Chapter 2: Mindless Animals

“Now, while Stoker *did* correctly portray certain attributes about vampires correctly—the desire for blood being the most prominent—he, of course, made a good deal of it up,” Professor Robinson stood at the end of the room, the slides of his presentation changing to a wall of quotations. Robinson was an older man with curly black hair that greyed at the temples. His dark brown skin sagged and wrinkled, but his eyes gleamed with excitement as he pulled his lips into a smile. “Garlic, for one, would do nothing to stop a vamp from trying to kill you. Might add a bit of seasoning, though.” A few chuckles went up while others added notes to their digital copies of *Dracula.*

Lee sat towards the back of the room, twenty or so people were between him and Professor Robinson as he began to wind down the lecture. He gathered his things up and began following others out.

“Ah, Mr Gray?” Robinson called out. He stood near the window, placing his own things in a thin grey bag, including an actual paper version of *Dracula.* “Might I have a word?” *Shit.* Lee obeyed, wordlessly approaching the table. Only a couple others were left in the room, now, and none appeared to be paying any attention to them. Professor Robinson smiled at him as he reached the table.

“Professor,” he nodded. Outside the window, the sun shone bright on their faces, almost blinding Lee.

“Oh please, it’s Isiah,” he dropped *Dracula* into the bag and zipped it up before placing the whole thing on the table. “I couldn’t help but notice you were almost late today. And the other day. Probably the day before that, too.”

Lee nodded. If there was anything he’d realised after studying at the University of New London, it was that Professor Robinson didn’t miss a thing. *The man’s a damn lie detector.*

“You keep showing up looking tired and out of breath,” Isiah said, shaking his head. “It makes me wonder, Mr Gray, if you’re even going to keep showing up at all.”

“No. Of course not,” Lee said quickly. “Believe me, my sister’d kill me.” Isiah gave a small chuckle. “It’s just…I’ve been having trouble sleeping…”

“Bullshit,” someone said. Lee turned to see Jill Goode leaning against the wall, an amused expression on her face. Her dark brown hair was unbrushed and stopped at her shoulders. Lee knew next to nothing about her, only remembering her name from some icebreaking exercise where she was handed a microphone and all she said was ‘I’m Jill Goode, now get this fucking thing away from me.’

“Excuse me?” Lee said, his eyes narrowing.

Jill just looked at Isiah. “Saw him out drinking with some guys last night. About three in the morning?” *Goddamnit.* Isiah kept looking at her, barely reacting, but obviously trying to communicate something that Lee didn’t know.

“I’d also ask you what *you* were doing out at that time,” Lee said, but Jill just scoffed and left the room. He felt Isiah’s eyes on him, but Lee wasn’t quite ready to look at him just yet.

“Look, Lee,” he said after a moment. “I genuinely don’t care what you do with your spare time, but it cannot affect your studies. Do you understand?” Lee finally looked at him, a little guilt hitting his stomach as he saw the look on Isiah’s face.

“Yes, I understand. Sorry,” Lee said.

Isiah nodded towards the door. “Go on, I release you.”

The University of New London had been built on the same point as the old one, even using some of the original’s designs after it had been destroyed along with a large proportion of the city in World War Three. Lee left the English Department and made his way outside. The sun was still bright and many other students gathered on a small plot of grass.

On a bench sat Jill. She had headphones on and sat staring at her phone, looking bored all the while. She wore a shirt from some band Lee didn’t recognise and black jeans with holes ripped in them.

*What the fuck did I ever do to her? She didn’t need to say rat on me.*

“Hey!” the words left Lee’s mouth before he had a chance to stop them. Before he knew it, he was storming towards her. “What the hell is wrong with you?” For a moment, Jill didn’t even seem to notice him. Then, she sighed deeply and pulled her headphones out of her ears slowly.

“What?”

“Why would you say that shit to Robinson?” he said, a little calmer now.

Jill shrugged sarcastically. “Felt like it.”

“You felt like it?” he repeated slowly. Jill sighed again, a little less condescending now.

“Look, he was about to call you out on your bullshit, anyway,” she said. “I just…sped things up a little.”

“You ratted on me,” she laughed at that and closed her phone before getting up.

“Sure, you wanna call it that, Gray, you call it that.”

“What would you call it?” Jill thought for a moment, shrugging her bag over her shoulder.

“I was…discouraging you,” she landed on the word with an approving nod like she’d been satisfied with her choice. “The streets are dangerous at night, Gray. Especially nowadays.” Lee rolled his eyes and Jill turned on her heel before walking away.

“Hey, you still haven’t said what *you* were doing out at that time,” Lee called out. “I got to worry about a stalker?”

“What I do is none of your business, Gray,” she said, not even turning back. “At least I turn up on time.”

\*

The Anti-Vampire Department had its own building coming off of New Scotland Yard, one of the only buildings not to have been destroyed and rebuilt. Double the size, the great glass cube that was the AVD towered next to the other building, connecting each other with two skywalks.

Harriet’s desk was on the third floor towards the back of the building. The space was small with low walls and littered with an embarrassing amount of undisposed coffee cups. She enjoyed having that area to herself, no matter how small it was or how uncomfortable her chair got. She almost didn’t mind having Boris’ on the opposite side, if not for how immaculately tidied his table was. Her partner barely seemed to notice anything else but his computer; his eyes ran along the screen over and over again, eyebrows knitted into a frown.

Harriet’s own was spouting its fair share of information, case files, witness reports, all from within the same area of the attack that morning. The number of photographs from crime scenes that were of young women was, unfortunately, quite high.

“…thing?”

“Huh?” Harriet looked up, Boris was sitting back in his chair now, his jacket off and tie undone a little. He rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“You find anything?” he asked again. When Harriet shook her head, he yawned. “Yeah, me neither. Maybe it was just some random attack. I don’t know if you can find an order with something like this.” He didn’t look at her, but she thought he flinched a little when she tilted her head at him. *Jesus, he’s green. Whatever. He’s only been here a week, it’s not like I was any better.*

“That’s not how they work, Anderson,” she said, grabbing the coffee cup she thought was full, but finding it empty. Sighing, she placed it back with the others. “Vampires aren’t mindless animals. If they were, they’d be eradicated by now. Think about it: where do you go when you need to buy some bread?”

Boris shrugged after a moment. “The shop.”

“A week later, where do you go when you need more bread?”

Realisation started to set in. “Right…yeah, you…yep.” He leaned forward once more, his cheeks a little red.

“They never teach you that at the academy?” she asked after a moment and Boris’s cheeks reddened further.

“Uh, I was kinda…rushed through it,” he said. *Makes sense. So he’s green* and *a rich kid.*

“The Blood-bag giving you any trouble yet?” a familiar voice asked. A few steps away, Valerie Allen held her phone up to her face, studying whatever was on it intently with her small brown eyes. Her hair, a red so deep it almost looked brown, was trimmed short and meticulously brushed. Her clothes were always thorougly cleaned and fit her perfectly. For as long as Harriet had known her, she had always been scrupulous about her appearance.

“People keep calling me that,” Boris said. “Blood-bag. What does it mean?” Valerie looked up from her phone, her lips curling into a smile.

“It means that until you prove that you’re not, all you are is food for the vampires,” she said menacingly.

“Leave him alone, Val,” Harriet said, rolling her eyes. *I can see it getting to him. Too many newbies have died trying to prove themselves.*

“Oh? Are you going to speak to your superior officer like that?” she asked, her phone still in hand, but being largely ignored at this point. Boris looked between the two of them, uncertainty written all over his face.

“Are you going to keep provoking the kid?” she asked.

Valerie shrugged. “Why shouldn’t I? We got our fair share back in the day.”

“You mean *I* did,” Harriet mumbled.

“Yeah, yeah,” Valerie said. At this point, Boris was laughing quietly to himself. “You working on that one-eight-seven near Camden?” she walked up to their desks and helped herself to Harriet’s notebook.

“Darla Jenkins,” Boris said. “Young woman killed by a vampire at night.”

“I’ll add her to the list,” Val mumbled before sighing and standing up straight. “I see why you’re looking at older files, Camden’s becoming a bit of a hotspot.” She thought for a moment, then looked at Harriet, the hint of a smile on her face. “You know what I think you should do?”

“Stake-out?”

“Stake-out,” she nodded.

“Wait,” Boris leaned forward. “People actually do that?”

\*

Polly could see him sitting in the corner of the pub. *All the places in the city, and he has to come here. Does he get some sick pleasure in watching me work?* Lee was slouched over his table with his bag sitting on the seat next to him. The screen embedded into the table that took his orders was left untouched as he drummed his fingers against the cheap wood next to it. Polly deliberately tried to ignore him but eventually, she couldn’t put it off any longer.

*“I’m just trying to keep you safe. Don’t do this! Polly!”*

Polly felt a stab of guilt and shook the memory from her head as she arrived at his table. “You going to order?” she asked. “You know that’s what the screen’s for.” Lee considered the screen for a moment.

“Yeah, but then I can’t talk to you,” he said, feigning innocence.

“You can’t talk to me when I *give* you your food?”

“I’m gonna be too hungry to speak, then,” he told her.

Polly shook her head. “You…infuriate me,” she said, but he just smiled again. “Were you late to class this morning?”

That seemed to take some enthusiasm from him. “No, actually,” he said. “But my professor kind of…asked me not to keep cutting it close.” Lee tapped on the screen and began selecting his food.

“Sounds like a smart man,” she said. “You going to listen to him?” *That would make sense. Doesn’t listen to his sister, but he’ll listen to his teacher.*

“Of course,” he said, but the tension in his voice was something Polly had become all too familiar with. He avoided her gaze, still choosing to look at the screen. She leaned down, forcing herself into his peripheral vision, and squinted at him.

“Hmm…”

“Hmm?” Lee met her eyes and raised his eyebrows at her. A product of having grown up so close together was that eventually, neither of them could really hold something back from the other. The tension in his mouth as he tried not to smile was something Polly recognised immediately in his expression.

“Goddammit, Lee,” she said eventually. He tried to give her his best smile, but it did nothing to make Polly feel any better. “You’re going out again? We talked about this five hours ago!”

“It’s just…Fabian told me there’s a 2080s night on at Prospero, and—”

“*Literally* this morning!” She was trying to keep her voice down, but Lee’s sheer audacity was beginning to astound her.

“I know, but I won’t be out that long, I promise,” he said, talking quickly.

“Lee, you’re gonna give me a goddamn heart attack, you know that?” Polly leaned against one of the chairs. *The nerve!* A long moment passed where she considered chewing him out further, but when she looked for the energy to do it, it wasn’t there. It wasn’t like she could stop him—he’d worked all the previous summer, it was *his* money he was spending.

She shook her head. “Just…promise me you’ll be back before midnight.” Lee thought for a moment.

“Two?”

“One!” She raised her eyebrows at him, but Lee just smiled.

“Pols, you know that you’re the best sister ever, right?”