that had preceded Ash Wednesday, but he