The sun went down. Lenore crawled from her shallow grave, listless and hungry. At the same time, Baron Latos rose from the coffin in his castle crypt, driven from the dreamless sleep of death by a most unholy craving. And, on the other side of town, Daniel got out of bed, went to the kitchen, and mixed himself a smoothie out of pig’s blood and cherry Kool-Aid. (Because drinking blood straight gave him gas).Lenore wore the ragged cerements of the grave, smeared with dirt. She crept along on all fours, hiding in dark alleys and behind hedgerows, skulking and stalking. Baron Latos wore his finest tailored suit and most expensive black cape. He called his inhuman servants to prepare the carriage and horses, as he was going out to mingle with unsuspecting mortals. Daniel put on sweats and an old Invader Zim t-shirt with a bloodstain on the sleeve and sat down to watch the Futurama marathon on channel three.His phone rang. It was Jenna. “Hi, honey!” he said.”Where are you?” “I just got up,” he said, taking a swig of cherry-flavored blood. “Are you coming over?”“You’re supposed to be taking me to Lianne’s party tonight! It’s Halloween and I want everyone to see that I’m dating a vamp-iiiiire! They’ll all be super jealous.””I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that.”Jenna made a little “Uck!” noise. “Just get over here and put on your costume.””What costume?””You vampire costume!””But I’m a vampire already?””But I want everyone to be able to tell.”She hung up.***Lenore followed the sound of music and people. The streets were crowded and she couldn’t drag away a victim without being seen, but perhaps this house full of people and strange noises would afford an opportunity. She slipped in the bedroom window. An unsuspecting mortal was sleeping here. In the dark, she followed his scent. As she came closer the smell grew stronger. She bared her fangs. The smell was—Terrible.The escort avcılar drunk man rolled over and belched, scratching his hairy belly. Lenore moved on. Even she had standards.Latos arrived on foot because the police kept pulling his carriage over for obstructing traffic. He followed two delicious-looking girls for a few blocks and saw that they were going to the two-story house on the corner, the one alive with lights and music and conversation. He chuckled at the young people in their Halloween costumes. “Ah, mortals,” he said, running a gloved hand along his black goatee, “how foolishly they embrace the trappings of death, never realizing how close they really are to the true and final touch of—”Wait, are they playing Chris Brown? Really? That’s so inappropriate…”He waited at the door for 20 minutes trying to find the correct person to invite him in. Finally he settled on following the pizza guy in, on the grounds that getting permission from someone with permission was probably good enough.Daniel arrived in his girlfriend’s Hyundai. She led him in by the hand, but he tried to linger by the door. “I don’t want to do this,” he said.”You look fine.””Why did you have to put all this heavy white makeup on me?””You need to look pale and dramatic.””I look like an anemic mime.””You could pull the look off if you tried. Bare your fangs.”“I don’t have fangs.””Then bare your dental work. That bridge is pretty scary.”Daniel did his best. He looked like he was perpetually just about to sneeze. Jenna was dressed as a cat, and she flicked her tail as she appraised him. “You’re doing it wrong. Try smoldering.””What’s smoldering?””It’s a kind of glower. Only sexy. It’s a vampire thing.””I don’t think it is. If it was, I’d be doing it.””Oh come on!” she said, dragging him inside.Lenore sat on the stairs. She was confused. She picked grave mold from escort bahcesehir under her ragged fingernails while assessing the nearest partiers. This one over here smelled like a hemophiliac, and those were never filling. These other ones had a lot of rum in their bloodstream, and she was going sober this year. Her stomach growled. This was looking to be a long night. A drunk teenager sat next to her and looked at the torn winding sheet wrapped around her body. “Cool costume!” he said.She snarled.”Do you want to go upstairs?”She sniffed him. Leukemia. He probably didn’t know. She patted his head once, gave a little nod of pity, and crawled away. There had to be something around here she could eat.Latos was finding that this was not the kind of party he was acclimated to. For one thing, when he dramatically swept into a room nobody stopped what they were doing to stare at him, transfixed. They didn’t even turn down the music. “Good evening,” he said to a pretty blond thing, “I am Baron—””Oh my god, Jell-O shooters!” she said, and ran to the bar. Okay, strike one. He flagged down a group of girls near the window. “Listen to them,” he said, “children of the night!” He waited. Usually when he said that a wolf howled, but it didn’t sound like there were any out tonight? He cleared his throat and said it louder: “Children of the night!” He waited again. The girls looked at him. “I said, children of—WILL YOU TURN THE MUSIC DOWN PLEASE?”The girls walked away. Strike two. Maybe I’m out of practice, he thought.Jenna kept pulling Daniel into new rooms and insisting that they stand in a prominent place and pose with her back to him and his arms around her. Then, once she was sure everyone had seen them, they moved on. “I get that this is important for you, but I don’t think you’re actualizing my needs too,” he said.”Are you feeling any dark and unholy cravings beylikdüzü escort right now?” she said.”I could go for a Butterfinger.””You need to try harder.”Daniel counted to three in his head and reminded himself that he needed to prioritize his partner’s immediate and circumstance-specific goals over his general and non-specific ones. “I’m sorry, baby,” he said. “What do you need me to do?””Could you have a crisis of conscience over whether or not you’re going to drink my blood?””Would it help?”She nodded her head vigorously.”Okay. …how do I do that?””Just run out of the room and yell at me to stay away from you. Then brood around for a while, and maybe find some other girl and almost attack her instead, but then come find me when you realize you can’t go through with it.””It sounds like you put an awful lot of thought into this.””Just do it, okay? For me?”Daniel shrugged and ran away, looking as dramatic as he could. People in the room assumed, judging from his expression, that he had a stomachache. He heard Jenna talking very loudly to another girl as he left: “Oh God, he’s doing it again! I’m so afraid, but I know he loves me. You just can’t imagine how conflicting this all is.”Lenore was about ready to give up when she caught a whiff of someone on the stairs. A young man who was apparently suffering from a stomachache ran by. He smelled delicious. Very sweet. Almost like…cherries? She followed him.Latos was reminding himself that this kind of thing happens to every guy sooner or later and he shouldn’t let it get to him. He just had to push through it. Eye of the tiger, he told himself. He overheard a redhead in a cat costume talking in a knot of women: “It’s just one of those things you have to deal with when you’re dating a vampire. It’s hard, dating a vampire I mean. All the vampirism you have to put up with.”He approached. “Pardon me,” he said. Someone bumped into him and spilled beer on his cape. He sighed, then started over. “Pardon me? Did I hear you say you had an interest in…vampires?”Jenna turned around. “Oh yes. It’s so incredibly complicated, because my boyfriend is—” She looked up.