I opened my mouth, saw the fangs that had descended from my upper jaw. My eyeteeth had lengthened, the tips becoming longer, sharper. That must have happened when I'd considered raiding the refrigerator. I'm not sure what it said about who I was now that I hadn't noticed at the time.

I murmured a worried curse.

"Those weren't there before."

"I know," I bit out.

"I'm sorry, but that's wicked fucking cool."

I snapped my mouth shut, and pointed out through a clenched jaw, "Not so cool the first time I get the urge to make you an afternoon snack."

"You wouldn't do that."

Her tone was easy, wholly confident, but I had no such faith. "I hope not."

She picked up a lock of my straight, long hair. "Your hair is darker." She cocked her head at me. "Maybe 'sable,' instead of 'chestnut.' And your skin is paler. You have this kind of . . . undead glow."

I stared at my reflection. She was right - darker hair, paler skin, like the stereotypical vamp.

"What else do you feel? Stronger? Better hearing? Eyesight? Any of that?"

I blinked at my reflection. "I see the same stuff, and my hearing level is the same." I thought of the smells of the house, the richness there. "Maybe a little better sense of smell? And I'm not bombarded or anything, but when I got excited, I could kind of sense new things." I didn't mention the prickle in the air I'd felt around her, or the fact that the new things I could sense included the resounding thud of her heartbeat.

Mallory leaned against the doorframe. "Since my hands-on experience with the walking dead is, like, eighteen hours old, this is just a guess, but I bet there's an easy way to take care of this silver-eyes problem."

This should be good. "And that would be?"

"Blood."

We put it on the island, along with a martini glass, an iced tea glass, a food thermometer, a bottle of Hershey's chocolate syrup, and a jar of olives, both of us unsure how best to attack. Mallory jabbed the bag with the blunt end of a bamboo skewer. It gurgled, and the depression in one side of the medical-grade plastic slowly filled back in. She made a sound of disgust and looked at me with sympathetic eyes. "Jesus, Merit."

I nodded and looked down at the bag of type O. It was one of the seven that had been delivered. There was one of each type - A, B, AB and O - and three extra bags of O. It was supposed to have universal appeal, I guessed.

"Liquid, liquid everywhere and not a drop to drink," I observed.

"Ugh. English lit geek much?"

"Corporate oppressor."

"Nerd."

"Blue-haired weirdo."

"Guilty as charged." She picked up the iced tea glass and handed it to me. "Now or never, Merit. She said you needed a pint every other day."

"I'm kind of assuming that's an average. You know - four pints a week, give or take, averaging to one every other day. And I probably had one before they dropped me off yesterday. So I don't really need to open it until tomorrow."

Mallory frowned at me. "You don't want to even try it? It's blood, and you're a vampire. You should be ripping at the plastic with those sharp-ass teeth just to get to the stuff." She held up the bag between two fingers, waggled it in the air. "Blood. Yummy, delicious blood." The crimson liquid shuffled back and forth in the bag as she waggled it, making little waves in a tiny, self-contained ocean. And it was making me seasick.