Chapter 1
Five Years Later
Transcript of Here to Slay podcast, episode 83
Cat: Hey, this is Cat Koorse!
Ruby: And this is Ruby LaBruyere.
Cat: And this is Here to Slay, the podcast where we bring you biting commentary on all things vampire.
Ruby: Oh my god, Cat, you said you weren’t going to do the bite joke.
Cat: Sue me! I lied!
Ruby: Okay. Anyway, big news this week—the long-anticipated Blood Feud movie has officially been green-lit! Guy Whiteman is writing and directing, with Henry Golding and Gemma Chan set to star as sexy-evil vampire twins Callum and Octavia Yoo—
Cat: Aren’t those characters supposed to be British Korean? Neither of those actors is Korean.
Ruby: This is Hollywood, let’s be glad they’re Asian at all. The biggest news is Timothée Chalamet himself is playing heartbreaking hero Felix Hawthorn! Truly the most perfect casting I could imagine—I can’t wait to see Timmy bring that fabulous mop of hair to sweet, charming Felix.
Cat: Oooh, the Chala-mop.
Ruby: I prefer Chala-mane.
Cat: So today, we’re going to dive into some of the controversies surrounding the Blood Feud novels and speculate about what they might mean for the film.
Ruby: I’ve read all the Blood Feud novels—
Cat: And I’ve read none of them.
Ruby: So let me take you through some of the basics. Blood Feud follows the story of two warring clans of vampires trapped on a mysterious isle that looks a lot like Manhattan, but with more magic and stuff.
Cat: What kind of magic?
Ruby: Okay, so like, you know in most vampire stories the vampires can glamour people?
Cat: Like when the vampires look into your eyes and you fall into a trance and do whatever they say?
Ruby: Exactly! Well, on the Isle, there are no people, but the vampires who live there can glamour their surroundings instead, like make fabulous castles and stuff.
Cat: Oh wow, it’s like vampire HGTV.
Ruby: You got it. Otherwise the Blood Feud novels mostly adhere to regular vampire rules. You can only kill them by chopping off their heads, driving a wooden stake through their hearts, or setting them on fire. They sire new vampires by draining a human’s blood and then the human drinks the vampire’s blood instead, the usual.
Cat: Do they glitter in the sunshine like the vampires in Twilight?
Ruby: Nope! They burn to death in a spectacular blaze of violence.
Cat: Copy that.
Ruby: There are three novels so far, and they’ve sold upward of ten million copies worldwide—fans are absolutely rabid for the fourth, but we have no idea when, or if, it’s coming out. Which brings us to our first controversy: Who is August Lirio?
Cat: I know this! August Lirio is the author of Blood Feud!
Ruby: Yes, well done. But who are they? August Lirio is a total recluse: We have no idea what gender they are, how old they are, where they live, what they look like—absolutely nothing.
Cat: Wait, they don’t even have an author photo?
Ruby: No! Rumors have swirled that “August Lirio” doesn’t exist, and the name is just a pseudonym for another famous author.
Cat: Like who?
Ruby: Oh my god, you name it—George R. R. Martin was a popular one because Callum and Octavia are biological twins, plus they have the whole twin sire bond thing, but they’ve never had sex, so that doesn’t seem like George.
Cat: I’m sorry, the twin sire what?
Ruby: So in the Blood Feud books there’s this thing called the twin sire bond, where Callum and Octavia were sired and reborn as vampires in the same grave on the same night, which gives them special powers, like they’re especially fast and strong and stuff. But that is not what’s controversial about them.
Cat: What’s controversial about them??
Ruby: People think they’re real.
Cat: I’m sorry, what?
Ruby: Okay. So members of the Blood Feud fandom call ourselves Feudies, and certain corners of the Feudie fandom believe that the characters in the books are, ya know. Real vampires.
Cat: Ruby, are you a vampire truther??!?!
Ruby: I would say I’m vampire-truther-curious.
Cat: Wow. Wow.
Ruby: Have I shocked you?
Cat: You know, I think it’s a good thing. We’ve been friends for a decade, we have two podcasts together, and you still find ways to surprise me. I think it’s nice. Okay, so say you’re interested in these vampire conspiracies. Where would you go to learn more?
Ruby: Tumblr, reddit, the usual. FeudieTok, obviously.
Cat: So, are there…a lot of people who think vampires are real?
Ruby: Listen, what we lack in numbers we make up in sheer unhinged fortitude. No, but really, I’ve met some awesome people in the Feudie forums. One truther was a PhD student at Columbia, she wrote a really thorough essay explaining the theories that went viral after it got picked up by BuzzFeed last year.
Cat: Oh shit, I think I remember that!
Ruby: Anyway, we’re going to get way more into the vampire-truther conspiracies in a minute, but first, if you’re feeling like a vampire who can’t get any sleep, you might benefit from SheCalm, which are medical-grade, all-natural CBD gummies clinically proven to help with relaxation and insomnia, specifically formulated for women.
Cat: How is it different from CBD for men?
Ruby: It comes in a pink bottle.
Cat: Can’t argue with that! We’ll be back right after this.
——Forwarded Message——
From: Joni Chaudhari <jc718@columbia.edu>
To: <recipient list unspecified>
Sent: August 6, 11:26 AM
Subject: *~invitation~*
You are cordially invited
to Joni Chaudhari’s
TWENTY-NINTH MOTHERFUCKING BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The theme is Blood Feud, so come dressed in your most fabulous vampire attire! Even if you think it’s lame, just do it anyway, stop taking yourself so seriously and I promise you’ll have fun.
The deets:
Joni’s place
Saturday night, 6 p.m.
Don’t be cheap, bring nice booze
(we will have ~blood punch~ but the rest is up to you!)
Hope to see you then!!
——Forwarded Message——
From: Professor Lareina Vázquez <lv553@columbia.edu>
To: Tess Rosenbloom <tess.tament@gmail.com>
Sent: August 8, 3:01 PM
Subject: Question
Hi, Tess—it’s been a long time. Joni mentioned her vampire party the other day and it made me think of you; I asked how you were doing, but she didn’t know. In any case, the timing was fortuitous. One of my researchers just informed me she’ll be transferring to UC Boulder this semester, which means I have some unexpected additional PhD funding, and I thought of you—any chance you’d consider returning to the program? Let me know if you’re interested and we can discuss next steps. Thanks—speak to you soon. Hope you’re doing better. LV
“We can’t do this.” Isobel glowered at Callum.
“Why not?” he snarled.
He took another step toward her, and she felt overwhelmed, her senses flooded with every aspect of this hulking brute of a man. He was easily a foot taller than she was, thick with muscle, and he smelled of pine and musk, like he was the essence of the Isle itself. She didn’t know how he tasted…but god, she wanted to.
Desperately.
“You know exactly why not!” Isobel flailed. Above them, giant moonflowers grew tall and twisted, their blue and purple petals glowing in the starlight, casting Callum’s face in soft prisms. Try as she might, Isobel couldn’t get the image out of her mind of Callum pressing her against one of those thick moonflower stalks, his hands roving roughly down her dress as she moved her body against his, savoring the delicious friction—no. No! She couldn’t do this! They couldn’t do this.
“If Felix finds out…” she whimpered, unable to finish the sentence. He’ll kill you, Callum.
“I’m not afraid of Felix.” Callum’s British accent was gruff, his voice low and graveled—just the sound of it sent rumbles through Isobel’s core. “He’s wanted me dead for a century, and he’s never managed it yet.”
“He’s my lover.” Isobel’s voice broke. “I owe him everything.”
“You owe him your freedom?” Callum challenged. “Your autonomy?”
“No,” Isobel conceded. “But I do owe him my loyalty.”
Callum leaned close to her, his breath tickling her neck as he spoke softly against her ear.
“I’ve spent months imagining this moment,” he intoned. “The way I want to touch you, to make you scream. I’ve considered every angle, every detail.”
“Why are you torturing me like this?” she pleaded. “You’re my lover’s sworn enemy—”
“That’s his choice,” Callum said firmly. “And this is yours. You know what I want. And I know what you want. The question is whether you’re going to take it.”
“I…” Isobel gasped for breath and faltered for words. Her small body heaved beneath her silky black peignoir as she filled her lungs, trying to convince herself to run, to leave, to go back to Felix’s castle, to go anywhere outside the presence of this devastating man, anyplace that would make her forget how badly she was burning with desire.
“You what?” he prodded. He leaned a little closer, so she could feel his chest brush against hers, and that was it, she couldn’t take it anymore—she grabbed his collar and yanked him toward her, and then his mouth was hungry against hers, kissing her so intensely she felt she might black out. Callum expertly untied the bows at her shoulders, and shivers ran through her as the chill mists of the meadow whispered deliciously against her skin.
“Please,” she rasped. He pulled her close as he straightened up, and his hardness pressed against her. The feel of it sent a knee-shaking twist of desire through her center.
“What should we do next, pretty Isobel?”
His teasing voice tickled at her ear, but she couldn’t form words—she could only kiss him again and again. He picked her up as if she weighed no more than a pile of blankets, laid her down on a bed of moss as he began to strip off his clothes. She knew the moment was close, that she was about to experience the exquisite agony of him inside her, that in just a few seconds—
“Tess! Thank god I found you. There’s a total crisis downstairs.”
Tess looked up from her Blood Feud paperback with a hardened stare. It was six p.m. on a Saturday night, and she wasn’t scheduled to work until eleven. She was availing herself of one of her favorite perks of employment at The Georgia Hotel in Williamsburg: a fantastic terrace pool and tiki bar with a view of the Manhattan skyline. Tess could hole up reading for hours, escaping her own mundane world to visit a mysterious island filled with romance and adventure, with absolutely no one to bother her.
Except for now, apparently.
“Can’t Taylor deal with it? I’m not working yet.” She nodded meaningfully toward her book, but Willie—a scrawny bellhop with very anxious energy—was undeterred.
“I talked to Taylor, but she’s already handling a whole thing with a wedding in the solarium where a bunch of bees got loose? So she said to come get you for Mrs. Harriman at the front desk.”
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Tess grumbled and pushed off her barstool. Elaine Harriman was one of the hotel’s most important guests—she frequently dropped by for last-minute stays in their rarely booked, dramatically overpriced penthouse suite—which explained why everyone was expected to put up with her every grievance, no matter how unreasonable. And in Tess’s experience, Mrs. Harriman’s complaints rarely adhered to anything that could be considered within the bounds of reason.
The Georgia was owned by a pair of eccentric lesbians and inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe; the lobby was decorated in desert hues of sage, rose, and terra-cotta, dotted with soft leather couches and vivid green cacti. A giant O’Keeffe print hung prominently near the entry, with their favorite O’Keeffe quote inlaid in a tile mosaic beneath it: “I have done nothing all summer but wait for myself to be myself again.”
Mrs. Harriman was standing at the blond wood front desk, dressed in an impeccable cream cashmere suit, her white hair coiffed and her face tomato red as she huffed out a stream of criticism at Mika, the front desk worker. Mika was dry and fun and always kept her cool with guests, but it was obvious that Mrs. Harriman was seriously trying her patience.
“Mrs. Harriman, such a pleasure to see you again. I’m Tess Rosenbloom, one of the managers here,” Tess interjected, to Mika’s visible relief.
“Really?” Mrs. Harriman peered at Tess. “You don’t look like you work here.”
Tess usually dressed for work in faded linen slacks and blazers to match the vibe (the staff had uniforms, but not the managers). But tonight, Tess was stopping by a Blood Feud–themed party before her shift, so she was wearing a silky black slip dress that clung to her size-sixteen curves, the low V-neck perfectly suited to show off her cleavage, and a floaty chiffon peignoir trimmed with delicate lace accents, mimicking Isobel’s outfit in the scene Tess had just been reading. (She’d been tempted to go for a full corseted gown for the affair, but even a party based on her all-time favorite novels couldn’t convince her to wear velvet in August.) Her wavy auburn hair fell in tumbles well past her shoulders, and she wore a fresh face and a bright red lip, accenting her round cheeks with dewy pink blush and her wide hazel eyes with shimmery shadow and dark mascara. Tess’s skin had always been pale, but never more so than the last three years working the night shift. Never seeing the sun wasn’t ideal for life, but it was kind of perfect for a vampire party.
“I was actually just on my way out, but I wouldn’t think of leaving without helping you.” Tess gave Mrs. Harriman her most understanding smile.
“Oh, if you have plans—I don’t mean to interrupt, it’s just that I was absolutely terrified.”
“Terrified?” Tess raised an eyebrow; she had never known Mrs. Harriman to be intimidated by any person or thing.
“Wouldn’t you be?” Mrs. Harriman shot back. “If you opened the door to your room and found a stranger on your bed?”
Tess exchanged a look with Mika. The fuck?
“I was just saying it was probably a member of our cleaning staff,” Mika filled Tess in.
“But they weren’t in a uniform!” Mrs. Harriman was indignant. “And are you honestly saying that this hotel allows cleaners to sleep on guest room beds?”
“Of course not, Mrs. Harriman,” Tess said smoothly. “What were they wearing? Did you get a look at their face?”
Mrs. Harriman shook her head, as if trying to remember.
“I couldn’t,” she said softly. “They moved too quickly.”
“We sent security up to the suite right away, but there was no sign of anyone having been there,” Mika muttered to Tess. “The bed was made. No one had been in it.”
“They weren’t in the bed, they were on the bed,” Mrs. Harriman insisted.
“Okay, Mrs. Harriman, here’s what we’re going to do—if you want to change rooms, of course we can give you a new one. We have our cabana suite available—that one opens right onto the pool! But if you’d rather stay in the penthouse, we can perform a full security sweep and issue you a brand-new key to ensure no one else can get in there. What would you prefer?”
Mrs. Harriman looked shrewdly at Tess. “If I go back to the penthouse, will you knock a night off my bill?”
Tess smiled thinly. “It would be my pleasure.”
After Willie the bellhop got Mrs. Harriman back onto the elevator and out of sight, Mika burst out laughing.
“What a fucking fraud!” Mika shook her head with grudging respect. “Staging a meltdown to get a free night. Like she even needs the discount!”
“No, she’s not a fraud. She’s just—I don’t know. An opportunist.” Tess couldn’t help laughing too. “How’s the day going otherwise?”
“You heard about the wedding with the bees, right?” Mika cocked her head and leaned in for gossip. “Joey the bee guy obviously wasn’t supposed to be here today to pollinate the flowers in the solarium, but he got the days mixed up, and the bees got loose, and apparently the groom’s nephew is allergic, so the bride lost her shit and swore she was getting hives, and the bride’s mother said it was just a panic attack and she’d freak out too if she was about to marry that guy, which set the groom’s mother off, so they’re screaming and yelling, the bride’s crying, the nephew is curled up in a corner hiding from the bees. Meanwhile, the best man has been plastered since breakfast, knocks over a giant floral arrangement, gets stung like sixteen times.”
Mika exhaled with satisfaction, and Tess grinned. “So you’re saying Taylor’s going to be in the lobby bar drinking herself into oblivion the second her shift is over?”
“Exactly,” Mika laughed. “Do you really have plans, or were you just trying to get away from Harriman?”
Tess suddenly felt a twist of nervous energy. “My old roommate’s birthday. Gotta get to her party in Morningside Heights and back by eleven.”
“That far uptown?” Mika looked skeptical. “Must have been a good roommate.”
“Yeah.” Tess forced a smile. “She was the best.”
Tess took the L west to Manhattan with some regularity, but transferring to the 2/3 at 14th Street and heading north felt more like time travel than riding the subway. After Tess unceremoniously moved out of their apartment while Joni was out of town, they didn’t speak for months. Joni was hurt, Tess was ashamed, and back then, Tess’s panic attacks were still so regular and so debilitating that she could barely make it through each day—an emotionally fraught conversation was out of the question. Eventually, Tess and Joni had intermittent text exchanges, but they were always awkward and stilted. Tess and Joni had never been able to get back the easy connection they shared when they were living together—closer to each other than Tess had ever been to another person.
Then Tess got a night job at The Georgia, which was great since Tess hadn’t been able to sleep at night since Rick’s party, but it didn’t make it easier to get together with Joni. Between their opposite schedules and living at least forty minutes apart, there was always an excuse to put off making plans, to cancel and reschedule, and now it had been more than three years since they’d seen each other. Tess was honestly a little surprised she was invited to Joni’s party; Tess hadn’t invited Joni to her last birthday. Not that she’d done anything big, just went to a chintzy bar with her friends from the hotel. She didn’t want to have to deal with the awkwardness of introducing Joni to everyone, of making flimsy excuses for why she’d left Columbia—a topic she’d barely addressed for herself, let alone with Joni. She’d worked hard to move past all that; she didn’t see the point in dredging it up again.
But Tess was doing better now. She slept a solid five hours during the day, sometimes six. She’d been promoted to night manager, which meant she could afford to live in a “junior one-bedroom” near the hotel—i.e., a cramped studio with a closet large enough to fit a double bed, which, it turned out, was extremely practical for someone who slept during the day. She could buy nicer clothes and take herself out to dinner before work. She’d downloaded one of those apps where you could text a therapist—which hadn’t been all that helpful, but she thought it showed pretty good progress that she’d installed it in the first place. And she liked the mindfulness meditations that came with the app, coaxing her in soothing tones to name five things she could see right now. Sometimes she listened to them as she wandered through Marsha P. Johnson Park, drinking cinnamon cortados and watching the churn of the river.
And now, her adviser had emailed her about a chance to come back to Columbia—and to Tess’s absolute shock, she was actually considering it. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to go back, but she liked feeling strong enough to know that it could be a possibility. She was thinking of this party as a way to test the waters, dipping her toes back into the world she’d loved so much until she’d had to leave it so abruptly.
It was both familiar and bizarre to get off the train at Cathedral Parkway, to see the same tiles spelling out the words that used to mark the way home. There was the bodega where she and Joni would get chopped cheeses at two a.m. when they still had piles of papers to grade, the weird natural wine store where they pooled their meager spending money for a bottle of something effervescent, the diner where they ate mountains of scrambled eggs and crispy hash browns smothered in ketchup and Tapatío on mornings after gathering with other people from the program, arguing about Dostoyevsky and pounding bourbon.
They used to get out pens and paper napkins and divide their various crushes into two columns: For Fun and For Real. Joni’s crushes were almost never in the For Real column; Tess’s almost always were. Tess was an optimist back then—she’d spent her life reading earth-shattering love stories, and she believed that someday she’d meet someone special enough to be in one of her own.
Stupid, she thought, reflecting on her past naïveté. She looked for the good Chinese place where she and Joni always got the spicy sesame noodles, but it wasn’t there anymore—it was some corporate frozen yogurt chain instead. After a lifetime on the move, Tess had been in New York for almost five years, by far the longest she’d ever lived anywhere. She liked that you could stay in one place, and the city would keep changing around you. The constant flow of guests and workers at the hotel, shops and restaurants coming and going like seasons, New York made Tess feel grounded but not suffocated. It had been years since the impulse to pack up everything and go had taken over her senses, invading her thoughts until she had no choice but to run.
It hadn’t happened, in fact, since she lived in this apartment.
The building looked the same as ever: a brownstone that had seen better days, a permanent layer of soot coloring the stones a dingy gray. A couple of people Tess didn’t recognize were smoking on the stairs. She walked past them to the little doorway on the lower left into the “garden” apartment—but since there was no garden, she and Joni had never harbored illusions that they were living in anything but a basement. This didn’t bother them; it was the only way they could afford to live so close to campus without staying in student housing. Joni had been desperate to find a place that felt like her own, that made her feel like a grown-up. Tess didn’t care as much, but Joni was so magnetic, so much fun, that all Tess wanted was to be wherever Joni was.
Tess could hear ABBA blaring as soon as she walked through the door. It was just after eight and not even dark, but the party was already in full swing, people dancing and drinking and spilling into the hallway. Tess fluffed up her hair and smiled wide as she stepped into her former apartment.
“Tess?! Oh my god!” Joni rushed over, clearly tipsier for wear, and pulled Tess into a vise-grip of a hug. “I can’t believe you came.”
They had talked about this party countless times, even the first time they met. Joni had planned to dress as Octavia Yoo, the most fashionable character in Blood Feud, who was turned into a vampire on her twenty-ninth birthday. Tess smiled to see Joni looking absolutely perfect in an ice-blue fringed mini and a fabulous rhinestone tiara.
“Of course I came,” Tess assured her. “I wouldn’t miss your Blood Feud birthday!”
Joni pulled back and gave Tess a skeptical look.
“If you say so.” She laughed awkwardly. “But whatever, I’m so glad you’re here!”
“Me too.” Tess brushed past the weirdness. “And wow, this outfit, you look incredible!”
“You like?” Joni did a little twirl. “And omg, of course you’re Isobel—please don’t tell me you’re still in your Felix era!”
“You mean my kind, charming, brave romantic hero era?!” Tess scoffed, and Joni laughed. “You’re the perfect Octavia, though.”
“Fran and Nasser are both dressed up as my Callums, we have to show you—they’re around here somewhere.”
“So it’s going good? Living with them?” Tess pushed down the twinge of jealousy, tried not to imagine Joni and their two lovely weirdo theater arts friends spending hours on the couch together watching music videos and bad TV.
“Oh yeah, it’s been really great.” Joni smiled wide, in that way where Tess knew she wasn’t saying something. “But I’ve been so busy lately, it’s not like we see each other that much anyway. I’m finishing my dissertation, and there’s an opening for a tenure-track job in the department, which is kind of crazy, so I’m applying for it.”
“Oh my god, seriously?!” Tess squeaked. “Joni, that’s amazing!”
“I totally have no chance—”
“Stop that, yes you do! It’s obvious to everyone you’re a star.” Tess nudged Joni, genuinely proud of her friend.
“I don’t know about that.” Joni flushed, but Tess could tell she relished the compliment. “People are applying from all over the country, but I dunno, they say they would love to give it to someone in the department? Promote from within or whatever? But even if they do, you know Rick Keeton will probably get it anyway. Fucking golden boy.”
Joni rolled her eyes, and Tess froze.
She just mentioned his name. He isn’t here. This doesn’t matter.
Joni was still talking—Tess forced herself to focus back in on their conversation.
“…so annoying that he’s such a nice guy, you know? Otherwise I would totally hate him.”
Tess nodded numbly. Nice guy. Sure.
“Anyway, enough about me!” Joni grinned. “How are you? How’s everything at the hotel?”
“It’s good!” Tess swallowed hard. “I forget if I told you I got promoted, so that’s been good, I guess.”
“I saw on Insta.” Joni’s voice was clipped.
“Right,” Tess faltered, then forced a smile. “Um, anyway, here’s this!”
Tess held out a shiny gold gift bag she’d brought from Brooklyn, and Joni perked up—she loved presents.
“For me? My stars!” Joni affected a blushing belle. The bag held two bottles—Joni pulled out the first and cracked up laughing. “Oh my god, Party Girl Frosé™! The literal worst bottle of alcohol we ever consumed! Where did you even find this? I thought they recalled it!”
“Oh, they did, you absolutely can’t drink that,” Tess deadpanned. “I had to promise the guy at the shadowy warehouse I would never tell anyone he smuggled this out for me.”
Joni opened the little card tied to the bottle’s neck.
“For fun,” she read aloud, then reached into the bag to pull out the other bottle. “Which means that this one is…”
“For real,” Tess finished the sentence as Joni extracted a gorgeous bottle of Perrier-Jouët rosé champagne, painted with pink anemones.
“Damn, Tess.” Joni looked up at her. “This is like, a really good bottle.”
“Well, you’re like, a really good friend.” Tess tried to hold Joni’s gaze, but her emotions were too intense. After a moment, she looked away.
“Hey, you need a drink!” Joni enthused. “You have to have some blood punch—that was your idea, remember? Nasser found this recipe for sparkling tart cherry punch on Martha Stewart, he’s like totally obsessed with it, it looks so bloody and gross. I can’t tell him how much I love it because he already won’t shut up about how great it is.”
“It sounds delicious.” Tess laughed, but she stopped short when she saw the glass punch bowl on the counter.
“Is something wrong?” Joni asked.
“No, I just—the punch is just sitting out,” Tess said stupidly, not knowing how to explain the way her insides were currently seizing up.
“Yeah, it’s punch, it kinda has to be in a bowl?” Joni said, obviously confused. She ladled some punch into one of those clear plastic cocktail cups. “Try it, you’ll love it.”
“Oh, thanks.” Tess held the cup, stared at the little bubbles fizzing at the surface. This wasn’t a problem. It was ridiculous to act like this was a problem. But she couldn’t make herself take a sip of that fucking punch. She put her cup down on the counter.
“Tess?” Joni asked. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah!” Tess cleared her throat. “Totally. I just—you know what? It was a really long train ride. I have to pee.”
“Okay…” Joni said warily. “I assume you remember where it is?”
“Yeah, yeah of course.” Tess smiled too broadly. “I’ll see you in a few, okay?”
But Joni was already being pulled aside by some new group of friends walking through the door and screaming happy birthday. Tess marveled at how many people were here—when she and Joni lived together, it was mostly just the two of them. They went out with people from their cohort often enough, but they never came close to liking anyone else as much as they liked each other. But now Joni was well on her way to finishing her dissertation and graduating, surrounded by people who adored her. Maybe this was the way things were supposed to work out, Tess thought. Maybe it was for the best she’d left when she did.
“Tess? Is that you?”
Tess turned to see Oscar Matson, a quiet guy from her cohort whom she’d never gotten to know all that well. Oscar was Black and chubby with a warm, kind energy; he wore soft gray jeans, a white button-down shirt under a Fair Isle cardigan, and round thin-rimmed glasses that looked like he’d borrowed them from someone’s dad in the ’70s.
“Hey, Oscar.” Tess peered at his getup. “Is that…a vampire outfit?”
“I’m Guillermo from What We Do in the Shadows,” he said shyly. “I know he’s not technically a vampire, but he’s my favorite.”
“He’s awesome.” Tess smiled brightly, feeling grateful to be in less complicated company.
“So how have you been?” he asked. “We’ve missed you at school. What have you been up to?”
“Oh, um, nothing that exciting. I moved to Brooklyn, I’ve been working for a hotel. The Georgia? In Williamsburg?”
“Oh yeah? I went there for drinks once, that’s a really cool spot. Makes sense they’d hire you.” Oscar took a sip of his beer, and Tess caught a bit of a flush creeping up his neck. It was absolutely news to her that Oscar had ever noticed anything about her, let alone that he’d formed an opinion on her level of coolness. He looked up at her. “Have you been reading or writing at all?”
Tess laughed. “Only if you count getting into fights on reddit about Blood Feud conspiracies.”
“Wow, so you’re really into this vampire stuff, huh?”
“Oh, yeah. They’re like my brain candy, you know? Total comfort food.”
“Definitely,” he agreed. “And what are the conspiracies? Are the vampires secretly gnomes or something?”
“Oh my god, this is gonna sound so stupid.” She grinned. “Promise you won’t laugh at me?”
“I guess that depends on what the conspiracy is and which side you’re arguing.”
“Okay, so, some people—I’m not saying me necessarily, but some people—think the vampires in Blood Feud really exist.”
“Shut up, no they don’t.” Oscar’s eyes went wide. “You think this? You think this and argue with strangers about it on the internet?!”
“And occasionally write essays about it that go viral and get picked up by BuzzFeed?” Tess flushed with embarrassment—and also a little bit of pride.
“No fucking way.” Oscar guffawed. “Stop talking, I’m googling that immediately.”
“Don’t!” Tess protested playfully. But it gave her a thrill to imagine Oscar reading her work, nodding with pleasure the same way her professors used to when she made a particularly subtle argument.
“You’re right, it would be rude to google at a party,” Oscar agreed. “Give me a preview?”
“Oh, well, basically—myths of vampires have persisted for thousands of years, across all different cultures that had no possible way to communicate with one another. People in ancient India and the Scottish highlands and the Philippines all have their own distinct vampire folklore. Homer even talks about vampires in The Odyssey.”
“No shit, did he really?”
“Yeah!” Tess pushed her hair back and beamed. “So I mean, isn’t it possible the reason these stories are so popular across all different places and time periods is that there’s something about them that’s rooted in truth? Or at least, isn’t it worth considering that they might be?”
“I hadn’t thought about it like that.” Oscar laughed, but Tess could tell he was being sincere.
“So if you’re willing to accept the basic premise that vampires could be real, then there’s, like, all this evidence. About the vampires in Blood Feud specifically.”
“Evidence? As in clues?!”
“Enough for an entire Poirot novel.” Tess couldn’t help getting excited—she loved talking about this stuff. “So there are these two characters in the books, Callum and Octavia Yoo, and there were two people really named that in Victorian England, which is where the characters are from too.”
“So you think the author based those characters on the real people?”
“Definitely, but here’s where it gets weird.” Tess dropped her voice for dramatic effect. “They were a really striking pair—they’re British Korean twins and both gorgeous—and people have found photos of them from all different time periods. Victorian England, but then also Paris in the twenties, at an Andy Warhol Factory party in the sixties. They popped up on Facebook in the back of someone’s vacation photos from Jeju Island in Korea in 2006, people went fucking nuts when they found that one. People have found photos of the ‘real’ versions of other characters too, but they’re harder to track. Callum and Octavia are easier because they’re so often together. But then—remember eleven years ago, when there was that fire at that nightclub in Prague, and all those people had bites on their necks, and the authorities thought it must have been some kind of wild animal?”
Oscar nodded. “Sort of.”
“Okay, well, after that, there aren’t any more photos of Callum and Octavia—or any of them, you know? So the theory is that the attack at the nightclub was really vampires, and they were all sent to the Isle as some sort of punishment. And maybe it’s all a total reach and absolute nonsense, but it’s, like, fun, you know? Just to imagine that any of it could be real.”
Oscar gazed at Tess with a sort of wonder.
“What?” she asked, mildly unnerved.
“Nothing, sorry.” He scratched absently at the back of his head. “I just forgot how much fun it is to listen to you talk.”
Someone pushed behind him to get to the kitchen, moving him closer to Tess. He smelled nice, fresh, like soap and cedar.
“Hey,” he said quietly, close enough that he could almost whisper and still be heard.
Tess felt suddenly tense. Was he going to touch her?
But he just nodded toward her empty hands. “You don’t have a drink. Can I get you something?”
“Oh!” she sputtered. “Sure! Sure. Maybe a beer? If they have one? Like in a can? You don’t have to open it, I can open it.”
He gave her a perplexed smile that said something like I’m not sure what your deal is, but I’m interested in finding out.
“One beer in a can, coming right up.”
He disappeared into the kitchen, and Tess exhaled and made her way toward the bathroom. This was going well! Not that she thought it wouldn’t, necessarily, but obviously it could have been super weird to see Joni for the first time in three years. It could have felt like a nightmare to walk into her old apartment, to see her old classmates, to get sucked back into how bad things had gotten in those last weeks before she left the program.
And okay, so maybe Oscar had been trying to flirt, and that made her feel more than a little uneasy. Sometimes she wondered if waiting so long to try dating again would put an outsized burden on whomever she dated next—a burden so large there was no possible way for a stranger to carry it. Then again, Oscar wasn’t a stranger. She could have a beer with him, and relax, and see what happened. She’d tell him when she had to leave for work, and maybe he’d offer to walk her to the subway, and they’d kiss softly, briefly, on a well-lit corner where nothing more could happen.
No—she shook off the image. That would be too much; she wasn’t ready. But still, it was nice to think that someday she could be.
She reapplied her red lipstick in the bathroom mirror, then blotted it carefully so it wouldn’t smudge across her face when she took a sip of beer. She smiled at her reflection, took a deep breath, and opened the door to go back to the party.
“Rosie? Oh my god, I didn’t know you’d be here.”
Tess stopped short. This wasn’t happening. He couldn’t be here. Why would he be here? Joni and Rick had written one article together, but they were never friends. What the hell was he doing here?
“I…I’m still friends with Joni,” Tess choked out. He was standing right here, with his easy rich-guy clothes, khaki shorts and a soft linen button-down, not even bothering to pretend to dress on-theme, with his full lips and crooked nose and floppy curls. But he was also in his apartment on Valentine’s Day, snow falling over the Hudson. Rocks glasses made of cut crystal, the whiskey his dad brought back from Japan. Their clothes piled on the floor. Her foggy memories.
“Oh yeah? That’s so great.” He smiled. “Joni’s the coolest, who else could get our whole department to dress up as vampires?”
“Right, totally.” Tess mumbled her agreement, and she felt crazy, like she was choking on poison fog, because he was acting like this was a normal conversation and she could still feel his hands covering her mouth.
“So how have you been, Rosie? Is everything good? It’s really nice to see you.”
He called her Rosie because of her last name, Rosenbloom. She mentioned once in class that she loved blue roses because of The Glass Menagerie, how the gentleman caller always called Laura “blue roses” because he’d misheard the word “pleurosis.” Rick said it was funny, because a person could mishear Tess’s last name as “rose in bloom.” He only ever called her Rosie after that. She used to love it. She used to live for hours, days, on the memory of the last time he said it. The hope for the next time he’d say it.
“I have to go to work.” The words fell out of her mouth in a torrent, the syllables eliding like she was drunk and slurring, her brain lacking the control to make the sounds into cogent speech. All her energy in that moment was focused on her feet, because she had to leave, she couldn’t wait another second, she had to fucking go.
She walked away from Rick and shoved through the mess of partygoers, not looking back to see who was pissed at being jostled or having their drink spilled. They probably thought she was an asshole, same as Joni did, and it didn’t matter, and she didn’t care, because all of it was fine as long as she could not be here anymore. She saw Oscar craning his neck to look for her, two beers in hand, but she turned away before he could see her face. She barely knew him, she was already a disappointment.
She pushed through the front door into the hall and stumbled into the street. The air was thick and hot, the sun had only just gone down. Tess paused to lean against the stone banister that led up to the rest of the building, breathing hard. She was out of there—and the idea that she could come back to this world, to Columbia, to a campus and meetings and parties that included Rick, was laughably out of the question.
But as she took deep breaths and her heartbeat steadied, she decided she wasn’t going to wallow in her panic either, not again. This wasn’t three years ago. She could get on the train and cross the river and not look back. Better yet—she’d go even farther: quit her job, leave New York. She had a marketable skill now; she could go work at some other hotel in some other country, anywhere in the world. Five years was long enough to be trapped in the same city as a monster like Rick. It was time for Tess to make her escape.
“Tess?”
Tess looked back—Joni was there, shadowed in the doorway, hurt and confusion clearly legible across her expressive face. “You’re leaving?”
“I—yeah, I’m sorry, I’m working tonight, so…” Tess could feel sweat beading at her hairline. “I’m sorry to leave so early.”
“Without saying goodbye?” Joni stepped out of the doorway and into the light. “Tess, it’s my birthday.”
“I know!” Tess sputtered lamely. “It’s just—work.”
“I don’t understand.” Joni’s voice broke.
Tess felt her lungs contracting in pain—she couldn’t get a clean breath. Everything felt ragged.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I have to go.”