Astrid despised her nightly visits to Leon's house, resented every step of the journey to the old man's front door. But what followed the journey itself set her teeth on edge and curled her fingers into fists so tight that her fingernails drew small cuts in the flesh of her calloused palms, leaking with stolen blood.

Beyond the worn wooden front door was Leon himself, and hours of doting upon the old man. It was predictable as clockwork---Astrid would unlock the door, and Leon would be just on the other side, dressed in his flannel pajamas against the night's cold. His face would split into a smile that turned the myriad of wrinkles that crisscrossed his face into yawning canyons.

And so, they would sit at Leon's old card table---one of the few pieces of furniture the old man still owned---and the charade would begin in earnest. Leon would ramble to Astrid about the trivial details of his day. The trip he had made to the corner store, the new neighbors down the street and their new baby, the rudeness of a telemarketer who had badgered him for nearly an hour.

And in a way, Astrid didn't mind. It was boring but it passed the time. The old man had little energy at this time of night, and each story seemed to carry him further towards the endpoint of sleep. Besides...the more Leon focused on himself, the less he focused on her. The less questions he had to ask. But eventually he would ask, and Astrid would meet Leon's eager questions with a host of lies.

Because it wasn't her the old man cared about. They did not know each other, not really. Their meeting had been brief, and Leon would never remember it anyway. No, Leon was asking about Jean, with an earnest desire to better understand his son and know where his life was headed.

Jean. He was the cause of this current situation. The young data analyst with a promising career, and a newly purchased apartment now gathering dust behind a seal of crime-scene tape. The young man who had recently lost his mother, which had kindled a desperate desire to look after his remaining parent---a desire that had been passed on to the young man's killer.

Our lives are not our own anymore. And why should they be? We take the lives of others into our bodies to keep ourselves tethered to this world. It is only natural that who they were can become who we are, if we are not careful.

The words themselves were overly flowery, she believed that even now. But Astrid soon understood their practical meaning. It was one of many lessons her mentor had taught her in the nights following the moment he pulled her from the bloodstained planks of a dimly lit tavern, licking blood from her countless bar-fight stab wounds before sinking his own teeth into her throat.

Never take the lives of one's prey, no matter how appetizing their blood tastes. Drain them just to death if you must, but never ever take it all to the last drop, unless you want their life to corrupt the borderline of what defines you and what defines them. It was an important command, impressed upon her nearly as much as the need to avoid the lethal sun, and Astrid had learned both lessons well.

It had been over a thousand years and Astrid had never slipped up. So many times, so many temptations, and she had turned away each time, leaving her prey to gasp out their last breaths at her feet.

And then came Jean. This man out of millions of faceless cattle, who had proven just a bit too much. Astrid was still not sure what had precisely led her mistake, but she knew the moment his heartbeat had stopped, and the steady spurt of his blood had run dry. And only seconds after that, his memories had poured into her like floodwaters.

And so now here she sat with Leon, the killer of his son pretending to be him.

She hated it. She hated Leon. She hated Jean. And yet she could not bring herself to harm him, even in the most minute of ways. She had invaded Leon's mind with a single look into his eyes the first time she'd come to his doorstep, destroyed his memory of his son's missing person's case and impressed upon him that she was Jean.

She wondered sometimes what would happen if she simply looked into his eyes again and restored his knowledge, removed the psychic mask that told his brain she was his son. What would his reaction be if instead of a young man, he was faced with a young woman? Red haired where his son was brunette, stout and short where his son was slim and tall? And what if she went even further? To show him her true face, a nightmare of bleeding red eyes and angler-fish teeth?

But then Leon would smile, and she would see him, not as he was now, but as he was then. Younger, strong and seemingly invincible. Always there to take care of him and his mother, to show him how to throw a baseball, how to chop wood. A harsh disciplinarian to be sure, but also his loudest and most raucous coach and supporter.

And the urge would fade. Because why would any son think to harm his loving father?