"Um, no." He cocks his head, as if trying to figure out whether or not I'm for real. "No, I really don't. I'm thirsty, and I'd appreciate it if you, you know, fucked right off."
"Not gonna happen," I mutter, pulling my hands out of my pockets as I advance, all pretence of nonchalance gone.
"Oh shit," the woman mutters, and she gasps in shock when her attacker shakes her by the throat.
"For Christ's sake..."
"Funny how people always invoke his name when I show up," I comment. "He's the last person you'd want to meet."
"And what are you? An avenging angel?"
I laugh under my non-existent breath. Angel, indeed. Hardly the worst thing I've ever been accused of being. "Her knight in shining armour." I nod at the woman, who's ceased trying to fight.
Her attacker still has his hand on her, but his grip evidently leaves enough room for her to breathe, and she looks on with interest.
"How romantic. Anyone would think---"
"I'm not really one for allowing this to go on. You know, all this against-her-will nonsense. Rather gives us undead types a bad reputation, you know? I mean, I know we're legal now, but---"
"Yeah, as long as we're registered."
Ah, he's one of those. A vampire with a grudge and, most likely, a superiority complex.
Why should we bother registering with human organisations? We shouldn't have to fill in stupid paperwork to exercise our right to exist. It's one step from registration to demands to show our papers to some government jobsworth.
"We're legal now, but, " I go on, "there are still some people who aren't enamoured of us. For instance." Again, I nod at his chosen companion for the evening. "I hear there are some mortals out there, puny humans, who have issues with non- consent."
"Imagine."
"Look." The woman's voice emerges as a helpless whimper. "Just let me go, and you two can have it out between you---"
"Exactly my plan," I assure her.
"But not mine. You don't get to act as judge, jury, and executioner just because I've learned to accept what I am, even if you haven't."
If I had a heartbeat, it would stop at those words. Words so similar to what someone else used to say long, long ago when I was still alive that something inside me, the remnant of whatever makes me human, shivers. And the chill of hearing them again, even from a different person and phrased in a slightly different way, spurs me to action.
He slams up against the wall, and I hear the thud, his grunt of attempted speech, before seeing my hand on his throat. Mirroring the chokehold in which he'd held the nameless young woman who now cowers, some distance from us. Cowering when she should be running.
I thought earlier that no human would be able to take me on, even if they came armed. Now I knew no vampire would be able to overpower me either. Not when he'd uttered words that made me angry and something else at the same time.
I watch him, feel him move, but the casual nature of those oh-so-familiar words lend me just the edge I need to keep him under control. In a split second, I realise familiarity is what's caused my rage. I've been here before. I'm there again. Back then.
"Are you still here?" I ask, turning only my head in the direction of the third party. My body still faces this other vampire I plan to deal with.
And I don't think she'd want to witness it. It's polite to check, at least.
"What are you going to do to me?"
"Nothing, if you get the hell away from us and thank your lucky stars that it was me passing by this evening."
"Maybe I should start carrying garlic with me," she mutters, hauling herself to her feet and smoothing down her clothes.
I'm about to speak, but the other vampire does so for me, even with my hand clawed around his throat.
"Not that old chestnut." Even overpowered and held against the wall, he's still unrepentantly scornful, his voice holding that note of disdain he no doubt directs at anyone human. Perhaps he envies them that which he once had. More and more, he reminds me of someone I don't want to think of. "Garlic. " He says it with all the contempt normally imbued in the words "bitch, please," and I wonder how many years, how many decades, he's had in which to develop such dislike of humanity.
"It doesn't work," I throw over my shoulder.
"You should read and re-read H.M. Government's Handbook for Undead Social Integr---" But a preparatory intake of breath and echoing, fading footsteps tell me it's no use. She's gone---thank God, if He's listening---and we are, at last, alone.
"So," I say, studying the other vampire more closely.
"What are you gonna do now?" He speaks without fear. Without apparent fear, anyway. He may well be masking worry, and admirably so. His upper lip curls in defiance, in contempt.
"I'm feeling rather thirsty."
"Oh, shit."
Yes, definitely hiding his fear, but the wall he's constructed crumbles as soon as he realises with whom he's confronted---a vampire who hasn't drunk in far too long. I turned down Alyssa because she's been ill. The blood of a convalescent would have no ill effects, on me at least. It'd be a tad sweeter than usual, but it would keep me going. Alyssa, on the other hand, would weaken further. Simply not an option if I had anything to do with it.
"You might change your stance on drinking without consent after this," I murmur. A ripple of conscience tells me I shouldn't return like for like; he didn't actually drink from that woman. Then again, he intended to, and the only thing that stopped him was my intervention.
Doing to this vampire what he threatened to do to her only serves to make me just like him, surely? As bad as him?
But dead or alive or somewhere in between, I'm still a man, and I still have needs. His Adam's apple bobs in anticipation of what's to
