At four in the morning Theodora received the phone call she had been expecting. Pam's voice, enjoying the teasing and tormenting of her 'itchy-witch', gave an address to the not-so-happy Theo, who, and after embarrassing scrambling around the room, was finally able to write it down on piece of paper from her handbag. "I'll be seeing you, itchy-witch," then the receiving clicked off at Pam's cool, near sardonic last words.

With a frown, Theo looked at the address she'd written on the back of the receipt of the hotel room, wondering if it was a real address or not. To ease her curiosity, she went to the dresser and grabbed the map she had carelessly tossed upon the deep mahogany wood. Nope, it was a real place; it was… a house? She highly doubted that it was their nest, but that made her more curious as to whose house it was then.

Did they glamour (use a vampiric form of hypnotism) an unsuspecting muggle into lending their house to them for a while? Or did they own it already? Or maybe it was one of their fang-bangers or an employee's home that was happy enough to agree? Any of those ways were wrong in every book on vampires that Theo had in her mind, but she wasn't an expert (unless you counted fifth and sixth grade history).

Theodora stood up and stretched, trying to loosen the tightened muscles that had only started when she answered the phone. Was it because it was a vampire on the other end or just because it was a vampire she had met only just a few hours earlier that she felt wound up and slightly frightened? She shook her head and decided not to ponder too much over that, the fact that she was frightened already made her even more worried then she had thought possible.

Instead she went into the mini-fridge and pulled out a tiny 'mini' vodka bottle. With a night like she had, she'd drink anything even if it weren't her usual cup of tea.

And this was coming from the woman who thought that drinking was a recreational activity exclusively.

She woke up at four in the afternoon. Hours until she was expected to attend the "meeting place". She went to roll over and go back to sleep- but something wouldn't let her. Nothing physical- just that little voice in the back of her head that told her to get up. Groaning in protest at her inner sub-conscious (which most likely was aware of something that consciously she was not), she tried to get out of the bed as gracefully as possible.

This involved her feet getting tangled in the sheets, half falling out, unsuccessfully trying to right herself before finally stretching and getting out completely and stumbling into the wall and almost knocking the photography down. Though she grabbed the black frame in time before it smashed.

"Well, that went well." She muttered as she re-hung the photograph, while sarcastically admiring her grace. Wiping the sleep from her eyes, Theo stumbled towards her bathroom and headed straight for the shower. The last thing she wanted to see was her ghastly post-sleep look. She'd seen it before and it wasn't pretty – hell even her boyfriend tried to avoid it.

As before, the shower was heaven, with enough water to support a small country for months, and a hot water system that never seemed to run out- at least for her alone. When finally emerging from the shower she looked at her image. It wasn't 'pretty' yet, but it was better then her mirror-cracking image before (which she hadn't quite avoided). Smiling she wrapped the softest towel on earth that only came from a hotel, and she began to brush her teeth in front of the glass basin with the cool, thin, cylinder tap running cold water onto her pristine white toothbrush.

Theo was not one to revert to magic for the simplest of tasks. Her father had been a muggle and her mother a half blood- such teachings did not get buried even after completing school at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. For some reason, she felt guilty for going against her parent's whim.

She didn't bother with dressing professional; she wasn't going out to meet the vamps yet. So instead she just dressed casually in black pants and a grey shirt, throwing her leather jacket over the top. Her leather jacket that had probably saved her from more painful injuries too many times to count. It was a pity she couldn't say the same for the pants she'd worn.

As she slid her shoes on, Theo briefly wondered if maybe she should just stay in her room until nightfall. This passed over her mind only once- she would not stay in a room, as gorgeous as it was- just for some vampire. Vampire, puh, they're all just blood-sucking freaks. Her thoughts said to her as she grabbed her handbag, large tanned sunglasses and her key card for her room.

But after meeting the vampires face-to-face, she was beginning to have slight doubt. Only slight of course, nothing too severe.

She stepped into the elevator, and fixed her hair tentatively as she waited for the doors to open. Something about the elevator sent her nerves on edge- maybe it was because as a child herself, a stern woman who refused to look at her had trapped been in an elevator for half an hour. It had been one of the worst memories of her childhood that she ever had.

As soon as the doors opened she exited the elevators as fast as she could without tripping over. A person observing this behind a newspaper just raised an eyebrow at her.

Near the desk, there were pamphlets of Shreveport, and what was available to offer. Looking past the one's labelled 'Nightlife' she picked up the other tourist-y ones. Maybe she could find something to do for a few hours. Go to a few galleries, read a few newspapers, who knew? The world was open for her for a few hours.

Stepping outside, she slid the over-sized sunglasses down her nose and looked around. People were walking around as if nothing happened at night, as if there was no danger, as if none of the otherworld existed.

Her small heels clicked on the pavement as she briskly walked towards a forward-direction. She wanted to go to the Art Gallery, see if there was a show on that she'd enjoy, or maybe she'd go for a little bit of shopping. She hadn't gone shopping for something in a long time, and she could always go for new shoes.

Or some silver, lots and lots of silver, but once again she would not piss off in any way, shape or form, the vampires. Vampires were immune to a fair amount of quick wand magic. The only real magic that worked on them was group magic. You needed a group of witches and/or wizards to perform a good spell on a vampire.

It had something to do with the magic that reanimated them that made them immune.

Whoever was stupid enough to reanimate and create the first vampire would pay greatly by the hands of Theodora Alyssa James. Well, not really, because Theo was scared-shitless of vampires, it was how she was raised and it would probably stick for life. Plus it had to be some strong magic to do as they did, and by that, she meant it had to be a large group of incredibly powerful witches and wizards. Reanimation is a very strict procedure that any mistake can cause absolute destruction – but that was only for zombies, vampires would have been harder (or a very big mistake).

Theo stood in front of the Shreveport Gallery, across the road from a shopping centre. Looking between the two she wondered which she should do first. Then she saw the designer shoe sale and that made her decision for her. She nearly bolted for the shoes. She wanted something sexy, something sophisticated but at the same time, she wanted them to show of her legs without being 'fuck-me' boots/heels.

So obviously they couldn't be red. Red stood out and demanded attention. But black- black she liked. And it couldn't be glossy like those fake-leather shoes, it had to be real, and it had to look nice.

"What are you looking for?" a woman asked as Theo opened the door.

"Something…that is both business and pleasure."

"I see, what size?" the woman questioned with a voice of enigmatic knowledge, her dark, graying hair, glistening in the light as she looked around the room to see if she knew anything.

"Ladies six."

"I know exactly what you should get, and it's reduced from three hundred to one fifty- it's a bargain." She winked before rushing off to the storeroom to grab the shoes. As the woman was busy, Theodora looked around to see if there was anything that caught her fancy. There was, but they were out of her price range even with the sale percentage off.

The woman returned and held the Mary Jane heels up in the air. They had a stiletto heel, but they weren't ridiculously high, in fact, they were perfect and just what she was looking for. She pulled out her credit card before she even tried them on. She could tell right away that they were made for her to wear. And she was going to find the perfect outfit to wear with them tonight, whether it killed her or not, because if she died, she'd die happy whilst looking damn fine.