"What other part?"

"The foul, dead, blood-drinking part. I'm still starving."

"Don't whine, Tommy. Nobody likes a whiner."

"Hungry," he said.

She knew how he felt, she was feeling some of it herself, but she didn't know how to solve the feeding problem. Tommy had always been her go-to blood guy; now they were going to have to hunt. She could do it, she had done it, but she didn't want to do it. "Come on, we'll figure this out. Don't pout. Let's go watch people on Market Street. You'll like it." She took his hand and dragged him up the street toward Market, where rivers of tourists, shoppers, and freaks were flowing up and down the streets and sidewalks. Rivers of blood.

"Everyone smells like whiz and feet," Tommy said, standing on the sidewalk in front of a Walgreens drugstore. It was still early in the evening and the convention crowd from the hotels was flowing down the sidewalks like a great migrating herd, looking for dinner or a watering hole. Out on the edges, hustlers, homeless, and hangers-on worked their angles, playing the secret path of eye contact to the pocket, while the herd defended itself by paying rapt attention to their companions, their cell phones, or a spot on the sidewalk twelve feet ahead.

"Feet and pee," Tommy continued.

"You get used to it," Jody said.

"Is there a clean pair of underwear anywhere on this street?" Tommy shouted. "You people are disgusting!"

"Would you settle down," Jody said. "People are looking. They think you're crazy."

"Which makes me different, how?"

She looked up the street—for the three blocks she could see there were about three people per block shouting at passersby, wild-eyed and angry, and obviously bat shit. She nodded. He had a point, but then she snatched his shirt collar and pulled his ear down to lip level. "The difference is that you aren't living anymore and it's not a good idea to attract attention to yourself."