It was not a dark and stormy night when the vampire came to town. Actually, it was a rather pleasant Tuesday evening, and the last of the sun had just finished bleeding from its cubby hole under the horizon when the vampire stepped out into the buzzing bustle that was Fleet Street. 

Fleet Street was locally renowned within its enclosing county for its pubs. Around these parts, they weren't merely drinking establishments—they were places to celebrate anniversaries, places to find jobs, places to forget yourself, places to hunt, and places to reinvent yourself. 

It was for this last reason that the vampire had come to North Canley, which was an otherwise unremarkable little town. He had been feeling rather lost lately in both a philosophical and literal sense. Perhaps, he thought to himself as he headed down the street, the locals would be able to provide some clarity on both fronts, since he wasn't sure whether he'd taken a wrong turn four blocks back… 

"Spare some change?" 

The vampire looked down. There was a woman who was as sodden as a fish lying on the sidewalk and extending her empty tankard to him. He blinked. "What?" 

"I said…" The woman furrowed her brow in concentration. "Change. Please," she threw in as an afterthought, because the few brain cells still firing in the remnants of her smashed mind were suggesting that Manners Maketh the Money. 

"There's been a lot of change in my life," admitted the vampire morosely, tucking his hands in his pockets. "I'd give all of it to you if I could. I never asked for it." 

"The hell's that supposed to mean?" 

"I mean, I wasn't always like this." The vampire shrugged uncomfortably, a curious motion which involved the rolling of his lanky shoulders in crooked ways. "I miss my sheep." 

"I didn't need your life story, kid. I was asking for money." 

"Oh." The vampire looked contemplative. "If I give you money, do you think you could give me some life advice? Unlife advice, actually." 

The  smell of opportunity was in the air, and it reeked of alcohol. The woman didn’t have to think for very long. "Get me a really strong drink to go with it and it's a deal." 

The vampire vanished, then reappeared in a blur moments later, holding a thick glass bottle. "Is this okay?" He held it out to her, along with a crisp pink banknote. "They said it contained…" He pronounced it carefully. "I-so-prop-yl. Strongest thing they had." 

"Yeah. Okay. Whatever. Pass it here."  

The woman squinted suspiciously at the note in her hand. It was a fifty. Her wandering eyes slid over to his other offering, which was labelled 'CLEANING FLUID' in large, friendly letters. What the hell, she thought blearily. Might as well. "Yeah, alright.” She tucked the fifty into her jacket. "That'll do it." 

The vampire let out a relieved sigh and plopped onto the sidewalk right next to her. "Well, great. I mean, I've been looking for someone to talk to about this whole business. Only, every time I try, they start hitting me with sticks because they think I'm some kind of blasphemous monstrosity. And that's if they believe me." 

"You don't look like a blasphemous monstrosity to me," said the woman loyally. She was already taking a swig from the bottle. It burned pleasantly as it went down. "You look kind of… kinda…" She floundered around for words. "Unemployed." 

The vampire frowned. "Really?" 

"Yeah. You've got the whole…" The woman gestured to his entire person vaguely, as if to say, you know? "...the whole you thing going on. Very unemployed." 

"Oh." The vampire sounded crestfallen. "I mean, you're right, I suppose. I don't have a means of making a living for myself any longer. How do I stop looking unemployed?" 

Wow, thought the woman through a growing haze. This isopropyl is the real stuff. "Get a job." 

"Which kind?" 

"Whichever one gives you a sense of purpose. You know." 

"A sense of purpose?" 

"Well," said the woman, who was struggling with the effort of staying upright, "A person’s got to have a sense of purpose, it's their… their… their wossname. Their raison d'etre. If you follow your sense of purpose, everything will be upsy daisy. Good things happen to you and all that."

The vampire thoughtfully absorbed this new information. "Huh. So what's your purpose, then?" 

The woman frowned as she struggled to remember. "Dunno. Uh…" She floundered for an answer, and gave up. "Doing good for other folks and stuff. You know. The usual." 

"I didn't really have a sense of purpose in my last job," said the vampire. "Was it still a real job?" 

"What was your last job?" 

"Sheepdog." 

"Okay." The woman decided that she was hearing things, and boldly took it in stride. "Yeah, it probably had a sense of purpose hidden in there somewhere. But that’s not important, because now you've gotta find a new one for a new career." She tried to remember the advice she'd always been given, which she'd never paid much attention to. "Like… uh… a doctor, you know? Stable salary, helping people left and right, very fulfilling. Lots of purpose." 

"I don't think I can be a doctor. I could accidentally kill someone for a lot of reasons. For one thing, I haven't gone to school for that kind of thing, and for another, uh, I might end up imbibing my patients." 

The woman blinked hard. She was starting to feel woozy. "Huh," she managed. "Who're you again, anyway?" 

The vampire winced. "I'm also an alcoholic. Kind of." 

The woman puffed up with all the indignation she could muster. “I'm not an alcoholic.” She seemed to be reconsidering her own words even as she said them, though, because her next denial was not nearly as fervent. "I'm not." 

"Okay." 

They sat together in silence for a long while. 

"You could start small," the woman finally said, as a sort of grudging peace offering. "Just go around doing good deeds for folks, that kind of thing. One step at a time. People like that." That was what she’d heard, anyway. “Then, they’ll like you. Stands to reason.” 

The vampire nodded sagely, like he knew exactly what she was talking about. "Right. I did a good deed for you, so… do you like me now?” 

“No.” 

“Oh.” The vampire coughed and changed the subject. “Does that job you mentioned have a title?" 

The woman frowned. "Dunno. Friendly itinerant, maybe." 

“Yeah, I could do that. Friendly itinerant.” The vampire thought about it some more. He was evidently warming up to the thought, as there was a lively spark of animation to his features now that hadn’t been there before. He smiled as ideas started to come to him from faraway places. “I could rescue cats from trees. Or lift stuck horses. Or help old people across the road.” 

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“See? You’re getting the hang of it.” The woman didn’t have the heart to tell him that around these parts, cats and horses were on the menu, while old people needed help with crossings of a different kind. 

“How can I help you, then?" 

“What?” 

“Well, if I’m going to be a friendly itinerant, I should make a start somewhere, shouldn’t I?” The vampire was giving her his best awkward smile. It was actually somewhat charming. “It’s good to practise what you do. That’s what my master always said.” 

The woman nodded. This was more like it. “Well, you could get me another drink for starters,” she said, waggling the half-empty bottle in her hand. “I’d be very happy if you did.” 

The vampire shot off like a rocket. 

—

The Smashed Spider had an exclusive clientele. While most of the other pubs on Fleet Street merely sold liquor, The Smashed Spider sold black-market weaponry. Here was where the feared ‘Mimosa-de-Molotov’ had first come into fiery being. It was the birthplace of the famed ‘Earl’s Churls’, which could take out a soldier’s brains with one shot to the foot, and the spawning grounds of the ‘Selfish Pleasure’, which lent a new meaning to the phrase ‘underhanded deals’. 

In any case, it came as a shock to nearly everyone when they heard knocking at the door. One did not knock when trying to gain entrance to The Smashed Spider. One kicked down the door while striding in guns akimbo so that your customer base could have a chance to—well, sample your wares, as it were. 

“Will you get that, Andy?” barked the bartender from somewhere around the back. “Probably just some poor sod who doesn’t know the value of their own head.” This got a round of scant chuckles from the patrons scattered around the taproom. 

The man closest to the door, one Andy Andiferous Ancillary Jones, got out of his chair and opened it. 

There was a young man standing on the threshold. “Good day,” he said. He sounded like he was reciting something from a script. “I’m here to ask if you have any—” He hesitated. “I-so-prop-yl.” 

Andy looked down at him and sneered. “Bugger off.” 

He slammed the door, to a chorus of appreciative cheers from his audience in the taproom. Andy made a few overdramatic bows in their direction and then returned to his seat, preparing to pick up from where he had left off. He lifted his gun— 

There came another knock at the door. 

Andy wrenched it open. “What?” 

“You don’t have an OPEN sign, so I can’t come in,” explained the young man patiently. He was still standing on the threshold, having not moved an inch. “I’m not sure why, but it seems this isn’t a very public place.” 

“Well, that’s because we don’t let in the likes of you,” explained Andy, with considerably less patience and a lot more menace. “Now, bugger off.” 

He slammed the door again, or tried to, until he discovered that there was a foot stuck against the jamb. He looked up along its length to where the young man was standing with his arms crossed. “I just need some strong spirits, and then I’ll be on my way. I have money.” 

“You? Strong spirits? You’ve probably never drunk anything in your life stronger than your mother’s milk.” This got an appreciative jeer from the crowd behind him. Andy turned back and shot them a winning smile. 

The young man’s own smile froze for a moment. “I’m afraid you’re very wrong about that. But, listen, if you could just pass a bottle of your finest—” 

Andy shot him. 

He was expecting a rather gruesome murder, but unfortunately for him, the young man failed to play his part in that fantasy. 

“Ow,” said the young man, whose hands went tentatively to the smoking hole through his left lung. “You shot me.” 

Andy frowned and checked his gun. The Subliminal P-60 and the Man's Laughter, both the latest in munitions technology, were perfectly secured to it and ready to take down an elephant. The young man should have been down on the ground saying his last words by now. 

"That was uncalled for." The vampire reached into the hole in his torso and pulled out a rounded bullet still glowing a dull red with heat, grimacing in pain as it sizzled against his fingers. "Now, if you could just get me that—" 

"It's a bloodsucker!" called out someone from the back, and everybody immediately grew quiet. Andy backed away. 

"Well, yes," said the vampire, "But I'm not here to hurt anyone. Actually, you’re the one who hurt me, sort of, so I feel like I should be the one who feels—" 

"It can't come in," shouted Andy, so everybody could hear. "Ready your weapons, men!" 

There was an assortment of sounds which included fingers moving to triggers, swords being drawn, skin being pricked with needles, ON switches being pressed, matches being lit, and mistletoe being burnt. 

The vampire held up his hands. "Now, I may not be able to get in—" 

A firestorm of ammunition and other assorted ranged paraphernalia for killing flew out the door, leaving a cloud of multicoloured smoke in its wake. Everybody tensed, waiting for the smoke to clear. 

When it did, the vampire was gone. 

Everybody started cheering and whooping. Drinks were exchanged, congratulations were bestowed, and all was merry until the vampire stepped back into view in the doorway. 

Everything grew very quiet, very quickly. 

“You never gave me a chance to speak,” said the vampire, with a soft malice in his voice that carried despite the distance. He was now holding a red keg of something which everyone could instinctively identify as gasoline in his left hand. “That wasn’t very nice of you. It appears I have your undivided attention, so I’m going to finish my sentence.” 

His right hand went to his breast pocket and drew out a single matchstick. The crowd watched him lighting it with a flick of his thumbnail as though hypnotised. “Now, I may not be able to get in—" He smiled, and everyone could see his white, white shark’s teeth gleaming in the light of the little flame dancing at the end of his little match."—but I won’t need to get in if you’re all rushing out.” 

So saying, he smashed the keg on their wooden doorstep and tossed the match at it. 

The chaos was immediate. People rushed for water, but then realised the futility of it when yet another keg came sailing through the doorway, spilling gasoline and fumes over the open taproom floor. The bartender was roaring, "Through here! Through the back!", but even he was struggling to make himself heard over the cacophonous din. 

Andy didn't stick around to see what happened. He holstered his weapons and made a flying leap over the tables, springing to his feet and hurtling out the back door. Everyone else could burn for all he cared—he had business elsewhere. 

“Hello,” said the vampire, materialising in front of him. He was casually holding a length of steel pipe in his right hand in a manner implying that he was not averse to using it should the need arise. “Andy, right?” 

Andy drew his guns. 

“You already shot me once,” noted the vampire politely. “It didn’t work.” 

"You talk too much," growled Andy, and he shot him again. 

The vampire looked down at the new bullet holes in his ribs. "Unlike you,” he said, “I can talk all I want because I know you can’t kill me.” 

Andy pulled the trigger again.  

In a blur of speed, the vampire’s arm shot forward, snatching something out of the air, and before Andy could blink, the vampire’s fist had blossomed open to reveal Andy's still-smoking bullet sitting at its centre. “See? Told you.” He smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’m sure we’d both prefer it if I kept talking.” 

Andy swallowed. His guns were suddenly too heavy in his hands. “What do you want?” 

“I already said. I-so-prop-yl.” 

“Cleaning fluid?” Andy couldn’t hide the astonishment from his voice. “All this for cleaning fluid?” 

“Strong spirits, yes.” The vampire had a determined cast to his face. “I’m trying something new. I’m being helpful, and I’m being friendly, and it has been ten minutes since I promised somebody something so I’d rather get it now, thank you very much.” 

Andy decided that he was dealing with somebody insane, and made a snap decision that saved his life as well as the lives of many other people that night. “I’ll get your cleaning fluid.” 

“Thanks.” The vampire watched him retreating with the concentration of a hawk. “Much appreciated.” 

—

When the vampire got back, the woman was lying flat on the sidewalk. The bottle had slipped from her fingers, rolling to a rest against a nearby streetlamp, and when he closed his eyes to pick out the sound of her heartbeat from the backdrop of the rest of the world, he couldn’t find it. 

No, no, no, he thought, kneeling to take her pulse. Even as his fingers touched the skin of her neck, he knew something was wrong. She was colder than any human had the right to be. 

“They always do that,” remarked an old woman, who was loitering nearby and having a smoke. “Drink themselves to death.” 

“Why didn’t you help her?” The vampire was instinctively breathing in short, quick bursts. He tried not to let his panic show in his voice, but without much success. “Was she alive when you found her?” 

“Nope.” The old woman exhaled, and a cloud of smoke issued from her lips. “You don’t save folks like her, anyway.” She nodded to the empty bottle of isopropyl. “She wanted to go. Even if they get up, they’re just going to drink themselves down again.” 

The vampire shook his head. “No. That’s not possible.” He lifted her body and slung it awkwardly over his shoulder. “Where’s the nearest hospital?” 

“Two blocks. North and then a left.” The old woman regarded him thoughtfully. “You probably can’t save her, you know.” 

The vampire flew off like the wind.