"Tea," the Licker said, as the train shook as it barreled down the tunnel. "I could really go for some tea."
"Don't you feed on the flesh of the living?" Alice asked. "Why would you want tea?"
"Orange pekoe is pretty damn tasty with the right increments of cream and sugar," the Licker said. "You know I used to be human."
"Makes sense," Rain croaked, blood leaking down her neck. She looked at the cure that Alice held in her hand. "Think that's going to work?"
"It's a cure," Alice said. "The scriptwriters took a lot of time to make it the goal of all of us characters -- it'd be a big fuck you to the audience if it didn't work."
"Sweet," Rain said.
"I used to be a cashier," the Licker said. "I figure I still could be one, if I tried hard enough."
Alice administered the injection. "Right, there. Hopefully the antidote will work."
"It's an antidote," Rain said.
"Yeah, but antidotes might not work after a certain period of time, right?"
"What?"
"I don't know."
"A bartender," the Licker said. "I could be a bartender."
The train stopped and the doors opened.
"We could be the talk of the town," the Licker said.
White men burst through the door, rushing into the mansion, pushing a cart.
"Righto, righto," Matt said, leaning against a wall in order to keep the weight of his list off his bleeding arm. "Lemme see some ID, some ID?"
The Licker sat behind a bar in the middle of the entrance hall, mixing drinks. Alice wiped down some tables.
"You," one of the men in white said. "I want you in the Nemesis program."
"Two-drink minimum, guys," Matt said, ushering them in. "Come on."
Rain stumbled in, her pupils come, reaching for Alice, trying to bite her arm, falling over herself, crashing into the walls.
"Fucking guys," Alice said, shaking her head. "Some cure."
"Righto, righto," the Licker said. "Who wants what, who wants what?"
"Pan-" Rain uttered. "-cakes..."
"Yeah," Alice said. "Yeah."