"It's Count Zelemir. I killed a lot of people to get that title, and I deserve to be referred to as such."
It's true, too. It was your expertise as a man of war that earned you the place as an immortal servant of Vlad Dracula.
Alice manages to stare you in the eye and keep a straight face for roughly thirty seconds before she snorts in laughter, throwing up a middle finger at you. "Stop fucking around, Zel, I just had probably like thirty near-death experiences. It's not the time."
You roll your eyes, looking around for any of the corpses still on their feet. Plenty lie on the ground, slowly writing, but it seems you've at least incapacitated the lot of them. "You wouldn't have happened to figure out how to permanently kill these things, have you?"
"Yeah, actually. Real simple. Destroy the brain, and they're down for the count."
As if to prove her point, she drops her axe into the skull of one of the corpses you already downed, and it almost immediately goes limp. You nod in approval. "Why are you in such a strange outfit."
"One bite from these bastards is basically certain death. I saw people out on the streets who barely got scratched." She pauses, biting her lower lip. "Fuck. They thought they were fine. Fucking mother with kids. Just one little scratch, she wasn't even bleeding. The kind of shit you'd stick a band-aid on. Took fifteen minutes and she was vomiting. Cardiac arrest in twenty. Dead in two more. And then thirty seconds later, she jumped back up. I thought I was going to have to kill her, right there, in front of her husband and kids. Some other guy hit her with a car. Ran her the fuck over. Kids were sobbing, dad was sobbing. Fuck me, man. It's Hell out there. 'Course, those kids are probably dead and walking right now too. That was all on day two, when people didn't realize how serious it was yet. By three, probably 50 percent of people were dead. By now, I'd bet on ninety."
You stay silent, listening. Not only do you not want to interrupt, you also know you badly need this information- it's one of the main reasons you came here.
"Fuck, I got off-track. The clothes. Basically, long story short, they were the closest thing to fucking body-armor I had. I mean, I'm wearing Kevlar under the jacket, but that only covers the torso, not even the arms. No way I'd still be alive right now if I didn't have them. C'mere, I'm gonna get my guns."
"Guns? Didn't you say you weren't allowed to own those?"
"Yeah. Made getting ammo a real bitch, I ran out of bullets before sunrise on day four."
She steps downstairs, before coming out with a duffel bag, and two armfuls of firearms. You hardly recognize the most of them, though some are obviously familiar. Handguns, one semiautomatic and one a revolver. Some sort of assault weapon (which you are almost certain isn't legal in this state), what looks like some sort of shotgun, though you don't recognize the mechanism. You realize the most of your experience with firearms is heavily dated. "Why did you even feel the need to purchase all of those?"
"We live in a world where shit like this is totally possible. I have no fuckin' clue what caused it, but there are vampires and werewolves and ghouls and wraiths and shit, just walking around on their merry way. You've got to be prepared for everything to go to shit. More likely that it would than not, right? It was always just a matter of time."
You consider this, but decide that that's simply a pessimistic way of looking at things. Vampires have been around for 600 years, and lycans probably longer. The world hasn't ended yet- or... not until now, rather.
"For what distance does this nightmare extend? Where did it start? I saw one of the corpses last week, before I went to sleep. Surely, shouldn't the military have arrived by now?"
"That's a question I can't answer. Seems like nobody knows where the fuck they came from, even when the fuck they started showing up. All we know is that on the first day... the second, I guess. The day AFTER you saw yours, people started seeing them around town, cops started warning everybody to stay indoors. The day after that, there were hundreds. Then thousands, and then it seemed like you saw more of them than you did living people. The phones are out, Internet's out, power's out. Water's still running, but some people I asked who know better than me said that'll only be a few more days before it either stops or gets too contaminated to drink without boiling. I've got a little generator downstairs from a camping trip I took with my dad, same place I got the axe, but all I can really do with it is keep the fridge running."
All the time she's been speaking, she's been packing weapon after weapon into the bag. After she packs in all the guns, she moves on to knives, though she keeps the axe out, probably to keep it at-hand. She closes the bag, then picks up a smaller backpack and starts packing it with food.
"So what's the plan? We heading down to James', or "the office?"
You consider this for a moment.
"James can take care of himself, at least for the time being. I should get to work. If they're still alive there, I should probably do my best to keep them from being overrun. I just can't help but wonder exactly how much of the United States this "plague" has affected."
You scratch at your arm. Still itchy.
"After all, when you lie down to sleep for a week, you don't typically expect to wake up and find that society has collapsed."
Alice snaps her fingers, grinning. "Society collapsed, yeah! That was a thought I had!"
You can't help but wonder what the Hell she has to be so chipper about at a time like this. "... What thought?"
"Well, without society, you can wear what you want, right? So you can get out of your "embarrassing mortal clothing" and wear something you enjoy more, right?"
Your eyes light up, and her grin immediately spreads to your face as well. You remember leaving your old garb from Europe in her home, at her suggestion. She'd mentioned that if anyone suspected you of being the town's vampire, and searched your house, only to find a stereotypical vampire's outfit there, you might have trouble. So you reluctantly decided to stow your favoured clothing somewhere else- and conveniently for you now, you chose to keep it here.
"Bloody delightful. Where is it?"
"Just in the closet over here."
She strolls to said closet, dramatically throws open the door, and tosses piece after piece of clothing to you. A tight, pressed overcoat, frilled shit, black pants, and your personal favourite, your flowing black cloak, high-collar and all. You haven't had a chance to wear the full ensemble in two decades, and just seeing it makes your heart well with nostalgia- as well as relief that you can get out of the style-blind clothing of today. You quickly free yourself of your current shirt, but in the process, you catch sight of your right arm.
The mark of the bite is still there. Mostly healed, but a ring of inflamed skin in the clear shape of a human's jaw still remains, as if the wound had been... infected. Your eyes go wide as you look at it. The wound was over a week old, and it should have healed in a matter of seconds. You must be more blood-starved than you thought at first. Speaking of which, you feel your very soul calling out in thirst, and you know without a doubt that you need to feed from someone rather soon.
Alice also catches sight of the wound, raising an eyebrow. Despite this, she stays silent- evidently she just wants to get out quickly. You step out of the room to fully undress, before getting into your full garb. Like you said before- bloody delightful. And the custom-tailored outfit fits so much better than store-bought clothes.
You step back out just in time to catch the firearm-filled duffel bag that Alice tosses at you, axe in her other hand and backpack full of food hanging from her shoulders. "Let's fuck out of here, right?"
You nod. You step out of the door and set a course for your place of employment. For over a decade, you've worked as-
[] A definitely-not-legal part of the local police department, helping them deal with criminals and other problems that are more suited to an immortal superhuman than your neighborhood beat cop. Though you've done your best to avoid harming innocents, you're still well-versed in combat, and your ability to teleport through shadow as if walking through a doorway has often come in handy.
[] A doctor, shockingly enough for those that know your identity. Centuries ago, you learned how to use your vampire blood to heal, rather than harm. Though you doubt you could return these corpses to their human forms, you can heal almost any wound, cure almost any disease, in a matter of minutes.
[] A private detective, part of a firm that was established here in the States well over 200 years ago. You use your abilities to easily answer questions that would be nigh-impossible for mere mortals. Furthermore, you're assisted in this task by your time-honed ability to slip invisibly into shadow, no more detectable than a gust of wind.
[] As much as you hate to say it out loud, an escort. There's no shame in doing something you enjoy. And better yet, as well as being paid handsomely for your services, the information you extract from clients can be invaluable. Of course, you wouldn't be nearly as successful in your art were it not for your ability to morph your body and facial structure, allowing you to perfectly imitate almost any humanoid appearance.
(For and for the record, each of these choices comes along with one additional ability that I'm not going to tell you until you pick it! Muahahah.)
