I came to on the kitchen floor, Eric hovering nervously above me.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"I think I hit my head," I said. He helped me up and gave me some paracetamol.

"We're in so much trouble," Eric said. I noticed his hands were shaking.

"You'd better tell me what's up," I said, moving to the lounge. "My hand doesn't hurt that much, but are there really strict rules on this, or something?"

"What do you know about what happens when a vampire bites a human?" Eric asked, sitting nervously cross-legged above the back of the couch.

"Nothing?"

"Guess again."

"...I get turned into a vampire?" I guessed, horror seeping into my mind.

"No, not unless you drink my blood. If only I drink your blood, you turn into a thrall."

"I don't know what that is, but it doesn't sound enthralling," I said.

"It means you'll do whatever I tell you to do."

"Oh. Well, you could promise to not--"

"And nothing else."

"Oh." I digested this for a while. "And you are sure that this will happen?"

"Yes. Your hand isn't bleeding, that's always a bad sign."

"Uh, how much time do I have?"

"A few weeks. There are alternatives, though."

"You might have started with that," I said, letting out a breath. "What are these alternatives to becoming your automaton?"

"The first is for you to become a vampire," Eric began with.

"I don't want to be a vampire," I said hurriedly.

"I don't want you to be one, either," Eric said. I didn't know what to feel about that. "The second is to form a pact with a vampire that isn't me."

"A pact?"

"You drink their blood, a small enough amount that you don't turn into a vampire or anything, but you get protected from getting enthralled."

"And what does the vampire get in return?"

"The ability to track you, and whatever you bargained to do in exchange for the pact, I guess."

"So we can get one of your vampire friends to help us out?" I asked.

"I'd prefer they didn't know," Eric said quietly.

"Okay, would you trust anyone who wasn't your friend?"

"...That's a point," Eric said. "Sorry. Yes. If I'm not going to lie about it forever, I'm going to have to face up to it sometime anyway."

"And it was a genuine accident," I said. "How badly could they possibly take it?"

After the third vampire we went to, Eric had learnt how to stop bursting into tears at the lectures they gave him.

"Maybe your friends aren't the best people to ask," I said to him. "They seem to be a bit judgemental."

"They're right, I am a monster," Eric said dully.

"They're just very emotionally invested in, I don't know what you'd call it, your moral health? Maybe we should try someone who would judge you less for it. A trustworthy acquaintance?"

"That's what I said before," Eric muttered to himself.

"I must say, I don't care for your friends' moral health," I said primly. "You'd think that even if they disapproved of your actions, they'd have helped you out. Or helped me out, at least!"

"I'm not sure they thought of it that way," Eric said.

"Well, they should! If a poor sick person came up to you and asked for help, and you were one of the only people who could help them, and it would cost you hardly anything to do so, wouldn't you help?"

"I guess," Eric said.

"You see? I bet if I did become a thrall they'd blame it on you rather than themselves, too."

"Well, yes, but I was the one who bit you."

"And they were the ones who didn't do anything about it," I said darkly. All of this crying and carrying on was putting me in a bad mood. "You said I had a month or something, right?"

"A bit less."

"So we've got plenty of time," I said. "Why don't we try again tomorrow? It'll give you time to think of people to ask, and me some time to sleep."

"Oh, right. Sorry, I forgot it was past your bed time."

"Nah. Thanks for trying today," I added. He nodded, but didn't say anything. I hoped he wasn't crying again, but I'm pretty sure he was.

The next day, when I was walking back from uni at sunset, I came across a kid just lying on the footpath. She was dressed much like Eric, in goth-style black and white. The only difference between them so far as I could see was that she had longer hair, and wore a long black ruffly skirt with white skulls printed on it.

"Are you alright?" I asked, and she woke up, looking confused. I helped her to her feet.

"Ah, thanks," she said, looking around. "What street am I on?"

"Pichard."

"Huh," she said, getting her phone out of her skirt's pockets and typing it in.

"Are you okay?" I asked again.

"Oh, probably," she said vaguely. She really did remind me of Eric.

"Are you a vampire?" I asked.

"In this sun?" she laughed. "No, I'm a witch."

"Oh. Of course, right," I said. She held out a dainty hand.

"Thank you for waking me."

"You're welcome," I said, shaking her hand. Her eyes narrowed.

"You are put under a vampire's curse," she said.

"Yes, I know. We're trying to fix it."

"Hmm," she said, and dug around her pockets again. "If you need any help, you know where to contact me."

She gave me a card. It just said, "Apple", with a phone number underneath.

"Thanks," I said.

"Since you helped me, I'll give you ten percent off my usual fee," Apple said.

"Thanks," I said again. She walked purposefully away.

When I got home, Eric was already awake.

"Are you sure you're alright?" I asked him, as I watched him walk into the wall.

"I'm fine," he mumbled.

"Have you had breakfast yet?"

"I've had two breakfasts."

"Have you tried three?"

"I'd need a second job," Eric yawned.

"What if we bought a solar lamp, and put it outside your window? Would that make you sleep longer?"

Eric blinked. "I don't... think so?"

He gave up, and had a third breakfast. As I walked past him, he sneezed.

"You've been consorting with witches," he said darkly.

"Not really. I just woke one up. She was on the footpath."

"Don't trust them," Eric advised. "One of them once stole my hand, and it took two years to get it back."

"Uh..."

"I've got a few more people to try. Are you alright going out tonight, or do you need sleep?"

"I can have coffee tomorrow," I said. "Let me eat my dinner, and we'll go after that."

Eric didn't cry this time, which was better, but all the people he asked suggested the most outrageous trades in return for a small bit of their blood.

"They'll ramp up the closer to becoming a thrall you get," Eric warned me.

"That's what I'm worried about," I said. "When I'm in the best bargaining position I'm going to be in, and their opening bid is "be my slave for life", it doesn't really fill me with confidence. The whole point is to not be someone's slave for life."

"Yeah," Eric said, looking depressed.

"Hey," I said, "looking at this from an economics perspective, we should have had differing bids. They were all kind of the same. I think the market's been fixed."

"I believe their perspective is that there is a difference--because Rayleigh, for instance, thinks he's the best and so working for him would be better, and Monique thinks she's the more moral one, so working for her is better."

"Well, that's a marketing mistake if I ever saw one," I said sternly. "Now, in the movies, there's always some shady eldritch shop that sells potions and what not. Are there actually shops like that, and would one have some blood they'd be willing to sell me?" Eric looked appalled.

"I guess there are shops kind of like that," he said. "But I wouldn't know if they sell vampire blood. It sounds very unethical. Besides, whoever gives you their blood is then responsible for you."

"And I'm sure Monique, being the ethical queen that she is, would feel that way," I said. "But since they're not making me a vampire, there's not anything to be responsible for. I've got time to shop around here without it getting desperate, and if the match is fixed, I'm not going to play ball."

"You're blabbing now," Eric said. I ignored him.

I got Eric to show me where a few of the supernatural-dealing shops were, but didn't go to any. I figured that they wouldn't admit if they had vampire blood during the night. If from what Eric said the trade would be super illicit, they'd be more likely to sell it during the day, when all the vampires were asleep. I also figured I'd ask the shop keepers about their take on the business--Eric only had a vampire's take on the problem, after all, and maybe other people knew of other solutions.

As I was writing out my list of places to try in the morning, I remembered Apple's card. Maybe I would add her to the list of people to ask, too. I checked everywhere, though, and couldn't find it.

"Have you seen a card anywhere? Has a witch's phone number on it," I called out to Eric.

"Haven't seen it," Eric called back. "Haven't smelled it, either. It's probably gone. Witches are inherently untrustworthy, and so are their belongings."

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Wasn't your hand one of their belongings?" I shot back. Eric didn't answer. Maybe that was going too far.

"Sorry," I said. I finished my list and went to sleep.

There were three potential shops on my list. The first one was nearer the house than uni, so I went there in the morning. It was an old junk-filled corner store, and the guy who was behind the counter looked just as old and junky.

"Hello," I said. He looked up from his newspaper reluctantly.

"Hi," he said, and looked back down.

"I've been bitten by a vampire," I said. "Is there anything you can give me for that?"

I waited about a minute. He glanced up, and saw me waiting expectantly.

"What?" he asked. I repeated myself. He shook his head. "Nope."

I waited for a moment, to see if any further information was forthcoming. "Any suggestions?" I prodded.

"Nope," he said. I sighed, and left the building.

The next shop I went to in the two-hour break between lectures at lunchtime.

"No food in the store," the guy behind the counter said, so I waited outside with the displays of dreamcatchers and finished off my sandwich.

"You don't have a coke with you?" the guy asked suspiciously, evidently having recognised the wrapper of my sandwich and known of the shop's lunch specials.

"No," I said, entering the shop. This one was just as cluttered as the other one, but with polished rocks and fairy figurines instead of dusty glasses and ancient puzzles. The place smelled like a thousand different incense sticks. My aunt would go nuts in a place like this, and not in a good way.

"No," the guy said, when I explained what I wanted. "You'll need to get a different vampire to give you their blood."

"Is there any way to do that without signing my life over?" I asked.

"Nah," the shopkeeper said. "Sorry, mate."

After uni, I took the train to the last shop. The woman who owned it explained that she had stopped dealing with "that esoteric stuff" about a year ago, and she only dealt in good, honest, organic farm produce. Happily, she was lying--she also dealt in advice, though didn't charge for it. There were apparently a few psychological tricks to dealing with vampires, though I'd have to try them on ones we hadn't dealt with already. When I asked, she said that nobody in the south of the country had ever dealt in illicit blood trades.

"It just isn't done," she said.

The sun was almost set when I travelled home, my bag filled with half-price organic vegetables. It was dark by the time I began walking home from the train station, and I tripped over something lying on the pavement, smashing my face into the ground.

"Ow," I remember saying. I tried to get up, and fainted.

The first thing I saw when I woke up was a light blue ceiling painted with black and gold depictions of the constellations. It's the sort of thing I would have found insanely cool when I was fifteen, so I stayed lying down and appreciated it for a while.

"I know you are awake," someone said sternly. I sat up, and saw Apple, the witch from the other day. She was wearing the same outfit as before, only her skirt this time had sheep skulls rather than human skulls on it.

"You owe me a dollar for making me spend more time with you," she said sternly. "I'm running a business, here."

"Were you what I tripped over in the road?" I asked, equally indignant.

"I was tired," Apple said defensively. "And if you wanted to find me, you could have rung me instead of tripping over me in the street."

"I wasn't trying to find you at all," I protested. "Besides, I've lost your card."

Apple heaved a huge sigh, and handed me another card. I looked at it suspiciously. It seemed to have a different phone number to what I vaguely remembered from the other one. I looked around the room. It appeared to be a highly decorated storeroom, with boxes of noodles and tins of vegetables peeping out from under the piles of embroidered throws and satin pillows. Smells and sounds of a grocer or restaurant floated in from the door.

"While I am here," I said, "what would be your rate for advice on my vampire problem?"

"One hundred dollars for ten minutes," she said promptly.

It was pretty steep, but considering the other options offered were 'be a slave for life' and 'become a zombie', it actually seemed quite reasonable at the time.

"Ninety dollars," I reminded her. "You said you'd give me ten percent off."

Apple grumbled, but agreed, and I transferred the funds over to her. She sat down quietly for a while, then gave a shout and threw some skewers up in the air. She studied them for a moment.

"Are they going to come back down?" I asked.

"In a minute," she said, distracted. "Shh, I'm concentrating."

Eventually, the skewers drifted down to the ground,

"It's much easier interpreting them in a three-dimensional space," Apple explained to me.

"So what did they say?" I asked.

"You'll have to pay me," Apple said.

"I already paid you!"

Apple smirked. "It's been ten minutes," she said.

I refused to pay the witch anything more out of a sense of moral indignation, and trudged back home, poor and hungry. I was home before I remembered my groceries. Apple probably hid them somewhere so I'd forget them, the sneak.

"You've been fraternising with witches again," Eric remarked when I got home. He sniffed the air and made a face. "Are you dating one?"

"Not on your life, mate," I said, opening the fridge to see what I had left for dinner.

"You smell like witches and food."

"Because I tripped over a witch, and she brought me to her place which is at the back of a restaurant."

Eric leaned on the doorless frame that led to the kitchen, and watched me microwave some potatoes. "I know I've said to stay away from them, but they do know their stuff. Maybe you could ask her for help, if you keep on running into her? They mess with fate a lot, so maybe you're meant to ask her."

"I did," I said, and told him about getting robbed.

"Just pay her, man," Eric said. "Better than becoming a mindless zombie, sent out to buy me games and stuff."

"What if we kidnap one of your friends," I suggested, "and steal their blood?"

"I'm not sure that is the best idea," Eric said. "I'm pretty sure you'd end up dead."

"Well, I'm sorry Eric, but your friends are both unhelpful and apparently extremely violent."

"I know," Eric said, sighing. "That's the trouble with vampires."

"They have terrible taste in friends?" I joked. Eric didn't smile. I guess it wasn't that funny.

"While you're there," he said as I rummaged around in the fridge for some sauces, "can you get me one of my packets?"

Something in my brain didn't translate that as a question, and my hand twitched towards his Ot packets before the rest of my brain had processed it. I clenched my hand, and took a breath.

"Sure," I said, handing him a packet.

"Thanks," he said, and wandered back into his room. I leant my head on the fridge door. I had assumed, I guess, that becoming a thrall would be an instantaneous process: one minute I'm me, the next a mindless zombie with no will of my own. Apparently it would be a slow and terrifying loss of self and control, instead. Great.

The next day after uni I went back to the store Apple had been working out of.

"Sorry, I don't know who you're talking about," the owner of the restaurant said. I growled to myself, and searched in my bag to find the new card Apple had given to me. As I was beginning to expect, the card was nowhere to be found.

"This is just silly," I muttered to myself. "I should just forget about it. It's just a con job; she wouldn't have had useful information for me anyway..."

An old woman sitting in the doorway of a closed shop beckoned me over. "Read your fortune, kind sir?" she asked.

I wavered a little, then gave in. I guess I am just naturally superstitious. At the start she was firm in only accepting cryptocurrencies (which I got Eric to explain to me later); I eventually managed to negotiate her down to unmarked twenty dollar notes. She tucked them away in her bodice, then peered at my hand.

"Your life will be cut short," she said. I tensed. "But then it will begin anew."

"You sure?" I asked. "It doesn't say, my life is just about to be cut short, but then I find a solution to my troubles and keep on going as before?"

"There is definitely a break in your life line," the old woman said firmly.

"But--"

"Your love line is non-existent," she continued, eyeing me pityingly.

"But--"

"Oh, don't listen to that old crone," Apple said from behind me.

"Sorcerous hussy!" the old woman spat at her, and left, muttering about her poor knees as she hobbled away.

"You want me to tell you what the portents said, yet?" she asked.

"You mean the kebab skewers?" I sighed. "Actually, yes. Why not. If I become a thrall, I won't need the money anyway."

I sent her the money. She struck a dramatic pose.

"You will be saved," she said, "by a man by the name of Theodore Appelion."

"Really?" I asked, in disbelief. "That's what my hundred dollars gets me?"

"That's what the portents see," she said primly. I threw up my hands, and left for home. I guess she was right, in a way. If I was to be saved from this vampiric curse, I was going to have to do it myself.