Of Blades and Fangs - A New Covenant

by Pozzo89

In an alternate timeline of the Marvel Multiverse, this work is set to show what would happen if one major moment in the movie Blade II occurred differently. What if Blade arrived in time to prevent Nyssa from being bitten by Nomak? This fanfiction aims to explore the possibilities offered by canon divergence and personal interpretation.

4. Chapter 4 - A High Road to Take

'This woman must have done something to me. For sure'.

What exactly the vampire princess did during the last few nights they had been side by side, hunting, fighting or fucking, Eric was not certain. Unbeknownst to him, she might have spiked his drink, or slipped some drugs into his food. Hell, for all he knew, she could have as well cut a lock his hair and spouted some mumbo jumbo to bewitch him. What Blade did know was that it was like he somehow chained himself to the Damaskinos heiress. Whenever she was present, he felt the urge to check her out, to talk with her, to be close to her: and, to a not-so-lesser degree, to be inside her. He tried his best to resist those urges, even though most of the time what he accomplished was simply teasing the she-vamp relentlessly. However, maybe his teasing could be an indication of some behavioural issue that emerged when he showed interest in someone. Who knows? Curiously enough, Karen herself said something along those lines after they had their very first—.

'Nope. You don't want to go there, man! Keep your eyes on the prize'.

The Daywalker focused back on the situation at hand: literally.

He pecked his way down the side of Nyssa's neck and cupped her perky breasts, making little teasing circles with his thumbs over the olive-toned skin uncovered by her bodice. His erection was pressing achingly hard against his trousers, calling for that woman. Though still busy with his vest, the Damaskinos heiress began to wiggle her hips against his waist, enticing him even further. Eric was on the verge of ripping the fly of her trousers open and be done with it: he was fairly sure Nyssa would have not mind.

Then, for the umpteenth time, they were interrupted by a loud knock on the frame of the automatic steel doors, quickly followed by someone's clearing his throat behind them.

"Ahem!".

His arousal dropped sharply, with the same speed it took the Stalker to twist his head round to glare at the unwelcome intruder. Since they had so clumsily switched off the cool, neon lights, from where he stood, propped against the desk with the vampire's legs firmly wrapped around his waist, the hunter could manage to make out only the shape of some tall man standing at the room's entrance: a dark silhouette against the lighter background of the corridor. A flat, seemingly unemotional voice echoed then through the otherwise silent, or somewhat quiet room.

"I hope this is not a bad moment".

Before he could say Jack Robinson, Nyssa let her legs loose and abruptly pushed him away, like she had been hugging a white-hot branding iron all the while. He also heard her whispering nervously at him a few words in Upírský, just like the man at the entrance.

"Damn! G-ge-get away from me!".

Then, she hurriedly got down from her desk and tried to tidy herself up. Shortly, very shortly after she made herself look more presentable, the vampire princess hastened to push the engraved button on that small, metallic keypad she had on her desk, once again lighting up the whole study. The Stalker followed her gaze through the room, finally taking a good look at the interloper.

Before them, stood a tall, slender man with bluish-green eyes and short blonde hair, slicked back and parted to the left side. He was wearing a slim fit, stone-grey, herringbone three-piece suit with a crisp white shirt and black dress shoes. The jacket he wore open was single breasted with peak lapels and a two-button closure, while the waistcoat featured a V-neck and button front. He had both hands in the pocket of his trousers, which were also tailored with a slim fit, flat front for a modern, yet refined and grave look. Apart from a black necktie and onyx buttons, the only other note of colour was a blood-red lapel pin which details Blade, from such a distance, was not able to discern. As Eric's gaze settled on the vampire's clean-shaven face, something about his apparently cold, severe expression made the hunter feel uneasy and uncomfortably unarmed: even more than with Nyssa's batshit crazy friend.

"Uncle Nick!".

Beside him, the Damaskinos heiress opted to show one of her best smiles and give the intruder a warm, enthusiastic welcome. With her arms slightly open, she took one step in the vampire's direction before being stopped by his glare. His cold, aggravated look quickly turned into boiling anger, and he took his right hand out of his pocket, angrily waving the index finger in front of the vampire princess as though he had been scolding a child.

"Oh, don't 'uncle' me, little girl!".

He then entered the room with a firm step.

"Go sit down, now, because you and I are going to have a talk".

Unconsciously, Eric put his right hand on Nyssa's left forearm before she could react to that command, either by complying or by defying. The gesture did not go unnoticed by the vampire, who stopped mid-stride and angrily addressed the princess, though fixing his hostile glare on the slayer.

"And tell your pet to go sit somewhere else. I've enough on my plate for now".

At that, the Damaskinos heiress visibly stiffened her back and left his side, walking straight to meet the vampire in the middle of the study.

"I owed the Daywalker my life. For the time being, he's going to stay here as both guest and adviser on the looming crisis".

The interloper was taken aback by her words, though Blade was not sure which one shocked him more.

"Crisis!? Do you have the slightest idea of what's bound to happen with the passing of your father?".

Nyssa fixed the vampire with a level gaze.

"Yes, Niklaus, I have an idea".

The Stalker then took his chance to chime in the conversation.

"Come on, don't be a dick, Nick".

Niklaus' glaucous eyes turned to him and opened widely, feigning surprise. Again, something in that man made Eric bitterly regret having left a full-loaded, modified Beretta 92FS on the cart next to Whistler's bed.

"Oh, stake me, your pet got a voice? And what do you think is going to happen, boy?".

Before he could retort, and possibly start another fight, the vampire princess intervened to steer the conversation back to the point. Blade sensed her resolve hardening as she spoke.

"Karsten, I know I'm going to embark upon one hell of a task. I'll face problems and challenges at every turn, fighting and scheming my way through the night".

Karsten crossed the arms over his chest, visibly annoyed, and then scoffed.

"Bah! You bet your fangs to a Rat Race you'll run into a shitstorm of problems, probably as soon as you have the first meeting with the Cabinet!".

The princess slightly raised her open hands, pointing the jointed fingers toward the other vampire.

"And that's precisely the reason I need your help, Niklaus. I want to ensure my proclamation goes as smoothly as possible, avoiding a bloody power grab by some cabal of hard-line traditionalists, or worse".

Niklaus answered unfolding his arms and began to rub his forehead with the left hand, while the other one went to rest on the right hip. The unbuttoned jacket he had been wearing brushed back, revealing a small, concealed handgun in a paddle holster, worn at the belt line: maybe a Walther PP or a SIG Sauer.

"Yes, yes… how about the Basalt Throne and a Blood Bath?".

The Damaskinos heiress replied confidently.

"Those I can get for myself".

The hunter failed to grasp the significance the last part of their exchange, whether it was some joke or not. Nonetheless, he thought it was a good moment to stir things up again, to size up this potential enemy.

"So, stop being an asshole and start being of help".

Karsten held up a finger in warning, while bluish-green gaze narrowed in a scowl. Once again, Eric felt a faint yet unmistakably dangerous aura radiating from that vampire. Unconsciously, he hooked a finger through the metal ring hanging from the hem of his armour vest.

"Put a lead on him, Nyssa, before he gets bitten! And you don't want to get bitten now, do you, boy?".

The hunter's brows snapped together, and he pulled out the retractable strangle-wire which already proved its usefulness in many other occasions. However, in one of her signature gestures the vampire princess raised her right hand, bending the ring and little finger to touch the thumb and extending her index and middle finger. It seemed she noticed what he was doing, even with her back turned on him.

'What the crap!? She heard me right now, but she didn't notice a crowd of bloodsuckers sneaking up on us?'.

That thought, which actually went both ways since he himself did not cop anything, made Blade realize she probably meant to stop him before he and another vampire from her circle could start a fight, once again, and jeopardize whatever dream of peaceful coexistence she was striving to fulfil. Thus, the slayer unhooked the ring and let the wire retract itself back into his vest.

'The things this woman's gonna make me do…'.

Having the Stalker silenced, Nyssa resumed talking with the man.

"Niklaus… I'm willing to overlook your tone and attitude toward me, and those close to me, given our kinship and the fact that you had been the Starší, my instructing Elder, through all the six steps of the Zasvěcení, my initiation into Dospělost, adulthood".

The vampire grimaced ruefully at her.

"You're not my Vládkyně yet, young lady…".

By that moment, he had both hands akimbo on his hips, thus sliding back the unbuttoned jacket far enough to again reveal another weapon, on his left side: the sheath of some combat knife. For the umpteenth time, the slayer got the unpleasant, uncomfortable sensation of being dreadfully unarmed near a deadly and dangerous vampire.

"…and precisely because I'm your Elder it falls upon me the ungrateful task to warn you of the risks you're taking—."

Unexpectedly, the tone of the conversation veered from menacing to something entirely different, like the tone of an angry parent to a child who had done something wrong.

"—and to help me overcome the adversities I'm facing".

As if on cue, she kind of completed his sentence and tilted the head to her right side, saying no more. The woman stood in that position for a good couple of seconds and though the slayer could not see her face he bet she was giving him some strange look, too.

"Oh, no. Come on, Nyssa! Why do you always come up with the same excuse, that damn lame line, every single time you and your gang get into trouble and you need me to bail all of you out!?".

As the eerie feeling vanished all of a sudden, the Damaskinos heiress approached the vampire judge, her hands clasped tightly together.

"Nick… you're the only member of the Shadow Cabinet I truly trust, and I'm afraid I'm going to need all the support you can give me if I want to pull this off: and not die trying".

Niklaus let his breath out on a heavy sigh and closed his eyes in resignation. When he reopened them, he raised his hands in surrender.

"Let's just sit down at your desk and talk this over, shall we?".

Eric noticed Nyssa giving Karsten a small nod of head, then she turned around and started walking toward him and her desk. When she passed past Blade, the vampire princess locked her gaze with his and mouthed something.

'Behave'.

As she went to sit on the Aeron chair before her computer, the Stalker moved to follow the Damaskinos heiress and placed himself behind her. Even with the change in pace of the conversation between the two, the hunter did not like to stay near some stranger vampire, literally armed to the teeth, with the protection of only his strangle-wire, so he leaned cautiously against the wall and right next the Nyssa' sword rack: just in case. For his part, the vampire judge strode purposefully toward the nearest cantilever chair and lowered himself into it, with his face looking straight at the princess on the opposite side of the desk.

"Well, first things first: do we have to talk with a witch-hunter standing right behind you?".

'Never mind. Dangerous or not, he's still an asshole'.

Although Karsten had his gaze set on the Damaskinos heiress, he wiggled his eyebrows toward the slayer, much to the latter's chagrin.

'Fucker'.

Nyssa replied calmly.

"I've already told you that I'm deeply indebted to the Daywalker for all his help in eliminating the threat posed by Reapers. Besides, I'm going to need him again in the near future".

At that, Niklaus frowned with suspicion.

"Future? What are you talking about?".

The Damaskinos heiress placed the elbows on the arms of her office chair.

"I'm talking about the next logical step after the Ambrosia Project. A truce, if not a fully-fledged peace treaty with the Watchers Council".

Blade could see the disbelief in the vampire judge's eyes as he stared at the princess.

"Right after your proclamation!? And here I thought Eli was a raving lunatic".

Nyssa slightly leaned in Niklaus' direction, placing her right forearm on the desk, and replied coldly.

"Careful there, Karsten".

The vampire rolled his eyes and spread his arms a bit.

"I'm merely pointing out the most probable reactions from other Radní! By Erebus, what do you expect? Some arse licking and a Blood Feast?".

He noticed the Damaskinos heiress tightly gripping the arm of her chair with the left hand.

"The Daywalker's going to attend the imminent Cabinet meeting… where he will elaborate on the truce we intend to broker with the leading witch-hunter organisation".

For an instant, Eric looked down at Nyssa with a bewildered expression on his face.

'What the fuck I'm supposed to do, now!?'.

Then, the hunter remembered he had not been wearing his shades, to prevent his emotions from showing, so he jerked the head up and looked straight into Karsten's eyes. For his part, the vampire judge simply moved his piercing gaze from the princess to the slayer.

"For my niece's sake, I sincerely hope you're going to deliver what you're selling, Daywalker".

Blade folded the arms across his chest, cool and confident.

"My word is my bond".

Even if the Stalker had no idea what the Damaskinos heiress exactly wanted from him, he for sure was not going to show the reserve he had before a stranger bloodsucker. Instead, he opted to simply hold Niklaus' stare and say no more. A few seconds passed, then the vampire judge tiredly slapped his palms against the thin arms of the chair he was sitting on.

"Whatever! Let's just focus on the matter at hand…".

By the arms he was gripping, Karsten moved the chair closer to the desk, in front of Nyssa.

"…and tell me precisely what happened this night…".

Then, he leaned back in the chair and fixed his gaze full upon the vampire princess.

"…because yesterday, when your father briefed the Cabinet on the latest developments in the Reapers' threat, was that your Blade-led Bloodpack had successfully wiped the mutants out during a daylight-hunt within the bowels of Prague's sewage system, where the Reapers's lair was thought to be. Sadly, your little death squad was reported to have suffered great losses and that Reinhardt made haste to bring you and the Daywalker, the only other survivors, back to the Caliban Complex for medical treatment".

At that, the Damaskinos heiress all of a sudden got angry and interjected.

"That's a load of tripe, Uncle Nick! I—".

The vampire judge stopped the princess right on her tracks, holding out his hands her, palms up.

"No, no, no! Let me tell what my problem is, okay? After that brief, I go to bed, and everything's hunky-dory. I get a call at 09:25 and there's, what, the Overlord's dead!?".

As Karsten's little spiel went on, Nyssa was impatiently drumming her fingers on the desk.

"Right, right, right. If you only let me speak up!".

Taken aback by the Damaskinos heiress' sudden burst of anger, Niklaus dropped his hands and sunk into the chair while she took a breather and then, in a cool, matter-of-fact tone, she began to recount the events of the last few nights. Fortunately for the Daywalker, she switched to English so he could easily understand the two vampires' exchange.

"As I've been trying to say… all of you, no, all of us have been fed lies by the Overlord himself. He diverted resources from the Ambrosia Project and exploited many of our findings to genetically engineer a monstrous, new breed of vampires: the Reapers. When his project's first subject, Jared Nomak, went rogue and began to infect with the Reaper Strain an alarming number of humans and vampires alike, my father called a truce with Blade and asked him to lead the Bloodpack and help containing the threat. In reality, he was just another piece of Eli's insane plan all along: we all were. In spite of having helped me make it through the sewers' suicide mission, my father had Eric electrocuted and brought here to a large lab storage room I've never been informed of, a so-called Eugenics Chamber. There, the Overlord himself showed us stocks of Reaper embryos and revealed that the Reaper Strain did not evolve by itself from baseline vampirism, but instead had been engineered with the utmost secrecy, in breach of all our laws and traditions pertaining to the preservation of our race."

The Stalker silently observed Karsten's expression growing more and more incredulous as Nyssa's story gradually unfolded. However, the vampire judge did not interrupt the princess.

"To add insult to an already injurious situation, Eli candidly admitted that Nomak, the menace we've had been trying to destroy for nights, was in fact a secret son of his, born and raised in hiding with the sole purpose of being experimented on, like a mere test animal".

Suddenly, there was a marked change in the Damaskinos heiress' tone, which got quite as though she was talking to herself with regret for something missed, or lost.

"It was like I was robbed of a little brother I never had the chance to know, to curse, to understand, to grow with: to love".

As suddenly as it appeared, her tone turned back to that flat, neutral manner which had Blade think he was listening to a spoken word album.

"Later, I discovered that Eric had been bled forcibly dry, to unlock the enigma of his Daywalker blood and then overcoming the one remaining weakness of the Reapers: sunlight. Meanwhile, Nomak somehow survived the extermination of his spawn and tracked us down here to the Caliban Complex, where he slaughtered his way through dozens of familiars to get to the Eli, the source of all his sufferings. I remember distinctly his furious fists against the security doors, as he crazily called for our father".

The vampire princess paused deliberately, probably to allow Niklaus to absorb the information before she would tell him the shocking truth.

"That moment, when the pair of us was about to flee the building like the wind, I made a choice".

In the short moment of respite that followed, Eric noticed the Damaskinos adjusting, somewhat uncomfortable, into her seat.

"I would have not let the Overlord escape, safe and free to resume his aberrant, insane dream of racial ascendancy. So, I locked ourselves inside the lobby and consciously stood by whilst the Reaper finally got us and killed our father".

This time, her tone was more hard, resolute. Nonetheless, hearing that Karsten's eyes bulged in complete disbelief.

"You did what!?".

Much to the Daywalker's relief, he too switched to English as though he had been more or less consciously following his princess' lead. Nonetheless, Nyssa stiffened with determination.

"I took upon myself the responsibility to act".

Once again, she leaned in toward Karsten.

"As you probably know better than me… under the Provisions of Tabriz of 1287 and the subsequent Overlordship Statute, deposing an Overlord from the Basalt Throne is a process which can be carried out only by the sworn heir to that very same throne".

The vampire judge interjected.

"Yeah… a very delicate and complex process that, by the consent of the chief of the judiciary, leads to a soudní souboj, a trial by combat fought between the Overlord and the heir, before the joint session of the House of Erebus and the Shadow Cabinet".

At that, the Damaskinos heiress sounded outraged.

"Are you saying that you wouldn't have given your consent!? To put an end to all this madness!?".

The vampire judge replied.

"And where's the evidence to back you up? You didn't seriously think that I would have just taken your word for it, did you?".

Nyssa coldly retorted.

"Deep down the underground levels, in a lab storage room called Eugenics Chamber, there's about five freezers storing stock of embryos. The Daywalker's mentor shot some of them and smashed the others, but I think what's left might still be of use to your eventual investigation".

Since Niklaus did not look convinced, the vampire princess angrily swivelled the chair around to grab a CD-ROM from her computer station and then turned back to slam it on the desk pad, right before him.

"If you want more, here's a selection of incriminating video-files from the CCTV tapes, plus all the information and documents that I've managed to find and gather in these few minutes about a Vorpal Project, rummaging through some well-hidden data in our drive storage system. It's an encrypted file folder and I've not got enough time to try cracking it, but I'm sure our IT guys can go over it thoroughly".

Eric noted the vampire gave the compact disc a short look, after which he theatrically arched his eyebrows in question.

"Only now you manage to discover something like this!?".

"You'd be surprised how quickly and easily compromising information can be found when you've got the highest clearances and you know where to look. Aside from that, I've sent my closest aides to house of the ghoul my father had put in charge of this hidden project of his, to scour the whole building for further evidence and provide it to you".

Karsten scoffed at her last few words.

"Bah! Are you referring to your little coterie of cutthroats and ruffians? The infamous Banshees? Bah! And you've sent them around the city, looking for proofs? It'd already be a success if they managed not to blow themselves up with the whole neighbourhood… bah!".

Unexpectedly, those caustic, disparaging remarks made Blade chuckle.

'I've got the same impression of them, too'.

The vampire princess twisted her head round to glare at him silently. The judge gave then a little cough, to probably keep her on topic.

"This ghoul Eli had placed to manage this project of his… is he alive? Where can I find him?".

Eric took the chance to interject.

"Karel Kounen… I remember being transferred to some lab room near the Eugenics Chamber, where he had me strapped to some fucking contraption that began to bleed me dry. Last thing I recall was him being shot dead by Whistler, my mentor, when he sneaked into the room to bail my ass out".

The vampire's bluish-green eyes bore into him as he said his piece and then, once he was done, they moved back to the woman.

"So, after you had the Reaper do your dirty work for you, I assume you let no loose ends dangle and just disposed of that mutant: knowing you, it was done in a grisly fashion… am I wrong?".

Oddly enough, the sly dig did not seem to have the intended effect on Nyssa, who simply bent her head down and kept quiet for a short while. Then, she spoke in a lower, sadder tone.

"It's all in the tapes. After I let justice run its course and Nomak kill the Overlord, I admit I was extremely distraught… in that moment of weakness, I thought I had to share the same fate of the father I had executed".

Niklaus dropped his mouth dropped open in bafflement, speechless.

"Then, right when I was offering my neck to Nomak, the Daywalker intervened and began to furiously fight him. I just watched them brawling wildly through the lobby, until the Reaper had Blade battered and cornered. That moment, I resolved not to give up but to fight on, be it for myself, for someone who helped me or for the destiny of my people. The thought made me recover from my numbness and I stepped in, to put an end to the Reaper Strain carrier. Another, bitter fight ensued and we wrestled through the ruined room until I managed to stab my brother with the Stalker's blade".

After that, the Damaskinos heiress fell silent, while Eric imperceptibly nodded in agreement with her story. Granted, she could have spent a few more words about him and his fight with Nomak, to make him look something more than a chivalrous fool: a rescuer who had to be rescued, in turn.

"And that's the end of it".

The vampire's eyes quickly flickered over the slayer, then focused back on the princess, with a stern expression on his face. He stared at her for a good couple of minutes, silently yet intently, as though he was trying to see through her very soul before he could pass judgement.

'Oh, shit. Here we are again'.

As the stare went on, a renewed feeling of foreboding crept over the Stalker and he found himself checking out, with the corner of his eye, the black-lacquered hardwood sword rack he had been standing right next to.

'If things go south, I have to be quick. I doubt the gun and knife that bloodsucker fails to conceal are just for show'.

Blade quickly pondered about which weapon to use against the vampire judge. Admittedly, the hunter deemed himself not skilled enough in dual wielding, so he immediately dismissed Nyssa's twin wakizashi. The long, highly decorated tachi was in fact too long for his liking, while the practical and plainly decorated katana would have been right up to his alley. However, the set of tantō knives also might come in handy, in case Karsten quickly backed away from the desk and drew his gun to shoot at them from distance. He was still undecided when, suddenly, Niklaus heaved a great sigh of what might have been called resignation. Then, he tiredly placed his right hand on the edge of the desk while pinching the bridge of his nose with the left one.

"All right, young lady, here's where we stand. It's going to take about five, six hours for the most distant members of the Cabinet to get here in Prague. For your part, I'd recommend you prepare for the imminent meeting. Rest, tidy yourself up and work on your speech or buff up your manners but, above all, remember to always carry your sidearm with you: you never know for certain what some those Radní would come up with on such an occasion".

The vampire judge was about to get up from the cantilever chair, when the princess tried to stop him with a question.

"What about you?".

Undeterred, Karsten rose from his chair and stood before the Damaskinos heiress.

"For my part, I'm going to use that time to conduct the shortest and most crucial investigation in my career. I'll start by taking a look at that chamber you mentioned, so be sure not to let anyone disturb me".

Nyssa shook her head and quickly got back at him.

"There's no way I'm going to allow you to wander through the Caliban Complex, just by yourself. I have to remind you that this whole place is currently on lockdown, since we're still clearing the building from any Reaper that Nomak might've spawn when he broke in".

It appeared obvious that Niklaus did not like her words, at all. So, she quickly added.

"I'm going to assign you some familiars as an escort. They'll be at your command and ensure that you comb through the whole complex undisturbed".

The vampire judge sneered.

"Humph… as if I would need them. However, you catch up quickly, young lady".

The princess then asked.

"So, am I clear of suspicion?".

Karsten placed the palms of both hands on the desk and leaned forward, in her direction.

"If your story will be corroborated by the evidence I'm here to find, you're off the hook".

The Damaskinos heiress tilted the head, to her left side this time.

"So, I'm simply free on recognisance?".

The vampire judge crossed his arms on the chest.

"I like you Nyssa. I really do. You're my favourite niece, by far. And you're probably the best candidate to sit on the Basalt Throne…"

Although the tone of his voice sounded cordial, encouraging and sincere, the pattern of his speech seemed to only lead to a hard but.

"…but, at this level of the game most of us are like seasoned yet self-serving performers, busy figure-skating on the same thin fucking ice, my young little diva. And many of us will steer clear of you, because beginners are likely to break the ice and sink with a loud splash".

Nyssa's answer to those disillusioned, and disenchanting words was in turn hard and resolute.

"I don't intend to sink, nor crumble under my own weight, uncle Nick".

A faint, sad smile flickered across Niklaus' face.

"Let's hope so, Nyssa, for all of us…".

Then, Karsten took a couple of steps back from the desk, skilfully manoeuvring through the cantilever chairs without even looking.

"Well, I'm going back to that ifrit's office to retrieve my coat and briefcase. It would be nice if, by the time I get there, I find those familiars of yours already waiting for me".

The vampire princess quietly nodded in agreement.

"All right, let's see if we can get something good out this mess… peace be with you, my vladařka".

The vampire judge gave her a simple neck bow and moved to his right side. As Blade came into his line of sight, he halted and glared at him. Again, the hunter felt targeted, overwhelmed by a wave of hostile emotions directed at him. The surge was so sudden and intense that the Stalker lost his cool for a moment, and his eyes narrowed into angry slits to match that hostility, while his right hand rushed to wrap itself around the hilt of the katana, as a precaution. That reaction seemed to amuse the vampire judge and got an unpleasant smirk out of him.

"Relax, Blade, take it easy. I'm not here for you…".

Then, he swiftly jabbed his left index finger in the slayer's direction.

"…but you better stay in my niece's good graces. One word from her, and I'll fucking kill you: Daywalker or not".

After those words of warning, Niklaus turned his back on them and resumed his stride. Slowing his pace as he got close to the entrance, he stopped to pensively lay his right hand on the doors' frame. Without turning around, he addressed Nyssa.

"A word of advice… close these doors when you're enjoying intimacy with someone. I doubt you're the sort of woman who wants an audience, and I sure as hell don't want to walk in on another dreadful spectacle like the one before".

Since Eric was busy looking at Karsten as he gave his little piece of advice, he did not saw Nyssa hastily covering her face in embarrassment, almost slapping herself in the act.

"Well, goodbye you all".

Eventually, the vampire judge stepped outside the room. Only then it occurred to Blade that the bloodsucker made almost no sound when he walked, appearing even more soundless than the princess' companions. He found that thought deeply unsettling.

'Dammit: what a fucking, stealthy and sneaking bloodsucker'.

As soon as Niklaus left the study and disappeared into the corridor, Eric saw the steel doors closing behind him: finally. He then moved his gaze on Nyssa, whose left hand was just moving away from the metallic keypad on her desk, probably after having pushed another, different engraved button. The princess immediately swivelled her chair to the right side, near the computer station, where some secure telephone set was on display. She then picked up the receiver and dialled what might have been an extension number. A few seconds later, someone answered and the Damaskinos heiress began to quickly speak in her own Czech, vampiric dialect. She was talking so fast that the slayer had trouble understanding most of the conversation, admittedly. When she was done talking, she turned around to face him with a blank expression, so he asked her.

"Good news?".

A faint smile of satisfaction played on her lips.

"Yes, for once… I've talked with a familiar Jan sent to the control room, and he informed me that they've started to clear the complex of all the bodies Nomak left in his wake: kindred and kine alike. Even during the physiological transition to Reapers, they've been reported to be incredibly sensitive to daylight, in so far it seems UV torches suffice to incinerate them".

That report brought back to Blade the gruesome recollection of the aftermath of their very first clash with the Reapers, back at the House of Pain, and how they dealt with the fallen Bloodpack member, Priest, when he had begun to turn.

"Indeed".

The vampire princess seemingly sunk in her seat.

"I've also tasked Krakowský with despatching a few men to Allen's office, in order to preserve evidence and assist Karsten with his investigation. Hopefully, that bloody mess too is going to be over soon".

The Stalker enfolded his arms and looked at her.

"So… what now?"

Nyssa sat lazily up from her chair, yawning and stretching. It appeared that the weariness from the previous, sleepless night and day was finally catching up. Admittedly, he himself could make use of a couch to rest on, if not a bed.

"We're going to clean ourselves up, just as planned".

The Damaskinos heiress sinuously walked the short distance that separated them. The Stalker's attention was immediately caught by slight yet mesmerizing sway of her hips, which in turn showed some skin: that olive-toned, smooth and practically perfect skin of hers.

'Mm, I can guess where this is going'.

She absentmindedly stopped right in front of the slayer, with the hands resting on her hips. Those teasing and sensuous hips, which he could hardly wait to grab and hold firm, hungrily. He did not even bother to momentarily flicker his eyes upwards to meet her gaze.

"Then, we're going to prepare our next course of action".

The hunter immediately arched his right eyebrow as high as it could go.

'I guessed wrong'.

Nevertheless, the vampire princess closed in on him. Engrossed with her own thoughts, she casually began to brush her fingers against his vest, while the left hand languidly laid on her black jacket right beneath her bosom. Idly moving back and forth, the thumb caressed the natural lower boundary of her breast. If by any chance the previous scenes did not affect the Daywalker, that sight certainly stirred him down below.

'There's no way in hell she's doing this, unintentionally. Damn… she couldn't do it, right?'.

With a blank, vacant look in her eyes, the Damaskinos heiress slowly trailed her fingers up to his chest, leisurely drawing little circles with the nail of her thumb over one of the padded rubber sections that covered his pecs. Meanwhile, she insinuated the left hand into her half-open jacket and let it rest over the corselette which covered her flat, toned stomach, slightly extending and retracting the fingers in a movement complementary to the regular heaving of her chest. Accidentally or not, said notable-breasted chest of hers was on display just for him and the hunter could not stop himself from shamelessly ogling at the upper part of her bosom. He absorbed every detail of her bare skin, as though he was following the map to an invaluable treasure, while something definitely started to swell and ache in his underpants.

'Oh, man! You can't keep doing this to me…'.

Apparently oblivious to Eric's discomfort, Nyssa went on with her monologue.

"I, for instance, am going to draw up some sort of pre-trial brief and submit it to Karsten… together with the evidence he's going to find, that document should put him in a position to rule for the case to be dismissed. My proclamation will be the easy work of ten minutes, or so I hope".

Those words made the Stalker think back to her exchange with the vampire judge, and the role that he himself, according to the princess, would have been going to play in the imminent meeting of all those high-ranking bloodsuckers. As his libido drastically receded, he stood back from the wall and straightened his shoulders. With the distance between them suddenly reduced to a few inches, Nyssa at long last came back from her dreamworld and tried to take a step back from him. This time Blade was faster than her, though, and grabbed the Damaskinos heiress by her hips, gently yet firmly.

"Speaking of meetings… since it appears that you're making choices for me, can I at least ask what part I've been assigned for your damned, coming show?".

She grimaced in embarrassment at his demand.

"Yeah, sorry about that… that's what I've been meaning to talk about with you once we've got here, but then all sort of friends and relatives have come walking on us…".

At that, he glanced across the study to where the entrance was. Finally, they got the room for themselves. With a relieved look on his face, he turned back to the woman in his grab.

"Man, you've got quite the gang. And don't get me started about your family…".

The vampire princess chuckled bitterly.

"And you've yet to meet the worst of them…".

The slayer replied with a furrow of his brow and a pursing of his lips.

"Do I have to?".

A deep sigh came from her as she shook her head.

"Of course not. However, that's bound to happen if you stick with me: probably, at the very meeting we're going to have".

Probably for the best, Eric opted not to inquire about Nyssa's extended family and focus back on the matter at hand.

"Yeah, about that: how exactly am I supposed to elaborate on a truce we've shortly talked about in broad terms, just a couple of times?".

The Damaskinos eyes briefly flew open in surprise.

"Right! The Watchers! Uh, well… what I would have wanted to ask you, before being constantly interrupted, was simply relating the few points we've already agreed upon: sending Whistler to Great Russell Street, maybe together with a capable and trusted familiar of mine, and having him simply relay my request for peace talks. Depending upon their reply, we'll see whether this little overture is worth investing more time and effort".

Blade scoffed at the seemingly half-baked idea. Although it still kept surprising him the fact that bloodsuckers knew about the exact location of the leading witch-hunter organisation's headquarters, he could not help but feeling skeptical about the success of the princess' peacemaking endeavor. Apparently, the slayer's unshaded face betrayed his doubts, because Nyssa's own expression changed from surprise to uncertainty as she asked for his opinion.

"You think that's a hurried, slapdash scheme, don't you?".

The Stalker quickly answered, as he felt her eyes bore into him and her hands grasping the arms he was holding her hips with.

"Not necessarily so… I just think the Watchers are nothing but a bunch of fools. Bureaucratic fools who won't know what they're going to get…".

He was thinking about clarifying his words and airing his doubts about those morons sizing the opportunity to end the war that was dropping right into their lap, when the vampire princess suddenly grinned impishly at him and completed the sentence for him.

"Well, I know what I've got here…".

The hunter rolled his eyes heavenward.

"Get out of here, you movie buff!".

Before Eric knew it, his arms flew from Nyssa's hips to embrace her sides. She bent over and started laughing heartily. There was something in this particular laugh of hers that resonated within him like the echo of a long-forgotten memory, about a time when life and everything in it was simpler, easier.

The Soundview section of the Bronx, his home. A world unto itself. Someone could have got to any borough in about fifteen minutes from there, but they might have as well as been three thousand miles away.

Blade then had a sudden recollection of the Presbyterian Church, and of how the songs of its gospel choir filled the neighbourhood on Sundays.

It was 1971, and hip-hop was the sound on the streets. It felt like there was a breakdancing crew on every corner back then. What a time it was! The New York Knicks were playing the Blatimore Bullets in the NBA Eastern Conference Finals, and Walt Frazier was like a god to him. His dad would have taken him to the Madison Square Garden and, sadly, they would have watched the Knicks loose.

As his mind went to the Cozy Corner, where all the guys hung out, he recalled his building, where there was his stoop.

They used to live right over a drugstore. Two doors down was a bookie joint, then there was the bakery. Two more doors down there was a gambling spot, then the hardware store and then again, two more doors down, was another bookie joint. On warm summer nights, all through the neighbourhood, he would have heard young men romancing their women.

That vivid memory pushed its way through the Daywalker and finally overwhelmed him.

There, in a foreign city far away from home, deep down into the recesses of some bloodsuckers' den and with the princess of said bloodsuckers in his arms, contentedly snuggling her head onto his shoulder, the cold and hardened hunter suddenly felt shaken to his very core. He was about to throw in his lot with vampires, his sworn enemies, preparing to face who-knows-what deadly dangers, and the only thing he could think straight of was how good, right and perfect having her in his embrace felt. That was not just primal, raw sexual drive rushing through him, prompting the slayer to be near her, close to her, inside her. It was like there was some higher force at work, impelling him to stand by the Damaskinos heiress when everybody else deserted her, to see her in all her vulnerability and protect her, making her stronger with his own strength. Seeing her happy, content and fulfilled had become something worth committing himself to.

That last thought triggered some kind of reflex response, which shook him off his introspection.

'What the shit!? This ain't me!'.

The Stalker gulped back the whirl of emotions trying to rise up his throat and leak out of his eyes. Reluctantly, he pulled away from hug they had been sharing set his gaze on Nyssa, who in turn had a slightly puzzled look on her face.

"So… now that my role's been drafted out, what's second?".

Her expression grew a little more perplexed, probably because of the sudden change in his behaviour that he managed to hide like a nine-year-old boy. However, the vampire princess shrugged off whatever thoughts she might have had and tilted the head to her right, wiggling her eyebrows in the same direction. As the hunter himself turned to see what she was pointing at, toward the shelves of her library, he remembered having noticed a dark and otherwise featureless steel door in the same wall the sword rack was hanging on.

"Let me guess. Like any executive worth his salt, an en suite bedroom?".

The Damaskinos heiress smiled wryly, somewhat amused.

"Nah, just too much work at the office. And the complex is inconveniently situated, far from the main warren beneath the city, where our other regular havens and safe houses are usually located".

She then walked away from him, toward the dark door. When she was right before it, the vampire princess pushed a small, engraved button almost next to where the glass cases of her library began. The door hissed gently and slid open, disappearing into the wall. She then turned her head to glance at the hunter, waiting.

"Well, are you coming or not? The bathroom is inside".

The Daywalker thought it was a good moment to tease the vampire and ease the tension in his mind.

"Oh, my god".

She looked at him quizzically.

"What?".

He grinned mischievously at her, then started to playfully shake his head.

"Not even a first date and you're already inviting a man into your bedroom? Tsk tsk! I think that just wouldn't be proper for a princess…".

Nyssa rolled her eyes upwards and sighed audibly.

"Eric, I fear we're way past that… and I won't stay filthy for another moment".

She did not wait for an answer and proceeded to quickly enter the room, while Blade winced inwardly at her using his first name.

'I really need to talk with her about that'.

Suppressing a sigh, he followed the vampire princess into her room.

The whole space was lighted by the same cool, white LEDs the illumination of the study seemed to transition to. The fairly large doorframe was apparently made of a light-gray steel arch that surrounded the opening, which was in turn enclosed on both its sides and top by one single, black piece of furniture. It was like the entrance to the bedroom was flanked by two identical, hardwood closets, which were surmounted by some upper storage cabinet that run from one end of the wall to the other. Many ridges run in multiple directions across that piece of furniture and gave it an accentuated, peculiar appearance, as though the charcoal black wood panels had been pressed and milled. On closer inspection, several raw veneers had indeed been glued onto the solid wood matrix the closets and the cabinet were made of. Once the slayer finally stepped across that threshold, he found himself in a spacious bedroom which, curiously enough, appeared slightly brighter than the vampire princess' study, probably due to the light gray metal slabs that had been applied to all the inner surfaces of the room. Again, he detected a fragrance in the air, a mildly floral scent, like unripened tomatoes: deadly nightshade.

"Mm, is this the sanctum sanctorum?".

On his left, Nyssa had just turned on a mirror table lamp standing on a white, three-legged side table. Upon hearing his words, she pursed her lips and sneered.

"No, just an en suite bedroom, as you quite accurately put it. One of the perks of being the big boss's daughter, I suppose".

The hunter chuckled and continued to explore the room with his eyes.

On his right, there was a niche in the wall with rounded corners, big enough to hold two shelves. On both ends of the top shelf, there were a few seemingly ancient, weighty tomes which titles he could not make out from the almost worn off vampire glyphs that were engraved on their spines, while the central part of the shelf was occupied by a small, brass armillary sphere. Some old hardcovers from the past century had been more or less carelessly piled together and placed against the right end of the second shelf, on which left half stood a portable astrarium and what might have been the in-scale replica of a reconstructed Antikythera mechanism. It looked like the vampire princess had a real penchant for science, culture and other educated pleasures.

'What's with me and brainy chicks?'.

She had reached the other side of the room, a good half of which was occupied by a large, rectangular indoor window that showed a peculiar view of a slate bathroom dominated by a huge, black tub. The whole room was dimly lit by some cool white, waving lights coming from the very same bathtub, within which floor some LEDs had probably been installed. The woman seemed to have shrugged off the jacket and that black, leathered corselette of her was doing nothing but revealing her bare arms, her naked shoulders, her inviting neck and the notable swell of her chest. He found himself casting furtive, hungry and lustful glances at the woman.

'Sexy, hot, and irresistible… brainy chicks'.

As the Stalker slightly shook his head to get rid of those thoughts, his attention was drawn to the bottom of the wall niche, where a desktop orrery was on display. However, what puzzled him most was the fact that the orrery on display did not represent the solar system, but a totally different one: three, dark blue spheres circling around a smaller, white one. Intrigued, he neared the niche and kneeled down to look closely at the mechanical device.

"That's not our solar system…".

From the other side of the room, the Damaskinos heiress answered.

"Mm, no: not at all… it's an extra-solar planetary system, located in the constellation of Virgo, about 2,300 light-years from here. A, B and C are the three planets discovered orbiting the pulsar PSR B125712".

Eric arched both his brows and twisted the head to glance at Nyssa. She had her back turned on him and seem busy searching for something in a built-in closet and a couple of drawers, which had silently come out of that side of the wall.

"Good. That... that whole thing's its name, huh? Does it have, uh... a shorter name?".

Unexpectedly, the vampire princess suddenly stopped what she was doing and heaved a shaken sigh, as though he had accidentally brought back some painful memory.

"Someone I once knew used to call that system Lich. The three planets, he had them named Draugr, Poltergeist and Phobetor".

Blade could not help probing into that strange mystery.

"That's a nice ring to it… but I'd like to know more about this apparent interest. What's with you and astronomy?".

The Damaskinos heiress spun around to stonily stare at the Daywalker. He did not like that stare, so he quickly added.

"I'm genuinely curious… I just want to know more about you".

In response, she slowly blinked her eyes and let out another sigh.

"I'd been told that my grandfather, Simon Damaskinos, was an amateur yet brilliant astronomer who, like many 18th century scientists, suspected that extrasolar planets existed and, though there was no way of knowing whether they were real in fact, how common they were, or how similar they might be to Earth, he still cherished the hope that some time in the future kindred will find a new, welcoming world where we all can finally live out of hiding, together with our familiars and above all safely away from those kine who wish us dead".

By the moment the vampire princess ceased to speak, he felt her intent gaze fixing on him.

"I used to go to bed listening to stories like this: a different world, a better future".

The slayer slowly got back up to his feet and held her gaze.

"You surely sound like you belong to some persecuted minority".

She looked completely taken aback by his reply.

"Really!? Do I!?".

Blade folded the arms across his chest, determined to make his point and not let her sweet talk him.

"Yeah, I think you're dramatizing this: way too much".

Nyssa brows snapped together ferociously, looking deeply offended by his remark. She was frowning at the Stalker from the other side of a king-size bed with dark gray sheets and matching pillows which, dominated the whole room as it was set against the wall opposite the entrance. He did not fail to notice that, in the short time he spent in looking at her collection of knick-knacks, she had already managed to pick some black and gold clothes that, together with other women's wear, had casually been thrown on the bed.

"Right! Excuse me for greatly exaggerating the fact that I belong to a human subspecies that, due to a damn curse we don't even know a bloody thing about, cannot even stay in the open and see the sunrise because exposure to direct daylight would cause us to burst into flames from the inside, killing us in a matter of seconds. I'm sure you've taken advantage of this while pursuing your ridiculous crusade and, hell, it's also the preferred method of execution in all the principalities comprising our nation. À propos, you know how to kill us with sunlight, but you don't have the faintest idea of how it really works on us, do you?".

And he thought she was being dramatic, before.

"Please, enlighten me".

In his mind, he should have sounded like he was gently mocking her. However, the vampire princess' gaze narrowed and her lips pursed, in a show of displeasure.

"Imagine you were walking through a nuclear fallout and radiation was destroying your organs, bones and tissues, but faster: way faster".

The hunter frowned in consternation.

"That sounds pretty accurate, in a disturbing way. Do I wanna know why?".

Her first answer was pointing the forefinger to the dots tattooed above her left eyebrow.

"Second point on the left, Daywalker. As part of my medical education and especially to prove that I could overcome the Rötschreck, the blind, primal fear that kindred have for daylight, I had to expose my whole right arm to the bright sun and endure its destruction. Granted, the arm regrew within a fortnight but, still, it was the most painful experience I had ever went through".

The slayer's lips curved into an expression of restrained surprise.

'Girl's not right in her mind'.

The Damaskinos heiress took his silence for assent and kept talking about the misfortunes of her race.

"As if that were not enough, we're affected by some very serious mutations which in turn cause an immediate hypersensitivity to silver and garlic. I cannot hold to a simple silver spoon for more than six seconds without triggering the most horrendous allergic attack-induced contact dermatitis I've ever seen, and if I ever ingest a fresh clove of garlic, it's guaranteed that I'll go into anaphylactic shock and die within minutes…".

Not rolling his eyes required a great deal of effort from the Stalker.

'I don't need to revise Vampire Anatomy 101, woman'.

He himself had become very knowledgeable about their weaknesses, in order to be a more efficient killer. Until then, Blade had paid no mind to all those bloodsuckers he had blown away or sliced in half. If anything, every time he had taken one of those monsters out, he got back a little piece of that life he spent looking for Deacon Frost, the one who turned his mother into a vampire and made the Daywalker into what he was. Nevertheless, since Eric acquainted himself with Nyssa, in more than one way, an uncomfortable thought had been slowly but inexorably creeping into his mind: what was he going to do from now on? Would he ever be able to kill vampires at will, freely and without any trace of remorse, now that he was going to involve himself with the vampire princess, again on every possible level? At the moment, the only thing the slayer could rationally do was not giving any of these inner troubles away, especially in front of her.

Oblivious of his reasoning, the Damaskinos heiress was going on and on with her speech.

"…and don't get me started with EDTA and other modern, chemical anticoagulants which, thanks to your dear Dr. Jenson, have been discovered to react incredibly violently with our blood. I certainly don't need to remind you that, one injection is sufficient to cause us, again within seconds, to literally explode into a cloud of blood".

The Daywalker's brow cocked upwards at the mention of Karen.

'Is that a hint of jealousy in her voice I'm detecting, or am I imagining things?'.

A knee-jerk reaction on his part made Eric try to divert Nyssa's attention away from Karen, at all costs.

"Speaking of blood, when you're finally gonna refer to feeding? Yours' surely the first minority in history to enjoy bloodsucking and use your wealth to cover it all up".

Her eyes narrowed into slits.

'Well done, man. Mission accomplished. Now that I've distracted the woman from Karen, how can I get myself out of trouble?'.

With arms akimbo, she scowled fiercely at the hunter.

"Yes, thanks, Daywalker! You're right again! How could I ever forget the peculiar diet the aforementioned curse had all of us stuck to!? You want me to say I'm sorry for being the remorseless, egoistic bloodsucking specimen of a race who cannot refrain from feeding on human blood to sustain themselves? Well, there's no way in hell I'm going to say that! Damn, I'm not even afraid to tell you that I lack the spirit to fast for about sixty-six nights like a sanctimonious, fundamentalist von Esper Brahmin and consciously let my body and mind going through accelerated aging. And I simply find pointless to rely on paltry, deficient surrogates like animal blood or that laughable serum of yours…".

While the vampire princess had a break from her speech, Blade took the chance to intervene. He then took a step toward the bed, as if it was some kind of a buffer zone between two opponents armies.

"What about all the humans usually bled dry, turned into blood dolls and treated as cattle for the slaughterhouse? Do you ever feel sorry for those lives taken?".

Those words made the Damaskinos heiress burst with anger and irritation, and she put the hands on her head in frustration.

"Aargh! For Erebus' sake, this is not the 17th century, Eric! How many times must I tell you that the old nights of carnage and death are over!? Bloody hell, we're not out to enslave humanity and kill those who stand in our way!".

She momentarily halted, as though she just realized the weight of her own words.

"Well, at least not anymore! And you know why!? Because we can't, and we know it!".

After that line, the vampire princess sighed wearily and pinched the bridge of her nose, closing the eyes. When she opened them again, they were bright with angry, unshed tears.

"Blade, the scales have been tipping against us for the last two hundred years. Have you ever considered why we came up with the very idea of blood dolls, herds and blood banks? Because we need stable, reliable and above all concealed sources of sustenance. Away from the prying eyes of witch-hunters like you or the world's media: especially them…".

The angry, yet resigned frustration in Nyssa's voice caught the hunter off guard.

"W-why this fear of the media? With all the wealth and influence you've got, I've always thought they're on your payroll, along with politicians".

Nyssa rolled her eyes in annoyance and scoffed at his speculation.

"You still think too much of us, Daywalker. Since the Rebellion, we kindred have always kept our numbers low. Those humans deemed worthy to be embraced are carefully handpicked: well, most of them…".

Given the harsh comments she had reserved for Deacon Frost, he could easily see what the vampire princess was referring to. It was what she said and did shortly after, that left the slayer at a loss for words.

"As for natural born offspring, it seems that not all our children are meant to be…".

As she uttered those words, Eric noticed Nyssa's gaze had fallen to the orrery displayed in the niche behind him. When he turned to look again at her, she was holding her belly with both hands, gently rubbing it as though she had been trying to feel for something, in vain. She had the most melancholic expression he had seen her with: full of sorrows and regrets. Almost inexplicably, the slayer's arms fell to his sides as he felt a sudden pang of jealousy, and then a twinge of guilt for that jealousy.

"W-w-wait! Are you saying th—".

Abruptly, the Damaskinos heiress snapped out of her momentary trance and, in a knee-jerk reaction, talked over Blade and did not let him finish.

"What I'm trying to say is… on a generous estimate, there's no more than sixty thousand vampires, worldwide. Insignificant, compared with about six billion humans. Six billion people who might as well be smart, good and decent. As long as their lives, hopes and even misfortunes work as expected. But what could happen, in case their beliefs are shaken to the core, they're thrown out in the dark and someone scares the hell out of them? They'll reveal themselves for what they truly are: dumb, panicky and dangerous animals. Just like my people, but in greater numbers…".

Nyssa only took an almost imperceptible breath of respite before going on her tirade, this time leaving him no chance of replying.

"…and what if the secrecy that so far has shrouded and protected my people is unveiled? What do you think is going to happen if one of your organisations manages, gods forbid, to prove our real existence to the masses and succeed in painting us as a threat?".

The Damaskinos heiress crossed the arms over her chest, as though the gesture could help her hide all those pent-up, exasperated emotions.

"The most probable outcome is that the human politicians and leaders we've spent so time and resources to cultivate good relations with, will turn on us and stab us in the back. Nations will put aside their differences and join forces against us, with no quarter given. If this thousand years conflict between us escalates to an open world war, who do you think is going to win? Once their intelligence agencies will find us, they're going to order their military to come after us: everyone of us. My household, my clan, my nation… they will all be destroyed and we all end up dead, maybe detained in black sites and experimented upon to find a scientific explanation to our curse, or worse".

Blade did not exactly know why or how but, somewhat unconsciously, he had walked round the bed and come to stand right before Nyssa.

"Hey, I'm sorry if I've pushed your buttons, princess. Just, calm down a little, would you?".

With the intention to reassure her, the Stalker put his hands on her upper arms and tried not to hold very tightly.

"Look, I know you have enough on your plate, but let's just focus on the matters at hand for now and try not to worry too much about long terms plans…".

Since the vampire princess' fears did not seem dispersed at all by his assurances, Eric piled them on.

"Hell, for all we know, large and mutated ants may have been arising this very moment from New Mexico to become the very next global threat, or we're suddenly invaded by a fleet of alien spaceships or even a giant asteroid could collide with Earth and wipe all of us out, humans and vampires alike".

A small laugh escaped the Damaskinos heiress, as she casted her eyes heavenward and then smiled at him.

"Blade, are your biggest fears related to some of the worst disaster films ever made? Seriously?".

The slayer's arms dropped immediately as he jerked away from her, flabbergasted.

"Hey, those were childhood traumas I spent years to get over! Don't joke about that!".

Nyssa burst out laughing and shook her head, amused. She closed the short gap between so she could cup Eric's face in her hands.

"Aw, you poor soul. Come, let me kiss you and I'll make all your fears go away…".

A silly grin tugging at corners of the vampire princess' lips. The uneasy tension that had previously filled the room suddenly vanished, turning into a short exchange of jokes, laughter and more, he hoped. She then drew the Daywalker's closer and, to his surprise and dismay, nuzzled affectionately the nose and upper lip against his forehead, breathing in as if she wanted to suction his skin, smell and sweat. When she withdrew, she was the one looking hot and flustered, with her cheeks turning pink. The Damaskinos heiress then closed her eyes and sighed softly, probably trying to keep her cool. Once she reopened them, she expectantly asked the hunter.

"So, better?".

To say that Blade was puzzled at her sudden mood swings would have been an understatement.

"It's I that should ask you — better?".

Nyssa gave him a sheepish grin.

"Yeah, the stresses and strains of leadership, I think… sorry for venting it all on you, by the way".

Eric tilted his head to the side and shrugged his shoulders.

"Fuhgeddaboudit, princess…".

The vampire princess managed a weak smile, her dark eyes crinkling. Acting on impulse, the hunter reached out and hugged her to him, rubbing his right hand up and down her back and relishing the gentle touch of her bare skin.

"If you must crack up under pressure, you'd be better doing it here, with me".

She gave a chuckle of amusement.

"Blade, are you fucking with me?".

At her uncommon swearing, he bent his lips to her left ear and whispered.

"Princess… you don't have the least idea how much I wanna fuck you, right now".

Eric felt a shiver, hopefully of excitement, passing through the whole body of the vampire princess he was holding in his arms. Still with his nose nuzzling Nyssa's ear and the wayward curls escaping her loose ponytail, which vacillated at her shivering, the slayer closed the eyes and inhaled deeply. The smell of her, all funky and sweaty, filled his nostrils. It was not the kind of scent a man could normally find himself attracted to, by a long shot. It came however from a woman who had just gone through hell, losing friends and family, but who somehow had found the force fight her way back, saving his life and maybe that of his mentor along the way. At that moment, he found the smell of that woman overpowering and heady, almost as his feelings for her. Nonetheless, he thought it could have been fun to crack one of his jokes.

"But I'm afraid I'm gonna wait for you to have a shower: you s—".

The words died in the Stalker's throat as he felt the Damaskinos heiress nudging the left knee between his legs and threateningly raising it up to his thighs. Her voice went all sultry and sensually menacing when she purred into his ear.

"Daywalker, I'd refrain from saying anything about my appearance, as of now. For the sake of your own balls, which I might find a use for in the next fifteen minutes".

He stood stiff and still, while a stricken and yet strangely aroused look probably froze on his face.

"Yes, ma'am!".

As the hunter blurted in agreement with her suggestion, he began to slowly and carefully disentangle himself from the vampire princess. After his joke backfired on him, he was somewhat embarrassed to hold her mischievous gaze and thus let his eyes wandering through the room.

The entire wall opposite the entrance was covered by some kind of an enormous charcoal black, wooden panel which appeared to be crafted in the same, peculiar manner as the piece of furniture behind him. Set against that thing, there was a pair of white, minimalist, two-drawers nightstands supporting a mirror table lamp each. They stood at both sides of Nyssa's dark gray, king-sized bed, which base and headboard were in the same, white and simple style of the night tables.

All of a sudden, the clothes on the bed made Blade realize something.

"Wait! What about my clothes?".

The vampire princess looked puzzled at him and began to glance at his clothes, then at her own clothes and finally at the wall, on her right. After the peculiar bath-window and the built-in drawers, the hunter noticed a metallic, half-open panel, which could have probably been an access opening for some kind of laundry chute or something.

"Well, uh, yeah… like mine, they're for the wash, if not for the bin, I'm afraid…".

It was the slayer's turn to heave a weary sigh.

"Yeah, that's all the more reason for me to wonder about them… I mean, if I'm gonna clean up here, I can't wear these same torn and dirty clothes, can I? Like— hey, do you have by any chance some of your exes' old duds I could borrow?".

As he looked at the Damaskinos heiress expectantly, she stiffened with indignation.

"Daywalker, I'm not the sort of girl who keeps her exes' garms in the closet".

A fleeting feeling of nosiness passed through him, yet it was enough to make him ask.

"Mm, you saying that you usually dump or burn them?".

Her only answer was an icy, warning glare so he hurried to steer the conversation away from that thorny topic.

"Uh, I mean, uh…".

Nyssa held up a palm for silence.

"Save it, Eric".

At the same time, she pinched the bridge of her nose with the free hand, finally loosening the already loose ponytail in the process. Her black, curly hair fell naturally around her face and, for the umpteenth time, he found himself looking enraptured at the beautiful woman.

"Mm, I think I can make a quick trip down the corridor, to the Bloodpack training area. There, I can get you some training togs, maybe from Asad's locker: I think you two are about the same size".

As the vampire princess took a quick look at him from head to foot, like she was measuring him up, the hunter addressed her.

"Want me to tag along?".

She seemed to take a moment to consider his offer.

"Mm, no, that's not necessary: you can stay here".

Then, out of the blue, the Damaskinos closed in on him. With a naughty look on her face, she slid her hands up to the slayer's shoulders and drew them along his vest, tracing the chest underneath the Kevlar breastplate and gently scraping it with her nails. His hands automatically reached for her hips and began to sensually rub back and forth her bare skin, savoring its tone and smoothness.

"If you want, you can start to take some of your ragged clothes off and throw them down the laundry chute".

As a quick and obvious reaction to her teasing, his pants became uncomfortably tight and an annoying bulge began to stick out when the Stalker felt her fingers casually messing around with the buckle of his belt. Once the clasp was undone, the woman leaned over to his left ear and spoke seductively, her voice tuned down to a whisper.

"Just… don't get inside the bathroom without me".

With that, she swiftly slid away from him. Eric tried to reach out to her, but Nyssa was faster and he ended up catching just the air. In the blink of an eye, she was at the entrance, leaning against that particular piece of furniture and grinning an impish grin at him, once again.

"'Bye Blade!".

She vanished with a swirl of black hair and a mocking laugh, leaving the hunter by himself.

'Oh, you're gonna pay for that, you damn tease…'.

As the slayer readjusted his partially undone trousers, his eyes flickered around the room.

Suddenly, being alone in the vampire princess' bedroom did not feel that great as he had expected. Where was the fun in snooping around her closets and drawers without her present? That way, he could pull her leg and tease her relentlessly as he found out details about her life the woman would have otherwise wanted to keep hidden from him, like what happened with those three lunatic friends of hers. He wanted, no, he needed to know how her life was before they met, what she liked to do in her leisure time and what she disliked or kept putting off. When they offered him a truce, before all this mess got even more messy, he took this feeble alliance as a chance to get a first-hand knowledge of the vampire world, to know what made them tick. By then though, after the Stalker and the Damaskinos heiress fucked each other's brains out, he had to find out everything about her and to know her intimately, even more than before.

'I want to know the real Nyssa. Her little rituals, her joys and her fears. Her hopes and her troubles. I want to discover them all. To know what makes her unique and extraordinary'.

Hoping to get rid of those thoughts, Eric opted to follow Nyssa's advice and began to remove some of his clothes. He then kneeled to untie his boots and, once he was done, he got up again to put one foot on the back of the right boot, sliding his foot out of it. Only that moment Blade realized how still soaked with blood his socks were, after Whistler had thrown him into that blood cask in the Eugenics Chamber. He thought about sitting on the vampire princess's bed and taking his other boot off properly, when he heard her voice coming from her study.

"Ah, Blade! Don't lay on my bed, please. And don't sit on the chairs, nor stay on the carpet near the library".

He shouted in response.

"Is there anything I'm allowed to do!?".

She quickly replied.

"Mm, I'm sure you'll manage… see you in a few!".

Willing to indulge her, the Daywalker stood where he was. Keeping his balance with one hand leaned against the wall, he took off his remaining left boot and then proceeded to carefully pull both his socks off. As the hunter folded said socks and tucked them into the nearest boot, he decided to remove his armor vest too. Once he was done stripping down to his pants, he piled them all together, footwear and vest, and threw the whole pile down the laundry chute, just like the Damaskinos heiress suggested. Out of habit, he took a few steps through the room to get used to being barefoot, even stopping here and there to make fists with his toes. The large, light grey metal slabs that made the floor were unsuspectingly lukewarm for a place several feet under the ground: maybe the bloodsuckers had some kind of underfloor heating system. Enjoying the apparently newfound freedom, the slayer chuckled at some distant memory.

'Can't still believe that son of a bitch. Even now, after all those years. Almost better than a shower and a hot cup of coffee. Almost'.

Seemingly satisfied, the Stalker went to close the panel to the laundry chute and then turned on his heel, finally walking out of the bedroom.

'Let's just hope that neat freak won't make a scene for a few blood stains on her floor'.

Granted the fact that poking around Nyssa's bedroom by himself would not have been as much fun as with her company, there was another place that Eric had been wanting to check since he admired the sword rack on the wall behind her desk, in the study room: her bulletin board. Once the Daywalker got before that board, he began to look through the many photos pinned to the black-painted cork, where some old, black-and-white photographs caught his attention.

The first one, maybe from early 20th century, was some kind of family portrait representing, on the left, a child with long hair in an elaborate braid who might have as well as been the Damaskinos heiress. The little princess was wearing a white dress, trimmed with lace that, ending shortly after her knees, exposed two scrawny legs in black tights and a pair of gray Mary Jane shoes. She was standing up beside a cabriolet chair, sharing its right, open armrest with the woman sitting on it, whose features so strongly resembled Nyssa's that she could have been her mother. The dame had some kind of traditional Mexican dress consisting of a black skirt, around which a white flounce had been sewn, a square-cut top embroidered with vampire glyphs and other possibly religious symbols. An ample, fringed shawl was draped on her shoulders, and she was wearing an intricate set of earrings, necklaces and other associated jewelry. By consequence, the man sitting on another cabriolet chair opposite Nyssa's mother had to necessarily be a younger, non-Nosferatuesque version of Eli Damaskinos, the late Overlord. The motherfucker in the picture, with the same cold cerulean eyes he remembered, had fairly long and dark hair, slicked back and parted to the right side, and sported a well-groomed ducktail beard. He was wearing what could have probably been a traditional English suit, consisting of a gray herringbone jacket and a color matching pair of corduroy pants. Underneath the jacket, a white shirt with one of those detachable collars, that were in style during that time, an ornate print waistcoat and a paisley tie. The photo had been apparently taken in a drawing room which details eluded the Stalker, apart from some light gray curtains and a darker shade of wooden-panelled walls. He was no expert but, to him, the lighting and composition complemented the overall, solemn atmosphere of the photo portrait, given how austere and stern both man and woman looked. Even the little princess had managed a serious, dignified expression on her otherwise delicate, childlike face. What in the photograph stood out like a sore thumb though, on its right side, was the tall and brawny young man standing behind Eli Damaskinos. A stunning contrast to the elegant English suit he too was wearing, the young man had tousled curtains of dark and curly hair that draped at his temples and seemed to be on the verge of falling over his clean-shaven face, which in turn contrasted even more sharply with his garments. Somewhat like Lighthammer, the young man was sporting a facial tattoo that, contrary to the burly Bloodpack member, covered his whole face in an intricate pattern of lines and flowing shapes. However, what puzzled the hunter the most was the intense and wild look in the young man's fair eyes which, coupled with a sly and evil smirk, gave him the aura of a crazed bloodsucking killer, just for that moment seemingly resting the right arm over the backrest of Eli's chair as the left hand hid in the pocket of his pants, playing with who-knew-what.

"Wow, what a creepy motherfucker! Now I get what she told about nasty family members I've yet to meet'.

Almost disturbed by that photo, the slayer passed to the others. The next photograph that piqued his interest was taken in a nightclub of sort during some party that, judging from the hairstyles and clothing, could have easily dated back to the Roaring Twenties. It featured a small, ethnically heterogenous crowd composed of men in tuxedos and women in straight, loose flapper dresses who were sitting and standing by the first row of tables around a large ballroom. The whole space was decorated with balloons and streamers, while some of the patrons appeared to have been showered with confetti, and the overall mood transpiring from their faces appeared cheerful and festive, indeed. On the far right side of the photo, there was a stage where a big band ensemble, probably made up of familiars, was apparently taking a break from performing. The dance hall occupying the middle of the picture was almost empty, aside from a pair of young men holding katanas who, impermeable to the festive atmosphere of the party, were exchanging angry and hostile looks one another. The two men, seemingly of European and Asian descent respectively, had taken their jackets and shirts off and were waiting for some signal to probably start their duel. Between the two youths, a young and extremely happy Leah was holding her stomach and laughing out loud instead of counting them down, supposedly. Finally, on the left side of the photo he noted a twenty-ish Nyssa, sitting on a simple bistro chair among a large clique of friends, or sycophants. Contrary to most of other women in their straight-cut chemise dresses, she was wearing a white robe de style with a fitted bodice which left her arms bare, a dropped waist and a full chiffon skirt that covered but at the same time revealed her legs up to the knees. In the picture the vampire princess, wearing only a long rope necklace of three strands of pearl around the neck and chest, had a short, curly bob haircut, bee-stung lips and her already dark eyes were heavily outlined in kohl. The photographer had managed to catch the Damaskinos heiress in the act of playfully biting a knuckle of her little finger, as though she was trying to stifle her amusement at the spectacle of two strapping boys ready to fight one another, possibly to win her favors. At her sides, he recognized the youthful Mihrimah and Samur. The former was leaning toward Nyssa to whisper something to her right ear, while the latter seemed to have started laughing while sipping from her drink, which had spilled over her light gray dress.

"Mm, the princess seems to know how to party…".

The next photo the hunter stopped to look at was taken at some railway station, at night. From that angle, it might have been the Haydarpaşa railway station, which he recalled having stopped at with Whistler during their second vampire hunt trip throughout Europe, about ten years before. The floodlit platforms appeared completely deserted, aside from the central bay platform where a few people had gathered near one luxury, and probably heavy armored train, which seemed ready to depart. Probably to bid their farewells to those wishing them safe journey, some men and women, wearing dark leather uniforms, were sticking their faces out of the windows of the thirteen or so carriage-long train, while a young man had flung open an outward-opening door, holding to a metal bar in order to reach his right arm out and get a young woman in a one-arm embrace. Since the three girls in various shades of gray and flattering shirtwaist dresses, who were giggling with delight at the photographer also bore a striking resemblance to Elle, Miri and Sam, the young woman held in that warm hug needed to be Nyssa, then. She was wearing a dark gray, tailored skirt suit with a subtle pattern and a button-up white shirt which spread collar laid over the jacket's. The matching skirt's hemline ended slightly below the knee, exposing the vampire princess' shaped calves which were in turn clad in stockings. The suit was paired with white gloves, a leather clutch and a wide hat tilted to the left ear, which gave the young man ample room to drop a kiss, firm and probably lingering, against her lips. The kiss seemed to have been reciprocated by the Damaskinos heiress, who kept close to him with the same right hand holding the bag laid over his shoulder, while her left fingers were shown grasping the back of his head to pull the young man even closer. The picture gave the Daywalker a pang of jealousy and he felt bound to voice his disquiet.

"Ugh! That's so sweet I might actually puke, while listening to Hans Zimmer's love theme from Pearl Harbor… bah!".

Fortunately for him, the last black and white photo to catch his attention had no trace of schmaltz nor sentimental slush in it. On the left side of the picture, in what appeared to be a jungle encampment, three ethnically diverse men and one woman with possibly green fatigues had been handcuffed behind their backs and forced to kneel down, facing the wall of a bamboo hut. The fighters guarding them were the dirty, camouflage-clad and seemingly embittered Elle, Miri and Sam. He managed to recognize them despite the boonie hats the trio wore. The crazy vamp was carrying a De Lisle Commando carbine, while the naughty duo had Sterling submachine guns in their hands. Right in the middle of the photo, there was another tied up, badly beaten and possibly tortured prisoner laying on his chest with his right cheek to the ground while a crew-cut, sullen and hard-faced Nyssa had kneeled on his neck. Like her three friends, she wore a battered combat uniform and was holding her Colt M1911 pistol against the left temple of the man who, judging from the fangs he was revealing with his wailing and gnashing of teeth, could not be mistaken for a human even from the distance the photographer was. The Damaskinos heiress was not looking at the prisoner, for it seemed she had been caught up in a heated conversation with a tall, burly and fair-haired man, laughing from the right side of the picture. The man, who was wearing some kind of khaki uniform with boots and a dark beret beneath the epaulet of his left shoulder, had the arms crossed over his chest and had an amused expression on the face. Beside him stood a smirking, thrice-damned Reinhardt and a stoic, stony-faced Asad, both of them wearing a jungle service dress similar to that of the girls' and slouch hats with one side of the brim pinned to the side of the hat some kind of badge. That racist bastard held a Bren light machine gun, with its distinctive curved box magazine and conical muzzle, while the dark-skinned, golden-eyed vampire was hugging an M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle to his hip. All in all, the picture depicted an imminent summary execution, which might have looked like a disturbing cross between Goya's The Third of May 1808 and the killing of Nguyễn Văn Lém.

"Ah, looks like the princess' about to get her hands dirty…".

The subsequent pictures were all color photographs and, as the Stalker's gaze flickered over them, he found himself involuntarily lingering on one particular photo, a couple photo. It featured his least obnoxious, loathsome and ugly vampire, together with probably one of the biggest, bulkiest and beefiest bloodsuckers he had ever seen. Even worse, the man was the same one present in the previous photo the slayer looked at, this time in plain clothes. Due the style of their clothing, the hunter surmised that the picture might have been taken in the 1970s, and it showed a most unlikely couple enjoying a picnic in a meadow, filled with wildflowers and bathed in bright moonlight. Casually sat on a blanket, the vampire princess was wearing a floral mini dress with sleeves, which showed off a generous portion of her captivating and well-shaped legs, while her straightened, pitch-black hair fell to her back. The heavyweight bloodsucker had flopped down on the blanket in front of the woman, stretching out on his right side and propping himself up on the elbow. The red-headed giant had a mop-top haircut and was wearing a periwinkle blue shirt with the last three buttons undone, bell-bottom jeans and a pair of brown leather Beatle boots. The photographer had captured the Damaskinos heiress occupied in playfully feeding that hulk of a vampire with small, reddish dices of something the Daywalker would have preferred not to inquire about.

"Ugh! They look like the bloodsucking understudies of Birkin and Gainsbourg…".

Of all the remaining photos pinned on the board, only two managed to attract Blade's fading interest.

'Hey, I know that spot!'.

Eric recognized the picture had been taken in the small parking area, loading zone or whatever, behind the east wing of the Griffith Observatory in LA. He recalled the place commanded a magnificent view of the city's basin by night, including DTLA to the southeast, Hollywood to the south and the Ocean to the southwest. The whole space was occupied by some sports and muscle cars, among which the Stalker noticed a bright blue 1986 Chevrolet Camaro IROC-Z and the triple white 1988 35th Anniversary Edition Corvette. A crowd of supposedly jolly bloodsuckers had gathered in the area, cheering and thronging around a black Lamborghini LP5000 Quattrovalvole. It was like looking at a parade of 1980s fashion, since most of the people caught in the picture seemed to have come straight from a Miami Vice episode. Rather unoriginally, most of the men followed the t-shirt-under-jacket style and many of them indeed wore sport coats, t-shirts, linen pants and slip-on, sockless loafers, and their outfits appeared to come only in shades of white, pink, blue, green, peach and fuchsia. Similarly, most of the women dressed bright and colorful slim miniskirts, slightly tapered pants or even designer jumpsuits. Among all those pastel colors, the slayer spotted the inseparable duo of Miri and Sam, the first in high waisted, ankle length jeans and and extremely long and bulky sweater, while the second had an off-the-shoulder sweatshirt over tight jeans. As per usual, they were not far from one familiar loony vampire, who in turn had been going through a Madonna phase, as anyone could have guessed from that multicolored bomber jacket she was wearing, beneath which the woman had a lilac mesh vest over a black, lacy and revealing top. Instead of pants, Elle had a purple, slim miniskirt over some black, fishnet stockings that ended above the knees, and black ankle boots. This time, she had blonde hair, arranged in a large and puffed-up style, an electric blue headband and had put on some heavy makeup. To complete her queen of Pop costume, the woman had the hands covered with fingerless lace gloves, and a panoply of layered necklaces, bracelets and dangly earrings. The trio, as the other people, were running from the right side of the photo to its center, precisely toward the open scissor door of the driver's seat of that lambo, from which a very self-satisfied Nyssa seemed to have just got out.

"Wait a minute, I think I've already seen that outfit…".

On closer inspection, the Damaskinos heiress was wearing a black wrap top over a neon yellow lace bra while a purple-and-red leopard print belt scarf was loosely fastened around a red-and-black leopard print skirt that ended way above the knee. Those toned, sexy legs of hers were partially covered with a pair of black knee-high boots, from which emerged two pink-and-black, thigh-high stockings. She had a set of three bracelets on her right arm, two long necklaces around succulent neck and a pair of dangly earrings. Her naturally curly hair was arranged and emphasized in a large, voluminous style, while her already striking features were enhanced with a creamy eyeliner and a mauve-colored lip. On one hand, she was the epitome of hotness and sexyness.

"Mm… brunette, athletic, sleazy, but not demure. Not all. Not in this picture, at least".

On the other hand, the photographer had caught the vampire princess in the not-so-princess-like act of giving someone the finger, both the fingers actually, looking victorious and smug as if she was yelling 'fuck yeah, I've crushed you!' at that same someone. The hunter followed her gaze to the person she was gloating over and spotted a white man, on the left side of the picture, leaning against the right side of the hood of a racing red Ferrari Testarossa, from which he had apparently got out a few moments before. Contrary to most of the trendy bloodsuckers in that photo, the man was dressed like a skater, with a plain, black t-shirt, baggy blue jeans and a pair of black Chuck Taylor All-Stars sneakers. The supposed vampire had his hands raised in tranquil surrender, but that was the only noticeable reaction in the man since his head head been scraped off, replaced with a white blotch. For some reasons, Blade had not difficulty in imagining the Damaskinos heiress deliberately and angrily scraping away with her sharp nails the first layer of the photo paper. Since the photo remained in place on the board, it had to be somewhat important to Nyssa even though the man himself had surely done something to cause the damnatio memoriae he was subjected to. What did he do? Why Nyssa reacted this way? Were they in a relationship? As questions like those started to form into his mind, Eric felt another sudden pang of jealousy.

"Shit! We just fucked once, we ain't anything. No strings attached. What the hell is wrong with me?".

The Daywalker passed the right hand over his eyes to force the sensation away. As interesting as those photographs might have been to one in search of juicy details about the vampire princess' life, he made the unpleasant discovery that the deeper he delved into her past, the more jealous the hunter got whenever he came across some photos showing the Damaskinos heiress' past relationships. He considered giving up his scrutiny for good, when his attention was drawn to what seemed to be some kind of newspaper cutting. The photo article featured large and elaborately carved, light gray marble platform, against the background of an impressive and windowless hall that, nonetheless, was abundantly lit with scores of golden lamps attached to the several, red marble columns with black, adorned caps and bases, which in turn supported a high ceiling. From what he could see, the hall was exuberantly decorated with an abundance of curves, counter-curves, undulations and elements modeled on nature. Unsurprisingly, the main ornaments that the Stalker managed to notice were patterned after poisonous plants, somewhat dangerous animals and mythical creatures. With its shades of red, gray, gold and black, the overall appearance of the room was highly theatrical, probably designed to impress and awe at first sight. In stark contrast to the Rococo-esque style of the whole space, on the platform was placed an enormous block of rough, black basaltic prisms, all interlocked together to form some kind of throne. On the same large platform, at the feet of the throne and way smaller in comparison to that monstrosity, there was a black, wooden and seemingly ancient chair with dark, crimson upholstery. Carved all over the seat there were, easier to notice, the same decorative elements that also recurred on the platform: asymmetrical shells of cone snails, poison ivy leaves, crows, bouquet of deadly nightshade, yew berries, weapons and gargoyles. Amid that cornucopia of symbols, most of which unknown to him, the Damaskinos heiress seated in all her splendor, wrapped in a vampire ceremonial dress of sort. She was wearing a black lace bolero jacket with shoulder adornments, which long sleeves ended almost on the back of both her hands. The sides of the bolero met shortly beneath the top of a vermilion, silk corset, thus drawing the attention of the viewer to her deep cleavage. In case the viewer managed to look away from that sight, his gaze would have probably ventured down the corselette to see a cardinal red, high-low skirt with the hem higher in the front, revealing and bringing out her athletic and toned legs, that were in turn wrapped in black, fitting leather pants. Her feet were encased in a pair of cordovan red, knee-high boots with heels slightly higher than the pair she had been wearing those past nights. Her hands were devoid of any jewelery, aside from the Damaskinos' family ring on the right index finger while her neck, quite surprisingly, was adorned with a simple strand of gold, lapis lazuli, sard and etched carnelian beads. He recalled having seen something closely similar at the British Museum, where Whistler used to take him after a series of meetings with the Watchers Council during their very first hunting trip through Europe, about fifteen years ago. Even more surprisingly for a big shot of those stuck-up bloodsuckers, or so Eric thought, Nyssa was wearing on her head a rather plain copper circlet bearing punched decorations with waves and vertical lines interspersed, while he managed to make out a pair of small, gold lunate earrings fastened on her ears. This time, she seemed to have limited herself to wear just light makeup, which emphasized her long dark lashes above the pitch-black eyes. Her curly, jet-black hair had been tied up in what they called a tight French braid, if memory served the slayer right. The vampire princess was posing for the photographer while holding a long and decorated tachi, the same displayed on the sword rack near the bulletin board. The sheathed sword, still in its carmine scabbard or saya with the golden cord or sageo untied and hanging freely, was pointed to the floor as the woman idly caressed the black, wrapped hilt or tsuka. Only one line of vampire glyphs survived the cut of the photo article and the Stalker singled out words that, making an educated guess, might have meant proclamation, heiress, throne: or something like that. Nyssa looked directly at the camera with a confident and secure expression on her face, undoubtedly proud of herself as she boldly leaned against the backrest of the chair. If not for those whole dark court vibes the newspaper cutting was giving him, Eric would have thought he was reading some kind of kiss-ass article about the new CEO of some mega-corporation.

'Mama's got a brand-new bag…'.

His train of thought was suddenly broken by dismissive remark by the very same vampire princess he was pondering over.

"Ugh! I think it's time to update that photo board…".

The hunter quickly twisted the head to look at her and found her at the entrance to the study, by the automatic steel doors. After she pressed some engraved buttons on a little instrument panel next to the right door, hopefully to lock themselves always from the prying of any other curious passers-by, the Damaskinos heiress strode across the room to meet him. He noticed then she was carrying a drawstring, azure and white striped bag, hopefully containing the change of clothes the woman had been taking about before. He turned to face her as she went around the L-shaped desk and finally reached him, holding up her right arm and hand to pass him the bag.

"Here, take a look and see if they fit".

The Stalker took the bag from her and drew the string to open it, glancing at the content. Then, his eyes went back up, leveling at hers.

"You're kidding me, right?".

She gave him a puzzled look.

"No, why?".

Snorting contemptuously, he stuck his left hand into that knapsack and pulled out a slate gray bib-and-brace overalls with the stylised, DNA helix logo of Caliban Industries at its center.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit A, the coveralls".

After turning left and right to show it to an imaginary audience, the slayer curiously looked down at what he was holding in his hand, while the woman's expression grew even more puzzled.

"I don't see the point of—".

He did not let her finish.

"I think that someone should need some kind of trade certification before jumping into this thing".

Then, the vampire princess arched and eyebrow quizzically and reached out her hand to point at the garment he was holding.

"What's with you and overalls? That is just the standard workwear for the operational staff of Caliban Industries. Honestly, I don't know how or why Asad kept it in his locker but, under the present circumstances, I've thought it would come in handy".

Stifling his annoyance, Blade leveled his gaze at her and grumbled through his teeth.

"Sustained".

As the woman passed her right hand over the face, probably to help herself suppress the snicker already slipping out of her mouth, he shook his head in resignation and nonchalantly threw the piece of clothing on left shoulder. Then, he lowered his gaze to the sack and put his left hand back into it, starting to rummage around in the bag.

"Anyway, I wouldn't mind wearing a coveralls if it comes with a long sleeve t-shirt to be layered on top of. And here lies the rub…".

In an exaggerated fashion, Eric took out of the bag a mesh, orange sleeveless shirt.

"Ladies and gentlemen, exhibit B, the tank top".

He raised his left hand high and turned left and right to show his imaginary audience the incriminating evidence, while Nyssa looked like she was about to crack up laughing.

"Okay, bear with m—".

Again, he cut her short with his own harangue.

"Hardly ever has there been a less flattering item of clothing than this! It usually clings to a man like a slipover, two sizes too small. It's practically a tong for the chest and belly!".

As the reason of his reluctance finally became evident to the Damaskinos heiress, she quietened and folded her arms, tilting her head slightly to the side and looking patiently at him like a kindergarten teacher with a stubborn kid who refused to eat his vegetables. Which was not the case: absolutely not.

"Come on, Blade, I think it'd look good on you! Granted, it demands the wearer an almost inhuman degree of perfection but, last time I checked, you have indeed bulges in all the right places: the arms, shoulders, and pecs…".

She slightly unfolded her arms to casually point at those aforementioned sections of his upper body with the index finger of her left, free hand.

"…and an absolute absence of them in all the wrong places: that is to say, everywhere else".

The Daywalker did not fail to notice that in spite of condescending tone her gaze turned hesitant, unsure as it fixed on on naked torso and, if possible, he thought that a rosy blush flushed her olive-toned cheeks. Instead of teasing the woman relentlessly, he opted though to focus on the matter at hand, quite literally.

"And then what, princess? You want me to dye my hair blonde, wear a couple of hoop earrings and spread havoc, panic and bedlam throughout the hood!? I left that part of my life behind when Whistler took me away from NY, in the 80s".

Her eyes widened with surprise at his comeback, and she fell silent for a few moments, giving him time enough to look down at the tank top he was holding in his hand and to go on with his tirade.

"Damn, if this was actually Asad's choice of clothing, I'm gonna take back some of the things I've thought about him".

The hunter grimaced in disgust, as he rubbed the polyester fabric between his fingers, and raised his gazed only when he heard the vampire princess breaking her silence.

"Oh, come, come, Blade!".

She took a step closer and grabbed a hem of the t-shirt he was holding, bringing it up to his eyes.

"It's just clothes. Plus, it's only for a couple of hours, at most!"

She got him good. Realizing only that moment the pointlessness of his persistent grumbling about, the Stalker averted in shame her eyes as she bore them into him with a hint of annoyance and badgered him to cut it out.

"You don't like them? Once we find something better and more to your liking, you can put them back in Asad's locker or throw them away".

She did not seem willing to let him off the hook so easily, though, and ducked her head lower to intercept his gaze.

"So, for now, how about we both try to do the best we can, with what we have?".

Since she kept pestering him, he finally met her eyes and caved.

"I—move for dismissal. The motion's taken under advisement. And we're adjourned".

Upon hearing the slayer admitting defeat in their verbal exchange, she smirked triumphantly.

"Thank you, your honour".

She even gave him a short neck bow, to further rub his nose into it. Since he was still embarrassingly quiet, it was her who spoke again to offer him a way out of the cul-de-sac into which he got stuck.

"I take it you have no objections to the remaining garments I've managed to get for you?".

Blade widened his eyes in surprise at the unexpected, merciful life rope he was being given by the same woman who was subtly, yet relentlessly teasing him. That was not a chance he would have let go out of the window, though.

"Objections? Oh, yes!".

She furrowed a brow at his response, and he hurried to rectify it.

"I mean… no, of course!".

The knapsack Eric had been given never felt so easy on the eyes, especially whenever he feared that through them Nyssa could read the embarrassment he felt. Thus, he looked deep down into the bag and, after having quickly thrown that horrible tank top also over his left shoulder, he stuck again his left into it, pulling out a black, work boot.

"Take this boot, for example. With my hand, I feel it has a heel-plate and, if that's actually the case, it's probable it has a toe-plate, too. And I even like the color. At this point, the side zipper's just an added bonus".

Her reaction to his excessive, over-detailed review of the particular type of footwear he was holding by its heel was simply an amused smile, a snort of laughter and a slow, resigned shake of her head.

"Pff—ah, ah!".

Glad that he managed to get a smile out the Damaskinos heiress that was not of contempt nor derision, the Daywalker responded in kind with a smirk. He then resumed talking, as if an all-powerful force was prompting him to want another loving, amused smile dimpling on those soft cheeks of hers, and another genuine laughter coming out of her dangerous, yet adorable mouth.

"Anyway!".

For the umpteenth time, he looked down into the bag.

"There's only one thing that puzzles me, and…".

He swung his head left and right in search of a place to put that boot down. He briefly considered casually placing it on the desk, but he noticed out of the corner of his eye the woman's gaze darkening and narrowing so he gave up, fearing that she would have thrown a fit if he would have done so. The hunter then put the boot carefully back inside the knapsack, rummaging around it to grab another, unseen piece of clothing, which he then pulled delicately out with the help of two of his fingers.

"…why on Earth would Asad choose to wear a black, silk, men's thong?".

He strangely stared at the underwear he was holding between his thumb and forefinger, half intrigued and half horrified. He almost did not notice the vampire princess taking a step closer to shorten the already short distance that separated them. He felt his pulse quicken as she entered his personal space and her dark, beautiful eyes locked with his.

"You seem to hold the common misconception that men's thong underwear is about—aesthetics".

She raised her right hand to take between her fingers the black, thin waistband, making him realize that the silk strip he had been holding was the part designed to be worn between the buttocks: Asad's buttocks. He could not help but grimace in distaste, in turn making the woman roll her eyes.

"Men… you're so cliché: the lot of you".

She then switched to her kindergarten teacher mode, tilting her head slightly to the side and looking patiently at him with a weary smile.

"Blade, how about you try and take the logical and not the closed-minded point of view?".

The Stalker opened his mouth, but she did not wait for his reply and went on.

"Can you feel the soft, stretchable material? It moulds to the body in a snug fit that both offers excellent support and eliminates bulky fabric in unwanted areas. Also, such a minimal coverage contributes to enhanced breathability, making thongs like this one a preferred choice for—active individuals".

She rubbed the thin fabric between her fingers, staring at him with an expectant look on her face, probably waiting for him to seriously stroke the part used to cover Asad's junks and definitely not knowing it was already a lot that he had not let the piece of clothing fall to the floor. Thus, after an awkward moment of silence, she resumed her hyping up the pros of wearing a thong.

"Besides Verlaine and me, the other members of the Bloodpack who openly admitted wearing thongs and attested to their comfort and support were Priest, Asad and Snowman".

The slayer arched an eyebrow at the somewhat unexpected revelation.

"As for Chupa, Reinhardt and Lighthammer… I'm fairly sure they wore it themselves but, probably like many men, refused to acknowledge the fact because of some misplaced fear that it would be threat to their—masculinity".

His other eyebrow arched as well at the seed of doubt about his own manliness that she tried to plant in his mind by merely looking straight into his eyes when she made the not-so-veiled insinuation that he, alongside none other than motherfucking Dieter Reinhardt, was not comfortable with his own sexuality. That was an accusation he was not going to left unanswered.

"Hey, what are you talking ab—".

She shut him up just by placing the index finger of her left hand on his lips and mellowing her voice.

"Hush! There's no need to get all worked up, I'm just teasing you, Eric. So, smooth your ruffled feathers a little and try to give me a smile, would you?".

His brows darkened in anger but, nonetheless, he allowed her to silence him.

'The nerve this she-vamp had to try cozy up to me after her veiled, vicious insinuation! And all because we don't see eye to eye on some fucking thongs!?'.

He would have wanted to shout at her for being so condescending and patronizing, to say the least. Instead, he bottled up all that annoyance and put on his best sour, indignant face.

'Why I'm doing this to myself? What's she done to me?'.

Apparently oblivious to his bitter feelings, Nyssa slowly drew her finger down his lips until it rested in the small dimple on his chin.

"I'm afraid we're getting sidetracked here. So, let's stick to the point".

She took a further step toward him, slightly pushing the knapsack against his belly, while her index finger resumed his descent and trailed down his neck to his chest, spreading her palm over his right pectorals.

"I'm just saying… to me, as well as to many others, a thong is pretty much the most comfortable underwear for sports, training. And fighting".

He sensed her fingers fumbling with the thong he had been still holding, until her right hand ended up intertwining with his left one. Other than that, his annoyed attention was drawn to the Damaskinos heiress features, which were getting increasingly, suspiciously close. Though split and maybe still sore, those thin ruby lips of hers were acting like magnets for him, and he found it difficult not to press his own lips against them. The tip nose, that only by some miracle had not been broken when Nomak hurled her around the lobby to re-arrange it, slightly touched the side of his own nose, bringing his gaze up her eyes. The Daywalker had the foreboding feeling that her hypnotic, beautiful, pitch-black eyes were luring him into a trap, like a bait set to trap a saber-tooth tiger in a tar pit.

"Next to wearing no underwear at all…".

And thus, the trap sprung. Within an instant, the indignation that had filled him was gone, drained and replaced with something different, more primeval and thrilling. Then, her left hand swiftly moved to his right side and slid into the back of his pants to cup his ass. And he was done for.

"Mm, if these are anything like the pants I tore off you yesternight, they must have surely slipped weirdly between your cheeks by now".

She firmly groped his butt and purposefully stroked his cheeks. He was not entirely sure about the woman's intentions, whether she was simply teasing or explicitly seducing, but he surely knew what kind of reactions were running through his mind, and body.

"If that be the case, what could I do?".

As she replied, her lips were so close to his that he felt her warm breath against his chin.

"For a start, you could move away from my photo board and follow me back to the bathroom…".

With that, she slowly withdrew her hands from the hunter, sensually drifting away from his body as if to prompt him into into tamely following her. Like the ending of an eclipse that allowed a person to see things clearly again, with the woman physically distant from him he could think straight again, and he found himself pondering over her last words.

"If you don't want me to look at your precious photos, you can just say it".

She froze in her tracks, with an enigmatic look in her eyes.

"What? Did you find something interesting to look at?".

The Stalker took his time in putting the underwear and the overalls back into the knapsack, then he met her gaze and replied.

"Hey, it's you who has a whole dossier on me. Until three nights ago I didn't know you even existed… I think it's only fair that I jump at every opportunity to fill that gap".

Nyssa arched a brow with incredulity.

"That didn't stop you from having sex with me, yesternight".

Eric pointed his left index finger at her.

"Precisely! We've skipped all the bases and gone straight to the home plate. I'd like to know you better, the real you, before we had another chance to bone…".

She winced in discomfort at the last word he uttered.

"Ugh! Do you have to be so vulgar?".

The slayer tilted his head to the side in confusion. Was that the same woman who had groped his ass, just a few moments before?

"Mm? Would you prefer dancing the wild mambo, doing the hunka-chunka or—".

The vampire princess grimaced distastefully.

"Blade! What I've told Whistler also applies to you: I don't like crude talk. So, you better keep that at a minimum".

Caught off guard, the Daywalker held up his hands in surrender.

"All right, all right, princess!".

He then rolled his eyes upwards in mock exasperation and, feeling his desire rapidly subsiding, muttered to himself.

"Prude".

Her eyes bulged in their sockets in shock and outrage.

"What!?".

The hunter cringed inwardly.

'Oh, crap'.

In an attempt to deflect her attention away from his comment, he dropped the bag to the floor and swiftly took her by the shoulders and turned her to face the bulletin board. For a split second, he froze and involuntarily swallowed, having momentarily forgotten how good felt the contact with the bare skin of her shoulders.

"So, I've been meaning to ask: is that your family, in that picture?".

Still holding her shoulders in his right arm, the Stalker raised the left one and pointed the index finger to the black and white photograph that originally piqued his interest. He also hoped with all his heart that she would have forgotten his gaffe and focused on the board.

"Mm, yeah…".

In spite of her arms crossed on the chest and the contemptuous look on her face, her groaning response signaled to him that the Damaskinos heiress opted to let the matter drop, thank heavens. Nonetheless, the following and awkward silence prompted the slayer to start talking, hopefully in a coherent and comprehensible manner.

"You saying that this cute, scrawny, little girl in the photo… is the coming paramount lady of the Vampire Nation?".

He heard her sighing heavily but, out of the corner of his eye, he caught the trace of a smile playing across her lips. Those thin ruby lips of hers, though still split and sore, that were calling to him like a pair of enchanting mermaids.

"Yes…".

Since it seemed to have a placating effect on the woman's anger, Blade went on talking about the picture.

"And, by this declension, I assume the cool and austere lady behind you, in traditional Mexican clothing, is no other than your mother… uh, Metztli, right?".

Still with the arms folded, Nyssa turned his head to give him a pleasantly surprised look.

"Ooh, someone does pay attention to what I say…".

By that moment, Eric felt secure enough to risk giving a broad wink at her.

"I aim to impress".

The vampire princess chuckled softly.

"Idiot".

Then, she unexpectedly tilted her head slowly to the side and rested it on his shoulder.

"Actually, my mother was the most loving and caring woman I've ever known. Unfortunately, qualities like those are a rare, and deadly combination in my world…".

The Damaskinos heiress, in spite of being a strong, honor bound warrior-princess, seemingly choked on her words. The Daywalker found himself gently and affectionately caressing her shoulder with his right hand. This vampire, this old and implacable foe of his, sniffed a little and dapped at her eyes, while he held her in a warm one-arm-embrace.

"That bitch killed her just to make my father go crazy…".

It was plain to see that, the photo was bringing back to Nyssa lots of treasured memories of her mother, besides suffering and grief, which in turn caused the hunter's thoughts to drift back to the few, gloomy and painful recollections of his own mother, Vanessa. Images of the mother she never was, the mother he never had, the mother he killed, surged through him and the Stalker gave an involuntary shudder of sorrow. As he brushed aside those thoughts with a resolute shake of his head, the man tried to brighten the woman up in a quiet and soft voice.

"Hey, princess, chin up… you know, here's a funny thing. This guy, this old Boriqua I met back in juvie, in Upstate NY... Rudy, a guard, once said to me: Rico, you can weep over your dead mom. You can wail for your old man, back at home. Hell, you can even bawl your eyes out for your ol'Mary-Jane Rottencrotch. But you can't blubber forever. Not in this place. It gets back at you. You don't get your shit together... you just end up being someone else's sissy".

The vampire princess gave a short, bitter laugh.

"You really suck at cheering someone up, you know?".

The slayer dismissed the remark with a wave of his free hand.

"Guess that's one of the drawbacks of being a cold, motherfucking killer. Sorry".

Nevertheless, she reached for the hand he was rubbing her shoulder with and gave it a tight squeeze, sending a little thrill of emotions through his arm.

"Don't be".

Since he was at it, Blade could not pass on the opportunity of getting to know her better through her photos.

"So, the man in front of your mother, I'm fairly sure I know him. However, the sly and tattoo sporting young man behind him… it eludes me".

The Damaskinos heiress loosened her grip on his right hand, though she began to stroke small circles on its back with her thumb.

"That's one of the former heirs to the Basalt Throne, Arsakes: my older brother".

He twisted his head to the side, looking at her with a bewildered expression.

"Do you have another brother!?".

She raised her head from his shoulder and turned slightly to face him, with her eyes still glassy from the remembrance of her mother.

"I had a brother…".

With that laconic response, the vampire princess turned to look at the photograph.

"He died in Adrianople a couple of years after this picture had been taken, in 1913 during the First Balkan War. They said the Watchers Council exploited the chaos and mayhem of the final battle that ended the siege, smuggling up to four different death squads through the Serbian and Bulgarian lines in order to drive him out of his haven, beneath the Rüstem Pasha Caravanserai, where they managed to kill him after a dramatic and violent fight".

Something in her tone did not sound right, like his brother's death had not affected her the same way her mother's did.

"You seem you had not liked him, not by a long shot".

Nyssa scoffed at his words, while her lips curled contemptuously.

"How could I? I was just a child when he died, and most of what I can remember about him can be safely reduced to his extraordinary egotism, extremely manipulative tendencies and violent outbursts of anger".

From what could be seen in the picture, and as far as Eric could judge, he did not find elements to contradict her statement.

"Mm, the guy sounds like the incarnation of the dark triad, indeed".

She answered to his comment with a slight nod of her head.

"Tell me about it… our mother, with a heavy heart, was used to say that he had taken after our paternal grandmother, Marena Upier, from the clan ruling Eastern Europe and North Asia".

Sensing in her tone that the conversation was again veering toward sadness and melancholy, the Daywalker pointed his left index finger to another black and white photo.

"Anyway… you don't strike me as much of a partygoer, but this picture's gonna make me reconsider my opinion".

The vampire princess followed his arm and finger to the photograph in question, then she started to laugh nervously.

"Oh, ah, ah, that! I must admit, during our teenage years, the girls and I discovered a mean streak in us, sort of. So, we might've ended up spending a few years of revelry, and devilry…".

At those words, the hunter shut his eyes.

"Mm… if I close my eyes, I think I can picture you and your gang free-falling through Europe, hitting every underground club and blood-joint on the way down".

An affectionate cuff, kind of, hit him on chest and jolted him out of his reverie.

"Hey! Stop whatever you're daydreaming about!".

The Stalker opened his eyes and turned the head to look at the Damaskinos heiress who, still hugged to him, had encircled his waist with her left arm.

"Sorry. I couldn't help it. It just popped in there".

She rolled her eyes in a playful way, and then stopped to gaze at the photo.

"Ah, Eric, if you only had been there. In Paris, when Cole Porter, Django Reinhardt, Sydney Bechet, Satchmo and Joséphine Baker played, sang and performed all through the night…".

He opened his eyes wide in surprised amazement.

"Get out of here, you like jazz!?".

For a moment, Nyssa stared at him like he was dumb.

"Of course. Is there any other genre worth listening to?".

Since Eric's eyes could not possibly widen any further, his mouth dropped to his knees as his eyebrows moved up to his hairline.

'I think I'm in love'.

His dumbfounded expression and lack of response seemed to puzzle the vampire princess, who moved her head slightly back to look the slayer up and down.

"Blade? Are you having a stroke, or something?".

That definitely wakened the Daywalker from his stupor.

"Yeah!".

She did not seem convinced and appeared still somewhat preoccupied.

"You're back?".

Eager to reassure her, he tightened his grip on her shoulders and pointed at another picture.

"Sorry! I was, uh… thinking about this photo, here. Had you been in the Peace Corps?".

The Damaskinos heiress looked at him, then at the photo, and then again at the hunter. After a good ten seconds of awkward silence, she shook her head in resignation and turned to gaze at the bulletin board, as a sad, wry smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. She was probably going to figure out a way to stop him from making a fool of himself. Or so he hoped.

"Not exactly… This was taken in Malaysia, during the Emergency. About twenty years before, from a little monastery hidden beneath the Gheralta Mountains in northern Ethiopia a revolt had spread worldwide. The cult leaders spearheading the insurrection basically preached the destruction of the feudal system structuring our society and its replacement with some sort of religious, communist, new world-order".

The Stalker put the right hand to his chin and began to rub it thoughtfully.

"So, you enlisted in the counter-revolutionary army and spent the following decades fighting vamp commies, all over the world?".

For a couple of seconds, she did not answer. Then, she let loose his right hand and slowly raised her index finger to another black and white photograph. The one taken at the train station.

"No, my then-fiancé did…".

When the woman reached out to the board and began to gently touch the man in that picture, the slayer felt a little pang of jealousy.

"It took a while for both the House and the Cabinet to finally realise that the Cenobites weren't a mere congregation of religious fanatics and bandits to be crushed at whim, but the greatest threat the Vampire Nation had faced since the Inquisition. So, when my father was given the resources to mount a world-scale counteroffensive to retake all the domains, cities and havens fallen to insurgents, he charged his brother Samuel with leading the campaign to liberate the Greater Horn of Africa, where the rebels had their most important strongholds, and restore it to the Lobishomen clan. Drunk with enraged pride and a misplaced sense of adventure, many young kindred flocked to the Bohatýr banner and crammed the warrens, rushing to enlist in the Armáda Noci, the Army of the Night. Amongst them there was the firstborn son of clan-chief Kao, Mikoto Kobejitsu…".

Then, she pulled back her right hand and rested it back on Blade's, still holding her shoulder.

"…I got so angry when I found out, and we had a blazing row about it. I shouted, and he shouted back that he was doing it for us, yelling that I, of all the people, should have understood… he thought I would have been proud of him, while the only thing I could do was cursing all the known Blood Gods and asking them why on Earth he had done something so stupid…".

As Nyssa recounted Eric her story, she tilted her head slowly to the side, resting it on his shoulder once again.

"Like a modern-day Penelope, I patiently and longingly waited for Mikoto to come back… but, when the Overlord held a triumphal procession through the Underway to mark Samuel's return, I only got my uncle's deepest condolences and a funerary urn containing my fiancé's ashes".

Almost as a reflex reaction, she gave his hand another tight squeeze.

"That day, I vowed to myself that I would have not let it happen: never again. I would not have anyone else go fight my battles, risking their lives while I stayed back home, comfortable and lazy like some sort of fucked-up Disney princess with no agency. I wanted, no, I needed to be different than that: stronger, faster and tougher".

The Damaskinos heiress breathed a little sigh and relaxed the grip on his right hand.

"Thus, one night the girls and I took the Underway and went to Vyšehrad, beneath which the bulk of the Army was stationed, and stepped through the bronze doors under the Tábor Gate, where we were welcomed by commander Simson Bedan and his blistering barrage of vocal abuse".

She chuckled softly to herself, as she probably recalled some distant memory.

"That merciless master-at-arms had us undergo an extensive, and intensive, military training which lasted for sixty-three, gruelling weeks and taught us a variety of combat skills, including some Kibatsumejutsu techniques, until we had been finally bullied and battered into shovelheads, the standard vampire troopers".

Those last words raised a snicker from the Daywalker, who turned the head to his right side to look at her.

"Shovelheads? Do I wanna know the details?".

The vampire princess did not meet his gaze and kept her head laid on his shoulder.

"That's a story for another time…".

The Stalker nodded slightly and asked her another question.

"So, vampires have their own army… why not unleashing it against the hunters?".

She heaved a deep sigh.

"First of all: secrecy, as per usual. To avoid any unnecessary attention, the Army's numbers are kept relatively low and most of its personnel is drawn from human familiars, while Kindred normally held commanding positions. Secondly, given the fact most of the national budget is devoted to upholding the Masquerade and propping up our ridiculously expensive lifestyle, in times of peace the prohibitive costs for the upkeep of a standing army are kept in check by drastically scrimping and saving on every expenditure: ordnance, salaries, training, what have you. And here we are. The security of the leadership of the Vampire Nation is in the hands of a bunch of underpaid, undertrained and poorly equipped retards I wouldn't trust with a Nerf gun… you should've seen the waste Nomak laid to them, as he tried to get to our father and me".

As the Damaskinos heiress began again to caress the slayer's hand with her thumb, she resumed talking.

"Back to the picture… the girls and I spent the next decade being deployed in different areas all around the world, mopping up the few pockets of resistance left in the wake of the counter-revolutionary war. We ended up in the Malayan Peninsula, to storm the haven deep inside the Batu Caves where the archimandrite leading the last known cenobite congregation had sought refuge. The five captives in this photograph were some of the few survivors from the assault, whom we hunted down and caught in the nearby jungle within a couple of nights later".

A short moment of silence followed her tale, so the hunter took the chance to calmly interject.

"And you killed them all, I suppose".

Nyssa's thumb stopped to softly stroke the back of Eric's hand.

"Yeah, vae victis. Běda poraženým. No mercy for the loser…".

Then, after about half minute of tranquil silence, Blade heard her letting out a weary sigh.

"The first person I ever killed, Eric, was a child".

Almost by reflex, he immediately stiffened his back and shoulders.

'Oh, shit'.

In the last few nights, the Daywalker had surprisingly grown fond, quite fond, of the vampire princess and that feeling alone had already been making him reconsider some of his deep-seated convictions. Even worse, since they had sex he had recklessly embroiled himself in her problems. At the back of his mind was a small voice, telling the Stalker that he needed her alive, conscious and healthy. If anything, just for the chance to bang her again. A couple of times, however, a fleeting thought made him consider the possibility that he might want something more. Not only the slayer had been found himself intrigued by her past, but he also wanted the woman to share her burdens and concerns with him. He wished her to bare herself to him, body and soul. What Blade had scarcely given thought to was that the chance he might not like what she would share with him, and the moment that he had unconsciously both feared and waited for had finally come. And Eric had no idea how to deal with it.

"W-what did he do?".

As he stammered an almost nonsensical follow-up question, he felt Nyssa's left arm leaving his waist to go with her right one encircle her belly.

"She…".

His eyes flashed in shock, and he tilted the head slightly forward to look at her. She had her eyes closed and a painful expression on her face.

"She didn't do anything. She was a bystander. A little girl who just—just happened to walk in on my fireteam and me the wrong time, the wrong place".

The Daywalker was at a loss for words. Suddenly, the recollection of a park hit him. The Maguire Gardens sitting near the Downtown Central Library, back in LA. Amid the few people taking a stroll, there was Deacon Frost, in broad daylight, while beside him stood a little girl of Asian descent with a look of pure terror written on her face. The hunter shuddered at the thought of what could have happened if he had accidentally killed her while trying to gun down that bloodsucker. Would he have in turn mourned the little victim and blamed himself for causing her death? Or would he have reduced the child to another, mere casualty in a war being waged against a threat to humankind? To chase those thoughts away, he cleared his throat and then asked her.

"How did you get over something like that?".

About five, long seconds of silence later, she finally answered.

"If I'm lucky, maybe one night I'll get past it".

After saying that, Nyssa lifted the lids to reveal two sad and misty eyes. Again, Eric felt surprisingly uncomfortable and did not know what to do or how to break that awkward silence, so that his voice sounded a bit cooler and more faltering than intended.

"That's—not the same thing".

Slowly, she turned the face and began to rub her eyes against his shoulder.

"No, it isn't…".

Tentatively, Blade started to run his right palm up and down her shoulder. Once again, he felt totally unprepared for comforting her, the same way he was completely unused to putting anyone else's mind at rest, for that matter. Even worse, his sympathy was hampered by the fact that the woman who obviously needed some kind of calm reassurance was the same woman he had been obsessed with stripping naked and banging for the last two hours, and that thought was not helping him think straight.

'For Christ's sake, I'm vampire slayer! How on Earth I'm supposed to console one of them, who's busy second-guessing herself?'.

Therefore, the Daywalker kept sympathetically stroking her shoulder, in silence. After some ten seconds or so, the Damaskinos heiress slowly turned her head back to look at the photo. Then, she tilted her chin to point at the captive, clearly tortured man whose temple she was holding her gun against.

"Take this man. The photo was taken shortly after I was done with… questioning him".

To the hunter, that man surely looked like he had been more than questioned.

"You mean torture?".

She breathed another deep sigh instead of a reply.

"Yeah… interrogational torture. Was there money hidden in the haven? Gold, gems? Were there more blood tanks? Where was the archimandrite? Which of the haven ghouls had aided him? When he run away, where did he go? How many kindred were with him? How many hegumens, how many hieromonks, how many peresvets? How were they armed? How many were motorised? How many were wounded? What other war parties had you seen? How many? When? What badges did they have? Where did they go? Was there money hidden in the haven? Gold, gems? Where was the archimandrite? How many kindred were with him? By that time, the girls and I had become so anaesthetised to violence that even an intimate, ugly act of violence like torture would have come naturally to us, like performing some boring, banal ritual slaughter".

She snuggled closer to the Stalker, with her arms were still crossed over the lower abdomen while his strong right arm still encircled her shoulders. Unbeknownst to her, the man was greatly enjoying the way her left, leather-corset-covered boob was pressed against his bare chest.

"His sense of duty was probably no less than mine, I now reckon. From time to time, I happen to wonder where he came from or what his real name was, beside his nome de guerre... And if he was really evil at heart. What lies or threats led him on to take up arms against his brothers and sisters of the Upíří Národ. If he would not rather have stayed home... in peace".

The vampire princess rubbed her temple against the slayer's shoulder, slowly and sadly.

"Dear Barama, the things I had done to him… and to all the others, before and after him".

Her face ceased to rub against Blade, and she let out another deep, miserable sigh.

"Not a night goes by that I don't think about all the lives I've taken. Kindred and kine alike. Most of the times, I've been angry, unforgiving or plainly and simply hungry. However, that doesn't change what I've done, nor what I still am: a murderer".

Then, Nyssa raised both her hands to hold Eric's right one, the hand he had been holding her shoulders with. As she turned to look at him, he caught a glimmer of hope in her eyes. Those pitch-black eyes of hers, where he would surely get lost into if she was going to look at him for a few more seconds.

"And yet, some days I can close my eyes... and sleep... and no dead faces come to wake me. That's—that's more than I would ever wish for myself".

Sensing that he should do and say something, the Daywalker swiveled on his heels to have the photo board on his left side, simultaneously leaving the right hand from the hold he had of the woman's shoulder and letting it rest on her hip. Then, he cautiously moved his free, left hand to cup her chin and pull her round and up to face him. The vampire princess appeared to him almost as vulnerable as when he had found her, half-drowned and half-burnt but still alive, back in those fucking creepy and smoking sewers. That moment, he realized that he would not have let her go away, ever. No matter what it cost him, being that serving her his own blood or fighting to the death an almost unbeatable foe, he would have found a way to keep her safe. As the realization dawned on the hunter, his throat tightened and his voice came out as a hoarse whisper.

"I— I think you should wish for something more".

Suddenly jolted out of her deep self-reflection, she looked quizzically at him.

"Beg your pardon?".

The Stalker's expression turned serious as he cleared his throat and his gaze locked with hers.

"Princess, it's kind and honorable of you to mourn for all the lives you've taken. Seriously, I like this new side of you: so achingly desperate… be careful, though: don't spend too much time on regrets. They pile up around us like books we never read. And you might end up being crushed by the weight of that burden".

As the slayer said that, his left left hand moved from her chin to push a stray curl away from her eyes and tuck it behind her right ear. However, the Damaskinos heiress seemed unconvinced by his argument, and she countered rather dejectedly.

"How can I possibly live the rest of my life without regrets? How can you?".

Not expecting a follow-up question, he stumbled over his words as they began to form in his mouth.

"J-just… try to think you're doing something truly great for your people. Something your people would find important. Even if they don't actually know the truth, or they won't ever find it out. That's how I get by".

Proud with himself for having come up with a dull, fluffy and banal reply like that one on such a short notice, Blade laid the left hand too on her other hip and smirked crookedly.

"And I can be by your side, helping you achieve that something. If you want".

Nyssa's dark eyebrows arched as high as they could.

"Eric… we just hooked up, once. Isn't it a bit too early for you to propose?".

The Daywalker's hands left her hips as if they were scalding him and pulled his torso away from the woman. Even more than her constant use of his birth name, it was her very last word that had come as a shock to him.

"Woah! Back up a moment, princess!".

Embarrassed at his own overreaction, he hastened to come back close to her.

"I—I-I'm just saying… that I might, uh, volunteer to help you…".

Encouraged by the fact that the Damaskinos heiress did not seem particularly affronted, the Stalker drew even closer and tentatively put the arms around her waist.

"Besides, you're the only decent vampire of them all, and I cannot let you fend for yourself…".

He slightly tilted the head toward the doors.

"…nor I can leave you all alone with that trio of lunatics".

At that, the vampire princess' deadpan expression finally cracked, and she closed the eyes while giving a soft chuckle.

"Blade, those are my friends you're talking about…".

Then, she raised her arms to wrap them around the hunter's neck as a small smile played on her lips.

"For the time being, if you really want to stand by my side, I'd suggest you stop antagonising the few, trusted people who had been with me since I was a little girl".

When Nyssa opened her eyes back up to look at him, though, Eric felt like two black magnets were pulling him toward her, bending his iron will to her own.

"Can you do it, for me?".

Her voice was low and hushed, like she was reciting a spell to hold him mesmerized. At the moment, all he wanted was satisfying her every desire, catering to her every need and carrying out her every command.

"As you wish".

As the Daywalker uttered those words, he leaned toward her lips. The vampire princess lifted her head and parted her lips, gliding the top of her tongue across the edge of his teeth. He blissfully closed the eyes as she wound her left leg against his right and clasped her arms around his neck to urge him deeper. And deeper he delved his tongue, eager to please her, sweeping along her lips and then plunging inside her mouth. Her tongue briefly retreated to invite him to plunder further, from where she began stroking his own tongue with great relish. Like two shades of red mixing together, their tongues danced passionately with each other as their breaths mingled, fast and shallow and moist. The hunter let his hands wander hungrily over back, stroking the exposed flesh while his finger got beneath the corselette to brush her spine, and causing a moan of pleasure to escape the Damaskinos heiress' throat. She unconsciously arched her back, pushing her bosom against him, and then broke their kiss, so he quickly went for her neck and nibbled his way down her collarbone, while her hands caressed his nape and her fingers threaded through his short and kinky hair. As the Stalker worked his way up to her left ear, leaving a trail of bites gleaming with saliva on her neck, his hands went down to her solid buttocks. His thumbs hooked on the waistband of her leather pants as his palms and fingers grabbed and hold to the rounded cheeks of her butt, squeezing her pelvis against the slayer's hardness. Slowly grinding against his groin, Nyssa let out another, louder moan of desire and tilted the head forward, dropping her forehead on his left shoulder and kissing in turn his collarbone. She then moved her hands from the back of his head, gliding them down his neck and then roaming them over Eric's wide chest. While her left palm settled on his right pectoral and her thumb caressed his nipple, her right hand crept down to his swollen crotch and deftly open the fly of his pants. She slipped the hand into his underpants and then started to oddly fondle his erection, as if to gauge its thickness, before finally curling her slender fingers around it. A wordless groan escaped the Daywalker and he had to audibly suck in the air, making a sharp, hissing sound through his teeth.

"Hello, not-so-little friend. Still bulging, I see".

Her lips tickled his chest, making him roll his closed eyes, as she spoke against his skin.

"What've you been feeding this thing?".

The hunter plunged his nose into his curly, tangled hair and inhale deeply. Although the Damaskinos heiress had tried to scrub herself up down in the infirmary, her naturally luscious, curly black hair was still a mess. It hung in dirty ringlets except where the dried sweat and blood had matted it to her skin, on closer inspection most notably on the backside of her head. However, he would have not traded the smelly woman he was squeezing against him with anyone else in the world. The Stalker had yet to see another woman like her, so beautiful and dangerous, unafraid to get her hands dirty and at times surprisingly vulnerable and fragile. So, he breathed in her funky odor and a second later felt his desire throbbing in her palm.

"Mmm, brunettes".

Her thumb idly grazed his glans and the slayer's groin twitched painfully, almost.

"I think it's still hungry".

He chuckled softly at himself as soon as he got the movie reference. However, by that same reference a horrendous image popped into his head. The otherwise mouthwatering image of a cyberpunk Nyssa, disturbingly wrapped like a python around a tall and burly man, an Austrian Oak who had seemingly just received the same kind of service Eric was receiving. Suddenly, the ecstasy of bliss pouring through him just a moment ago was gone, and those previous pangs of jealousy he had previously felt resurfaced all at once. In reaction, he loosened his grip on the woman's body, stiffened his back and straightened his legs as if he had to take a fighting stance.

"Wait…".

She then raised her face from his collarbone, looking hot and flustered. Her otherwise delicate features were distorted with annoyance and worry.

"What happened, now?".

As Blade disentangled himself from the vampire princess and took a wide step back from her, he coldly asked.

"How many were before me?".

Her right hand went to her heart, while her jaw dropped in astonishment and her eyes got round and wide with shock. She quickly snapped out of it though and demanded peremptorily, sounding quite offended.

"Pardon me!?".

The Daywalker ignored those alarm bells and instead engaged her, rudely and directly.

"Tell me. I need to know. How many men did you have befo—".

With hindsight, he should have known better than brutally asking such a personal question to a woman who had already made known her reticence and discomfort about her own sexual life. Where were his flirting skills and how did he forget the basics of approaching women? All of a sudden, it was like the hunter was back in 1st grade, when he had asked Susie Chiappini to play doctor and she had reacted by kicking him in the shins. However, the hunter was blinded by jealousy and was so foolishly set on knowing how many men had been with her, smiling knowingly to her movie references and laughing at her jokes, that he discarded all notions of politeness, dignity and above all self-preservation. Thus, it was probably due to his recklessness that he did not see the Damaskinos heiress's backhand coming, faster than the crack of a whip and angrier than a roused rattlesnake. She hit him square on the face and, that second time, the Stalker shut his eyes in pain, jerking backwards and cursing under his breath.

'Fuck! Ouch! Motherfucking fuck!'.

When he opened his eyes back, he had a ringing in the right ear and could taste his own blood in his mouth. Before the slayer, a clearly upset and infuriated Nyssa stood with her right forefinger pointed straight at him.

"Eric Jamal Lucas Brooks! You dumb arsehole! That's not something you should ask a woman! Ever!".

It was Blade's turn to raised his eyebrows as high as they would go.

'How the fuck does she know about my middle names?'.

Then, he remembered the woman mentioning they've built several dossiers about him and other witch-hunting organizations. Back to the matter at hand, Blade regretted saying those words as soon as he uttered them. That backhand slap, indeed, knocked him out of his jealousy and made him finally realize what kind of insensitive douchebag he had been.

"I-I-I don't know Blade. Really. Sometimes, you act like you're my only shelter against the coming storm. Other times, you're making me reconsider all the things I've asked and proposed to you…".

Inevitably oblivious of his sudden realization, she had been going on with her own reasoning.

'Holy crap! What the fuck have I just done!?'.

He was seriously starting to worry about the potential consequences of his words.

"…asking for your help in brokering a peace with the Watchers, proposing you to stay here by my side for the time being… and having you fuck me".

Hearing Nyssa swear two times in a row was certainly something surprising per se, but the dangling possibility that she might withhold sex was shocking. And intolerable.

'Fuck! I'm in deep shit, now!'.

The Daywalker needed to make amends for his petty jealousy and for having put his foot in his mouth. Above all, he had to act fast.

"All right, all right, all right!".

He held up his palms to try cooling the vampire princess off.

"Listen, princess. Please. You're right. I fucked up, big time".

That admission seemed to get through her, since she stopped talking and simply stood before him with her hands on her hips, in quite an indignant stance.

"And!?".

The hunter immediately followed up.

"A—a-and I'm way sorry for being such a fucking prick and for asking that shit".

He grimaced inside his head.

'When the fuck did I start stammering!?'.

The Stalker then joined his palms together, pressing the tips of his fingers to his chin and lips.

"Believe me, I don't know what came over me. I swear, I've never said anything like that since 7th grade, to Jenny Staley!".

The Damaskinos heiress cringed visibly, probably with second-hand embarrassment at hearing the fearsome vampire slayer ramble on about his boyhood romances. She did not reply immediately but seemed instead to take her time, an awfully long time, pondering over her words. As he waited with growing trepidation for her response, she finally broke her silence and spoke.

"Daywalker, I will overlook on your slip-up, if you heed my warning: tread carefully when talking rubbish about my sex life, or past relationships".

He nodded vigorously.

"Duly noted!".

The vampire princess heaved a deep sigh, briefly closing her eyes. When she reopened them, a mischievous grin had spread over her face.

"Still, I think you should make amends for your blunder".

Admittedly, Blade failed to understand her.

'What's with that grin? Wait, was she fooling me all this time?'.

Then, the true meaning of Nyssa words and manners finally sunk in and Eric's expression fixed into a smile, like a Cheshire Cat's.

"Oh! Of course, princess. If you have been offended, I extend my sincere and profuse apologies".

As the Daywalker spoke, he closed the short distance that separated them with a single step and then leaned his head forward to kiss the Damaskinos heiress. Probably to her surprise, his lips landed on her neck where it met her shoulder and from there, he slowly worked his way up to her left ear. His palms went to encircle her hips, slipping beneath her hands, and began rubbing back and forth against her waist. The hunter felt her shivering from his touch and hoped the worst was finally behind him.

"Mmm…".

She purred with pleasure as she intertwined her fingers with his, guiding him to her breasts. As he felt her swelling flesh in his hands, his heart began thundering and his desire reignited in his core once again.

'Yep. Worst's over!'.

The Stalker nibbled at her ear lobe, then sucked it into his mouth until her breath came in short gasps. Unfazed by the black, leather corset covering her bosom, his hands molded around her perky breasts while his thumbs caressed the upper, exposed skin. Then, all of a sudden, the vampire princess jerked her ear away from his mouth to look at him with dark, teasing and mocking eyes. She appeared all flustered and red in the face, blushing with excitement as much as a thermo-conforming bloodsucker could.

"I'm disinclined to accept your… clumsy, half-hearted apology. Daywalker".

The slayer responded in kind with mock surprise.

"Oh, shoot!".

After that, his hands immediately went to her waist and, with a squeeze, he lifted the woman up, straining her to his chest. Almost as a reflex action, she wrapped her legs around his hips and put her arms about his neck. His palms then went to her bottom, cupping her cheeks and supporting her weight. They were nose to nose, eye to eye, and a sly, impish grin spread across his face.

"I need to step up my game, then".

Without any further ceremony, Blade pulled her to the edge of the nearby desk. Something in her craving expression froze him in his tracks, though. Hot and jittery, she gazed longingly at him as if she was inaudibly yet desperately pleading for his help, like she needed him to feel whole again, to pick up the pieces of her shattered world, to find a new purpose in her life: the same life he had saved. With Nyssa right in his arms, he had the overwhelming sensation of standing on the threshold of a new, enticing world, which he just wanted to plunge in. As she cautiously loosened her leg grip around him, Eric moved his left palm behind her knee, stroking her toned calf, while his right hand reached over and cupped her cheek, with his thumb caressing her probably still hurting cheekbone. Then, almost unconsciously, he turned his hand to slowly and affectionately brush his fingers down her face.

"Nyssa, there's something I want to tell you… I, I—".

As if on clue, the Damaskinos heiress lunged forward and shut him up with a kiss.

"In time. All in due time, Eric".

As she spoke against his lips, it was like she had read his mind to prevent him from getting himself into a mine field, and that highly improbable assumption sounded both disturbing and rousing. Nevertheless, with her arms still about his neck, the vampire princess interrupted his train of thought by deepening the kiss and darting her tongue across their joined lips. The Daywalker hummed a deep moan of approval through his throat and welcomed her into his mouth, teasing her tongue with quick flicks of his own.

"Mmm…".

His right hand swiftly retreated from her chin as her chest collided against his, his fingers tracing the length of her neck and along her collarbone. He then moved to tenderly yet hungrily caress the bare, soft flesh of her bosom and, from there, his palm went down as his fingertips brushed past the front straps of her corselette. When the slayer finally reached the waistband of her pants and dexterously undid the buttoned fly, her tongue unexpectedly retreated, though not before sensually stroking the curve of his lips in a soft, sucking motion as if to invite his own tongue into her mouth and entice him to explore her. He entered her mouth in a slow, smooth thrust and simultaneously slipped his hand into her pants, brushing the edge of her panties and using his calloused digits to stroke silk the fabric that laid tight against her folds. As Eric pressed her clit, Nyssa involuntarily arched her back while her pelvis tilted and rose to meet his hand, instinctively demanding more as she gasped into his mouth.

"Nngh, ugh!".

Then, after grazing the already dampened silk of her underwear he began massaging, slowly and teasingly, the wet crease that laid beneath it. Similarly to the unhurried, steady and yet increasing rhythm of his stroking, their tongues danced together with growing passion until Blade slid his fingers behind her panties, brushing them directly against her quivering and flushed folds. Her juices slicked his hand as he teased her cleft and circled her stiff nubbin, desire shortened her breath while her tongue twirled and twined with his. She urged him to up the pace, sucking his tongue with slight pressure and moving her pelvis in time with his strokes. The Daywalker felt like the air in his lungs was being sucked out, and he responded in kind by sliding two of his fingers into her slippery crevice, while his thumb kept rubbing her swollen nub, back and forth, left and right, until she tore her mouth away from his and cried out, spilling her bodily fluids out onto his hand and clenching her muscles tightly around his fingers.

"Nngh, gha—ah. Ah!".

After her climax, she stayed in his arms and rested quietly for about half a minute. From her left cheek leaned against his, a few stray tears streamed down to his jaw. With a self-satisfied smirk, the Stalker presumed they were tears of euphoria.

'Not shabby, man. Not shabby at all'.

Slightly pulling away from the Damaskinos heiress' face, he moved his left hand from behind her knee and used his thumb to wipe those few tears from her cheekbones. Then, with that same, self-satisfied smirk plastered on his face, he slowly slicked the two wet fingers of his right hand in his mouth, tasting her essence.

'Mmm… almost better than blood. Almost'.

The slayer wanted to slap himself as soon as that thought crossed his mind.

'Wait, what the hell am I thinking!?'.

She saved him from other, self-embarrassing thoughts by breathing a deep sigh of satisfaction, unwinding her arms from his neck and using them as a support to prop herself on the desk.

"Blade, after careful consideration, I've decided—to accept your apology".

A mocking smile spread over her face as she sensually gyrated her hips to lift her right leg and gracefully then she placed her boot on the hunter's shoulder. Shortly after, she leaned forward to face him, brushing nonchalantly past her spread knee. He was so impressed with her agility and flexibility that he immediately began daydreaming about exploiting those newfound abilities of hers to satiate his own selfish lust for the woman. Thus, he offered little to no resistance when she gently yet steadily pushed him down until she had him uncomfortably squatting on the floor. At the same time, she had brought down his face so that it was in line with her still pants-covered crotch. That tempting sight alone was enough to bring him back to his senses, while his smirk turned into a wolfish grin.

'Oh! I like where this is going'.

Eric would have surely liked to bend forward and plunge his face into her pelvis, ripping, biting and eating his way to her sex, but Nyssa was keeping him in place with the slight yet constant pressure of her boot-clad foot on his left shoulder. So, he raised his head to look at her and only then he realized that she in turn had bent over to gaze teasingly at him. Their noses were just a few inches apart and, by that moment, he was practically and so uncommonly beaming at the miracles her body was capable of.

'Oh, Nyx the things we're gonna do!'.

The Daywalker was so captivated by her charm that he barely registered what she said.

"Thus, as a reward for your compelling humility, and performing mastery, I'll give you the great, rare privilege to assist a Damaskinos princess in the omývání, her ritual ablutions".

When her words reached him, he conjured up in his mind the image of a nude and soaking wet vampire that the Stalker was helping to bathe, using his hands and fingers to wash every crevice of her athletic body. He snapped out of his daydream when, if possible, she brought her face even closer to his, nuzzling the tip of her nose against his. He closed his eyes in expectation of another make-out session as she began whispering something.

"Now, you have to just… catch me!".

The last two words were cried out in a loud, playful voice. With hindsight, he should have sensed she had something in store for him when he briefly noticed her hands moving to grip the edge of the desk. Too late to offer any resistance, he was caught off his guard and she pushed vigorously her boot against his bare shoulder, making him loose his balance and falling back to the floor. As the slayer landed his butt on the metal slabs that made the floor, the vampire princess swiftly hopped down from the desk and quickly grabbed the nearby drawstring bag with his spare clothes and stopped for a moment to give him a taunting look.

"Race you to the bathroom!".

Then, with a fit of giggles, she sprinted toward her bedroom and its en-suite.

'This girl…'.

Shaking his head in resignation and sighing inwardly, he got up as fast as he could and started running after the woman.

"Be ready, princess, the bogeyman's gonna get you!".