Kat’s midnight nap didn’t last long. As much as she wanted to keep cuddling with Alicia, there was too much on the line to risk their tank being tired for a day. Kat woke to her girlfriend lightly tapping her shoulder, and they smiled as their eyes met.

  “As adorable as this is, Kat, I should get to bed. You still need to visit Alouette, too.”

  With a frustrated sigh, Kat reluctantly nodded in agreement. “Ugh, I know. Just a week left, right? Then we’ll have all the time in the world for each other.”

  Alicia leaned down, softly kissing the Vampire, then they both sat up. Kat pulled her leg from the water, smiling at Elias as he cut off his healing magic, and inspected her injury. It was already much better and, although her HP still wasn’t in fantastic shape, Elias clarified that she was healthy enough to easily make the trip to Alouette. He advised that she use a walking aid to keep pressure off her ankle, and Alicia sprang at the opportunity to grow Kat an intricate cane decorated with blood-red flowers.

  “Alright, so you hold it with this hand, and then… yup, just like that. You’re a natural!” Alicia said, gently kissing Kat’s cheek. “Sadly, on that note, I need to be off. Take your time getting to Alouette’s, and no flying, okay!”

  “Don’t worry, I’m having too much fun delving to waste my mana on that. Sleep tight, gorgeous,” Kat said.

  “I’ll be crashing here again, Fangs,” Tab said, finally speaking up. “If it’s alright with you, I think I’ll count through all our loot and see where we’re at. I need to wind down after all the fighting, and I have a feeling a trip downtown might be necessary soon.”

  “Good idea. Roxy, what about you? Off to bed?” Kat asked, turning towards the short-haired Human.

  “Um, actually… I’m feeling pretty wired. Think there’s any chance I could come with you to visit this dancer? I-I don’t need the mana regen or anything, but I just thought it might be a fun way to calm down, you know?”

  Kat looked back to Tab, silently asking her opinion on the matter. After a moment of thought, the Foxgirl rolled her eyes. “Oh, whatever, why not.”

  Roxy jumped a little as she punched her fist in the air.

  “If you want anything more than a dance, though, you’re paying for it,” Tab said, a stern tone to her voice.

  “Oh, I’m not looking for anything like that. I just want a little change of pace, that’s all.” Roxy looked back to Kat, her eyes wide with excitement. “You ready? I’m not sure where we’re going, so you’ll have to lead the way.”

  Gripping her cane tight, Kat nodded in the direction of their destination, and they started walking. She wasn’t entirely thrilled about being alone with Roxy, especially not at an establishment designed to get her blood racing. That being said, after all the time they’d spent in the Dungeon together, her suspicions of the mysterious Rogue had abated somewhat. If nothing else, having her in the party had made their fights much easier.

  They walked at a comfortable pace, slower than usual due to Kat’s injury, and there was nothing to fill the silence other than the occasional tap of a cane on the broken asphalt. Quite a bit of time had passed before Roxy tried to break the silence.

  “So… what’s it like being a Vampire? I hear it’s a pretty strong Race!” she asked.

  The question caught Kat off-guard; it had been ages since anyone had felt comfortable enough to ask about her Race. “Strength is relative. Demons can be strong if they’re given infinite resources to feed on, but for many, that’s simply not an option.”

  “Well yeah, but even moderately well-fed Demons can be sizeable threats. It doesn’t seem like you’re wanting for blood, so like, what do you get in return?”

  Kat sighed. “That’s where you’re wrong, Roxy. I’m surviving entirely off the rationing program, but there’s been a blood shortage ever since the Change hit. I’m constantly hungry, and there’s nothing I can really do about it other than stay away from potential targets.”

  The two girls met eyes, and Kat swore she saw Roxy step slightly further away. “You’ve never tried looking for volunteers? I’ll bet there are tons of people that would love a chance to offer themselves up to a Vampire!”

  Kat shuddered at the thought. “More than you know. Chicago has always had a surprisingly large Vampire scene, even before the Change.”

  “Wait, before?” Roxy asked, “How does that make sense?”

  “It was just a bunch of people that thought Vampires were cool. They liked to dress up, wear fake fangs, throw balls, that kind of thing. Sometimes it was a kink thing, but I know there was also a mildly popular tabletop game all about roleplaying as Vampires. Anyways, when the Change hit, suddenly Vampires were real. Many of those same people leapt at the chance to make a real Vampire Underground.”

  “So, despite having a whole community of people that would love to be fed on… you just don’t? Why would you do that to yourself?” Roxy asked, her brows furrowed as she tried to understand.

  “It’s not worth celebrating!” Kat said angrily. “It’s not cool, or sexy, or anything like that. We’re monsters designed to hurt people, plain and simple. And having an Underground doesn’t even make sense; in the stories, it was necessary for Vampires to keep themselves secret so they could survive, but that’s not our reality. Seeing a Vampire on the street is no different than seeing a Demon or a Werewolf.”

  “Ah, so it’s a bunch of posers?”

  “I mean, it’s… ugh,” Kat sighed. “I’m happy they’re having fun, but when I tried to visit one of their events, I got swarmed by people trying to convince me how lucky I was. That it was a blessing to be a Vampire. They want me to embrace what I am, to be happy about it, but there’s nothing I want more in this world than to be rid of this stupid Race. I’d rather be hungry on ethically sourced rations than satiated on the blood of people who fetishize my existence.”

  “Kat, that really sucks. I’m sorry to hear it’s so tough,” Roxy said quietly. “At least you’ve got Alicia, right? How’d you two meet?”

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  “Completely by accident. I missed my train stop coming home and decided to wander her neighborhood because it looked abandoned. I ended up in her Heart Tree, and she popped out of the bark to ask what I was doing.” Kat smiled as she recalled their first meeting. “I was so rude to her; I bounced out of that conversation as soon as I had a chance. I eventually went back to apologize when I realized that she didn’t trigger my hunger, and we started hanging out.”

  “She doesn’t?” Roxy paused, tapping her cheek as she thought to herself. “Oh, ‘cuz she’s got no blood! Wow, that’s really cool, I never would have considered that. So, you two just kinda found the Dungeon sometime after that?”

  “It had already appeared, and she’d just been ignoring it. She never followed Delver news and had no idea that every Guild in the city was hunting for it.”

  “And you saw a chance to keep her safe! Awww, Kat, that’s so cute!” Roxy squealed with excitement. “You two are super lucky, I wish I could have a relationship like that someday. If I’d been in your shoes, I probably would have messed everything up…”

  “You think so?” Kat asked. She was happy to shift the conversation away from her Race, but the change in topic also reminded her that she knew very little about Roxy.

  “Oh, absolutely. I’m way too paranoid about everything. I mean, look at you and Alicia. You’re completely adorable, but if it were me, I wouldn’t be able to shut my anxieties up. Like, off the top of my head, I’d probably be paranoid that Alicia didn’t actually care for me. That she’d been isolated for so long that she would have fallen for anyone that showed up.”

  Kat paused for a moment, thinking over Roxy’s words. “Huh, guess I never thought of it that way. I mean, even if that were the case, it doesn’t change anything.”

  “Well, yeah, obviously,” Roxy added. “Like I said, I’m just too paranoid.”

  “You ever consider moving? Why bother sticking around in Ashes To Ashes backyard?”

  “I think about it all the time, but moving is pretty scary. I’ve lived here all my life, and I love Chicago. Even though it’s been rough, I’m still able to scrape out a living partially because I know the area so well. If I wanted to move, I’d want to have some money saved up, which has been pretty hard. I also have no idea what kind of national presence they have. I mean, say I fly to Seattle or something, how do I know I haven’t been, like, blacklisted across the country? I assume there’s got to be a way for Guilds to warn each other about truly bad actors, right? So, if I’m right about that, I kinda have to assume that Ashes would be willing to abuse it.”

  Wow, I’d never thought about that. Of course they’d have a national presence, why wouldn’t they? How far would Roxy have to run to escape them?

  The conversation lulled for a moment as Kat thought about the Guilds. “If Ashes didn’t exist, and all their influence vanished, what would you do?” Kat asked.

  Roxy smiled. “I like delving. It’s fun to work together with a party, watching each other’s backs, tackling monsters and puzzles. Every time I poof a zombie or whatever, I feel like I’ve made the world a little bit safer, you know?”

  “That’s really nice, Roxy,” Kat said, returning the smile. “Personally, I can’t help but get swept up in the spectacle of it all. I love that, despite all the chaos right after the Change, we all managed to turn delving into something so… exciting? No, that doesn’t sound right. I mean, like, delving could have easily been horribly mundane, just another boring job, but that’s not what happened.”

  “No, I get what you mean. I think the spectacle of everything helps draw attention to just how necessary delvers are. If we lost that, people might get complacent about how safe the world really is.”

  As the conversation continued, Kat found herself relaxing more and more. She’d been nervous about spending time alone with Roxy, but as her fears abated, she began to enjoy her company. She still avoided getting too close—Human blood was the most delicious, after all—but by the time they’d arrived at The Scarlet Showcase, Kat was having trouble holding back a smile.

  The rest of the night was similarly enjoyable. Alouette’s dance was as riveting as always, though Kat had yet to enjoy any performance as much as she’d enjoyed her first night here with Alicia.

  Unfortunately, going to a strip club with Roxy proved to be more difficult than Kat had anticipated. She’d gotten used to seeing Alouette alone, and the beautiful dancer knew to keep her distance to avoid triggering Kat’s less-savory instincts. Roxy, however, had never been here before, and it became immediately obvious how much she enjoyed the company of women.

  Alouette had barely started her dance when the smell of Roxy’s blood nearly overpowered Kat’s senses. The Rogue was powerfully turned on, and her arousal brought back memories of all the times Kat had seduced targets in the years following the Change.

  Thankfully, Alouette and Kat were familiar enough for the dancer to notice how stressful the dance was. She situated Kat and Roxy on opposite ends of the couch, even providing a small cloth doused in strong perfume to provide a healthy distraction. As frustrating as the dance was, Kat held herself in check for the entirety of the performance, and left the club with a significant chunk of her mana restored.

  The walk home proved to be nearly as difficult, sadly. Arousal wasn’t something that vanished on a whim, and the smell of Roxy’s excitement refused to leave Kat’s nose. She did her best to stay cordial, to listen patiently as Roxy jumped around and gushed about how gorgeous Alouette was, but it was hard to hide how tense she was.

  “—and when she flipped upside down! Ugh, how does she do that? It’s amazing the club had a pole custom made for her, but I still can’t believe how easy she makes it look! Oh, and this one time she looked up at me, and—” Roxy paused, tilting her head in confusion before starting to move closer. “Kat? You alright? You’ve been awfully quiet since we left the Showcase. Was tonight’s dance not as good as the others?”

  “Don’t come any closer, Roxy,” Kat hissed. She gripped Alicia’s cane hard, her knuckles turning even more pale as she fought to control her breathing. “Arousal makes your blood pump faster.”

  “W-wait, you can… oh. Oh! Shoot, I didn’t even think of that!” Roxy stepped back again, putting a healthy amount of space between them. “Um… how bad is it?”

  Kat kept walking, moving as quickly as she could without aggravating her injury. “Human blood is the most potent. I can smell it from here, pick out the subtle differences in flavor that come from your excitement over the dance. Every fiber of my being is screaming at me to… to indulge myself.”

  Roxy swallowed nervously, which Kat could hear even in spite of the impressive distance between them. “W-well, it’s a good thing I’m a Rogue, right? You couldn’t catch me even if you tried!” A tense laugh followed as she tried to hide her nerves.

  “Sadly, that’s where you’re wrong,” Kat muttered, just loud enough for Roxy to hear. “Please don’t take this as a threat—I swear I’m just telling you this to keep you safe—but if I wanted to feed on you, it would be a walk in the park. A single look in your eyes and all I’d have to do is ask. You’d offer yourself up more eagerly than if Alouette asked to go home with you.”

  The conversation paused, and Kat kept her eyes forward as she tried to focus on getting home safely. Another few minutes passed before Roxy spoke up again.

  “Is this how you live? Always this close to… y’know, losing it?”

  “Pretty much,” Kat said curtly. “I’ve been isolating myself ever since the Change. This whole excursion with the Dungeon? It’s the most human contact I’ve had in years.”

  Roxy chuckled quietly to herself. “Wanting something genuine, but being barred from having a life because of forces beyond your control. I know it’s not the same, but… I get it.”

  Neither of them spoke for the rest of the walk home. Kat didn’t know which was worse, the silence or the conversation, but she still held herself together long enough to return to Alicia’s home without incident. After a quiet goodbye to Roxy, Kat wandered inside and found Tabitha passed out on the living room couch. She shook her head, then quickly walked up the stairs before shutting herself in the bedroom. Before settling down for the night, she allowed herself a small luxury and took a long drink from her blood rations, hoping to calm her urges.

  Once she’d finished, she grabbed her guitar, leaned against the massive cherry blossom tree that was her girlfriend, and channeled her frustration into her music before falling asleep a few hours later.