"Secrets no, training yes. And of course the PR. And of course the insult to their personal and institutional dignity."

"So their job is to supervise girls with artificial suicidal impulses, send them against creatures with parasitic reproductive habits, and then be sensitive about it when one gets bit and bites back."

"In essence, yes."

"I'm actually really confused about how that second part's supposed to work. I don't think human natural responses to being attacked tend to include blood-drinking. Does that usually happen as force-feeding while unconscious, or what?"

"Force-feeding, yes; while unconscious, no. In my experience. And in theory it is sometimes consensual."

"...Among people who are deceived about the side effects, or just don't care?"

He shrugs. "Either, I suppose."

"What are the usual motivations for turning someone, anyway?"

"I suppose most people aren't as patient as you were with people trying to shoot them while they attempt to make friends, but a careful vampire could pass long enough to find someone who'd tolerate the revelation. I guess that's not sociopathically hedonistic enough."

"Well, the problem with making friends with a human is that it is much harder to pretend they are not going to die," he says lightly.

"Yeah. I could see that being a problem." She chews her lip. "Isn't there any other method of immortality? All these demons and all this magic flailing around everywhere - that's really the only game in town?"

"There are rumours. Judging by the tone of the discourse, it seems every method has its tradeoffs, and vampirism is by far the most readily available. I don't know details of any others."

"Hmm." She beholds a wall contemplatively.

Sherlock lets her think.

"Well," she says. "I will see what Mr. Giles is like starting tomorrow. Maybe he knows something. Or maybe he can get me far enough that I can invent my own spells. An immortality one with acceptable drawbacks if any is a priority."

"I advise you to be very cautious about that," he says.

"Absolutely. If all the options in circulation have serious problems with them, there's probably a reason. Caution is the order of the project. That doesn't mean it's not worth looking into."

"True enough," he agrees.

"Is the median vampire lifespan that much to brag about, anyway? I mean, the upside potential is sweet, but the violence and the inconvenient catching fire if struck by sunlight parts have got to cut the average something awful."

"I haven't gathered statistics," he says.

"I don't see why not," says Bella. "I suppose you have enough reason to believe yourself an outlier that they wouldn't be especially predictive for you, but they'd be interesting."

"Yes, but the reward is not commensurate with the effort."

"Asking vampires you meet how old they are and taking down the information and then doing some statistical work to find out how your likelihood of meeting them interacts with their age?" Bella says. "I guess you'd have to like math or compensate for less math with more data-gathering. I don't like math much myself."

"And there is also the matter of meeting all those vampires."