America is a great place to be.

Whiskey bottle in hand, Alaric thinks this as he walks down a dismal, trash-filled alley someplace in. . .Where is he, California? New York? Anyway, definitely one of the States. The people here speak in such strange tones. It’s only recently that Alaric has realized how amazingly cool English sounds in other accents. Occasionally he imitates those other accents, to entertain himself. He’s not very good at most, but finds he’s splendid with a Swedish one. He particularly likes busting it out when people insult him, because it catches them by surprise. Once, in a bar someplace on the West Coast, a woman told him she would’ve thought he’d have some kind of Asian accent, like Chinese or Japanese. Alaric guesses that makes sense, since he came from one of those lands long before they were the sprawling cities of today. He can even distantly remember a name he bore there, though he’s not quite sure whether said name was Chen or Zhen or maybe Chang. Either way, that was so very long ago that it doesn’t matter to him at all, and he certainly wouldn’t dare call himself Chinese, at least not in a cultural sense. He doesn’t even know modern Mandarin.

And now he emerges out onto a street with a steady flow of hotblooded youngsters rushing to school and work and the store and wherever else their fleeting lives demand they go. He gives a slight chuckle, just to himself, and takes another swig off the bottle, sloshing a little down his chin. He wipes it absently with the back of his hand, a hand half-sunk into the sleeve of a loose grey jumper he nicked from a donation box that smells faintly but persistently of mothballs and the hair of old people.

This is New York, he thinks, though he can’t be sure, of course. It’s a very young city, he can tell that just by looking at the buildings stacked like children’s blocks around streets crowded with those funny little human contraptions—‘cars’, he thinks they’re called. He can’t fathom why humans love to ride around in machines that often get them killed in slow and painful ways. Things like cars and aeroplanes—or airplanes here in the wondrous States. Subways seem alright, though he’s not sure he likes the idea of being trapped in a long tunnel underground, even with the (mostly) sure promise of eventually coming out the other end.

A flash of sun breaks through the overcast sky for a bare moment and scrapes hotly over his skin. He frowns and thinks to himself that this must be New York, because he’s heard that California is sunny almost all the time and during the two months he’s spent here it’s been mostly snowy or sleety.

Now he stands on a corner at an intersection, caught in a warm cluster of people as they move back and forth over the crosswalks. They look rather like ants to his eye, scurrying to catch the small break in traffic so they won’t have to stand and wait for the next.

He takes another pull from the whiskey and starts walking again, moving from the corner down its other face. Westward, he notes vaguely. There are still droves of humans on this road, though less than the other. Here is a dentist with a dismal CONDEMNED pasted over a graffitied window. Here is a small florist. Here is a gun store, which Alaric stops to look at, almost as if hypnotized. Another thing about humans that he can’t fathom. Why waste energy killing each other when your lives are so very mercifully short? Hell, you blink and that other guy is already in his grave.

He heaves a sigh and moves on, sucking down more whiskey. This time he takes a long swallow, burning his throat from top to bottom.

The span of a human life is nothing more than a catnap to him, but even so, it seems he’ll always be fascinated by those insignificant creatures. Just as children can sit and watch ants build their nests, he’s watched the rise and fall of humanity and found it utterly meaningless but delightful all the same.

Now he recalls a time he spent in Italy with the (now well-known and renowned) artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci. He can’t remember much of what happened back then, and wouldn’t even remember the man’s name if it weren’t still so prevalent. All he can summon in his mind’s eye is a platter of grapes and cheese and the smell of a fine wine he hasn’t tasted in centuries. He thinks he shall visit the country soon and try to hunt down that wine.

And now he is struck by the fact that he is entirely penniless. The clothes on his back and the whiskey in his hand are his only possessions besides a cloak he had tailored for him almost four hundred years earlier which he’s left back in Big Ben’s belfry and a silver pocketknife. Silver is an odd metal for a knife but very effective against werewolves. And, of course, against vampires too. Though not nearly as effective as black walnut. Silver will cut—black walnut will kill. That’s something Alaric doesn’t quite understand but knows is true.

Anyway, he needs money. Well, needs is the wrong word—he wants money because it’s no fun thing to have to steal everything you need. Or want. If there is one thing Alaric never forgets, it’s pain, and bullets are very painful. He still has one of the suckers somewhere in there, too, nestled up under his ribs. He has to explain it every time he walks through a metal detector. He frames it as a misfire from aiming practice with his brother. The police say he has no brother. He says, well, not a legal brother, but a man he thinks of as his brother. The police say, what’s his name? Alaric says his name is Beckett. This generally convinces them.

Money. Money, money, money. He hasn’t had a job since—Well, ever.

While he chews on this and drinks his whiskey, he passes a man in a dark jumper with a strange armband on his left. Their shoulders smack together and cause them both to pitch slightly to the side.

“Hey, watch it. . .” Alaric says, and as he does his eyes get a clearer image of that armband. And suddenly he is back in London standing in the middle of a church with a paladin’s wooden blade levelled at him.

That was a long time ago, now. Two centuries, give or take a couple decades.

Paladins have existed for a long while. Alaric knows he’s existed longer, perhaps by. . .Two millennia? He remembers that they closely followed Jesus’s birth. The first time one bothered him was, what. . .24 A.D.?

Back then, he’d been able to come to a shaky peace with them. Their Priest at the time was a reasonable man, and after learning that Alaric lived solely off pig’s blood, the Priest granted him amnesty. There was even an official document somewhere with his name on it, excusing him from execution.

But of course, it wasn’t required reading. Alaric had quickly learned this when, just a hundred years down the road, he clashed with a group of paladins and was almost killed. Luckily, knowledge of the pardon was passed from Priest to Priest and he’d been released.

He’s not confident that the knowledge has persisted for two millennia. Nor is he confident that his turning Ambrose will go forgiven, even if they let him off back then.

His arm is snapped behind his back before he can try to flee. This paladin is just as strong as his forebears, Alaric thinks as the youth twists his arm almost to a breaking point and shoves him onto the rough concrete sidewalk. Some of the passersby stop and stare, then seem to dismiss it and go about their day.

Alaric likes the States a lot.

“Good sir, I’d appreciate you not breaking my arm,” he says, the words slightly muddled because his face is pressed against the ground. “Bones take a dreadfully large effort to heal.”

The paladin does not answer. He cuffs Alaric with silver—Alaric can tell because of the way it stings slightly against his skin—and then jabs him in the neck with a needle.

Alaric has the time to sigh over this repetitive cycle before the drugs put him to sleep.