It’s strange how much a stopped heartbeat can change things. Vampiric tendencies aren’t too much trouble, but it’s giving everything around me a strange feeling, almost surreal.

As I had laid over Julian, a lifelong – well, since our lives as Hunters began – friend, she seemed like food, and like a toy, rather than like an equal, but only in the mildest sense. The Lords hadn’t warned me that I would feel different myself, but if I did feel and differences I would have expected them to be... Well, more craven. I don’t really know how, but these senses seem almost human, and almost animalistic, but not blood-thirsty, other than the fact that I am actually feeling rather parched... but I really mean metaphorically anyway. But what I’m trying to say is that since I’m dead, but suspended in that last moment, I’m sort of, well, living in the moment. Like everything happening now is much more important than what happened then.

The strangest thing about Julian right now – and when we were in bed – is that she instills fear in me, just by her scent. She smells like a Hunter, and that’s what’s tripping me up. She’s my predator right now. I’m her prey, yet we’re collaborating. My newfound instincts are screaming at me to hide, or eliminate, but my mind is overpowering them. I do find myself jumpier than before, though.

The dim lighting of the cavern doesn’t bother either of us. We’re Hunters, trained for that sort of thing, and our eyes are used to the night since we’re mostly nocturnal anyway. Plus, who’s ever heard of a night-blind vampire? That’s a stupid concept. Right now we’re navigating through them daftly, completely unsure where we’re going. I was only anywhere near the master’s chambers once, and I was still delirious from being Sired.

I’m really wondering why I was chosen to be the vampire for this mission. Maybe I take things in stride, but Julian’s always been cooler, and more able to swallow fear. Well, maybe that’s part of it. She must be scared of me right now, even more so than I of her. She has to be held under my mercy, and the only thing she gets to trust in is that the Lords’ potion worked. I know it worked, by the changes I don’t feel, but she can’t know.

There’s also the factor that she’s... Well, she’s damn attractive to vampires and hunters and the like. She’s muscular, yet feminine enough to appear frail, and let’s face it, she’s damn attractive, even if she’ll never admit it, and her Hunter blood carries strength in it, as does her conditioning. The more the red-blood-cells in a person the more food in one swallow, and the longer it sustains, therefore the better it tastes.

So, at the same time as instilling fear, and being my predator, she brings a hunger, and is my prey.

“Over here,” says Julian. She’s signaling to a small niche in which some chains are kept, and torturing equipment that I’d really rather not think about, but I’ll do my best to describe what they’re for... Siphoning, I think. Tubes and things, devices designed for finding the best blood flow, and things of that nature... They also tend to cause serious pain, and they don’t sedate their ‘patients’ because that would get sedatives in the blood.

“I’m not chaining you up,” I tell her quietly, shaking my mind for those tools and making sure no one can overhear us. Julian is now rolling her eyes at me, with a large sigh.

“Someone is going to catch us if we just wander aimlessly, Scale,” she hisses. “If I’m chained just enough to appear helpless, but loose enough to escape if I need to, then we’ll have a cover, stupid.” Just like Julian. Three steps ahead, always the chess player. She remembers strategies from the past because she has the ability to live in the past and present. No wonder they wanted her mind in tip top shape rather than impure with Vampiric needs...

I’m about to agree—Wait, were those footsteps? Yes, very, very faint, but someone in this place isn’t under the impression that there’s an imminent threat, so they aren’t making any kind of an effort at stealth. By the pattern of their steps they sound drunk, too, hobbling and knocking around, and all.

“Did you see her? A boot like him... He’s getting spoiled!” says a voice from the passage to the left. We didn’t just come from there, so they’re in our way, whoever they are.

“Yeah, well, you gotta hook ‘em if they’re useful,” says a second voice, equally drunkenly. “With a Sired Hunter you can’t waste a second of their loyalty, since they’s so temporary!” apparently that’s a joke of some kind, because both the voices cracked up, and is sounds like they just fell against the wall. Good thing for Julian and I, too, because then they might not think to ask too many questions. I quickly grab Julian’s hands and chain her wrists in a manner that I know she can escape from in a second, and I stash a gun on her person, just in case.

“Hey new boot!” says a vampire in front of me as I lead Julian roughly into the corridor. He’s skinny, a bit inhumanly so, and tottering slightly.

“Hello,” I say brightly, moving Julian away from the outstretched hands of the blood drinkers. “Sorry, fellas, I’ve had my fun with this one, and I’m going to offer her to the Master,” I snicker. Julian is the perfect actress.

“You fucking bastard!” she screams, and puts up only enough fight to make me look good.

“Hey,” I snap in return, pretending to jab a nerve sack. Julian goes slack, and I wonder if I actually hit.

“Oh, she’s fiesty. If the master turns his nose up for any reason, can we have just a little lick? Maybe get our dicks wet?” says one of the Vampires, and with that comes a roar of laughter from both the vulgar creatures. I sneer inwardly, but betray no signs.

“I don’t think that’s likely to happen, do you? This tasty morsel? Hell, I’d drink her myself if I didn’t have such a generous Master,” I say. Just in the word generous, I know that even through the haze of alcoholic blood the other two understand that I mean selfish.

“Yeah,” says the second. “I know how that goes, generous as he is, best to give him his fare share,” he says, sounding painfully sober now.

“Have a good neardawn,” mumbles the other as I continue on my way.

As soon as we’ve rounded a corner and are out of sight I make eye contact with my partner, and in the tone of the Vampire I’m playing I ask her,

“Aww, did I hurt you?” inquiring about the nerve sack. If I hit it then it might leave her a little addled for a while, but not that long. She raises her head to look at me and shake it, the tiniest semblance of a smirk coming to her face before she coughs and denies it as the prisoner she’s playing.

Continuing on as well as we know how, Julian supporting herself now too, we round a corner that has an ornate doorway on one wall. I remember this doorway...

“This is it,” I whisper. Julian tenses, I can feel her muscles rippling under her skin in nervousness. Who wouldn’t be nervous? We’re about to kill a Master Vampire, and she’s gotta play the bait.

I yank the chains tight enough to actually bind her since she’s going to have to get close, and I withdraw the firearm I stashed on her. Lotta good it did, too.

“Ah, Fledgling Scale,” says a voice from the gloom. Here it’s so unnaturally dark that even I’m having trouble seeing. I can smell the fear in Julian, and I can tell that she’s not faking, but she’s indulging in her own fear for the sake of the show.

“My Lord,” I say back to the Master whom I can just barely make out in the darkness. “I’ve brought you a gift, in case you wanted some,” I say, adding a snicker to the end, just for good measure.

“Had what you wanted out of her, then, have you?” asks the Master. I laugh darkly. Julian is shivering in my arms, and I want more than anything to just shoot the unholy thing in front of us and console her, but he’ll be too prepared right now.

“Yeah, I got what I wanted,” I say. “Can you believe that this little treat was still a virgin?” I ask. Then, with wicked laughter that agitates Julian even further, I add, “But not any more...”

“Well, if that was all you wanted, Fledgling Scale,” says the Vampire in front of me. Though I can’t see his face, I know he’s grinning with anticipation. “Bring her forward to me, and I’ll have a drink...” Is that the glimmer of drool on his lips?

I harden my heart for a moment, and kick Julian forward to him, probably leaving behind a bruise, since I had to get her pretty far. The pale, heavily veined hand of the Master before me reaches out and snags Julian’s arm. Oh, I really, really wanna shoot him now... He’s about to eat her, and I know it. I just have to wait. I’ll save her, and it’ll be okay. I just... I’d better not miss the first time. I grip the handle of the gun that I’d stashed with Julian and gotten back. I can feel my grip tensing with worry for my partner. My knuckled would have been more than just white, were there any blood flowing through my system to leave the taught area on my hand. I can feel my teeth gnashing against each other when my jaw tightens as if my brain is protesting the very thought of watching what I’m about to watch.

Julian is being drawn close to that vile creature... He’s holding her arms now, gripping then with enough force to whiten those areas. She’s struggling as best she can, I can tell. She’s not faking the terror, or the need to get free, but she’s bound, and being held by an old creature with super strength.

He bites her neck, and I watch as a single drop of blood, missed by the Master’s lips, slides down the side of her limp neck. She’s in thrall, completely unable to move, think or act at all. I have to wait until he’s in thrall too before I can act, so I just sit there, watching the blood drain from Julian’s body and into the stomach of a damned being.

There was a short moan from the Vampire drinking Julian. Ever so slight and inaudible as his eyes roll into the back of his skull and his brain has the ability to send out endorphins to his body again. He’s there.

In a second I have my gun out, and I pull the trigger, shooting his head. It’ll take him a bit to realize he’s dead, I know, but in the mean time there will be guards coming that heard the shot. Oh, look, here they are, bursting through to door right now.

I sidestep a knife blow that was aimed at me by on of them, and duck another while doing a sweep kick. I rise before my opponents do and quickly plant a bullet in each of their foreheads. Another guard comes through, but my gun’s out of ammo already, since it could only hold six shots, and Julian used one, and one was left blank.

I throw the gun straight at my new foe and roll over the two writhing bodies of my former combatants, snatching up the knives they carried in a single graceful movment, and gouging the blade into the belly of the one that’s standing, yanking him down to sever the head. Compost...

I get my knife back from his belly, and begin to catch my breath when the three other Vampires in the room all compost. The Master is no more.

“Julian!” I scream, rushing to her side. She’s not conscious, and her pulse is weak, but she’s still alive, though not for much longer.

There may be some Vampires who aren’t entirely symbiotic with the Master still here, but I don’t care that much right now. Now I just have to get Julian to safety. And, seeing as how I can’t go back to the Hunter enclave with fangs and such, I’ll head to the hospital...