Burying himself alive had turned out to be the worst possible distraction from his situation with Grace. With absolutely nothing to do inside his coffin, which was far smaller now he was unable to get out of it, all Ben did was think about Grace and the choice she might make. His fingers itched for his phone. He’d gotten so used to texting her every night for the last couple of weeks that he felt empty and alone now that he did not. The seconds crawled by so slowly that he wondered if time had stopped completely. His mind conjured up its own agonising ticking sound except the ticks had been replaced by a name. Grace. Grace. Grace. Grace. Grace.

He had to keep his eyes closed because every time he opened them he saw the ceiling of the coffin mere inches from his face. He had never known just how claustrophobic he was until now. Being buried alive was probably enough to make anybody afraid of tight spaces.

He tried to play some music to fill the silence but none of the songs on his app had been downloaded and funnily enough, there was no wifi in his coffin. Weeks he’d had to prepare for this and he hadn’t even thought to download some music.

Grace. Grace. Grace.

She might pick him. Sure, he offered nothing to her coven and choosing him would burn the merger with the Ringles, but she seemed so happy when they were together. Why would she throw that away for an arranged marriage? How could she even consider an arranged marriage in the twenty-first century? Or whatever century it was. Time seemed to be moving so slowly that a century or two could have passed since Ben had been buried.

He pulled out his phone to check the time. A mere two hours had gone by. The light from the screen showed the enclosed space he was in and he squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to stop the pressure that was building in his chest. Something was pushing down on him from above, driving the air from his lungs, and making the coffin spin around him. It was not the first panic attack of the night. It would not be the last.

Deep breaths. Slow breaths. Fill the lungs with… He wondered how he was breathing at all. There should have been no air underground. Then he remembered what Rik had said; the coffin was magic, its sole purpose was to not let him die. Suffocation was off the table.

He took in long deep breaths and concentrated on the sounds around him. He’d had a few panic attacks during his school days because of all the bullying and his doctor had said to concentrate on his breathing and the sounds around him. Six feet under the earth the only sounds were the ones coming from himself. He listened to each breath that went in and then back out. He listened to his heart thumping loudly, almost deafeningly.

Grace. Grace. Grace.

Maybe Kieron was the better match. Ben didn’t know him. Their one brief interaction had been unpleasant because Kieron had immediately recognised him as a threat and as it turned out Kieron had been right. Not that Ben had intended to sleep with Grace or develop any feelings for her.

He didn’t even know why he was so bothered by the whole sorry affair. It had been a two-week fling. Nothing more. People turned their backs on longer relationships without shedding a tear, why couldn’t he?

He planted both palms on the ceiling of wood above him. He wondered if his vampiric strength would be enough to claw his way through the coffin and the earth to return to the surface. The mere thought of trying and failing was enough to bring on another panic attack.

He breathed deeply, hearing the tremor with every exhale. He focused on his breathing, keeping it slow and steady. His breaths took on a sort of rhythm and within just a few minutes he had fallen into a relieving sleep.

He awoke with a jolt and tried to sit up. His face whacked against the coffin lid and slammed him back into his bed of dirt, momentarily confused. Then he remembered where he was.

In a coffin. Buried alive.

The panic returned but he held it at bay. Surely now he had managed to kill a good amount of time. He pulled out his phone only to discover that a sad half an hour had passed. That was it.

He drew in yet another deep breath and held back his tears. Two and a half hours was all it had taken to bring him to the brink of despair. Creating the loculum recro was no longer important. He just wanted to be free.

Avoiding looking at the wooden lid above him, Ben opened his messages and scrolled through Grace’s thread. He scrolled right the way to the top and then in the silence of his coffin, he relived their entire text history. Every now and then a sentence would transport him back to the exact place he’d been when he’d read it for the first time. It was a good thing there was nobody to see the stupid love-struck smile that was on his face. He was sure that Rik would have mocked him to no end.

When he reached the end his smile faltered and slipped away. He had received no message since the start of the night. Before the argument. Her last message had been see you soon. And that was it.

Grace was probably sitting with Kieron right now. His brutish hand could be holding hers. Was the meeting still going on? Had a decision been made? What did Kieron have that Ben did not?

He fell asleep still pondering the question. This cycle continued for the duration of his tenure. He’d wake up, freak out, remember where he was, think about Grace, and fall asleep again. An endless cycle of terror and despair until finally he was awoken by the shrill ringing of his alarm. He pulled out his phone, heart swelling with relief and silenced it.

The silence rang in the absence of the sound and he realised that just because his alarm had gone off did not mean that Rik was digging him up. He heard no sounds from above him. None at all. His chest tightened like a circus strongman was crushing him. He struggled to draw breath as the walls of the coffin closed in around him. His worst fear was being realised. Rik was leaving him beneath the ground.

And then he heard something from outside his very cramped compartment. It was like hundreds of tiny insects were moving around on top of his coffin. It took a moment for him to realise it was the sound of the dirt shifting. Rik was pulling him out.

Finally, it was over. His ordeal under ground was at an end. Now that it was on the brink of completion it didn’t seem half as bad as it had done before. All the panic attacks seemed utterly ridiculous.

The coffin jolted and then Ben was pressed down into the dirt that filled the bottom as the box began to rise. It was like riding in a very dirty and cramped elevator. The coffin surged to the side and Ben was jostled as it landed above ground.

“Thanks for the smooth—” Ben’s words turned into a yelp when a brief surge of fire shot through the top of his head. “What the fuck,” he said to himself as the pain receded.

Something was wrong. The footsteps he could hear outside the coffin were odd. Heavy and clomping, somehow Ben knew they did not belong to Rik. Ben slammed his palm into the coffin lid and flung it open. The van headlights illuminated the area just as they had done when Ben had gone in. Sitting up, he saw exactly what had caused the pain in his head. Rik was unconscious on the ground and standing not three feet aware from the coffin was Kieron.

The witch stared at Ben with his lip curled in revulsion and Ben knew from that look alone that Grace had come clean. Not wasting a second, Ben flung himself out of the coffin and straight at Kieron. Unfortunately, the witch was just a tad too fast.

“Dankrabit,” the witch muttered and Ben collided with a solid wall of air and dropped down onto the grass. When he tried to rise again Kieron held him down with magic. It was an uncomfortable feeling being pinned to the ground by no visible force.

Kieron snatched the abandoned shovel off the floor and snapped the wooden handle over his knee, still chanting the words to power his spell.

Ben’s breath caught in his throat as Kieron discarded the shovel end and kept the other half which now resembled a crude stake.

“Stop,” Ben ordered him, knowing that his command would go unheeded. If only he could get make eye contact, just a moment was all he needed.

Kieron stalked toward him like an angry dog, face twisted with rage. “Where do you get off fucking my girlfriend?” He lowered himself over Ben, driving his knee into Ben’s groin and pressing the jagged tip of the broken shovel handle over Ben’s heart.

Ben didn't even dare to breathe too deeply. The stake alone would not kill him but it would stop him from being able to stop Kieron from cutting off his head. “I didn’t mean—”

“Shut up! There’s nothing you can say to explain your way out of this you shady little weasel. You knew I was seeing her and you did it anyway. I knew exactly what you were the moment I first saw you. You’re a fucking rat.”

Kieron’s spell was no longer holding him, but the stake was more than effective at keeping Ben down. One wrong move and his heart would be pierced. If only Rik would wake up a tad faster, the two of them would be able to handle Kieron easily enough.

It didn’t help that Ben’s last meal had been twenty-four hours ago. He was famished and weak and had no idea how he’d fare in a fight.

A small gasp drew Kieron’s attention and Ben acted without looking at who had made the noise. He whipped the stake out of Kieron’s grip and then snatched hold of his jaw, forcing his mouth to stay shut and stopping the witch from uttering any more spells. Kieron struggled against him, but Ben’s vampire strength was too much for him to overpower, famished or not.

Insults whirled around in Ben’s mind but he didn’t utter a single one of them. The fact was Kieron was right. In this situation Ben was the bad guy and this was the first time he had ever considered that. A glimmer of shame took his heart and snuffed out most of the anger he’d been feeling.

“What did she decide?” Ben asked, his voice feeble and small. Telling Kieron the truth could have been a parting show of respect or it could have been a desire not to go into a marriage with any ugly secrets under the rug.

Kieron stared hatefully down at Ben and the corners of his mouth curled upward.

“Oh.” Ben’s fight seeped out through his pores and his body sagged as the bitter truth consumed him. It was over then.

Looking up at Kieron, Ben saw that the witch was not satisfied with being chosen. He wanted revenge. He would not stop until he had made Ben hurt physically. The emotional damage done to him was not enough. Ben tightened his grip on the witch’s jaw.

“You will never try to harm me ever again,” Ben commanded him staring deeply into his eyes and putting as much force as he could muster behind the words. “If you try to hurt me you’ll experience a crippling pain in your head that blocks out all thought.”

With a vicious shove, Ben flung Kieron onto the grass and climbed to his feet. Rik was still out cold and standing over by the parked van was a small blonde girl. She was staring at the bizarre scene before her with an expression that was half terror and half awe.

“Hello,” Ben said. His greeting was followed by a hideous shriek. Turning he saw Kieron on his knees, his head clutched in his hands. He howled like a dog as Ben’s mesmerisation did its work. He could mesmerise witches after all. That would come in handy if either of the covens decided they wanted retribution. Every miserable cloud had a silver lining.

Ben waited patiently for Kieron to recover. A satisfied smirk had taken residence on his face and Kieron got to enjoy it fully when he finally climbed to his feet.

“Grace is the only reason I’m letting you walk away from this. I suggest you take off now before I change my mind,” Ben said channelling as much of Darius’ quiet menace as he could.

Kieron stepped closer, teeth bared and face a deep red. Even now Kieron did not fear Ben. “You stay away from her from now on. You got that?”

Ben made no reply. The two of them held one another’s gaze until Kieron tore his eyes away and stalked off in the direction of the allotments.

Ben refused to look away until Kieron was completely out of his sight. Mesmerisation or not he was giving the witch no chances to attack him again.

“I know you,” the blonde girl said. She was still standing by the van, her hands gripping the straps of her backpack.

“Do you?” Ben asked. He wasn’t looking at her. He made his way to Rik and knelt down by the warlock’s side. Pushing his fingers to Rik’s throat he felt the steady beat of his pulse. He wasn’t dead. Maybe he would have been had he not been linked to Ben, it felt like Kieron delivered a pretty savage blow to the back of his head. Ben gripped the obsidian stone that hung around his neck and silently thanked it.

“You helped me out that night when the drunk men were bothering me,” the girl said. “By the time I woke up the following morning I was starting to think I’d imagined the entire thing. It’s kind of hard to accept that you’ve met a vampire.”

“Oh!” Ben said. He pointed at her as the memory came back to him. “You’re the girl with the Sponge Bob backpack.”

Her laughter dispelled some of the tension he was carrying. “I don’t have that bag anymore.” She turned on the spot to reveal a small backpack in the shape of a glittery rainbow.

“Very nice. What are you doing here?” Ben lifted Rik off the floor and carried him over to the back of the van where he laid him down inside. In hindsight the grass was probably more comfortable.

“This is a shortcut to my bedsit. You’re the first person I’ve ever seen here.”

Ben scoffed. “What a first encounter for you.”

“Tell me about it. Seriously, what the hell was going on here?” She pointed at the coffin, the most offending bit of weirdness.

“It’s kind of a long story. Me and my friend were working on something.”

“Something that involved a coffin, a hole, and an angry man?” She was a lot more comfortable now that she’d established she knew Ben, she was chatting away like he was an old friend.

“I slept with that angry man’s girlfriend. Although, in my defence, they weren’t exactly together. Not as far as I knew anyway.”

“There’s no judgment here. I’m Jess by the way.”

“Ben. It looks like we’re even now, Jess. I saved you from the drunks and you saved me from an angry witch.”

Her eyebrows flew up her head. “Witches are real too. Noted.”

Ben grinned at how easily she accepted the existence of the supernatural. “Any bothersome situations since we last met? I’d be willing to bet that your life has been going a tad more smoothly than mine.”

Jess’ eyes drifted away from him and she pulled the zipper on her hoodie right the way up to her neck. “You’ve got super vampire powers and you think my life has been better than yours?”

“Superpowers bring super problems,” Ben muttered. He tromped across the grass and closed the lid on his coffin. He couldn’t feel any giveaway signs that the ritual had worked. The usual taint that magic left on things was not present on the coffin. There was no way he was going to put himself in such a prone position again, so if it hadn’t worked then so be it. All the effort that went into opening the Coffin Shop and preparing for the ritual had been for nothing.

“I’ve got super-enough problems of my own.”

“Oh, yeah. Did you hand in a uni assignment wrong or something?” He laughed as he dragged the coffin along the grass toward the van.

“My parents both died and it turned out that all the money I thought they had was gone. Our family home was destroyed and any remaining assets were sold off to pay my parents’ debts. My younger brother got sent up north to live with my aunt, and I’ve had to give up any hope of an education to work a crappy cleaning job in order to pay for the mouldy bedsit that I don’t even want to live in but it’s all I can afford.” She delivered her damning list without emotion. She was not fishing for sympathy but merely trying to prove that she had it worse than he did.

“Oh,” Ben said. He let the coffin drop to the floor.

“So, how do my problems compare to yours?” For somebody who was at rock bottom, she still managed to sound awfully smug.

“Well, there’s a secret vampire government, half of it wants to kill me and the other half wants to use me to kill the others. I’m being forced to help the half that doesn’t currently want to kill me and if I refuse all my friends die and then probably me too. So, I’d say we’re pretty even.”

Jess considered it for a second before making an agreeable noise and nodding. “Basically, we’re both getting fucked up our virgin arseholes without any lube.”

“Such a way with words you have. And what makes you think my arsehole is virginal?”

“Is it not?”

“It is,” Ben admitted. There was something instantly likeable about Jess. Most people tended to grow on Ben over time, but this young girl had a certain charm about her that was impossible to resist.

“Well mine isn’t.”

Ben exploded with laughter and Jess joined in. As they stood in the dark, chilly field laughing away it occurred to Ben that she was exactly what he’d been searching for—although he hadn’t been searching very hard. Somebody who was like him. A person with a shitty life that they wanted—no needed—to escape from.

“Can I ask you something, Jess?”

She crossed her arms over her chest and eyed him warily like she thought he was going to ask if he could have a go at fucking non-virginal arsehole. “Go for it.”

“Would you like to leave your shitty life behind and be a vampire?”

“Yes,” she said before he’d even finished his sentence.

“Hold on, don’t be too hasty. All the danger that I just told you about — you’ll be right in the middle of it.”

Her eyes flicked over to the treeline and then straight back to Ben. “I don’t care. Nothing can be worse than what I’ve got now.”

“That’s debatable.”

“You haven’t seen my bedsit.”

Ben smiled but continued. “You’ll have to be nocturnal.”

“Stop trying to talk me out of it. I don’t care about all the downsides. I saw you trounce that gang of men without breaking a sweat. I want that. Turn me into a vampire.”

Ben’s smile stretched wider. She was like him, tired of being the prey and eager to claim power. The way she’d said yes before he’d even told her any of the details reminded him of the way he’d gone running after Erin in the hospital just a few weeks ago. She wasn’t just a suitable candidate, she was the perfect candidate.

“Okay, Jess. The job’s yours. I’ll turn you into a vampire.” And under the meagre light of the waxing moon, the first of Ben’s progeny was chosen.

Rik awoke with a groan. “What the bloody hell happened to me?” His accent sounded slightly more common than usual; it always did if Ben woke him from a nap. Vocabulary and accents were essential parts of the character Rik had created for himself and in those brief moments when he wasn’t fully awake his character slipped.

“One of my enemies came for me, you got caught in the crossfire. Sorry,” Ben said.

Rik pushed himself into a sitting position and looked around him. His nose wrinkled at the sight of the van he was in and then his eyes fell on Jess and widened in disbelief. “Her?” he said, outraged and pointing right at her.

“Wow, you’re rude,” Jess said, raising an offended eyebrow. “Don’t like the idea of being taken out by a girl?”

“Not one so small,” said Rik. “If I’m going to be knocked out by a girl I want it to be a huge hulk of a woman. The same goes for men too. Getting knocked out by someone so little is just humiliating.”

“She’s not the one who attacked you. It was Grace’s boyfriend,” Ben said. This news did not make him feel better.

“Oh, great. You stick your dick in the wrong hole and I get attacked for it,” Rik grumbled. He hopped out of the van and stretched his legs with unnecessary sound effects.

“You sound like an old man waking up from a nap,” Ben told him.

“So who is she then?”

“This is Jess. She’s going to be my first vampire,” Ben informed him proudly. Jess licked her lips eagerly and her eyes glinted. She was hungry for the transformation. Ben wondered if she’d be so keen once it had begun and her entire body was twisted into a new form.

“Congratulations on finally finding a slither of time to do the one task you were given by Darius. She looks a tad young though, no? How old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

“Seriously?” Rik turned back to Ben. “You’re going to turn a nineteen-year-old? She’s barely more than a child.”

“Hey! I’m nearly twenty,” Jess argued.

“Well that proves me wrong.”

Ben stared at Jess, no longer so convinced that she was the perfect choice. He hadn’t considered her age, hadn’t even thought to ask it. Now he found himself wondering if Rik was right. Jess was an adult but also still a teenager. And she did look very young. She could probably pass for younger than nineteen if she tried to.

“It’s my choice and I want it,” said Jess. When Ben said nothing she spoke again. “It’s not like I’ll get stuck nineteen forever is it? My body might not change but my mind still will. I’ll still mature and change over the years. And I’m nineteen, not five. People aren’t going to mistake me for a kid.”

“They might treat her like a kid. She still looks young,” said Rik. He was rubbing at the back of his head, checking for signs of damage from Kieron’s attack.

“Can you stop talking about me like I’m not standing right here,” Jess demanded. She turned back to Ben and her expression softened. “I know I look young and people might talk down to me like I’m a little girl, but my mum was in her forties and people still spoke down to her. It doesn’t matter how old I get as long as I’m a girl there are going to be certain types of people who will talk down to me.”

“It comes with the territory,” Rik said and he no longer sounded like he was arguing against her.

“What?”

“It doesn’t matter that I was born here in this country, or how English my accent is, there are still certain people that see the Japanese in me and treat me like a foreigner. For different reasons we both get judged at a glance alone. It comes with the territory.”

Jess’ eyebrows dipped as she considered what he’d said and then she nodded. “Yeah, exactly.”

“You don’t seem like a kid to me but I have only known you for a few minutes,” said Ben thoughtfully. Even combining both of their encounters the total time was still less than fifteen minutes.

“Don’t say she’s mature for her age that’s such a creepy thing to say,” Rik muttered.

“I wasn’t going to say that,” Ben snapped, although similar words had been on his mind. Jess was grinning with amusement. “If you’re happy to stay looking like that forever then it’s your choice.”

“I’m happy to stay like this forever,” she said without a moment’s consideration.

“What you want now you might not want in ten years. You won’t be able to go back.”

“That’s my problem. I want this.”

“All right then.”

Ben shot off on his own to find a meal and once his belly was full he returned to the field. Rik and Jess were chatting by the back of the van. Jess had Rik’s jacket pulled around her to fend off the last cold of Winter.

“It worked. The loculum recro is completed,” Rik said.

“Ah,” Ben said as he ran his hands over the smooth top of the coffin. There was no hum of magic but he knew it was in there powering the beauty. All his horrid hard work had achieved something. Something monumental. It was his first big achievement since becoming a vampire. Jess would be his second.

“What is that?” Jess asked.

Ben looked up at her, beaming inanely. “A backup plan,” he replied, unwilling to divulge his secret to her just yet. Only Rik and Ben needed to know about the loculum recro for now, and even Rik was one person too many.

They loaded up the van and headed straight back home to begin the transformation. They could drop the coffin off at the shop tomorrow night when Jess wasn’t there to see them.

Now that he had his lifeline, Ben felt one step closer to being invincible. It didn’t matter if he lost a fight now, as long as there was enough of him left to put into the coffin he could not die. Not forever.

“This place is pretty white for a vampire’s pad,” Jess said, taking a seat in the living room.

“I’m sick of people saying that,” Ben said.

“Am I wrong though?” she demanded, eyebrow cocked.

“If one more person says it I’ll bulldoze the place and build a massive spooky vampire mansion in its place.” His statement brought back the memory of talking to Grace about dream homes the night they’d first slept together.

“That would be pretty suave though,” said Jess.

“Suave,” Ben repeated her interesting word choice as he made his way to the kitchen to grab a pint glass. The best he could find was a giant glass tankard. It wouldn’t have quite the same grandiose effect as a wine glass or a chalice but it would serve the purpose all the same.

“There are a few more details you should know before we do this,” Ben called through to the living room. He grabbed a knife from the block and sliced open his palm. The burning sting barely registered as pain and his blood flowed freely into the tankard.

“You’re not going to talk me out of it,” Jess called back.

“Let me tell you about Darius and Teremun and then we’ll see.” Ben proceeded to tell her all about the Black Veil and the mess he was entwined in. When he was finished he was unsurprised to find that Jess had fallen into silence.

Ben’s wound healed twice and he had to recut his palm. Only when the blood reached the brim of the tankard did he put the knife aside and allow is hand to heal permanently.

“They’re only after you, right? So if I wanted I could just take off on my own and they wouldn’t chase me?”

“True.” He lifted the tankard of crimson and carried it through to the living room. The blood sloshed around but none spilt on the white carpet. “But your life is bound to mine. If things go wrong and I get killed you’ll die with me.”

Ben pulled over the small table from the side of the sofa and rested the tankard right in front of Jess. The crimson offering sat temptingly before her with the weight of Ben’s words hanging over it.

“That does sound kind of shit if I’m honest.” Her eyes fell on the blood and Ben saw the lust within them and he knew that lust would overpower any doubts she was battling with. “But it’s not like I’ve got a great life right now.”

Jess grabbed the tankard with both hands and raised it carefully to her lips. “Realistically, how is this going to taste?” she asked, peering over the rim of the tankard.

“Vile at first. But it improves quickly,” Ben informed her. He stared at her willing her to take the first gulp. He wanted to be proved right. He want to see the same eagerness in her that had been in him when he’d sucked the blood from Erin as she lay unconscious on the floor. He didn’t know why, but he needed to know that there was somebody else in the world who wanted this just as much as he had. Maybe even more.

Jess sipped the blood tentatively, wary of the taste. Her lips stretched in a grimace and her whole body shuddered. “Oh, that is bad.”

“It will be easier if you take more than a sip at a time,” Rik said.

“Yeah, you have to drink it all and sipping will take all night.”

“This is so grim.” She drew in a deep breath like a diver about to submerge and then she swallowed two hearty gulps of Ben’s blood. She bent over and retched dramatically after the blood had gone down. Her face was as red as the blood and her eyes were glassy.

“It’s not that bad,” said Ben, a touch offended.

“You’re not the one drinking it.” She took another few gulps and it was clear that the pleasure had set in. She brought the glass back up to her lips and glugged the blood down greedily. Within a minute she’d finished the drink and dropped the tankard back on the table. “That was…weird.” She fell back into the cushions of the sofa and closed her eyes.

“That was the easy part.”

“What’s the hard part?” Her tongue flicked out and snaked across her lips to clear up any lingering drops of blood.

“You’re whole body is about to adjust. It’s going to hurt. If you give in to the pain you’ll probably die. But if you persevere like I did then you will come out the other side a vampire with all the perks and the powers,” said Ben.

Jess took this news with silent acceptance. Her eyes drifted back to the now empty tankard and Ben wondered if for the first time she was rethinking her decision. To him, one night of the worst agony was well worth the reward of vampirism, but perhaps not everybody saw things the same way.

Pain was the ugliest feeling the human body could express. At least that was what Ben thought when Jess was writhing around soaking his carpet with her sweat. Every vein in her face had risen to attention and her flesh had turned the colour of sour milk.

“You did this to me!” Spittle flew through her teeth as she screamed at Ben who was kneeling by her side. The very whites of her eyes had filled with red making her face the perfect flagship of anger.

“Let’s not play the blame game,” Ben said feebly. He offered a hand thinking she might squeeze it for support but she batted it away.

More screams flew from her mouth as she twisted and contorted on the floor. Ben wondered if any of the neighbours could hear her. Erin had already stopped by to see what all the fuss was about. She’d decided to spend the evening out on the town away from the racket and Rik had jumped at the chance to join her. Maybe Jess’ screams would be enough to revive Aiden.

Jess rose on all fours and dug her acrylic nails into the carpet. She grunted, screamed, and yelled obscenities. Ben had never been verbally abused so much in such a short space of time. Through all of her pain and all her rage not once did it look like she was going to give in; she stubbornly endured it all, and she blamed Ben for every bit of it.

After a few hours of relentless agony, Jess finally collapsed in a heap on the ground. She lay panting, her sodden hair stuck to her shiny face and her eyes fixed on the wall ahead.

“Is it over?” her voice was tiny and far away.

“You just need to feed.” Ben held out his hand which she took and he pulled her up to her feet. Her hands were clammy much like the rest of her but he tried not to show his revulsion. He had been in the same state not so long ago. The moment the blood had hit his tongue everything had changed.

Jess took a moment to get her footing and steady herself before she was ready to move. Pain forced her to walk slowly as they left the apartment and walked through Kingfisher Meadow. Ben offered her his arm but she insisted that she walk by herself despite the obvious pain that was racking her body. That pain would not recede until she had her first taste of human blood. Because of this, Ben did not travel too far from home to find a meal. On this one occasion, he would allow his rule to be broken.

He took her to a secluded area behind a multistorey car park. At this time of night the area would be almost completely deserted. The only people who frequented this place at night were junkies and prostitutes.

“Attacking people can take a toll on the conscience, so I tend only to feed on people who deserve to be attacked,” he explained.

“How do you know?” she asked weakly. She was leaning against the wall, unable to even support herself properly. Ben really should have prepared a meal beforehand.

“We can mesmerise people. Look directly into their eyes and exert enough will and you can get a person to do anything. Watch.”

Ben left Jess against the wall whilst he went off in search of prey. It didn’t take him long to find an unpleasant-looking man wearing a dirty tracksuit. He grabbed the man and sped him back to Jess before the man knew what was happening.

“What is happening?” the poor man demanded, looking around at his new surroundings and wondering how he’d got there so fast.

“Don’t fight us,” Ben commanded and the tension left the man in a heartbeat, but his fear remained.

Ben grabbed his face and dragged his eyes back to his own. “Tell me the worst thing you’ve ever done.”

Panic filled the man’s eyes but his mouth betrayed him. “I had sex with my friend while she was sleeping.”

Ben had not been expecting such a vile confession and for a moment he was stunned into stillness. None of his victims had ever admitted to something so heinous.

“Fucking rapist,” Jess spat.

“It wasn’t rape. She doesn’t even know it happened.”

“As you can see, he’s a prime candidate,” Ben said, regaining his voice. He grabbed the man’s head and tipped it to the side exposing his neck and the artery that ran through it. Usually he would have relieved the victim of their fear, but this one deserved no such courtesy. “Take a bite and you won’t feel like you’re dying.”

Jess pushed herself off the wall and approached the terrified man. Ben could feel the man shaking in his grip. He could smell the sweat dripping over his body.

“Listen to his heartbeat when you feed. If it gets too slow he’ll die so pull out before that happens.”

Jess snorted. “Great choice of words.” Her fangs slid down into place for the very first time and Ben felt a glint of pride at his first creation, his first child of the night. He refused to acknowledge the woman Theo had forced him to turn. She hadn’t survived an hour anyway so she didn’t count.

Jess bit into the man savagely forcing him to whimper from the pain. Blood drizzled down his neck as she chomped down on him.

“One bite is all you need to break the skin. Any more and you’ll just make a mess,” Ben advised her. Jess took his direction and stopped biting. Her lips moved against her prey like a baby suckling at a breast.

The man’s knees buckled and Ben guided him down to the floor, Jess following smoothly.

“Listen now and you’ll notice how slow the heartbeat has become. His life is fading. Stop feeding and he’ll live, providing he gets the right medical care.”

Jess ignored Ben completely and carried on sucking at the man’s neck.

“Jess,” Ben said more sternly. He reached up and felt her tighten her grip on the man, refusing to give up her meal. “Don’t be greedy.”

Jess’ head whipped up lightning fast. “I’m not being greedy.” Blood was caked around her mouth from the mess she’d made of the initial bite. She looked feral.

“A couple more seconds and he would have been dead,” Ben warned her. He glanced around to make sure they were still alone. This was not the kind of scene he wanted anybody to walk in on. He had chosen a secluded place but nowhere was totally safe from intrusion.

“So?” There was a coldness in Jess’ face that did not suit her youthfulness.

“Do you want to be a killer?” Ben lowered himself into a squat so he was on her level. His question had no effect on her.

“We’re vampires. We are killers, aren’t we? We’re predators who prey on humans and this piece of shit is exactly the kind of person who deserves to die. If we don’t kill them then what’s the point of asking them for their confession?”

Ben could do nothing but blink at the logic with which she spoke. She was right, if they only hunted bad people then why bother letting them live? There was a fundamental flaw to Ben’s method and a brand new vampire was the one to point it out.

Ben’s silence was all the permission she needed to dive back in. She lowered her head and clamped her mouth back to the man’s flesh. Ben watched in complete silence as Jess finished her meal and drained away the rapist’s life.