"And I assume there would be ethical concerns."

"Yes. I mean, I did once find a vampire nest with a few thou in a drawer, and I kept that because I had no idea where they'd gotten it and I had just Slain all the occupants, but I can't rely on targets with deep pockets."

"Bit of an irregular income source there, yes."

"Yeah. I guess I don't know what you'd do for any non-blood liquidity needs you might have if you left this house."

"Depends. Theft is certainly a possibility. I could also join up with one of those infamous bite shops, which would take care of both the blood and the money."

"Bite shops?" Blink.

"Vampire prostitution? You haven't heard of this?"

"No, actually. Is that what it sounds like? People paying vampires to chomp them? Is that a sustainable business in a town that can't keep two decent Italian joints open at the same time?"

"I have heard, but have admittedly not confirmed, that the chomping can be made such that the comparison is apt. The fact that a sustainable customer base exists in at least some places does imply that there's something to it."

"I didn't know that, either. What kind of selective Watcher propaganda have I been reading? Nonfatal vampire prostitutes sound like perfectly acceptable neighbors, in a low rent sort of way."

"Well, you have no guarantee that they won't turn to more traditional sources of sustenance when business is slow, but yes, they're still a step above the average vampire from your perspective."

"Yeah, I guess if a regular prostitute doesn't get work for a day translating savings into lunch is more straightforward than the bite shop case."

"Indeed. Opinions on the palatability of animal blood are varied, I've heard."

"Did the Watchers or whoever they contracted this little fiasco out to feed you?"

"They did not. My most recent meal was Obadiah. I confess to being noticeably peckish."

"...I wouldn't actually consider feeding an otherwise well-behaved vampire completely out of the question but if anti-Slayer drugs work like drugs in general I'm probably neither nutritious nor particularly resilient against blood loss right now."

"Yes. I am very much inclined to suspect that eating you would not be good for my health or yours."

"I do feel a little better than I did when I woke up. Headache has fewer sharp edges, I don't feel as much like the air is mud."

"Well, that's promising."

"Yeah, but at this rate it'll be hours before I can bust a door. I'd apologize for keeping you waiting but that would be a truly bizarre thing to apologize for."

He snickers.

"I wonder how they picked you. New York seems like a weird place to go vampire hunting. Isn't Cleveland more hellish, even if they didn't want to risk crossing paths with me in my hometown?"

"I have wondered about that. My strongest hypotheses are that they had a tipoff about the movements of the gang that turned me, or that someone had only so many hours in which to kidnap a vampire before boarding their next flight and went with the first one they saw. I did in fact make the trip across the continent cocooned in a blackout curtain in an American Airlines cargo hold."

"That sounds uncomfortable."

"Just a bit, yes."