There are as usual no extraneous lurkers.

"What's up?"

"So I killed a vampire last night and I think I saved a guy's life, and I don't know how to feel about this, because I kind of feel like I should celebrate being able to kill vampires and save people's lives, but I'm also kind of freaked out by extrajudicially executing people, especially when they're people who're in the same broad class of people as you, since you don't seem like a person with zero redeeming qualities, serial killerness notwithstanding, and normally I would talk to Azalea about it but that doesn't seem super ideal because she might think I just went out and joined a cult and then murdered someone over it, or something, so I'm here. Because I don't think I have anyone else to process this at."

"Wow, okay," he says, blinking. "I am probably not a great person to process this at, what with being a vampire and all, but like, if I'm your best option then go for it. I will try not to say anything super callous and horrifying."

"Oh, you can if you want. My expectations aren't super high in this area. But I really appreciate the thought."

He laughs a little.

She begins idly pacing a section of the room. "So like, the thing that gets me is like - I don't think it's bad to kill someone if they're in the process of killing someone else, if you don't have another way of making them not kill someone. But you should do your best beforehand to set up the sorts of resources that keep you from getting into that sort of situation, right? The sorts of things that make it possible to save the murderer too. And I have no idea how I could get those, but I feel really bad not, like, trying to think of something that's an improvement on staking all the monsters I run into."

"Yeah, I don't have a clue there either," says Zeke. "I mean I guess we could... encourage everybody really hard to take up the 'depressing little blood brothel' lifestyle... it's not popular but it's more popular than subsisting exclusively on animal blood, I don't think I know anybody else who does that... but like I don't actually think that'll get vampires to stop killing people. It's kind of our thing."

"Yeah. I mean, I kind of expect that there's - there must be at least a small percentage of vampires who would be willing to stop killing people under the right conditions, you can't be the only one. But I do expect that most of them would have to be coerced into not killing people. And if I had, like, a government agency or something then I could figure out how to do that, but I'm like fifteen and I don't think I can personally surveil every vampire in the city. Or keep all the reoffenders locked in my basement. Or whatever." Pause. "What, uh, actually happens at the depressing little blood brothel?" she asks, managing to blush only a little.

"People come and pay to get bitten by vampires. And then, like, leave the place alive and stuff, nearly always, I can't actually remember ever hearing about somebody dying at one of those. There's - a way vampires can bite people that's nice enough some people will pay for it."

"Gosh. That's, uh, better than killing people, anyway. So there - there are people in this town who know about the vampires, then. That was another thing, I keep wondering if the police or the hospitals have any idea what's going on, or if maybe they have vampires working there who are using their resources or throwing them off somehow. That'd probably be hard for the vampires on the logistics end, but it seems like the sort of thing I should be, like, thinking about."

"I'm pretty sure we don't literally have anybody working for the police, just 'cause like, it seems like the sort of thing I would've heard about? But I'm also pretty sure the police and hospitals either don't know anything or are ignoring it and covering it all up for their own reasons. They come up with the weirdest explanations whenever something demonic happens."

"Oh boy, conspiracies. Eventually my life is just gonna be exactly like the X Files, except with an improbably young and incompetent protagonist instead of, like, actual adults from the FBI who have any idea what they're doing."

He cracks up.

She smiles. 

"...thanks. I needed that. I'll see you around."

"See you!" he says agreeably. "Glad I could help!"

Her social circle is messed up but surprisingly supportive. She'll take it.

She stakes a few more vampires on patrols before the summer ends. She doesn't do anything incredibly flashy or draw any particular attention to herself, though she does make some attempts to make friends with some of the funeral home directors (on the theory that they might let her hang out there regularly, allowing her to secretly stake some vampires before they have the chance to rise). 

Summer ends. And then, as all American teenagers, she needs to go to high school.