"Put her down?" I shook my head. "I don't think so."

Instead, I slipped my other hand behind Nettle's knees and lifted her into my lap. I looked down at her. I could link her easily. Her life could be tethered to mine in an instant. I raised my head back to the woman standing in the doorway.

She was pretty, maybe in her forties and had the sunny presence of someone who had decided to dance through life, whether the path was rocky or evenly tiled. Though, I wasn't sure about the forty. She looked younger than master Aconite, but it was hard to say of witches.

She was also very confident. And not in the least worried by my presence.

"Come now, Timothy. You don't want to include her in our private conversation, do you?"

I smiled amusedly at her and stayed silent.

"Put her down." Bramble had pressed his hands into fists.

I raised an eyebrow at Bramble. He advanced.

So slow.

So angry.

"Put. Her. Down."

He was a head taller, and had the muscles of a real worker.

And then he was very human.

And he didn't have the muscles of a fighter.

"Bramble, don't!" The witch shouted.

But we were already engaged. Nettle was taken by the dance of lazy spirits that took little interest in her or the scuffle.

I put her down, just when Bramble took hold of my arm to shake her free. I gave her a gentle push to sway her towards the nearest table.

Then I took hold of the other man and drove my knee deep into Bramble's stomach.

He doubled over, took a few steps back, then retched, doubling over with pain.

"Bramble!" Moth shouted.

I cast a glance his way. The old man froze.

Bramble swore. But he also coughed. I closed the distance and took hold of a handful of light colored hair.

I wasn't sure what was wrong with my fangs, but I could equally well use a nail. I pressed my thumb against his neck and drew blood. Bramble tried to pry my hand free from his head.

I changed the grip so my slender arms surrounded his thick neck, pressing against thick muscles protecting his windpipe but cradling the Adam's apple in the crook of my left arm. The bleeding vein stayed now enclosed in my arms.

He tried to get out. I pressed, squeezing big arteries and blocking the oxygen flow to his brain.

"Stop! Timothy, Stop! You are not a vampire!"

I loosened the grip slightly and looked at the woman who had been standing in the doorway. Her confidence had shattered, there was now fear in her aura that hadn't been there previously.

"It's a trick!" She pleaded. "Think about it. Look out. It's plain day. And just a moment ago you were passing for human. No contacts, no glamors. Your forehead is sweated. Your heart is beating. Timothy, you are not a corpse."

I listened to her words. And frowned.

"Please. I see you breathing. You are not a vampire."

The woman in her dress approached.

"You met an elf. They are toying with your mind. This is what happened to your friend as well. You think you are him. You are not. Your name is Timothy, right. Remember?"

I arched an eyebrow.

"Of course my name is Timothy," I informed her.

"Good," she replied. "And tell me Timothy, is that a name of a vampire, or the name of someone only linked to a vampire."

"Most certainly the name of one," I told her over Bramble's head. He tried to get up. I applied more pressure to his neck and felt his knees giving way.

The woman blinked. Then she smiled again.

"Timothy, you are breathing."

She wasn't wrong. My chest heaved.

Actually, it heaved quite quickly.

A full silence descended while I thought over her words. No one moved. Bramble hung now unconscious. His form leaned on me and I was now only holding his neck to keep him upright.

We were both breathing. And in my fingers I felt a pulse.

In my mind's eye flashed a swamp. I had two scenes in mind of there. In one master Aconite emptied me of all blood. And then I had woken up. It had been a sunny day.

"You came to Grenbrea as a human, Timothy. You live with Rose. Remember?"

The witch had come close. She adjusted the glasses on her nose, same kind of enchanted glasses a friend of mine had had. Clover. I had come to Grenbrea from her graduation party. I had given her a pair of glasses her father's ghost crafted.

Suddenly my memory arranged itself in chronological order.

I saw the woman drawing in a deep breath.

I considered for a moment keeping Bramble unconscious and my negotiation hostage. Then in a flash gave the idea up. I had only attacked him with the intention of forming the vampiric bond, a linking. But of course, being not a vampire, I wouldn't be able to link anyone. And I had torn a wound in his neck, albeit a shallow one. Plus, he was starting to gain consciousness again.

I let Bramble go when he now tried to get to his feet. He took various shaky steps to his left, towards his shocked father.

I turned to the room.

Hot wave flushed my face.

I was at a total loss for words. What had that been? I had, for a moment, simply forgotten I wasn't a vampire anymore. I had been absolutely convinced I wasn't one of these people. I had forgotten I how I was absolutely dependent on their goodwill. I wasn't a creature of the night who could sleep on rooftops, who had a Room in an enchanted building, who only needed blood for continued survival, who couldn't be hurt by infections or hunger, or lack of confidence. I wasn't a being who could steal the wills and heal the wounds of my victims.

Plume was not my first priority. I was.

"I am sorry," I said, trying to weave into this simple sentence as much honesty and confusion as I possibly could.

And I was confused.

I had checked in the bathroom. I hadn't seen myself. And I would have never tried catapulting myself over a table like that...

My eyes directed me towards the table, where Nettle was now seated, wide eyed. Plume's bag and shoes lay still on the couch.

"I am sorry," I repeated.

"Your eyes are not orange anymore," Nettle commented. She wasn't any more sober now than before.

"But your hair is still long," she continued, as if this were the most logical thing to say.

I ran a hand through my hair. She was right. My hair was still long, as it had been when I had been a vampire and all the way until I blew up last autumn.

"I have an extra hair tie, if you want," she offered helpfully, reaching into her pocket and pulling out an elastic hair band.

She offered it to me.

I could think of no other thing to do than take her offer and tie my hair up into a familiar pony tail I had sported most of my adult life.

After that we were silent for a long moment.

I waited, my own eyes cast aside. The smell of Bramble's last meal seemed to fill my nostrils.

The elf had done something to me. It had kissed me.

A shiver ran through me and my face blushed with embarrassment. In my mind came freshly opened my human year after my real vampiric episode. I felt exactly like when I had gone to visit my family for the first time after all the missed calls and near disappearing into thin air.

Of course I had never physically attacked any of them. But the psychological injury delivered by me had probably still been worse.

I drew in a long inhale, squared my shoulders and cleared my mind. There wasn't much I could do about offending Bramble and his father, let alone Nettle, but Plume was also still on my task list.

I turned to face the witch.

"As I remember, you said something about my missing Nephew."

She smiled then her beaming smile. Breaking the bubble of the solemn atmosphere.

"Yes. Your nephew. I have him."

I blinked.

"You have him?" I inquired, concentrating on this new bit of information. Moving on.

"Yes. In the kitchen."

She wasn't lying. There was a kitchen in this house. As I stepped through the threshold, I sensed an unpleasant tinge of magic which was only heightened as the second magical object in the room caught my eye.

On a wooden countertop stood an intricate birdcage. And on the floor of the cage lay a dead raven.

"The cage is just so he wouldn't have escaped and alerted you," Daisy informed me. "I just needed him controlled for a minute. It is impossible to break out of it, even by a vampire that thinks he is a raven."

I approached the cage suspiciously. The humm of the spell was like electricity charging the metal bars. And then there was something else. This wasn't like any magical object I had seen before. It wasn't made of gold or silver as almost all the metallic artifacts I had seen. There were colorful strips around the otherwise dull gray and even a bit rusted mesh. And the magic woven to it felt unstable. Like bad wiring. And while spirits clearly felt drawn to the object, they seemed restless. As if anticipating a storm.

Then my eyes found the first red strip. It had print letters on it.

"I made it myself," Daisy declared from behind me. "Basil donated me a couple hundred empty cans. He had even washed them. I wasn't sure what to do with them first. But then I saw your friend fly over my hut, the first time he visited, and I wondered if I couldn't catch a raven."

Gingerly, I drew open a small hatch and put my hand inside. With little elegance, I drew Plume out by his bird legs. His wing got stuck. I yanked it free. One of the bars bended in the process and I wondered if it really could hold a determined vampire inside.

Then I looked down at the black bird I was still holding by his legs. And wondered if I really had a determined vampire in my grasp.

"What did you do to him?" I asked.

"I? Nothing. It was Fig who hit him with a shovel."

"You hit him with a shovel?"

"Yes, well. We needed him to stay put and he declined to talk with us. I thought vampires were immortal."

The witch shrugged.

"But why is he a bird?" I asked.

She smiled wickedly.

"She can turn into one, haven't you seen?"

"Of course I have seen! But why is he an unconscious bird? That is impossible. A sleeping vampire isn't metamorphosed. That's not how it works. He needs conscious effort for the bird form to hold. And I wouldn't call this conscious.

"So, I repeat once more, what did you do to him?"

"The same that happened to you. He got a taste of elven magic. It was part of our plan. You were an accident. We just wanted to see your reaction to mapa."

Before I could ask her what this magic did exactly, she continued:

"The Forest magic is different from witchcraft. The effects vary. Basically depending on what a person can imagine they could be. Plume can obviously think himself a raven. We actually had a bet going on, and Fig owes me twenty euros. She thought he would revert back to being human.

"But you need to understand that everything has been a bit volatile. Usually people don't actually change. They just lose their minds. Eat grass, or bark at squirrels. Quite hilarious to watch. It feels very real to the person experiencing all this, but from the outside it just looks funny."

I looked down at Plume, whom I now cradled in my arms.

"But a vampire doesn't really have a physical body, so he can as well take the form of a bird?"

"Exactly. And because you are linked to a vampire, you can draw a little bit of that magic and change minor details about yourself. Like the eyecolor, or the hair."

I looked at her, frowning slightly. The only gap in her logic was that I wasn't linked.

"You do make a formidable vampire, Timothy. Please don't become one for real."

"I won't... Can I, ermm... now just return to Rose's?"

"Oh. Sure thing. I will drop you off and take Nettle in for the night."

Once we were in the car, Nettle noted I had a dead bird in my lap. In return I decided to shove Plume in his own bag. He wouldn't wake up any time soon. Once a vampire became unconscious, they could stay that way all the way to the next night. On top of this Plume used a medicine to shift his natural nocturnal rhythm. The side effect was that once he was off the tablets he would sleep long. And wake up craving human life. Except...

"What happens when he wakes up?" I asked our driver.

The witch looked at me in the rear view mirror.

"Nothing?" She suggested.

"Will he remember who he is?"

"He might. He might not. The effects can last for minutes, or decades. It helps if you talk to him, remind him. But are you really sure you wouldn't prefer a nice black pet instead of a dark master?"

I didn't answer. Just thought how I would explain this to the Queen. And what I would do after the bird stopped being a bird and desperately craved a victim.

"Ermm... Mmm... You..." I started. For the third time that afternoon, my face became the color of a ripe tomato. "You couldn't give me more of your blood, could you? For when he wakes up."

Daisy seemed to ponder this as we crested the next hill. Her small Peugeot seemed to suffer from the steep angle of the road.

"As much as I would like to trade with you, I don't think that is possible before somewhere next month. But you can have it then, if you wish."

Next month...?

And I had drunk this month's delivery.

Daisy roared in laughter as she saw me connecting the dots.

I didn't open my mouth for the rest of the ride.