The Vampire's Apprentice

Clancy rolled his eyes. "Ah, yes, the 'any information is worthwhile' argument. My least favorite of the fallible arguments."
 
"Not all information is worthwhile. In fact, only a small percentage of all knowable information is in any way worthwhile, and that is not even taking into account the information that is impossible for any mortal to know," Clancy said a bit grumpily.
 
Why it didn't occur to her that he surely should have known better when it came to information was somewhere lost as they walked, and she was surreptitiously determined to undermine his wisdom.

"What makes information not worthwhile?" Kitty asked again.
 
Clancy lifted his the corner of his lip in a sneer. "You collect information like seashells on the shore. You do nothing with it, you merely display it in a pretty way without even knowing the names of the shells. However, information is not always so innocuous as a seashell. Information by itself is like collecting a bunch of weapons that you do not know how to use. You are far more likely to injure yourself than you are to present any kind of proper defense or offense. More is not better. It's better to have a small amount of knowledge that you understand intimately rather than much information that you do not understand.

"One question you do not appear to have ever asked yourself is, what is knowledge and how does it compare with information? Plato discussed this very question, 'what is knowledge' a thousand years ago, and no one has yet to come to a concrete conclusion in any way save one: knowledge is not just knowing facts. It is something far deeper and serious than that. Oh, there is nothing wrong with knowing a collection of amusing 'fun facts,' as they are called, but that is not true knowledge, and it is barely considered information.

"I have lived through over two hundred years of consequences that knowledge brings to mankind. I have witnessed the upheavals in Europe, both of these world wars, the slaughter of thousands and thousands of people due to the dissemination of 'knowledge,' namely, the knowledge of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Adolf Hitler's 'Mein Kampf,' the twisting of Charles' Darwin's words, and not to mention the religious persecutions on all sides. Stalin and Mao alone murdered nearly two hundred million with their mere ideas. Ideas murdered those people. That is the power of information. Knowledge is knowing that no idea is worthy of murdering people to further the ideal.

"By your standing in this matter, every seventeen-year-old should be forced to read the Communist manifesto on the basis that it is knowledge, but very, very few children of that age would understand why it is wrong. They would take this mere presentation of information and transform it into their own statement of belief and charge forward to change the world. And that is exactly what they did when it was a new idea."

Clancy looked at her. "How many people will you damage in your pursuit of information?"
 
Kitty was silent for a very long time. How was she expected to answer that? Half of what he had said was lost on her to begin with. It wasn't as though she ever wanted to hurt anybody. Just....

"I don't know." She said finally, then slowed in her pace until she had stopped walking. "If some information isn't worth having, maybe we should go home. Save me from another dire seashell in my arsenal of 'fun facts.'"

It hadn't occurred to her until that moment, but she was slightly offended. Kitty didn't want to let it show, but she was.
 
Clancy shrugged. "Feel free," he said simply. "Go home if you wish. I shall continue because now I am curious and I am hungry. I have not eaten lately, and if there are men killing other men, then no one shall be too particularly torn up should they turn up missing." He kept walking.

Oh, he knew Kitty was offended. She had a way of cutting her eyes slightly to the left and of twitching her shoulders just so and her nose wrinkled. She probably didn't even realize she did those things, but he could see it. Let her be offended and completely misconstrue his meaning. It was not his fault or problem. Two hundred plus years tended to give one an entirely different perspective than one of seventeen years. Now... he was hungry.
 
She watched him go, standing alone. Somehow, this felt uncannily familiar, but the reason only occurred to her after she had turned away. The moment was reminiscent to a certain night spent on the park bench. He'd snubbed her curiosity then, too, and she hadn't seen him for four nights afterward.

When one lives in a smaller town, nothing is ever "too far away." So, to Kitty, the park was "just around the corner" despite being a little further than the understatement made it out to be. Sitting on the uncomfortable wooden bench in the mellow night air was comforting. At least here, she knew who and what she was. The still darkness always brought clarity.
 
Clancy wandered through the streets casually, looking around calmly. Then he spotted the man. Clearly homeless, dejected, dressed in tattered layers, the fuzzy man slowly inched his way along and slipped into an alleyway. Clancy followed him, easily blending into the night. He watched and waited. The homeless man poked through a few garbage pails for a while then shuffled out and back to the main road. He hurried along, eyes darting nervously as he watched for something. Not for Clancy, of course. Who thinks to watch for a vampire? But he was uneasy as if being hunted by something.

Then the something came. Two young men, perhaps in their mid to late twenties, sauntered up the street, laughing and joking with each other. They were dressed in the usual attire of young men looking for trouble, and nothing about them looked particularly interesting. At least, not to Clancy. He watched the homeless man try to shrink against the side of the building, caught between alleyways with nowhere to hide. The men didn't seem to notice him at first, caught up in their attempts to out-swagger each other. Then they did. Their eyes narrowed, and their mouths took on a cruel tilt as they aimed in the bushy man's direction.

"Well, well, look who's on our turf?" snarled one. "Hey there, Joe. You got the toll for crossing our road?"

"M'Jerry," the man mumbled, frantically shoving his hands into pocket after pocket. He produced a few wrinkled bills and a handful of change, mostly copper. "Here, all gots today."

The closer of the two smacked his hand disdainfully, sending the coins bouncing away. "Ain't good enough, Joe. You can't pay with money, looks like you'll have to pay another way!" There were two soft clicks as the pair opened switchblades.

The man whimpered and huddled down, covering his head with his arms as he babbled incoherently. Clancy watched with a slight smile. Well. This was going to be so much easier than he'd expected! He thought for certain he'd have to grease a few palms before ever hearing so much as a whisper about these people, and yet here they were practically presenting themselves to him. How lovely! His fangs pricked his lip, longing to extend. He waited until the pair advanced on the man and were about to stab him. Then he stepped forward.

"Dear me, what a waste of perfectly good change," he purred.

All three froze and stared at him.

"Move along, hipster!" snarled one of the pair.

"Mmm, no, thank you, I have been looking for you. It would be remiss of me to leave before I have even spoken to you."

"Huh? Rem... You wanted to talk to us?" one said, bewildered. "Are you a cop? You gotta say if you are! So are you?"

"A common misconception," Clancy said with a shrug. "Of course police officers do not have to proclaim themselves unless they are making an arrest. Otherwise, undercover work would get rather tricky. I, however, am not an officer of the law. I am merely rather annoyed by your infantile posturing and... hungry."

"Huh?" was the repeated chorus.

Clancy rolled his eyes. "Why do I bother?" He walked forward and stepped over the homeless man as the pair stepped back and got into a defensive position. The vampire grabbed the near man's weapon hand and twisted as he gripped. Bones snapped and powdered under his fingers as the high-pitched scream tore through the night air. Clancy used that arm to jerk the man forward, paralyzed by shock and pain. Fangs tore recklessly at his throat, opening the artery. He drank two deep gulps and felt something sting his side. How annoying.

He let the first body drop and turned to face the other man. "I liked this shirt!" he hissed.

The man's eyes were nothing but whites as he stared, and a pungent, acidic smell announced to the nose that he'd wet himself. He held up his blade in a shaking hand as Clancy advanced. He, too, was no trouble for the vampire, and the two bodies lay where he dropped them. Clancy produced a handkerchief and dabbed his mouth politely, wiping away all traces in a moment. He dropped the cloth on top of the dead bodies and turned toward the homeless man, who sat shaking in fear.

Clancy studied the man for a moment. He could not let a witness wander around, but who would believe him? Not to mention, he was full, and he found killing without true need distasteful and wasteful. He reached into his pocket and carefully counted out one hundred dollars in fives and twenties. "Here," he said, dropping the money into the man's lap. "Clean yourself up, and speak to no one about this. If you do..." He smiled, displaying red-stained teeth. "I like a good hunt. Now off you go."

The homeless man nodded and scrambled away, muttering fearfully to himself. Clancy stretched and took a deep breath of the night air before walking away. That had been invigorating!

Sometime later, the vampire found Kitty on the bench. "Hello," he said calmly. "What are you doing here? On a bench, alone, in the dark."
 
"In the middle of a park?" She finished for him. Kitty she glanced up, chin resting boredly on her palm, not at all surprised. "I figured you'd find me somehow. It was too nice a night to go home...." Both were true, though the latter was a lie when she used it for a reason. The girl didn't care enough to correct it; he already knew why she was there, and Kitty saw no point in repeating the answer.
 
"Hmm, perhaps so, but we should likely start heading in that direction," Clancy said with a mild smile. He felt content and happy in this moment, but he knew they should likely be heading home and away from police investigation.
 
"I'm staying outside tonight." Kitty declared softly. She didn't remember when she had decided this, but it was too late to take back. "It's better out here. You're welcome to go back yourself."

Kitty didn't ask if he'd found them; didn't wonder if he'd fed and satisfied himself. It wasn't like she was mad. That was in the past; long gone. She had just... stopped caring. Given up, more like. It was a very similar reaction to the one he never saw, having disappeared for four nights straight while she pulled her senses back together.
 
Clancy's lips thinned, and he raised an eyebrow. "You may stay," he said, reminding her it was his permission she needed, "and you should rethink your attitude. Be home tomorrow. If I was not in such a good mood right now, this would be addressed now, but I do not feel like spoiling my mood." He started walking again, humming softly.
 
Kitty didn't reply immediately, making sure something aggravating wasn't the first thing on her lips. "Goodnight, Mr. McCleary." She said, keeping her volume at a normal level instead of calling after him, then lowered her voice to a mumble. "You can chastise me later."
 
"I likely will," Clancy called back over his shoulder, smirking since she couldn't see her. He knew she hadn't meant for him to hear that, but if she wanted to pout, that was her choice. For now.
 
If she hadn't wanted him to hear it, she wouldn't have said it at all.

With a renewed feeling of hopeless dread to grace the pit of her stomach, Kitty lay down across the bench and sighed. In addition to acknowledging he was likely correct on the subject of information while still stubbornly trying to argue against it, she now had something else to look forward to in the morning. Or, tomorrow night.

Kitty was up with the sunlight the next day. It occurred to her on the way home that she still wore Clancy's coat. She'd hardly noticed it before then.

Sam would likely be happy to see her, too, or annoyed at being left behind. Another thing to look forward to upon opening the door.
 
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Clancy arrived home and patted the annoying dog as he sat waiting patiently for Kitty to come home. The vampire automatically tidied up a bit then went to work. He had quite a bit to do before going to bed. This outing had actually put him behind on a few orders, but that was to be expected. He kept one ear turned to the door, but he did not hear her come home. He waited as long as he was able before retiring for the night. He left a note on the table.

Miss Kitty,
I was displeased to see you remain out all night. While I understand I did technically give you permission, it caused some concerns. In case of any future events, please return to sleep in your own bed in the warmth so you will not become ill. It would be most displeasing if you fell sick. Also, the dog missed you.
If possible, please mend this black shirt. If not, then please ensure it goes to a good charity. Also, I need you to arrange a video call with Dr. Tamadda around 8:30 to 9:30.
Thank you,
Clancy
 
And so the day went by. Kitty remembered things he enjoyed; she made more cookies simply for the smell of it. The shirt she could not find to mend, so she took it and the cookies with her down to donations. Schedule a call with someone she never met, spend some well-deserved time with Sam to make up for her absence, and generally just exist until the end of the day. She and Clancy needed to talk.
 
Sam had not been happy with her absence, and he stuck even closer to her than usual throughout the day. He was not happy without her, and he was more than a little needy with how much she had left him behind. He happily slept at her feet, following close to her when she moved.

Clancy rose at his usual time and walked up into the kitchen. He paused, sniffing, then smiled. Mmm, it smelled good in here! Good. That meant she was home again. Safe.
 
There was a sneeze from upstairs, and Kitty rubbed at her nose before continuing her decent. "Good afternoon," she said. Not cheery, but not depressed.
 
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