His thoughts were interrupted by a voice close to his ear.

- Is the girl bored? Allow me to get to know you?

"Full paragraph! This is still not enough for me!" - thought the newly appeared Margarita, and said aloud:

"And you don't want to meet him?" - and thrust her fist under the nose of the failed gentleman.

The man hurried away, twisting his finger at his temple. Margo took the left cocktail and drank it in one gulp. "And this body has its advantages!"

- Repeat, please! - asked the bartender.

Having knocked over a couple more glasses in herself, the girl went out with an even more uncertain gait.

***

The hunter kicked open the front door to the basement and brought his heavy burden. Today's outing was a success.

Denis Samarin has been hunting vampires for decades. He inherited the profession from his father, that from his grandfather, and so on. No one knew for sure, the first in their family to take on the role of "savior of the world." Samarin was skeptical about the work of his ancestors, and in his youth, due to protest, he even entered an art institute, finding his vocation in photography. But the death of his father put everything in its place and, having found and destroyed the killer of the parents, Dan consciously accepted his destiny.

A few years ago, a truce was reached between vampires and humans, since then the destruction of evil spirits has been banned. Caught only violators of the law, and only as a last resort the vampire could be destroyed. For Denis, practically nothing has changed. The bloodsuckers, accustomed to permissiveness, systematically violated the truce, and the hunters continued to kill them. Only now Samarin added one more to his duties - he brought some vampires back to life.

An unexpected meeting led to this strange decision. One day Denis ran into a little girl who had just been converted. She was scared and did not understand what was happening to her. A hand did not rise to kill her, and Samarin secretly took her with him. For a while, he even drank his own blood so that her thirst would not drive the baby crazy. And soon found a way to heal the child from vampirism. Since then, it has become another of his missions.

Caught them mostly on live bait. And he himself acted as a live bait, wandering through the haunted places.

With male vampires, it was more difficult to hunt and catch, it was never without a good fight. Another thing is the female. Vapirshi, oddly enough, flocked to him like bees to honey.

Lately, only beauties have been walking in shoals. Here is today's one - even on the cover of a fashion magazine. A professional photographer woke up to him and he involuntarily admired the girl. The vampire who spawned them was evidently an aesthete, choosing the prettiest ones.

"But never mind, sooner or later I'll get to him!" Samarin thought, chaining the "sleeping beauty" to the wall. He did this more for the safety of the vampire herself than for his own. Long ago, as soon as he chose this difficult path, he had the impudence to leave the girl who had passed the first stage of purification without immobilizing her. And it cost him his life... the life of that very vampire. Then he sat over the dead body until the morning, reproaching himself for his stupidity. Since then, he began to chain them directly to the wall. He ordered special shackles, not even a vampire with all his strength.

She will wake up soon. The hunter always injected them with a small dose of sleeping pills, enough to get them to the place in time. He made the basement of his own house a point of return, equipping it with everything necessary.

While laying out the invariable attributes on the table: an aspen stake and a bottle with a special elixir, the beauty opened her eyes.

- Woke up?! That's good, - he said cheerfully.

She only hissed back, baring her fangs. This made absolutely no impression on Samarin, it was not the first time I had seen such teeth.

"Choose," he began calmly. - Either you drink this elixir and in three days you leave here a man, or - a quick but certain death.

Denis picked up a stake, demonstrating the seriousness of his intentions.

The girl hissed again, not taking her eyes off the terrible weapon in the hunter's hand.

He patiently waited. For all the time of his "service" no one has yet chosen death. Usually, the captives at first are cunning and balk, but then they resign themselves and become mortal again, able to enjoy the sun and life itself.

“I’m ready,” the vampire whispered dejectedly and added insinuatingly, glancing at the handcuffs that tightly held her against the wall: “Just unhook it, I’ll drink this drug of yours.”

- That's good - he poured the elixir into a glass and walked over to her.

- Well, unhook at least one hand so I can take it.

They all said the same thing, the same evasions, and this was beginning to irritate him.