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I’d crossed a lot of lines over the years, but one line I’d never crossed until tonight had been I didn’t have sex just to feed. I didn’t have sex with strangers. Byron and Requiem were strangers. I’d known them for two weeks, give or take. I had fucked them because Jean-Claude needed me to feed.

Requiem had moved to one side of the backseat, so he was close enough to see my face and to watch Graham still twitching on the front seat, but not close enough so I could touch him easily. “You had a flashback, didn’t you?”

I nodded, still staring at the werewolf in my front seat.

“Has that ever happened before?”

“Only after Asher rolled me completely with his mind, and we all had sex.” I didn’t look at him as I spoke, I watched Graham’s body begin to grow quiet.

“But Asher was not involved tonight.”

“No,” I said, “he wasn’t.” My voice sounded very even, very neutral, empty. Empty, just like I felt.

“Did you know that you could send that memory into someone else?”

“No,” I said.

Graham’s eyes were fluttering, like butterflies trying to open, but not able to do it. He looked boneless, as if he could have slid into the floorboard, if his body had been a little less solid.

“You spilled it into him, then watched him writhe. How did it make you feel?”

I shook my head. “Nothing, just glad for once that it wasn’t me twisting in the seat.”

He moved to lean against the back of Graham’s seat, a little closer to me. “Is that true? Is that really how you feel about it?”

I moved my whole head to meet his eyes, as if a glance wasn’t enough. I let him see how dead my eyes felt, how empty I was inside. “You’re a master vamp, can’t you smell it if I’m lying?”

He licked his lips like he was nervous. “The last vampire I knew that could do what you just did, did it on purpose. She would recall a memory of pleasure, and she would pick someone to give it to. It could be a reward, and it was, but it could also be punishment. Sometimes she would choose someone who did not wish to feel such pleasures, and she would force them to experience it.”

“A kind of rape,” I said.

He nodded.

“You’re talking about Belle Morte, aren’t you?”

He nodded, again.

“She enjoyed watching them writhe, especially if they didn’t want to do it,” I said.

“You say that as a statement, not a question.”

“I’ve met her, remember?”

“You are exactly right. She loved watching prim, proper women and men, forced to spill themselves upon the floor and flop about, experiencing a pleasure greater than any they had ever felt before. It pleased her to watch the righteous brought low.”

“Yeah, that sounds like her.”

“But you truly felt nothing. It did not excite you to watch Graham writhe.”

“Why should it?”

He smiled then, and there was relief in his eyes. “That you would ask the question makes me worry less about you.”

“Worry how?” I asked.

“It has been speculation for centuries whether Belle was formed into the type of,” he seemed to search for a word, “creature she was by the ardeur and her powers running to flesh and pleasure, or whether she was always as she is, and the power simply made her more.”

“It’s been my expereince, Requiem, that people become more of who they are in extremes, both good and bad. Give a truly good person power, and they’re still a good person. Give a bad person power, and they’re still a bad person. The question is always about the person in between. The one that isn’t evil, or good, but just ordinary. You don’t always know what an ordinary person is like on the inside.”

He looked at me, with an odd expression on his face. “That was a very wise thing to say.”

I had to smile. “You sound surprised.”

He gave an almost bow from the neck, as much as he could sitting in the seat. “My apologies, but in truth I’ve always thought of you as more muscle than brain. Not stupid,” he added hastily, “but not wise. Intelligent perhaps, but no, not wise.”

“I guess I’ll just take the compliment, and leave the insult alone.”

“It was