“Stop running, Aiden! What are you protecting that filth for?” a voice shouted through the woods. There was no indication as to where the voice was coming from; his voice reverberated all around us. “Aiden!”

With a sudden motion that made me feel like I was going to be flung like a rag doll Aiden turned and stopped. He shoved me behind his back and posed in a stance like a two-legged rabid animal. My eyes focused in the darkness and I saw two black figures emerging from the trees surrounding us.

“Don’t you children ever think for yourself?” Aiden’s voice rumbled through gritted teeth. He dug his right foot into the ground, bracing himself.

The vampire on the left spoke with the same voice that had resonated through the forest. “Forget who’s acting on orders here, Aiden. You’re breaking every rule ever written with your actions. What’s gotten into you?”

The other vampire stepped forward into a patch of moonlight. I saw he was wearing casual clothes you would find any college frat boy modeling, and besides the fact that I knew he was more than he appeared to be, he could’ve blended in anywhere.

“And just to clear things up, I’m here of my own accord. You disgust me, and I only hoped I would get a chance to rip you apart myself by coming here,” the vampire on the right spat.

Aiden laughed darkly, “And what has changed there, Liam?” His back rippled with tension.

Liam growled and his teeth glinted in the moonlight. Both the vampires struck a stance similar to Aiden’s.

“Would it be redundant to say you’ve got to go through me to get the girl?” Aiden’s hand shoved me backwards and I fell to the leaf ridden ground. All I could make out was that Aiden moved first, a plume of dirt kicking up behind him. He launched himself at the two of them swinging his leg at the vampire on the left and grabbing Liam by the neck as he fell to the ground. Any movement beyond the first few seconds of the fight was a blurred and caked in darkness. I pushed myself with my feet but instead of standing upright I found myself just sliding backwards in a panic. My purse was a lump at my back and contained my only weapon. The zipper seemed like it took forever to open because I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the fight. As long as they were a blurred dark mass on the opposite side I had enough time to retrieve what I wanted from my purse. My fingers, trembling as they were, pressed against the cold metal on my gun. I shoved aside the gun and searched for a softer plastic object and my lighter. I found both just as the fight became visible again. Aiden and Liam were wrestling on the ground, Aiden on the bottom. The other vampire lay motionless, tossed to the side in an extremely unnatural position. He was certainly dead. Aiden was by no means losing the fight, but at the moment the fact that he wasn’t in control started my blood pumping faster than it had been before.

With a sudden movement that caught the eye of Liam, giving Aiden a chance to knock him off, I stood up and ran forward. Aiden’s eyes met mine for a second before he leapt at Liam again.

‘What are you doing?’ he screamed in my head.

I ignored the deafening voice and braced myself as I saw Liam break free from Aiden’s grip. I threw my hands up in front of me clutching a bottle of mace and my lighter. The stream of mace ignited as Liam was overhead and the last thing I saw before his body was engulfed by the makeshift flamethrower was his shocked expression. I rolled out of the way as his body came crashing down inches from me. Aiden finished the job with a crushing stomp to the neck.

My back was pressed against a tree trunk about 5 feet from where Aiden stood staring in amazement at me. He walked over to me, a cautious hint in his step, and kneeled in front of me. The plastic belt clip on the mace bottle was digging into my skin. His fingers loosened my grip on the pepper spray.

“Stupidity runs in my family,” I whispered once I had found my voice.

Aiden rested his elbow on his elevated knee and continued to analyze me. His right hand slowly reached out to my chin and lifted my face up to meet his gaze.

“Not stupidity.” He let go of my chin but I still held my head up. “Courage. Or perhaps…something…” he trailed off leaving me hanging once again with fragments of his thoughts.

“Oh, and I believe you now, by the way,” I said dusting myself off as I stood up. “Call me stubborn, but I needed more proof.” I surprised myself with the calmness in which I spoke now. Maybe the fact that there were two less vampires trying to kill me now was a bit comforting, but I still figured I would be shaking when I reached for my purse. My purse had become a damp mess of leaves and mud so I took out the pack of cigarettes and gun and tossed the ruined accessory on the few flames still burning from Liam’s body.

“Would it be rude to call you vicious?” Aiden said at my side.

I laughed lightly. “No. I’ve been called much worse.”

“And I can imagine what happened to them when they did so,” he gestured at Liam’s still corpse.

“Actually…” My mind reached out for any memory of violence I had enacted on someone, but I couldn’t find anything. Most of my memories were either from childhood or recent, like a year old. Anything that spanned the time between middle school and adulthood was a blank. “Not that I can remember I’ve never done anything like that.”

Aiden’s expression wasn’t as surprised as I thought it would be. He shrugged his shoulders and probably assumed I was being modest or ashamed, either way, lying. I decided not to correct him; it wasn’t that important.

“I may have been incorrect in assuming your destiny lay in being one of us.” He dragged the young vampire’s corpse next to Liam’s and began positioning their limbs perfectly straight with their arms crossed against their chests. For someone who had just quickly ended their lives he was taking a lot of care in making them look as peaceful as possible in death.

“Do the habits of an undertaker rub off when you become one of the dead yourself or is there another explanation for what you’re doing?” I said.

He pressed his palm against each of their heads and stood next to me. “It’s nothing really. I like to think that despite what we are forced to become by being changed, in our former lives as humans we would’ve never wanted to have this curse and therefore deserve some sympathy, even in death.”

“Those are some powerful words coming from the person who was so swiftly beating the crap out of them two minutes ago,” I mumbled.

He shrugged again and walked in, what I assumed, was the direction of the house. I followed shoving the articles that previously occupied my purse into my pockets.

When we entered the house again I knew it would only be for a brief moment, but he didn’t need to be so rude about the way he said it.

“Don’t get too comfortable. We’re just collecting our stuff before we leave.” He silently stepped into the darkness and I assumed he had disappeared again.

“You’d think he’d be happier since I agreed to doing this…” I mumbled to myself. I felt my way around the kitchen collecting a few things; a few highly flammable things.

“I am happy.” His voice spoke smoothly from behind me. “But that doesn’t mean I have to be nice.”

I jumped a tad, but I had half expected him to appear out of nowhere like that, so the light bulbs I had been moving didn’t drop from my grip.

“Why do you have,” I grunted as I shoved a heavy box further inside the cabinet I was crouched down rummaging through, “light bulbs if you don’t use electricity here?”

He was silent for a moment. “Another habit, I suppose.” He crouched next to me and grabbed the things I was cradling in my arms and set them on the counter.

“Why don’t I believe you?” I said as I stood up, my knees popping in the process.

“I don’t know. That’s not a question you should be asking me, rather asking yourself,” he spoke arrogantly. “Besides, I thought you were past the stage of doubting me?”

I rolled my eyes and changed the subject. “Can you get me a bucket? If you’ve got light bulbs you don’t use I’m assuming you have one.” I smoothed out my pants that we starting to pucker.

Without answering he exited the room in a blur and came back only a second later with a metal bucket.

“How old is half of this stuff anyway?” but I took the bucket from him anyway. “I mean,” I began dumping the random bottles into the bucket, “Your couch looks like my grandmother’s furniture that she’s had since she was like born. Your liquor must be a vintage about thirty plus years old. And you’ve got a metal bucket.” I laughed weakly as I sensed his anger building up.

“If it works why bother replacing it?” he drummed his fingers on the counter’s surface.

I stirred the concoction in the bucket with a piece of wood that looked like it had broken off the wooden trimming of the couch. It wouldn’t have surprised me if the couch had been falling apart for a while now by the looks of it. “Could you hand me my lighter on the counter over there?” I pointed in its direction. He hesitated but moved silently and tapped the metal bucket with the lighter impatiently.

I took the lighter from his fingers. “Thanks,” I mumbled and flicked the lighter near the damp end of the piece of wood. The end flamed up with a slight explosion. I nearly dropped it but kept my grip on it firm when I realized dropping it would’ve meant it falling into the bucket. “Well that was much more effective than I had thought it would be.” I tried to blow out the fire, but it still remained lit. I turned the water on and submerged it under the tap.

“Aiden?” I whispered when I realized he wasn’t behind me anymore. As I laid the wood on the counter he slowly walked out of the shadowy corner of the kitchen. His expression wasn’t as composed and calm as it had been up until then. His eyes were focused on the bucket, or rather what I had created inside the bucket.

“What are you planning to do with that?” he slowly spoke, cautiously moving towards the complete opposite side of the kitchen.

I glanced from him to the bucket and then back at him. By putting two and two together, not very difficultly I might add, I concluded he was afraid I was going to pour the bucket over his head and leave. I didn’t blame him. Judging by his reactions and his decision to have me join forces with him with out becoming a vampire meant I was strong enough to put fear into the hearts of any vampire as I was. But, letting him know that I realized he was afraid of me would also mean he might kill me. A vampire’s pride I didn’t know much about, but a man’s pride I knew a whole lot about, and they never liked to seem weak. I could only imagine that would carry over into the afterlife.

“It’s my way of defending myself,” I looked analyzed his expression and when I didn’t see it return to normal I clarified, “For defending us.”

He broke his stare from the bucket and met my eyes. Just as I had expected his lips curled into a smirk and he laughed lightly. “And where did you learn these things?”

I returned to light bulbs and the solution in the bucket. “My father was a bit…well let’s just call him a survivalist. He was always teaching me how to blow up things and set things on fire, but safely.”

“A survivalist? Are you sure he wasn’t the Unabomber?” Aiden laughed.

I laughed with him. “He was probably the one who taught the Unabomber everything he knew. You wouldn’t happen to have any Everclear, would you?”

He twisted his face and peeked at his cabinet out of the corner of his eye.

“You do?” I said in surprise.

He walked towards the cabinet and pulled out a glass bottle full of a liquid clearer than vodka, which should never even be compared to Vodka or any other alcohol. More importantly it had a higher concentration of alcohol than rubbing alcohol which was 75% alcohol. Everclear came in two potencies, death and instant death, otherwise known as 75% and 95%. Of course, anyone buying Everclear was only looking for one thing, the highest concentration of alcohol possible. And if you drank it straight you were sure to never feel anything inside your mouth more painful than that for the rest of your life.

“Alcohol in your past life right?” I said as he passed me the wood grain alcohol.

He nodded shamefully.

I put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, I have a bottle myself as well.” I pictured the bottle sitting on my counter top collecting dust.

Aiden led me upstairs where he had a closet full of clothing as well as other strange findings he’d collected over his lifetime.

“Have you had this house since you were ‘made’?” I asked as I flipped through the clothes hanging in his large walk-in closet. I pulled down a black dress vest and threw it in his direction.

Aiden caught the vest and laid it on the bed next to the heavy leather belt I had tossed out earlier. “It was left to me in my parent’s will. I’m not sure why they left it to me, or why I even kept the damn thing, but after a while the place started to grow on me.”

I reached the end of the closet and came across the strangest discovery I’d made all night. I paused before inquiring about it. “How long ago did your parents die?”

He twisted his hand in his lap. “The early 1900’s, I can’t exactly remember the date, maybe 1934? It’s been so long since I’ve thought about it…”

“And how long ago did your wife die?”

His head shot up, eyes glaring at me. “I don’t have a wife.”

I pulled out a mini dress and a tank top, just a sample of the several articles of clothing obviously belonging to a woman from the early 70’s judging by the style of them.

His head bowed again with a heavy sigh. “Those belonged to my sister’s daughter.”

“You had a sister?”

“Yes, she was born only a few years before my parent’s were killed.”

I put the clothes back on the hanging rod and walked out of the closet to sit on the bed near him. “I’m confused, your parent’s were killed? How old were they when they died? And how-”

“You ask too many questions.” His lips were pressed into a firm frown. “Those clothes belonged to my sister’s daughter who ran away several decades ago. After eleven years of looking for her I still hadn’t found her which leaves left to my imagination as to what happened to her. So, if we can leave it at that and hurry up...”

I nodded. “Well if it doesn’t bother you I’d like to borrow some of her clothes.”

He shrugged his shoulders and laid on the bed. “Just hurry up.”

I returned to the closet and grabbed a pair of jean shorts. They looked to be about my size, which was convenient. There was also a mid-thigh length coat hanging towards the back. A cloud of dust lifted from it when I shook it, but it looked as if it had been worn once, if at all. The arms were a bit tight but it fit. Her black tank top fit snugly around my body. It was almost uncanny how well her clothes fit me. She had a pair of winter gloves tucked on the shelf above the clothing rack which I also stuffed into my pocket. Her shoes were another story, it wasn’t that they wouldn’t have fit me; it was that her shoes were pretty worn out except for a pair of flat brown boots. They fit surprisingly. She even had the same large feet I had, which was much weirder than her clothes fitting. I felt a chill ripple down my arms that couldn’t be caused by being cold.

I stepped out of the closet and saw Aiden staring out the curtains he had pulled open. The vineyard to the left wasn’t very large, but it was noticeably different from the forest surrounding it.

“I can understand why you’d want to keep this place,” I said as I buckled Aiden’s large belt around my waist.

He stared at me through my reflection in the window. “Isn’t the belt a bit big?” was all he said.

“I have other plans for it if that’s alright with you.” I tugged on the leather belt.

He shrugged again. “I haven’t worn that thing in years, so if anyone can get some use out of it at least it’s not going to waste.”

A half hour and a bit of duct tape and stapling later, I was ready. The coat concealed the many weapons I now had strapped to me using the findings in Aiden’s closet. I had destroyed a few more belts than intended but he didn’t mind. The original belt I had plucked from his closet sat firmly around my hips with my pepper spray and other weapons slipped between the double-layered leather I had unglued.

“I must admit, you’d give MacGyver a run for his money,” Aiden mused at my outfit.

“Give me a kitchen and a spatula and I’ll amaze you even more,” I laughed.