Last Kiss from the Vampire by Jennifer McKenzie Page A

as good as he had thought.
    “You had to get yourself fired from taking money out of the till,” she told him. “Now you’ve gone and robbed me on the way to deposit the cash. What do you think will happen? Bad choices, little man, bad choices.”
    “Then I guess you leave me with no option!” he yelled and pulled the trigger on the revolver he’d aimed at her.
    When the roar from the gun was over, Megan was still standing. She had a powder burn on her manager’s shirt which was going to be a pain for the laundry to remove. The bullet hole was another matter, but the place employed an older Korean lady who could patch anything.
    She looked down at the burn.
    “My new blouse,” she said. “You just cost me fifty dollars. Now you really have done it!”
    Johnny was still standing in disbelief when Megan extended her fangs and sunk them into his neck.
    He tasted lousy, too many pheromones and additives. She stood over him licking the last of his blood off her hands. It was too sweet as well. This was why she kept gaining weight, dammit. Her boyfriend appreciated her soft, round body, but she needed to do something about all the calories she kept consuming from these scumbags. This was the third attempted hold-up in the past year and she was getting tired of these losers and their bad diets.
    At least her boyfriend Steve was going to be grateful. She wouldn’t have to pull him off his video game to get a little blood this evening. What Johnny had contributed would keep her fed for the next week.
    Megan had been a vampire for the past three years. She had been turned by a former employer when she found out what it could do for her career. Although it hadn’t made her rich, being a vampire at least meant she could stay out late and not have to worry about expensive medical bills. She also had to avoid the bright sun since prolonged exposure to it could be fatal. Other than silver, it was the only thing a vampire has to worry about. No one knew their lifespan; no studies had ever been undertaken. Megan had met vamps who were over eight hundred years old and still looked as good as they did when they were turned.
    She still needed to ingest a certain amount of blood or start to decompose. An account at the blood bank helped, but the need could be satisfied with certain types of animal blood. The vamps had long ago reached an accommodation with the mortals on going after humans: no innocent human was ever to be touched or face the wrath of the state. Bloodletting in self-defense did not qualify as a criminal act. All Megan had to do when she had been attacked was to make one phone call to the right government agency. The body of her would-be assailant was picked up for disposal within an hour. She just needed to wait around to make sure they arrived and sign the paperwork. No questions would be asked and Johnny would be listed as another missing person.
    Megan found her regular source from her boyfriend. He’d been agreeable to staying with her after she made the change and wanted to continue the relationship. The only condition from her was that he donate some of his blood to her whenever she needed it. This wasn’t much of a problem and could be solved by the use of the proper knives and sterile conditions. He could usually tell when she was in a needy mood and he would go get the blades.
    They still lived in the same apartment they had occupied when the two of them moved in together after high school. Both Megan and Steve had family in a nearby decaying industrial town and didn’t want to leave them. When Megan turned, it became helpful because she could take any late night calls when she wasn’t at work.
    It had’nt been a quick procedure to turn Megan into a vampire. Megan never told Steven how she had gone about the process, but it seemed to involve a lot of blood from a vampire donor. Megan hadn’t pressured Steve to convert and he didn’t want to make the change. One vampire in a relationship worked fine for