“Here,” Violet said before she held out the bills to the delivery man, taking her bag with a soft sigh.

“Errrr… what’s that?” he asked, eyeing the net on her hip, which now held a small bat in it.

“Hunter work,” Violet said. “Thank you.” Before he could object, she closed the door and started to walk back up the stairs towards the office. She couldn’t believe she’d made such a mistake. All the signs were there, of course it turned out SCARLET was a vampire. What did this mean? Was she going to have to end her instead? She certainly wasn’t registered, that would have come up in her reconnaissance.

“Can you let me out now?” Scarlet asked.

“No,” Violet said before she sat at the desk and put the takeout beside the computer. She then glanced towards the screen before sighing again. “So only partway done, right?”

“Please don’t read it!” Scarlet yelled, flapping wildly inside the netting and only tangling herself up more.

“You do know who and what I am, don’t you?” Violet asked. “Should you really be worried I’ll read your stuff?”

“It’s not finished yet! I still need to go over it and fix it and write up the end of that arc,” Scarlet yelled, wiggling about helplessly in the net. “There’s just, it’s a lot of stupid things and if you read it now before I fix it it’ll seem dumb and please don’t!”

“I’m a hunter,” Violet said. “My job is to kill creatures like you. You might never finish this story. You do realize that, don’t you?”

“I… I guess,” Scarlet said before she stopped flapping. “Please don’t do that, either.”

“Ugggggggh,” Violet said before dropping the net on the ground and stepping on the end again. “You know, you’ve put me in a really bad situation.”

“Oh. I’m sorry,” Scarlet said.

“It’s my job to eliminate things like you,” Violet said before she opened up the bag and pulled out a small box of yakisoba noodles and chopsticks. “It’s what my license is for. Elimination and rehabilitation of monsters like you.”

“I’m really, really sorry,” Scarlet said again. “How did you even find me?”

“It was pretty obvious,” Violet said, though she knew it was a bit of a lie. The only reason she’d been lucky enough to find out about the signs was because she’d been visiting the city to meet with her mother. “There were a few small signs that something of an undead nature was happening. I met up with a local shaman, did a bit of a looksy. Narrowed it down to about a ten mile radius around here. From there, it wasn’t too hard. Just two weeks ago you missed that podcast interview. Your landscapers all quit at the same time. A few other things. It-- oh. Oh no. Was I too late? How long have you been a vampire?”

“A few centuries,” Scarlet said sheepishly. “I think.”

Violet slowly just took a bite of her yakisoba. Nope. That didn’t make any sense. Not at all. Nope. Finally, having bought a few seconds by stuffing her mouth, she swallowed and shook her head. “That’s impossible. I’ve seen you do morning interviews. You’ve been out in the sunlight. Vampires HATE the sun, it turns off all your powers!”

“Well, yes,” Scarlet said. “It’s terrible, but ummm… there’s worse things than a nasty sunburn and being really weak for a few hours.”

“Oh? Like what?”

“Angering my agent,” Scarlet said, her little bat form giving a shudder. “She’s really, really scary whenever I say I can’t attend something. It’s usually just easier to do what she says.”

Violet blinked a few more times before just sighing and laying her forehead against the desk. Great. Not only was she a vampire, she was apparently a wuss of one. “Is your agent a vampire, then?”

“I wish,” Scarlet said softly. “I think she might be a demon, but she’s not a vampire. She knows I am one, though.”

“You know you’re illegal, right?” Violet asked.

“I do,” Scarlet said softly. “May… may I ask something?”

“Sure, go ahead,” Violet said, not lifting her head from the desk. She could feel a headache growing.

“If you know I’d lose all my powers in the daylight,” Scarlet asked. “Why attack me at night?”

“I was trying to save you,” Violet said. “I thought a vampire was coming after you and as nice as it is to be able to fight them in the day, that almost never works. You always end up hiding out in these stupid titanium vaults these days until the sun sets. Trust me, I’ve tried. It’s usually easier to just take a vamp-- take one of you down at night. You never expect such an assault and you get all cocky.”

“A titanium vault? That sounds useful,” Scarlet said softly. “And um, errr. It wasn’t that I missed the interview. There’d been some issues with my internet. The connection has been dropping for weeks now and we had to reschedule for next month.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“What?” Violet asked. “Internet? Really?”

Scarlet gave a soft sigh. “It just keeps going in and out and they won’t be fixing it for another two weeks. And um, the landscapers, well… that is kind of my fault. I mean, I… I’ve been busy. My last landscapers had to drop me as they had this new client and I just haven’t had a chance to hire anyone new. I keep meaning to do it, but I’ve been putting it off. I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing to me? It’s your lawn,” Violet said with a roll of her eyes. “If anything it made sneaking in here easier.”

“Oh, right, um, sorry,” Scarlet said again.

“Ugh,” Violet said before sitting up and taking another bite of her late-night dinner. She seemed harmless. Even if vampires were generally kill on sight, did it really matter if she let one go? Of course, it was probably a trap. A trick. Act dumb and helpless. Then the moment her guard was down, bite her. She had her captured in a net, there were a lot of ways to finish her off. Then all she had to do was take the ashes in and she’d get her payment. Yup, the easiest thing in the world.

“Err, so you’ve seen my interviews?” Scarlet asked.

“One or two,” Violet asked. “I travel a lot, hunter work. Stakeouts too. I’ve got to listen to something during long flights.”

“Oh,” Scarlet said. “Ummm, if it’s not too rude, can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, sure,” Violet said.

“Are you one of my fans?” Scarlet asked.

“WHAT? NO!” Violet said quickly, her cheeks going bright red.

“Oh, right, I guess that was presumptuous of me, wasn’t it?” Scarlet said sheepishly. “Sorry.”

Violet just shook her head and started eating some more.

“Are you okay?” Scarlet asked. “Are you stress eating?”

“Shut up,” Violet said softly. “It’s fine, worry about yourself.”

“It’s not healthy to eat that much this late,” Scarlet said.

“I’m always up this late,” Violet said. “So what if I stress eat a bit? You know you’re the vampire here. Can you act a little more scared?”

“Sorry,” Scarlet said. “I’m just kind of tired now.”

“Oh, right,” Violet said before nudging the net. How long had she kept the vampire trapped in it now? An hour? Two? Three? How long until the sun came up? She had to make a choice. Soon. “I’ve read a few of your books. It’s boring on the road, okay?”

“Oh, I imagine so,” Scarlet said. “Err, which ones?”

“Just one or two,” Violet said softly, her cheeks burning now. She glanced back to the computer and sighed. “So, is Lily really going to end up angering the Duke? I mean, in the last book I thought she and Arin had finally decided to give up on everything?”

“Right, because Arin has been so good at it so far,” Scarlet said with a sigh. “But it doesn’t feel right if Lily just gives up. She’s trying to keep everyone happy but also be true to herself. Not to mention she still has to stop the Nightmare Court from--”

“Does it strike you as a little odd that you’re a vampire writing romance stories about fairies?” Violet asked, cutting her off.

“Not really. I’ve always written things like this,” Scarlet said.

Violet gave another soft sigh and nudged the bat with her toe. “Shouldn’t you be more brooding, dangerous, all that? Usually you vampires are.”

“Usually hunters kill us once we’re netted,” Scarlet said. “We’re not all--”

“You live in an old mansion that’s falling apart,” Violet said.

“Okay, we don’t all fit EVERY cliché,” Scarlet said sheepishly.

“Really? Your name is Scarlet,” Violet said.

“I just liked the name! It was a cute name when I was younger! Besides, it has sentimental value. You broke into my house and netted me, why am I the one being interrogated?” Scarlet asked.

“Because you’re the one who’s illegal,” Violet said. “I checked. There aren’t any vampires registered or permitted to live here.”

Scarlet urked and, somehow, the tiny bat managed to get smaller. “I was, once. But I uhhh… I moved. Here. And never transferred the paperwork. It kind of slipped my mind…”

“Uh huh,” Violet said.

Silence reigned in the room for a while longer before Scarlet lightly sneezed. “I really need to sweep in here again.”

“You’re a mess,” Violet said.

“I’m sorry,” Scarlet said sheepishly.

Violet gave another sigh before glancing over to the little bat. She should destroy the vampire, she knew she should. She had to. But if she did that… she’d never know what would happen to Lily in the end. She couldn’t believe it. Here she had a creature of evil, a monster of the night. She wasn’t registered, that meant she had to be evil. But what if she was as harmless as she seemed? There had to be an alternative method.

Well, there was one. She just didn’t like it. Her mom was going to kill her. Eh. She supposed it’d just be another thing in the long list of disappointments for her.

“You’re stress eating again,” Scarlet said.

“Oh, shut up,” Violet said before glancing back to her. “You’re lucky I’m not destroying you and spreading the ashes.” She got to her feet and picked up the net, making the bat squeak.

“Hey! What are you doing?” Scarlet asked.

“Making another poor decision in a long line of poor decisions,” Violet said.

“What? Where are we going?” Scarlet asked.

“Where’s your coffin?” Violet asked.

“In the basement, where else?” Scarlet asked. “Why?”

“Let’s get this over with,” Violet said. “You’ll be back to writing your book in a bit. Once I’m sure you’re no longer a threat.”

The only sound was soon the annoyed stomping of Violet’s boots on the stairs. Once she made it to the ground floor, Scarlet spoke up again. “Is… the only reason you’re doing this because you want to know what happens in the book?”

“S-shut up!” Violet yelled.