The blood of a pregnant woman and her baby, what’s the price on that?

(laughter)

I’m not laughing ‘cause I think it’s funny. It’s just I’m all out of Drāno. So.

Just tell it like it happened. That’s what she said. Like talking is a gift I have or something. Well, better talking than writing. You had to make sense of this by reading my chicken scratch you’d be crying not laughing.

So.

And that wasn’t a rhetorical question by the way. I know the price. The blood of a pregnant woman goes for about twenty grand. That’s the price in dollars anyway.

There’s all kinds of prices you can pay for such a thing. Parts of yourself that will never grow back.

But that’s the story. And I’m supposed to tell it. Like it happened.

So okay.

So I’m a Vampyre. Spelled with a Y instead of an I. Capitalized like it’s a name. Don’t ask me, just tradition I guess. Anyway. Vampyre with a Y, that’s the real deal. With an I, that’s for scaring babies.

I’m the kind that scares everyone.

And when this started, I was a secret. Lived in an apartment, just like you. Well, just like you if you kept a mini-fridge of blood. When it ended, I was living in a sewer. Downward mobility being a danger to my kind.

Should be a punch line for something: Vampyre in a sewer.

But it’s not.

It’s my life.

(laughter)

Still, it makes me laugh.

So.

This is what happened.

I can feel it, that little extra bit of heat. And smell staleness in the air. Heat and carbon dioxide, a combination that equals life. Something breathing and exhaling, the air filling its lungs, the oxygen being absorbed. Something warm and breathing, you can count on at least one thing about it. It’s full of blood.

Ahead of me in the dark, something alive.

Alive for now anyway.

I didn’t expect him to be so much trouble to find. When he ran down Freedom Tunnel he was soaked in the cripple’s blood; so not like there was much chance I’d lose the scent.