Calling a human flawed was an exercise in vocalizing redundancy.

Alcuard walked the luxuriously wide halls of this strange man's flying palace with a twisting torrent of warring emotions. The ship was quite a bit larger than his own palace, and even if it were landlocked would be an expression of extravagance more obscene than anything Alcuard's decadent people had attempted to build. To have auditoriums, theatres, stadiums, and more in a spacecraft was a demonstration of wealth so absurd that it threatened to cripple his imagination.

But there was one thing that could redeem even the darkest of empires. One sound that could not be heard without a degree of virtue, even grandeur. It was a sound that Alcuard had stopped hearing in the days before he had torn down the dark empires of his home. And it was a sound that, every few years during his millennia in the COFFIN, he would ask his computer to play, to remind him of what mattered most.

Children's laughter. It was a sound this ship sang with.

Its echo lingered in the empty halls; still audible over the quiet hum of the air scrubbers and electronics. It vibrated the steel of the hull and the support beams, leaving quiet tremors that Alcuard could feel as he rested his fingers on one of the observation windows. It danced in the air, and rose in volume at unexpected intervals, a chaotic melody that was beautiful not as music but for all it represented.

"This is not the world I left behind when I entered my long sleep," Alcuard whispered.

"I should hope not, sir," someone said from behind him. Alcuard turned to see a young woman in a business suit, who, despite her unimpressive height, had the good sense to wear flat shoes. Her suit, while looking fairly bland from a distance, was finely tailored, and the weave of the silk so thin he suspected the material had to be made with a microscope. The rims of her glasses were made of real silver, and the glass inside was entirely decorative. The woman carried a small computer in her arms, and the open screen contained an email that seemed to ordering a quantity of platinum.

"I recognize your voice," Alcuard admitted. "From the other side of the portal."

"I imagine you did. Viviana Carrow, I'm Mister Cardego's personal secretary," the woman introduced herself, and offered him her hand.

Alcuard shook her hand, and was surprised to find it well calloused, and her grip firm. "Alcuard Cominetti von Dracul. And only a fool would think you are just a secretary."

She smiled at him. "What gave it away?"

"Your suit's thread count would make an impressive number on a paycheque," Alcuard explained, looking the woman over. "Your earrings and your necklace, while understated, look like they were handmade by an expensive artisan. Your hair looks like someone else spends hours maintaining it, and your open email has a commission request for a platinum bikini."

"Well, when you put it like that, I suppose it should be fairly obvious. But my job title is 'Personal Secretary' to Mister Cardego," Viviana said as she pushed her hair back.

"I take it 'Personal Secretary' means something else to Mister Cardego?" Acluard asked.

"What do you think it means?"

"You smell of your boss. Faintly, but it's there and mixed with sweat. The callouses on your hands are interesting, they suggest you hold tools quite a lot. Tools or weapons. You have the good sense to wear flat shoes, and it looks like you make enough money to commission a 'platinum bikini'," Alcuard said. He smiled, enjoying the offered puzzle. "Going by my nose, Ms Carrow, I'd believe you were both a lover and a fixer. And probably his best lieutenant. You sleep with him, and solve his problems."

"That's," Viviana began to reply, but she stopped with her mouth open and a slight tilt to her head as she considered his words. "That's a fair assessment. Now, let me ask you something. Are you a vampire?"

Alcuard chuckled and smiled. There was something refreshingly direct about all of his interactions since he had been released from saris. "I am. Yes, I drink blood. No, I have never seen a sunrise."

"Do you sparkle?" Viviana asked.

"Not that I'm aware. I do burn in direct sunlight," Alcuard said.

"Me too. And let me tell you, I do not tan well," Viviana commiserated, and she clapped him on the shoulder.

"You likely tan better than I. Sunlight is fatal for me," Alcuard said. "Even starlight hurts."

"Wow. Yeah, my skin just looks like orange leather if I try too hard, but that is way worse. So, if you want a tour, now is the time. We're tucked away in the shadow of the moon, and I can have the viewports closed automatically as we go," Viviana offered.

"There's no need. I've always enjoyed looking at the stars, even if it does hurt," Alcuard said. "The pain helps remind me to appreciate the beauty."

"Dang, Luca dug up a charmer. Another storybook billionaire," Viviana reflected.

"Charmer?" Alcuard smiled. This woman impressed him. Her title and overt status were camouflage, her disarming questions were focused and probing. "Would it be charming if I asked to drink your blood?"

"More so from you than most. But still, I'm going to decline," Viviana replied. She paused for a moment in thought, and asked, "Do you need to drink your victims dry?"

Alcuard wished he could laugh at the question. The human body had ten pints of blood in it, and the idea of drinking that much of anything in a single sitting made his undead stomach ache with ghost spasms of a life he had never known. But the question also brought up the aches of his past; a past he had burned.

"I need no more than a pint every few days. The experience usually leaves someone light headed for some time, and is fairly uncomfortable," Alcuard explained.

"That explains why it's usually done in candlelit drawing rooms after a lot of wine," Viviana reflected, and she winked at him.

At that, Alcuard laughed. "Oh no, I'm off wine-soaked ladies for as long as I live. Unlive. Shuffle along in my immortal form? English needs a good term for living after death. But there was a time I drank a pint from a woman after she had half a bottle of absinthe. I couldn't walk in a straight line for weeks, and I had this headache for about a month after that made me want to drive a spoon through my eye, because I was convinced it would hurt less."

"You don't do drugs?"

"Being dead, drugs and diseases work a lot better on vampires. There's a good reason our stereotypical food preference is young, virgin women. Boys tend to get themselves scratched up more during their childhoods, young blood has a certain restorative quality to it, and STIs can be brutal on an undead complexion."

"That makes sense," Viviana reflected. "The current fashion among billionaires is injecting the blood of young people to reverse the effects of aging."

That pronouncement stopped Alcuard in his tracks. Memories flooded through his thoughts unbidden, a litany of pain and rage that, despite the thousands of years that had passed, still felt as fresh in his mind as his first step out of the Coffin.

And this woman, clearly Luca's lieutenant, noticed as clearly as if she had read it in a book.

They shared a long look, and in that quiet hall in the shadow of the moon, there was an understanding that passed between them.

"I'll look into it," Viviana promised.

"Thank you," Alcuard said, and there was something profoundly joyous in being able to speak those words.

"In the meantime, Luca and that freighter captain are about to dogfight with a group of schoolchildren from New Zealand. I took a quick look at the feeds, and despite the serious handicap they have, that woman's actually a superb pilot. Care to go even the odds?"

"You're not concerned with letting a vampire loose around a bunch of children?" Alcuard asked.

"Should I be?"

Alcuard shook his head. "No. I brought an empire to ruin and buried it under the sea for the sake of children. Though if you have another pint from Luca's joke collection, I wouldn't be adverse. Even if it does taste like puréed unicorn and sexual frustration."

Vivian reached into her coat pocket and drew out a bag of blood. "So you would prefer my blood to this?"

"Profoundly so. You smell of satisfaction, of purpose and accomplishment, of confidence. Almost as much so as your boss. It is an enticing concoction," Alcuard said, and let his hand rest on hers just a little bit before he took the bag from her.

"You talk a good game, but no," Vivian said, and took a pointed step backward. "I rather like my blood where it is."

"I'll stop asking," Alcuard said. He popped the cap open and started drinking, nearly gagging at the nearly syrup-like consistency of this young woman's disturbing fascination with some football quarterback she thought of as a 'bad boy'.

"Thank you. I'm not huge on being looked at as a piece of meat. Though you do it much more flatteringly than most, and, well, I'm actually meat to you," Viviana said.

"Meat would rot in my stomach and give me gas for months. You're more of a smoothie to me."

"Oh, you are good at this. So, the basic rules of this game they're playing is to hit the other airplanes with foam darts to force it to the ground. That nets you a point."

Alcuard shook his head. "I have never been much for guns. Find me a worthy pilot."

Alcuard marched towards the end of the hall, and then turned back to Viviana. "And a sword."

Vivian grinned, and pointed behind her with her thumb. "Bet you were thinking that'd make a dramatic last line, but you're walking the wrong way."

"Sorry, old habit. Vampires have to be theatrical. It's how you tell us apart from zombies."