They crossed. There was a dry creek bed along the road and a beat-up old black Mercedes parked at the side. They went under a chain-link fence, and she led him down into the creek. It was usually full with water from the mountains, the only proof in Nowhere that the white-capped peaks were real, even in the valley heat. They lay down there, among the river rocks and dirt, looking up at the stars in the sky.
“Why did you want to go to that party?” he asked.
She laughed. Almost coyly. “It’s practically foreplay to watch those pricks acting out like that.”
He took Carter’s knife from her hand. She had been clutching it the whole time.
“What are you doing?” she asked softly, smiling.
He lifted his hair up away from his neck—thinking he would have to cut it off, it got in her way—and exposed the tendons to her. Then held up the knife to his neck. She laughed.
“I don’t need that, silly,” she told him.
Of course, Paul Michael thought. Duh. Can you say teeth, Paul Michael?
When she pulled away from him, his neck was throbbing and her mouth was black with blood in the dark.
“Your turn,” she said.
The Rescue
There was only one more time.
He woke in the middle of the night knowing he had to go to her. He got into the shower and scrubbed his skin with a rough washcloth until it almost hurt. Got out, wrapped a towel around his waist, shaved. Then he took a pair of scissors and cut all his wet hair off, shaved the remaining hair with his razor. There were a few nicks on his scalp that he dabbed at with bits of toilet paper. He put on a white undershirt and Levis. The jeans were loose—he’d lost weight in his gut. He didn’t put on his glasses. They were broken, gone, lost in the dirt, and he didn’t need them anyway. Paul Michael went outside and began to run. Suddenly he realized he probably shouldn’t have taken so much time getting ready.
He found her old diesel Mercedes parked by the riverbed. Carter and Kirk’s bikes were nearby, and the trunk of the car was open.
He walked up so quietly, amazed at how light and quiet his step had become, and saw what was happening. Carter and Kirk were bent over the trunk. He could see past their shoulders—his eyesight even in the dark and without glasses was different now. They were staring at her legs, and her legs and feet were bare. Paul Michael felt the violation of their eyes on her strange legs and feet. He took Carter’s knife out of his pocket, grabbed Carter by the collar, and pulled his head back so his throat was exposed. Kirk stumbled back and began to run, and Lilith opened her eyes and smiled at Paul Michael. He lunged into Carter, pushing his teeth into Carter’s neck, just breaking the skin a little. There was blood, and he moved back and bowed his head toward Lilith, who came forward and bent to drink like a little girl at a drinking fountain, demurely tucking her hair behind her ears. Paul Michael heard a soft gurgling sound. The taste of Carter’s blood was still salt and sticky on his lips, and he didn’t know if he could get used to drinking as much as he might eventually need. But he wasn’t all the way there yet, anyway. Lilith had said it was going to take a little while. She finished with Carter and mounted him the way she had mounted Paul Michael in his bedroom, but this time doing something complicated and quick to his neck and then tossing him aside onto the dirt. His body looked like a stuffed SpongeBob Paul Michael had as a kid after the dog ate all its stuffing. Lilith looked up at Paul Michael and her face was radiant, her cheeks and lips plumped up and her eyes bright. She grabbed him by the back of his neck and kissed him, sliding her mouth down over his chin and clamping her teeth into his neck. He was instantly hard. This time she drank for a little longer. He felt long, slow waves of pleasure, as if she was touching him below the waist. When they were done, she took the knife and made a suicidal slash across her wrist. She offered it to him, and he tenderly tasted the droplets, then lapped thirstily as more came out. When he was done, he watched as the cut sealed itself up without a mark.
He looked up at her and she glowed, infused with moonlight. “What do we do now?” he asked her.
She tilted her face to the sky, cupped her hands around her mouth, and made a strange, shrieking sound. They waited.
The birds came out of nowhere in the dark, a huge flock of black carrion birds that swept down upon Carter’s body, tore it to shreds as Paul Michael and Lilith watched, and spirited it away without a trace.
“What about Kirk?” Paul Michael said. “He’ll get help. Someone will come.”
“He didn’t make it home.” She squinted into the sky after the last bird. “There will be an investigation eventually, but for now I have time.”
They got into the back of her car, and Paul Michael told her all about Trellibrium. She listened carefully, asking pertinent questions.
“So Norser rescues the princess?” she asked.
He nodded, stroking her hair.
“But they should rescue each other,” she said.
He smiled to himself in the dark. There was a long silence. Paul Michael thought he could hear the stars crackling in the sky.
“What about you?” he asked her. “I want to know all about you. Where you come from and why you are here and how you became what you are.”
She sighed. “It’s better for you to know me only as I am, without the weakness I had before, to inspire you.”
“I want to know everything.”
Lilith turned on her side and leaned her head on his shoulder. She felt small as he cradled her, not like someone who could kill a boy the way she had.
“I was just a girl,” she said. “I thought I was really ugly. These boys were constantly calling me names. I was sexier than I should have been; I made them uncomfortable. So I turned all that power on myself. And that power—that girl sex power—it’s hard-core. I was going to kill myself, and I could have easily done it, and then this person came into my life. I called him Adam. He made me into this so that I could have my revenge and so that I could be his forever. But after he made me I was even more powerful than he was, and when I took my revenge on the ones who had hurt me I hurt him, too. Because I didn’t want to belong to anyone.”
Paul Michael didn’t feel that way, not at all. He wanted to belong to Lilith. She shifted and extricated herself from his embrace, then reached up and placed her own small arms around him.
After a while, he fell asleep like that. Hers.
Black Moon
The next morning, when he got home, Paul Michael looked at himself in the mirror, but he was not there. He was not there at all. He looked down at his arm. His skin looked smooth, hairless, and almost shiny. Paul Michael touched his face. His skin felt smooth there, too. No blemishes, no sheen of oil. He didn’t need his glasses anymore; he had left them smashed in the dirt the night before, and that was where they belonged. When he touched his scalp it was baby smooth. He lifted his arm and sniffed his armpit. There was no scent. None at all. Except perhaps a very faint tang of iron and something floral, maybe violets or white roses or poppies. He smelled beautiful. He smelled like her.
Later, after he had slept, Paul Michael left the house and walked into the night. It was a bit cooler, always after the sun had set. A warm wind swept through the town. It was riddled with disease and miracles. There was no moon. Black moon time. Lilith called it that.
Paul Michael’s step was lighter. He almost felt like he was floating, as if he didn’t have any organs weighing him down. The streets were mostly empty. A few cars drove by, and Paul Michael found himself retreating into the bushes, away from their light. He didn’t want the light, but he wasn’t afraid. That was one big difference; he wasn’t afraid of anything anymore.