Page 5 (1/2)

"You’re a quick study," he said with approval He spun me around in an odd little dance step and helped me back onto the stu about us About how you think this is all a dreaets, the more it seems like a dream," I admitted

"How do you know that it’s not the other way around, pet?"

"What--that my other life is the dream, and this is my real life?" I asked

"Makes asto the ground and reclining to look up at me

"Aren’t you worried about the bunnies?" I asked

"Oh, no They won’t bother me," he said

"Why not? They just like naked women?"

"They like naked anybody But I’ down at hian to notice little details that I’d overlooked on our walk He seemed to be in his early thirties, but his skin was unusually sray And no stubble He s me his teeth

They were very pointy

"What are you?" I asked, my voice loasn’t sure I wanted to know

"What do you think I a

"A vampire," I said

"What’s that?" he asked As if he’d never heard the word and couldn’t decide if it was an insult or not

"How have you never heard of vaes," I said, be

"You’re smart," he said "And you heard him call me Bludman Surely you understand"

"Fine You’re adifferent about you"

"You’re starting to piece it together, love," he said "This is a different world from yours, which means that there are different rules Your worldhere runs on blood That’s why it’s called Sang, I think"

"The world is called Sang, or this country is called Sang?"

"The everything is called Sang We’re now on an island called Sangland, approaching the city of Manchester There are villages and cities, mayors and Coppers, Pinkies and Blud," I mused to myself "In the past tense I like that But what’s a Pinky?"

"You’re a Pinky, darling," he said with a fond smile "You eat plants and animals and drink water, and your blood is allpink to your cheeks The cities are full of your kind, of all different colors and sorts But they all taste about the same"

"You eat people?" I said with an involuntary shiver

"Eat people? Chew thehed, another crystal-clear sound ringing through the silence "Never Just drink of them And not directly, not anymore From vials,it as he had, like "blood-mun"

"I am," he said with a bow of the head "My kind can be born or made, and I’m born"

"Are you dead?" I asked I had to know

"Do I look dead?" He chuckled "Honestly, where did you hear such tales? I’m alive; my body just works differently from yours I’m a predator, see And you’re the prey"

"What about that rabbit?" I asked "Are you saying that’s a vaer to the offending creature and held out his finger to it This one was an albino with bright blue eyes, and in my world, it wouldn’t have lasted five minutes before a hawk or a fox scooped it up Here, it was bold as brass The rabbit sniffed him and hissed, then hopped away in a sulk

"That was a bludbunny," he said "And they start out sucking blood, then eating flesh, then cracking bones until they’re round as balls There are no real rabbits left,on carrots and flowers But there are bludrats and bluddeer and bludhogs Pretty much all of the wild animals are blood drinkers, outside of the old-fashioned predators--wolves and the like They keep the eating anis and such, contained inside the cities To keep them pure And in one piece"

"Oh," I said I suddenly felt like a bit of water in, unstoppable and overwhel

"You don’t feel safe any can har as you’re with me"

"But what happens when I leave you?" I asked hi hed and pulled at the grass "Don’t te blades of grass, weaving the, a waltz

"What are you doing?" I asked hiet used to the idea ofto be har?"

"Until you sain, his face radiant

"Can’t help that, love," he said "Not around you"