Thomas Eichhorst wouldn't admit it, even to himself, but he was jealous and depressed that The Master had chosen Goddamn Bolivar as his vessel instead of him. Eichhorst had served him so loyally for decades, had he not earned the honour of housing The Master? Still, the German couldn't complain, The Master always had a reason for everything he did, he was ten steps ahead of everyone else at all times. Petty emotions like jealously were beneath a Strigoi, they were pathetic and human, Eichhorst wouldn't submit to them.

The Master had been moved to a new location away from prying eyes – specifically those of A230385 and his lackeys – but Eichhorst wanted to do a once over just to make sure nothing had been forgotten during the move, he liked to be thorough, it was part of what made him such a good servant. Special child, The Master had called him, that made Eichhorst swell with pride.

Calmly the former Nazi strutted down the long maze of tunnels, walls dark and damp, past the nesting Strigoi and into The Master's old chamber where he stopped dead; he raised an artificial eyebrow. Thomas had expected to just take a quick look around then be on his way, he had other things to attend to for his Lord, but no. Instead the blonde-grey man found himself faced with a young woman crouched down before the rotting corpse of The Master's previous body. She wore a thin military green jacket and had long hair in loose waves the color of onyx. She'd not noticed him and Eichhorst just found himself watching her when curiosity got the better of him, she was doing something but he couldn't see what so, slowly, he circled around her hugging the darkness at a distance until he could see her hands.

When she came into view, Eichhorst discovered she was younger than he'd expected, twenty to twenty-five maybe, certainly no older. More surprisingly though was the tiny plastic pot in her hand that contained some of the flies that had infested the corpse, finally he had to say something, the scene before him was just too unusual to remain quiet.

"What are you doing?" He asked in that silky German accent of his.

The girl jumped and nearly toppled over onto her backside from her crouched position, had it not been for her quickly outstretched arm she would have.

"Jesus Christ!"

Thomas smirked at her exclamation, one of those little micro-smiles of his.

"Not quite. I ask again, what are you doing? It's quite dangerous, the... infected nest here."

She nodded, seemingly unafraid of Eichhorst; that was both refreshing and unusual to him. It was then he saw her eyes, they were almost indescribably green, a careful blend of emeralds and mown grass that shone brightly even in the dim light.

"I know." The raven-haired beauty flashed him a disarming smile. "I was just curious is all. There's been a huge influx of flies down here and I wanted to know what had their attention." She gestured to the clear pot in her hand. "Don't worry about me, the Night Snakes don't seem to come in here." There was a pause then where she inspected him head to toe. "You say it's dangerous for me down here but you're here. How did you get past them?" She chuckled to herself as she released the flies from the pot. "You their boss or something?"

"Something like that." Thomas cocked his head to the side. "You came down here... for flies."

Of all the answers in the world Eichhorst hadn't expected that. The girl didn't seem insane or unstable, in fact Eichhorst got the feeling she was very intelligent, probably deceptively so. Truthfully the former Nazi had found the girl go from a curiosity in his eyes to remarkable. Humans very rarely held his attention, Abraham Setrakian had been the only one in decades to do so. When she spoke again it snapped Thomas back to the dank world around him.

"I'm no expert on Dipterology by any means but yes. Not like I had anything better to do either."

"Hmm, how did you get past them?"

He asked quickly ignoring the fact he didn't know what 'Dipterology' meant; it wasn't important. However, he was aware that logia meant study of, so he could have hazarded a guess.

"I'm good at going unnoticed." The emerald eyed girl finally rose to her feet, she couldn't have been that much shorter than him, maybe five-eight. He was amazed that this girl didn't seem to have a shred of fear about being there with the German, a very unusual trait for a human, especially one so young. "My Dad used to tell me I was his little Chameleon."

There was a hint of sorrow in her voice then but Eichhorst didn't care. Her emerald green eyes glanced over him again but this time they lingered on his black tie... or was it his neck?

"Why are you down here? Someone like me makes sense, but you with your tailored suit not so much."

Eichhorst could have just drained the woman before him but he was just too curious about her, once something had his attention he found himself fixed on it.

"Business to attend to." Was the only answer he provided on that subject, she didn't need to know his motives or of The Master. "And what do you mean someone like you?"

The raven-haired beauty chuckled at that and gestured to herself as if to say 'look at me'.

"Homeless. We can't all afford prosthetic necks."

Thomas' brow furrowed at that, this girl was far more observant than he'd expected. She wasn't like any human he'd ever met, even The Jew.

"People usually notice there is something wrong with my face but they never realise what it is. Honestly, no one has ever been able to place it." With that the girl became intriguing to him.

"It's kind of obvious." She shoved the pot into her dirty pocket then rung her hands together to warm them up. "Anyway, toodles," She waved, actually bloody waved at him "I'll leave you to whatever illicit illegal shit you've got going on."

The young woman turned to leave, it was that moment that Eichhorst decided to let her live. Strange. The girl that wandered into the dragon's den and left unharmed to tell the tale.

"Goodbye, miss?"

She turned back to him for a moment. "Graves. Vivika Graves."

"Thomas Eichhorst."

Vivika nodded to herself as she absorbed the information then waved again.

"Goodbye, Mister Eichhorst."

"Be careful, Miss Graves." He couldn't resist telling her that, a small tease on his part.

"You kidding me? My middle name is careful, well actually it's Cassandra but whatever." With that she just turned and left back into the tunnels as though she'd never been there at all.

Thomas stood there staring at the space she'd previously occupied in silence. Over a hundred years old and yet that was the strangest encounter he'd ever had, and that was saying something for a Strigoi former SS Nazi. This girl, this Vivika Graves, was truly something unique. It took a moment for his mind to click back on as it were, to reboot and remember he had tasks to attend to. Thoughts forgotten, Eichhorst left the tunnels to carry on with his day, he couldn't let this girl force his mind to a stand still. She was a human and so ultimately unimportant.

~X~

Days went by, almost a week, and Thomas had delighted in serving his Lord well. Eldritch Palmer had been causing a few problems but that wasn't anything new, Eichhorst could keep Eldritch in line easily enough. However, his mind kept returning to the young woman, Vivika, that he'd met in the tunnels. Eichhorst knew she'd been fully aware that he was a dangerous man but the raven-haired beauty hadn't shown a single shred of fear, not one iota. Something told the German she wasn't scared of anything and he liked that, it was most of the reason he'd let her walk out of the tunnels with her life. She'd earned a pass. Even when he'd been human himself he hadn't found a person he actually liked... well, there had been Helga but that had been incredibly short lived.

It was late after he'd left Palmer's penthouse and Eichhorst found himself somewhat hungry. He'd have preferred to go back to the Mayfair Hotel and feast on his unwilling guests but the last one had died and he'd neglected to find a new one. Fast food it was. Eichhorst watched as a few of his brethren wandered though the streets in search of their own midnight snack, the sky had gone dark long ago, a thick layer of cloud hid the stars from sight, a human would have found the night air chilly. It was then, as he went to pass an alleyway between a rundown Italian restaurant and an apartment building, that he heard a shuffle. Thomas smiled to himself, he'd found dinner.

The Strigoi walked down the alley only to spot someone in the darkness, the figure stood and started to head away from him at a pace somewhere between a jog and a fast walk but they stood no chance of escaping Thomas Eichhorst. He raced towards his meal and pinned them to the wall with a thud, stinger half way out his mouth. It was then he raised an eyebrow, in the moonlight he could see the vagrant was a woman and not just any woman, it was Vivika. She'd said she was homeless so coming across her shouldn't have been any real surprise, yet still Eichhorst found his brow had furrowed.

Vivika just stared at the stinger, eyes wide, she didn't seem scared just immensely shocked. He could have drained her, snapped her neck and carried on but he didn't. Instead, Thomas found himself returning the stinger into his mouth as he looked at her, his grasp on her didn't loosen at all just kept her pinned to the graffitied brick wall by her thin jacket and t-shirt.

"Well, hello, Miss Graves." He said in that disturbingly soft tone of his. "We meet again."

She still didn't move her emerald eyes from his mouth, there was something strangest satisfying seeing her shock, he felt it could have been a precursor to fear.

"I... I knew there was something not right about you but I... I didn't think you were one of them."

Eichhorst breathed out a laugh. "That was the idea, Miss Graves."

Finally she looked up away from his mouth to his eyes.

"Are you going to kill me or is this you playing with your food? I knew one of you things would get me eventually, at least it's a cute one."

Thomas Eichhorst hadn't ever been called cute even when he had been human. Her stomach rumbled then but she seemed content to ignore it, the German, however, flashed his eyes down to her abdomen. Vivika was much too thin but he suspected most men would have approved of that fact thanks to the way it exaggerated her already large chest, with a shower and some better clothes the green eyed girl could have been the pinnacle of human beauty.

"Seems we are both hungry, Miss Graves."

"Yeah, thing about being homeless is you don't eat that often."

She clearly wasn't afraid and Eichhorst didn't know how he felt about that, she seemed just as curious about him as he was of her. Once again Eichhorst found his natural instinct to drain this young woman dry fade, his interest in her cancelled it out.

Only a little reluctantly did he set her down on her feet and sure enough she was only a little shorter than him. After a moment Thomas started down the back down the alleyway in the direction he'd come from.

"Come with me." He ordered.

"Why?" Vivika asked after a heartbeat but Thomas didn't stop.

"Because I have decided to feed you, Miss Graves."

He couldn't see it but Eichhorst knew there was suspicion in her beautiful eyes and rightly so, only a minute earlier he'd been prepared to kill her. When he heard her footfalls following behind him the Strigoi started to wonder if Vivika's lack of fear was actually some form of masochism; or perhaps hunger had just won out.

The restaurant was closed of course but he easily spotted a take-away sign not too far down the street; Thomas didn't imagine they were getting too many late night deliveries anymore. Like a perfect gentleman Eichhorst held the door open for Vivika to enter the pizza shop ahead of him, he saw her relax when warmth hit her and she went to a small, crappy table in the corner while Thomas went straight to the man at the counter to order.

"Small... actually make it a large peperoni."

The man nodded and Eichhorst joined the young woman once he'd paid; he always kept some money on him for if the need ever arose and clearly it had. He undid the button of his coal colored suit jacket as he sat beside her, those bold eyes fixed on her. Silence for a moment.

"Thank you. You don't need to feet me but thank you."

This girl thanks a monster, that actually amused him. He nodded in acknowledgement.

"You are most welcome."

Another pause hung between them.

"... Why am I still alive? You were going to kill me, why stop?" There was genuine confusion in her eyes but still no fear, Eichhorst wondered if she was incapable of it.

"Because I find you to be of curiosity, Miss Graves." He told her simply as though it were obvious.

She chuckled. "So I'm the Will Graham to your Hannibal Lecter then." Vivika glanced down at the plastic table almost distantly.

Thomas raised an eyebrow. "Who are these people?"

"Really?" When he said nothing the human explained. "They're characters in a series of books. Hannibal is a Lithuanian cannibal and Will is like his platonic love interest, they understand one another and find each other interesting. Everyone knows who Hannibal is." Or at least she'd thought they did.

Thomas shook his head lightly. "I'm afraid the only Hannibal I've heard of crossed the Alps with an army of Elephants."

The raven-haired beauty snorted. "Yeah, look how that turned out."

"I find myself wondering how a woman clearly as intelligent and young as you ended up living the live of a vagabond."

For some time Vivika had unfortunately been aware that most 'normal' people thought her nothing but an inconvenience and eyesore on the streets of New York but the German didn't have any bite in his voice, no disgust or superiority, he was just asking a question.

"... It wasn't exactly a conscious decision. And why do you want to know if you're just going to kill me? Is this like some sort of organic free range crap?"

"I confess I have not decided whether or not to kill you, Miss Graves, which is remarkably unusual for me." He went quiet when the pizza box was delivered before them, quick service suggested he'd been right about late night orders. "Thank you."

Thomas opened the box and pushed it towards Vivika in silent offering, steadily she took a slice. She hummed in delight and he surprised himself by enjoying the pleasure he'd brought her; her little hum was almost heavenly.

"When did you last eat?" Eichhorst asked before he even knew he was speaking.

"When did you last eat?" She shot back quickly reminding him that not twenty minutes ago he'd had her pinned to a wall intent on feasting.

That micro-smile appeared again. "Last night."

"Two days ago, I managed to swipe some peanut butter from this looted grocery store a few blocks over." With that she delighted in another slice of pizza.

"What a disgusting meal."

"Hey, don't knock peanut butter until you try it." She paused then and looked between him and the pizza he'd not even glanced at. "Can you even eat normal food?"

Thomas shook his head. "No, I do not posses the correct organs for digesting it."

It came as a shock to the former Nazi when he realised he was having a normal conversation with this homeless girl, in his opinion humans were a lesser species and had no right to life but Vivika might have been the exception to that rule. Eichhorst hadn't ever found it so easy to talk to someone, especially a beautiful woman.

"So what, no pizza, no peanut butter, no wine? You look like a wine drinker."

When she glanced up at him that time Thomas' mind flashed back to when he had been a young child growing up in the heart of Germany, her eyes were the color of the fields that had surrounded his home.

"Schnapps actually, I do occasionally enjoy a cocktail." The Strigoi leant back in the flimsy chair. "Please answer my earlier question, why are you on the streets?"

A pause, long and awkward. It was the first time he'd seen her even the slightest bit uncomfortable, he'd touched a nerve. He waited patiently until Vivika had finished her slice of pizza before she spoke.

"... Life story time, huh. " Silence again. Just when Eichhorst made to ask once more she pulled a small glass square from her pocket, only when she held it out for him to take did he realise it was actually a bug in resin. Thomas held it up to the florescent light for a better look. "Smaragdesthes Africana Oertzeni or a Flower Beetle, it was my father's. He was an Entomologist, studied insects."

"Explains your interest in the flies." Said Eichhorst.

The light was poor but he easily saw the bold purple beetle with a teal sheen, quite remarkable really.

"He was good at his job, taught me when I was young. Never had a Mom so I went everywhere with him."

"Go on." He encouraged when it appeared she'd say no more. "Why would a man who took his daughter everywhere let her end up a vagrant?"

Her voice grew quiet then. "Easy, there was something he loved more than me... the bottle. He'd been a functioning alcoholic when I was a kid but by the time I was a teenager it had gotten out of control. I was studying Entomology but I kept having to leave University to take care of him when he developed Cirrhosis, guess I missed too many classes because they kicked me out."

"Then why are you not with him, taking care of an ill father like a good daughter?"

She reached for another slice of cooling pizza. Eichhorst still hadn't decided to kill her or not but if he decided to it would certainly be dinner and a show after she'd finished her tail of woe.

"I was... then he dropped dead." She paused to chew a moment. "I got everything but that wasn't as much as you'd think, by the time I'd paid the medical bills, the debts he owed and the university had charged me for my scholarship that I'd supposedly squandered there wasn't more than bus fare left. Didn't have any family, no university degree, no one wanted to hire the weird bug girl so here I am. Living on the streets and talking to a God knows what over pizza. That enough for you? Satisfied your curiosity and realised you waisted your money?"

He handed the beetle back, clearly it was important to her, normally Thomas would have sneered at sentimentality but when she held it there was such love in her eyes that he stayed quiet.

"Why did you not go to friends?"

"I never had any okay, I liked solitude and I was the weird bug girl. People don't usually want to be friends with that. I was the Chameleon, just vanished in plain sight." Her brow was furrowed and it became quite obvious she'd had enough of conversing her life story. "We done here?"

Eichhorst's head tilted to the side. "You said that the first time we met, Chameleon. I take it you are good at hiding in plain sight, yes? It is quite amazing you got past so many Stragoi entirely unnoticed."

"Stigoi?" Her brow furrowed deeper.

"The name of my kind, you would know it better as Vampire." Eichhorst told her offhandedly. "I have decided I will not kill you, because I believe you can be useful to me."

"What is this, a job interview?" Vivika looked at him incredulously.

"Yes, that's a fair assessment. You clearly have a high intellect and what people would today call 'street smarts'. I assume you can drive?" Vivika nodded. "Good. I'm afraid I'm a bit limited during the day but you would be free as a bird. I'll even go so far as to give you a place to live. Consider it a kindness on my part."

"... If I say no will you drain me?" To be honest she was taking the whole 'I'm a vampire' thing very well.

"Perhaps." Thomas smiled dangerously.

Silence hung between them for a few minutes while Vivika mulled the whole situation over and finished her pizza.

"Alright."

And with that Thomas Eichhorst owned her.