Liz had kicked out the two people sleeping on her living room floor with paper cups of coffee and the toast she had discovered she couldn't eat. Then she had started calling round her other friends. It had taken her over an hour to find who had brought mystery man. Turned out his name Chris.

If she was honest she was shocked he had been so easy to track down. She was staring at his mobile number for heaven's sake. Shouldn't vampires have been dark and mysterious and have just appeared out of the night?

"Ring him," Pete said from his position in the kitchen doorway.

"Easy for you to say," she said, "you have a reflection."

Pete just rolled his eyes, giving her a hint she was being too whiny. Possibly she had been ranting quite a lot over the past hour and a half. If she was honest the worst part had been not being able to eat her toast. She was starving, but when she'd tried to swallow it she'd heaved it straight back up. She was also wearing sunglasses in the living room when outside it was barely light and all the curtains were closed. Pete was a very good meter for when she was overdoing it.

She dialled the number and put her phone to her ear.

"Hello," said a sleepy voice.

"What did you do to me?" she demanded as soon as she recognised Chris.

"Oh," was the not so sleepy response. "I'll be over in twenty minutes."

Then the phone went dead.

Liz pulled it away from her ear and stared at the screen for a moment.

"What happened?" Pete asked.

"He hung up on me," she said, not sure how to take that.

"Bastard," Pete said.

"He's coming over."

"Oh."

Pete didn't sound as sure about that. Liz looked at her friend and then he frowned, looking towards the window where a crack of light was making it through the curtains.

"Hang on," he said, "it's daylight outside."

"Maybe he has tunnels," Liz said; she was so not in the mood.

~*~

"I should rip your balls off," Liz said the moment Chris walked through her front door.

"Yes well you threatened to do that before," Chris said, sounding surprisingly resigned, "and you were holding them the last time."

That wasn't how she had expected the conversation to go at all and it floor her.

"What?"

Chris gave her an appraising look.

"You don't remember, do you?" he said.

She shook her head.

"And that makes this all the more creepy," Pete said, standing in the kitchen doorway holding the frying pan like a weapon. "You had sex with a drunk woman and you turned her into a vampire."

"Liz was not drunk," Chris said and put his hands on his hips.

If Liz hadn't known better she would have said he was affronted.

"Then why don't I remember?" she asked.

"Sometimes the change affects the mind," Chris said. "You will remember, but it might take a couple of days."

That sounded a little too convenient.

"Is that an excuse?"

She narrowed her eyes at him to make her point and then remembered she was wearing dark glasses.

"No, it's the truth," he insisted.

"Then why did you leave?" That came from Pete.

Chris sighed.

"Sorry, Liz, but you had an adverse reaction to my blood, you became aggressive. I had to leave before you started tearing things apart. I told you all this in my note where I left my number."

"There was no note," Liz said.

"It was on your bedside table," Chris insisted. "How did you find me if not the note?"

"I rang round."

"Oh."

Liz couldn't help remembering how out of it she had been before her coffee. It was possible she had missed the note. She hadn't been back into the bedroom since she had realised what was happening.

"You still turned me into a vampire," she said, remembering she was angry with him.

"You made me!"

The sheer exasperation in Chris' voice actually encouraged her to believe him.

"Yeah right," Pete said.

"Explain," is what Liz went with.

Chris looked over at Pete and his cheeks darkened just a bit. Liz was almost amused, but only almost, after all there was the whole vampire thing.

"Well," he said eventually, "the sex was amazing, thanks, and then I bit you. You weren't supposed to remember that part, but when I tried to make you forget you just blinked and told me it wasn't that easy."

"You're vampire whammy didn't work on me?"

He nodded.

"Then just the bite didn't do this to me?" she checked.

"No," he said, "can you imagine how many vampires there would be if it was like the movies. There would be more of us then there are regular humans."

"So why am I like this now?"

"Because you asked me to explain, so I did and then you told me you wanted to be a vampire because you didn't want to grow any older..."

"So I'm immortal?"

"Yes."

"And what next?"

"I said you had to wait and think about it so you grabbed my balls and told me you didn't need to think about it and to do it right then."

Pete actually laughed.

"And what would you have done if a determined woman had your balls in her hand?" Chris demanded of Pete.

At that Pete stopped laughing and made a face.

"Screamed lots," he admitted.

Chris made a 'see' gesture and Pete nodded; it seemed they agreed on something.

"But vampires are stronger than humans," Liz said, "I know, I tried."

There was a baking tray folded in half in the kitchen bin now, since it was the first thing she had been able to get her hands on to test things out.

"I know," Chris said and he didn't seem to be able to look at her.

"Liz," surprisingly Pete came to Chris' rescue, "when you have a man by the balls strength does not come into it."

Liz looked between the two.

"God, I need more coffee," she said, and made herself shudder.

~*~

"So, daylight," was what Liz said once they were all sitting down and she had more caffeine.

"Fine as long as you've fed and have this," Chris said and held out a bottle towards her.

"You have to be kidding," she said as she took the factor 50 sun spray.

"Best invention ever," Chris said, "before that we had to wear hats and long sleeves all the time. Okay for the eighteenth century, but not the twentieth."

Liz sat back for a moment.

"You sound like you're talking from personal experience," she said.

"I am," Chris replied, "and before you ask, I will be four hundred and eleven years old next March."

Coffee almost hit carpet and that would have been sacrilege. Luckily Liz saved her mug before it fell from her fingers.

"Talk about sugar daddy," Pete said with a whistle.

"What about eating?" she asked. "I tried toast."

"You'll be fine in a few days," Chris assured her, "it's the adjustment. Blood and liquids will keep you going; protein shakes are really useful, and once you're fully vampire you can go back to eating normally. You might not like all the same things though."

All in all, Liz thought she could handle that.

"And how do I feed?"

She was nothing if not an upfront person.

"I can hook you up with a supply," Chris said, "or you can bite someone."

Liz glanced at Pete.

"Yeah, no," was her friend's immediate response.

"I'm really hungry," Liz said looking back at Chris.

"I'll make a call," Chris said and pulled out his phone.

"You guys get takeout?" Pete sounded incredulous.

Chris stood up with his phone to his ear and walked away to make his call.

Pete moved closer to Liz.

"Oh my god, Elizabeth, you have really done it this time," he whispered.

Liz didn't bother mentioning that she was sure Chris could still hear them as she shuddered again.

"Don't call me Elizabeth," she said automatically; she hated her full name.

"At least he's not a werewolf, I suppose," Pete mused.

Liz hit him with a cushion for that.

"Werewolves aren't immortal," Chris said coming back. "The delivery will be here in under thirty minutes."

"Or your blood bag's free?" Pete asked in his most innocent tone.

If Pete was getting sarcastic he was getting used to the whole idea. Liz took that as a good sign.

"So there are werewolves?" Liz asked.

Chris grimaced.

"Filthy creatures," he said and Liz couldn't help sensing there was history there.

"What about witches and ghouls and goblins?" Pete asked.

"Enough!"

Both men looked at Liz as she shouted.

"I can only take so many shocks in one day," she said and Pete gave her a small smile of apology.

"Thank god for that," he said, "or I'd think you'd completely changed."

She shuddered again.

"Okay," she said, "what's with all the jitters?"

"Technically we're demons," Chris said, "so we react to religious things of all kinds. You'll get used to it though. It's only if one of the crackpot hunters comes at you with crosses that you'll really feel it."

There were too many things in the one speech for Liz to process all at once.

"Crack pot hunters?" was what she went with.

"Most of us are live and let live," Chris said, "but there are some crazy humans out there who seem to think everyone is still living in the dark ages. Don't worry, the community deals with them when we come across them."

Liz didn't like the sound of that.

"Deals with them?"

It sounded so final.

"We turn them into vampires," Chris said with a shrug. "They mostly see the light when they are looking at it from the other side."

"And if they don't?"

"Do you really want me to tell you that now?"

Liz took a very large swallow of her coffee and decided that perhaps she didn't. Pete was right, she really had done it this time.

"What else did you fail to mention?" she asked.

"I did tell you, you needed to stop and think about this," Chris pointed out.

Liz would have liked to call bullshit, but now Chris had told her about it, she was beginning to remember more about the whole turning incident.

"How do you look so well turned out when we don't cast a reflection?" she asked, because it was easier than admitting she had screwed up.

"You can cast a reflection," he said, "you just have to really want to. It takes practice."

"How is that even logical?" Liz shook her head in exasperation.

Chris shrugged.

"What's logic got to do with it."

Liz ran her hand through her hair, or tried and then gave it up as a bad lot when her fingers got stuck.

"And what about us?" she asked.

"Well as your maker I have a duty to guide you through the start of your change," Chris said and noticed the way he looked down at the floor.

She'd seen that look before on normal men; it was the 'morning after' look.

"And us, us?" Liz asked, feeling just a little evil.

"Okay," Pete said, standing up, "that is my cue to leave. If you need anything, Liz, I will be just down the hall sharpening pencils into tiny stakes."

Pete lived in the flat at the other end of the floor.

Chris actually looked vaguely frightened about being left on his own with her. That brightened Liz's day considerable. She was a bit confused, a lot apprehensive and very, very unsure of what she had gotten herself into. However, Liz was nothing if not forward thinking. She didn't need a boyfriend just at the moment, but she was going to enjoy stringing Chris along, at least for the next twenty minutes. Technically she might had brought this on herself, but payback was a bitch.

The vampire thing was new, but at least now she had plenty of time to get used to it.

~*~

A/N: Many thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed the story.