“Kimmie!” Mary hissed in horror, kicking at her friend under the table.

            “What?” Kimmie asked in annoyance, kicking the other vampiress back as Lupi watched the exchange with interest.  “It’s a legitimate question.”

            “You don’t have to be so rude about it!”  She turned towards the three bemused prostitutes that were sitting on the other side of the round table and gave them an apologetic grin.  “Terribly sorry.  She can be a bit too forward for her own good at times.”

            “I wasn’t being rude,” grunted the pink-haired vampiress, taking a bite of her spaghetti.  “If I was being rude, you’d know it.”

            Jade, a slender woman with dark skin and blazing blonde hair, laughed disarmingly.  “No, it’s okay.  We do what we do to make a living, and it’s not like we’re gonna be shy about it.”  Her two compatriots, Sonya and Milena, both nodded in agreement as they ate their dinners.

            “Yeah.”  Kimmie’s voice held a note of triumph, and Mary rolled her eyes.

            “Yes, Fred, you’re right,” she said, tilting her head to the side as she listened to one of the voices that occupied it, “She is going to get us shot someday.”

            “Been there, done that, and we’re both still here,” Kimmie said, smirking at Mary.  “No sweat.”

            Mary sighed, picked up the fork she’d dropped when Kimmie had made her inquiry, and started to work at her lasagna again.  “Well, I say there’s nothing wrong with a little British restraint now and again, goodness.”

            Now Kimmie rolled her eyes.  “So says she who has no shame whatsoever.”

            Mary grinned a trifle sheepishly, unable to deny that particular charge.  “Too right, but we’ve just met these gals tonight, and they’re Lupi’s friends, and it never hurts to make a good impression.”

            “I am making a good impression,” retorted Kimmie, rolling up the sleeves of her long black dress as she tore into a loaf of garlic bread.  “I’m not pussyfooting around the fact of what they do for a living, which would probably piss them off, but I’m not being a degrading asshole about it, either, which is probably something they have to deal with from brain-dead slobs every night.”

            Milena, a petite Asian girl with extremely long black hair, groaned.  “Brain-dead is just the beginning, sweetie,” she said, her voice carrying just a hint of an accent.

            “It’s okay, Mary,” said Sonya, a full-figured brunette decked out in black leather, patting the vampiress on the shoulder.  “She’s just curious.  If I thought she was being a cunt, I’d have stabbed her.”

            That gave Kimmie pause, and she stopped in mid-bite to look over at Sonya with raised eyebrows.  “For real?”

            Quick as a flash, Sonya produced a switchblade from seemingly nowhere and flicked it open in front of her face, grinning wickedly.  “Wouldn’t be the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last.”  Milena and Jade both chuckled knowingly.  “Don’t worry, though.  The blade’s clean and I know what I’m doing.”

            Without missing a beat, Kimmie asked, “Stab people often?”

            Mary groaned.  “Oh, Kimmie …”

            Sonya twirled the blade around in her hand, making it disappear to some hidden location in her leather ensemble, and nodded.  “Happens more often than you’d think.”

            “I don’t know about that,” said the pink-haired vampiress.  “I want to stab people every single day, and I just work at a comic book store.  I can just imagine the kind of specimens you guys run into.”

            The three mortal women laughed.  “You don’t know the half of it, sister,” said Sonya.  “It’s not for the faint-hearted, that’s for sure.”

“Some of ‘em ain’t too bad,” said Jade thoughtfully.  “But some of ‘em …”  A dark look passed over her features and she shivered a little.

An awkward silence fell over the table, filled only by the muted noises and soft music of the upscale Italian restaurant Lupi had brought them all to.  The she-wolf leaned forward in concern; even though werewolves didn’t possess the empathic abilities that most vampires took for granted, they were excellent at picking up on a person’s emotional state through an array of nonverbal cues, and could tell that Jade was deeply disturbed about something.

She cleared her throat and began to ask the young woman if she was okay, but Sonya leaned over and murmured something into Jade’s ear, while Milena suddenly piped up with, “Don Henley.”

The utterance caught Lupi and her friends off-guard, and all three of them stared blankly at the Asian prostitute for a few moments.  “I plead your pardon?” asked Lupi, who was still in the process of learning the myriad idioms of the English language.

“Beg your pardon,” Kimmie whispered to the blonde-haired, ruddy-skinned young werewolf.

“Is that not what I said?”  Lupi tilted her head in curiosity as she looked at Kimmie, unconsciously scratching at her head through her mane of shaggy hair, as she often did when trying to understand the intricacies of mundane culture.  At times it felt like an impossible task trying to remember them all.

“Close, but no cigar, wolf-girl,” replied Kimmie, who then raised her voice to its regular speaking level and asked Milena, “What was that?”

“I was answering your question from earlier, before we all got side-tracked.  About famous people we’ve fucked?  Don Henley’s my claim to fame.”

“Who?”

“Don Henley.  The drummer from the Eagles.”

“Who?”

“The Eagles.”

Kimmie shrugged, and then looked at Mary and Lupi for assistance.  Lupi, who was still new to mundane culture and didn’t know much beyond hip-hop groups, was no help whatsoever, and Mary looked off in the distance, as though listening to somebody else.  Which she probably was.  A few moments later, she said, “Fred says the Eagles were really popular during the 70’s, and Lucille said they were the ones that did ‘Hotel California.’”

“Oh, okay, I know that song.  All the druggies at my school said that was one of the greatest songs ever,” said Kimmie with a roll of her eyes.  “I wasn’t very impressed.”

Milena laughed.  “At least somebody knew who I was talking about.  I was starting to feel old there for a second.”

“Don’t feel old,” said Mary reassuringly.  “That’s just not really our kind of music, luv.  Though I do fancy me some Tom Jones on a regular basis.”  She grinned.  “You haven’t had occasion to shag Tom Jones, have you?”

Kimmie shook her head.  “Not the Tom Jones crap again.  He’s old and creepy.”

“He’s not that old, and he’s not creepy,” Mary snapped.  “He’s very fetching!  I’d shag him in a heartbeat!”

“I would, too, even if he wasn’t paying me,” said Milena with a conspiratorial grin, which delighted Mary to no end.  “He’s pretty hot for an older guy.”

“Who is Tom Jones?” asked Lupi, who had no idea who they were talking about.

“This old creepy guy that these two want to fuck,” replied Kimmie, which drew annoyed squawks from both Mary and Milena.  “He doesn’t do rap or heavy metal, so you probably haven’t heard him.”

“You just don’t like him because your parents listen to him while they’re shagging!” growled Mary, which drew laughter from everybody except for Kimmie.

“Isn’t that reason enough?  How would you like to have that man associated with the sounds of your parents banging the fucking headboard against the wall while you’re trying to fall asleep?” Kimmie shot back, and everybody groaned at the concept.  “Every time I hear ‘What’s New, Pussycat?’ I don’t know whether to throw up or cry, ugh.”

Wiping tears of laughter from her eyes, Milena said, “Okay, I’ve got to give you that one.  That’d probably gross me out, too.”

“See?”  Kimmie gave Mary a triumphant little shove, but the redhead wasn’t convinced.

“I still don’t see why you—what?!”  She stopped in mid-sentence and gazed off into the distance for a few moments, before getting an odd look on her face.  When she turned her eyes back to Kimmie, she said, “You’d better mark this day down in your calendar, luv, because Fred and Lucille both just agreed with you.”

“Ha!”  The pink-haired vampiress banged her fist against the table in vindication.

“But if you think that’s going to convince me that Tom Jones is anything less than utterly shaggable, you’ve all got another thing coming!” Mary declared, folding her arms across her chest and humph-ing like a stubborn little girl.  “Bollocks to all three of you!”

“Lupi told us she had some interesting friends, and she was definitely right about that,” said Milena with a smile.  “You two are a trip.”

“Such a nice way of putting it,” Kimmie said, glancing over at Lupi and playfully nudging at her.

“Very diplomatic, isn’t she?” asked Mary, who was sitting on Lupi’s other side, as she also nudged the werewolf.

            Getting the feeling she was being gently goofed on, Lupi replied, “Yes, I am very diplomatic.  It is not easy at times, but I do my best.”

            Jade, who was looking to be in a brighter mood than a few moments ago, asked, “And did she tell y’all that we were ‘ladies of the night’ or some other old bullshit?”

            Before Kimmie or Mary could answer, Lupi gave a shake of her head.  “No.  I told them that you were hookers.”  She paused.  “Though I will admit that Kimmie thought I was going to get them involved in some sort of ‘sicko lesbian snatch-banging party,’ as she said, instead of merely going out for dinner.”

            This got the three mortal women, along with Mary, laughing aloud, while Kimmie poked Lupi in the ribs with her elbow.  “You didn’t have to tell them I said that.”

            After giving it a moment of thought, Lupi replied, “But were you not the one asking them if they had fucked anybody famous just a little while ago?”

            Unable to argue the point, the vampiress grumbled and started picking at her food again while Lupi grinned in satisfaction.  She was much quicker in her clever retorts than she had been only a few months ago; Stacey would be so proud!

            After the laughter had subsided, Sonya said, “Not to kill the mood, but thanks for the dinner, by the way.  This was really cool of you.”  The other women both nodded in agreement.

            “Not often we get wined and dined like this without havin’ to earn our keep,” said Jade as she contentedly worked her way through her tortellini.  “It’s a damned nice change ‘o pace, if you ask me.”

            “I could get used to this really quick,” added Milena.  “Don’t be shy about asking us for help again.”

            “You’re sure you don’t mind covering all of this?” Sonya asked, gesturing towards the food and wine covering the table.  “I mean, all we really did was give you directions and a ride.”

            “She also kicked the shit out of that one creepy dumbass that had been hanging around,” Milena said.  “Though I think that was more because he grabbed her ass than for our benefit.”

            Jade chuckled.  “That was damned fun to watch, though.  Guy had it coming.”

            “Indeed he did,” said Lupi, “Just like you three had this coming.  You were very helpful in a matter of great importance to me, when you had no reason to be, and I thought it appropriate to thank you.”

Last month, when she’d been searching for the home of a particularly despicable character that she’d wanted to deal with, the three prostitutes had not only given her directions on how to reach the address Lupi was searching for, but had gotten one of their friends to give the vengeful she-wolf a ride there.  They’d had no reason to help her out, beyond perhaps the amusement she’d provided when she’d slammed an obnoxious lecher through a glass-enclosed bus stop, but they’d eagerly assisted her as though she were an old friend in great need.  Though used to that sort of thing amongst her clan in the wilderness, it was something she didn’t see very often among the mundane inhabitants of Los Angeles, and wanted to reward it.

“I was unsure how to go about it, but one of my friends suggested that I take you out to dinner, since that is something ladies always like,” Lupi continued, “Or at least it is according to what Dorian told me.”

            “Ah, if anybody would know what the ladies like, he’d be the one,” said Mary, smirking at Kimmie.  “Bet you’d like to find that one out, eh?”

            Instead of arguing the point, the pink-haired vampiress merely grinned and got a dreamy look in her eyes.  “Oh yeah.  One of these days.”

            The prostitutes exchanged knowing glances, and Sonya said, “Well, you can thank him for us, because he was dead-on with his little idea.  Haven’t eaten this good in a long time, at least without there being strings attached.”

            “Yeah, can never get away from them damned strings,” Jade sighed.  “But it’s a living.”

            Kimmie asked, “Have you ever thought about getting into another line of work?  One with less strings?”

            “Easier said than done,” replied Sonya.  Jade and Milena both nodded in agreement, and there was a resignation in their expressions that bothered Lupi.

*     *     *

            “Why do women always go to the bathroom in groups?” Lupi asked when Sonya, Milena, and Jade had excused themselves to go to the ladies’ room.

            “It’s a social thing,” Mary replied.  “So we can have proper girl-talks away from prying ears.”

            Lupi digested this for a moment and then frowned.  “What?”

            Kimmie rolled her eyes.  “So they can giggle and have stupid chats about stupid things while fixing their makeup.”

            Mary nodded.  “Essentially.”

            “I always thought it was retarded, myself.  When I go to the bathroom … or at least when I still had to go to the bathroom, I preferred to go by myself,” snorted the pink-haired vampiress.

            “That’s because you’re an antisocial sourpuss,” Mary observed.

            “No, I’m very social,” Kimmie retorted, “I just didn’t feel the need to socialize while taking care of business.  That made me uncomfortable as hell.”

            “Speaking of uncomfortable,” Lupi interjected, before the two had a chance to get going on  a long-winded discussion about bathroom habits, “Did you notice that even when they were laughing, they seemed … sad?”

            After a short silence, both Kimmie and Mary nodded.

            “Why is that?” Lupi asked in concern.  “Have I done something wrong or offended them somehow?”

            Mary patted her on the shoulder.  “No, it’s not about you at all, so no worries there.  It’s just … well, there’s really not a lot of happiness in that line of work.”  She looked down at her food and poked at it with her fork.  “It’s a rough life, when you get right down to it, and it leaves its mark on a person.”

            After taking a moment to read between the lines, Kimmie stared at her with eyebrows raised.  “You were a hooker?”

            The other vampiress shrugged.  “I was tight for money back in London, so I did a some jobs to earn a few pounds here and there, because I’d be damned if I used any of me parents’ money.  That occupation just wasn’t for me,” she said, looking up and first meeting Kimmie’s eyes and then Lupi’s.  “I saw how things were, and even as addled as I was from drink and all the drugs I took at raves, I knew I didn’t want to get locked into that kind of life.  It’s a lot harder than it looks.”

            “Damn,” Kimmie murmured, while Lupi frowned in confusion.

            “But it is a job where you get paid to have sex, right?” she asked, and Mary nodded.  “What can be so bad about that?  Sex is a very enjoyable thing, so would it not be good to be paid to do something you like?”

            Mary gave her a smile that was part bemusement, part sadness.  “You really haven’t gotten around a lot yet, have you, luv?”

            “What does that have to do with anything?” Lupi replied, a trifle defensively.  “I am not completely naïve.”

            Mary shook her head.  “No, you’re not.  It’s just that you’ve been lucky enough to be around gallant men and powerful women your whole life, so you don’t know how awful some of the scumbags can be.  You’re strong enough that you’ll probably never find out the hard way, either, and for that, you’re very fortunate.  I’ve had me run-ins with the bad ones, dated a few of ‘em, actually, but even the worst of the ones I’ve dealt with weren’t nearly as bad as they could’ve been.  And even when you’re not dealing with the bastards, which is never for very long in that line of work, it still eats at you after a time, and while I’m sure there are a few strong-willed gals that aren’t bothered by it, it really does its damage on the rest.  It makes them feel cheap, less than human, no matter what they tell you or what they tell themselves.  I’ve seen it destroy friends of mine, back over the water, and I’m sure it’s no different here.  The whole idea of it, taking something special and intimate and making a … a … fucking commodity of it …”  She tapered off, looking down at her plate and sniffling just a little.  Lupi, troubled by the sadness radiating from the normally-bubbly vampiress, made a soft whimpering sound of empathy.

            “In theory it sounds like a good idea, but in practice … it’s not worth it, is it?” Kimmie asked, and Mary nodded in agreement, absently wiping at her eyes.  “I always wondered about it, and had seen some stuff on HBO, but I’d never really …”

            The redhead smiled at her.  “You didn’t know, either.  That’s why I didn’t get too annoyed with you earlier.  I’m glad you’re naïve about it like Lupi is, and it’s just one more reason that I’m so happy I got a second chance at life when I got me fangs: I’ll never have to worry about getting sucked into that sort of a life, no matter how bad things get.”

            “You said ‘sucked,’” quipped the pink-haired vampiress, waggling her eyebrows at Mary, and the redhead burst into laughter and smacked her on the arm.

            “You’re such a bitch!” she giggled.  “But you’re me favorite bitch.  Thank you.”

            “What can we do to help them?” Lupi asked.

            “Help them?”

            “Sonya, Milena, and Jade,” said the lycanthrope.  “If this life is so bad, then we must do something to help them.  I would have done something sooner if I had known that there were problems inherent to their choice of work.  Now that I know, I want to help them.”

            Mary blinked several times, as though the idea hadn’t occurred to her.  “Well …” she slowly said, “I … I’m not sure, really.”

            “That’s a lot of work we’re talking about,” said Kimmie.  “You’d have to basically walk them through a whole lifestyle change, I think.  And unless I miss my guess, I think both Milena and Jade have coke habits, from what I could smell on them.”

            “Coke?” Lupi repeated.  “Like the drink?”

            “Cocaine,” Kimmie said.  “Hard drugs that you snort up your nose.  Bad stuff.  I’ve seen it in enough clubs to know what it smells like, and I could smell it on the both of them.  That’s another problem right there.”

            “I think Sonya uses cosmic rust,” Mary added.  “Her nostrils had that dark reddishness you see in users, and I thought I caught a whiff of it on her.”

            “Then we will get them off the drugs,” Lupi said, and both Kimmie and Mary looked dismayed.

            “It’s not that easy,” said Kimmie.  “Drug addictions are complicated.”

            “They’ve probably got even more problems than that,” Mary said gently.  “They’ve been in the business for years now, from what they said.  They’re probably in pretty deep, and getting them out could be … messy.”

            “So?”  Lupi folded her arms over her chest and gave the two vampires a determined look.  “I do not fear things that are difficult.”

            “I know, luv,” Mary said.  “But I’ve watched girls like them try to get out of the business, and it’s so hard for so many of them you wouldn’t believe it.  Some of them succeeded, but they’d been in it for so long that they were forever scarred by it, and just couldn’t live a normal life, no matter how hard they tried.  They usually either fell back into it or … killed themselves.”  She took a breath and thought for a moment.  “We could try, for sure, but … I don’t know.  I’m just afraid that if we tried to push them out of it, we might do more harm than good.  We’d be fighting against something none of us really knows how to deal with.  I’ve turned a few tricks in me day and spent plenty of time hanging out with painted ladies, but I’m no expert by any means.”

            “Then we’ll find people who do know how to deal with it,” said the werewolf.  “Surely Brandi or one of the other elders would know how to fix this problem.”

            Kimmie and Mary exchanged uneasy glances at the mention of the immensely-powerful elder vampiress, who didn’t seem to care much for either one of them.

            “I suppose we could try,” said Mary carefully, “But you know how they are about a lot of the things concerning the mortals: we need to let them figure things out on their own and we can’t help every single one of them that has a problem.”

            “Yeah.  Beyond killing off the everyday douchebag criminals and scumbags, they usually only want to get involved in mortal business if it’s something fairly major, like those animal-smugglers you found,” Kimmie added.  “And you know they don’t like us young ones mucking around in mortal affairs at all, since they say we’re too dumb to know what we’re doing.”  She gave a snort to show what she thought of that sentiment.

            “I haven’t heard them say that,” Mary said.

            “They imply it.  They’re always telling us not to get too deeply involved with mortals and their problems because we’re not experienced enough to handle them yet.”

            “Well, they’ve kind of got a point,” said the redhead.  “Just like this.  We don’t know what we can do to help Milena, Jade, and Sonya, do we?”

            Silence fell over the table, save for a soft growl of annoyance from Kimmie.

            “That’s why we’ll ask one of the elders to help us,” said Lupi firmly.  “I can ask Stacey.  He’ll know what to do, and he’s not nearly as strict about rules as many of the other elders.  He would be sympathetic, I’m sure.”

            Kimmie and Mary gave that notion some thought, and they both slowly nodded.  “Yeah, he’s a lunatic, but he acts like the uncle that secretly buys you beer and lets you see R-rated movies instead of one of the parents,” the pink-haired vampiress conceded.  “He could probably help, if he doesn’t get us all killed.  I remember you telling us about him dragging that zombie around at Halloween and using it to fuck with people.”

            “Do not remind me about that,” Lupi groaned, putting a hand to her forehead as though stricken with a fierce headache.  “I had to live through that horrible experience, and I do not wish to remember it.”  She then brightened up.  “Very well.  We will ask Stacey what to do.”

            “Maybe we could ask Dorian, too,” Kimmie said softly, almost shyly.  “He’s all about helping women in distress, and he’s so laid-back and easygoing.”

            “And oh-so-fetching, isn’t he, luv?” Mary asked, batting her eyelashes at Kimmie and putting her hands over her heart in a swoon.

            Kimmie blushed in the peculiar manner of a vampire and appeared to study her salad with intense interest.  “Shut up,” she muttered, clearly trying not to give Mary the satisfaction of a dopey grin.  “Just shut up.”

            Mary and Lupi both shared a quiet chuckle at their friend’s expense, nudging each other in the manner of all girls, supernatural or not.  With the matter of their prostitute friends settled for the time being, the trio turned their attention back to their food, though their culinary enjoyment wasn’t to last.

            After a few minutes had passed, Kimmie looked around the interior of the upscale restaurant, and scowled when her eyes landed on a troubling sight.

            “Aw shit.”

            Lupi craned her neck around to see what Kimmie was cursing at, and when she did, her eyes grew large.  A loud, distinctly wolf-like growl sounded deep in her throat, which drew nervous glances from several people dining at nearby tables, who were already disconcerted from the less-than-conventional appearance of the girls.

            Mary, who had been happily working on her Portobello ravioli, looked in the direction that had captured Kimmie and Lupi’s attention, and then made a sound of dismay.  “Oh bugger,” she murmured.

            Quicker than Kimmie could react, Lupi sprang to her feet hard enough to knock her chair backwards and darted across the restaurant, her baggy jeans and sandals flapping from her preternatural speed.  Even though she wasn’t in her wolfen form and didn’t have access to her full strength and abilities, Lupi could still move plenty quickly when in her mundane form, and she zipped between the tables of the startled diners with ease, leaping over a large planter and vaulting a brass rail in her pursuit.

            “Son of a bitch,” hissed Kimmie, and she took off after Lupi, shoving aside a surprised waiter in the process, causing him to drop his large tray of food to the floor with a resounding crash.

            “Bloody hell.”  After putting her fork back on the table and wiping her mouth off, Mary reached down into her platform boot, pulled out a sizable number of folded twenty-dollar bills and left several hundreds’ worth on the table, which she figured would cover the meal, the tip, and the trouble.  She got to her feet, smiled at all of the staring patrons, and gave a little curtsy.

“Terribly sorry about the cock-up,” she said in a sprightly tone, “Me friends and I are all drug addicts, and this sort of thing happens all the time.  Just go back to your dinners and we shan’t trouble you again.  Cheerio!”

After giving everybody a wave, she dashed off after Kimmie and Lupi, leaping the planter and vaulting the rail with more grace than a gazelle, putting her compatriots’ movements to shame.  Several people openly wondered where they could get the kind of drugs that the three departing girls were on.

*     *     *

            “You best back the fuck off ‘fore I gots to get stiff wit’ you, bitch!”

            “I will not back off!  These are my friends and I will not let you treat them like this!”

            “Lupi, no no no!  Don’t do this!  You don’t understand!”

            “I understand plenty,” Lupi growled, glaring at the gold-toothed man in the purple suit, her hands unconsciously bent into claws.  “I do not like this, and I am not going to tolerate it.”

Standing behind the man were Milena, Jade, and Sonya, who weren’t acting like themselves at all.  In Lupi’s estimation, it was as though they were slaves and this man was their displeased master, but she knew that couldn’t be the case, since slavery was illegal in the United States.  The man, whoever he was, was large and powerfully-built beneath his garish purple suit and equally-ridiculous floppy hat, and stood almost a full foot taller than Lupi, who was nearly six feet tall as it was.  Not that she cared.

“Lupi, just let it go, please,” pleaded Sonya, who was practically whimpering in fear, a sharp contrast to the saucy confidence she’d displayed just a short while ago.

“You heard her, bitch, get to steppin’,” snarled the large man, glowering down at Lupi.  “I ain’t gonna tell you again.”

“Leave my friends alone,” said the young werewolf.  “I will not tell you again.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” moaned Milena, tears welling up in her eyes.  “We’ve got this coming, we didn’t listen to him before, and—“

“Muthafuckin’ shut up, would you?” roared the big man, and he hauled his hand back to strike the prostitute, and judging from the way she cringed in anticipation, it was far from the first time it had happened.

But before he could deliver the hit, Lupi grabbed his wrist in a steely grip and held it firmly.  When he tried to jerk his hand away, he found himself unable to, and the hold on his wrist tightened uncomfortably.  Growling, he struck Lupi in face with the metal head of his cane, and she finally let go with a yelp of surprise.  The three prostitutes turned their heads away and groaned at the deep thudding sound, but made no move to intervene.

Kimmie skidded through the doors of the restaurant just in time to see Lupi, who was down the sidewalk a short distance, take the hit, and she cursed, because she knew what was going to happen next.

“I told you, bitch!  I muthafuckin’ told you, but you didn’t listen!  That’s the kinda shit that happens when—“  The big man’s diatribe trailed off when he realized that not only did Lupi not fall when he’d struck her, he hadn’t even left a mark on her face, save for a small trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth.  Lupi bared her teeth and a deep, deep growl reverberated in her throat as the pimp stared at her in alarm.  “Whafuck?”

Her eyes blazing yellow, Lupi sprang on the big man with enough force to knock him backwards onto the sidewalk, forcing the three prostitutes to scatter before they got crushed beneath his considerable bulk.  He hit the sidewalk with a meaty thud, where he discovered that even though Lupi was smaller than him, she was stronger than he was.  She snapped, bit, and clawed at him, attacking like a wild savage, and he punched, kicked, and did everything else he could to try and get away.

It was fortunate for him that Lupi wasn’t in her wolfen form, because she would’ve been able to tear him to shreds within moments using her razor-sharp teeth and wicked claws.  However, he didn’t feel all that fortunate when Lupi bit through his sleeve and deeply sank her teeth into his forearm, shaking her head back and forth once she had a hold, worrying it like a dog with a bone.  He yowled, his scream moving up several octaves when Lupi bit down harder, trying to rip the muscle from the bone; she’d tasted blood, and was really starting to get revved up now.

Kimmie stopped several feet away from the tussle, biting her bottom lip as she tried to figure out what to do.  Everything had happened so fast!  One minute they were peacefully sitting and eating at the table, when she’d glanced up and noticed the big pimp forcefully leading the three women out the restaurant, much to the consternation of the maitre’d, and then the next she was out here, watching Lupi kick the shit out of said pimp.  She looked around and didn’t see any cops yet, and for the moment, they had the sidewalk more or less to themselves, other than a few passers-by that surreptitiously watched the exchange, ready to dart away if guns came into the equation.  She decided to wait and see how things turned out; she trusted that Lupi was discrete enough not to actually kill the guy out here in the open, but if things got out of control, she’d step in.

On the other side of the fight, she saw Jade, Milena, and Sonya looking on in horror, and she said, “Don’t mind her, she’s just really protective of her friends.”

The three women looked towards Kimmie in unison, fear in their eyes, more so than the pink-haired vampiress would’ve thought was warranted in the situation, and Sonya exclaimed, “You’ve got to stop her!”

Kimmie frowned.  “Huh?  What for?  She’s doing you guys a favor.”

“You don’t understand!” Jade shouted.  “Stop her!”

The vampiress snorted.  “Fuck that.  He’s got this coming.”

Groaning in distress, Milena lunged forward and tried to shake Lupi off the pimp, but the werewolf didn’t even notice, she was so focused on the big man.  Kimmie quickly stepped around the fight and yanked the Asian prostitute away.  “Back off!  What the hell’s your problem?”

“Stop her!” Milena shrieked, trying to struggle free.

“No way!”

Mary hurried through the doors of the restaurant, took in the fight, and then zipped over next to Kimmie, looking almost as distraught as the prostitutes.  “What the bloody hell’s going on?  You’re just letting her maul him?”

Kimmie shoved Milena back as she lunged towards Jade, who was reaching for Lupi, screaming protests.  Grabbing the dark-skinned prostitute, Kimmie non-too-gently pushed her away.  “Knock it off!  Are you crazy?!  Dammit, she’s trying to help you guys!”

“She’s just making things worse!” Sonya wailed.

“We should stop her,” Mary said.

Kimmie glared at the redhead as though she’d gone completely crackers.  “What for?!  This asshole hit her in the fucking head with his cane!”  She snatched the cane off the sidewalk and waggled it in Mary’s face, showing her the metal end, which was shaped like the head of a lion.  “Even if he hadn’t been pushing them around, he asked for it when he hit Lupi!  Fuck him!”  She snapped the cane over her knee and contemptuously flung the pieces against the wall of the restaurant.

“Kimmie,” Mary said, her voice shaking with emotion, “You don’t understand how things are on the street!  You haven’t ever been near this kind of thing; I have!  We need to stop her!  If you won’t, I will!”

“No!” Kimmie roared, flabbergasted at her friend.  “Geez, you sound just like them!  If anything, we ought to be kicking his ass with her!  I hope she fucking kills him!”

With a desperate cry, Sonya lunged forward, switchblade in hand, and drove the blade deep into Lupi’s shoulder, burying it all the way up to the hilt.  “Leave him alone!” she screeched as she let go of the knife and punched the she-wolf in the side of the head.

Lupi yelped and jerked back from the pimp as though shocked by electricity, dropping into a wide-eyed crouch onto the sidewalk as the big man lay panting and moaning on the concrete.

“Idiot!” Kimmie snarled, knocking the prostitute down onto the sidewalk.  “What the fuck is wrong with you?!”  She shook her fist at Sonya and looked as though she were about to step over and beat the hell out of the mortal woman, who had gotten back to her feet and was glaring at the vampiress defiantly.

“Kimmie, don’t,” Mary murmured, putting a firm hand on her friend’s shoulder.  “Just … don’t.  Please.”

“She stabbed Lupi!”

“I know, luv, I know,” said Mary, deep sadness in her voice.

“Fucking whores!” Kimmie spat, scornfully glaring at Milena and Jade, who had already moved to the pimp’s side and were trying to help him get back to his feet, apologizing endlessly and promising to never disobey him again.  “Fucking stupid, stupid, stupid whores!”

“Fuck you, you little bitch,” growled Sonya, protectively moving towards Jade and Milena.  “Easy for you to say, easy for you to fucking judge.  You wouldn’t last one night out here, and you don’t understand a damned thing about what it’s like!  You’d be crying for your mommy and daddy after the first hour!”

Kimmie hissed at her like a cat and lunged, her temper getting the better of her, and Mary cried out as the other vampiress slipped out of her grasp.  But a firm hand grabbed hold of Kimmie’s wrist and held her fast.

Lupi pulled Kimmie back, though her cold blue eyes were fixed on Sonya.  Mary got hold of the pink-haired vampiress, who was seething and so furious she was trembling, and the werewolf let go, advancing upon Sonya.  She wordlessly yanked the switchblade from her shoulder and handed it back to the prostitute.  The two stared at one another, and from the sidewalk, the pimp moaned, “My muthafuckin’ arm!  Muthafuck that hurts!”

“Don’t worry, Snooky, we’ll take care of you,” Jade said comfortingly.  “We can’t even tell you how sorry we are.”

“We’ll get you to a doctor, you’ll be just fine,” Milena cooed as they got the bloody, battered pimp into a sitting position.

“Why?” Lupi asked softly, her tone wounded, as she wiped the pimp’s blood from her mouth.  “Why?”

“I’m sorry, but … I had to,” Sonya answered.  “We were supposed to be working, and we thought he wasn’t going to find out we were skipping out, but he did, and he came and got us.  We were wrong, he was right, and he was just doing what he had to do.  It was our fault and nobody else’s.”

Lupi shook her head.  “That is not right.  You did nothing wrong.  I saw how he was treating you and how he was talking to you, and he was wrong to do that.  All you did was have dinner, and you yourself said you needed a break.”

“I was wrong,” replied Sonya, unable to quite meet eyes with the blonde-haired werewolf.  “We all were.”

The werewolf looked over to where Jade and Milena were helping the pimp back to his feet, her lip curling in distaste.  She turned her eyes back to Sonya.  “Is he going to hurt you for this incident?”

Sonya looked down and said nothing.

Lupi’s eyes narrowed.  “And you are going to do nothing about it.”

The prostitute met Lupi’s eyes, her expression harsh.  “You going to get all righteous on me, too?  You going to tell me I’m a stupid whore because I’m doing what I gotta do to survive?  As pimps go, Snooky’s pretty damned good to us, and I’m not going to ruin things with him because you can’t handle the way things are!”

The werewolf frowned.  “What is a pimp?” she asked after a few moments.

Sonya looked at her in disbelief.  “I knew you were naïve, but I didn’t think you were that … are you serious?”

Lupi nodded, and after a few moments, Sonya told her what a pimp was.  This only enraged Lupi further.  “You give him your money?!  After you have done all the work?!  And he treats you like this?!” she demanded, nearly pacing back and forth with consternation.  Putting her hand to her wounded shoulder, which was slowly oozing blood into her NWA jersey, Lupi glared at the prostitute.  “He is enslaving you, treating you like garbage, but you protect him from me when I was only trying to protect you from him.  I do not understand you at all.”

“No, you don’t, because you don’t have to,” Sonya replied.  “You don’t know the first thing about living on the streets, and she’s not any better,” she said, indicating Kimmie, who had settled down but was still being restrained by Mary.  “It’s one thing to take a bunch of hookers to dinner and hang out with them, and it’s a whole other thing to actually have to live like one.  You don’t have to do that, and you should count yourself pretty fucking lucky.  You don’t have to fuck and suck your way to a decent paycheck so your two kids can have something to eat and have clothes to wear.  You don’t have to look your kids in the eye and lie about what it is you do for a living, and you don’t have to worry that they’re going to find out how you get your money.  You also don’t have to look at yourself in the mirror every day and hate yourself, but hope that you live long enough for your kids to graduate high school someday!”

She pointed to Snooky, who was practically falling over from blood-loss and the pain of his mangled arm.  “Maybe he slaps us around, yeah, but if it weren’t for him, we would’ve been dead a long time ago!  He looks out for us and keeps the worst of the shit away from us, and we owe him a whole hell of a lot, so if he’s pissed at us because we were fucking off and having dinner instead of being out working the streets, he’s got every fucking right in the world!  He’s doing what he’s gotta do to get by, just like we are, and you just need to stay out of it, because you’re just going to fuck things all up.  Thanks for the dinner, but I think this is where we all gotta part ways.”

Her eyes on Sonya, Lupi slowly shook her head.  “You are enslaving yourself to a man who beats you and to a life you clearly have no love for.”

“I’d rather live like a slave than die free and leave my kids behind,” replied the prostitute.  “I just hope you don’t ever have to know what it’s like.”

Lupi growled softly.  “I would die before I allowed myself to be enslaved.  There is always a better way.”

Sonya shrugged.  “Yeah, well, if you find one for me and a few hundred other girls, you looks us all up and let us know.  Until then, you go right on thinking whatever helps you sleep at night.”

“Get me to a muthafuckin’ hospital!” Snooky moaned, leaning heavily on Jade and Milena.  “She fuckin’ chewed my muthafuckin’ arm like a muthafuckin’ dog!  Keep that crazy bitch away from me!”

Sonya quickly stepped over to Snooky and reassuringly patted him on his unwounded arm.  “Don’t worry, she’ll never bother you again, baby.  Come on.”  She slipped an arm around his waist and helped him along, supporting his considerable weight much more easily than Milena could.  “Where are you parked at?”

Groaning and cursing, Snooky told her where his car was, and the foursome slowly made their way down the sidewalk, none of them looking back.

Lupi watched them for a few moments, but Mary took her hand and gently pulled her away.  “Let’s go, luv.  That’s just the way things go, I’m afraid.”

The werewolf turned towards the sad-eyed vampiress.  “Why?  Why is that ‘just the way things go?’  Why are such things allowed to be in this city, where so many people clearly have so much?”

“Because people are fucking stupid,” snarled Kimmie, spitting in the direction of the departing prostitutes and their pimp.

Mary shook her head.  “It’s not that simple.  It might look like that to you two, who came from good families and were always taken care of, and still are, as a matter of fact,” she said, smiling at them.  “You’ve never been down and out or desperate, and you probably never will, not when you’ve got the powers and connections that you have.  You’ll never have to walk a mile in their stiletto heels, and you should be grateful for that.”

Kimmie scowled.  “That didn’t give her any reason to stab Lupi like that.  That’s bullshit.”

“From where you stand, it is.  From where she stands, it was probably the difference between survival and death.  Or worse,” said Mary.

The pink-haired vampiress huffed in annoyance.  “But Lupi took them out to dinner and we were cool with them and everything, and then they just go and act like that because Lupi was trying to protect them!  That’s no way to treat your friend!”

Mary looked tired.  “Lupi barely knows them, luv, and we know them even less.  Taking them out to dinner and hanging out with them for a few hours doesn’t mean much next to the guy who might be the only thing keeping them alive and safe if things get bad.”

Kimmie snorted.  “From the looks of it, shit was already bad for them, the way he was slapping them around in the restaurant.”

“I didn’t say it was perfect, and I didn’t even say that it was right, but it’s all they’ve got, and they’re not going to give it up easily.  That’s one of the things I meant earlier when I said that getting someone out of that life was bloody difficult.  Once it’s been ingrained in a person, it’s really hard to shake it out, and it’s often a life sentence.”  She grinned.  “That’s why I’m so happy I became a vampire and got a second chance at me life, because if I hadn’t, I could’ve very well been one of those girls.  All it would’ve taken for me was a couple more wrong turns, a bad twist of fate or two, and I would’ve been stuck good.”

Lupi and Kimmie both stared at Mary for a few moments, and then they shook their heads in vehement disagreement.  “That is not possible.  You are too strong for that,” said the werewolf.

“And too strong-willed, too,” added Kimmie.  “Too much of everything, really.  You’re better than that.”

Mary sighed heavily.  “At one point, I’m sure all three of those girls thought the same thing of themselves, too.  They just didn’t have the breaks in life that we did.”

Neither Kimmie nor Lupi had anything to say to that, and they stood in silence on the sidewalk until a police car, likely summoned by someone in the restaurant following the ruckus both inside and outside, pulled up to the curb.  With their speed, agility, and strength, the three supernatural girls were able to quickly and easily avoid detection, disappearing down a side alley before the cops were even able to get a good look at them.