"Ah, there you go.  I don't believe in control.  The cosmos is one swirling maelstrom of ridiculous bullshit lumbering from one disaster to the next and control is an illusion.  Except, to chaos, there are no disasters.  It's all just happy coincidences to the mad gods," he said cheerfully.  "But the smart move is to avoid the vampire.  The quickest way?  Go in the daytime?  I know it sounds easy, but if you don't want to deal with vampires, it isn't like they're fans of sunny days.<br/><br/>"For what it's worth, I lump humans in with the vampires.  Humans can't be filled, either.  They always want more, even if it kills them.  Which is, as far as I can tell, how we got this world in the first place.  Vampires are just humans with slightly less morality.  And I do have a way to mask our scent.  It involved getting naked, of course."<br/><br/>He went to his cabinet, unlocked it.  It was big and packed - bottles, jars, books, boxes.  He took out a box, opened it, and there was a jar inside.  He put it on the table.  "We'll have to get clothes and such.  It does no good to smell like nothing in particular if your clothes smell like wet fur.  And it doesn't make you smell like a human.  It makes you smell like nothing in specific.  A werewolf who is smart - a rare occurrence but it does happen - might wonder at it and take a closer look.  Then, one snout in your cooch later, the gig is up and the fighting and running starts.<br/><br/>"And if we don't have to get inside the fort, then it won't be hard, will it?"<br/><br/>He didn't say what would happen to her family.  The witches would take them in - Geraint was certain he could see to that - but he doubted their lives would be improved by it.  The witches weren't exactly human, anymore, themselves.  They did have a connection to Gaia and it that changed them as certainly as vampires had been changed by whatever condition created them.  Though the witches didn't talk about it, human books hinted that there was a kind of anti-Gaia.  All their stories had characters that opposed the natural order - Iblis, Satan, Ravana, Ahriman, and others.  If the witches were formed by Gaia, could it be that the vampires were formed for some contrary cosmic purpose?  The witches wouldn't say, not to him, anyway.