A Vampire’s Guide to History: Volume 1, Chapter 10-11

Sally can’t sleep. She’s waiting for a text from Patrick. At around half past 11pm she gives up, pulls on her shoes and a warm coat and heads out. She has to go over there. Doesn’t she? She’s concerned now. Because something has to be wrong. Patrick is reliable and he’s acting out of character. What if something’s happened that made him bite her and he doesn’t know how to tell her? She’s feeling guilty and angry on a loop. Because who BITES people? Could he have rabies? Maybe a fox or something bit him and now he’s dying. Oh god.

She hurries her step, worried, and angry that she has to feel worried since her boyfriend can’t show her the courtesy of letting her know what the hell is going on with him. She wants to hug him and simultaneously give him a real piece of her mind that this isn’t how you treat someone you love. Maybe he doesn’t love her. Oh GOD.

And she freaked out like some freaker outer. That’s not really how you show love either, is it? Why couldn’t she have stayed calm? She totally overreacted. Right? He barely bit her. Is she making excuses now? He did say sorry, didn’t he? No. He didn’t. He just looked shocked while she was the one who reacted — overly so — and freaked out and left still yelling at him about fetishes. Fuck.

Then she hears a scream.

It’s bloodcurdling.

A woman. In some kind of trouble. Sally starts to run toward where the sound came from. She doesn’t want there to be another one but also does so she can find whoever’s making the noise. There’s another one. She’s close. She enters the park, cutting across the walkways until she enters a small field.

There. In the moonlight. Someone on the ground with a figure leaning over them, a large and imposing shadow. Must be a man, is all Sally has time to think. Her self-defense training kicks into high gear and with a roar she goes on the attack. She throws herself on the shadow, tackling the stranger to the ground with a hard thud. Except it’s not a man…

…it’s a…

…dog?

What the fuck?

She tries to scramble away but the huge dog makes one leap and has her boxed in between its four paws, standing over her with a snarl. She screams, looking around for any kind of weapon, realizing she’s much too weak to be able to kick her way out of this.

And then the dog is rolling away from her, someone else having slammed themselves into it to get it away from her. A young man. The two square up and the young man flashes a long knife at the dog. It growls, hesitates, then turns and runs away.

Sally stares after it, realizing the young man is someone she knows: the medical student who cared for her the evening prior. What’s going on? He comes over to check if she’s okay, helps her to her feet. She wants to know what the fuck just happened. He says he did warn her not to go for late-night walks. That wasn’t a dog— it was a werewolf. A whatwolf?? The full moon appears behind drifting clouds, a howl is heard in the distance, and Sally jumps, wide-eyed at the implication that there might be truth to the statement.

The young man introduces himself as Malcolm Connelly and tells Sally that he’s a hunter of the supernatural. She frowns. Like the Winchesters? He smiles. Something like that.

There’s a bit more.

The bite he treated. It wasn’t an ordinary bite, was it? She says she doesn’t know what he means. He tells her: it was a vampire bite.

Sally takes a step away from him, unable to take him seriously, but when she turns she comes face to face with Patrick. A man she’s never met before is with him and it seems the man and Malcolm have history as they immediately begin verbal sparring.

Sally is too focused on Patrick to care. She asks if he’ll see her home and, since he seems about ready to start peacocking to claim his territory over the man who just saved her life, he agrees in a heartbeat. They leave the other two to their wordplay.

Half an hour earlier, Patrick leaves his rooms with Victor, not knowing what exactly to expect. When they enter the local park Patrick has to point out that stalking people would be sort of underwhelming because it’s stereotypical and unethical. Patrick doesn’t mind stereotyping but he does mind creeping up on some innocent human.

Victor says they’re not in the park to stalk people — they’re cutting across it to get to the nearest donor. You pay them handsomely and they let you drink of them. Easy peasy when stalking makes you queazy. Victor laughs heartily at his own cleverness but Patrick is growing frustrated.

For each answer more questions are cropping up and eternity already feels exhausting.

Patrick isn’t working at the moment and his funds are limited. Is it expensive. Victor tells him not to worry about it. His treat for turning him into a vampire against his will to save his life but also Patrick shouldn’t expect treats like that to last lifetimes because would he really rather be dead? Patrick doesn’t answer but Victor can tell he wouldn’t be.

Besides, there are perks to aging as a vampire. Your hearing, your sight, your senses. It all enhances. You have to feed for them to be at their peak, of course. But still, the older you get the longer you can live off of a liter or two of blood. Good tradeoff. You get strong too. And after a few years you might even be able to fly. But that takes training with a master.

What’s a master?

A scream interrupts them. They share a look. Patrick starts running towards the sound, realizing Victor is no longer at his side. He catches up to Victor who stands staring hard at what’s playing out: Sally being attacked. She screams. Patrick is about to move forward but Victor stops him. He’s still too weak. He can’t go up against a werewolf. A WHATwolf?? One bite and they’re dead. Then someone comes running and crashes into the beast.

Patrick observes the exchange between Sally and some dude who just saved her life. No, not some dude. The medical student that helped him and Gavin the other night. Who the hell is this DUDE? Victor leads the way as they approach but Patrick’s hackles are way up. Then Victor starts speaking and it’s clear they’ve got beef of some kind. Patrick focuses on Sally who, thankfully, focuses on him rather than the fuckhead lifesaver.

She asks Patrick to take her home, thank you very much, and he doesn’t hesitate. Even though once they walk away from the two bickering men (or whatever) Patrick starts feeling the tension mount at what the hell he’s supposed to say to her.