Blood Debt

Chapter 11

Lenore and Dean made small talk, mostly discussing rock bands and music during the drive. Lenore approved whole-heartedly of Dean's collection of tapes and told him of concerts she'd attended through the years.

Dean tried not to squirm in the driver's seat, but the sun was an uncomfortable reminder that he was no longer entirely human. The side of his face and his hands felt like they were in an oven. The leather coat kept the sun's rays off his arms and chest, but it was hot enough he almost wanted to take the coat off.

"Isn't this sun just driving you freaking buggy?" Dean asked, pulling his left hand off the steering wheel and getting it in the shade for a few minutes. He looked down at it, convinced it was sunburned, but it was a disturbing pale white.

She laughed. "Well, one advantage to cow's blood is that we don't seem quite as sensitive to the sun. Besides, after a few hundred years, the sun just doesn't seem to hurt as much as it use to."

"How old are you?" Dean asked. She'd talked of attending concerts by some of the jazz greats so he figured her at least approaching a hundred.

She settled a little further back in the seat. "I was born in the mid-thirteenth century in a little town in England."

Dean gave a sidelong glance, reappraising her. "You look good for a 650 year old, Lenore."

She grinned back at him. "Well thank you, Dean."

"So when did you switch to cow's blood?"

"I've fed on and off cows since the seventeen hundreds. I finally went 'vegetarian' about twenty years ago."

"Vegetarian?" Dean laughed. "That's a new definition for the term. Why? Got tired of killing people?"

Lenore chuckled. "Oh nothing so moral as that. You hunters have brought my kind to the brink of extinction. In the old days, hunters were few, they couldn't get places fast, and news was slow. In the modern world, vampires are easy to find what with the news and the internet and cars and planes. It was purely a tactic for survival. As it had always been." She looked over at Dean. "If not for hunters, I'd probably still happily be drinking humans dry."

Dean was silent as he contemplated her words. He debated, not wanting to offend her-she'd saved both him and Sam, after all-but plowed forward anyhow. "You know, Sam and I, we hunt evil. We placed you in the category of 'not evil' after your show with Gordan and after you let Sam live."

"And now you're not so sure after what I've said?" Lenore said, arching an eyebrow at him.

Dean gave a half shrug. "Well, your words don't exactly inspire confidence in that decision."

She laughed, delighted. "Rest assured, Dean, we don't intend to go back to drinking human blood. Not intentionally, anyhow. I'll admit, cow's blood is about as disgusting as drinking pond scum, but the trade off is worth it. We don't have to worry as much about hunters, and those of us with anything still resembling a conscience find it a better way to live. We can finally fit into society in a way we couldn't before. We can put down roots, after a fashion, and after centuries on constantly being on the move, it's nice to stop and rest and enjoy the world. It's nice to work a job and make money instead of stealing it. It's better, at least for now. Can we stay vegetarian for the rest of our lives? I hope so. We've come to prefer the quieter life, even at the price of god-awful food for eternity. The craving for human blood eventually eases, but it's always there."

"I've never felt anything like this hunger," Dean admitted. "I don't know how you fight it."

"Practice. But we have our limits. Starve us and we'll kill anything to ease the hunger. As you've seen."