It is almost dawn when something wakes you.

Not a crash. Not an alarm. Just the quiet certainty that someone else is in the bedroom.

You open your eyes.

Joy is standing beside the bed.

She left hours ago for the grand opening of Liz Bathory's exclusive new nightclub, promising she would be home late. Apparently she kept that promise.

But the woman standing in front of you does not look exactly like the woman who left.

Joy's skin is impossibly white. Her green eyes are enormous and brilliantly vivid. Her lips are fuller and glossy red. A rigid crimson choker circles her neck. Even the way she stands seems different, poised with an effortless confidence that makes your girlfriend look almost unreal.

Then Joy smiles.

She has fangs.

She says it with such ordinary affection that for one bizarre second the fangs seem like the least important thing in the room.

Joy sits on the edge of your shared bed. Her eyes move over your face with familiar tenderness, but there is something else there too. Something hungry.

She looks excited. Almost giddy.

And she is waiting for you to say something.