Four days went by since the vampire attack. Anna had a lot of work, which was good because work kept her mind occupied. She tended to get anxious and relentless if there wasn't a new text on the cheap little phone for a couple of days. Four days wasn't that bad: the record was seventeen. It happened last summer. She remembered that on the tenth day she was out on her own, patrolling aimlessly the neighbourhood. London being London she did find an attempted robbery and a drunk sorcerer throwing fireballs. The guy put up one hell of a fight.

Of course, Anna didn't abandon all of her vigilante-related issues just because the Seer remained silent. The vampire told her that someone paid him to attack people, and that was a lead, however slight, without any further details. She knew what she had to do, but that required some preparation.

Anna planned to visit all the places where vampires used to meet, hoping that she could catch the mysterious man red-handed. Vampires didn't drink alcohol, because with their fast healing abilities it simply didn't have much of an effect, but they did like to drink young women's blood who was drunk. For that they needed pubs, and that looked like as good of a point to start as any.

Fast healing was a "problem" not unknown for Anna: she was one of those rare halflings who had an actually useful power. She healed faster than any human being, although not nearly as fast a vampire. Still, she was able to fix up a broken bone in a couple of hours without any help or medicine. Well, a small bone, anyway. Anna never got to test the limitations of her power, and she wasn't looking forward to the day when she will have to.

Locating a real, authentic vampire pub wasn't as easy as it might sound. A simple Google search didn't bring any result, so she had to bury herself in forums, chat rooms and dodgy looking websites entitled for vampires (and teenage girls who romanticised them). It took some time and some shameless online flirting with a guy (probably), called "vampyrlord1999" but she had got an address in the end.

Anna's plan was to act like one of those fangirls, but she did not want to go unprotected. Her usual work clothes might have been a giveaway though, especially the big, reddish glowing eyes of the helmet. Maybe if she would wear something normal under the enchanted coat? It had a hidden inside pocket for the mask anyway. She will have to make it work without her usual arsenal, but that was a reasonable risk to take.

So when the time came, Anna put on some heavy makeup, a knee-long roomy maroon skirt (her outfit had to be both sexy and fit for fighting), and a black leather corset she bought for the occasion. It wasn't particularly comfortable, but it let her arms move freely and she had to admit, she looked good in it. The general goth impression only got stronger with the military coat, and even the simple black sneakers couldn't ruin it.

Anna was good at melee fights, but not good enough to do it in high heeled leather boots, so she drew the line at them.

The vampire pub she found, rather unsurprisingly, was in Camden Town. She used public transport because she didn't want to fly over the city in a skirt. She received some appreciating looks on the way: even though she knew that she was okay looking to begin with, it was amazing how much difference some makeup and a revealing top could make.

Anna happily realised that the bouncer wasn't an exception and was more interested in what she had under her coat than in what she had in it. She could get in with the mask unnoticed in her pocket quite easily and felt only slightly abused by the searching. It concentrated on some very specific areas, but now it wasn't the time to have an intense chat about that with the bouncer.

The place was huge. Looked like it couldn’t decide what it exactly wanted to be, so settled somewhere halfway between a traditional pub and a dance club. The lightening was dim, barely enough to show the exposed brick walls. There was heavy rock music coming from the basement, so loud that the bass made the floor vibrate.

The main level had an oval-shaped bar-island with at least six bartenders working in it. Above, attached to the wall there was a forged iron balcony with an additional bouncer at the only spiral staircase, and a little sign saying "private event". What people did up there looked very private indeed, some of the scenes made Anna blush. On the bright side, those up there did not look like someone who might be interested in illegal hunting. Or in anything else besides putting their tongue as deep as possible inside someone else's mouth.

Anna went to the bar and climbed up on one of the tall chairs. A lonely pretty girl at the bar always got the weirdos' attention, now she just had to wait for the right weirdo.

Anna ordered a beer and looked around. The pub wasn't full, probably because it was Sunday evening, but still had at least a hundred guests. Most of them dressed like Anna: red and black, with a lot of leather and pins and other metal accessories. Almost everyone had at least one tattoo or piercing, and most of them had colourful hair too. Blue seemed to be the most popular, with green as a close second. Anna almost felt low key with her naked legs and a leather corset showing much more of her boobs than she would normally show. She should have got a tattoo, just a temporary one, to blend in easier.

The problem was that she had no way to check who was a vampire and who wasn't without her helmet on. Everyone was pale, some of them on purpose, and there were people who put serious effort to look like some mysterious bloodsucking child of the night. Well, at least she could cross them off her list, right? They were but bored teens.

'What a nice girl like you are doing in a place like this?'

Anna just gave a neutral little smile to the woman who asked her, but she sat down on the next chair and turned to her.

'No, I mean, really. You don't look like this bunch here. You look… Normal.'

Anna looked up at her. She didn't look like a vampire bar-regular either. In fact, she was infuriatingly hot. With a lot of untidy curly hair, adorable freckles, huge brown eyes, a cynical little smile on her full lips and with the almost perfect hour-glass figure she was a woman made every other female around hate her instantly. Even Anna, who wasn't vain or into looks at all, and was in a good relationship with her body, felt a touch of envy.

'I'm just… Killing some time.' she answered, trying to be casual.

The other woman nodded.

'Me too, me too,' she took a big sip of her drink, probably whiskey judged by the colour, then she added: 'I didn't know this was a vampire place though.'

Her words were a little blurry, and she had a very slight accent Anna couldn't quite place. Not Eastern-European, that's for sure. Italian, perhaps.

'You don't like vampires?' Anna asked innocently. She was after someone who liked them enough to pay to have more around, but Anna was a reporter, asking questions was in her blood.

The curly girl shrugged.

'I don't care, to be honest. It's just… Kinda hard to hit on someone when everyone here wanna go home with a vampire.'

'Then why don't you go home with a vampire, too?' asked Anna. 'Or you could go to another pub.'

'I like a challenge,' she smiled and even though that smile didn't make Anna's stomach turn with desire, it shook it a bit for sure.

'So are you hitting on me now instead?'

'I guess… I'm not doing it very well tonight, am I?'

Anna laughed and shook her head. She wasn't half bad, but Anna didn't want to encourage her.

'Honestly, you are so ridiculously attractive that you almost have a chance with me, but you see, I'm only interested in men.'

That didn't seem to bother the girl.

'Yeah, well, give me an hour and we will check again how you feel about that.'

Anna laughed again. She never had been with a woman before, and frankly, men were a rare guest in her bed too. There was no place for a significant other in her life. But if she wasn't working, she thought, tonight might just have been the night when she was trying out something new. There was something magnetic in this woman which made it almost impossible to say no to her. Almost.

'I'm Liz, by the way,' lied Anna. It was bad enough that she had to show her face, she didn't want to put out her name as well.

'Jen...nifer.' replied the other woman. Anna had a feeling that she was lying too. Why would she, though? She might be someone famous. With that pretty face, she could be an actress easily. As a matter of fact, "Jennifer" was kind of familiar to Anna, now that she was thinking about it. Must be some of those daytime soap stars…

'Nice to meet you, Jennifer,' said Anna and reached out to shake her hand. She wanted to make sure that she wasn't a vampire playing a game, but no, Jennifer's hand was warm. And soft, kinda nice to touch… Focus, focus, Anna thought,

'So why are you trying to kill the time right here?'

Anna didn't have a good answer for that. She was obviously dressed for the occasion, so she couldn't claim that she was lost as Jennifer did.

'Maybe I am one of those girls who want to go home with a vampire,' she said.

Jennifer shook her head.

'No, you are not. You don't have a piercing or overly dramatic tattoo, you are way past your teenage years, your coat is full of defending spells and there is something deeply magical in your pocket. I think you want to be a vampire hunter when you grow up. Maybe already after someone in particular.'

Oh boy, that took a sudden turn, thought Anna.

'I'm… I'm not… I didn't pass my teenage years by that far! I'm only 27!'

She was 28.

'Relax, I don't judge,' said Jennifer and finished her whiskey. 'Word of advice though: don't do it.'

'Do what?'

'The whole thing. Go back to your nice little life and don't try to be a hero. We have people for that.'

Anna straightened her back.

'I'm so not impressed with those who should keep us safe. They are doing a sloppy job. I mean, the Commissioner is borderline sociopathic and now those spoiled vandals are working with the Met, too…? It's just ridiculous. They are almost criminals.'

Jennifer shook her head.

'You don't know what you are talking about. Robert Montgomery saved the whole fucking city at least two times.'

Anna knew that it was true. Yet, she could have argued about whether he and those other rich kids did enough, especially considering the damage they already caused. But she wasn't there to argue with incredibly sexy strangers.

'Maybe,' she said instead. 'But even so, this city needs everyone who can help.'

'So you think you should risk your own life? Are you even a sorcerer?'

Anna put down her beer. The glass knocked on the surface of the bar a little too loudly and some foam came out.

'I don't need to be a sorcerer to kick your ass, sweetie,' she said looking into Jennifer's eyes.

'And just like that, there is tension between us,' said the other woman with her brown eyes fixed on Anna's. 'Now we can get rid of it by fighting, but may I suggest a much more enjoyable way…?'

For a moment Anna wasn't sure what she was going to do, but then she couldn't help it, burst out laughing.

'Damn it, you are good. But still hetero, sorry.'

'I said give me an hour. It was barely two minutes and it's already in your head. Are you sure you don't wanna just cut to the chase and get a cab?'

'I honestly can't tell you anymore that I won't,' Anna said. 'But first, you gotta tell me how did you know what's in my coat.'

Jennifer shrugged again, then showed her empty glass to the bartender.

'I can feel magic. Some sorcerers can do that.'

Anna didn't know that. If nothing else happens, she already learned something useful. Apart from the realisation that her sexuality was highly questionable, which was a can of worm she didn't want to open just there.

'I'm not a "vampire hunter",' she said to Jennifer, showing the quotation marks with her fingers. 'I'm not insane or something. I'm just… Helping out.'

The other woman shrugged again.

'Up to you. I gotta be honest with you, I don't really care about your life. I'm not planning on being a part of it, not more than a couple of hours, anyway.'

'Does that kind of honesty usually work for you?' asked Anna.

Jennifer got her whiskey and drank before she answered. She looked like she enjoyed the drink very much, judging by her face and closed eyes.

'Sometimes. Weirdly enough, mostly with men.'

'How weird,' nodded Anna and they both laughed. Then Anna felt something in her coat pocket vibrating. She only brought the small phone.

11:06 elderly man, vampire. Loc on the link.

'Damn it…' she looked up at Jennifer 'I'm sorry. I have to go. Now.'

Anna leapt down from her chair and before Jennifer could say anything, she ran for the exit. She was sorry indeed, but just as relieved, too. Flirting, hookups and the whole thing weren't her strong suit and the time was simply not good for experimenting. But she was sure that Jennifer was going to be all right after this disappointment: as she looked back one last time, she noticed a cute blond bartender girl eyeing her up already. Yeah, she is gonna be just fine.