"The problem with you lot is you have no passion."

"And you do."

"Of course," the self-professed Werewolf grinned. "I'm alive; you Vampires are dead."

"Yes, you keep saying that," Dru sighed, her long pearl white nail impatiently tapping against her glass. She took a long pull on the whiskey and ginger ale, wincing slightly at the burning sweetness flooding her throat. (How could this creature claim she could not feel!) Calling upon her most neutral face, Dru approached the question:  "How do you know I'm a Vampire?"

"You are so obvious!  You all are!  Look at the way you're dressed--too much make-up, too much jewelry, and that hair color is out of a bottle.  You are all your own worst stereotypes."

"You forget," she replied, saving her drink from a jostling elbow, "this is Mardi Gras, everyone is in costume."

"Except me!"  He smiled, motioning to his simple attire of white dress shirt, casually open at the neck and rolled at the sleeves, and black gabardine trousers.  "And you.  That's not a costume, is it?  You look like this everyday, don't you?  Oh, excuse me, every night."  A laugh.  "Besides......"  He pointed to the three spiked barbs running down the front of her throat, which at first glance could be mistaken for an elaborate choker, but, upon closer inspection, proved to actually be embedded in her flesh.  "....you all do this sort of thing.  Because you can."

"I am myself," she replied tartly.  "Perhaps the others are mimicking me."
 
 

CONTINUE...