I had been prepared to meet a vampire at my door when I arrived home after the ill-fated dinner where I was supposed to kill Frank. I had weapons prepared, as well as a battle attack if you will but you could say, to put it lightly, I'd been all but thwarted by the mother fucking blood sucker. Vampires were by far my least favorite of the denizens of the city we all inhabited, and this idea was seriously supported by Frank's behavior. There was blood all over my door, all over the bland painted walls that my previous roommate and I had spent half hearted attention on. But the violation? It felt more intimate than the apartment had ever felt before, considering it was absolutely personal. I had been cautious on entry, but the very smell of the blood wasn't fresh. He had been there long before me, and he was probably gone. What I hadn't expected as an assault while I was asleep; that was low, petty, and really quite amateur. He was afraid of me enough to take the vulnerable side of his "victim". Frank must not have been in the apartment when I had gone to bed, which was a surprising feat all in it of itself considering sleep was often highly elusive. All the same, his hands had caused enough destruction that I seriously reaped the punishment before his after-life found it's way out of his body.

But honestly? I'm not sure I'd ever been so wrecked, physically. I had dealt with a lot of physical abuse over the years, but if you aren't prepared for it, your body doesn't have the ability to withstand as much as you might be able to if you're trained for it. I used to understand the taste of blood, relish the metallic fluid that was familiar between my teeth and over my tongue. And now? I was never on the receiving end, I made sure of it. My hands had seen a lot of violence, but my skin and my bones hadn't felt that kind of infliction in years. I was capable enough to heal some of my injuries, thanks to the ability to mend flesh because it was of the earth. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, right? Unfortunately, the metaphorical sense there didn't apply, and I was unable to get some of the deeper injuries. I had pulled myself out of bed, stripped it of bloody sheets and found myself hardly able to get the blood off of my own body. Skin was torn, bones had been mended but the aches were still there.

Work was impending, but I quickly realized as I found myself splatting on the floor after attempting to get an appropriate outfit on that I was incredibly unfit. Ha, for more than just work. Irritation flooded through me like a white fire, something that I wasn't able to put out with a cigarette. Instead, I managed to squirm into a pair of faded, sloppy jeans that hung a little too low even with a belt attached. The shirt? Yeah, that was a little harder. Slipping a newly mended broken shoulder through a sleeve of a light gray v-neck sweater that barely hid all the right bruises caused a chorus of expletives. Adoning my jacket, I flipped the collar up to hide some of the nastier looking bruises on my neck before attempting to get the right brace on to keep my arm from moving too much. Is this how cripples feel? Jesus H. Christ, if I could do it all over I would have hit the fucker with a frying pan and attempted to sick the cat on Frank. Why hadn't the potion just fucking worked?

Better yet... Why had someone left the information out?

The thought had bothered me enough to resort to a painkiller I thought I had kicked. The effects were easy to remove, but I had woken up with a hangover that smelled like boiled amber and memories that it shouldn't have brought up. The memories it did bring up, on the other hand, were about 50 percent filled with the smell of the woman who I'd hired to help me take the vampire out's perfume. And it then dawned on me that someone might have a better chance at healing the unfortunate injuries I had sustained. Her shop wasn't far, I didn't even need to drive there.

Oddly enough, the trip to the shop was familiar. I had forgotten how clear my mind had been on the way there initially, preparing for the task that I had been given that night. I had no innate or deliberate aggression to the way I walked into her shop; utterly opposite to the predatory way I had stalked in there before. With an exhausted wave of irritation that I couldn't shake, the dust made me sneeze and I immediately wished for the gas mask that had been sitting on my work table at my own shop. What was going on in here, anyway? Did they turn it into a sweat shop where they make those sweaters or shirts that leave all kinds of fabric in the air? Frustrated with my limp, I found a I didn't even want a cigarette to kill the irritation I'd felt initially. The shop was quiet, thank the good God, so it was easy to spot the woman I'd come looking for.

"I think it's time you prove your potions work as well as the candid customer testaments, yeah?"

I heard the ragged, raw discomfort in my own voice and quickly I was quiet again, running the less fractured hand through my hair. The pain was evident at least in my eyes, if not on my face. Besides, I had triumphed. What was a little pain in the meantime?

There had been worse.