"I'm plenty used to keeping a low profile, my friend," said Stefan incredulously, "but you're acting like a spooked prey-beast."

I glanced at him, leaning on the marble railing to my left in a forcedly-casual posture. Below us, the cattle-citizens of Bucharest moved along the streets, in and out of the beer hall, completely unaware of the apex predators watching from one of their historical monuments. Stefan was always like this when he got nervous. Century after century, he dealt with his fear by projecting it onto someone else and then mocking it and them. Normally it wasn't a problem, just the kind of annoying idiosyncrasy you dealt with, but…

"You hear from the mouth of a Volturi scout that he's in town," I hissed, trying to get him to join me in a whisper, "and you still won't take the stories seriously?"

Stefan scoffed, but did lower his voice. "I didn't think you'd take ghost stories so seriously. Come on, Vlad. Ghost stories are for humans, and we're the ghosts!"

"Yeah, yeah, ghost stories." I shifted to face him better. "But I've got reason to believe there's more to them than just fearmongering." I waited for him to take the bait. I knew he would; it was another of his little idiosyncrasies.

He gave me a sideways look and I raised one brow at him to egg him on. He rolled his eyes and bit. "And what," he asked, loading his voice with sarcasm, "is this mysterious reason of yours? I know you haven't been to Japan, so you can't have confirmed anything for yourself."

"Back when we had our full strength, I attended a meeting between our coven and the Niwa family. This was before the bombs got dropped—"

"Obviously," he interrupted.

My eye twitched, and he raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture. I continued. "Anyway, they wanted to talk stability, solidarity, contingency plans for if our cattle nuked themselves and left us to starve, that kind of thing. But they did keep bringing up 'the Nightstalker,' someone that was converted in, like, eighteen-hundred or something. Said he was 'ungrateful and vengeful,' and they wanted to know if we ever saw him."

Stefan laughed, a loud, mocking sound with no mirth in it. "That just means they were as gullible as you, my friend! Better watch your back, or the last thing you'll hear before you die is 'Naitosutoka-des, hi-yah!'" He really went all-in on the exaggerated anime accent, making a stupid karate-chopping motion.

Several of the cattle below stopped and glanced upward, forcing us both to retreat into the shadows of the marble balcony. I glared at Stefan and gestured sharply below, then mouthed shut the fuck up at him. He raised his hands in that conciliatory gesture again, and I was tempted to rip them from his wrists. Locked in eye contact for a few, incredibly long, seconds, we both gradually relaxed and returned to our vigil over the beer hall.

"I suppose, since you believe Nightstalker exists," Stefan began again, keeping his voice mercifully low, "you must believe he personally killed the Niwas. For revenge and all that."

I shook my head. "We all know they were collateral damage, not the work of some vengeful figure." I raised my finger. "But we also both know that island—Iwo Jima?—was impregnable. The Americans should never have been able to break through, take the place, except that there was turmoil in the Japanese ranks. I don't think Nightstalker killed the Niwas—not all of them—but I do think he was responsible for their demise."

That theory gave him pause and earned me some more silence. I took that moment to take a deep breath of the sweet, intoxicating cocktail radiating from the prey below. Stefan was not a friend, he was a coworker at best. The thing that kept us working together despite everything we hated about each other was twofold. First, being a lone vampire in Europe could be a perilous affair, having at least one person to watch your back was just common sense. Second, we shared a taste for a particular delicacy. The cattle called them blood types, we called them flavor profiles. We could have taken any random beggar from an alley or prostitute from a brothel, people no one would miss. But Stefan and I were connoisseurs, and so long as we were careful, our feedstock would chalk up the deaths to mundane murders or animal attacks.

Stefan opened his mouth to say something else stupid, I heard his jaw click open, but we were both stopped dead by the delicious aroma wafting up from the street below. Eagerly, we leaned over the railing to identify the night's prey. Stefan beat me to it by a millisecond, pointing at a bald, middle-aged man in a beige raincoat. His scent was laced with alcohol—he had just come out of the beer house—and his walk was the lopsided gait of a drunk. His blood smelled so fresh… he must have gotten in a fight or something, maybe picked at a scab, and bled a little.

I didn't realize I was vaulting the railing until I felt Stefan gripping my shoulder. The world came back into focus and I nodded. He nodded in return. We couldn't take him here, with all these people. The plan had always been to follow whomever we found until they were totally alone. We could have our snack, rough up the body a little, and leave everyone none the wiser.

Instead of dropping to the street below, we leaped from rooftop to rooftop. The hunt wasn't particularly exhilarating or exciting, but the reward at the end was tantalizing. Our prey doddered through the streets, sometimes stopping to chat with a friend. He took nearly ten minutes at a vending machine choosing an overpriced bag of chips, then another ten minutes fumbling with the packet, only to spill half its contents into the street and stare sadly at the crumbs. I had to hold Stefan back from slaughtering the man right there, in front of half a dozen witnesses.

After an agonizing half-hour trailing the drunk through Bucharest's streets, our prey finally made the fatal mistake. Instead of going anywhere else, he tried to force his way into a closed subway station. I thought he wouldn't make it, but whoever chained the gate shut had been sloppy and the drunk managed to squeeze through. I felt a gust of wind to my right and grinned. Stefan had just dashed away at vampiric speeds, probably going for the opposite entrance.

I dropped to the street and crossed to the chained gate. I could have slipped through—a juicy hog had done just that—but it had been a long night and I needed some satisfaction, so I gripped the chains and twisted until the links popped and let the gate swing open. Dropping the chains, I walked casually down the steps. Ahead of me, our prey was reaching the bottom of the stairs, looking spooked by my deliberately-loud entrance. There was a light on down there, but it flickered occasionally. The atmosphere was perfect for playing with my food.

Making a decision, I leaped down, clearing all the stairs at once and landing directly behind him. "Well well," I said, grinning widely. "A bit far from home, aren't we, friend?"

The prey squealed and spun, then staggered away from me, nearly falling over himself. He repeated the act when Stefan emerged from the shadows and spoke.

"Such a shame, he couldn't make it home to his family one last time."

Our prey was clearly frightened out of his wits. All color had left his face and the scent of urine was becoming stronger by the second. I wrinkled my nose, but this creature's sweet blood would be worth enduring his other odors.

"Any last words?" I asked, "Maybe we can pay a loved one a visit to… deliver the message?" I wondered what he would say, what blubbering pleas would leave his pathetic lips. Why me, he would say. Please, I have a family, he would beg.

"Holy shit," the man, the prey, said. "You really came, just like he said." He still stank of fear and piss, but there was shock in there, now.

Stefan glanced sharply across at me, and I shook my head imperceptibly—to the prey—to indicate I had no idea what this meant. I opened my mouth to demand answers, but the drunk babbled on.

"This… this has got to be a dream. A nightmare. Carry a blood bag? What was I thinking, agreeing to that?" He staggered a little, and a red packet fell from within his coat and plopped to the ground, squirting a drop of crimson nectar from a pinpricked hole.

Immediately I began to salivate, but then my hackles raised as I realized what was in that bag. It was marked "Floreasca Hospital" in Romanian at the top and "AB Negative" in English below that. It was cheese in a mouse trap, and I was the mouse.

"Who?" Stefan roared, surely realizing what I had.

I checked over my shoulder, instinct demanding I check the corners and shadows. The fluorescent light directly above the prey—the bait—only lit a relatively small portion of the underground station and cast deep shadows off the decrepit lockers against the east wall. Both stairwells were dark, and the subway tunnel was enshrouded in darkness.

"Who sent you?" Stefan was still shouting, taking his first step toward the bait with arms angrily outstretched, but he moved as if through molasses to me. I hadn't intentionally begun using my gift, but it was the right call. I scanned the whole room faster than my neck or my eyes could move, even as a vampire. But somehow I still missed the dark blur that crashed into my ally. My eyes skipped across it when I tried to focus, forcing my attention onto the light above or the venom erupting from Stefan's chest.

I dashed forward, ready to throw the quivering meat-sack aside and defend my last clanmate, but before I could take even a single step, before Stefan's shards could finish spraying against the wall, I was stopped dead in my tracks by a horrendous strength, a pale hand placed across my sternum. I was finally allowed to lay eyes on the man before me, my eyes finally obeying my mind; he was of middling height, with straight, ear-length, black hair and slanted eyes, and an expression of cold hatred twisting across his face.

Japanese eyes.

It was then that I realized he'd knocked the breath out of me and I choked out a word. "Ni… Nightstalker…"

He gave me a shove and I, like a newly-turned neophyte, staggered back a few steps. He turned to his bait, hatred melting away, and said something. I didn't hear what he said, my heart was thundering in my ears. I raised my hands shakily before me, mind catching up with itself. My heart? Thundering? That was impossible. I hadn't had a heartbeat for over three thousand years. But some part of me remembered that I should be overwhelmed by a pounding heartbeat when terrified and…

Shit.

That's what I was. I was terrified. Stefan was lying in three pieces on the ground, his head lying next to a massive, jagged chunk of his chest, all of it oozing onto the stone floor. I glanced back up at Nightstalker, but found my gaze turned aside again. With such terrible speed, I knew I couldn't flee, so I bared my teeth and crouched, ready to defend myself. I had millennia of combat experience, I'd survived the Volturi wiping out my entire clan. I wouldn't die here, I wouldn't allow this whelp to kill me. I…

Pain erupted in my thigh and a scream erupted from deep within my chest. I lost my balance and collapsed, realizing as I fell that my femur had just been shattered by a palm strike. Gritting my teeth, I crouched with my good leg and prepared to leap away. If I set the broken bone, it would fix within seconds, and then I could bring my experience to bear. For some reason my attention didn't skitter away from my enemy and I watched as he slammed his shin, almost casually, into my good knee. It bent sideways and I finished hitting the ground.

I heard frenzied footsteps and watched as my prey, Nightstalker's bait, began fleeing up the stairs opposite me. Stefan and I had been utterly defeated in less time that it took a panicked human to sprint ten feet to freedom. Pain such as I had never felt in all my years pulsed through my legs, massively amplified when Nightstalker stomped on my ankle, but I didn't give him the satisfaction of another scream.

"Wait right there," he said. He turned to Stefan, then, and began driving his foot into the corpse's skull. He stomped again and again, pulverizing it into a paste of flesh, bone, and venom. I winced at the wet sounds each motion made, at the brutality of it.

"Now that that is… resolved…" His accent was light, dancing its way around the satisfaction I heard in there. His face, though. It didn't twist with malice or pleasure to match his tone, as Stefan's or mine might have. Like he was refusing to revel in his victory. He continued. "Before you join that mess behind me—" he thumbed over his shoulder at the pulp that was Stefan "—I need you to tell me something."

I choked out a laugh. "Why would I do anything for you?" What was his angle?

"Because I'm trying to get close to the Volturi," Nighstalker said, "and you hate the Volturi."

"I like living more than I hate them." I coughed twice, spittle dripping down my lower lip. "Let me go and I'll tell you whatever you want." I hated myself for cutting a deal, but you didn't survive as long as I had by making foolish, prideful gestures.

"Come on, Vladimir." He crouched in front of me, infuriatingly outside of my reach, and his voice took on a sadistic air even while his face remained entirely impassive. "Last of the Romanian coven, last of the old world, old guard. You lived a life of glory and power, but they took it all from you."

He was trying to get a rise out of me. I wouldn't let him; I laughed. "You want to get close to them? Expose your powers to the chattel, expose the existence of vampires, break their laws. They'll come to you."

Nightstalker shook his head. "Look at my eyes, Vladimir." He reached into his pocket, pulled out a match, struck it on his palm. As it flared to life, scenting the air of sulfur, his eyes reflected gold. I was seized by a mirthless laugh. Was that what this was about? A goddamned vegan vampire vigilante? I cackled, then coughed. He watched me laugh, but didn't react. He dropped the match when the flame began to lick his fingertips.

"So you know I won't sacrifice humans for my hunt. You tell me what that Volturi scout talked to you about, then we go our separate ways. Deal?"

I squinted at him, masking the pain in my chest with suspicion at his offer. But I wasn't going to get a better one than that. "They wanted us to move out of Bucharest, said we'd been here too long."

"Yes, one of their rules." Nightstalker gestured impatiently. "But that wasn't all. Just after sunset, hours before you took my bait, Stefan mentioned another coven."

I cursed Stefan's big mouth, though he couldn't possibly have known this man was listening in. "Yeah, the scout complained about having to travel to America to check on someone."

"Where?"

"Some tiny town in…" I racked my mind, trying to force my memory to function through the fog of pain and terror. "Wisconsin?"

"You don't sound sure, maybe you need something to jog your memory?" He reached for my shattered ankle, and I flinched away.

"Washington! It was Washington, I'm sure of it!"

"And the town?"

"I can't…"

He brought his hand down onto my foot, the one on the destroyed ankle, smashing several of those bones as well. I clenched my jaw to turn the shout of pain into a grimacing groan, my vision swimming for a moment. "Forks! I remember! It was Forks. Such a stupid name."

"There, that wasn't too difficult, was it?"

I glared at him. To fight the pain, I began plotting out the sweet revenge I would take once I'd healed. I would track him across the world, shadowing him like a specter, but I wouldn't kill him. He thought humans were more than bloodbags? I would kill every human he met, let him see the futility of his crusade. Anyone he loved, anyone he tried to protect, I would slaughter. Maybe I would tear off his arms and legs, carry him in a box, make him watch me feed.

My thoughts were interrupted by yet another spike of pain. Nightstalker had grabbed my broken foot in both hands. The pain was washed away by panic. "Wait, I answered your questions! You said I could go!"

In response, he wrenched my foot one-hundred and eighty degrees, then another, twisting it around until my flesh cracked and split and popped off my leg. I almost missed his words behind my scream of pain.

"I said we would part ways here. I will not be joining you in death."

I thrashed, trying desperately to leverage myself off the ground to claw at his face, get my teeth onto any part of his flesh, to go out fighting. He caught my hand at the wrist, then broke my forearm across his knee like an old branch and ripped it off. When I lunged at him again, he shoved my own hand down my throat. My hand didn't go in smoothly, my fingers and nails tore gashes in my throat.

"That ought to keep you quiet until I'm done."

He was right.