Eliza smiled.  Cat's seemed to be able to sleep so easily.  Toby's ear twitched and she wondered if he was dreaming.  She wished it was that easy for her.  Lately, her sleep had been troubled by disturbing, undefined, dreams.  She'd awake, fangs deployed, hands curled into defensive tools, never remembering what had awakened or disturbed her.  She kept getting the feeling that she was not alone, but rather than being disturbing, it was somehow comforting. 

She's spent the last week alone.  She'd gone out.  After all she did have to eat.  Ok, and drink, too.  She'd told Adam she'd stay off the brandy and she had.  Rum wasn't nearly as bad as she'd thought.  Maybe it was an acquired taste.  Anyway, the 151 proof did pack quite a punch.  She really had cut back, too.  She hadn't gotten falling down, stupid drunk since the night he'd come bursting in.  She held the bottle up and looked through the dark brown fluid.  "I've been a good girl," she thought.  "Just enough to get mellow and sleep.  I haven't over done it once.  The juice isn't really bad for you.  It's the over doing it that’s the killer."  She chuckled.  "Besides, it would take more than a stone liver to put me away."  She took a sip from the bottle and made a face.  "Whew," she exhaled noisily.  "That is just too much."  She went to the kitchen sink and drank noisily from the spigot.   Returning to the couch, she carried some soda water as a chaser. 

She thought back to the night of her assault.  She'd been raped, no other word for it, but they'd not hurt her as bad as the hunters had and she'd fought back and made them pay.  She had  really made the one pay.  She probed at her emotions and realized that she wasn't all that upset.  Was she weird, she wondered.  Weren't women supposed to be traumatized and upset after such an incident.  She sighed.  "Maybe I'm not a woman anymore."  She thought about it, sipping on the rum and chasing it with the soda water.  She thought back to the time when she had a normal life, while she will still a mousey little librarian and all excited about working on a research project.  If a man had assaulted her, it would have been the invasion of her will and the feeling of powerlessness that would have gotten into her mind.  Of course, today, she was not powerless and the physical effects were healed within moments of getting blood.  The rules had changed. 

She stood and stretched, considering that, under the circumstances, the two men that had attacked her had come out on the short side.  She felt a little better now.  She realize that she'd been worried about not being worried.  She was a woman who had been raped and it just wasn't disturbing her that much.  Of course, she'd mutilated and killed the bastards and that could have something to do with it.  Turnabout is fair play and she’d done to them what they had tried to do to her.  Big time!

She went into her bed room and pulled the curtain back from the window.  A basement apartment doesn't have much of a view, but at least she could see if it was raining, snowing, or whatever.  She heard a faint midnight chime from somewhere, and standing on tip toes, she gazed into the alley.  It looked nice out.  The past two days had been unseasonably warm, almost 50.  It was a pleasant break from the bitter ice cold of February.  She liked it cold, but too much of a good thing was possible. 

She felt a quiver and realized it was the full moon already.  She'd lost track of time. 

It seemed almost strange being outside.  The cool, not cold breezed caressed her face and she could feel her hair stir against her cheek.  She was wearing all black leather, mid-calf boots, form fitting slacks, black silk shirt, black leather vest, red scarf, with lined leather cape.  A black beret set at a jaunty angel completed her outfit.  Her pallor was set off my a very dark lipstick and just a touch of dark eyeshadow.  She looked good and she knew it.  She wasn't quite sure why she'd taken such care dressing but she needed to get out and get moving.  She's been moping too much. 

She wandered aimlessly, enjoying the bright moon and the cool temperature when she stopped.  She grimaced and turned the corner and there was the library.  She walked to the base of the steps and looked up at the huge doors atop the twenty-three steps.  She'd loved closing those doors when she left and locking them with the large key she'd been entrusted with.  There was a metallic sound, a sound of power as they closed and it gave her chills every time she'd closed them.  She shivered pleasantly remembering it.  How long ago that seemed!  She sighed.  Things would never be like that again. 

Feeling her danger sense quiver at the same time she heard raised voices, caused her to crouch into an almost invisible black shadow of a heap and she watched, senses hyper alert.  She recognized the sound of a werewolf's snarl and she guessed the raised voices were hunters.  This was not a good place for a lone vampire to be.

She flashed to the top of the steps and wedged between a large column and the wall.  She was almost invisible and she projected a mental fog that would cause anyone looking in her direction to not be able to focus on her.   The ruckus rounded the corner and the hunters had the beast surrounded as the base of the library steps. 

She watched in horror and loathing as the hunters jockeyed for position to be able to deliver a finishing thrust with their tridents.  It was clear that many of the stabs were only to inflict pain and not to kill.  A burning hatred welled up within her for the hunters and she felt her fangs deploy. 

At full speed she soared down the steps and hit the unsuspecting hunters with fang and claw, fatally injuring one, and badly slashing two more.  From behind the werewolf she grabbed him and hoisted his 250 pounds into a fireman's carry.  There was a cold, savage rush of wind and the beast was dropped, stunned and confused to the moist ground.  It stared up at her, mouth open, tongue lolling, with confused yellow eyes.  She hissed and vanished from it's sight, leaving it alone in the dank of the park.

Pensively, she sipped her coffee.  She was the only customer in the all night café and the waitress had smiled but said nothing as she added some rum to the coffee from a polished brass flask.   Rum and coffee was a nice combination she'd discovered. 

She sipped, trying to make sense of what was happening.  A deep melancholy suffused her and she was wondering why.  Why? Why?  Why?  Why was she the way she was?  Why had she saved that, that, thing?  Was the enemy of my enemy is my friend feeling that strong?  She took another sip of her coffee when she realized someone was sitting next to her at the counter.
 

In the midst of the crowd of hunters, watching the whole thing, was one lone hunter that hadn’t moved during the whole thing.  The face was one Eliza would have recognized if she had looked.  Vicki stood stunned a the speed with which Eliza had dispatched the one hunter, Ian by name, and mauled the others.  She was just beginning to understand something about Eliza.  Friend of the underdog, that was Eliza.  Just as she’d protected Vicki from an attack by the weredog, she’d protected the werewolf from attack by the hunters.

This left Vicki in a quandary.  Did she tell what she knew?  Did she protect Eliza, as Eliza had protected her?  Where did her loyalties lie?  She knew she would have some hard thinking and some deep soul searching to do.  She knew she only had one chance to do the right thing and she was being torn both ways.

On the one hand, Eliza had almost always been there for her when she needed her.  All she’d had to do was reach for the phone and Eliza was there.  She’d helped her with her job, often joining in.  Some job, Vicki laughed at herself.  “Be correct,” she thought, “it may have been a job, but you were a hooker.”  Eliza had been there when she’d needed help, whether it be physical or monetary help.  She’d been there until lately.  That had been Vicki’s own fault and she knew it.  “I overdid the ‘help me’ routine, she was right to leave me,” she thought.  “I abused the friend relationship and expected her to be there to bail me out each time and to provide me the funds to slowly kill myself,” she mused. 

This was the first time Vicki had been able to think of Eliza without getting angry at her for deserting her, when she felt she was at her lowest point.  Looking at it objectively, Vicki realized that Eliza had done her the biggest favor of their friendship.  Only Eliza didn’t know it.

Vicki knew she’d reached rock bottom.  When the hunters had found her, she’d been as close to dying, as it was possible to be without actually dying.  She’d been so strung out on the dope, she’d fallen into a puddle in the gutter and lapsed into unconsciousness.  A few more seconds and she would have drowned in a puddle.  How ironic.

That brought her to the hunters.  How much did she owe them for saving her life?  Did she owe them the life of her best friend?  Yes, she could admit it now, Eliza was still her best friend, besides Jimmy.  Even if she didn’t know it.  Do I tell the hunters about her.  This is the information they want.  If they knew that I knew a vampire, what would they do to me and to Eliza?  She realized she couldn’t tell the hunters about Eliza yet, if ever.

Vicki wandered off, away from the hunters.  She thought she’d see if she could find Eliza and maybe they could talk things over.  She knew they had a lot to catch up on and she did want to say thank you for not giving in to her demands of the time.  She knew now that Eliza had distanced herself from Vicki out of friendship and not hate.  She didn’t think Eliza could hate anyone.  Not from what she’d seen anyway.  She was always taking up for the underdog.  She probably always would too.

Vicki set off with a determined step.  She wanted to find Eliza and talk.  She wasn’t sure she’d be able to find her though.  So many places to go in a city this size.  Although, at this time of night, most were closed.  She thought she might know where Eliza was.  There was that all night diner that they had sometimes gone to.  She’d check it out and if Eliza wasn’t there, she’d call her in the morning or rather in the early evening.

With an inward smile, she set off toward the diner.  She really hoped Eliza would be there.

Eliza felt the presence, but didn’t want to look.  With all the empty seats in the place, why did he have to sit here?  Couldn’t he see that she wanted to be alone. 

He sat quietly, not moving.  Using sign language he made his choice for coffee know to the waitress. 

Suddenly, within her head, she heard a voice.  “Why you save Leo, why you no let hunters kill Leo?” it asked.  “Me know you hear me, me know you have mind link,” it continued. 

Definitely a male voice, but whose?  Turning, she slowly looked at the person beside her.  She didn’t recognize him.  The face was totally unfamiliar.  The voice, unknown.  The speech was sort of guttural, as if the person wasn’t used to speaking aloud.  Laughing to herself, she acknowledged that aloud wasn’t the correct terminology, but it was the closest she could come.

“I don’t know why I saved Leo,” Eliza replied in kind.  Lips not moving, she thought her response.  “All I can say, is that I have been there.  I don’t like to think of another at the mercy of the hunters.  I knew what they were going to do to him.  I may not like werewolves, weredogs or suchlike, but I won’t let them be killed for no reason.  If he’d attacked first, but not what I saw.  They were tormenting him, wanting to prolong his pain and making him suffer.  That is not for me.  I suffered at their hands.  They suffered at mine.”

Looking at him full on, she thought, “do I know you?”

With an almost nonexistent shake of his head, he thought, “no Miss, you do not.  I know of you though.  You are the one feared by all.  Why is that?  You save Leo, you carry Leo from harm and let him go. I no understand why you so feared.”

“You seem to know an awful lot.  You are close to this Leo?” Eliza asked him.

With a mental snort of laughter, he answered, “yes, you could say that.  I am Leo.”

Eliza gave her own mental chuckle, thinking, “I sort of thought so.  You knew too much of what had happened in a very short space of time.  You aren’t from around here though are you?  Your accent is marked.  Why are there so many were-creatures all of a sudden?”

“So many questions, Miss.  May I know your name, since you now know mine?  Then I will gladly answer all the questions I am able,” Leo replied.

Laughing at herself this time, Eliza responded with, “I am so sorry Leo, my name is Eliza.  As you know, I am a vampire.  I know how I became one, I know there are some of us in the city, I know with certainty that there is an increasing number of were-creatures also.  Can you tell me why there seem to be so many gathering or are they always here also?”

“First of all Miss Eliza, werewolves and weredogs are the same.  There are the others.” With a look of distaste and a mental sneer as he spoke of them, Leo went on to tell her that the others were the feline variety. 

“We don’t get along very well as you may or may not have observed,” he thought straight faced.  “There have always been werewolves around.  Just as you became a vampire, we become werewolves.  As you control your change, so do we.  Lately, there has been a change.  There has been an influx of the others.”

Listening to him, Eliza realized the accent had disappeared and this was a highly intelligent person.  She listened raptly as he talked of the things he was aware of.  So many things she had never been aware of.  Why did she think she was so remarkable.  A lowly librarian, this man was a doctor.  Startled, she looked up.  “Doctor?  Is there a cure for what we’ve been through?” she asked him.

“No Miss Eliza, no cure, there have been many changes that have taken place in both our bodies, systems and minds.  There is no way to go back to what we once were.  Quite honestly now, would you want to?” he asked her.

“Sometimes I think I would, Leo, and then others I know I wouldn’t.  Things are better and things are harder now.  Please just call me Eliza, it’s strange to hear the Miss part,” she said with a smile.

What was hard, was realizing all this was done mentally.  Not one word had been spoken but she felt she knew this man better than anyone else.  They’d “talked” for a long time.

Looking at Leo again, she thought, “watch yourself Leo, it’s getting on toward dawn, I must get home soon.  Please be careful as the hunters seem to have stepped up their patrols.  A pup was cornered by them not too long ago and I helped him get away also.  I don’t want to have helped you get away, just to fall into their hands again tonight.”

He sent back to her, “I will watch out for myself, if you will promise to do the same.  They probably are aware of who you are.  If not yet, it will only be a matter of time.  Take care of yourself also.  I will see you around, you know.  By the way, did you know there is someone watching you?”

Startled, she looked around.  “No, no, I am sorry I didn’t mean now, but there is someone trailing you.  He, it is a male, is of the feline race.  Do you know of someone like that?” he asked.

Shaking her head, as if at what she was thinking, she said no she didn’t know anyone like that.  The only feline she knew was Christa. 

“Ah yes, Miss Christa,” Leo thought back.  “I do know of her and she isn’t as tolerant as you.”

Suddenly her danger tingle went off. 

“Quickly Leo, get out, there is danger.  I’m not sure just what it is or where it’s coming from, but it’s there,” she told him.

Swiftly and still silently, he moved to the front and paid for his coffee.  Making his way out the door, he nodded to the young woman entering as he was leaving.

Eliza looked over her shoulder and froze. 

Vicki walked through the door as Leo left and headed directly toward Eliza.  With a tentative smile, she held out her hand and said, “Eliza we have to talk.”

Taking Vicki’s hand in hers, Eliza smiled and said warmly, “all right Vicki, when would you like to get together?  It’s getting late, I haven’t slept yet and I need to get home.  I do think we need to talk though.”

“As soon as possible Eliza, as soon as possible.  I know what you are and I know what my new friends want to do to you.  I haven’t said anything to them, nor will I because I owe you,” Vicki said.

Eyes narrowing, Eliza looked at Vicki and replied that if it was only because she felt she owed her something, not to worry.  Vicki owed her nothing, what she’d done, she’d done out of friendship and love for her friend.  She wasn’t looking for payback.  If the friendship meant nothing to Vicki, then she was free to do what she felt she had to.  Eliza snapped at Vicki, “I made it on my own before you and I’ll make it on my own after you.  I don’t need your quiet because you owe me.”

Eliza turned and stormed out of the café, leaving a stunned Vicki staring after her.

Shaking her head, Vicki thought, “but that’s not what I meant.  I see there is going to be much to do to heal the breach of this friendship.  Since I broke it, it’s up to me to fix it.  I’ll call her in the morning.”

Each of the women headed home and each fell into a deep sleep.  Vicki to sleep without dreams and Eliza to again dream her often weird dreams.

Thrashing in the bed, Eliza yelled out, “No Vicki no, how could you do this to me.”  Slowly, the fight went out of her and she lay quietly, totally tied up in her pulled apart bed.  She lay there as if dead.