He no longer crawled, or whined. He strode now, and commanded, though as yet there was little to command. And the depths where he walked beneath the earth were no longer dark or silent. The maze of corridors and rooms had gradually come alive, and he stood now in a central room that was lit brilliantly to his sensitive eyes, and that hummed with power.

Power. He savored it. He had been beneath the earth for months now, emerging only when hunger drove him. He had learned much, but better than the knowledge was the power that had come with it, the power that had woken beneath his hands. "I am no longer the weakest," he said to himself, and his lips parted in a sharp-toothed grin. "No, no longer the weakest at all. And soon... very soon..."

He caressed the cold device that he held in his lap as he sat at the center of the room, with a touch like a lover's, and dreamed of the glory to come. "Soon..."

Part Three, The Gift of Blood

The night was still and quiet. A little too still and quiet, thought David to himself as he set out once again from the empty cabin. For a while it had felt almost like home, but with Aidan gone it seemed empty and dead, just another bolt hole, and not really a particularly convenient one. Maybe I shouldn't come back, he thought.

He looked up at the sky, at the brilliant glory of the stars. He could remember only a few of the names for them that Aidan had shared with him. The stars, and probably Aidan too, are a billion billion miles away, and I am here, alone in the night. I never thought I would miss the sun this much. I never thought I would miss a friend this much...

He sighed, and then took a deep breath. No point in just mooning about, he had work to do. A sweep to the north, I think. And perhaps once I get there and have visited both cities, I can take a bit to look for bolt holes, haven't done that up north yet. He settled his hat more firmly on his head and began to run.

He had found no sign of exiles or caravans when he arrived at Cottonwood, and a sweep past Iron City had turned up nothing either. After bedding down for the day in a shallow bolt hole he'd made himself, not knowing any of the local ones, he did another quick round, but there was nobody on the road this night, and the vampires seemed to know it, for there was no sign of them either. With a shrug he set off in a wide arc that would carry him far out in the desert. He was going in no particular direction, just hoping to sense a vampire presence and find one or two hidden away. Less likely during the night than during the day, but some vampires bedded down in their bolt holes even while the sun was gone, particularly when they'd recently fed. And I can't exactly go looking for bolt holes during daylight now, can I? He chuckled to himself. Heck, he might even get lucky and find a lair. He hadn't found any yet, though Aidan had assured him they existed. "My own cabin is a lair of sorts," he'd said. Lairs were more permanent dwellings, and though usually they were the property of one particular vampire, often several could be found in one, particularly when somebody had caught a human that they were trying to make last for a while. Bolt holes were lousy places to keep captives.

It was somewhat past midnight when he caught the trace of a vampire mind. He stopped and stood still for a moment, blinking. It was strong. Very strong. As strong as Aidan's mind had been, maybe even stronger. It has to be a gathering of them, he thought to himself. There's no way on earth that's just one!

He moved cautiously towards it. Distance was hard to judge, and he did not want to just run out into the middle of a big group of vampires! Soon he began to pass among ruined buildings. Some sort of small town had stood here. And as he walked among the ruins, he came to the source. The night still looked empty of life, and he could hear nothing, but the direction of the sense of presence was now down below his feet. Somewhere underneath him was what must be a lair. He glanced around. Only one building stood near, its roof completely gone and its walls falling in. He stepped closer to investigate and found that in the floor of the ruined building there was a massive concrete slab. It smelled faintly of vampires and blood.

He took a deep breath. There were a lot of them down there, or some really strong ones, and he wasn't sure he could fight them all. But he wanted to investigate further. This was the first lair he'd found. And if there was a gathering of vampires, well... he'd just blend right in!

He lifted up the slab, to find a dark stairwell beneath it. He nodded and descended, lowering the slab back down behind him. Ahead there was a light. It flickered, probably candlelight. The stairs turned a corner, doubling back on themselves, and he could see into the room.

It was an open concrete cube, not entirely unlike the room in the cabin where he slept, just a little larger. It was lit only by a half dozen candles, stuck to the floor by their own wax. There were seven vampires in it, males and females both. None of them seemed particularly weak-minded. Some stood, some lounged on the floor. There was a subtle tension in the room, each one asserting him or herself, trying to establish dominance and position. But most of the tension now was focused on him, and he could feel several of them reaching out to test his strength, see where he would stand in the pecking order.

But his attention was already moving beyond them, past the pale and largely dark-clad forms of the vampires to a shape that huddled against the far wall. A shape that shivered and whimpered brokenly. A shape that had once been human.

David stood at the foot of the stairs for a moment, feeling something boiling up inside of him. All his life he'd heard the stories of what vampires did. All his life he'd been told to hate them. And he had. And hated them all the more when he saw them catching humans on the road, treating them like objects, like animals, like toys. But this was infinitely worse. They had played with this man, this human being full of hopes and dreams and possibilities, until they had broken him, and they would undoubtedly try to keep him alive as long as possible, to prolong their feeding and prolong their game, just because they thought it was fun, destroying a person merely for their own amusement, and actually seeing it with his own eyes drove him over the edge.

He had come down intending only to look, not to fight, but as his anger boiled over into pure fury, he drew his sword and leaped forward in a blur of motion.

It was so fast, and his sudden anger had given the watching vampires so little warning that he beheaded one of them before any of them even realized what was going on. But six was still plenty, and though unarmed they moved in around him, confident that they, six to one, could take him down.

He snarled at them, spinning and ducking, not trying to anticipate and block their blows, but just weaving a net of steel and flying black cloak, attacking them all in turn, nearly all at once. There was no thought or strategy, no pattern of pause and strike, just the reflexes of his long months of practice and training, moving at the fastest speed his muscles could provide, automatically, on pure muscle memory. His mind was busy with other things, for with his physical assault he launched a mental assault as well. Not pushing and striving for control, he instead beat on them with pure rage. He bewildered them, overwhelmed them, and his whirling cape and slashing blade, motions nearly too fast for the eye, human or vampire, to follow, made him seem like something not just inhuman, but superhuman, unstoppable.

He was not, of course. Some of their blows hit home, and he would be bruised and bloody when he slowed down enough to notice. But the attacks didn't even register. Defense wasn't an option, further attack was all he wanted, and the vampires didn't really stand a chance. The confusion of blood and screams, steel and whirling darkness seemed to go on for a very long time, but it was really only a matter of minutes later when the last vampire dropped to the floor, dead.

David stood in the center of the room, surrounded by bodies, panting not with physical exertion but with the emotional reaction to his rage. Then he took a deep breath, and forced himself to relax. His bruises made themselves known to him and he groaned. An attempt to bend and clean his sword off on one of the few bits of cloth in the room not spattered with blood revealed the sharp pain of what was probably a cracked rib.

But his attention went again to the whimpering human form, still huddled against the wall. He sheathed his sword, and slowly approached the man, whose neck was a red horror of dozens of bite marks, many of them much larger and rougher than could possibly be necessary. David had a sudden thought, and paused to briskly rub his hands together. So when he gently touched the human's arm, his hands were warm.

"It's okay. They're all dead. It's over, they can't hurt you any more. They're all dead, its okay." He didn't know what else to say, but the his words and gentle touch seemed to reach the man. He looked up at David. His face was gaunt. He probably wasn't much older than David himself, but the hollowed cheeks made him look old.

"They're dead?" he whispered, in a hoarse, dry voice.

"Yes. They're all dead," said David. "Look."

The man lifted his head further, turned to survey the bloody scene. He looked for a long time, and then with a groan he tried to get to his feet. David put an arm around him and helped him, hoping the man wouldn't notice through the layers of cloak and shirt that David's body was cold. He had the feeling that after what this man had gone through, letting him know he was touching another vampire wouldn't be a good idea.

The man limped over to the nearest body, and regarded it for a moment. Then with a sudden, unexpected savagery, he somehow found the energy to kick the vampire's head across the room. "Ha! Dead, you bastards!" he screamed hoarsely, and David realized that the man's voice was roughened not by thirst but by screaming. Another flash of rage went through him, but the vampires were all very firmly dead, he couldn't kill them again. "Dead, and I'm alive! I hope you rot in hell!" Then he staggered and nearly fell. David quickly moved to support him again. The man was much taller than David, but he was rail thin, nearly a skeleton, and seemed to weigh almost nothing. David tried to guide him across the room to the stairs. Suddenly the man collapsed against him and slid to the floor, shuddering, and started weeping. David crouched by his side, concerned, not sure what to do.

"Sir?" David spoke carefully, not showing his fangs. "Sir, I need to take you away from here. Do you think you can walk, sir?"

The sobs came to a shuddering halt, and the man looked up at David again. "Sorry. Yes," said the man. "Away from here would be good. Maybe I can walk a little."

"I'll help you." David lifted the man upright and draped one arm over his shoulder. They made their way across the room, both their shoes liberally coated in gore by the time they reached the stairs. But the man couldn't even lift one foot high enough to get up the first step.

David considered. "Sir... I'm going to have to carry you. I won't hurt you, I promise."

The man nodded. "Yes. There's nothing left in me now. Just dry bones... nothing left..." he started giggling, and then dissolved again into sobs. David felt enraged all over again by what the vampires had done to him. He shook his head. His strength might well make the man realize what he was, but there was really nothing for it. He caught the man up in a fireman's carry and climbed the stairs. He had to put him down again near the top to shove the concrete slab aside, but the man didn't seem to notice. He was whimpering again, and trying to curl up into a fetal ball. David carried him out into the starlight, leaving the stairs gaping open behind him.

David winced as the man shuddered in his arms. He wanted to somehow comfort him, but there wasn't anything he could think of to do. So he set off across the desert, towards Cottonwood, the nearer of the two cities. He ran quickly, and as smoothly as possible, though he couldn't avoid a few jostles and the man's whimpers intensified whenever there was a rough spot. The sound of it pained him more than the twinge of his own cracked rib did.

He ran on until he reached the point where the light was too blinding to look at, and it began to feel warm against his skin.

"Light," whispered the man.

"Yes, light," said David. "We're almost there."

He squinted at the city. It was still quite a ways off, and the man couldn't walk on his own. If David put him down, he'd have to just stay there until somebody found him. David shook his head. Most likely no vampires would come by between now and the dawn, but after what he's suffered, to leave him alone where there were still shadows... He shrugged and walked forward. Only his hands and face showed, so he wouldn't burn that much. The light seemed to get hotter the closer he came. From a faint warmth it grew to the furnace heat of the hottest desert days. He could see the skin on hand hands reddening, as if he were getting sunburned. He squinted at the city again. He could go a little farther. So he walked on, until his hands were blistered and cracking, and then at last he knelt and set the man down. He turned, so that his hat and cloak shielded him from the unbearable light.

"Here. This is as far as I can come," he said. "You're nearly to the city, you're safe now. I'm sorry I can't take you all the way there."

The man looked at him, and there was something that might have been a dawning comprehension in his eyes. But he said nothing. Perhaps he couldn't think of anything to say to a vampire.

David stood and sprinted back to the darkness as fast as he could. Soon the relief of cool, dark night air was all around him and he dropped down to sit on the ground. He held out his hands and examined them. The palms had been protected by his burden, but the backs were a mess of blisters and cracked skin. A careful examination by touch revealed that his face was similarly burned. Well, he would go find something to feed on then, and hide himself away in a bolt hole after, to rest. The pain was intense, but he could tell he was already beginning to heal. A little blood and he'd be fine.

He thought then of the human he'd rescued. He hoped that the man could heal, mentally as well as physically. He felt somehow guilty, as though merely by being a vampire, by having tasted human blood, he was a part of the man's torture. He shook the feeling off. He had never harmed a human more than absolutely necessary, and he had saved dozens of human lives. He couldn't do any more than that.

In the following weeks, David found that that night's work had done one thing. It had let the vampires know for certain that something was hunting them. Before this he had killed in the open, and sunlight had burned the bodies until they were dust. But the carnage in the underground lair remained through the day, and into the night. Whatever socialization or communication there was among vampires, it was enough to spread the story abroad. Something was hunting vampires. Something terrible.

It was gratifying to have his reputation so aided, but it was also a little annoying. The vampires were taking to traveling in packs. Asocial they might be, but they were also absolutely dedicated to one thing and one thing alone, and that was their own survival at all costs.

David didn't want to risk attacking a large group. He had been lucky, incredibly lucky, to have won the battle in the cellar lair. It could very easily have gone the other way. Just one vampire with a weapon, just one that wasn't intimidated, just one that really knew how to fight and he'd have been dragged down.

Some of them were going just in threes or fours, and those groups he would venture, if he found one, but he no longer happened across solitary vampires. The days of easy kills were past.

He found also that his reputation was growing with the humans. When he was able to rescue one, he was greeted with recognition and tentative thanks as often as terror now. Some humans might not know of him, and others might not be able to believe in a good vampire, but some did, and there were even a very few, here and there, who actually did as Mack had done, and offered him the blood he needed freely. He was always amazed by such offers. He doubted he could have done such a thing when he had been human. But he always accepted them with profound thanks. He hated the guilt of taking what he needed. To be given it, with no need of taking, was amazing. And somehow it gave him faith that there was a point to his solitary battle after all. He knew the vampires were still finding victims, he could not possibly save them all, but he was saving the ones he could, and each of those lives meant something. Each of those lives was a human life, a life that could do such an incredible thing as offer a gift of blood to a vampire.

David was walking through the desert, parallel to the road. Just visible to his sensitive eyes in the starlight, a human trudged along it. Another exile, no doubt. David had spent the last night tailing a caravan, but a group of vampires, very strong, probably eight or nine of them, had been following it too, and eventually he was forced to break off, before they figured out who he was. He couldn't possibly take that many. It had been frustrating, but he had better hopes for tonight. The exile was almost certain to draw in vampires, and he could already sense a group, not that large, approaching.

His keen hearing picked up a faint, distant sound of voices. He stopped, trying to listen. He couldn't quite make out the words, but the tones were that of argument. And the group he had sensed was no longer moving.

I wonder what they're arguing over? Well, perhaps I should go and see! He turned and trotted out into the desert towards the sound of voices. But before he'd gone far the argument reached a crescendo and he could just hear a female voice screeching "Fine! Go join the other pack out there then. We're not going anywhere near it! And if it turns out to be the thing that's hunting vampires, I hope it kills you slowly!" The source split, most of the vampires in the little group moving away, further into the desert, but one coming closer.

David grinned. He hadn't faced just one in a long time. He stopped, letting the vampire approach him. It came walking up slowly, warily. When it was within sight, it stopped. "Who are you?" The voice was male, and sounded young, though David knew that meant little. He said nothing, merely standing there, sword still sheathed, cape flapping ever so slightly in the gentle night breeze.

"Where is the rest of your pack?" said the vampire, sidling closer.

David still kept silent.

"Speak to me!" snapped the vampire, and then it pushed at him with a mental attack, trying to force him to say something. The shove was of no more than average strength, and after just a moment of passive resistance, to be sure the other was fully committed, David lashed out, instantly overwhelming the weaker vampire's mind. The vampire staggered, then froze, held helpless.

A few moments later David was walking back towards the road, the vampire's corpse lying still behind him. He heard the human's footsteps ahead, faster now, though the man was stumbling with weariness. He sighed. The man must have heard something of the vampire's shouting, and now was trying to run away.

Well, I guess I should go tell him he doesn't have anything to worry about. And... I do need to feed. His expression turned sour. His life would be so much easier if he didn't need to take human blood.

He broke into a run and effortlessly overtook the fleeing human. Grabbing the man's arm, he was about to say something, when he suddenly caught a glimpse of his face. His very familiar face.

He stood for a moment in the road, staring at Alek, his old nemesis from Georgetown. Alek stared back, wide-eyed. "D-David?"

David recovered himself, and was unable to resist the urge to grin widely as he answered. "Indeed."

Alek let out an little yelp of fearful shock. "You're a vampire! Oh god, you're going to kill me!" He started trembling, and then whimpering in fear.

David looked at him. It was very tempting to toy with his old enemy. Alek had gotten him exiled. Alek had ruined his old life thoroughly. But... no. He was not going to be like the other vampires, using humans for his own amusement.

"Oh hush," he said sharply, a bit irritated with himself for even considering playing such games. "I'm not going to kill you. I'm not even going to hurt you." But he couldn't resist adding, "At least not much. Now come on. You're nearly half way to Wind City, we should be able to reach it tonight."

Alek blinked at him, completely confused. Then realization dawned. "You're the one they tell stories about, the vampire who saves people."

David smiled sardonically. "Bravo. Yes, that's me."

"I, um..." Alek looked if anything even more confused than before, and still rather fearful as well. Davis shook his head and sighed, finding he was unable to be angry at the man.

"Come on. We need to get going." He turned and headed down the road, and Alek followed after.

They hadn't gone far before Alek started stumbling again. He stopped for a moment and stood, panting, in the road. David turned back to him.

"Sorry," he said between gasps for air, "I ran, earlier... too tired..."

David looked at the exhausted man for a moment, then he simply picked Alek up and set off at a brisk pace. Alek made an abortive sound, as though he were going to protest, but then fell silent.

When they were within sight of Wind City's glowing barrier, David set him down. "Here we are. There are no other vampires nearby, so you should be fine."

"Thanks. I... uhm... I'm sorry about before, about your exile."

David chuckled. "It worked out all right in the end. Though... if you want to pay me back for it, there is something you can do for me."

"What?"

"I need..." he hesitated. He hated, really, to talk about it. "I need blood," he finally said simply. "I could just take it from you, but... I'd rather not have to."

Alek blanched, and David could hear his heart rate go up. The thought obviously scared him. But then he took a deep breath and held out his arm, wrist turned up. "Okay."

"Thank you," said David softly, putting all his genuine appreciation for his old enemy's willingness to help him into his voice. Alek looked away as David took his arm and raised it to his lips, and flinched when David bit down, but he didn't make a sound.

After David had taken what he needed, he said, "You can call us even now."

Alek rubbed at his wrist, and nodded. "Yeah, I guess so." He paused, then added, "Though you saved my life tonight too, so I think I owe you extra."

David shrugged. Then he had a sudden thought. "Maybe... can you tell me about... my family? Are they okay?"

"Man..." A guilty look went across Alek's face. "I don't see them much, I don't think they'd like having me around. But I'm pretty sure they're okay. I think your mom is pretty sad, but... nobody blames them, at least, for you or that vampire. Nobody's seen him since either, I guess he's gone somewhere else, or he's dead... But yeah, they're okay."

David sighed. "I'm glad. I wish I could see them again, but..." he trailed off. "Ah never mind. I need to go."

Alek nodded. "Goodbye. And... thanks again."

David smiled. "Thank you too."

The night was brilliant with light. A full moon rode overhead, and below the nearby city gleamed in the night like a star fallen to earth.

David, however, was not really in any mood to appreciate the night's beauty. He had not killed a vampire in more than a week, and had not managed to find a human and get blood in somewhat over a month, not since Alek. The pressure of blood-hunger, of need, was starting to get nearly unbearable, and he wasn't sure what to do about it. He suspected the need was affecting him, he felt disoriented, unable to really think clearly. He found himself wanting to sleep even during darkness as well, which worried him. But he didn't really know what to do about it. Hunting humans wasn't an option, and he couldn't think of anything else to do.

He sighed and ran on. At least he was getting plenty of animal blood. Mentally he felt awful, but physically he seemed to be okay.

Up ahead the city light grew brighter as he approached, and then he sensed a vampire presence. One source, strong, almost certainly a pack of them. He ran faster. There might be a human there, and he was later than usual, they might be feeding already. And even if there were no humans, he could kill vampires. The source was of a strength he felt confident taking. Three or four average vampires, or maybe five or six particularly weak ones.

He ran faster. Soon he reached the road that led from one city to the next, and there was a cluster of figures. Four of them. And.... he added a little extra burst of speed, drawing his sword. The scent of blood was in the air. One of the figures was unquestionably human.

They had sensed him coming, of course, as he had sensed them, but he knew that his strength of mind tended to make vampires think he was another pack, and they seldom suspected the truth until it was too late. These three seemed to suspect something, for they released the human they held and all three turned to face him, their postures wary, expectant. But he wasn't going to waste any time this night, he simply attacked without warning, his mental attack slamming into them just seconds before the snake-quick strike of his sword.

And then he was the center of a storm of motion. They were all three males, and all three seemed to be fairly good fighters, though thankfully none of them bore a weapon. He was getting better and better at fighting, and now he managed to call up the same whirlwind of activity that he had summoned in the basement lair. A bit less furious, perhaps, without rage to feed on, but his blows were automatic, without the tiny assessing pauses of normal vampire combat, and as he stepped up his mental attack on the trio, he was easily able to keep them at bay.

Unfortunately keeping them at bay was all he was doing. They weren't good enough to get him, but they were still pretty good, and he was landing only minor blows. He might eventually wear them down with blood loss that way, but it would take half the night.

And then a missile came flying out of the dark to hit one of the vampires in the head. He stumbled, his guard down, and David reacted faster than thought, taking the opening instantly. It let one of the other two get in a solid kick an instant later, but though it threw him off balance, it was too late to save the first vampire. David's sword flashed out and took his head off, the full strength cross-blow familiar and easy by now. As David recovered from the off-balancing kick and turned to face the two remaining vampires, he sensed a shift. They had been countering his mental combat, but now both withdrew, and suddenly they sprinted into the night.

He swore. They must know now that he was the hunter that had been killing vampires. With another muttered curse, he raced after them. One was ever so slightly slower than the other, and David soon gained a little ground. He gave a good, hard, sudden mental push, and the fleeing vampire stumbled. In an instant David was on him. But the vampire rolled aside from his first blow and tried to scramble away again. David chased after, and after a flurry of strikes and dodges, finally managed to kill it.

Then he looked into the moonlight night. The third vampire was still within his senses, but he could no longer see it. He looked behind him, to where the human, who, he suddenly realized, had thrown a rock at the first vampire, giving him his opening, was standing on the road. If he chased the fleeing vampire, another pack might come along while he was gone. And... I really need human blood right now. I can't let a human get away from me any more than any other vampire could. The thought was distasteful, but there it was. He heaved a sigh and trotted back to the road.

The human proved to be a girl of around his own age. She was short, hardly coming to his shoulder, and slightly built. Her hair was auburn, her eyes were green, the colors still vivid to his eyes in the moonlight.

"Are you all right?" he asked as he approached her.

She laughed, the sound just a little bit hysterical. "I should be asking you that! Did you get them all?"

He shook his head. "No, unfortunately. One of them got away."

"I'm Megan," she said. "And you must be the vampire who rescues people."

He nodded. "Yeah..." Something made him add, "I'm David."

"Well, thank you, David" she said.

He suddenly was very aware of the smell of blood in the air. He realized the girl already had a pair of puncture wounds on her neck. He sighed. He really hated trying to take from somebody who'd already been bitten against their will.

"So what now?" asked the girl.

David considered for a long time. Then he shrugged. "Now I escort you to the next city, I suppose."

She sighed. "I figured as much. Not that it will do me much good."

"Huh?" he said brightly. His mind felt a little fuzzy, and the scent of blood was making it very hard to concentrate.

"I'll just end up exiled again, no doubt."

He blinked. Then he realized something. Sagebrush, the nearby city, was within just a single day's travel of its nearest neighbor. They sometimes exiled even minor criminals, because if they exiled you in the morning, you could make it to shelter before sundown. Generally he found the more serious criminals a few miles out, having had only the afternoon and evening to walk. But more than an hour after sunset he and the girl stood only a little bit beyond the city lights. They must have exiled her right at sundown, he thought. "What on earth did you do?" he asked, startled.

"I studied forbidden literature and actually learned something about vampires. I told the city council that the cities were doomed if something doesn't change, and I had the radical notion that maybe vampires and humans could get along."

David snorted. "No wonder they threw you out at sundown then."

A look of frustration crossed her face. "Well they could! Just look at you! They say you take just a tiny bit, and let humans go, still alive. Why couldn't all the vampires do that? Why couldn't humans donate willingly, and the killing stop? Why?!"

David shook his head. "You're missing out on a few facts. I can see the appeal of your idea, but it's impossible. I'm very different from other vampires. They will never give up killing."

"Why?!" she demanded.

David glanced away from her, still all too aware of the smell of her blood in the air. He sighed, uncertain of what to say or do. He needed her blood, but she wasn't offering it, and taking it from somebody who neither offered, nor ran away, was always hard. When they ran, it was a sort of instinct, catch the prey, take what you need. When they offered it was a gift, but the worst ones were always the ones who did neither. And the question of blood aside, what was he going to do with her? Taking her to the next city would, as she had said, only result in her getting exiled again. He sighed again, seeing only one option.

"I'll give you the whole story later. For now we should get moving. It will take a few days, even if you let me carry you so I can run, to get there."

"Get where?" she asked, puzzled.

"To my home," he said. "I can't just take you to a city, and right now I can't think of anything else to do with you."

"Oh." She hesitated, then nodded. "All right. How far is it?"

He considered. "If we walk, it's nearly a week's journey, I think. I can run there in two days."

"Oh," she said again. "Then... I guess you should carry me?" She looked suddenly uncertain, and David smiled. It was one thing to talk about vampires and humans getting along. It was another thing to let one pick you up and run off with you.

"Probably." He stepped closer, then stopped, and shook his head. He wasn't going to be able to carry her all night with need pulsing at the back of his brain, and her blood-smell on the air. "But first..." He hesitated, then shrugged. She hadn't offered, but then he hadn't asked. "You talk about humans living with vampires, and donating willingly. Do you really think humans are capable of giving up their blood to vampires?"

"Of course," she said.

"Well then, will you?"

Her eyes widened. She was no doubt dedicated to her idea, but David suspected she had been thinking about it in abstract, and hadn't applied it to herself personally. She hesitated, obviously not really wanting to say yes, but not wanting to say no either. Then she raised her hand to her neck, fingering the bloody marks there. "I guess I've 'donated' once already, so I should survive doing it again. Okay."

"Thank you," he said, as he thanked all those who were willing to give their blood. It might be a bit reluctant, but it was willing all the same, he would not have to take it by force. He took another step, standing next to her. His eyes went to the marks already on her neck, but then he shook his head. He bent and took her hand. She looked at him, a little bewildered and quite a bit nervous. "I won't hurt you," he said and then he raised her wrist to his lips. He bit down quickly and cleanly, trying not to cause any more pain than he must, though she let out a soft gasp as his fangs cut through her skin. He kept a tight reign on his hunger as he drank. It whirled and howled at the back of his mind, and he knew how easy, how very, very easy it would be to drain her dry. But he took only three slow, carefully metered swallows, and then stopped, letting her wrist fall. He sighed softly in relief as the pressure of his need retreated.

She had closed her eyes as he fed, and now she stood in the road, her eyes still closed, a strange expression on her face, for several long seconds, before opening them and looking up at him. "That was... Different. Not what I expected."

David shrugged. "I'm afraid I don't really know what it's like. I've only had my blood taken the once..." he trailed off, remembering Aidan, then shook his head. "Well, never mind. We should get going."

He scooped her up easily in his arms. She seemed to weigh practically nothing. She leaned her head against his shoulder as he set off into the night, and he realized she must be tired. So he ran as smoothly as he could, and soon she was asleep in his arms.

The night waned, though there were still several hours of darkness left as he approached his bolt hole. Then he sensed a vampire's presence ahead. Moderately strong, it couldn't be more than two or three. He slowed. Then he shrugged and continued on. As he drew nearer to the bolt hole, he angled to the side a bit, trying to triangulate the location of the vampires he sensed. And realized, as he moved, that the sense was actually coming from the location of the bolt hole itself.

He stopped, and set Megan down gently. "Wake up," he whispered. She blinked groggily, and stared up at him. "There is at least one vampire ahead, in the place I'd planned to stay the day," he explained. "I should be able to take care of it, but not while carrying you, so you'll have to walk."

She nodded. "Right."

He continued forward, with Megan trailing behind, until he reached the bolt hole's entrance. It was in the side of a small embankment, blocked as usual with a large rock. He shifted the rock aside, very aware of the closeness of the vampires. There couldn't be more than three, the bolt hole wasn't that big, and two were more likely, three would have to be pretty friendly with each other in the cramped space, and vampires were anything but.

They must split up to hole up, he thought, before joining into larger packs to hunt. I ought to learn more about vampires, really...

"Hey," a male voice called out from inside as he finished moving the rock. "This is full up, you can't come in."

"I think I can," said David, "And I don't know of any other bolt holes around here, so you're going to have to go elsewhere."

"Yeah right, make us!" said a second voice, also male.

"Hey, wait..." The first vampire spoke again. "I smell human. You've caught one."

"And I'm not sharing," snapped David.

"Man... we both really need it. We'll come out and go find somewhere else to hole up if you share it."

David glanced back at Megan, who was standing behind him, her heart rate up, obviously nervous. He gave her a reassuring smile. "All right. You come out and I'll share."

There was a rustle of movement in the dark hole and the first vampire came out. He was skinny and balding, looking strangely prosaic for an undead creature. He peered around David at Megan. "Nice," he said.

"You both come out before you can touch her."

"All right."

Another vampire emerged, this one looking to be no more than a teenager, sixteen or seventeen. The instant the second vampire came out of the tunnel, David drew his sword. The first one saw it and let out a yelp of surprise, but the second was still straightening from the narrow hole and didn't even see the blade that took his head off. The other spun and dashed off, but David was after him, and soon caught up enough that his sword could reach.

He came back out of the darkness only seconds later. Megan stood by the hole, looking down at the dead vampire, blood puddled around him, with a nauseated expression. David moved quickly to tow the body away from the entrance, and then gestured. "In there." She hesitated, but then ducked and went in. David followed, crouched nearly double in the narrow hole. He left the boulder rolled aside, risky as that was, remembering his first night alone with Aidan. The hole would be stuffy and that much more terrifying for the already shocked girl if he sealed it up.

The inner chamber here wasn't large, there was only just barely room enough for them to both stretch out on the floor without touching, and the ceiling was too low for even the diminutive Megan to stand. David sat down and leaned against one wall, removing his hat with a tired sigh.

For a while they were both silent, then Megan said, "So tell me... you said there was something about vampires I didn't know, something that would make coexistence impossible."

David nodded. "Yes." He considered how to explain. "When I... when I died, I had a choice. I was offered a chance to go to heaven. To go into something happy, and warm, and wonderful. Or I could stay in the darkness, where it was cold, and miserable, but I would live, if you can call it life. Vampirism is a choice. And that's why vampires are always evil, or at least always selfish. A friend told me that there used to be a few good vampires, but these days... what kind of good person would choose to be a vampire, rather than go to heaven?"

"But what about you, then? Why did you choose it?"

"Because I was tired of being helpless. Because as you said, the cities are doomed. The current balance can't last forever, and the humans aren't doing anything to swing it their way. But the vampires might. They're capable of working together, if it benefits them enough. They band together now for safety from my hunting, and to take down caravans. They could someday band together in large enough numbers and take down a city. The defenses aren't perfect. So... somebody had to do something. Maybe it's not much of a something, I know there are a lot of people I can't save, but I wanted to do what I could. And no human can fight them. You saw my battle earlier." He smiled. "Your rock was very helpful, but I don't think you could have fought even one of them alone."

"No..."

"I was tired of being unable to do anything. I found that I could choose to become like them, and so I did. And now I fight them, and kill as many of them as I can, and save as many humans as I can."

"It still seems to me like there ought to be a way, somehow, for us to not be at war with the vampires..." She shook her head. "I don't know. I guess I have a lot to think about now."

David nodded, then yawned. "Sunrise is almost here. You can go out a bit once the sun is up if you like, but I suggest you don't stray far. Particularly you don't want to dehydrate yourself any more than you have to. I'm sorry I don't have any supplies, but there is food and water once we get where we're going."

He stretched out on his back, sensing the sun beginning to peek above the horizon. He closed his eyes against a light that even around the corner built into all bolt holes was still growing rapidly too bright. The warmth of it was uncomfortable, but he soon was asleep anyway.

He woke as the sun set, and was immediately conscious of warmth again, but this wasn't the warmth of sunlight, this was something else, something much more pleasant. He opened his eyes, and found that Megan was cuddled up to him, her head pillowed on his shoulder. He held quite still, not sure what to do. What kind of crazy person cuddles a vampire? he thought. It's not as though I'm warm! She made a sleepy little sound and shifted, putting one arm across him. Bemused, but not really wanting to wake her, and finding her warm human presence and obvious trust in him strangely comforting, he lay still as the last hint of sunlight faded from the sky. And then nearly an hour longer, finding it easy enough to simply relax and do nothing, as the girl slept on his shoulder. He was considering waking her when she finally stirred and sat up. Then she looked down at David and blushed.

"Er, sorry. The floor was just hard, and I'm not used to sleeping without a pillow..." she trailed off.

He smiled. "It's okay. I didn't mind. But we should get going if we're to make the rest of the trip tonight."

They crawled out of the bolt hole, David pausing to seal it up again, and then he picked up Megan and ran on towards the foothills in the distance. Megan had fallen asleep again, and he was feeling a little tired and hungry himself, when at last they reached the cabin. He set her down and looked ruefully at his home, much less tidy than when he'd first seen it. The front door was still off its hinges. The front windows were still empty, though at least the glass shards had been cleaned out of them, and inside books were piled in untidy heaps, the shattered bookshelf lying in one corner. The moose head was still on the floor as well.

"It's... kind of a mess in the first room. Sorry. We got attacked here once, and were never really able to do anything to fix the damage."

Megan yawned and stretched. "That's okay. If there's something to eat and drink, that's all I want." She blinked drowsily, and added, "You said 'we'. Is there somebody else here then?"

David shook his head sadly. "No, not anymore. There was... another vampire, a friend, who lived here with me for a while. But he's gone now."

Megan looked curious, but she apparently decided to leave questions for later.

David walked into the cabin, with Megan following behind. He flipped a switch, and a warm glow filled the front room. The battle had not, thankfully, managed to break the lamp attached to the ceiling.

Megan gasped at the sight, and David smiled. "There's no need for barrier lights here, so there's plenty of electricity for other things." He looked into the bedroom off the main room, which held only a dresser, as he'd removed his bed from it. "I'll need to set up the bed here, but first you should probably have some food and something to drink."

He led her back to the kitchen, where he flipped on a second light and dug another can of stew out of the storage room behind. Aidan had eventually showed him how to work the stove, so soon he had a pot of stew heating. While it warmed he got a mug down from a cabinet, and filled it with water at the tap. "There's a spring, and a water tank, so we have all the water we can use," he said. She nodded and drank thirstily, draining several mugs before she was done. He pulled the pot off the stove shortly after. "Careful, it's hot," he said, and handed over the pot and spoon.

Megan ate like she was starving,and David was reminded of his first night here, of his first taste of stew. While she ate, he went back to his own room. The bed he'd been using came apart into several pieces, which was how he'd gotten it back there in the first place. He had no idea how Aidan's bed had been moved into the room, it seemed to be solid, a heavy thing of dark wood and wrought iron accents. He dismantled his bed and started carrying the pieces, large but not at all heavy to him, to the front room. "I need to put the bed together," he explained as he passed through the kitchen, "I figured you'd probably rather sleep in the front room where there's sunlight than in the dark in the back."

She made a wordless sound of agreement, but didn't actually look up from her food.

It didn't take too long to assemble the frame and get the mattress in place on it. He hadn't really kept up the laundry, but there was, luckily, one set of clean sheets left, she he didn't have to leave the used ones on.

He smiled a bit at himself to be so occupied with mundane tasks. He remembered suddenly how his mother would fuss over clean sheets and the best dishes and other such things whenever she had had visitors over. He sighed softly. He had long since reached the point where he didn't need to lean on his mother, but he still missed her terribly.

He heard Megan's footsteps approaching behind him as he finished making up the bed. He looked up at her and tried to smile, but he still felt rather melancholy.

"You okay?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Just... missing home. My mother always made a big deal about putting on clean sheets for guests. And here I am, doing the same thing... but I'll never see her again. I hope she's doing all right."

Megan cocked her head to the side, and looked thoughtful. "Well... maybe I could go talk to her for you? I mean... you can't go back into the cities, but I can, right? You could guard me to somewhere nearby, maybe."

David blinked. "I never thought of that. I guess you could. I... would you?"

"Of course!" She yawned then. "But not tonight."

David smiled. "Of course not! Probably not for a day or two, at least. You're tired, and honestly so am I. I haven't taken a break in quite a while. So go ahead and sleep. Dawn isn't far off, so I think I'm off to bed as well."

David felt a little odd as he lay down in Aidan's bed in the back room, but it wasn't as if Aidan was going to come back and demand he get out. He chuckled to himself. Knowing him, if Aidan did come back and found David in his bed, he'd just climb right in with him and start making off-color jokes. He fell asleep with fond memories of his friend running through his mind.

He woke, groggy and confused, not very much later. Brilliant sunlight assaulted his eyes, although it was three times diffused by the front room, the kitchen, and the storage chamber before reaching his bedroom. And framed against the light was Megan, who had shaken his shoulder to wake him.

"Wha?" he said, drowsily.

"I... uhm..." her voice was choked and he realized that he cheeks were tear-streaked. He blinked and sat up, squinting at the brightness.

"Are you okay?"

She sniffled. "I don't know... No, I guess not. I... I was lying last night about the floor being too hard. I have... nightmares. Usually not very often any more. But I guess... now those vampires are in them, I guess what happened, I don't know..." She started crying. "Sorry. I just... when I used to get them my brother would come in and hold me so I could sleep, having somebody else there... it keeps them away, mostly." She looked at him with mute appeal, looking very young, though he knew she couldn't be much younger than he.

"I..." he shook his head. "I don't know how comforting I'm going to be, if the nightmares are about vampires, but... okay." He moved over, making room for her in the bed. She looked hesitant, and nervous, which pretty well summed up what he was feeling too, but she curled up next to him. He was thankful that he'd slept clothed, and that she had done likewise, otherwise the moment would have been infinitely more awkward. He reached out hesitantly and rested his hand on her shoulder, and she snuggled up closer, tucking her head against his chest. She sighed softly, and he could hear her racing heartbeat slow as she relaxed, seeming to find comfort in his chill embrace, although he couldn't imagine how. But daylight dragged at him, and he wasn't able to stay awake any longer.

When he awoke at sundown he was alone, though a lingering warmth made him suspect that Megan hadn't been up long. He stretched and sat up, trying to think through what he felt about the previous night. She was pretty, of course, and he'd been with women before, but... there wasn't really any of that sort of feeling towards her. Maybe a little, but mostly he felt... protective. Brotherly, perhaps. Or... something. She was obviously intelligent, and brave, and able to take care of herself in most things. She'd coped with exile, vampire attacks, and all that had followed at least as well as he had when faced with similar circumstances. But she was also so very vulnerable. Even before she had turned up weeping from nightmares he had been felling protective towards her, and that had more or less set his feelings. He shook his head. He wasn't really sure what to do about her, in more ways than one. But for now... for now he could use some time away from the grim business of hunting, and she was here, and needed him. He would take things one day, or one night, at a time.

He climbed out of bed and took a moment to change into cleaner clothing, which he'd been too tired to bother with when he'd first fallen asleep. I'll have to see if I can do something about getting Megan fresh clothes, he thought, hers have to be pretty bad by now. I guess she might fit some of the stuff Aidan left behind, though I don't think his shirts would really work that well.

He brushed off the thought and went out through the storage room and kitchen to the main room, where he found Megan cleaning.

"Oh, hi," she said as he came out. "I thought I'd try and do something about some of this. Not much else to do, really."

He looked at the room, which was still bloodstained, but at least more tidy than it had been, and smiled. Then he realized that the only light was the moonlight streaming in through the broken windows. He went over to the wall switch and flicked it. Megan blinked as the room lit up. He smiled. "You must have been pretty tired last night to have forgotten about the lamps. I have plenty of electricity here. There's a generator, and plenty of power, though it's starting to run a little low on fuel, sadly. I'm not sure where Aidan got his supply from, I never got the chance to ask him."

"Aidan?" she asked, curiously. "Is that your friend who was here with you?"

"Yeah. He saved my life on the road, much as I found you. He was... different from other vampires."

"Like you are."

David laughed. "Oh no. Aidan was like nobody but himself. He wasn't like me at all. I still miss him, sometimes."

"What happened to him?" She glanced at the stained floor, no doubt thinking of vampire fights, but David shook his head.

"He loved somebody very much. He was looking for her when I met him, and then he found her, and they left together. I don't know where to. I hope he's happy with her, wherever he is."

"And he's the one who made you a vampire?"

David nodded. "Yeah. Only because I asked though. He didn't really like the idea. But he agreed with what I wanted to do. He taught me how to fight. He taught me a lot of things." He shrugged then. "On a more practical note, he left most of his clothes behind, and he was a lot closer to your size than I am. His shirts aren't going to fit you, but I can see what else he left that might."

He led Megan back into the rear bedroom, flipping on the light there as he entered the dim concrete cube. The dresser proved to be quite full of various articles of clothing. He pulled out an armful and spread them out on the bed.

Megan picked up a shirt. "These are the weirdest shirts I've ever seen. Why do they have those huge holes in the back?"

"Aidan was a genie. He had wings."

"Wings... Wow. I've never heard of somebody with wings."

"He was the only one I ever knew of."

"Could he actually fly?" asked Megan.

David nodded. "Yeah."

"I wish I could," she said, and her expression was a little wistful. "I've always wanted to fly. Sometimes... When I'm not having nightmares, sometimes I dream about flying."

"Heh. You know I've never had a flying dream? Well..." Suddenly he remembered the Hunter, and dreaming of having wings in the dark above the city. "At least not the kind that other people seem to have."

"Speaking of dreams..." Megan blushed. "I really am sorry about last night."

David smiled. "It's fine. Though I don't know how you can possibly find me that comforting. I'm not even warm. You might as well cuddle a brick, or a rock or something."

She giggled. "Well... you're not warm like a human is, but it's not like you're freezing or anything. You're just sort of room temperature. I think people think of it as cold because it's colder than they expect from somebody who looks human, but you're not actually cold at all. And you kind of warmed up eventually. I guess it's like snakes... have you ever held one? They feel kind of cold when you pick one up, but if you hold it for a while, they warm up."

"Uh... I've never held a snake, no."

She giggled again. "I guess that's one thing I have on you then. I love animals. I was always sad that I was never allowed to go out into the desert to look for them, but there are some that live in the cities, of course. I used to catch things and bring them home all the time. And my mother always insisted that I put them right back where I found them, she didn't like them so much."

David smiled. "You'll like it up here then, there are all kinds of animals around. I probably haven't even seen half the things that live in the forest here, I haven't really looked, except for the deer, and cows."

"Cows? Why would you look for cows?"

"For dinner," he said. "They're my food source, not entirely unlike they were for humans before hydroponics and protein goo."

Megan looked so confused that he couldn't help but laugh. "I live on blood, but I don't live on human blood. Mostly it's animal blood. Human blood is... different. It's not food so much as... hmm. I don't really have a word for what it is. There's a need, and if you don't fill it, you go kind of... crazy. I haven't seen it yet, but I was told that you lose the capacity for rational thought entirely. I gather the only reason there aren't mad vampires all over is that most of them can't remember to stay out of the sun, so they don't live long after that." He shrugged. "I only need human blood once a month or so, and no more than the tiny bit I took from you. So I'll be good there for a while yet. But tonight I really should feed, it's been a few days since I last did."

"Oh. I never really thought about it, but I guess it makes sense."

David nodded. "If vampires actually lived on human blood, the cities would have fallen by now, I suspect. There are so many of them... needing it every few nights, and not just once a month or so, they'd end up just killing everybody, I think."

"Yeah."

"I might as well go now. Do you need anything?"

She shook her head. "I'm fine for now. Maybe you can show me how to open those cans and make something to eat when you get back, but I'm not really hungry yet."

He nodded, going to the door, where he'd hung his cloak and hat on a peg there. He swirled the cloak around his shoulders, settled the hat on his head, and went out into the moonlight. As he moved quietly through the woods his thoughts wandered. Something was changing again. He felt that feeling of destiny, the way he'd felt it before he changed, hanging around him. I wish I knew what it meant. Heck, I'll settle for just knowing if it's only my own mind, my subconscious coming up with something I haven't figured out yet, or if it really is destiny, or fate. But I guess that's probably too much to ask.

He shook his head and moved deeper into the forest. Destiny would have to wait at least until after dinner.

"Did you really mean it," he asked several night later as they sat in the kitchen, "When you said you wouldn't mind going to my home city and talking to my mother for me?"

"Of course I did," said Megan. "We could go right now, if you wanted."

"Well, finish your food first," said David with a chuckle, "But I certainly don't have anything else planned for tonight."

She smiled warmly at him. "It's the least I could do, after all the things you've done for me."

He shrugged. He didn't think he'd done much. Saving her on the road had been mostly selfishness, really. He'd wanted to kill vampires and had needed her blood. Holding her at night... well, really that was anything but unpleasant for him. And feeding her and taking care of her at the cabin was hardly some great chore. She did most of the cooking now, for one thing. And it wasn't as if he needed the food himself. And for another, doing something other than hunting was... a relief, really. He knew eventually he'd have to take it up again, and he felt the occasional twinge of guilt over those he wasn't saving while he was here, but... the world had turned on before he had taken up hunting, it would turn on still until he started up again, and it would even keep turning after he was dead and gone. He was doing what he could, but he couldn't do nothing at all with his life but kill. Already the last few months, when he had hunted alone, seemed strange, dark and gloomy. He wondered how he'd managed, without anybody else to speak to, anything else to do. He shook off his thoughts and responded. "I don't think I've done all that much. But thank you all the same."

Megan finished eating and washed out the pot. The cabin was much tidier since she'd arrived. David wasn't exactly a slob, but he didn't really care much for cleaning. But Megan said she didn't have anything better to do, so she'd been putting the whole place in order. She had turned up things he'd had no idea were in the cabin at all. Like a sewing kit, which she'd been using to take in some of his shirts to fit her. Not, of course, his overly dramatic black costume shirts, but the others, that he had found in the cabin when he first arrived. He wasn't wearing them much any more, so she might as well.

They headed for the door, which he and Megan had managed to fix by scavenging the door to the front bedroom. She had said that she'd rather have the bedroom be open than the front door, and David had to agree. They'd turned up some tarps in the storage room, which they had fixed over the windows. It wasn't exactly pretty, but the cabin no longer seemed quite so ruined.

David put on his cape and hat, buckled on his sword belt, and stepped out the door. "I should probably just carry you," he said as Megan shut the door behind them. "We'll get there much faster that way." She nodded, so he picked her up and started to run.

Though she wasn't tired, she leaned her head on his shoulder all the same, and he smiled.

He was able to reach a bolt hole not far from Georgetown before sunrise. He and Megan went inside it together for the time being. He would stay there throughout the day, but Megan planned to only sleep briefly, perhaps until noon, and then set out during the safety of daylight for the city. She didn't think she'd have any trouble getting in the gates. She would find David's mother, and speak to her, and then return.

"And you have to be here, right here at the bolt hole when the sun goes down," said David. "This is important. If you're somewhere else, and have to travel even a short distance, some other vampire might find you before I do. Don't take any chances."

Megan nodded solemnly. "I won't."

David fell asleep with Megan curled up against him, and thinking of the next night, of getting word from his family, he smiled. He was very glad, for many reasons, that he had met Megan.

When David woke, he was alone, as he'd known he would be. He ducked and made his way down the tunnel to the exit. Before he stepped out into the night though, he paused. He could hear Megan there, her breathing, her heartbeat, the little scuffs of her feet as she shifted while she waited. But there was somebody else with her. He hesitated, wondering what had happened, but he couldn't do anything else but trust her, and so he stepped out of the tunnel and straightened.

Megan was standing there, as he had expected, and at her side... his heart caught in his throat as he realized it was his mother.

"Mom?"

She peered at him, and he realized she could probably barely see him in the dark. He stepped closer, taking off his hat.

"David. It really is you!" And then she flung herself at him and hugged him. He hugged her back, hardly able to believe she was here. But after a long moment she pulled away. "You're cold," she said, quietly. "So... It's true then, you're a... a..."

"A vampire, yes," he said with a sigh. "It was what I had to do."

"And you're the one, that they talk about, that saves people?"

He nodded. "Yes."

She smiled. "Then I guess I can still be proud of my son. I'm so glad to see you. I could hardly bear it when I thought you had died. I've missed you so much." And she stepped in and hugged him again.

He hugged her back. He found that tears were gathering in his eyes. "I've missed you too, Mom." Then he let go and stepped back again. "But why did you come out here? It's incredibly dangerous, you know that."

She shrugged. "I had to come. I had to see you. I couldn't just send you a message, when I knew you were so near. And your friend," she smiled at Megan, "Assured me that so long as we were here, on this spot, when the sun went down, that we would be safe."

He gave Megan a wry glance. "I suppose I have to thank you. Though you worried me for a bit there." He turned back to his mother. "Tell me then... tell me everything that happened since I left. How is everyone?"

She seated herself on a rock, and as he and Megan both followed suit, she proceeded to fill him in on the lives of his siblings, neighbors, and friends. "That Alek got exiled not long ago," she said at one point, "So he's likely dead by now, and good riddance."

David laughed. "No, actually he's very much alive. I happened to be near here on the night he was exiled. I escorted him safely to Wind City, where he probably still is."

His mother shook her head in amazement. "If it had been me, son, I'd have been tempted to just leave him to the vampires."

David shrugged. "He's a human being. Whatever else he might deserve, he doesn't deserve that. Nobody does."

She leaned over and hugged him again. "I'm proud of you. It seems you've grown up better than I'd ever hoped. Even if..." she trailed off.

"Even if I'm an undead, blood-sucking fiend?" he said wryly. "It's not quite like that, but it does have its down side. But really... it beats being a lay-about of no ambition, which is what I was before. Maybe if I had it all to do over, I'd chose to stay with you, at home, and stay human, but... maybe not. I'm doing something important. Something that somebody needs to do."

David stopped and his head snapped up as he suddenly sensed something else out in the night. "Oh no... Damn it! Why couldn't tonight, for once, be one of those nights when I can't find any of the gods-be-damned vampires to save my life?!"

His mother's eyes went wide, and Megan's pulse started racing, though she managed to look calm. David stood, and set his hat back on his head. Then he drew his sword.

"Vampires? Here?" asked Megan.

David nodded. "Stay close to me if you can, but not if it means coming near one of them. They're often more bark than bite, and tonight... tonight I'll merely drive them off if I can, but... there are at least three or four of them, maybe more, so they may not go easily."

He stood and waited, tense, more nervous than he'd ever been, even in his very first fight. He glanced behind him at his mother.

"Is there anything we can do?" she said.

He shook his head. "No. There's nothing anybody human can do. That's why I have to be what I am."

And then he could not only sense them, but hear them out in the dark. Footsteps. He couldn't count their numbers by ear, but only moments later he saw them. Five of them. Two males, three females. They approached cautiously, and stopped a dozen or so yards away. He stood still and waited. The whole group was together in front of him now, he could tell, which at least meant that none of them was trying to circle around behind him and get at the two he guarded.

"You have humans," said one of the females. "Two of them."

He said nothing.

She took a step forward, then one of the males grabbed her arm and spoke in a low, intense voice. David could just barely make out his words. "That's the Hunter! They said he had a cape, and a hat, it has to be him. If you go near him he'll kill you!"

She stopped. David could sense the sudden increase in tension. This was no longer a case of vampires testing their pack dynamics. This was much more serious, and deadly.

"So you're the Hunter," she said.

David still didn't reply. He really couldn't think of anything to say. And silence, he knew, was much more intimidating than words.

She snarled at him. "What's to stop us from surrounding you and killing you right now?"

He grinned and finally spoke. "There are only five of you. There were seven in the lair at Cottonwood."

There was a murmur among them at that. They knew about the lair. The story was becoming as infamous among vampires as stories of vampire atrocities were among humans.

"There's just one of you," she said. "No doubt you had help there. There's no way you could beat us all."

David answered without words. Instead he attacked her mind, putting absolutely everything he had into it, every ounce of his strength to quickly, utterly overpower her. In an instant he held her. Then he let her go.

She gasped and swayed as he released his grip. "I was alone at Cottonwood," he said. "But tonight I do not particularly feel like killing, I came here for other reasons. If you just turn and go, you will all live for at least a few nights longer. Otherwise I will kill you all right now. Choose."

He could sense the hesitant tension and fear among them. Then one of the males turned and walked away, muttering "I want to live, you all can do as you like."

That was the breaking point. Now there were only four, the odds were not quite as good as they had been with five. The female who seemed to be the leader growled at him, baring her fangs, but she too turned and left with the others.

David stood and watched, tensed, until they had vanished completely into the darkness. Then he lowered his sword and let out the breath he'd been holding with a whoosh.

"That was close."

He turned to find Megan and his mother both looking shaken. He could hear their hearts racing. "Mom... I am very glad I could see you tonight, but it's not really safe here, not even with me. You should go back to the city."

She took a steadying breath and nodded. "Yes. But... I am glad I came. I've missed you. I'm glad you're alive."

He chuckled softly. "For a given value of alive, yes. Well, let's go. I'll walk with you until we reach the lights, and you should be safe to go on alone from there."

He hugged his mother hard, though with care, knowing his strength, when they reached the edge of the lights. "I love you Mom. I'll miss you."

"I love you too, David. And I'll miss you. Maybe someday..."

He smiled. "Maybe. But for now you need to go."

She nodded, then turned and walked into the brightness. It wasn't long before her form vanished in the blur of light. He sighed and turned away.

Megan took his hand. He squeezed hers gently and smiled. "Thank you for that."

"It was the least I could do," she said with a smile. Then she added, "Just out of nosy curiosity... What happened at Cottonwood that scared those vampires so much?"

"Heh." He looked embarrassed. "I kind of... went a little crazy there. I found one of their lairs, where they sometimes gather, and sometimes take humans when they catch them. They had a man..." he trailed off, not even knowing what to say about it. "What they'd done to him was awful. I still sometimes wonder if they hadn't broken him completely, though I did all I could for him, after. But seeing what they'd done just enraged me so much I completely lost my head. If I'd had any sense at all I never would have attacked seven vampires at once. But through surprise and sheer dumb luck, and through the fact that vampires really tend to be lousy fighters, I managed to get them all. Kind of messily, even. Kind of... er.. more messily than usual, even. And since they were underground, their bodies didn't burn up when morning came, so the next night I assume some other vampires found them, and spread the story around."

She shook her head. "I wouldn't have thought that vampires would get scared so easily, even if it was... messy."

"Vampires are cowards. It's their one fundamental, defining characteristic. I've yet to run into one that wasn't. They do horrible things to humans, because they're physically so much stronger, so they can. But it's like schoolyard bullies. They only pick on people weaker than them. They almost never actually fight each other. Generally one of them will back down. So they're totally unused to an actual challenge, and very unused to anything being able to kill them. Some of them seem to think they're really immortal, or they act like that, anyhow. Bravado, the flip side of cowardice. It's not really courage, it just pretends to be. They're a lot more easily intimidated than one would think." He smiled. "Which is why the hat. But come on. We should probably not stay at this bolt hole tonight, those vampires might decide to screw up their courage and come back."

"David?" Megan looked over at him where he sat next to her in the clearing, watching the stars. "Are you okay?"

David shrugged. It had now been nearly two weeks since he'd seen his mother, and two and a half weeks since he'd rescued Megan. Two and a half weeks since he'd last killed a vampire.

"I'm okay. I'm just... getting a little frustrated, I guess. I don't want to leave you alone, I want to take care of you, and I'd be very lonely if you weren't here. But every night I'm here is one more night when the vampires are free to hunt with no opposition, one more night in which humans will suffer and die, and nobody is there to help them. It's starting to bother me."

Megan nodded. "Maybe you should just take me to a city then. What you do is more important, really."

He sighed. He didn't want to give her up, to send her away. But it seemed like the only option. "I wish Aidan were still here. If there were two of us..." he trailed off, and sighed again. "But there's just me."

"Two of you..." Megan sat up suddenly, her eyes bright. "That's the thought!"

"Huh?"

"I've had this feeling... this feeling that there was a reason I was here with you. That there was something I was supposed to do, something important, but I didn't know what. But that's what it is. If you were alone, you'd just keep on alone. Having me here means you need two. And two..." Her heart was going fast, she was obviously excited. "The solution, to everything. To the cities, the war, the vampires..."

David stared at her.

She caught his look. "I haven't gone crazy. Sorry. The idea just snapped into place just now, so I'm kind of thinking out loud. But look. The problem we have is that most vampires are selfish and amoral, right?"

David nodded.

"Now if most vampires were like you, it wouldn't really be a problem. But since the nature of vampires means that they'll always mostly be bad, there needs to be a way to keep them in check. And that's you, a good vampire. But just you, you said it yourself, you can't save everyone. But what if, what if there were more? Not just one more, but lots more, one for every city maybe, I don't know. What if there was a vampire police force, to keep the other vampires away from humans?"

David tried to think through the possibilities. "But... you'd need a lot of people who were willing to become vampires. And if you had that kind of system, you'd need a lot of humans, too, who were willing to donate blood to keep the vampires going. You'd have to find people. And I don't know if there are that many."

"I think there might be. Human nature can be amazing. You've told me about the people who offered you blood. If there are that many people who are willing to give blood to somebody who saved them, surely we can find one person to be a hunter, and one person to be a donor, in each city! Just two people, out of all those. There has to be at least that many who would do it. We just have to find them. We'd have to... I don't know." She stopped, then shook her head. "We'd have to do it ourselves. Just reading about vampires would have been enough to get me exiled, even without all my other ideas. The leaders of the cities don't want to think about it. They'd rather pretend the vampires aren't there at all, I think. But still... I've read things. Underground movements have done great things before."

"Underground?" asked David.

"Well, not literally!" Megan laughed. "Or maybe it will be literally. But that's what they used to call things that were secret, like this is going to have to be. I mean... the city people are going to know that there are good vampires who are protecting them, but this is going to need an organization, a kind of government to run it, to make sure the donors stay protected, and that the vampires can't gang up on hunters, and to recruit new people, and make sure the recruits are the right kind of people, and find ways to go in and out of cities, and all kinds of things, and I don't think the city people should know about that." The she laughed again. "But that's way ahead of ourselves. Right now we just need one person who's not afraid to become a vampire. If that works out, well... we can go on from there."

"You think big," said David.

She smiled. "I guess so. But I'm not so sure where to start, or how to go about finding that first person. Everybody I know would be terrified of the very idea of being a vampire."

David considered. "Actually, I think I might know somebody."

"Excuse me."

It was a bar. Dim, as all those places tended to be, though perhaps a little less so in these dark-fearing times than in years past. Right now it was still early, and not crowded. So Megan was easily able to get the bartender's attention.

"I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm trying to find somebody. His name is Mack. He's kind of a big guy, with tattoos. Do you know him?"

The bartender regarded her for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah, I know him. He's in here most nights. Trying to cage a free drink with his crazy vampire story, more often than not."

Megan smiled. "Yeah, that would be the guy. I guess I'll wait then. Thanks."

David had described the man to her in detail, and she was glad she'd been able to track him down fairly quickly. She hadn't wanted to have to search all of Cottonwood. Or worse, to have found out that he'd gone somewhere else entirely. But she had been in the city barely two days, and it looked like she was going to be in luck.

It was only an hour later when a burly man in his late twenties with short-cropped fair hair, gray-blue eyes, and tattooed arms walked into the room. Megan regarded him for a few minutes as he ordered a drink and settled into a table. Then she got up, carrying her own drink, and crossed to his table.

"Hi. Are you Mack?"

He eyed her, but apparently found her unthreatening enough, and gestured for her to sit down. "Yeah, that's me. What do you want?"

She dropped into a chair across from him. "My name's Megan. I have a message for you from a mutual friend."

Mack lifted his eyebrows, the expression saying as much as words could have. "Mutual friend, hmm? And who would that be?"

"Well... he said you'd know him as D."

Mack looked startled. "D..." He gave Megan another once-over, possibly looking for some visible sign that she was friends with a vampire. She smiled, and turned her arm wrist up, showing the two little scars there.

Mack suddenly laughed. "I got a set of those too. Mine are kind of more impressive though." And he turned his own wrist outward. Megan had a moment of shock to see two fresh, bloody punctures there, and then she realized that it was a tattoo, realistically rendered over the real scars beneath. "I get a new tattoo whenever something important in my life happens," he said. "I got my first one when I dropped out of school and decided to do my own thing. And I got another one a few years later when I finished adult education and got my degree anyhow." He grinned. "And I figure that having met D, well... It was something I should commemorate. Though I had a hard time talking the artist into doing it."

Megan shook her head in amazement. She was starting to see why David had sent her here.

"But if you've got something from D, there's somebody else who ought to be here to hear it too. And maybe the bar isn't really the best place to discuss it. Somebody might overhear and take it wrong. I get enough people going on about me being a sympathizer as it is. No need to give them more excuses, really."

"Okay," said Megan. They got up, and she followed Mack out of the bar.

"Okay," said Megan. They got up, and she followed Mack out of the bar.

It proved to be a short walk to a little upstairs apartment. Mack opened the door for her and waved her inside, calling out as he entered, "Hey, Jeff! We've got company!"

As Megan sat on a somewhat faded couch in the small front parlor, another man stepped into the room. He was tall, very nearly having to duck to get through the doorway, though he wasn't particularly broad, in fact he seemed somewhat on the thin side. His face was lined, but his hair was black, with no trace of gray in it. And... she blinked and tried not to stare. His neck was covered in scars.

"Megan, this is Jeff. Jeff, Megan." said Mack. "She says she's got a message from D."

Jeff dropped into a chair and eyed her with surprise. "From D? That's not something I expected. But... good. Maybe she can take a message back to him for me, and I can finally have a chance to say thanks."

"He rescued you too?" she asked.

The tall man nodded. "He pulled me out of a den full of vampires. I think he saved my sanity, as well as saving my life." He gave a little shuddering sort of twitch as he said it.

"Oh!" Megan remembered what David had said about rescuing somebody from a lair full of vampires near Cottonwood.

"You heard the story?" said Jeff.

"He mentioned it. But he didn't say much, just that he'd gone kind of berserk and killed a whole bunch of vampires who'd caught a human, and that the vampires have kind of been scared of him ever since. Nothing else."

"Modest of him," said Jeff. "And that's not sarcasm," he added. "What he did..." Another little shudder went through him. "Sorry. I get kind of... twitchy about it sometimes, remembering... But I'm not going to let it screw me up any more than it has to. I should probably tell you the whole story."

He leaned back in the chair, and Mack sat down on the other end of the couch, listening with interest, though he had to have heard the story before.

"I was with a caravan. It was my first. It was supposed to be a complete milk run, we were just going across to Iron City, and it would only take one day. We still had lights, of course. You don't go out without them. But I wasn't really prepared for a night run. I was cocky, and stupid. Well, we broke down halfway there. And it took so long to fix that we were still out in the open when night fell. Still fixing the damn thing, even. We weren't going anywhere.

"They told us the rules for being out at night, of course. You never step away from the train, you never go near anything, not even a patch of grass, you stay on the road. But I was stupid. There was so much light, I figured it was totally safe. And so I went around a rock to, uh... do some business. And there was a vampire, all wrapped up so the light couldn't burn him, behind the rock.

"He hauled me off before I could even yell for help. Carried me straight to this cellar den..." He trailed off, and shuddered again. He was silent for a long minute, then he said "They weren't exactly nice to me there, I'll put it that way. I was hurt bad, and they weren't really giving me food, though they did give me water. But they..." he broke off, suppressing yet another shudder. "Never mind what they did, I guess the details don't matter anyhow. But I was pretty close to dying, I think, when he came... I didn't really notice him. I was trying to not notice any of them, it was easier that way, a little. And then he touched me... His hands were warm. I thought he was human. I wasn't really thinking straight or I'd have known better, but I wasn't... really myself. And his hands were warm..." Jeff trailed off again, then shook himself and continued. "He told me they were all dead, and when I looked, they were. He'd killed them." He grinned then, savagely. "They'd told me that they were going to kill me, and they'd live forever. Ha! They're all rotting in Hell now, if there's a just God out there. But he carried me out of there. He was gentle... I think he knew that I wasn't really sane, that maybe I could break. I think I would have, if I'd realized what he was right then. He carried me up out of that hellhole, and then he took me to the city. And he just... He walked right into the lights. He walked right into the lights until he was starting to burn. I saw his face... And he said that he was sorry he couldn't take me any further. That's when I knew what he was.

"I should have thanked him. He saved my life, and then he took me half way to the city gates, not because there were vampires out there, they were all dead, but just because... because he knew I would be afraid of the shadows after... after what they'd done. He had to have been in so much pain, and he did it just to be kind to me. And I should have thanked him, but I couldn't think what to say, and then he was gone."

He looked up at Megan. "If you do know him, tell him that for me. Tell him thank you."

She nodded solemnly, impressed by the story. "I will."

"But you said you had a message," said Mack. "What is it?"

"It's kind of complicated, really. But he needs some help, I guess is what it comes down to."

"We both owe him big time, so if he needs help, we're there."

Megan shook her head. "It's not that easy. This isn't just a favor this is... big. There's..." She considered how to explain. "You know there's a war, really, between humans and vampires. It's a war the humans have been losing for a long time. We lost the old civilization, and now we're just barely holding them back, clinging to what little we have. If something doesn't change, someday they'll win."

Both men nodded soberly.

"The thing is, if there were more good vampires, it wouldn't have to be that way. If there were enough like David, then maybe humanity could drive the vampires back, start really building again. That's the big picture. There's also that I think he's lonely. I was staying with him for a while, and he wanted me to stay, but while he was guarding me he couldn't hunt vampires, and it was driving him crazy. I don't think he should be alone, but he can't just have a human with him, he needs another vampire."

Mack shook his head. "But maybe one in thirty people who dies with the vampire taint becomes a vampire. To get one good vampire, you'd have to kill thirty good people."

Megan shook her head and smiled. "No, you wouldn't. That's the thing that this all hinges on. See, there's a reason why so few become vampires. It's because you have to decide to. You have to actually try to come back, and choose to be undead, in order to be a vampire. So of course most of the tainted just die. They don't want to be vampires! It's only the ones who are so evil that they want to live on blood, or so selfish and afraid that they'd rather do that than die, that become vampires. That's why there aren't more good ones, and why we wouldn't have to kill a lot of people. It would just take one, who'd decided to come back."

Both men were silent for a moment. Then Jeff said, "So... you came here, to us. You want one of us to become a vampire then."

She nodded mutely, not knowing what else to say.

Jeff twitched. "I don't... I couldn't. No way. I owe him everything, and I should... but no. I can't."

"Hey, it's okay," said Mack, reaching out to pat the taller man's hand. "I don't think he'd be the type to force anybody into this. Me... I said I wasn't afraid of anything, and I guess I'm not exactly afraid of being a vampire, but man... it's a big thing, you're right. I don't think I can make up my mind right now. I need to think about it. Or maybe..." He considered. "You can take him a message, could you take us to him? Obviously wherever you're going would be safe for humans, since you're going there, and you're no vampire."

Megan smiled. "I think I could do that. And it's not just vampires that we need, too. There also has to be donors. Vampires need human blood. But having to hunt down humans that other vampires have caught to get it, and then to take it from them... David really doesn't like it at all. He'd rather take it from people who aren't afraid, who are willing." She looked at Mack. "He said you were the first one to do that, to offer it to him, and it really impressed him a lot, I think."

Mack shrugged. "That's not a big deal. I've gotten into fights with regular old humans where I lost more than he took, I'm pretty sure. But I want to talk to him about this. If I'm maybe going to be a vampire, there are some questions I want answered about it, and what it's like."

Jeff looked pensive and said, hesitantly, "I think... I think maybe I could help. I..." he sighed. "Damn it! I don't want to twitch and shiver all my life. I've been trying to deal with it, and face it, I'm going to face this. If he needs donors, I can do it." He ran a hand over the scars on his neck. "I've got a lot of experience in it. And I want to talk to him too, if I can. To say thanks in person, if nothing else."

David came out from his bolt hole, which he'd dug in as close to Cottonwood City as he dared, immediately after sunset. As he stepped out of the entrance, he could hear the sounds of three people standing in the night even before he saw them.

He eyed Megan. "I keep sending you to bring me messages, and you keep bringing me people instead."

She giggled. "Sorry. But they wanted to talk to you."

David took in the other two men. Mack he knew, he looked just as he had. The other... He blinked, trying to sort out how he knew him. The man looked familiar, but... then he saw the mass of scars on his neck, and David's eyes went wide.

"I wanted to say thank you," Jeff said softly. "I wanted to say it before, but I didn't really know how. You saved my life, and my sanity too. So... thank you."

"I..." David didn't know what to say. "I just did what I had to."

Jeff shook his head. "You did far more than that. But I guess I won't embarrass you any more. I just wanted to say it. I regretted, all this time, that I didn't."

David smiled. "I'm glad you're okay."

Jeff laughed. "You mean you're glad that I'm still sane, after all the trouble you took to try and keep me that way. I'm a little twitchy still, but I'm working on it. Which is the other reason I'm here. This girl says you need help. I... I couldn't be a vampire, there's no way. But I might be able to help, with... the donating."

David's eyes widened again. "I couldn't possibly... I mean..." he trailed off, once again at a loss for words.

Jeff shook his head. "I talked to a lot of people who know about this kind of thing, about trauma and shock. They said I could deal with it by not even thinking about it at all, and putting it behind me that way, but then... any time I got reminded of it, I'd still be afraid. Or I can deal with it hitting it headlong, and just getting all the fear out right away, so I don't have to try and never think of vampires. Which is rougher, maybe, and maybe harder, but I've been trying to do that, and this is one more way to do it. I'm not going to be the guy who's a vampire victim, you know? That's not who I am."

David shook his head. "You're a lot braver than I am." Then he turned to Mack. "And what about you?"

"I'm... thinking about it." He shrugged. "I can be a donor, that's easy. The other... that's not so easy. But I can see why you'd need somebody else. I can't say the idea of beating up on vampires is a bad idea, I kind of like that, but I get the feeling there's more to it than that."

David nodded. "Yeah. It has its good points, and it has its down side too."

"Well, I want to know all about it before I jump into anything," said Mack. "I can't exactly change my mind later if I don't like it."

"I'll tell you what I can," said David.

Mack shook his head. "I don't know... I'll have questions you can answer, I'm sure, but I want to really see what it's like. Megan said you have a place, where it's pretty safe. If you're asking this favor of me, I guess I'll ask one of you. I want to follow you around for a while, see what it's really like for you."

David laughed. "Well... a lot of the time what it's like is boring. I do the laundry and make up my bed like anybody else. But sure. If you'd agreed I was going to take you there anyhow."

"If I'm going to be a donor," said Jeff, "I should probably come too."

David eyed the three humans. "It's going to get a little crowded, but I guess there's room."

"We could get a couple of cots and put them in the front room" piped up Megan. David gave her a long look, then smiled.

"Megan... I think we only need to get one cot. After all this time, the nightmares aren't going to stop any time soon."

She blushed, but nodded. "Yeah, I guess so..."

"Well, such details later. Right now we've got to figure out how to get you there. I can run it in a bit over two nights, but obviously I can't carry all three of you. We could walk cross country, but it would be more than a week, and there are still plenty of vampires out there. With three humans with me... I'd have to fight off every single one from here to Georgetown, including the large packs. I'm not sure we'd make it."

"A caravan then," said Mack.

David nodded. "Yeah. You three can travel by daylight. I'll shadow you, keep an eye on things during the night. Georgetown is the closest city to my home, and I know caravans run there from Cottonwood. At a human pace we can cross the desert from there in about two nights, and," he grinned suddenly, "for some strange reason that part of the desert hasn't got many vampires in it. I wonder why?"

Megan giggled.

Mack grinned and said "Sounds like a plan."

Jeff nodded silent agreement.

"Well, I can escort you three back to the city lights then," said David. "And I'll keep an eye on the next caravan out. Don't take any risks, of course, but if one or the other of you could find a way to circle the road train after dark, so I can be sure you're on the caravan before I follow it all the way down, that would be great."

Mack waved a dismissive hand. "No problem."

David gave Mack a disbelieving look, having just then caught a glimpse of his tattoo. "What have you done to your wrist?"

Mack grinned. "I got a commemorative tattoo, to remember you by."

"Mack, I'm not your girlfriend," said David, without thinking.

Megan giggled again, and Mack burst out laughing, and even Jeff snickered. "No, no you're not. I'm afraid you're not my type! But come on. We've got a caravan to catch, and a trip to make. No reason to waste time, let's get going."

It was a five day journey from Cottonwood to Georgetown by road train, which meant four nights on the road. The caravan camped during darkness. Moving at night was too risky, it was too easy for vampires to lay traps ahead of the caravan. So it remained motionless, surrounded by lights and sentries, while the sun was down.

It was also guarded by David, who caught up with the caravan each night and stood watch until nearly sunrise.

When three nights had passed with no sign of vampires, David almost dared hope for an uneventful journey. But only a few hours after sundown on the fourth night, he sensed something in the distance.

If he hadn't already been ghost pale he would have blanched dead white. It was huge, easily the largest source he'd seen. And that meant... they were going to actually attack the caravan, that was what it had to mean. They'd gotten together a large enough group to try and take out the lights, take the whole thing. Which meant that he couldn't just avoid them, he had to fight. Maybe, just maybe, if his friends hadn't been there he might have moved on. Dying would mean that the vampires would be free again to do as they pleased, and so he might have weighed the options and decided to go rather than to stand and die. But Megan, Mack, and Jeff were there. He simply couldn't abandon them.

As the distant vampires drew nearer, the source split into two. Each of those groups seemed about the size of the group he'd met in the lair near Cottonwood. Fourteen vampires. Maybe a little more, maybe a little less. God.

The two groups circled around, obviously planning to take the unsuspecting caravan from either side. But they paused there, still beyond eyesight or earshot in the desert. There was a long moment of utter stillness, and David realized that they must be debating what to do about him. They could sense him as easily as he could sense them. They might just assume he was another pack of vampires, but they had to at least suspect that he might be the Hunter.

I wish they couldn't sense me, he thought. If there were some way to take them by surprise, some way to not be visible... And then he almost laughed. Aidan's last lesson! He'd never used the "vanishing" trick. He hadn't needed to. But now... He took a deep, steadying breath, trying not to think too hard about the insanity of attempting to lure in seven or more vampires at once. He moved to stand directly between the group on his side of the road and the caravan. He settled his hat firmly on his head, and drew his sword. Once he did this, he wouldn't be able to move until he was ready to drop the illusion and fight. Then he closed his eyes. He wouldn't need sight, it would only distract him. He pictured the white room. He had practiced it often enough to not need the trick with the dissolving object. He simply pictured white, blank, nothingness, until that was all that existed. He felt utterly still. He was blank. He was faintly, peripherally aware still of the sense of vampires in the distance, but that wasn't a conscious awareness, any more than peripheral vision is. There was nothing real in the universe but the bright white emptiness.

Some part of him, more instinct than real thought, was still tracking the vampires. The groups stayed where they were for a while. To their senses another pack of vampires had just vanished, snuffed out in a single instant, without a sound. They were no doubt nervous, even afraid. The group on the far side of the caravan remained distant, not wanting to circle around the road train's lights to see what had happened. Eventually the group on the near side slowly approached.

He sensed them nearing, heard their footsteps, but he was still lost in the blank, white space. It was not yet time to exist again. He would know when it was. They stopped again when they were close enough to catch sight of him, a single cloaked figure, bearing hat and sword, standing between them and the light. They slowly drew closer. David was aware of a growing tension. Soon he would be unable to stay in the meditative state. And then the first of them ran at him. Perhaps the vampire thought he was just a human. Perhaps it just couldn't stand the waiting any more. Whatever the reason just one of them leaped at David, ahead of the others.

He snapped back into being and met the vampire's attack with his sword. The slice wasn't quite perfect, he'd slit its throat almost all the way back, but hadn't quite managed to kill it. But it made a strangled sound and clutched at its neck, no longer a threat for that instant, at least. David was dimly aware of the details, that it had been male, of average build, with light hair, but some of the meditative state was still with him, and he moved in a supernatural calm, striking past the first with all his speed to take a second one, this time getting the clean stroke he wanted, taking off one of the vampire's upraised hands along with its head. And then the others broke, scattering into the night.

He ran down one more, then stopped. Five sources scattered off into the darkness, there had been eight of them. He turned, and finished off the one he had first struck. The group on the far side of the caravan retreated back into the night. Whatever had just happened, they obviously wanted none of it.

David leaned on his sword for a moment, feeling very strange. It had been so fast... He'd just effectively faced down more than a dozen vampires. He started to shake. God! They could have taken me. Just that one group could have taken me! He shook himself and took a deep breath. They hadn't. He was still alive, and the caravan and his friends were still safe. That was all that mattered.

The caravan reached Georgetown just before sundown the next day, though David was not there to see it. The following day the trio of humans got what supplies they could and set out to meet David outside one of the bolt holes that Megan knew.

David greeted them as darkness fell. "Everything go okay?" he asked.

"Pretty much," said Mack. "How about you, anything exciting happen?"

David had a sudden, vivid recollection of standing between the pack and the road train, of being half certain he would die, but he just shrugged. Telling the story wouldn't serve any purpose. "Not really."

They set out into the moonlight night, David leading the way. Before long, however, Megan began to lag behind.

"I'm sorry. I'm just tired. I... didn't sleep well the last few days."

David thought of her nightmares, and suddenly wished that he'd been able to be there on the caravan with her. "Here, give me your pack," he said, and after putting it on, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her. She leaned against him, and was soon dozing. He was aware, for a moment, of the scent of her blood, and in the back of his head the pressure of need clamored, but he put it out of his mind and concentrated on walking, on keeping a brisk enough pace without actually going too fast for the two humans to keep up, and that was distracting enough.

They went on silently into the night, and made good enough time that they reached the halfway point, and Aidan's old bolt hole there, with an hour or so to spare.

"Sorry I can't offer you an actual bed," said David, "And sorry it's so cramped, I think one of you might want to sleep out in the tunnel, if you don't mind."

"You spend most of your days in these little caves?" asked Mack.

David nodded. "I have an actual home, I think most vampires do, but when I'm out hunting I can't always get back to it before daylight."

Jeff shook his head. "Not exactly luxury."

David shrugged. "Once the sun is up, I'm usually out cold, so I don't mind."

Mack chuckled. "I've bunked in worse spots, to tell the truth. I think I'll sleep in the tunnel."

Megan stirred and yawned in David's arms. He put her down gently on the pile of old blankets. "Here. Are you still tired?"

She nodded. "Yeah... I haven't really slept much."

He smiled at her. "Well, you should sleep well today."

She smiled back.

Jeff and Mack exchanged amused glances, but Megan and David didn't notice, they just curled up together.

Megan dropped off immediately, but the sun hadn't yet risen, and David couldn't sleep. He lay staring at the ceiling, listening to Megan's breathing. He could tell when Jeff and Mack both fell asleep, tired out by the long night's walk. He closed his eyes and put one arm over Megan. He could hear her heartbeat, and as other distractions vanished he also became aware of her scent. She smelled mostly of ordinary human scents, of sweat, and dust, with lingering notes of her most recent meal and a hint of the indefinable scent of "city", but under all that was the alluring scent of her blood.

He opened his eyes again, trying to distract himself by looking at the patterns in the sandstone ceiling above. But now that he'd noticed it, he couldn't ignore it. The pressure of need, of hunger was intense. He had felt it building every day, every time he held her. Most days they went to bed at sunrise, and he slipped off quickly into slumber before he could do anything he would regret, but some nights she had been tired earlier, and he found he couldn't bring himself to ask her to stay up. He would have to tell her why, and the idea was somehow impossible, he couldn't even picture the conversation. Holding her made him feel protective, a surprisingly good feeling, but the growing hunger was always there, always demanding. He had thus far managed to resist the urge, though the week of her woman's cycle had been nearly unbearable, the blood smell so strong that even a human nose might have faintly detected it. But that had been when she had been with him no more than a handful of days, and the need had been weaker then. Now... he tallied up the days. Seventeen days together at the cabin. Two days to reach Cottonwood City. Two more days to find Mack. Three days waiting for the caravan, five days on the road, and one day in Georgetown. Thirty days, a full month. Nearly the longest he had ever gone without tasting human blood. He had been so busy, he hadn't noticed the time slipping by. He held his breath, hoping to block out the scent, but it crept in anyhow. Or perhaps he just imagined it. He'd tasted her blood before, he knew the flavor of it, the scent of it. He could nearly taste it now. He gritted his teeth together. I cannot. I cannot just take from her like this. It would be wrong. It would be like rape, to bite her and take without her permission. I cannot. He repeated it to himself as a litany, over and over, and at long last the sun edged above the invisible horizon and he was able to sleep.

Megan had woken before him, so thankfully David didn't have to dwell further on his hunger. He set a brisk pace towards the cabin. He wanted to run, but of course he could only carry one person at a time, and the other two could never keep up. But having rested well, Megan was walking, so he carried only himself. He was glad. Walking might not quite be distracting enough, after all.

They reached the cabin with time to spare, and as David ushered the humans in and turned on the lights, he didn't waste any time. "Now that we're here, the first order of business is food. Both for you... and for me, I'm afraid. I haven't fed in a whole month, and that's pushing things."

Megan nodded. She held out her wrist. David smiled. "Let's at least go into the kitchen and sit down. There are enough chairs for all of us there."

With the four of them seated around the small table, the kitchen seemed somewhat crowded, but there was room enough. David sat next to Megan, and smiled reassuringly at her. She held out her wrist again, but Jeff put a hand on her shoulder.

"I think it's my turn," he said.

David gave him a level look. "You're sure?"

"Yes. If I'm not going to be able to handle it, we might as well find out now." He had a wry smile on his face as he said it.

David nodded. "All right." He got up and went over next to Jeff's chair.

"Should I do anything in particular?" asked Jeff.

"No." David shook his head. "Just hold still, is all. I will be as painless as I can."

Rather than bend over Jeff and probably remind him all to much of the lair and the other vampires, David knelt next to him, putting his own head much lower than the seated man's. He took Jeff's wrist in his hands. He could hear Jeff's heart pounding, and though the tall human held perfectly still, David knew he was terrified. Best not to draw this out then, he thought, and bit down as quickly and cleanly as he could.

He kept a tight reign on the hunger, taking slowly and carefully, and as he did so he was peripherally aware of Jeff's racing heart rate slowing, until it was as slow and steady as any he'd ever heard.

David pulled back, having taken enough for his needs, and looked up at Jeff with a smile. "Thanks."

Jeff blinked, looking almost dazed. "No problem. That was not what I expected at all."

"People keep saying that to me," said David as he got up and went back to his own chair. "What's so unexpected about it?"

"It's actually kind of pleasant, is what's unexpected," said Jeff. "Which is really strange, because it wasn't like that at all before. I mean, if anybody's an expert at getting bitten by vampires, I am, and when they did..." He shivered. "It was just painful. That's all there was too it, it hurt. But just now... I don't really know how to describe it. The initial bite hurt just a bit, and then that just faded away and it was like I was floating, or... something. Sort of a meditative or a dream state. Very relaxing."

"It was the same for me," said Mack. "It was really weird."

Megan nodded. "Me too. And when that first vampire bit me, before you came, it was just like Jeff said, all it did was hurt. But when you did, it was different."

"Huh." said David, puzzled. "That's all kinds of strange. Although now that I think of it, the only time I was ever bitten, by my friend Aidan, it was a lot like that."

"So good vampires make you feel good when they bite you? That doesn't really make sense," said Megan. "You're different mentally, but physically you're all vampires, it ought to be the same."

"Maybe not," said David. "Vampires are telepathic, in a way, among themselves. Maybe something about getting bitten lets a human sense that somehow."

"Maybe." Megan shrugged. "I'm not sure how we'd tell for certain. Other than maybe getting you angry and having you bite one of us, to see if it was different, but I think I'd rather not do that."

Mack chuckled. "Yeah, I don't know if that would be a good idea."

"I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be," said David, shaking his head. "But anyhow, now that I've been fed, I should feed you. What would you like for dinner?"

For the next few days things were ordinary and peaceful. Mundane things filled up most of their time, mixed with discussions of Megan's notions about a vampire police force and the long talks David and Mack had, sometimes with the others joining in, about what it was like to be a vampire.

On one particularly clear summer night David woke to find Megan already up. He wandered past where Mack and Jeff sat talking and into the clearing in front of the cabin. He found Megan there, holding an object that he couldn't make any sense of at first. She seemed to have a rope wrapped around her arm, but it was striped black and white, and oddly thick. Then it moved and he realized it was a snake.

"Look! Isn't he beautiful?" Megans eyes were bright with delight. "I caught him just in time, they're generally not out at night."

David took a few steps closer. He wasn't quite sure how he felt about snakes. He'd never seen one up close before.

"It's a kingsnake. They're called that because it's one of the few snakes that eats other snakes. They're supposed to be fairly common around here, though I've never seen one in the city. This is a big one too! Would you like to hold him?"

"Uh... I guess so."

Megan held out the snake. "Hold him right behind the head, here, so he can't bite you. He probably wouldn't, but it's best to be safe. Be careful, he's quite fragile." David gingerly took the reptile. It immediately wrapped its body around his arm, getting a secure grip.

"Is it trying to constrict my arm?" he asked. "Isn't that what they do?"

Megan giggled. "Oh no. He'd be gabbing you much harder if he was doing that. He's just making sure he won't fall off."

"Oh." David watched as the snake curled and recurled around his arm. The scales were smooth and somewhat warm against his cool skin. "Why is it moving around so much?"

"Well, he probably wants to be let go, so he can go find a place to sleep. Although it may also be that he wants to go back to me, because I'm warm, and snakes can't make their own warmth, they have to be warmed by other things. Like vampires." She smiled at David. "I think I told you that once before."

"So you did," he said.

A week passed with such ordinary moments, and then David decided that they had spent enough time just talking, and now it was time to take action.

"Hey, Mack," he said as they sat around the table one night. "I think I've told you about all I can tell you, and shown you about all I can show you here. Do you want to go hunting with me?"

"Hell yes," said Mack. "Though... I'm not going to be much use, I don't think."

David grinned broadly, showing his sharp fangs. "You'll be all kinds of use. You'll make wonderful vampire bait."

Mack looked a bit nonplussed for a moment, but then he smiled. "Hey, yeah. I could do that just fine. But if you're going to go out hunting, what about Megan, and Jeff?"

David looked pensive. "I've wasted enough time already. I know there's no deadline on hunting vampires, but it's been so long since the last time I could... I hesitate to do this, the safe route would be to escort them to a city, and pick them up later, but that would take four or five days by itself and..." He shrugged. "In the whole time I've lived here, vampires have come by this cabin only once, and that was because they were looking to get revenge on the previous occupant, not because of me. There aren't any lairs anywhere in these hills, I've wiped out any of them that use the bolt holes around the area, and there's nothing at all to bring them here."

Jeff nodded. "If they've never come here in all this time, I think you're right that we'll be all right."

Megan nodded as well. "It will just be for what, two nights?"

"Two or maybe three. One night to get to the road, and one night to hunt on, and if we don't find anything really early, then we'll need another night to get back."

"We'll be fine then."

"I hope I don't regret this," said David, "But yes, you'll be fine."

The moon was high in the sky as David and Mack walked down the road that lead south from Georgetown. David didn't sense anything nearby yet, so he and Mack were talking quietly, discussing possible strategies.

"I have something I want to try, actually, but it's going to mean you're effectively on your own until the last minute, I won't be able to give you instructions or warnings. You'll probably hear them coming before I can say anything to you, in fact."

Mack looked confused. "What do you mean?"

"Well, they're getting pretty wary, especially the smaller groups, which are what I'd ideally like to suck in here. They can sense me as well as I can sense them, and fewer and fewer of them will come anywhere near me. They don't know who I am, of course, just from the sense, but they know anybody they do sense could be the hunter, so they're getting pretty skittish about approaching strangers. But there's a way I can be 'invisible' to them. Not physically invisible, but to their mental sense. They'll think we're two humans, until I'm ready to move. The problem is that it takes all my concentration to do. I'm getting pretty good at it, I think I might be able to walk slowly while doing it, but there's no way I can talk, or do much of anything else, until they're so close that they can't all get away."

Mack thought that through, then nodded. "Well, I just have to walk down the road, and then pretty much duck and get out of your way once they actually get here, right? I'm pretty sure I can manage that." He grinned.

David grinned back. It was good to be hunting again! "Let's get to it then!"

He and Mack set off at a slow, ambling pace. David didn't want to try going any faster, since his attention was not going to be on the road. As they walked, he summoned up the blank room. It took a few tries, his eyes kept wanting to go to things along the side of the road as they loomed up in the moonlight. He looked down at the dusty, worn surface of the road itself, and that was better. Soon he was completely lost in the formless white, and the road's plain surface moving in front of him became part of the trance. He was not just invisible, he didn't exist at all. Hours passed, and David would ordinarily have been bored, seeing nothing but the passing road, hearing nothing, saying nothing, but he wasn't even aware of the time. Mack remained silent, and just walked along beside his companion, keeping quiet to avoid disturbing him.

Eventually there was a flicker of something at the edges of David's senses. For a moment it almost jolted him out of his trance, but he regained the state nearly instantly. That not-quite-conscious part of him that was aware of his surroundings, even if it wasn't thinking about them, tracked the sense of vampires in the distance as they moved. He would have noticed, and come out of the trance state, if the source had been unusually strong, but it was not. He didn't measure it, he just knew without thought that it was nothing unusual as it moved towards him. The vampires were going slowly, wary, but there was nothing in the night but the sound of two pairs of feet on the road.

They drew steadily closer, becoming bolder as they sensed no threat. The vampires all knew by now that the Hunter was another vampire, and there were no other vampires here, just two helpless humans.

They had actually set foot on the road, and Mack was hastily backing away, when David snapped to life. He drew his sword and ran straight into the middle of them. There were five. Mack dropped to the road, out of the way of flying blows, as David fought. He was a blur of motion, steel catching the moonlight in lightning flickers as he snapped it through the air and through vampire flesh with equal ease. It took only seconds for the first to die, and the second had fallen before the startled undead could fully realize what had happened. The remaining three broke and ran into the night, and David ran after them. He caught one more, and was able to reach ahead and mentally slow a fourth and catch him as well, but the fifth escaped into the night.

"Damn." He jogged back to the road, where Mack was picking himself up and dusting himself off.

"Did you get them all?"

David shook his head. "One of them got away. Which is annoying, as it will now be that much harder to use that trick again. But I think this went fairly well. In fact..." suddenly he trailed off. "Oh hell."

"What?"

"There's another pack out there. And the one who's still running for it has veered towards them. They're going to know exactly who we are and where we are in just a few minutes. And it's a big pack, more than I really want to face down. We need to get out of here, and fast!"

Mack nodded. David had carried him here, of course. Carried him piggyback in fact, because that was the easiest way for the slighter vampire to balance the more bulky human. David turned and Mack climbed up on his back again, and they set off, as fast as David could run, on a tangent from the road.

There was silence for a while, then David swore again. "They're moving pretty fast. They're going to catch up eventually." He left unspoken the reason why the others were moving faster than he. They didn't have to carry half again their own weight on their backs.

"They're tracking you by this mental thing, not by sound or scent or something, right?"

"Yeah. I see what you're getting at. I just need to vanish again."

"Yeah. Unless they can find you some other way, or find me?"

David considered, still running as he thought. "It's possible. A vampire can smell well enough to track that way, but it's a skill that requires some development to do well. They generally don't have to find hiding humans, or hiding vampires either. The first are usually making plenty of noise, out in the open, or are announcing their presence with lights, and the second they can sense. And they're not following our trail now, they're just cutting directly across."

David halted and glanced around. They were on the up slope of a small hill. The ground around was, as most of the desert in the area, cut with dry washes and studded with outcroppings of sandstone. A dozen yards or so away one such outcropping rose in a jumble of wind-rounded shapes. He ran towards it, and in a series of bounds he crossed it, just to break the obvious trail of footprints, should the vampires happen to try and track him physically, then left from there at a different angle, headed for a dry wash. He jumped down into it, and stopped there, letting Mack get down. Not waiting any longer, he dropped into the trance state, pure white surrounding him as he closed his eyes.

The pursuing group halted when he vanished. Given how hard distance was to judge, perhaps they thought he had moved beyond their range. The one survivor of the other pack would be able to tell them that he could vanish, but they wouldn't know exactly what that meant. The group moved forward again, then zigged and zagged, casting around for a trail, but it wasn't long before they gave up and left, and soon the sense of them had disappeared into the night.

David slowly came back to himself. Mack was sitting on the sandy floor of the wash, looking tense, his heart rate up. "They're gone," said David. "It worked, we lost them."

"Whew! That was pretty intense!"

David laughed and shook his head in amazement. "Sure, intense. Let's get going. It's early enough we can make some distance before we have to hole up for the day."

When they reached the cabin the next night, David couldn't help but worry. Through his mind ran visions of vampire attacks, of Megan and Jeff carried off or killed, but Megan greeted him at the doorway with a hug, and Jeff waved cheerfully from where he sat in the kitchen, reading a book.

"How did it go?"

Mack grinned hugely. "David got four of them. Then a bigger group nearly got both of us, but we managed to get away."

Jeff chuckled. "And from the grin I take it you found all this exciting?"

"Hell yeah! It was great. I haven't had that much excitement in years!"

David turned to him. "Does that mean you want to do it, to become a vampire, and really be able to hunt them?"

Mack turned sober. "Yeah, I guess it does. I can see now why you did it in the first place. Standing around, not being able to do anything about them... No, that's not for me. If there's a fight on, I want to be out there fighting! So... yes."

David smiled. "Thank you. This is going to make a really big difference. There's so much more we can do with two of us."

"So... do we do it now then?"

David shook his head. "I don't want to delay too long, but I've kind of regretted I didn't take one more day, do all the daylight, human things I hadn't gotten around to doing, or even to do all the ordinary everyday ones just one more time. You gain a lot by becoming a vampire, but you're never going to see the sun again, or taste food. You'll never hear the sound of your own heartbeat again, and you never think that you would miss something like that, but you do. Take a few days, make sure you won't have any regrets."

Mack nodded. "I've mostly done the things I wanted to do as I wanted 'em, I don't think there's much I'd regret, but I think I see what you mean. I've lived hard, and I figured I'd probably die young. I guess I was right! But yeah, a few more days will be good."

"A few more days. And then..." David grinned again. "Then there will be two Hunters, and the vampires will all be quaking in their shoes when they find out."

Mack laughed. "Hell yeah."

End Part 3.

Part Four