Chapter 4

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"Scott!" Larry Parker said. "Hey, man, thanks for dropping by!"

Hesitantly, Scott stepped into the pastor's office, hands in his pockets, face downcast. Scott remembered feeling comfortable in Pastor Larry's office back when he was still human, its wood shelves lined with volumes of books on religion, history, and philosophy. However, ever since he had become a vampire he naturally didn't feel so welcome, despite Larry's declarations to the opposite, and despite Scott's revealing the beast within to Larry, and Larry's seeming acceptance of his new "lifestyle." Still, Larry had been Scott's friend and counselor for years, including during his divorce which, despite having happened over a year previously, was still haunting him—not quite in the same way as becoming a vampire, but painful nonetheless.

However, the guilt, shame, and fear Scott now carried were amplified by the knowledge that he had killed a man. He had taken a life. And although he now felt bad about it, it had seemed like a good idea at the time. Scott pulled out one of the cheap, scarred wooden thrift shop chairs that sat near Larry's equally thrift shop desk and sat down. Larry leaned back against the desk and faced Scott.

"Yeah, well, you wanted to talk," Scott said. "What about?"

"It's just that we really haven't spoken in a while, not at least since the 'incident', and that was several months ago. I just wanted to check in with you, to see how my favorite vampire is doing."

"Well, your favorite vampire is... fine. Doing fine."

"Really? Well, that's good to hear. Then we have nothing interesting to talk about."

"Interesting? Oh, no, no, nothing interesting. Not with me. Nothing at all interesting. I'm the least interesting vampire there is. Back into the old routine, the old grind. I still work a job I hate, and I'm still divorced, and I still live at home with my mom. Nope, nothing even remotely interesting."

Larry was good at picking up cues. He knew Scott's somewhat nervous outburst was a sign that something was wrong. Larry nodded. "Well, okay then. I guess we're through here."

"Hey, wait a minute. I guess...I guess there could be a thing or two we could talk about." 

"Like what?"

"Oh, I dunno..."

"Geez, you're making me work for this, aren't you? Okay, then. Let's talk about how you're dealing with the events of last fall. Last we talked, you had almost been killed by this 'House' thing, then your sire, or whatever he is, this Jack guy, kidnaps Dawn, tries to get you to kill her. Then there were a lot of vampires getting their heads chopped off and an explosion. Am I missing anything?"

"You're missing the part where I'm helping a two-thousand-year-old vampire who works for an ancient secret society and a hot warrior woman vampire who works for the vampire government hunt down and kill these loose bad-guy vampires. Is that it?"

"Yeah, that could be it..."

"Well, that's pretty much it."

"Pretty much it? Scott, for an uninteresting vampire, that sure sounds interesting."

"It's interesting enough. I guess that's my routine now: work, home, church, drinking blood, killing monsters. That's the new normal for me. What else can I say?"

"And when was the last time you spoke to Dawn?"

Scott shifted uneasily in his seat.

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