Leaning his head back against the wall, Snod exhaled slowly. He was exhausted, hungry, and his body
ached. He had never spent this much time with a vampire and he was desperately trying to squash the
sinful thoughts threatening to invade his mind. He watched one of the bulbs flicker and go out,
scowling at the added darkness.
“You need to eat,” the vampire remarked. “You’re getting weaker.”
“I’m fine.”
“I am not going to sit here and do nothing,” the vampire declared. “There has to be a way out. One we
haven’t found yet.”
“We already looked,” Snod drawled in annoyance.
The vampire set the glasses down, frowning. “We’ll keep looking.”
“To what end?” Snod snapped.
The vampire looked positively sullen, crossing his arms over his chest. “I didn’t save your life just to
watch you starve to death.”
“Why did you? Wanted a little snack for later?”
“Because despite what you think, I’m not a monster,” the vampire insisted.
Snod ignored him and kept running through scenarios in his mind, trying to figure out a plan.
Something. Anything.
Wait...
“Heart blood,” he said at last, staring wide-eyed at the vampire. “What about heart blood?”
The vampire blinked in surprise. He scoffed quietly, demanding, “And what exactly do you think you
know about heart blood?”
“It’s the most powerful source of vampire blood,” Snod said, his fingers inching toward his stakes.
“Blood straight from your heart, right?”
“Uh, yeah. But you don’t have to get it from my heart. You can draw it anywhere while my heart is
beating because it’ll pump everywhere,” the vampire explained quickly. “You can’t get it out of me if
I’m dead, so don’t get any cute ideas.”
Vampire blood was a powerful substance. When ingested by humans, it temporarily granted them all
sorts of intense abilities. It was also rumored to be an amazing aphrodisiac, but it was the increased
strength that Snod was interested in.
The power from heart blood was said to be the most potent of all. Their combined efforts hadn’t been
