"Oh man... that was really nice, if kinda weird. I think I won't move for the rest of the night."

Aidan chuckled. "Good to see I haven't lost my touch. But now that I've seen to my guest, it's time I saw to my own needs. I haven't fed these last two nights."

David shivered, suddenly cold. "So you're going to fly back to the city then."

"No," said Aidan softly, "I will not. Vampires do not feed only on human blood, you know. Animal blood will do, most of the time. And I make it do as much as I possibly can. I do not like taking human blood."

"But you did. My mother said you'd assaulted a woman in the city. If you hadn't, nobody would even have known you were a vampire, and none of this would have happened!" There was an edge of accusatory bitterness in his voice.

Aidan sighed. "Females are always to be my downfall, it seems. I did not 'assault' anybody. I hired the services of a prostitute. There are a number of them in the city, you know. And if, during the course of doing what one does in such circumstances, I took a sip of her blood, it did not hurt her. I need only a small amount. A spoonful, no more. I left her well paid and unharmed, and if she'd had any real sense she wouldn't have said anything about it. But apparently she was so fearful that she went straight to the authorities and reported me. I hope they didn't mistreat her. But be assured that I did her no harm." He looked at David. "And yet again I differ from my brethren there. I know of no other vampire that would merely take enough to stave off the madness. They would have killed her."

"Madness?" David asked the question mostly to distract himself from the mental images that last line stirred in his mind.

Aidan nodded. "When a vampire gets no blood, he becomes weak. But when a vampire gets only animal blood, and no human blood, eventually he goes mad. The blood-lust becomes everything, and he kills mindlessly. Once you have stepped over that perilous brink, it is nearly impossible to go back. But it doesn't take much to keep a vampire sane."

"I've always been told that vampires fed on nothing but human blood."

Aidan laughed. "Think on it! Do you know how many vampires there are in this area?"

"No..."

"There are nearly three dozen. And how many humans does the city lose to vampires in a month?"

"Uh... just a few. Eight or nine?"

"And if three dozen vampires were all getting human blood every night, you would be losing that many in a day, even considering the ones they keep alive for sport, and the vampires who hunt in packs and share. No, a vampire needs human blood only once in a month, at most. I myself will not need to feed again for two months. But that's human blood. I require animal blood every other night, generally. And as it has been longer than that, I shall now depart."

He got to his feet and strode out the door without a further word.

David was left sitting on the floor, shivering. He couldn't quite forget that Aidan was a vampire, but sometimes he managed to put it to the back of his mind and relax. But all of the sudden he realized again just what situation he was in. I am completely at the mercy of a vampire. Even though he seems to be a good person, he keeps telling me how evil vampires are. I can't think of one single reason why he'd be pretending to be nice if he just wanted to kill me for my blood, but just because I can't think of one, doesn't mean that he can't. He shuddered and wrapped his arms around himself. Suddenly the night was very cold.