Crispley charged at Jack. His shoulder caught him in the gut, driving the wind out of him as his spine smashed into the wall. Spluttering, he spat a glob of blood at Crispley’s feet. Every nerve was wracked by a thunderstorm, the charge so lethal it pulsed through him with every twitch. It almost forced him to his knees.

Crispley pulled away, and Jack stabbed at him. With inhuman grace, Crispley swayed to the side, slamming a fist into his face with such force it took him from his feet.

Spinning through the air, Jack jabbed his sword into the carpet, levering himself down and landing with a stagger.

He could barely think. His mind was preoccupied by the screaming mass of pain that was his flesh; it took a second to register Crispley’s next move.

With a flash, he was beside him, driving another fist into his ribs. Jack screamed. Falling to his knees, he felt his bones splinter, his hand dropping from the sword.

Crispley kicked him. His shin hit Jack square in the cheek, and he skidded off, tumbling into the wall with a grunt. His vision was getting hazy. He couldn’t see much, but he could hear the footsteps tapping their way towards him.

“Humans,” said Crispley, his tone noxious. “So pitifully stubborn. So unwilling to change that you’d step all over others to avoid being wrong. Not just us, but yourselves as well!” Managing to look up, Jack saw the tremor in his contorted expression. “All you people ever do is destroy.”

“Know what else people do?” Coughing, Jack braced his arms against the cracked plaster behind him. “They change.”

Crispley kicked him in the gut, and his lungs were empty. His arms buckled. Crispley said, “I thought like that, once. I believed that the world could be better for everyone, and look what happened to me.” He gestured at his face, nostrils flared and eyes narrow.

Pushing, Jack locked his arms again, rolling away from another kick and rising with a flare flowing through his body. He staggered to the side, yanking his sword from the ground. “It still can be.”

Smiling mirthlessly, Crispley said, “yes. Yes, it can.” He appeared in front of Jack, driving a knee into his chest. More cracking, as though there was a campfire going in his ribcage, and he tried to gasp. All he got was a noise like a leaking gas pipe.

Punching him in the jaw, Crispley curled his lip, watching Jack crumple to his knees. He said, “and once we have enough converts, it will be. Humanity will be subjugated; the chosen, the young, those without prejudice, shall all become one with us. The rest shall become our cattle, and they can see how it feels.”

Jack smiled, bile pushing up his throat. “Haven’t you ever read the evil overlord list?” He stabbed Crispley in the stomach, a glob of blood escaping the vampire’s mouth as he clutched at the flowing wound. “Don’t think you get to monologue just ‘cause I’m on the floor.”

***

“Are you okay?” Hannah trotted over to the closest vampire, a small girl with straw-like hair, curled into a ball.

She sniffled, face buried in her arms. “Thirsty…”

Lydia faltered, putting an arm in front of Jess. She looked around; of the dozen vampires in the room, maybe half were already dead. Their eyes were red, but there was no light in them, as though they had been carved from glass.

She grimaced. She had never experienced starvation, nor even thought about it, but seeing the results was a direct jolt to her brain.

The survivors all trembled, lacking the strength to stand. Paler than any living creature had a right to be—even in the dark—they had to be close to death themselves.

Her stomach did a somersault when Jess stepped past her, kneeling next to Hannah and stroking the vampire’s head. “What did they do to you?”

The girl whimpered, coughed, and said, “w-we didn’t want to kill anyone. B-but they said t-that we have to kill to be able to d-drink.”

Slicing a thumbnail across it, Jess offered her arm to the vampire. Lydia almost passed out.

“Jessie, what are you doing?!” Her eyes were leaping from their sockets.

Jess turned to her with raised eyebrows, unconcerned by the girl suckling on her arm. “I’m helping.”

“She could end up killing you!”

“She’s in here because she won’t.”

Tapping her foot, Lydia scowled. The longer they stayed in that building, the more chance that someone would take Jess from her again. Surely, she understood the danger. She wasn’t a child anymore.

But here she was, stepping from vampire to vampire, and offering each a sip of her blood. When she was finished, she collapsed.

Hannah caught her, licking her arm as she wrapped it over her shoulders. Her eyes flickered red. “I’ve got you.”

Clenching her jaw, Lydia said, “what the hell do you think you’re doing to my sister?!”

Jess giggled. “Don’t be so uptight. That blood was already on the outside, anyway.”

Lydia bit her bottom lip, but stayed silent. Instead, she watched the other vampires stand, wondering what their lives had been like before being captured. Had they been rich, or poor? Happy, or sad?

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Before, she wouldn’t have cared. They were just monsters; predators with a prerogative to feed on people, regardless of how it might hurt. She’d have dragged Jess away, and left them to die.

But they weren’t monsters. Hannah, at least, was a normal girl, and the others rising to their feet were looking at Jess not with hunger, but admiration. It struck her. She had lived her life chasing the power to lead her family: to cure her sister, and to surpass her mother. She had spent her life in that bubble, even unable to escape during university. Everyone cowered at the Blackwell name.

Immersing herself in study, she had ceased to care. She had chased each goal with fervor, not stopping to think about what any of it meant to her.

Who was she, really?

Perhaps she had become powerful, but for what? What did she actually know about the things that mattered?

***

Crispley heaved the sword out of his gut. Ignoring the wounds opening on his hands, he levered the blade, Jack’s feet dangling as he was slammed into a bulletin board. It came loose, falling on top of him. He whined.

The wood shattered, Crispley’s foot driving his head into the wall. Again, and again, he felt his skull caving as his mind slipped away from reality. He saw nothing. He heard only dripping, but that soon stopped—he was left in blind silence, unable to feel but for the dull fire crying in his bones.

Feeling himself rise, his stomach convulsed, and he spewed bile and blood at his feet. There was something around his throat. A hand, meaty and cold, threatening to squeeze as keen nails dug into his skin.

He choked.

“Tell me your name,” said Crispley.

“Jack… Of All Trades,” he gasped.

A sliver of his vision returned in time to see Crispley nod. “I shall remember it as the noble warrior who fought for his kind.” He squeezed harder, and the black returned.

Even still, Jack felt a lightness in his chest. He laughed. It was high, mad, and continuous, causing Crispley to ease off a pace. He wobbled. “My kind? As in, humans? I think you’ve got me wrong, mate.” His back was slumped, his arms hanging limp in front of him. “I couldn’t even protect the things that were important to me, so how could I hope to protect an entire race?”

Crispley was a blur to him, but he still noticed the way he set himself. He said, “then why are you here? What is it you’re about to die for?!” He charged, but Jack didn’t need to see to know. He had done the same thing repeatedly, and he had become used to the movements.

His arms howling in protest, he raised his sword. “Some things can’t be replaced. So if you find something someone’s lost…” Tensing his legs, Jack stepped in, driving the tip of his blade forward. “It’s only right you return it to them!”

Squelch.

Crispley’s nails were almost touching his throat. His arm was frozen, his body shaking in front of Jack as blood poured from his chest.

The tip protruded from his back, the length of steel cold against his frantic heart.

Panting, Jack withdrew his sword in a spray of crimson.

Lawrence Crispley fell to the ground.

***

When the bombs had dropped on Japan, the world changed.

The Circle’s Sakamoto family had managed to prevent the devastation, but at the cost of revealing the supernatural to the world. The war quickly ended, and humanity turned its gaze to the unknown.

Lawrence had been overjoyed. He had been walking on air, everything coated in sugar as he beamed throughout his errands.

They didn’t have to hide anymore.

The Accords had just gone through, and vampires - as well as a host of other creatures - could no longer be hunted. It was only the beginning, but they could finally start unraveling stereotypes and begin a co-operative existence at humanity’s side.

The dream was real.

The Crispleys, of course, never killed people. They would hunt, certainly, and they would drink well from their prey, but afterwards would come only care and respect. There was no need to kill. The prey would be given a tour of their estate, as well as a single wish within their power to grant.

Also, lots of orange juice. You could never forget that.

One rainy day, he was hurrying through the grounds, along a winding path through sparse trees and lush greenery. It smelled of fresh grass and dew. Huddled underneath a tall, gnarled oak had been a waif of a girl wearing a blue sundress.

“Esme?” said Lawrence, raising an eyebrow as he left the path.

She ducked behind the tree, hiding her face.

Chuckling, he stopped on the other side of it. “Is it truly so fun to be hiding in the rain?”

He had found her suffering in a gutter, almost a century before. The workhouse had tossed her aside. She was too weak.

Lawrence had been against converting a child, but Ella had had none of it. At her insistence, he had given the child strength. She was still a child, even now, but certainly much happier than she would have been dying in the street.

A squeaky voice raised over the soft pattering of raindrops. “This is the only time I can be outside in the daytime. I wanted to celebrate!”

Rounding the tree, he caught her in his arms, lifting her up and ruffling her hair. He squished his face into hers, eliciting a giggle.

Everything fell away.

There was only his daughter.

As darkness had fallen, it was almost time to hunt. He and Ella were standing in the foyer, unable to tear their eyes from each other.

It was wide, and clean, and smelled of daisies. One of her incessant air perfumes again, he thought. He smiled.

“I shall return presently,” he said.

Smirking, she growled. “Make sure you do. I have a surprise for you.”

Rather than a single beat, his heart had skipped the entire track. Even though the world had accepted them, he found that he didn’t care: those two were his world.

He had left, and found his way to the hunting grounds. Of course, The Revelation had changed the way they hunted, too. Where before, they had to skulk through the dark, they could now walk into any local pub and shout, “who wants to be a vampire?”, a method which would eventually be turned into a wildly successful reality show.

There were always takers: widows, the poor, returned soldiers. As if they thought vampirism would end their struggle. He wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, though; it wasn’t like he was forcing anyone.

But that night, they had all been silent. Nobody had even looked at him. It happened occasionally, so it didn’t bother him; they still had some packs left in the cellar.

He whistled on his way home, thinking only of what kind of evil surprise Ella may have for him, or what ridiculous thought Esme would greet him with.

Instead, he was greeted by burning.

All three stories of the house were ablaze, the screams of the staff piercing the air. It reached a crescendo that almost matched the peak of the flames, dying to be replaced by the crackling of everything he loved burning to nothing.

He was empty. One by one, with each step towards the heavy front gate, an organ was ripped from him. A waterfall began in his eyes, but he didn’t stop moving.

There had been a figure in front of the gate. A large man with curly hair, a set expression and a black duster, a scar shining across his nose from cheek to cheek.

The man threw something at Lawrence’s feet.

Esme’s head.

Dropping to his knees, he wailed, glaring at the man in hopes it would butcher him. But it didn’t.

“I’ve been waiting for you, Lawrence Crispley.” The man strode towards him, withdrawing a sword from within his coat. “Ye who overtakes the minds of men, seducing them into your predatory embrace.” He readied his swing. “It ends now!”

Crispley’s eyes had burned hotter than his house.

It was always humans, wasn’t it? They wanted him to be some kind of beast, even if they had to play pretend.

Well, if that was what they wanted.

He was more than happy to give it to them.