It was when Mercy was relocating the body that things started getting weird. The task itself was an altogether unpleasant affair. The wind whipped Mercy's dark hair across her eyes, and she felt like ever lash of wind took a bite out of her face. The Christmas lights burst on the snow, staining it hideous rainbow. Mercy just wanted to get back in the cabin as fast as possible.

She was reaching for the door, glancing over the feral, icy night for a final time when something in the distance caught her eye: silver. Something glistening. Silver against the glowing blue-white mounds. Mercy tried to focus, but the barrage of snowflakes obscured everything. Well, only one way to find out what was really going on. With the single-minded determination with which Mercy pursued everything, she plunged into the blizzard.

Step one, two, three-can't be more than 4 yards away-four, five, six, seven-stay low, crouch-eight, nine, ten-straight line, be sure of it-eleven, twelve-ignore cold, don't feel, almost there-thirteen.

Mercy couldn't see the thing clearly until she was stepping on it, and even then it was difficult. Her first thought-entirely irrational-was that it was a statue carved from silver. It took her some time to realize it was, in fact, a person. And then Mercy did something that went against her every instinct: she slung it over her shoulder and hauled ass back to the cabin.

It was light, not like a human body at all. Its head cracked against the wood floor when Mercy laid it down. Now, as she looked at it, Mercy was at a loss. It resembled a human corpse-corpse because the chest was still-but only at first.

It was beautiful and grotesque, the body of a being with no right to exist in real life. It's skin was translucent, indigo veins obscenely clear. Its fingers were too long and thin, and its nails were sharp. Its hair-if you could call it that-was composed of long, shimmering filaments translucent as its skin.

Oh God, what is it?

Fear seized Mercy's throat. She forced it down like bile, willing composure to return. She figured she ought to check its pulse, but God, she didn't want to touch it now. She gritted her teeth and reached forward. Her fingers brushed its wrist-frozen death-and its eyes snapped open.

Weird eyes. Weird, weird, unnatural eyes. Irises like prisms, with colors shifting and melting together within, and pupils that were pure silver. Mercy shuddered when those eyes locked with hers, but she found herself unable to look away. Mesmerized by the endless flow of impossible color.

The thing was opening and closing its mouth in a seemingly involuntary motion. It was in the cavern of the thing's mouth that Mercy saw them: fangs. Long, sharp, curving eyeteeth. The venomous fangs of a snake, scaled up. Mercy found herself ensnared by an entirely different sort of spell. Before she knew what she was doing, she was holding the thing's head straight and its mouth open. The assassin reached forward with one hand to touch-no, stroke, one of the fangs. It was cool, smooth, and absolutely lethal. It was beautiful. The perfect weapons, built in. Mercy felt a surge of envy. The fang protruded farther from the gum at Mercy's touch. Far beyond hesitation, Mercy moved her finger down to brush the fang's point.

She saw the blood before she felt the pinprick of pain. Mercy thought nothing of it until her blood dribbled onto the creature's thus far motionless tongue, and its jaws sprang like the killing wire of a mousetrap. Mercy jerked her hand away, but her hand had been thisclose to being chow. When she looked up, the monster was smiling at her, a strange, dreamy smile. Realization hit Mercy like a freight train: this thing was a vampire. A goddamn, friggin' vampire. Mercy's throat felt dry as she stared at this creature, with its prism color eyes and otherworldly, grinning face. She swallowed.

"I'm going to need a drink," she said aloud, "Something stronger than eggnog."