 
### Outsider

By

W. Freedreamer Tinkanesh

Outsider

Copyright © 2012 W. Freedreamer Tinkanesh

Smashwords Edition

Cover Design

by Jane Timm Baxter

Cover Photo

by W. Freedreamer Tinkanesh

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This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. The author is grateful for your appreciation of their work; although if you would like to gift or share this eBook, please do so by purchasing an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales,

organizations, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

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### Acknowledgements

Respect to Never The Bride: you rock!

Respect to Girlschool: you rock!

Grateful thanks to my first readers, especially Charlotte Brennan, Jane Timm Baxter and Jim Baxter, and Jeannie Decker. Your feedback was greatly appreciated. And grateful thanks to Elyse Draper.

### TABLE OF CONTENTS

Book One: Joy

Joy Chapter One

Joy Chapter Two

Joy Chapter Three

Joy Chapter Four

Joy Chapter Five

Joy Chapter Six

Joy Chapter Seven

Joy Chapter Eight

Joy Chapter Nine

Joy Chapter Ten

Joy Chapter Eleven

Joy Chapter Twelve

Joy Chapter Thirteen

Joy Chapter Fourteen

Joy Chapter Fifteen

Joy Chapter Sixteen

Joy Chapter Seventeen

Joy Chapter Eighteen

Book Two Tony

Tony Chapter One

Tony Chapter Two

Tony Chapter Three

Tony Chapter Four

Tony Chapter Five

Tony Chapter Six

Tony Chapter Seven

Tony Chapter Eight

Tony Chapter Nine

Tony Chapter Ten

Tony Chapter Eleven

Tony Chapter Twelve

Tony Chapter Thirteen

Book Three Sid

Sid Prologue: the Envoy

Sid Chapter One

Sid Chapter Two

Sid Chapter Three

Sid Chapter Four

Sid Chapter Five

Sid Chapter Six

Sid Chapter Seven

Sid Epilogue

About the Author

### JOY

_A novel by W. Freedreamer Tinkanesh_

### CHAPTER ONE

_Did it all start that way for Sid Wasgo? Yes and no. If she wrote "Tequila After Dark" to remember her first encounter with Second Look, and yes, take her revenge on the rock singer, there had been a prelude to this first chapter. Back in time, she had been a singer, too. Back in time, a friend had mentioned Second Look. For some unknown reason Sid had assumed they were just another women's band playing folk music. She couldn't be bothered. Back in time, she had been feeling lost and despondent with her music, wondering which direction to take, wondering where to perform, wondering what to do. Was it still worth it? Did she still have the spark in her? Back in time, a friend with more piercings than she could count insisted on playing her one of the Second Look's CDs. Sid had relented and decided to get done with the chore. But she wasn't prepared for the onslaught of raw emotion. The first bar had been a swift arrow to her forgotten heart and a more than tough blow to her under-stimulated mind. She forgot how to breathe. And when she remembered how to speak, she asked:_

" _Could I borrow this CD to make myself a copy?"_

Was it the voice, powerful, vindictive? She had always wanted to sing with such gusto and rock power, but had never known how. Was it the music, aggressive, direct? She had always wanted to play screaming riffs and lethal leads with her guitar, but had never known how. She had never felt that way before. There was a bright and blinding light expanding in her heart. So overwhelming that she didn't know if it was pleasure or pain. Later, she realized that these two women called Second Look had done the totally unthinkable, something that no one else in a million years could have ever done: they had made Sid feel redundant. What was the point in carrying on with an uncertain career, trying to achieve something, when someone was already doing it, and doing a bloody good job at it! She was shocked. She didn't know if she wanted to hate or love Second Look.

A year later, yes, it took a long and busy year, Sid was strolling in her local park, enjoying the beginning of the summer, the peace of the blue sky and the green trees, when she spotted a battered copy of Hot Tickets in the middle of her path. She picked it up, checked it was only dated from the day before and, satisfied, sat down on a conveniently nearby wooden bench to read the gig listing. She hadn't done so for too long a time.

Life was going slow, but fine, even without much music. She scanned the names, knowing already what she'd be up to the next evening. When Second Look jumped at her. Bold lettering on the printed page. She read and read, and read again. Her eyes were not hallucinating. Her heart was suddenly swelling with light, beating out of rhythm, engulfing her soul. Second Look. Second Look would be performing the very next night in her very borough! Throwing her into a conflict of interests... She had said a long time ago she would attend a women's benefit up in North London. But, but, Second Look was a powerful beacon pulling her into the light. Her blood was pulsing in tight bursts against her tattooed skin, threatening to break through.

* * * * * * *

The first Second Look gig she attended turned into a totally unusual evening for Sid, somehow. In " _Tequila After Dark_ ", she had simply written out the three friends she had accidentally dragged along. The one she had never met before responded to an Irish name that Sid didn't remember beyond the next five minutes, and Nat, who simply fancied her, accent and all, had actually brought her along. Nat, whose impossible-to-stop chatter irritated Sid, was an acquaintance of Sid's and a friend of Judy's. Judy, stout and low in her comments, was the tallest of the lot. They were way too early and wandered to the nearest chippy. They strolled in the park, devouring chips and chatting away, but Sid's anxious mind was already by the stage, already listening to the music.

She found a one-pound coin on the pavement outside the Blue Moon, shining for her eyes only, and later on, uncharacteristically, spent it on an A4-size poster of the band. Nat, considering the two performers good-looking on the photo, got herself a bigger one, furthermore irritating the currently impatient Sid.

From then on that night, everything happened to Sid with a tinge of extraordinary. She contemplated the ceiling of the music lounge painted dark blue with lazy clouds and vague stars. She felt too restless to stick to the same corner and hang out with her friends. She chatted with the roadie selling Second Look paraphernalia. Yes, said the woman with a dark ponytail and without reserve, Terri the singer had more than the one dragon tattoo featured on the poster and Dawn, the keyboard player, had none. Sid herself was hiding under the shabby, long sleeves of her black, hooded shirt, Native American totem poles from shoulders to wrists, similar works in progress down her legs, some Navajo designs on her chest and abdomen, and, of course, a very realistic Smirnoff tarantula on her jugular. Because she was into vodka, sometimes. But not tonight.

She was impatiently scanning the punters steadily crowding the music lounge, easily spotting groupies with their Second Look t-shirts in the humming hubbub of conversations. A soundtrack punctuated the consumption of various beers in many pints and unexpected disguises. She recognized Melissa Etheridge's voice. And suddenly, she saw them.

Being shortsighted, she didn't exactly see the performers nor picked them out of the crowd because of a different style of clothes, she had learned to trust other senses; she was forever learning to live and cope with her extreme sensitivity. She simply knew, like a spontaneous knowledge, like an outburst of intuition, that these two women, one with blonde hair stopping short of the shoulders of her shiny, red top, the other one with coppery, wavy hair reaching to the top of her long sleeves, who had just walked into the room and were now talking with an anonymous punter, were Dawn Ferndale and Terri Harley, collectively known as Second Look. How could she be so sure? It was something about them, something different and familiar in their auras, their energy fields, and their vibes. Something echoing Sid's. Ironically enough, in other circumstances, Sid wouldn't have noticed the blinding light shining all around them; Sid would have never given them a second look.

The two women made their way through the crowd, greeting friends and long-term fans alike. By the time the singer stepped onto the stage, Judy's friends were squatting the last round table before the exit, and Sid and Judy were standing, waiting, a few feet from the stage.

The woman with red reflections in her coppery hair knotted a black bandana around the microphone stand and spared them a quick look. The keyboard player ignored them, more concerned with her various instruments: a double keyboard, a minidisk player, various effects machines stacked on the side, and proudly erect on a guitar stand a beautiful Ovation 12-strings.

When the singer greeted the crowd, she commented on the presence of Second Look virgins in the audience. Sid knew exactly what she meant: people attending their gig for the first time. But she didn't want to be a virgin. Suddenly the word felt offensive and invasive. Uncharacteristically she shouted at the performer:

"How do you define a virgin?"

"What did you say, Babe?"

"I'm no babe." She knew it was only a word but she couldn't help reacting. Was she premenstrual?

"Ok. What did you say, Girlfriend?"

"I'm no girlfriend either. How do you define the word virgin?"

The performer, who had the wits and the sting of a Scorpio, answered:

"Someone who's never been to any of our gigs. And I can see: you are a Second Look virgin!"

The audience laughed delightedly along Terri's wide grin. Obviously, Sid was the first green mohican in their audience, and no matter how much she could argue the world and how well versed she happened to be in Second Look's first album, she couldn't match the red head's wits.

(Tequila After Dark)

It started like any other gigs. The usual groupies. The usual drunk punters. The usual late soundcheck. The usual kind of pub (music lounge at the back). This woman they had seen a few times, never drinking alcohol, not even smoking (as far as they could tell), never coming near touching distance of the stage, but always dancing like everyone else and apparently having a good time, a few rows of writhing bodies behind. She was non-descript: shortish, brown hair vaguely attempting curls, dark eyes, the thin and pale line of a scar across her left cheekbone, no tattoos to be seen, black jeans, black simple boots (Doc Martens?), red T-shirt, black jean jacket. Well, was she saving this outfit especially for the Leos? It was a case to make you wonder, or it wouldn't have been, if she had stuck to her usual behavior.

The ceiling of the music lounge was painted like a blue sky with vague and lazy clouds. Billie was making her way to the stage, greeting some long-term fans and friends alike, her progression punctuated by a rocky soundtrack and her wild, curly, red hair regularly falling before her green eyes, like following a three-beat rhythm of their own. Mel, always the quiet one, was a few steps ahead of her. Jo was fidgeting with her stool behind the drum kit. She had done it a thousand times only during the sound check. At safe distance from her music-possessed feet, two pint glasses were secretly containing pure vodka (the one with bison grass). Mel had three pints of soon-to-be-not-so-cool water on the ready by her techno-musical paraphernalia (sound effects, equalizer, etc) near the double keyboard whose undisputed master she always was. Her electro-acoustic guitar, gorgeous Ovation twelve- strings, was leaning peacefully just a foot before the back wall. Billie would be front stage with a microphone, level with Mel. On a narrow round bar table almost off the small stage, she had a few shots of Tequila ready for quick consumption, and two pints of water. She was used to sweat a lot on stage. Well, astrologically speaking, she was a wild Leo. Mel was Leo, too, but rising only; she was a favored and blessed Libra. Jo didn't care. Probably Scorpio.

The first thing Billie noticed when she faced the crowd to roar her greetings, while Mel was flipping switches and rotating buttons, was the non-descript fan breaking established habits and standing first row, touching distance, slurping a pint of non-identifiable, yellowish, sparkling drink, next to the usual, forever-cheering groupies, given away by their flamboyant Leos T-shirts.

* * * * * * *

Before the end of the first set, Terri and Sid had shed their long sleeves, both revealing black t-shirts. Times had turned sweaty. It had been a long time since rock' n' roll; it had been a long time since Sid had such a good time. She had, as often, contributed to the quality of the sound with two visits to the engineer who had listened to her suggestions. They were both aware of the striking difference between the desk corner and the audience floor. At first, he had been able to hear the singer's powerful voice four times louder than the music, while the audience's ears were struggling to decipher the various instruments. Once again, she proved her theory right: too much treble and not enough bass in the singer's microphone. Dawn had made lengthy visits, too, while Terri had made jokes about G-strings. Better keep the audience entertained.

During the break, Sid, hot and sweaty, went and stood by the exit of the lounge, keeping the door open for a stream of cool air. Feet apart, tattooed arms crossed squarely in front of her chest, she felt like a bouncer. The keyboard player, coming back from the toilets, beamed a wide smile at her, wide enough to generously bare all her white teeth and the gap between the two front teeth:

"Alright?"

"Alright!" Sid automatically replied, automatically giving a smile back. But feeling like running away, and unable to run away with knees suddenly turned to a jelly-like substance, because Dawn's smile was so blindingly, dazzlingly beautiful. Dawn sneaked back in, unaware of her power over the green-mohicaned woman. Sid now knew why she had instinctively solely focused her attention on the charismatic singer. Ironically enough, it was all laid out in the only song where Terri was taking a step back, the song that Sid could have written if she didn't feel so vulnerable, the number Dawn's voice owned simply, but surely:

"Track number five's got the voice and the smile and the matching grey eyes".

If Terri's eyes were a darker shade of brown than Sid's, Dawn's were blatantly deep grey.

(Tequila After Dark)

Jan felt brave tonight. She wanted to stand first row, face to face with her idols, without any interference, just "Them" and her. Maybe it was this new antidepressant she was on. Prozac used to be fine, until she started puking every day on each hour. It was not a side effect she'd care to live with. This new medication, whose name she kept forgetting, made her feel different. She was not afraid anymore, whatever it was that used to frighten her so. She stood tall and proud.

The rock-music background died down and the singer with wild, red hair (was she Irish?) started to shout into the mic. The crowd of groupies shouted back with excitement. Jan was just standing there, arms crossed in front of her lean stomach, her head slightly tipped to one side, her eyes bright with fascination, barely the hint of a provocative smile on her delicately chiseled lips, her drink temporarily forgotten and resting at her feet. She could see that Billie had noticed her and she felt satisfied. She was standing there, looking at the singer, straightforward eyes, daring her, challenging her. But challenging her to what?

The powerful voice, reminiscent of Janis Joplin and Melissa Etheridge pulled into one, started its mad acrobatics on the first rock number of the Leos.

But what are songs about? Generally about love. Unrequited love, crazy love, desperate love, dying love, crying love, new love, begging love. I would fall on my knees / I would make the sun rise / I'd walk on water / I'd tear the sky apart. Etc. Well, a happy love rarely brings a song.

Jan pushed her glass towards the stage and let the wild rhythm of Jo's drum kit take possession of her, swinging her hips along tightening beats, undulating her body like a snake.

Between songs the singer would harangue the crowd, tease them, play with them, witty and flirtatious. It was her temperament. It also allowed Mel to programme the next song on her various machines.

### CHAPTER TWO

Terri started the second set by congratulating the crowd:

"Thank God you're here!"

Sid shouted back:

"Nothing to do with God!"

Terri glanced at her and launched herself into "Mercedez Benz", Janis Joplin's tongue-in-cheek acapella song. Sid had guessed with amusement the worry in the singer's eyes, the "what's wrong with this woman?" and decided to calm down. She didn't want the band to get pissed off with her. She made one with the audience and played the game, singing along the repeat of the first verse, knowing only one word out of three, struggling with the tune whose key was slightly too high for her voice. When was last time she had vocalized? Terri swiftly followed the song with another Joplin's number: "Take a Little Piece of My Heart". The audience went wild. Janis would have been proud. While Sid still enjoyed the title of craziest dancer.

Rocky number after rocky number, the audience was in love with the mischievous singer who always had the word to make them laugh, while the keyboard player was fidgeting and twiddling buttons around her electronic apparatuses.

Terri, shouting and haranguing the crowd, complained about the plastic containers given to her with each shot of her favorite drink:

"They must have heard of us! I always break the glass after drinking my tequila. So last week I broke a window. At the time, it seemed to be the best surface to break my glass!"

The crowd roared with laughter. Terri went on:

"That must be why they didn't pay us!" After a calculated facial expression she added: "No, I'm sure the cheque is in the post!" and started on the next cover, a favorite of Sid's, "Black Velvet". She used to love Alannah Myles's version, but Terri's voice, a voice echoing Janis Joplin's and Melissa Etheridge's, had no trouble eclipsing any other contender. She was the best, even if Sid was still trying to figure out the lyrics.

After another heroic number, a tall guy with short brown hair and a quiet face –Sid identified him as a roadie-, created a pause when he proffered a blasted plastic container with a guaranteed content of 100% pure tequila to the appreciative singer.

At first, Terri just stood there, in the middle of the stage, microphone in one hand and drink in the other. Long enough for Sid to notice the golden signet ring on the right little finger and a few tight silver bracelets around the left wrist.

Terri brought the tequila to her left nostril and inhaled deeply. Repeated the operation with the right nostril. And exhaled a long and greatly satisfied sigh. She eventually stated:

"Don't know about you guys, but my hay fever is suddenly feeling much better!"

"Mine is on vacation!" Sid shouted back spontaneously.

Terri looked at her, charismatic as ever:

"Wanna have a taste?" She stepped to the edge. "You're gonna be nice to me now?"

A bit wary because it was in her nature, Sid closed the leftover distance and with a smile protested:

"I worship your voice! Well, I also enjoy being a bit of a troublemaker sometimes."

"Shut up and open your mouth!"

Sid had never been one to obey orders. But somehow, she didn't mind if it was the brash and butch Terri. The spell-weaver poured the tequila on top of the exposed, pierced tongue. Sid closed her mouth and her eyes, savoring the surprising taste. Not the burning firewater she expected. She reopened her brown eyes and bit into the lemon crescent offered by the other brown-eyed singer, even though she was in unfriendly terms with every citrus fruit. She swallowed the alcohol. It was heaven.

"What's your favorite brand of tequila?" She impulsively questioned Terri, simply ignoring their surroundings and circumstances, the gig and the audience.

"Mescal," Red Head answered, surprised. But recovering swiftly she told the delighted audience, in the deepest voice she could manage: "Bring me the worm!"

"I'll bring a bottle to your next gig. When is it?"

Brightly: "Mardi Gras." The yearly gay festival in London.

"I don't do Mardi Gras!" Too commercial for Sid's politics.

The mighty Scorpio struck another ace:

"But I'm sure they'd do you!"

The rioting uproar of the audience gave another point to their hero. Sid could only acknowledge her defeat. But she didn't mind losing a round to such a worthy adversary.

The gig picked up with another powerful rock song, 100% courtesy of Second Look, wilder than ever. Sid was dancing, pogoing, stomping. She was possessed by music. Still on Cloud 9. By the time the singer ordered the audience to give her "five", she had moved to a corner in front of the double keyboard. She saw her friend Judy giving "five", then another dancer. Terri was making her way along the stage with the confidence of a rock star, step by step getting closer to Sid, who deliberately looked away. A woman eagerly placed herself between her and the singer for a "five". But Sid knew, between wild beats of a speedy rhythm track, and waited. The hand entered her field of vision, strong and square. Sid looked up and smiled out to the smiling freckled face. Their eyes exchanged understanding while Green Mohican gave Red Head "five". Not really "five". Instead of slapping the extended palm with the flat of her hand, she squeezed it. And was surprised when the singer squeezed back.

She was still fiercely unaware of the magnificent keyboard player, her mind unconsciously blocking her out, so afraid of the too beautiful smile.

(Tequila After Dark)

Billie would shout at the crowd, asking them how they were doing, complaining about the plastic glasses she had to drink out of.

" _They must have heard of us! I always break the glasses after drinking tequila, so last week I broke a window. It seemed to be the best surface to break my glass!" The crowd responded with noisy laughs. "That must be why they didn't pay us!" And added after quick consideration: "No, I'm sure the cheque is in the post!" And started on a rendition of "Take A Little Piece Of My Heart" Janis Joplin would have been proud of._

Jan had sipped her anonymous pint dry. She always was a fast drinker. She was dancing freely, alternating pogoing and mad swinging of the hips, her gaze regularly riveting itself to Billie's eyes. Billie was equally wilder on stage, screaming and roaring, her hair like the crazy branches of a willow playing in the wind.

Every next number was rockier than the previous one and the mischievous singer knew how to please her crowd.

During a relatively quiet pause, she accepted a tequila proffered by a roadie, placed the glass under her nose, took a good sniff of the alcohol through one nostril then the second and stated:

" _I don't know about you but my hay fever is suddenly feeling so much better!"_

" _Mine is on vacation!" Jan replied impulsively._

" _Wanna have a taste?" Billie offered, good and charismatic performer, closing the distance between them._

" _Why not, sounds like a good idea!" But a bit weary inside._

" _Shut up and open your mouth!" Brash and sometimes macho, Billie was._

Jan obeyed. Billie poured the content of the small plastic glass onto the pierced tongue exposed in the process. Jan closed her mouth on the alcohol, a satisfied look on her face, savoring the surprisingly-not-so-burning taste. She bit into the lemon crescent offered by Billie.

Tequila was the trigger. Jan didn't know, but the Dragon knew. It would now take about two hours.

* * * * * * *

When the gig ended –too soon- Sid's friends started to make a move toward home. But Sid sat down in the chair recently vacated by Nat and told Judy:

"Hold on, I'm not ready, I need to unwind."

Sid actually wanted to see Red Head off-stage, she wanted to scan the singer's aura, and she needed to know. It was not that she could read auras, but she could sense a few things, a few shifts, and a few differences. She absolutely needed to know something about Terri Harley.

The room was seriously clearing, punters slowly shooed away by the Blue Moon's bouncers, when Terri Harley eventually reached the green-mohicaned woman, whose Native American tattoos shined with sweat. She smiled and Sid forgot to protect herself. For the second time that night, a smile pierced her fragile heart. Terri's friendly voice inquired:

"What's your name?"

"Sid."

"Sid, good to meet you!"

Terri's handshake was firm, the kind Sid relished in. She replied:

"It's good to hear another powerful voice. I was getting to feel lonely. And you know, about the bottle of mescal, I mean it."

"You don't have to!"

Looking at Second Look's gig list:

"Where is....... The Black Crow?"

"It's easy! Just across the street from the Gunnersberry station!"

Two men nearby were standing at attention. Terri squeezed Sid's hand again and planted a kiss on Sid's right cheek:

"Thanx for coming, Sid! Spread the word!"

"I will!" She literally meant it.

Regretfully she followed the bouncers' directions and left the building. But she felt good, oh so good inside. She was unwillingly carrying the surrounding people's contentment along with her own satisfaction. She had made contact and she knew. Terri's aura was different off-stage. Friendship was a possibility. Life was opening up; the future was hers to collect. She was flying on the wings of wishful thinking.

(Tequila After Dark)

During the next two hours everything and everyone went wilder. The crowd, the singer, the drumbeats, Jan's dancing. Her eyes darkened, her elbows sharpened, the crowd gave her respectful space for her increasing foot stomping.

And when the band left the stage, after more of Billie's antics and a few encores, Jan was nowhere to be seen. Neither Billie nor the other Leos cared to even mentally comment about it. More fans to greet, more smiles to distribute and thanks to attribute, posters and t-shirts to sign, CD sales to watch over from very faraway. Everyone still so buzzed-out that unwinding couldn't be considered yet. Too good a gig to readily obey the security men of the pub urging to now leave the premises. It was some time past midnight and no one could really care about it.

When later on The Leos crew managed to eventually load their van, there was no warning. Barely a jet of fire, usual artifice, vague sideshow of a dragon's activity. Before Mel's and Jo's unbelieving eyes, the fantastic creature's claws grabbed an unsuspecting Billie by her jacketed shoulders and the creature flew off with her in their grasp.

Billie was no pitiful babe, she tried to fight back, kicking and screaming. But the claws were strong and uncompromising. High in the dark sky of London, the creature flipped her over, allowing her to face her kidnapper. Humanoid shape with the wings of a Dragon. The singer plunged her gaze into the dark eyes. Something unmistakably familiar. The challenging look. The line of a scar. It dawned on her as surely as the many sunrises she had contemplated. If the snout had been a human nose and a mouth, the nostrils would have shown a hint of tension and the lips would have been delicately chiseled.

*..*..*..*..*..*..*

A few days later, Jan, barely aware of another lapse in her memory, incidentally picked up a free local weekly rag. Vaguely leafing through it, her eyes caught a title: MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF A ROCK SINGER. The item started skeptically with an unknown winged creature breathing fire, claimed to have kidnapped the singer of rock band The Leos, and the latter discovery at dawn by some night worker, of her blooded and dislocated body. Wounds and breaks in the bones were consistent with a fall from great height, the police had said.

Jan first thought she would have liked to see the creature with her own eyes. Where was she at the time? She became aware of a blank. Then she felt a hint of sadness shoot through her heart. And suddenly, she moved on to intrigued, the odd fact that she couldn't remember anything after the tequila administered by the rock singer.

### CHAPTER THREE

The artwork spread over the door of Sid's bedroom was reminiscent of Klimt's work with its wealth and tightness of colours, but the reminiscence stopped there. Like her tattoo sleeves, the inspiration was indebted to the Haida nation from the northwest coast of America. She had made the debt indelible by choosing the traditional colours: black, red, white and blue. Deciphered, it depicted a thunderbird, a wolf, a killerwhale and a human being. The door of her front room sported a life-size portrait of Shi-tsukia, the bringer of the New Year, one of the Zuni White Kachinas. She had painted them herself, with fascination, respect, admiration and a remarkable precision. Even so, she would have never labeled herself an artist out loud.

Today, Sid Wasgo had no time to just stand and admire her fancy work. The 31-year-old had another boring psychiatrist appointment to attend and she was barely short of being late. Psychiatrists not working on Navajo time, she had better stop spinning all over and make a move. The hospital squatting only a few blocks away, she decided to ignore her black shiny helmet negligently crashed on the carpet and only grabbed her leather jacket and opaque sunglasses. Her state of mind was a mixture of sleepy and manic, as every morning, thanx to her medication. She had spent the night writing controversial pieces to entertain her faithful insomnia and caught only two hours of dense sleep and foggy dreams around dawn. Bloody anti-depressants. The current guilty party was labeled seroxat and was, she guessed, as addictive as any of its street relatives. It always worked on her as such. But the psychiatrist was adamant; she needed it to keep her manic episodes under control. Sure, they were under control: she was manic all the time.

She kicked a hardback book with her left DM boot (14 eyelets were the minimum she would settle for), but the bestseller persisted in her path. She had never thought that she'd ever, in her entire life, pick up a book penned by Stephen King, but the title had been promising, a powerful and unavoidable magnet: "Dreamcatcher". She had felt a strong need to know why this writer would want to use the Native American device meant to protect people, and more especially babies, from bad dreams. One hundred stubborn pages on, and she hadn't found her answer, but she was sure as hell she couldn't abide by his style. She kicked it again, and it gave up after hitting the wall.

" **KEYS** ", a sign violently colourful clamored on her front door. She stopped, stood still ten seconds, frozen in her thinking, then scrambled through the pockets of her clean black combat trousers. Clean. So clean and fresh from this morning that the keys were not chained to the belt loop yet. She sighed with frustration. She couldn't afford the luxury of destroying a second lock.

The mood stabilizers had been to blame. Can you imagine filling up your bag pack with all the essential items for the day (two crime novels for the library, one horror novel and one heavy metal CD for the friend you're gonna have lunch with, one sci-fi novel to read on the train, one black pen and one barely started notebook in case you feel inspired), then you walk out of your building, take a left, arrive at the next corner, and suddenly it hits you; where is the backpack filled with all the essentials for the day? Home...

Well, that day, Sid had walked out of her flat with the mountain bicycle she had been looking after for a friend traveling abroad. She kept this light two-wheels in the roomy closet gracing her flat and used it as a lazy mean of transportation for the immediate area: the psychiatric hospital qualified for the ride. She had pulled the door closed, and frozen. Damn: she had just locked the keys inside. She considered breaking into her home straightaway and retrieved the blasted things, but thought getting rid of the stuffy psychiatrist first would be a better idea. One problem at a time. Once at the hospital Sid faced the next one head on: she kept every key within a same cluster.

" _I never had a bicycle in my office before!" The puzzled psychiatrist scratched his head._

" _There is a first time for everything," She countered, thinking the saying didn't apply to her in many situations._

Anyway, the mood stabilizers were history now. After three weeks, her chemical networks still in chaos with moods swinging from high to down, frustrated to happy, relaxed to angry, every five minutes or so, Sid chose; the psychiatrist disagreed.

*..*..*..*..*..*..*

Refusing to repeat history, Sid turned around and walked the few steps to the bathroom. There she scrounged amidst the pile of yesterday's clothes, dug out a forgotten, but welcome ten-pound-note, and grasped the bunch of keys she definitely needed to let herself back into her home, sweet home, colourful home, after another fruitless encounter with the man who didn't like her wearing sunglasses, the man who couldn't or wouldn't understand that, from one day to the next, every month, thanx to the wonderful drugs swallowed every morning for breakfast, Sid would switch from cranberry juice drowned in soda water with a few ice cubes desultorily floating, to gallons of alcohol, the harder the liquor the better, with a humongous and uncontrollable urge to drink herself not just under the table but deeper than underground, at any cost and at any price. An inescapable fate. And the next morning, her period would clock on. Blast, she was always out of sanitary pads. She never liked this reminder of the femalehood of her body. Nor any other reminders.

And this was only one of the few side effects she had isolated. Sid wanted out and it was not as simple as leaving a family behind. The man wouldn't hear her repeated statement. She felt like a guinea pig. Great, society was having a go at her again; trying to change her, turn her into someone else. She was turning into a monster. Good job she liked monsters! Or maybe she was a monster and they wanted to make her "normal". How did her song use to go? He wouldn't have known the lines: _When I don't wanna be myself / I don't wanna be someone else._

If burning the bridges with her family and forfeit possible inheritance was part of her behavioural characteristics, harassing performers on stage was definitely not. Challenging them to slamming matches she was bound to lose? That was beyond her cautious nature. She was as good a singer as Terri Harley? So what. Terri Harley had been the one on stage and it had been her show. Sid generally respected that. Generally. Yes, "generally" was the operative word there. Because, generally, Sid was a respectful person, this was how she used to know herself. And now, who was she? She had named herself Wasgo, after a Haida mythical creature, because at times, she felt so intensely half wolf and half whale. And now, now she didn't even care about the rumour she would unavoidably start at the next Second Look gig she'd attend. She knew people would whisper about her having a crush on the red-haired singer, regardless of her personal explanations; it had been so her whole life, but right now she didn't care! What was happening to acting cautiously? What was happening to her pathological need for secrecy? She wanted to delight in creating and starting a rumour?! Sid was gonna give Terri Harley a bottle of mescal and she didn't care what the entire shallow world was gonna think, say and claim. They could talk all they wanted; she didn't give a bloody monkey! Drug-free, Sid would have analyzed and peeled off the shell to get at the kernel of truth: she couldn't have a crush on the singer because she and Terri, being both performers, were equals. She was gonna give the Second Look singer a bottle of mescal because... Because in her demented mania she had promised to do so, and Sid, drugged-up or not, always stuck to her word. Because, maybe, even if the singer had dealt with her with mighty wits, even if Sid knew she didn't have to, she felt she owed Terri Harley an apology. But was it for harassing her on stage or for ignoring the band eons after eons? Or was it, Sid's favorite theory, because she would have owed Terri a bottle of mescal from a previous life?! Drugs. Sid was now thinking faster than she could process sentences and organize her speech, her brain buzzing at mach three, or five, or at the speed of light. She reluctantly promised herself to slow down for the young psychiatrist. Maybe she'd spell out the few difficult words for him, and she'd avoid mentioning the fresher trace of razor blade somewhere on the vast expense of her skin, the new bandage camouflaged under the left leg of her combat trousers. Not much space left actually with all her tattoos. But she always found enough virginity to slash a wound wide, from knee down to ankle. She had smiled blissfully at the dark-red blood suddenly gushing forth. She had dipped an index finger in the thickness and licked it, vibrating with a feeling akin to ecstasy. She hadn't bothered with A & E more than previously despite the probable need for stitches. She kept everything she needed in her bathroom to avoid the frequently contemptuous attitude of the A & E people. Drugs controlling her manic episodes? Oh yes, they did control the razor blade, too, no probs. With a vengeance.

She looked at the young, well cut man sitting a few steps away from her, cut out of brown suit and brown hair, and thought/knew, this guy could never understand that giving up a career as a performer was not a sign of failure. Oh, she did love singing and bashing her electric guitar on stage. Her only failure was in her lack of management. She would have done gigs seven days a week, twenty-four times a day. But she didn't know how to sell herself. She didn't know how to compromise. And now there was Second Look... How amazing. They had so powerfully impressed Sid the Blasé. Sid, music lover to the core, who had seen so many bands, heard so many voices, tasted so many styles. Quite a killing.

Solitary Sid, whose most unknown and secret desire was so simply to be able to identify with someone, and who had spent most of her life searching for this elusive super woman who would validate her beliefs, and tell her _it's ok, you'll be alright_ , and it would be true. And now there were two. The predatory wolf in her wanted to hate them, the sensible killerwhale wanted to love them.

Isolated Sid, who couldn't focus on music anymore, and who could only contemplate her beloved guitar, instead of picking it up and making it scream with cynical passion. Because drugs didn't do anything for her musical creativity. Oh yes, they worked wonders on her writer's mind. But couldn't anyone see that if she was not singing, she was shutting down?

_Beyond music, there is only Death_ , she thought, but didn't say it out loud, the ears of the psychiatrist from too low a caste to deserve the truth from higher levels.

Shite, I didn't know I could be so self-centered and so contemptuous. What's happening to me? I need help. But who could help me.

Outside, the sky was unforgiving blue and the sun heartlessly bright.

### CHAPTER FOUR

(First Set)

One hot night of British summer, the fantastic rock band, the one and only Second Look, were performing in a pub on the Chiswick High Road. If you were not there, you were square. Beware. Well, that was Sid's thinking to the very least.

* * * * * * *

Alexi was not square, she was springy. She had come along with two friends, as boyish looking as she, or at least trying to be. The three of them were vaguely tattooed; with at least one prominent tattoo each, in full view on a bare arm: snake, dice, and dragon from the flash collection. Alexi had the dice. They had short hair and grey eyes. Otherwise, even if Alexi's friends were both taller than Alexi's 5' 4'' ¾, they all favored cut-off combat trousers, preferably black to show off legs obstinately pale.

They were three of these all-faithful groupies following their beloved band all around London, even if they were not wearing any of the band's T-shirts, a winking eye between the letter S and L in Old English script, or Terry's and Dawn's eyes.

The band was most of the time these two equally talented women. Dawn was quiet in comparison, but an accomplished musician. Terri the singer was an unchallenged Scorpio with a voice as powerful as a spell and the most efficient and warm PR machine Alexi had ever witnessed. Terri knew most of the regular fans by names and was always generously giving out beaming smiles, pecks on cheeks and mighty bear hugs. Dawn was probably as friendly, she just happened not to be as outgoing as Terri. But always beware of sleepy waters.

The music room was noisy, smoky, crowded, and alcohol was in many glasses under various guises.

Alexi started to watch the crowd, scanning for landmarks, the usual groupies and the new faces Terri described as "Second Look virgins". She spotted the unmissable green mohican with tattoos down both arms, savagely cutoff khaki trousers spilling out more tattoos but only on one leg. The other leg sported a long fresh scratch. Alexi had noticed her at a previous gig only two weeks ago. The stranger had spent the night dancing wildly on the rock beat, and harassing the singer in between songs. She had proven no match for Terri's sting. The feisty performer had used the newcomer as a prop to make the audience roar with louder laughter. Presently Green Mohican was looking contrastingly shy and uncomfortable, while handing over to a very delighted Terri, a bottle of some alcohol, in the middle of a 5-minute soundcheck. Green Mohican hurried back to her corner by the paraphernalia stall.

Then there was the big, busty blonde who claimed to be a good friend of the band, presently keeping company with a tall, long-haired creature whose cropped, black top revealed a smooth stomach as pale as the rest of her skin. The dark eyes were enhanced with dark kohl. The hair was a collection of black and white strands. The sides of the head were smoothly shaved to complete the gothic look. Alexi decided to cautiously categorize her as one more undulating body for the dance floor. Her friends' return with bottles of schnapps prevented her from checking the footwear.

* * * * * * *

Green Mohican, who had decided that the name of Sid Wasgo was the name to stick with and every other identities were ripe for elimination on that very day, lived according to very few rules. Rule number one: don't go to people; let them come to you (bait them if necessary but always let them come to you). That was only partially explanatory for her solitary life. She actually felt a bit low and part of her wanted to run away, run all the way from the Gunnersbury tube station down to the Hammersmith shopping centre. Only three miles. Her hip joints would have screamed hateful abuses at her and her motorbike would have felt left out and would have recriminated accordingly.

Terri leapt off the stage and made Sid's first rule worth resisting the voice of despair. She grabbed the stranger's hand in her firm grasp and planted a kiss on each cheek. Sid could feel the solid strength; it was a warm and reassuring feeling. She briefly wondered how much time the singer spent working out at the gym. Terri was already talking:

"Did you write the story?" The story where a rock singer was killed by a weredragon. Postal services had exceptionally outdone themselves. Sid put on an amused smile, at last back on familiar territory:

"Oh, how did you guess?"

"I liked it! I'm not quite sure about the end though." Looking around: "Tonight I'm not sure if I'm gonna get killed or get fucked." And rushed back to the stage. Leaving Sid to deal with the choice of vocabulary.

She didn't get a chance to wonder very long. A guy called out to her. Because of her green mohican. Usual line: he thought he had seen her before. He was an ex-punk. She was no punk, but let him sway on the waves of assumption. In the general hubbub and the loud soundtrack (Melissa Etheridge), her ears could hardly deliver the words and their meanings to her weary brain. The guy, who turned out to be a Mardi Gras reveler and therefore gay, making life simpler for Sid, was on and on about music. What punk bands do you like, what about the Sex Pistols and The Jam? No, Sid wasn't so fond of them. She didn't say so, but it was actually because she wasn't fond of men. Marilyn Manson was one of the rare exceptions able to amuse her, but she didn't say so either.

"What's your favorite band of the moment?" He asked.

With her left thumb pointed back to the stage she answered:

"They're here tonight."

"And your favorite band of all times?"

She thought hard, having decided to humour him (shit, too good for my own good):

"Patti Smith Group." Her favorite lullaby when she was 18 and the fairground would blast her ears out late into the night. Patti had always been there for her, helping her to forget the noisy world.

The slightly speech-impedimented 37-year-old struck with his best ace:

"You've got the hots for the singer! You gave her a bottle of whisky!"

She corrected out of habit: "It was not whisky, it was mescal." And laughed, suddenly aware that after all these years of rumours, legends and gossips, she was relaxed about the assumption. Or was it the drugs? Back in the nineties she had been credited with having the hots for Joan Armatrading. During her too long stay in stinky Paris she had been suspected of fancying her music partner (a very short musical association). And every now and then, she had been told she was crazy for quite a few of her favorite friends and acquaintances, mostly performers, for their gorgeous looks or their tattoos or their piercings or their shaved heads. When she had mentioned the name of the Bristol-based Rita Lynch, she had heard the comments behind her back. But today, her paranoia held at bay, she was beyond caring, and maybe beyond reach. So, why not adding Terri from Second Look to the fancy "hot list". They would never figure her out. They would never understand that Sid, or whatever her name was, was obsessed with music, possessed with music and belonged to music. Her heart was probably somewhere else, she probably didn't know where herself.

* * * * * * *

Meanwhile, Alexi, Lita and Jenny, were sipping their schnapps, contemplating an old Second Look sticker on one of the big speakers in front of the stage: the fuzzy profile of a smiling skull.

"Cool!" exclaimed Alexi. "It would make a cool tattoo!"

The tapestry against the back wall of the stage mesmerized Jenny. It reminded her of a childhood TV favorite. This mighty rider only needed a _Z meaning Zorro_ across, instead of the name of the band.

And then at last, Second Look were on stage, Dawn wearing a silver, shiny top, one of many stashed in her wardrobe, and Terri a sober, black T-shirt affiliating her with every possible bad girl in the world. One could expect her to live up to the label. She started haranguing the audience, counting the "virgins" sandwiched between the screaming groupies. Ah, the night was about to be great. After a few words of appreciation about the banners at their Mardi Gras gig the previous Saturday, Terri launched her voice into their first gripping number. One of the many variations on the _will you be the one_ theme.

A heavily pierced and tattooed woman got up and took the empty space between stage and tables, a look of beatification all over her face. Green Mohican joined in, rhythm had taken her body over. Sid's second rule: never go on an empty dance floor, too easy, second is best. Alexi decided to wait. Lita and Jenny preferred a bit of a crowd.

For the second song, the audience watched Sid dancing all over the floor, on her own, but proud and comfortable. Wild, free. Her eyes darting left and right. Crossing swords with the punters. Their eyes unknowingly transferring energy to her manic feet, her supple joints and her moving limbs. The more they looked, the harder she danced.

By the time Terri started to go on about _wearing the star of the sheriff_ , she had had a few shots of tequila and the crowd had warmed hot to her voice, to Dawn's music, to the point of breaking their restraining chains and taking over the dance floor. Lita was pogoing just in front of the singer. Alexi, who, like everyone else wanted to give the singer "five" when she'd ask for it, was there, too. The ambiance was electric. Alexi's eyes were everywhere, spying on Green Mohican and every woman with a touch of original style. And there was someone attracting her attention more than Green Mohican or the charismatic Terri for once. It was the unknown woman, whose black and white hair seemed to cascade down so freely and fleetingly to her waist. Whenever Alexi would try to catch her eyes, the stranger would disappear behind a boring dancer. But Alexi was sure, this woman whose looks were close to mesmerizing, this woman was occasionally gazing at her, gypsy eyes staring at her very soul.

The first set ended and Jenny reminded Alexi it was her round. The unknown beauty had vanished.

### CHAPTER FIVE

(Second Set)

To start their second set Terri didn't bother with any fancy introduction. Possibly weary of Sid's reactions, the writer having proven a bit of a wild card. Terri didn't know that Sid intended to be on her best behavior by then. This was what Sid wanted to think, in her wildest dreams.

The singer started stomping the stage with her heavy fancy boots, roaring loud and clear Janis Joplin's acapella prayer to The Lord, just in case He'd be in a mood good enough to grant her wish for a Mercedes-Benz. She had swapped her Bad Girl T-shirt for a black, lacy one; maybe God will be more impressed. If not, it at least gave an extra opportunity for the crowd to stare at her quality tattoos. Dragons, uncoiling their long tails and spitting their fire, one on each arm, one Chinese, one Japanese.

The whole audience thrived to sing along, and when Terri waved the microphone in their direction for the repeat of the first verse, they, of course, did badly, according to Terri's standards, and she told them so! Ah, performers, the more talented, the harder on the fans.

The success thundered in the venue, but next, it was _Take a Little Piece of My Heart_... She had the audience under a tightly-woven spell, in the palm of her hand. She had undisputed power over the enthralled groupies. Sid was watching on, more and more carried away by the music and increasingly overwhelmed by the denser and denser energy of the crowd, her eyes needing to hook into people's eyes on a more intense basis, for an extra burst of energy. In between scanning the crowd she was number one for audience participation.

Terri opened the bottle of mescal between two numbers, shouted over the punters: "Thanx, Sid, wherever you are!" moved her head to her right side and spotted the writer who had cut herself an almost cozy corner in front of Dawn's keyboards. The singer handed the bottle over and Sid, savouring the taste of Mexican alcohol, thought that every time tequila went down her throat, it always had something to do with the Second Look singer. Why not, at least, she'd be bound to keep sober.

* * * * * * *

The mesmerizing woman with gypsy eyes and gothic looks had, at first, focused her attention on the woman with the green mohican, tattoos and cut-off, kaki trousers. But this woman, despite an obvious sensitivity spilling out of her every pore, was in no way responding to her power of suggestion. She was somehow protected by the very music possessing her body, by the very voice tearing at her heart. Whenever she'd catch her attention, and the briefest moment should have been enough, the dancer seemed to amazingly gain extra energy and dance even more wildly. Ah, she would be no easy prey, she would be enjoyable prey.

But song after song, the gypsy-eyed woman felt increasingly frustrated. Her chosen victim was more and more lost to her power, more and more lost to the world. It was getting seriously tiring. What cat-and-mouse game was that?

Moving on to an easier quarry was becoming a safer bet. She needed to feed. The small woman with brown, short hair and grey eyes, who had been watching her on and off, would be that choice. So eager. An easy toy to play with, to tease, eyes flirting, maybe yes, maybe no, dancing bodies ideal props for a creature of great will. Just tantalize her, make her want, make her burn up with desire, pull her leash tighter and tighter.

When Terri finished screaming, _"Think twice before you jump"_ , or dive, the mesmerizing creature decided to close her net. Her eyes smiled for Alexi only, beckoning her, creating a path across the dancing crowd, like the ocean opening to power. And Alexi followed obediently, oblivious to the exalted audience, followed her doomed fate.

* * * * * * *

The singer was always in motion, jumping, dancing, seducing the crowd, with her voice and with her sensual moves. Her wildness was a sweaty affair. She picked up a pint glass of water, emptied it over her head and shook the wavy snakes of her red hair, spraying water all over the place, over the first row of delighted dancers, and over Dawn's keyboards, who didn't swear nor really complain, equal to herself. She attempted to sponge the puddles of water with a sheet of paper but had to give up. She had only two hands to keep on playing the wild music and sing the backing vocals.

Sid watched the action, her eyes seeing it in slow motion, like so many years ago she had seen her friend Annick breaking the safety glass of the alarm system in a subway political action.

Her vision went back to normal as suddenly. She sighed and stopped dancing. She couldn't help being the good person she was, despite her permanent state of mania. She forked out part of the toilet paper forever lining her deep pockets and dried up the top keyboard, careful not to modify the settings. Even if she felt in the middle of a personal vendetta with this band. But she was not about to let them know. Not yet. The musician smiled her thanx, unaware of her effect on Sid, unaware of Sid's sudden confusion, unaware of Sid's inner turmoil. Should she hate Second Look? Should she love them? Should she feel resentful? Should she feel grateful? Because of them, she was losing her musical thread and couldn't figure out if it was a blessing or a curse. Or maybe the curse was in the multiplicity of her talents...

The show went on.

* * * * * * *

A parking lot backed the pub. The moon was magnificent in its fullness, adding to the natural power of the gypsy-eyed woman.

Alexi felt mesmerized and couldn't mind. The beautiful creature smiled at her, showing canines slightly longer and sharper than human. Alexi didn't notice or didn't understand. Desire was burning her inside out, spilling breathlessly between her lips. She painfully longed to taste the red, tantalizing lips and let her fingers wander down the pale skin of the smooth stomach. The subject of her desire smiled even more broadly, showing even more canines and, maintaining the veil of illusion over the victim's mind, she swiftly bit the tender skin in the curve of the neck. The sweet and rich blood started to flow across her greedy tongue, satisfyingly. Vegetarian's blood was always sweet, while meat-eater's was slightly bitter. She'd always had a sweet tooth.

Alexi never knew that her blood was drained out of her body. She felt greater pleasure than she ever imagined possible, while her life left her, gently sipped away.

* * * * * * *

That night, Second Look didn't perform Predator, Lita's favorite number. They were too short of time. The crowd wanted more. But pubs always closed, regardless.

Sid contemplated the audience, exchanged glances with the gypsy-eyed woman. Of course, she could only see a blurred image of the eyes enhanced with kohl. She looked away, not knowing that this slight physical defect had prevented her from experiencing the encounter of a lifetime, with the only creature who could have granted her death wish, not just in a pleasurable manner, but also in a way that wouldn't have spelled karmic disaster for her Akashic records.

Lita and Jenny started to wonder where the hell Alexi might have disappeared. To the bar? No, it was way after the last-drink bell. To the loo then?

The mysterious creature, feeling high and unreal, as ever after feeding, thought that three drained corpses at three Second Look gigs were more than enough to attract the police's attention. Blame it on the rock band for having such a tasty following. Maybe, she mused, she'd let herself be tempted by the green-mohicaned woman at their next London gig. Before moving on swiftly. This Sid could provide her with a very enjoyable challenge and give greater climax to the blood drinking.

The intended prey, feeling high, too high, higher than whatever normal was (was it the electrifying combination of the music and the voice, was it the anti-depressant she took daily to prevent herself from carving senseless lines all over her body, or was it the energy of the crowd enclosed in the closed parallelogram of the pub invading her aura, once again? She'll really have to do something about it), feeling kind of manic, contemplated Terri actively greeting friends and groupies, signing white T-shirts. Dawn had left the stage. The writer's mind amused itself with a new idea, a new short story to write. Ah, to kill again. After all, being a writer was about playing at being god. All-mighty power over every character. A bounty hunter might shoot to death a werefrog, and consequently being killed by a werescorpion. The idea simply delighted her. But this was mere child's play that she could write easily and lightly. The Great Work was still to come. Second Look would unintentionally provide the ideal soundtrack. And unknown to everyone, a creature of darkness would hunt among the exalted groupies.

For Sid, playing with monsters was the equivalent of playing with genders.

### CHAPTER SIX

This was no ordinary murder case; it had "serial killer" written all over. Third victim with the same baffling blood loss. And puncture marks on the neck. Two. It could have been an animal, a wild beast. But there was no sign of struggle, no chewing of flesh. Where was the blood? Vampire bats were too small for such amount and generally stuck to cattle, in Central and South America. He would probably get another repeat forensic report: spacing between punctures corresponding to spacing between human canines. Very sharp canines. He knew better than letting his imagination take off on a flight of fancy. He didn't believe in monsters. He believed in human monsters: it was all in the mind. Or another bad penny novel.

D.I. Madison sighed and scratched his neck at the base of his short, blond hair. His pale, blue eyes, paler than his blue suit, scanned the light-flooded pub where various people were waiting for his blessing to pack up and go home. He sighed again and granted them his assent with a shooing motion. The staff had been the only ones left by the time some unsuspecting drunk had stumbled over the corpse, screamed uncannily and fainted, in the car park.

Once again the death was frustratingly pointing at a rock band called Second Look. He already knew what they would say when interviewed. This M.O. was doing his head in. It was the kind that could make or break a career. For Madison, despite his still young age, no cracking would mean a breaking, regardless of his allies in superior hierarchy. The nephew of another high-ranking cop shot in the line of duty, an exceptional cop himself, he loved his job.

A constable, first officer on the scene, broke his train of wandering thoughts, confirming that no one had noticed anything or anyone out of the ordinary. Except maybe for the bunch of women who had searched and enquired about a missing friend in the crowd of punters before leaving the premises, still friendless. Unfortunately the info was within the vague boundaries of a sketchy description applying to quite a number of the London population.

Madison sighed for the third time. In a few hours, he'll have to get into the now routine knocking on three doors. "The shiny saddle of a repetitive loop", he muttered for himself.

* * * * * * *

Terri Harley opened the door with bleary, brown eyes and a dark mauve toweling robe covering her with one size too many. Madison noticed she had hardly slept. Possibly an insomniac. She stood there staring at him for a full ten seconds, her brain slowly registering the situation, a cog creaking the next one into working gear, before letting him in. Her slippered feet shuffled to the kitchen. He followed. Terri's partner, Justine, a willowy beauty with dark hair, waltzed out of the bathroom, fully made-up and decently outfitted, and joined them.

"What's up?" She enquired, seriousness darkening her eyes.

"Gimme coffee and ask him," Terri slouched on a countertop.

"I'll need to see Dawn Ferndale, too."

Dawn, in between homes (the water pipes of her new house were currently attended by an army of disagreeing plumbers), happened to be squatting Terri and Justine's spare room.

* * * * * * *

He questioned the singer first, playing the loop of sentences accordingly punctuated. At what time did you arrive? At what time did you leave? What about your crew? Dawn Ferndale? Your partner? Who did you talk with? Then, he outed the victim's weekly travel card dutifully sealed in an evidence bag, that he had previously stashed in an inside pocket.

Recognition flooded Terri's still sleepy eyes. Yes, she knew the woman, a regular groupie, often attending Second Look's gigs with a bunch of similarly looking friends. No, she didn't know her address or any specific particular. Alexi wasn't the kind of groupie always queuing to chat with Terri or Dawn.

Damn it! Terry worried for the safety of her fans. Third death in the audience. Third murder. Madison hadn't mentioned the mysterious and complete lack of blood in and out of the corpse. Sucked dry... This detail hadn't been released to the press for any of the cases. He dreaded the imagination of the media.

The keyboard player walked into the kitchen, pale green clothes hiding her curves. Her eyes met Madison's without flinching and she poured herself a mug of hot and strong coffee, not bothering with sugar or milk.

"Look!" Terri almost shouted. "Someone was killed again last night!"

Dawn stared at the photo pass but offered no pearl of wisdom. D.I. Madison asked Terri to leave the kitchen, guessing she would squat behind the shut door with Justine. Having been in charge of this serial case since murder one, he needed no second sight to know Dawn would give only laconic and succinct answers. Like the singer, she had noticed nothing different, she could yield no light over the frustrating case.

In turn, Justine corroborated the statements of the band, the complete waste of his time, and provided names and addresses of friends who could vouch for her own whereabouts at all times that night, minus a window of five minutes when she would have needed super-speed to commit the crime.

D.I. Madison left, none the more knowledgeable. On his way to South London where the crew resided, wasting more petrol and more time on the futile wild goose chase, he started to wonder. Ok, he had three murders. Same M.O. Assumption: same killer, or killers. This killer could be anyone, yes, but not necessarily one close to the rock band or a groupie. The gigs could be just a convenient killing ground, a smoke screen to distract the police. What if the culprit was no stranger to murder? On a hunch, Madison picked up his mobile phone, not waiting for the next red light, to auto-dial and talked to one of his detectives, ordering a research of all unexplained murders for the past year within London and its extended suburb. Maybe, just maybe, the whole sad story had nothing to do with Second Look and Terri and Dawn were just plain unlucky.

In the meantime, he felt very glad the morning rush hour was over.

_INTERLUDE_ (By courtesy of the author Sid Wasgo)

THE BEAST(s)

(To Terri and Dawn, "Second Look", respect)

The two friends would often go for long walks at night, favouring dark backstreets. Pat, long blonde-haired, was, and had always been, the sensible one, the wise one, and the great listener. Gill, wild character with freckles and thick curly hair falling disorderly down her shoulders, was, and had never tried to be otherwise, the big mouth, the troublemaker, and an all-over-the-place kind of person. And they both liked the dark backstreets for their quietness and the possible dangers that always made their days and nights. Then, and only then, Pat would let her composure go, becoming as wild as Gill, and even more lethal.

They would walk and talk. Well, Gill would do most of the talking. Pat would make all the appreciative noises expected from her, occasionally pointing out the points Gill would miss almost deliberately, almost checking if Pat was still with her and not gone on a mind trip to a different planet. But Pat was always there, attentive and cunning.

They loved the full moon, even if they didn't really need it. The rounder the satellite, the more manic their behavior. Gill, increasingly bouncier. Pat, more tightly in control of herself.

It was such a night. Full moon, huge and round, filling up the whole sky with the sheerness of its size and its rings of light. So bright, so mad. They just loved bathing in its intense light. They felt almighty.

Cobbles running under the heavy soles of their New Rock boots. Lampposts hardly lighting the streets. Sounds resonating fantastically in the silence surrounding their conversation, Gill's constantly manufactured diatribes. Tonight she was on and on about the town policies on parks and playgrounds, locked up at night, from what? The subject was as good as any. Especially when walls and fences couldn't stop them.

Most of their nocturnal debates were as pointless as they were enjoyable. They would only stop when Pat would eventually point out their total pointlessness. Usually around dawn. She was, and had always been, extremely patient with her best mate. She knew better anyway than interrupting Gill.

A flask of whisky passed between them would add to the sharing and the specialness of the night.

Gill was rather bouncy, regularly shifting shapes. Which one was the real one? They didn't even know themselves. Pat was more contained. Her eyes were the only things she could never control. They had gone a dark and shiny black, intensity and brightness spilling out.

Gill croaked deliberately loudly before shifting back to her human shape. She loved this kind of acting out. She went back to her subject of the night, switching suddenly to the increasing daily presence of ravens in the aforementioned town parks and playgrounds. Pat grunted appreciatively. And both went silent. Their acute sense of hearing had isolated the still distant sound of a footstep. Like heavy boots. They looked at each other, Gill with a new, amused smile slowly raising the corners of her mouth, Pat with an eyebrow rising interestedly. She playfully made her shoulder joints click. The clicking was not human, even if she kept her shape. Gill swiftly turned into a majestic red-spotted green frog the size of a pony and leapt delightedly. Entertainment was on its way.

Entertainment? Certainly not the middle name of the human being approaching them. The frog leapt forward once. The human being kept approaching. Not taller than Pat. A blue mohican proudly erect, skulls and daggers bleedingly tattooed down the right arm, the left arm exhibiting scars, white straight lines from shoulder to elbow like notches on the handle of a cowboy gun, and then, two ugly jagged scars down to the wrist. Combat trousers, as dark as the night, two hunter knifes hanging from a studded leather belt. A confident pace. A female human with a crossbow in her hands. The sure shot caught the throat of the magnificent red-spotted green frog in the middle of the next leap.

Bewildered, the frog fell to the ground, croaking lamely. Fatally wounded. It slowly changed back, body swapping its heaviness for female hips. Blood came out of the no longer smiling mouth, life gone out of Gill's eyes. Pat was on her knees, a hand holding Gill's right hand, an arm under the motionless head. She looked at the stranger, shaking her head:

"You killed her!"

"It's my job, sweetheart. I'm a bounty hunter. Werefrogs are dangerous monsters. She was about to attack you. You should be grateful!"

"She was my mate!"

The smirking bounty hunter, still bouncing with satisfaction on the balls of her feet, was now at touching distance. She never read the danger in Pat's eyes. The tail of the giant scorpion struck her between the eyes, lethal and unforgiving.

### CHAPTER SEVEN

Riding the bus had never been Sid's favorite idea of getting from point A to point B. She discarded public transports as unreliable and uncomfortable. It was an observation based on personal experience. Cycling would have been more of her taste, in a small town. She vaguely remembered being 9 or 10 and riding a vaguely green bicycle round and round her neighborough, hours on end. And then she stopped, stung by the absurdity and uselessness of the wistful activity: in her solitary world, she had imagined she was training for cycling championships around the world, but in the real world she was never gonna do that. Consequently the bicycle forgot itself in a desolated corner of the parental garage and its vague green turned into a definite rusty.

Motorbike was her favored means of transport.

(She had actually been riding the top deck of a bus, hating it for all its lack of worth at rush hour, when it had trundled past a plethora of two-wheels sporting big engines. One of them had winked at her with purple and yellow stripes, and Sid's heart had jumped back at it with painful longing within its ribcage. Mercilessly the bus had taken her away, but the exile could only be temporary; Sid Wasgo had returned to the scene of the crime the very next day. She didn't touch, she stared intensely. She had no money, she had no license. At the time, in between monthly gigs and rehearsals, she hated herself as a temp worker and her co-workers disliked her green mohican. So the hate lessened. What had been a survival mode transmuted into a means to an end. Within a year or so, she had the license, the insurance, the purple and yellow winker had been sold, and Sid was riding her dream bike: a shiny black and bright red version of the purple and yellow Kawasaki Eliminator.)

But on that day of reminiscing, the misfit with the freshly greened mohican was traveling by bus. Let's face it: riding a motorbike, even a Kawasaki Eliminator 250, was not ideal with a freshly tattooed and thus sore leg tightly covered with thick leather. Otherwise, she would have timed the route to perfection instead of arriving early, but early enough to be ushered by Pam the receptionist-cum-piercer into the cubicle where Jessie, her friend and tattooist, was applying the finishing touch to another masterpiece on the back of Elizabeth Ashtead, an acquaintance and colleague of Sid, from the acoustic scene.

Sid was always afraid of intruding, getting tattooed was such an intimate experience for her, something so special. She hadn't undressed for anyone else in the last few years. There was a touch of absurdity to her reasoning: after all, she wasn't the only one undressing for Jessie. Even so, the relationship with her tattooist felt as special as a relationship with a lover. This said, Sid had never felt intruded upon whenever Pam had ushered any of Jessie's friends into the cubicle while Sid was getting inked. Sid loved living with contradictions.

"What do you think?" Elizabeth's excited voice enquired.

"Brilliant!" Sid replied enthusiastically.

Jessie had added two playful dolphins on an already abundant collection of sea animals, closing the last blank on the left shoulder blade. Now, done with whales and octopuses, Elizabeth was free to design an armful of sea stars, in between songs with blues and jazz tinges.

"Time for coffee!" Jessie exclaimed after taping a cling film over the dolphins. "Then we'll get started on your leg!"

Yes, this was Sid's plan: coffee and another totem pole.

* * * * * * *

Sid, when not plagued by the pain of the needles, enjoyed chatting with Jessie, picking her brain for descriptions, definitions and philosophical quotations. She would generally distinctively articulate the first question crossing her mind. This particular day for this particular tattoo, it turned out to be:

"How do you define a Goth?"

Jessie, always the chatty kind, never minded Sid's queries, never really wondered where her friend and client's curiosity stemmed from. She would cheerfully answered, basing her observations on her personal experience of squats and pubs, anarchist camps and other alternatives scenes that Sid would never tread upon.

"They always wear black."

"Sounds like me."

"No, you're not Goth. You're too cheerful. A friend of mine used to go out with a Goth and she dumped him because he was too cheerful."

Cheerful, me? Sid thought. Am I really that good at hiding my depression? A lifetime of practice, so ironic.

"Stacee is a Goth," Jessie added.

Stacee had long, black hair, striking black eyeliner and a taste for skulls. Sid always felt impressed and small in her presence, and never really knew what to say, afraid of coming up with the most boring subjects of conversation.

Ok, Sid kept up with her cogitations, not voicing them out loud, _damn, I cannot be Goth; I'll never use make-up in a million years._ She came up with her next enquiry:

"Ok, how do you define a punk?"

"You're a punk! There is a political side to punk that you don't find with the Goths. Gothic is more like a fashion."

Sid had never thought about this detail. The drilling sound of the tattoo machine carving and inking the skin of her right leg with various animals piled up in Haida style, prevented her from expressing her every thought for Jessie's benefit. Was Jessie a punk? Maybe: she sported a multicolored mohican and her make-up was a colourful version of the gothic one. She had tattoos and piercings aplenty. But Sid, a punk? She felt like laughing, but the buzzing tattoo machine was somewhat restraining her laughing muscles, remembering men coming on to her with the choicy line: "I'm interested in the punk philosophy, too!" Yeah, sure, no future. But politics? Maybe some punks had turned anarchists. Nowadays, she couldn't view herself as such anymore. She had tried, and failed finding affinities and creating connections with squatters and anarchists. She had seen punks staring at her from afar with a look of wonderment plastered all over their face. Despite her green mohican, Sid was no punk and had never said so, never enlightened anyone about this detail of identity, or non-identity. She wasn't working-class. She was from a middle-class background. Sure, many punks could identify, but Sid couldn't. A rush of tension provoked a snake of sharp pain through her attended leg, and she went silent, watching Jessie, focused and precise, cutting through the outer layer of the skin, inking miracles.

"How are you doing?"

Sid's bubble burst with sudden relief. She exhaled a long sigh. The tattoo machine was poised in mid-air.

"Care for a break?" Sid grimaced. She was brave, but she also liked coffee.

### CHAPTER EIGHT

Dreams were the stuff Sid's life was made of. Every morning she would wake up and before getting up, would ritually record the leftover memories in her diary. To wake up and remember three dreams was a usual occurrence. Or used to be, in the times before she got on anti-depressants. Now she felt fortunate when she could remember various snatches of various dreams or even, luck of luck, glory of glory, a whole dream in Technicolor. She treasured them. The Dreamworld was more real to her than the so-called Reality. It was the source and inspiration of her songs, her strength, her creativity, her life.

She loved it when friends visited her dreams. It was the one sure sign that they were really her friends, no matter the geographical distances, the background differences, the life style circumstances.

Entries of her diary would often read as follow:

" _Terri visited me in my dream. We talked music._

Second Look were also in my dreams last night and the night before last."

" _Dreamed I was at the Second Look gig but the Black Crow was a huge venue. They had finished performing and I was looking for everyone I knew, especially the Second Look virgins I had convinced to come along. I was finding people and losing them in the crowd. First, the woman with the gothic looks [?] then Olivia [who lives in Devon]. I still had to find Angie and Dani. The dream turned into another dream. The dream was partly about confusion. I was flying and I saw Terri standing near-by a building. I waved at her and she waved back. She was there with another woman, maybe Dawn, but I'm not sure, I couldn't see the woman's features. They walked into the building."_

" _Loneliness biting deep into my heart any time of the day or night. With all the sharpness of its fangs."_

" _I feel like a bomb, ticking, ready to explode."_

" _I am a tortured artist, an arrogant singer, a writer without scruples."_

" _Dawn was in my dream last night. We were looking out of the doorway of the Blue Moon, looking out. Looking out at my motorbike. She asked: "Is it your bike?" I answered: "Yes." With pride."_

" _In my dream, Second Look had to cancel a gig at the last minute. They left the pub in a whitish, oversized limo."_

" _I lifted a treasure up from a sunken boat and lifted some dynamite down, while Second Look were having a drink in a next-door pub."_

" _I dreamed I was in high school with Hillary [who lives in San Francisco] and Angie. Terri and Dawn were in the background. I wanted to climb the climbing wall of the school. Outside the rain was raging. I could fly."_

" _The Lakota see black as the colour of inspiration for it represents the darkness that gives way to light."_

One morning, the one dream still fiercely grabbing at her mind had more details than ever –since her getting on anti-depressants– and presented an attachment of good feeling. Picture it out of the dark recesses of her mind:

Sid is hanging out with her friend Bea, who, these days, lives in Canada. They've known each other for a few years. Being both singers, they naturally met on the acoustic scene. By that time Sid was already an oddity, feeling more of an oddity than David Bowie's "Space Oddity" in Italian, having upgraded for an electric guitar and darker than ever songs. Anyway. Sid and Bea are hanging out at a party. It is a huge party and the sun is shining benevolently on the revellers enjoying the small size estate belonging to Terri. If it was not Terri's party, Sid wouldn't have bothered, she is no party girl, herself dixit. Sid knows Terri hasn't arrived yet and she is anxious to catch up with the wild rock singer. The atmosphere is one of summer festival.

From a distance (Bette Middler and Nancy Griffith chorusing in her ears), she sees a motorbike trailing through the green grass. She doesn't need keen eyes to know it's Terri's Bandit, with Terri herself riding it without helmet. She leaves Bea with some chatty women and starts making her way to the house. Well, calling it a bungalow or a shack would be an understatement of mega size. It's a Victorian mansion.

She is in no hurry with such sunshine and such gentle breeze. With the booted tip of her left foot she attempts to straighten a poster made out of flimsy paper to examine it leisurely. That's when the cop turns up and starts shouting abuses at her, attracting punters' attention. At first, Sid stares at him blankly. He is accusing her of unlawful littering, claims she has to pay a ten-pound fine, on the spot, or get arrested. She sighs at the unimaginative threat and suddenly the wolf in her reacts. She shouts back and loud that he's just narrow-minded and prejudice, and the only reason he's asking her to pay a fine is because he knows she hasn't got a tenner. She briefly considers his bruised ego in need of restoration but decides it unworthy of mention. As suddenly, she walks out on him.

" _Way to go, Wasgo!" It's a tall blonde woman she remembers from another of Terri's parties._

Upon waking up, she briefly thought about it with a look at her old-fashion clock, went back to sleep and dreamed another dream. After all, she was about to see Second Look in the evening, and remembering nothing requiring her attention before the afternoon, she could afford the extra rest.

* * * * * * *

When she re-opened her eyes later on, her mind struggled to keep them shut and succeeded on not analyzing the memories of her latest trip to the Dreamworld. Oh yes, she so much wanted to stay in bed with this new dream. More exactly the main character of her dream. Well, she meant, blushing scarlet in the solitude of her bedroom, going back to the dream and indulging some more, perhaps forever, in the company of the main character of this dream. Who had said you HAD to get up every morning anyway? The idea instilled her with a subtle mix of grumpiness and rebellion. Now she remembered she had an appointment to reluctantly attend, with the young, but definitely stuffy psychiatrist she disliked because he never listened to what she had to say about anti-depressants, their side effects, and her personal experience of life on legal drugs. The four walls of her bedroom were a thousand times more receptive and friendlier. With the starry ceiling, the dark curtains and the black-carpeted floor, they shaped a box, a box where she could dream any time. As long as the drugs didn't mislead her brainwaves.

This new dream had been so sweet, with a peaceful adagio excerpt from Carl Maria Von Weber's collection. Oh yes, a thousand times yes, the dream would have never been so sweet without the presence of the Second Look musician, the mysterious and talented Dawn Ferndale herself. The simple thought of the memory made Sid melt.

Imagine.......

Sid is dreamily asleep in her bed, cozy and naked under the tiger quilt as usual. The heavy, dark velvety drapes clear off the windows let the first sunlight of a new day spread into the room, like a stealthy invader. Not as subtle but definitely more intrusive, a male cop with blonde short hair and a blue suit, the blonde musician with gray eyes, and some other woman Sid cannot identify, burst into her flat. It is 6 am, apparently legal time to arrest criminals. The cop, whose blue eyes are paler than his suit, informs her of her rights while telling her she is under arrest for associating with a controversial political group, whose name gets garbled and fuzzed by her not entirely awake brain transmitters. He steps out of the bedroom to lounge in her living room and wait for her to get decently enough dressed up for a visit to the cop shop. Dawn pushes the door shut behind the others and squats on the bed, a simple mattress on the floor. Sid doesn't mind Dawn's presence when she moves the quilt away from her bare chest, because with all her tattoos, Haida totem poles down each limb and a few Navajo symbols on her front and back, she is never naked. She has a brief thought for the several photos of the grey-eyed musician forever scattered in her bed, but they are generally lying safely sheltered by her six tiger-patterned pillows. Looking intently and intensely at Sid, Dawn talks about a bright yellow envelope the writer received a few days ago, and that is now lying on one of the "Death-and-Blood" shelves in the bedroom. The content, a leaflet advertising a benefit in favour of the aforementioned subversive group, could be used as evidence against Sid. Pulling a dark T-shirt over her green mohican and tattooed skin, Sid, her brain now extraordinarily focused, listens to Dawn whose grey eyes have been fascinating her more and more lately. Along with the smile. But Dawn is not smiling. Even so serious, her face is extremely beautiful to Sid's eyes. If people knew. It is not Terri Harley, mighty rock singer whose powerful voice could raise the long dead, she's got a crush on. No, never mind this detail right now because the keyboard player is talking. She is saying that she is the one who sent the incriminating leaflet. Under the assumed name of Lindisfarne. Getting more decent by the minute (Sid, still on her bed, willing to keep at Dawn's level, is now wearing black boxer shorts matching her dark T-shirt, and starts struggling, juggling, with a pair of socks), Sid doesn't even think non-decent thoughts, she is too spellbound by Dawn's voice, Dawn's eyes, Dawn's everything. Because, as Dawn sometimes sings on stage: "Track number five's got the voice and the smile, and the matching grey eyes". Despite her subjugation, one black sock with a red-cobwebby pattern barely on her left foot and the other still in her right hand, Sid exhales a sigh, gets up, keeping her eyes on her dream woman as long as she can, walks to the shelf, tearing herself away from the previous scene, snatches the outstanding item with the now identified and familiar messy handwriting, hands it over to Dawn, who grabs it and stuffs it into an inside pocket of the denim jacket the writer has seen a few times gracing a few stages. But since when does Sid wear blue jeans, too?

And the tattooed writer woke up in her darken bedroom, cozy and naked, but never naked with all her Native American tattoos, under the tiger quilt, her eyes grasping at the empty air, wondering which of her Two Spirits - whale or wolf – she was.

She was alone, all alone as every morning. The hold of the dream was so strong over her split personality, it didn't let her drift into the daily loneliness, not yet. She sighed, swooning, willing herself back to the dreaming, trying to reinsert herself into this parallel universe, wishing to spend more time listening to Dawn Ferndale's captivating voice and lose herself deep into the grey eyes.

Before the aspic of morning loneliness get another bite of her vulnerable heart again.

### CHAPTER NINE

Sid had arrived late because of the rain. Definitely reality for her small Kawasaki when she had to restrain its speed, in the name of caution.

It was a gay club, charging club prices at the door and at the bar, women only, but with men as guests (Sid would shake her head muttering under her breath what kind of joke is that) and they had given Second Look only thirty minutes. The venue was middle class and Sid felt out of place, like everywhere, like every day, with or without the drugs. She was in a manic mood and full of good intentions to well behave.

Music was rocking full swing but the audience looked frozen, a few feet away from the stage where Terri and Dawn were giving away their best, tension running up and down their raw nerves.

_What's wrong_ , Sid wondered. _Have I done something wrong? Should I dance or should I freeze?_

She wanted to dance but the musicians' tension freaked her out, while the music gnawed away at her feet, harassing her tight skin, like a tickle too hard to make her laugh. But the music's pull was too strong for Sid to resist. Without thinking more, she gave in to her standard behavior, shedding helmet and jacket, and letting the fast rhythm of the moment guide her feet. A wave of relief washed immediately across the stage and Sid's skin automatically relaxed. She temporarily forgot about her fresh tattoo still itching under her black combats, and her latest short story.

After the too short set, some canned music started to spell out pop tunes in fashion and Sid caught up with a few known faces, regular Second Look fans like the heavily tattooed and pierced woman who only danced when no one else would, but that evening was on paraphernalia-stall duty, and a few women who had eventually relented to Sid's insistence. Yes, Second Look was a band to check out, definitely. Jessie had come, too and requested from Sid:

"Show me your leg!"

Sid had obliged and rolled up a trouser leg to expose the shiny totem pole, coloured with the traditional Haida black, red, blue and white.

Talking about the musicians. In between two chats, the singer spotted the writer and grabbed her for one of her famed bear hugs. Swiftly moving on, Terri introduced her girlfriend Justine to Sid, and next found herself entranced in an enthusiastic chat with a tall, skinny woman with long, auburn hair, bright smile and red roses tattooed on her upper arms. Sid exchanged a few words with Justine who, incidentally, had read "Tequila After Dark" and "The Beast(s)" and reported Terri's enthusiasm to Sid in between puffs of cigarette. Sid remembered Justine from the Black Crow, one of the many silhouettes in the audience. Somehow, not someone she would notice, but it didn't matter since Justine was with Terri and Sid had someone else squatting her mind and her dreams.

After an acquaintance grabbed Justine away, Sid's eyes found themselves drifting around the venue. Not interested in the alcoholic offerings of the bar or any eyes meeting hers, she searched towards the stage.

Dawn was still on the stage, packing up some mini disks or doing whatever she usually did after a gig. Sid looked at her with shortsighted, brown eyes, unable to guess, feeling shy and nervous, the wolf and the whale debating about the best possible next step.

There was something she wanted to know, so much that she didn't care about the crowd around her. She knew about Terri's hugs, Terri being as generous with her hugs as her voice was powerful. And Terri was a great hugger. She hugged strong, but not tight. The best hugger in town. What about Dawn? The keyboard player was so elusive. Suddenly, Sid had to know, she had to find out. Now. There and then. But Dawn was too reserved a person to hug groupies after a 2-minute chat. Only one way for Sid to get a hug. The anti-depressants giving her a wackier than usual sense of humour, she could have explained herself as a student researching, analyzing, comparing, cataloguing hugs.

Sid selected the direct approach. She walked onto the stage she would have loved to share with Second Look.

"Dawn?"

"Yes?" The musician turned to Sid with a smile.

"Could you do me a favour?"

"Sure!"

"Could you give me a hug?"

The smile took an amused turn and Dawn made the step necessary to close her arms around Sid. The embrace was honest, with a softness invading Sid's heart. The writer felt a sudden desire to protect the musician from whatever harm would ever come her way. It was overwhelming. Dawn withdrew after a hug too brief for Sid, unaware of Sid's emotions.

* * * * * * *

Sid Wasgo was unwilling to write openly in her diary about her feelings for Dawn, her chaotic hormones. A few next entries read as follow:

" _I have enough illusions to corrupt me for a lifetime_

Illusions born out of excessive enthusiasm

Anything could be so much better than isolation"

" _I got it all wrong my entire life and I still don't get it. It took me a lifetime to get my rhythm together. It took me a lifetime to understand the value of my voice. And I'm still nowhere."_

" _Dreamed someone I knew went for breast reduction. People's grapevine spat it out as double mastectomy. I went into a shop and the woman at the counter said "You're the one with the double mastectomy" and looked at my chest. Everyone in the shop looked at my chest. "Oh no," she said, "it's not you." I got very pissed-off with their attitude and shouted that_ _SHE_ _had gone for breast reduction, not double mastectomy. But_ _I_ _would go for double mastectomy."_

" _Let me give you the moon and the stars_

Let me give you the song they won't let me write

Let me give you the world and the sun

Let me give you the dream they won't let me have"

" _By the way, Terri was in my dream last night and I was great at roller-skating."_

" _Dawn was in my dream last night. Can't remember the details now [I know it was a "tired" dream because last night I fell asleep while listening to SL's CD and in the dream I put on the T-shirt that in so-called reality I had left on one of the pillows for the night but anyway], we went walking together, Dawn to her car and me to my motorbike, talking."_

" _So many vampires in my dream, an endless parade. They couldn't care less about me. I was a total laughing stock because whenever I tried to stake one of them, I'd miss the heart. At the end, when I caught up with Sharon my team leader [Dr Lewis from "ER"], my team had apparently been decimated. I had to stake Sharon because she had been turned into a vampire. I woke up feeling like a failure."_

" _Loneliness is the price for lack of knowledge."_

" _Second Look in my dream. We were at Terri's ranch. While Terri was explaining something to do with horses to someone else, Dawn's left hand was caressing my hips under a blanket. No comment."_

### CHAPTER TEN

He hadn't given Jasmine the chance to say good-bye. For all her relatives knew, she was dead. She had been ill, weakening, wasting away, and then she had disappeared. They probably explained her vanishing act as a moment of dementia.

She did mind. Life had been fun and inconsequential. Born during the second half of the nineteenth century to a bourgeois but aristocratic couple, she had married a rich, handsome and extremely eligible bachelor at the very dawn of the next century. They were the most talked about couple in society; they looked so suitable to each other. And they were. Jasmine's husband had other tastes in the bedroom and was more than happy to let her enjoy her personal choices.

The Stranger didn't ask her if it was ok, he was used to take whatever he fancied. And he fancied Jasmine all right. He had a fetish for long, dark hair and matching eyes. She was her type more perfectly than anyone he had encountered.

She was the queen of every ball, favouring luxurious gowns of green and purple silk that enhanced her natural beauty. Dancing partners were queuing, women were jealous. She would waltz until first light, and the Stranger would watch, hunger biting inside more fiercely every night.

Jasmine had enjoyed her life of pleasures, the lack of responsibilities, the attentions of dashing young men, her husband's courteous friendship, and the male and female lovers. Ahh, her lovers. Some of the men enjoyed perusing her wardrobe and trying out her make-up, for some kinky and fancy cross-dressing. Some of the women would try out her husband's outfits for similar reasons. It was the dawn of the twentieth century, she had money and freedom; she was, by her own standard definitions, happy. She was about to turn 29, but didn't look a day over 20. Life was grand.

Until the attractive Stranger danced with her and crushed everything.

Her husband, her parents, her children, her family, were certainly dutifully mourning her now. She missed them. She missed her turbulent twin children, her effeminate husband, her supercilious aunt, each and every relative, no matter how irritating she used to experience them.

She hated the Stranger for changing her, for imposing his will upon her, for making her feel so powerless. No good-byes. She wasn't dead, she wasn't alive. If she was to try and see her family again, they would believe her a ghost, a spirit of evil. The Stranger had made her at his image. She was now a creature of the night. A vampire.

The night he took her away he laughed at her anger, held her wrists tight while she would try and kick him. He enjoyed the taste of her blood, the soft warmth of her skin. He relished in tearing her pale green gown to shreds. But her first taste of his blood gave him more ecstasy than he had ever dreamed of. Holding her long, dark, silky hair in the firm grip of his strong hand, the strength of an ancient vampire, he had pulled her unwilling mouth to the newly open wound on his chest, over his heart wildly pulsing with her blood and the sensual details of her memories. He had pressed her face to his flushed skin, while listening to the roaring of blood in his ears.

A rivulet of blood had made its way between her weakened lips and onto her tongue. She found herself drinking greedily, greed increasing in intensity, as she was regaining her strength.

He moaned, the draining of his blood a masochistic pleasure. Her sudden physical rejection of him shocked him. But vampires don't breathe. Even though, he coughed with surprise, and laughed. She was so full of promises. His fangs tore another helping of her jugular. Her body pressed against hard stone, her fists pounded his back with her new strength. But his avid feeding was again stealing her memories, her life force, bringing her back to the edge, the invisible boundary between life and death, her heart still beating, harder and so weakly all together.

When he brought her mouth back to the bleeding opening of his heart, she didn't fight. Already too far gone into the Change to resist its completion. She drank his memories, not really understanding these images of people now dead, cities long forgotten, wars and travels in faraway countries. But she felt the power, its increase over the centuries. And the intensity of her anger grew to mightier proportions that she would have ever thought possible.

With the back of one hand, Jasmine sent the stranger flying across the yard. The wall cracked under the violent assault. He laughed again and before she could jump away -and what a mighty jump it would have been-, he was back on top of her, with a speed unknown to any living being.

"You are mine now, forever mine." His mouth had twisted into a cruel smile and kissed her angry lips, hard, deep, unforgiving. "Let us go and feed. It is time for your first lesson, Fledgling!"

His laughter had echoed in the night, akin to the laughter of a mad man escaping into the full moon.

* * * * * * *

With great reluctance, she learned the ropes of her new existence, the full scope of her powers, the speed and the strength. She saw the Stranger recoil from the greedy tongues of the fire, and the weightless fingers of the sunlight. She took flight with him through moonless nights and acquainted herself with her natal soil. She discovered the sharpness of her new teeth, the pleasure of warm blood cascading down her throat. The coppery variations from sweet to sour, bitter to stale, slimy to bland, thin to thick. She got used to the overpowering need driving her to hunt and kill, to seduce with a hypnotic stare and feed on life itself. She found his coffin rather uncomfortable despite the soft velvet lining, and rather too crowded with his crushing bulk.

During the first five years of their intimate acquaintance, even when out of his sight, she knew he was still watching her. He indulged her need to visit her children who thought her just a beautiful and sweet dream.

She was just a toy, some plaything he would enjoy bending this way or that way, because it amused him to see her suffer and anger. Despite her supernatural strength, her attempts at fighting back were futile. He had the strength of a vampire who had seen empires fall under the sheer weight of their greed. He was so ancient that he had never bothered telling her any of his names because none could encompass his whole being.

He reveled in her growing hate for him, her increasing anger and resentment. She was but a mere fledgling and he was almighty. She despised herself for not resisting his magnetic attraction.

The night he seduced her husband and delighted in draining him from his blood, Jasmine remembered she did mind having been forcibly taken away from her life, she did mind her children not having their mother anymore, she did mind the Stranger keeping her under his thumb and on constant tiptoes. She swore to the full moon that the monster would suffer and pay the heaviest price she could bill him.

* * * * * * *

The Stranger was, to say the least, a rich vampire. He owned a few properties dotting the country and he enjoyed touring them when London and Edinburgh brought him look-a-like victims night after night. His manor in Cornwall stood just at the edge of a tiny village and looked like a picture right out of the middle ages with peasants to match. Superstitions a bonus that Jasmine was willing to use and manipulate.

Her face had the pale and deathly shine of a vampire freshly raised. They looked at her and they saw a beautiful young woman with long, dark hair, pure and virginal in her white, long dress. They looked into her dark, innocent eyes and they saw a woman endangered by evil. Evil being the noble man from the gloomy manor at the edge of the village. They picked up torches lit with purifying fire and walked to the Stranger's property. Dusk was nigh but they couldn't guess the threat. Jasmine, the hems of her dress laden with natal soil, gave them way.

The flames licked at the orange horizon. Smoke darkening the last rays of the setting sun.

When the stranger's eyes snapped open, the smell of burning walls and drapes was still only a flutter barely tickling his sensitive nostrils. The cracking noises of the fire a deafening roar in his acute ears. But it was already too late.

The blazing creature who ran out of the burning manor, screaming and writhing with rage and pain, struck the crowd of villagers assembled for the impromptu show with sudden panic. The Stranger stood motionless for only the briefest second, enough to locate Jasmine at the far end of the crowd, enough for Jasmine to sense the reeling agony, the unbelieving feeling of betrayal. She kicked off her pumps and ran into the village, faster than any villagers' eyes would ever be able to follow, like a flash of light. The Stranger hot and flaming on her trail. Kindling villagers in his path.

By the time she emerged at the other end, the village was ablaze and the sun had ruefully cast a last ray at the unprotected vampire. The Stranger was slowly decomposing. Jasmine ran into the nearby forest.

When she encountered the wolves, adrenaline left her and she let herself slide down to the ground. The tallest and greyest animal cautiously approached her. His yellow eyes avoiding hers, he crouched as low as he could, offering his throat to her mercy. The other animals were shuffling on their spot, uncertainly watching, silently yelping.

After a moment worth a thousand shuddering eternities, the vampire's hand swiftly grabbed the animal's vulnerable throat, forcing a gargling sound out of his jaws, forcing fear into his cunning eyes, forcing his gaze into her mesmerizing stare. Cruelty gave sharpness to her facial features.

When she released the alpha male, he cowered a few feet away, turned to the nearest wolf and growled at him. Some more snarling and cowering later, they took her to a dark cave in the secret recesses of the forest, and before dawn, they brought her a victim, a human child, to satiate her ravenous hunger.

* * * * * * *

The following year, her now grown-up son died in a riding accident. She visited her daughter and cried with her. Tears of blood in vague candlelight.

* * * * * * *

She waded namelessly through the next decade, loneliness, anger and resentment, her faithful companions. Wearing black by day and night to enhance her cruelty, to avoid the sight of blood stains on her clothes, the reminders of constant killing. Killing to forget that even so powerful, she was powerless at retrieving her past life.

In the thirties she became Judith and enjoyed preying on the bourgeoisie. It was a time of discovery. In the forties, she emigrated to the United States of America, land of promise and opulence. She mingled with the Italian and Irish communities, feeding on their eagerness and fiery tempers. In the sixties, as Jade, she got her predatory share of the sexual revolution and welcomed the first mini-skirts. Then she started to miss the narrowness of Europe and the old families. She traveled back to London in time to witness the rise and fall of Punk. Early eighties, she felt at home with the New Romantics. They were gothic enough to "play vampire" with her. She changed her long hair for the more attractive mane of black and white strands.

But life as a vampire had grown stale, making her yawn from dusk to dawn. Her daily slumbers had shrunken. She had taken on rising earlier than the mythical Lestat de Lioncourt and getting out of her dark retreat before dusk, skimming Chinatown, high heels laden with natal soil. But she wouldn't withdraw into the ground. She had read about this onset of depression in Anne Rice's strangely well-documented chronicles. It was not her time yet. But she felt bored, utterly bored. After only a century as an undead. She felt so chillingly lonely.

She had renamed herself Joy and started haunting new scenes. The musical underworld crawling with drugs and misery.

She acquired new tastes and started to favour indie rock. There was this one band she couldn't help coming back to. Two women with incredible charisma. Their name was Second Look. She would have left after a few feedings. The band wasn't as underground as her usual territories, the trail of bloodless corpses she so enjoyed leaving behind had attracted New Scotland Yard's attention and their D. I. Madison's incompetent skills. She would have left if, if only, some weirdo weirder than the usual brand, hadn't danced into her visual field. A lone writer with a green mohican and Native American tattoos spilling down her shirtsleeves and her trousers legs. An average-size and lean woman competing for the band's attention.

While Sid's shortsightedness was an added reason for obnoxious paparazzi habits, it was an unexpected impediment for Joy's hypnotic stare. The creature of the night had grown to expect human beings to be boringly predictable and wear spectacles or contact lenses when shortsighted or longsighted. Blind people were mistakenly safe from her predatory activities. Ah. The writer suddenly stood out in the crowd, unbelievably tall and attractive. An obsessive beacon. An exciting prey. Sparkling life and adding contrast of shades and lights to Joy's decidedly routine existence.

Bitter and cruel, angry and resentful, the vampire wanted the writer's blood more than anyone else's. There she was, a worthy prey. One who was not after Joy's attention, one who was not into buying her drinks or lighting her cigarettes. A prey who seemed immune to her hypnotic stare.......

_INTERLUDE_ (By courtesy of the author Sid Wasgo)

CONTROL

It was an accident. I swear: I never intended to kill Sweet Jane.

She was always so quiet. With such sweetness in her eyes. When her blonde hair was not covering them, that is. She would have made my heart melt with just one of her smiles. I guess that's why I picked up my camera again: to collect her smiles, some of the greatest smiles on Earth. Yeah, ok, I'd do anything for a woman's smile; it's my greatest weakness.

With Red Reb, it was a whole different kettle of fish. It didn't mean I wanted Reb dead. No, I wanted her friendship. You see, we were so alike. E.g.: we were both drummers. But, she was the best. She was so wild on her drum kit, her red hair flying all over the place. Ok, maybe I was jealous. Let's face it: they were part of a successful band.

Don't blame me, or the hell with blame, it's too late now, I can't undo what I've done. Listen or read, let me explain. I'm not saying that life has been tougher on me. I'm saying that it's part of the package: I'm a genius with an IQ so high that I can't be bothered with Mensa. I've got the sensitivity to match. You know, or if you don't know, let me tell you: the highest incidence of alcoholism in groups is among Mensa people. What about drugs then, you ask? Call me a junkie. I've been on prescribed drugs for a year. I begged the psychiatrist to give me the antidepressants and she reluctantly agreed. I couldn't keep the beast within under control anymore. I was becoming dangerous, not just to myself, but other people too. I told her only the basic spiel: various childhood abuses, various suicide attempts, lifetime depression. But the beast within, it's my secret. So, I am multi-talented, but in this world, talent is not enough. I haven't got the cunning of a businessperson. I can't be bothered with money.

I've seen their Cuban band so many times. I know: ten musicians in the band and I had eyes only for Sweet Jane and Red Reb. Call it obsession, I don't mind. Without them, my life would have been a bottomless void.

It all started six months ago with a friend's birthday. Karen was a great fan of Cuban music. She had seen every possible band of the genre around London at least once. Me, I can't be bothered with remembering names. Except for Panama Francis, a jazz drummer I saw once playing for Helen Humes back in the mid-seventies. Yeah, I was still a bit of a kid, but that's how I got into my mind that one day I'd be a successful drummer. Of course I'm a complete failure, and that's beside the point anyway because Sweet Jane and Red Reb played in a Cuban band.

Jane and Reb were best friends. Jane generally followed Reb's lead. That's why I most of the times got talking with Reb. She was cool. She was great. I had respect for her. Yeah, we got a lot into mock arguments, but, hey, it was fun!

So, how did I get into Jane's house? I can't remember. It's a complete blackout. Not the first one. How many mornings did I wake up in unknown parks, with dried blood under my fingernails, gasping for oxygen? It's not alcohol. It has nothing to do with PMT. And the drugs, well, despite my hopes, they don't help. I'm back to square one, or worse: a square before square one. The time before I learned to control myself.

As a child or a teenager, I'd lose control and get into a mad rage just like that, at the snap of two fingers. I think I scared many people, broke some noses and killed a few cats. I'm not sure. I'd get into a rage, would see so red, that when I'd come back to normal, I had no memory of it.

Nothing to do with the moon either. Like a wild beast inside, clawing at my ribcage to get loose.

At first, I didn't know.

By my early twenties I'd learned to control it.

But a lifetime looking out for 100% control with no hope of redemption is a bloody long time. It got bad again when I got involved with this young anarchist last year. She didn't want to commit herself, fine, the sex was great. Too great. My moods went on the rampage again. I had almost forgotten that I could hurt myself. That I could do worse than that. The young anarchist was a sweet and sensitive woman, too sensitive to see new scars on someone's body. We stopped seeing each other.

One ill-chosen word from a stranger could trigger the rage. The beast within.

I turned to doctors for drugs. They have no clue.

I guess I've killed a few more cats lately. Or dogs. I'm not sure. I never remember. But sometimes I wake up in the morning with brown stains on my jeans. I know it's dried blood. I know the colour. I know the smell. And I know what it means when I wake up still wearing rumpled clothes.

I wake up that morning with a weird taste on my tongue. I keep my eyes closed for a little while longer, feeling the heaviness of my brain. Drat. Another drunken night. Bright light creeping through my eyelids. Then I know I am not at home because my bedroom is as dark as a tomb. I'm laying on something as springy as a sofa. Not comfy.

The smell suddenly hits my nostrils, and my brain translates. The tantalizing blood. Ripped flesh. A whiff of decay, like rotten cherries in a too hot summer. Sweet and sour Death. The buzzing of flies. My eyes swing open, meeting the intense glare of the sun rushing through the French windows. I blink. There is a garden outside. A fine garden. I can hear birds joyfully chirping. I gyrate my neck to the left. Wow, bad kink there. And I see. The tale-tell splashes on the white walls. I gasp for oxygen. I am the only one who could have done that.

I crunch my abdominal muscles and sit up. I look again. It is no hallucination. It is real. Harsh reality. I get up and my stiff legs take me to her corpse. The flies fly away in sudden panic.

I kneel down in the puddle of blood. I have made quite a mess out of Sweet Jane's body. I have broken a few ribs, ripped the chest open, punctured the lungs, and stolen the heart. Her clothes are in rags. I look around. So much blood and pieces of bones thrown about. Shit. I am probably still digesting the symbolic morsel. Her left leg is bent at an impossible angle below the knee.

I look at her face. Her blonde hair matted and brown-looking now, spread in every possible direction. I can see some clumps are missing. I guess the glistening skull where big shreds of skin are gone. And her eyes, her gorgeous gray eyes. One is still there, staring at me, not even accusing me, just staring and wondering. The right socket is empty and blank. Great. I eat eyes now. Deep cuts across both cheekbones, red and sticky. I decide not to bet, but I know the nose is in pieces. Dry blood like frozen rivers down both nostrils. Split lower lip.

My dirty fingers slide gently down her neck. There are purple marks across the still-skin-covered ropy tendons and strong muscles. I feel for her Adam's apple. It is crushed. I let my fingers fall down by my knees, into the gooey puddle of blood. How many pints of blood in a human body.......

I feel tears pricking my eyes and fight them back. I never wanted to kill her. What did I want then?

I have no memory of what happened. I look around. She has tried to defend herself. A glass coffee table is in shards. Music magazines marred with blood lay in disorderly heaps. A big flowerpot on its side, still spewing black soil and a gigantic rubber plant. She was strong, with all the working-out she used to do when she wasn't bending over some plants in her green garden or.......

Sweet Jane's warm and pulsating skin. A golden shade of suntan. The life animating her muscles. The determination and concentration in her fingers sliding along the fretless bass, blonde hair falling over her face, hiding her beautiful eyes. Sweet Jane, my shy muse.......

I have to go, leave the "scene of the crime" before anyone else turns up. I notice blood passing for messy brown stains on my black jeans and T-shirt, but really blood-looking on my skin. Where is the bathroom? I feel dizzy. Last night was the first time ever Sweet Jane invited me in. I gently close the eyelid over the remaining eye.

I look around, spot a set of wooden stairs and decide to climb up. It would make sense.

A huge mirror confirms how matching I am to the scene in the living room, just in case I don't know yet. I sigh and start to undress for a shower, thinking that her style of clothes will never suit me. See, I wear men's clothes, or unisex clothes, the baggier the better. Sweet Jane, even without going for the 100% feminine look had a very different approach to fashion.

After the Cuban gig as excellent as usual, we decided to go for a drink in the next street's pub. I liked this pub. Loads of punks hanging out there. I especially loved the huge metal spider hovering over the door, inside. And all the fancy skulls and heavy metal posters. Everyone went there so Sweet Jane was like everyone else. She was wearing a tight fitting T-shirt contrasting with her baggy blue jeans. Red Reb had on a black waistcoat over a white T-shirt and nice chinos. I had my usual punk ripped black trousers, sleeveless leather jacket, and a few chains where I could fit them. I guessed we were gonna have a few drinks too many as usual. We'd talk to some wasted people from various genders, and we'd argue among us, especially Reb and me. It was a game.

I am ready to face the blazing of the sun, wishing happy naps to Jane's neighbours. I don my dark shades and pull the door open. Push it back immediately and run for a closet. Shit. Here comes Red Reb, walking up the pathway, blissful and wide awake, oblivious.

Oh no. Even better: in my hurry I have left the door ajar. I hear the hinges screaming for DW40. A step in. She calls out:

"Jane! Are you in?"

Silence, as heavy as tons of tanker boats rushed over the shore by a tidal wave of angry ocean.

After another step, louder:

"Jane! Where the hell are you? Your front door is open!"

She walks in. I can hear the metal clicking of her cowboy boots. She passes by my closet. Then silence again. I open my door a tiny crack. I see her tense back. She is studying the mess I have left. She breathes in deeply and breathes out. Like a long sigh. Oxygen must be good. Out of a pocket she slowly gets her mobile phone. She dials an emergency number. I am feeling sad. Her voice is close to breaking, but you can always trust Red Reb to keep any situation under control. She asks for the cops. After a silence, she uses the word "dead", in the middle of a carefully constructed sentence. Suggests an ambulance, even so Jane looks dead. And is dead. Repockets the communication tool.

I open my closet door more widely. I want to get away before the cops get the echo of their sirens into the neighborough. The door creaks. Reb swiftly turns around and faces me.

"Kay, you're ok? What happened?" Stepping one step closer to me, then stopping, taking in the cleanliness of my skin. One of the things I like about Reb is that she's got a brain and knows how to use it.

I keep utterly silent, utterly frozen on my spot. I feel the fog rounding in my brain. I hear Reb's voice, soft:

"Kay, what's the matter with you?"

Whatever happens next, I can't remember.

Five vodkas each and we were still arguing. Sweet Jane was unusually bright and sparkly. She was the loudest of our lot. Vodka drowning cranberry juice. Five was our minimum. That was, Red Reb's and mine. Five was more likely to be Jane's extreme maximum. She was rather bubbly and was not gonna be able to walk straight. But wasn't it her favorite joke: even sober, she couldn't walk straight.

The dizziness fades. I rub my eyes and quietly feel the evening light washing over me. Then I see the blood under my nails, down my fingers, eating at my hands, shiny and barely sticky. Again....... I look ahead of me and stare soundlessly.

The previous tenant of my flat was probably into s/m fun. The chains solidly fitted in the wall are mementoes of this time before my time. I had decided not to bother with getting them off and opted for a pair of heavy black drapes. The drapes are open. Red Reb is kneeling with the wall watching her back, her hair hanging from her bent head. Her arms up, not by choice but held up by the chains. I walk slowly towards her, feeling empty and doomed. There is blood on her jeans outfit, criss-crossing her white shirt.

I fall on my knees. Have I done it again? Have I killed Reb like I killed Jane? I glare at my bloody hands, my killer's hands, willing them to go away, far away from me. I feel pain swelling in my heart.

She slowly moves her head up, one eye closed, with eyelids so puffy that it will certainly take on many fancy colours soon. The other one opens and prods mine. I can see pain in the brown iris. Pain and questions.

"Kay," she sighs and gulps some oxygen. Her lower lip is split, with a trail of blood at the corner. "Kay, I'm asking you again. " Her voice sounds raw and slow. "What's wrong with you?"

Her head falls down again. I push it up with tainted fingers, a sob ready to explode out of my throat, and answers, with all the sadness of the world in my voice:

"I don't know, Reb, I really don't know."

She looks at me, tired and weary. I carry on, carefully:

"It's like sometimes I am not myself anymore, and I don't know what I'm doing. And when I am myself again, I don't remember anything."

With my other hand, I gently push her curly red hair away form her face.

"Reb, what have I done to you?"

"You broke one of my shoulders and cut a few slices elsewhere. I'm not gonna mention the punches, they were just snacks, I guess." With the hint of a sarcastic smile twisting her mouth into a grimace. She winces reflexively.

Did she cry out or is she the strongest woman on Earth as I have always imagined her to be? She whispers:

"Kay, unchain me. Let me go. We are friends. I'll help you."

I let go of her head. Her hair falls down, following the down movement of the neck. And then I feel the change starting again.

"Kay?"

"It's happening again!" I almost scream. The dizziness is stronger than ever.

"Kay, fight it. You can beat it. Fight it, bloody hell. Fight." In a whisper.

I remember falling backwards.

" _Our dear Jane is rather drunk!" Red Reb stated with a bright smile. "She's gonna need help to get home!"_

" _No! I'm not!"_

" _Hush, Child, let the adults decide, they always know better." I n a mock tone._

" _Alright, alright, let me get a cup of coffee and it'll be my privilege and honour to be her chauffeur. If I remember where I parked my car!"_

Red Reb, a tiny bit tipsy too, burst into uproarious laughter.

In my next moment of consciousness, I discover it is too late for Red Reb. She is dangling from the chains like a broken puppet. A huge and red splatter marks the spot on the wall where I have smashed her skull open. Fragments of brain matters interspersed with her hair, fragment of brain matters soggily stuck to the wall, fragments of brain matters exposed on my red carpet. Blood red carpet.

Well, I have made quite a mess of my favorite friends within the last twenty-four hours. They trusted me and they loved me. Tears will never bring them back and there is no god to implore for forgiveness.

I spend the next hour sobbing, the flat is wonderfully soundproof. My neighbours will never know. They might start wondering about the foul stench in a while. Darkness is now all around.

I look at Reb, what I have done to her. I haven't destroyed her ribcage; even so she is covered with blood I can see that. I haven't touched it.

Then I know what to do. There is only one way, even if it is too late for my friends, I have only one possible way to get rid of the beast within. Forever.

There is a bridge in Bristol, the Clifton suspension bridge. I have been told about depressed students jumping off.

### CHAPTER ELEVEN

In the corner of the neatly printed paper, Sid had scribbled in a moment of sleeplessness: Please, forgive me. And she meant it. She never wanted to hurt Dawn nor Terri, but she had deliberately killed the two characters the musicians had inspired her.

It was some time in the middle of the night and the moon was missing from the starless sky. Dreams and oblivion were eluding Sid. She felt knots tightening in her throat, in her heart, in her stomach. The music she had switched on, the first Second Look album, was no balm to her bruised soul. Her hands were opening and closing into fists spasmodically. She felt anger, hate, frustration, defiance, shooting through her mind back and forth. Paranoia hot on their trail. She got up brutally, kicking a pile of music tapes forgotten by the side of her bed. They crashed onto the black carpet and into oblivion. Tension was running along her limbs, clawing at her abdominal muscles, tensing her nostrils. Used to darkness, she walked to the kitchen, eyes close to tears she refused to shed. She opened the small fridge fitted into the too small kitchen, almost wrenching the door out of its hinges, and grabbed fiercely the bottle of pure vodka she always tried to deny herself. No fruit juice left. Who cared. She had just killed the most sacred people.

No, she reminded herself, _I haven't REALLY killed them, I only killed the characters they inspired me_. And in actual facts, she had failed, because in order to kill Dawn, she had to start the story with Dawn already dead. _No_ , she admonished herself. _It was just one of the many characters she inspired. And I couldn't even kill a character of fiction......_

She drank a long sip of vodka, still crouching in front of the open fridge, blind to the various items of food necessary to her attempts at a balanced diet, albeit fresh vegetables. She violently got up. The alcohol swirled in the bottle. She slammed the fridge door and kept on drinking, long sip after long sip, pure vodka burning her taste buds, slowly, but surely, clouding her mind.

She knew she wouldn't escape, she couldn't escape, the tantalizing call of the razor blade calling her from the cabinet in the bathroom, where she kept it, along with the first aid kit. And the call felt louder by the minute, almost screaming in the silence of her flat.

She stood for a minute or two in the short corridor, exactly positioned between the two painted doors, trying to gain strength. Begging for the strength to leave unscathed this strange plateau where she landed sometimes, this field of insanity, this other realm where there was only one logical action. And blooded consequences. But the Native American spirits were busy elsewhere.

She drank more forcefully out of the bottle. Waiting for the madness to overcome her weakness. She knew she couldn't fight. Resistance was futile.......

A digital clock swung to 3 am. Sid was now sitting on her dark bed, in her darkened bedroom, her favorite CD playing on a loop. She had no T-shirt on to hide the Navajo symbols tattooed on her chest and abdomen. She had no T-shirt on to protect her naked breasts from her deep hate. Was it self-hatred or was it really what doctors denied her. She would have so gladly gotten rid of her.......breasts. She hated the word as much as what they designated. No, she wasn't female, she wasn't a woman, she couldn't identify, in a world where she was denied her real self, real life. But she wasn't a man. She couldn't identify as such either. In a world where choice wasn't given, in a world where without money she couldn't obtain the full mastectomy she would have gladly done with, in a world where you HAD to be male or female, one or the other, but you were not allowed, never allowed, to stand in the middle and be yourself, just you, yourself. Me, myself, I. NOT ALLOWED TO HAVE YOUR LIFE!

She was screaming in her head, shouting, begging the Second Look keyboard player for a forgiveness that wasn't hers to give. With a swift hand, she slashed at the tattoo-free breast, clean razor blade, as deep as she could, but it was never deep enough. She slashed. Sharpness of metal burning through skin....... Cold metal meeting warm blood. Hard metal meeting soft blood. Mingling. Once, twice, thrice. She stopped counting. Physical pain was nothing.

When the fingers lost their grip on the razor blade, tears slid forth and free from her drowned, brown eyes. Feebly, slowly, her fingers touched the fresh, savage wounds, feeling wet with blood.

Blood mixed with tears and a taste of alcohol on her tongue.

### CHAPTER TWELVE

(First Set)

Tattooed and sporting a green mohican, clad in a sleeveless, old, black T-shirt with a huge spider all over the front as usual, this time with a new creation: black, stretchable trousers found on the street (she was always grateful to the Skip Goddess for her many gifts) whose lengths she had treated with scissors (they were too hot, she made them cool) and put back together with all the safety pins she had found on a market stall (she had a thing for metal), Sid stepped into the pub, got greeted by the smiley woman with the dark pony tail who was working alongside a tall guy setting up music and sound equipment, and walked out within the same 30 seconds, running away from the assault of the unbelievably concentrated energy mix of the place.

She felt wary, more than premenstrual: manic. She was wondering how she would behave during the gig. Would she be a quiet, but bouncy dancer, or would she irrepressibly and obnoxiously harass the singer, like a month earlier (only a month?), the first time she ever saw Second Look on stage? There was only one way to find out.

Tonight, she had brought her camera with her; Sid was more than just a tattooed, 31-year-old writer with a green mohican or a confused performer. There was so much more to her to meet the eyes than anyone could ever imagine, but apparently that was just for her to know. She was also a photographer and photography was for her like everything else she did: something to avoid boredom. She had looked at the band's website, she had looked at the CDs, and felt the same frustration: photos are so deceptive, only a mere moment frozen in time. From one photo to the next, the same person could look so different. She needed to find out for herself.

It was only 8 pm and she was more than an hour too early for the show. She walked back into the pub and decided to get a bottle of schnapps, knowing that she knew better. She knew that the combination of alcohol and SSRi was about to get her drunk and out of control, but hell, she was gonna go for it. Life would have been only a tad more exciting if she had been a weredragon.

The idea of arriving at music venues before the crowd of punters was to get used to the increasing energies and thus avoid being shocked to collapsing by the excess and excesses of people. Sid believed herself too sensitive, unable to protect herself and as a result, she had a tendency to feel confused.

Tonight, Sid was also considering the absurdity of going out from her non-smoker's point of view: you get all cleaned-up, all dressed to kill, and when you get back home, you discard your entire outfit because it stinks and reeks of smoke, alcohol and a collection of sweats. Of course, if you dance barefoot as Sid was about to.......

Tonight she wanted to scout the joint for her next work of fiction. Tonight, she had her camera to play paparazzi. Tonight she was gonna drink on the job, even if drinking was as hazardous to her mental health as some rock band could be to punters' current idols.......

* * * * * * *

A tall woman with short, dark hair and a big smile across her innocent face walked into the pub. Despite getting stuck in Clapham Common, thanks to the wonderful London public transports, Judy had made it before the band. The Second Look crew were still smoothing down T-shirts, rounding edges, correcting angles, basically making sure that Dawn's keyboards and other technical gadgets were plugged in properly and Terri's microphone stand at the right height. They wheeled the last huge metal box back to the unmarked, blue van parked outside.

The pub was still quiet. Only two dozens of punters. The newcomer joined the writer by a tower of speakers and sat on the bass one. She had a camera in her backpack.

"Great! We could have a competition!" Sid exclaimed, a tad more manic than she expected.

Five minutes later two women stepped in, as confident as if the world was their private oyster, and greeted the crew. Terri with her wavy, red hair and freckles that suntan showed off to great effect. Dawn with her blonde, uncooperative curls and a shiny, black top. They looked around and Terri spotted Sid and Judy.

The writer felt nervous but she would have never acknowledged so, because people would misunderstand anyway. Of course, she could explain, but she was tired of explaining herself to every human being. Maybe she could wear a T-shirt screaming _DON'T EVER TAKE ME FOR GRANTED._

The Second Look singer closed the distance to grab Sid's left hand for one of her firm handshakes. Sid liked that. She loved to feel strength in a woman's grasp. She started to relax, but in a manic way.

* * * * * * *

The groupie presently buying a copy of each of Second Look's CDs and a black T-shirt sporting Terri's and Dawn's eyes, was one nondescript baby dyke with bleached, short hair, tattered and faded, blue jeans uniform. She was presently raking the front pockets of her trousers for her last tenners. The look in her eyes was a mixture of fire and Shit! _I haven't got the dosh for this crap!_

Contrary to most groupies, her fixation was solely for the keyboard player. It was actually a fixation by default. The singer simply frightened her with the definite power and the insane edge of her voice. On top of that, the red-haired woman made a point of breaking glass glasses against walls and windows and squashing plastic glasses under fancy black boots, after every shot of tequila. That was absolutely too freaky for our little baby dyke. In her eyes, Terri was a stage beast. Hang on a sec, did this expression really exist in English or was it another of her literal translations from the language of her childhood. In the country Baby Dyke had left behind, the wild singer would have been a _bete de scene._

Extraordinarily contrasting, Dawn was always so quiet in her corner, so efficient with her electronic paraphernalia, so radiant with serenity, looking so serious and so intellectual, so oblivious of the world. It was definitely reassuring for the barely-20-year-old, innocent groupie who suffered from a bad case of shyness crossed with social anxiety.

She wondered what Dawn's voice sounded like. She had heard her singing, but never speaking. Did she have a specific accent, something slow and nasal, something bouncy and hip, or the sound of rocks? Would she ever find out?

Baby Dyke would stand in a corner by the stage. Well, here at the Greystoke there was no stage. The monitors shaped a symbolical boundary. But she'd stand as close as she'd dare, too nervous to dance. Besides, she was convinced that if she danced, everyone would look at her and comment. And laugh. So, she wouldn't dance. Just as well she was now skint because she was very afraid of misbehaving or behaving out of character if getting drunk. Very afraid to be judged and condemned by the keyboard player. No, no, she couldn't take the risk of having her Goddess rejecting her. To live among the shadows was a lot safer, even if Dawn was to never acknowledge the existence of this petrified admirer.

Baby Dyke looked around. The terrifying singer was in conversation with an equally terrifying woman. A wild dancer with loads of tattoos and a proud, green mohican. Well, more yellowish than green tonight. Standing near another dancer, not as wild, but pogoer. Baby Dyke would stand at the other end of the dance floor. Tonight, it was a diminutive rectangle of floor.

She wondered if the gorgeous woman with the so long black and white mohican, always wearing sexy, black clothes and dancing on high heels, would be there tonight. The innocent groupie had a rising tendency to panic when the stranger was around. This stranger had a habit of disappearing with a woman in tow at every gig. Baby Dyke hoped in hell she'd never be one of those.

As a matter of fact, when Baby Dyke turned around...

* * * * * * *

Tonight, she was wearing a strapless little black number, matching the high-heeled boots climbing up to her knees. Her dark eyes, as gypsy as ever, were enhanced with black mascara. Hunger was almost a rumbling noise in her throat. She exchanged a few words with the dark-pony-tailed woman working for Second Look, looking around at the same time, checking the growing crowd, searching for the prey she had been dreaming of for 22 days. Tonight she would taste Sid's blood; she would feed and feast on the coppery sweetness hinted by the smell. Yes, Sid was right there, with her tall friend, in the deep thralls of a conversation with the red-haired rock singer. Deep thralls. The immortal creature felt like impersonating a hissing snake. She could hear the writer's heart beating faster than normal. But Sid would be hers tonight. By any means necessary.

The gypsy-eyed woman's graceful walk took her to the bar where the whole staff sported T-shirts claiming their allegiance to the rock band of the night. Waiting to order a drink, her selective ear was spying on the writer's conversation.

Terri: "I read your story. I liked it! Actually you write very well. You should get published!"

Sid: "Good. You don't mind me killing you then?"

Terri: "It's ok, I get killed all the time!"

Sid: "I've got another story for you." Digging an A5 envelope out of her bag. "But actually I don't kill you in that one."

The barmaid asked the gothic spy for her order, while Terri walked to her microphone to get a quick sound check. Sid and Judy started to play paparazzi and shoot performers and punters alike. Dawn smiled for the cameras.

* * * * * * *

Sid had already sipped some of her third schnapps by the time Second Look made their slow start of the night. A song about the eternal subject of your other half being out late and not ringing you to let you know. Probably drinking. Oh yes, Sid knew the story alright. Hers had a threatening phone call added for good measures. She could laugh now, years later, thanks to this song. About every song performed by the band could make her laugh her head off, occasionally to the point of hysteria. Maybe she should cut down on antidepressants.

The camera still in her hand, Sid started to dance, singing along. She had done her homework, practicing with the now in-built music tape in her walkman.

By the end of the third song, Sid had kicked out of her black biker boots and red, spidery socks. Barefoot she was even more at home in music. Even more obsessed, more possessed, more belonging to music than ever. And now, she was also obsessed with Second Look. Without obsessions her life would have been a total void. At least she could play with her obsessions, and currently Terri and Dawn were a great inspiration for her feverish writer's brain. She knew she needed to have a word with her irresponsible psychiatrist and change antidepressants. She also knew it was time to face the truth: she couldn't hate Second Look. She knew the truth deep down herself, she knew she'd have to face it, sooner would be better than later. This band, in her book of standards, was not good: they were disgustingly brilliant. They were the band she had craved for back in her solitary teen years, their absence had been the motivation to pick up a guitar and sing. She loved them, but claimed to hate them, because she was not in a hurry to feel the pain walking hand in hand with every truth about her own life. And if she wanted to blame someone for the state of her life, she didn't have to look as far as Second Look, even if Second Look were what she had always wanted to be. And could not be. Because she was different.

Rather than acknowledging the decaying reality of her singing career that the wild Terri was unknowingly throwing at her with every breath, Sid decided to focus on the keyboard player.

* * * * * * *

Baby Dyke had found enough coins in her back pockets to afford a small glass of soda water. She needed the bubbles like vampires needed blood. Lost in music, she divided her attention between her Goddess and the sparse dancers. Sid currently pogoing madly with her tall friend. The so-damn-sexy stranger swaying her hips and keeping her shoulders almost motionless. Was it because if you got started too wildly the high heels would shock you senseless against terra firma? No, Baby Dyke was better off not thinking about the stranger's slender legs.

Her eyes moved along. A woman not taller than herself, blonde, short-haired and probably blue-eyed, was rhythmically swinging her hips and stepping one and two, on a chronic basis. Next along after the pillar, a woman clad in baby blue was hardly moving.

Manic Sid was dancing all over the place, right and left, her bare feet never sliding across the slippery floor. Occasionally stopping two seconds by a punter, then bouncing away again. Her eyes hooking without locking with anyone's, even if crossing daggers. And rebounding more powerfully.

Baby Dyke was waiting for Dawn to sing, but this was not to happen before the second set. Then she noticed that tonight, the wild dancer was paying more attention to the keyboard player than the singer...

### CHAPTER THIRTEEN

(Second Set)

Joy's frustration was increasing by the minute. Whenever Sid had stopped by her, she hadn't made eye contact. Whenever the mad dancer had looked at her, the gothic woman had tried to weave her mesmerizing spell, but to no avail. This was getting seriously tiring. She NEEDED to feed, but tonight she wouldn't give up. If she had to, she'd use inhuman means.

She found herself having to keep an even tighter check on her frustration during the break, when Sid's friend came to her and introduced herself as Judy. Joy had to play the game, her useful youthful good looks were to blame.

But then, Lady Luck suddenly struck in her favour. The writer stopped near her, a visa card in one hand, and asked Judy:

"Want a drink?"

"Yeah, another one of those." Showing a bottle of schnapps.

And then boring into Joy's eyes:

"Want a drink as well?"

"I'm already pissed out of my brain!" Making time, weaving the spell, hooking at Sid's soul, at last.

"Well, you don't have to ask for alcohol, you can go for a soft drink, fruit juice, whatever!" Her brown eyes searching Joy's dark eyes, suddenly responding so easily and so readily to the mighty will.

"A diet Pepsi then." Smiling slightly.

### * * * * * * *

What did Dawn's voice sound like when she was not singing, but just talking like anyone else? Baby Dyke cranked up all her courage, felt her whole face go red and redder by the second, probably a red akin to ripe tomato. She had to, she needed to know, she wanted her Goddess to look at her, to talk to her, to smile at her, to acknowledge her.

She walked to Dawn, who was just handing back a fan's copy of the 1995 CD to Terri for autograph. Baby Dyke reached out with her own copy, mumbling her request. The keyboard player smiled her radiant smile:

"Yes, of course! What's your name?"

More mumbling from Baby Dyke. She felt totally overwhelmed by the heavenly accent, an Irish-like collection of rocks. She eventually gathered enough voice to give out the proper answer:

"Dan."

Dawn wrote a few words, signed and spoke again:

"Let me pass it on to Terri."

The wild-haired terror flashed her wildest grin at Dan and added her piece of wits to Dawn's. Baby Dyke felt herself going pale.

* * * * * * *

When Second Look launched into the first song of the second set, Sid was still at the busy bar collecting a bucket load of schnapps to cultivate the degree of alcohol in her blood. Good job she had left her bike at home. But by the end of the song she was back, ready to offer a shot of tequila to the singer. Terri grabbed the glass, swallowed the alcohol in one gulp and threw the empty container against the wall. The glass crashed satisfyingly. The drunken dancer gave her two thumbs up.

During the next number Sid felt that the two partners in crime were not at their best. Probably because they'd been constantly on the go for a week. Three gigs in the States, flying back to London, three gigs in the suburbs and now Teddington. There was only so much energy they could muster. Terri lacked her usual Scorpio sting. No jokes about fancy lingerie tonight.

When the singer stomped through Mercedes Benz, she gave the audience only one go at the microphone, accused them of being totally pissed and finished off the song, with her own inimitable style.

And now, Sid's favourite song, a tune with a dark atmosphere, something that seemed to have an increasingly wild effect on her. She had eventually let go of her camera to give herself totally to the music and jump even more all over the place.

Terri shouted in the mic:

"She is a wild child of rock'n'roll! She could out-dance the pants of every man, woman, and child!"

* * * * * * *

Sid was one of these shortsighted people who couldn't be bothered with contact lenses or spectacles. She thought her eyes were even more misleading to people since she had twisted her last frame out of shape in a fit of despair. She found her eyesight disconcerting at times but had other ways to get information about people. She would scan their auras, trying to understand the energies she would sense, but never with words. Words were deceptive, bringer of doubt. Written words were ok because she controlled them. It was why she had no clue about the colour of Terri's eyes, the colour of Dawn's eyes, and barely knew the colour of their hair. She had a tendency to view the world in black and white.

She could sense there was something strange about Joy. There was something in Joy's aura that she had never sensed with anyone else. But Sid couldn't care less, Joy was too feminine looking to really attract her attention.

Really?

So, when Baby Dyke got the song she had waited for all along, Joy started to dance around Sid, swaying her hips with all the languor she was used to, to Judy's powerless annoyance. Baby Dyke stepped back instinctively, her eyes riveted to her idol. And Dawn was singing, singing:

" _Track number five's got the voice and the smile/ And the matching grey eyes/ She'll drive you round and round the bend/Night after night, after night/ You will run the miles for her //_

Track number five is the mystical siren/ Never, never calling your name/ You will run all the gauntlets for her/ To look at you and smile/ You will fall blistering your knees//

Track number five, she is a total mystery/ Hovering on the edge of your dreams/ Never, never, never there for you/ Who are you, who are you to her/ But just another dancer in the crowd//

And tomorrow will be another day/ with sunshine in the blue sky/ You'll be hiding in black velvet, of course/ Waiting for destiny to knock your door down."

The Goddess reached the last verse, the verse Baby Dyke was always waiting for, because the voice would turn into a raspy sound, something grabbing her heart:

" _Track number five/ She's got the voice and the smile/ The matching grey eyes/ And you know it/ Track number five/ She is the siren/ Never calling your name/ Oooooh you want it so/ You want her so/ Oooooh you want her......."_

The vampire looked into Sid's eyes and Sid looked back. The green-mohicaned woman was under a spell, no longer the spell of a voice and a keyboard, but Joy's mesmerising spell. Judy didn't see the vampire reached for Sid's hand. Sid, who was not the most tactile person in the world but didn't mind a bit of handholding with a woman on a very occasional basis, accepted the slender fingers and followed without any resistance, straying away from the stage and her favourite band for the first time ever. Baby Dyke watched them walk away. The show went on.

* * * * * * *

In the strangely deserted beer garden, Sid felt suddenly more relaxed. The rush of energy abruptly left her. The moon was welcoming her. The vampire turned to her, a smile growing slowly on her playful lips. Sid smiled back. She was herself again, free from the spell now that they were outdoors, in the deep, wide night. Now slightly surprised to find herself in intimate terms with such company.

"I can't," she simply stated when Joy annihilated the space between them, wondering how to decline the advances of a gorgeous woman, when, simply, this gorgeous woman was not her type. And not who she wanted.

"Are you sure you can resist me?" The voice was sensual and wispy, the smile broader, the lips parted, showing the tips of the fangs.

Sid's smile widened, knowingly, having read too many classics. Her eyes glowed with renewed amusement. Here was possible death, at last. Yes, why not at the teeth of a female vampire.

"I just cannot say yes," she rephrased, feeling suddenly wiser, or was it crazier. Death on a silver plate, death under the moon, the death of legend, the one death she could accept –or take- without worrying about karmic consequences for her Akashic records. Not her fault, never her responsibility, if a vampire wanted to feed on her.......

And she was turning it down? She had learned to say NO?! My, my, maybe she had gone totally insane!

Frustration flared briefly on the vampire's face. Hunger wanted to sink fangs into the tantalising tarantula tattooed on Sid's jugular.

"You really believe you can resist me. This is what attracted me to you. I am hungry, but I also feel lonely. Shall I feed on you or shall I make you mine, shall I make you like me?"

The moonlight intensified, brighter and brighter. Sid felt suddenly tempted. Wow, grow new teeth, not to worry about the dole office anymore, fly through the night ( _Come on, you gotta gimme that one! It's my greatest fantasy!_ )

The vampire's fingers were soft on the nape of her neck, sending shivers down her spine. Oh temptation. Sid was thoroughly enjoying the game. She knew she could resist any temptation. When she wanted to.

"I had centuries of loneliness. You could keep me company."

But a woman, sliding down the light of the moon, appeared at their side. She had long, raven hair down to her waist and the most gorgeous coppery skin, muscles slightly bulging in her arms, authority in her attitude and her voice.

"Enough, Joy, Sid has other things to do."

Death! She was Death! Death, who had rejected Sid so many times. Death, who Sid longed to be with, more than anyone else in the world. She was head over heels for Death, wanted Death to take her into her warm and tender embrace. She so much wanted Death to take her away from everything, everyone, and all the suffering of this world. And Death wouldn't have minded, after all, Sid, whatever names she'd used along the years, had occasionally proven of some interest.

"What the hell do you think you're doing? And who the fuck are you?" Joy raised her voice with anger.

"I am Death, of course." Gazing at Joy with irony. "I was just chatting with Life and we were commenting on how well and better Sid had started doing recently. We're pleased with her attitude these days. That's a nice change." Looking at Sid: "Except for getting drunk tonight. By the way, Sid, I'm afraid you'll have to put up with your drug-induced mania for a while longer."

"Thank you for the information." Feeling suddenly sober.

"And what has it got to do with you if I turn her into a vampire? She wouldn't be dead!"

"She would be undead. Life and I cannot let this happen. She belongs to us and especially to me."

Ownership. 'scuse me but there, Sid had to bash her sixpence worth in the middle:

"Hey, maybe I wanna be a vampire!"

"Shut up there. And I thought for a minute you were getting wiser. Let me handle this."

Great. Sid crossed her arms over her stomach, slightly sulking, but only slightly. Because, after all, it was Death who had told her to shut up, and after all, she had great respect for Death. Death was telling Joy:

"We have great plans for Sid. It might take her a long time to get into it but it is her destiny. And no one's got the right to change that. You least of all."

"But what if I never agree to your plans?" Sid again.

"Oh, sweet child."

"I ain't sweet!"

"Your rebel streak again, ." There she used Sid's secret name, the name of her secret core, so secret that the spelling was unknown. That made Sid shut up for real.

"Ok, but what about me?" Joy's frustration was shifting to exasperation. She could do nothing against Death's decision, no matter how powerful and immortal she was herself. "I'm hungry! I need to feed!"

"Let me see," replied Death with equal mood. She pulled out a hand-size computer out of her jeans back pocket, started pushing keys and scanning a mini-screen, then eventually reading out loud:

"Dawn Ferndale, Terri Harley."

Sid jumped: "you must be joking!"

"Oops! Sorry! Wrong year!" The two names had no cause of extinction written in the next column. It was too far away in time. She punched a few more keys:

"Year 2001. Month of July. 28th day. Oh, busy night for me! Quite a few people for collection. Let's see. Teddy Longhorn."

"A man? I'm more into wimin these days."

"Well Joy, it'll have to do for now because he is the only one with no apparent reason for collection. Therefore, he must be yours. You'll find him easily, he'll be marked for you."

The vampire sighed, rather disgruntled.

"Now, I must be off. Sid, behave yourself."

"When will I see you again?"

Death smiled, and her smile was a more powerful spell than any Joy would have ever tried.

"You know it: you're still doomed to immortality."

Sid sighed, disgruntled, too.

Death pocketed her computer and the light of the moon took her away. Sid and Joy looked at each other. Joy walked away. Sid followed.

Inside, the vampire found her imposed prey as easily as promised. Sid smiled, amused. She identified Teddy Longhorn as the guy who had claimed she had the hots for Terri. What would he think if he knew that the writer had the hots for Death herself? She smiled more wildly. He'd never had the opportunity to find out, his death would be sweet and bespelled. Lucky him, she thought, claiming back her piece of dance floor in front of Dawn's keyboards. Dawn was as usual bent over her instrument, going mad in tempo. Terri who was not requesting but ordering the crowd to give her " _five_ ", walked closer to Sid, palm extended, and as usual, because the writer couldn't bear to do like anyone else (how to be noticed otherwise?), Sid squeezed the singer's hand briefly. The next punter copied her shamelessly.

### CHAPTER FOURTEEN

WPC Glenn had only volunteered because D.I. Madison had the most incredible blue eyes and he always sported elegant suits. But he was so dedicated to his work that no one could really approach him. He had requested a female volunteer for one night undercover, for one night of mingling with a raucous crowd, for one night of rocky music. D.I. Madison had never looked at WPC Glenn before, now he had, albeit in the most sober manner.

Do not take any risks. Just keep an eye on the various goings-on. Watch for people leaving the audience by two or three. Do not drink anything but orange juice (WPC Glenn was allergic to citrus fruits). And do not take any risks. We are dealing with a very dangerous killer here, maybe two.

Heather Glenn was just under 5'5'' but still taller than Joan Jett or Ani DiFranco. She wouldn't impress any bad guys but, not being a stranger to karate and judo, she knew how to use surprise as a most effective weapon. She was not stocky or petite. Her hair was a mass of vague, dark curls generally held together in a ponytail. She knew how to smile innocently and had plenty of wits. If required to, she was a sharp shooter.

And there she was at the Greystoke in Teddington, watching the cosmopolitan crowd, while D.I. Madison covered the outside. It was a happy crowd, mixing local lads with Second Look groupies, mini-skirts with....... green mohican. That one, a tattooed punk with an expensive-looking camera, didn't seem to mix well with the crowd, despite the bottle tightly grasped by the left hand. If you paid a bit more attention to this green mohican currently in conversation with the singer of the band, you could notice the green was slowly fading into yellow.

A punk with a camera. WPC Glenn added the writer to her list of potential suspects, while leisurely sipping some apple juice. She resumed her scanning of the crowd, ignored the fidgeting Baby Dyke, and contemplated a very feminine-looking woman. Early twenties. A long mane of black hair striped with white strands. She was amicably chatting with a Second Look roadie. No, somehow, Heather couldn't peg her on her list. And moved on. The victims found after each second Look gig were female. She started focussing on the men. None of them could look handsome enough to her eyes, none of them had looks to surpass or even match those of D. I. Madison's. She chided herself and stirred her brain back to the increasing crowd.

When Judy walked in, WPC Glenn only noticed her because she went to sit on a bass speaker and talk with the green mohican. An accomplice?

And the music started. The green mohican was already taking photos and dancing, wild.

* * * * * * *

When the green mohican and the gypsy-eyed woman, somewhere in the middle of the second set, started across the standing crowd, walking hand in hand, WPC Glenn surmised that something was about to happen, something more important than her apple juice. When they came out of the crowd, ignoring the lively world around them, the undercover policewoman stepped forward to follow them, but arriving at the covered pool tables, she found herself intercepted by one burly man after another, until the punk and the goth walked out into the beer garden, and Heather stood in front of a woman whose masculine features screamed butch dyke at every second.

Heather looked at the spiky, short, blonde hair, the predatory smile, the bulging arms, the green top showing off well-developed abdominal muscles. She didn't get to detail the butch more, because the butch spoke with honey in her voice. Heather found herself barely reluctantly hijacked for a drink at the bar, after a last wistful look toward the beer garden where a murder might, or might not, be about to happen.

The strong fingers that had played with Heather's ponytail on the way to the bar, stuck a small glass of sherry in Heather's hand. Heather listened to the babbling of the butch dyke, who, albeit discreetly, was sussing her out. When a very feminine woman joined them, one with long, dark hair and delicate spectacles, the butch dyke exclaimed, as honey-voice as ever:

"Darling! Meet Allison!"

Allison? Was it a code word between these two lesbians? Heather started to wonder if she was about to be picked up for a threesome and started to worry. She had no idea how to get out of this situation. This hadn't been broached from any angle in any of the various training courses she had attended.

When she noticed the goth and the punk no longer holding hands coming back from the beer garden, her worry magnified by ten: was she just being picked up for a threesome, or was she intended as the next murder victim.......

### CHAPTER FIFTEEN

"So, this is what you do for a living?"

Joy ignored him. She swallowed the last drop of blood from Teddy Longhorn's lifeless body. She was still in a very bad mood. To top it up, Teddy's blood had the one bitter tinge she had never been crazy about. She slowly turned her head to look at the newcomer and spat contemptibly:

"Hello, Blondie, offering yourself for dessert?"

D. I. Madison was a relatively handsome man in his early thirties. A reasonable 5'9'', that night he favoured a dark blue summer suit over a white shirt, but no tie. His feet sported very standard blue suede shoes. As a matter of fact, Joy had a great aversion for blue eyes. Grey would have been just about ok. Dark brown was always ideal.

The cop studied the vampire. Thought she was actually attractive, like most female suspects he had tracked down along his career. Extraordinary eyes enhanced with black mascara. Great legs sheathed in knee-high boots. He eventually noticed that the man propped against the wall, looked actually dead. He had a bloodless look to his face that didn't look promising. As often he wondered how things like that could happen. _For God's sake, they were standing just outside a railway station. Or was it that by midnight trains stopped stopping in Teddington?_

Was he facing the killer he had been trailing since the beginning of the summer? He looked at the woman: square shoulders, one square hand effortlessly holding up the corpse. Evaluating her strength: maybe stronger than the average female, but nothing I cannot handle.

Her skin flushed with the freshly ingested blood, Joy looked back. She could have easily hypnotised him, mesmerised him into her merciless power, but she was still reeling with anger and frustration from her little encounter with Death. This guy was another mere pawn in Life and Death's computer games. The hell with them.

D. I. Madison decided to make a stand:

"You are under arrest on suspicion of multiple murders."

"Just like that? No back up? No forensic team?" The snarl rippled into a throaty laughter. Human silliness could at times sound so amusing. "Care to check the freshness of the corpse for yourself?"

With just one hand she flung the corpse across the policeman, who took it full in the stomach, stumbled backwards, fell flat on his back. Then fumbled agitatedly from under the lifeless body to get back on his feet. Looking at corpses was ok, but getting into such close quarters with one sent shivers of disgust down his spine. What kind of cold-blooded monster was he dealing with? If he'd had a tie knotted around the collar of his white shirt, he would have strangled himself retightening it.

The amused woman was facing him, smiling, revealing....... Canines longer than average.

After a moment of silence, she pouted: "Can't recognise a cat when you see one?"

She stepped closer to him. He stammered: "What....... Who....... "He still couldn't believe _. No! Must be one of these fakes you can get specially made in dental labs!_

Laughter rippled again in her throat. In other circumstances, it would have sounded lovely.

"I see, you haven't read the classics. Charnas, Jewell Gomez, Laurell K. Hamilton, Tanya Huff, Stephen King, Konstantinos, Brian Lumley, Polidori, Anne Rice, Somtow, Bram Stoker, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro." She mused some more: "Sometimes, I wonder who had been the first one ever to write about me and my kind. Because, you know, I'm only mentioning the famous names."

He slowly pulled the gun out of the holster hidden between shirt and jacket.

"Tut tut." She shook her head. "That's a naughty little boy."

Half a breath later D. I. Madison was gunless, his white shirt torn open down his front, a thin red line tingling uncomfortably from collarbone to belt, on his otherwise absolutely smooth skin. He stared at the long nails of her elegant fingers, speechless. In her hands, he saw his wallet. It had hardly been a blink of an eye, not really enough time for a blurred motion. And his gun, where was his gun now? She was foraging between his cards, pulling them out one by one, scattering them around all over the tarred ground, commenting aloud: "American Express, Barclay, Mastercard! Visa, international of course. A few twenties." She smiled at him sweetly: "I might need them later," and inserted them down her cleavage. Went on with the wallet. A small square photo. "Oh!" She cooed mockingly. "What a sweet-looking piece of candy." It was Madison's sister, ten years his junior. She had been his sole responsibility for the last nine years, since a car crash had crushed their parents to death. She was a brilliant student currently attending university in Cambridge. If anything happened to him, would she be alright?

She stuffed the photo into his breast pocket. Pulled out the last item: a policeman's ID card. And then, only then, chose to read his name.

"Ah ah!" She exclaimed subsequently. "D. I. Madison! We meet, at last. It'll be a brief encounter I'm afraid. I am in a rather bad mood and I just finished my dinner. What am I going to do with you now?"

The dark eyes turned icy. He felt beads of cold sweat trickling down his spine. He thought about his sister. She was his last remaining relative. His life insurance would be a rather neat sum.

"You've been pestering my favourite rock band lately," she started. He felt like someone was walking on his grave. "And you failed solving the mystery of the bloodless corpses. You couldn't even hypothesise. That makes you a boring, pathetic jerk."

The next moment, she had his left arm in her right hand. His left arm. It took a few seconds for his brain to analyse the situation and adjust to it. Blood started to thickly drip from his now empty sleeve. A soaring pain flooded the surprised nerve endings at the point of severance. He contemplated the dark blue flannel sleeve hanging miserably on his left side, dribbling red.

"Looking for something?"

His very own left hand slammed across his face. He stumbled, would have fallen down to the hard ground again, a hand-space away from her previous victim, without the vampire's steady grasp on his right arm. That was: when he still had a right arm attached to his right shoulder with a fully functional joint. He screamed with unbelievable pain and endless terror. She discarded both arms like used matches or empty gum wrappers. She let him wander around a bit. Watched his despair, his head rotating from one side to the other, his wide, pale blue eyes, paler than ever, willing the sleeves crumpling with gushing blood to grow arms again.

Then she purposefully walked to him. She held the collar of his jacket with two hands, thoughtfully, before letting go. With a long nail, she slowly scratched a perfect circle on his chest. She looked at the terror filling his eyes. He vaguely thought her smile was devilish.

Because she had all the time in the world, she pushed her strong fingers at a pace allowing excruciating painful crushing of the ribs, before pulling out Madison's heart madly pumping blood. With horror he watched the swift rotation of her wrist, severing the various arteries. His last thought went for his sister.

* * * * * * *

Joy scattered the dismembered parts of D. I. Madison all over London, giving dog walkers and gay cruisers equal opportunities for gruesome discoveries (she had always favoured equal opportunities). One arm in Hampstead Heath. A torso in Brockwell Park. A head in the Hackney Marsh. A heart at the very centre of Covent Garden.

Teddy Longhorn's bloodless corpse? Floating belly up on the Serpentine River.

### CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Joy hadn't thought about Toni since their last encounter. Maybe last no-encounter was a more appropriate term in that case. It went back to the early nineties, something like barely the day before yesterday for an immortal being. And now, there Joy was, sitting up in her obsolete coffin, feeling the sun still bright and shiny outside, and thinking about the older vampire, twice Joy's age maybe, give and take a few decades. Joy didn't think about people once they were out of her existence. She didn't like people. She roamed among humans, preying on them, drinking the life force out of their veins. Vampires being mostly solitary creatures –of course, she had heard about covens, but that was for weak fledglings–, she had only met a tiny number of her kind, generally keeping the upper hand, and it was enough to know the stories about the ancient vampires easily passing for humans and killing or terrorising younger ones just for fun.

She had noticed Toni at one of the many always crowded gigs she attended back in the last decade of the twentieth century. At the time she used to only haunt the underground music scene, favouring punk bands for their trashed audiences whose individuals hardly anyone missed when they stopped showing up. Of course it was easy for Joy to be liked. Her diminutive outfits always attracted attention. She looked the part of the middle-class, twenty-something young woman in search of a bit of rough and that always turned somebody on. It was a wild and greedy time: up to three meals a night.

It was a notorious indie rock band going by the name of Fireheads and Toni looked like any punk girl: tight, ripped jeans; doc martens; studded leather bike jacket with numerous zips and badges over a cropped, dark T-shirt; spiky, black hair and a few earrings. Tall and skinny, she was an attractive and androgynous-looking scarecrow. Joy immediately liked the green eyes, even if those green eyes were solely focused on the lead guitar of the band, who herself had blonde hair forever flying all over the mad rhythms and always falling over grey eyes lost in another world.

Joy's attractive prey didn't look a day beyond her nineteen years. She was dancing in the middle of the mass of writhing bodies, towering over the wimin, eye to eye with the men. Like Joy. Dancing very close to the stage and always staring at the oblivious musician.

Music pounding in her ears, hips swinging with the rhythm, Joy moved her knee-high boots with each beat, inching her way closer and closer to this punk girl, who didn't seem to sweat in her leather. The song ended and the audience roared. The singer, a scantily-clad female, shouted some obscenities to the crowd who kept on roaring, and the drummer, androgynous and powerful, counted everyone into the next wild number.

The vampire with the long black and white mohican used the sudden movement of a punter on speed to innocently step on her prey's well-protected feet. Green Eyes looked at her automatically. Joy smiled her apology, made eye contact and weaved her mesmerising spell unto the apparently unsuspecting young woman. Joy kept on smiling, confident in her power, arrogant. Green Eyes looked at the lead guitar who forever ignored her anyway, looked back at the gorgeous creature staring at her and they started dancing together.

It was always easy to guide a victim out of the crowd, into a deserted corner, like the ladies' loo. Those happened to be relatively clean, having been repainted the previous week, and Joy had no trouble to lead Green Eyes into the graffitted, white room. She even let Toni gently push her against the wall, so sure she was of her dinner. But as she was smiling and smiling wider to slowly reveal her fangs, the glazed look left the green eyes of the scarecrow, who started grinning as widely as Joy, and before Joy really got a glimpse of Toni's fangs, a sudden rush of energy engulfed her, she read cynicism in the now laughing eyes and truth exploded in her mind, a creeping fear gnawing at her guts. Her smile froze and died. Toni was no innocent human being, she was way older than her looks, she was an ancient vampire and Joy would be lucky if she was not destroyed by morning or not totally insane by the time she reached her coffin, if she ever reached it.

A wild grin lighting her face, her fingers playing in Joy's silky hair, the ancient vampire buried her nose in Joy's bare neck, smelling the fragrance of her skin (Joy was into jasmine perfume). The strong, predatory hands with thin and bony fingers slid down to the shoulders and the upper arms, while the face slowly and gently rubbed up the neck, into the soft hair. Too terrified to move and defend herself, Joy felt the wet tip of Toni's tongue trace her earlobe.

Toni pulled back. Joy hated being played with, hated not being in control, hated the uncertainty of her current predicament. With a voice matching the amusement on her face, Toni said:

"Such a sweet vampire child, more powerful than the number of her years. Your maker must have been mighty. And if I judge right by your arrogance, I would be surprised if you had given him many years to enjoy your company."

She caressed Joy's hair dreamily. Joy, still frozen with fear, was expecting her to strike with fangs at any second, even if Toni's skin looked like she had already nicely fed. Ancient vampire killing for fun would be no novelty. There was almost love in her voice when the mighty predator spoke again:

"I am in a good mood tonight, therefore I let you be and hunt, but remember my power. Remember that I am sparing you because, who knows, I might need you. One night."

And when the ancient vampire kissed the younger one, it was deep and tender and loving and warm.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I really like this band."

With a mocking bow as mocking as her green eyes, she left Joy still leaning against the wall and wondering about the reality of reality itself. The band was still raging on stage and the sound was actually a lot clearer in the toilets, as she had often noticed. Now alone, she started to relax and slowly regaining control of her emotions, she felt anger and hunger sweep the terror away. She was not stupid. She knew she stood no chance against Green Eyes. It was weird. Since becoming a vampire, since having her maker destroyed, she had always been the mightiest vampire in her vicinity, no one ever challenging her dominion. And tonight, someone had duped her, played a trick on her. But the ancient vampire had not destroyed her, not driven her to insanity. She had merely given her a lesson.

* * * * * * *

The two vampires haunting the same scene, Joy got to meet Toni many times. The older, but more youthful-looking vampire would greet her with a playful hug and sometimes a light nibble on the neck that Joy couldn't help but long for. She wouldn't have minded more one-to-one moments but Toni was definitely head over heels for the blonde musician.

They would hunt on the same gigs with no objections from Toni, as long as they wanted different preys. The only time they clashed, Joy bowed down. Her elder was not into sharing. Joy noticed that when the Fireheads were due on stage, Toni had already fed.

She witnessed Toni's obsessive love for the grey-eyed lead guitar of the Fireheads grow and grow.

When the musician eventually noticed the scarecrow, she stared at her long and hard. Because Toni was the almost perfect doppelganger of her guitar hero, the totally androgynous front person of the seventies' U. S. iconic rock band Hell For Leather.

Joy witnessed Toni weaving a friendship with the musician named Dee-Dee without the use of any mesmerising power. She witnessed Toni giving the musician a one and only present: a customised electric guitar that Toni had made herself and played back in her seventies' glorious hay-days. And Dee-Dee knew, from spending many nights on the unofficial Hell For Leather websites, that this was The Guitar of her Hero. Or an uncannily good copy? No, impossible. But how could Toni have come across such a genuine article?

Joy witnessed the friendship take a romantic turn. She witnessed Toni's growing impatience and the subsequent mistake. Toni made Dee-Dee into a vampire, against the musician's will, and got rewarded with the new vampire's hate and immediate disappearance.

In her hour of distress the ancient vampire who was actually not so ancient, only a couple of centuries and a few years old, turned to Joy. Their acquaintance took a very bizarre turn. Very bizarre in Joy's eyes. She found herself grudgingly sharing her old-fashioned coffin with a distraught and suddenly needy Toni. Joy would go out and hunt every night. Back to her lair before dawn, she would let the recluse Toni bite the tender skin over her jugular and feed in her embrace. Night after night after night.

Given the choice, she would have never let any vampire feed upon her, but she felt so attracted to Toni that she could only comply, never mind the passivity of the role, never mind that Toni could have just drained her, destroyed her, mercilessly.

Joy felt compassion, and even more, for her distraught kin. She found herself really liking Toni. One night, regaining her lair, she discovered the attractive scarecrow had left. Gone. It was like she had never ever been there, never lay in the narrow coffin, never curled up in Joy's arms, never kissed and bitten Joy's neck, never cried tears of blood in Joy's black and white hair.

She felt a sudden emptiness, a sudden despondency clawing at the heart she didn't really have. Loneliness. Tears came to her eyes but she didn't cry. She understood Toni somehow. Toni had felt lonely, and at times unbearably lonely. So lonely that when she had so deeply fallen for the Firehead musician, she had let impatience get the best of her. And she had lost. Something was now bitterly amiss in Joy's existence.

* * * * * * *

Was it why she was now remembering the one person she had wanted to forget. Her attraction to Toni then had been as strong as her attraction for Sid now.

_INTERLUDE_ (By courtesy of the author Sid Wasgo)

ODE TO DEATH

A glimpse at a time you had given me

Coming so close but staying so far

A shadow on the horizon, silhouette on the background

I wanted you with a passion

But you kept saying NO

I desired you with the might of my youth

But you kept sidestepping

Denying me your embrace

Your door was closed to me

Deaf to my anxious knocking

Years riddled my soul

I know you're standing by

I can feel your presence

I am waiting for your coming

For the light touch of your loving

I am waiting for you

### CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Not dancing for once, standing on the edge of the crowded official dance floor, just next to the pony-tailed woman selling the band's paraphernalia, but watching the enthralled audience totally overcome by the powerful voice of the charismatic singer. It was not a song Sid liked but, nonetheless, the number was working wonders with the enthusiastic masses. It was what they wanted to hear. Second Look was a rock band tailoring lyrics especially for their groupies, regardless of the performers' private lives. It was the secret of their success, and Sid understood it. If she studied the band's inner workings it was to understand where she had failed. No, it was not failure, it was a different choice. Sid had chosen to write the songs she wanted to hear, unaware of how much of a minority she was. Despite her personal peculiarities, she had tasted power, as much as Terri the other brown-eyed singer now owned. And Sid would never forget how easy it had been. She admired the band. She admired Terri for her voice, her strength, her confidence. She more than admired Dawn the grey-eyed keyboard player for her talent, her quietness and her passion for music. And didn't mind giving up her own stumbling performing career. Something Second Look had unknowingly taught Sid: never deny yourself who you are, or who you were, always remember and be proud, no matter your next choice. And Sid remembered, she had tasted power, too, and it had felt good.

It had been one of these little ironies Life dealt with such expertise. At the time, five years back, Sid used to haunt a local dive on a weekly basis for a so-called acoustic night where she'd play her electric guitar. The MC, himself a rock singer showcasing his own band, had required from performers to do only love songs for the forthcoming Valentine's Day. An alcoholic singer, who was quite fond of Sid's iconoclastic tunes, commented: "Of course, you don't have any!" It slightly irritated her. It felt like a challenge. Did she need love songs? No. They were too easy. Let's have a holiday then. As it turned out, no one bothered following the request. But Sid. She chose one of her own: "And The Stars And The Moons". She chose her favourite by Melissa Etheridge: "You Can Sleep While I Drive". And she finally chose one of her ancient and dusty numbers: "I Won't Be The One". Because she knew she was the best for love songs anyway. Nothing to brag about. It was so easy peasy. No challenge. But there was one thing she didn't know, one thing she would have never expected because she was so used to people labelling her hard-core punk and heavy metal. She sang as she always did, with her soul and her heart, with her might and her voice. And the audience stood up. Silent, transfixed, bespelled. She had them in the palm of her hand. She owned them. It was power. But not power to take, manipulate, control and twist. It was power at its best. It was real power. It was love.

The name of Doris Day broke into her daydreaming. She grimaced. Please, Terri, not again. But Terri was hell-bent into ending the night with a few corny tunes and Dawn was up for it, too. Sid was not quite sure how it was going to affect her. Two weeks ago she had started reducing her daily dose of antidepressants and she was already feeling more sensitive to her surroundings and the events in her surroundings.

In the middle of Terri's enthusiastic introduction, Dawn squeezed in that Doris Day loved animals and Terri added that Doris was the mother of s/m. Sid briefly wondered if the "Que Sera, Sera" singer was still alive. Terri kept on talking. About this new friend of hers living near by, who had promised to lend her, her personal whip if she would sing some specific tune whose title the writer didn't catch in the general din. Terri's new friend, a leather-clad woman (or was it rubber?), stood up and handed over the aforementioned item. The crowd was already in stitches. Sid felt uncomfortable. She didn't like the look of the whip. Terri, showing the phallus-shaped handle, declared to the audience:

"I don't know what to do with that!"

More peals of laughter. Sid was not sure if the humour had vaguely caught up with her or if her vague smile was a nervous twitch. Then Terri pretended the handle of the whip was the microphone and Dawn really started hitting the keys. Was the audience laughing because it was really funny, or was it because Terri was greatly charismatic? Sid wondered, but didn't laugh.

Terri was singing, generously whirling the black whip over her head, totally unaware of Dawn's behaviour. Dawn was rather weary about the length of leather lashing about. She was leaning as far as possible as playing the keyboards permitted, wondering if she could avoid the threatening lashes forever. To the patrons' great delight.

Suddenly, Dawn stopped playing, removed Terri's mic stand to the confines of the opposite end of the stage, grabbed the shoulders of the bewildered singer now silent but still open-mouthed, moved her to the same direction, and went back to her keyboard-playing.

Terri, still miles from understanding the musician's utterly baffling behaviour, tried to move her mic stand back to the middle of the stage. But Dawn rushed to intervene again, the audience enjoying the unplanned vaudeville. Unfortunately for Sid, the vaudeville was only starting, even if they never finished this song, and it left her with open-ended thoughts about s/m rushing and screaming all through her mind. She just didn't know what her position was on the subject. She only knew her lack of comfort. While Second Look engulfed into their next Doris Day cover, some punters engaged in a bout of dirty dancing.

"Get them off the floor!" Shouted Terri in between lyrics, but no one paid heed to her words, amalgamating them with her collection of saucy puns.

And the dancers, a man and a woman, who had never met before, but were both familiar with fetish clubs, kept on dancing close and drunkenly, hands following the rhythm to body parts Sid wouldn't dream of touching in the middle of a public place. By the end of the song, the two dancers were on the floor, the woman on top of the man, and kissed with a hint of passion, despite their different sexual inclinations.

Terri, bemused, couldn't help laughing.

"Dawn, have you seen that?"

But Dawn had been playing her keyboards, as oblivious to the world as music always got her. And Sid felt hate for the world, and confusion. The confusion, so ever-present in her life, the confusion that bruised her emotions, pushed her from one end of the spectrum to the next, jostled her from one thought to the next, how am I supposed to behave, the Olympic gold medal and greatest favourite of the competition. If she hadn't been standing frozen cold on the side of the dance floor, she would have puked.

### CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Thankfully, Sid didn't spend her days thinking about every little detail of the Second Look's gigs. Besides, she had better to do, in her characteristically disorderly ways, than tossing Doris Day round and round her mind. She was more into losing herself into the memory of her encounter with Death, over and over again. To the point that she could hardly think about anything else, hardly dream about her favourite keyboard player, let alone remember to take the reduced dose of the prescribed drugs. What was the point of enhancing her natural mania when all she wanted was Death herself? What was it that the copper-skinned woman had told her: she'd have to put up with the side effects of her SSRi a while longer? Well, no thanx, Darling. The music could go on but there were things she was not willing to put up with.

The memory of this extraordinary meeting felt surreal. Sid was getting to wonder if it had really happened. Or maybe it was just hallucinations, courtesy of the bloody anti-depressants. Ha ha, anti-depressants, what a joke. Only one thing would ever soothe the pain inside. It was not a thing, it was not human either, it was Death herself.

So, the hell with rumours, even if creating rumours had a fun side to it, the only one Sid had the hots for was Death, again and again Death, Death who knew how to please her, Death and her pocket computer, Death and her Native American looks, Death who probably was too busy to care.

Drat, the effects of the drugs were really fading away now. Gone the manic talent, gone the attractive shine of her aura. The rock singer had just about said hi at the latest gig and Joy the vampire, if she was a vampire, if she was really named Joy, hadn't appeared.

Sid felt confused. She was losing touch with reality, losing her ground, doubting. Maybe if was just a fantasy. Maybe vampires didn't exist, and thus couldn't offer death on a silver tray. Or maybe she didn't want to die after all; and her belief in suicidal tendencies and immortality were delusions. She remembered writing in her diary: _The people who kill themselves are the ones who want a life so badly but cannot take anything for granted anymore._

But Death....... Hang on a sec. Maybe, just maybe, there was a way. If Sid could talk to Joy and convince her to stage a "scene", would Death turn up and call their bluff?

Another gig came and went. Sid was still focused on the elusive and extraordinary keyboard player while the rock singer oscillated like a wild pendulum between tequila and Chardonnay. Sid had recycled one of these things hanging from cats' collars into an earring. Unscrewed, the device would reveal a tiny strip of paper rolled tightly. On it, Sid had written: _If found, call Death, she'll know what to do with Sid._

Sleep started to elude her, hinting at a different kind of mania, a mild strain of insanity.

* * * * * * *

It was the Black Crow again. Joy was wearing one of her usual little black numbers. It suited her hair cascading down her back like a night waterfall. It suited her long legs sheathed in knee-high boots. She was scanning the packed venue for a potential prey. She could certainly feed without leaving trails of bloodless corpses for the cops to decipher, but the kill was a thrill. And Second Look's fans were always such tasty morsels.

She was considering the purchase of an alibi drink when her eyes caught the unmistakable mohican of the writer, still green even if paler. Usual combat trousers and biker boots, tattoos down both sleeveless arms. With the hint of a smile curling her lips at the corners, Joy watched Sid studying carefully the animated crowd. The hunger struck more fiercely. But this tasty prey was forbidden, under the protection of Death herself, and probably Life, too. Joy snarled silently, resentfully. Sid's eyes suddenly reached her, and stared, intensely. Joy stared back, amused and frustrated. Though shortsighted, the writer had spotted her on the other side of the crowd and was now making her way towards the vampire. Joy felt intrigued. What could the woman want? She turned away and walked to the bar. By the time she was proffered a glass of satisfyingly red Bordeaux, a remarkable colour, Sid was at her elbow, expectation in her deep, brown eyes.

"Well?" inquired the vampire. "What did you track me down for?"

Sid kept silent, suddenly fascinated by the gypsy eyes, suddenly wanting more than just a word. She had a lifetime to entertain before sinking into Death's warm embrace. Why not....... But why not what. The supernatural magnetism of the vampire felt suddenly overwhelming.

"Cat got your tongue?" Joy's voice sounded icy. She moved away, thinking that maybe she would go for a taste of the sexy and charismatic rock singer and forever dissipate her disputable musical inclinations. She could sense Sid's presence at her back, tailing her. What the hell did she want?

On stage, the keyboards roared to life, matched by the powerful voice of the red-haired woman. It was a powerful and animal rhythm, calling for the feet to dance and dance. Joy turned back to Sid.

"Come on, let's have a dance."

She abandoned her glass of wine on the last table and grabbed Sid by the front of her T-shirt and gently, even so firmly, pulled her to the empty dance floor. No one ever wanted to be the first to swirl and whirl to the music. The floor was theirs for the taking. The beat was theirs to course their veins like an unending and undulating snake.

And their dance was like an essential and intimate component of the song, for the onlookers to watch, as powerfully attractive to the eyes as the performers.

They were moving very close, without touching, teasing and tantalising, never smiling, ignoring the audience. Just dancing, hips swerving. Sid going down on her knees and coming back up to meet Joy's eyes and snake around her.

At the end of the song, when they stepped back to the edge of the crowd, the vampire disappeared before the writer could utter a word.

* * * * * * *

Sid stayed until the end of the gig, dancing on every number, regardless of the pace, disappointed by Joy's abrupt departure. When the last note of the last song eventually died in the throat of the amazing singer and out of the speakers, Sid didn't have the heart to wait and catch a hug from the performers. She slithered out of the pub, feeling down, feeling let down. _Damn, where the hell had Joy gone to._ It was no longer a need to stage a return of Death that inhabited her, it was a longing for the vampire's presence, proximity and magnetism. She turned left out of the door, hands in her pockets, the strap of her helmet locked around her left wrist, heading towards the faithful bike waiting for her just round the next corner. Sweat cooling down on her skin, she was hardly aware of the quietness of the night and the slight breeze.

She looked up at the corner of the pub and never had to acknowledge Joy. With non-human speed the vampire had already grabbed her by the shoulders and swept her away to a dark corner of the parking lot backing the venue. When she breathed in next, she was pressed hard against the wall by Joy's body, her intake of oxygen short by obligation.

"So," the vampire whispered with a silky voice, a finger playfully tracing the writer's nose. "I believe you were looking for me."

Sid let the finger go on and follow the lines of her lips, feeling the attentiveness of her body, waiting, waiting, with an almost choking knot of anticipation in her throat, desperately wanting more than a finger tracing her features.

"Cat still got your tongue?" The vampire's eyes followed the playful finger along the edge of the jaw, slowly down the side of the throat. Sid's eyes were riveted to the pouting mouth of the predator. The finger seemed to like her jugular vein.

Joy suddenly looked Sid in the eyes. Her voice struck icily:

"I'm still waiting for an answer. My patience is wearing thin."

It would have been so easy, to slightly move her head forward, and Sid's lips would have touched the vampire's lips, and kissed.

Motionless, Joy studied the brown eyes. She smiled, slowly, amused, and moved a step back, pacing herself:

"You want me." A rippling of silent laughter. "What about Death, my darling, isn't she the love of your life?" More rippling laughter, but not as silent.

Sid took a deep breath. Felt Joy's powerful right hand around her throat, tight. Wondered if it was time to feel fear, but she couldn't feel any fear. The hand released its hold.

"Aren't you ever scared? Or at least a tiny bit frightened?" An index finger and a thumb slightly apart from each other in front of the brown eyes.

As swiftly, her tongue was on Sid's throat, licking with soft strokes. Sid breathed into the long, black and white hair. She felt the sharp tip of a fang on her skin, teasing.

Then, the vampire's hands went down to her hips, the arms circled her waist, pulling her to the almost cold body while the fangs ripped open the shoulder of her T-shirt and kisses burning like fire started to dance on the unveiled skin. Sid gasped, her own hands moved up Joy's back, her fingertips touched the bare shoulder blades and passion swept them away, deeper into the darkness.

* * * * * * *

Deeply amused, the blonde, short-haired, muscled woman grinned, her eyes riveted to the computer screen.

"Death!" She eventually exclaimed. "I've got something for you here!"

A copper-skinned woman with raven hair falling down the waist of her jeans outfit looked up from another screen where names were filed in neat order.

"What is it, Life?"

"Come and see! A good friend of ours is learning how to have a good time!"

Death joined Life in front of the monitor and smiled, too.

"About time," she muttered.

"Do you really think they're made for each other?" Teased the blonde.

"At least temporarily."

"Good. Now that we don't have to worry about this writer anymore-"

"Temporarily."

"For a while, we can deal with more serious business."

* * * * * * *

Sid opened her eyes slowly. Her bedroom was still dark, courtesy of the heavy, black curtains. At first, she didn't move. Trying to remember the dream, and remembering it so well. Was it a dream? It felt so real. She breathed slowly. She felt a wetness between her thighs, grimaced. With her left hand she investigated, brought back the fingers to her nose and sniffed. Yep, sure it was, her period was just a bit early. At the same time she realised someone was sharing the space of her bed, still entirely covered by the black velvet quilt. Her companion insinuated a hand between Sid's legs, and soon, Sid felt the vampire's tongue licking the menstrual blood. Blood is blood.

### TONI

_A sequel by W. Freedreamer Tinkanesh_

(Not dated)

(This was written just before Sid's first encounter with Joy, and thus also with Death)

I am an outsider, she wrote in her diary. No matter how much I long to belong, the label still clings true and rings like destiny. What about vampires, werewolves, slayers, wizards. Do they have an inside where to recoup their losses. Or are they forever loners with no societies or clusters, where to share and boost on the latest kill, the latest trick, the latest moon. I am in and I am out, she kept writing on the white pages of her black book. I am no longer the simple audience, the innocent punter, walking into the music venue. But I am not an insider of the groupies' circle. I walk in and I feel like running out, to escape from all their heat, thoughts, energy, auras. I'm trying so hard to keep them out that a single variation can make me jump out of my skin. I'm trying so hard to keep what is my identity when they talk to me and intrude into my being. It's so hard to tune them out. I wish I was a vampire, I wish I was a werewolf, to express outside the difference inside. I won't give in. I'm struggling, they keep giving out. And the music comes out, spreads out in the enclosed space, spilling out of the worn-out speakers, it comes into me, infiltrates through my very pores, courses through my veins. Once it's in, I cannot get it out. No matter how much I shake and swing. I'm possessed. I'm no longer myself. They can manipulate me like a puppet dangling from a bunch of strings. I am at the mercy of the voice roaring into the mic, I am at the mercy of the fingers running across the keyboards. They're inside me, I'm outside. I can only watch on, helplessly.

Of course, I try to fight it off. But it is useless. I would resist the mesmerizing gaze of a vampire. I would prevent a werewolf to sink fangs into my flesh. But I am powerless with music. I am inside and I am outside.

A wizard passes by on his broomstick, oblivious. He is an insider of the world of magic. And I am an outsider.

### CHAPTER ONE

Her white shirt billowing in the wind, she was taking a walk down Railton Road. Despite the early hour of the evening there was no living soul crossing her path. She was always up and out at dusk, desperately trying to catch up with a life taken away from her, still refusing the unlife she had never asked for. Despite the mildness of the weather, people preferred the winter in central-heated indoors. She couldn't care less for the cold. A pair of tight, faded blue jeans revealed the shape of her elegant legs while her shirt, which would have perfectly fitted with a tuxedo, opened on a black and blue dragon hugging a red sweatshirt. She was as thin and gangly as the last time she had graced the streets of London, 22 and angry, a dozen years or so ago. Flagellating her expressionless face with wild strands of her blond hair, the wind was relentlessly trying to grab at the carrier bag her iron fingers wouldn't let go off. At last, her grey eyes spotted the shop window surrounded by green concrete. She had found the dry cleaner recommended by her landlady. She pushed the door in, ringing an ancient bell.

A man looked up from a grey blouse spread out over the plastic-coated counter. He smiled engagingly at his prospective costumer. She didn't return the smile. He persisted, as his profession required –costumers are kings and queens:

"Good evening, Madam, what can I do for you?"

His pale yellow-brown skin and his grey receding hair gave him fifty-odd years for the telling. Dealing with textiles, he generally wore an elegant three-piece suit of bottle-green wool and a matching tie, often discarding the jacket to feel more comfortable. He swept away the previous object of his attention, making room for the three shirts she shook out of her carrier bag. He noticed that the white shirt she had on was of the same cut. A masculine cut.

Having worked as a dry cleaner his whole life, he could identify any stain on any piece of garment. Having grown up and lived in the same area his whole life, he knew not to ask any questions.

The brown stains were blood, but not the blood of the wearer: someone else's, which had finely, spottily and sloppily splattered the otherwise mostly immaculate, white shirts.

"I can have them cleaned and ready for collection in twenty-four hours."

"Thank you." Her voice carried confidence and power. And coldness.

"Until then!"

She was already turning around and walking out the door, her mind ahead of her, wandering in the past. A dozen of years were nothing to a vampire, even to such a young one. She remembered being full of life, she remembered enjoying the company of her friends, she remembered loving the sound of her electric guitar deep into the night. She remembered taking stages over with the Fireheads, the female singer strutting her scantily-clad stuff, the drummer androgynous and powerful, and the bass player –the one who stayed the longest, the last one she played with when still a living being– jumping all over the place. She still remembered the electric fever, the sweat dripping through her uncombed hair, her clothes sticking uncomfortably to her skin. She still remembered the screaming crowd, the blasts of feedback through the monitors, the flashes of cameras blinding her eyes. But she didn't need her eyes to play wild riffs, her nimble fingers always knew their way between the frets. The music thrashing punk rhythms entwined with blues pickings, soul tones woven with savage rocking, always magic. She could still feel her eardrums vibrate; she could still hear the singer's voice whisper, scream, muse, moan, climb up and fall down the scales. A shout, a fade in and out and in-between. The body collapsing in front of the drum kit, crawling between the bass player's feet, dragging dust, sweeping ashes and beer splashes, a hand rising to grab a leg, a microphone stand, a speaker, a cymbal that would crash infernally and ring mercilessly in the guitar player's ears. The drummer would beat and bash her kit, bending brushes, breaking rods, and hurling sticks. While the bass player, her hands two blurs, would sometimes amazingly end up almost, but only almost, falling off Everest-like speakers.

It used to be her life, the only life she had ever desired. And one night, a betrayal, two sharp canines piercing the fragile skin of her neck, drawing blood and life force....... If Toni had offered immortality, Dee-Dee would have turned it down. Toni never asked; she took, selfishly, greedily, she imposed her will over Dee-Dee's.

Rage and hate were still coursing through Dee-Dee's veins, rushing through her arteries. Twelve years were nothing when you had immortality, you could dwell with anger for centuries and it would never be a waste of time.

She suddenly realized her relentless feet had reached the morphing of Railton Road into Atlantic Road, where nightlife had started and daylife was still lingering. Time for dinner.

### CHAPTER TWO

January felt mild and inspiring. Days had this energy they only provide after Winter Solstice. Even if nights still crushed the afternoons obnoxiously early, days were slowly lengthening and Sid felt like waking up, shaking away the sluggish coat of the previous year. The weather was windy, but mild and a song was gently tickling her mind....... I was a precocious kid not sure in which mould to fit....... Her 14-eyelet, black boots were once again taking her to the local charity shop, bumping her into hurrying people on the busy main street. They were walking on, ignoring her. She felt invisible and right now preferred so. She could always do better without people's attention. Her path crossed the one of a pair of constables, more exactly a PC younger than Sid and a fresh-faced WPC hardly taller than her. What were they doing, patrolling outside their usual perimeter? They were chatting away, unaware of Sid. Their usual perimeter extended widthwise from the local library (too small for Sid's needs) to the tube station where ticket touters stood at attention; lengthwise down the market street where the illegal trade of DVD's and cigarettes was exceptionally quiet for a Saturday afternoon; and occasionally down the parallel awkward artery, when they felt like disturbing drug-dealers' lives.

Sid arrived at the crossroad near the local police station. _The building might be the explanation for the two cops' wandering, Sid thought; they had tea break there and drank some insipid coffee dispensed by a vending machine especially designed for them._

...... _. I was a precocious kid not sure in which mould to fit,_

When I realized my body was not what I thought it was.......

More potential lyrics tickling her brain cells, Sid noticed the change of lights and stepped onto the street with two other pedestrians. The charity shop squatted a corner, unassuming. Their profits benefited children available for adoption and foster care. Sid stepped in.

...... _. I tried to grow up as different as I could,_

It turned out that I was good at generally missing the mark.......

Sid walked between racks of clothes feminine enough to make her skin crawl with primeval disgust. She reached the overloaded bookshelves and almost immediately, her instinct guided her to a hefty novel: "Sunshine" by Robin McKinley. She had never heard of it, but the attraction felt very strong. She picked it up and contemplated the illustration on the cover: a distant house on the opposite shore of a lake. She stared at it a moment, trying to guess hidden secrets, forgetful of the world around her. She turned the book over after awhile and read the comment on the back cover....... A vampire novel.

Why would she read a vampire novel when she was sleeping with the genuine artifact? But the call of the book was very strong. She decided to buy it, wondering if Joy had read it. Where was Joy? In the middle of a day, certainly sleeping away from the sun, of course. What was she up to these days? She hadn't seen her for at least a week. Joy had for habit to come and go as she pleased, never missing the menstruating time of Sid's female body, showing up every now and then for some─

Another item caught Sid's attention, "The Dream Pack", driving away the previous thoughts, grabbing center stage. She picked up the bulky volume with clumsy hands. It was not a volume per se, it was a combination of apparatuses, all the necessities you'll ever need to work with your dreams─ the author dixit. She kneeled down to the floor, edging to the left end of the shelving unit. She dropped Robin McKinley's novel to free the various parts of the Dream Pack. She had heard about it and thought it too fancy and too light to be of any use to her. Forgive her for being such an advanced dreamer! Even so, she felt great curiosity towards the two hardback books. One read on the cover: "The Dream Journal: a record of your dreams". She wasn't fond of the illustration: a childish interpretation of a dream, pretending to be as old as a Pompeii mosaic (gifted child). The other book was actually a folder containing "The Dream Book", 20 "Dream Cards", a "Dream Eye Pillow", to "Dream more vividly and more memorably". She opened the folder, to escape from the cow running away from a river on the cover. Someone had added colourful stars to the uniform blue of the cardboard. She read the instructions to stuff the Dream Eye Pillow. Rosemary, Sage, Thyme, Lavender, Basil. She picked out a Dream Card: Dream Action #1. A giant goose with a human sitting astride her neck, flying between clouds, over castles, hills and trees. At the back of the card: an interpretation and a visualization exercise.

Still oblivious of the people around her, Sid picked up the Dream Journal. Hard cover to make it last. She opened it to a dedication. Someone named Toni had stuck more colourful stars of various sizes on another uniform, blue background. Toni had written, with confident and round letters: _"Dear Dee-Dee, always remember to dream your life and live your dreams. I wish you the most beautiful dreams in the entire universe."_ A few pages later, Dee-Dee had written a dream. Her handwriting looked hurried and unsure.

Sid looked up. The world crashed into view. A child of five tumbled over a book carelessly left on the floor by another punter. His hands broke the headbanging, but he still cried out for his mother.

Sid put the Dream Pack back together, checked the price sticker, decided it was her lucky day and it was always better not to push her luck: homebound she was, where a novel started recently awaited. Slightly shaking inside. Carrying two treasures. A plastic bag turned out to be a great bonus, as raindrops were now smashing all over the pavement. She got thoroughly drenched in the next minute. Who knows how long it would last. She didn't, she never watched the weather forecast.

It would be dry in a coffin.......

### CHAPTER THREE

In the black box of her room, Joy stirred, her curves shaped by a black silk sheet. Night was slowly insinuating fingers of consciousness into her brain, coaxing cells into action one after the other, methodically. She rolled onto her right side, grabbing a silky pillow and hugging it tightly, her mind reaching full function, cold, circling around her awakening hunger. She heard a gentle moan, felt a soft ripple in the air. One of the ghosts sharing the room was greeting her. They were the souls of two faithful hounds that, acknowledging her dominion over all canids, had attached themselves to her, ready to snarl at the mere whiff of a potential intruder.

Relinquishing her hold on the pillow, Joy sat up in one fluid movement, and considered the next ten hours. She vaguely considered a few clubs north, south and centre. Somehow, the West End was appealing to her senses. A rich smell of blood invaded her nostrils with anticipation. She pushed away the sheet and left her round bed for a quick shower. Whoever had first claimed that water was an etheric eraser and vampires were etheric beings, had forgotten to notice that back in those archaic times, not that many people could swim. Incidentally, Joy could, even if she hadn't bothered for a few decades.

The round bed occupying centre stage in her room was a recent acquisition, something she had started to yearn for after her first taste of Sid's menstrual blood. After a night spent in the green-mohicaned writer's bed, the narrowness of coffins had exploded in her brain. Her black ebony coffin, soberly lined with soft, purple velvet, had suddenly become incongruously obsolete. She had subsequently discovered that housewives had not ditched their chintz in conveniently waiting skips (besides, what was so wrong with chintz? Joy didn't know, she had never had chintz), but gay men and vampires – yes, vampires! – were Ikea's best customers. So much for the appeal of Swedish curves to the masses. Her coffin relegated in one of her vast closets, she had embraced the sci-fi age and gone for a sophisticated, but soberly black, computer with flat monitor, scanner and faster-than-light laser printer. She never printed – nor scanned – anything, but in her self-induced, insomniac days and unsociable nights, she would avidly surf the worldwide web, discovering places where she had never gone before.

She stepped out of the shower, her dripping body wrapped in a huge, fluffy towel, and sat on her wonderful bed that didn't know lust nor dreams, drying her long black and white mohican with a smaller towel. As every evening, she had cut her excess hair and readjusted her white extensions. Fashion had been a somewhat different kettle of fish, back in her living days.

Her room was still pitch black, windows well blacked-out, her eyes well adjusted to the lack of contrasts. She considered sitting at the computer and ordering some dark red silk sheets, and smiled at the absurd need for a colour in a room where the only splash of light was the electric blue of her computer screen. She got up, dropping the towels, and still naked, but dry, sat in the corner dedicated to everything email and website.

She clicked the monitor on and her smile widened. She opened the one email she had expected, her tongue gently testing the sharpness of her fangs. Dinner date tonight. The few bags of blood she kept in a small fridge would stay there, until the next urge to spend a night in, but out on the net. Or until the next urge to indulge in a literary orgy. One wall was layered with books. Another wall was a huge wardrobe gathering the black little numbers she favored in the summer and the black gothic outfits for the winter clubs. Breeches and wide sleeves with narrow, lacy cuffs. Tight leather waistcoats and high-heeled boots matching the curves of her legs and climbing up to her knees. Just definitely dressed to kill.

Dress to kill? New Scotland Yard was still failing to pick up her trail despite D.I. Madison's untimely demise. She had slightly changed her diet. She loved London and intended to keep on coming and going as she pleased. The new deal had satisfying drawbacks.

* * * * * * *

The meeting point was a lesbian venue, a chic and fashionable bar in the West End, with a selective clientele and a discreet outside. Joy rang a bell and the female bouncer, smaller than her, but more muscular –this said, nothing compared to the strength of a vampire–, let her in. The vampire walked in with the confidence of a regular client and took in the long room. The world was her oyster and she quite liked her first impression of the premises. On the right-hand side, a long bar shining with chromes and brimming with alcohol and cocktails. On the left-hand side, alcoves sheltering plush sofas and armchairs of black leather, and intimate encounters of various kinds. Perfect for vampires. She smiled with satisfaction. Now, why was it her first time in this heavenly set up? Oh yes, of course. Like Lestat de Lioncourt, she had a taste for a dash of sordid. There ended the comparison: Lestat favored thieves, she favored rock chicks. Right on cue, a compiled sound track was playing American female singers with an edge.

The second alcove harbored her dinner date: a woman with blond, long hair, smiling with confidence, and a woman with pale, brown skin, smiling engagingly and playfully.

"You must be Joy," spoke the woman with Nordic cheekbones and ice-blue eyes. It was a statement rather than a query. She was taking the lead. "I am Uta and this is my partner Jemima." She placed a nonchalant arm around the shoulders of the passive-looking woman, establishing ownership. In the dimness of the alcove, Joy's eyes had no problems distinguishing the curly, short hair, the finely chiseled features and the soulful, brown eyes. Her thin body was sheathed in a long, shiny dress cut out of dark red satin. She had been told Jemima wore no underwear.

Uta was as tall as her partner, but her posture was authoritative. Masculine clothes suited her graceful frame: black chino trousers with a black dinner shirt. Flat moccasins. Joy thought she was interesting vampire material, but would probably be a troublesome companion. This said, Uta and Jemima, as a team, would have been remarkable and remarkably lusty vampires. She smiled, at the vision, and at the couple.

"Have a seat," Uta went on, gesturing towards an empty space next to her, and opposite to Jemima.

Joy remembered the details ruling the order of the courses for tonight's meal: Jemima liked to be watched, Uta liked watching. Joy was too arrogant to care about an audience. The two delicious-looking lesbians were perfect for each other.

"Will you have a drink?" More an order than an invitation. "They do a mean Alexandra here."

A third glass was waiting next to theirs on the black wooden coffee table in the middle of the alcove.

Alexandra, Joy mused. Could this cocktail of white creamy colour have been named after the empress of Russia executed in 1918 at Ekaterinberg by the Bolsheviks? She remembered Alexandra had a sweet blood and noticed Uta was making conversation, innocent chitchat to establish a connection. Joy's eyes met hers and started weaving her mesmerizing spell. Jemima said something and Joy looked at her, politely, eyes mesmerizing.

* * * * * * * *

When they got up together to walk to the ladies' room, Joy heard the melodious clicking of Jemima's heels. She also noticed the slits on each side of the dress, open up the length of each leg. The smell of their blood playfully tantalized her senses.

Walking through the door and entering the powder room gilded with Egyptian inspiration, Joy wondered since when was she so civilized to her preys. The mirror-covered walls sent them back their reflections and Joy noticed the excitement colouring Uta's face. They filed into one of the spacious stalls, Jemima first, followed by Joy, and then Uta who locked the door behind them, and leant against it, ready for the show.

Since when was she so civilized to her preys....... Joy wondered, her lips locking with Jemima's, her hands reaching under the dark red satin, her fingers sliding up the soft skin. She had not killed since her first taste of Sid's menstrual blood, since her first night with Sid....... Her tongue reaching for Jemima's, her body indifferent to Jemima's hands, she felt fire burning inside herself, a fire that had no interest in the game with Uta and Jemima, a fire breathlessly burning for Sid.

She decided that sex with Jemima was not something she cared much for and thus, it was time to feed. Her lips left Jemima's, her hands left the warm skin, she moved one step back, a cold stare in her eyes. She felt a sudden hate and anger towards Jemima and Uta. Because they were not Sid, because she could not feed on Sid, she was not allowed to feed on Sid. O, the sweet fantasy of Sid's blood night after night after night....... Jemima slowly pushed the dress off her shoulders, let it gently slide down her skin and gather around her silent heels. Joy pushed the perfectly curvaceous body against the wall, to straddle the toilet seat. Her fangs sank into a breast –somewhere no one would notice once covered up with the satin dress–, deep enough to draw blood. This life force tasted nice enough to Joy's tongue, but it was not what she truly desired. The mesmerized Jemima was smiling blissfully, unaware of the feeding, feeling other sensations, pleasures she desired and relished.

Joy turned to Uta, still licking blood on her lips. The equally mesmerized Uta unbuttoned her shirt, revealing white, small breasts. Joy went for the throat.

* * * * * * *

The vampire walked out of the ladies' room and rediscovered the bar, composed but impatient.

She stopped abruptly in the middle of her stride. Something, or someone, was watching her. She looked around, scanning the high walls; her eyes detailing the women behind the bar, so focused on their task of the moment, jugulars offered; the patrons, busy with their own desires, deeply ensconced in the privacy of their alcoves. A waitress passed her, carrying an overcrowded tray.

Joy could definitely feel a presence, something other, something like herself, but more powerful, something deliberately divulging itself, something playing with her. Fingers of fear attempted to tiptoe down her spine, she refused to acknowledge them.

A quick movement drew her attention to the exit. Her eyes caught the back of a client leaving. Spiky dark hair. The familiar frame of a scarecrow.......

And just like that, the mocking presence disappeared, leaving Joy to wonder uncomfortably. Maybe it was just a dream, but vampires don't dream.

* * * * * * *

Sid didn't look up from the sheets of paper she was busily covering with words and ideas. She didn't hear a sound, but she inquired:

"Did you have a nice dinner?"

"Not bad," the vampire answered, her facial expression unreadable. "But I wouldn't mind some dessert."

The writer drew up an eyebrow, still crossing her T's and dotting her I's. She felt Joy's fingers gently tracing the nape of her neck, and liked the sensation.

_INTERLUDE:_ _FLIGHT OF THE GRIFFIN_ _(by courtesy of the author Sid Wasgo)_

The healer was studying the innards of the dead bird brought by the sulky cat. A bird bigger than the cat. She gently dipped an index finger in the cooling blood and sucked on it, thoughtfully, before smiling lightly. The Davenport was about to be needed; the survival of the Other World would weigh on her shoulders. What was it like, the healer mused, to not have the choice and not know it.

** ** ** ** ** ** **

It was a quiet midnight and the man had been following her since the bottom of Coldharbour Lane, Jo had no doubt about it. She decided to bring the situation to a head and settle it there and then, standing in front of a shop window crammed with second-hand clothes. As sure as rain in London, the well-dressed man (flawless fawn suit and matching tie) addressed her. His request (yes, he was polite) was not even a surprise, she had heard it already a few times in Camberwell and Peckham. Despite her mannish outfits, her leather wear, the self-inflicted scars blatantly lined-up on her forearms, her bleached hair shaved almost too close to the skull, her pierced eyebrow and the deliberately aggressive tattoo on her right upper arm. Men couldn't see what was so obvious to women.

The man had no girlfriend, was desperate for sex and would pay good money for an intimate moment of her time. She didn't even faze out. She replied with calm and lack of care that, no, she wasn't interested. His insistence left her cold. He eventually gave up and walked away. Jo wasn't judgmental, even if she couldn't understand why men couldn't or wouldn't service themselves.

She arrived at the house she shared with four like-minded women and noticed a cat dozing on the low wall, soaking the moonlight. It looked like any normal tabby cat, even if it had no collar. So, why would Jo think it otherwise? Because she was schizophrenic. Upon recognition, the cat opened its eyes, stretched lazily its limbs one by one, and eventually gave her its attention. She smiled to its sulkiness. Cats from the Other World were always sulking. She briefly wondered if she needed to take anything for the upcoming trip and discarded the colour-coded tablets prescribed by the psychiatrist. She wasn't even talking to her "voices" anymore, she had had an argument with these invisible people, whoever they were, and they hadn't talked to each other for about a week.

The cat jumped off the wall with satisfaction and guided her through the invisible gap, the door between their two worlds, an almost unnoticeable ripple in the night air.

** ** ** ** ** ** **

The Davenport was no stranger to the Other World. Her first visit had been totally accidental. She had followed through a "gap" the cat borrowed by a Tigerman because at the time she was responsible for this cat. She didn't know much about the Tigermen. They didn't mingle with other people in the Other World and as far as general knowledge went, they were all male. She had then stayed with the Cat People, who were all female, and made a few friends. In further visits she had met the people with pointed ears, who looked like the Elves portrayed in "The Lord Of The Rings", and simply called themselves the People. They were very androgynous-looking with their hairless faces, long manes and unisex clothing. Empathy being a general phenomenon in the whole of the Other World, communication was generally characterized by a lack of misunderstanding. For example, a general understatement was that cats were at home, everywhere, in every house and with everyone. No one seemed to mind.

"Anyone I should especially talk to?" Jo asked the cat.

The cat shrugged carelessly. It had done its part, now it just wanted to lounge in the sun. Typical attitude of a cat in any world. I should know better, Jo thought. Exactly, the cat seemed to reply. Yes, empathy meant that watching your emotional flows would make life easier for everyone. Jo was generally good at it.

"Here she is, the Davenport, back to the Other World again, and standing, as tall as reality, in the middle of our town."

Jo turned around to face the speaker, having recognized the mocking tone of the moody healer, and seer, of the People. Alkor's slanted eyes were as dark as dark could be, as dark as her shiny hair that she always kept behind her back, pointed ears poking through the strands. High cheekbones and pale chocolate skin. Her facial expression a permanent challenge. Time and time again, Jo felt the same amazement for the pure features of the People. Standing a pace aside from the healer, was Telmar, who, when necessary, acted as elder. His skin was pale, his hair shone under the sun, his eyes blazed a unique aquamarine and his manners were friendlier.

"Welcome back to the Other World, Davenport."

Telmar bore a smile on his lips and seriousness in his eyes. Jo Davenport could sense fate and prophesy weaving in the air.

** ** ** ** ** ** **

They could have sent her to hell with a smile, and she knew it. But she would have gone nonetheless, just for the sheer fun of it. Today they were merely asking her to climb a few mountains and rescue a Griffin, saving the Other World in the process. What was it with this people that they needed her to rescue them, why couldn't they do it themselves? Ah, yes, the portents, the traditions. At least, it was entertaining. Or sort of. Jo didn't mind a challenge every now and then; it sounded to her that this Griffin had a tendency to get into a spot of trouble every couple of centuries, -a definite regular pattern-, requiring immediate rescue. Or the Other World would disintegrate. This time, it was up to the Davenport. The Davenport had listened carefully, heard about the previous heroes who bravely acted according to the prophecies. She eventually inquired:

"And what became of them?"

Telmar's smile took a rigid turn; Alkor's eyes kept their usual hint of amusement. She replied with no ripples in her well-guarded emotions:

"They were never seen again."

Within the following hour Jo Davenport left their village for the long walk out of the green valley, up the rocky mountains where wild goats would look at her, cocking their heads to one side with curiosity and wolves would keep a stone's throw away, uninterested. Nights were never too cold and days never too hot in the Other World. She would sleep on beds of dry grass, using gigantic rocks as comforting pillows. The many nearby narrow streams of clear water would sing her lullabies.

The first night she slept dreamlessly. The second night the Griffin appeared to her in a vision. It had the head, the wings and the majesty of a golden eagle, the body, the tail and the pride of a mighty lion. Its green eyes shone with a compelling quality. The third night she arrived near the cave where the Griffin mournfully laid. She could sense the pulsing waves of distress, radiating with resignation.

She thoughts the Griffin would have learned by now: it gets stuck somewhere and the People send a human to its rescue. Or was she a willing sacrifice? She had no resentment. She suddenly missed her "voices", these invisible people she used to converse with at great length. Her change of emotions spread around and the distress was replaced by curiosity and intrigue. A dense cloud of bats suddenly flew out of a cave she hadn't noticed in the newly fallen darkness.

** ** ** ** ** ** **

Back at the village of the People, the healer had gone into a trance, and with refrained anxiety, was following the Davenport's every step, envying her calm. In Alkor's spirit vision, the cave was illuminated with light brighter than daylight.

Jo walked along a dark corridor for a few minutes, never stumbling, senses alert. Alkor wondered if the woman could sense her watching. Jo eventually arrived to a great opening and stopped, just short of falling into a sudden depression. A few feet down, under the open night sky, -she could see the stars twinkling high above-, the Griffin was lying on a bed of dirt, feeling sorry for itself. Grief and sadness pervaded the great cave. The Griffin was crying over the death of her dead lover (the previous hero who had never come back).

So, this was the big secret of the Other World 's survival, Jo and Alkor thought simultaneously. The Griffin had gone there to die. Again.

The Griffin looked at Jo, contemplated her thoughtfully for a minute. Her deep sadness slowly washed away. When the woman bore into the Griffin's eyes, she saw pure love. The mighty creature was radiating with pure love. So intensely that it was compelling. With a female quality she couldn't explain. The People had referred to the Griffin as "it" because they didn't know and it didn't matter to them. Eyes growing with tenderness, the fickle Griffin spoke and said softly, almost wishing upon the stars:

"Will you come and live with me?"

It was an overwhelming invitation, pervading the climbing walls of the depression, but strangely enough Jo was not feeling totally affected. Yes, if felt very sweet and very compelling, but her heart somehow had other desires. The Davenport wondered how to say no gently. She could sense the Griffin was not used to refusal. Silence and compassion proved eloquent enough. The Griffin was a gentle creature behind the veneer of her fierce looks. She lowered her gaze. They were still surrounded by the powerful emotion.

"What will you do now? Where will you go?" The Davenport asked.

The Griffin fidgeted for a minute, drawing circles in the dirt with a front claw, still contemplating a mournful death but not so sure about it anymore, before answering:

"I guess I could go back to the Mountains of the North, where other griffins live." Thinking this would be as good as any a place to fall into oblivion. Or maybe rekindle the bonding with her own kind. When had she seen another griffin lately? Scribbling some more in the dirt, she added with wistful resignation: "Do you need a lift?"

And they flew from the south, claiming the blue sky as theirs, gliding effortlessly along the wind streams. Mountains disappeared behind them, and when the valley eventually appeared many feet below, it was high noon. And when they arrived in sight of the village, they saw people looking up at them, waving happily. The Griffin was alive; the Other World had been saved once again.

The Griffin landed gracefully in the middle of the main square in a midst of cheers and joyful cries. The Griffin was alive, the Other World would go on forever again, and the Davenport was back. For the first time ever, a People's hero had come back from this dangerous rescue mission.

** ** ** ** ** ** **

After the departure of the Griffin, the People started to celebrate: food appeared on the main square, musicians started playing and people radiated with rejoice. The air felt thick with almost palpable happiness. Telmar gave the Davenport a tankard of the local brew. A few cats left the square, shoulders shivering with contempt. Jo looked around, scanned the joyful crowd and found who she was looking for nonchalantly lounging against a wall: Alkor. Her gaze met Jo's with the customary mockery. There was a smile on the healer's face. Not the light smile, but one an inch broader than any Jo had ever seen.

### CHAPTER FOUR

The benefit had already been happening for a few hours by the time Sid's beloved Eliminator stopped outside the noisy pub and Sid killed the engine. Joy freed her black and white mohican from the crash helmet and gracefully dismounted the mechanical beast. Sid pushed her bike round the corner where a few like-minded machines were already gathered.

The night was still very young even if the sun had set almost more than two hours ago. Sid had insisted on arriving together on the bike. Sometimes she needed to feel in charge. Joy didn't mind; control was never an issue for her.

Music and the din of a crowd were blasting out the doors. Sid hesitated. Joy grabbed her by a leather-clad shoulder and dragged her across the threshold. Melissa Etheridge hit Sid's eardrums. _"If I could have my way, I'd be sleeping in the alley, on a couch, with a friend, and a bottle of gin........"_ Sid knew that, if Joy could have her way, she would feed on one of the many dykes crowding the pub. Joy could have her way anyway she likes, but Joy fed before meeting with Sid most of the time now. And it was just as well because, while Sid didn't mind Joy feeding on her menstrual blood, she felt uncomfortable with Joy's seduce-and-feed routine.

They both started looking around after their obligatory stop at the cash table, where two twenty-something lesbians were smiling all they could at every newcomer. They don't know anything about depression, I envy them, Sid thought, smiling her polite smile, and noticing them noticing Joy in her gothic outfit. Joy snubbed them; the scent of their blood felt wrong.

On their left, punters looking like they meant business, muscles too thin to bulge as in their fantasy lives, played pool, badly, but were having fun.

The light was just this shade of almost bright threatening to go dim. Lesbians in couples or groups of four or five, a few rare men ("men as guest"). Sid noticed the cropped tops; the made-up faces; some mini-skirts; some leg-hugging jeans; the masculine-looking dykes –or more exactly trying to look masculine–, staring at her, evaluating her with a frown of their eyebrows. Then, they would look at Joy and their lips would slightly curl up at one corner. Only the women behind the bar looked genuine to Sid. They were there every day; they had nothing to prove.

A splash of multi-coloured hair flashed in the throng, triggering a smile on Joy's face. The hair was matched with colourful make-up and an array of piercings, and was talking with gothic-trademark, long black hair and striking black eyeliner.

"I am feeling hungry," Joy declared for Sid's benefit, hunger brightly colouring her voice.

"I thought you had already fed."

"Yes, but they look so delicious."

"Where?" Sid questioned, trying not to sound worried and doing a good job at it. After a contemplative silence dominated by a minor k.d. lang number, she enquired: "Do you ever feed on people you've been introduced to?"

Joy frowned and eyed Sid up: "No. Kelley Armstrong would call it common courtesy. Haven't you read her werewolf novels?"

Sid smiled –she had read the reference literature–, grabbed Joy's hand and dragged the frowning vampire through the packed crowd, zeroing on the potential preys.

"Sid!" The multi-coloured mohican exclaimed while the long, black hair smiled at the newcomer.

"Hi, there!" Sid hugged Jessie with some usual chitchat:

"How are you? I haven't seen you for eons. Good to see you, too, Stacee!"

Stacee, with double E, smiled again at Sid, and then at Joy, who had erased her frown and overwritten it with a social smile, but was now seething inside.

"Have you met my friend Joy?" Sid smiled, rather pleased with herself, and gestured towards the vampire. Then her hand waved at her friends. "Joy, this is Jessie. If you want a tattoo, she is the woman to trust. And this is Stacee." She wondered if vampires socialized or even had any inclinations to socialize. What was a vampire's life, or unlife, about? Did they have a purpose, or was their destiny to aimlessly wander the planet?

A guitar strumming swung out of the speakers. Quickly, a voice caught up with it and started riding the rhythm tinged with jazzy echoes and blues undertones. Elizabeth Ashtead was wooing the audience to quietness and attention. Sid wished she had been the one on stage. What was it like again? Her memory, gone rusty with not learning songs anymore, seemed to have lost this relevant information. Sid had retired, and no one knew.

The song was about trilbies and romance, and the crowd liked it. Sid was watching people and Joy was watching Sid. She had a theory about the writer.

* * * * * * *

"Anyone for a drink?" Stacee suddenly offered, flashing her dazzling smile– one that Sid admired greatly– to Joy. Jessie requested another gin, Sid opted for a beer and the vampire asked for a very red Burgundy. Preferably a dark and fruity red burgundy, one that would pass for blood, if it wasn't for its bouquet.

Elizabeth's voice had a dark and smoky tinge that captivated Sid's mind, making her heart beat just for the moment. Sid didn't mind, as long as she could find a sort of emotional balance –her prerequisite for sanity–, and strangely so, her odd connection with the vampire provided her with it.

Jessie and Stacee, rather than resuming their previous appreciative and depreciative commenting on the female crowd, focused their attention on the attractive Joy. Joy was smiling and responding in kind, but non-committally. Their flirting was an unknowing call to the vampire's fangs, but well behaved, Joy didn't try to bite. Whose neck would she have targeted first? Sid could be such....... Sid hadn't noticed her friends' interest; she was too engrossed in the music.

An almost androgynous butch-dyke deliberately entered their field of vision, with impeccable timing with the enthusiastic applause of the audience. Under her black three-piece suit –a masculine cut–, shirt and blue tie matching her spiky, sapphire hair, tattoos and muscles hid. The tattoos were Jessie's work. The muscles were the results of regular hours in several gyms. She gave bear hugs to the tattooist and the gothic flirt, and strong handshakes to the writer and the vampire. She was there on professional business and as ever enjoyed it. As a freelance reporter she covered many gigs and other events tickling her fancy. Jessie introduced her to Joy under the name of Frank.

"Like the Frank Chickens," Frank jokingly offered as an explanation. However, no one knew the Frank Chickens nowadays.

Sid thought, as every time she had seen Frank: _She must be wearing a chest-binder to look so flat-chested._ Sid had considered the chest-binder, too, but she felt unable to breathe when wearing one. _How does she breathe?_ She had always been too absentminded to question the blue-haired lesbian.

"How are you coping these days?" Jessie enquired. Frank had lost her partner to mysterious circumstances. A mugging doubled with a murder. The police had never found the culprit, or never cared to. Frank was tough, and bored with widowhood after nine months of loneliness. Yes, she had loved her partner greatly and she missed her dramatically, but she was alive and wanted to feel so. Sid whispered a few relevant details into Joy's acute ears. Joy had fed on so many preys that she had no idea she was the unknown murderer. Madison had never connected the dots with that one.

A fast rhythm subdued their chitchat. For a few songs, they paid attention to the singer. Jessie was standing very close to the vampire. Frank's shoulder was in contact with Stacee's. Sid was still nursing her first beer. Being off anti-depressants by now, her tastes in alcohol had changed again.

Just before Elizabeth's last number, while some enthusiastic fans whistled and the singer talked, Frank leaned her head closer to Stacee's and whispered:

"Hey Stacee, there is a good goth gig planned next weekend. I'll be on the guest list. Would you like to be my plus-one?"

Stacee smiled, an amused light in her eyes, and replied: "Are you asking me out on a date?"

Frank hesitated, considered, then launched herself: "Hypothetically, or theoretically, for sheer and devious curiosity, what would you say, if I was?"

Stacee, her smile steady, answered after a calculated silence: "I think I would say yes."

"Then, maybe I should. What do you think: should I?"

* * * * * * *

"Hey, Sid, good to see you!" Terri gave Sid a big hug and greeted Sid's friends: "Good to see you, everyone!"

"How are you, Sid?" Dawn enquired.

"Can't stay and chat, we're on next! Catch you later!" Terri interrupted swiftly and the Second Look women moved on through the tight crowd. Elizabeth Ashtead had finished the last song of her set and everyone had caught the word 'vampire' floating in between verses. A strange and almost sad ballad, the story of a lost love, a mixture of lust and blood. Joy used this golden opportunity and launched a conversation on the subject of her kind.

Of course, the blood drinkers got first mention.

"Ever heard of psychic vampires?" Joy eventually enquired innocently, looking directly at Sid, who was just listening.

"They feed on energy, don't they." Stacee answered.

The conversation went on. Sid hadn't blinked. Joy realized the writer had no idea she was one.......

"The problem with psychic vampires, from a filming point of view, is that they're not very visual, so they could be tedious." Frank interjected.

"What about special effects?" Sid jumped in.

"I don't like psychic vampires," Jessie stated firmly. "They're very....... negative. They drain people from their energy and are more likely to kill than the blood drinkers." Sid looked at her quizzically. Jessie amended: "I am talking about the humans into drinking blood. The immortal kinds are just legends." She resumed her previous thread: "Psychic vampires are generally people into witchcraft and black magic."

Joy smiled lightly. Sid was listening on, gathering information, sentences, storing them just in case. You never knew; a short story could well come out of it. But why was Joy staring at her so intently?

"Anyone for another drink?" Jessie offered. "It's my round. O positive or A negative?"

The group laughed and everyone tried to get something as red as blood, blackcurrant being a good addition.

"What about you, Stacee?" Joy drew the conversation back to a semblance of seriousness. "When you think about vampires, what comes to your mind?"

With laughter in her eyes, the long black hair answered: "Dark gothic women with pointy teeth." Sid felt dazzled by the wide smile and silent laughter.

"Frank?" Joy re-directed her attention.

"I'd say I like Anne Rice's vampires best. Most of them have wisdom acquired through the ages and they keep up with time. Do I like the idea of vampirism? From a literary point of view, it appeals to me. Blood-drinking in my daily –and nightly– life? I'm not sure."

"Maybe you need convincing?" Stacee beamed a warm smile at the freelance reporter whose cheeks' blood flow suddenly increased.

Probably an excellent timing for Terry Harley to start heckling the audience. Joy had regrets that no one had mentioned any vampire organisations or websites, but no regrets about the omission of Dracula. After all, he –and his author– had never experience femalehood first hand. Sid had regrets that no one had given her the opportunity to claim belief in the existence of the immortal blood drinkers. After all, she knew something they didn't!

Soon, Second Look were rocking their audience and Sid was dancing, under the vampire's watchful eye. Joy could see how the ex-performer was feeding. A brief eye contact was enough to gain extra energy. Enough for Sid, and barely noticeable to the victims.

### CHAPTER FIVE

After twelve years around the world, Toni felt a certain pleasure at seeing that London was still ripe with music, alive and pumping, rocking and breaking, beating with hungry hearts. Even if still reeling with the recent spree of a serial killer. Nonetheless, she felt very tired and very feverish; she felt the need for an unrestrained feed. Camden was alight with laughing people and awash with the tantalizing scent of blood. The sky was the lighter shade of blue she could handle. She felt hungry. The beating of hearts was almost deafening to her senses.

A passer-by caught Toni's attention. She walked hurriedly, almost stumbling. A light whiff of fear tickled the vampire's nostrils. She looked almost as young as Toni. The vampire's feet automatically started moving, matching the step of the prey. Beneath the gothic looks (hair dyed black, black eyeliner, skin afraid of bright sunlight, long black velvety coat, bulky silver rings on almost every finger), the unknown quarry had features reminiscing of Dee-Dee. Her eyes were of the same grey behind the unruly hair.

Dee-Dee was the reason bringing Toni back to London. She had followed her to Berlin, Venice, Istanbul, Beirut, Karachi, Calcutta, Bangkok, Jakarta, Manila, Nagasaki, Honolulu, Mexico City, San Francisco, Vancouver, Toronto, New York, Dublin, and back to London, where once upon a time Toni had made Dee-Dee into a vampire.

Dee-Dee was in London, Toni was sure of that. How many times had she missed the angry fledgling? Sometimes only by a day, sometimes barely spotting her confident stride at the end of a street, just before dawn. She hoped that this time, she would see her and they would talk, and Dee-Dee would understand.

But right now, Toni needed to feed.

* * * * * * *

Jade hurried through the busy crossroad, leaving a Building Society on her left, the Last Inn on her right, without checking out the gig list for the Everlasting (she had seen the Ghost of Lemora playing there a few months ago and the Theatre Des Vampires only a few weeks ago). She passed a few shops, one selling Doc Martin boots, and almost tripped in her knee-high New Rock boots. She was late, and her girlfriend was very certainly angry. Fifteen minutes. More traffic than usual had delayed her bus already moving at the speed of a snail.

At last, she reached her destination. The portrait of a spiderlike woman was gracing the wall next to the entrance of the Black Behemoth, a pub with a rather alternative clientele. She walked in and an Inkubus Sukkubus track hit her ears. _"Can't get you out of my head."_ She was glad to see the evening was still quiet, and scanned the drinking and chatting pale goths and cheerful punks. She recognized a few regulars and felt relief at the sight of Janeane and her Cruella-Devil hairdo behind the bar. She walked to the end of the pub, stared at the savaged female cyborg guarding a corner of the stage, but didn't spot her dreaded girlfriend anywhere. She sighed, almost with relief. The cyborg stared back, undisturbed.

* * * * * * * *

Toni stepped in and took in the decoration. Some bat tinsels forgotten after Hallowe'en were still dangling from the ceiling wallpapered with band-promo posters. A sleeping bat, made out of rubber, was hanging by its feet behind the bar, next to a couple of grinning skeletons. Here and there along the walls, skulls were laughing at everyone. Toni smiled lightly at the colourful mohicans and the black dye darkening much hair across the pub. She was not the only one favouring a black, dust-dragging leather coat. Her prey had eventually slowed down after staring all around, and was now getting a red drink from a barman whose velvety outfit would have been perfect to get him a butler job with Dracula.

Toni was quickly served, too. Her barmaid was not of the smiling kind. She had stars tattooed on each temple and on the sides of her neck. To Toni, she looked like a beautiful skunk.

Jade had sat at an empty table and got a dog-eared paperback out of her black, velvety shoulder bag. Two men dressed in standard black clothes and leery smiles approached her table, ready to inquire about the vacancy of the two other chairs, but before they got beyond opening their mouths, Toni was standing next to them with a look in her eyes dark clouds would have been jealous of. They quickly steered away, while Toni claimed her new territory. The young goth hadn't had a chance to notice. She was heavily absorbed in 'Memnoch the Devil', a novel by Anne Rice, a classic that most vampires had checked out.

A sudden, sharp noise made Jade jump back to reality. In a flurry of panic she started fumbling with the contents of her bag while the sound of sharpening blades kept on ringing, louder and louder. At last, she found her mobile phone and answered its call with a worried tone:

"Where are you?"

Toni's acute hearing had no problem catching the reply: "I can't make it tonight. Have you been waiting long?"

"What's happening?"

"Oh, nothing. Everything's fine. Just more work than I expected." A silence. _What a feeble excuse_ , Toni thought, sensing lies in these few words. "I'll catch up with you tomorrow. I'll ring you, ok? You take care."

Before Jade could add a word or even sigh, her girlfriend had abruptly ended the communication. Sadness spread across her face. She did not know how to feel: disappointed to be let down at the last minute, or relieved that she had not to face her girlfriend's anger for her lateness. It was only then that she noticed the young woman sharing her table. She was not reading or staring at anything especially. She seemed to be lost in another world, in between long sips of her pint of snakebite. _Another one into lager and blackcurrant._ Jade thought she looked very young and so innocent, and went back to her book and her own drink, without much enthusiasm. She'd probably finish her drink and leave. The DJ had just selected a jokey Bow Wow Wow number.

* * * * * * *

When Jade found herself with less than two inches left to drink in her pint glass, the voice of the Smiths started to claim: " _I am the sun, I am the air_ " and a stranger's voice offered: "May I buy you a drink?"

Jade looked up and into the green eyes and friendly smile of the attractive woman with very white teeth, who looked as skinny as a scarecrow. She hesitated. What would her girlfriend think? But her girlfriend was elsewhere, busy working, or so she had said, and she didn't need to know. After all, it was just one drink.

"Yes, that would be nice."

"Snakebite, is it?"

"Yes, thanks!"

By the time Toni got back to their table, the crowd having thickened, but no one having tried to interfere with Toni and Jade's building intimacy, the satanic Cradle of Filth had taken the soundtrack over. Jade had shed her velvet and Toni could see scars, some already white, some still red, creeping out of the three-quarter sleeves of a hugging, black T-shirt. _An abusive girlfriend and self-harming? I will take you away from your misery._ Toni rested the two pints on the wooden table and next dropped her leather.

Soon, they were entranced in an animated conversation, with very little help from Toni's hypnotic power. Jade was easily talking about herself, Toni's looks of innocence making her look even more trustworthy. Alcohol aiding and abetting, Jade was getting increasingly personal in her details.

"Maybe she isn't working late tonight," she said suddenly.

"Your girlfriend?"

"Maybe she is with someone else."

"I think your girlfriend doesn't deserve you."

Jade looked at Toni with surprise and eventually, her speech slightly slurred she queried: "What do you mean?"

"From what you told me, your girlfriend is not such a nice person. You're sweet. You deserve a woman who really cares."

Jade lost herself in Toni's eyes for a minute before looking away. After a long silence, with sadness in her eyes, she articulated: "I think I've drunk too much. I should go home." She stood up clumsily and dropped her book on the floor when she turned around to reclaim the velvet from the back of her chair. Toni picked it up: "I've got it!"

"I'm so sorry! I'm so clumsy! I should have left ages ago!"

"It's ok," Toni grabbed Jade's right hand to stench the flow of panic. "It is really ok." She smiled a gentle smile that stopped Jade's features in mid-expression, and went on. "I think I should take you home. It's my fault if you got so drunk. Come on. I'll get us a cab." She grabbed her coat while her prey obediently gathered her things.

* * * * * * *

Jade's lips tasted soft when Toni kissed them after closing the door of the goth's room.

The vampire gently undressed the young woman, who was too surprised to act otherwise. She accepted the hands caressing her body while pulling up her T-shirt and zipping down the long skirt. She accepted the mouth gently kissing her legs when Toni took the boots off her feet.

As gently, the scarecrow laid her down on the bed and quickly proceeded to free her own body with the now unnecessary clothing. Jade looked at the pale body, the small breasts, the slender legs, amazed to find herself in the company of such a beautiful woman. About to make love with such a beautiful woman.

* * * * * * *

Her girlfriend was never as gentle, making sex a quick affair where Jade's pleasure was of little consequence.

* * * * * * *

Toni was the tenderness incarnated, never biting, but gently nibbling Jade's nipples, never scratching, but her hands like fluttering butterflies. Jade sighed. Eagerly drinking kisses from Toni's mouth, she was discovering that love could feel good and even wonderful.

When Toni's fingertips came in contact with her clitoris, Jade almost tensed, she was used to get two or three of her girlfriend's fingers in her vagina, pumping hard, fast and painful. Toni's fingers were gentle and pleasuresome.

Jade relaxed and moaned, simply enjoying the feel of Toni's mouth kissing every inch and every scar on her skin, letting her body move with the rhythm of sensations. In Toni's embrace, she was discovering pleasure, she was discovering freedom of expression.

Jade moved her legs apart to let Toni kiss her vulva. She felt the tongue licking and the mouth sucking, ever so gentle, ever so pleasurable. She moaned, louder, and when she reached orgasm, cried out.

They made love again and again throughout the night, enjoying each other's body with a passion Jade had never known. She relished in Toni's pleasure as much as in her own.

"you are so beautiful," she murmured into Toni's ear.

"I promise you, my sweet one, you will never suffer again."

Jade's grey eyes looked up into Toni's green eyes in a new and long silence. Toni's mouth found Jade's for another tender and deep kiss, then followed the throat, tongue gently licking the skin. And at last, Toni's fangs came out and into Jade's jugular.

Jade never felt pain while Toni drank her life away.

### CHAPTER SIX

(SID'S DIARY)

....... I thought vampires were supposed to be cruel. But Joy....... Well, what do I really know. I don't watch her hunting and feeding, I only sleep with her. Sure, she feeds on my menstrual blood. But she is always so tender, she can be so passionate, even loving. Is she like that with every prey? She was certainly not feeling erotically inclined when Death gave her a man to feed on instead of me! She was actually rather angry. She probably killed countless times. After all, she is a predator (so are _homo sapiens_ ).

....... But, what about the cruelty of the vampire? Many books mix their cruelty with eroticism (I guess it sells), and a humongous sense of loneliness that the passing of centuries only increases. (Except maybe _Carpenter's Vampires_ and the book that inspired it, and that, actually, were narrated from the (male) slayer point of view. Can't remember about the book now, but the movie (and so did its first sequel) ended with a romantic turn from the freshly turned) Is Lestat romantic? No, purely selfish. A romantic veneer to hide the unbearable cruelty.

....... I just watched an entertaining TV program about animal bloodsuckers. The bite of most of these creatures is painless (the horsefly is an exception). Most of them are likely to be germ-free (but there is a list of exceptions including the tiger mosquito –and other mosquitoes, of course-). Some of them live at night: vampire bats (in Mexico only), fleas, bedbugs, body lice and kissing bugs. Some live by day: mosquitoes, tics, (legendary) leeches, deerflies, horseflies, lampreys and finches. Lampreys are fish from the American Great Lakes (and salted waters); the finches are birds from some Galapagos island. Like their human counterpart (at least in literature, I could ask Joy about the "real thing"), their saliva is anti-coagulant and they're mostly after the red blood cells as it is a source of proteins. Proteins?! What about vitamins and minerals???????

Moreover, what about the pain of a human vampire's bite? We're talking here bigger teeth.......

... I did a quick search on the Internet to collect some folkloric pearls about vampires. First, how to become a vampire: commit suicide, practice sorcery/witchcraft, eat sheep killed by a wolf (!), immorality (prostitution/alcoholism/raping/killing), death unsanctioned by a religious representative, a cat/wild dog jumping over your coffin/corpse, a shadow falling over the corpse, improper burial, violent death, drowning, etc. Also: being the 7th son of a 7th son (but not the 7th daughter of a 7th daughter?), having red hair, renouncing the eastern orthodox church ( ), excommunication from the Greek orthodox church ( ), and of course being bitten by a vampire....... I am surprised the planet Earth is not overwhelmed by vampires by now. That would probably mean the end of the human dominion.

In 1734, the word "vampire" was first recorded as " _the bodies of deceased persons animated by evil spirits, which come out of the graves at night time to suck the blood of many of the living and thereby destroy them."_ (www.neworleansghosts.com/vampires.htm) In 1862, it was someone terribly boring(!). By 1911 it was " _a woman who intentionally attracts and exploits men_ " (ibid.).

Garlic! Medieval doctors believed plague was caused by the corruption of the air, so they would fight "fire with fire", using garlic. Garlic is actually a natural cleanser. However, I've read somewhere else (Konstantinos' "Vampires", maybe?) that garlic is a natural etheric eraser and vampires are etheric beings. Well, Joy doesn't seem/feel etheric at all to me.

I also downloaded Montague's historical reference treatise on the subject but that's rather a huge volume (when printed out) to read. I'll see about it later.

... Vampires as sexual beings.

(silence on the paper)

Vampires and their mystic sexual quality, their fun flamboyancies.......

There seemed to be a contradiction of sort among all the sexual ambiguities in Anne Rice's _Vampire Chronicles_ , but I can't remember exactly, having not opened them for a few years. Can they or can they not? In Laurel K. Hamilton's series ( _Anita Blake_ ), vampires –and most other characters– seem to have less and less sexual inhibitions from one book to the next. To the point that when Anita Blake had sex with her vampire boyfriend (it happened a few books into the series), Hamilton took TWENTY pages to tell the tale....... I skipped.

....... Bram Stoker's " _Dracula_ "? A literary monument, maybe, just maybe. The 1930's movie " _Nosferatu_ "? A monochrome comedy.

....... _However, who wrote the first ever vampire novel? Moreover, when?_ I do not think it was Bram.

....... The Vampire/vampiric concept seems so commercial these days that TV serials for kids and teenagers have been created and are currently shown on one digital channel or another. _Buffy The Vampire Slayer_ , where the slayer has a thing for vampires with souls (first Angel, later Spike). In _Vampire High_ , teenage vampires are normal night-to-night school kids. So much for the deeply cruel –and bitter– Claudia, the Child Vampire made by Lestat and Louis (or Louis, instigated by the manipulative Lestat) in Anne Rice's _Vampire Chronicles._

Maybe I should ask Joy her take on it.......

....... Joy feels distant at the moment. I wonder what's up. I don't think she has any resentment towards me for preventing her from feeding on my friends at the lesbian benefit. No. I think it started slightly before. That night she showed up "for dessert" while I was writing.

Is it making love or is it sex? I think my feelings for Joy are changing or I'm starting to feel something for Joy, I think I'm becoming fond of her. What about Death, then? Death doesn't care.......

....... Sex and death, united in the house of scorpio. Homo sapiens loves to flirt with death, live on the edge. Well, some do. By the way, I am sleeping with a murderer. It doesn't matter if Joy kills with the intention of feeding, in human terms, she is a murderer. But so actually are millions of soldiers dead or alive, even if their kills were/are/will be sanctioned/deemed necessary/wanted/legalised by their respective governments.

What governs a vampire? Or are they anarchists? Besides the aristocratic origins often bestowed to them by writers. Decadence. Writers make vampires decadent to demonstrate that the undead have nothing to lose, as they have already lost life, thus they have already lost everything. But is life really everything?

....... Ok, but so far, I'm only talking about the _blood drinkers_ , what about the psychic vampires? As Joy reminded us at the benefit, there are _psychic vampires_.

Moreover, if I believe in blood drinkers (Joy is one and I know her so it is my proof that there are blood drinkers and I –can– believe in their existence), then I can/could believe in the existence of psychic vampires. Even without meeting one. Without meeting one? Has Joy ever met a psychic vampire?

The existence of psychic vampires is as much a stretch of imagination as the immortality of blood drinkers / undead. In addition, the immortality of Joy....... By the way, when was she "made"? And by whom?

....... Feelings. Do vampires feel? I guess so. Anger is a feeling. What does Joy feel when she makes love with me?

(I would say we upgraded from sex to making love when we started sleeping together even when my body was not menstruating. Does it mean that if we go places together, i.e. the lesbian benefit, we are dating? What's my take on that one?! I wouldn't really say that we are having a relationship. Then what?)

I would say Joy is cynical. But so can I be.

....... I find myself thinking about Joy frequently. Wondering what it is like to drink blood. I find my writings influenced by my life (as it should be, I guess). I find myself remembering the taste of her skin, the feel of her body against mine...... the erotic sensation of her fingers slowly sliding down my back.......

Is it more exciting if she is a vampire?

....... Vampires, creatures of the night, the undead, blood drinkers. They kill in order to feed. Homo sapiens used to kill too in order to feed, and they still do, even if most of them only do it by proxy. It is so convenient for meat eaters that there are factories –a whole meat industry– killing on their behalf and selling them the flesh in shapes and sizes that means they don't need to sully their hands, they don't even have to think about the daily slaughter happening in their names, they don't have to look a fodder animal in the eye.

Thus, vampires, despite the possible hypocrisy inherent to some personalities, are more honest than homo sapiens.

I guess it takes a murderer to recognize one.

....... I haven't seen Joy this week, I haven't seen her since the night of the lesbian benefit, I think. Strangely, I'm missing her. Is it why I am writing/wondering so much about vampires? Who knows, if I don't. However, my body cycle is such that menstrual blood should start flowing any night now. –Maybe it's PMT triggering my various wonderings about vampirism! –

So, Joy should show up then and I'll be able to ask her the zillions of questions that have turned my mind into Trafalgar Square at rush hour.

_INTERLUDE:_ _"FALLEN ANGEL" (By courtesy of the author Sid Wasgo)_

"Changing Rooms. Pink décor and wooden seating", she was reading aloud from a TV guide spread on the floor. "Thank you for letting me know!" She commented without smiling. The current collective TV only gave black and white and various shades of gray. She got up and got back to the settee, to the great relief of her knees that found the linoleum floor rather hard. She sighed, her sigh echoing of boredom and despondency.

When she got into the open air of the nearby estate just before dusk, Brixton stank of hell. Kids had rediscovered spy guns and ring caps. Paper caps had quickly lost the plot. She plugged earphones into her sensitive ears and Brody Armstrong started to distill for her a tune reminiscing of L.A. She did not need to face the world. But the world watched the lone character pass by. She was wearing a black dinner suit, the trousers legs hiding the tops of her blazing New Rock boots. Dark shades masked her tired eyes. Her blond, spiky short hair lent an even paler shine to her tight skin. The wild singer blasting her eardrums made sure that no other voices could reach Jo Davenport's brain.

Teenagers who noticed her looked on the verge of freaking out. Was she for real or was she...... Hey man, we're talking Hallowe'en tonite!

X X X X X X X

She found the fallen angel on her way back from the superstore with a light load of tequila and seasonal goodies. She thought "fallen angel", not just because of the Distillers' tune (was it "City of Angels" now or their Patti Smith cover "Ask the Angels"? The new colour-coded medications had a tendency to confuse her), but because, like many people that year, she had been at least slightly influenced by the second "Charlie's Angels" movie produced by Drew Barrymore.

The fallen angel, who looked a lot younger than Madison, like barely out of her teens, was laying on her right side, crushing her black wings, in the stinky corner just after the railway bridge, matching the bags of rubbish, discarded clothes and other unwanted items, with her own ragged and torn clothing. Blood a bright red on the rice paper skin.

Jo Davenport stood there for a minute, her brown eyes watching above the dark shades still garnering her nose. Then she kneeled down, her left knee touched the dirty concrete, and daintily put a reluctant index finger on the first wrist available, searching for a missing pulse. Missing because not even faint. She was about to get back to a totally upright position when a set of fingers curled around hers with a weak tugging that made her second knee hit the ground. No pulse but a movement. Was it, a last postmortem reflex or was there still something passing for life in the winged woman?

She knew it was Hallowe'en, the night where the fine line between the many Worlds was so thin that it was just a vague gray blur.

It never occurred to Jo to call an ambulance or take the unknown woman to a hospital. She did not own a mobile phone, the most important people in her life were not of this world. Jo did not believe there really were any hospital where a winged woman would be really looked after properly. Ask Max the "Dark Angel", she'll tell you how tricky it is.

Jo's fingers, released, moved to the strangely crooked tip of a wing. The bruised wings appeared to be a cross of bat's and dragonfly's, with a rubbery feel.

The unconscious or dead woman moved again. It was so slight that Jo thought she might be hallucinating, courtesy of her psychiatric prescription. Brody Armstrong uttered into her eager ears: "I love you Baby", signaling the tape was nearing the end of its B-side and the world would soon crash into the listener's consciousness. She thought about her friend Alkor, healer and seer for the People in the Other World. "Your Hallowe'en is total chaos in our world. You better stay in yours; it is safer. Too much could happen you wouldn't know what to do with." Her usually broody dark eyes holding concern.

The ears of the unknown woman reminded Jo of the People. The high cheekbones and general features reminded her of Alkor. "Similar genes," she innocently thought, with a burst of gratitude for the auto-reverse function of her walkman. In the temporary silence of the Distillers, she heard the faint sound of wings' joints rubbing against each other. Alternatively, was it the mechanics of her pocketsize music machine.

"Sick Of It All" hit her eardrums and Jo Davenport made up her confused mind. Her muscles flexed and she grabbed the wounded under the armpits.

People who saw the odd couple only thought it was a bit early to get so trashed and honestly, those who couldn't hold their liquor should keep away from it.

X X X X X X X

Jo's flatmates, a bunch of crazy women, were out for a Hallowe'en party promised to be wild. Jo had been invited too, and would have gone, curious about human behavior in connection with ignorance, in that case, the ignorance of the reality of Hallowe'en, but she had gone moody with the recent change of medication and gone against her curiosity. To stay home alone with a bottle of tequila, she thought. Not generally recommended in combination with psychiatric drugs, but sometimes she just felt like rebelling.

Well, her evening was not going according to plans, and her new curiosity did not mind. There was a half-naked winged woman on the settee in her living room. Jo Davenport was used to extraordinary and she liked her life better that way.

At that very minute she was debating with herself about taking the stranger to the People's healer. Alkor would surely know what to do and on Hallowe'en night the Davenport needed no cat to cross over to the Other World. Alkor's warning was also echoing in her mind. What could be so bad she mused, and noticed the woman's eyes had opened a thin slit, enough to show the vertical lines of the irises. Consciousness flashed at Jo, compelling consciousness, mesmerizing consciousness. Jo had never read Wendy Rathbone's poetry; she did not know anything about "Winged women sleeping upside down with bats".

Still wearing her black jacket, she almost unintentionally walked to the settee, the strange irises following intensely her approach. When the pale hands grabbed her, she became aware of the sharp nails. When the winged woman snarled, Jo saw the shiny white fangs, and when the teeth sank into Jo's neck, Jo felt overwhelmed by the uncanny similarity with Alkor's features, if Alkor had been some kind of vampiric creature....... She involuntarily grabbed at the small firm breasts barely covered by the dark rags, and, powerless, let the could-be-Alkor creature suck blood out of her artery. Before losing herself into oblivion, Jo Davenport really wished, in a twisted kind of way, that it was her friend, healer and seer to the People.

X X X X X X X

Jo's flatmates walked into their living room approximately 20 hours later, and discovered Jo seemingly asleep on the settee, the collar of her white shirt stained with real blood. Unconscious and dreaming of Alkor.

### CHAPTER SEVEN

"Some people love Death to death, some people love Life for life." W. FreedreamerTinkanesh.

Antoinette was 19 when the Bastille fell in 1789 and the nobility started to really run, or suffered beheading, or turned coloured coats, or were already lazily sipping wine with their wealthy cousins and allies in countries watching the French Revolution with great curiosity, but from afar. The peasants were still at the bottom of the pile and intellectuals were trying to run the roost. Some men were stabbed during a daily lengthy bath, some saw the new citizens turned on them. Marie-Antoinette's pretty head had rolled in the basket, and Antoinette looked like a 16-or-maybe-17-year-old tall scarecrow of a teenage boy, hiring his services from farm to farm, and going under the name of Antoine. He played the lute deliciously and his features were angelic enough to make the farm girls giggle, but he was always too shy to follow them into dark barns and roll in the hay.

It was 1789 and the summer was smoldering into harvests. Antoine, slender muscles shaped and hardened by five years of passing and hard working, was one of the hired hands collecting basketfuls of grapes after basketfuls in Burgundy. The day had been hot and sweaty and she was welcoming the chill of the evening, alone at last, in the obscured light of a barn. Suddenly, a human shape cut out its shadow in the wide open door, disturbing the incoming remains of the darkening daylight. It had the stature of a man and the poise of nobility on the run. She almost stopped breathing. Paris was far away from her life, politics unknown to her daily routine. Like everyone else, she knew, she had heard. Whatever was throwing the French capital into turmoil didn't make their life any easier. Uncannily, the man looked straight at her and started walking in her direction. She did not like his possible intentions. She started to scramble up the bales of hay, relying on her natural agility to escape. Unbelievably the man was already on top of her, even if hardly breathing on her neck. There was cruelty in his deep laughter when his right hand grabbed her crotch. Then he froze. Now silent, he roughly turned her around and pulled down her trousers, revealing pubic hair and a tender vulva. He threw her against a wall with blatant rage. So hard, her left clavicle shattered.

Before she could move again and shake her head, he was there, turning her around, and biting her neck, with teeth so sharp, she believed him a devil. Blood spurt into his mouth. He started slurping greedily until he sensed she was on the verge of losing consciousness, her heartbeat almost faint enough to stop.

"You fooled me," he growled. She did not hear him.

When she regained consciousness, he held her up with one hand, stared coldly into her eyes. And burst out laughing, the sound echoing in the dark wooden barn. She tasted blood on her tongue. The pain had left her clavicle. Her neck didn't even feel sore. Until he bit again, pushing her against a wall, a hand over her mouth to muffle her potential screams.

The last time she drank his blood, she understood the kind of devil he was. One who walked the earth forever, preferably at night, feeding on the blood of humans.

"And when you'll have fed for the first time, you will really have become like me."

* * * * * * *

Lesson 101 of Vampiric Lore for Antoine turned out to be on cruelty, when it comes to feeding....... The fledgling's first meal, selected by her sire, turned out to be a young farm girl whose innocence was just a mere memory in the hay, and whose eyes had struck a chord in Antoine's heart. What's cruelty at mealtime when you have eternity to love and lust, and the smell of blood is one with power to overrun your will.

In terms of sire, Antoine turned out to be lucky. His protector and mentor taught her everything she needed to know, and even some more. She became Prinz Anton, travelling with his uncle the Count of Amalia, both from an old and rich family whose credentials involved royalties in several countries. They spent years traveling throughout Europe, enjoying the hospitality of the nobility and sowing decadence in their wake. The Count would feed on young men; the prinz would feast on young women.

The vampire taught his progeny how to feed, how to pass as human and also how to have sex with a dildo. He taught her languages, literature, mathematics, politics, astronomy, some astrology and more music. From humble peasant to aristocrat in one step.

A few decades of outrageous, amoral luxuries later, the Count of Amalia was destroyed in a rare moment of carelessness.

* * * * * *

Prinz Anton was on the run. Even night felt hostile. Every shadow seemed to hide a dangerous foe. Suddenly alone, she was no longer aware of her vampiric powers. Fear inhabited her mind. She was afraid that the simple peasants who had found out her mentor, would capture her and destroy her, too. She had forgotten how fast she could run and was now running. The irony of _fight or flight_. She had forgotten she was able to fly and thus easily cross the political borders to another country way before dawn. To another country where no one knew her real nature. She was not aware of how many miles she had already covered, nor was she aware of her pursuers having given up. She was too terrified. An animal terror that increased multifold when a foreign body suddenly slammed her to the ground, breaking her momentum.

It took a while to the violet eyes, where sadness and power were swimming together, to freeze the panic in the green eyes. It took a while for the soft, husky voice to soothe the young vampire's mind.

"Hush, fledgling. You are safe now." The delicate, manicured hand gently caressed the disheveled hair. Prinz Anton's body eventually relaxed in the iron embrace of the other vampire, relaxed and fell into a mesmerized slumber.

She had dark, curly hair, long, but pinned together at the back of her head. Her face was pale despite having already fed that night, contrasting more dramatically with her red lips. She was wearing all the trappings of the mid-nineteenth century fashion inflicted on women. She picked up the sleepy fledgling in her arms with no effort. As light as a feather.

Toni woke up the next night, in an unknown crypt, feeling hungry and unsafe. A female vampire of amazing beauty was standing next to the stone coffin. She radiated great power. Toni felt outnumbered, but the face portrayed no threat, just grief. At her feet, Toni saw an unconscious young girl.

"Feed. We shall talk afterward."

Malvina was Amalia's sister. They had been sired centuries ago, just after the fall and decay of the Roman Empire, and watched civilizations rise and crumble all around the planet. Together, then separately.

"We were both so stubborn. We raged against each other so many times. It was....... painful. We agreed to wander the world our separate ways. On occasions, we would meet and the festivities would destroy entire hamlets." Her alluring lips drew a wistful smile. "Oh, he could be so headstrong! The bloody fool!"

* * * * * * *

Under Malvina's protection, Prinz Anton became Antonio. They traveled to the motherland of the British Empire, where they set out to delight the high society, Malvina with her singing, Antonio with his piano skills, in London and other main cities across the British Isles. The opera singer and her young brother became so popular that even Queen Victoria invited them to her palace. Malvina, very diplomatically, explained that her voice was very sensitive to the air of the daytime and her majesty would certainly gain more enjoyment from an evening performance.

Vampires they met on their path would immediately cower in front of the ancient one and ran if left the opportunity.

They traveled through Eastern Europe and Russia. During the few decades they spent together, Malvina completed Antonio's education with finances, independence, and how to make love without a dildo.

* * * * * * *

At the dawn of the twentieth century, Antonio found herself on her own, as Malvina had promised it would happen. On the eve of World War I, Antonio took an apprenticeship with a luthier in Como, at the foot of the Italian Alps. She had learned to control her hunger and last a few nights without feeding. She was a master of disguise and knew how to blend in. She was a powerful vampire in front of which most of her kind would cower. She had not only been sired by Amalia, she had also tasted Malvina's blood.

After a few years in Northern Italy, having mastered her craft, she became Antony and resumed her wanderings, still passing as a young man, throughout the European continent. She had abandoned the lute decades ago in favour of the piano and the violin, and while in Como added the guitar to her collection of eclectic skills. Learning could be so easy to a vampire, especially when from such a bloodline as Antony's.

In the early 30's, she crossed the Bering Strait and reached North America. Soon she found herself apprenticing again, this time in California, on time to witness the "Frying Pan" –the first electric guitar– being produced by the Rickenbacker team, still a far cry from the popular instrument it was about to become. Looking like such an alluring young man, she elected to feed on every lovely film star of female gender passing her way. Satisfaction was generally mutual.

She arrived in New York before the beginning of World War II and started playing piano in small jazz clubs. Throughout the war, her pale alter ego dodged drafting, pleading poor health and coughing. This, of course, never prevented her from feeding on the delicious jazz singers she accompanied on stage.

* * * * * * *

By 1950, she was back in California, this time in the small town of Fullertown, hanging out in the Fender factories, watching with curiosity the development of solid-body electric guitars. The next year, she was one of the musicians testing the first Telecasters and Stratocasters.

Her wanderings in the 20th century were very much connected with guitars and she enjoyed this coincidence to the hilt. By the late 60's, when she stumbled into the Ovation Company in Connecticut, she had moved on through blues and tried her hand, but not her voice, to rock 'n' roll. She was still passing as a man, now shortening her first name to Tony, and from the shadows contributed to the evolution of the first electro-acoustic Ovation guitar, the Balladeer unveiled to the market in 1970. She realised she preferred the electric, solid-body version and even built her own.

1977 did not just witness the rise of the punk movement; it also started the chronicle of the short-lived, but iconic rock band Hell For Leather. Tony, as androgynous-looking as ever, was the front person of the power trio, singing with a voice that no one could pin down as male or female, playing mean metal riffs on a custom-built electric guitar of a design no one had ever seen before. The late seventies were golden and the music outrageously arrogant. As suddenly as Hell For Leather had started their rocket-climb to stardom, they disbanded. The 80's had to contend without them and without solving the mystery of the voice's gender, despite many claims. Toni especially enjoyed the hermaphrodite theory, and returned underground.

### CHAPTER EIGHT

Joy's eyes bore into Sid's, from the sockets of her expressionless and generally pale face. Eventually, she carefully enunciated her reply:

"Since when do you care?" What she wanted tonight was Sid's tasty menstrual blood, not the University Challenge or the Spanish Inquisition.

Sid looked away, uncomfortable, but unresentful. She understood the vampire's reaction. Her direct questions were similar to an invasion of privacy, especially when Joy had only one thing on her mind and Sid knew her own desire.

On the other hand, the vampire could understand the newly expressed curiosity. Any human would be curious, even more if a writer. Actually, she found amusing the fact that the green mohican had resisted the temptation so long, so long for a human. She considered having her bloody way there and then, unrestrained, rip the black T-shirt away, tear up the tattooed flesh of the fragile neck (every neck is fragile), and greedily feast on the warm spurting blood. She sighed, gently biting her lower lip, fangs now flashing, a softer expression in her eyes, and looked away. Bloody Death, she thought.

Sid stood up to walk away from the sofa, but Joy's authoritative hand stopped her.

"I'm hungry."

Her facial expression was both a snarl and a smile. Sid stared back at the fire in Joy's dark eyes. Right on cue, a light bulb gave up the ghost and shed dimness in the living room. The only light was now coming from the lampposts outside on the street, behind Sid. Sid didn't notice.

Sid's curiosity had been direct; Joy decided her hunger should be direct, too. Eyes riveted to the brown irises, she let her hand fall down in a caressing motion. She could feel something inside Sid pulling at her, like a gentle tug. She recognized the feeding intent. She was also aware of Sid's ignorance and lack of control over the psychic attempt. She let it be, the writer was such a harmless predator, and refocused on her own hunger.

Fingers unfastening the trappings separating her from dinner, she wondered how Sid could be so fearless, how Sid could sit there, unflinching, when so many of her victims, one-night-stands and other donors, those who had had the privilege to know about her real nature, had expressed fear, or in some rare cases a feverish anticipation.

Sid vaguely noticed the unexpected angle of the light bathing her front room but paid it no mind, she felt too aroused by the touch of this undead.

* * * * * * *

Later, Joy unfolded her body, stretched with satisfaction, and turned her back to the street. Sid sighed deeply and opened her eyes, sated, too, relaxed and restored. She looked at her front room and only when she spotted the unlit light bulb, hardly blurred, realized her night vision was exceptionally good, but Joy left her no time to ponder over this new mystery. She started talking, a bitter edge in her voice, while Sid zipped up her trousers in a successful attempt at decency.

"If you were to ask every vampire if they chose their existence, and they were to answer truthfully, you would find out that most of them never asked for their life to be turned upside down and destroyed. The vampire who made me was so ancient that I can only suppose he had seen over a millennium of civilisations come and go. He was an arrogant and abusive bastard. This arrogance turned out to be his demise. I destroyed him." She snarled with anger. Her abrupt silence triggered an eyebrow-raising from Sid. Joy walked a few steps before resuming.

"A vampire's existence is generally solitary because a vampire is a predator, a territorial and selfish predator. Older vampires can be most dangerous. They often destroy young blood drinkers, not even for sport or fun, they do it because they can and they like watching a fledgling coward at their feet. Most often than not, vampires kill each other on sight. They are very competitive." She laughed suddenly. "Can you imagine a Vampire Convention? It would be mayhem and slaughter!" Behind features rippling with cruel laughter, Joy remembered that there were possibly two other vampires in town. Toni, powerful, older and unreadable; and probably Dee-Dee, very young, but almost as powerful as her maker, and probably still very angry. Enough for a very gory convention if reunited in the same venue.

"Where do vampires come from? If Transylvania was, it was only a pit stop. The general belief is Egypt. However, don't take my word for it, I'm no scholar. Anne Rice's theory is quite compelling. I sometimes wonder how she got so many details right.

"Do vampires spend the daytime in coffins? And in crypts? Very gothic, but not necessarily the case. I have a round bed in a lightproof room somewhere in London. Vampires' healing powers? Oh yes, we do heal quickly. It's absurd, I know, but it's true. Usual means of killing don't work. Except maybe if you aim something big and long at the heart. Absurd too and I've never tried it myself so I cannot totally guarantee it. The possibility of destroying a vampire with fire and sunlight? I've seen it happen. Do they turn into ashes? When it comes to fire, I can definitely say yes. But it's true for anything else. Sunlight? Yes, it works. Do not believe everything they show you on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Josh Whedon has never met a vampire, but he's got some imagination. Does every vampire fly? No." A silence ensued, making a point. Sid's eyes, that she was now carefully avoiding, questioned some more. Joy went on:

"As a vampire, I am just a little bit over a century old. I do not socialize with other vampires, they rarely come my way and I don't get on with them anyway. Besides, vampires don't necessarily stay in the same place very long. Some of us can be a bit messy when we feed. Or deliberately messy," she conceded, wondering for how many years she'd been in London now. "We don't necessarily want to attract attention from humans. We're not interested in public and legal recognition like in Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake novels."

Joy felt restless now. She also felt worried. She needed to see for herself if Dee-Dee was back in London too or not.

"Ok, I'm bored now. You wanna know more about vampires? You wanna know what is reality and what is literature? Have you got a DVD player?"

Surprised, Sid scratched one freshly shaved side of her head before answering: "I think I've got one in a closet."

"Get it out for tomorrow night. I've got this little gem on DVD. The guy who wrote it is surprisingly accurate on a few facts. I always wondered if he ever had a chat with a vampire." She smiled: "Like Christian Slater in 'Interview with A Vampire'."

* * * * * * *

Sid had spent her day writing. She had gone against her habit of writing short to favour a novel. As usual, she had no idea about its main plot, and even less about its outcome. She knew enough about the main character to start and had twenty scribbled pages peppered with badly crossed T's and randomly dotted I's by sundown. She also knew that if she had knowledge of every detail between Alpha and Omega, she would never write it. Thus, confident in her wisdom, she had never learned ancient Greek.

By the time Joy showed up at her open window, TV and DVD player were taking center-stage in the front room. Sid didn't own many DVD's. She was more likely to borrow. The rare movies lining up on one shelf were more like essential references of various kinds: "Nightbreed" (albeit the North American DVD region, that she could only watched at some friend's house), 'Shadow of the Vampire', 'House of Frankenstein' (a pirate copy someone had downloaded from the internet), 'The Lost Boys', 'Interview with a Vampire', "Tsui Hark's Vampire Hunters' (internet piracy again), 'The Colour Purple' (a pirate copy from her local market) and Second Look, of course. 'Flatliners', 'Strange Days' and 'Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café' were on loan from Jessie.

"Now," Joy said, sticking 'Razor Blade Smile', a low-budget movie bred and raised in the UK, into the DVD player a while later. "Let's introduce you to Lilith Silver, the vampire female James Bond. And pay attention. The guy who made this movie is more clued-up than his more famous peers."

The movie started in black and white, relating how the heroine had been turned into a vampire, back in a time of daily horse-riding and pistol duels. The villain was a scarred face going by the name of Sethan Blake. Cue to modern times, in colour. Our heroine Lilith Silver is an assassin known as the Angel of Death. Her favorite hangout, in between hit jobs, is darkling venue the Transilvania Bar.

"Cool place," Joy commented with a hint of nostalgia in her voice. "It was great for easy pickups. Now, open your ears wide: it is time for Lesson 101."

On cue, Lilith Silver set about educating the goths sharing her table, and more especially the young woman sporting upper fangs and know-it-all attitude, trashing mythical beliefs one after the other.

Vampires couldn't shapeshift. Nope, no turning into mist, not even into bats. Joy surprised Sid by bursting out laughing and almost rolling on the floor, at the black and white sight of a Hallowe'en rubber bat dangling from the ceiling of a cellar.

When Lilith turned out to be a daywalker, albeit with eyes greatly sensitive to sunlight, Sid looked at Joy. The vampire acknowledged with a hint of embarrassment: "It's a recent evolutionary factor."

In the movie, a mysterious client had hired Lilith to eliminate people from the order of the Illuminati. Almost each kill was matched with a feeding session, and feeding sessions almost every time involved sex. Each time the silver-screen vampire commented on the quality of the blood, Joy echoed her in Sid's front room.

One illuminati: "C-minus. Too ironny." The bodyguard of the previous dead: "F-grade. Druggy shit." Goth woman from the Transilvania Bar: "Nice and salty. B-plus." Photographer's blood: "He never looked better than a C, anyway." Sethan Blake's prognostic on Lilith's lover: "Smells good. I think he'll make the grade." At the end of the movie, when Lilith, after defeating Sethan in a sword fight, fed on his blood, Joy once again echoed her: "A-plus, oh at last, some full-bodied vintage stuff."

Credits rolling out on the small TV screen revealed to Sid the name of the actress incarnating the vampire in PVC. Joy smiled appreciatively: "Eileen Daly. Tasty blood."

### CHAPTER NINE

"I dream of a world where I can be a drag king and have my motorbike, as I'm so tired of this world, no love, no understanding, so merciless that I work as a mercenary" (Sid Wasgo)

Sid rode alone to the Breakdown, a bikers' café in West London, where she enjoyed being anonymous. Joy had been very vague and for a few nights, off to adventures she would never mention. It was her pattern. Sid had gotten used to it. It suited her: she didn't want to get attached.

So, there she was, by a beautiful evening in May, looking at the sky still a bit too pale to please most vampires, in the shade of a building sporting racing colours and easily passing for a garage. Plethoras of motorbikes lined on and off across the front yard.

She was not a regular at this friendly venue, it was only her second visit, but she had been looking forward to an opportunity to leave her crash helmet among other crash helmets under a staircase again. Parking her Eliminator, she scanned the various groups of people chatting and enjoying the spring evening. She smiled lightly: hairy bikers were not the fabled trend of the moment. Leather was paramount; age was spanning every possibility with extremes reaching sixty-something. You were never too old for a motorbike.

She crossed the threshold and a medley of rock classics welcomed her, starting with _Rock me, Shock me_ , an eighties number by the immortal Girlschool, a band whose albums hadn't had the opportunity to grace her stereo yet. Blissful ignorance.

A smell of hot chocolate tickled her nose while she paid her entry fee to a leather-clad man with a handlebar for mustache over his friendly smile. She scanned the still quiet room with her myopic eyes, spotted two women talking and standing in front of the stage stuck at the end of the room. One she recognized as Terry Harley, as animated and enthusiastic as ever, the other one was a stranger whose lanky frame was barely covered by tight pieces of clothing, and whose aura betrayed as another singer. She was towering a head above the freckled face. Sid was looking forward to see her band perform. She had never seen Emotionally Wrong but had spotted their name on gig listings countless times and wondered.

* * * * * * * *

Dee-Dee crossed the threshold of the public venue, dropped a bank note on the table in front of the man with the handlebar, and moved on in, knowing she was underpaying her entry fee. She was in a bad mood, the same bad mood that she had been carrying for the last twelve years, and her blazing eyes had said so to the man.

The sky was now dark and she could mingle with the crowd of oblivious potential meals. Her ears recognized the tune at this moment of the soundtrack: _Hotel California_ by the Eagles. It was almost like a trip back in time, the venue had not changed a decibel.

She was wearing one of her many white shirts, a stark contrast among the flurry of leather jackets. Her wild hair was mostly hiding her storm-grey eyes and her hands were trying to dig holes in the pockets of her standard tight, faded jeans. She meandered among the beer guzzlers and the tequila aficionados.

She remembered the venue. She remembered the petrol tank hanging above the bar ready to collect patrons' tips. The Fireheads had been there, on this very stage, and the drummer had felt cramped at the back. Their singer had just had enough room to jump and crawl.

She heard the short burst of drums underscoring the Eagles' hit. The support band was getting ready. She made her way to the stage to check them out. Musicians had been the bloody treats she enjoyed the most all over the world since becoming a vampire. She hated her need to feed, but at least, she could control it long enough to carefully select her prey and not kill it. Her. Her preys were always female. In sight of the stage, she froze and double-backed, shocked. But what did she expect? That the Fireheads would fold back and die after her mysterious disappearance and everyone would retire into nine-to-five jobs? Yes, the Fireheads had folded, but not died. Here were the singer and one of the bass players she had rocked with. The drummer was familiar, too, despite her shaved head, but who was she? Dee-Dee had bled the Fireheads drummer to death....... A peroxide blonde was tuning an electric guitar. A cordless electric guitar. She was all leather-clad and looked classy, almost a joke among the....... What was the name of the band? Not the Fireheads, she would have noticed that on the flyer. Maybe the guitar player was not a classy joke, maybe the singer had left her punk roots behind and gone all rock 'n' roll. Music is a world of intensity. One of your mates disappears, another one is killed, the shock can do that to you: overnight shape-shifting.

She would not feed on them. She could not. Too many shared memories. _But, I am a vampire._ She looked around, scanning the crowd of happy punters again. Here you go. Shining like a beacon, about her height, a green mohican and a quiet face, a camera dangling from around her neck, looking absentminded and absentmindedly looking around while draining a pint glass from its yellowish liquid. Oh yes, she smelled like a perfect meal.......

* * * * * * *

The perfect meal was not noticing the vampire. You would have thought that by now she could have spotted a vampire from a mile away, just by the discrepancy in the energy field. Sid hadn't learnt yet that vampires were dangerous. Her only knowledge of this predatory kind was Joy, and Joy had never threatened her, hurt her or attempted to kill her. They had idle chats or intellectual conversations, and they slept together every now and then. Joy was actually safer than any of Sid's past girlfriends. So, no, there was no warning notice pinned on her radar to say: beware of vampires, avoid them, they are dangerous. The dangers of hanging out with vampires were more like intellectual and literary notions to the writer.

Just before her eyes crossed looks with Dee-Dee, someone put a hand on Sid's shoulder and greeted her, providing distraction.

"Hey, Sid! Glad you could make it!"

"Hi, Dawn! How are things?"

"Cool! Have you seen our new T-shirts?"

Dee-Dee watched her chosen victim drift away to a table of paraphernalia already surrounded by fans of the headlining band.

* * * * * * *

Emotionally Wrong. The name sounded right for her ex-bandmate. The drummer counted them in with a rapid-fire kicking of her bass drum. The singer almost missed her cue when she spotted Dee-Dee in the audience. But she had seen her disappeared friend so many times, in so many crowds, at so many gigs, that she had gotten used to the visual hallucinations. Twelve years on, who could forget that strange and sad summer? Her voice, distorted in the speakers, slammed into ears, unprepared for the sudden onslaught. The bass followed suit in a rumbling motion, and the lead guitar cut through the music with a dry overdrive. The Dee-Dee lookalike was just a lookalike; the real Dee-Dee would have come forward. The singer sang on. Had Dee-Dee disappeared first, or had the drummer died first? The police had, of course, immediately suspected the missing musician. Nevertheless, the singer knew: Dee-Dee would have never killed a friend, never; she was just not the type.

The vampire, nerves shredded by the punk-rock music, a sound that had barely changed since the Fireheads, tried to keep the memories at bay ─at least, her replacement had talent and actually fitted with the image of the band─ and refocus on her meal. The meal was a busy photographer, apparently more specifically fascinated by the alluring guitar player whose legs were restlessly moving, covering miles across the stage.

* * * * * * *

Sid had just finished washing her hands when the blond woman in the white shirt entered the presently deserted toilets. Sid had noticed her and pegged her as a musician because of the energy about her. The photographer could sense something else, something unusual that she had sensed before, something.......

Sid identified the extra factor, but belatedly. The woman with striking grey eyes often hidden by the wild sweeps of her hair, had already closed the space between them; Sid had barely a fraction of a second before the tips of the fangs graze the fragile skin of her neck, to guess.

As suddenly as her confident move, the vampire withdrew, shock painted across her youthful facial features.

"Who do you belong to?" Her icy voice demanded.

"What?!" Belong?! Sid viewed herself as a free agent.

Dee-Dee's nostrils dilated. "What's the name of the vampire who feeds on you?" Something felt off. There were no telltale scars, but the smell was there, unmistakable. And this puny photographer was not even scared?! She looked surprised alright, but there was no reaction of fear to Dee-Dee's resurfacing rage. "What's the name?" She repeated icily.

"Joy." There was almost a hint of challenge in Sid's voice.

"Joy......." Dee-Dee slowly echoed. Joy was a vampire, too. She remembered the tall woman with long, dark hair cascading down to the waist, as tall as Toni. Had Toni made her? Or was it the other way around? Or maybe, they just happened to share the same territory, regardless of their different origins. Unlikely. How powerful was Joy? How ancient could she be?

Dee-Dee was powerful; a powerful and ancient vampire had made her. How ancient Toni was, happened to be a totally irrelevant factor to the raging fledgling. Dee-Dee was powerful, young, but angry, angry enough to challenge another vampire. She pushed her prey against the wall and her fangs pierced the skin, savaging the tarantula tattoo. Sid didn't react to the pain. She had not expected the pain. She had never really thought about the pain fangs could inflict: for her it was still an intellectual notion. Because, even during her first encounter with Joy, the encounter interrupted by Death herself, pain had not been part of the equation. Joy's M.O. was to mesmerize her victims and make them feel pleasure. When Joy feasted on Sid's menstrual blood, there was no reason for mesmerizing and Sid felt genuine sexual pleasure.

This vampire was deliberately inflicting pain to Sid. Sid hated it. Sid knew about pain, way too much, and hated it. Something else she probably hated as much, was to be used as a pawn in a chess game.

Sid knew she was in no danger to lose her life. Death would have already been there in a flash of full moon to intervene and feed the vampire another prey, even in a moonless night. So she trusted Death, Sid felt irritated by this attitude. She could feel this irritation despite the striking pain occasioned by the vampire sucking on her skin, munching on her blood. Imagine a beast is eating you alive. Ok, once the skin had been pierced, there was no need for fangs anymore, but Sid's skin was sensitive and Dee-Dee wanted to cause pain. She felt enraged by the past hitting her again and again, one way or another. Tonight she could not ignore it; she could not escape from her own pain.

She eventually pulled away from Sid's neck. Sid's eyes stared at her from a face gone pale. Dee-Dee stepped back, unsettled by the intensity and the pulling quality of the brown eyes, feeling it tugging strongly at something inside her. A great hunger. Sort of feeding.......

"What are you?" Her icy voice stumbled. Sid frowned. What was she?! What did this vampire mean? The vampire looked away, breaking the link. "Tell Joy I'm in town."

And then, Sid was alone in the toilets, with only her bleeding neck as certitude that the whole bizarre scene had really happened.

INTERLUDE

"Jo Davenport", chapter one (courtesy of the author Sid Wasgo)

7 pm. I don't wanna feel that way for Janis but I do. It feels so useless and uncomfortable. It makes looking at her in the eye so difficult.

I arrive at the restaurant way too early. She gets caught up in the bus traffic and is late. But at least she turns up and I'm so glad. Because it is my forever fear that even people who say they are my friends, even them, forget all about me and never show up, and don't even acknowledge that I exist.

So, Janis turns up and I feel relieved and I feel uncomfortable. Because it feels so uncomfortable to sit at a table with a woman I'm crazy for. I have not told a soul but every time I cycle through the city, I'm gonna cycle through her street and contemplate her doorstep. I surely keep this secret from her.

So, we sit at the same table and I feel stiff as a wooden stick. I'm crazy for this woman and she'll never be crazy for me. Maybe I shouldn't be there at all. Maybe I should never see her again. Maybe I should never phone her again. Maybe I should erase her from my life and erase myself from hers. Before my guardian spirits make the decision for me. But you know, when I don't see her, when I don't hear the rich sound of her voice, I don't feel totally happy (euphemism: totally happy doesn't exist for me).

So, I sit at this table with her, blinded by her smile and unable to look at her in the eye for too long. Well, actually, it's like, our eyes meet and I look away.

This Mexican place is my favorite restaurant. That's why I invited her here. Tonight out of every possible 7.30 pm (with traffic delay, please). I wanted to eat cactus. The cactus, nor slimy nor crunchy, turns out to be a disappointment. I like it slimy as okras. Janis prefers crunchy bits. Even if right now she is very much into cold avocado soup. Creamy thing.

She watches me eating a stuffed tomato and comments:

"You left the tomato."

"No, I haven't attacked it yet."

Typical of me: stuffing first, container last. What do other people do with it? I have a look around and find out I'm the only one eating a stuffed tomato tonight. I say:

"The first time I ever thought about suicide, I was six and a half. The only thing which kept me from acting on it was pancakes."

She smiles more broadly. As intended, the pancake factor is one of the positive ingredients of life. She loves pancakes.

"Especially with butter, sugar and lemon. What about you?"

Me? I have to think hard, scrape my brain, because contrary to a widely spread belief, I'm not so much into whipped cream banana pancakes. Sugar? Lemon? No. Grimace. The answer pops up and pops out:

"Maple syrup."

From pancakes to tattoos there is only one giant step. We cross over the Rubicon without any qualms. Because Keiko, a mutual acquaintance, who has every complicated design she can think of, challenged me, coaxed me into, talked me into, influenced me, convinced me, to go for it. A skull is sprawled on the top part of my right arm. The X of the X-Files green and stamped on its forehead, vampire teeth cynical and grinning. Purple snakes dancing around my biceps like an armband. Now, I know why I hesitated so long.

"Was it painful?"

I grin, with a hint of cynicism, but without the vampire teeth:

"What do you think?"

She looks at me, thoughtfully, and inquires:

"Are you into S&M or do you like pain?"

I feel revolted. Like a tidal wave, it sweeps the cynicism away. I lose my footing. Has she been thinking that all along, since the first day we met? What is it: my more than occasional leatherwear? My short hair constantly shaved then bleached? My pierced eyebrow? I frown, recoiling with revulsion at the possibility of an S&M involvement from my part. I slowly reply:

"The simple suggestion shocks me."

She apologizes. Her smile radiates warmth.

I don't like pain. But I went through it long enough to let Keiko's tattooist, a talented woman, cut through my skin, puncture it and engrave the colourful human skull and its reptilian acolytes deep around my arm. Janis doesn't like pain either. A dental appointment is her idea of Hell on Earth.

The six-and-half-year-old little girl is still on my mind. She chose pancakes versus Death on a rainy afternoon. It was a boring family outing at St Michael's Mount. I still wonder why.

My one and only tattoo is hardly two weeks old. Healed up, but itchy. Janis gets up to go to the loo. I watch her walking away. Swinging her hips and her shoulders. Like if she was on high heels. I could imagine a purse dangling at her fingertips. Does she always walk like that? She looks so smart and elegant. Is she feeling self-conscious? Can she feel my gaze following her a few inches behind? Jeans, white shirt, flowing around her lanky frame. I think she wears flat shoes. I forget to look at her feet. When she comes back, my eyes flee, quickly, swiftly.

She says she is off to the States in December. Buying her ticket next week. New Mexico. Arizona. The Four Corners. I'd love to fly with her and see the desert. Feel the hot sand of the Painted Desert under my bare feet. I keep the tantalizing thought safely hidden in a secret recess of my brain.

Dessert time. A discreet drizzle behind the window. I order a Mexican hot chocolate. I am not into drinking chocolate, but I wanna try this utmost traditional recipe. It's got a reputation of ultimate experience. She orders cookies: chocolate chili, wedding, cinnamon. She isn't so keen on them after tasting. My hot chocolate is one of the most wonderful things on Earth.

Time to make tracks. Already? It is always too soon.

Predictable lines:

"You're going home?"

I smile inside. "Nope."

"Where are you going?"

"Brixton." Well, it's only ten minutes from my home in Camberwell. I'm flatsitting this month. That's how I love my life. Half of it (no more) all over the place. I'll be catsitting in Kennington after. I make sure Janis knows when I'm there, so I can invite her around to watch videos. X-Files is my weak point. Not the weakest. But anyway, Janis is a fan of Agent Scully, too.

As payment for our dinner, I produce a voucher. I won it on a radio show. About time I use it: the expiration date is tomorrow.

11 pm. I walk Janis to the bus stop. I love this woman. I wanna spend every possible second with her. I wait with her. We talk under the dark rainy sky. About ex-girlfriends. Hers has been giving her a hard time since they split up, about two years ago. I bumped into mine at the latest Gay Pride. Oh, what a cliché. But I didn't hide behind a tree, as there were no trees around.

"She was her usual self."

"What do you mean?"

"She's a spoiled brat. Her father's got money she likes to spend." After a short silence I add: "When I met her, she was having an anarchist phase." Does it explain anything? I still wonder: how was I fooled? It feels like a long time ago. Fear creeps in my veins. Like ice.

Does Janis smile twenty-four hours a day? One day, I'll have to ask her.

Her bus is growing bigger and redder on the horizon. Time for good-byes. Where do kisses land today? Earlier, when my friend Val hugged me, her kiss landed on my neck. Now, when I hug Janis Kitto, a wave of her curly blonde hair brushes my cheek and her kiss lands on the corner of my mouth. I decide hypothesizing on it would be nonsensical. However, she is the best hugger in town.

She says: "Thanks for inviting me!" and her smile lights up the whole street.

I manage: "My pleasure!" and my knees are ready to give way.

I turn around while she gets on the bus and pays for her fare. I can't resist a last look behind me. The bus is disappearing in the night, taking her back to Shoreditch where she will be reunited with her faithful bicycle.

### CHAPTER TEN

While Sid works on a novel she's been thinking about for years, a novel that shouldn't feature any vampires but lots of wonderful and weird people in a parallel world ─Tiger People (all male), Cat People (all female), and of course the ubiquitous People already featured in at least one short story─, Joy scouts the streets of London, the music venues and alternative clubs of the underground city.

While Sid knows that, despite her best intentions, there will probably be some vampires wandering about this parallel world on an on-and-off basis, as this is the way her mind works, Joy reconnects with dingy pubs, sleazy squats, long-forgotten venues, and draws one blank after another.

While Sid keeps on writing, increasingly aware of the word MUSIC flashing louder and louder at the back of her mind, Joy gets to the conclusions that Toni's favored kind of territory, like hers, has evolved.

When will Sid answer the call of her guitar and get back to the roots of her life, the very thing that has kept her alive throughout time, her equivalent of Jo Davenport's pancakes?

What venues would Toni now elect to feed and express her contradictions and cruelty? Where was Joy when Toni chose to breathe down her neck? Vampires do not breathe. At last, it occurs to the vampire with the gypsy eyes that the scarecrow with the innocent looks was not feeding that night, she was trailing the younger vampire....... A deliberate trailing.

Sid realizes that even if she is totally off anti-depressants, she can still feel the chemical influence in her brain: she is still writing. She remembers _: beyond music, there is Death_. At the time, of course, she didn't exactly mean Death as the entity she met in the back garden of a pub, but death as in the end, the end of life. Music has to come back to the forefront of her mind, in fact, it is on its way, and it is just a matter of crossing paths with Sid. What will she do then? Will she pick up her guitar, and her voice, where they left off? Alternatively, will she pick up, further back in time, the piano studies she had abandoned because she did not own a piano, not even an electric one.

So, Joy thinks in the illuminated London night, _Toni's proclivities have gone more sophisticated_. If Toni had been at the West End lesbian club to breathe down Joy's neck, where would she go in order to feed. What other places had Joy not checked out yet? Goth, maybe? Joy smiles. Toni used to be such a _perfect rock chick_. While herself, she had been perfect for the part of the _rich little girl looking for a bit of rough_. There is nothing more gothic than a vampire. In literature.

She hits Oxford Street, her mood a mixture of anticipation and dread. The pub is one of a chain across London. Her delicious meal is a very talkative middle-aged woman, who works by day as an accountant for a very boring firm, and relishes nightlife as an Ethergoth with no lisp but a definite sense of humour that definitely defeats melancholy. By morning, the sated vampire falls into slumber between black silk sheets, knowing the next hunting range, a gothic venue with extra appeal.

* * * * * * *

"Looking for me, Little One?" There is irony in the voice, as always, and Joy does not bother answering or even turning around. She is playing a dangerous game: you never turn your back to potential danger, you always sit facing the doorway. She is establishing her power, showing Toni that she is not afraid. Toni walks around the table, ignoring the colourful patrons, and sits across from her. The soundtrack of the moment is Nightwish's " _End of all Hope_ ". They stare at each other in the soon-to-be-crowded Black Behemoth. The tone of their cheeks shows they have already fed. Joy's facial expression is serious; Toni's is amused. "You look cute in your gothic outfit. Dressed up for me?"

Joy feels the old attraction tugging at her. Oh yes, Toni is still a beautiful scarecrow, even without the holes and safety pins. She could so easily pass for a young man in her elegantly cut, black suit. "Still looking for Dee-Dee?"

The smile fades away. "Now, now. No need to be nasty." She keeps the flare of anger in check, but the blow certainly stings. She pushes up the corners of her mouth, with hidden effort. "I see you are still in London. Or did you leave and return especially to welcome me back?"

Joy wonders what to say. The background song morphs into " _Can't Get You out of my Head_ " by Inkubus Sukkubus.

"Listen, they're playing my song!" Toni exclaims sardonically. She knows so much about Joy's feelings, she thinks it is so easy to play her.

"How long have you been back?"

"Not long. I stopped in the West End on the very next night. To say hi."

"Hi back. Is Dee-Dee in London, too?" Silence takes a dark green shape in Toni's eyes. Something Joy is able to read. "You can talk to me. Who else would you talk to?"

"What makes you think vampires need to talk? What makes you think I need to talk?" With heavy emphasis on the "I". The staring match is still on.

"We were friends, once."

Toni laughs, her beautiful and seductive laugh, one Joy used to relish so much, once upon a time. "Vampires have no friends. You know my rules. Stick to them, and we'll be fine." The older vampire gets up in one swift motion and walks out of Joy's field of vision, through the parting throng of young people looking more gothic than any vampire, and out of the pub.

Joy feels sadness. She considers sex to lift up her mind. _Oh no, I'd be bound to fantasize it is with this arrogant scarecrow......._

### CHAPTER ELEVEN

It is a typical day for the British weather: clouded sky with a threatening hint of rain, while the sun is also trying to break out in fingers of bright light. Sid is riding her beloved Eliminator and is about to turn right into Coldharbour Lane, anonymous and invisible under her crash helmet. A fight is happening across the street, just outside the cab office, attracts her attention, and every passer-by's.

A black man has been violently pushed down to his knees by a white man. They both look in their thirties. A twenty-something, white woman rushes to them. _To break the fight_ , thinks Sid innocently. No one else is reacting; this is such a typical Brixton scene nowadays. But the woman is not trying to break the fight, she is siding with the white man, and holding the quarry down, too, she shouts at him: "Open your mouth! Open your mouth!" The man eventually spits something out, Sid cannot see what. The woman picks up whatever it is. The white man pulls out a pair of handcuffs. The woman gets out a small walkie-talkie and radios for back up. On cue, police sirens slalom down the street. She flags the police car down.

The show is over. Sid has just witnessed a drug bust. Sid feels unsafe, insecure. She does not trust the police, undercover or in uniform. She cannot condone violence in any circumstances. What stops the police to do that to anyone, herself or any passer-by? The tarantula is still smarting on her neck. Her state of mind is ripe for a sharp implement, but her body feels already so violated. She zooms past the unwanted scene, through the green lights and down the lane.

* * * * * * *

The bottom of Coldharbour Lane is an animated shopping area and Camberwell Green. Somewhere on the left hand-side she turns and finds a cash-converter's shop, one crowded not just with music CD's and movie DVD's, but also computers, saxophones, guitars, and keyboards. After safely parking her motorbike out of the way and unfastening her helmet, Sid walks into the shop, blatantly ignoring the Gretsch guitar ─a collector's item─ winking at her from the shop window. She walks in and panoramically contemplates the various items, before zeroing in on the objects of her quest.

What does she want exactly? She does not really know. She only knows that she'll "know" it when she'll see it. Casio? Yamaha? Roland? Panasonic? She's never been keen on Casio equipment and overlooks the first keyboard. She is barely aware of some music in the background. A young man, as unkempt as he is skillful, is trying out a Yamaha acoustic guitar. Sid zooms in on the Panasonic SX-something keyboard and caresses the silent keys. It looks in good condition. The menu printed on it reveals the expected sounds, including a full drum kit and a few fanciful combinations. Speakers integrated. She checks the back of the instrument and finds every standard socket, including midi ─she could not care less for midi. She grabs at the price tag and reads: £80. The price makes sense to her: she's got just about that in a box at the back of her bedroom closet. She wonders if the stand comes with it. Damn, now she's gonna have to talk.

She knows she should talk to a sales clerk, ask for the keyboard to be plugged and play a few tunes, to make sure she likes its sound, to make sure it works...... but she hasn't got the time. Ok, that's her excuse. She could make the time, of course. She just dislikes the crowd of people milling about shops; they make her feel self-conscious, uncomfortable. Give her a stage, give her a real audience, and she will be an international superstar. An elderly man bumps into her, breaking her bubble, and barely apologizes. She scowls. Reality. She sighs and decides to join the queue leading to the counter.

* * * * * * *

Second stop on her way to another part of London to visit friends: the psychiatric hospital. Still sitting on her black and shiny Eliminator, Sid extracts her head from the helmet. A black bandana knotted around her neck hides the bitten tarantula tattoo. She looks absentmindedly at the other motorbikes lined up on the side of the street, but even if her eyes can see the details of their engines, her brain doesn't really register or react, her mind is elsewhere, she is wondering, again and again, for the zillionth time: where is Joy?

Oh, sure, Joy will show up eventually, but where is she when Sid needs to talk to her? Where is she when Sid cannot talk to anyone else? Of course, the writer is crazy. Everyone is, to a certain degree. However, Sid knows better that telling a psychiatric: "I've been bitten by a vampire", even if she's got the bite to prove it. "And this other vampire I know, is not around at the mo." Yeah, sure. Sid is not interested in being sectioned.

Showing her chewed-up tarantula to her friends? Forget it. These two are probably already stoned out of their heads. Once again, Sid has no one to talk to, no one to tell about the reality of vampires she is learning night after night. No one to tell that, even if she is not scared out of her wits, she is feeling rather unsettled.

Once upon a time, vampires were terrifying, the stuff of nightmare. Without any warning, at 12, the world of television introduced Sid to Dracula himself. A demon praying on your soul, identity, safety, integrity, a monster who could invade your every thought, as deep as your kidneys, turn you into a mindless puppet against your will, touch you and violate you, physically, as much as emotionally, psychologically and psychically. A cruel and unethical being who could rape you ─mind, body and soul─ and force you into enjoying it. The word "repulsive" as a describer is a total euphemism.

She spent years struggling with the celluloid fiend, fighting the recurring nightmares haunting her nights, afraid of being still awake at midnight, ─not just still awake, but aware of the midnight hour─, waking up drenched with fear. Eventually, with time, she learned to deliberately wake up in order to escape from her nightmares. She learned to get out of a dream to go into another one. She learned to manipulate the events in a dream. She taught herself lucid dreaming. She gave herself means and weapons to fight off the vampires. Until at last, after thirteen years of a seemingly endless war, Sid won. She destroyed the vampires with the silver arrowheads given by a woman from another planet. ─Ok, it might sound like cheating there, but bear in mind that, in psycho-analytic terms, this woman from another planet was actually a part of Sid's psyche, thus, technically it was not cheating. Since that extraordinary victory, the occasional vampires turning up in her dreams have always been friendly. Friendly.

Friendly is certainly not an apt adjective to describe the blond vampire that has bitten Sid at the Breakdown.

So, where is Joy? Sure, Joy will never be interested in impersonating psychotherapists, but she could explain the discrepancy between her previous claim ─one vampire per territory─ and Sid's sore neck.

### CHAPTER TWELVE

Something is off, and not just the light in Sid's bedroom. Whatever it is sculpts an angry frown in Joy's raven eyebrows. She just wants a quiet night in, for once. She's already fed, so all she wants now is uncomplicated sex with Sid, something to take her mind off these other vampires' shenanigans around the world, with someone who never seems to have a problem with her requests, nor the timing of her presence.

It is still early in the night and the writer is already asleep. She is not bleeding but she has bled recently. Not menstrual blood.

Swiftly, the vampire lets the black curtain fall back to the open window and reaches the edge of the low bed. Her silent fingers pull down the soft velvety quilt, her vampiric eyes spot the telltale marks obliterating the arachnean tattoo, and her tongue licks the four-night-old bite. Licks and tastes and identifies. She moves her head and in the complete darkness of the room, her eyes meet Sid's. Joy senses something different about the brown irises. The pull is stronger and hungrier. She closes her eyes in an attempt to escape but she can still feel the tug reaching out to her essence. She kisses Sid's lips, and the more Sid responds, the more their tongues reach out for each other, the more the tentacle of power withdraws.

* * * * * * *

Joy is a powerful vampire, she doesn't owe anything to anyone, she takes as she pleases and cares only for herself. Then, why does she feel that she owes this mortal writer an explanation? It is a very strange and uncomfortable feeling, as odd as abandoning herself in someone's arms. _Honestly, attaching myself to some human is a bad idea_. Nevertheless, she does not move, she does not reject the arm relaxed around her. Sid has not said a word yet; she seems to be waiting. If vampires breathed, Joy would choose this very moment to sigh extremely deeply.

"What did she say?"

"What? Who?"

Sometimes, Sid is almost irritating. She expects something from Joy, but when Joy gives it, she doesn't recognise what it is.

"The other vampire you encountered recently?"

"Oh! She basically said to tell you she was in town."

Joy's silence mingles with the darkness of the bedroom. Until Sid prods:

"Who is she?"

"Her name is Dee-Dee." Joy's voice is so quiet that she is barely audible to a human ear. "She was an anarchist musician in the early 90's. I believe she is a very angry vampire. Enraged. Maybe deranged." Maybe every vampire is deranged.

"Who made her?"

"Toni. Toni is the most powerful vampire I've met besides the one who turned me." Joy can not say sire, she has a visceral hatred for the word. "I have no idea how old Toni is. She's never been much into sharing her past. She could easily be a few centuries old. It depends on how powerful the guy who made her was. It also depends how many ancient vampires gave her their blood. She can fly."

It is Sid's silence's turn to mingle with the darkness of the bedroom. Joy feels a sudden tension in the writer's body and surprise misses her when the writer eventually speaks:

"Why would a vampire like Dee-Dee gives me a message for you? Why would she bite me if she were younger than you? Isn't she supposed to respect you or be scared of you? Or is she totally mental? Has she got a death wish? Because, I could imagine that vampires, too, can suffer from insanity, be it schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, psychosis, whatever! Has she got a score to settle with you? What's her deal? And while you're at it, could you explain to me why she asked me **WHAT** I was? Because if you've altered me in any way, I'd like to know, just, you know, to know where I'm at. But, what could it be, if this vampire needed to ask?"

_Ok, this is not the night I had in mind. Of course, I could just up and go; I've got time before dawn_. The vampire does not move. She is actually impressed. Anger is a rare feeling for Sid Wasgo and she can sense it running under the skin. _Do I consider her worthy of an answer? More than one while I'm at it? Oh, can vampires suffer from a headache?_ She tries a light approach.

"Well, as I said earlier, most vampires never ask to be vampires. I didn't! Toni probably did not. And Dee-Dee was not given more options. You see, Toni, like most vampires, simply takes what she wants, she never bothers with asking. She wanted Dee-Dee, she seduced her and made her. I think Dee-Dee ─as a human─ could have handled Toni being a vampire. But, Dee-Dee was not very happy ─to put it mildly─ about being made into a vampire. She really bolted at that, and the first thing she did was very simply to run away from Toni. I believe Toni spent the last twelve years tracking her down around the world. As a human, Dee-Dee would rarely get angry, so when her temper would flare....... You wouldn't want to hang about. Otherwise, she was a very sweet woman."

"What about Toni?"

"Toni? What's to say about Toni? There is nothing human about Toni. She is a vampire through and through. With all the cruelty. And the loneliness. Yes, being a vampire is a rather lonely affair. That's probably how she came about to make the vampire Dee-Dee. She fell for Dee-Dee and decided to make her at her image ─great success─ to spend the rest of eternity with her." Irony was sometimes the only way she could talk about Toni. The older vampire could be so aggravating. So confusing. Joy would like to let the silence resettle, but Sid has one more query.

"Why would Dee-Dee ask **WHAT** I was? Any suggestion to answer her question?"

"Er......." How on Earth could she tell her? "Well......." This would be another fine time to sigh. "Has your eyesight, for example, improved any lately?"

Now that the vampire inquires, the writer has to make her lazy mind work. She is not hesitating; she is just taking her time.

"On and off........when you're around."

Joy gives it room to take over the silence, before formulating the next installment. This one would be a wild guess if it were not for her knowledge of some of Sid's habits: Sid likes staring at a challenge in the eye.

"When Dee-Dee drained your blood some, did you feel weak?"

"Yes." Slow and calculated.

"Until you look into her deep, grey eyes?"

"Yes." Stretching the one syllable to its maximum elasticity.

"And then you regained some strength....... "

"What are you getting at?" Sid does not want to come up with the explanation herself. It could be too far-fetched.

"The word we're getting at is _psychic vampire_......."

"No, this doesn't make sense."

"Come on, it does. Think about how long you can dance, almost tirelessly, almost forever. Think about how you can see in the dark when we spend the night together. Think about Dee-Dee's reaction." _Think about everything I haven't mentioned and everything I don't know_.

"How long have you known?"

"Since the beginning of the winter."

"Not good enough a topic of conversation?"

"As good as any. I tried to get you on track a little while ago. You didn't even twitch. You didn't know. You do not even control your nature."

Is it absurd or is it true? It's the wrong day for an April's fool. Joy wouldn't make up such story, she would have no reason. Well, she is a vampire, a blood drinker, she can be cruel, she does not care. Does she? This is taking a confusing direction.

"This doesn't make sense. How could I be a...... . psychic vampire? I am mortal, am I not?" _Or immortal until_ _Death changes her mind_.

"I don't know. I'm no philosopher, alchemist or scholar. But I do believe you are a psychic vampire. Anger increases your hunger."

Face rigid, Sid thinks about the blond vampire with the painful bite. Yes, she is angry alright.

"Does it make me dangerous for a vampire like Dee-Dee?"

"Yes." It is Joy's turn to articulate the one syllable slowly.

"Does it give me the power....... to kill?"

"Maybe. At least, you could greatly weaken her. Or me, probably. And maybe Toni." After another silence, she adds: "Of course, you haven't got the physical strength of a vampire, which means in the case scenario of you encountering Dee-Dee again, that ─if you have Surprise on your side─ you might strike quite a blow. However, if Toni catches up with Dee-Dee at that very moment, in all likelihood, she would probably dive to Dee-Dee's defense, and you would be in big trouble. Remember: Toni is older than I am."

Sid does not move. Only her regular breathing betrays her as a living mortal. Out of pure logic, just to round up all the main characters in this particular plot, in the name of equal opportunity, she launches the last probe: "What about you, what would you do in this case scenario?"

Joy's features shape into an invisible smile tainted with disgust. _I'd jump to your rescue, dummy. I'd be a disgrace to the whole vampire community!_

### CHAPTER THIRTEEN

While Joy is sorting out their tickets one way or another, Sid looks around, curious of the diversity of the audience attracted by Girlschool. She doesn't know much about their music; she only knows they have been around for almost 25 years and they are an all-women band. Joy was surprised by this hole in the writer's great knowledge of women in music. Sid is not. Depression, the depression that has plagued most of her life and taken a backseat only when Music was strong enough to make it recede, depression has killed motivation over and over at every possible opportunity.

Hands stashed in pockets, mohican green, Sid looks around, stares at the long hair of some metalheads and admires a few tattoos. She notices three women wearing black walking down the steps. The dark pink mohican with a definite punk look, queries at the desk for guest lists before stalking off. The long black mohican with something gothic in her aura talks to the third one ─the purple mohican with clothes in too good a condition to be punk. They walk deeper into the bowels of the Wicked Cello.

"Let's go," Joy orders, sporting one of her twenty identical gothic outfits, and pushes Sid in the same direction among like-minded punters.

A sparse crowd has already claimed the seatless space. There is an impression of dimness and grubbiness. A gentle brouhaha of canned music, friendly chatter and beer guzzling. At one end of the stage, Sid's improved eyesight spots Frank, the sapphire-haired freelance reporter and Stacee, the Goth woman with a dazzling smile. They haven't noticed Sid or Joy. They would look delicious but the vampire has already fed.

Sid and Joy share their corner with the Goth and the pseudo-punk the writer has noticed on arrival. Like her, the purple mohican is scanning the crowd with great assiduity. She has taken her long sleeves off and revealed tattoos. Sid gets a flash of a dagger dribbling with blood on a forearm.

A band is getting ready on stage. Sid will never remember them. Nor will she the second act. Right now, she is actually thinking about this strike of destiny: a psychic vampire? She would have more likely thought herself a werewolf, because of her occasional cravings for raw meat. Rather odd for a vegetarian person.

* * * * * * *

Dee-Dee the vampire enjoys live music better when ravenous. She remembers gracing a Girlschool audience with her presence once, the year before encountering Toni, her last year as a living being. She scans the crowd for a delicious meal. She is in no hurry; she has the whole night. The band currently sweating on stage is a female power trio. They almost sound like a younger version of Girlschool. Their name is historically striking: Joan Ov Arc. About time someone grabs this name. The guitar player is as good as Dee-Dee was, when mortal. A flash of blue in the crowd attracts her eyes. She tracks the sapphire hair, watches her for a few minutes, and suddenly sets eyes on the near-by long, black hair.

* * * * * * *

Toni can sense it in the warm air of the rock venue: Dee-Dee is here. _And she is not the only one_. The older vampire smiles, but there is hunger gnawing at her core. She has time to feed. She scans the crowd and notices a rather tipsy young woman strapped in every possible oppressive fashion: make-up a la Posh Spice ( _wrong gig, Sweetheart!_ ), flimsy top, mini-skirt and stilettos. She follows her to the toilets and into a stall. And does not bother disposing of the limp and bloodless leftover of a once vibrant human being sliding, ten minutes later, out of her hands. She feels in a reckless mood: for the first time in twelve years, she is in Dee-Dee's direct vicinity! Dee-Dee is not aware of the presence of the androgynous scarecrow yet. _Must be shopping for her dinner. I wonder what takes her fancy._

* * * * * * *

Girlschool are on stage, at last. Sid suddenly wishes she had prepared herself psychologically. Their collective energy hits her like a tsunami and makes her gasp. She stares at them one by one: the bass player, the drummer, the dark-haired guitar player, and the blonde guitar player who looks so tall. When an emotion is so intense, Sid is never sure what it is. It could just as well be pain. Intensity can sustain her, that's all that matters.

The drums roll and the guitars are unleashed on the willing audience. Sid's eyes track the guitar moves, the music leaping joyfully, bouncing off each musician and reverberating in rippling waves of pleasure and excitement through the crowd. _Music is an ocean, let your mind swim like a fish._

Something is wrong; it suddenly jumps at Sid. She takes her fascinated eyes away from the charismatic musician running her cordless electric guitar all over the stage, and scans the audience. After such an onslaught of music, Sid is more susceptible to spontaneity. She sees the vampire from the Breakdown and rage gathers in dark clouds all over her field of vision. Hungry, Dee-Dee's one-track mind is taking her focused feet to innocent victims.

Motionless, Joy watches Sid suddenly bumping into punters, carving a path through the crowd. She has been aware of her fellow blood drinker since the act before the headliners. She is curious about Sid's new strength as a psychic vampire. Rage can be such a powerful fuel. Joy is as confident, as arrogant, as any vampire left unchallenged for too long. She can be there before you finish snapping your fingers once.

Hungry and expectant, Dee-Dee greets surprise when one impudent past victim steps in front of her intended dinner. The eyes are as dark as a stormy sky. Something very powerful tugs and pulls at Dee-Dee. _Not again_. However, the creature is more powerful than she remembers and pain is edging its way through her nerves.

* * * * * * *

Toni is older and, if not wiser, more knowledgeable. She takes flight over the crowd mesmerized by the legendary rock band. And gets bumped off by an unprecedented missile before slamming into the psychic vampire.

"Hey!" Complains the punter she squarely and ungracefully landed on. She does not even bother contemplating his good-natured outrage, she breaks his neck with one swift hand. Another brawny punter attempts to jump her but only impales himself on the same swift hand.

The band keeps on playing. The bass player is the first grey eye to stare, soon wearily, at the skirmish quickly getting out of hand. Well, it is actually in Toni's deadly, swift hand.

People unhappily bumped into join the fight, while Toni tries to get to Sid. To do so, she needs to get past Joy, while Dee-Dee simply would like to get to her dinner, but it is rather tricky with this creature staring at her and sucking out her energy. She can just about resist the pull, but cannot break the eye contact. They are both aware of the chaos raging around her. Frank and Tracee are not quite sure what to do. So far, mayhem is happening around them and without them, but there is not apparent exit.

The song ends in the clamour rising from the audience. It is a mixture of enthusiasm from the punters still untouched by the rage, and screaming and shouting from the fighters crowding the melee. The wandering guitar player looks at the bass player, who looks at the other guitar player, who looks at the drummer. The security people look rather overwhelmed. Riot is threatening to reach the stage. Consensus is established in a split second: playing a bloody riot is not in their contract. They run.

"Children, children," Death sighs, sitting on the edge of the stage.

"Yes, children," Life's sigh perfectly echoes her workmate's.

"Shall we?"

"Let's."

Freezing time happens to be a prerogative they rarely use. They choose to interfere only when other powerful beings ─in this case: usual troublemakers the vampires─ threaten the balance of beliefs or the order of the future.

Struck by the sudden silence, Toni and Joy, only ten feet from the ground, lose their hold on each other, drop off the air and look around. The psychic link between Sid and Dee-Dee is broken when the mortal looks at the tall woman with long, blond hair who ruffles Joy's black and white long, mohican while strolling by, and at Death smiling in the frozen chaos. Joy throws a venomous look at the stranger.

"Children, children! What are we supposed to do about you!" The copper-skinned woman exclaims with ironic nonchalance. "I am Death", she says for Toni's and Dee-Dee's benefit. "This is Life. We work a lot together," pointing at the newcomer.

If truth be told, Vampires are out of their jurisdiction, but they have always kept this detail under wraps.

Toni, squaring up to Death, throws her rage into the relaxed face: "And what the hell do you want?"

"She used to be so sweet," Death tells Life. "Remember? It was not easy for her in the late 1780's when she was still human. Such pity some vampires can go mentally unstable."

"Yes," Life replies, as deadpan as her colleague. "There is only so much we can do."

"Now, seriously," Death redirects her attention. "We have several problems to address, one being that there is no reason for Sid to be a psychic vampire. Yes, I know, Sid, you'd rather be a werewolf. But it is not a question of choice."

"We also have Dee-Dee who'd rather be dead than be a vampire but, survival instinct is such a bitch!" Life picks up the thread.

"Toni is insane."

"Joy is depressed. Hence her name."

"And we are in a public venue, at a public event, in the middle of a frozen mayhem. Bear with us, children; for us, being here is like having a tea break! We can get so bored with our work."

Irate, the scarecrow lunges at Death, but her lethal hands only catch empty air.

"Behind you, child."

She whirls around, only to find herself flat on the ground, face in the sticky dirt, and one leather boot as heavy as lead on her back, in less than a blink of an eye.

"I am Death, and even if you are not directly under my dominion, I can do whatever I want to you." There is iron in her voice.

"We'll have to spread them over the planet."

"Yes." Turning to their unwilling audience, the supposedly Grim Reaper addresses them with a grin: "Spread, but do not multiply!"

Dee-Dee stares down at the enraged vampire, wordlessly. Joy looks away pointedly. Sid sighs; it is her human prerogative. Around them, punters are like statues of stone. It almost looks like an easy-watching, American TV series. In fact, the writer is pleased to see Death again, but this time she keeps silent.

"Time travel?" Life suddenly suggests, just for the fun of it.

"It would be only temporary."

"Parallel universe?"

"You have too much spare time!" Death catches on the humorous streak.

"We'll have to, then."

"Yes, we'll have to."

Death and Life stare at each other in serious silence. It is a most radical solution.

"Do what?" Sid eventually queries for herself and the vampires.

"I'll take Toni," says Death.

"I'll take Dee-Dee," says Life.

"Sid?"

It is like shorthand. It is actually a language they speak regularly between them.

"What?" The mortal asks.

"In her case, it might disappear the same way it appears. It is just a question of fulfilling her destiny."

"Behave yourself," Death tells the writer with a gentle smile. "I'll see you soon." She grabs Toni by the collar of her jacket, while Life rests a strong hand on Dee-Dee's neck.

Mayhem suddenly unfreezes around Sid and Joy.

### SID

_A novel by W. Freedreamer Tinkanesh_

" _And drowning in the flood_

Of the sea's angry sorrow

That pulls me with the tide" (Jane Timm Baxter)

PROLOGUE

Reader, tread carefully....... You might, or might not, desire to know what happened a few years later....... At any rate, watch your step.......

THE ENVOY

An Envoy's existence requires regular time-outs. It's tough, it's unpredictable, it's demanding, it's all over the place. Unfortunately these days, free time is a luxury and we have to keep on call twenty-four hours a day, no matter what. The boss herself is working triple shift. We can blame it on the increase of the suicide rate.

So, there I was, enjoying the nice summer night in a biker café, looking forward to the main act (an uncompromising rock band going by the name of Never The Bride), and in the meantime enjoying the support act thrown as a sacrifice to the avid crowd of fans. Girls On Top were a very distinctive punk-rock outfit and the audience could only welcome the vociferous singer and delight in the infectious music.

When my pager vibrated painfully in the back pocket of my leather jeans.

I fished it out to check the number: 666.There was no escaping from that one. I gave the band a last wistful look and walked through the tight throng of mostly leather maniacs.

My Suzuki Intruder was peacefully waiting for me among like-minded motorbikes. Helmet safely fastened under my chin, I roared my proud machine into life, action and night.

When I walked into her office, Death looked up from a monitor with a harassed look blemishing her magnificent features. Dark eyes, copper skin, long raven hair. She hadn't had time to turn into skeleton lately. Way too busy. Life, as blond as she generally chose to show herself to us, was standing by her side. A 666 that required Life's presence? This was serious business. They looked equally exhausted. My boss handed me a floppy disk over the ebony desk.

"Rikki, you'll bring her directly to me."

I read the name on the proffered item: Sid Wasgo....... I was put in charge of the legendary Sid Wasgo! Well, she is legendary among the Envoys of Death, believe me. Death and Life had been keeping her alive as long as they could. Death had even shown up before Sid's eyes a few times. Envoys gossiped about the connection between the mortal and our boss. Envoys knew it was not Sid's appointed time yet. So, could it be that eventually, Sid was succeeding where she had failed so many times: suicide, to eventually join Death.

Sure, there were many mortals head over heels for Death, but this Sid Wasgo was special, very special, to our boss. Who right there and then interrupted my train of thoughts:

"All the details you need are on the disk."

And it was a red disk. Was she out of black ones?!

* * * * * *

I walked into the first available cubicle to transform into whatever programmation was required especially for Sid Wasgo, wondering why Death wasn't collecting this mortal in person. Stupid me, she certainly wanted to, but she was probably too busy cramming three hours into one. Busy to a point she had to delegate senior Envoys to recruit potential new Envoys. Back in the seventies, it was slightly easier. Just slightly enough for Death to show up before my heart stopped beating, and offer me the job of a lifetime. Yes, I was no stranger to suicide; this was how Envoys were recruited. A chance to do something, "Something" with a big capital "S". As a suicidee, I had nothing to lose.

And there I was, turning into the next best thing Sid Wasgo wanted to see in her dying moment: a tall 5'7'' with strong elegant muscles, green mohican smartly standing out, Haida-inspired tattoos down every arm and leg, Navajo designs on back and front, a Smirnoff tarantula on one side of the neck, and scars in place of breasts. I knew what was the real her and what was the ideal fantasy. She never had the money for a double-mastectomy and could never identify to any of the official genders, while still sticking to her political guns, painfully. The world didn't have to do much to kill her; she was too weak to survive.

I was provided with a black studded leather outfit fitting for a Hell's Angel, over a black T-shirt sporting a colourful Chinese dragon, a couple of thick chains criss-crossing around the hips, a matching belt, and biker boots with red flames eating at the toes. This writer had read too many books and not lived out enough.......

* * * * * *

Dusk, appointed hour to the wolves, is an ideal time for the collection of a dying soul. Especially one as contrasted as Sid Wasgo's. I parked my modified Suzuki Intruder in the paved front yard of the five-storey building, next to Sid's black Kawasaki Eliminator for company.

Locked doors, security or closet, were no problem for Envoys, we simply walked through them, immaterial. No, we couldn't fly. At least, not without a motorbike.

The stairwell reeked of sadness and damnation. It looked forsaken by cleaners. Someone had adorned a wall with a now indecipherable haiku. At the second floor, a door, whose anonymity was lost to my uninterrupted and purposeful steps. I heard a blues song ending in ad lib:

" _Track number five, she is yeah she is, the siren, never calling your name, oh you wan it so, you want her so, you want her so......."_

I stopped to contemplate the Haida-inspired artwork on the bedroom door. The writer was also an artist. The song started again its perpetual loop, sharply biting my ears. Second Look was her favourite band. A band she had followed for a few years, striking friendship with them. Their music had kept her alive for a long while. She had also tried computer games, but depression was a deceitful illness. You never knew when it would hit you again.

Sid was lying on her bed, a hard mattress directly on the black carpet, wearing an identical twin of my T-shirt, vaguely tucked into faded blue jeans with worn-out knees. I could see the ends of her leg tattoos sticking out on her bare feet.

She had reopened old scars in her wrists and dug deeper. The blood had seeped out, drenching the tiger pattern of the quilt cover with a sticky red, and when her heart crawled to a full stop, her spirit saw me in the doorway. And stated, unfazed and matter-of-factly:

"You're not Death."

I smiled slightly, remembering everyone's favourite bet that Sid Wasgo was a poker face with the sense of humour of a frying pan, and replied:

"I'm her Envoy."

She studied me, she studied my flat chest, and sighed. Well, her physical body would have; now she was a disembodied spirit, who smiled:

"I knew I could look great. If only I hadn't been so lazy."

It sounded like a joke, and no one she knew would have laughed at it. It was her self-appointed prerogative. I walked to her and held my hand out to Sid Wasgo's spirit. She accepted it and the spirit lifted itself away from her body. Sid Wasgo was now officially dead.

"Are you taking me to Death?" She asked me point-blankly.

"Yes, these are my orders."

She looked around her. The dark heavy curtains, the starry ceiling, the red and black shelves loaded with music tapes and CDs and books, the shiny black doors of the closet, the photos of Second Look performing in various venues around London trailing along the walls, the desk unusually tidy. This was the box she had shaped for her night dreams.

"Let's go."

* * * * * * *

Walking down the steps, I could feel the air getting thicker and thicker around us, cooler too, with a feeling of water. It meant that Sid was getting "deader and deader", as we Envoys called it, and this factor was letting us slide into a parallel realm, a spirit realm. She didn't comment on it, she seemed to understand.

By the time we walked through the front door, it would have felt normal to see fishes swimming by. Instead, we saw a Chinese middle-aged man looking directly at us, seeing us. Sid looked back.

"You can see me!" He exclaimed jumping on his feet, metaphorically that is, because he was a spirit that no one had collected after his successful suicide. "You can see me! My god, you can see me!"

Surprised, Sid had the good idea to keep silent. He had been left to wander until his Appointed Time. And there was nothing I could do for him. Believe me, you couldn't afford compassion for the spirits of suicidees, that would have been tempting Death's wrath and she was no joker.

"Please, help me! What is happening to me? Take me away! It's too lonely!"

Sid looked at me, her eyes querying an explanation. I looked at the man and stated flatly, because there was not many ways to tell him:

"You are dead. Someone will come for you soon."

"Dead?"

He turned around, flabbergasted, and walked away, muttering to himself. I looked at Sid:

"You're lucky."

Her right eyebrow shot up. She laughed, waving the statement away, then spotting my motorbike, she absorbed herself in its study for a minute or two, then shifted her attention to her own two-wheels, and with a wistful look at it, she commented:

"In a way, I won't miss it. It was getting too heavy. Or maybe I was getting too tired." She shrugged her shoulders. Whichever didn't matter to her anymore. "The Suzuki, it's yours?"

"Yep!"

"You're taking me for a ride?"

I smiled, knowing she would enjoy this ride no problem!

* * * * * * *

As a dead, Sid Wasgo was definitely a happy camper. She started whooping and hollering when my Suzuki took off and left the ground: wow! And went on all the way. To humour her enthusiasm, I swerved and whirled every possible acrobatic all over her neighbourhood. Before really going for it, we shot through the Brixton Academy to check out the band gracing their stage that night, but "No way!" said Sid, the "Crocodile Shoes" singer was not her cup of cocoa.

* * * * * * *

When we walked into Death's office, two versions of Sid Wasgo, Life looked at us intensely and Death ordered, her eyes never straying away from a monitor:

"Rikki, I wanna see you immediately after your debriefing."

Ok. I showed Sid an armchair –in Death's realm, everything is material and immaterial altogether- and took my leave.

When I came back later, looking my true self, Sid stared at me, shaking her head with amusement. Gone the green mohican and the Native American tattoos. Just a blond pony tail, a pair of green eyes, a tribal snake tattooed around my right wrist, the leather outfit I was wearing at the rock gig before being called on the job, and my unmistakable female shape. I was wondering if Death and Life would reset time for me and let me go back to the biker haunt and resume my audience participation. But Death looked at me, straight in the eyes, and that was quite mesmerising. Her voice deliberately broke the spell:

"Rikki, I decided to promote you."

She got up and stepped around her desk, Sid's eyes following her every move. She smiled, a radiant smile, something no one had seen for a long time –too much work, even for someone who could stretch time. And then, she dropped her bomb:

"This is your desk now. I'm going on holidays. Life will explain to you every detail you need to know."

### CHAPTER ONE

At the very least, it was Death's plan: have Sid Wasgo collected and go on holidays with her. From one universe to the next, do the best-laid plans always work out? For example, what happened in the next parallel universe?

Like in the aforementioned one where everyone got a happy ending, Sid Wasgo did achieve a few of her dreams and cult status of a sort.

Our writer had learned to play the piano and was requested by a lesbian, feminist and anarchist director with underground fame, to compose an instrumental soundtrack for a movie. By the time this music was released on CD, Joy had left London, and Sid.

She had a novel published: " _The Private Life Of A Vampire_ ". By the time readers started picking up the book off the shelves and turned it into a bestseller, Sid had lost contact with Second Look.

Depression was a faithful companion, constantly abetted by isolation, standing by Sid Wasgo's side, day and night, unflinching, unfailing, its affection steady and unrequited.

So, what could happen on this fateful summer night, to interfere with Death's eventual granting of Sid's dearest wish?

* * * * * * *

_She certainly looks tasty_ , Joy thought almost grudgingly, eyeing the young rock chick prancing in front of her: a blonde sylph barely out of her sweet teens and rather scantily clad, dancing the night away.

This was Joy's new hunting ground in London: a lesbian club with no punk or Goth in sight. Boring looks, but nourishing food. Yes, Joy was back in London, after two restless years wandering throughout Europe. She didn't have the faintest idea why, she just knew she had to come back.

The uninspired DJ swiftly transited from one techno tune to the next, a music that was so boring to Joy's ears. No soul, no heart, no spirit, no feeling, no story, no voice. But she felt her fangs grow at the sober sight of the slender and fresh neck. Oh yes, dipping into this jugular was going to be so delicious.......

Abruptly, the spell broke. The sudden thought of Sid was invading her mind, for the first time in a long time. Something felt utterly wrong; she could sense it with every fibre of her being. Something was wrong with Sid......

* * * * * * *

Rikki parked her modified Suzuki Intruder next to Sid's black Kawasaki Eliminator. She walked through the security door of the writer's building and up the sets of stairs to the second floor, barely noticing the unkempt walls and steps, the indecipherable haikus and the graffiti. Through the front door of the writer's flat. She admired the artistic work on the door to the bedroom, passed through it, and froze.

There was a woman bending over Sid's body. She was wearing black from the roots of her hair to the toes of her knee-high-booted feet. There were strands of white mingling with the strands of black in the long mohican spreading across the shoulders. The trousers were leg-hugging and the sleeves, flowing out of a body-hugging waistcoat, were wide. Rikki recognized the gothic style of the vampire known as Joy....... Drinking Sid's blood out of the freshly slit wrists was what she was doing. Sid's heartbeat, despite its fading slant, was not about to stop. The death mark was already clearing out of the dying aura. Sid was not about to see the double Death had sent to collect her.......

* * * * * * *

"Death." Life's tone was carrying a warning. Death immediately took her attention off the monitor and brought it to the Envoy standing in front of her desk. The Envoy was standing alone.

"What happened?"

"The vampire Joy."

While everyone in Death's office was dramatically forgetting to smile, the vampire Joy was feeding her own powerful blood to the moribund writer. She had cut the fleshy part of her right breast with her long nails. Sid's lips were tightly locked on the wound, greedily sucking the flowing blood, with an animalistic and deliberate quality that the writer would have never allowed herself in life.

Survival instinct gave Joy the desperate strength to pull away from Sid when she reached the edge of her consciousness. Survival instinct made her bite the tarantula tattoo on the inviting throat ─throats are always so inviting to vampires─, where two tiny old scars were blemishing the skin. Sid's arms encircled the body, their grip weakening as Joy was regaining her strength.

When she stopped and looked at Sid's face, her mouth equally smeared with blood, she noticed a strange expression in the writer's brown eyes, one she had never seen. It was deep and cold, indifferent and calculating, greedy and lusty.

The vampire sat back on her knees. Her waistcoat and shirt were opened down to below her waist, revealing her pale white skin, her bloodied right breast, the lips of the wound already joining to mend. Sid's eyes were only one step ahead of her hands.

### CHAPTER TWO

Wow, Joy thought, sitting up. Sex had never felt so.......sexual, so passionate, so deliberate, with Sid. What was going on? She looked into the writer's deep, brown eyes and didn't feel the psychic pull. No, even if she had just made Sid into a vampire, a blood drinker, Sid was no longer a psychic vampire.

Joy grabbed her black shirt and gracefully shoved her arms into the long sleeves, under the curious stare of her lover, or ex-lover, the labels felt confused. They used to be lovers, and Joy had left, in need of space, in search of new horizons. The new horizons being the old horizons of Europe. She had left with no warning, leaving Sid to wait for her, night after night. They had not broken up per se, Joy had not exactly dumped Sid, but what do you call it when you up and go without a word.......

"How did you know?" The question, simple and direct, startled the older vampire out of her wandering thoughts.

Joy's right hand fumbled for her knickers. She felt the night was still with them, but could sense it was on a short slant now.

"By drinking your blood a few years ago, I created a bond between us." She remembered the taste of Sid's menstrual blood, it had been almost as sweet and tingly as the blood she had just drained. This blood had been worth every moon of waiting.

"You didn't want me to.......die?"

Ah, the relativity of death....... For humans, it is simple: you are either alive, either dead. Or comatose. But for a vampire...... Technically, vampires are dead. But technically, they are alive, too. Hence the literary creation of the word 'undead'. It definitely sounds better than 'unalive'. But, let's get back to the matter at hand.

"Come on, Sid!" Joy tried to infuse her voice with a light, jokey spin. "Since the first time I ever set eyes on you, I've always wanted to turn you into a vampire!" She eventually located her black knickers under the tiger-patterned quilt and stood up to put them on, her eyes scanning the bed in the dark bedroom for more items of clothing. "I suggest we hurry, we both need to feed before the sun rise."

Sid didn't look peckish, didn't even feel peckish, but opted for apparent obedience to the suggestion. Blood had tasted rather nice on this first time.......

* * * * * * *

Sid was voraciously feeding, gorging herself with blood, enjoying the feel of her fangs still sunk into the warm flesh, under Joy's watchful eye. The voracity of this new vampire was something that the older vampire would have never thought possible. Sid, when alive, seemed to be of such a gentle disposition. _Ok, she thought. I never was a gentle vampire. A gentle vampire would never survive. I was angry: I had never asked to become a vampire!_

Sid had never exactly asked to be made into a vampire, but she seemed to accept her new condition rather well, so far. She also seemed to be very well disposed towards Joy: she had initiated sex, quite a first in the history of their acquaintance. Curiosity started to bite at Joy's heels: what had Sid's life been like, after her sudden departure?

"Stop!" She firmly grabbed the green mohican and pulled her young fledging away from the unconscious victim. "You don't want to kill her!"

"Why not?" The fledgling enquired, almost absentmindedly, licking her own lips with an appreciative tongue.

"Haven't you read Anne Rice?" She was trying to rekindle their literary conversations of old. Why did she need the reassurance?

"Well," Sid made a big facial show of thinking, before continuing: "something to do with.......dead blood basically not very good for a vampire's health. But," the joke now gone out of her voice. "You don't necessarily want to leave a trail of corpses in your wake."

"Exactly. I know, it can be fun!" She remembered it well. "But, nowadays, human beings are more scientifically clued-up than they used to be. Safety is paramount."

"You mean: secrecy." The human Sid had never been that argumentative.

"Whatever." Had she created a rebel? But weren't vampires, each and every one of them, rebel of some kind?

Sid licked the neck of her victim one last time and let her drop in the out-of-sight doorway. Her eyes found Joy's wondering face; they both could easily pass for humans of the living kind after feeding. She could almost see the blood pumping under the skin of her maker. And this blood had been so much tastier than the one unwillingly offered by the young woman still in her teens. Joy's eyes looked around.

"We've got to go, Sid. Can you feel the sun? It is getting ready to break out."

The older vampire wove an arm around the waist of the younger one, getting hold of her securely, and flew off above the street, fast and powerful.

### CHAPTER THREE

Sid woke up from her first day of vampiric slumber with many questions chasing each other around her restless mind. Was she able to fly? What about this recent mutation Joy had once upon a time mentioned, daywalking, was she capable of it? What about hypnosis? How strong was she? How fast was she? And what about mindreading? The awareness of the older vampire staring at her flooded her mind and she opened her eyes. They had taken refuge in Sid's flat as she had not changed the black PVC curtains, or the cosy vast quilt, after Joy's disappearance. Sid's bedroom was still a safe haven for vampires.

Joy had risen back to consciousness earlier than Sid. She was older, more sensitive to the movements of the sun. Hopefully wiser. Sid's teasing fingers started trailing gently across Joy's naked belly, sending shivers across the skin, starting a fire in the elder's senses. Sid hungry for sex, suggesting sex? What kind of vampire had Joy created on impulse.......

* * * * * * *

And every night would start the same way. Sid would feed her hunger for sex - _or would lust be a more appropriate word_ , Joy wondered- before feeding her thirst for blood.

Soon, Sid was calling the shots, choosing the hunting grounds and selecting the victims. Like Joy, Sid would ensnare the victims with sexual advances. Each victim was female, sometimes goth, sometimes punk, always willing. Threesomes, foursomes. Sid also liked watching. And Sid liked dealing pain. Joy was just about able to stir her onto the fetish scene, just about able to keep her within limits of safety for their toys. This was what the young vampire was doing: toying with the victims.

The morning Sid laughed at Joy and stood in the first rays of the sun in front of the older vampire's eyes, just outside their day shelter, and laughed even louder when her skin didn't sizzle with the heat, Joy started to curse her impulsiveness, wondering about the cruelty she had exercised throughout the 20th century. Irony: Sid, the human Sid, had taught her how to feel again, and now Joy had given Sid the gift of cruelty. She watched the young immortal glide effortlessly a few feet above the ground. The laughter resonating, vibrating in the still quiet streets of South London. A dog barked somewhere at the back, and a cat responded.

* * * * * * *

Somewhere else, in an unspecified location, probably in another dimension, certainly a different realm, two major players were contemplating the disaster on their monitors, while the Envoys of Death and Life's Helpers were milling about their multiple missions. Sadness was painting shadows under Death's eyes and paleness on Life's usually sunny features.

"So much for my holidays!" Death joked.

"You know what this means?" Life eventually smiled, amused.

"I've been at it too long?"

Silence greeted Death's musing. They both knew the truth. That a human was made into a vampire was supposed to be irrelevant to them, even at the worst of time.

"She is not really a threat to the order of things."

"So far......."

"But,......." Life prodded.

Death laughed. There was a hint of bitterness in the sound. The plan for Sid had been for her to die and join Death; it had been such all along; they had never expected Joy's sudden impulse. Maybe Life was right, Death had been at it too long. So many millennia. She decided to state out loud a reality they both were aware of and never had trouble with.

"Vampires are not under our dominion."

"Not per se."

"The only reason we were able to take Toni and Dee-Dee out was because they were threatening the balance."

"A technicality."

" _They_ don't care. _They're_ too busy playing cards. Or whatever _They've_ been doing since _They_ relinquish _Their_ responsibilities to us."

"We're supposed to be wise enough."

"There has never been the shadow of an instance needing _Their_ express return."

"The possibility of this occurrence is rated at less than 0.000000000001%."

"Close enough to nil."

Life and Death looked at each other, seriousness in both pairs of amazing eyes. Each knew where this was taking them. Life skipped a step and voiced her personal position:

"If you were to retire, I don't think I could work with another Death. We've been at it together too long for me to change my habits."

"What about Them?"

"Oh, we just have to find a loophole."

"Ha, ha! A loophole! Life! Your sense of humour alone is worth the millennia on this job!"

### CHAPTER FOUR

This definitely reminded Joy of the years of insomnia before her encounter with Sid. The restless days waking up before sundown, roaming the streets of Soho just before darkness falls. She was older than Sid, she was likely to rise earlier than the new vampire. Really? The fledgling was more powerful than any she had ever met, even more powerful than she had been, or the cruelly alluring Toni probably. How was that possible?

She had to take the risk, she needed to know: whatever happened to Sid Wasgo? Was it a feeling of abandonment at Joy's disappearance? But Sid had seemed so strong, behind her shyness, her quietness, her lack of understanding of the world. She used to have a calculated strength fuelled by her natural, intellectual curiosity. The very same curiosity that had made Joy secretly glad that Death had prevented her from feasting on the writer's neck. With her need for constant analysis, Sid must have kept a diary. Joy silently opened a desk drawer, her ears attentive to the non-existent pulse, to the imminent first flutter of the retinas. In the obscurity, she saw the hardback notebook resting tantalizingly. After a motionless second, her hand swiftly grabbed it and she almost glided out of the bedroom, carefully replacing the PVC curtain behind her. Sid was still brain-dead under the carefully spread quilt.

Speed-reading had never been a problem for Joy, but the diary was unwilling to yield the secrets she was after. It was not even written in code, the answer she was searching for almost desperately, was simply not there. Yes, Sid had certainly written about Joy never coming back and missing Joy painfully. A physical craving, an unbearable need, the screaming inside her head. The vampire looked at the chronological scattering of feelings. The dates seemed to be running further and further apart from one page to the next. And there, the writer was mentioning, in a quick, almost unimportant note, working on a brand new novel. About vampires...... She looked up at the bookshelves and saw the thick volume staring at her, daring her to slide it out of its comfy niche. " _The Private Life of A Vampire_ "....... Joy smiled at the achievement.

Refocusing her attention on the diary, she noticed the increasing sobriety and dryness of the daily style. Like life leaking out, something inside the chronicler slowly and irreversibly dying. Then, in capital fonts, the name of a woman, a thick arrow linking the name to the words "music" and "piano". Joy recognized the name. She had seen the movie and enjoyed the music. She had even felt secret pride when reading Sid's name in the credits.

But the diary was still not unlocking the secret of Sid's cruelty. This did not make sense to Joy. She would have expected to see mentions of Sid's friends, critical notes on books and movies, appreciative rants on music gigs. She would have expected Sid to entrust her pain and emotional devastation to her private diary, to write about daily activities and experiments. Except that maybe, there was a secret paranoia at the very core of Sid's being, so secret that Joy would have never noticed, because after all, Joy had been mostly interested in Sid's menstrual blood and in sex with Sid, or so she had wanted to believe. Thus Joy wouldn't have known it even if she had read it. It would have been like poetry, too subtle and too deep.

Her speed-reading took her to the last lines, written three months ago, and the following spread of blankness. Three months without writing, without jotting down her daily thoughts? Was she missing something? Was something missing in the diary? She scanned in between pages, but they seem to be each there, no leftover of a leaf torn out....... Intriguing. She sensed the rapid decline of the sun behind the high blocks towering over Sid's building. As swiftly as previously, she rejoined the bedroom and deposited the notebook back into the desk drawer. Just in time for the first flutter of Sid's retinas, the first stirring of Sid's lust.......

* * * * * * *

It was an odd angle and Joy didn't know what to think. Her face showing no expression, she stared at the younger vampire who was busy licking blood off her own lips, looking like the cat with the proverbial cream. It was an odd angle and Joy didn't need to look at it. It had been clean, neat, swift. Sid was good, very good, at killing. The half-naked body of the young fetish aficionada was smeared with blood, fear spilling out of her still open eyes. Her girlfriend didn't look better. Joy had to kill her to shut her up, with Sid's cold laughter ringing in her ears. She had half eaten the girlfriend's throat within one precise bite. The blood was still flowing out of the wide wound. An odd angle of the neck, too. The girlfriend who liked pain, who got a kick out of being chained to a wall. Her naked body was now starting to wear a red and viscous blood that Joy was not feeling hungry enough to drink. She stared at Sid, the monster she had made....... The monster was now entertaining herself with clawing at the dead, lean body, breaking bones with a smile and cupping flesh with her hands to suck the nutritious blood out of it. The light spread around by torches gave an eerie medieval look to the scene. They were in a dungeon. One of these toy-rooms, playgrounds, where people would pay to go to, to enjoy humiliating or enjoy being humiliated, to enjoy giving pain or enjoy receiving pain. Joy's existence suddenly felt senseless. She was a vampire, an old vampire, she had killed countless times, countless preys, more concerned about spilling blood on her neat clothes than for the lives she was destroying. What was happening to her?

True, the living Sid had never expressed real concern about Joy's feeding habits. Sure, she had made sure that the vampire would never feed on the writer's friends. Had she been lacking some sort of moral fibre without Joy noticing it? After all, Joy wouldn't have cared less, back then....... So, since when did she care?

"Problem, Darling?"

The irony in Sid's tone didn't escape Joy. She heard the provocation, the challenge, and tried not to rise to the bait. She soberly enquired:

"How do you clean up?"

"But, Joy, you're my teacher. You're supposed to show me....... You haven't touched the other one. Something wrong with her blood?"

Sid was toying, and Joy hated being toyed with. Did Sid want a fight? Would she give Sid a fight.......

"I think I got a bit carried away......." Sid mused, her eyes wandering over the mangled body of her food.

Joy looked away, too undead to sigh.

### CHAPTER FIVE

"Time is of the essence", Death declared, and Life smiled. This was a meaningless quote and a call for action altogether. It was time for Death to reclaim Sid's soul and heart, and for Life to consider Joy's.......

* * * * * * *

Joy was standing in the darkening front room, reading " _The Private Life of A Vampire_ ", secure in her powers, safe in the dying day. She was actually quite fascinated by Sid's protein theory and her detailed study of the various blood-drinking animals.

She froze in her reading when she suddenly felt fingers drifting through her long hair. As fast as lightning, she swivelled around, ready to strike. Only to find her right arm stopped by the steely hand of....... Sid....... Sid? There was cruel amusement shining in the fledgling's brown eyes. Sid....... How in hell was it possible? She had not felt the writer's consciousness stir, she had not heard a sound, not even sensed the air move around her....... She remembered that the writer, when a living being, didn't know fear. Maybe, just maybe, it was time to run away from this monster she had created, who was so incredibly powerful for a fledgling. But Joy felt responsible.

She read hunger and lust in the cold eyes. She suddenly missed the human being she had known and left. She painfully missed the human being she had grown to love so much that she had run away in fear. Now was too late for regrets. The tide was rising again with no promise for tomorrow. Who knew what was about to wash up on the shore this time.......

* * * * * * *

They had fed, quickly, soberly, with no cruel antics from Sid. They were on their way to a gig. Their favourite band, one they had not seen for a while ─Joy being abroad, Sid being adrift─, were playing a good venue in the centre of London, one with a good acoustic and a good sound, one where they could be filmed for a DVD. Second Look were going to be at their best and worst behaviour. They needed the month of September to be special.

Joy and Sid remembered....... But Sid didn't care for the memories anymore. And Joy, Joy wasn't sure of anything anymore. At least, they had both fed satisfyingly, hopeful hint for an easy night.

Definitely unobtrusive, almost invisible, Death and Life were standing by, watching the crowd of enthusiastic punters, listening to their cries of delight and their shouts of impatience. Canned music was ravishing everyone's ears. " _Come to my window, Crawl inside, wait by the light of the moon, Come to my window, I'll be home soon_......" Melissa Etheridge was crooning away.

Blue-haired Frank smiled at gothic Tracee and suggested a drink. They moved on through the crowd, inconsequentially chatting and joking about alcohol. The goth hadn't seen her friend Sid for months and hadn't really noticed.

* * * * * * *

Terry Harley and Dawn Ferndale walked on stage like the world was their private oyster; the venue certainly was. The audience erupted with enthusiasm, shouting their names.

"Have you ever thought about feeding on them?" Sid quietly enquired.

"Mmmh. More than once. But, I liked the audience better......." Joy mused.

Sid laughed silently, sending odd ripples down Joy's spine. She threw a quick look at her companion and noticed no threat on the presently quiet features. The soaring voice of Terri Harley distracted her.

"Alright! Let's rock!" Music rose and the crowd quieted down. The keyboard unleashed wild music and the voice roared. Joy started to relax. She had not noticed how tensed she felt. Sid seemed already lost in the music. There was definite hope for an easy night. Hang on. What was that? Joy could sense a presence, a great power....... Sid, young and arrogant, had not noticed. Joy's senses scanned the crowd, her eyes slowly sweeping the enthralled audience. And there, she saw them, and almost gasped with surprise. Death and Life were there, too?! The two most powerful entities she could imagine were there....... Why on Earth, why in hell, what was their purpose....... Sid was still seemingly lost in the music.......

"Ah.......," Sid sighed mockingly. "She is still good, oh yes, but she's lost her spontaneity. What a pity."

"What?"

"I'm referring to the singer. It's the same moves. The same facial features. All the way through. She hasn't changed an iota......."

Joy stared back at the stage where the band was dealing the last notes of their first number to thunderous applause. Then she stared at Death and Life again. To her great surprise, Life smiled at her.

"What's up?" Sid enquired, mildly interested in her companion's reason to feel startled. She looked over and looked back at Joy. Suddenly, her attention shifted again. Joy felt the hunger rise in Sid. She quickly looked around and saw the potential food. The black hair of a goth woman, the blue hair of a free-lance reporter. Joy shrugged.

"They're your friends."

"But they look so delicious......."

Sid licked her lips with a salivating tongue, her canines sharpening slowly, fire almost spilling out of her eyes.

"Courtesy, Sid. Besides, they're your friends."

"I am a vampire, they are food......." She was already passing the bemused Joy, cruelly joking: "I could at least say hi to my friends! It has been a long time!"

"Sid?"

Joy's hand missed Sid's shoulder. Sid was already walking away, walking faster than normal pace, but still passing for human, if anyone wanted to notice her. But whoever would glance at her was anyway only taking in her green mohican. Some things never changed.......

Joy rushed, bumping against the people closing the gap in the wake of her monster, ignoring their vocalized complaints _. Since when do I care, I am as much a monster as Sid is now!_ The crowd unconsciously parting ahead of the young vampire and her fiery hunger. On stage, another song was lifting up to the sky, flowing up through the ceiling, breaking sound barriers. Joy was not listening anymore, the pace was increasing away from her. Hunger was turning into a tidal wave, engulfing Sid's failing consciousness. Joy sped up, faster than human, causing a commotion that was barely rippling by the instant she caught up with Sid, faced her and opposed her:

"No!"

Sid laughed: "What do you care? I'll be happy to share with you!"

Joy's facial features hardened:

"No."

Sid's smile died slowly, rage burst out with her voice:

"Who are you to oppose me?"

"I am your sire."

The words had barely crossed Joy's lips, carrying all her power and might, when Sid's backhand caught her across the face, flinging her against several rows of people, like a bowling ball striking bowling pins. She stood back up automatically, in one swift movement and threw herself at the writer, with all the undead strength in her body. She felt like she had hit a cliff.......

A circle started to open around them. The band kept on with their song, still unaware. Frank and Stacee felt the ripple in the crowd and turned around to look. Sid and Joy levitated up, locked in their struggle. And the punters, row by row, started to look up in awe. And the singer let her voice fade out at the sight. The musicians joined her in her amazed silence, one by one.

Sid roared with fury when Joy threw her against a wall. She only bounced back. To beat Joy with a mighty fist in the chest, which would have definitely terminated someone else's breathing. As swiftly, hitting faster than a human eye could see, the side of her other hand hit Joy's neck. Joy fell to the ground. Only to be gently picked up by Death herself. The crowd around them, the band on stage, looked frozen in time and space. Sid's face turned around to see a smiling Life levitating alongside her.

### CHAPTER SIX

"What's that?" The vampire snarled, her nose hardly an inch away from the entity's nose. "A rock and roll intervention?"

"Oh, my sweet Sid," Death replied with an amused smile. "It is, if you want it to be! Why don't you go and sit down on the stage with Life while I'm having a quick chat with Joy." Death shifted her eyes from the incandescent Sid to the still-a-bit-stunned Joy. But Sid the vampire didn't like being dismissed. She growled and threw herself at Death with every intention of beating her down to a pulp and probably knocking a few frozen punters off for good measures, including her friends Tracee and Frank.

Before she knew it, Life had thrown her through the air. She landed in the midst of the drum kit in a crash of cymbals and thrashing of toms, killing the snare, unhinging the hi-hat and barely missing the shaved-head drummer hired for the occasion (the gig, not the fight). Life was already bending at the waist, her hand extended down towards her to help her up. Fury made the vampire snarl and she refused the friendly hand.

Amongst the frozen punters, Death and Joy were taking a walk, always finding a path between the absurd bodies.

"Joy," Death started, seriousness in her voice. "You spelled chaos when you turned Sid into a vampire." Shushing the vampire with a wave of her left hand, she went on: "I know, you never meant to. You acted on impulse. But you spelled chaos. We were going to let Sid die on that evening. She had earned it. Besides, I spent so many millennia playing Death, I had decided to retire. So, yes, you threw quite a spanner there."

"What do you mean? You were going to grant Sid's wish? Why? After so many years turning her down!"

"By the way, did I forget to mention? Life is retiring, too. Oh, not to worry. Our replacements are already planned. They've been training since night one of their assignments."

"Ok. But, all this as nothing to do with me. Except for Sid......."

"We'll get there. Let me explain first. You abandoned Sid." Joy looked away. "You were afraid. Afraid of yourself, weren't you." Joy was looking away, silently. "You're a vampire. You're supposed to have no soul. No heart? I doubt it. It was simply frozen. Petrified with cruelty. Cruelty is necessary for a vampire. Without cruelty, you cannot kill. If you cannot kill, you cannot feed. But, these, Joy, were the old ways. You know that. No matter how much fun you had leaving a trail of dead corpses, you adapted. Feeding was still fun. What do you think happened to you?"

Joy's eyes turned back to the stage where Sid was silently, albeit rather disgruntled, sitting with Life. Stubborn silence shaping the young vampire's body.

"You fell in love. Yes, Joy, you did. You fell in love with Sid. Strange feeling, isn't it? You didn't know this feeling. You had never experienced it while alive. You knew what it was to love, as you loved your children. But love, in love......." Death let her voice trailed with innuendos. While Joy considered the meaning of this statement. She didn't want it to be true, but she couldn't deny it either. It felt scary. Death resumed: "Scary, isn't it?" Joy looked at her. "It's ok, Joy. And this is why you ran away without a word. This is why you abandoned Sid...... Now, Joy, as you must remember, you had quite a good life. Even if you never fell in love back then. Oh, you certainly did like your many lovers, but I'd be surprised if you really remembered what most of them looked like."

Joy frowned. What did this matter anyway, a century later? Her past lovers were all dead and dusted. So what.

"What's your point?"

Death smiled:

"Now, this is a Joy I recognize. Direct. We'll get to that point, but later. What you would like to know now, is what happened to Sid after your sudden departure...... What made her turn into such a monster." The sadness in Death's voice surprised Joy. "She believed in you, Joy. As much as she believed in me. Except that, with me, she knew waiting was the name of the game. You, you felt solid, you were always turning up at some point. She was unconsciously relying on you. And even if she never acknowledged it even to herself ─you didn't read it in her diary─ she felt betrayed. Betrayed by someone she had learned to trust. To trust with her life...... Yes. Ironic, isn't it. But remember, Joy, Sid, when alive, suffered from depression. She was isolated. As you know, Sid never had any real understanding of the real world. She could never belong. Her entire life. Even as a child. You turn up, exotic by nature, as different as her even if in a different way. She did fall for you, too, you know. But she didn't run away......."

"And that, my abandoning her, made her the monster she is?"

"Well....... Depression is a form of emotional exhaustion. Ultimately, it did make her the vampire she is. Your abandonment of her was just one of the triggers."

"One of them?"

"Yes. What happened next....... Or, let me correct, what did not happen next, is a social structure. Didn't you notice, when you read her diary, that she stopped mentioning her friends, one by one? You abandoned her, you ran away from her, and her friends, not deliberately though, abandoned her, too."

Joy looked at the sulking young vampire again. There was no trace of the whale left in Sid, she was.......like a werewolf possessed by the full moon. The old vampire's eyes went back to Death, then looked at the floor sticky with spilled beer. Eventually, Joy spoke:

"So, where do you think we go from there? What's your plan? Because I am sure as hell you didn't show up at this gig just for the love of music."

Death laughed. It sounded like a sweet ripple in the air. Even Sid looked at her, surprised, and for a second or two, her face softened.

### CHAPTER SEVEN

"I believe this is our cue."

The vampires both looked up, surprise painted across their faces, to watch the five entities walk towards Death and stop just a few feet away. By then, they had all slid into a parallel dimension, where the frozen punters were unsubstantial ghosts floating across the air. Joy stared at the newcomers, wondering which one had spoken. _They_ were totally look-alike and genderless, expressionless and synchronized. Hairless, shiny faces with eyes of steel. Perfectly smooth bodies sporting simple, black clothing. When they heard the eerie voice again, Joy and Sid saw that _They_ were speaking in unison, with a medium pitch that gave no hint.

"We guess that poker games are becoming redundant and obsolete again. What are your claims?" Death opened her mouth, but _They_ interrupted her before she could even utter a word. "We do not want to hear it from you, Death. We want to hear Life's take on this one first."

Every eye turned to Life. She gracefully jumped off the edge of the stage, took a deep breath and infused concentration in her facial features, before answering formally:

"Once upon a time, I became Life and served a few millennia of time. And......." She hesitated, breathed deeply again and resumed. "I now wish to retire and ask for my Boon."

"We see. Once again, following Death's lead....... And who is your Boon?"

Life's eyes went to Joy. Sid stared, arching her eyebrows. Joy blinked, startled in sudden comprehension. Death didn't move. _They_ scratched _Their_ heads in total synchronization before bringing Their collective attention to Death. Death nodded before answering with the ritual sentence to the silent demand.

"I now wish to retire and ask for my Boon."

"We know who your Boon is."

_They_ surprisingly laughed, a crystal sound flowing with warmth and delicacy, and smiled. It didn't seem to fit _Their_ features. Maybe too big, or maybe too small. It was difficult to figure it out. Seriousness befell _Their_ features again.

"Do we grant or do you challenge? Do we redeem or do you pay? You were the best Life and Death of all times and you wish to retire?!" Thunder in the united voices. Death and Life looked back without a word. _They_ scoffed, almost looking bored. "Death, we understand. Sid is not an unexpected Boon. But you, Life. Joy as your Boon?! What did we miss? Tell us. Tell Joy." Everyone heard the echo, the hint of threat.

Life walked towards the bemused Joy and looked into her eyes intently. Joy wondered. _Don't tell me. Not Life_. I would remember! But she did not remember. Death was right. How could she remember. She had had so many lovers.......

Life let a gentle hand rest on one of the vampire's shoulders. Joy stared back into Life's blue eyes and saw....... One of her many lovers. Yes _....... A long time ago, a lifetime away. She remembered eyes calling for her attention across a ballroom, a radiant smile capturing her imagination. The human Jasmine had felt passionate for the offered tenderness. She had enjoyed the nights, until her lover had murmured softly that she had to leave, even if she wished to stay. Duty, a higher calling, was requiring her elsewhere. She was hoping to reunite one day..._

"My Sweet Jasmine........" The entity whispered, breaking the stream of memories. "You were so young....... If only you had died a natural death......." And looked away.

"Does your Boon agree to the deal? Oh, she doesn't really know what it entails. Nor yours, Death."

"We haven't had the chance to explain yet," Death replied.

"Are you challenging us?"

"No. You are granting and redeeming. We have served our purpose for millennia."

There was silence around everyone, and a chill, while a staring match was taking place. They suddenly laugh again.

"Have you planned the next Death and the next Life?"

"Yes! Our replacements are perfectly suitable."

"Reincarnation and happiness ever after? Are you sure?"

"Yes," Death answered.

"Oh, let's get on with it then! Your Boons will like it anyway. Are you ready?"

"Yes." This time Life spoke.

"Then, so be it......."

And the world went dark around them.......

### EPILOGUE

And so it came to pass that among the new births daily occurring on the planet Earth, four specific beings came to life, crying out for each other without knowing it yet.

The simultaneous events took effect in London, UK; Santacruz, California; Flagstaff, Arizona; Hanover, Germany. They grew up in their various cities, thriving to learn and excel in artistic, intellectual, paranormal and alternative fields, always active in their respective communities and at the same time always apart from their peers. They grew up, feeling different, feeling thirsty for knowledge and new horizons, balanced and at the same time feeling like some vital parts were missing from their lives.

They each had the opportunities to start traveling at an early age, enjoying the wealth of cultures and the broadening of their minds, often seemingly ahead of their time. Internet being a tool with marvelous potential, they started spotting each other's names online just after their twentieth birthdays.

They eventually met one summer in the midst of the Vancouver Folk Festival. The rest, My Friend, is, as _They_ say, History.......

### ###

### About the Author

Little is known about the apparently quiet W. Freedreamer Tinkanesh. The few unearthed bones are still disconnected: dreams, books, no gender, tattoos, wolves, invisible energies, permanent puzzlement. W would be (in alphabetical order) a versatile artist, a chocolate fiend, an independent musician, and a tree hugger.

The cats know more, but refuse to talk: one will stare you down; the other one will fight you.

W's writings have appeared in unknown, obscure zines and in the last ten years in various anthologies: 'Write Now' (UK, 2001), 'Threads' (UK, 2009, edited by Cassandra Lee aka Shawn-A-Lee McCutcheon-Bell), 'Eclectica' (2011, edited by Andrea Dean Van Scoyoc), 'No One Gets Out Alive' (2012, edited by Hydra M. Star).

