"So are you my minion now?"
"Jumping ahead of things a bit there are we? And for the record, I prefer Renfield. If we're going to do this thing, we're going to observe the theatrics of it."

A Late Night Walk - Part 3

From one moment to another, it was like a switch was thrown. I was sleeping, then I was…not. The world surged to life around me, a thousand noises assaulting my ears, a thousand touches roaming over my body, a thousand tastes dancing to life on my tongue, yet worst of all were the smells. I gasped, choking out a sob as the scent of bleach burned my nose, offset by pine cleaning solution, both drowned out through the orange of the dishwasher soap, the strawberry wafting off of my own hair, the disgusting odor of someone laying in garbage, oils from cars, wet dog…and some lingering scent in the air that was indescribably delicious and was making my mouth water.

"Taylor? Are you okay?"

I whimpered at the shout assaulting my ears. "Loud!"

"What? But I'm not - oh. Crap, heightened senses. Okay, um give me a second, I think I have ear muffs around here somewhere." It sounded like a tiger was loose in the apartment as she pulled things out of drawers and set them to the side. Finally, the noise quelled and the girl came back. She gently pulled my hands away from my ears and laid a set of fluffy ear muffs over them instead.

The fuzz sent shivers down my spine and her touch nearly burned with the heat in her hands. At least the world around me quieted to a dull shout instead of overpowering roars. And whatever the hell had happened to my nose, I was finally getting the different scents sorted out and pushing the unimportant ones to the side. All except for that minty syrup one which was really hard to totally ignore.

"Better?"

I opened my eyes, wincing at the spear of light into them. My eyes adjusted faster than the rest of my senses though, and after only a few seconds I was able to mostly see without squinting. I carefully nodded, and pushed myself up to a sitting position in the…where the hell was this? Where was I? Who was the blonde girl sitting on the bed in front of me?

Why couldn't I remember my name?

My eyes widened and my breathing increased its pace until I was just gasping. The girl reached over and took my hands in hers squeezing tight. "Hey, hey calm down. It's okay, you're safe here. What did you just start reacting to? Maybe I can help. I need something to start with."

"I - " I cut off as the itching in my throat increased to hot needles as my voice creeped out. Wincing, I shook my head and held a hand to my throat. The blonde grimaced and stood up.

"Okay, well, let's try water first. I'm…not particularly expecting it to work, but, better to try." She smiled and was gone a moment later. I looked around the room, trying to ignore how I could hear the faucet turning on and off again. I shouldn't be hearing this good. The silk of the sheets shouldn't be this soft.

And why could I not get that mint smell out of my mind?!

The girl came back into the room and the scent increased with her presence. I pushed down the ache in my mouth from it and just took the glass of water from her. Upending it, the itch diminished slightly. Not enough. Not enough at all.

"Damn, I was afraid of that." The blonde sat back on the bed with a sigh. "Okay, look, first off do you remember my name? From last night?"

My eyes narrowed as I tried to think back. There was…an alley…and then a clinic…and something about a shower. She had helped me in the shower. My eyes widened and I could feel my face heat up as that image flashed through my head.

She chuckled. "Okay so you remember some of it at least. I'm Lisa. It's a pleasure to meet you, now that you're more lucid. So I think I know how to fix your throat. But I need you to promise me that you're going to be careful. Because I can't go and raid another clinic for you and I don't have any pets to experiment on. I was planning on coming back with a rat and a cat to try this with, but my head was killing me so I kinda…forgot."

I frowned. She sighed again. "You have no idea what is going on do you?" She held her hand out to me and my eyes focused on her wrist. There was a vein pulsing there. I couldn't tear my eyes away from that vein…

"You need to be able to talk, and you need to stay lucid. I can't hide a vampire in my apartment if you're going to freak out and eat the neighbors because I forgot to bring home a rabbit. So I'm going to play blood bag for you for a minute or two. And then we're going to talk. Okay?"

Her pulse had increased. I could see it as the blood flowed faster through that vein.

"I really hope this doesn't hurt…"

I reached out a tentative hand and touched her wrist. The blood pulsed even faster.

"Please don't let this hurt…"

My mouth ached. I lifted her wrist to my mouth and without even thinking, I bit down. A sharp gasp was all that I could hear before the minty syrup smell took over the entirety of my being when it flared to live in my mouth. I swallowed, the taste of mint of my tongue and warmth cascading down my throat. My eyes slid shut as I groaned. The warmth and life flowed into me as I sucked at the wrist through my…fangs. I had fangs. My fangs that had pierced the blonde's - Lisa's - wrist. And drawn blood. I was drinking blood.

I was drinking blood!

Gasping, I released Lisa's hand and slammed my skull into the headboard and I pushed back from her. The wood rattled and a dull ache sprung into being in my head, though it thankfully died to a bare memory within moments. My eyes wide, I stared at Lisa as she examined her wrist, moving it around to see it from several angles.

"You know, I had expected that to hurt. It really didn't. At all. Not once you pierced the skin. It's gotta be something in your saliva. Not quite a numbing agent, it actually felt good so…maybe a type of liquid pheromone? Or some sort of addictive agent? Weird. That's a hell of a useful side power there."

Mild sedative and euphoric agents present in saliva.

Okay, so I had magic spit. Great. I grimaced. At least the minty scent - of her blood - was diminishing. It was still present, but not overpowering anymore.

Wait…how did I know I had magic spit?

"Healing agent too. The cuts are already closed. Actually, that's kinda neat. And not at all terrifying, nope."

Healing and euphoria reduce probability of victims reporting feeding.

What the fuck?! Okay, ignore the whispers in your head. Phantom voices were never a good sign.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know I was going to do that," I mumbled.

"Oh good you did get enough to feel better. So hi, I'm Lisa. Do you remember your name now?"

I stared at her, my mouth hanging slightly open. "I just drank your blood! You're not going to freak out or run away or yell at me?"

"Well I pretty much knew that your powers made you into a vampire, so…no?"

"Uh…okay…What?"

She shrugged. "You basically saved me from a fate worse than death when you were barely able to string two words together and you didn't attack me at all while you were starving. So I figure it wasn't too much of a stretch that you would be able to hold yourself back right now that you've had a bit of a rest. Feeling better?"

Took you home for self preservation and to assuage feelings of guilt.

"A little," I paused and took stock. Yeah, most of the minor aches and pains that I had felt as I woke were already gone. But…"I don't remember much. I'm sorry, you told me your name, but I have no idea what mine is…"

Her eyes shut and she shook her head. She reached out for my hand. I started to flinch away, but she was quick and she grabbed a hold of me, squeezing my hands. "That's okay. I was able to track down enough about you to find out your name. And…a few more things. Your name is Taylor Hebert. I'm really sorry to be the one to tell you this Taylor, but your parents are…dead."

"Taylor," I whispered, testing the name out. It felt…right somehow. Then the rest of what Lisa had said registered. "My family is dead?"

"Yeah, I'm sorry." She squeezed me harder and her eyes dropped to the bedspread. "Your mother died a few years back. Your dad was…about two days ago."

"Two days? I…I don't remember. I should…remember that…"

Lisa bit her tongue, shaking her head.

You did not have a chance to discover Father's death. You were resting in the grave beside him.

"I was dead two days ago?! What the fuck?! What the fuck is going on?!"

Lisa's head snapped up and her eyes narrowed as she searched mine. Then she gasped and shifted closer to me. "Holy shit! You took part of my power when you drank my blood! That's why my headache is almost gone and the whispers are quiet! Fucking hell, girl, that's awesome! And terrifying, but mostly awesome. Normally I need a few days to get used to terrifying, but damn. I have a vampire who can drain powers too!"

I frowned. "Isn't that a bad thing?"

Lisa shrugged. "Honestly, I'm just happy that if I have to donate blood again then I can have some measure of peace and quiet, my power can be very frustrating sometimes. But you're right, we should probably try to keep the power drain thing quiet. Most people don't really like Trumps much. It's still better than a Master power though. That said, the drinking living blood thing is probably going to be more trouble for everyone. We're going to have to be careful."

I swallowed hard as I stared at her. "You're a cape?" She nodded. "And…I'm one too?"

"Either that or you're some sorta weird genetic throwback species no one has ever heard of in the modern day. Either way, it doesn't really matter. You have powers now. Woohoo, congrats," she said, the emotion draining out of her voice as she finished.

She was definitely not selling me on the glory of cape abilities, that was for sure.

"Welcome to the world of getting fucked over no matter what you try and do. Join the Wards? Life of being paraded around like an ornament, never doing anything of note, never thinking for yourself, still in the line of fire if the shit hits the fan, but with little experience on how to survive. Join the Rogues? Welcome to just barely scraping by as the government tries to prevent you from making money any way possible so that you have to join their groups. Go full Villain? Welcome to a life of constantly trying to avoid pissing off the wrong people while hoping you have enough followers to break you out of jail when the Heroes inevitably catch you at some point. Being a cape sucks."

Used to adore powers. Used to adore the superiority inherent. Events of previous night have soured the experience.

"Yeah, I got that much." I shook my head and grimaced. "Can we go back to me being dead please?"

"I think your power took a while to fully heal you from your trigger. They thought you had died in the locker and - "

Locker. Dark. Bugs. Laughing. Pain. Everything hurt. Screaming. Sophia!

My lips pulled back from my teeth and I could feel my fangs descending as I snarled. "That fucking bitch killed me!"

Lisa shifted her grip to my arms and squeezed hard enough that I knew it should hurt. "Please calm down. I'm not fully sure what's happened to that girl but we can find out. Just…you're scaring me a bit, Taylor."

I squeezed my eyes shut and took several deep breaths, willing my fangs to recede. I didn't know how long it took, but finally, I was able to open my eyes and nod for Lisa to continue. She swallowed, but kept talking. "So from what I've been able to figure out, it looks like you were declared dead when Em-when they found you. I don't really know whether you're still technically dead, or undead, or 'frozen' like Alexandria supposedly is. But what I do know is that you have a hell of a healing factor. It was just slow when they first got you because it had a lot to fix and you hadn't, uh, fed yet."

"I needed blood."

"Yeah. So it worked, just really slow. They uh, buried you. That's happened before actually…People have been buried or cremated when they had healing powers that would save them. Every major mortuary is supposed to have Lazarus tables to stop that shit, but…"

"This is Brockton Bay and if something can go wrong, it does," I growled. "I don't even remember my name or my father, but I can remember that this town hates everyone in it."

"Amnesia is weird that way." Lisa sighed. "Do you want to know what happened to your dad?"

I scowled. "Yes."

"He tried to attack someone that he thought was responsible for your death. I think she sorta was, but she never intended it to go as far as it did. I actually ran into her during the day. She's not really in a good place. Anyway, the point is, he tried to attack her and her father took offense to that. The guy killed your dad. If it's any comfort he's in really hot water for it. And I'm…fairly certain that your dad was not intending to live out that night anyway. One way or the other."

I could feel my nails lengthening and my fangs ached. I shut my eyes and concentrated on my breathing. The same breathing that did absolutely nothing for me.

Breathing is optional. Metabolism slowed. Regular blood transfusions maintain bodily functions.

I nodded. "Okay. So he didn't take my death well and I can't get revenge. So what can I do?"

Lisa finally let my hands go and she smiled at me. "Well, that's what we need to figure out. You up for a bit of experimenting?"

I let my fangs descend as I returned her grin. "Lead the way."