The man lay cradled in his dank and rancid gutter, staring glassily upwards while his brain slowly melted into a melancholy puddle of synapses and twitching nerves. The sky was bright with the smoggy cheerfulness and vague warmth of an early Morporkian afternoon, and His Grace Sir Samuel Vimes, Commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, was very much drunk.
Captain Angua von Überwald was not having a good day. First, she'd had the bad luck to be assigned the nob's quarter for patrol. Even the Shades would've been better. She, and the undead in general, had come to a wary arrangement with the darker heart of the city. Namely, the people kept their distance and didn't try anything funny with silver bullets or garlic and the like, and in return, remained -in the more traditional sense of the word- living. At least in the Shades people had a healthy dose of self-preservation. At least they would get out of the way if they saw an enraged werewolf charging at them, instead standing there with a puzzled expression, or looking round to see who was going to be mauled. The rich seemed to have the strange perspective that nothing bad could happen to them because they were important. Only poor people died of werewolf attack, because no one would stand for it in a high-class society such as their's. Unfortunately the world often altered itself around people such as these, simply because it took less time and effort to change rules of the universe than to change the viewpoint of one determined person with enough money to sustain them in their beliefs. It was amazing how agreeable people became when in the presence of a large amount of money.
Angua scowled underneath the shadow of her helmet. If only to make things worse, she'd been assigned that bloody vampire-her lips twisted wryly at the aptness of her phrasing- as a had started to think this was Nobby having his revenge for her mentioning to Vimes about the mysterious way all the Watchmen's boots kept disappearing when they came in to be treated by Igor. She wouldn't have doubted he had bribed someone to fix the roster for him if it hadn't been Vimes on duty that morning. Vimes had known Nobby for longer than most were aware, and didn't feel the need to put up with his tricks.
Angua felt a light touch on her shoulder, and immediately her hackles went up at the age-old racial prejudice. She whirled around, blond hair fanning out with its momentum. The elegant ebony form of the vampire broke into a fanged grin. Salicia, or Sally, as she preferred to be called, was a Black Ribboner, and sworn off blood for the rest of her immortal life, (and as Angua was occasionally inclined to slaughter innocent chickens, she couldn't really hold a grudge) but that didn't stop Angua from hating her with every fiber of her undead being. The feeling was mutual. They'd managed to avoid actually fighting claw and fang, after the recent Koom Valley incident, and they had even reached a state of wary respect, but that couldn't overwhelm years of genetic programming and interracial warfare. And of course, it was getting damn close to a full moon, and Angua was decidedly edgy about going out in public, especially in such fine company. Even in the harsh sun of high afternoon she could feel the cool touch of the moon, and suppressing the wolf was giving her a headache. Angua bared her even, white, human teeth in a snarl that belied her true nature and stalked on down the road, fantasizing about roast chicken and decapitated vampires.