The witch didn't take long - she arrived not long after Terrence himself had sat down, leaning against the leather back and slouching so that his legs were stretched out under the table. His hands were interlaced over his stomach, and to all appearances he looked like he might close his eyes to have a little nap at any moment.

           "This is your place. You're Hooker."

He hadn't glanced up when she slid in next to him but he did now, nodding. "I'm Hooker," the vampire repeated in a soft voice, so much easier to hear in this enclosed corner. "This is my place."

Camden Town Hookers belonged to him - he had bought, built, and run the bloody bar long before the very idea of this girl had been conceived. It was home to Terrence and many other beings; a refuge and a playground. He was comfortable here and he made it comfortable for his kind, not for hers or any other.

"Not bad for a sprog, are you?" he murmured and reached out with his long arm, to take her chin between his fingers - looking her in the eye, committing that face to memory. "Tell me where you want it, then." Terry let go just as easily as he'd obliged the whim to admire Waverly's visage. "Let's not shilly-shally."

If there wasn't the chance of anything to accompany his meal, there was no point in foreplay. He rested his hand on the table and drummed his long fingernails on the sticky surface.

Waverly didn't flinch when Terrence reached for her face; his whole vibe was different. It was like he was making one final check, for what, she couldn't tell. The more time she spent here the more obvious it was that vampires weren't just humans with sharp teeth. Terrence at least, their prince, existed in a different reality. It was fascinating.

A sprog, was she? Maybe compared to someone who could be, what, a hundred years old. The threat of an erotic having passed, it was time. No more playing about. No more 'shilly-shally'. She couldn't stop her heart from picking up again, but she decided to ride it out. Waverly would own her anxiety as fuel, as a signal she was living and reveling at the edge of it. She lifted her chin, took a deep breath, and unfolded her elbow to present her upturned wrist to Terrence.

"Here."

She offered her wrist like a gift, and he laughed lightly at the effect.

There was a time... a time before Camden, before London, before Vaillancourt and his strange mannerisms - stranger morals. A time when Terrence Hooker would never have dreamt of wizard or witch willingly giving themselves over to him. Maybe Waverly didn't see it that way, maybe none of them did, but that's how Terry saw it. Blood was a precious and personal thing. You could tell all manner of things from just a drop.

But he was getting more than a drop now. The vampire accepted her upturned hand for the second time tonight and drew closer to the girl, attention shifting from her to the smooth expanse of skin being proffered. He ran his thumb along the little dip of flesh he fancied.

Hooker opened his mouth into a great yawn, stretching out his jaw until it appeared to almost come unhinged with a series of sickening clicks. He was breathing through his mouth,  hot breath against Waverly's wrist. Terry licked his teeth, once, twice, and then sunk in without warning. Her flesh was soft, yielding.

It was not a new moon and the hot, rich blood flooding his mouth felt exceptionally luxurious for how little his body craved sustenance. The child tasted of late afternoon sunshine, vegetables running under a tap, the laughter of women. They always tasted of things he could no longer have. Distant memories. He lowered a hand, after the initial piercing, and lifted his eyes to Waverly while he slid a hand on to her thigh, fingernail digging in through her trouser material.

Watching with his mouth to her wrist, pupils dilated, enlivened by what came to life on the faces of every blood bag bitten. Pleasure.

He was smelling her again like he was savoring wine. Merlin, what a letch.

Then in an instant, he'd turned into a monster with a fanged gaping maw. He dove down and bit her wrist. His teeth sank in, his jaw impossibly strong. On instinct, Waverly pulled at her arm gasping in a shock of fear then searing pain. He braced her leg against the other bench next to Terrence. Her first thought was that he was going to kill her.

And then, suddenly, startlingly, Waverly's mind was swept over with feeling. Every part of her relaxed, melted, dizzy, delirious. Any worry, any discretion, any inhibition disappeared. She caught the vampire looking into her eyes before her eyelids fell and her head hit the back of the booth. The room and body slipped away; she was only vaguely aware of his hand on her leg. No thoughts, only feeling.

She moaned then tipped forward and laid her head on her right arm. Her hair fell over her shoulders. The vampire was a horrible person, but he could go ahead and take it all. She didn't care if she died anymore. It felt too good to stop.

It was easy to prise himself off her, in a way it would not have been if the moon was at its slightest. Without hunger behind the intent he didn't need to worry about wanting more. Terry licked the twin pinpricks on the inside of her wrist - the skin was pink, reddened around where he had latched on. He let her hand drop to the table on which she was already partially laying, face hidden by tumbling curls.

Took to it easy, this girl.

The warmth of her life coursed through him - down his throat, into his middle, warming the vampire like a flame kindled on the inside. Hooker made a satisfied noise as his jaw drew in from its active position, a single drop of blood trickling down the corner of his mouth.

He sat back and wiped it off with a single finger before holding it up to study the red smear in the weak light of the booth. Somewhere in another corner of the pub, Terry could hear a man moaning loudly, another patron succumbing to sensation. Strange that they felt so good. Compensation for the pain, maybe, or as Tristan liked to theorise, indicative of a biologically natural relationship.

Glancing at Waverly, he snorted lightly to himself. Natural, sure. Hooker squeezed her thigh once, tightly, and let go. "Not too giddy, blood bag?" he wanted to make sure she wasn't going to pass out in his pub before he left the booth.

Waverly began to feel cold as the flush of the blood-draw faded. She slowly pulled her hand back to herself; it was numb. When Terrence spoke to her and squeezed her thigh it was like she came to, and sat up off the table haltingly. She looked around in a haze, trying to get her bearings. Her eyes found the wounds on her wrist and looked quickly away.

She looked up at Terrance, her face blank and dazed. She narrowed her eyes. He'd called her 'blood bag'. The hell did that mean? She didn't know, but it made her feel gross.

"Fine," she answered, her mouth dry. She closed her eyes again and put her cold hands on her hot face, noticing again her funny left hand. She groaned and forced herself to be as alert as she could be. She wanted the feeling back, but she also felt startled remembering what had gone through her head while it was happening. Startled that she was capable of any of that, those thoughts and the feeling of it.

Waverly had grown self-conscious and got more animated as she shuffled for her coat which had fallen to the floor.

"I have to go," she mumbled and began to climb out of the booth hoping her legs would bear her.

Look at her go! Terrence tossed his head back into a laugh as the witch fumbled for her coat, keen to leave right away. It was cute - the virgins did that, if they were alone, scrambled to get out. He wondered if she would do the same if she came again, or if she would fall into the more relaxed routine of regular patrons. People who rode their high out for longer or stayed to giddily chat (among other things).

"Go on then, girl." Hooker watched her get up - she was quick on her feet but unsteady. Anaïs called out to her from the bar, echoing his amusement. "Mind how you go," the bartender advised loudly across the pub, "and come back anytime, luv!"

Waverly nearly walked into a wizard[1] on his way in, on of their regulars.

Terry's eyes followed her only for a moment; his night was still young after all, and Hookers never closed before sunrise.

1.	Earnest Carstairs

No one liked to be laughed at, but the vampires' amusement at her came through as if through water. The sound was muffled and unable to pierce Waverly's own obsession. Her focus was completely on getting out and making sure she didn't come down like a rock dropped in the river. Incongruous with the vampires' callous farewell, she lifted a hand to wave back.

In her wavering beeline to the door, she clipped the shoulder and a man. She looked up a little wild-eyed and after a beat, recognized her other strange preoccupation Ernest Carstairs with his fashionable coat and glasses and hair done just so.

"Brilliant," she muttered, then pushed out the doors into the night. She'd hurry home to find her shower then her bed, Apparate as soon as she felt like she could manage it. For better or for worse, it was done. She'd work out the rest later.

Fin