"Feel better?" Kissy asked me.

"Just peachy," I told her.

But all I could think, over and over again was: this is the beginning of the End.

You'd think that after something like that, nothing would ever be the same, but mostly, life kept right on going, same as it had for as long as I could remember-with a few notable, should-have-been-impossible exceptions.

Probably the biggest-not to mention most impossible-of those exceptions was that after we made it back from our little road trip, every morning from there on out, I woke up with my fingers curled around the hilt of a sword. It didn't matter what I did or how many times I tried to get rid of that darn thing, the blade always showed up again, golden and gleaming and whispering to me in a language I didn't understand.

And for a second, a single second when I first woke up, I would remember-the sword, the battle, the fire inside. Then, just as quickly as the memories had come, they would fade, leaving me with a whole lot of questions-and weaponry I shouldn't have known how to use.

The next biggest change in our post-road-trip life-far less remarkable, but life-altering nonetheless-was that Kissy and I were grounded for life. Nana and Grandpa Jake were old-fashioned, and they didn't hold with any of this newfangled nonsense about "destiny" or "powers."

They also didn't hold with blowing up trucks.

Being grounded gave Kissy and me a lot of time to sit around and try and make some form of sense out of the things Ariel had told us, but we didn't come up with a serviceable theory about it all until a month after we got back, when the Walmart started playing Christmas carols nonstop, even though it was just past Halloween. Listening to "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" on repeat has a way of making you hear one word and think about the other, and that got us to connecting the dots.

Herald. Angel.

Guardian. Angel.

I half expected Ariel to show up-to tell us we were wrong, to explain how it was possible if we were even a little bit right- but he never came. Kissy and I were on our own, her with her 'pulses, me with my sword, so full of questions I thought I might burst.

I wondered and I prayed and I Googled. I read everything there was to read about angels: seraphim, nephilim, watchers, beings-there were about a million different words, different mythologies, different stories.

I read about messenger angels.

Guardian angels.

Warriors.

And every night, I dreamed-about fighting and flying and rivers running red with blood.

Then, one morning, about a month after Kissy and I had come up with our little theory, she woke me up in the middle of the night, saying my name with all the aplomb of someone announcing she was fixing to drive down to the Sonic for a cherry limeade. "Hey, Jess?" she said, her eyes glowing incandescent green.

"Yeah?" I said, my fingers closing involuntarily around the hilt of my sword and my palm singing with the contact.

Kissy smiled. "We have to go to the Mojave Desert."

I saw a flash-of a legion of dark-eyed women, dark-eyed men. Heaven and earth and innocents caught in between.

"Seriously, Jess," Kissy repeated, giddy. "We have to go to the Mojave Desert."

I sat up in bed, sword at the ready and the fire in my belly spreading out to each and every one of my limbs. A tiny voice inside of me whispered that this was it-the thing I'd been made for, the thing that Kissy and I had always been meant to do, but I didn't say a word about that out loud. I didn't say that this was the beginning of the End.

Instead, I fixed Kissy with a look. "Do we have to go to the Mojave Desert now?"

Automatic

by Rachel Caine

here was a new vending machine at the Morganville Blood Bank. In the withdrawal area, not the deposit area. It looked like a Coke machine, only instead of handy ice-cold aluminum cans, there were warm cans labeled o neg and a and b pos-something for everybody. The cans even had nice graphic logos on them.

My girlfriend, Eve, and I were standing in front of the vending machine, marveling at the weirdness, and wondering a lot of things: first, what the hell did they tell the can manufacturers about what was going into those containers? And second, would the blood taste like aluminum? It already had a coppery tone to it, like licking pennies, but . . . would it be any good?

There were twelve vampires in the place, including me, and nobody was making a move to get anything out of the shiny new machine. The withdrawal room itself was clean, efficiently laid out, and not very friendly. Big long counter at one end, with staff in white lab coats. You took a number, you got called to the counter, they gave you your blood bag. You could order it to go, or drink it here; there were some small cafe-style tables and chairs at the other end, but nobody really liked to linger here. It felt like a doctor's office, someplace you left in a hurry as soon as you could.

So it was odd how all the tables and chairs were full, and the sofas, and the armchairs. And how there were vamps standing around, watching the machine as if they expected it to actually do something. Or, well, expected me to do something.

"Michael?" Eve said, because I'd been a long time, staring at the glossy plastic of the machine in front of me. "Uh, are we doing this or not?"

"Sure," I said, resigned. "I guess we have to." I had actually been asked-well, ordered, really-to lead the way on this particular new Morganville, Texas, initiative. Morganville is-to say the least-unusual, even for someplace as diverse and weird as our great state: a small, desert-locked town in the middle of nowhere, populated by both humans and vampires. A social experiment, although the vampires really controlled the experiment. As far as I knew, we were the only place in the world vampires lived openly . . . or lived at all.

I was on the side of the vamps, now . . . not through any plan of my own. I was nineteen years old, and looking at eternity, and it was starting to look pretty lonely because the people I cared about, that I loved . . . they weren't going to be there with me.

Somehow, the machine summed up how impersonal all this eternal life was going to get, and that made it so much more than just another Coke machine full of plasma.

I was still amazed that twelve other vamps had shown up today for the demonstration; I'd expected nobody, really, but in the end, we weren't so different from humans: novelties attracted us, and the blood dispenser was definitely a novelty. Nobody quite knew what to make of it, but they were fascinated, and repelled.

And they were waiting.

Eve nudged me and looked up into my face, concerned. She wasn't too much shorter than I was, but enough that even the stacked heels on her big, Goth boots didn't put us at eye level. She'd gone with subdued paint-up today: white makeup, black lipstick, not a lot of other accessories. We were so different, in so many ways; I wasn't Goth, for starters. I wasn't much of anything, fashionwise, except comfortable. And she seemed okay with that, thankfully.

"Swipe?" she said, and tapped my right hand, which held a shiny new plastic card. I looked down at it, frowning. White plastic, with a red stripe, and my name computer-printed at the bottom. glass, michael J. My dates of birth and death (or, as it was called on the vamp side, "transformation"). The cards were new, just like the vending machine-issued about two weeks ago. A lot of the older vampires refused to carry them. I couldn't really see why, but then I'd grown up modern, where you had to have licenses and ID cards, and accepted that you were going to get photographed and tracked and monitored.

Or maybe it was only the humans who accepted that, and I'd carried it over with me.

It was just a damn glorified Coke machine. Why did it feel so weird?

"So," Eve said, turning away from me to the not-very-welcoming audience of waiting vampires, "it's really easy. You've all got the cards, right? They're your ID cards, and they're loaded up with a certain number of credits for the month. You can come in here any time, swipe the card, and get your, uh, product. And now, Michael Glass is going to demonstrate."

Oh, that was my cue, accompanied by a not-too-light punch on the arm.

I reached over, slid the card through the swipe bar, and buttons glowed. A cheerful little tone sounded, and a scrolling red banner said make your selection now. I pushed the button-O negative, my favorite-and watched the can ride down in a miniature elevator to the bottom, where it was pushed out for me to take.

I took the can, and was a little surprised to find it was warm, warm as Eve's skin. Well, of course it was; the signs on the machine said temperature controlled, but that just meant it was kept blood temperature, not Coke temperature. Huh. It felt weird, but attractive, in a way.

They were all still watching me, with nearly identical expressions of disgust and distaste. Some of them looked older than me, some even younger, but they'd all been around for centuries, whereas I was the brand-new model . . . the first in decades.

Hence, the guinea pig-but mainly because I'd grown up in the modern age, with swipe cards and internet and food from machines. I trusted all that stuff, at least in theory.

They hated it.

I rolled the can indecisively in my hand for a few seconds, staring at the splashy graphics-the vampire fangs framed the blood type nicely. "How do you think they got away with getting these made?" I asked Eve. "I mean, wouldn't somebody think it was a little strange?"

She rolled her eyes. "Honestly, Michael, don't you pay attention? Out there"-meaning, anywhere except Morganville-"it's just a big joke. Maybe they thought it was for a movie or a TV show or a new energy drink. But they don't think about it like we do."

I knew that, even though, like Eve, I'd been born and raised in Morganville. We'd both been out of town exactly once in our lives, and we'd done it together. Still, it was really tough to realize that for the rest of the world, our biggest problems were just . . . stories.

As hard as Morganville was, as full of weirdness and danger, Out There hadn't been a walk in the park, either. Though I wished I'd been able to go to a really big concert. That would have been cool.

I was still turning the can around, stalling. Eve grabbed it from me, popped the top, and handed it back. "Bottoms up," she said. "Oh, come on, just give it a try. Once."

I owed her that much, because the black choker around her neck was covering up a healing bite mark. Vampire bites closed quickly, and usually without scarring, but for an awkward three-day period, she'd be wearing scarves and high necks.

It was typically Eve that she was also wearing a tight black T-shirt that said, in black-on-black Gothic-style lettering, good girls don't. awesome girls do.

She saw me looking at her, and our eyes locked and held. Hers were very dark, almost black, though if you really got close and looked, you could see flecks of lighter brown and gold and green. And I liked getting close to her, drawn into her warmth, her laughter, the smooth hot stretch of her skin. . . .

She winked. She knew what I was thinking, at moments like these, but then as she'd once told me, smugly, most guys really aren't that complicated.

I smiled back, and saw her pupils widen. She liked it when I smiled. I liked that she liked it.

Without even thinking about it, I raised the can to my lips and took a big gulp.

Not bad. I could taste the aluminum, but the blood tasted fresh, with a bitter streak that was probably from the preservatives. Once I started drinking, instincts kicked in, and I felt the fangs snap down in my mouth. It felt a little like popping your knuckles. I swallowed, and swallowed, and all of a sudden the can was light and empty, and I felt shaky. I don't usually drink that much blood at one time, and I'm more of a sipper.

I crushed the can into a ball-vampire strength-and tossed it across the room into a trash can, basketball style. It sailed neatly through the narrow circle.

"Show-off," Eve said.

I felt great. I mean, great. My fangs were still down, and when I smiled, they were visible, gleaming and very sharp.

Eve's smile faltered, just a little. "Really. Showing off now."

I closed my eyes, got control, and felt the fangs slowly fold up against the roof of my mouth.

"Better," she said, and linked arms with me. "Now that you're all plasmaed up, can we go?"

"Yeah," I said, and we got two steps toward the door before I turned back, got the card out of my pocket, and slid it through the machine's reader again. Eve stared, blinking in confusion. I chose another O negative ("This Blood's for You!") and slipped the warm can into the pocket of my jacket. "For later," I said.

"Okay." Eve sounded doubtful, but she got over it. She turned back to the crowd of vamps watching us. "Next?"

Nobody was rushing to swipe their cards, although one or two had them out and were contemplating it. One guy scowled and said, "Whatever happened to organic food," and went to the counter to get a fresh-drawn bag.

Well, I'd done what Amelie had asked me to do, so if it didn't work, she couldn't blame it on me.

But I did feel great. Surprisingly, the canned stuff was better than the bagged stuff. Almost better than when Eve had let me have a taste straight from the tap, if that's not too sick.

I felt them watching us. Eve and I weren't the most popular team-up in town . . . humans and vampires didn't mix, not like that. We were predator and prey, and the lines were pretty strictly drawn. In vampire circles, I was looked at as either pitiful or perverted. I could imagine what it was like on Eve's side. Morganville's not full of vampire wannabes-more a town full of Buffys-in-the-making.

Our relationship wasn't easy, but it was real, and I was going to hang on to it for as long as I possibly could.

"What do you want to do?" Eve asked, as we stepped outside into the cool Morganville early evening.

"Walk," I said. "For starters." I let her fill in what might come after, and she smiled in a way that told me it wasn't a tough guess at all.

Later, it occurred to me that I felt jittery, and it was getting worse.

We were strolling out in Founder's Square, which is vampire territory; Eve could come and go from here with or without me, because she had a Founder's Pin and was pretty much as untouchable as a human got, in terms of being hunted-by vampires who obeyed the rules, anyway. But it was nice to walk with her. At night, Morganville is kind of magical-bright clouds of stars overhead in a pitch-black sky, cool breezes, and at least in this part of town, everybody is on their best behavior.

Vampires liked to walk, and jog, along the dark paths. We were regularly passed by others. Most nodded. A few stopped to say hello. Some-the most progressive-even said hello to Eve, as if she was a real person to them.

I had a wild impulse to jog, to run, but Eve couldn't keep up if I did, even in her practical boots. Holding that urge back was taking all my concentration, so while she talked, I just mostly pretended to listen. She was telling some story about Shane and Claire, I guessed; our two human housemates had gotten themselves into trouble again, but this time it was minor, and funny. I was glad. I didn't feel much like charging to anybody's rescue right now.

Up ahead, I saw another couple approaching us on the path. The woman was unmistakably the Founder of Morganville, Amelie; only Amelie could dress that way and get away with it. She was wearing a white jacket and skirt, and high heels. If she'd stood still, she'd have looked like a marble statue; her skin was only a few shades off from the clothes, and her hair was the same pale color. Beautiful, but icy and eerie.

Walking next to her, hands clasped behind his back, was Oliver. He looked much older than her, but I didn't think he was; she'd died young, he'd died at late middle age, but they were both ancient. He had his long, graying hair tied back, and was wearing a black leather jacket and dark pants. He was scowling, but then, he usually was.

Weird, seeing the two of them together like this. They were usually polite enemies, sometimes right at each other's throat (literally). Not tonight, though. Not here.

Amelie glowed in the moonlight, ghost-bright, and when she smiled, she didn't look cold at all. She inclined her head to us. "Michael. Eve. Thank you for doing the little demonstration today. It was much appreciated."

"Ma'am," I said, and returned the salute. Eve waved. We would have kept on walking, but Amelie stopped, and Oliver was a solid block in front of us, so we stopped as well. I said, "Hope you're enjoying the walk. It's a nice night."

Lame, but it was all I had for small talk. I was aching to keep moving. I couldn't keep still, in fact, and I drummed my fingers against the side of my leg in a nervous rhythm. I saw Oliver notice it. His scowl deepened.

"It's turned quite cool," Amelie said. Like Oliver, she was zeroing in on my trembling fingers. "I heard you sampled the new product today."

"Yeah, it's great," I said. "I got another one to go." The can was heavy in my pocket, and I'd been thinking about it the entire evening. I'd found myself actually wrapping my hand around it inside my pocket, but I'd managed to stop myself from pulling the tab. So far. "Very convenient. You ought to think about selling them in six-packs."

"Well, the modern age seems to demand convenience." Amelie shrugged. "But we'll see how the single-can sales go. So many wanted access to the blood bank at odd hours that automation seemed the most logical solution. You don't mind the taste of the preservatives?"

"No, it's good stuff," I said. I remembered that I hadn't liked it at first, but now, for some reason, it seemed like that memory was wrong-as if it had actually been delicious, but I hadn't been ready for it. "It tastes better than the bagged stuff." I almost said and better than from the vein, but Eve was right there, and that would embarrass her on two levels, not just one. First, that I was telling people she was letting me bite her, and second, that somehow her blood wasn't good enough. I was able to stop in time, barely. "Has anybody else tried it?"

"Really, Glass, do you think we put it out for public consumption without testing?" Oliver snapped. "It's been tried, analyzed, and tested to death. I cannot imagine a more boring process. Two years, from concept to actual delivery. Half the vampires in Morganville have been involved in taste tests."

"Have you tried it?" I asked him. "You should. It's really-" I didn't know how to finish that sentence, once I'd started it. "Fierce," I finally said. An Eve word. I wasn't sure I even knew what it really meant in the way she used it, but it seemed right.

Evidently, Oliver didn't really understand the usage either, because he gave me a long stare, one that could have melted concrete. "Our major difficulty seems to be in convincing the elders to use it," he said. "Most of them are not familiar with the concept of identification cards, much less credit cards, and machines confuse them."

"I'll bet," Eve put in. "Not much call for Cokes among the fang gang, I guess."

"Well, I like Coke," I said.

Amelie smiled, very slightly.