There’s fire on all sides but that’s not what Jude is afraid of. It’s under control. It’s an intimidating blaze, but nothing they haven’t dealt with before. It’s familiar, even. And so is the place—he’s been here before. They all have. The last time he saw it, though, it wasn’t a construction site with newly-erected beams, it was a church. The last time they were here, Felix asked Jasper to marry him. It’s surreal to see the change, even if the night feels the same, as if no time has passed. The moon is just as full and bright overhead.

But two things are strange. Wrong.

The first is that this fire shouldn’t be here at all. The derelict building burned to the ground a month ago and in its place stands scaffolding—a new foundation, the bare skeleton of the project to come. Construction hasn’t been completed, or even begun in earnest. There are no walls, no carpets, no insulation.

There’s nothing to burn, yet fire blazes on every surface.

The second thing is harder to articulate. Jude is overcome with unease, not from being inside, with flames all around, but looking out. The walls are unfinished, so it’s easy to see the dark sky and bright moon beyond. It’s too clear, he thinks. The boundary between cool night air outside and the inferno in here is too perfect. It’s like they’re walled in with fire, neat and clean. It means something.

He doesn’t have time to think what. Jasper cries out suddenly and Jude whirls in time to see something rush at him, something dark, indistinct, but horribly solid.

Jasper’s head whips back like he’s been shot in the forehead. Then he goes down, falling backwards in a graceful arc while his helmet flies in the opposite direction. The entire full-face mask has somehow been ripped clean off his head. He seems to hang in the air forever, but it’s still too fast. He’s on the ground before Jude can move.

Jude recovers quickly, world shrinking to Jasper falling. Nothing exists but this—not the fire and not the elusive, too-fast shape. He sprints as fast as possible in his heavy suit and helmet, scrambling across the uneven construction site ground to get to where Jasper lies, face-up but much too still.

Adrenaline slams through Jude’s veins as panic threatens to overwhelm him. He calls Jasper’s name, but gets no reply. Jasper doesn’t move. Then Jude is on the radio, yelling for Felix and Eva, before it can fully hit him that Jasper isn’t moving, and his eyes aren’t opening. Jude frantically searches for his lost helmet, respirator mask, can’t find anything, he has to work fast because he knows if he stops for half a second to think about this, he’ll freeze, and they’ll both be dead.

Where the hell is Eva? In a helicopter a mile out, far up in the sky. Jude has never hated their formation so much. And where is Jasper’s goddamn helmet? It can’t just be gone, the way whatever-it-was had hit him and disappeared, that didn’t just happen, that was impossible too—

“I’m coming,” Felix says, voice loud in Jude’s in-helmet radio, cutting through the roar of the fire and the static in Jude’s head. “Almost to you, just hold on. What happened? Is he all right?”

“I don’t know,” Jude says desperately, even as relief floods through him at the sound of Felix’s voice. He clings to it. He isn’t alone here, help is on the way. “Something hit him, too fast to see what. Just one minute he’s standing, the next he’s down.”

“Something hit him—you mean it fell? Room check, Jude. Do you think it’s coming down?”

“No, no, not the building, something in the building with us!” Definitely on the edge of panic now. Jasper was hit hard enough to knock him out, helmet or no. Don’t move people with head or neck injuries, Jude knows that, but what’s the greater danger here? Possibly making the damage worse, or the definite threat of smoke inhalation? Jude takes a breath and tries to be coherent. “Felix, where are you? Jasper needs to get out of here, but I don’t want to move him alone, I can’t tell exactly where he’s hurt!”

“Don’t worry, Jude.” Bless Felix. Bless his sweet voice and the way it eases Jude’s clamoring mind when nothing else can. He’s so scared it almost hurts, but he listens to Felix’s voice, wraps himself up in it, and he can breathe. “Everything’s going to be fine. I’m right here and Eva’s on her way. Just stay with him, please.”

“Yeah, yes, okay,” Jude says immediately. He still can’t tell what in the world hit Jasper but he forces himself to look up. Nothing else is falling or flying, the room looks stable, even if his brain keeps screaming that it shouldn’t be on fire, nothing to burn, where is it coming from? Nothing feels real. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“And neither am I. I see you!” Jude looks up to see Felix’s suit-bulky silhouette framed in the space where a wall should be. No fire behind him, only the dark night sky. Jude’s never seen anything more beautiful in his life. Weak with relief, Jude feels himself smile as he moves to carefully drape one of Jasper’s arms over his shoulder. Felix will take the other one and they’ll all be out safe in a minute. “Hey, Jude.”

“Hey yourself.” Felix is the only one who can get away with that. The only one who doesn’t sound mocking when he does it, only ever warm. No one else is allowed.

Felix steps toward him and Jasper, bringing relief and rescue with every step. Jude’s never been particularly lucky, but everyone gets at least one good thing in their life, and this is his. He’s not alone.

Then he sees it. Felix doesn’t. Someone is behind him, standing over his shoulder. Entirely calm amid the flames. Another wrong thing in a night full of impossible things going wrong.

Jude freezes, and so does his blood. Below his rising panic, he catches a glimpse of fangs.

“Felix,” he starts, staring at the bizarre, incongruous, impossible apparition. He doesn’t get to finish. Jude barely has time to register the deadly, needle-pointed canines and the curving, razor-edged claws glinting silver at the edge of the long, thin arms, before the creature is on him.

It moves in a blur. The attack is brutal, and lashes from the dark so fast his head spins. By the time Jude realizes what’s happening, it’s too late.

The first impact is to the center of his chest. Air rushing from his lungs, he staggers backwards. Then his feet leave the ground, and an iron grip latches around his ankle. Something stabs his calf, pierces through his reinforced suit, starts clawing its way up his leg. Before he can scream, a new, horribly sharp pain shoots from his knee down, up, everywhere. There is nothing but pain. It’s white-hot, nauseating, dizzying, agony beyond anything he imagined his brain was capable of processing. It fills the entire world. It becomes him.

Under the pain and his own screams, he hears something rip. Maybe his suit. Maybe himself. Maybe he’s being torn apart, skin from bone. Something slams into him from behind. The floor. He’s on his back, staring up at the stars through a hole in the unfinished ceiling. Stars rush down to meet him—no. Eyes. Bright gold-gleaming, alien in their intelligent chill. The only thing he recognizes in them is a glint of laughter.

Just as suddenly, he’s free. Whatever had its claws sunk into him is gone. The release is just as shocking as the stabbing torment.

He hears someone screaming his name.

Felix?

It doesn’t matter.

It’s not really happening. Nothing is real except pain.

Still, Jude struggles to sit up and look down. His leg is nothing. There’s nothing below his knee but air. Blood pours out, turning the floor dark, slick, shining. Too fast. Bracing himself against a fresh surge of blazing agony, he curls around himself and clamps down on his ruined leg, but he might as well be trying to stop the bleeding with a Band-Aid. It’s coming out much too fast, injuries like this, there’s not much time. He knows it in a detached kind of way. He should be more upset, terrified, but even the pain is finally fading. Everything seems too far away to worry about.

Everything except for Felix, standing in the middle of the room. His back is to Jude. Why won’t he turn around and help? Did he see the shocking amount of blood and know it’s already too late?

Felix is yelling something, Jude thinks, numb. He can’t understand words anymore.

But the thing is still out there, the thing with the claws and fangs. He catches sight of golden eyes across the room and realizes Felix is standing directly between it and him.

The monster looks human. A man standing still, as before, calm amid the flames. Not one of them, no heavy suit. He’s leaning a little to one side, head cocked under the wide brim of a hat, it looks like his hands are casually in his pockets. Jude wouldn’t be surprised to hear a cheerful whistle. Instead, he dimly wonders how another person could do this to them. How it’s even possible for someone to stand in the middle of a fire and not burn.

Jude never sees the man move. He sees him raise one hand, straight out from his body to point directly at Felix—but Jude never sees him rush forward. He moves too fast. One moment he stands across the room, the next…

His hand is sunk wrist-deep into Felix’s chest. Like his hand is a blade, razor-edged, wickedly pointed claws puncturing Felix’s suit, flesh, and bone. It’s impossible, Jude thinks as he watches Felix jerk to stand unnaturally straight upright, rigid with shock.

None of this should be happening. A man should not move in a blur through a fire and stab someone with his bare hand. It shouldn’t be Felix and it shouldn’t be like this. Jasper should be awake with them. Eva should be here. Jude doesn’t understand any of this, but he knows this is not how it was supposed to happen.

The man rips his hand back out and it’s almost as brutal as the stab in. Jude feels his own heart clench in response. His leg doesn’t hurt anymore. All the pain has gravitated to his chest and it feels like his heart is shattering into a thousand tiny, sharp-edged pieces.

Felix falls.

He doesn’t fly backwards like Jasper in an arc. Instead, his legs just collapse under him and he drops like a sack of bricks. Felix sprawls across the floor, long limbs bent at strange angles, thick-gloved hand landing so near Jude’s face that, if he was just strong enough, he could reach out and take it.

Jasper is still unconscious, mercifully, behind him. Felix is worse than unconscious, he has to be. And Jude can feel himself slipping away, the edges of his vision going dark. It’s only when his eyes sting and blur that he realizes he’s crying.

The floor is a vertical horizon. Lost, spinning, Jude watches as black-and-metallic wing-tip shoes stride toward his face, like walking down a wall in zero gravity. Somehow, even amid the smoke, fire and blood, they’re clean. With each step, he catches a flash of gold.

The man casually strolls over to where they all lie in a bloodied heap. Paying no mind to Jude’s ever-weaker struggling, he bends down and grabs one of Felix’s arms. Jude just has time to yell in protest, fighting to sit up and shove the man away, somehow keep Felix safe—when the man draws back his foot and then slams its sharp, gold-tipped toe into Jude’s sternum, impossibly hard, hard enough that his suit’s impact-resistant material feels like wet paper. Air rushing from his lungs, Jude falls backwards to the floor that’s quickly growing slick with his own blood.

Jude only realizes Jasper is awake when he hears the anguished cries. Heart constricting, Jude tries to think, how long has he been conscious? How much horror has he seen? He’s sobbing. Maybe words, maybe not.

Jasper tries to pull Felix closer, but the man kicks his arms away too. Then, as if a grown man and a heavy firefighting suit weighed nothing, the man—creature, monster, demon, man—pulls Felix directly out of Jasper and Jude’s frantic reach, and lifts him clean off the ground.

“N…n…” Jude tries to cry out, but his throat is choked with tears, terror, and blood. He can’t stop Felix from disappearing any more than he can stop the fire around them, not anymore.

He can hear thrumming high above and far away, like a rising storm reverberating across miles. Helicopter blades, Jude realizes faintly, and a smile pulls at the corner of his blood-caked lip. Eva is coming, flying to them as fast as she can. But not fast enough. She won’t get here in time. Nobody will.

As his vision goes dark, a realization flashes into his mind. He knows what’s been bothering him now, what’s wrong with this entire scene. Fire where there’s nothing here to catch. The impossibly neat divide between inside the burn and out.

The fire’s perimeter is a perfect circle.

Jude almost laughs. He figured it out. He can’t think anymore, but he knows. He’s bleeding out and a monster just vanished, taking Felix with it, and Jasper is probably dying, and he’ll never see Eva again, but he knows…

Nothing.

 

 

They rise up on all sides. A ring of stones, fingers of crystalline onyx reaching for a bright, clear sky. Jude turns around in the center, looks straight up into blue infinity. A perfect circle of black, shining obelisks. Like the fire. But this place is still.

Warm sand between his bare toes. The constant sound of crashing ocean waves.

A cool, salty breeze that raises the hairs on the back of his neck.

Bright blue-green water just outside the stone circle. It stretches in every direction, deep as the sky and just as endless. Gentle waves meet the soft, clean, white sand.

A peaceful, precious, too-brief, everlasting moment goes by before he sees it.

Somebody is lying on the beach, half in the water, half out. Not moving.

Jude doesn’t hesitate. He rushes forward.

The person on the beach seems unconscious. Eyes closed. Shallow breath but regular, Jude notes as he carefully takes hold of their thin shoulders and pulls them onto dry, warm sand. Long, straight black hair trails on the beach, in the water. Their sleeping face is pale, almost grey, and they burn with fever. Their skin is dry.

He doesn’t recognize their androgynous features. But it almost feels like he should. Like he’s missing something. This face isn’t familiar, but it’s important.

A black mask rests on the sand beside them and Jude thinks of his respirator face mask. Jasper’s, impossibly taken. This one has no plastic tubes, no purified air tank connected. Instead it has a long, gracefully curving shape, like a water bird’s beak. There’s something important about this strange, bird-face mask too. He knows it, the way he knows its owner is… not familiar. Not yet. Significant.

Jude doesn’t know them yet, but thinks he might.

He turns back to the unconscious person on the beach beside him; is their breathing easier now? Their white dress is rough, fabric uncomfortable to the touch. The edges of their long skirt are ragged, singed black as if they’ve been burnt, and impossibly dry after being pulled from the ocean.

He freezes, remembering fire.

But before he can move or say a word, the almost-familiar stranger opens their eyes. Black and shining as the stones around them, and quick, locking onto his face without a moment’s hesitation. They look up into Jude’s eyes, and for one moment, it’s like seeing his own reflection. There’s a strange recognition in their dark eyes, the same kind he feels, not of knowing, but connection. Of yes, this is important. Yes. Remember this. Yes.

When they speak, Jude doesn’t understand the words. But he hears the anxiety in them. Their voice is tight with desperation, and the scared-sounding syllables go over his head. He doesn’t know what language. One he doesn’t speak.

“I’m sorry,” Jude says, and deeply feels it. Why is he so painfully aware that this is a crucial moment, but not what makes it so? Why does he know he’s missing life-altering details, but not what they are? He can feel the not-stranger’s hands clasping his own the way he feels the sand, the water, the breeze. It’s the most tangible, vital, real thing he’s ever felt.

“No…” They frown, and he watches as they shift from disturbed disorientation to realization. They must feel it too, that this isn’t right. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. When they speak next, it’s slow, halting, as if the translation is hard work. But this time Jude understands. “Is he all right?”

Someone else asked him that not long ago, he remembers dimly. Jude didn’t know the answer then. He doesn’t know it now. And he doesn’t have time.

In a moment, the beach, the circle of stones, the sky, and the person with the mask are gone, and he is somewhere else.

 

 

The first thing Jude feels is pain. He’s aware of it before anything else, keeping his eyes closed while sensation worms its way into his consciousness. Why does it hurt? He won’t find out like this, so he blinks a few times, and the first thing he sees is a harsh white light.

He immediately shuts his eyes again and gasps in a breath that burns in his lungs. He remembers seeing the bright, full moon overhead, Felix’s screams reverberating in his ears. If the moon is here, then...

He’s warm but not burning. There’s no hard ground under his back. The air he sucks in doesn’t taste of acrid smoke and metallic blood. It’s cool, with a sharp, antiseptic edge. There are no screams. Instead, a regular beeping comes from somewhere near his head. He holds perfectly still for another moment, then slowly opens his eyes again.

A bed. Four white walls, white ceiling. A fluorescent light overhead, not the full moon. His breath returns, much more slowly. Still, everything hurts and his throat burns with a terrible thirst. It feels like he’s been dropped from a dizzying height, every bone in his body rattled and sore. The pain centers in his left leg, sharpens, resolving itself into a wave of nausea that washes over him as his vision clears.

Jude struggles to move his head, straining to see more of this room than the too-bright ceiling. He fights to sit up and look down at his leg. But what he sees next shatters any slow-developing thoughts and makes his breath catch in his dry, aching throat.

He’s not alone. Jasper is in a chair beside him, but half-lays face down on Jude’s bed, resting his forehead on both his arms. His breathing is shallow and slow, as if he’s fallen asleep. There’s a hand on Jasper’s back, moving in a slow, endless circle. Eva’s, Jude realizes, and slowly looks up at her face. She’s standing next to the chair and bed, but her eyes are closed. She looks asleep on her feet, dark circles under her eyes and fatigue etched into every line on her face.

Felix is nowhere.

Jude lets out a small groan as he struggles half upright, and that’s enough to get attention. Eva opens her eyes first, glancing down at Jasper as if thinking he’d made the sound—then her gaze snaps to Jude’s half-awake face, eyes widening in what looked like combined shock and joy.

“Jude,” she says, the whispered name coming out on a rush of air, as if she’d been holding her breath. “You’re awake. He’s awake,” she says, a little louder. Her hand, which had stopped as the rest of her froze, went back to rubbing Jasper’s back, harder this time, to gently bring him back to the present.

Jasper slowly raises his head and looks up, bleary-eyed as if he really had been asleep. It takes a couple seconds and blinks for joyful recognition to flash across his face, and light up his tired, red, raw-looking eyes.

“Hi,” Jude manages to say, a smile starting to pull at the corners of his mouth. He’s happy, bizarrely. So happy just to be here, to be alive and have them near him, no matter how much it hurts. He wants to stay in this moment forever.

“Hi!” Eva laughs, or maybe sobs, shoulders starting to shake.

“We thought we’d lost you.” Jasper’s voice is raspy and just above a whisper. For the first time, Jude notices the white bandage around his forehead, partly hidden by his uncombed hair. He remembers an impossibly-fast dark shape flying through the air to slam into Jasper’s head with an awful crack. But Jasper’s alive, conscious, safe. And now his hand lifts from the bed and reaches for Jude, as if he wants to touch his face. But he stops, wavering—and Jude doesn’t have the energy to lean forward as he wants to, so badly. Instead, Jasper’s warm hand slips around his, and he gives it a weak squeeze.

“Welcome back.” Eva says, looking exhausted, worn bone-ragged, but whole. The tears shining in her eyes must come from relief, because he can see the tension and worry melt from her face, feeling his own disappear with it. He knows that smile. He knows everything is all right now. “Glad you made it.”

“Me too.” For a moment, he thinks of nothing but this, nothing but the three of them, and lets his body lay down again, feeling heavy, sleepy and warm, relief flooding him. Then something occurs to him and the flash of anxiety shakes away any lingering sleepiness. He’s awake, alert, and the growing nausea that comes with consciousness makes him wish he wasn’t. But he still needs to know. He needs to know why the three of them aren’t four.

“Felix?” Jude asks, trying to prop himself up on an elbow to see the doorway out into the brighter-lit hall. Nobody answers, and cold fear starts to seep into his heart again. He looks up to see the relief freeze on Eva’s face. Her eyes flick down to Jasper and Jude’s follow. Jasper isn’t looking at him. He’s not really looking anywhere.

“How much do you remember?” Eva asks quietly, and now she looks apprehensive, like she’s about to venture out on very thin ice, praying not to see cracks.

“I...” Enough. Jude remembers enough. He sees Felix fall, like it’s happening right now, clawed hand like a dagger piercing his heart, his willowy body sprawling across the ground. He hears a strangled scream and sees Jasper struggle to pull Felix’s limp body into his arms. He sees a dark shape come up behind them. And here, now, a cold, sharp weight of fear settles in his stomach. He starts to shake. When he speaks again his voice trembles, like the rest of him. “Where is he? Is he all right?”

It’s only after he says the words that Jude realizes he’s heard them before. In a dream of the beach and the strange, long-haired person on it. Is this how they’d felt then? Desperately searching Jude’s face for a reason to hope, the way he’s watching his friends now?

Slowly, anything like hope vanishes from Jasper’s face, leaving behind something Jude never wanted to see there. Something hollow. Broken. Stripped, as if every bit of life has been torn mercilessly away, nothing remaining but bones. Like the construction site’s metal scaffolding silhouetted against the night sky and flames, the unfinished building going up in smoke. The bed is warm but he feels cold.

“No,” Jasper whispers, though Jude doesn’t need the answer anymore. He doesn’t want to hear it, but he hears it anyway. “He’s not.”

 

 

Five years later, the moon was full again. And, again, Jude was frozen in horror.

Immediate terror and remembered agony rooted him to the parking lot pavement and his knees shook, threatening to buckle under the crushing weight of trauma and unanswered questions. Everything came back in a rush, everything he’d tried to bury and forget so he could function, everything he tried to pretend he was over and done with, the past he pretended was past, even as his present and future crumbled.

“Take them.”

Cruce’s words floated back, and Jude realized that what had felt like hours of terrified memories must have only been a few seconds. The imposing vampire was still pointing one black-gloved finger in his direction, ordering the two vampire girls to attack—but no, not directly at him.

Jude felt something press against his shoulder and realized Pixie was still there. He hadn’t run away. They were standing back to back again. They both might still die in the next minute, but he wasn’t alone and that was something, more than Jude expected. The thought was a grim comfort as the pair of girl-shaped creatures of the night came flying towards them.

They moved so fast Jude could barely keep them from becoming windswept blurs. As they had before, they sped around Jude and Pixie like they were trying to whip up a tornado in the parking lot. Before, they’d let out keening shrieks and hair-raising giggles, but now they were silent and that was worse. Jude was afraid to move and terrified to stay still. If he moved they’d attack for sure, and if he stayed still, he was just waiting for the first strike.

But then, the pair leaped back, putting about thirty feet of distance between themselves and Jude and Pixie. They exchanged a glance, and seemed about to charge again with a running start—when they stopped moving forward. Then they stopped moving at all, except to reach out to take each others’ hands.

“What are you waiting for?” Cruce snapped. “Get him!”

But the girls held perfectly still, together hand in clutching hand, like the contact was the only thing keeping them standing straight and tall. They remained about halfway between Jude, Pixie, and the towering Cruce, who hadn’t bothered to take another step. Behind them, their leader let out a wordless snarl of fury, black-gloved hands curling into tight fists. Even from here, in the low light, Jude could see his bright eyes narrow into a glare. And Jude couldn’t move an inch, frozen just as fast as the two teenage vampires seemed to be.

“Fine. I’ll collect him myself,” Cruce said in a harsh voice that made Jude’s stomach feel like it was being squeezed in a cold, tight grip.

“Run!”

At the sound of Pixie’s voice, a sudden burst of wind rushed by Jude’s face, followed by a rapid flapping noise from behind him. He whirled around, expecting to see Pixie running, but there was nothing there but dark parking lot. Pixie must have taken the easy way out, the smart way, and left him here to face these monsters by himself. Panic rising, Jude turned back around, and immediately ducked—the huge vampire in the long black coat was closer than before, closer than he should or could possibly be, too-bright eyes flashing in the dark.

Jude almost overbalanced and fell to the ground, but managed to keep on his feet as he scrambled backwards. Every instinct, both natural and learned, screamed at him to run, hide, never look back, leave everything behind him, now and for the rest of his life—but he didn’t, even as he fought with himself to do the smart thing and run, just like Pixie had. The girls were still standing where they’d stopped, and he had the strangest feeling that they were every bit as scared of Cruce as he was.

Cruce didn’t pursue him either. He was looking up at the sky, hands raised as if to snatch something from the air. If Jude ran for it now and kept running, was there a chance he could make it to safety before they realized he was gone?

Collect him, Cruce had said. He knew Pixie, just like the other two. They’d never been after Jude at all.

Jude felt a surge of relief, but panic quickly followed. He barely had time to hope Pixie had gotten away when he caught a flash of bared fangs and any power he had to move dissipated instantly. No, no, no, Jude thought frantically and he could feel himself start to freeze again, joints locking in place as terror overwhelmed him and pain, current and remembered, shot through the spot where his knee sat in his prosthetic. Why now? Out of every frustrating, inopportune time he’d run into a wall of panic and memory and felt his body and brain grind to a halt, this was the worst. He had to run, he had to move, yell for help, do—

Something flew into Cruce’s face. Something with small but furiously flapping wings, letting out a barrage of fast, high-pitched screeches.

Cruce swore, stumbling back a step and reaching up to shield his head with his arms. Jude caught a glimpse of pink and realized the bat currently dive-bombing Cruce’s head wasn’t a bat at all, or wasn’t always at least. He barely had time to register the relief, actually feel himself smile, when one of Cruce’s large hands shot up, seizing the Pixie-bat from the air.

“Let him go!” Jude yelled, words out of his mouth before he’d consciously formed them. Stricken, he watched as Cruce’s head slowly turned toward him. The vampire’s face twisted in a terrifying grimace, long fangs bright and eyes flashing brighter than before, glowing instead of just reflecting the light. Jude couldn’t breathe.

Without warning, Cruce’s fist flew in a blur, hurling the bat through the air and sending it slamming to the ground. It hit the pavement with an awful thump and a short, sharp squeak! before falling silent and much too still.

That small sound was enough to shake Jude out of his horror, and rush forward. Thankfully, Pixie had been flung some distance away from Cruce, and Jude didn’t stop running as he stooped to scoop the small bat up as carefully as he could.

Run. Run where? He thought as he scrambled toward the edge of the parking lot and the lights beyond. Could you even run or hide from vampires? He couldn’t go back to the dark, locked mall, and he shouldn’t go home and risk bringing these creatures right to his doorstep—to Eva and Jasper—but he had nowhere else. Home at least had doors, thresholds they couldn’t cross without permission. They wouldn’t be able to follow him in, if Pixie was to be believed.

And since Pixie was currently a scared, shaking bat in his hand, injured after protecting him, Jude found it a lot easier to believe him than expected.

He turned toward the lights and charged for them with everything he had, only realizing there was something on the ground in front of him when he almost tripped over it.

A guitar.

Remembering his promise to Pixie but not slowing down for a second, Jude reached down to grab it up too. It was much heavier than he expected, almost sending him crashing to the ground. Thankfully, he managed to stabilize long enough to get his feet back under him, and avoid crushing the bat who’d burrowed deeper between his hand and chest.

A terrible howl came from behind him and fresh adrenaline surged through his veins. Cruce sounded furious at losing his prey. But then two more shrieks cut through the air, higher-pitched but just as chilling. He shot a glance over his shoulder long enough to see the two smaller vampire girls snap into motion again—but not in pursuit. They rushed between Cruce and Jude, trembling but blocking the way long enough for Jude to get a few more precious steps away. They were still holding hands, as if separating would break them.

Jude felt a pang of guilt and almost wished they’d follow him and keep running. He’d never feel good about leaving teenagers alone with a man like Cruce. But these teenagers had claws and fangs, and Jude had a guitar and an injured bat.

Holding Pixie as close as he dared, Jude sprinted for the bright windows and safety of his apartment building, and tried not to look back.

 

 

Jude made it all the way to his building, up the stairs, and down the hall before he realized they weren’t being pursued. The corridor was silent. Nobody chased them up the stairs or burst out of the elevator to attack them. Outside, the night seemed calm and quiet. Jude stopped outside his door just long enough to catch his breath before digging for his keys, awkwardly setting the guitar down on the floor and trying to hold onto the fuzzy, limp bat in his other hand.

He got the door open and was about to rush inside when Pixie gave a strenuous wiggle in his hand, flapping his wings until Jude let him go, startled. The pink bat flopped to the ground, but by the time he landed, he wasn’t a bat anymore. As before, there was no sound, flash, or any other sign of transformation. Just one second a feebly wiggling bat, the next a human-sized Pixie slumped on the hallway carpet against the wall, head hanging down and looking barely awake.

“What are you doing?” Jude demanded, throwing frantic glances up and down the hall. It was empty and, if someone entered now, all they would see was him, a guitar, and Pixie sitting on the floor, dazed.

“Can’t come in,” Pixie said faintly, and Jude had to bend down to hear better.

“What? Why can’t…” He stopped, watching as Pixie weakly extended a shaking hand to point at the open door to his apartment.

“Gotta ask me.”

“Oh my God,” Jude muttered, briefly shutting his eyes. This night kept switching from absurd to terrifying and back again. Right now seemed a little of both. “I have to invite you in, specifically?”

Pixie didn’t answer, just gave a little nod and let his head tip back against the wall.

“Okay! Fine!” Jude said, reaching down to grab the guitar, pull Pixie to his unsteady feet, and keep the door from shutting with one of his own, the one that only screamed in phantom pain. “Yes, come in, just stay with me!”

Evidently this was enough, because they made it over the threshold without incident. Jude set the guitar down against the wall and half-carried, half-dragged Pixie over to his couch, dropping him as gently as possible. Pixie immediately shut his eyes and lay down, as if he was going to take a nap right there. Blacking out might be more accurate, Jude thought, feeling a familiar and unwanted surge of raw, incoherent panic.

What would he do if Pixie actually collapsed in his apartment? Jude wasn’t about to kick him out, but what did you even do for an injured vampire, short of opening a vein? He had no way of knowing whether first aid or anything potentially helpful for a human would do any good here. Jude almost wanted to call Eva or Jasper for help—but how in the world would he explain this? Any of it?

Jasper knew. About vampires, about magic, probably more than Jude did, all things considered. But he’d also said in no uncertain terms that he didn’t want to be involved, and Jude couldn’t bring himself to reach out now. Jasper would help, he was sure, but Jude had to at least try to fix this on his own, he owed him that much and more.

That left Eva. But he couldn’t call her in the middle of the night babbling about vampires, they’d barely made peace the last time she was here, when she gave him all of the—

Jude practically ran to his fridge and yanked it open, grabbing the red bottle of blood-infused steak sauce and hurrying back to Pixie.

“Here—drink.” Jude said, shoving it into Pixie’s hand. The vampire actually looked so weak it was a wonder he didn’t drop it, and he peered at the bottle blearily.

“Whuzz…” he mumbled, blinking as if the label were difficult to read.

“Steak sauce,” Jude explained, fully expecting Pixie to fall unconscious right in front of him. “It’s got blood in it. I don’t know how much, or if you need it raw or something, but it’s worth a shot.”

“Mmkay,” Pixie said, still sounding about three-quarters out. For a moment Jude wondered if he should open it or if Pixie would be able to do it himself—but Pixie unscrewed the cap with shaking hands and raised the bottle to his mouth.

The change wasn’t dramatic. Jude expected Pixie’s eyes to flash again, or some kind of inhuman screech, maybe for him to sprout giant wings—but none of that happened. Pixie didn’t even drink very fast. Instead of pouring it down his throat, he took very slow, hesitant sips. His biggest reaction was a few quick blinks as he took another look at the label before continuing to carefully drink. It was all much less…bloody than Jude expected, but then, not much about Pixie had met his admittedly horrifying expectations.

After a few seconds, Pixie gave Jude a questioning look that almost looked like he was searching for approval. Jude automatically gave him a nod, and that must have been reassuring enough for Pixie to take a couple more tentative sips. When he did, Jude let himself relax and slumped forward, resting his forehead in the palms of his hands. The night had been exhausting, and he wasn’t even the one who’d come close to collapsing.

For a while, they sat in silence, Pixie taking small, careful mouthfuls and looking at the bottle as if deep in thought, and Jude sitting with his elbows on his knees, face in his hands.

“Thank you,” Pixie said after around five minutes and, when Jude slowly looked up, he saw an expression he didn’t expect. Pixie was watching him with wide eyes, filled with something that might be tentative hope. “This is really good. I definitely needed it.”

“Don’t mention it,” Jude answered, entirely sincere in the hope that Pixie wouldn’t. “What happened back there? Who was that?”

“Cruce,” Pixie said faintly, voice dropping to just above a whisper. Jude didn’t like the look on his face, mixed fear and absolute exhaustion. “A bad guy. Really bad.”

“One of the tough vampires you expect me to be able to deal with?”

“Can’t blame a guy for hoping.” Pixie gave him a joyless smile and sighed, looking like he might fall asleep right there on Jude’s couch. But his heavy-lidded eyes stayed open, and he took another careful sip of sauce. “But he’s something else. A lot worse than his little mind-controlled minions, anyway. Poor kids.”

“That’s what happened to them?” Jude asked with a shiver, remembering the way Nails and Maestra had snapped to attention, how it had seemed like they were fighting back toward the end.

“They’re called thralls,” Pixie mumbled, voice flat and appropriately lifeless. “Whenever a vampire turns someone, they form like this… bond. It’s supposed to be a good thing, I guess, if you’re tight and trust each other and stuff. But if you get turned by an asshole? Good luck. They get to walk around in your head whenever they want. Make you do whatever they want. It’s…”

He trailed off, and Jude almost didn’t want to pursue this admittedly terrifying subject, but he had to know. “Could he do that to you?”

“Cruce? No,” Pixie said with a weak shake of his head, but he didn’t seem very happy about the answer. If anything, he looked even more like he wanted to burrow into the couch and hide until everything was over and the world made sense. Jude wouldn’t have minded that himself. “No, he didn’t kill me, someone else… I’m not one of his, that’s all.”

He fell silent again, and this time Jude didn’t push any further. After a few seconds of silence, he changed the subject to another burning question. “So, does that taste better or worse than plain blood?”

“Better, definitely,” Pixie said, taking another sip with an appreciative look, seeming a little relieved at the conversation’s progression. “But I haven’t really… I mean, I don’t know for sure, exactly.”

“You don’t drink blood?” Jude stared at him, realizing that in all the chaos, he’d never actually thought to ask.

“Not if I can help it.” Pixie set the bottle down, still looking a little shaky, but his eyes were clear and his movements steady. Still, he didn’t meet Jude’s eyes, and his usually-expressive voice was uncharacteristically flat. “I mean, does drinking blood sound like fun to you?”

“Only in sauce form,” Jude said, and Pixie looked up as if expecting to see him smiling. But Jude was still processing, not laughing. “If you don’t drink blood, then how do you…”

“Stay alive? So to speak?” Pixie leaned back, looking up at the ceiling. Jude didn’t quite believe his casual tone, and the troubled look in his eye further betrayed it. “Well, I know we need to drink. Feed. Whatever. Especially when we get hurt, like, uh. Just now. But there has to be like, a minimum, right? Drink as little as possible, but still survive and be able to think and function and stuff? Guess I’m trying to figure out what that is.”

“You’re talking about basically starving yourself,” Jude said, eyebrows coming together. He couldn’t help the undercurrent of concern that made it into his voice. “That can’t be the best option.”

“Hey, people who will willingly let me chomp their neck or arm or whatever, they’re few and far between.” Pixie didn’t sound overly worried about this, resigned if anything. “And I’m not gonna do it if someone doesn’t say I can.”

“That’s… good.” Jude’s brow furrowed a little more. Something about this wasn’t right. Blood wasn’t food, and it wasn’t starvation, exactly, but vampires still needed it to survive. Going without meant constantly running on near-empty, scraping the bare minimum. Had Pixie been on the edge of collapse this entire time? He did a good job of hiding it, but if his exhaustion now was any indicator… “Is it like coming into a building, you can’t do it without permission?”

“Nope, we can bite whoever we want,” Pixie said, taking another sip and looking at the red bottle with increasing appreciation and energy. “I’m just not a douche.”

Jude couldn’t help but feel relieved, seeing Pixie actually drink—feed?—without the obvious shame or fear he otherwise felt. But Jude couldn’t find a way to express this that didn’t sound… he didn’t even know what. He was just glad they seemed to have found a solution, at least for now. Somewhat reassured, he sat with Pixie in a silence that wasn’t anywhere near as awkward as he’d expected. He didn’t watch him drink, something about it felt personal. Instead he rolled up his left pants leg in slow movements and busied himself with his prosthetic, readjusting it in a vain attempt to ease the ache in his knee and thigh.

“So, um… You kinda froze up again back there,” Pixie said after a little while longer, giving Jude a careful look. His gaze wasn’t accusing, but it was curious.

“I know,” Jude said, looking to Pixie just before his eyes dropped to the floor. “I’m—I’m sorry.”

“What happened?” Pixie asked, eyes going to Jude’s prosthetic leg, and then flicking back to his face and staying there. Jude had expected that. Whenever it was remotely visible, new people tended to get thrown for a loop, and never knew where to look. It was always awkward—for them, since Jude had long since stopped caring, wishing people would just ask whatever too-personal question they needed to get out of their system, so everyone could move on. Fortunately, Pixie didn’t seem about to go that direction. He had other annoying questions to ask. “Like, I know you get freaked out seeing vampires, but you’re a hunter, right? You have to have done this before at least a little.”

Jude almost retorted. He wanted to snap that Pixie should mind his own business, that if he was so smart and knew how to fight without slipping into paralyzing terror or overwhelming panic, he should do it himself and leave Jude in peace. But he didn’t. He wasn’t even angry, only drained. And telling the truth might not be pleasant, but it was easier than keeping up the distance. “I’ve never… done this before, no. I want to. But flashbacks don’t make it easy.”

“Flashbacks? Like P.T.S.D.?”

“Not ‘like’ P.T.S.D.,” Jude said, just above a mutter. “I know exactly what’s going on in my brain. I can feel it coming, I know what’s happening, but I can’t stop it. It’s… very frustrating.”

“Yeah, but at least you know what’s going on,” Pixie suggested.

“Whoever said knowing was half the battle—”

“G.I. Joe?”

“Well, they’re wrong,” Jude said, rubbing at his temples. “It doesn’t make it any easier.”

“Does talking about it?” Pixie didn’t withdraw when Jude looked up sharply. “I’m guessing you don’t do that a lot.”

“No, I don’t,” Jude said after a few deep, considering breaths. “None of us do. It’s easier that way.”

“Well,” Pixie said, a little hesitantly, but looking oddly optimistic, like he’d just hit on a good idea he was excited to share. “You can talk to me if you need to. Or want to. Hey, it’s not personal with me, right? We’re just working toward the same things. It’s just sharing stuff so we’re on the same page, and we can get stuff done as easily as possible, right?”

“Not personal?” Jude repeated, surprised at the tentativeness in his own voice.

“Nope.” Pixie shook his head. The sauce looked like it had done him some good, his warm brown eyes were brighter and even his large ears looked a little perkier. “Just business.”

“It was…” Jude struggled to find the words. Even recall with no intention of sharing was overwhelming, and he tried to actively remember as little as possible. It seemed more like a force of nature, however unnatural. The chaos, agony and fear in its wake were more powerful and deadly than any uncontrolled burn he’d ever seen. While he tried to find the words, Pixie drank more of the sauce, his face slowly beginning to lose the unhealthy pallor. On anyone else, Jude would say the ‘color’ started to return to his cheeks, but here that color was only dark grey.

Haltingly, voice hollow, he told Pixie what he remembered of the full-moon night his life had changed completely, and Felix’s had ended. Almost everything he remembered. Jude kept the more excruciating pain to himself. Some things were sacred.

“I’m sorry,” Pixie said at last, when Jude’s story was finished and he was around halfway-done with the bottle of sauce. He sounded somewhere between horrified and awed. He didn’t know what to say, Jude knew. Nobody ever did. Most nights, even he couldn’t wrap his own head around any of it. “And I know that doesn’t mean anything, really. Nobody can really understand something like that until they live it, right?”

Jude opened his mouth, but instead of replying, folded his arms and looked at the floor. Some points he wasn’t ready to concede. “I close my eyes, and every time, I see fangs. Nothing stops the nightmares. Hell, even back then—I died! My heart stopped for sixty seconds. You’d think it would be over then, if nothing else. But it wasn’t, and I can’t forget what I saw then, either. Even death wasn’t enough.”

“At least that part wasn’t as terrible as the rest of it,” Pixie said, in a tone that clearly meant he was trying to find a nonexistent bright side. Jude had no patience for it, or anything else that masked reality. “I mean, if you’re gonna almost die—”

“I did die,” Jude maintained, feeling oddly defensive. “Temporarily, but I died.”

“Well, I died too,” Pixie said, and Jude shut his mouth, breaking off his automatic retort. It was the way he said it that hit harder than the actual words; plain, simple, and inarguable. “And I didn’t see anything like that. At least you got something.”

“No, I didn’t. It wasn’t Heaven,” Jude said, but there was no fire in his words, only exhaustion. “And that burned person wasn’t an angel. They were an aggregate my subconscious made up of everyone I’ve ever pulled out of a building on fire. It was my oxygen-starved brain calling up old memories while it broke down.”

“How do you know, though?” Pixie pressed, with the slightest edge of desperation. “Five years ago you didn’t believe in vampires. A couple days ago, you didn’t think you’d ever have a conversation with one. What are you gonna believe in tomorrow?”

“If there was any justice in the world, none of this would have—” Jude broke off and took a slow, deep breath. When he spoke it was at a normal volume, not the near-shout he’d started without realizing. “Do you know what was left of Felix after that thing was done with him?”

“No,” Pixie said in a small voice, sounding afraid to hear the answer.

“Enough to bury, but that’s it. He wasn’t recognizable. There were human remains all over that construction site—homeless people caught inside, they said. Most so badly burned that all they could tell was the DNA was human.”

“So then… if there was no body, and no DNA evidence for sure—”

“There was blood. Too much for a person to lose and survive. Felix is dead, and he went up in smoke along with everyone else we couldn’t save.” Jude’s voice was flat. He was starting to feel detached again, like someone else was saying the words coming out of his mouth. “They did find his suit and helmet. The helmet was broken, and the suit was torn to shreds. I don’t need to tell you how impossible that is.”

“Yeah, well, a lot of things are impossible,” Pixie said. But he didn’t seem as optimistic as before, and Jude found some dark pleasure in that. “Until they actually happen. I’m—I’m sorry.”

They were both still, heavy silence hanging between them. Then Pixie sighed and held up his hands.

“Okay. I’m gonna level with you. No more tricks, no more word games, no bullshit of any kind, yeah? From now on, we’re in this together. You got me. For real.”

Jude just stared at him for a couple seconds. In all their interactions before, Pixie had given off the feeling of apprehension, nervous energy, desperately seeking cooperation and approval. There was none of that here. Jude had the feeling that for the first time, Pixie was being entirely honest with him. But none of that actually helped him understand. “Why?”

“I lost someone too,” Pixie said with a casual little shrug. He used the same tone as before, when talking about his own death, as if it were simple, obvious, and not overly important. “Sometimes I try to think about what he’d want me to do, and the answer definitely isn’t ‘mess with you and try to screw you over,’ especially when you’re kind of in the same boat as me.”

“The same boat,” Jude repeated, but for once, it wasn’t a challenge. He still wasn’t sure if he could trust or believe anything Pixie said, but was surprised to notice that he actually wanted to. “Because we both lost someone, and we’re trying to put our lives back together?”

“Yeah, pretty much. And neither of us can do it alone.”

“I’m not alone,” Jude said, defensiveness returning in a heartbeat.

“Your friends aren’t really here for you on this, though, are they?” Jude didn’t reply. He knew the answer, and knew Pixie knew it, but putting it into words would feel like a betrayal. “That can feel pretty lonely.”

Jude stayed quiet for a few seconds, folding his arms across his chest. “They say Felix wouldn’t want me to throw away my life, and they’re right. I’m lucky to be alive. I shouldn’t waste that.”

Pixie was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, he didn’t meet Jude’s eyes, but he didn’t sound remotely uncertain either. “I don’t think they can really know that for sure, can they? The only one who knows what he’d want is him, and, I mean, sorry for saying this, but Felix isn’t around for you to ask anymore. So, sounds to me like you should do your own thing, whatever helps you. Forget what anybody else thinks.”

Jude searched Pixie’s words for any sign of mockery. He fumbled for an easy, sarcastic response that would re-establish the distance between them. Neither came. “That’s… wise.”

Pixie grinned, showing his small, pointed canines. “That’s punk.”

This night, and the one before, had been filled with more strange and ominous changes than Jude could remember experiencing. Not at least for five years. But the most surprising thing yet was how easily he smiled back. “What was their name?”

“Who?” Pixie looked too happy at the reciprocated smile to have quite followed.

“The person you lost.”

“Oh.” Pixie’s own smile didn’t so much disappear as slowly evolve into something else, something quiet, reflective, introspective but not shutting down. He wasn’t building up walls between them, he was just turning his attention to something buried deep inside them. “Jeff. That was his name. He gave me this.”

He held up the guitar, which Jude hadn’t taken the time to seriously look at, despite carrying its unwieldy dead weight all the way home. Now, for the first time, he was glad he’d made the effort. Pixie pointed at the sticker, and Jude finally read the phrase he’d only caught in the corner of his eye before: This Bass Kills Fascists.

“Huh,” Jude said, furrowing his brow. “I don’t know much about musical instruments, but I’m fairly certain that’s not a bass.”

“It’s not!” Pixie caught the confusion on his face and chuckled, but in a different way than his usual laugh. He was still turned inward, seeing and remembering things Jude could only guess at.

“See, Jeff got a sticker and put it on his bass, saying, you know, the Woody Guthrie thing, ‘This Machine Kills Fascists?’” Pixie explained. “Except his said ‘Guitar,’ like, specifically. And he didn’t care, because technically a bass guitar is a guitar—but everybody gave him shit for it. Jeff didn’t care, he said if people didn’t get it, that was their problem. He wouldn’t change it. And one day I found a sticker saying the thing, but with ‘bass,’ and put it on my guitar. A not-bass guitar. Both wrong, both awesome—they match.” Now, everything bright and happy did disappear from his face, naturally and all at once, as if it had happened too many times before. “Matched.”

“I’m… sorry,” Jude said, tentatively and wondering if it was the right thing at all. If there was something else he should say or do. He moved his hand, surprising himself with the automatic impulse to reach out and put it on Pixie’s shoulder. But he didn’t. Jude might do that with Jasper or Eva—that was why he recognized this, he realized, and felt oddly relieved—but they’d shared five years of tragedy, and many more years of happier history. He’d only known Pixie for two nights, no matter how much familiarity he found. He held still.

“It’s fine.” Pixie gave a one-shoulder shrug, but didn’t meet Jude’s eyes. “I’m over it. I mean, as much as possible. I try to focus on the good times, smile because it happened, you know? And think about what he’d say, or want me to do—then do it, that’s all. And for real, if Felix was anything like Jeff, he’d tell you not to give up. Not ever. Give the bastards hell.”

Jude probably only stared at him for a few seconds, but it felt longer. “Why are you doing this?”

“What?”

“This. Telling me this. Trying to be my friend.” He might have said these same words earlier. His voice would have been harder, with a skeptical edge. He would have glared at Pixie instead of looking at him thoughtfully, and wondering what else he’d formed too quick an opinion about.

“Do I need a reason?” Pixie raised his eyebrows and readily met Jude’s direct gaze.

“People usually do,” Jude said in his same considering tone, evaluating but not rejecting. It was a strange feeling. “Nobody gives you something for nothing, not even if you have things in common.”

“That’s for sure.” Pixie almost smiled again, but his mouth twisted into more of a grimace. “Listen, I shouldn’t have tried to play you. I just—I didn’t know if I could trust you, so I was trying to get two for the price of one, come out on top with no risk, you know?”

“But you trust me now,” Jude said. Again, the words were skeptical, but his tone wasn’t.

“More than I did before,” Pixie said, nodding. “At first? Nah, why would I? I did the smart thing, seeing how far I could get without giving you a chance to hurt me. But now?” He gave Jude an appraising look as he wiggled a little deeper into the couch cushions, head tilting a little to one side. Jude thought it was a similar expression to the one he wore right now. “You didn’t have to save me. You didn’t even have to agree to help me in the first place.”

Jude shrugged, and broke their shared gaze. Compliments, even indirect ones, always left him unsure what to say. “Anyone else would.”

“No, they wouldn’t,” Pixie said immediately. “They really, really wouldn’t. Like you said, nobody gives you something for nothing, and I’m not giving you anything good enough to deserve saving. But you helped me anyway.”

“It was nothing.” Jude shook his head, but instead of a flare of annoyance, he felt something else. Satisfied? Relieved? Those came close, and neither of them made sense. None of the past two nights had, but the fact that he actually felt… glad about any of it, instead of angry or scared—that made the least sense of all. “Forget it. When we’re done, forget it.”

“I’m gonna have a hard time doing that.” Pixie smiled and, again, Jude couldn’t find it in himself to doubt. That was what scared him now, not Pixie. “When I got into this, it was just a deal, yeah. But now it’s a promise. This is for real, now. You got me.”

Jude didn’t know what to say to that, so instead he picked up the half-empty bottle of steak sauce again, and held it out. Pixie accepted and drank the entire thing, looking much more recovered and stable by the time he was done. It was only then that Jude realized he’d been smiling back.