The pale guy in the black coat lunged at her again, mouth wide, like a pouncing lion. He was shabbier than Bridget would have expected. Her hand was at his throat in a moment and a punch to the side sent the crazy little dude flying against the wall. It was instinctual, that kind of a move, but an instinct that was very much new ground in her mind. Leather was slammed between concrete and flesh, the resulting sound was quite satisfying.

Bridget reached down for what used to be her dining room chair leg while the creep collected himself. As soon as she turned, he did it again: same move. Sits back on the balls of his feet and just hurls himself forward like he’s a bloody jaguar after a chimp. Gripping the chair leg tightly, Bridget lunged into her attacker, thrusting the sharpened end of her former dining room furnature into his heart. She saw his mouth going for her neck, then was suddenly surrounded by a dust cloud as his body disintegrated in a split second.

Brushing the powdered corpse off of her sweatpants, Bridget turned to the figure sitting against one of the concrete pillars. “So that was a vampire.” She said.

“That was a vampire.” Kegan replied.

The vampire had been protected by a handful of human thugs, one of whom had the forethought to bring a silver knife. That cretin had given Kegan a wound to the side before having the majority of his head removed from his body. Kegan was applying pressure to the wound, trying to get the silver out. If he didn’t bleed the silver out, it would poison his system and kill him; lycanthropic gaingreen. So he had to lie there, in his more vulnerable human form, pushing on a gash in his side “until the blood runs clear”, which left little Erin to finish off her first vampire unaided.

“You know,” she said crouching down next to him. “It was quite a shock, discovering my husband was a werewolf.” She leaned in and gave him a quick kiss. “Somehow vampires, which I also did not think existed, and fighting them make it a whole lot easier to take.”

“Funny that,” Her husband replied.

She kicked her legs out and sat next to him and stared up at their basement ceiling. “We need to get that pipe fixed.”

“We need to fix the wiring up in the guest bathroom first.”

“I suppose you’re right. I must say, I’m very much not comfortable with the idea of you fighting vampires all day. That bugger really wanted to hurt me! Hold on a moment, I thought that vampires couldn’t enter someone’s house uninvited.”

“Joss Whedon made that up. Vampires can break and enter, same as anyone else.”

Bridget kicked at some of the dust on the floor. “Killing him was easier than I thought it would be. I mean, those kick-boxing classes helped, but it was like I’d had years of training in vampire fighting. I mean, Trisha, my sparring partner, never moves like that and I was all over it.”

“He was a peon, weak tea. But you do have a natural edge, get it from your Dad; it’s in the blood.”

“Wait! No! Dad was not a vampire... fighter... person. What do you call yourselves?”

“Vampire hunters. Your Dad retired before you were born.” Kegan said. “It seems you got some of his blood memories.”

“Blood memories?”

“Werewolves can pass memories to their children.”

“Dad was a werewolf?”

“Yep,”

“Nuh-uh! How do you know all this?”

“I was his apprentice.”

“Yeah, he wanted you to take over...”

“Not the furniture making. Well, he did teach me that, but only as a cover. He was really my werewolf vampire-hunting master.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Why do you think he let you marry an American?”

“... ... Bullocks, you’re right.”

“He trusted his abilities as a teacher, and he wanted you to be safe.”

“You’ve been doing this for ever, haven’t you?”

Kegan checked the wound again. “Pretty much.” Still an angry color of blood.

“Oh, that makes so much sense! The Cupbridge’s Christmas party, two years ago. You vanished and I didn’t see you until the next morning. I thought you were having a one-night stand with that tart from Wales!” She hit him in the shoulder.

“Nope, vampire coven in Nottingham was pulling a raid on a hospital. I don’t even remember a Welsh tart.”

“What about the dinner with my cousin Victoria when she was dating the painter?”

“The Thames, some guy in the House of Lords was attacked on his boat.”

“Lord Caravil? That was awful, last really strong Tori we had back then. And that Dido concert back in february?”

“Sorry, personal sanity; I really hate Dido’s music.”

“I was afraid of that.” Bridget crossed her arms and put on her pouty face. “I half hoped that whole load about your brother phoning you, needing women advice, was true.”

“I actually don’t even have a brother.”

She hit him again. “Then who was that bloke at our wedding?”

“He’s close without being blood. Another werewolf, we fought together in Greece a couple of years before I got sent to your Dad.”

“There’s vampires all over the bloody place, aren’t there?”

“Not so much in North America. They haven’t seen a real blood-sucker in Canada for decades. Mexico, though... wow, that place is a war zone.”

“How dangerous is this, really?”

“A vampire can kill a werewolf. We have the physical advantage, but they have numbers. An experienced vampire can turn one person every night for a fortnight before getting sick. It’s a thing. Werewolves, on the other hand, have to reproduce the old-fashioned way.”

“Hold on, are you saying our children will be half werewolf?”

“No, you’re half werewolf; they’ll be proper werewolves like me and your Dad.”

“When were you planning on telling me all of this?”

“I was figuring that out up until last night. Not the way I wanted you to find out, by the way. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been holding off with kids.”

Bridget let out long breath and stared at the pipes again. “I don’t suppose there’s much chance of you retiring, is there?”

“Actually, I’m next in line for High-Protectorate of England.”

“High-Protectorate?” She straightened up. “That’s impressive sounding.”

“Yeah, I definitely would have had to break the whole nine yards to you then.”

“Why?”

“Uh... right... we’d have to move. There’s kind of a house that goes with it. But can we cross that bridge when we come to it?”

“Oh, let’s.” Bridget distractedly examined the jagged end of her chair-leg. “Vampires are a big problem in England, then?”

“Your Dad was fond of his ‘black poison in England’s blood’ analogy.”

“But he retired, how long do you intend to go on fighting?”

Kegan looked down at the gash in his side. He braced himself, then pushed on it again with as much strength as he could muster. His eyes, wet with the fresh pain, returned to his wife’s.