Sunday, July 30th, 1995 12:12 a.m.

"That's the first time that happened," Norb said, shrugging a shoulder as he turned to face his fare with a creak of seat-leather. It seemed to be the nearest he came to an apology. "I don't think they liked you. Can't imagine why. Usually they're just playful - but always gentle."
She cut a silent figure, looking out numbly towards the flickering neon lights that spelled out the names of the ubiquitous motels on the opposite side of the street. She had been drawn and quiet on the drive back from the cemetery, nursing the impossible nail-marks on her arms. Norb had tucked the cab in against the kerb of an innocuous stretch of motel neon strip that marked the part of Ocean Street below Highway 1.
He rubbed at an ear with a nicotine stained fingertip. "I guess you want to quit now?"
From one of the motel carparks, a dog was barking and there was the distant sound of women's voices shrieking insults at each other.
Diane saw the motels with a dull gaze and heard the voices with dull ears but they didn't seem to penetrate. She had been afraid and impotent, and now she wanted to curl up and forget all about it. Although she wouldn't have admitted it, she wished that Tony had come along.
Norb sniffed, as if the scent of the other promised hundred was tickling his nose. "You know," he said encouragingly, "Thats too bad. The next stop is one of the highlights."
His eyes widened to drive the point home and he waited. The words seemed to take a long moment to register, then the woman reached up, almost painfully slowly, and ran her fingers through her hair.
"Is that so?" she asked, with a dry smile. Control. She closed her eyes and mulled the situation over. Against her better judgment she asked, "What would that be then..?"
It didn't hurt to ask, she decided, making an effort to push her hurt feelings to one side. Then he could drive her home whilst she decided whether to kill him, or think of something worse. She opened her eyes, and a small tight smile played across her lips.
"Oooh! Next stop - I take you to see a vampyre! What you think, ja?"
The woman was caught in the barest moment of indecision, but from the familiar sinking feeling she knew that she had to know. Trapped by her own reporter's instincts. Norb was watching her eagerly, fired up with his own enthusiasm for all things Spooky. The vampire swore a silent oath to personally spook the living daylights out of him and exact her own price for the night's mishaps before the sun rose. Again, she salvaged a smile.
"A real vampire? You're kidding me..."
It was virtually inevitable that barely 10 minutes later she found herself being driven up Highway 17, up into the mountains to Scotts Valley.

Sunday, July 30th, 1995 2:33 a.m.

"Ja, I'm sure this is it," Norb said, folding his map, hopefully for the last time. "Damn them detours! What can I say?"
He tossed the torch he'd been reading it by onto one of the empty seats and started the cab up again. Diane peered out of the cab at the dilapidated house way up on some unnamed turnoff off of Nelson Road. Initially she had assumed this was a standard cab-driver trick to extend the fare and although it was mildly amusing once, it quickly became irritating. After the third time she had sat back in silence, arms tightly folded. As the dark countryside flowed hypnotically by her mood had mellowed, though. Now as she looked up at the ramshackle clapboard it was with an expression that held more curiosity than anger.
It was easily over a hundred years old and seemed to be still standing more by sheer bloody-mindedness rather than any triumph of 19th century civil engineering. It was begging to be demolished - presumably only the fact that the bulldozers kept getting lost in the same way as Norb had prevented that. Probably people had simply forgotten it ever existed.
She cleared her throat with a brief cough. "Its a bit out of the way," she said slowly (understatement of the decade). "How did you find it in the first place?"
She didn't pay much attention to his response, sure in her own mind that he must have found it by mistake. No-one seemed likely to have come to this place on purpose for a very long time.
As the crooked walls rose up above them it looked convincingly like a stereotypical 'haunted house'; bleak and deserted. Diane noted this with flat eyes - craven as it might be, she wanted no more to do with ghosts. The memory of her recent assault in the cemetery threatened to replay itself in vivid intensity and she pushed it away.
The drive wound up through a narrow iron gateway, one of the gates rusting on its hinge and the other long gone; the trees around the road formed a dark aisle, stretching branches towards it like claws. Trees. Deep forest around them. The woman looked up towards the roof of the ramshackle house again; she hoped fervently not to have to deal with lupines either.
Norb wound open a window and sniffed the air.
"Werewolves," he said sagely, almost as if he had picked the thought out of her mind. "They're here you know."
In the back seat, an ashen hand tensed against the door handle and Diane scanned the treeline anxiously.
"Ach, they don't come here," Norb assured her. "They don't much like this place." He glanced in the mirror to look at her reflection.
Diane rolled her eyes. "Why is that?" she asked, playing along. She guessed he was about to launch into some new string of cliches about another 'den of evil'; a place where such naughty things happened in the dim and distant past that the ground was throbbing with black power.
The dark passage opened up into a small clearing, and the car tyres crunched against twigs and broken glass. They were in front of the facade of a Hollywood-perfect haunted house. Warped wooden steps led up to a dark porch with a forbidding doorway, and the few windows were paned with cracked and dusty glass. It was rotting on its frame.
"Well, 'this' place was a den of evil, if ever there was!" Norb indicated the house with a grandly dramatic gesture. Then he paused a moment and looked back at Diane. "Did I say something funny?"
She turned a laugh into a cough and shook her head wordlessly before bravely getting out of the car. "Looks more like a den of woodworm to me. Its not haunted is it?" A trace of anxiety in her voice, however much she tried to keep it under control.
The taxi driver shook his head.
Diane trudged back to get a better view of the house, lit from behind by the moon which was just emerging from a cloud. She kicked a stick aside absently and glanced again around the area.
"You weren't serious about these werewolves?" Again, a note of real concern crept into her voice unbidden.
The driver shook his head again and stuffed the torch into his pocket as he locked the cab up. "None for miles. They can be on the tour later if you like, I don't think they like the smell of this place."
"Probably just can't find it." She muttered under her breath.
Bored with her surveillance, Diane walked up towards the house. As she tested the steps carefully, she could feel the rotten boards bend and give under her feet, they felt decidedly squishy.
"Not that way," Norb called out helpfully. She looked back at him, and let him twitch past her to lead the way. He picked out a complicated but practiced route through the rotted boards, mainly by grabbing the pillars and posts of the porch.
Diane copied him and soon the pair stood in front of the old front door, complete with rusted bell-pull.
"So.. why was this place such a den of evil?" she asked him.
Norb shrugged and straightened his hat. "Well, if a vampyre lived here then what else would you call it?"
'Home' she thought, hiding a wry smile. She pictured Tony back home, unpacking Italian landscapes in the 'den of evil', or Alexandra in her 'trailer of evil'. She shook out her hair and turned to face the man, tilting up her chin.
"I'd call it a childrens story, unless you have some proof!" she challenged him.
The endless stories were tiring her. She was uncomfortably aware that the cabbie was probably more dangerous than he outwardly seemed. He'd known to suspect something odd about Crown's house (admittedly, that might qualify on the 'den of evil' criterion); there had definitely been something at the dump, and the wounds on her arms were still aching from the attack at the cemetery. He claimed to know about lupines also. Surely this was
more than any mortal should know...?
Norb held up a thin hand in another dramatic gesture, casting a five-fingered shadow across the peeling paint of the door.
"Before we go in, I must caution you to do everything that I tell you."
The woman nodded obediently. "I guess its lucky that I came here with an expert on vampyres, rather than just happening on it by accident."
"Oh ja," the driver agreed, reveling in his expert status.
Diane smiled and said nothing.
As Norb was leading her through the less rotted interior, brushing cobwebs away, she asked casually how he was so sure that a vampire lived in the house.
"Because he's still here," he said. He batted at another slew of cobwebbed curtains and carried on for a few steps before realising that she had stopped following him. Diane had stopped dead where she had been standing, hand still poised in mid air to brush the cobwebs out of her hair.
"I'm not sure I understand what you mean," she said, very slowly.
The man nodded reassuringly. "I'm taking you to see him now - the vampyre," he explained.
The woman glanced round the darkened interior then back to the driver, carefully, she finished shaking out her hair. "I.. see." Her mind was racing in ever decreasing circles. Which of the vampires might actually live here? Was Norb a ghoul?
"Don't worry," the driver remembered to add after a moment, taking her surprised and respectful apprehension as fear. "Its just the body. Its long dead and destroyed."
Nodding, Diane allowed herself to be led down into the basement. She was curious to know what he had found and identified as the body of a destroyed vampire. Norb flicked on the flashlight, it was a heavy- duty metal implement which seemed to have seen a lot of use. By its light, the pair could see into a dark lightless space where even the air tasted dead and dried, as if it had been trapped here like all the desiccated insects in the cobwebs in front of them. The webs formed a complete barrier, having taken the cellar over completely.
Norb broke up the cobwebs with the side of his hand, slashing at them. "Its been a while since I came here," he explained to her. As he turned back to his companion, the man was draped in white cobwebs which clung to his hat and coat. He slipped past her to go and find something to help clear the way in front of them more easily and left Diane on her own in the velvety dark.
It was strangely quiet and calm. There was no feeling of dread or lurking evil from the house, no touch of another world - she felt nothing to hint that this place was anything but an old house that was overdue to join the elements that had created it. The cellar smelled less of damp wood than had the entrance, more of dust and silent neglect.
The creaks in the boards above her head seemed abnormally loud in comparison to the perfect silence, as Norb made his way back from outside, and the torchlight soon reappeared to reveal him wielding a branch that he had found to clear the cobwebs away.
Again displaying a knowledge of the layout, Norb led her into another side-chamber. Much of one wall had collapsed where an earthquake must have loosened the crumbling masonry, and a small muddy chamber was exposed beyond it. He directed the torchlight through into this place and onto... the body that he had promised.
It was a dried out husk, moldering now that it was exposed to the moisture in the place. Green fungus and mildew were doing their part to try to return the corpse to the earth and Diane thought she could spy parts where rodents had nibbled away at the flesh. Charming.
The dead - man? - might have been like any other candidate for missing persons - or "Unsolved Mysteries" - except for the stake pounded into its chest and the fangs exposed in the open agonized mouth of what had truly once been a vampire.
{Q: OOC: Is she pretty sure the vampire is really dead and not just in
torpor?
A: (Intelligence + Occult = 2 successes). Given the nature of the remains, the severe degradation, etc - the vampire is probably just dead. But evenso, if it is a case where the body exists past the point where a human's corpse would have decayed, then most likely some of the undead force of the creature remains intact - meaning it is in torpor, though quite probably a deep one.
(Intelligence + Science = no successes). Without proper scientific examination of the area - Diane cannot figure if the corpse has defied time and nature still - or has simply rested in an area conducive to at least some preservation. She guesses the latter, but cannot be sure at this point.}
Whoever or whatever it had once been, its home had become its tomb. Even death could die like this, left forgotten to rot in the dark quiet places. The torchlight played over the corpse as the two figures peered at it, their own shadows becoming strange flickering entities against the stillness. The driver slid a hand back into a pocket and the answering draft stirred a torn cobweb into a shiver of movement. He cleared his throat; the woman did not. She was picking her way past him and across the rubble, impelled by a ghoulish curiousity. Her blondish hair was grey in the dim light as she pushed a lock behind an ear.
"Do you know who it was.. or who staked it?" she asked Norb finally, a matter-of-fact tone to her voice. "I mean.. did it.. he have a name?"
The driver shrugged his thin shoulders eloquently and let the light hover above what had been the creature's face. "Haven't found that out yet," he admitted. "I keep this place very secret. I don't want to lose one of the best spots on my tour. If sheriffs or - anyway, there are those who would come here and take this guy away on the spot."
Diane turned to look round the rest of the basement. It was in total darkness, the only source of illumination being the torch that the driver was holding. There was no sense of motion here, no noise other than what the visitors had brought with them; the ticking of two watches, the beating of one heart. No insects, no plumbing, no sounds of traffic or of birds. She guessed that the room might have been built to prevent sunlight entering, which had the unforeseen side- effect that the body had never burned to ash. It was also cold, in comparison with the temperature outside.
Dark geometric shapes that might have indicated boxes or bookcases, the contents long since moldered past any use, could be dimly made out through the veil of cobwebs and blackness. A picture of some description hung lopsidedly on a wall; the colours were too cracked and ruined for unpractised eyes to make anything of the original subject matter. In a dilapidated way, everything had been preserved.
What manner of house might it have been when it was in good condition?, Diane wondered. What manner of kindred might have lived and died there? How many other mortals had seen it? So many questions.
"So what makes you so sure it was a man?" she broke the silence again, self-consciously.
Norb cleared his throat with a bark and ran the torch down the corpse, past the torso. The wavering circle of light hovered over a withered bit of dark mossy flesh, resembling nothing so much as a dried tadpole with fuzz. The woman craned her neck at an angle, finding some dark humour in this. If she was embarrassed it wasn't evident.
"Ah.. I see." An irreverent smile touched her lips in the dim light, "Not all that impressive, was he?" She'd decided some while ago that any questions she might have had on the finer points of male vampiric anatomy were probably fated to remain as unanswered trivia.
The taxi driver gave her a flat look and for a moment there was silence. The torchlight moved back primly to glint off the dead vampire's fangs.
"Difficult to look anything much when you have been moldering for a hundred years." His eyes were hidden in the shadow cast by the brim of his hat.
There was a brief rustle as the woman twitched back the cuffs of her sleeves, then an inclination of the head. Both of their faces were pale shades of grey, the darkness leeching any colour out of them other that the occasional flicker as the torchlight was reflected in the white of an eye, or when the man blinked through the dust.
She asked thoughtfully, "Was there anything else here?"
"Found a pocket watch and fob on the guy," Norb commented. "Nice gold one. Even though it didn't work any more, I got a few hundred for it down at the pawnshop."
Diane returned her gaze to the dead vampire's face. In an odd way, he'd been lying here in state. No crowds of adoring mourners had passed through the house though, only an opportunist graverobber and maybe a handful of well-heeled tourists looking for a thrill. She almost warmed to Norb for the display of entrepreneurial spirit and hoped the creature had been an elder. As the light caught its yellowed canines again, the woman ran her tongue unconsciously along her teeth, finding the points of her own fangs in silent acknowledgment of the kinship.
The driver was looking at her as he absently knocked dust from his hat, and replaced it. He offered her a hand as she turned finally, and pushed a curtain of cobwebs out of the way as he picked out the way back to the cab, "I think that is long enough here. You had enough, or shall we go on with the tour?"
Diane was silent for a moment as they climbed out of the cellar; subdued. She found herself lowering her voice out of some misplaced respect for the dead and forced it back to a normal speech level, "I think," she said, "That its getting late. It's been.. interesting, but I think I'd like to get home."

Sunday, July 30th, 1995 2:59 a.m.

Diane studied the dessicated vampire as the cab driver cleared away some more cobwebs, tangling them around the torch. She was acutely aware that her chances of finding this place again under her own steam were remote at best, should she ever want to do so. This needn't present an insurpassable problem, she could always pay Norb to bring her out here.
It all came down to the question of whether the creature in front of her was actually dead. Kindred were tough, they didn't die easily. Her sire had never told her a great deal more than that (probably wisely, Diane had to admit, although it would have been useful knowledge). So.. was the vampire dead, and its corpse had simply been sheltered by the elements, or was it in torpor, in which case it might be possible to wake the man up? Never having seen either a torpored vampire or a dead one, the neonate was somewhat at a loss on how to determine either.
Blood was usually the key to these things.
On an impulse she walked back to the prone figure, and stood by its head. With a brief glance towards Norb, she reached out towards its fangs.
The driver cleared his throat," I wouldn't do that if I were you..." He had stopped clearing cobwebs and was looking at her, somewhat concerned.
Diane gave him a smile backed up with a determined jut of the chin. "I just have to check if they're real," she said innocently. "What do you think he's going to do? Wake up and grab me...?"
Norb shrugged but he shifted his weight from one foot to the other uncomfortably as the woman steeled herself and stroked a fingertip down the length of one of the fangs. They were certainly real, but she had
already felt certain of that. Turning her back to the cab driver, she casually impaled a finger on one of them, watching the vitae bell out. She let it drip into the dead things mouth, eyes glittering in the dim light with the thrill of the risk.
As she did so, the thought did occur to her of what she'd do if it did move. 'Run like hell' seemed a decent option. Or point it at Norb and grovel. Or both.
She could hear Norb fidgeting with the torch somewhere behind her, but the corpse didn't stir. Nothing. Turning away she nodded thoughtfully to the man "They're real," she informed him soberly, and he gave her a long-suffering look, tinged with genuine relief.
From the little Diane knew about torpor she guessed that if the vampire really was in that state, it might take a lot more blood (and removal of the stake) to revive it. So still she couldn't be definite about its state. The odds were probably on it being dead though.
Giving it one last look, she shrugged and allowed Norb to lead her away.

Sunday, July 30th, 1995 3:50 a.m.

The night was at its darkest as the cab headlights flicked off and the engine turned over once before falling silent.
"Well, here you are," Norb told Diane, gesturing to the front of the house from which she had left several hours previously. "So.. how'd you like it?" He winked conspiratorially. "Pretty spooky, ja?"
The man twisted in his seat to face her and the tip of his long nose twitched, as if he could smell the hundred dollar bill in her pocket.
Diane took her cue and plucked the note between a thumb and forefinger where he could see it. "It was.. pretty much on the button," she said, pleased.
Norb grinned. Then she unleashed a supernaturally charm laden smile at him and the grin faded subtly to fascination.
"What I'm curious about is how you know about all those incredible things, Norb. Its.. " She paused and let her voice lower to a purr. "Its.. very impressive. I'm so curious now..."
The taxi driver rubbed at his chin, his gaze unwavering from her face now. He seemed more inclined to just sit there and stare than offer any useful information. Diane sighed internally and gave him a mental nudge, pushing the directions straight through his muddle of a mind.
[Dominate]"Tell me truthfully, how did you find out so much about these supernatural things?" [/Dominate]
The man blinked and then waved a hand. Finally he started to talk, with an immense enthusiasm that made the vampire begin to seriously regret having forced the issue. Then something he said did catch her interest.
'Schattenmeisters'? He claimed to have been involved with a group he called Schattenmeisters, who he described as people who searched for information about supernatural beings that preyed on mankind. Keeping up the impressed expression, Diane prodded him for more details but he shrugged conspiratorially and said he had used them to get his initial leads and then bowed out, as it was all too much for him. He claimed also that he maintained contact with the group and sometimes fed them information in exchange for things he wanted to know. He said proudly that he got the best of the deal.
A lot of his findings he was able to discover on his own as he spent time at the library and certain archives where he's considered an informal scholar.
"Which library?" the vampire interjected, but the man waved the question away and continued with his oratory.
He was pleased with the way he had turned the useless knowledge into a good money spinner.
He mentioned also another group that he called 'Schattenjaegers' - a group who actually combatted the creatures of the night. He confided in her that he thought them to be VERY dangerous and fanatical. He was concerned that they might consider him to be some sort of traitor to mankind...
"Why is that?" Diane asked, "For showing them to tourists?"
Norb shrugged matter-of-factly. "They're all mad. Also my girlfriend is a werewolf priestess."
This time it was the vampires turn to hide a gasp. She froze in her seat, but Norb didn't seem to notice. It sounded horribly plausible to her (although she noted that werewolves seemed to have dire taste in men if this one was typical).
He chattered on carelessly and told her that his girlfriend gave him a bit of information but he thought she was too closed-mouthed and should trust him more.
Stunned at the werewolf connection, Diane handed over the hunded dollars and left him in the cab. It hadn't been her previous plan but ... he was going out with a werewolf?! The instinctive fear, and astonishment began to tighten into a knot of balled-up frustration.
Norb waved a cheery hand from the car window as he started the engine up. A pair of early morning joggers thudded past, slick with sweat. They were breathing heavily.
The vampire strode past them and let herself back into the house without even turning to watch the cab drive off. She pulled the door closed with a taut snap of the wrist, feeling the beads of irritation and confusion prickle around her throat where they were growing and entwining like a choker of thorns. Behind the paneled oak, the grumble of the car engine ebbed into the background noise where it lost any notion of individuality and she knew that Norb was gone.
A soft thud emanated from one of the rooms upstairs, followed by a pause and a low pitched squeaking sound. Diane ignored it and eyed her own reflection in the ornate mirror that hung at the opposite end of the hallway - it looked grim. Apart from the rips in her shirt sleeves and the oddments of cobwebs that clung determinedly to her shoulders, resisting all attempts to brush them off, there was something wooden in her expression, something translucent about her greying pallor and something dark and smouldering in her eyes, even without the hollow circles.
How dare the man frustrate her by having lupine allies?! Was there nothing in this city that they didn't touch?
Another wave of frustration, fueled by a wicked tide of hunger drove through her. Healing the scratch-marks on her arms had made her suddenly more aware of it, almost as if it had found a voice of its own. Still she regarded her reflection motionlessly in the dim light, where the shadows lent it a smug expression, almost as if it were gloating. There was another faint creak from the stairway, then another pause before Tony called her name curiously, almost hopefully.
"Diane?"
It took less than a second for her to scoop up a metal paperweight from the table. It hit the mirror with the full weight of her arm behind
it and the reflection shattered instantly with a satisfyingly loud crack; the heavy frame shivered. Almost in slow motion, the paperweight landed on the carpet in a hail of glass shards and a thud. Almost in slow motion her lips spread into a thin smile and her hands curled into loose fists.
"What...? Are you OK?" this time the voice was closer and contained a startled note, and as the ghoul appeared at the top of the stairs the spell was broken.
Diane stretched a hand wide, spreading the fingers like the struts of an umbrella and smiled up at him. "Oh hi," she said experimentally, "I'm fine... "
The rougher edge of her temper had been quelled by the violence - there was something comforting about wreaking destruction on valuable possessions, it gave her a sense of being back in control; and the mirror had been a beautiful piece. Still, he must have seen something in her face ... to stop midway down the stairs. She flexed her hand again, feeling the tension trickle out of it and turned slightly towards him, away from the broken glass.
"I'm afraid I had a bit of an accident with the mirror, love," she shrugged, shifting to a pleasant smile.
The man's eyes flicked to the mirror before returning to her, and he nodded, evidently having come to some decision. "Don't worry about it, these things happen. So how was it?" he asked with a smile.
Perhaps it was just a touch cautious. He picked his way down the last few stairs and hesitated again, as if he was waiting for something.
"Definitely an eye-opener," Diane admitted ruefully, admiring him in a moment of silent eye contact. Tony certainly also fell into the category of 'valuable possession' - she wasn't precisely sure whether or not she felt like doing anything destructive to him also. "I didn't mean to disturb you. Come on," the smile promised heaven and earth to its recipient. "Lets go back upstairs and I'll tell you all about it!"
As she moved past him, Tony leaned across to give her a peck on the cheek. "Its never a disturbance, you know that." He was smiling as he stood aside to let her climb the stairs ahead of him. "I was ... just moving some new furniture into the back bedroom. Its nothing that can't wait, unless you want to go and look at it?" If he had been able to see the cruel twist to her smile, he might have sounded less cheerful.
"Sure," the vampire agreed and left the carnage down in the hall for someone else to deal with later as she led the way upstairs.
The back bedroom was a box-room, and she hadn't bothered with it further than to try to work out how many bookshelves might be fitted in at a push and then to dismiss it as a storage area. The concept of a guest room was one that hadn't occurred to her. In the absence of any direction (or in fact any display of interest) Tony had taken the matter of decorations and usage into his own hands. Even in her odd mood, Diane paused at the door to admire the decor. Heavy rust coloured curtains were tied back at the windows and an autumnal still-life in a carved gilt frame hung above the bed. A carriage clock, in a belljar case of glass and gold, ticked loudly from a round bedside table from where it overlooked a neatly folded pile of yellow and brown sheets and towels.
"What's this, the gold room?" she asked, turning to the man who followed a couple of paces behind her. He grinned boyishly and twitched past, waving a hand towards it.
"Something like that. Its not quite finished yet but.. what do you think?"
Diane tested the bed before lying down on it and eyeing the ceiling. The light fitting was some confection in smoked glass -- she couldn't help but wonder how much it had all cost. "Very nice," she allowed, before adding cruelly, "Its a bit 'Victorian hotel room' but its very nice... if you like that sort of thing."
The ghoul regarded her for a moment, then nodded as if this were precisely the reaction he had hoped for. He rubbed at the short hairs at the back of his neck and smiled crookedly, "Anyway, never mind that. Did it go well?"
Diane waved a hand airily without sitting up. "Definitely interesting. Define well? Does it include being .. half killed by angry ghosts?" she drawled.
"Are you sure you're OK?" The voice sounded diffident but concerned, as if he were alerted by her very manner as well as what she said.
The vampire sat up abruptly. "Yes." she snapped. "I am absolutely fine. Now do you want to hear about this or not?"
Tony nodded, holding a hand up appeasingly, "OK, I'm sorry - please, I'm interested...?" he ran a hand through his hair again and turned back to a handsome chestnut armoire, shouldering it into place carefully.
She sketched out a brief summary of the night's events, neglecting the embarrassing interlude outside Crown's house, watching him all the while. Strange how she hadn't noticed that habit he had of rubbing the back of his neck when he was nervous. Every time he did it she couldn't help remembering how the soft bristles had felt under her fingers - which was distracting and did nothing for her temper.
Tony patted the armoire as if it was a favourite dog before standing back to scrutinise its current and final position. He glanced at her briefly, almost apologetic. "That does sound a bit wild. I'd lived here all my life and never known about some of those things.. I'm glad you got back in one piece."
Diane shrugged a shoulder, perhaps in agreement.
He cleared his throat, "So you think it might be possible to find out more about this dead vampire?"
"I was hoping you might be able to help with that," she said evenly.
"He mentioned a watch that he'd taken from the body and sold to a pawn shop for a few hundred dollars. I'd very much like to find that watch, or find out what happened to it.."
"Sure," he agreed, sitting awkwardly on a corner of the bed, and twisting round to look at her. "That won't be a problem. I can have a look round tomorrow maybe. Do you have a description at all?"
She did smile at that, a faintly calmer smile which was hopefully a good sign. "He said it was a gold one with a fob-chain."
The man nodded again, more cheerfully. "Right. Gold watch hunt it is! I still don't quite understand this lupine concept. You're telling me they not only exist locally but that this taxi driver has some link with them? What would a werewolf do with a cab driver?"
Diane allowed a whisper-thin smile and leaned forwards to stroke his arm with a finger. "He said his girlfriend was one, Tony," she said, deceptively gentle. "They probably use him in the same way that vampires use ghouls -- employees, slaves, courtiers, muscle-men, servants, toys, people to do the dirty work.."
Tony frowned slightly as she ran through the list, and the vampire watched his expressions shift with an academic interest. "Is that how other vampires use .. um... ghouls then?"
"Only -other- vampires? But darling, what do you think a vampire is? Of course you're my toy..."
As soon as the words had left her lips she wished them back. There was no doubt that they had hit home hard. Maybe too hard. If there had been even the slightest sliver of doubt it was dispelled by the wounded expression in his eyes, followed rapidly by defeat, and the sprouts of colour that budded along his cheekbones.
He said simply, "I see. I hadn't realised that," pulling himself up to his full height. His expression closed up, like a tropical plant that had been caught in an unseasonal storm.
Diane looped her arms around her knees and regarded him with an immobile smile. Behind her eyes she could feel the first irrational prickles of nascent tears. By hurting a thing you could prove you were in control of it, so why didn't that please her any more? Why did it only feel as if she was torturing herself?
"You once asked me for the truth."
"I know." He pulled on his jacket, shrugging his shoulders into it. "I think I'll go for a walk.. if thats alright with your ladyship?" The request was formal, if sardonic.
She nodded, and continued to watch him as he walked round the end of the bed and across to the door, as if he could not be out of the place soon enough.
"Will you come back?" she asked quietly. She was 99.9% sure of the answer, but wished she felt less guilty about taking her temper out on him. Real vampires never felt any regret for that sort of thing, she was sure.
Tony paused at the door, "Don't worry," he said bitterly. "You'll get a gold watch to play with."
She waited until his footsteps had echoed down the stairs and the front door had closed behind him before she allowed herself the luxury of flopping back onto the bed. As the house drifted back into unhurried silence, a heavy tear burned its trail against her cheek before soaking redly into the pillow.

Monday, July 31st, 1995 9.00 p.m.

Emma rushed into the lounge with her hair wrapped in a towel and a lightbulb cradled in her hand. "Oh man," she groaned. "We're never going to be ready in time. What if no-one comes?"
The couple on the sofa separated enough for one of them to be distinguishable as male, a lanky creature in his early twenties who was looking fashionably disheveled in designer jeans and a NIN shirt.
"Chill." he said, amused. "People will come..."
He was pulled back into a slow clinch by his partner. Emma glared at them as she hopped up onto a table to screw in the new lightbulb.
"You're no use! I've still got to mix the punch and get the music sorted out before the DJ arrives., if he ever does... and I still don't know what I'm going to wear."
"Don't worry," the girl on the couch echoed her boyfriend. She sounded as though she had already been drinking. "It'll be cool..."

Monday, July 31st, 1995 9:20 p.m.

Across the campus, people were getting ready for their various nights out. Tight skirts were smoothed over clean limbs and mouths were pursed to allow careful application of lipstick. Clean shirts were shaken out and buttoned quickly. The local water supply groaned under the burden of hundreds of simultaneous showers. Experimental poses were struck in front of mirrors, and rushed phone calls were made to sort out final arrangements.

Monday, July 31st, 1995 9:40 p.m.

As the last of the suns rays filtered through the layers of leaves and branches that sheltered the forest floor, before turning ashen and fading to a blue-ish gloom. There was a scuffle as a pair of squirrels leapt up a tree, alerted by a soft scrabbling sound. A pair of paper-white taloned hands broke through the forest floor and wriggled around a bit. Then the owner of the hands dug the rest of himself out of the ground and stretched, dusting off the dirt. He looked around and grinned.

Monday, July 31st, 1995 9:45 p.m.

In the large apartment the furniture had been largely removed from the lounge, to make room for dancing and the drinks were set out neatly on the kitchen table. Emma directed a hairdryer at her damp hair meaningfully and decided on the little blue dress. Blue would be good.

Monday, July 31st, 1995 9:55 p.m.

Diane woke up with a start in the little basement room, her eyes flicking open. For a moment she was disorientated, before the events of the previous night floated to the surface of her memory. She rubbed at her temples but the memory didn't waver. Pragmatically, she checked her watch and flicked off the radio, determining that would have to wait, for now she had some preparations to make.
She showered quickly, turning the heat up to its maximum setting, as if that might permeate her cold skin. Scents were important to a hunting vampire. She used plenty of strong-scented soap. Then she rinsed her mouth out with mouthwash. It was disgusting but there were times when a woman had to do what a woman had to do.

Monday, July 31st, 1995 10:00 p.m.

The mass of evening people was beginning to sort itself out into self-determined categories. Pale Goths in their tight black finery and heavily over-lacquered lips and nails converged on the club du jour. Casuals with money to burn compared designer labels in coffee-shops, preparing to move on to the smart clubs later on. Tourists with their new tans and gaudy jewelry gathered in gaggles and spent money.
All over the city, the various other evening people were also preparing, in their secluded houses, hotel rooms or sewers.

Monday, July 31st, 1995 10:05 p.m.

Diane sat down in front of her dressing table and flicked on the light above the mirror. She studied her face for a moment before nodding to herself and reaching for the make-up bag. The first to go in were small wads of cotton wool behind the backs of her gums to fill out her face a bit. She sucked in her cheeks and poked inside her mouth with a finger until she was satisfied with the effect.
Then a heavy layer of tinted foundation to replace the unhealthy sallow tone. She applied it with a damp sponge, coating her face and neck as well as her hands and lower arms. This was followed by carefully placed dabs of the concealer stick, to hide the dark circles around her eyes, and a highlighter pencil to draw out her eyebrows and cheekbones. On her own face, she could see the strained indications of bloodless vampire slowly replaced by a semblance of healthy human. The next was lipstick - enough to widen her thin lips. Powder blotted the damp make-up and smoothed the colours into each other.
It would do. Still definitely hollow around the eyes, but no more than could be explained by a few late nights in a row. She untied the towel from her hair and combed it out as she extracted clothes from her wardrobe. Tight and black, not too outrageously tarty - nothing to draw too much attention.
Still not entirely happy about the eyes. She rummaged in a drawer for the coloured contacts, the green was almost unnaturally bright but would mask the dull burning hunger. Jewelry was discreet, a loudly ticking watch for one wrist - enough to be mask the lack of heartbeat.
Finally she lit up a cigarette to practice 'breathing' and paced around the room. Round and around. She was running out of things to do to put off the fact that she would have to speak to Tony. Presumably she could just sneak out of the house... The vampire took a long drag on the filter and blew out smoke in a thin plume. She had no intention of sneaking out of her own house. On her wrist, the watch ticked loudly. She continued to pace.

Monday, July 31st, 1995 10:42 p.m.

Tony had been making coffee and now was sitting down to drink it. A newspaper was unravelled at the kitchen table in front of him and he dabbed at the crossword with a slim pencil, filling in the little squares neatly. Every five minutes or so he glanced up at the door cautiously and then bowed his head back over the paper. The steam from the coffee cup curled upwards in a thin spiral.
The vampire watched the reflection of his face in the mirror, which had already been replaced, as she stood at the other end of the hallway. She had been silently watching him for perhaps half an hour. Really it was half an hour too long as she needed to hunt with a painful urgency. But still...
She finally moved to the kitchen doorway, silent in stockinged feet, with no sound of breathing to betray her. Parquet flooring was kind like that to the unshod. He took another sip from the cup, before he noticed her and stopped, replacing it very slowly on its little saucer.
"Evening, Tony," she said easily as if this was the usual routine, leaning against the door jamb. "Had a good day?"
He studied her for a moment before responding. "Its been fine, thanks. I dug up a couple of watches for you to look at." Again that gesture with rubbing the back of his neck. "I... .. you're late tonight?"
"I.. ahh... just wanted to say I was sorry about yesterday. I think I said some things I didn't mean." she crammed the words out briskly and drummed her fingers against the wall. She was really very unused to apologising and the floor was taking on a whole new interest.
She could hear the chair scrape against the floor as he stood up without saying anything. Embarrassment made her more irritated and she began to regret having even bothered. Her mouth tightened. She couldn't hang around at the house too long tonight - he had to realise that. She was on the verge of shrugging and leaving him to mope when he did speak.
"No, I'm sorry. I hadn't realised you'd had such a rotten time." He touched her lightly on the shoulder and she raised her eyes to his face, keeping any signs of emotion from her face except for a faintly quizzical expression. This time he bit his lip. "Can I just ask... was it true?"
She shook her head. "No, not really." It probably wasn't the most encouraging of negations but it seemed enough. She slid an arm about his waist and fell silent for a moment before adding, "I don't remember when I last cared this much about someone."
He leaned over to give her a peck on the cheek. "I know," he said quietly, wearing an oddly intense smile.
'No, you don't,' she thought.
This was getting embarrassing so she cleared her throat and moved on quickly, "I really have to go hunting soon, Tony, but I could take a quick look at those watches first?"
"They're in the other room," he informed her, "I'll just get them."
When he returned with a tray holding at least a dozen gold watches Diane didn't hide how impressed she was. "How many shops did you go to?"
"Oh don't worry," he said, pleased with the reaction. "I can return the ones you don't want. I went to the pawn shop you told me about. They had a nice 19th century French gold pocket watch but it was sold to a collector in San Francisco for a lot of money. I have a feeling that the one you were looking for might be this one since the guy at Raeder's said the guy who sold it to him had a accent and didn't seem to know it's actual worth - being happy with just a few hundred dollars for it."
He handed the watch to her and she flicked the cover open and glanced at it briefly.
"Looks like a likely candidate," she decided. "I'm happy to go with your feelings - I'll take it with me tonight and decide when I get back. Will you be around then?"
Tony grinned. "I can be, if you'd like?"
"I would," she told him and reached for her coat, pulling the belt tight and drawing on a pair of tight black gloves. It was already getting a touch late for hunting in the town centre, on a weekday, but she vaguely remembered something about a party up on the campus.
As she left the house, she entertained the brief thought that perhaps she should find some sort of present for Tony, but she had already forgotten about it by the time she arrived, fashionably late, mingling unnoticed into a horde of revellers. The need to hunt had taken over as a primary priority.

 :

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