“Great effort. A Scavenger as your first Vampire is really lucky.”

“Eh?”

With a can of soft drink in his hands, Ashyer sat by the apartment door and re-filled his body with sugar. He wasn’t injured from the battle, but his hands and arms were sore from the swinging blade. Plus there was the adrenalin that was fading through his system.

He was feeling tired, and it wasn’t even midnight.

Reginald left the body where it was and had radioed to the control room to inform that there was a dead Vampire at the scene. This meant that all the Dentists in Shordon would have undoubtedly learned the news that a Vampire had been killed by his efforts, which was wild to imagine. He hadn’t heard the others having done the same, but perhaps Reginald was just keeping that from him.

“The Vampire you fought.” Reginald said, stepping out of the apartment; “It was a Scavenger. Couldn’t you tell?”

“It was? I honestly didn’t notice. I just saw teeth and… jumped.”

“Well, that’s good news at least. At least it shows that your training with Culhil wasn’t wasted. But, yeah, there are pointers to consider when dealing with different types of Vampires and knowing what type you are facing can be useful information for your colleagues.”

“I suppose, in retrospect, the fact that it kept saying the same phrase over and over should have been a sign…”

“That,” Reginald said, going over to the body and picking up the separated head by the wire-like hair; “And his teeth are perfectly clean. This isn’t someone who had recently fed. This was someone who was looking for food and had wandered into this apartment block looking for an opportunity.”

Scavengers were, as the name suggested, Vampires that didn’t have the functionality to hunt in the same way as other creatures of the night. Instead of trying to convince or seduce someone, they were the type to arrive at the scene of a bloodbath and scoop what little remained into their system out of instinct and desperation.

Any attempts at proactively hunting were hindered by their loud moans and obvious charging.

It was terrifying, but also tremendously basic.

This wasn’t to take away from his achievement though. He’d been a Dentist for nearly five hours and he’d already killed his first Vampire.

Ashyer felt his mind click on something, and he added with surprise; “The front door to the apartment block- there was blood over it. So it can’t have been this guy, since he was clean.”

“Exactly.” Reginald said, kicking the head back to where the rest of the body was. It missed the corpse, bouncing from the wall and strangely that was more satisfying.

“So there is…”

“A chance that there are other Vampires, yeah.”

Ashyer frowned but pulled himself to his feet. He had just killed one undead creature tonight, so a second one shouldn’t be too difficult now.

He knew his capabilities, his strengths…

“Your weapon is broken.” Reginald suddenly said as he handed back his katana. Ashyer shook it slightly and, sure enough, it rattled inside the wooden scabbard.

The edge of the blade which had made impact on the doorframe was blunted by the impacts and there were spots where the metal had cracked. Also, from the grip to the blade itself it had become loose and as he tried to swing it he could feel it shudder through the air.

“Huh,” he muttered; “That’s a pain.”

“You used a lot of effort but… yeah, it is. I think a few more full powered strikes will have it break apart, especially if it goes against another non-Vampiric surface. Try to be more careful with your weapons.”

“Are you going to deduct points?”

“When have I ever done that. Minus five points for questioning me.”

Ashyer couldn’t help but laugh that time and returned the blade to his side.

“So do we keep going up?”

“Not just yet.” Reginald said, stepping towards the door of the apartment and glancing inside; “…Part of me wants to check the apartment. The door was open so either nobody lives here, or somebody has died here. I think we owe it to whoever they are to check it out.”

“I’m right behind you.” Ashyer said, following as his colleague stepped over the threshold and into the apartment proper.

The interior lighting was from a lamp that was warm to the touch and perhaps had been left on for a while. It was unlikely the Vampire had done it, for why would he need to do such things?

It was a weird feeling, entering somebody’s home without an invitation.

The weirdest part was due to all the stuff scattered over the walls. There was pictures of family members Ashyer didn’t know, all smiling and facing the same direction, whilst there were also ornaments and displays that clearly meant something to whoever had lived her but meant nothing to anyone else.

It was silent save for their steps as Reginald wandered through a bit more comfortably. He obviously wasn’t looking for the small signs of a covered up murder, for Vampires weren’t that concerned about such things. He was looking for the obvious signs, like blood splatter or a literal body.

What were the rules in a place like this?

“A pretty standard one bedroom apartment,” Ashyer said, wanting to sound like he knew something; “I mean, this is a similar setup to my own place.”

“Same with mine to be fair,” Reginald agreed; “We’ve got a living room, kitchen and dining room all in the same basic vicinity. I assume over in that far door goes to the bedroom, which in turn connects to a bathroom. This other door is probably storage and then outside those windows is the balcony nobody ever uses because Vampires would try and snatch you if you wanted to get some moon sunbathing.”

Reginald opened the far door which would have opened up the second half of the space, and then he froze as he did so.

“Right,” he said, closing it; “We have a body in there.”

Ashyer froze, then asked as tactfully as possible;

“…Dead? Or Undead?”

“Dead. Quite a while as well.”

They opened the door together.

He was right, the scene was clear.

The corpse on the bed had begun a few different stages of decomposition. It was lying flat on its back and staring up at the ceiling. Gravity had done its job, so had everything else that was meant to operate in this moment, and the number of flies and maggots suggested that a healthy meal was being made out of this person.

The smell was atrocious.

And she was still.

Not like the moving corpse that had been so thoroughly defeated, but rather like a true unmoving statue.

Ashyer wondered if she was going to start moving as well.

Would she feel as cold? Like a marble statue?

Did… did I fail them…?

“Did they die because I wasn’t fast enough?” He asked, but Reginald shut him down instantly.

“I won’t ask you to look at her for too long if you don’t want to. Frankly, seeing anyone like this is… weird, but I’m not going to lie to you. If you do choose to look at her you’ll see that she died long before you got to her, so short of travelling back in time and conducting your job interviews several weeks earlier, there was no chance of you saving her.”

He added, noticing Ashyer’s eyes flick to the doorway for a brief moment;

“She was dead long before the Vampire we killed was here tonight as well.”

“But, then, why was he here? He was in this apartment, right?”

“I have a theory, but it’s only a theory. I dare say we’ll have more to work with as we go on.”

He turned back to the body and much to Ashyer’s surprise, he leaned closer. He checked the traditional spots and, locating what he had been searching for, summoned the Dental Cadet over to take a look.

Sure enough, on the woman’s neck was a commonly seen puncture wound.

“She’d been killed before by a Vampire. One who gained access to her apartment probably why she was sleeping and drained her whilst she slept. It might have even been peaceful…”

“He didn’t turn her?”

“Someone her age? Nah. Vampires don’t tend to like turning anyone, certainly not her.”

“So the Vampire we dealt with was, what, just a coincidence?”

“A Scavenger works on instinct.” Reginald repeated from some textbook he had once read; “The one you dealt with probably entered the apartment block through the front door like us, wandered around looking for prey, and then realised that the barrier to this apartment was down. It came in, saw the body was both dead and drained, and whilst it was deciding what else to do it- along came an Ashyer.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Ashyer said, feeling somewhat better that the Vampire they had defeated hadn’t killed anyone tonight; “So, does that mean that the blood we saw at the entrance to this apartment block was possibly his? From an old meal?”

“No, I don’t think so. I think… hmm...”

He frowned, and then his expression changed as he reacted to a noise coming from his earpiece. Listening, he shot Ashyer a thumbs up and gestured that they were heading back down. He then spoke, seemingly to himself though it was clearly otherwise;

“Okay, cool, we’re heading down. Will update you when we get there.”

He adjusted, and then explained;

“Our backup has arrived. I think we’re going to need it, actually, so let’s go down and say hi and give them a bit of an update.”

“Okay,” Ashyer said, following as his more experienced colleague began to move- and then he stopped and turned back at the mess they had made in this hallway.

“I… Wait a second. What are we going to do about the… mess?”

“Oh! Right. Thanks for the convenient prompt. An excellent opportunity for worldbuilding and for an educational moment. I hadn’t considered that with all my sleuthing. Basically, when we get back to the car we will request a clean-up crew to come out. They’ll take the Vampire body- well, pieces?- and make arrangements for any disposal as well as any repairs to the building. We may have to stick around, depending on how long it takes them to come out, but normally we get to go away without any issues. I’ll give you the number when we get back in the event you ever need it one day..”

“Cool.” Ashyer said, nodding as he was informed, and then he wondered; “And the… other body?”

“Ah.” Reginald said, the thought honestly having slipped his mind somewhat, but he could tell it was something that meant a lot to his new colleague.

“We’ll… radio them in as well. Next of kin will be researched, contacted, all that stuff. It will get taken care of, it’s just… not our job.”

He turned and started to walk away, and this time Ashyer followed.

“We protect the living; we kill the dead, but we don’t protect the dead and we certainly don’t kill the living. That’s pretty much as close to our creed as we could probably get in its most distilled form.”

“Well, I’m glad they’re getting looked after at least.”

They walked in silence for a moment and after finally returning to the staircase, Ashyer wondered;

“You were about to say something before the backup called. I’m assuming you were going to suggest this is not over?”

“No, it’s definitely not.” Reginald said with a disappointed shake of his head; “I think the Scavenger made for a good distraction, but it’s not our primary target. Whoever killed that person in that room I think is residing in this apartment block, I think they’re higher above us, and I think they’re going to feed again.”

“I think” he said; “That we’ve got at least one more Vampire in this building.”