THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

fifth donor.”
    “Someone you know?”
    “Yeah. Well, sort of. I don’t know know him, but I recognized him from the all-night video rental spot on Arcadia Boulevard.” She shook her head as though she still couldn’t get over the wonder of it. “That’s when it hit me. They’re everywhere, aren’t they? Doing all kinds of night work. Running gas pumps, re-stocking shelves…”
    “Yes, and DJ-ing at radio stations, hosting late-night call-in shows, driving taxi cabs. And there are still more working from their homes. Telecommuting has been the biggest lifestyle improvement for these people since the all-night diner.”
    “Wow. They’re everywhere.”
    “Not everywhere, but more commonplace than you might imagine.”
    “It was strange, though. Doing a venipuncture and thinking, this guy is probably thinking about what my blood would taste like. And then thinking, no, he’s probably thinking how I’m thinking that he’s thinking about what I’d taste like, and what a rube I am for thinking it.”
    He laughed, a short bark of hilarity that surprised him.
    “Ah, you were right the first time.”
    “Oh, my Lord!”
    “Just think of it the same way you would a regular male patient. It’s as instinctive to a vampire to speculate about sampling your blood as it is for a normal man to think about what it would be like to have sex with you.”
    She goggled at him. “Men really think about that when I’m sticking a large-gauge needle into their veins?”
    A red-blooded man would be thinking about sex with Ainsley Crawford even if she were preparing to slice into their flesh with a scalpel without benefit of anesthetic, but he thought better of sharing that thought. “I’m afraid so. Blame it on the power of the male drive to procreate.”
    “Procreation…” Her brows drew together. “Is that something vampires do?”
    He sobered quickly. “No.”
    “They don’t have sex?”
    Christ, how had this discussion gotten started? “They don’t produce offspring. They are physically incapable of conception, whether you’re talking vampire on vampire, or vampire on non-vampire.”
    Her frown deepened. “That is so sad.”
    “No,” he said. “No, actually it isn’t. A vampire infant doesn’t bear thinking about.”
    She pulled back. “Why not?”
    “For a vampire, the thirst is constant. The men and women you met tonight, it takes extraordinary discipline for them to live their lives the way they do. The call to feed, to take what they want from their relatively weaker, vulnerable human brothers and sisters … it’s unimaginably hard to resist. As is the idea of their own superiority. They are infinitely stronger, faster, more physically vital.”
    “Okay,” she conceded. “I see what you’re saying. We must look like dumb cattle. Or maybe sacrificial lambs, tied to the stake.”
    “To some, yes. But not to the ones you met tonight. The difference between them and the creature that attacked you is that they cling to their humanity. The hunger is no less powerful, but the discipline is there. A child vampire, however … well, let’s just say that in the world of vampires, it’s completely taboo to turn a child. An adult vampire needs to feed enough to maintain himself or herself. They need to take in enough blood to sustain them and to fight off the day’s aging. But a child … their needs are phenomenally heavy, given the burden of growth, and they lack the self-control to be integrated into the shared world. They are both innocent and deadly.”
    “Omigod, it’s true. Vampires don’t age!”
    God, there she went again with the Hollywood stereotypes. “They most definitely do age. They just do it in a profoundly slower manner than un-mutated humans.”
    “Like turtles, you mean? Negligible senescence?”
    He managed a tight smile. “Yes, like turtles. And rockfish and sturgeon and bivalves. Once they reach physical maturity, the aging process is all but halted. And just like those species, vampires typically succumb to accident or predation long before they would meet their natural end from old age.”
    Her eyes shone. “This is so exciting! Just think of it, Del, if you could bottle that…”
    Del? He was Del, now? He didn’t know whether to be honored or horrified. He’d been Lane once, briefly, an eternity ago, but never Del. He chose to ignore her use of the diminutive.
    “Believe me, there are R&D companies trying to extract that mutation as we speak. Unfortunately,