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Neither happens.

When my socked feet touch the first floor, I suck in a deep breath and prowl through the hallway towards the kitchen, clearing the front door and the living-room windows as I advance. And everything goes so well, so smooth. That is usually the surest sign that shit is about to go downhill.

As I sneak through the door into the living room, gun pointed straight ahead, my foot hits something solid and at the same time soft. Someone grunts as I make a startled sound and fall over, shoulder-rolling into the commode next to the door as I instinctively crouch and pull in my limbs to catch my fall. The commode grinds against the wall, but it doesn’t break, pushing against my back as I come to a stop, gun drawn and pointed into the street-lit darkness.

At Cor’s chest.

He’s kneeling next to the couch, frozen in movement as if he was about to crawl towards me. His black eyes are completely invisible in this light, but I don’t need them to read his body. There is a tension in his shoulders, a tilt to his head, a curve to his back, a thread of something that makes my blood freeze. Something other, something primal that didn’t think about checking on my well-being when he reached me. Oh no, he thought about something altogether different. The beast saw me flail and stumble, saw me be weak, and it went for the kill. Or attempted to. He doesn’t move a muscle, now that I have pointed a gun at him. Like he’s frozen in time, a scary, fleshy statue.

I grip the gun harder in both hands, swallowing convulsively through the shaking in my muscles. Right now I am riding the adrenaline high, but it’ll go away eventually. And then I’ll be hurt and slow and weak, just like I looked before. I have to decide what to do before I reach that point. It is then that I smell it. That sweet, heavy, meaty smell. Blood. Something—someone—bled in this room. A lot.

Letting go with my left hand, I quickly check my neck and face, patting myself down to see if it’s me. My back is hurting something fierce from the roll, but I don’t think I’ve sprung a new leak. Which leaves Cor. I turn my eyes back to him and—

He is right there, almost touching my gun, eyes wide and black, face weirdly flushed, lips opened just barely. I feel his breath against my fingers. It is warm.

I shoot three times, a grouped shot like I was taught, heart, heart, head. Only one bullet hits Cor, a grazing shot across his pec that makes him bark sharply as he vanishes out of my line of sight. A little blood sprays my face as he flashes through the room and out into the hallway.

The gun shakes so bad in my hands. Shouldn’t point it at anything as long as I’m like this. I lower it and touch the muzzle to the floor, then lean over and tap the wall until I find the light switch. My gasping breaths fill the room with sound. Even closing my eyes won’t protect them against being blinded by the brightness for a few seconds, but floundering around in the darkness puts me at too much of a disadvantage if Cor comes at me again.

When I open my eyes, I both regret and approve of my decision. A piece of, I don’t know, apparently a ribcage, lies on the carpeted floor next to the couch. A strip of orange-black cloth is still sticking to the outside, but that’s all. It sits in a tiny little puddle of fairly fresh blood, only a sprinkle of drops that stands in no proportion to the piece of meat and the smell of blood filling the air. Maybe the rest of the corpse is somewhere close by, but I’m not sure what would be worse—finding a dead person with missing ribs in the hallway, or not ever finding the person missing that clump of meat and bones.

Was this the reason for Cor going predator on me? The presence of food, prey, if you will? And did I actually surprise Cor with my quick shooting, or did he humor me again? I’m not sure. That alone makes me feel weirdly good.

Licking my lips, I clear my throat and croak, “Cor?”

No reaction. Let’s hope he’s just listening and not gone.

“Where does the piece of meat come from, Cor?”

Nothing.

“I’m not gonna shoot at you again. No, strike that. I’m gonna if you try to eat me, but not right now. Are you still there?”

Quiet.

“I’m sorry I aimed at your heart, okay? But you looked like you were about to eat me, and I’m not down with that.”

A strip of his face appears in the doorway, just wide enough to show a dark eye and… a blood-smeared fang. Yeah, I don’t regret the shots. He sends me a cold, impersonal glare, then looks me up and down and towards the gun that I still hold loosely. And I’m not gonna put it away yet, so I just stare back, challenging him as best as I can.

We both stay frozen like this for a time, but I’m a humble mortal. I can’t stay motionless forever, so I finally grunt and shift, and break eye contact.

“I’m assuming you’re not about to kill me right now, so I’m putting away the gun. But if you abuse my trust here, I’m gonna become very uncomfortable to be around, mark my words,” I snarl as I lift the gun and put on the safety switch with clumsy, fear-weak fingers. Cor’s face disappears the moment the gun moves, and he only peers around the corner again when I’m finished shoving it into the back of my jogging pants. If I move too much, it will fall out or slide down my pants leg. Didn’t equip a holster. Didn’t expect to need my gun while sleeping. Silly me.

It’ll have to do, though. There are more important things to worry about now that we’re not having a stand-off. I make a helpless gesture towards the Rare McRib again. “Who is that? Where did it come from?”

Cor hovers at the door for a moment longer, then he slides into the living-room. His pec is pristine, besides the old scars, of course. He healed a silver shot faster than anything I’ve ever heard of. On the other hand, there aren’t many reports on any Hunter having to deal with an antediluvian vampire like Cor. Maybe it’s not that exciting in the grand scheme of things; who knows? His eyes follow my pointing finger to the meat, then flick up to my face. He somehow looks both innocent and like the cat that ate the canary as he shrugs wordlessly.

Something in my throat convulses, rearranges itself, and settles again. Hunters aren’t soldiers in the fight of good versus evil. That truth gets beaten into us, literally. We were something close to it, way back before the Contract, but we cannot pick a side anymore. If we were to go back to our ‘humans versus supernaturals’ mentality, it would mean open war. That helps nobody, so Hunters have learned to be cold and calculating. If Cor killed someone, it is not my place to punish him for that. My only job, my only right, is to make sure that no other mortal will find out that vampires exist, or that something supernatural was going on.

In theory, that is my job. In reality, it is very hard to not think of the person behind the bodily remains on the floor and feel a pang of loss. Someone’s life has been snuffed out horribly, hence the ribs. How am I supposed not to reel back and hate Cor a little? I can’t afford to do anything about it, that’s for sure, but I can feel the unfairness of it all.

I almost don’t ask because it sure won’t make me feel better, but I force myself. “Was that a human?” If Cor is what Hunters call a ‘messy eater’, I will have to kill him right now. Or try, at least. I don’t think I’d succeed.

Cor shakes his head minutely, carefully stepping back, as if I made some involuntary move he doesn’t like. I can’t let him take off again without finding out where he hunted—and what—, but I’m not sure how I’m supposed to stop him. Words have done little for us so far, but I don’t have much else I can try.

“I will not shoot you for eating, although I don’t think I would be happy with your company if you did such things to a normal person. And I’m not a policeman. If you killed a vampire, more power to you. I just need to know where you went and if anyone saw you. And for that, you really need to answer my questions.”

Cor tilts his head, smiles faintly for a split second, then switches back to a neutral predator face. “Vampire. Veil,” he growls carefully, as if wary of his own teeth. One long-fingered, blood-splattered hand lifts and points towards the remains on the floor. “Attack me. Not hungry anymore.”