If there is one thing I dislike, it is the man who tries to air his grievances when I wish to air mine.
-- P. G. Wodehouse, Love Among the Chickens

Dani stood frozen for what felt like an hour. At last her mind caught up with what was happening. She whirled round, scanning the room and the hall for any sign of the vampire. Nothing.

Only I, she thought sourly, could manage to lose a vampire.

Was it vampires or werewolves who went on murderous rampages when they were injured and alone in unfamiliar territory?

Dani tightened her grip on her sword. She would just have to search the whole house.

~~~~

She didn't have to.

She found the vampire in the kitchen.

It was a ridiculously mundane scene, after the horrors she had been imagining. The vampire wasn't hiding somewhere ready to spring out at her. Nor was she draining the blood from some unlucky passerby. Instead she was sitting at the kitchen table, looking through the first aid book.

Dani felt as if she'd fallen through a looking-glass. "What?"

She didn't realise she'd spoken aloud until the vampire looked up. Dani half-raised her sword. The vampire held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. An uncomfortable silence fell in the kitchen.

"You're awake," Dani said at last. Inwardly she winced. When in doubt, state the obvious. "Mind explaining why you're here?"

The vampire moved as if to shrug, then winced and held herself stiffly in her original position. Belatedly Dani noticed that the stake was still embedded in her chest. It wasn't deeply embedded in her skin, and probably hadn't reached any internal organs (almost certainly, since she was still -- somewhat -- alive and in no immediate danger), but removing it had seemed too dangerous last night.

"My name is Claire Oakden," the vampire said. Dani felt decidedly disappointed. She had been expecting some sort of dark, Gothic-novel name. "I had a nasty meeting with a priest yesterday. The idiot thought that throwing holy water over me would harm me, and he imagined he was strong enough to stake me by hand."

Extremely foolish, but by no means unusual. Many self-proclaimed vampire hunters believed that staking a vampire was as easy as stabbing someone. They didn't realise that knives were sharp and narrow, while stakes were comparatively blunt and broad. A knife could easily slide between the ribs to reach the heart, while a stake required considerable effort to drive through the rib-cage and sternum. There was a reason most true vampire hunters, if they used stakes at all, always made sure they armed themselves with sharp stakes and a hammer.

"...So after I broke his skull I realised his friends would come after me," Claire continued. "I heard you're practically one of us, so I thought you might help me."

What? Who was going around saying she was almost a vampire? Dani thought over the few vampires whose acquaintance she'd made. Loki, wherever he was, would almost certainly not be talking about how a teenage human had saved his life. Ella and Julius were dead. She had met Abi exactly once. Rupert had mysteriously disappeared, and he had never learnt her name anyway.

She tried not to think about the other vampire she'd met. It was highly unlikely that Vlad Dracula had ever spared her a thought since that nightmarish visit to Romania. He certainly wouldn't have been telling other vampires about her.

"Help you how?" Dani asked, focusing on the immediate problem. "Are the police after you?"

Claire shrugged. "I don't know. I ran away before anyone found the body."

Dani took a deep breath and tried to remain calm. "Was the priest the only person who knows you're a vampire?"

"I think so. He only found out because he caught me sleeping in a coffin."

There were many questions that sprang to mind at this remark. The most obvious was, why were you in a coffin? Dani might not be an expert on vampires, but she knew they didn't have to sleep in coffins. Of course, she also knew that some of them were melodramatic enough to do so anyway, but those were usually the ones who dressed up in Victorian clothes and lived in ruined castles. Claire, with her perfectly mundane blouse and jeans, didn't seem like that sort of vampire at all.

But those questions could wait. First there was the rather more important issue of the stake still embedded in Claire's chest.

"I don't expect you'd agree to seeing a doctor," Dani said.

The vampire shook her head. "And become a target of every vampire hunter or mad scientist alive? No, thank you!"

She had a point. But at the same time...

"So do you intend to leave that stake there for the rest of your life?"

Claire didn't pick up on the hint of sarcasm in Dani's voice. "Goodness, no! That would be terribly inconvenient."

Well, that was one way of putting it. Dani would have used a stronger word, but perhaps vampires saw being stabbed as just an inconvenience.

"Do you think it's safe to pull it out?" Claire looked down at the stake. "The wound's stopped bleeding."

Dani shrugged helplessly. Raising eleven children had taught her what to do in any number of unlikely circumstances, but this was the first time she was faced with an impalement. "I'll get more bandages. And paracetamol."

~~~~

Getting the stake out was an agonising, awkward process. No amount of paracetamol could deaden the pain, and while the bandages covered the wound once the stake was removed, they did nothing for the blood that flowed down Claire's chest and trousers to pool on the floor. Dani tried to keep as far away from the vampire as she could, even when helping her slowly pull out the stake. Pain had a tendency to make vampires -- and plenty of other creatures -- lash out at whoever happened to be nearest.

Finally the ordeal was over. Dani breathed a sigh of relief. Claire already seemed to have forgotten the pain in favour of picking up the stake and examining it curiously.

"It just looks like a piece of wood now," she remarked, looking at the blood glistening on it. "Not like a weapon at all. How strange!"

Good grief. Was the kitchen about to play host to a philosophical monologue? This was more than Dani could stand.

"You'll need to change your clothes," she said, turning the conversation to the practical side of the situation. "I don't expect you have any with you, but some of mine might fit you. I'll clean up this blood then find some for you. And then we'll have to discuss what you intend to do."

~~~~

No matter how dire the situation, it always became more manageable when one had a plan of action. Dani scrubbed the bloodstains off the floor until nothing remained of them but a dull red mark. Claire had apparently fallen asleep, sitting at the table with her head on her arms.

Vampires are nocturnal, Dani thought absently. That was one of the few things about them she was absolutely sure of. She must be exhausted after everything she's gone through lately.

All the same, Dani kept a wary eye on Claire. She probably wouldn't attack, but it was never safe to let one's guard down around something that lived on human blood.

Once the blood was gone, Dani went upstairs to trawl through her wardrobe. She hadn't many clothes to begin with. Her full wardrobe amounted to six T-shirts, as many pairs of trousers, four blouses, two cardigans, and a skirt. Several T-shirts and blouses were currently in the enormous pile of laundry she hadn't washed yet.

She eyed her clean clothes dubiously. Claire was of average height, while Dani was slightly taller than most women. They were roughly the same weight, but that didn't mean Dani's clothes would be a good fit for the vampire.

Well, she would just have to put up with clothes that didn't fit. Dani wasn't about to take her shopping for new ones.

~~~~

Claire did not look impressed with the selection of clothes she was offered.

"If that's all there is, I suppose I'll have to wear some of them," she said doubtfully.

Dani draped the pile of clothes over the back of a kitchen chair. "Pick what you want to wear, then go and get changed in the bathroom. Those clothes you have on will have to be boiled and stitched before you can wear them again."

Privately she wondered if Claire's outfit would ever be fit to be worn again. But that was a matter to be worried about at a later date.

~~~~

The children had no idea what they would find when Dani brought them home that afternoon. She had been remarkably silent on the events of the day, saying only that the vampire was still there and had regained consciousness. Even the children immediately sensed that this was not altogether an event to rejoice over.

"Is she going to eat us?"

Leave it to Max to say exactly what everyone was thinking, in the least tactful way possible. Kevin loved his little brother, but there were times when he wanted to throttle him.

Dani sighed. She did that more and more lately. Kevin got the impression that she would have facepalmed if she wasn't driving. "Don't worry, Max. I won't let her eat you."

She didn't deny that the vampire might try to do just that, Kevin noted. He tried not to feel too worried. He had only vague memories of his mother, but he remembered that she had spoken highly of Dani. "Fought off a werewolf because she was too stubborn to run away," were Celeste's exact words.

All things considered, they were probably in no danger from the vampire. It was an open secret that Amy was probably half-vampire, and she had never tried to drink anyone's blood. Dani would have raised hell if she did.

Kevin knew, deep down, there was a chance Dani couldn't protect them against the vampire. But he tried not to think about that.

"None of you are to tell anyone about the circumstances of her arrival," Dani was saying. "If anyone asks, she's my cousin. But I don't expect anyone will ask."

~~~~

They arrived home to find smoke billowing from the kitchen window.

Dani pulled on the handbrake and jumped out of Sennacherib before the van had fully stopped. She raced to the back door and wrenched it open. Smoke poured out. She coughed, her eyes stinging and her throat tightening. Waving a hand in front of her face did nothing to get rid of the smoke.

She stormed into the utility room, the source of all this chaos, and stopped in her tracks.

The washing machine was on fire.

The washing machine was on fire.

Dani's mind boggled at this unforeseen emergency. Who-- What-- How? Finally her brain caught up with what she was seeing. With a muffled exclamation she flew into the kitchen, grabbed a soup-bowl and filled it with water. Then she shot back out to the utility room to throw the water over the fire.

In the middle of this excitement, Claire stormed into the utility room with a bucket full of water. She threw it straight at the washing machine... and Dani.

"Oooooohhhhh!"

That water was cold!

"What in god's name happened here?" Dani bellowed. Her hair was plastered against her scalp, her clothes clung unpleasantly to her skin, and as water dripped from her clothes to the floor it formed a puddle around her feet. Behind her, the washing machine made a hissing, groaning sound as the fire sizzled out. "I leave for ten minutes and come back to find you're burning the house down!"

Claire had the decency to look embarrassed. "I just wanted to wash my clothes."

Dani looked at the smouldering wreck of the washing machine. She closed her eyes. "I need a cup of tea."

~~~~

Tea did not magically make everything better, contrary to popular belief. But boiling the kettle, making a pot of tea, and pouring herself a cup of it gave Dani the chance to calm down and think things over.

By now the children, seeing that the house hadn't blown up or caught fire, decided it was safe to enter. They crept nervously into the kitchen, looked around to make sure nothing was about to explode, and immediately ran to the living room.

Claire wisely decided to stay away from all electric appliances until Dani finished her tea. Smoke still drifted through the house, but it was now nothing worse than a faint smell.

"So," Dani said at last. "You wanted to wash your clothes. How did that end with you starting a fire?"

Claire thought for a moment. "It was an accident."

"An accident" was leaving dinner in the oven until it burnt. "An accident" was leaving a school-bag at home. "An accident" was forgetting to buy bread when there wasn't a crumb in the house. This was more than "an accident".

"Your accident means I will have to buy a new washing machine, and scrub those smoke-stains off the walls, and give the house a thorough airing -- to say nothing to replacing all the clothes you burnt." And where, Dani wondered, am I to find the money for this? "I would like an explanation. Just what happened here?"

Claire shrugged. "I really don't know. I put the clothes in the machine, turned it on, and it caught fire."

For the love of-- More tea. Dani urgently needed more tea.