"No, but you wouldn't want to drink any - fine for washing, but you'd be on a toilet for days if you swallowed."
We smiled at each other over the rims of our glasses.
"So," I said, "mind telling me what you've been up to these last fifteen years?"
"You first," Steve said.
"Nuh-uh. You're the host. It's your place to start."
"Toss you for it?" he suggested.
"OK."
He produced a coin and told me to call. "Heads."
He flipped the coin, caught it and slapped it over. When he took his hand away he grimaced. "I never did have much luck," he sighed, then started to talk. It was a long story, and we were down to the bottom of the bottle of water and on to a second candle before he finished.
Steve hated Mr. Crepsley and me for a long, long time. He'd sit up late into the night, plotting his future, dreaming of the day he'd track us down and stake us through the heart. "I was crazy with rage," he muttered. "I couldn't think about anything else. In woodwork classes I made stakes. In geography I committed the maps of the world to memory, so I'd know my way around whichever country I traced you to."
He found out everything there was to know about vampires. He'd had a large collection of horror books when I knew him, but he'd doubled, then trebled that in the space of a year. He learnt what climates we favoured, where we preferred to make our homes, how best to kill us. "I got in contact with people on the Internet," he said. "You'd be surprised how many vampire hunters there are. We exchanged notes, stories, opinions. Most were crackpots, but a few knew what they were talking about."
When he turned sixteen he left school and home, and went out into the world. He supported himself through a series of odd jobs, working in hotels, restaurants and factories. Sometimes he stole, or broke into empty houses and squatted. They were rough, lean, lonely years. He had very few scruples, hardly any friends, and no real interests except learning how to become a killer of vampires.
"To begin with, I thought I'd pretend to befriend them," he explained. "I went in search of vampires, acting as if I wanted to become one. Most of what I'd read in books or gleaned through the Internet was rubbish. I decided the best way to rid myself of my enemies was to get to know them."
Of course, when he eventually tracked a few vampires down and worked himself into their good books, he realized we weren't monsters. He discovered our respect for life, that we didn't kill humans when we drank and that we were people of honour. "It made me take a long, hard look at myself," he sighed, his face dark and sad by the light of the candle. "I saw that I was the monster, like Captain Ahab in Moby Dick, chasing a pair of killer whales - except these whales weren't killers!"
Gradually his hatred subsided. He still resented me for going off with Mr. Crepsley, but accepted the fact that I hadn't done it to spite him. When he looked back at the past, he saw that I'd given up my family and home to save his life, and hadn't tricked or plotted against him.
That's when he dropped his crazy quest. He stopped searching for us, put all thoughts of revenge from his mind, and sat down to work out what he was going to do with the rest of his life. "I could have gone back," he said. "My mother's still alive. I could have returned home, finished my education, found a normal job, carved out an ordinary life for myself. But the night has a way of claiming those who embrace it. I'd found out the truth about vampires - but also about vampaneze."
Steve couldn't stop thinking about the vampaneze. He thought it was incredible that creatures like that could exist, roaming and killing as they pleased. It angered him. He wanted to put a stop to their murderous ways. "But I couldn't go to the police," he smiled ruefully. "I'd have had to capture a live vampaneze to prove they existed, but taking a vampaneze alive is almost impossible, as I'm sure you know. Even if they believed me, what could they have done? Vampaneze move in, kill, then move on. By the time I'd convinced the police of the danger they were in, the vampaneze would have vanished, and the danger with him. There was only one thing for it - I had to take them on myself!"
Applying the knowledge he'd gathered when studying to be a vampire hunter, Steve set himself the task of tracking down and killing as many vampaneze as he could. It wasn't easy - vampaneze hide their tracks (and the bodies of their victims) expertly, leaving little evidence of their existence - but in time he found people who knew something of their ways, and he built up a picture of vampaneze habits, traits and routes, and eventually stumbled upon one.
"Killing him was the hardest thing I'd ever done," Steve said grimly. "I knew he was a killer, and would kill again if I let him go, but as I stood there, studying him while he slept..." He shivered.
"How did you do it?" I asked quietly. "A stake?"
He nodded bitterly. "Fool that I was - yes."
"I don't understand," I frowned. "Isn't a stake the best way to kill a vampaneze, like with vampires?"
He stared coldly at me. "Ever kill anybody with a stake?"
"No."
"Don't!" he snorted. "Driving it in is simple enough, but blood gushes up into your face, over your arms and chest, and the vampaneze doesn't die straightaway like vampires do in movies. The one I killed lived for the better part of a minute, thrashing and screaming. He crawled out of the coffin and came after me. He was slow, but I slipped on his blood, and before I knew what was happening, he was on top of me."
"What did you do?" I gasped.
"I punched and kicked him and tried to knock him off. Fortunately he'd lost too much blood and hadn't the strength to kill me. But he died on top of me, his blood drenching me, his face next to mine as he shuddered and sobbed and..."
Steve looked away. I didn't press him for further details.
"Since then I've learnt to use those." He nodded at the arrow guns. "They're the best there is. An axe is good too - if you have a good aim and the strength to chop a head clean off - but stay away from ordinary guns - they're not reliable where the extra tough bones and muscles of the vampaneze are concerned."
"I'll bear that in mind," I said, grinning sickly, then asked how many vampaneze Steve had killed.