Larten was tired. This place had always done that to him. Deep down, he understood that he was only coming back to fantasies, not memories, in the same way that he understood the force of gravity. Understanding that all things must fall did not give him the ability to float, just so was his inability to let go of what might have been. Now, slipping down through the manhole cover into the veins and arteries of this city, he felt like he was sinking back into the parts of his own mind that knew the true nature of this place and what his life had been here.

He wasn't alone. The human, Miss Debbie Hemlock followed him down and he waited in the darkness for her to descend. He could see that she was trembling, hugging herself and looking at him with wide bright eyes. Looking away, he said, in a voice that partly betrayed his melancholy; "come. Let us go."

She nodded wordlessly and he turned, tucking his cloak close to him and setting off at a steady, rhythmic pace, the light from the torch she had clicked on dancing about his ankles. The beats of his footfalls echoing off the sewer walls did nothing to drown out his particularly bitter thoughts. He was forever reclaiming this city. This time, vampanese had nested down here in the tunnels and for the third time he was flushing them out like rats. At least that was something he could fight against, something he could change. The greatest aggressor was time. As the decades passed, more and more, he could not keep hold of the alleys and tenements, the churches and streets, for they were one by one ripped down and rebuilt and retaking his past meant searching for the forgotten places that humans didn't see fit to change. Even the places that were protected because of their historical significance were just empty shells with plaques where there used to be people. It was just these tunnels now, dry and rusted.

He let out a long low breath. He was so tired. The temptation to leave it all and let it crumble was so persistent. When had he ever had control over where his feet fell? The fact that this abstract notion of fate or destiny was in actuality, a tangible breathing thing made it far worse. Ignorant people could just dismiss it all and believe that fate was an old fashioned idea designed to make fairy tales make sense, but he had to look Mr. Tiny in the eyes and face very real dangers on the whims of that man.

This train of thought made him stop suddenly, alarmed by the bubbling anger inside him. It was not wise to allow his emotions to get the better of him like this. Miss Hemlock almost ran into him and he grunted an apology. She was already sweating, her hair clinging to her forehead, breathing heavily. He took no notice of her as he took a different path, turning right into a narrower tunnel and resuming his pace.

Forcing his mind back to the task at hand, he tried to accept dispassionately the silence of the sewers, their defiant emptiness. His thoughts wandered back to the girl behind him. She had not spoken to him since they entered the tunnels and he glanced back at her occasionally to make sure she wasn't lagging. At first, she met his eyes, nodding, even smiling to let him know all was well, but when the hours started to wear on, her eyes were losing their brightness and she was no longer looking up, but at her feet. He had expected this. As a vampire, this was no more than a light stroll in the moonlight but humans did not share the same stamina.

"Do you wish to stop?" he asked.

"No, no, I can keep going."

And so they did, for another twenty minutes or so, before he heard her voice again.

"Darren says that you were born here." It was more a question, a conversational offering.

"Yes. This is one of the few places that I might call home."

She waited. When he didn't appear to want to continue, she tried again. "It must be a very different place to when you were growing up."

"It was smaller…" he said cagily.

There was another ten or so minutes of silence save for the sound of their boots on the concrete, which was then replaced with splashing when the turned into more recent part of the system. It smelled foul and the walls glistened. Luckily, the water and what else had been drained away, leaving only gritty puddles.

"So I erm…" Debbie spoke again, sounding breathless. "Well… I figured that if we're going to work together, we might as well get to know each other." She waited. He didn't even look back. "I mean… Don't you think?"

"I would tell you to be silent Miss Hemlock if I believed that we were anywhere near the vampanese-" she gave him an indignant look "-but frankly I do not think that is the case. Perhaps Vancha and Darren are having more luck than us." He slowed his pace to a far more leisurely one. Indeed, they were well into their search and they had not seen hide nor hair of his purple skinned cousins. Finding a relatively dry stretch of wall, he leaned against it. "We will rest here."

"I can keep going," she said again.

"I cannot," he lied, taking in her flushed features, her drooping eyelids, her shaking knees. She seemed grateful, despite what she said, for the stop. The silence became uncomfortable, and so he tried her tact.

"How do you propose we start?"

She looked at him confused.

"Getting to know each other," he elaborated.

"Well," she stammered. It was clear that she was nervous. The conversation had perked her up a little and she no longer seemed so exhausted, but conversation was a challenge in and of itself, completely separate from the long search. "You can call me Debbie, for one. I was born here too, so we have that in common I guess. My favourite colour is green…" She blushed. "It's what we get the kids to do on the first day of school when they don't know each other. You say your name and your favourite colour."

Larten allowed himself a small smile, figuring that she probably knew very well what his favourite colour was. Resuming a serious expression, he said; "You were right. This city is a very different one compared to the one I knew."

"How old are you?" she asked. "If you don't mind."

He let out a breath, thinking. "I cannot say for sure. I remember the Great War and the turn of the century before that."

It was her turn to let out a breath, her eyes widening slightly. Then, excited, she exclaimed. "Do you remember Oscar Wilde?"

"Yes. I remember. I was still in London at that time. I never had the pleasure of meeting him, but I remember his plays and I distinctly remember seeing him across a hallway. I never saw much harm in him," he frowned at the memory.

"Do you remember Jack the Ripper?"

"Yes. Those were nightmare times. I was still young then, still very much unaccustomed to that kind of death." He hesitated before falling silent. There was no need to tell her more than she already knew

"Queen Victoria's Coronation?"

At this he shook his head. "No. I do not remember that. That was before my time."

"Wow… Have you ever considered writing it all down? You'd be such a valuable historical source!"

Ignoring the assumption in this question, he shook his head once more. "No. It would not be beneficial for me if I were to expose myself in that way. Even if I were to lie and say that it was not all first hand experience, it would be dismissed as fiction without credible sources. Such is the brutality of academia."

Debbie seemed crestfallen when she heard that. Noticing, Larten gestured that they should move on, but this time, he fell into stride with her and said; "if you are so curious, you may ask me what you like. Do not expect me to have insight into every milestone of history, but I will answer what I can."

She bit her lip. "Have you met anyone famous?"

He shrugged. "I do not think so. I knew of a vampire though, a good friend, who dined with Shakespeare and Columbus and the like. But he liked that, he was close to humankind throughout a lot of his life. I was not. I may have seen a lot of people who had a part of play in the history books, but I never spoke to any of them."

"You must have spoken to some of them. You must have been a quite the social butterfly to get into one of Wilde's parties."

He found that he liked this. He realised in all the time he had been with Darren, the boy had never asked him about the past like this or taken any real interest in him. They had grown closer over the years, of course. He now saw Darren more as a personal student, a charge, rather than a nuisance, but, in short, Darren didn't have any interest in learning. The only times he was able to cram information down his throat was on the fly, as and when it was needed, and even then, Darren had been reluctant to listen, at least at first. This new appreciation was strange, and it made him feel self conscious, but it was nice all the same.

"It was not his party. It was some dukes or other, I cannot remember, and I was not actually a guest. I had stolen an officer's dress uniform and had snuck into the manor without the hosts knowledge. Nor was I interested in any of the guests really, just the one. A woman who called herself Scarlet."

Debbie was open mouthed. Now that he said it, he realised how juvenile it all was. But hell, it has been fun! He remembered the thrill of that night like one remembers a dream, and like water trickling through his cupped hands, the memory of the sensations slipped away and he was left feeling empty.

"Who-"

"Hush!" His hand snapped out, stopping her in her tracks. For a breathless moment they hovered there. And then it came again, padded feet on water, a low, rumbling growl. Dogs? Taking her arm, he gently tugged her in the direction of a junction in the tunnels and they hurried in the opposite direction from where the sounds were coming from. Instead of it getting dimmer, however, the sounds followed them, and he heard them through the walls, shuffling, the scraping of claws, panting

"What's going on?" Debbie whispered. She was shaking a little, her dark skin a little grey.

"Can you hear that?" he asked.

"Hear what?"

"There are animals nearby. Dogs, I assume…" He paused, his head tilted to catch the sounds of them being overtaken. "It's an inconvenience, but it might have to be dealt with."

Debbie moaned. "I don't want to fight dogs."

"They are wild animals, Miss. Hemlock. Do not be sentimental. Anyway, hopefully they will pass us by."

They continued down this tunnel cautiously. Soon it became apparent that Debbie could hear them too, and they would occasionally see four legged shadows scampering away from the torch light. Larten was not particularly afraid, rather he was partly irritated, and partly concerned for Debbie. He could imagine Darren's response if she ever got bitten by something. He would never let her take part again, a sentiment that Larten found foolish. The girl had kept up with him with him this far, with the sun no more than two or three hours from rising, long after many other humans, especially comfortable civilians like her, would have given up, all without complaint.

Finally, their hunters, such as they were, became bold enough to come into the light. Their eyes glowed an eerie blue in the torch light. There were three of them. What looked like a shaggy black labrador stood forward, his teeth yellow and snarling, and behind him, a collie of some kind and a spaniel, each snapping and rumbling threateningly. Their fur was matted and grimy and all three looked skeletally thin. They had grown desperate for food apparently, desperate enough to attack creatures three times their size. The lab menaced Debbie, who stepped back, inviting him to take ground, which he did. Larten gave a shout, throwing out his cloak, but madly, seemingly unaware of their relative sizes, the collie pounced.

It was no fight. As soon as the dog have leapt up to take his arm, Larten has crushed it's windpipe and it had fallen with a whine. Dark blood stained his cuff and he snorted, turning on the lab, who had changed it's mind about Debbie and was now advancing on him. In one swift move, he slammed the dogs head into the ground, crushing it's skull and issuing a terrible crunching sound. Without breaking his stride, he turned to Debbie and stopped abruptly.

The spaniel was no more, lying limp on the ground. Debbie on the other hand was speckled with teeth and claw marks, kneeling on the floor, holding her hands up away from her as if she were holding something dreadful. None of them appeared to be deep, but all the same, she was shaking. She had dropped her torch and it had rolled away, creating a spotlight that illuminated her bloody hands and knees.

"I… I strangled it." She finally whimpered.

Larten listened out for more sound but their scuffle must have frightened off any other would be attackers and he knelt down in front of her, carefully pushing the spaniel's corpse aside. "You will be fine. Here, allow me…" He reached out and took her wrist, examining her cuts. She had one particularly bad one that started at the heel of her hand and traced a line half way down her forearm. The rest was superficial. He brought his mouth to the cut but he felt tension as she tried to jerk her hand away. He let go of her.

"What are you doing?"

"I can heal this one. Vampire spit heals wounds. The rest will not give you trouble, but this one is sizeable enough to leave a scar."

"How do I know you won't try to drink my blood?"

He didn't laugh. "I have fed. It is fine if you do not wish me to heal it, but I must insist that you wash it correctly to stop infection."

After a few moments, she give him her arm and he bent to spit on it, using a thumb to rub the wetness in. She winced, but soon all that was left was a smudge of blood and saliva. She got up, still trembling.

"There are a few more hours left of darkness, but I am more than willing to call it a night. How do you feel?"

"Yeah…" she responded, her voice weak and fluttering.

"Alright then." He turned to find a manhole cover.

"Larten?"

"Yes, Miss Hemlock?"

"Thank you for healing me."

He said nothing. She followed him a little ways until he found what he had been looking for, a ladder. Putting his hand on the first rung, he began to climb.

"Larten?"

"Yes?"

"Don't tell Darren about the dogs. He'll only worry for nothing. I don't want him telling me what I can and can't do."

"I will not," he replied, pushing the manhole cover up and aside and hauling himself up into the night.

Returning to his hotel bed that evening, he couldn't help feeling cheated. If things had happened naturally all those years ago… but no… Mr. Tiny had been there. He remembered it well, how insulted he had been when that man has presumed to tell him to blood to boy, how he had refused, how he had then later… 'thought better of it'. But what if it had been Debbie who had been his assistant? Would he have met her without Darren? Regardless, it would just another reminder of the choices that Mr. Tiny had taken away from him. He didn't remember the last time he had been able to say no.

She could have been a fine assistant, someone to be proud of. Someone he could work with, teach. But he knew the story, knew how it had to end, knew what would happen if he didn't connect Tiny's dots. It was a dangerous fantasy to indulge in, wishing to change the past, undo the commitments he was forced into, regain his past, his free will. It was just another longing he would have to suppress.

But he was just so tired.