----

A.N Meh, another short chapter. I'm sorry. It's slow, too. .

And I hope I haven't made Perri too Mary-Sue-ish. I tried, honestly, I did. T.T

Emikae: Ehhh… that theory would work if it were summer where I'm from. Sadly, it's winter here – but still, it's only about a week till my school holidays! Sure, they only go for two weeks, but that does mean I have more time to write longer things! .

Die Kikyo Die: I'll try my best to make the next chapter longer! Honest! And about Perri – hmmm…. .

Yeah, I'll shut up now…

----

After spending just one week with Peregrine Walters, I knew my life would never be the same again.

Two days after killing the vampire – no, vampaneze I woke up to find out she had somehow managed to drag me all the way back to her hotel room. She had also managed to find out what hotel I had been staying in. To my discomfort, I saw that she had taken it upon herself to unclothe me before putting me into the room's only bed. Well, only my shirt and jumper. Thankfully, she decided that my pants needed to be left on.

Either way, Perri had gone off to my motel, got my things and checked out for me. I don't know how she did it though. When I asked, she just winked and said that she had connections.

Over the next few days, I got to know her better. She was twenty-six years old, a fact she unashamedly stated when I asked. She grew up in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia. At the age of nine she signed up for karate classes, having always loved the Asian action movies. She received her black belt a month before her fifteenth birthday. Two years later, after she had received her first dan, she moved out of the state with her family, so had to drop karate. Instead, she took up hapkido. It was in her eighteenth year, though, when something happened. She wouldn't tell me what happened, and quite frankly, I was too afraid to ask. When she got to this part of her story she stood up and kicked the nearest hard object she could find.

Anyway, something happened to her, revealing to her the world of the night. She left Australia, and took to travelling the world – hunting and killing any vampaneze she came across. It was only in the last few years when Perri decided to head towards the British Isles. According to her, the 'Motherland' seemed to have a higher rate of vampiric activity than anywhere in the world.

Perri also told me that there were two types of vampires – the normal vampires and the vampaneze. As she put it, the vampires were the 'good guys' – honourable, honest, loyal, they only drank small portions of blood from their victims. The vampaneze, on the other hand – the vampires' purple-skinned, red-eyed blood-cousins – were the 'bad guys'. They had no leaders, and their customs and beliefs were stricter than those of the vampires. And they drained their victims completely, leaving behind empty husks. She told me that the vampaneze I had killed was only a young one, and a considerably mad one at that.

The whole time she was talking, I found myself staring at the tattoo on her face. It started at the temple, shaped like a powerful bird in flight. Where the tail ended, it spread out, flowering and curving every-which-way, the ends budding with little flowers. It covered most of the side of her face – from the side of her forehead, right down along her cheek, till it finished at her jaw.

Noticing me watching it, she grinned.

"Like it? Took the guy ages to do. My head was killing for ages. Trust me, you never want to get a tat on your face!"

She forced me to tell her my story then, but I refused. All I told her was that I swore an oath to kill someone. And that one day, no matter what, I would fulfil that oath. She was frowning as I told her this, but made no comment.

Overall, Perri was a very hard person to figure. At time she was happy, so happy she seemed bursting at the seams with her joy, and for no given reason, either. Then, suddenly she would become moody and snappy, or sometimes would just sit in the window ledge and stare outside all day, pretty much unable to move.

I vaguely remember some project I did back in high school. I can't remember exactly what it was though. I think it had something to do with depression. Anyway, one form of depression was called bipolar disorder – something where the person would suffer from extreme mood swings. One minute, happily singing along, and then BAM, weeping and crying in the corner, then BAM again, back to singing.

I guess, whatever it was that happened to her all those years ago had left her seriously depressed. And, like me, had driven her to get her revenge.

A week had passed, and we were still in the City of the Scar Murders. She had finally decided to take me out of the little hotel room and give me a walk, and it was then, as we were walking along some boulevards filled with shops and caf's, I asked her a question.

"If I killed the vampaneze, what are we still doing here?"

Perri didn't pause from her walking. She seemed intent on getting somewhere, so I almost had to struggle to keep up with her.

"We're still here just to make sure that there wasn't more than one vamp here," she said simply, and continued walking. I shrugged. I guess it figured.

Five minutes later, she finally stopped in front of a store, putting her hands on her hips and turning to face me, a scowl on her face.

"Not so, actually, I lie." She growled. I blinked, resisting the urge to scratch my head in confusion. Then suddenly her face broke into a huge grin. "This town has some of the best clothing stores in the world, and quite frankly, I refuse to have my assistant look like a total and utter dag! Now, in you go! Get in those change rooms and undressed before I get there with some proper clothes, or I'll be forced to rip those rags of yours off myself!"

Terrified of the little woman before me, I scampered into the shop to do what I was told.

Life had taking an interesting turn. Unluckily for me, though, that turn involved a depressed Australian shrimp with a nasty bite and an even nastier punch.