“Kneel.”

The large man dropped to his knees without question, but not without protest.

“Wicked Gold,” he said in a harsh, grating voice with an edge of panic. He’d always been imposing, tall and muscular and eager to bare his fangs, which he did now, but his mouth was twisted in despair instead of fury. His head hung down low, hiding his exhausted, defeated face with stringy gray hair, wrists tightly tied behind his back. “You don’t want to do this.”

“You’re right, I really don’t,” said his captor, hands in the pockets of his expensive, muted violet suit, and far too relaxed.

The vampire, who’d been known by many names, but most recently Wicked Gold, was hundreds of years old and still kicking. Old enough to hide the most obvious signs of his nature, at least outwardly, behind the face of a middle-aged white man with an average build, average looks, and above-average tastes. He was many things—including discerning enough to know when someone had failed him, and more than ready to exact punishment for that failure.

“Unfortunately, in your case, the cost of your mistakes is much too high to justify keeping you around. Too rich, even for my blood.”

Wicked Gold let out a short, wholesome-sounding chuckle, as if they were friends shooting the breeze over a beer. Then, without warning, he reached out and shoved at the larger man’s back with much more strength than a human his size should reasonably have, sending him sprawling across the ground.

“Cruce, old friend, do you have the first idea why you deserve this?”

Tonight was a strange night, in a strange place. Nobody happened upon this stone circle unless they already knew it was there. The ring of black crystals, like irregular and jagged obelisks, remained unnaturally silent, off the beaten path literally and figuratively; no trails led to it, and no joggers or dog-walkers happened upon it. At all hours, the air seemed charged, stinging static making hair stand on end like every moment was the one just before a lightning strike.

But tonight went beyond otherworldly, into the flat-out sinister. In the center of the stones burned a fire, unwisely large for the flammable surroundings. Eerie orange light illuminated the otherwise pitch-black, overcast night, and cast strange, flickering shadows over the scene and all its players.

“I don’t deserve this,” the bound vampire—Cruce, named after a grisly method of execution and now facing his own—snarled, struggling up onto his knees again. “I did nothing wrong. I’ve been your faithful servant for a century and a half—your servant, when you promised we’d be equals!”

“I did, didn’t I?” Wicked Gold raised one foot off the ground and placed it on Cruce’s shoulder. Then he rested his elbow on his knee and leaned on his bound thrall like he was nothing more than a rock or piece of sturdy furniture. “But I seem to recall you promising that nothing like exactly this would ever happen on your watch. That I could leave you in charge of my other servants and my pets, focus on my responsibilities overseas and rest easy, no need to worry about anything back here. Seems like we’ve both broken promises, haven’t we?”

He paused, waiting expectantly for the apology, and his eyes drifted to the edge of the circle. Wicked Gold’s drama had an audience in the form of two young men watching from the edge of the light.

One, dressed in another suit much too expensive and shoes too shiny to be taken for a night hiker, leaned casually against one of the stones. The other, slight and painfully thin in a black hoodie that covered most of his face, stood with his hands jammed into his pockets, head hanging low and everything about his posture screaming deep unrest, as if it were him kneeling, impudently silent, at Wicked Gold’s feet.

Wicked Gold gave Cruce a kick with one shining, gold-tinted shoe that sent him tipping over and sprawling again onto his side, rolling out a bit into the center of the stone circle.

“Fine, if you won’t admit when you’re wrong, I’ll do it for you,” he said, stepping forward and turning to circle Cruce again as he struggled on the ground. “I come home after a hard week’s work, and what do I find? You let not one, not two or even three, but four of my thralls escape—”

“The girls were mine!” Cruce yelled, struggling fruitlessly against his bonds and failing to rise to his knees again without the aid of his hands. There was a definite edge of desperation in his voice now, a panic unbecoming a predator. “And I lost just as much as—”

“You’ll lose a lot more than that!” Wicked Gold’s gleaming foot shot out and slammed into Cruce’s broad chest. “They were yours, yes, and you were mine! And that meant they were mine too, and you lost them! But that’s not all, you didn’t just lose your own thralls, you lost both of the ones I hand-picked, I sniffed them out and hunted them down and made them mine, just like I did you, and then in a single night, you lost them both! And that’s after you let my new favorite escape in the first place!”

“Your favorite,” Cruce sneered, spitting out a gob of thick black blood. “After everything I’ve done—and helped you do? All the plans, all the sacrifices, all the unquestioning obedience—”

Wicked Gold let out a derisive snort, but Cruce kept going.

“All the talk of us being equals! All the promised rewards, all the assurances that it’ll just be a little longer, and I’d be living like half the king you’ve called yourself—the centuries by your side! And what do you do? Forget all about that as soon as you lay eyes on a tasty little treat—”

Cruce wasn’t even trying to stand up anymore, but Wicked Gold gave him another kick for good measure, closer to his head this time.

“You let my tasty, pretty, ripe-and-ready favorite escape,” Wicked Gold continued as if Cruce hadn’t spoken, pacing around him with more purpose now. “And you never got him back. Promised that too, didn’t you? Broke it, didn’t you? And then when Felix got it into his head to fight back when I wasn’t looking, you let him go too! And end up running away while they chase you down, your own thralls! You ran, and from what? Some little girls, some soft, breakable humans, and that—that woman! That witch!”

Cruce wasn’t struggling anymore at all. He wasn’t protesting either. He just lay there, conscious and aware but silent, and very still, like an animal freezing to escape a predator’s notice. It wasn’t working.

“You were too busy having fun to use your head,” Wicked Gold said with a scornful shake of his own. “Or at least the right one. And look where it got you. Not having much fun anymore, are you?”

“I made a mistake,” Cruce said in a low voice, just above a whisper. He’d begun to curl in on himself, nearly into a fetal position, and didn’t look up. “Just one. One, in all these years. I was so sure... that counted for something.”

“Four,” Wicked Gold corrected, crouching to clamp one hand around Cruce’s throat.

Each finger was tipped with a long, viciously pointed silver claw, digging into Cruce’s skin with the audible hiss and wisp of smoke that carried the smell of burned undead flesh. His hand didn’t begin to make it around the larger vampire’s thick neck, but Wicked Gold stood and raised him easily, until Cruce knelt before him once more. When he spoke again his voice wasn’t furious, not sharp, instead something close to gentle, but even more menacing in its savage contrast.

“You lost me four prizes, which is four mistakes too many. I expected better from you. Much better. But I suppose that was my mistake. Now, anything to say? Besides ‘goodbye?’”

Cruce stared back at him, face now free of panic or desperation. Instead his dark eyes were cold and resigned, and now, very tired. He let the silence stretch between them for a few long and tense seconds and stared back into his sire’s eyes, finding no mercy there, no hope for a reprieve, and no question. “What else is left to say?”

Wicked Gold considered this, and him, for a moment, head tilted to one side and eyebrows raised. Then, instead of answering, he gave a one-shouldered shrug and raised his free hand, admiring his deadly silver claws that gleamed in the firelight as brightly as his gold-tipped shoes.

Without a word, he plunged his hand, fingers together, straight and flat like a blade, into Cruce’s chest.

“This isn’t what I wanted either,” he said in a low tone, as thick, black liquid gushed from the gaping hole he’d ripped into Cruce’s chest. It covered his hand as well, but he made no movement to pull it out or wipe it off, not yet. Wicked Gold watched the look of unadulterated agony replace the resignation on Cruce’s face. His own expression until now had alternated between boredom and fury, but now his face twisted into real and pained disappointment.

“God damn you, Cruce,” he said, almost fondly, almost smiling. “You’re right about one thing. We really could have had it all.”

With an ease that bordered on gentleness, Wicked Gold lowered Cruce down until his back hit the ground. The motion almost seemed intimate, like laying down a lover, but it would soon prove lethal. Wicked Gold’s claws had pierced his heart dead-on, each small, pointed tip like a stake from the stories. And, just like in the stories, the silver did its burning work. But that wasn’t the only thing searing Cruce’s undead body from the inside out. Wicked Gold curled his hand into a fist around what remained of Cruce’s heart—it had been said he didn’t have one, but some stories really were just stories—and his hold became a crushing grip.

Then, at last, Cruce’s heart ignited in his palm. Fire licked its way up Wicked Gold’s thin fingers and wrist, forearm up to his elbow, but didn’t seem to burn him in the slightest. The fire also radiated outwards, radiating from the hole in Cruce’s chest like flames across an oil slick. Soon his entire torso was ablaze, and as his tortured eyes and mouth widened, light spilled from them as well.

Wicked Gold held Cruce down for a while longer, watching the flames overtake him and the second, undead life leave his eyes. Then, slowly, he withdrew his hand and stood as the larger vampire shook and spasmed on the ground, letting out helpless and incoherent gasps.

He waited patiently for the wreckage that had once been his thrall to stop its agonized squirms and soft, dying sounds. Even as Cruce burned, his black blood continued to run out onto the ground of the stone circle, which soaked it up unnaturally fast, as if it was dry from a year-long drought instead of regularly dampened by frequent Oregon rain.

Dirty deed done well but not cheaply, Wicked Gold leaned back on his heels, clean hand in his pocket, and waited. For almost a full minute, he stood there, looking expectant but increasingly confused, a thin line appearing between his eyebrows. At one point he checked his shining gold wristwatch—which remained clean. The other hand, the cause of Cruce’s demise, was still covered in the bloody evidence.

“Hm!” the last vampire standing said in an interested but disappointed tone. Heedless of the flames, he leaned forward and gingerly nudged his thrall’s unmoving body with one gold toe. Then, finally, he wiped his dripping hand on one of the last remaining clean sections of Cruce’s jacket. “Well, that didn’t work. I was hoping for some fireworks. Ah well. Still can’t always get what we want. But then, sometimes…”

He straightened up and turned his attention to the pair of figures still standing on the edge of the firelight. The thin young man in the hoodie visibly tensed as Wicked Gold raised one manicured hand to point at him, then beckon him closer with a deliberately curled finger. Black blood didn’t quite drip from it anymore, but it clung beneath his silver nails. It would take quite a while to get it out entirely.

“Sanguine!” Wicked Gold called, sounding much more upbeat than he had a moment ago, as if he hadn’t just killed his longtime partner in vampiric crime and left his remains on the ground. “Come over here.”

At the Latin word and the beckoning hand, the uncomfortable-looking young man stepped forward. He moved slowly and reluctantly, taking his bony hands out of his pockets and quickening his step when Wicked Gold’s summoning gesture became an impatient wave.

“Yes?” His voice was a faint rasp, like he had a bad cold and sorely needed to clear his throat and have a warm drink, or at least get out of the wet Portland-in-winter night that chilled anyone with a pulse to the bone.

“Yes what?” Wicked Gold asked immediately, like an automatic reflex. His cold eyes fell on a long scar stretching from forehead to jaw on the left side of his servant’s face, and he frowned.

“Yes, Lord,” Sanguine said just as quickly, but with an edge of anxiety instead of boredom. Now he dropped to his knees before the vampire, who stood casually over him. He brushed stray bits of matted, ginger red hair over his face, hiding the scar and earning himself a very slight nod. “What can I do for you?”

Wicked Gold didn’t answer, instead just waited for him to figure it out on his own. Sanguine's eyes, blue and feverishly bright, underlined with dark circles, flicked over to Cruce’s remains, and just for a moment, the wary tension in his face was replaced by grim satisfaction. His chapped lips didn’t quite turn up into a smile, instead set in a hard line as he gave an almost imperceptible nod. A small, quiet victory.

Then his anxious gaze followed Wicked Gold’s hand as it reached down toward him, its long fingers and claw-like silver nails. The vampire made as if to stroke his face or play with his untended hair—but at the last second his hand darted forward unnaturally fast to clamp around the young man’s throat and drag him to his feet.

“I know what I did wrong,” Wicked Gold said, conversationally, like they were discussing a business strategy over coffee instead of rainy midnight in the middle of an ominous stone circle with a dead vampire in the center.

Sanguine hadn’t made a sound as the vampire’s hand seized his neck, and he didn’t protest or struggle as the grip tightened now. His only visible reaction was to close his eyes, looking tired and long resigned.

“The spell asked for blood, and shame on me, I thought dead blood might suffice—two birds, one stone, wouldn’t that be nice for once?”

Wicked Gold turned, steering Sanguine at arm’s length by the neck until he stood beside Cruce’s remains, worn and dirty shoes almost stepping in the growing puddle of black, sludgy fluid. He was squeezing too hard for the young man to speak, even if he’d tried to reply. But he didn’t. His knees wobbled, and he surely would have fallen if the vampire hadn’t been holding him up by the throat. Wicked Gold continued his one-sided conversation in the same disarmingly casual tone.

“But no, nothing can ever be that easy, not even for me. Fortunately, I’ve got some of the best blood in town right here. Which means it’s really a shame to waste it—yours is just so sweet, so deliciously addictive, you know how I feel about you by now, Sanguine. Taking of your blood and body...” He put the gathered fingers of his free hand to his lips and kissed them. “Ah, closest thing to heaven my sinner’s soul will ever see. But if I’m right about this circle and its secrets, it’ll be more than worth the loss.”

He raised one claw, caught it in Sanguine’s hoodie collar, and pulled down as if unzipping the thin, worn fabric. It tore easily, exposing his almost translucently pale, freckled skin and jutting collarbone, then sternum, then sunken stomach. All the way down to the sharp angle of his hip and waistband of his torn and filthy jeans that might have at some point been blue. Sanguine let out a long shudder as the claw descended, scraping over his bruised skin but not quite breaking it.

The unfortunate young man still said nothing, and didn’t even attempt to break away, but squeezed his eyes more tightly shut and began to shake. Finished slicing open the rest of the sweatshirt, the vampire lifted his arm until Sanguine’s feet dangled a terrifying few inches off the ground. Wicked Gold raised his other hand, fingers together and outstretched into the shape of a knife, and silver claw-tips shining sharp and deadly.

“This isn’t how I expected it to end, or even wanted it,” he mused, seeming almost regretful, but not enough to release his hold. “But I do always get what I need. Goodbye, Sanguine. It’s been—”

“Wait,” someone said, and it wasn’t the ragged young man in Wicked Gold’s grip, who seemed barely present by this point, limp and paralyzed with terror. The other man stepped forward, the one who’d been leaning against the stones and watching the proceedings without comment until now. He was younger than the vampire by centuries and only slightly older than Sanguine’s early twenties, but much healthier and cleaner. He almost matched the vampire’s lavish ensemble with pale skin, slicked dark hair, immaculate gray suit, and well-shined shoes—just with much less gold.

“What?” Wicked Gold snapped, plainly annoyed at the interruption, but didn’t so much as glance over. His eyes stayed on Sanguine, who trembled violently in his grasp, feet still not touching the ground. His face was starting to regain a bit of color under the dirt, but the redness wasn’t a healthy change; he obviously couldn’t breathe, and tears spilled from his tightly closed eyes.

“That won’t work,” said the observer, striding toward the vampire and his terrified hostage in the middle of the circle.

“What, does it need to be a virgin sacrifice?” Wicked Gold grinned at Sanguine’s flushed and sweating face, and did not loosen his grip in the slightest. “Not much luck there.”

“No virginity necessary,” said the other young man smoothly. “But the sacrifice does need to be willing.”

“A willing sacrifice, for this kind of ritual?” Wicked Gold snorted and tossed his head, rolling his eyes as if the very concept was ridiculous. “You’re pulling my leg, aren’t you... aren’t you...?” He trailed off, snapping his fingers demandingly.

“Owen.”

“Yes, of course, tip of my tongue,” the vampire said with a vague wave that suggested he’d forgotten the name as soon as he’d heard it. “So we’re looking for some sad soul with nothing left to live for, is that it?”

“There are many reasons to volunteer for a sacrifice,” Owen said, keeping his voice and face an impressive neutral. “Despair is only one of them.”

“Mm,” Wicked Gold said, eyes on Sanguine, who still clung stubbornly to consciousness, and now his wrist. “And I suppose you wouldn’t have any of them?”

Instead of waiting for an answer, Wicked Gold opened his hand and let Sanguine fall, legs giving out under him immediately as he crumpled to the ground. The filthy and emaciated young man gasped in desperate lungfuls of air and coughed, lying half-curled into a fetal position.

“I asked you a question,” Wicked Gold said after a few seconds went by, while Sanguine wheezed and sobbed for breath. Aside from his moments of singular and terrifying focus, he’d never had much patience or a very long attention span. “You wouldn’t give up your life willingly, would you, even now? You honestly wouldn’t prefer sweet oblivion?”

He still couldn’t speak, but as violent coughs continued to wrack his frail body, Sanguine gave his head a clear, jerking shake. No.

Wicked Gold scoffed, then reached out with one foot and gave Sanguine a lazy but not overly gentle poke in his sharp-angled ribs. “Amazing. Truly incredible. And what do you have to live for?”

Sanguine tried to form words several times and failed, then finally got one out in a faint, pained whisper. “Summer.”

Wicked Gold gazed down at him for another moment as he shivered in the cold night air, then slowly crouched down. As if sensing his proximity, his captive’s eyes—now red and watery—opened and fixed on his face. As the vampire reached out to cup his chin, Sanguine immediately stopped his gasping and coughing, holding his breath and going perfectly still, like a rabbit freezing inches away from a fox. Wicked Gold looked smug at the obvious terror his presence instilled, but there was a cold fury beneath his relaxed and affable exterior, and his lowered voice held a deadly promise. “I’m afraid you have the wrong priorities.”

“If we’re done here,” Owen interjected from behind him with a slight sigh, the only indication of any frustration or weariness in his placid facade so far. “I do have other things to attend to this evening.”

Wicked Gold stood up straight again and ignored Sanguine, who still lay on his side on the ground, curling around himself. He was now trying to pull the torn shreds of his hoodie closed against the bone-soaking cold, sobbing again, but this time not to catch his breath.

“I suppose sacrificing you is out of the question,” he said to Owen with an appropriately wicked grin.

If the vampire expected the human to react with fear, he was surely disappointed. Owen simply removed his rectangular, silver-rimmed glasses and pulled a spotless cloth from his pocket, cleaning them of some microscopic or nonexistent speck of dust. “Entirely. By the way, it’s the wrong night for such a ritual. The most auspicious one would be in two days.”

Wicked Gold fixed him with a dangerously shrewd gaze, evaluating for any weakness as well as strength. “You’re more daring than the average human, that’s for sure. If not as clever.”

“I work for the Lady,” Owen said simply, like that explained and justified everything. Then he finished cleaning his glasses and replaced them on his face, never breaking his steady stare. “I make it my business to know what’s in her best interests.”

“Both of our interests,” Wicked Gold corrected with a congenial smile. “Since we’re such great friends. Surely what benefits one of us benefits both.”

Owen didn’t reply, or so much as blink. When it was clear he wouldn’t get any kind of response, Wicked Gold shrugged and turned his attention back to the twice-deceased Cruce.

“So, wrong sacrifice, wrong date, that was a waste of a perfectly good evening,” he said, sounding regretful of the time lost at least, if not the deed itself. “You couldn’t have told me it wouldn’t work a minute earlier?”

“He needed to die. I saw no reason to stand in the way,” Owen deadpanned, only giving Cruce’s body the briefest of glances. “So you were right about one thing after all.”

“Oh,” Wicked Gold chuckled, sounding surprised and tickled by the novelty. Still lying on the ground, Sanguine let out a harsh noise that might have been a laugh as well. “How delightfully pragmatic. I may like you after all.”

Owen simply stared at him with a perfectly blank expression, clearly not deigning to dignify that with a response either. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I’ve wasted too much time here as it is.”

With that, he turned and walked away, neatly stepping over Cruce’s remains and keeping his still-gleaming shoes clean.

Wicked Gold watched Owen disappear outside the fire’s light, benign smile quickly turning into a calculating stare sharp enough to bore holes in his retreating back.

“There’s something he’s not saying,” he muttered. “Don’t you think?”

“I... don’t know,” said Sanguine, finally finding his weak and rasping voice. He shakily climbed to his feet, every movement pained and hesitant. His hoodie was little more than rags, and tear tracks left clean streaks down his filthy face. He didn’t move away, but he kept his wary eyes on the vampire, clearly scared of being choked again, or sacrificed after all.

“There is,” Wicked Gold concluded, and if he’d expressed any fondness for Owen earlier, any hint of that appreciation was gone now. “He’s holding out on us. Probably has to do with Our Lady, still walking around thinking she’s the queen. If I was really lucky, the conniving little bore would get struck by lightning in a minute.”

Sanguine did not answer or look up, as if unable to move until his next instruction. But he’d definitely heard the dark intent under the flippant words; his shiver might have been blamed on his lack of defense against the cold night, but the way he shied away just a bit could not.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Wicked Gold said with a good-natured-sounding chuckle. “I’ve never gained anything by being hasty. Besides, you remember what happened the last time I asked you to clean up a mess. Disaster. No, I want your focus on the other fly in my soup: the Witch. She’s up to something, and I want to know what. I’m sure she feels the same about me. Always nice to be thought of. If all else fails, just ask her, and she might actually tell you. She always did love to hear herself talk.” He gave Sanguine the same deceptively wholesome and self-deprecating smile he’d given Cruce. “Can’t possibly relate.”

“Yes, Lord,” Sanguine said, but he looked sick at the thought. He hesitated again, then spoke in a rush, getting it over with before he lost his nerve. “But are you sure that’s necessary? She could just be—oh.”

By the time he looked back over, Wicked Gold was gone, disappeared without sound or ceremony as he was prone to doing, particularly when he considered a matter closed.

Then the light was gone too. The bonfire hissed completely out once the vampire was gone, like it had been doused with bucketfuls of water. The circle plunged into darkness, leaving Sanguine alone with Cruce’s body, which still hemorrhaged black fluid. Aside from a startled jump he didn’t move, instead just standing there shivering, as if frozen with indecision as well as freezing cold.

When he finally moved, it was to give Cruce’s body one last, swift kick, then another, and another, until his strength gave out and he panted with exertion. Unlike Wicked Gold’s blows, it didn’t shift the huge man’s remains at all, but a grim, satisfied smile still spread across Sanguine’s thin face.

“Outlived you after all, fucker,” he whispered to the body. “I’m still here.”

Then the first raindrop smacked squarely on his forehead, making him jump again, and seem to remember where he was. As he scrambled to leave the macabre scene, he flipped up his hood, taking refuge beneath the single undamaged piece of his sweatshirt. A misty and slow-soaking Oregon rain began to fall, white noise filling the unnatural silence. Vampire corpses tended to be quick to decay, and if the rain held, the murder site would be washed clean of most evidence.

The stone circle, however, would still be here, filled with strange and ominous power, and waiting for its requirement to be fulfilled.

 

 

Far away, at the moment Cruce expired, two befanged girls woke up with simultaneous starts and yelps. With the night almost over and the sun close to rising, they’d just barely settled down into a peaceful daytime sleep, physically-teenage human forms curled up around each other.

But now they both sat bolt upright and clutched at one another, wide-eyed and startled thoroughly awake. As they exchanged a frantic stare, words began spilling out of both their mouths, all jumbled together. Still, they understood each other perfectly, in fact better than ever in the past century and a half.

“Did you—”

“Yeah, what was—”

“It felt like—”

“Him!”

They both went silent and still for a couple stunned seconds. Then Nails, spiked blonde hair even spikier from sleep, started to laugh. More like giggle, the kind of sound that was perfectly natural coming from a teenage girl, but not this one in particular. Her shoulders shook as she tried to keep quiet, raising a hand to her mouth, fingers tipped with appropriately pointed fingernails, but she couldn’t, laughter overwhelming her. As Maestra pulled Nails closer and buried her face in her neck, she was laughing too, eyes squeezed shut and tearing. They held each other and shook, until neither of them could tell if they were laughing or crying anymore.

Finally, they fell silent, still clinging together and holding perfectly still, as if trying to elude detection by some stalking hunter. The quiet in the Sunset Towers apartment they shared with their friend and rescuer Letizia was near-complete. Only faint birdsong broke it, preceding a burning sunrise that wouldn’t come close to reaching them in their dark, safe room with its blacked-out windows and nearby friends. Nothing bad or dangerous could. They were safe, a condition with which they were both sadly unfamiliar.

And now, perhaps, they were even safer.

“Raphael?” Nails asked after a while in a shaking voice, using the name nobody else used, that no one but the two of them had said in one hundred fifty years. Wicked Gold and Cruce didn’t tend to look on their thralls as individuals with names, which was just as well. It meant Raphael had never heard her precious, second, self-chosen name in either of their foul voices, only the one she loved to hear most. It was clean and free, just like her. “Do you really think he’s…?”

“I don’t know,” Maestra—this was her third name, the most casual, most everyday, still self-chosen but not as secret as ‘Raphael,’ not as sacred—replied, fiddling nervously with the end of one of her many neat, dark braids.

“Me neither,” Nails said—that wasn’t her original name either, nor the deepest and most personal. She wiped off her wet face with one forearm. Vampires might not bleed like humans, but they still cried like them. “But I don’t really remember what it’s like to not have him… here. Do you?”

Raphael didn’t answer. They stayed silent for almost another full minute, listening and reaching out with their minds into the dark, nearly unconscious mental realms where until now had lurked only monsters.

“Aletta,” she said softly after a while of unbroken, unprecedented silence, both inside and out of their heads. Raphael said the name like a prayer, and Aletta answered it, eyes flicking immediately up to her face. Some people had public and private pronouns, some had names. Like ‘Maestra,’ she wore the name ‘Nails’ like a favorite jacket, familiar and comfortable and warm. Just one that she sometimes took off when they were alone. And now, for the first time in several lifetimes, they were finally, truly alone. “I think he’s gone.”

“Like gone-gone? Dead gone?”

“Dead gone,” Raphael said in a marveling tone. “Dead for good this time. Let’s be real, if he was alive at all, he’d still be haunting us, but it’s so quiet. It’s just… so quiet.”

“Wow,” Aletta said, more an awed sigh than a word. “We’re really free.”

They lapsed into silence once more, neither quite knowing what to do with this information. Soon they’d probably explode into joyous energy, yelling and dancing and somersaulting through the air the way only Olympic gymnasts and average vampires could do—but for now, just sitting with it felt like the right thing.

“My head feels weird,” Raphael said eventually, hesitation creeping back into her voice. Always a little more reserved than her girlfriend and fang-sister, a little less impulsive, less outspoken, more pensive. “It’s like, everything’s louder and clearer, except when I try to remember things, does that make sense?”

She trailed off, but Aletta was already nodding, looking around at their safe, small room as if it were the first time she’d seen it. “Yeah. This”—she patted Raphael’s leg—”is real. I can see and feel everything really clearly, like, better than before. But everything else, like literally everything before right now, it’s like—”

“A dream,” Raphael finished slowly. “We live here now, with… Letizia. That’s our friend. She saved us. She’s a witch, and we have other friends too. We were supposed to get up to work at the Pit tomorrow. But I don’t…”

“Shit,” Aletta whispered. “I can kind of see their faces, but it’s like nothing’s attached. Why did we forget? I know we forgot things, just not what!”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s because he—what do you think killed him?” Raphael asked. “Do you think it was…?”

“I don’t know,” Aletta repeated, clearly not daring to voice the possibility or the name—even if the vampire in question had gone by many—on both their minds, but sounding apprehensive as well. Whatever had killed Cruce, their sire and a very powerful vampire in his own right, would surely mean nothing good for the two of them. “Can you go back to sleep?”

“No. You?”

“No,” Aletta said, starting to wiggle out from under the covers. “Let’s tell Letizia right now. Maybe she can help with whatever’s going on in our heads too.”

“Wait,” Raphael stopped her, pulling Aletta back into their messy bed-nest. “Not yet.”

“Why not? She’ll believe us. She’s always believed us.”

“I know, just...” Raphael paused, looking down and clearly troubled. Aletta settled back in beside her, curling up like a cat against her side, content for once to lie still and wait until she found the words. “Once we tell her, she’ll want to research it and check it all out, and tell everyone else, and it’ll start a whole big thing. I just kind of want to enjoy it for a while. I want it to be just our thing for a little bit.”

Aletta nodded so Raphael could feel it. “Yeah. That sounds good. Hey,” she said, sitting half-upright and propping herself up on her elbow, looking down at the other newly freed vampire girl with a smile on her face that would have been sharp even without the fangs. “I think I know the first thing we should do.”

Raphael was already rising to kiss her before she finished talking. They connected almost too fast, fangs clicking together, but quickly melted into something softer, slower, and utterly relaxed with the automatic knowledge that they fit together perfectly—the way they had longer than any human had been alive.

“You guessed right,” Aletta sighed when they finally broke apart.

“This was the first one,” Raphael murmured as their foreheads rested together. She’d had her eyes closed until now, but now she opened them like waking up to a new night. Aletta’s bright grin was the first thing she saw, like it always should be. “First free kiss in forever. The first one that’s just ours, just the two of us, he’s not here in our heads. He’s not here, it’s just us.”

“Yeah it is.” Aletta giggled again, and again the wave of joy and relief threatened to overflow, too big for a small vampire, so big she might burst. “I can’t wait to tell everyone!”

“Me neither,” Raphael replied, knowing that some things would remain secret, private, no matter what else they shared with others. Like their names. When they went out into the world again, they would be Nails and Maestra once more. Aletta and Raphael lived here, for the two of them alone—but in those hours, they lived lifetimes. “Wow, there’s just so much we have to do—we’ve got so much time to make up for, I don’t even know what to think about first!”

“I’ve got an idea.” Aletta pulled her into another kiss, and a thousand bright futures melted away in favor of a sweet, perfect here and now.

It would take a long time to make up for one hundred fifty years, but by the time the sun came up in earnest—though hidden behind a merciful overcast sky—they were off to a good start.

 

 

A lot had changed in Jude’s apartment, and his life, since someone had crashed through his window and into his orderly world a few months ago.

The window had long since been repaired, now covered with a black shade that managed to shut out today’s early morning rays, bright and rare after a common, rainy night. Where the fridge had once been neglected and largely empty except for condiment afterthoughts, it now held not only actual food, but an abundance of red bottles of The Pit’s local specialty sauce, and although there were just as many locks on the door, no stake or holy water waited in any drawer.

No loud music came from the apartment above, either. Jude no longer needed to bang on the ceiling to get someone to turn it down, though it had rarely worked anyway. It was quiet overhead—Pixie had been on the edge of eviction as it was, he’d learned. Now, the place had been taken back and given to quieter tenants, and almost all of Pixie’s things were gone. Except for the treasured old guitar and small amp that leaned against the far wall.

Most nights and early mornings were quiet now—aside from lingering nightmares. The sound of ocean waves and memory of stones jutting toward the sky stayed in his head as he got out of bed, remaining a vaguely unsettling white-noise soundtrack to the rest of his life.

Jude secured his prosthetic leg with practiced ease and finished putting on his uniform for the last time. Today was a very special day for him as a mall security officer—his last day. The one he’d been looking forward to since his first day. He’d taken off more and more time to help Pixie adjust, and finally decided to just make it official, so he’d done it. He’d turned in his notice, and now he was free. Or would be, after just a few hours. And first he had to leave without disturbing his new roommate.

Jude stepped as quietly as possible to his bedroom door. Pixie hadn’t had the easiest time sleeping lately, and Jude would have sooner crashed back out his own window than risk waking him up. With adorable, sensitive ears like Pixie’s, even a small noise meant he wouldn’t be asleep for long. He was almost always up before Jude, always said goodbye when he went to work, at least when Jude actually went to work.

There was something nice about telling someone he’d be home soon, and knowing they’d be there waiting for him. Home wasn’t just his anymore; it was both of theirs. It felt right in a way little else did.

He didn’t make it out the door before the screams started.

Jude almost jumped right into the air, only keeping still through the power of freeze over fight or flight. Yells—more like cries—rang through the small apartment, high-pitched and terrified. The noise was muffled, but definitely coming from inside this room, and the only possible place within it.

In searching online for suitably coffin-like containers that would make a vampire feel safe and protected from any rogue sunbeams, Jude had come across the idea of a captain’s bed, with drawers for extra storage space underneath. Finding one big enough to fit a human could have been a major expense, but local message boards came to the rescue, as did Pixie’s enhanced vampire strength when it came to getting the thing up to the third floor.

Now Jude rushed up to it, falling to his knees and knocking urgently on the oak-paneled drawer under his bed. “Pixie? Are you okay?”

No answer came from inside, except for more scuffling noises and soft, muffled cries.

Jude only hesitated for a heart-pounding second—he’d never invaded Pixie’s sleep like this before, didn’t like the idea at all—before pulling open the drawer, revealing one smallish, chubby, pink-haired vampire, thrashing like he’d been struggling to get out but had forgotten how, eyes squeezed shut and forearms raised to protect his head. It gave Jude an uncomfortably clear view of the vaguely star-shaped, silver-burn scars still visible on both the palms and backs of Pixie’s hands.

“Pixie?” Jude slowly reached out to touch one of his hands, but it didn’t seem to make a difference. Even more tentatively, he laid a hand on Pixie’s chest, hoping the slight pressure would be enough.

“What? J—” Pixie gasped, then cut himself off. Even though vampires didn’t need to breathe—and sometimes forgot to, which Jude would never get used to—his chest rose and fell sporadically as he sucked in automatic, near-panicked breaths. Slowly, he brought his arms down and lay still. “Jude. Hey. Hi. What’s, uh. What’s up?”

“You were having a nightmare,” Jude said as gently as he could. He started to take his hand back from Pixie’s chest, but Pixie reached out, caught it, and held on. Jude felt warm inside. “At least it sounded like one.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it was. Thanks for waking me up. That was… not fun.” Pixie’s exhaustion and lingering adrenaline was as obvious as the understatement.

“Didn't sound like it,” Jude said. Now he wanted nothing more than to spend the day right here, until Pixie stopped shaking and either slept peacefully again or smiled. There were too many things that could invade his dreams, and too many of them were real. Unfortunately, he didn’t know the right way to ask Pixie about them, or if there even was a right way. Or a way for him to help. “Listen, I don’t even really have to go in today…”

“What?” Pixie blinked up at him, looking confused—then embarrassed.

Letting out a mortified little whine, he covered his face with his hands, hiding in the bandana he always wore around his neck to cover the worst of his visible scars.

Jude had to smile a little; years ago, Jasper and Felix had once made the mistake of teaching him poker, and the ease with which he’d cleaned them out surprised all three. Jude had resting poker face, Felix had said, and he’d decided to take it as a compliment. Pixie would never have such a chance—Jude doubted he had ever been able to successfully hide an emotion. There were things Pixie kept to himself, Jude knew, but not the way he felt about them.

“Nooo, no!” Pixie said. “I don’t want to get you in trouble!”

“What are they going to do, fire me?” Jude asked with a rare smirk. “I’m quitting, remember? And even if I weren’t, it still wouldn’t be a big deal. I have… quite a few paid vacation days piled up.”

“A few? You’ve never taken a day off in your life, have you?” Pixie asked, smiling a little. “Until recently, I mean. And now you’re quitting your job. You shouldn’t have to do all this just to take care of me and all my crap.”

“It’s no trouble,” Jude said, smirk turning into an actual smile. “If anything, you’re giving me the excuse I needed to actually walk away for good. I never wanted to be a cop—”

“You never were a cop. You think I’d be into you if you were? You tried to keep kids from skateboarding inside. Badly.”

“Or anything like one—”

“A-C-A-B,” Pixie sang, giving him a finger-gun with every letter. “We’ll make a punk out of you yet!”

“Don’t push it. But seriously, I’m not broken up about quitting, it was just an easy paycheck while I tried to prove vampires were real.”

“Well, I guess you’ve done that,” Pixie said, picking at a spot on the back of one gray hand.

“Right. And now I can spend my time on the important things—like protecting this city from actual evil, whether that’s vampires or witches or whatever else. You have no idea how glad I am to turn in this badge and start to do some good!”

Pixie tilted his head. “You don’t have a badge.”

“It’s a figure of speech.”

“Sure,” Pixie said with a good-natured roll of his eyes. “But you really don’t have to worry about me—I’m fine. Really.”

“Okay,” Jude said, reluctantly getting up. “If you’re sure. Try to get some more sleep.”

“Um, wait, actually—can I go with you instead?” Pixie asked, a little hesitantly, as if expecting Jude to say no, with a sharp bite of irritation for good measure. A few months ago, he might have. Now, he couldn’t imagine rewarding such a shy request with anything but yes. “I just kind of… don’t want to be alone right now.”

Pixie did tend to spend most of his time in the apartment—Jude and his friends had saved him from one immediate threat, but that didn’t mean there weren’t others lying in wait, even if Pixie wasn’t ready to talk about them. Or that the memories had yet faded. The scars on Pixie’s hands hadn’t yet either, even if they were mostly healed by now. Thanks to the silver damage, they might never.

“Sure, I don’t think Eva would mind you tagging along while I make my final rounds,” Jude said, simultaneously heart-warmed and worried. Jude had never gotten the sense that he was missed, or had anyone waiting for him to get home, until now. Pixie wanting to spend the day with him was… nice. Even if the reason for it wasn’t. “Though you might want to put on some longer sleeves. Where’s your going-out hat?”

“Not like that. Pocket?” Pixie asked hopefully, visibly brightening at the thought. Even his large, pointed ears seemed a little perkier. “Kinda feel like an all-day cuddle might make a nice nap.”

“Sure.” Jude didn’t try to hide his Pixie-related smiles anymore. Even sleep-deprived and shaky, the uncommonly sweet and squishy vampire was ridiculously cute in a way Jude would probably always have trouble articulating, and once would have found embarrassing. Now he couldn’t imagine living without it.

Now he held out his hand, which Pixie took—and Jude’s eyes slipped again over to the clear white scar on the back of Pixie’s gray hand. He felt a pang at the memory of the wound, and an urge to soothe it. He wanted to pull Pixie into his arms, hold him tight until he smiled again, but held back. He’d been doing that a lot lately.

They hadn’t kissed, or even held each other that closely since their first adventure had ended and they’d decided Pixie would stay here. It had been wonderful, one of the best feelings Jude could remember, but there seemed to be no place for it now. Pixie was troubled and seemed to be waiting for him to make the first move. But something about initiating a touch like that—and being misunderstood, overstepping, scaring or hurting Pixie, after everything he’d been through—was unimaginable. So they stayed where they were, which right now seemed to be nowhere.

But before he could say or do anything, or the silence become awkward, Pixie disappeared. In an instant, there was a fuzzy bat with oversized ears nestled in the palm of Jude’s hand. Still pink, still chubby, and still adorable. He gave the ridiculously-cute creature a gentle head rub with one finger, before carefully placing it in his jacket’s inside pocket.

Hoping the day would bring Pixie a better rest than the night had, Jude headed out the door. He’d never imagined the small, warm weight in his pocket, slightly squirmy as the bat got comfortable, would be so reassuring. Or that he would feel so solid and confident in his own skin, despite his confusion about what exactly lay between the two of them.

When he’d told Pixie it was okay, he meant it, and believed it, something he hadn’t been able to do for five years. Even if both of their dreams were still troubled, for the first time in those five years, he was tentatively, genuinely happy.

But he’d be even happier when his last shift was done.

 

 

Despite his apathy and general disdain for his job, Jude was enough of a perfectionist that he’d never actually been late for work before, but he probably would be now—and he didn’t care. In fact, instead of heading right down the stairwell, he stopped a couple doors down from his apartment, knocking even though he knew it probably wasn’t necessary. Not with heightened vampire senses. He also didn’t really expect the door to actually open, but that wouldn’t stop him from trying.

“Jasper?” he called tentatively, keenly aware of how loud his voice was in the quiet, early morning corridor.

He only called the one name, though Felix’s sat just on the tip of his tongue too. Even if there was nobody else in the hall, he still didn’t want to yell anything incriminating, or indicative that there might be not-quite-dead people sharing the space with their living counterparts.

“I’m on my way to work. Last day. So I just thought I’d say hello to... uh, you. See if you were okay, and… everything.”

Jude slapped his forehead with his palm and dragged it down his face. Of course he wasn’t okay. And now, for the first time since he could remember when talking to Jasper, Jude felt incredibly self-conscious, standing out here in an empty hall. Like he was imposing. Never something he wanted to do to his friends, especially after they’d gone through everything Jasper and Felix had.

“I’ll see you later,” he said with a chagrined shake of his head, and started to walk away when he heard the unexpected sound of locks clicking open from inside. Jude stopped mid-step and turned back around. Despite himself, he felt an excited flutter in his chest, a foolish but irresistible hope, as the door opened wide enough to show Jasper’s face.

“Jude,” Jasper said, a tired smile spreading across his face at the sight of him. “It’s been too long.”

“Hi,” Jude said, keeping his voice down despite the empty hallway. Old paranoia died hard, and besides, it looked like Jasper could use as much quiet as he could get. “Just thought I’d drop by, check on… everything.”

Like Pixie, his old friend looked drawn, as if he hadn’t slept well. Jasper really hadn’t slept well in years, Jude knew, but this seemed like a different, less-despairing kind of tired, a mild improvement over the bone-weary grief and exhaustion than had dogged his every step before their lives had been turned upside-down for the second time. They all kept different hours now, living with vampires. Jude often felt the same jetlag-like sleepiness, since the rest of the world didn’t function according to their timetable anymore. But even if his monthly coffee expenses increased, it was a small price to pay.

“Is he, uh…?” Jude asked, raising his eyebrows in lieu of voicing any unwise specifics.

“He heard you,” Jasper said, not altogether happily, sounding a bit disappointed but a lot more resigned.

“Good, that’s good.”

“He’s just not…”

“No, no, I understand. No pressure. On him or you.”

Jude fidgeted a little. He felt awkward in a way he wasn’t used to, not around Jasper. And at one time, not around his fiancé—was ‘fiancé’ even the right word anymore? So many things had been put on hold or dropped entirely, and it was more than a little unsettling to realize that Jude didn’t know if this was one of them. That was another change, the distance between the three of them, but at least it was far preferable to the pangs of grief and regret he’d felt whenever he thought of Felix until recently.

They’d almost been something, back then, the three of them. Just barely been on the cusp of defining what.

They’d kissed, once. Him, Jasper, and Felix. The night they’d asked him to be their best man. A sense memory of warmth and touch and taste he didn’t let himself think about very often; it was painful and confusing as much as pleasant. He’d melted into both of them, felt overcome by belonging and rightness for one wild minute—and then overthought it. As he did everything.

Jude had made stammered excuses and run away, and they’d never had a chance to actually talk any of this through.

Because the very next night, it was a full moon and Felix was dead.

Now, what felt like a lifetime later, Jude felt like he’d been dropped right back into that “almost” state, questioning and between and uncertain.

He’d loved both of them. Still did. And they still loved him, in a way that made his head spin, impossible to make sense of.

And now here was Pixie, in his pocket and close to his heart, wonderful and good and making everything so, so much harder to figure out.

Figuring out attractions and connections between three people was hard enough even if you weren’t an autistic, gray-ace-and-aro-spec—demisexual, demiromantic, he thought; sex and romance were non-considerations with everyone but three people in the world, but oh, he was starting to consider them now—trans guy who forgot how words worked and froze up when he got overwhelmed… which was unfortunately often.

“We always want you around, Jude, it’s just…” Jasper trailed off again, as if he didn’t have the energy for things like complete sentences.

“No, I get it, don’t worry. I’ve got, uh, company too.” Jude gently patted his pocket and felt an answering wiggle.

“Try again later,” Jasper said, not unkindly, and he sounded optimistic at least. Still, Jude could practically feel the worry coming off him along with the fatigue. “He’s sleeping right now—finally. He didn’t get much yesterday.”

“Seems like nobody’s getting much sleep right now.” Jude’s brow furrowed a bit. He couldn’t see the rest of Jasper, but he began to suspect it wasn’t just fatigue making his old friend look especially drawn; he looked like he’d lost weight around his face and worry began to coil in the pit of Jude’s stomach.

“Indeed.” Jasper was deadpan—a good sign for him—but Jude could only imagine what Felix’s sleepless days were like, for either of them. He didn’t ask, and he had the feeling Jasper appreciated it. After all this time there just wasn’t much they could hide from one another, but sometimes they still had to make an attempt.

“Nightmares?” Jude did have to ask that part, feeling his ever-present twinge of worry intensify a little. This wouldn’t be out of the ordinary, even if everything else was, he told himself. Of course Felix and Pixie would both have nightmares; it would be more unusual if they didn’t. Still, he was hard-wired to pay attention to coincidences, and not to trust them.

“Bad ones,” Jasper said. “But I mean it, please do try again later. And try not to take it too personally. It isn’t just you, Jude, Eva was by earlier and he wouldn’t see her either. I know he misses you, and I think he’s getting closer to surfacing again. He just needs...”

“Some time, yeah,” Jude nodded and picked up where Jasper trailed regretfully off.

It was almost a script by now. They’d had that same interaction almost every day ever since they’d gotten Felix home, so this hardly came as a surprise by now. He also understood Felix’s urge to withdraw, but he couldn’t say it didn’t hurt, knowing Felix was alive and right here, but still too far away to touch, still buried too deep for Jude to speak to him and start to make up for all their lost time. They’d all lost time, even if they hadn’t lost each other in the end.

“I’ll talk to you after work,” Jude said, trying to inject some positivity into his tone. He never could tell if he really succeeded. “Tell him... I’m thinking about him.”

“I definitely will.” Jasper smiled gently, and for just a moment, he looked like himself again. Jude hoped he also got the sleep he obviously needed, and that Felix found some peace of mind. Maybe Jude would be able to tell Felix himself soon. It didn’t hurt to hope, at least, another lesson he’d learned hard and well.

“Just… don’t give up on him,” Jasper said. “Or us. Please.”

“Never,” Jude said without hesitation. “I’ll be right here when he’s ready. When both of you are.”

“That’s all I can ever ask,” Jasper said as Jude started to go. “And Jude, wait—”

“Yes?” He stopped, turning around quickly, and surprising himself with a wave of anticipation and hope. He missed Jasper, and Felix, more than he was comfortable letting himself acknowledge; something about pining after them when they were dealing with so much uncertainty and pain felt intrusive. But he did, and he hung on Jasper’s every word.

“Did I hear it was your last day?”

“You did, yeah.”

Jasper grinned, and he looked even more like himself now, bright-eyed and mischievous. “Make it a good one. If you’ve ever dreamed about keying a deserving colleague’s car, now would be the time.”

“I’m deciding that I didn’t hear that suggestion of malicious vandalism,” Jude said, looking pointedly up toward the ceiling. “Because I’m not done yet.”

“No, you’re not—and neither are we. I’ll see you soon.”

As Jasper quietly closed the door, Jude gave a parting wave and headed down the hall toward the stairwell, forcing himself to leave his worries behind him. Some, at least.