I smiled. I could not help it. I was not quite sure why. I blinked, opened my mouth, then slowly closed it again. With some force of will I managed to avoid looking the fool – outwardly, at least, though inwardly I found the sight at once unexpected and entirely enthralling. I noticed myself thinking back, struggling... struggling somehow to recall... 

“Recall what, Nestor?” The voice was startling, cold and sharp – a pattern amongst the constant ring and buzz that assaulted my ears in every waking hour; I responded in turn. In thought. 

“You know!”

“No, no we do not know, dearest Nestor!” And then the dog looked at me, turned one rheumy eye in my direction, closed it – winking – as dogs are wont to do. I shuddered inwardly. I could never tell what they meant by such a motion, or whether it even meant anything at all. But there was something so terribly real, so terrifyingly human about the act that I could not help but allow myself a second guess. To wonder whether the dog knew more than it let on... Finally I managed up the words to respond.

“Spoken to someone... someone.... someone not -you-!” Only the dry laughter of sandpaper rasping on steel followed, and then I found myself again in the street, the absurdity of dog and vampiress and lackey all too real and too solid to be yet another dream. I drew a breath, straightened and stepped forward. 

“I recongise this one, you know? Nestor remarks as he takes a few steps toward Jerusha, carefully eases down into a squat and runs one of his own hands along the creature's wasted flank; he glances sidelong at the woman, lost for a stretch of time in his thoughts before adding: “He always seems to find me, somehow – don't you, eh?” His last few words directed toward the creature, a cautiously affectionate pat give before he straightens and returns his full attention to the oddly mismatched Vampire. Offering another sort of bow – not so much mocking as simply bemused (and indeed, I would be lying if I said that I could have grasped the moment entirely, or what it might have spelled out for my future – rather here was I, in the midst of the dark streets of an ancient city, the allure of the unknown and unfathomable calling to me.)

I would be telling only the truth if I were to admit that I still to this day do not know what possessed me to follow her into the guttering glow of an ill-lit city night... yet I did. Even (for some reason beyond my comprehension) adding as I turned toward a nearby street, gesturing politely before remarking:

“We shall indeed, and perhaps you may allow me the honour – there is a place near at hand... one I had meant to visit. Perhaps we shall go there together, you and I, before venturing elsewhere”?