He'd bitten one of them, and it almost seemed as if they understood.

But he knew he would need blood again, and he had to protect them from that.

"Thank you," he said, and shut his eyes.

"Maybe they left us down here with Chris on purpose," Josh whispered, some time later. "Maybe they're some sort of anti-vampire hate group, and they want us all dead and for Chris to get the blame."

"Well, Chris hasn't hurt us," Bradley said sharply.

"I know," Josh whispered back, to Christian's faint surprise. "But what will they do to us, when they see he hasn't?"

Pez spoke, in an unexpectedly clear voice. "I calculate that our chances of dying are approximately ninety-eight percent," he said, and then, "What? Sometimes I like to do mathematics in my head for fun. I find statistics fascinating."

"No you don't, you eat dishwasher powder," Josh said.

Pez asked, "I can't have depths?"

Everyone was lying flat on their backs in the dust, telling secrets. Christian thought vaguely that it was supposed to be a show of solidarity for him.

"I've never loved another woman like I love Faye," Bradley said dreamily, and that was when the door swung inward.

And Christian could move after all, move using all the strength given to him by Josh's blood, a promise of death launched at the throat of their enemy, and he snarled, "Leave my nest alone!"

His survival instinct stopped him with his fangs an inch from her throat, because he caught the scent of chrysanthemum perfume and evil. It was Faye.

It was Faye, as if Bradley had conjured her like a genie by speaking her name, and as she applied her sharp wooden heel to his kneecap in an almost affectionate way, Christian collapsed onto the floor with a sense of overwhelming relief.

It wasn't an antivampire hate group. It wasn't a crazed fan who wanted to marry one or all of them. It was just some guy-a rumpled, ordinary-looking guy-who blinked at them as if he didn't recognize them and managed to drawl out, "I wanted to be on TV."

When the colonel-because somehow Faye had managed to come to their rescue with the army at her back-asked him why he had left a vampire in a room with three humans and no other sustenance, he said, "Oh," in a dismayed voice. "I just forgot that one was a vampire. Gee, I'm real glad nothing bad happened." He paused for a moment, and then added, "If something bad had happened . . . would there be more cameras?"

And there it was, as banal and ridiculous as that, some guy who did not care about them at all but only about the insubstantial and strange notion of fame, which had barged in on Christian like an uninvited and confusing guest, leaving glitter in the air and his eyes half blinded by the snapping glare of those cameras.

A lot of what seemed to be about them was about the fame, really.

Christian had drunk three bags full of blood-and sweeter than the cold, viscous liquid was the crackle of plastic under his fingers, the knowledge this was not a human being-and then they had put him in his coffin.

He could hear them still talking as he lay in the cool, clean silk, rescued, not having hurt a soul.

"How did you get soldiers to turn out, Faye?" asked Bradley, admiring and flirtatious at once.

"The man came from an enemy nation," Faye told him.

Bradley hesitated. "Canada?"

"They're a rebellious people. All that ice hockey, it fires the blood. I required soldiers to bring them down." Faye paused. "Besides, my father is in the army. He's a general, actually. Do you know, he taught his little girl how to kill a man in twenty-seven different ways with my bare hands?" She paused again, this time possibly in dreamy reminiscence. "But the army wasn't cutthroat enough for me," she concluded. "It had to be showbiz. Or being an assassin for hire, of course."

"Of course," said Bradley.

"I'm scared, and I want to go back to the kidnapper," Josh announced, his voice closer to the coffin than Josh usually allowed himself to be.

"And who are you again?" Pez inquired benevolently. There was a rustling noise, and Christian hoped he'd hidden all the actually poisonous stuff where Pez couldn't find it this time.

"That was a lovely shot of Chris leaping to defend you guys," Faye told them all. "What did he call you? His nest?"

"I heard 'best,'" Bradley said. "As in . . . best mates."

"That's what I heard too," said Josh, who turned out to be the worst liar in the world. He giggled nervously as he said it.

"What's that on your neck, Josh?" Faye asked.

"It was a very, very enthusiastic groupie," Bradley said with conviction. "Don't worry, though, Josh didn't encourage her. She wasn't his type."

There was a long silence. Josh giggled again, this time sounding a little hysterical.

"Oh, all right, I'll let it go," Faye conceded. "But I'm hiring your next kidnapper myself so I can set the stage properly."

The tour bus was rocking as they moved toward their next stop, so gently that it was almost like being rocked to sleep in the darkness of his coffin. Oddly enough, Christian thought of the nonsensical rote lines Bradley had spouted about a tour being a journey of discovery. He didn't mind where the journey was going, he thought, and his eyes slid shut.

Then, directly above his head, there was a rapping of knuckles on wood.

"Knock, knock," Bradley caroled joyfully.

"Who's there?" Christian asked.

There was a long enough pause to let Christian know that Bradley was actually startled. Christian had never replied before.

We'll learn things about each other, about the fans. About ourselves.

"Me," said Bradley, on a laugh.

"Me who?"

"Meow," Bradley responded, with great satisfaction. As he proceeded to tell an enormously stupid joke about a cat, Christian let his mind drift away again, into thoughts of vampires who were scary and not safe but who just might manage to be safe enough, enjoying his job, having humans around who he could not stop remembering were people before they were food, humans who might be something like a nest.

Bradley had said the tour meant they would be bonding closer than ever as a band.

It was possible, even though it was a genuinely terrifying thought, that Bradley was a genius.

Bridge.

by Jeri Smith-Ready.

veryone knows.

Elvis died in the bathroom.

Thanks to the internet, everyone knows that I did too.

But at least I was wearing pants.

My favorite Quiksilver cargo shorts, which I'll wear every moment that I stay in this world.

No laundry needed,

because ghosts never sweat

or piss or anything.

I'm as dry as the bones

crumbling in my casket.

"Must be nice,"

Aura mumbles into her pillow

when I tell her

I'm going to meet George Clooney.

That's our code

for "the beach,"

because when lifelong Baltimoreans

say "down to the ocean,"

it sounds like

"Danny Ocean."