Where I'm At

The couple of nurses and orderlies I see start loosening up after a while. Mostly because I’m around all the time but I don’t think I was going to be invited for tea anytime soon. The mystery patient is still behind locked doors and I’m still getting stonewalled for even looking at the door. Still, people start to talk after they get used to you. I’d kinda forgotten about how to do that, make friends. You get so used to being around the same, non-aging folks that you just kinda quit bothering to meet new people. That or you kill them after a good slurp. I find out the place I’m staying is run by some sort of Secret Church Organization. They all call themselves the Paladins of the Light. What a dumbass name, right? When one of the orderlies was first explaining it to me, he was kinda gloating and showing me these weird tattoos they all have on their arms. I told him I’d been sucking blood for thirty years and never heard of them in my un-life. He actually got upset, the schmuck. I told him I’d heard about hunters here and there but things were mostly status after the vampires started regulating themselves. He didn’t talk to me so much after that. I got the impression this was a bit of a new operation, some sort of business venture in combating the immortal vampires. Most of the people there had just started their jobs but they were all long time members of the Church. Lots of enthusiasm, not much experience. They always wanted to know if I still wanted to suck blood. “Lady, if that was going to do anything except make me vomit now, I’d probably not bat an eye. Just because I’m used to it doesn’t mean I’m going to keep doing it,” I told one nurse who also quit talking to me. I had meant it to be reassuring. Honestly though, I thought about it a couple of times.