"This is dinner?"

The little girl in my arms stirred slightly in her sleep. She was a healthy little thing, pink skin and curly tan hair, completely unconscious, clad in a small little nightgown with sunflowers embroidered along the side. I imagined her mother stitching each petal carefully, brimming with happiness.

Lucy put one hand to her mouth and eyed the child uncertainly. "I mean-"

I held the little girl out again. "And after all the trouble I went to to steal this and you reject it. Don't be so picky."

"What if I hurt her?"

"I'll stop you before that happens. The only consequence is that she'll be woozy for a few days. Turning someone takes maintenance."

No movement.

"Shall I start?"

"When you say 'start-' ?"

I stuck my thumb out and held the nail to the child's throat. "Ready?"

"Ready? What? Ready for what? What are you going to- ?"

I pressed slightly. The little girl made a mildly annoyed noise in her sleep but otherwise didn't react as a drop of blood welled to the surface, grew pregnant, and went down her neck, leaving a pink trail.

Lucy exploded.

I had not expected her to react so savagely, not as hesitant and inherently good a girl as she, but what reacted to the single bead of blood was not her. It was something larger, angrier, and beyond her power. She flung her head down faster than my eyes could follow on the child, white fangs clipping like a dog's, and her hands landed on my shoulders, tightening to the point of pain.

I let her drink for a second, but a little bit of children's blood goes a long way. I put my arm between her and the child, pushing her off.

Her eyes were a bright red again, so bright they glowed in the evening's darkness like hot coals. From her cheekbones down was a mess of blood- young vampires are always messy- and yet her teeth were white. She unleashed one guttural snarl after another, struggling to get to her prey again. My arm slipped, and the force with which she knocked into me almost sent me to the ground.

Okay, enough is enough.

I put the child on the ground and grabbed the back of her neck with one hand, put the other hand under the backs of her knees, and lifted her off the ground. This is a fairly incapacitating move on most people, vampires included, and she hunched her shoulders and arched her back, trying to make me let go. No dice. She scrabbled at my hands with her sharp nails. I still held her.

After a few minutes of nonstop writhing, snarling, and failed attempts to bite, she stilled.

"Are you calm now?"

She just panted.

"Lucy?"

"Yes," she wheezed. "Let me down."

I did, carefully. Lucy gasped for breath, wiping at her mouth with the backs of her hands, whimpering under her breath. I picked up the little girl again, who was not so much asleep as unconscious now, and examined her. For all the blood and how savagely she had been attacked, she did not seem to be much worse for the wear. I got her and Lucy cleaned up in a matter of minutes.

"There now," I asked Lucy as we laid the little girl down in the flowerbeds outside the home I'd gotten her from. "Feel better?

"Yes," she mumbled.

"I thought so," I said, smirking and taking her wrist. "Now come on. We have to visit Renfield." I started to walk.

"Tell me about this Renfield."

I bit my lip and tried to think of something I could say that wouldn't give away the fact that Renfield was hopelessly insane. After a few seconds, the best I had come up with was "He's . . . an interesting person."

"Hmm," Lucy said. "I haven't heard the name before. Is he a foreigner?"

"Ahh . . . no."

"If he's from around here, then I must know him," Lucy insisted, tugging on my sleeve like a five-year-old. "Keep going- has he any children?"

God help us all if he did. "Not that I know of."

"A wife?"

"He doesn't go out, and isn't fancied much."

"Hmm," she repeated. I could practically see into her thoughts. A man with no wife and no children, who didn't mingle in society, was probably no good. "Well, how did you come to meet?"

"It is a good story, actually, and I will tell you the whole thing sometime. The condensed form, however, is that he tried to go over my garden wall and his . . . roommates . . . had to drag him back."

"He did what?"

"It is a long story, and I want to do it justice. We don't have time for it, we're almost there."

For the first time since feeding she looked around, saw the broad, looming form of Carfax impending over us like a sadistic governess, glaring down through the fog. The sight made me slightly homesick. "But we're near Carfax!"

"Yes."

"So he is your neighbor."

"Of sorts." I pointed through the thick, London fog at the asylum. "He lives in that white building over there . . . see it?"

"Oh," Lucy said, her voice becoming one note higher. "Well, all I can see is Whitby Bay's insane asylum, and I know he can't possibly live there."

"Um . . . he can, actually."

"Is he a friend of Dr. Seward?" she asked, her voice slowly reaching a pitch only dogs would be able to hear.

"Not really, no."

"But he's not an inmate, right?"

"Uh-"

"You don't mean to say he's a mental patient?"

"Well . . . yes."

Lucy indignation was such that mere words could not express it. She uttered a parrotlike squawk and began to sputter and stutter. I caught the words "crazy," "can't believe," "what," and "thinking."

"He's interested in what we do, Lucy, is all. Come on. What have you got to do otherwise?"

Lucy scowled and sat down on one of the large decorative statues that were placed in front of Carfax's gate that proclaimed it a medieval heirloom. She folded her arms, the picture of childish defiance.

"Lucy," I said in exasperation. "I don't see why you're so opposed to this."

She folded her arms tighter and scowled deeper, which made her bear an uncanny resemblance to Katherina with wavier hair. "Ladies," she stated forcefully. "Do not visit madmen." As she said this, she unconsciously crossed one leg over the other. This did not escape my notice.

"You don't mean to say you won't go because you're afraid he's going to hurt you," I replied incredulously.

Lucy hesitated, then shook her head.

"You do!" I burst out laughing.

"It's not funny!"

I wheezed myself back under control. "Yes it is, Lucy! What do you have to be afraid of in a mental patient? Loosing your chastity? Getting overpowered?" The idea itself was ridiculous. I had to lean against a tree to keep myself upright.

"I could!" Lucy insisted.

"No," I snickered. "It's not. Renfield- who, might I add, is in a straightjacket- has absolutely no chance of overpowering you. You could probably break his neck if you wanted to."

"Because I'm a vampire?"

"Yes, Lucy, because you're a vampire."

She chewed her lip. "But . . ." she started nervously. "I don't . . . feel . . . like a vampire. I feel the same as I always have. Shouldn't I be different now? I'm not even human any more. Why can't I feel that?"

"You have the bloodlust, of course."

"Well, apart from that."

I got down on my knees and took her hands. "Lucy, believe me if you do nothing else. There is nothing- nothing- that Renfield can conceivably do to hurt you."

"What if he tries?" she asked hesitantly.

"Then he will have brought it on himself."

Lucy chewed her lip.

"I'll be there," I suggested.

"Fine," she conceded. "But if anything happens, it will be your fault."

"Deal."

We made our way over to the white building, across the cobblestoned street. The contrast to Carfax- I never noticed this before- was stunning. Carfax was big, sprawling, filled with dark corners and hidden passage ways. The asylum was square, white, and logical. Lucy grimaced as she traced the bars on the windows.

I looked inside. The room, padded and white, appeared empty.

"Maybe he's not there?" Lucy suggested hopefully.

I was about to tell her it wasn't bloody likely, when Renfield, who had presumably been sitting under the window and thus directly out of view, popped up like a cork from a champagne bottle and started to bang his forehead on the glass. Lucy jumped three feet into the air, and I didn't really blame her. He was easily six feet tall, broad-shouldered and muscled. She was more in the hundred-ten pound ballpark.

He was mouthing words, but I don't read lips well. I made a cut it out, gesture.

"You first, Lucy."

She put her hands against the window and held it there; when she let it drop, frustration laced her features. "I can't."

That fact had not escaped my notice. "What's stopping you?"

"Something. Nothing. I don't know."

"Okay, then. Lucy, please go in." That counted as an invitation, right? I thought so.

"I just told you, I can't! It's like there's a brick wall here, or something."

"Try again."

She pressed on the glass again, only a little harder. "It's gone." She looked intrigued. "Weird! Is there something about saying 'please' that won't let me in a building?"

"Yes and no."

"Meaning?"

"You have to be invited in to a private residence the first time, and then you can come and go as you please. Try and remember that, it's a lot like walking into a door if you try to get in and you haven't been invited."

"Neat!"

"No, not neat, it's a pain in the ass is what it is. Go in."

"How? Break the glass?"

"Oh . . . you don't know how to mist, do you? Hmm." I stuck my lower teeth out like a bulldog. How to explain.

"Mist?"

"Yes. You turn into fog. It's a very good trick for parties."

She didn't seem to find me funny; she looked fascinated. "How?"

"I'm trying to think of how to explain. I guess you just . . . picture . . . being . . . fog."

"That's all?"

"That's the long and short of it, I suppose. I haven't explained it in a long time, and it's pretty much automatic for me."

"Okay," said Lucy. She put her palms flat against the window and indeed concentrated so hard her face rumpled with it; it looked like someone was driving a very sharp pole into her foot. But in the moonlight, it was possible to see that her outline was blurring and that fine tendrils of smoke were rising off her skin, like a lake on a cold morning.

A breeze picked up and Lucy, who was nothing more than concentrated fog, was scattered. I saw a few tendrils of smoke slip through the window's frame and reform on the other side. She had her arms wrapped around herself as if trying to hold herself together. Her dress blended into the wall like a chameleon.

Her mouth opened and I thought she was going to scream, but what came out was a whisper. "That- was- so- awesome!"

I laughed and came in myself. Renfield looked as if Christmas had come early.

"Master!" he cried, rocking back and forth. "She is a Creature- the Mistress is a Creature, like Master!"

I knew what he meant by "Mistress," but that word irritated me for some reason.

Lucy tightened her grip on my arm. Her nails were digging in, and it sort of hurt.

"Lucy, this is Renfield. Renfield, Lucy."

Renfield stretched his mouth into a grin so wide it flashed his molars and sat down, with some difficulty, on the end of the bed. "Master likes you, Mistress Lucy."

"Does he now."

He looked back at me. "Master chooses well. The Doctor is right to pine."

"The Doctor?" Lucy asked, coming out from behind me a bit. "Doctor Seward?"

"Yes," Renfield and I said in unison.

"Oh," she said. Her cheeks bloomed patchy red. "No, you're mistaken. Dr. Seward and I were never . . ." She trailed off.

"Nooooo," he breathed, drawing the word out. "Not for you."

His perception was surprising. I didn't think he had it in him.

Lucy was burning with shame beside me. I could feel her heat, but I didn't know why. When she spoke again, it was with trepidation. "Do you not like Dr. Seward?"

"Noooooooooo," Renfield repeated. "He is cruel. He pretends to help me . . . but he does not."

"Oh," said Lucy softly. She sat down next to Renfield and put her hand on his shoulder. It was strictly platonic, but I doubted Renfield was thinking in that direction. He got very, very still when she touched him, and his eyes got really, really big. I knew what was going on, and had to stop myself from yanking Lucy off and telling him to get ahold of himself. "I'm sorry."

Lucy, of course, noticed nothing.

"Yes," Renfield said, slightly louder and a little more impassioned. I cringed. "He is. He is very cruel."

"Cruel?" Lucy asked. Her voice was low and could conceivably be seductive. "Why is that?"

"He- he promises things," Renfield continued, tripping all over himself. I wondered how hard it was going to be for him after Lucy left. He had no hands, after all. "Like a cat. And he didn't give it to me. And-"

"Uh, Lucy," I interrupted. "I don't mean to break this up, but we really should be going. Sorry, Renfield." He looked like a dog getting kicked out in the rain.

I grabbed Lucy's wrist and half-dragged her out the window.

"That was sudden," she said. "What happened?"

"You teasing Renfield happened."

Lucy blinked. "Tease him? I put my hand on his shoulder."

"You're young, pretty, and he lives in an insane asylum. You should have seen that coming."

"I didn't see anything of the sort," she insisted.

"Are you blind? How did you not notice him- fancying- you?"

"Are you sure?"

"Trust me on this. If he could have gotten that straightjacket off, God help us all. Although," I added pensively. "I do have to wonder what he's going to do now, with his arms pinned like that . . ."

"Ew!"

DarkPriestessofAssimbya brought something to my attention in my reviews. She asked me if I was operating by the "Count Vlad the Impaler" theory. No, I'm not. The real guy was just one of a few inspirations for the Count (along with Countess Elizabeth Barony- I think that's her name- who tortured and drank the blood of over three hundred servant girls in the hopes that she would grow younger and Bram Stoker's friend Sir Henry Irving, who was the personality basis). Anyway, the story isn't really historically accurate (Lucy would not have seen him without a chaperone, lest she be deemed "fallen" and the AARP? No) so don't be surprised. This is for entertainment purposes only, although if you get out a copy of the novel you'll notice the dialouge is the same.

Oh, and one other thing- my friend suggested his birthday be June 6th, 1306 because she thought the idea of his birth being on 6-6-06 was funny. No hidden messages there.

Thank you for listening to me ramble, and I hope you continue to enjoy the story as it comes along.