Bloodsucking fiends: a love story

said.
    "Not at all?"
    "Not as far as I know. I can't even keep a glass of water down."
    "Wow. Do you have to have blood every day?"
    "I don't think so."
    "Does it have to be – I mean, can you use animals, or does it have to be people?"
    Jody thought about the moth she had eaten and felt as if she'd just downed a cocktail mixed of two parts shame and five parts disgust, with a twist of nausea. "I don't know, Tommy. I didn't exactly get an instruction book."
    He was bouncing around the room like a hyperactive child. "How did it happen? Did you sell your soul to Satan? Am I going to turn into a vampire? Are you in a coven or something?"
    She wheeled on him. "Look, I don't know. I don't know anything. Let me get dressed and we'll go get something for you to eat. I'll explain then, okay?"
    "Well, you don't have to bite my head off."
    "Maybe I do," she snarled, surprised at the acid in her voice.
    Tommy backed away from her, his eyes wide with fear. She felt horrible. Why did I say that? This was happening too often, this loss of control – showing her burned hand to the bum on the bus, knocking Kurt out, eating the moth, and now threatening Tommy; none of it seemed to be by choice. It was as if vampirism carried with it a crampless case of rattlesnake PMS.
    "I'm sorry, Tommy. This has been hard."
    "It's okay." He picked up the jeans she had destroyed and began emptying the pockets. "I guess these are done for." He pulled out the business card that the motel manager had given him. "Hey, I forgot to tell you. This cop wants to talk to you."
    Jody stopped in the middle of tying her shoes. "Cop?"
    "Yeah, an old lady was killed at the motel last night. There were a zillion cops around when I got there this morning. They wanted to talk to everyone that was staying in the motel."
    "How was she killed, Tommy? Do you know?"
    "Somebody broke her neck and…" He stopped and stared at her, backing away again toward the bathroom.
    "What?" she demanded. "Her neck was broken and what?"
    "She'd lost a lot of blood," he whispered. "But there weren't any wounds." He bolted into the bathroom and shut the door.
    Jody could hear him throw the lock. "I didn't kill her, Tommy."
    "That's fine," he said.
    "Open the door. Please."
    "I can't, I'm peeing." He turned on the water.
    "Tommy, come out, I'm not going to hurt you. Let's go get you something to eat and I'll explain."
    "You go ahead," he said. "I'll catch up to you. Wow, I really had to go. Must have been all that coffee I drank today."
    "Tommy, I swear I didn't know anything about this until you told me."
    "Look at this," he said through the door, "I found that crucifix I lost last week. And what's this? My lucky vial of holy water."
    "Tommy, stop it. I'm not going to hurt you. I don't want to hurt anybody."
    "Oh, my garlic wreath. I wondered where I'd put that." Jody grabbed the door knob and yanked. The doorjamb splintered and the door came away in her hand. Tommy dived into the tub and peeked over the edge at her.
    She said, "Let's go get you something to eat. We need to talk." He pulled himself up slowly, ready to dive down the drain if she made a move. She backed away.
    He looked at the ruined doorjamb. "We're going to lose our deposit now; you know that, right?" Jody threw the door aside and offered her hand to help him out of the tub. "Can I buy you some fries? I'd really like to watch you eat some French fries."
    "That's weird, Jody."
    "Compared to what?"
    They walked to Market Street where, even at ten o'clock, the sidewalks were crowded with bums and hustlers and teams of podiatrists who had escaped the Moscone Convention Center to seek out burgers, pizzas, and beer in the heart of the City. Jody watched the heat ghosts trailing the street people while Tommy handed out coins like a meter-maid angel trying to atone for a lifetime of giving chickenshit tickets.
    He dropped a quarter into the palm of a half-fingered glove worn by a woman who was pretending to be a robot, but who looked more like a golem newly shaped from gutter filth. Jody noticed a black aura around the woman, as she had seen around the old man on the bus; she could smell disease and the rawness of open lesions and she almost pulled Tommy away.
    A few steps away she said, "You don't have to give them all money just because they ask, you know."
    "I know, but if I give them money I don't see their faces when I'm about to fall asleep."
    "It doesn't really help. She'll just spend it on booze or drugs."
    "If I was