Reflections

Julianna Redding shot a withering glare at her car radio and quickly punched the next pre-programmed station button on the console. She'd had quite enough of that song, thank you very much.

Julianna rolled her eyes and snapped the radio off, cruising up to a red light. Fine, she thought to herself, taking advantage of the pause to shuffle through the CD case stored under the passenger seat. If we're going to be fraught with irony, let's really be fraught with irony.

She single-handedly flicked in one of the more recent Dead Can Dance CDs and hit the 'play' button with a flourish, already starting to feel the muscles in the back of her neck relax. She closed her eyes for a moment and leaned her head against the back of her seat, letting the music soothe her for a moment…

A sharp noise broke into her reverie. Nerves that had so recently been starting to relax jangled back into action with a vengeance. Her eyes darted around the interior of the car, trying to locate the threat.

The noise came again. It was the car behind her, alerting her to the fact that the light had changed to green again.

Julianna let out a breath she wasn't aware she had been holding and surged forward back into the flow of traffic, no few of the other drivers giving her glaring looks of red death. She pushed her glasses back up on her nose resolutely and made her turn into the parking structure of the University of California, Anaheim. Eventually she found a parking space in the far end of the lot on one of the top floors. She quickly checked her minimalist makeup in the rearview mirror, correcting a small smudge that had strayed from her eyelid with her thumb. She caught her own eyes in the mirror.

You're going to have to try to relax, she thought at herself resolutely. You're going to drive yourself crazy.

After opening the door to her late-model white Nissan and feeding the seat belt back into the faulty spring mechanism that was supposed to retract it for her, she finally managed to retrieve her floral-print bookbag and sling it over her shoulder. As she emerged from the stairs of the parking structure out onto the campus the sunlight glared off the lens of her glasses, making her squint uncomfortably at the looming, 70's-version-of-modern-architecture style buildings in the distance.

Suddenly a dark shape swooped overhead. Julianna froze, posed in a position of alert stillness. Her fingers tightened around the strap of her bookbag, ready to swing it around as a weapon or a diversion if necessary. A light breeze blew a wisp of her hair into her face but she ignored it, searching the morning sky with intent eyes.

The morning sky.

She mentally kicked herself for her own paranoid stupidity. She could tell herself over and over again to relax, but it just never seemed to do any good. She sighed and hurried up the path to get to her first class of the day, Western Civilization 231B, A Study of the Americas (1800-1947). Of course none of Them would be out at this time.

Mildred Lightfeather O'Neil gazed out of the small, curtained stagecoach window drowsily, mesmerized by the scenery flowing by her limited field of vision. The girl across from her - a flighty blonde who was immaculately dressed and groomed - was reading a dime-store western adventure novel. Mildred grimaced inwardly at the book. Reading gave her headaches.

Finally the girl finished the book, folded neatly on her lap with pristinely-white gloved hands, and settled her gaze on Mildred.

"So…" she commented, fidgeting with the already-worn pages of the book that she held, "Mildred, is it? May I call you Millie?"

"If you'd like," Mildred replied, still absorbed in her own thoughts.

"You're going to be a schoolteacher too?" She prompted.

"Yes."

The other girl fidgeted even more. "Whereabouts?"

"San Francisco."

"Really," She said, getting a quiet, thoughtful look on her face. It looked entirely out of place. "Is that anywhere near Bodie?"

"I really wouldn't know."

There was a long, uncomfortable pause. The coach hit a bad spot in the road and both of the inhabitants lurched slightly to the side. They were used to it though, after nearly a week of travel by stagecoach.

"Why did you decide to come way out here?" The girl asked, still desperately trying to make conversation. "I'm here to be with my family."

Mildred felt a slow half-smile spread across her face, but she continued to gaze out the window. "I'm here because my family won't be."

That sufficently quieted the girl for the time being. Mildred tended to think of her as a girl, although she couldn't have been much younger than Mildred herself - twenty-two. Practically old maid age, as her family took no end of delight in reminding her.

She was born the only daughter of Shannen O'Neill and a woman known only as Littlefoot - although that was doubtlessly just a literal translation of her name - presumably of the Cherokee peoples. She wasn't aware that anyone had every actually asked her mother anything about her lineage. Needless to say, his family were good Catholics and regarded this union with the utmost abhorrence. In a conciliatory measure they had named her Mildred after his mother, but they wouldn't be satisfied until Littlefoot died three years later of pneumonia. Even now, however, they barely suppressed a sneer and looked the other way when they saw Mildred.

Thankfully, Mildred's native blood didn't betray itself in her appearance. Other than her tailbone-length thick black hair and a somewhat sturdier frame than her Irish predecessors, she had the palest of skin and the bluest of eyes, and was quite sought-after by suitors back in New York. Until they were invariably told she was half-blooded by her family, that is.

Mildred sighed, closing her eyes. She supposed that her father had done the best he could, considering the circumstances. He was just too wrapped up in his own grief to care about hers very much at the time. Lately she could see the words of her grandmother and aunts finally taking their toll on him, however. The day he looked at her and she saw "that Indian girl" reflected in his eyes was the day she decided to leave. Nobody had tried to stop her.

Suddenly there was a sharp, thunderous boom outside that tore through the sky, and the coach yanked to a stop. Mildred practically fell to the floor and the girl opposite her hit her head on the padded front wall of the coach. After a few panicked moments, Mildred realized it was the sound of a gun. In the distance she could hear the faint beat of horse's hooves, coming closer…

"Excuse me," a male voice interrupted.

With a sigh Julianna set down the book she was reading, carefully folding over the corner of the page to mark her place, and resettled her glasses on her nose.

"Can you tell me where Humanities 439 is?" Asked a similarly-bespectacled, confused looking young man.

Freshman, Julianna snorted inwardly. "It's really a lecture hall. It's right outside." She pointed one finger towards the clearly-marked building that said "H-459" just outside of the doors.

He blushed and raced outside, even though any class he could possibly have wouldn't start for at least twenty more minutes.

Julianna smiled one of her enigmatic half-smiles and flipped the book back open - mostly as a cover.

She just couldn't concentrate. The scare this morning had shaken her much worse than she was letting on. Of course it was silly - she'd had no warnings, she'd received none of the small etiquettes that signaled the intent of a formal Hunt (such as a stag's heart in her mailbox or a message written in blood on her mirror) which were intended to give her time to report to her regional Lord to have him or her negotiate a peaceful settlement. The Hunt was more of a means for settling personal disagreements anyway…and she was fairly sure she hadn't stepped on anyone's toes. At least, not lately.

She suppressed a shudder. Of course, there were those who Hunted only for sport, regardless of rules and etiquette…

Julianna was your average-looking college student, with that nebulous type of appearance that could have been just about any age from nineteen to twenty-five. Her wardrobe largely consisted of simple clothes, almost always involving black jeans and light, loose shirts with long sleeves. She had draped her Navajo-print jacket over the back of the chair she was sitting in in the lightly-traveled common area of one of the Liberal Arts buildings of the campus. She got to school early enough in the morning that it was normally chilly enough to wear it, but in the typical fashion of Southern California it was usually too warm to wear it by mid-day even in the dead of winter. A pair of light-rimmed glasses rested on the bridge of her nose, where there was also a light sprinkling of freckles, carefully yet largely unsuccessfully covered by makeup. And yet, despite her outwardly average appearance, she carried herself with a peculiar kind of air - both alert and relaxed at the same time, and radiating a tangible "Not To Be Bothered" vibe. She reached out and flicked over the page of the book she had barely skimmed in a quick, efficient gesture, and went on with her reading.

Of course, on some people, even the most powerful of vibes are wasted.

"Julie! Hi!" A familiar voice shouted unnecessarily across the nearly-empty area. Normally it would have been a veritable beehive of activity (Julianna winced at her own cliché) but hardly anybody took classes on Friday by choice.

Julianna fought down a smile. She would just be encouraging him. "Hello, Mike," she said curtly, hoping in vain that he would get the hint and leave her alone.

Mike plopped down at the table in the seat next to her and grabbed hold of her shoulders. "You need to relax, Julie. You're so tense all the time." He smiled broadly, and a wild lock of flyaway blonde hair fell forward into his face where it remained, unnoticed.

Mike Mellen was tall, thin, gangly, and uncoordinated in the manner that young men who still think that they're 5'4" 98-pound weaklings are wont to be, with green eyes framed by glasses in thick, 50's-style frames, and a long face that looked almost horse-like. His hair was largely uncombed, and usually stood nearly on end in a very mad-scientist manner. He was trying, in vain, to grow a mustache. His attire was what was to be expected for someone of his age - a worn red flannel shirt over a t-shirt and tattered jeans (perhaps on purpose, perhaps not. One could never tell with Mike.) They had met in a Physics for Non-Majors class a few years ago when they both started at UCA, and he had become inseparably attached to her ever since. And…well…she supposed she was a bit fond of him too, in a kid brother type of way.

Julianna had to physically restrain herself from flinging his hands off of her, but it was purely reflex, not genuine annoyance. "Julianna," she reminded him for at least the twenty-seven-thousandth time.

He ignored her, instead picking up the paperback she'd been reading and putting it in the sleeve of his flannel shirt, sticking out of the hole for his hand. "Look at me!" He exclaimed in a goofy voice. "I've got a book for a hand! I'm Book-Hand-Man! Gimmie some candy!"

Julianna raised an eyebrow at him. "Is that supposed to be funny?"

"Oh come on, Julie! You know, that Halloween Saturday Night Live sketch from a few years back with Adam Sandler?" After taking in the blank look on her face for a few more moments, he finally went on with a dramatic roll of his eyes. "I'll bet you're one of those people who goes to bed at nine o'clock on a Saturday night."

"You have no idea," Julianna muttered, mostly to herself. "Give me that," she continued out loud, snatching the book from his sleeve. As a result of the force of the tug, the button on the cuff popped off.

"Oh God, I'm sorry," she said as Mike gazed at his sleeve in dismayed disbelief. In a flash, his expression changed.

"If you waaaant do destroooy my sweat-errrr, hold this threaad as I waaaalk awaaaaay…" he sang at the top of his lungs.

"Would you stop?" Julianna exclaimed, not able to stop the smile that was twitching at the corner of her lips this time "I hate that song," she lied. She sang along with it every time it came on the radio when the song was popular a few years ago, every bit as loudly and badly. She had narrowly talked Mike out of dragging her to a concert by Weezer at a local music stores at the time. She quickly retrieved the button, fishing a portable sewing kit from her bookbag. "Now give me your shirt."

"Good lord, Julie! You gotta elephant in there too?" Mike exclaimed, removing the flannel to reveal a white shirt with green pictures of bees with human heads and a flower covered in what looked like tar. The caption pronounced to the world, "Mr. Bungle - There's a Tractor in my Balls Again."

"It doesn't hurt to be prepared," she replied, looking at him and threading the needle with no trouble at all on the first try.

Mike obviously had never so much as touched a needle and thread, since he didn't notice the feat at all. "Aw, Julie, you don't need to do that," he said, making a feeble attempt to take the flannel back.

She held it out of his reach. "Of course I do. I broke it, I have thread, no problem," she said, shrugging. He made another attempt to reach for it and she flourished the needle threateningly. "Don't make me hurt you, Mellen."

"I knew you really loved me!" He said in a dramatic, choked-up voice.

She halfway smiled again, not looking up from her sewing. "Tell me again why I put up with you?"

"Because you need my help in math," he reminded her. "And because I'm so damn cute!"

She rolled her eyes, but he only grinned back at her unrepentantly.

Finally she finished up the sewing, tying up the thread and biting it off. "There," she said, presenting the mended shirt back to him.

He went down on one knee in front of her, snatching it away and clutching it to his chest in a most dramatic manner. "My lady, I shall cherish it always." On the last word he dropped his head down to his chest in humble abasement.

Julianna paused for a moment, uncertain as to what to say.

Finally she pulled her hand away from his and picked up her bookbag. "Let's go. Mr. Happyburger. My treat," she said, gathering her things and heading for the door, not waiting for his reply.

"Your treat? Hot damn!" He sprang up and dashed after her, barely snagging his own backpack on the way out.

Mildred and the other girl, whose name she still didn't know, huddled together on one of the benches of the stagecoach as the hoofbeats drew steadily closer. It had only been moments since they had stopped, but it had seemed like an eternity that they had been enclosed in the hot, oppressively small cabin. From this close Mildred could smell the perfume of the girl next to her, combined with the acrid tang of fear-induced sweat. A considerable amount of it was hers. The stagecoach drivers had long since run away and the horses stamped nervously, as if they too knew something was wrong.

Finally the hoofbeats slowed and they heard shouting outside, along with the jingle of horses' harnesses. A gun went off again, this time so loudly that both girls jumped and screamed, clutching at each other. The other girl started whimpering softly, and Mildred bit her lower lip to keep from crying. She would not panic yet. Maybe these men had chased away the other men who had fired the gun earlier. Maybe the coach drivers had overreacted…

"Well well well…what have we…here?" A sloppy, drunken male voice said from outside.

"It's almost like a present," another equally slurred voice said, and Mildred could hear the laughter of at least two more, "all wrapped up with pretty bows. When ya' open it up, it's gotta surprise inside!"

The door to the coach swung open and both girls screamed again, sending another peal of raucous laughter through the shabby group outside. There were four dusty, vaguely greasy-looking men outside wearing kercheifs over their faces. A slight breeze blew in the smell of sweat, flatulence, and cheap whiskey. All of them were also holding guns in varyingly wavering grips, aimed at the general area of the girls.

"Get out," the one who appeared to be the least inebriated ordered, a huge man who barely fit into a gun holster.

By now, neither one of them could hold it in any longer. Both Mildred and the other girl started whimpering a bit louder, tears streaming down their faces. They stumbled out of the coach with their hands up, although they had not been ordered to do so. The men also found this indescribably funny.

"Wh…what do you what?" Mildred finally managed to ask, dreading the worst…and it was not death.

Sure enough, their hooting and whooping turned into more sinister chortles, as if they were sharing a private joke. "How 'bout that?" Said another one, in one of the worst country yokel accents Mildred had heard in a long time. "We picked a stage full of purty city ladies!" The others laughed again, although Mildred failed to really see the homor in it even if their positions were reversed.

"First, we'll be takin' those," the large man said, gesturing with his gun up towards the horses. "After that…well, we'll just have'ta see, won't we?"

Even through the kerchief he wore, Mildred could tell that he was leering.

The other girl finally snapped. She screamed, trying to run between the men in the middle of the group. She just barely got past them when the yokel turned and took a few ill-aimed shots at her. By sheer chance, one of them struck her in the back of her head, killing her instantly.

She was the lucky one.

Mildred thought that she could take advantage of the distraction to get away herself, but the large man was sober enough to have anticipated this, it seemed. He turned and shot at her as well.

What felt like a lance of pure fire shot through Mildred's stomach and she crumpled over, clutching at her middle. She could see a steady flow of blood trickling through her fingers, spreading in an ever-widening swath on her dress.

"God damnitall! You've gone and shot them both!" The first one who had spoken shouted in dismay.

"She ain't dead yet…" the yokel suggested helpfully.

"Don't be disgustin'," the large man said, already starting to unharness the horses from the coach. He gestured to the fourth man to start unloading the baggage on top of the coach to see if it contained anything of value. "With the money we get from this crap, you can buy yourself three whores a night for a month. Just leave 'er."

After what seemed like an eternity, the group finally disappeared in a cloud of dust, leaving Mildred to die.

For a while she watched her own blood soak into the dry ground. It was almost mesmerizing, watching the pattern spread, wondering where it would extend next. She almost couldn't feel the pain anymore, which was good because she knew that with a stomach shot like the one she had, it would take her a long, long time to finally die. She found herself thinking about her family, and with the certainty of death looming before her, she thought that perhaps she should have listened to their ravings about sin and Heaven after all.

Suddenly everything went dark. I'm coming, mother, she thought…

Julianna and Mike stepped out into the cool dusk air, and he quickly pulled his flannel back around him. Julianna smiled to herself. Where did the time go? The last time she had surfaced from a classroom, it had still been morning.

Mike eyed her suspiciously. "You sure look happy for someone who's paying for Mr. Happyburger."

She smiled even wider. "I guess you could say I'm a night person."

"I get shotgun!" Mike yelled, running at a breakneck speed for Julianna's car as soon as they were within sight of the vast parking structure where it was stored. It was mostly empty by this time of day, especially since there were no Friday night classes.

Julianna smiled to herself. She certainly was smiling a lot lately, since she'd met Mike in particular. She pressed the elevator button for the sixth floor of the parking structure as Mike leaped up the stairs instead, his long-legged stride taking two or three steps at a time. She supposed she'd been a lot happier lately in general than she had in…well…a long time. Not since--

Abruptly the elevator in front of her turned into a white-painted door, with an old-fashioned crystal knob. There was a growing pool of blood seeping out from the space under the door onto the hardwood floor. There was a smear of blood on the doorknob. She saw her own hand go out and turn it, and the door opened into a room soaked in red…

Julianna shut her eyes and opened them again, and this time it was just the elevator doors sliding open to admit her that she saw. They were old memories, and today they just didn't seem to hold as much power over her as they usually did.

Julianna finally caught up with Mike, in her own time, and let him in the car. He immediately started bouncing up and down, rocking her poor abused car in what she assumed to be a somewhat lewd manner.

"Stoppit," she said tersely as she got in herself, tossing her bookbag into the back seat next to Mike's. "How old are you, anyway" He waggled his eyebrows and leaned back in the seat. "Old enough to know certain…seengs…about zee ways of a woman…"

Julianna snorted, starting up the car and pressing the button on her CD player to change it back to the "Radio" setting. She knew perfectly well that Mike was twenty-one, a virgin, and not very likely to appreciate Dead Can Dance.

They pulled out of the parking lot, heading towards the exit nearest to the street leading to Mr. Happyburger. On the radio the announcer did one of those absurd segways from the "serious news" tone to the ridiculously "happy human interest stories" voice.

"Aaagh! Radio news! Radio news!" Mike shouted, and started punching random buttons on the radio. Eventually he settled on a station he liked.

"Near, faar, where-eeeeever you are, I belieeve that the heaart does go oooon…" he hollered tonelessly. Julianna cringed. "How can you listen to that song?"

Mike threw out his arms, or at least as much as he could while still within the confines of the car. "I'm king of the world!" he shouted. Despite her best efforts, Julianna smiled and let out a small, short laugh.

Mike's eyes went huge. He clutched his chest. "Now I know that I can die a happy man, for I have finally made you laugh!"

Julianna felt a blush creeping into her cheeks. Surely she laughed more often than that. It had been quite some time, though. As Mike went back to playing with the radio she smiled and turned onto the last narrow residential street standing between her and Seasoned Smiley fries -

She abruptly slammed on her brakes, coming to a halt in a tire-burning squeal. She and Mike were thrown forward into their seatbelts, the discarded CD flew into the windshield and bounced off harmlessly, and both bookbags thudded hard into the back of Mike's seat.

Julianna recovered immediately, flinging off the seatbelt and leaping out the door, to the front of the car. Cringed inches from the bumper was a little girl.

"Are you all right?" Julianna asked, kneeling down next to her. Mike was still a mass of gangly limbs and seatbelt, trying to disentangle himself.

"You have to help me," she whimpered. She was a freckled redhead, and was wearing a Little Mermaid T-shirt with pink shorts. She couldn't have been more than eight years old. "My momma is hurt. A bad man hurt her."

Julianna snapped to attention. "Where?"

"In there…" the girl pointed to a narrow alleyway between two tall apartment buildings.

Without hesitating, Julianna strode right over to the entrance. The little girl got up just as quickly and scurried after her.

"Julie! Wait!" Mike shouted, bringing up the rear. "Maybe we should think about this for a minute!"

Julianna peered down the alleyway. The last lingering traces of light left in the sky didn't penetrate the darkness within at all, it was barely illuminated by a dim yellow light bulb in a weather-beaten lantern attached to the wall near the end of the passage. It was narrow, made even more claustrophobic by a large dumpster and piles of miscellaneous rubble heaped shoulder-high against the walls. The alley ended in a worn eight-foot wooden fence. The pungent smell that wafted past them in a stifling imitation of a breeze was less than pleasant, to say the least. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck start to tingle. Something was wrong…

There was a dark figure hunched over one of the piles of garbage on the left wall, about halfway down. A leg was sticking out, clad in shredded stockings and polka-dot stretch pants. She could smell both old and new blood.

"Is that him?" She whispered hoarsely to the girl.

"Julie?" Mike pleaded quietly. "This is really something the police should be -"

"No, that's my daddy. The man ran away," the girl said in a small, flat voice.

Julianna and Mike both relaxed, relieved that they weren't going to have to try to take on a murderer on their own. All the same, Julianna thought, something still wasn't quite right. They approached the man carefully, as he was more likely than not in shock, if nothing else.

As they drew closer and passed the dumpster, Julianna caught sight of the owner of the leg they'd seen previously. It was a middle-aged woman with badly dyed blonde hair. It was hard to tell what the original color of her shirt had been, as her throat seemed to have been torn out and all her clothes were soaked in blood. As she stopped and frowned at the body, Mike continued to walk towards the man in the alley.

"Excuse me, sir?" Mike said in a quiet voice.

As the man started to stand up, every danger sense in Julianna's whole body started clamoring. She started to run towards them, and the man finally turned so that the dim yellow light fell on his face. Julianna felt like someone had punched her in the stomach. "Mike, no!" She shouted, lurching forward.

In one clean motion the man lifted Mike by the neck, snapped it easily and tossed him aside in a limp gangly heap amongst the rubble.

The man smiled at Julianna, and the sickly light glinted off the tips of his pointed fangs.

Not dead yet…Mildred thought deliriously. Something blocking the light…

Somebody was holding her, pressing down on her stomach hard. It was the worst pain she had ever felt in her life, and she nearly lost consciousness again.

The person holding her jostled her lightly. "Miss? Wake up, miss. Come on now…" said a harried male voice.

Her eyes fluttered open, and for a moment she couldn't see anything but a big hulking shape blocking out the sun. She experienced a moment of panic, remembering the men who had shot her. In a moment her eyes adjusted, however, and she could make out the features of the man holding her.

He was young, her age, at least, and quite large in a tall, swarthy way. He had light brown hair peeking out under the rim of his wide-brimmed hat. His features were unlined and soft, but with a squared-off, strong jaw, and the eyes that gazed down at her in concern were the most fascinating hazel pattern. The hands that held her propped up in his arms were easily one third as large again as her own. His clothes were ordinary, other than a large black overcoat which he wore in the searing late-day Arizona sun. They were also drenched in blood…presumably hers.

"Can you understand me?!" He practically shouted into her face.

She nodded weakly, and attempted a frown. It didn't work very well.

"Good," he said, visibly relaxing. "You've been shot in the stomach…"

Somehow Mildred found the strength weakly lift an eyebrow.

"Well, I guess that's pretty obvious." He smiled and it lit up his whole face. "It's a good thing I was in the area. I heard the shots. Too bad I couldn't get here sooner…"

What would you have done against four men with guns, anyway? Mildred thought, not having the strength to say it aloud, but managed to smile weakly in return.

He lifted the cloth he had been using as a compress on her stomach - it looked like it was torn off the end of his coat - to check her wound and grimaced. "You've lost a lot of blood…" His voice trailed off, and Mildred knew that it did not bode at all well for her.

Something passed across his eyes, and his expression took on a far away look. He looked from her wound to her face and back. Finally he gazed deep into her eyes, seemingly searching for something. Mildred felt as though her soul was being measured and weighed…

Finally the man closed his eyes and his expression hardened. His voice faltered and he seemed to be choosing his words with great effort. "I can help you, if you want to live…"

"No!" Julianna shouted, kneeling next to Mike's body. She held him in her arms, her head bowed over his chest. She was leaving herself vulnerable, but at this point she didn't care. "I…I was given no warning…"

"I do not need to give warning to the likes of you, youngling," the vampire said with a thick indistinct European accent, probably affected. These types were always so theatrical.

She reeled on her attacker. "Why me! What did I do to you? What did he do to you?" Her voice broke and she clenched her hands into fists. He didn't answer her, but instead started slowly taking off the black gloves he was wearing, walking towards her. Apparently he wasn't worried about fingerprints being found on her body. More likely than not, her body would never be found at all.

Julianna experienced a moment of sheer panic. I should have known…I should have sensed…She spared a glance back at the dead woman against the wall. If she didn't do something fast, she would end up the same way. She didn't bother looking for the girl.

Probably one of his spawn. Now I really should have sensed that.

She knew why it was that she probably didn't sense the girl for what she was, though. Despite the legends, there were actually two distinct types of Vampires…those who were still alive and those who were not. The Nocturnae and the Lumenaria were the official, polite terms. The Nightcrawlers and the Drones were what they actually called each other. The girl was most likely one of the latter, and they were harder to detect.

The Nocturnae were vampires who, in the process of being Reborn, a risky and delicate process at best, they had died. This was the most common outcome of the transformation process. About two weeks later they would rise quite literally from their graves once they had fully changed. They were the ones who had all the stories told about them from the beginning of time, with all the traditional limitations and abilities. They could shape-shift, they could not tolerate sunlight or silver. They had super-human strength, unnatural speed, telepathic and hypnotic powers. They were immortal. A few of the legends were false, however. Garlic did not kill them (although they tended to break out in rashes when exposed to it) nor did crosses -- that particular myth stemmed from the fact that most crosses were made of silver at one time.

There was, however, another tier to vampire society. The Lumenaria. They were rarer, but less powerful. They were required to live, along with weaker Nocturnae, under the protection of one of the stronger Nocturnae in their area in the manner of feudal lords.

The Lumenaria were, to all appearances, normal living people. They could also tolerate the things the Nocturnae could not stand such as daylight and silver, although they were usually more sensitive to them than a normal person. Any wounds they might get also healed much faster than a normal person, while a Nocturnae had to feed before they could regenerate. The fangs of a Lumenaria were retractable, while the Nocturnae's were always visible. And while the Lumenaria lived off the blood of humans (usually from private, secret donation agencies,) they could survive on regular food and animal blood for quite some time. The Nocturnae fed off the life of humans.

Being freed of traditional limitations came at a price for the Lumenaria, however. Their strength and speed was only about a third of what a Nocturnae had. They could be killed by just about any physical trauma that would kill a normal person, albeit it had to be a much quicker way of dying or they would usually heal before it could kill them. They couldn't shape-shift, and they only lived for about 300 years on the average, although they remained outwardly the same age as when they were Reborn until the last few moments of their life. They could not create or spawn other vampires. And when they died, they stayed dead.

The Nocturnae vampire finally made a lightning-quick grab for Julianna, interrupting her thoughts. She ducked out of the way just in time, rolling to the side and throwing a trashcan lid at him to stall his pursuit. Her glasses flew off of her face and clattered to the ground, and he grinned at her before stepping on them and smashing them into the ground. As she dodged his claws again the single, thick braid she wore her tailbone-length black air in swung around, and he just missed grabbing it.

As the fear pumped through her veins like cold ice, she felt her false canines fold back and her true fangs flash to the surface.

"I can help you," he repeated in a heavy voice, "but there is…a price…"

He opened his mouth slightly, pulling his lips back from his teeth to reveal sharp, long fangs where his pointed teeth should have been.

With a hoarse, broken cry, Mildred's started to make a weak attempt to struggle away, her eyes wide with terror. She cried out again as her movement sent another stabbing knife of pain through her abdomen.

"Please, I'm not going to hurt you," he said, drawing her closer to prevent her from making her wounds worse. Somehow, his fangs weren't there anymore. "I…there's no time to explain…"

Mildred searched the bleak desert landscape with her eyes. How had she come to this? This couldn't be happening…it wasn't really happening, she was just hallucinating from the blood loss and the heat…or perhaps she had died already, and this was her place of punishment, to be driven slowly insane…

The man grabbed her face abruptly and forced her to meet his eyes. "You're going to die," he said very precisely, with a curious flatness in his voice. "It's the only way."

As she searched the depths of his eyes, Mildred found herself considering her options. This man had gone out of his way to help her. Of course, it could all be a trick somehow, but if he was going to kill her wouldn't he have done it already? Then she had another dizzy spell, and the man shook her gently. She didn't have much time left.

Well, she supposed, if she was going to regret her decision, she should at least have a long time to regret it in.

She let her head roll back, baring her neck in submission.

The older vampire slashed at Julianna again with his clawed fingers, and again she just barely danced out of the way. He was toying with her. Her own nails had lengthened a bit, but the Lumenaria never really grew claws like that.

"Why do you even try, little one?" He sneered. "You know that I'm at least two centuries your senior."

Julianna had just turned 120 years old earlier that year. That meant he wasn't that terribly old either, in the grand scheme of things. She'd known vampires over three times his age.

"I have powerful friends," she said as calmly as she could manage. The Lumenaria had very little power, if any, with vampire society. But even they were supposed to be afforded the courtesy of an official notification of a Hunt, the means by which vampires fought and killed each other over personal disputes. It was clear from this one's appearance that he was living on the fringes of Nocturnae society, however, killing for the pleasure of it, and clearly one of those with a taste for the blood of his fellow vampires. This was the worst kind of crime if one's prey was a Nocturnae, but for the most part overlooked if all you hunted were Lumenaria.

"Richard shall hear of this," she said as she slipped in the slick blood of the dead woman in an attempt to escape another swipe. Richard Hubbard was the Lord of all of Southern California to whom Julianna owed her fealty. One of the more powerful vampires worldwide, as was evidenced by his control of such an influential area, Julianna and he had a shared history…albeit not a good history. She grimaced to think what his "price" would be for his help. At any rate, she could…deal…with Robert. This one who was attacking her however…

He only smiled again in the smug, self-satisfied manner that was really beginning to give Julianna an itch. "He won't hear about it if you don't live to tell him, New-Born."

The man smiled slightly, gently lifting Mildred's head back into a normal position. "No, I don't need to do it that way," he said, sighing. "Well, I suppose if we're going to be this well acquainted, we should be properly introduced. I currently go by Sam Jones, but my real name is Frederick Fallswirth."

Mildred opened and closed her mouth a few times in an effort to speak, but finally Frederick rested a finger on her lips. "Try to relax. This won't take but a minute…"

He resettled her in his arms and lifted one blood-slicked hand to his mouth. Those unnerving pointed teeth were protruding again. He licked off a few fingers and closed his eyes for a moment, then, in a flash of movement, slashed a small, narrow cut in his arm with his own fangs. Quickly, as though pausing might make him change his mind, he lifted it to her lips and she reluctantly swallowed some of the salty, metallic fluid. For a moment, nothing happened. Suddenly she felt as though someone had lifted her by the gut and thrown her to the ground. Her blood seemed to catch on fire, spreading from her stomach out to her limbs and racing up through her head. Her entire world turned red. Her body convulsed, and as her world faded out again, she saw Frederick hovering over her protectively.

"You're in for a hard time for a little while, little one," Frederick said, holding her closer. "Don't worry, I'll take care of you."

"You may be wondering why I chose you in particular, Drone-Spawn," the other vampire drawled. "I shall enjoy taking power from devouring you-" he made another feint at grabbing her just to see her jump out of the way.

Julianna felt a stab of fear lance through her. She had a very unique origin. She was the only vampire ever to be created by a Lumenaria. Her sire was the most powerful Lumenaria that anyone, even the most ancient of the Nocturnae, could remember. It tended to make her quite an attractive target.

"Then you know of me?" She asked, trying to keep him talking. If she could only keep him talking…

"Of course, Julianna. Or should I say Mildred? Or Lightfeather? Or any of the other multitude of names you've had over the years?" He grinned horribly. "Whatever did happen to that beaux of yours…Frederick, was it?"

Julianna winced. He knew perfectly well what had happened.

"It's a pity, the others thought they'd disposed of all the lunatic little Vampire Hunters by the mid-1800's. Looks like they missed one," he said, imitating the motions of a stake being driven through his heart. "Oops."

Julianna felt tears of rage start to prick at her eyes. Some people would feel grateful to have forty years with the person they loved. She clenched her fists and shut her eyes against the images that flashed through her mind, as they always did when she thought of Frederick. Blood on the doorknob. Blood on the floor. Blood on the walls. The door to their bedroom opening to show small man in a tattered tweed suit, his neck broken, lying against the wall with a heavy mallet clutched in his hand. Blood splattered everywhere. And on the bed…oh, on the bed…he'd killed the man while he still could, but even the most powerful regeneration couldn't mend a silver stake through the heart before you died…his hand was reached out towards the door as if he knew she was coming…

Julianna felt something strike her across the face. She reeled and fell heavily against the wall of the apartment, her head spinning from the force of the blow. As she regained the focus of her vision, she saw she had landed next to Mike. His eyes stared at her blankly…just like…his…

A red veil fell across Julianna's vision. Her jaw clenched, and her hands balled into fists so tight she felt the skin break under her sharp nails. First Frederick, and now Mike. Neither of them had ever hurt anyone. They were both dead, and both times she was helpless to stop it, too late and too weak to make those responsible pay…there had to be retribution…someone should have to pay…

Behind her, she heard low, sadistic laughter.

With a soul-wrenching cry, Julianna rolled, swinging her foot around to kick the Nocturnae's legs out from under him. In the same movement she pulled the foot around to push herself back into a standing position and let the other leg fly with a tooth-jarring blow to kick him across the face. He grabbed her arm, though, to pull himself back up from the ground, but when he did she punched him with her other hand, feeling with satisfaction when the bone in his nose crunched under her fist. His marginally better speed had him landing the next blow, however, another jarring backhand of his arm across her head. While her head was still ringing he kicked her in the stomach, sending her slamming back into the wall.

As she struck the bricks for the second time, a catch in Julianna's sleeve popped open.

The other vampire made a tsking noise at her, shaking one finger in her face. His pupils were narrowed to catlike-slits and his face had taken on a wolfish quality from the excitement. "Now, a mere Drone should know better than that. You must know that you're no match for a true Nocturnae no matter who your sire is."

Julianna bared her fangs and hissed at him. He smiled at what he most likely thought was a desperate last show of defiance, but he did not see her shake her arm ever so slightly…

"Now I will devour your strength and your soul, little girl," he said, "and everything you have will be mine."

Julianna's eyes flashed. "There's something I still have that you never can."

"Oh, really?" He asked, bemused, clearly thinking that he was indulging her. "What's that, pray do tell?"

She sprang up, feeling the small silver dagger slide into her open palm that had been in a hidden sheath up her sleeve.

"Adrenaline, you son of a bitch," she growled as she drove it into his heart.

The blow was instantly fatal. He gasped once and fell over, already starting to turn into a smoky, ashen heap.

She staggered back against the wall, gasping. The knife fell from her hand and clattered to the ground, echoing dully against the tall brick walls. She limped exhaustedly over to her dead friend.

"Oh, Mike," she whispered, running her hand alongside his face. She'd been closer to him than she'd ever let herself get to anyone since Frederick was killed. "I didn't mean…for this to happen…"

She stopped, realizing it was useless. With great care not to disturb him she took off his newly-repaired flannel, folding it carefully and putting it inside her own shirt. She removed his heavy-rimmed glasses and set them on the ground next to him reverently, kissed the tips of her fingers lightly and closed his eyes gently, and then turned away.

I need to get home…need to rest…she thought dully. She felt hollow inside, completely empty of emotion. She didn't even know if she was capable of feeling emotion anymore at this point. All she knew was that she was so tired.

She stretched out her arms, starting to feel a tingling in her limbs, and concentrated.

It was true that the Lumenaria couldn't shape-shift…but Julianna wasn't just an average Drone.

A small, sleek black cat paused at the entrance to the alley, taking one look back at the body of the boy lying there, and sprinted off into the night with a haunting meowl.

The following morning, the police collected what was left of the dead woman from the alley, muttering about the rise in violent deaths in the city lately and going about their work with automatic precision.

The body of an unidentified twenty-one year old young man was not anywhere in sight.