Sudden, but inevitable betrayal.

If you had to put a word to it, “ka-shunk,” sounds about right for the noise Evelyn burying a sharpened piece of wood in your chest makes. It’s hard not to stare at it, honestly. Did that used to be a mop handle? The end has the curve you’d expect of a mop handle. Oh, God, you’re doing that thing where your life is flashing before your eyes and you’re super-cogent even though you’re about to die.

“Sorry, sexy, but I’ve done this dance before,” Evelyn sighs, stepping away from you. Honestly, you’re still sort of staring, but you hear footsteps. “This city’s been going to shit ever since I started seeing more you shadow-pires around, and I may hate the people, but I love my town. I’d give you a chance to explain yourself, but …” she gestures to the makeshift stake as she returns, hefting a baseball bat (did she hide that out here?), “been down that road, too.”

As she pulls back for a swing, the both of you hear a long, orgasmic shriek from the side of the building. Evelyn groans, dropping the bat down to waist level. She holds up a single finger at you, then bolts after the noise. You turn and watch her go, sort of wondering why you aren’t dead yet. Experimentally, you move your arm, and it goes right up to your chest and grabs the stake like you wanted. When you pull it out, you let out a small scream you muffle by biting your lower lip as hard as you can without breaking skin. It’s slicked with a little bit of your blood, but no viscera or gore in particular. As interested as you are in why you’re not dead or at least immobilized, much more of you is interested in getting the hell out of here before that crazy bitch with the bat comes back.

But someone was screaming. And if she thought you were going to kill her … ‘She doesn’t need your help. She literally just tried to kill you,’ you reason to yourself. ‘Though if this was a fuck-up while trying to kill me and someone else is in danger, you’re killing two people walking away. What would you do, anyway? You’ve been in, like, one fight, ever.’

‘You won pretty decisively,’ the voice whispers to you. ‘Besides, if everyone dies, more to drink. What’s the harm in at least looking? And maybe getting involved and killing someone, but just looking to start.’ The encouragement from your morals and what seems to be an utter LACK of morals rubs the wrong way, but you don’t want to just trust blind fear. Could you really live with yourself (as it were) if you read the paper tomorrow and see two dead bodies you could have kept living, breathing people? That particular balance isn’t in your favor already.

You huff, then take off after the vampire hunter, hoping the half-minute lead she has on you by now isn’t too critical. As you start the round the corner, you see her careening through the air completely horizontal and slam into the wall of the building behind Blue 8 with **** that makes you shudder. Still, that could mean you’re actually needed here.

Coming around to what is apparently the employee parking lot, you can see the man you spotted inside the club, along with the same woman. She’s standing stock-still, eyes straight forward, and it doesn’t take a genius to guess why. She’s pretty, probably early thirties, blonde. You have no reason to think it, but you immediately assume recent divorcee. God, what a terrible way to get back into the dating pool. The vampire, fangs out, could look worse, slicked-back hair working a sort of 50’s vibe and the green button-up with black slacks cut a decent figure, but there’s something malicious about him you sense right away. This guy is a killer. And not because he has to be.

“Another hunter?” he laughs, seeing you. “At least your friend had the decency to cover herself when dressing like a harlot.” … you still don’t have a top on. Well, at least you buckled your pants at some point, face-planting with them around your ankles sounds less than fun. “Here to test my skill as well?”

“Whoa, buddy, sucking chest wound here,” you counter, pointing to the hole the stake drilled into you. “Looking at a victim here.”

“Ah.” His expression changes to one of consideration. It doesn’t take a genius to tell what’s going through his head, though, as he observes you slowly instead of dismissively as before. It’s still not a great feeling. “Well, you’re welcome to her. I already have my entertainment for the evening. If you’d like, we can even bring yours back to my Haven and have quite the time.” Something’s wrong with how he’s speaking. You can detect a light English accent, but it’s purposefully masked. It occurs to you that if vampires are like, well, vampires and live forever, that’s probably not the voice he was born with.

“Aren’t you kind of worried about the ‘trail of bodies,’ thing? Or at least this one ID’ing you,” you ask, gently tapping Evelyn’s unmoving form with your foot. You notice she’s still conscious from the slight jerk of her leg when you do, but he can’t seem to in the dark.

“Please, they’ll be incinerated before morning. Never tell a soul. This one’s cut out from her husband far north …” ‘Knew it,’ you allow yourself. “and hunters … well, they tend to be sad, lonely creatures. I’d be surprised if she ever had someone to miss her.”

“Sure,” you lie. You want to be angry, and you are. Urgings push up from inside you to exact vengeance on the woman who attacked you, but this was the first other vampire you met, and he’s casually talking about draining and disposing of humans like it’s washing the fucking dishes. You wish you’d met another Undead American you could be friends with. You really do. But even if you’re both killers, you’re still not like him. “I can follow in my car.”

“You’ll have my address. I’m under curfew at the chantry, and private chambers I may have, but the guards are quite strict about arriving on time.” Fuck. You can’t risk him killing this girl before you get there. Mercifully, you can’t spot any blood on her. He’s definitely bitten her, but he must have closed it so she’d last longer. It sounded like he was aiming for an all-night affair, after all.

“Cool. The chantry.” What the fuck is a chantry? “Okay, so I’ll just grab her and meet you there, I know the way.” You don’t, but when he turns away, the last thing you’re worried about is street directions. Tendrils of shadow burst up from around him, three again as you purposely call them up this time. It’s kind of a rush and certainly feels better than something inside doing it for you. They quickly encircle him and squeeze, trying to crush him and end this before it starts.

Unfortunately, that’s not the order of tonight.