When Javert regained consciousness, he was greeted by the soft sound of trickling water. Although he was still too dazed to pry his eyes open, he knew that darkness surrounded him, and he was soaking wet. Twilight insects chirped around him and all was eerily calm. As his head stopped spinning and he began to think straight, the realization hit him that he was not dead.

In a moment of fright, Javert opened his eyes wide and standing above him, was a grinning person who he had never seen before. The inspector immediately drew back from his visitor, forgetting about the dull pain that throbbed throughout his body. He shuffled against the sand of the banks while staring in shock at his company, for he was not and could not be -- or so Javert decided -- real.

"Go away; you are a delusion of my mind," Javert said. His voice was coarse and awkward. He continued to stare at the young man, who was dressed like a nobleman, wearing a jacket of deep blue and trousers of spotless white. On his feet he wore glossy black boots which came nearly up to his knees and had obviously been tailored to fit as they did. His eyes glowed with ethereal beauty against his chalk-white skin, his hair long and dark, hanging wildly at his shoulders; but what Javert could not take his eyes off of were the man's irregularly long and pointed eye teeth.

"I am no delusion," the man replied at long last. The policeman noted that his eyes reflected the moonlight like a cat's.

"You are not of this world. Why aren't I dead?" Javert spluttered. Or am I dead? he thought.

"I saved you," the creature answered calmly, smoothly. He took a step forward, and Javert hastily took a shuffle back. He would have stood had he been able to. "Let me introduce myself," the man continued. "I am Delano de Roux. Do not be frightened by me. I am what you would call a vampire, but I am not here to kill you. I have a proposition to make."

"You want me to join you," Javert guessed, regaining his confidence and standing with fair effort.

"Exactly," the man responded.

"Never," the inspector spat automatically, a glimmer of his old sneer returning. "You expect me to follow you in your ridiculous blood-sucking, wandering by night and shrinking from the crucifix? Do you even understand who you are talking to? I am an inspector, and I go against everything you stand for. I'll laugh you away."

"Do you forget that you tried to kill yourself, monsieur?" Delano shot back quite as harshly. "That you would have died if not for me, that you flung yourself from a bridge not too far from here, because you were too overwhelmed to know what to do with yourself? Send a man to jail that saved your life, or let a thief go? Either way you lose. I give you the chance to win."

"How did you know..?" Javert started, but the vampire interrupted him.

"I have been watching you, Inspector Javert. I have a fascination for human lives that you will not comprehend. Your life was most interesting, and I wouldn't let it go."

"For one who kills humans to live, you understand why I find that hard to believe," Javert answered.

"Your sarcasm is most amusing, sir. I don't suppose you think I am actually here," Delano said.

"Of course you're not. Vampires aren't real. I am in no way superstitious, and am confident that I have clearly gone mad. Shall I try at the bridge again? For some reason, my affairs with the prisoner 24601 seem so distant…" Javert seemed now to be talking to himself.

"Perhaps you are a bit daft, inspector, but your old life will not matter to you at all once you are one like me," Delano said softly.

"Why are you still here?" Javert said, suddenly shouting at the top of his lungs. "I told you to go away! You are a figment of my imagination!" He squeezed his eyes shut and began to pace, blinking over and over and still the vampire did not disappear.

"I think you are fretting because you know that I am as real as you are," Delano said calmly, trailing Javert's movements with flicks of his sharp eyes.

"If you won't leave, I will," Javert growled, spinning around and starting to stride swiftly away, but with impossible speed, de Roux had caught him by the arm with harsh, icy fingers that the policeman could feel even through his jacket.

"No, you won't," Delano retorted with a smirk that sent terrified chills through the inspector.

"You are real," Javert whispered, all color draining from his face. "Let me go, you devil!"

"Once I am through," Delano replied.

"No," Javert protested, giving a vain tug.

"You are afraid, monsieur. Afraid because you know you have no power over me, perhaps? Because you cannot prosecute me?" He let out a barking laugh and ran his tongue along his sharp teeth. There was a moment in which Javert's hard yet terror-filled eyes met the calm and mischievous eyes of the vampire's before the young creature of the night launched himself at his victim, striking like a cobra and sinking his teeth gracefully into his neck.

For an instant Javert felt the needles prick his skin, but as they touched the jugular vein in his neck, fierce pain shot throughout his body. He gave a suppressed scream, gritting his teeth and trying to pull away, but Delano had his inhumanly-strong arms around his head so that he couldn't budge an inch. When the vampire began to drink his blood, Javert felt paralysis taking over, at the same time seeming as if his very soul was being drained. Longer and longer, the creature drew more blood until the inspector's heart began to pound furiously.

I will not live; God, I'm going to die by your dark angel's demon! Javert thought fearfully to himself, only able to gape stupidly while the vampire continued his steady rhythmic drinking.

When Javert thought he could take no more, Delano pulled away, his teeth slipping so smoothly from the policeman's skin than not one drop of blood was outwardly shed. Still unable to move, Javert was set gently to the ground, only capable of staring hazily up at Delano through blurred vision.

"My life is… over, you… fool…" Javert muttered under his breath, almost incomprehensibly. His voice was slurred and sluggish, his heartbeat faint and dimming.

"Yes," Delano replied. "It is." With that, he tore open his own wrist and shoved it into Javert's mouth. He gave a fresh muffled cry of surprise, but abruptly stopped when he felt the warm and shocking blood trickling into his mouth and down his throat. This blood was not ordinary -- it was life itself in liquid form! He was sipping life, and he loved it!

Javert continued to guzzle the drink mindlessly, subconsciously locking his hands around the wrist and forcing it to stay where he wanted it, where he could direct it.

"That's enough for you, monsieur," the vampire hissed, trying to resist Javert's grasp. He could not easily pull away from such a locking hold on his hand, as his victim was plainly intent on fighting for this ambrosia with brute and subliminal force. "Assez!"

Delano wrenched free of Javert, watching him with intense fascination as the inspector took deep gasping breaths as his chest rose and fell rapidly. Sudden changes began to take place. Lines in the man's face disappeared; sinking away into his skin as it tightened and molded itself, formed a younger visage. Javert's hair grew thicker and gradually turned dark brown simultaneously. The inspector's entire body changed to fit the face of a man no older than twenty five, full of life and energy. His eyes shone brightly as he gazed into the sky, dumbfounded by what was happening to him. The transformation was complete.

There was a long moment of silence as Javert merely breathed and took in his surroundings. His senses were sharper than they had ever been. He heard conversations miles away, he listened to a woman's heartbeat in the cottage up the hill. He saw the blazing stars with intensity that hurt his eyes to look at, he saw the patterns of a firefly's wings.

"Do you like it?" Delano said, quietly.

"You bastard," Javert retorted, his voice fluid and strong. "What did you do to me?"

"I gave you my gift; your new life," Delano replied simply. "Welcome… to the beginning of a very long time."