They said it will be fun.

They said please.

I just want to lead a normal life, in a normal town, with a normal picket-fence house and all.

So what's more normal than a pub quiz?

I'll tell you what's abnormal.

A seven-hundred-thirty-seven-year-old vampire with a shoddy memory playing a bloody pub quiz!

Or was it seven-hundred-thirty-eight... Nevermind.

Anyway, I'm sitting here, sloshing an ale - I should call it a beer, have to be up-to-date an' all that - in a dimpled pint mug, getting lights glared right through my sockets and dreading the damn quiz.

An iridescent glow from one of the colored reflectors blinds me for a second again, but before I can blink it from my eyes, Eli is there pulling my hand, making weird motions with it.

"Shawna, it will be awesome," she finally yells over the music, angling and stretching her nimble body to put her mouth right next to my ear. I can hear her loud and clear, maybe even too loud, but she doesn't need to know that.

A mad glint enters her dark eyes and before she can get some insane and utterly stupid thing out of her mouth I nod jerkily as if my neck has just caught a bad case of stiffness and then rush to placate her with an answer. Lousy memory is enough for me, don't need bad hearing from her shouting too.

"Yes, indeed." I try to get heard over a strong pulsing beat of a bass. "It will be splendid."

Oh, my. I sound like an old lady. I have never been a lady, to begin with, and I sure as hell haven't become an old one during my undead life.

"Oooh, you're already playing the part of a history professor!" Eli cries out with such enthusiasm that I'm not sure they haven't heard her in the deepest pits of Hell. Or whatever the hell Hell has. Hell Hell, got it. No. Huh.

Um, well.

I think my eyebrow is twitching. It's one of my nervous ticks, you know, like, when there's a hoard of villagers running after you to burn you on a stake because they believe you are a witch. That kind of nervous.

Um, that wasn't the best metaphor.

I decide to change the direction of my thoughts and sweep a glance around the room. The place is an L-shaped room with two distinct parts - one filled with black barstools made of plastic threads and high, round tables. The other part, where the quiz is held, is packed with normal tables and sofa-like chairs.

This is my first time here. One can't really call me a party animal, but I know my way around the mainstream scene. However, the last few years have been spent working, watching videos every awake moment - vampires do sleep, thank you very much - and scouring through the recipes and tips and tricks for make-up. Regardless of being up-and-going makeup artist, I need to blend in. And what better way for a not-aging vampire to do so, than use makeup to make myself look older and older.

A strict timetable is my way of pulling it off. Once three months pass, I grab a picture of myself from months prior and compare it with my current self. Yes, I can see myself in the mirror. Just because some idiot, that had gotten himself hit with incomplete invisibility curse and was massively popular, like, eons ago, doesn't mean that all of us vampires are incorrigible morons. And that we can't be seen in refractive surfaces. Yes, we can. I use mirrors every day. One would think it should be hard to keep a secret that large and work in a beauty shop filled with massive mirrors.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, pictures. The significance of the pictures is that I can compare my latest face with myself and then choose where to put a line or a blemish or whatever. Then I fix it hard with a strong enchantment I buy from my neighbor witch. The makeup becomes my new face. Honestly, a change is sometimes a good thing.

We sit down, the sofa encases me like some kind of throne, though I feel it's more like a throne for idiots, not much else. At least it's comfy and the atmosphere in the pub nice enough. If you can ignore deep bass shredding your eardrums. Ah, the sacrifices I make for my friends.

Is Eli my friend? Regardless of her not knowing my secret, yes, I can definitely say she is.

Eli sits sprawled, leaning to the backrest and smiles at me. It's one of her blinding smiles, it's paltry yet that curving of her lips seems to be larger than world.

She is a small thing with short, dark hair, pintier than me and I'm quite tiny compared to most of the population. The only thing I have going for me is my sturdy physique - even with small stature, muscles are there and make me seem larger, stronger, and deadlier.

Eli is what would be called Asian back home. Here, in this world, it's just one of the body types. Here, where they've already forgotten who's from where, the only thing that distinguishes one from another is magic. The ancestry is traced back by magic one possesses and wields, something I wasn't really used to when I stumbled upon a portal that brought me here. More like stupidly fell into one, but whatever.

Eli, with all her trusting and kind personality, might not be hateful toward me, but I'm still careful, though. It may not be humans that are ready to stake me out in this world, other creatures are by far more bloodthirsty and run around like wild animals. And my own kind is the worst.

Vampires.

Annoying blood-sucking pests, acting like they own the world. They don't care one bit who they'll stomp over in their quest for power. I don't hate them. But I don't like them either. There might be one I could respect - Lady Han. The Councillor. The one who rules the vampire kind from shadows. Also, the one who can kill you without as much as blinking. Eh, I shouldn't think about a murder that much--

Next thing I know, my back goes ramrod still, senses already tingling as I detect something bright and odious. My body coils and readies for a fight as my eyes scan the pub through the flashing disco lights. 

There's one thing I like about my undead existence and that's the instinct that came with it. My instinct has just started screaming bloody murder. Like the heavens fell and hell rose to the surface. Well, fuck. I don't think a pop quiz got me all worked up. 

Then, something else registers in my mind. A presence so strong it tickles with ghastly fingers around my senses, so unpleasant I feel like barfing. It's not a new thing, I realize. It's the same unpleasant feeling from a few seconds before, just amplified.

Eli doesn't seem to notice.

It smells like blood. An old stench of blood waffs in, soft and weak so it isn't like someone's recently died, more like an omnipresent scent of a dead body. Which means one thing - another vampire has entered the pub. One whose smell holds a tinge of sweetness above all the death. A strong vampire, I note form the power rhythmically dancing up and down my skin, reminding me of a simple way the chest rises with each breath.

I panic. Because I have felt like this only once in my long, long life. And that was when I met him. The Lord of Astoria. The most bloodthirsty vampire of all.

There were whispers of his death floating around. A snippet of retelling here and a silent gossip there, nothing substantial.

And I panic some more because it should have been enough. I felt relieved when I heard about it. I felt free like never before. And now the fear is back, slithering up my spine, shaking my core, and I feel like time has stopped.

Lucien should be dead!

I felt the break in power, a shift of magic, about a few months ago but didn't pay much attention to it. Only now, I realize, the rumors have started just that day.

Now I feel it again, the smothering presence of death and blood and gloom. Twisting and twirling, conquering space and time, and I fear. I fear I will be branded like I should have been that wretched day. My escape was the work of a fool's luck.

I stare, barely keeping my composure, the sounds have slowly silenced and the only thing I hear is my heart pumping. I stare and see nothing.

A mental slap later and it seems like the sounds have righted themselves, the bass is still strong and deep, people still yell over the music, and time flies normally once again.

I take a deep breath--

And almost choke on it.

Because I see him now.

The one from who the ugly sensation radiates from, spreading and griping. Messy brown hair, disheveled like it was swept by the wind and is waving to frame a handsome, youthful face, a face that shouldn't belong to the person wielding such grotesque power. One of the reflectors shines right to his head and I can see those pale, pale eyes, like pools of freshwater after the rain, and those eyes swivel right on me, observing and watching, his body following the direction of his eerie slits and turning with intent toward me.

I'm fucked, I think just as another, obviously cringy, part of my brain decides to give its few cents, That guy is hot!