4 Aug 2012
Late late late on a Saturday
Camden Town Hookers

The recent coverage of the move towards legalization of voluntary bites had caused a surge in patrons at the London vampire coven. It wasn't welcome by everyone, namely vampire Lazarus Blackburn. Money and volunteers had not in the past few decades ever been in short supply at Hookers, and first-timers were a hassle. All the hand-holding - imagine, comforting your dinner! Then there were the second thoughts, the hemming, the nervous laughter - good lord sit still. Some of Laz's cos's went for that, but Laz kept to his regulars.

Tonight, Lazarus was at his cafe table in the corner with his feet up on the other chair. His black hat was sat well back on his head and his cigarette was burnt way down. He reading something new - something he'd missed - by the light of a fat stumpy melting candle. The pub-like place was busy. His cousins, most of them, were occupied. No one had attracted this old vampire's attention and his manner and aloof pose stood off any virgin approaches.

Sometime late, he smelled Dido Tansi's perfume and looked up. He kept his feet on the chair until she made a move to come over. Sometimes she came directly, sometimes she visited the bar first; Lazarus was never in a rush, eternal and eternally patient.

This thin waifish American was young and not normally Lazarus's type, but she'd been cool as coal on her first go and when she kept returning they'd begun to enjoy each other. He found himself her confessor and she brought him humanity.

"Dido T, come back to me, I see?" he said in his gravelly voice through a puff of smoke before extinguishing it in the candle's caldera of wax.

She liked getting to Hooker's through Camden Town. London was still a novelty to Dido and she made it a point to let her eyes feast.

By the time she turned into the warded streets and through the bar doors, she was quite full of Camden's fantastic shop signs; its busy, Saturday night folk, the blasting of music as people opened club doors to leave. Dido hung up her jacket (nobody stole shit from a vampire bar) before heading over to the bar for a drink from Anaïs.

                "Dido T, come back to me, I see?"

"Hey hey," she smiled easily as she slid into her usual seat with a gin and tonic. "Been a hot minute, huh? Feels like it anyway. Full moons, man."

After Thursday night, all the witch wanted was to unwind with the 'drug' of her choice and talk at ease. Laz was great about that. There was something about vampires, especially the older ones, she felt like they'd seen it all and this somehow lessened the significance of her own problems or complaints. In a good way.

Dido had been coming here for a few months now, ever since Nemo alerted her[1] to the existence of the vampire bar. "What's good?" she sipped, taking her time.

Once you got used to the song and dance, there was no reason to feel urgent about getting bit. Dido liked this place and she liked Lazarus. It was somewhere to go. Quiet and her own, at least for now.

1.	14th April - And Then There Were Two

"Full moons," Lazarus echoed, his own accent not dissimilar to Dido's, though hers was fresher, her voice unscarred. He set down his book without dog-earing the page and moved his lanky limbs around - his elbows found the tabletop. He scratched at his jawline. He liked that Dido wasn't in a hurry; the anticipation was nice.

"Do you go nocturnal those nights?" he asked. Dido wasn't the only living soul Lazarus had come to be fond of and liable to fail for. The other was the dog-catcher Kurby Bagnold who was better in a crisis than a conversation. Crude and fast. "Are you your boss's ears and eyes for her?"

Lazarus had come to know quite a bit now about the Werewolf Wing, at least that Dido's boss was a werewolf herself, turned on the job. She'd been turned like Lazarus had, both their lives doubled. Werewolves lived two at once, while vampires started one over.

"That'd be nice of you, helping out, taking notes."

"Nocturnal like an owl," she confirmed and made a low, musical hooting noise before laughing to herself.

In spite of her complaints, Dido relished those busy nights on level four. There were days at the Ministry where nothing seemed to move except for paperwork and mouths - but on a full moon, gods, the whole place was jumping. Even the department head hung about until the early hours of the morning; she caught sight of him often enough, smoking cigarettes and dropping off reports on Ballentyne's desk.

"I record, I watch, I make myself useful..." Dido sipped her gin and tonic. "The hunters, they don't need to waste time on paperwork. So, voila, I come along on roller skates and take it all away."

She gestured, as if performing wandless magic. "Dead boring but I get a kick out of watching 'em come and go. Crazy wixes."

Well shesaid they were crazy but Dido meant they were brave. And she envied them some, their commitment and camaraderie. It was like with the aurors without all that dark magic business.

"Have you ever seen a werewolf?" she asked abruptly, and felt surprised by the fact that it had never occurred to ask before. "On a full moon?"

"Loads of times," Lazarus rumbled with a toothy smile. "Loads of times. God. They're ..."

He paused long, his mouth paused open between words, searching his foggy recollection. His dark gaze landed on Dido's neck, then he blinked and returned.

"... something. Mmm. Really something. Once, I saw one fall from a tower. I think it jumped."

Lazarus had happened on the scene by chance, and watched it happen disturbed, incredulous, and fascinated. He was not upset now by this memory. He did, however, want something to do with his hands now. He propped his head up on his hand and looked up at the living thing from sideways.

"Crazy, crazy, crazy," he moved the words around in his mouth. "What about you, Dido T?"

Sometimes the person answering got to choose what the question was about.

She was transfixed for a moment, more fascinated by the vampire's pauses than by his words. That's how she knew it was something to behold a werewolf on a full moon: even someone as old as Laz here couldn't find the words.

A werewolf, jumping off a tower? Dido couldn't even picture that. What a wild image! Or like he said: crazy crazy crazy.

"Me?" she snorted and took a longer sip of her drink before sliding it aside, something to look at later after the bite. "Not yet. I missed seeing one the other night. They were floating it into a cell or something, like a balloon."

That had been a disappointment. "Is it weird that I kind of want to see one?" she looked at Lazarus frankly.

They did this, these two.

They talked at this table, or a different one. Sometimes, Dido asked questions like she was looking for a real answer, like she thought Lazarus would be a good face to ask. Lazarus liked it because it was new. What kind of girl came to the blood sucked out of her neck wrist thigh but brought philosophy in her pocket? He never knew what she was going to say.

"No, not weird," he answered, watching her set aside her clear drink still with the ice. She still knew what she was about tonight. He chuckled with his cracked throat. "Not weird for you, anyway. I'd be shocked, shocked I say..."

He sat back and made a gently lolling mockery of being scandalized, "to hear you'd ever looked away."

Then the vampire set his long hand down on the table further from himself and closer to Dido, and drummed his fingernails once.