Back to the current time.

A black Mustang weaved back and forth downhill, approaching a white building. The street lights around the building were lit with such an extreme intensity of light, it almost seemed like daylight. The mustang went down a dip that led under the white building and stopped in front of a gate.

Inside the car, Leora rubbed her eyes. “Why are those so bright?” she complained.

“Didn’t I tell you not to look at them?” said Elijah. He removed his sunglasses. “UV lights so your kind don’t decide we’re easy prey. Or for the weed. Probably both.”

The gates opened up after Elijah clicked on the gate opener he had in his car. Once opened, he drove the car into and parked at the spot that was near a door. The car doors opened.

“Ugh, can’t you guys make a spell,” said Leora as she exited the car.

“Well, that’s what they did in the old days,” said Elijah as he exited his car as well. “Until some vampire seduced a witch and got hold of his grimoire. Next thing we knew, a bunch of vampires were crashing coven meetings and, well, a few wars broke out. It really sucks whoever turned you. They just left you and did not teach you about our fantastic rivalry.” He shook his head.

From what Elijah could piece up, since Leora wasn’t so forthcoming about her past, possibly too embarrassed about it, she was turned into a vampire a year ago in New York. She was walking one night when a vampire took her. The next thing she knew she awoke in the Metropolitan Museum. She was alone and now a vampire with no one to teach her how to be one. For a year she just stayed at the Metropolitan, apparently feeding on the security guard, before deciding to ship herself to San Francisco in the crate he had found her in to search for her sire.

As interesting as her origin story was, it didn’t explain why sunlight did not hurt her. Was her sire the same way? Who was her sire? He knew it couldn’t be House Eagle. His mother and the Bloodmoons would be raiding their headquarters if she knew if even one of them could walk in daylight.

Leora herself had no idea how and just accepted it as is. However, for him, it was a mystery that could prove useful for him in the future. So he offered his place for her stay as she searched for the vampire that had turned her.

“That’s not what Google says about the witch and vampire wars,” said Leora.

“Oh for the Horned God, you need to get off of that. Not everything on the internet is true,” said Elijah. He went to the door. He opened it and there was a short hallway that led to an elevator.

They started down the hall and, as they passed by a group of mailboxes, Elijah pursed his lips as he remembered today’s date. “Did you pay rent yet?” he asked.

“Yeah, just left an envelope in the mailbox. Yes, I addressed it to your mom. Didn’t want you to get on my case again,” said Leora, mumbling the last sentence.

“I can’t save you if my mom finds out that you are a vampire,” said Elijah. “If you didn’t pay rent then she was going to think you are my….” He stopped himself before completing the thought. He would throw up right then and there if he did.

“Your mom is weird. Why would she think you and I were anything but roommates?” However, Leora already knew the answer. She just wanted to complain.

They reached and entered the elevator.

"Kinda hard to explain why a twenty year old woman is living in my apartment," said Elijah. "I had to say you were my roommate and that, umm, you were under witness protection."

"And she believed that?" said Leora before pushing the number of their floor they were on.

"Well, I added the whole part about sacrificing you later and stuff," said Elijah. “Why are we having this conversation again?” The museum incident made his mother convinced that someone--very likely Hammer--was after him. Only recently did his mother relax her surveillance of him. Something was occupying his mother's attention and he hadn't got the time to discuss it with her.

“Just cause,” said Leora spitefully. She didn’t like it that Elijah seemed to baby her around ever since she started living with him. Perhaps it is time to get her own place?

“I swear you’re like an adult child,” said Elijah.

“Takes one to know one,” retorted Leora.

Elijah just rolled his eyes. No point to responding. He can see now why her sire just left her.

Then they were silent as the elevator continued on and then pinged to a stop. The elevator’s door opened.

“Home sweet home,” said Elijah as they made their way to a door not far from the elevator. He took out his keys and unlocked the door. “Hey, you didn’t close the window.” He noticed across the living room windows were opened. How many times do I have to tell her not to leave the windows open when she is the last one in the apartment? he thought.

“Uh, are you sure it was you instead? I didn’t leave the window open before I went on my date,” said Leora indignantly.

Elijah gritted his teeth and hid his scowl as he walked to the opened window and slammed it closed. “Next time don’t do that. I will not be responsible if suddenly you get hit!” Green sparks crackled around his knuckles as he struggled to contain his irritation that was morphing into anger.

Leora rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I heard you,” she said before turning to her room. She didn't look back as she entered her room and slammed the door behind her.

“What nerves,” she said to herself. She looked to the laptop that was charging on her bed. It was bulky and much thicker than the one that Elijah possessed. She sighed and let her irritation with Elijah fade away. She had much more important things to do than to dwell on how Elijah treated her.

She went over to her bed and picked up the laptop. She sat back down and powered it up. A few moments later she typed in her password. A program ‘Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing’ opened up before she closed it down. She hadn’t gotten the heart to uninstall the program since it was the one that taught her how to type.

“And so the search continues,” she said to herself. She opened up a browser and typed into the search bar.

On the other side of the apartment, Elijah was already in his room. He laid on his bed, going through his emails on his phone. He stopped at one unread email. It had no subject line but it was from Marcus.

It had been months since he had last seen Marcus. After the fiasco at the museum, he thought everything would go back to normal but it seemed Marcus’ father was like his mother, too overprotective. Marcus’ father was convinced that he was a bad influence on his son and so had the red haired man transferred to a junior college.

They hadn’t spoken much either. There seemed to be a weird awkwardness that Elijah couldn’t figure out if it was from himself or Marcus' end. Maybe it was because he hadn’t really told the red haired man what Leora is? He had kept her a secret to everyone and told people she was a friend who was living with him.

He opened the subject less email and read:

“Sorry, couldn’t find anything on a vampire that walks in daylight in the Archives. Anyways, I am going to go to LA tomorrow and will be gone for a couple of weeks. Mom wants to see me.

Best of luck on this term paper.

-Marcus.“

Elijah closed his phone and tossed it somewhere on his bed. He had lied to Marcus that he was doing a paper for midterm about vampires for his mythology and folklore class and wanted to know if there existed a vampire that walks in daylight. He wasn’t surprised that Marcus couldn’t find in the Archives about if such a vampire existed. Technically it wasn’t possible.

They were cursed and, according to the Witches Archives, it was from a powerful witch eons ago. Was that true? Maybe. According to the most popular explanation it was because of God. Maybe because of the fabled Dracula? Who knows what is the truth, but vampires burning in the sunlight was fact.

When he was fourteen he had seen his mother kill a vampire that dared to try to use one of their people in a scheme. His mother had placed the vampire on top of the Coit Tower at dawn and watched the vampire slowly burn up to death, her screams rising as the sun rose.

He turned over onto his side.

A vampire that walks in daylight. That very fact would open all sorts of trouble. He figured everyone from the Witch Council down to the too holy self-proclaimed Hunter Order would be coming for her. Even Hammer. Especially Hammer.

And he couldn’t have that.

He looked over to a corkboard on this desk. With a blink of his eyes, newspaper clippings appeared on it. Some from the New York Times and others from the Wichita Magi News. In all of them, something terrible had happened from accidents to terrorist attacks. He knew it was all because of one man and that was Hammer.

Hammer the warlock who grew so powerful and so hungry for more. He tried to take over the United States. He failed, but the Witch Council couldn’t kill him. So they exiled him instead.

“Hey, uh, sorry about the window,” said Leora from the otherside of Elijah’s door. “We cool, bro?”

Elijah closed his eyes and stifled an internal groan. Ever since he gave her his old laptop, the vampire has been on it whenever she got a chance. Every so often he’d hear snippets of Jersey Shore.

“Yes,” said Elijah, his eyes still closed.

“Okay, so like can I borrow the car tomorrow? My boss just texted me that he needed me to take the late shift and close up shop,” said Leora.

“Ugh, okay. Just effin’ don’t break it or get pulled over by the cops,” said Elijah. He was tired and didn’t want to get into an argument with the vampire. However, a small voice in his mind wondered if that was wise? The vampire did manage to get a license but he suspected she cheated using her hypnosis.

“Awesome! Thanks,” said Leora.

“I am going to sleep so don’t bother me anymore,” said Elijah and he went to sleep.

***

The next day Leora was reporting to her manager at the Golden Arches. She was in the office and standing in front of her manager’s desk. She saw the, ‘Out of Order,’ sign hanging by a set of keys. It was the same sign that was falsely hanging on the door of the bathroom where a homeless person was in there sleeping yesterday.

“Thanks for taking the all day shift and night. You have no idea how helpful that was,” said Leora’s manager.

“No problem, Mr. Jones,” said Leora. She was dressed in the Golden Arches blue and white uniform. “Happy to help.”

“Well, getting paid is more happy, yes?” grinned Jones. He got up from his desk and went over to take a set of keys hanging near him. “I know you know the protocols for closing up. So I won’t explain. Sorry, but I believe you are the only one that will be here during close up. Grant had told me his grandmother had died, so yeah.”

“That sucks,” said Leora.

“Uh, yeah. I suppose if that were true,” said Jones as he handed the keys to Leora. “Don’t lose these or corporate will have my ass.”

“I won’t,” said Leora.

Jones patted Leora on the shoulder. “Good. Now, before you go, how was your last night?” He grinned widely.

Leora frowned. “Eh, it went okay. She was a nice gal but I don’t think I’d see her again. Ever.”

“She that bad,” said Jones before laughing and shaking his head.

“You have no idea,” said Leora. She turned around and exited her manager’s office.

The day went as usual at the Golden Arches. Leora did her best and was quite pleased with her customer service. She figured perhaps Jones would promote her to assistant manager and that would be great. If he did, she’d have enough money to get her own car and maybe she can even rent an apartment. No longer would she need Elijah. As much as she appreciated his help so far, she didn’t want to depend on him anymore than what was necessary.

When she closed up the Golden Arches her hunger pangs started up. Soon she’d need to feed to quell them. Elijah had told her it wasn’t wise to hunt in San Francisco and risk getting the wrath of House Eagle as an outsider vampire. So instead, he suggested she get some from blood banks.

Leora got into her car and texted her supplier that she would be heading over to the blood bank for another supply of blood bags. After getting a reply, she frowned. Her supplier was bumping up the cost by an extra ten dollars because there had been donor issues or something at the blood bank.

She started the ignition. It was then she noticed an empty Golden Arches wrapper at the floor of the passenger seat next to her. “And he said he was not my mother, bullshit,” she said remembering a time when Elijah freaked out over an empty blood bag on the coffee table. She bent over and picked it up. Then she stuck it in her pocket so she would dispose of it later when she got home.

Leora drove off and headed to the blood bank.

But she didn’t get there.