"Babe, where are you going?" Letitia put a hand over her eyes to shield them from the midday sunlight that streamed into the room. Justin, in the middle of pulling on jeans, peered at her. Any normal vampire would consider the way she flipped back the duvet and patted the space behind her as an irresistible invitation.

Her hair spilled over one shoulder and an erect nipple peeked over the top of the pink lace camisole top she wore. "It's our day off. You don't need to get up for hours."

Her tongue poked through her teeth, the tip of it touching her top lip. "Well, up in that way. But if you want to get up in any other way..."

"I promised I'd help Shayla and Lara. Remember?"

Letitia groaned, pulling out the pillow behind her and putting it in front of her face. "God."

He grabbed hold of the one foot that stuck out beneath the duvet and tickled it, letting his fingers run gently up her calf. "But when I come back later, you better be ready, wet and waiting."

Again, Justin reflected as he shut their bedroom door behind him, would any normal vampire leave after an invitation like that sighing with relief...?

Lara, her arms laden with cardboard boxes, met him in the corridor. "We've hired a van," she said, "could you grab some of those other boxes, please?"

She nodded towards the small pile stacked in front of the kitchen.

The Liberal Life Party had embarked on an ambitious affordable housing programme, and they'd earmarked the residents of Vamp Towers as a priority for re-housing. Vamp Towers hadn't been fit for purpose for some time, but a month ago quantity surveyors reported that two of the blocks were now uninhabitable, thanks to crumbling masonry, and foundations descending centimetre by centimetre into the ground every day.

Bellsmyre Estate had been thrown up in record-quick time—small kit houses the builders could make inhabitable within days. The estate's first residents were to be Shayla and Lara, who hadn't been able to talk about anything else for days.

Their belongings didn't amount to much. Justin counted another three boxes on top of the ones Lara had already taken downstairs, but he didn't blame them for their excitement. Shayla kidded herself all the time that most of her humanity remained. The move would help cement that feeling.

Talking of which... once they got there, Justin planned to ask them their thoughts on a cure. Shayla's response he could guarantee. Lara's wasn't as easy to guess.

The van, a bright yellow Ford Transit, had plenty of room for Shayla and Lara's meagre belongings. Two guards drifted over and wished them many of years of happiness in their new home. One of them even made it sound sincere.

Justin offered to drive, entering the estate's postcode into his phone to get the directions. The final part of the journey felt vaguely familiar. Pot-holed roads lined with boarded-up shops, their metal shutters covered in spray-painted slogans.

Beside him, Shayla kept up a steady stream of cheery chat and her eyes facing forward. Someone determined nothing would spoil her optimism.

"Is this near where Maya used to live?" Lara asked, and he nodded, the recognition surprising him. If the housing department had built the new Bellsmyre Estate here, then it was close to the Garshake Estate, home of many unvaccinated kids.

Risky.

He turned the van left, braking before a barrier in front of ten-metre-tall brick walls. A giant sign announced it as the Bellsmyre Estate had already been graffitied—the words, VAMPIRES OUT, in bold red letters across the top.

At the booth in front of the barrier, a guard stuck his head out, the black cap he wore adorned with that familiar red and black AA log. Bonus—the government's housing department had given the contract for security services to the Argist Academy, rather than Vampire Security, and while Argist would obey their responsibilities to the letter of the law, casual bigotry and assaults would not happen.

The man waved them through.

"Isn't this amazing?" Shayla exclaimed, red-rimmed eyes shining.

To those used to Vamp Towers' grey breeze blocks, rooms that hadn't seen a lick of paint in decades and the barbed wire fencing everywhere, 'amazing' was the right word.

The box houses in neat rows all had a tiny front garden and were interconnected with brick paths. In the centre, someone had built a small playground—its swings, slides and roundabouts all painted in luminous colours so that were easier for young vampires to use in the dark.

He stopped the van outside number two. Dark fake wood door, pebble-dashed walls in brilliant white that would turn to grey in weeks, and cheap looking guttering that would leak after any heavy storm.

Still. A palace.

"Come on, then. Do either of you want me to carry you over the threshold?"

Lara refused. Shayla, however, squealed in delight. "Oh, yes please!" and he swept her up as she giggled, feather-light, in his arms.

Inside, the exterior of the house belied its interior—even smaller than it seemed from the outside. Shayla refused to let the sight of it dent her enthusiasm. She wandered from room to room—a combined living room/kitchen, an interior bathroom and two tiny boxrooms upstairs.

"Can this one be mine?" Shayla asked, wandering into the bedroom that provided the better view of the park. "Do you mind, Lara? We can swap after a month?"

Lara shook her head. "It's fine."

Unpacking the boxes didn't take long. Justin produced a bottle of champagne he'd nabbed from the club. "Want to toast your new home?"

Lara took the bottle from you, twisting off the foil and extracting the cork, which came out with a soft pfft. The champagne fizzed out over the top, forcing her to drink straight from the bottle.

She passed it to Shayla.

Justin waited until they'd almost finished the bottle.

"Have you ever wished there was a cure for vampirism—I mean, really wished it?"

Asking a state-licensed vampire if they would prefer to be human was a question with an obvious answer, but few of them raised the issue too often. No point hankering after the impossible, right?

"Well, yeah," Shayla said, Lara nodding her agreement.

"Promise you won't tell anyone this yet? I met someone—a woman who'd been cured. And apparently there's another once-upon-a-time vampire somewhere in Dunrovia too."

Lara put her hand in front of her mouth. Her eyes watered. "Oh my God."

Her conversion had taken place more than a hundred years ago. Marty said it had taken him so long to get used to being a vampire after only fifteen years. How much longer would it take in Lara's case?

Shayla bombarded him with questions. Unlike Justin and Lara, all her family members were still alive and non-vampires. She would be able to slot back in there again dead easy. Who was this woman? Who'd cured her, and when might that cure be widely available?

He answered with what he knew, which wasn't much. But safe to say, Shayla and Lara would be the first to join him in the queue to be cured. Maybe Griffin had been right after all—Justin, the vampire influencer.

He left them discussing the cure, interspersing it with light-hearted arguments about how they planned to redecorate their new home.

The streets were quiet—the traffic having died away. As he waited on the slip road for the vehicles to slow down so that he could join the main motorway that would take him back to Vamp Towers, a head popped up behind him.

"Hello there, dear boy!"

"Griffin, for fuck's sake!"

The fright had made Justin veer the van dangerously close to another car, and the driver beeped his horn in response.

Behind him, Griffin grabbed for the steering wheel, straightening the van up. He climbed over the chairs and into the passenger seat next to Justin.

"Sorry about that, but I haven't been able to get near you until now. You seem to attract dodgy people."

Justin raised an eyebrow. "You think? Put your seatbelt on."

"Seatbelt? Good grief. You don't need to be converted from vampirism. You're a prissy human already. Anyway, I have marvellous news for you, vis-à-vis the cure. Take the long way back. This might take some time."

*****

"We've relocated that chemist—the one who came up with the cure. She's in a safe house for the time being but can't stay there indefinitely. Any ideas where we might house her? She'll need enough space to build a dedicated lab."

"I'm not an estate agent. How am I supposed to find someplace to put her?" Justin asked. Honestly. Did Griffin expect him to magic up a top-secret lab just like that?

"Easy!" Griffin flapped a hand. "There are abandoned properties all over Dunrovia. All you need to do is scout the area and find one. The more run-down the better, but make sure there's a clean water supply and electricity. She'll need those."

"Can I meet her?" Justin asked. If he was to go to all this trouble, he might as well know who he was doing it for.

"No." Griffin replied. "The fewer people know about that safe house, the better."

Justin slowed the van as they hit a 50kph zone. "How do I know this is for real?"

Griffin twisted his head to look at him. "For real? Of course it's genuine. I introduced you to that woman. Here I am, a poor beleaguered soul trying to facilitate the many joyful reunions that will take place when you lucky young vampires are offered the opportunity to return to the bosom of your family, and you interrogate me?"

Something in his outrage didn't sound right, though Justin couldn't put his finger on it. The way Griffin said happy reunions, perhaps? Too much sarcasm?

"I thought all of you would embrace such a scheme," Griffin continued. "What's the name of your little friend, the one you were helping this afternoon? Didn't she used to do those vampire makeover videos? I'll wager she wouldn't hesitate if I asked her to help."

True. Hadn't Shayla jumped on the idea of a cure when Justin raised it this morning. Wariness made him reluctant to drag her into any of Griffin's plans.

"Pull over here," Griffin said, pointing to one of the B-roads leading off the motorway. Justin took the left. The road led to one of the smaller hamlets south of the city. They drove along in silence for several kilometres.

"Here," Griffin said. They were close to a densely forested area, the verges on the road overgrown and strewn with rubbish people must have fly-tipped from their vehicles.

"Can I leave it with you?" Griffin asked. He leant in through Justin's open window. Up close, he hadn't aged the human way, but old vampires showed the passage of time in subtle ways. A greater capacity for stillness; eyes unblinking. A waxiness to their skin. The canines lengthened. When he'd known Griffin before, Justin remembered that way his appearance often altered subtly. One minute, he would look like a friendly uncle (albeit a dead one); and the next like something spat up from the bowels of hell.

A bit like how he appeared this second.

"We're depending on you, and you've always been on the side of humans, haven't you?"

Was that a threat? No, he must be imagining things—Griffin the friendly uncle once more.

He nodded. It seemed hastening on the mass use of a cure was up to him. Maya had returned none of his messages. That attack on her child must have scared her off, so he could count her out. And he still clung to that hope—I'll be human again, and that might mean...

No prizes for guessing where the rest of that sentence led.

Griffin slid out of view, the rustle of the tree and his footsteps disappearing just as quickly too. Should he follow him? See if he led him to that safe house, or would—

An arm hooked itself around his neck.

"What an interesting conversation. But not the first time you've discussed this cure, eh? And I bet that was the real reason you met up with that ex-girlfriend of yours a few days ago. Ready to tell us everything?"

AUTHOR'S NOTES - thanks for reading! All reads, votes and comments welcome. The next update will be Friday, May 14, 2021.