The conifer cracked under the weight of my ascent, dropping its needles into the snow that slept so far below. Flurries blew into my face, carrying the scents of the forest. The clean, mineral smell of the rushing river, the fetor of soil, the assorted musk's of local fauna. I perched on a pine tree, letting it act as a sort of filter, dulling the other scents so that I could focus on the one that mattered most - the rich, sweet smell of blood. The banks of the river provided a fertile hunting ground. It was the kind of place where campers would gather, setting up their candy colored tents and filling canteens in the cold river. Though I imagined there wouldn't be too many this time of year. In the bitter end of a Canadian winter.

A league away, two black tents rose from the white of the forest, and two figures, dwarfed by the forced perspective and bundled against the chill, were hunched over a few dying embers. Still far from the range of their eyes, I leapt lightly to the forest floor. My landing was a soft crunch in the ice.

Noiselessly, I slipped off my shoes and let my bare feet sink into the snow, soaking the bottom cuffs of my jeans. I quickly braided my long, blond hair into pigtails, and let the snow saturate them as well, painting a picture of fragility and innocence, the perfect lure for my prey. My light complexion gave me the look of a cherry blossom, my body small enough that, from a distance, I could look as though I was just blooming into adolescence. These two humans would let me close.

I forced my feet to move with a heavy shuffle, and squinted my eyes. It was partially against the cold, and partly to hide their unnatural color. Because I was famished, the red was so dark it could almost pass as brown. As I drew closer, the two figures became men, one was thickly bearded and had russet colored skin, the other pale, thin, and green-eyed. The green eyed man wore a wedding ring, and I decided the other would be my victim. I would not be responsible for the grief of a widow.

The bearded man glanced around for the source of the noise, and his eyes went wide when he saw me shivering. In a hesitant, jerky motion, he elbowed his companion.

"H-help me," I moaned weakly. They rushed at me, speaking all at once and on top of the other.

"Are you okay?"

"What are you doing out here?"

"Are you hurt? . . . Cold?"

"You must be freezing!"

The bearded man had a bear-like stature. He slipped off his thick, brown jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders. It fit like a dress and the fur lining tickled the back of my neck. These men were kind.

I tried to push that thought from my mind, choosing to picture them as faceless, feelingless bags of blood.

I caught the man's hand and held it earnestly, looking deep into his dark eyes. My own eyes lost focus as I pictured the firework display of neurons alighting in his brain, and the way his pain receptors would alarm as I sank my teeth into him. I pictured quieting the storm, extinguishing each lightning bolt before it could smite. The large man went limp, and I caught him easily. His friend was frozen in shock, eyes blown wide open. I barely gave him a second thought as my teeth slipped easily into the man's skin, the only resistance being broken by a soft pop. Blood filled my mouth, hot and rich and delicious. I let a soft moan escape my throat, and my eyes rolled back in ecstasy.

His pulse began to pick back up, heart racing in fear. He twisted and flopped in my arms, his arms twitching and his muscles contracting as they tried to escape the fiery burn of the venom. I increased the dosage of my psychic sedative, letting the calming energy flow through his veins. As his heartbeat slowed, so did the flow into my mouth, until, finally, they both stopped. I let the man's limp body crash to the snow and wiped the last, beautiful drops from the corner of my mouth with a snowy finger and dipped it back between my lips, savoring the last, fleeting taste.

My senses, which a fled from me in the rapture of my monstrous act, suddenly returned. I could see the tiny drops of blood in the snow at my feet, and the ashen tone of the dead man's skin. And I could smell the scent of blood, heavy in the air. Not just the life-giving fluid of the man at my feet, but an other's as well. The green-eyed man.

Suddenly, my sixth sense attacked me, and I could feel a searing pain in my throat, and fire flowing through my long-dry veins. Then I felt brutal snaps in my chest and limbs.

I spun on my heel and saw the green-eyed man dangling from the hard, white arms of my brother. The human's mouth was open in a scream, but the pain was so intense that no sound passed his lips. His bones were being broken, deliberately crushed under the force of the vampire.

"Lawrence," I scolded under my breath, "don't be savage."

My brother didn't even glance at me, his response was another vicious assault on the poor human. Law's jaw snapped fully closed inside the man's neck and ripped, tearing out a large, jagged piece of flesh and spitting it out, before they clamped down again.

I took the green-eyed man's hand in mine. His wedding ring was prominent against my fingers. How his widow will grieve.

The man went limp under my influence, his pain draining from my body as it relinquished him. His eyes closed in peace, and then, finally, in death. Lawrence tossed the corpse across the forest, and it smacked against a rock with a heavy thud. There was a gaping, blood drenched hole where his throat used to be, and the jagged edges of his torn larynx stuck stiffly out from the pool of red.

"Sarah." My brother addressed me with a hard voice, edging towards a growl. His crimson eyes flashed. "Don't be meddlesome."

I ignored his angry comment.

"What should we do with the bodies?" I asked solemnly, glancing over the corpse at my feet. He wore only a white, long sleeve Henley, the collar wet with a light splatter of crimson. His jacket was still slung across my shoulders. I quickly wrapped it back around him, taking note of the already chilled temperature of his skin.

"Bear attack?" Lawrence suggested, "Mine is already halfway there."

He cast a disapproving glance at my victim, the only mark was two neat crescents of puncture wounds along the jugular. Too pristine for my brother's taste. His long, dark hair swayed as he shook his head.

"We'll have to throw them into the river as well," I said, gliding across the snow to retrieve my boots, "it will explain the blood loss . . . if anyone ever finds them."

It was unlikely that anyone would ever find the bodies. They would be carried down the rushing river, and would end up irrevocably tangled in branches, or petrified in ice as the river froze through that night. Their bodies would bloat and swell, then waste away. Their families would always wonder.

As I pondered the fate of our victims earthly vessel, Lawrence made quick work of the tents, ripping them to ribbons with his fingernails until the torn polyester flapped freely in the breeze. He walked to the broken corpse of the green-eyed man and scooped a handful of blood from the gaping wound in his throat. With a casual flick of his wrist, he splattered the blood against the broken flaps of the tents and over the green and red flannel sleeping bags. Then, with all the drama of a horror movie, he ran his blood-covered palm down the checkered fabric, creating a long, dragging handprint. We each scooped up a body. Him one handed, holding the cold flesh far away from his body like he was taking out trash. I held the body of the bearded man a little more gingerly.

Lawrence dropped the corpse into the river without ceremony. It smashed through the sheet of ice and was taken away with the flow of water. As it rushed under the sheet of solid ice, the image of the body distorted, looking frosted over and snowy white. I let the bearded man drop in behind him, disappearing down into the abyss.

"Saints of God, come to their aid, come to meet them, Angels of the Lord," I breathed, closing my eyes in a brief moment of prayer. With no priest to give Viaticum, and no family to gather around their deathbed, this short prayer by a thief would have to serve as their last rites. I had great faith in life, but, in my peaceless death, I was no longer sure.

Lawrence snorted with laughter, a harsh cruel sound.

"You're too moral," he sneered.

"No," I said, "It's purely selfish. I don't wish to feel their pain."

"Whatever," he said, "let's go find the others."

He sprinted towards the dawning sun with less than a glance in my direction.