This wasn't something I'd had to deal with in my entire life as a vampire; it creeped me the hell out every time I felt another mind probing the edges of my awareness, divining the exact size and shapeof my territory.  A few times this other vampire even crossed into my turf, and reacting on pure instinct I found myself homing in on the intruder with my full awareness, bringing every ounce of psychic ability I had to bear on the task of driving them out.  They always backed off, but never offered any sort of resistance.  It felt like this vampire was testing my strength   That really got on my nerves.

     This continued for more than a week, until this other vamp lured a kid I'd been looking out for outside of my area and killed her, not even bothering to feed.  The police found her lying in a pool of her own blood the next day, her throat torn out but otherwise untouched.

     The news said an investigation was underway, but I knew the police wouldn't find anything.  This was a message to me, a challenge to draw me out.  There isn't anything in vampire culture that really covers territorial disputes; it's about the only thing in such a strict society without any rules binding it.  If you were powerful enough to take over another vamp's turf, you could do it as you pleased.  The loser either runs away or dies.

     I was definitely not going to lose this.

     I'd learned by then that I could travel much quicker by leaping from building to building a la superhero style.  I had taken a few days off from work, too, so when the mystery vampire struck again I pretended to be distracted while I headed towards him as fast as I could.

     They came in less than two blocks away; I was there in under a minute, but somehow they'd already disappeared.  I searched for a non-human mind, ignoring Joseph and Jean.  I couldn't find anything, and I thought the intruder had managed to escape again when an arm like an iron bar wrapped itself around my neck and threw me to the gravel on the building rooftop.Beofre I could scramble to my feet a worn leather boot on my chest pinned me down, the heel grinding painfully into my sternum.

     Looking up, I found myself staring up at a creature stranger than anything I'd see to date, made even more imposing and monstrous by the bright light of the moon that night..  It was male, that much I could tell, but it was only human in basic body shape and facial structure.  He was naked from the waist up, his lower body covered by a stained and torn pair of jeans.  All exposed skin was covered in a thick, downy fur a few shades lighter than the hair on his head, which fell loose past his shoulders almost like a mane.  I could see retractable claws flashing in the moonlight as he flexed his hands, and his bared teeth looked like they belonged in a lion's mouth.  The strangest thing, though, were the eyes that stared down at me.  They had the same green glow that a cat's eyes have when light reflects off them in the darkness and had vertical pupils like a viper, but I could see the intelligence burning behind them.

     It was a vampire, every sense I had told me as much, and it was incredibly old.

     It was an Exile.