Erin never really thought about how Vlad hardly ever got any sleep. He had to go to school, and of course see her, which meant that unlike most vampires he had taken to sleeping at night. Vlad had told her that vampires didn't need as much sleep as breathers. Normally about five or six hours a day would do, but normally they'd just sleep while the sun was up.

If you had told Erin Noble a year ago that she would be sleeping in a coffin with the most powerful vampire in the world, she... well, she probably would of just raised her eyebrows or something, but anyway. Erin still couldn't quite get her head around it sometimes. She had a vampire... a vampire for a boyfriend. If her friends from slayer school could see her now.

Erin couldn't sleep. The sun was just rising in the sky, and light was starting to peep through the bottom of the thick curtains on Vlad's window. Erin had insisted that if they were going to share a coffin then at least the top should be left open, as well as bringing pillows and a duvet in. It was too weird being shut in a cold box all night.

Vlad was sleeping quietly. Erin lent up on her elbow and traced her fingers lightly over the pale skin on his arm. It was cool; not freezing or uncomfortable to touch, more like fresh, like Vlad had just taken a walk on a crisp autumn morning. When he put his arm around her normally she didn't even notice the difference.

Her hand moved down his arm to rest lightly on his chest. The first couple of nights Vlad's sleeping had really freaked her out. He was perfectly still. No twitching or stretching, and most noticeably of all, no breathing. He looked... well, he looked dead. Occasionally he would mutter something in his sleep, which normally made Erin laugh. Mostly it was random words like 'garlic' or 'go forward'. Once he had said exasperatedly 'I'm not even a vampire yet', and he'd once said 'what if I can't fly up to the bottom' which had made her so much she'd woken him up. Vlad had mentioned once about a vampire dream world, but she didn't really know what it was.

She couldn't deny that the idea of the two of them being together was strange. A slayer and a vampire. To be honest, it just sounded doomed to fail. He should want to drain her blood and she should have the constant urge to turn him to dust, and yet here they were sleeping together.

A loud knock suddenly sounded on the door, causing Erin to shout out. Vlad's eyes fluttered open as another knock came.

'Vlad? Erin?' Jonno's voice was easily recognisable. 'It's 6:20, and I want to get this sorted before we have to go to school.'

Vlad groaned, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. 'What does he want?'

'Garlic knows, but we better find out.'

'They both yawned simultaneously and hauled themselves out of the coffin. Vlad snapped his fingers and the candadelembra lit up. They both grabbed a jumper to put on over their pyjamas and answered the door to find Jonno dressed in his full slayer attire, as per usual.

'Oh good, you're up.'

'Well we are now,' Erin said yawning again.

'Let me guess,' said Vlad defeatedly, 'another Vampire's bitten a breather, or... I dunno, a slayer can't find his stake...'

'What?' said Jonno looking slightly confused. 'No, I just need to talk to you before school. It's pretty urgent.'

'I should just be going to sleep right now...' Vlad muttered, leaning on the doorway.

'Yeah, all right then,' Erin said, rubbing her eye absentmindedly.

'Come on then. My mum's waiting in the throne room.'

'Because she's exactly who we want to see after just being woken up...' Vlad whispered to me as Jonno led the way.

'Shh!,' Erin said, giggling.

'What! She hates me.'

'She doesn't hate you, she just hates what you are,' said Jonno from ahead, 'No offense'

'Non taken, I'm not too fond of it myself...'

Jonno opened the door to the throne room and a pool of sunlight spilled out into the hallway, missing Vlad's bare feet by an inch, and causing him to jump back quickly.

'Hey, hey! What you playing at!' He quickly clicked his fingers and the curtains in the throne room snapped shut.

Mina looked genuinely sorry as she rushed forward. 'Stake and crossbows, sorry, sorry! I didn't think...'

'Nah, don't worry about it,' Vlad said dismissively, heading for the fridge. Erin could tell he was still half asleep as he groped in the fridge for a drink and sat down at the dining room table, his head in his hands.

'You alright Vlad?' Jonno asked almost warily

'Yeah, just haven't been getting much sleep lately. Blood and garlic, sorry! Did anyone else want a drink?' he said gesturing to his glass.

Jonno peered over the rim to see the red liquid inside. 'Not of that at least.'

Vlad smiled and took a sip of his soy blood as Renfield came bustling in wearing a rather weird expression on his face.

'Oh what is it now Renfield?' Erin said.

'It's master. He's behaving very oddly. He asked me to cash his wape, I don't know what that is supposed to mean...'

'Are you sure it wasn't wash his cape?' Jonno asked.

'Oh,' Renfield looked even more confused. 'I guess that does make more sense. But which one?' and he gestured to the corner where it looked like at least ten capes and cloaks where hanging up.

Erin shrugged, and Renfield shrugged back, then shuffled over and began riffling through the mass of dark fabric.

'So, what was it you wanted?' asked Vlad taking another sip.

Jonno coughed as he inhaled some of the dust from Renfield's cloak searching. He coughed for a good few seconds, then cleared his throat and said 'well...' before he burst out coughing again.

Erin snorted slightly in amusement. Vlad was smiling into his glass before he reached over and offered it to Jonno.

'Drink? It's blood flavour!' he said, grinning. Jonno shook his head, got up and stumbled over to the fridge, helping himself to a drink.

'Basically,' said Mina impatiently, 'there's been a bit of an... incident.'

'Care to elaborate?' Erin said.

Mina opened her mouth and was about to speak before a shrieking and terrible roar echoed through the house. A flutter of wind and suddenly Ingrid was at Erin's side, holding what looked like a small barbequed cat, but was actually an item of clothing.

'What IDIOT thought it would be funny to put garlic juice in the water supply? I was washing my hands and... well look!' she said, holding up the smoking remains.

'How did garlic juice set fire to your jumper?' Erin asked quizzically.

'Well, the shock made me torch it... but that's not the point! What if any of that water had got on my FACE?!, and Erin could see that her hands were rather red and blotchy from the garlic.

'It probably wouldn't make much difference, your face already looks like it's covered in blisters,' said Renfield from the back.

'URGHH!' roared Ingrid, throwing the jumper at his head and knocking him over into the pile of cloaks.

'That's actually what we came to talk to you about,' said Mina seriously.

'If one of you two did this...' said Ingrid narrowing her eyes at the Van Helsings.

Mina ignored Ingrid and continued. 'Miss Macaulay has appointed a slayer as the new art teacher. A very paranoid one. She's laced all the school's water supply with garlic, as well as hanging it in all the art rooms.'

'Plus she's sharpened all the paintbrush ends into points for, you know... staking,' Jonno added.

Vlad was looking between the slayers, eyes wide. 'Well can't you just tell her to flap off!'

'Well, we would, but she's not part of the guild. She's an amateur... self-employed you might say!' said Jonno.

'The thing is, from what we've gathered, she's completely oblivious to the fact that her new school is run by vampires! Well, so far' said Mina shrugging.

'So what do we do?' Erin asked looking between them all.

'We could just get Dad to talk to Miss Macaulay, get her fired,' said Vlad nodding to himself.

'Or,' said Ingrid grinning, 'we could have some fun.'