Rachel doesn't see Glade for a while. She knocks on the door but he doesn't answer, so she goes round the back to see if there's anywhere she could look in. "Glade? You say you can hear my heart so can you hear me now?" A few seconds later she hears him open the door. He has to stay out of the sunlight so she doesn't see him till he shuts the door. "That's creepy."
"I have no choice. Are you well?"
"Yeah. You?"
"I am well, thank you for asking."
"You're welcome. Is there something you wished to speak to me about?"
"Um, not really, sorry."
"No problem. I forgot to give you a card with my phone number on it."
"Yeah." He smiles and picks up a card for her. "Thanks."
"Anything else?"
"Not really."
"Stay as long as you need to."
"Thanks." He picks up a pad of paper and starts sketching, so she puts her bag and coat down and go to look at his book collection. He seems to have a lot of vampire fiction, and a lot of old books. "You read Rice?"
"Her earlier stories are good."
"Doesn't it bother you that there's so many stories that aren't right?"
"They are not about me."
"Guess so. I liked her sixth one." He puts the pencil down to think for a second.
"I prefer her first. It feels more realistic."
"Yeah but I can't imagine him going out of his way to find someone to talk to."
"He changed a lot in his long story" She looks a little more and sees a couple of other authors she knows of. "Verne?"
"Visionary of his time. Amazing detail." He goes back to sketching and she wanders round looking at pictures again. There's a couple of sketches of Raine which she doesn't remember seeing before, and a box on the desk in the corner with some pictures in. There's a computer here too, covered in dust and apparently not used. It doesn't look very old. "How long have you had this?"
"The computing machine?"
"Yeah."
"Three years at most."
"Do you ever use it?"
"No. I try to use the thing and it never seems to do much. It only hums and makes a bright image."
"I could have a look at it, see if I can make it a bit easier to use."
"If you would." She checks the power cable and plug first, then turns it on. It sorts itself out quickly and the first thing she does is check for internet. There's a few networks around, including one for a fast food place at the end of the street. "Do you know which internet network is your one?"
"No." He comes over to read them, and shuts his eyes for a minute. "The third one from the top."
"Did you ask someone?"
"Raine bought this thing for me and a man came in to put it together."
"She's more of a techie then."
"A what?"
"Techie. Technologically literate."
"Yes, she knows how to use one of these. I did not learn well and I was happy with books and photographs at the time." Glade goes back to sketching for a couple of minutes, then brings it over to show her. "Aww, cute. Is that the little cub from last night?"
"Yes. I have seen them several times. He grows bigger every time."
"He doesn't look very old."
"I think this litter is ten weeks old."
"I can't draw that well."
"I could not draw this well before."
"Before you changed?"
"Yes. My teacher told me that it is because we see things differently and we can remember things better."
"What else is different?"
"So many questions."
"That's how people learn."
"True. I see detail at greater distances. I see easier in low light but the same in brighter light. I am stronger, I can run slightly faster, I do not fall ill, I have no need of sleep though we do have something like it. Sun light will burn after roughly five minutes in summer or ten in winter. Thick cloud can allow me to go outside for hours but it is dangerous because I would not like to be stuck somewhere if the clouds disappeared."
"Guess not. Right, this is all sorted out. You can send and get messages from people with email, you can register for an account here to put pictures on there and write to people or play the games that are on there. You don't need to do anything with this, it sorts itself out, same with this."
"Thank you."
"No problem."
"It will be dark soon."
"Do you want to go for a walk or something?"
"I was thinking of hunting tonight."
"Oh, ok."
"I could meet you later."
"Couldn't you...Never mind." He smiles.
"It is too soon. You need to heal. Your body needs time to replace what was lost."
"So how long?"
"Two weeks at least."
"Can I watch you hunt?"
"Not yet. When we know each other better. We could go to a club together and I will take some young thing outside."
"What's stopping me following you?"
"Hopefully respect for a predator." She remembers that he is one of the famous creatures who are so strong they can easily kill accidentally. He's not threatening her, just reminding her of what he is. "I won't. Mind if I ask more?"
"Ask what you wish."
"How exactly do you hunt?"
"We have abilities. We have one when we change, and we can learn any other ability. with practice."
"What other abilities are there?"
"Some induce sleep, some induce infatuation bordering on obsession many times. People would let the subjects of that obsession do anything to them. Memory manipulation is common which would make any event seem a dream, memory deletion is unusual and difficult to master, though manipulation can result in a faded enough memory that the target forgets it."
"Target?"
"We do not like to use the term victim."
"Makes sense. Would you have made me nearly forget what happened?"
"You enjoyed it so I would have let you remember it as what it was, a dream." He wanders away to draw something else and she shuts down the computer. There's about an hour till sunset so she picks up a book to pass the time.
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