Tale of the Underground

THE MEDDLER AND HIS TEACHER (CITY)

"Hey, Fletcher." Adam rapped his knuckles against his contact's apartment door quickly. His breath gathered in a white cloud, fogging up his glasses momentarily. The cold nipped at his skin, bringing blood to the surface, and making him shiver. Hopefully it would be warm inside... if Fletcher even answered. He rapped at the door again, harder this time.

The door opened with a squeak and light filled an otherwise dim room. A pale face appeared and later his body; Fletcher was tall, averaging six feet, with sharp features and intelligent green eyes that pierced the night. He was not bad looking in the slightest, but Adam knew him to have a short temper. "Get in, it must be freezing for you."

It really was. "Will it not be cold for you as well when it snows?" Adam offered, obliging eagerly the gesture to step inside. The door shut with a soft click, locking out the cold. It was blessedly warm inside his apartment.

"I will not suffer as you will," was all Fletcher said.

The apartment was small but well-kept, Adam noted. The kitchen was cleanly with few appliances. A flimsy-looking table was put against the wall, framed by two chairs. A thin curtain separated the living room from what he had to assume was where Fletcher's bedroom lay, which he found odd. But it was not his place to nitpick the living quarters of someone who could very well kill him.

"Thank you for meeting with me tonight, Fletcher," he said slowly. The vampire had seated himself at the table, looking at him expectantly. With a flush, Adam pursued his host and sat opposite of him. "It means a lot."

Fletcher only nodded. "Of course. What questions do you have?"

"I want to start with... the biology of vampires. How do you tick?" Adam withdrew his notebook from his bag, clicking his pen. His teeth scraped the inside of his lip nervously.

"That's a bit broad, isn't it? Where to begin..." Fletcher leaned back in his chair, fingers drumming the table. "As you may well know, we do not have a heartbeat, pulse, or the need to breathe. There is blood flow but it is only to circulate the blood we take in." His ears twitched as Adam scritched at the paper with his pen. "But you must understand that there is little science to how vampires and even lycanthropes function. We are borne of demons and run almost- entirely on unholy energy."

Adam wrote down his every word hastily, following his fast speech. "That's, well, I'm not sure what else I was expecting. That's fascinating! I'm presuming that is why vampires cannot touch religious or holy grounds...?"

"Or even speak- the words." His voice caught in his throat, expression pained. He would never get used to that. "It certainly is a pain. Ironically, however, most vampires are buried in religious cemeteries."

"Buried?"

"Ah..." Fletcher's hands caught on the table. "The creation of a new vampire is... brutal, to the say the least. After the body has been drained of blood and the blood-sire's or blood-dame's seed- their own blood- has been planted, the body is buried. The fledgling will unearth itself before dawn, ravenous and starving... It is not an enjoyable sight."

Adam nodded once, writing this down too. "What would happen if they cannot free themselves?"

"They would be left in the ground, most likely frozen solid. They would not, cannot, die but would emerge wild." He paused. "This happened to myself, so many years ago." Three decades ago he had been twenty seven. He still appeared twenty-seven.

This gave Adam pause. His pen hesitated just above the paper. "I'm sorry," he murmured.

Fletcher looked at him with the faintest trace of amusement, then shrugged.

"It is growing late for you, is it not, young Adam?" Their little meeting had managed to breach three hours, going onto four. "It is nearing two in the morning and I understand it is dangerous for you to travel so late in the night." Not only that, but Fletcher was growing hungry, and his human guest was cute enough to shake his resolve.

"I... Is it really that late already? I should be going!" Adam jumped to his feet, flipping his notebook closed. He scrambled to push everything back into his bag. "Thank you so much for the meeting, really! This is great!"

"Of course, of course." Fletcher watched with narrowed eyes as the human- no, his name was Adam- gathered himself up and hurried for the door. "Do be careful and be mindful of the streets. It is dangerous!"

"I will, thank you. Good night, Fletcher!"