The air was dank, and what little light shone through the cracks in the tomb lid above caused the moisture on the walls to glitter, and made the dust-coated cobwebs have a strange translucent glow about them.

To some, it would have been a terrifying place - a tomb, filled with rats, cobwebs, coffins and strange sounds. But to others...to others it was a home.

In a corner sat one of its inhabitants, watching with strange satisfaction as the misty air condensed and dripped slowly down the wall. His eyes were dark and deep set, which when combined with his pale, gaunt face and sunken cheeks made him look rather like a skeleton. His clothes were also odd - even though the year was two thousand and twelve, he wore what looked like Victorian evening dress. It looked old enough to be original.

Pushing open her coffin lid, Aunt Hildegard made a show of getting up for the night. She stretched her arms out dramatically, red-painted talons clawed at the ceiling and yawned widely, showing her long fangs to the room.

"Good Evening darling." smiled Uncle Ludwig warmly. Hildegard might not be the easiest person to get on with, but for all of her theatricality and hypochondria, he loved her all the same.

She flounced over to her husband, and sat next to him, watching the droplets fall for a moment too, before flitting back over to another coffin. This one was a little smaller than the others, and newer. If by newer you were judging in centuries.

She rapped on the lid sharply.

"Rüdiger?" she demanded, knocking again. "Rüdiger, you have to get up. Your uncle and I have been up for hours already. It's nearly eleven! Even Lumpi is up and out and about."

Uncle Ludwig rolled his eyes at the lie, but didn't say a word. Rüdiger hadn't been eating well of late, hanging around the tomb night after night, and worst of all he was developing quite a bad attitude. He hoped that he wasn't taking after Lumpi, his son. One perpetual rebellious teenager was quite enough, he hoped he wouldn't have to deal with another.

Slowly the lid of the newer coffin opened, to reveal its scowling occupant, his black hair sleep ruffled. For a moment they simply looked at each other, until Aunt Hildegard began again.

"Really Rüdiger..." she cried, reaching out a hand to touch his face, from which he recoiled, the scowl deepening. "You look terrible. You haven't eaten for nights, and your lips are getting so pale."

He shrugged angrily.

"Maybe I don't want to eat. Maybe I'm not hungry?"

She shook her head disapprovingly.

"Rüdiger..."

At this, he sprang from his coffin, and sat on its lid heavily.

"Rüdiger, your aunt is right." his uncle chimed in. "You can't just hang around the tomb all night. You need to go out, go flying, go out and eat something."

"Alright, alright. Maybe I will. No, I will go out, and I'll bite every human I see, will that make you happy? I'll bite dozens of them, scores of them. The whole town - no one will be safe! Will that make you happy? Will that make you leave me alone?"

Shoving past his aunt, he made his way to the dark stairwell which lead to the entrance to the tomb.

"We are just trying to look out for you Rüdiger." called out his uncle sternly. "There's no need to explode like a petulant child."

"I'm not a child, I'm one hundred and 57 years old. And I don't need you to look out for me. Vampires don't need anyone to look out for them." he snapped, and left without another word.

Anton Besker was in a bad mood. He swung his gym bag absentmindedly around his shoulders as he walked home, his thoughts stuck on his friend Terry. Going to the gym with him used to be the highlight of the week, but for the last two months all it had done was remind him that he had lost his only good friend. They had known each other ever since they were born - they had been neighbors their entire lives. Up until now that is. Teddy had moved away to Toronto for college, while he had had to stay in Edmonton. It didn't seem fair that Teddy was off having adventures and making friends, when the price had been that he, Anton, was forced to stay home on his own, still living with his parents.

The streets seemed much darker and emptier without him walking next to him, joking and laughing, but tonight there was something else too. Like he was being watched, or followed. It made his neck prickle, and he hurried his step.

"Anton? Are you home?"

He sighed, and put down his pencil. He had been working on this panel for over an hour, and nothing he did seemed to look right.

"Yes mooooom," he called back.

"Okay then, your father and I are going to go out now. We wont be back until one, so we're taking the keys just in case you want to go to bed before then, so don't put the bolt across okay honey?"

"I won't!"

He tapped his chin with the pencil. He only had 3 pages left of the story left to draw, and not much time left to do it in, but he hated to leave a panel when he knew it wasn't perfect. He wanted his work to stand out from the others in the book when it was sent to be printed. 'Thirty Chilling Tales of Horror: a Graphic Novel'. That was 29 other artists and stories to compete with...and he didn't even have an ending for his. He had been hoping that the monster's face and motive would come to him as he went, but he had been counting without the loss of Teddy.

Teddy. He'd tried to write him an email a few times, but never knew what to say. There was never anything interesting that happened to him, and he felt stupid just saying 'hi' when he was probably off having wild parties and meeting girls and learning how to be independent.

He took another look at his drawing-board, and tossed his pencil onto the bedspread. There was no point trying to force it, he might as well go and get something to eat, maybe watch some horror movies. It might even give him some of that inspiration that he needed.

But suddenly there it was again, that crawling on the back of his neck that meant he was being watched as he walked into the kitchen. He flicked on both of the lights, unnerved, and poured himself a glass of orange juice. He knew he was alone. There was only one door, and he had heard both of his parents leave through it. He also lived on the 14th floor, so there was no other way anyone could get in or out. It was just a feeling, nothing more.

He walked down the dark hallway - the bulb had blown weeks ago, but no one wanted to get the step ladder out to change it - and looked into the even darker living room at the TV. The feeling was even stronger now, even if he knew it was irrational.

He shuddered, and decided to forgo the horror movie - he was scared enough as it was. He pushed the door to his room open, and screamed as something huge and black flew through his window and onto the bed. The juice was spilled, the glass broken on the floor, and he was too scared to even run.

For a second all he saw was a black shape, but then it moved, and revealed a face. It was was thin with high cheekbones, and deathly pale which made its dark ringed eyes eyes even more pronounced. It was a haunting face, made up like something out of a German Expressionist film, but reassuringly human. Anton found his voice.

"Who...what? How?" he demanded, pointing rapidly between the figure and his open window.

The boy smirked, then leapt off the bed and started to look around his room, pausing by his drawing-board for a moment, then rushing over to his comic book collection.

No longer scared, just confused and angry Anton followed him.

'Hey, I don't know who you are -"

Riiiiiiip.

The stranger had grabbed hold of his vintage King Kong poster and torn it to shreds.

"What are you doing?" he yelled, but the weird teenager ignored him and dived for his King Kong comic book collection. Seeing what he was about to do he threw himself forward too, trying to wrestle him away from the shelf.

At once he found himself thrown to the floor, the boy standing over him, face stormy.

"Do you think you're stronger than me?" he hissed.

Anton shook his head, afraid all over again.

"Good. Because you're not, human."

"Human?"

Above him the figure opened its mouth wide, to reveal long, dangerous looking fangs. Anton wished he hadn't asked.

"I'm a vampire if you hadn't noticed. I eat humans like you...are you scared?"

Anton nodded, it seemed to be the response the vampire wanted.

"Good."

But he didn't seem pleased. He had an odd expression on his face, as if he were bored, angry and disinterested at the same time. He stepped backwards, and clicked off the bedside lamp.

"Light is bad for you. Or at least, not this type of light, the other kind. Sunlight."

He turned back to the shelf of comic books, and Anton took his chance, jumping to his feet and running to the door, but as he grasped the doorknob he was already there, ahead of him. His eyes looked even darker than before, and he was grinning, showing fang.

Anton gulped, then had an idea. If the vampire was bothered by his bedside lamp, maybe he could blind him with the lamps in the living room? He clapped his hands as loud as he could, turning on the large clapper lamp in the living room, hoping it would work

"How did you do that?" the vampire asked, shocked, biting utterly forgotten.

"Ugh...magic." he stuttered, trying to stall.

"Magic? You can do magic?" he asked, a spark of interest in his eyes.

"Ugh...yeah."

"I bet you can't do this," he said, voice suddenly cold again, and to Anton's amazement, the vampire year old rose off the ground and up to the ceiling, where he hovered, looking triumphant.

"No, I can't." he admitted, staring up at him with a mixture of terror and interest. Up until now a part of him had been sure the boy was just a crazy human with fake fangs. But this he couldn't explain. This was something that happened to the people in his stories, not real life. Not to him.

"What's your name?" he demanded, still stuck 5 feet off the ground.

"Anton."

"I'm Rüdiger." he looked down at Anton scrutinizingly. "I bet you haven't met anyone called Rüdiger before. I've met tons of Antons."

"No. I haven't met a vampire before either." he admitted.

Rüdiger laughed, gliding down to the floor once more. "You wouldn't have. There aren't many of us around. What do you know about vampires, Anton? Anything at all."

"Um, a bit, I think. Or at least, I've read a lot about them..."

"It's probably not true." he snorted, and without looking back, he stalked off, back into Anton's room.

He looked longingly for the door for a moment, but remembering what had happened last time, he decided his best bet was to keep the vampire talking. He got the feeling that if the vampire was there to kill him, he wouldn't have introduced himself.

When he got to his room, Rüdiger was already sitting on his bed, flicking through one of his books.

"You like vampires, Anton?"

"Yeah...I like all kinds of horror things like that." he gestured around his room. It was plastered the old movie posters and filled with bookshelves stacked with novels, comics and 'non-fiction' books on the supernatural.

"You've got good taste in vampire novels" he said, flashing the cover of Bram Stoker's Dracula at him. "Although I can't say as much about the rest of it." He eyed the torn up poster with disgust.

"Well, nothing beats vampires, everyone knows they're the coolest." Anton grinned, trying to get on Rüdiger's good side. It didn't work though, as the boy visibly deflated.

"Yeah...Could I borrow this?"

He was taken aback - a minute ago he wanted to bite him, now he wanted to borrow his books?

"Borrow?"

"Steal, take, whatever. I might bring it back. No promises. Vampire's don't make promises." he snapped.

"Vampires don't make promises?"

"No. Vampires look after themselves, and that means no promises...I could still bite you you know."

The last part seemed as much reassurance for himself as it was a threat to Anton. The vampire just looked sad now, and didn't seem to be in the mood to bite anyone.

"Ugh, sure you can borrow it. Borrow anything you want."

Rüdiger looked down at the book again, but didn't turn the page. Fear started to rise in him again, and he desperately clutched at things to say to keep the vampire's thoughts away from biting him.

"So, what do I have wrong about vampires?" he asked hesitantly.

"Everything."

"Like what? I mean, were you born like this?"

"No." The vampire looked up at him. "I died. A long time ago."

"How long ago?"

Anton was scared, he was terrified, but he just couldn't stop his curiosity. He knew he asking questions like that was stupid, but a part of him was desperate to know. It was a whole new world opening up, that is, if this weirdo really was a vampire.

"I'm 157, give or take. It all blurs after a while". Rüdiger fell back onto the bed with a thump, tossing the book onto the floor as he did so. "It's a long, long time."

"Yeah...I can't imagine what it would be like to live that long. And I mean, you're not going to die or anything. Well, you could die, I guess, right? I mean, if I drove a stake through you're heart or pushed you out into the sun -" Anton started to garble, but stopped when he saw Rüdiger's expression.

"Yeah, well, if you would die too if I bit you and sucked out your blood!"

Anton felt faint.

"Please, come on. I mean, you wouldn't want my blood, I'm sick. I have to take pills!"

"Maybe you do, but maybe you're lying? You don't look sick to me" he growled, advancing. Anton grabbed a fist-full of pencils and brandished them at him lamely.

"You don't need to bite me okay? I mean, I wont tell anyone you were here - they'd think I was crazy! Why don't we just talk okay? Tell me about vampires, or whatever you want to talk about. We can be friends!"

Rüdiger stopped, but he looked skeptical.

"There's not much chance of that. Unless you were a vampire. Which can be arranged." He flashed fang again.

"NO, no thanks." Anton replied, shaking a little. I was getting a bit to real for him now. Those fangs really did look attached. Not to mention he'd just seen this guy fly around his living room.

Suddenly there was a sound coming from the front door, and they both froze. It was his parents, back early from their party, he could tell it as them from their voices.

"Who is that?" Rüdiger hissed, glaring at the door.

"My parents." he whispered back, suddenly afraid for them too.

As the front door opened, the vampire shrank back into the shadows, out of sight.

"Anton?" he mother called.

"Y. Yes Mom!" he called back, his voice shaking a little.

"Are you okay? You sound like you're getting a cold..."

He glanced back at Rüdiger, whose eyes glowed faintly red in the gloom.

"I'm fine mom."

"Okaaaay. You could get to bed soon though, it's getting late."

"Okay mom."

She walked away into the livingroom, following his father, and he sighed a sigh of relief. He didn't want them coming in here with a vampire sitting under the window sill.

Speaking of which, Rüdiger was no longer there. Instantly he hunched his shoulders up to protect his neck, and looked behind him and above him, but nothing. He ran over to the wall and switched on all his lights, and opened his closet door. Nothing. He was gone.

"Anton. ANTON." someone whispered urgently.

His eyes snapped open. It had taken him hours to get to sleep, convinced Rüdiger had hidden himself somewhere to lie in wait, but he must have drifted off at last.

"Anton, show me your parents."

"What?"

It was Rüdiger, standing over him looking grim. At once he shrank back, almost falling out of bed.

"My parents? No, why would I show you my parents - you're a vampire!"

He scowled again.

"What's that got to do with anything? We both know I'm a vampire."

"You'll bite them that's why, I don't trust you. Why would you want to see my parent's sleep anyway."

"I don't want to bite them, I just want to see them, okay?"

Anton shook his head, and the pair looked at each other in silence before Rüdiger roughly grabbed him by the collar and bodily pulled him out of bed and over to the window.

"Oh my god, let me go, let go of me!" he cried, trying hard not to wake his parents, but still desperate to get away. But Rüdiger took no notice, and to Anton's horror he pulled him up and out of the window. For a dizzying, sickening moment all he saw was the 14 floor drop to the city below, but he didn't fall. He hovered in the air with Rüdiger, who was still holding his pajamas tightly.

"Now do you trust me?" he demanded. "I could let you go any time I wanted to, but I've not let you go yet."

"Please, please take me back inside," he sobbed quietly. Rüdiger rolled his eyes distemperedly, but to Anton's amazement did what he asked. He could have kissed his carpet as the pair glided back into his room.

"Now, show me your parents."

"Okay, okay," he whispered, shaking like a leaf. Whatever happened, he never wanted to have Rüdiger do that to him again.

The pair padded gently through the apartment, to his parent's room, where he quietly cracked open the door.

"It's dark, you wont be able to see them anyway."

"I have terrific night vision, thanks," he snapped back.

They paused for a moment, then Rüdiger snorted, and stalked back to Anton's room, and hopped onto the window frame, snatching 'Dracula' as he went.

"I forgot this."

"Yeah, yeah." Anton was not feeling at all better for his flying session.

"I'll bring it back, maybe."

"You're coming back?" he didn't like the sound of that.

"Maybe." The vampire shrugged. "Who knows. Goodbye Anton. Maybe for now, maybe forever, who knows?"

And with that, he launched himself out of the window, and was gone.

Anton bolted the windows with trembling hands, wondering if he was going insane.