Elizabeth Thorne

Night fell earlier each night in Chicago, and waiting for sunset became easier every day. It was hard to sit a chemistry lab idly exploring the nature of organic solvents when the undead were waking to prowl, but at least it killed the time. Besides, I liked the way the instructor was staring at my legs. He looked so guilty, but it didnt stop him from looking back. When I pulled my cross from between my breasts and stroked it absentmindedly while calculating the next reaction mixture he actually managed to turn a little green. I had always thought that was a figure of speech. I made a mental note that once again biology was stranger then fiction, and congratulated myself for having proven once again that there is nothing quite so reliable as good old Catholic guilt.

So I had a tendency toward predatory. It wasnt my fault that even on a good day I had trouble convincing anyone that I was over sixteen.... It certainly wasnt my choice. People were always afraid to take advantage of me. I suppose it was out of some misguided concern that I was going to run home and call for daddy, but it drove me crazy. I looked so respectable that I could have painted the word bait on my forehead without the hungry ones even batting an eye. Id actually tried it once, a few years earlier, when I had gone to one of the more notorious leather bars. I was rewarded for my efforts by no fewer then three beautiful women patting me on the head and calling me cute. Ive always hated that. What made it even worse was that one of them was a vampire. That was back when people tolerated the undead out of fear. The authorities couldnt find them during the day, and couldnt hunt them effectively at night, so they let the carnivores be. Some even found a niche among people who appreciated their way of feeding, or wanted to offer a bit more variety in the preparation of their diet. Now though, technology has left no room for legends.

Ever since DNA cards superseded other forms of identification and hard currency, vampires have been on their way to becoming an endangered species. What churches failed to eradicate for thousands of years, bureaucracy may accomplish in a few decades. Its hard to offer a bloodprint to a merchant that matches your recorded identity when the DNA in your blood changes every time you feed, and without a card theres no housing, transportation, or access to public spaces. Heat scanning makes it challenging for even the undead to hide from notice for long. The government justifies the random neighborhood sweeps by saying that theyre the only way that everyone can be taken care of and kept safe. Not much has changed for most people since the old daysand they say they like the feeling of securitybut Ive never known how they cant realize that theyre falling into a trap. With all the monitoring, it requires a great deal of creativity to be anything other than mainstream if you dont want it to catch up with you later. Maybe the silent majority likes that. I know they enjoy the fact that they are driving off the predators, but their lack of foresight makes me sick.

The sun was setting, so I figured it was time to prowl. At least getting ready was easy. When youre going hunting, its not so much a matter of what you put on, as what you take off. The cross, of course, was hung on the doorknob so that I wouldnt forget to wear it to classes, and the rest of my good girl drag I put neatly into my closet. After taking a quick shower to get rid of any traces of the mornings perfume, I slipped into a ragged pink dress and my biker jacket, combed my hair, and tried vainly not to look like a kid playing dress-up in her sisters clothes.

Things being as they were, I had been rather surprised to see the newspaper reports of the murders down in Boystown. The fact that the corpses were a bit short on blood was buried in the last paragraph of the articles. Denial. I figured that having thought that the vampires were all gone from our part of the world made it difficult for the press to admit that we hadnt exorcized our demons once and for all. I couldnt have been the only person happy that our legends still walked the earth, but I was probably one of the least surprised to see the proof in print. There was a woman I had noticed haunting the bars who was hard to look at in a way that made me weak in the knees. All that beautiful black hair and pale skin: If you noticed her at all she fit right in with the Goth contingent. Except that most people didnt notice her, and the first time I had seen the way their eyes skimmed right over her, my pulse began to race for the first time in almost a year. Id been trying to catch her eye ever since, but I knew I looked like too much trouble to be good prey. Most of her victims had been lost boy typesnowadays not nameless, but also not likely to be missed. There hadnt been a story for almost a week, so I decided that it was finally the time to be not just quarry, but temptation.

When I got off the el I saw her standing at the corner of Belmont and Clark talking to one of the punk kids outside the donut store. Certain that the boy she was talking to had no idea of the trouble I was trying to save him from, I followed them as they walked around the corner to a darkened bar. It was smoky and after I stopped at the bar for a whisky (which was going to show on my card if anyone bothered to look, but the alcohol was a good disinfectant), I waited until she sat. I tried not to take the time to think about how bad an idea my whole plan was, and instead took comfort in the fact that being cocky and fearless had served me well so far in life. No reason for that to change. I hoped. With a great deal of luck, and due to no small amount of practice, I managed to trip over the edge of her chair and land on the glass which I had thrown down hard enough to shatter at the start of my fall. I said a small prayer in thanks to the manager of all bars who were cheap about their stemware..

Oh no. My arm is bleeding. Im so upset. I felt more then a little guilty about being that conniving, but if she didnt think all this was her idea, she wouldnt get me where she wanted me. Planning this had taken too much effort to be foiled by subtlety, so I brushed my hair out of my face and, Oops! there was a smear of blood at the base of my throat. She reached down to help me stand, and I started to offer her the hand that was covered in blood. As I pretended to realize my error and began to slowly draw it back, she grabbed it and pulled me to my feet.

Can I help you get somewhere? she asked in a voice which under the concerned tone was still sultry enough to melt the polar ice caps.

No. I mean no one is expecting me. I guess I should go somewhere to clean this up, but....

Game, set, and match. She practically carried me out the door.