A Synopsis of Chapter One: Exotic, purple-eyed Vincent is called to a close-to-midnight, Madison Avenue meeting by green-eyed, mini-skirted, overly made-up Miss Blackwell. Although Vincent's incisors protrude over his lower lip, Miss Blackwell finds him dangerously attractive. As they sit in a coffee shop, Vincent tries to make her comfortable, hoping to discover why she is in such desperate need of his services.



Vincent locked his eyes steadily on Miss Blackwell's cup of coffee. She hadn't been able to resist the myriad pleasing aromas upon entering the coffee shop. He had. Coffee had never been his cup of tea, so to speak.

She noticed his watch. "Is that what I think it is?"

"Of course. Everything about me is what you think it is."

She appeared off balance momentarily. Her vivacious green eyes flashed around her surroundings nervously before settling back on the watch.

"How many of those are left?" she asked with the lip of her coffee cup supported by her bottom lip. Her eyes met his gaze briefly, then flitted away. "About six?" she asked when he didn't respond.

"Exactly six," Vincent replied.

She laughed lightly. It was the laugh of someone who didn't feel quite at ease with the person they were with. It was the laugh of one who didn't know if the person opposite would laugh, smile or kill them.

Displaying once again his overwhelming charisma, he returned her smile. It was a warm smile, and the shaky Miss Blackwell relaxed slightly. She still seemed shaken from their first encounter on the sidewalk. Vincent remembered it in perfect detail. He could picture her easily succumbing to him. He knew that most people didn't know what to do or how to respond when they felt themselves succumb to a stranger in such a complete way. Most decided to run. Miss Blackwell should have.

"That must have been expensive," she said before taking another sip of coffee.

"A whole loaf of bread," Vincent remarked. "Now, however, I believe you should tell me why I had to come out of my dwelling at eleven o'clock to talk business. I'd also like to know why you couldn't tell me in the letter."

His eyes averted hers for the first time since they'd entered the coffee shop. He looked out the window and into the still road. The city was quiet. The corners of Vincent's mouth turned up slightly in good humor. After his brief courtship with the cold, sleeping city, he turned back to Miss Blackwell.

"Later," she said.

He breathed deeply with impatience. Although he didn't want any coffee, he was quite hungry. The feeling had crept up on him as it always did. He'd be sitting in his favorite chair in his Victorian mansion on the other side of the city, and suddenly he'd find himself starving. It usually occurred in the early stages of night.

"I hope I didn't inconvenience you too much by requesting your services at such an hour," she apologized.

"Quite all right," he assured her and squeezed her hand reassuringly. "I'm mostly nocturnal, anyway."

"Oh," she replied quietly, looking at her coffee.

She struck Vincent as one who, if placed completely in her element, could influence even the most authoritative of personalities. Her drawback, it seemed, was that once outside of such surroundings she crumbled and became weak. In short, she had succumbed to Vincent, but he doubted that she was used to it.

He made her nervous, and yet it seemed to Vincent that she was more than slightly attracted to him.

"Tell me why I'm here," he commanded, holding her with the gaze of his purple eyes once again.

Once again, she tittered. He heard the rustle of her legs as she recrossed them underneath the table. He thought of her silk blouse and her black skirt.

"You know," she said, "people might take you for a vampire. With your purple eyes, that two-hundred-year-old watch, and your accent, you remind me of something out of an Anne Rice novel. And why were you wearing sunglasses when I saw you on the sidewalk? What are you, Lestat's new recruit?"

He laughed and looked into her eyes. She looked back, but now there was a sort of fright behind her eyes. It was as if at any moment she would back away from her coffee and run for the door.

"What if I were?" he asked coldly. Behind his closed lips, he ran his tongue over his incisors.

Dismissing her own remark hastily, she said, "I'm sorry. It's ludicrous. Just a joke, really."

"Is it?" he asked, still holding her in his gaze. He tried to make her realize that he was looking at her as a whole. He saw her brown eye shadow and her deep, red lipstick. He looked at the rouge spread across her high cheekbones. "What you want me for, however. Is it not a rather vampiric task?"

She mouthed a string of words she didn't say.

"Relax," he said at last. "Everyone's got a little bit of the immortal predator in them."

His tone of voice, now as warm as his previous smile, relaxed her somewhat. "You know what I want, then?"

"Of course," he said. "but I'd prefer to hear you tell me what you want."

She swallowed a sip of coffee and then nodded, "All right, then ..."



Send us your continuation of this "Saga" and we'll run Chapter Three next month!