About half an hour after sunset

“TRIIIISTAAAAAN!”

Cass had never been more glad to be back at Moonstone Mews. Talisha Crowe had been worth her fee. The only real delay had been daylight once that witch had worked her legal magic.

“TRIIISTAN!”

Her producer had been furious, obviously. She hadn’t made her show, because Auror Woe Roh had kept her in a cell all night, waiting until daylight to question her about a murder she obviously had nothing to do with. Who kept their broken wand? Not Cass. Definitely not. That’d be weird wouldn’t it? Auror Roh would understand how ridiculous it all was once Cass aired her opinion on her radio show next. Persecution against vampires. Just because she owned pointy teeth didn’t mean she went around sucking every bloodbag Muggle dry on a whim.

Cass tossed her shoes off inside the front door and wondered if she looked ghastly, only she couldn't look in a mirror to check. Tristan would understand. He better be outraged at what had happened to her. She was confident he would support her retaliation too. Dirty aurors. Dragged her out he door. Didn’t even let her turn the record off. Disgraceful.

He had been waiting for Cass, ever since he heard from Cepheus[1] about her arrest.

Tristan was not... motherly. All the same he had grown fond of Cass and of watching her come to terms with her life as a vampire; it filled him with nostalgia, amusement and concern. His own start in the world of the undead had been different. Violent. If the Ministry knew his bodycount it might not be so content to have him in its employ.

            “TRIIIISTAAAAAN!”

He had missed the sound of his lodger returning. Tristan was in the living room, supine on a chaise lounge and reading one of his old diaries. He closed it with a decisive clap. “TRIIISTAN!”

"You need only call once!" he called back, coming out into the foyer to greet the blonde vampire. "My poor Cass." Tristan smiled affably enough as he approached to exchange kisses on the cheek, a hand on her shoulder. "Tell me everything. But come, kitchen, I have brought un cadeau from our friend Hooker."

He had gone to vent at Terry's, and been sent home with a little glass bottle of what the coven leader called an especially innocent[2] vintage.

1.	Jan 4th - Thou Camest to Bite the World
2.	Nemo's blood from It's the Freakiest Show!

“’un cadeau?’” Cass questioned, eyes lit up, and her French accent laughable. “Is it breathing with two arms and legs, because if it is…”

But the kitchen was not occupied by a beating heart and the flesh which ordinary wrapped around. Sad times, but also rather lessened the risk of Auror Woe Roh at the door again. Cass did not want a repeat of that humiliation!

“What was it, a commiseration present that you’d have to get a new lodger?” She asked, maintaining a one-sided commentary of the situation as usual. “Not like he gives a whatsits about someone out of the crew - coven.”

Despite it being a few years, Cass had been a vampire just a moment in comparison to the rest of the vampires she knew. She’d not yet joined a coven because she was wary and felt inferior. She’d only just managed to get the hang of turning into a bat, and that hadn’t gone all that smoothly before Christmas. She’d ended up stuck[1] in a tailor’s shop. (Thankfully the end of that story had improved rather in the form of Rigel Acrux.)

1.	23rd December, 2011 Turn on the Dark, I'm Afraid of the Light!

Tristan turned away from the ice box in their rarely-used kitchen, placing a clear glass bottle on the counter between himself and Cass. It looked like a rather large potion bottle, stoppered by a cork and filled with a beautiful deep red substance. The new moon was still some time away, and so he had felt no impulse to down the blood himself; no, he was long past simple temptations.

            “Not like he gives a whatsits about someone out of the crew - coven.”

 Tristan smiled. "Terry did not offer this gift to you lightly, mon ami. He has also asked me to invite you to visit the coven, at your leisure."

The Hookers did not like the idea of Ministry people yanking vampires from their day night jobs without warning. It might signal more of that behaviour down the line. And what if they apprehended one of Terry's crew, peacefully drinking from a willing vessel? There was so much about this situation that displeased Tristan.

""Drink," he slid the bottle across the marble top. "Or save it for the darkest night, if you like. You are still my lodger and friend, Cass. But I may not be enough protection."

The older vampire sighed slightly, pushing back a lock of dark hair from his face. "The Ministry must continue to believe that I am..." he laughed once, harsh. "Their man, as the English say."
 

“He has also asked me to invite you to visit the coven, at your leisure.”

Where her eyebrows had risen high at Auror Roh’s exchanges, they were threatening to join her hairline at this suggestion. That red blood was suddenly hanging from the hook of a rod, and her own arms from wooden cross atop a puppet’s thin strings. The imaginary vision dissipated as the bottle slid across the marble. She clasped it like a woman appreciating the colour of nail varnish in a bottle, and rolled it between her long, pale fingers, watching the way it swirled behind the glass. Her fangs extended hungrily without conscious decision.

“Well, one of us has to be,” Cass replied at last. Her silence was out of character, but down to romancing the contents of Hooker’s gift. “You can tell them I am the model vampire if you wish,” not the sort who barely made it into bat form and flew into windows regularly. “I wouldn’t want to willingly damage your reputation at work… mate.” Well, he had called her his friend.

She looked from Tristan to the bottle and back again, clearly distracted by being in its proximity, but pushed it aside, becoming self-aware of how clear her thirst displayed.

“Surprised Hooker’s interested. Thought I was too ‘integrated’ for him?” She flexed her fingers to illustrate the air quotes, and perched atop the edge of the marble worktop. It was easy enough, given her height and the boots. “Didn’t think he wanted the likes of me?” Another question. “Unless -,” Cass brightened, “he believes it and that makes me worthy of the invite. You all used to suck live bloodbags when you could, didn’t you?” She gestured to Tristan, who was owed a less crass phrasing to the exploits of his long afterlife.

He eyed Cass's fangs, how unconsciously and instinctively they presented themselves. No, she was still a long way from maturity. Not that Tristan blamed her; it was difficult, it took him decades. She was a better new vampire than he had ever been, which was one of the reasons he trusted her not to have been the true attacker. Well, he mostly trusted her.

            "You all used to suck live bloodbags when you could, didn’t you?”

A dangerous line of thought but most of their thoughts were dangerous. He smiled softly and leaned back against the wall, facing his perched lodger on the kitchen counter as he crossed his arms.

"It was a different time in Europe, mon ami. Who was going to miss a few poor bodies in the middle of a war, non?" Tristan couldn't help but sigh nostalgically, thinking of those days and his recklessness. "No doubt our brethren in the likes of Baghdad and Cairo are now taking advantage of their own mortal conflicts."

Skimming papers and headlines - muggle and magical - was a hobby leftover from when he had travelled America; it helped to know about violent scuffles and congregations of people where a dead body or two would appear unremarkable.

He blinked slowly, pushing away those memories to remain rooted in now.

"Terry did not like the Aurors taking you away from work like that." Tristan's smile turned grim. "It was rude. We cannot allow them to be so rude to us, can we?" he pushed off the wall, circling the kitchen, examining his nails. "It will be better if they see us as united, if they come to question you again."

Oh, yes, he was used to hearing the odd vampire slur or seeing the repulsion in the eyes of Ministry colleagues. But he knew that these things were rooted in fear.

Aurors, however, dragging vampires around... that was not a show of fear. And this made Tristan angry, even if he did not show it.

“… who was going to miss a few poor bodies in the middle of a war…?”

Who would miss a few of the lonely faces in London? Though some of them kept habits which made the blood bitter, or were so rake thin the fangs would sink into sinew instead of rich artery. Tristan, a wiser, more worldly student than Cass was referring to pure muggle war, rather than the society battleground Cass saw in the capital city instead. She didn’t wish to start an intellectual debate over comparisons, because she’d lose.

He painted a thirsty picture. She’d be a blessing in disguise, shuffling the wounded off their mortal coil… and the smell of blood… the clean, underused kitchen blinked out of existence once more for some melodramatic scene painted on a renaissance canvas.

“Terry,” Tristan explained, and Cass returned to the present, quick tongue tracing the edge of her left fang. ”… we cannot allow them to be so rude to us, can we?” She met Tristan’s gaze from the other side of the kitchen.
“No, abhorrent,” she agreed, excited by this suggestion, eyes widening.

“United?” Cass queried. “United! Yes, yes.” She answered her own question somehow with the same word. “You know she did not let me lift the needle on the record? Such disrespect, tsk.” She did not elaborate whether she meant towards herself or her precious record collection.

“And by united…” Cass narrowed her eyes at her host, “… I am … invited?”

He had his doubts - to be without doubt is a sorry state indeed - but Tristan was ultimately fond of his lodger. Cass could barely turn into a bat, much less skulk around London biting innocents; she had too much to lose, even if the thought of draining bodies was appealing to her. It was appealing to all of them, was it not?

            “United?" Cass mused. "United! Yes, yes.”

The older vampire laughed, recognising her relish for new ideas and the way in which they were framing the disrespect of her being. He came to rest against the wall, once more across from the counter.

"Oui. You are invited," he answered and bowed slightly. "I think you will like it, my friend. I enjoyed my time as part of a coven, when I was un enfant."

Tristan had jumped into the vampiric world rather recklessly, with every intention of devouring. Nowadays he preferred the nuance of what the Ministry called consensual feedings; there was some strange pleasure in bonding with your prey.

Cass would have plenty of practice with that if she fell in line at Hookers. "We may go at your leisure, oui? Terry will want your answer in person."

Un enfant! Cass knew enough of the language to glean this was child. That’s what she was considered, amongst vampires. A child. She’d only turned in 2006, an accident when she and a female vampire acquaintance had come to an agreement over bloodsucking for a high. It wasn’t enough that she had been a grown up before, and still very much resembled her 33 year old witch self other than the pallid look, fangs and nocturnal lifestyle amongst other indicators.

Hadn’t her friend been part of a coven? Cass couldn’t remember. There was a fog when one turned, and while Cass Motley the witch had been sunshine, voice of the early morning breakfast show, Cass Motley the vampire had become moonlight at the point her witch-life ended. Her friend was long gone, after a Ministry punishment, and her father’s attempt to stake her for what she had done to Cass.

As such, Cass had not joined a coven, or really wanted to consider it, especially due to her deep depression after turning. Her new life with Tristan, and re-establishing her voice on the radio had brought her back. Perhaps a coven would be the new chapter she needed, especially with the Ministry’s persecution!

“We may go at your leisure, oui? Terry will want your answer in person.”

“Oui.” Cass replied with foolhardy assurance, dead eyes alight. Her fanged smile brightened with her delight.

“Oui, oui Tristan! At my leisure.”



End