As I pulled my car into the parking lot, my heart began to race. I had been preparing for this day for the last few weeks, but nothing ever made me feel truly ready to face down one of the undead. I wasn't really killing them, yes – they were already dead and I was merely putting them to rest – but you can rest assured that it still fucked me up to stare down what looked like a human and put a stake through their heart. Or a silver bullet, in this case, if all went according to plan.

I still could hardly believe sometimes that I had gotten myself into this line of work, if you could call it work. Just a couple of years ago I had been watching TV at home with my roommate, working an honest job, going out with someone cute when I got the chance just like anyone else. In fact, I still was doing all that. And yet at the same time, I was spending a whole lot of time on online chat platforms talking about the best ways to take out vampires, getting all the evidence together that I could to be confident that this Naomi Rennt really was a vampire. Buying a case of silver bullets on an auction site, learning to shoot a gun even though the idea of even carrying one really freaked me out, sharpening wooden stakes on my kitchen counter, stringing together heads of the smelliest garlic I could find on a necklace, paying hundreds of dollars for a blood bag from my local hospital… it all felt out of character, and yet I felt a strong conviction to continue.

Why? Because I knew I was helping my community. Most people in rural New England were too caught up in small-town living to consider that there were undead predators out for their blood, stalking through the darkness where most wouldn't see them. But when my neighbor across the hall, that stringy-haired lady with the three dogs, had gone missing, I wasn't willing to turn a blind eye. I did my research, linked her disappearance to other unexplained disappearances, and found their bodies buried in what was supposed to be some guy's grave. Then I tracked down the guy who was supposed to have been in that grave to begin with, found out that he had been creeping around local nightclubs and drinking the blood of random patrons, and I stabbed that pale motherfucker through the heart. Disappearances solved, the world made a better place. But I wasn't gonna leave well enough alone. There were others like him out there, only older and more terrifying, that much more callous toward human life.

So I became part of a community. Living in the area I did, it was admittedly going to be a while before I actually found another vampire to take out, but it happened eventually, only by chance. I was at the movies with my roommate and her bestie, but I couldn't keep my attention fixed on the movie because there was something funny about the two women in the row ahead of me. One of them was an awfully pale lady who kept whispering in the other lady's ear, while the other lady wasn't paying attention to the movie any more than I was, moreso fawning over her pale friend. But no, she wasn't her friend. I caught a glimpse of the pale lady's fangs on the way out of the theater and knew for sure. The first guy had been all alone – I got the impression he didn't really know what he was doing as a vampire and kept killing his victims left and right, consumed by bloodlust – but the distracted woman was the vampire next to her's thrall. A terrifying idea, losing her mind to a leech, only able to think of satisfying the monster's depraved needs. Made a willing slave against her will after a single bite.

I became more determined than ever after getting a glimpse of that. That vampire had made a grave mistake when she came to a public theater, and I swore to make her pay, to save her thrall from a life of pointless servitude until that bloodsucker got tired of her and decided to end it. I acted fast, in the interest of getting to her before that happened. The poor enthralled woman fought hard, but she wasn't able to stop me from incapacitating her with pepper spray and luring her supposed goddess in with a blood bag, a trick I had learned from my new friends in the hunter community that worked like a charm, leaving that not-so-divine predator open to a single shot of silver. I got her former thrall, blubbering over her false goddess' death like a confused child, into therapy as soon as I could, and rested easy knowing that I had helped someone – probably a lot more than one person in the long run.

I couldn't leave it there either, though two successful hunts was more than a lot of my colleagues could count under their belts. That had been only a couple of months ago, and here I was now, standing outside the Seagate Hotel where I was quite confident yet another vampire was likely lying asleep on this brisk autumn morning, unaware that this would be the last day of her undeath. How did I know? Well, my roommate Lauren's best friend Dana had stayed here for a day at the beach with her girlfriend a couple of months ago, right at the end of summer. She had gone out for ice late that night, and saw a creepy-looking, pale-faced lady slip out of the stairwell a few doors down, her lips stained with something red. The news had only just reached me roughly a month ago when Dana was over, but the news had caught my attention. I did my research – I asked everyone I could find in my area who I found records of having stayed at the hotel if they had seen anything weird, and a coherent picture began to form. Long red hair, pale skin, late twenties. Dana reported bloodstains, and the lady who started her shift after I left the card store I work at told me a story that sounded an awful lot like this creepy pale lady hypnotizing someone into letting them into their room.

Individually, this could've been someone misinterpreting something they saw, but after talking to eight or nine people, I had become confident. I was seeing trends here. She was at the hotel consistently over the course of visits by all sorts of different people from different walks of life over the last two years. That probably meant that this was her lair. She seemed to take an interest in women exclusively – okay, vampires could have sexualities too. Or maybe just differing tastes? But I wasn't convinced that there was much of a difference there from their perspective. Then I had spent weeks searching through the state registry for burials and ID cards until a name came up in common for red-haired women: Naomi Rennt, who held an ID card issued just three years ago, and yet shared a name and physical description with someone who had supposedly been buried in a cemetery within a hundred miles of the hotel, two centuries ago.

She wasn't in that grave, though – I made sure of that myself. Macabre, sure, but a hell of a lot better than finding a stack of decaying bodies like I had with the first guy. And so now I was sure – Naomi Rennt was going to have to go, and I was going to be the one to make sure of that. And yet no one on the server had believed me! I was frustrated as hell knowing that, sending messages one night expecting an enthusiastic response only to wake up the next morning and find nothing but disapproval, my previously supportive peers telling me it was highly improbable at best, that one of them had stayed at the hotel a year ago and didn't see anything strange, that I was overeager and seeing vampires where they didn't exist, that it wasn't possible for a vampire to remain unnoticed for so long in a public business like that. But they were overlooking my reasoning – a 200-year old vampire would have a large number of thralls, probably including most of the hotel staff! She would be able to evade suspicion at a hotel specifically because most people didn't stay for long, and if they saw a weird stranger they wouldn't think much of it! Any one of those random guests could be her victim – she had access to so many people! But they just wouldn't listen, so I would have to prove it to them myself.

Enough stalling, I had to tell myself. I was here for a reason, and the quicker I could get this done, the better. I had run all this through my head a thousand times by this point, but it was time to put it all into practice. I checked myself one more time to be absolutely sure I'd be equipped – I had a garlic necklace around my neck, a wooden stake in one pocket, a silver fork I got at a flea market in the other, a handgun in a holster on my belt loaded with silver bullets, and last but not least, a can of pepper spray on the other side of my waist, not for Ms. Rennt herself, but for her thralls. Though they'd be loyal to her, they were made to be against their will. They were victims, not collaborators – their lives had to be valued. I took a deep breath, steadied myself, and walked straight toward the hotel's front door without looking back.

Pushing the door open, I had a look around. It was a nice hotel, but by no means the nicest I'd ever seen. This was a tourist hotel – one that people stayed at for just a few nights so that they could make use of its beach access. The lobby was well-furnished and smelled freshly cleaned, but there wasn't gold plating or anything like that. Perfectly innocuous. I had already confirmed this on mapping websites and the like, of course, but it bolstered my confidence to see it in person.

To start out, I was going to try and talk it out. Maybe the hotel staff weren't thralls – this would be a good litmus test one way or another. And if they were, I'd know for sure what I was dealing with, and likely be better equipped to handle them than they were to handle me. I stepped up to the counter, where a short, curly blonde-haired woman was standing. As she looked me up and down, she seemed suddenly on edge. Possibly a red flag, though I can't say I wouldn't necessarily react the same way if someone equipped the way I was walked into my workplace pretty early in the morning.

"Welcome to the Seagate Hotel," she said, gulping. Her coworker, a taller, black-haired woman, exchanged a glance with her and then stepped back into an office behind the desk. I kept my eye on her. "I'd like to ask how I can help you, but I believe that's a gun. You're going to have to leave that in your car, ma'am. We don't allow weapons here." Hard to tell, still. That was a reasonable restriction for a hotel to have, I had to say. I was going to have to choose my next words carefully.

"I'm sorry," I said, removing the gun from its holster but holding it by the barrel gingerly, the safe way. I pulled back the loading mechanism to reveal the distinctly silver bullets inside. "These aren't for humans, as you can see. But I understand, and I'm sorry for bringing something like this in without an explanation." I bent down and set the gun down on the ground next to me, out of the woman across the desk's reach, but not anywhere it could hurt her either. She kept peering down at the gun, and I saw sweat drops running down her forehead. Still an understandable reaction from where she was standing.

"My name is Valerie Hawthorne," I continued. "I was hoping I could meet with one of the guests here at the hotel. Her name's Naomi Rennt." For just a moment after I said the name, I saw the woman behind the desk's eyes light up. I was almost certain that she at least recognized the name.

"And… why do you want to meet with one of our guests, Ms. Hawthorne?" the woman at the desk asked, looking at the computer on the desk and turning it on. She peered back toward the office for a moment, and her coworker gave a small, almost imperceptible nod and began to dial a number on a phone attached to the wall.

"Well, I'm a trained vampire hunter. I've got good evidence that Naomi Rennt is a vampire who's using this hotel as her lair, and I was hoping to do you all a service and make sure she's not gonna hurt you or any of your guests ever again," I explained.

The woman behind the desk looked almost panicked for a moment, but then sighed, and looked at me with a complete poker face, but still sweating hard. "I'm sorry, Ms. Hawthorne. We don't normally disclose guest lists, but there's no one with that name staying here. Please take your weapons and go. I, and all of us here at the Seagate Hotel, appreciate your commitment to helping–"

"Say that again?" I cut her off. Everything about this was working up my nerves. The lady in front of me lying to my face about not knowing Ms. Rennt's name, probably to serve that very same undead predator who didn't give a fuck about her, and her coworker in the back, as we spoke, whispering frantically to someone (I could guess who), in a conversation I couldn't quite hear. These two were victims of that very same vampire, I was confident now. I couldn't let them stay that way. "Tell me again you don't know who Naomi Rennt is." I sounded out the name syllable by syllable, and I saw the woman behind the desk visibly clench her teeth in distress.

"There's no one by that name here! I–I–I don't know what to tell you!" She was shivering now, struggling to say even just one more word.

"Who's your coworker talking to back there, huh? Naomi Rennt herself? Is that who? Naomi… Rennt?" I looked her in the eyes as I said the name again and again.

Her expression turned to anger, and she produced a Swiss army knife from behind the desk. "You will not harm my Mistress, you maniac…" she whispered under her breath.

I brandished my can of pepper spray and sprayed it in her face, turning my face away as I heard her coughs and screams. "I'm sorry, I really am," I said. "But I won't let that maniac hurt you any longer." I walked around behind the desk swiftly, spraying another small spurt at her blonde friend on the phone as she backed away, saying something indistinct to me on the phone as she fell to her knees, blinded. I put the pepper spray back in its holster and picked up the phone. I was sad it had to come to this.

No breath on the other line. Just silence. I thought a moment about what to say, if this really was who I thought it was. No sound from her, so I spoke. "Naomi Rennt. I’m coming up. I know what you are. Your thralls might deny it, but I know it’s you. It’s morning, and there’s nowhere to run. Surrender now, and we can make it easy. A single silver bullet to the heart—"

She interrupted me, and I wasn't quite sure I was ready for what came next. "You think this will be easy? I will make a feast of your blood, mortal!" I heard back, a silky smooth, feminine voice that was tinged with experience and anger. A pretty voice, yes, I couldn't deny that, but one that belonged to a monster. I heard her slam the phone down, and held the receiver weakly. Was I in over my head on this? Her thralls hadn't been too hard to take down, but perhaps the real advantage she gained from them was finding out from them I was here.

No, no, I had to stick with this. I could say with absolute certainty and vindication now that there was a vampire here, one that had threatened to drink my blood quite overtly. I shuddered at the thought of that being my fate. The woman who had previously been the thrall of that previous vampire lady had told me how good it felt to be bitten, to be drained, to sustain her goddess, her tone filled with such genuine love and admiration for the bloodsucker that had made her hers. And I had heard all about it when I did my research on the server. A vampire's bite was painful and pleasurable in equal measure, each feeling enhancing the other, inducing a level of euphoria that usually drove the victim to orgasm. A terrifying thought, to be put through that against your will, unable to scream for help because it feels too good. Appealing in a sense, but I wouldn't let it happen to me. I couldn't.

And as I thought to myself, just for a few seconds, feeling a bit paralyzed by indecision, the blonde-haired enthralled woman reached blindly around for my legs, struggling to get to her feet. "You won't hurt my Mistress! Please!" she shouted. "And even if you do get close…you won't stand a chance against her! She'll take you like she took me, like she took Sandra over there…you'll love every minute of it! You don't stand a chance!"

I deftly stepped out of the way as she continued to poke around fruitlessly. "I'm well equipped to handle any vampire," I said. "It won't take me long, and when I'm done… well, I know this is probably hard to hear, but you'll be better off for it."

The blonde lady, the one whose name I would later learn was Gail, shook her head vigorously. "No! No! I'll gladly give my life for Mistress!" She stumbled to her feet, still blinded by pepper spray, and lurched toward me, falling to her knees again after a couple of steps. "No…" She began to cry, as I walked over to the desk, where Sandra, the dark-haired woman whose name I had just learned, was clinging to the edge, trying to stay standing. I grabbed a stack of card keys encoded for the top floor – almost all of the sightings had been there, including Dana's; I suspected that she was staying in the deluxe suite since it was sold out on the hotel's website – and walked out of the lobby toward the stairwell, tossing my depleted pepper spray can in a garbage bin on the way.

"I will not lose!" I shouted back to Sandra and Gail. "You won't have to live like this any longer." I walked into the stairwell, empty as you'd expect for a building with a working elevator, and shut the door behind me.

Walking up the stairs filled me with dread and anticipation, but I needed to calm down and figure out what to do. If she really was in the deluxe suite, Ms. Rennt would probably be expecting me to expect her to be in there, hiding in her lair. But I could tell from the way she had set this all up that she was pretty strategic when it came to defending herself. Living on the top floor, it would take me a while to get up to her, giving her ample time to prepare. The people on the server thought it was unlikely she'd bottleneck herself on the top floor, but it wasn't really much of a bottleneck, was it? She had as few escape routes during daylight hours as she did from any part of the building; that was, none at all. And during the night, she could leave out a window without problem. I still hadn't gotten a definitive answer on whether her kind could turn into bats or not, but she could easily survive a fall either way. Her thralls in the lobby served mostly as a distraction – I could get past them as easily as I did, but they let her know I was here. So many potential victims, as well… all the unsuspecting people sleeping or getting ready for the day in their rooms. In a situation like this, any one of them could potentially be hypnotized to do her bidding. It went beyond thralls – you couldn't trust anyone who had come face to face with a leech like her.

So I would not fall for her tricks. I would not assume that she was in her obvious place. I would get the civilians out of there, and put a silver bullet in that bloodsucker's heart. As I reached the fifth story and the top of the stairwell, I took one last deep breath and opened the door to a pristine hotel hallway that smelled like nothing more than cleaning chemicals.

The first thing I noticed was that all of the blinds had been pulled down. That alone was suspicious – I'd expect them to be open all day and night to let the sunshine in for hotel guests. But letting the sunshine in wouldn't suit Ms. Rennt very well, would it? Then again, the sun had already been up for well over an hour, so she couldn't have done this herself. That means she had most likely left her room… gotten a nearby thrall to darken the hallway for her, or maybe she crushed the will of a hotel guest like a wad of paper and had them do it while they were unable to think. Either way, this was clearly a new development, and it meant she probably expected to be out here in the hallway as opposed to in her room.

I remembered at once that I needed to save the civilians from any further harm. Addressing the guests on the floor as a whole, I shouted as loud as I could, not worried about Ms. Rennt hearing me since she no doubt was already expecting me to arrive soon. “Listen, everyone on this floor! I’m gonna warn you once! There’s a vampire on this floor of the hotel! I repeat, a vampire! A bloodsucking creature of the night who will try to pass herself off as a living person just like you or me! I’m going to take care of her, but I would strongly recommend evacuating the floor as soon as possible! She’s a red-haired woman with pale skin, a tall and slender build, and a terrifyingly powerful gaze! By no means should you look her in the eyes, nor let her into your room if she asks! She’ll need to be invited, after all! Don’t give her that opportunity!" In addition to saving innocent lives, this would give me a better idea of where she was hiding. With doors opening and people rushing out into the hallway, she'd have far fewer places to hide.

At first, the hallway was deadly silent. But a few moments later, random hotel patrons began running out of their rooms, many carrying their purses and backpacks and suitcases as they headed toward the stairwell behind me. "Forget your things!” I shouted, giving small nods of approval as people ran past me, thanking me with looks of fear on their faces. “You can come back for them later! Let me take care of this! Go, go, go! Don’t wait!”

The hallway became quiet once again, leaving only me, Naomi Rennt, and anyone foolish enough or deep enough under her control to refuse to leave their rooms. She was most definitely not one of the people who had left – I would be able to recognize her by sight. If not for her undead attributes, for the face that I had spent hours looking at on public registries. Not truly her own face in those public registries, I had to assume – getting a photo of her was impossible for the last two centuries (and before that they didn't exist) – but someone similar enough to her to convince government officials. Assuming she didn't just look those officials in the eyes and make them believe it, I suppose. But that had holes in it, and in her situation, I would certainly provide a convincing photo.

Filled with determination, I shifted my focus to that hidden bloodsucker. "Alright then, Naomi Rennt, where are you? Show yourself and we can make this easy! We both know you aren’t making it out of here tonight, but I don’t want to make a mess if it’s not necessary," I said. I began walking down the hallway, taking a moment to peer through each doorway for anything suspicious. All quiet.

“This is a nice hotel, after all! And after you’re dead, those thralls of yours will have no one to serve. They’ll go back to being regular people with regular lives, no longer forced to aid and abet an undead predator. Does that make you upset, you control freak?” More and more empty hotel rooms with sunlight flooding in. No tricks in that way. But one room caught my attention in particular – the ice room, reminding me of Dana's trip out for ice during which she had seen this same undead predator. That could be a viable hiding spot. Cold, like she probably liked it, and unnoticed by most. But thanks to Dana it wouldn't be overlooked by me. I kept an eye on it – this was worth at least a hunch.

I raised my voice to be sure she could hear me. If this was gonna work, I was gonna need to bait her as much as I possibly could. She'd be awfully quick, so I needed to make sure I would be quicker than her. “Well well, rooms full of sunlight. Not ones you’re likely to inhabit. Where could you be? Your room, perhaps? The deluxe suite?" I asked mockingly. “I swiped a card key from the front desk. I’m coming right in.” I put the wooden stake in my left hand back in my pocket and brought out a card key, it didn't really matter which one now for the effect I was hoping for…

Dropping the card key for better aim, I whirled around, coming face to face with the woman, no, the monster that I had been tracking down for these last weeks. She was just as I expected her to be – wavy red hair at roughly armpit length cut to have bangs, a fanged grin that soon turned to surprise when I caught her sights, one hand covering her nose as she struggled to tolerate the garlic scent I was filling the whole floor with, skin paler than any human, dressed in a low-cut red and black sundress that I immediately considered the irony of and suede ankle boots. I averted my gaze from her eyes, staring straight at her chest which I had my gun pointed directly at.

I realized for a fleeting moment that the woman I was looking at was pretty, prettier than I had envisioned. I would have said that she was one of the prettiest girls I'd seen in recent memory if she hadn't been a monster who fed on the blood of the innocent. She had an amazing figure that her outfit seemed very carefully chosen to show off, breasts half-visible from the low cut of her dress, full lips that seemed as ready to blow me a kiss as they were to drink my blood, thighs that would be comfy to lay on if she was a living human, long, shapely legs that looked freshly shaved (though I think she just took a very long time to grow hair). If it was anyone but her, anyone but a heartless bloodsucker, I'd have to consider asking her out. But unfortunately, it was not the time, nor the place to do that, nor to even think about it. It was the time and place, instead, to shoot a silver bullet through her heart, and put this all behind me.

“Gotcha!” I shouted, stifling those foolish thoughts and feeling a great deal of triumph. I chuckled a bit and cracked my neck. "Don’t think I wouldn’t check every room! Any last words, bloodsucker? Oh, is the smell too much for you?" I glanced down at my garlic necklace momentarily. "Nothing to say, then? You’ve spent your whole undeath manipulating people, and now you’re lost for—"

"Oh, shut up!" Ms. Rennt shouted back, pulling her hand off her nose and narrowing her eyes at me, I could see out of the corner of my eye. Never catch her gaze, I reminded myself. If I catch her gaze, it's over. “The smell is awful, but I have many things to say to you, Valerie Hawthorne!”

Hearing her voice on the phone was one thing, but in person it was something else entirely. Even though she was clearly angry, she had maybe the softest and most melodic voice I had ever heard, effortlessly easy to listen to and yet spoken just low, and just quickly enough that it took me a moment to process every word. But I didn't have a moment, I realized, and the last thing I needed was to be caught up on the pretty voice of a woman who had stated her intent to make me her dinner. So I gritted my teeth, steadied my hands, and took the shot.

The shock of gunfire made me take a moment to realize, but that silver bullet – the first of three – was in the doorframe now. I wish I could've afforded more, but even a single one went for $200. Ms. Rennt had dashed out of the way nearly too quickly for me to see, taking refuge back behind the ice machine where I could only barely make out her ankles and a few loose strands of hair, not nearly enough for a clear shot. Approaching there wouldn't be easy, but there was a silver bullet in the doorframe now – something that'd make it a lot harder for her to escape now.

“What exactly do you think you’re saving those people from? A monster?” Ms. Rennt asked, speaking in a yet softer and more melodic tone that just made my heart want to melt. I realized at once that that really had been her angry voice that she was using a moment ago. Ughhhh… for every word she said, I just wanted to wait patiently for the next one… “I’m not a monster, Valerie. I just need a place to call my own. You understand that, don’t you? Everyone needs shelter, including my kind. Especially when people like you think we’re fair game to hunt down and slaughter.”

No! No! Pure bullshit! I wouldn't listen to the self-pitying lies of a parasite like her! I couldn't! I remembered why I was here, and what I was here to do, and I promised myself that I wouldn't listen to another single one of her (sexy, enticing – NO!) words.

“Shelter? This is so much more than shelter for you! You enslaved those poor people downstairs! You drain their literal lifeblood for your own sustenance! That’s not shelter, it’s… fucked up! And I won’t tolerate it!” I stood there for a moment, panting, seething – waiting for her response that I could hardly stop myself from wanting to hear.

“They’re quite happy with the arrangement, I assure you," she whispered back, taking on an almost cutesy, mocking tone that made me feel ridiculous for just a short moment. And she was talking low, almost hard to distinguish over the hum of the ice machine, almost too quiet to hear – and yet I made out the words she said, the mockery, the disrespect. "And I’m sure you saw. They’re very, very good girls who are eager to please their Mistress. Nothing fucked up about that.” Their Mistress? I imagined, just for a moment, what it would be like to be in that position. Waiting on her, serving her, desperately hoping that she'd decide to fuck me then and there… for that moment, it almost sounded appealing, to let my worries go and prioritize her pleasure. She was pretty… and for just a tiny moment, I thought to myself that serving someone like her might not be the worst thing in the world.

But no! No! Showing weakness like that against a vampire was liable to get me killed, or worse! She was no pretty girl, not really, just a monster taking that form to lure in poor saps like I had almost been a moment ago. All so that she could drink my blood and make me her slave. Nothing more than an adaptation to help her catch prey. But I was no prey, I thought to myself as I let out an angry growl to reassure myself. I was a hunter, and Ms. Rennt was my target. I had come prepared.

“I have had enough of this! Suck on this, you filthy thing!” I shouted. I reached into one of my vest pockets and pulled out the blood bag I had been keeping prepared for a moment like this. If she was going to hide, I'd draw her out and put her down at her most vulnerable. Her kind couldn't resist the smell of blood, after all. They craved it like rabid animals, and would drop everything to get just a small taste. It had worked on the one from the theater, and it would work just as well now. I had picked one out from the hospital that I knew she'd like – AB negative blood from a woman in her early 30s. Just her type of victim, and blood like that was rare, the kind that even a prolific bloodsucker like her wasn't able to get often. It would be irresistible.

I tossed the bag onto the floor of the ice room, shouting “Taste this, you animal!” as it landed with a wet thud against the tile. I waited for a second, a terrifyingly tense second, my gun in hand pointed in the direction of the bag, ready to fire as soon as she exposed herself to me. Any moment now…no matter how hard she tried, she wouldn't be able to hold out for long.

Then I heard her laugh, a hearty and delightful and girly laugh that filled me with at first confusion and then abject terror. How could this be happening? For her to even last a few seconds after seeing and smelling that bag was practically unthinkable. But she had the willpower to face it head on and laugh? Was she that self-controlled? Did she have access to that much fresh blood that something like this wouldn't even interest her? I couldn't parse it. I put my hand over my ear, trying to block out the laughing, but she just continued, taking it to a low giggle and then a snicker. I couldn't believe it.

“What— What's so funny?" I shouted, after a few seconds of not even finding the words. “Go for the blood! It's what you monsters do!" It was! It was! It had been confirmed for me by everyone on the server, by my own lived experience…and I became certain at that moment that I was in over my head. But there was no backing down now. This was do or die, do or become nothing more than her toy.

“You think I’m that desperate?” Ms. Rennt asked, her voice still filled with glee and even more mocking than before. “What, have you only killed fledglings before? I’ve lived for two centuries, Valerie Hawthorne! I can control my urges quite well. But truly, thank you for the blood bag, it does look really excellent.” No, that was true… they hadn't been vampires for long. It was no more than a month for the first one, almost two years for the woman at the theater… two years didn't sound that short to me, but by Ms. Rennt's standards, I supposed it certainly was. The ones my crowd tracked down tended to be on the younger side…older bloodsuckers tended to be far better at hiding themselves. I had gotten lucky finding her here, I had thought. It was a chance to take on a more serious threat, to prove my worth as a hunter. But I was not turning out to be so fortunate after all.

“You’re supposed to lose control! You’re supposed to lap it up like an animal!” I pleaded. I still held out hope even then for her to lose her composure and lunge toward the perfectly preserved blood in depraved desperation. But she remained perfectly still and in control of herself, perfectly able to hold herself back from that instant gratification. It was more than I could say for myself in many cases.

“I assure you, I’ve always had control of this situation, Valerie,” she said, fully resuming that hushed, awful, beautiful, terrifying, sexy tone of hers. “I’ve been waiting up here for you to come directly into my clutches. And I assure you, there’s a lot more blood in you than in that bag." I shuddered at that last comment, the reminder that she saw me as nothing more than a food source strengthening my resolve.

“Why don’t you come out from behind that ice machine and say that to my face, you coward?” I said, steadying my aim back toward the ice machine. Two bullets left, and I would not let them go to waste.

“Oh?” Ms. Rennt asked, sounding ingenuine as all hell despite her pretty voice. “Do you want to look me in the eyes? Is that what you’re asking for? It could be arranged.” And just for a moment, I pictured myself looking directly into her eyes, those beautiful bright hazel eyes of hers that I knew could drain the willpower out of me in an instant and lull me into a deep trance that there would be no escaping from. It all sounded so nice for that moment…being made to kneel, to suck her tits, to call her my Mistress… being made to forget my experiences, to lie to my colleagues for her benefit. And of course, to fall into her arms with a blissful smile on my face while she bit me on the neck and drank to her satisfaction.

I stomped my feet, building up adrenaline once again. I couldn't get caught up in daydreaming, not at this juncture, not even for a split second, and particularly not of that nature. I knew she was working her charms, that uncanny charisma that all bloodsuckers had that made her demands that much harder to refuse, her will that much harder to ignore. The kind of charisma that made you want to obey her without question, to look into her eyes because she was just so pretty and appealing. But no, I had to stop myself! Even thinking thoughts like that, analyzing this too deeply as I stood there in the hallway carried grave risks. No more thinking about the beautiful woman, no, the soulless shell, in the room I was standing outside. Stick to the mission and get it done, without sentimentality. That was the hunter way.

And so I shouted back, doing my best to dispel those thoughts by speaking to Ms. Rennt as an equal. No, not Ms. Rennt, it was time to drop that. Naomi. Speaking as equals after all, right? And she had been calling me Valerie. I would not put her above me in any fashion. She needed to remember that I was a true threat, not someone to condescend to.

“I won’t fall for your tricks that easily, bloodsucker!” I said. “I know what you’d do to me…warp my mind, turn me against myself. You’ll pay for what you’ve done to these people! You bring harm to them even when they obey your every word!” Maybe not the best choice of words in this situation…I needed to stop thinking about her unnatural allure, being hypnotized, being turned into her obedient thrall who hung on her every word. But it was quite difficult to stop thinking intrusive thoughts on purpose, wasn't it?

“Harm? Oh, I don’t think so,” said Naomi. “I know how to hold myself back. Like I said before, I’ve always been in control. I can assure you, the staff is quite alright. Healthy, even. I only take what I need to survive. You can rest assured, I take very good care of my precious thralls. Doesn’t that sound nice? To be taken good care of, provided for? And provide in exchange?”

And, indeed, she did make it sound nice. Every second, I could feel myself slipping more, thinking more and more about what it would be like to be her thrall. It was bad, I knew this, I knew it was putting everything I had worked for at risk, not to mention my own well-being. But I couldn't stop myself from letting the thoughts run through my head on repeat. Being patted on the head while I kneeled before her. Held in her arms as I calmed down from the euphoria of her fangs in my neck, knowing she wouldn't let me go. Crushed between her powerful thighs… My imagination was running wild, Naomi's sinister allure infiltrating my gay little heart and making my pussy wetter by the second. But I had to hold myself back. Even thinking these thoughts, I knew deep down that she was a monster who needed to be stopped. And no matter where my thoughts led, I couldn't give up on that. I summoned up all my courage and resolve, remembering a cheesy line from a video game that my first-year college roommate had gotten me to play. It was better than nothing, so I'd put my heart into it.

“Harm isn’t just physical, you monster! You steal men’s souls, and make them your slaves!” I grunted. It was what she did, at the end of the day. A thrall who only served her Mistress couldn't be said to have a human soul at all. She had taken that from the women downstairs.

But Naomi only giggled, and began whispering back to me. “I can assure you that’s not true. I only do that to women.”

Always in her cutesy, condescending tone. It was a reasonable response, I guess. Maybe I should've thought that through more before saying it, but it only fueled my resolve that she'd make a condescending response like that to such a dire accusation. Naomi was heartless, uncaring…regardless of what she claimed, I could be sure that she didn't really care for her thralls, not as individuals. A person who truly cared for someone didn't take away their will to resist entirely. I grunted in anger, keeping my gun held tight.

“I’m quite selective, actually," Naomi continued. "But you seem like a very good candidate. Very pretty, and from what I can tell, quite competent at what you do. I just wish I could smell your blood to say for sure…all that garlic is really stuffing up the air, don’t you think? What if you took that necklace off? Just so I could get a good whiff, of course. Nothing more than that.”

Pretty? She thought I was pretty – her, one of the sexiest people I'd ever seen? She wanted to smell me… for her, I'm sure that meant a lot. It meant she was attracted to me… to a vampire, sexual desire was supposed to become indistinguishable from bloodthirst. I was thinking horrible thoughts, horribly sexy ones, but it felt so good. And I wouldn't act on them. I was flattered, and she was making my gay little heart flutter, but I knew why I was here. I wouldn't let myself down, no matter how good it was starting to feel. I reminded myself of the implications of her flattery, that it was nothing more than an attempt to make a meal out of my blood, and that made me shudder in horror.

"I'll never listen to what you say, fiend," I said. "You think that just by talking, you can convince me to disarm? To throw away everything I’ve worked for and become what, a compliant thrall? I'm here with a righteous cause. I'm here to rid the world of evil – your evil! I could never obey you!" She was evil, wicked, heartless… she wanted me to feel the way I was, to be flustered and blushy and wet just long enough to slip up, to look her in the eyes or let my guard down so that she could grab me and force me against the wall with her superior strength… no, no forcing against the wall, thinking of that had to be absolutely forbidden, I had fantasized about being pinned against the wall by your average tall girl for long enough. If Naomi did that, I couldn't think of it as sexy. It would be the worst-case scenario, but I couldn't stop myself from thinking about how hot it would be.

"Well, I've been known to be rather… compelling," Naomi said (and she was not lying). "Especially to pretty little things like you. And you really think your cause is so righteous? I need shelter. I need sustenance. What exactly do you expect a creature with my needs to do? Do you want me to go hungry? Do you think it's evil to want to sustain myself? Is it evil when a cheetah runs down a gazelle? Except, I don’t make a habit of killing anyone. I only take what I need." No, no… I was not prey. Not her foodstuff, no matter how many times she called me pretty, getting my wetter each time. I wouldn't let myself lose here. She had all the answers, she knew how to respond to a hunter's accusations, clearly, but she was wrong. And I wasn't about to let her stick to her bullshit any longer.

“You take what you need, do you?" I said. "Does that include their free will to refuse? Of course it’s evil! You’re no cheetah, Naomi Rennt! You were once a human, and when people hurt each other without remorse, that is evil! The root of it!” I took a breath before continuing. Naomi had her bullshit to fall back on and make herself feel better about being an undead bloodsucker, but I knew what I was fighting for. My community, my friends, humanity as a whole. Their safety was in my hands.

“It’s depraved! You already lived a full human life, but apparently that wasn’t enough for you! So here you are, 200 years later, preying on people who weren’t even alive when you were! What does that make you? A leech, a bloodsucker! Not a cheetah!” I was 27. She was 7 or 8 times my age at least, minimum! She might've looked young like me, but she should've been dead long, long ago by human standards. And that longevity was stolen from so many people, hundreds by now, I could be sure. They would be avenged.

“Casting aside further analogies that I find ridiculous… you clearly know nothing about me,” Naomi said, taking on a tone that was calmer than her mocking condescension. “Do you even know how I became a vampire? I think not. Come around here and look at my youthful face… look at my eyes.”

I grunted. She wouldn't get me that easy, not even close. I suspected what was coming, a sob story to explain why drinking the blood of innocents was actually OK for her to do all along.

“I was only 26 when I was turned," she continued. "Our ages never change after that, you know, for older or for younger. I hadn’t lived a full life. I barely knew who I was! I never learned to really live until I was already dead. The one who turned me was a real fucker who wanted to use me for his own, but at the end of the day I’m glad it happened! It was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

A traumatic past? I understood that, in some ways. My father had walked out when I was in high school because he cared more for his addiction than he did for my mother and I. But for a vampire, it didn't change anything. They had all been turned by another, mostly violently. I sympathized with her hurt, but it didn't justify what she had been doing for the past two centuries. And she claimed that other bloodsucker was using her for his own? Pot, kettle, black.

“So now…you use that story as a justification to use others for your own?” I asked after a moment.

“I use it to explain why nobody can tell me what to do! And no, no, I manipulate humans, sure. How else would I get along with maniacs like you always after my kind? But I try to be gentle. I don’t hurt humans for no reason. I take what I need, but I don’t suck you dry. Not like that fucker did to me,” Naomi responded.

I moved to the side, surely completely out of her sight. This all was getting to be a bit much for me. I needed to take a deep breath and focus, remind myself that I had my shit together. No falling for the shallow allure of yet another leech like her, no matter how appealing it sounded. No matter how much a part of me wanted to kneel before her and be patted on the head, to bow down and worship her like a goddess. A beautiful, sexy, dangerous woman who maybe really could be gentle to those close to her. My Mistress, someone I would serve eternally just for the chance to be bitten and cuddlefucked. None of that would ever be me, but it was enticing.

“Would you like that?” Naomi asked sweetly, sexily, enticingly. “For me to be gentle to you?” Yes, yes, I did want that! Please! I wanted to be treated gently, to be given a little nibble on the neck and kissed softly, to spend a long night being her little spoon. But this wasn't about my wants! I needed to take care of myself and those I was fighting for. After all of this, how could I trust that she really wouldn't hurt me or any of them?

“Gentle?” I asked. “What, even now, when I came here to kill you or die trying, you would claim to be gentle to me?” She was generous, I had to acknowledge that. I'm sure the one from the theater would've broken my neck by now if she had gotten the chance. She had a cruel streak next to Naomi, who seemed so… gentle, yes, and nurturing compared. Not someone who had any desire to hurt or kill. She had been pushed to do so, forced to by her biology. I could fix her, I realized.

“Of course, Valerie. Put down your garlic and your weapons and come over here. I’ll be very gentle to you, I promise. This has all been about self-preservation for me! Help me live the life I always wanted to before I died. Even you, a strong hunter as you are, must be able to sympathize with that,” she said.

Yes. I could fix her. I wanted to badly now… together, we could find a way. Animal blood, perhaps? She had probably already tried that. I had my doubts that it sustained vampires at all, given that they all seemed to go for humans. But I could go for more blood bags… I'd do what I needed to find a way. I could see now that she wasn't fundamentally evil. Not like I had thought when I arrived. Naomi Rennt had lived a long and tortured existence, forced to feed off those that she had once lived among. I would find a way. I'd have to. And on the way, she'd be gentle to me…she'd kiss me and hold me and fuck me and maybe take a bit of my blood until we found another way together… I was no scientist, but I'd make it work out, I'd have to. She deserved it. She was such a beautiful and compelling lady after all. I could listen to her voice all day long, just following along with whatever she asked, and I'd feel like I was walking on air.

NO! I was falling for her bad. I was in so deep under her control already, after just a few minutes. Finding reasons to obey her that I should have recognized earlier were complete nonsense. I was this close to walking up and looking her in the eyes without another care in the world. But she was not my friend, and I was in way over my head. I needed to get out of here at once so I could regroup… I knew now I didn't stand a chance, but I would not be her thrall.

“Why don’t I just… go, instead?” I asked weakly. It was the only chance I stood. We could put this all behind us and move on. She was a monster, yes, but not completely heartless. Just this once, I'd have to let it go, live to fight another day.

“Come on now. There’s no need to be scared,” Naomi said in the softest and most pleasant voice I had heard from her thus far. “I’ll be very gentle, I promise. Wouldn’t you like to be a good girl? Put down your weapons and come over here."

A… a direct command from her, from the prettiest woman I'd ever met. It hit me like a ton of bricks, and I felt the last of the fight drain out of me like sand from an hourglass. I was in so deep now… how bad could obeying her be, really? It sounded kind of nice. What's the worst that could happen? I felt dizzy and lightheaded, like I was this close to just zonking out and surrendering myself to her and her beautiful voice, and her full lips and her fangs and her tits… what if I did put down my weapons and walk over there? What if I did it of my own accord, just to show her it was possible? I could still obey her on my own terms. It would feel good, and I'd show that Naomi… I'd show her I could obey her without losing myself completely.

I opened my hand and the gun fell to the floor beside me, clattering against the tile on the threshold of the ice room. Then my pocket, the one with the silver fork. No, I wouldn't need that silly thing. She was going to be gentle. I was safe, so I pushed it out too and it felt to the floor. I slowly reached up and took the garlic necklace off of my neck, dropping it to the ground. A gentle girl like her shouldn't need to deal with a smell that was repulsive to her. I felt so good about myself. I was helping someone, completely of my own accord. And she deserved it. The best part of all of this was that I was doing it completely of my own accord, just to do a good deed. The only reward I hoped for was her gratitude and appreciation.

Yes, I was still nervous, but I felt great about myself as I walked into the room. She was a vampire, after all, I still needed to stay on edge in case she tried anything. I couldn't relax completely, even feeling so peaceful and content with myself. I saw her in the flesh for the second time, and was once again overcome by her effortless beauty. A lovely fanged grin appeared on her face as I stepped over the blood bag, that silly thing that was still lying on the floor, and she stood. I was on the taller side, but she was much taller than me, helped by the heels on her boots, no doubt. Maybe 6'3'' to my 5'11''? Gosh… I felt put in my place as she looked down at me. I couldn't help but step back a little bit.

“That’s it, that’s a good girl,” she said. “I’ll be gentle with you.”

Yes…finally, she would be gentle with me. That's what I needed, her sweet, gentle care. All I needed in the world at this very moment. To look into her eyes and obey, to get just a little nibble on the neck. To forget how to disobey, all so I could help her become better.

NO! No! No! No, no, no, no! I was ruining everything. I was this close to losing it all, to letting all of my fears come true. If I didn't do something right now, there would be no coming back. I'd be no different from that giggly worshiper from the theater, or the women from the front desk willing to put their lives on the line for Naomi. I was already letting myself slip, becoming more and more like them every moment, but I still had a chance. I was in her presence now, and she suspected nothing. I had one last opportunity, so I had better make it count!

I whipped the wooden stake out of my right-hand pocket, something that a part of my subconscious that had become far too weak had let me hang onto. The part that was reminding me now that I could finish her off here and now, and make things right for everyone involved. I swung it hard and fast toward her heart, hyperventilating as my life flashed before my eyes.

Then, a cold hand gripping my arm, her left one grabbing my right. Oh god. Oh no. I tried to finish it, the stake was only an inch from her heart. Come on. I was so close… I just needed to force it a few more inches. But I couldn't move my arm at all…she was so much stronger than I had imagined. Yes, of course vampires were stronger than humans, but I hadn't envisioned that it was to this degree. I knew instantly that she could break my arm and pin me to the ground with nothing more than the grip of that one hand if she so desired.

“I tried to be nice. I tried to be gentle,” she said, taking on a genuine anger for the first time since she had first started our back-and-forth. Still horribly sexy, but moreso horrible. Hearing her speak that way drove home that I was horribly, horribly fucked. It was over. I was hers. I turned my head away and closed my eyes in one last futile attempt. No, please. Break my neck instead. Don't make me like them. Anything but that.

“If you’ll try to kill me even now, after you’ve fallen for that lovely voice of mine, I can’t promise I’ll maintain that gentleness," she said, sounding horribly stern, unable to be ignored, as impossible to disobey as it is to bite your own tongue enough to hurt.

She firmly grabbed my chin with her right hand, like a vice grip, and began to pull me upward toward her. I flailed my arms and legs, struggling to avert my eyes as I dreaded what would happen next for the final time. I saw her eyes in full for the first time. Beautiful, youthful, bright hazel, and yet filled with two hundred years of wisdom and experience. Eyes that were already making me feel relaxed in the way I only normally did when I lied down in bed for the night. No, more relaxed than that. Too relaxed to try to think. Too easy to listen to her voice. Let her voice become my thoughts, and let go.

My last thoughts while I retained free will were considering how well her eyes complemented her hair.