“Just try not to do anything… shocking,” Jude said, trying to keep the plea out of his voice as he and Pixie approached Jasper’s store.

The crowds had thinned out, and they almost had the mall to themselves, a last few underpaid retail workers closing metal shutters across their storefronts and securely locking them. He had no doubt Jasper would be here, though. The few occasions he’d been here after everything else was dark and quiet, he’d noticed Jasper’s storefront stayed open, its owner working overtime. Catching up on inventory, he’d said. Jude had honored their unspoken agreement: don’t push Jasper for details, and he wouldn’t inconveniently remember that Jude didn’t actually work nights.

“You got it,” Pixie said in a casual tone that did nothing to calm Jude’s nerves. But, despite his misgivings, Jude was relieved Pixie was here with him. He’d die before admitting it, but there was just something eerie about a deserted mall. The mannequins in particular.

“I mean it,” he said, stopping outside the store entrance. There was one other mall patron left; the woman in black still haunted her regular table, still with her cards and coffee. She raised it to them in a little toast and Jude nodded back, maneuvering Pixie far enough away that their near-whispers wouldn’t be overheard. “I’ve told him as much as he’ll let me, so this won’t be a complete shock, but there’s a difference between knowing and seeing. I don’t know if you can ever be ready for it.”

“So, showing off the fangs, turning into a bat…” Pixie started to tease, but stopped at the look of increasing apprehension on Jude’s face. “Are on the list of things I won’t be doing.”

“I just don’t want to scare him,” Jude mumbled, eyes on the doorway he was suddenly having a hard time walking through. Jasper had enough hard days without Jude adding to them.

“So just act natural?” Pixie gave him an unconvincingly wholesome smile. But it was a closed-mouth one, which Jude greatly appreciated under the circumstances.

“Natural is good. Still, maybe it’s better if I do the talking, at least to start.” Trying to gather his somewhat scattered thoughts, Jude led the way inside, stopping when he saw nobody behind the counter. “Jasper? Are you here?”

“In the back!” Jasper called and, a moment later, the rest of him followed. “Jude! And…” His eyes lit up in recognition, but he was looking past Jude, at the vampire behind him. As he looked at Pixie, his face underwent a strange series of undisguised reactions. First Jasper seemed dumbstruck to see him, then on the edge of panic—but then he seemed to reach some resolution and smiled. It wasn’t one of his theatrical grins, instead looking a little sad, or maybe resigned. “Pixie. Didn't expect to see you here before sundown.”

“I didn't really plan on it either,” Pixie said, looking considerably less-chagrined, but still peering at Jude out of the corner of his eye, as if gauging his reaction. Jude didn’t have one yet. That required a working brain, and his had just ground to a halt. "But I'm just kind of rolling with it."

“I was wondering when all this would bring us together,” Jasper said as he rounded the counter, and Jude stared at them both in increasing bafflement, words failing. “I should have known it’d be sooner rather than later.”

“Me too!” Pixie laughed, and it only sounded slightly nervous. “Honestly though, I was gonna drag Jude to you if he didn’t think of it himself.”

“Wait,” Jude said, finding his voice at last and forcing himself back into the present. A present where his oldest friend and newest maybe-friend were already acquainted, and apparently several steps ahead of him. “Wait. You know each other?”

“We met recently,” Jasper said, turning to him, still looking sheepish, and that was strange in itself. Jude couldn’t remember him being embarrassed about anything. Jasper refused to be ashamed of his questionable tastes or life decisions, to the extent that Jude thought some of it had to be just to get under his skin—but he looked like he was now. And a little worried. “I was going to tell you, Jude. I just wasn’t sure…”

“This is why you weren’t surprised,” Jude said quietly as comprehension slowly dawned. As he focused his attention on Jasper, Pixie drifted some distance away, wandering through the shelves and surveying their strange contents. He stopped at a silver skull with ruby eyes, looking like he wanted to touch, but deciding against it with a great deal of self-restraint. “When I told you I was working with a vampire the other day. I knew something was going on!”

“Yes—and I’m sorry.” As he spread his hands, Jasper really looked and sounded it. “Jude, I haven’t told you a single untrue thing the entire time we’ve known one another—but that’s not the only way to lie to someone. Lying by omission is still a lie, and it’s still a breach of trust, no matter the reason. If that trust is gone, or at least damaged now… I wouldn’t blame you.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Jude demanded, still stunned and disoriented by this reversal of circumstances he thought he’d finally gotten a handle on. “All this, just because you didn’t want to get involved?”

“I’ve been involved for a while, I just didn’t want to admit it,” Jasper said dryly. “But that ship’s long since sailed. No, this was about confidentiality,” he said with a pointed nod to Pixie, who’d moved on to ogling a glass display case of antique tarot cards. “He came to me for help.”

“Jasper probably saved my life,” Pixie said, sounding a little more trepidatious and a lot more serious than he usually did. Jasper wasn’t the only one to keep a secret from Jude, and Pixie was clearly even less confident in his reaction. “When you asked how I stayed alive? Yeah. You can thank him for me still being around.”

“Blood?” Jude managed to ask, still trying to wrap his brain around all this, mentally replaying every conversation he’d had with both of them and scanning for tip-offs. He didn’t find any.

“Pretty much the only way,” Pixie said with an attempt at a causal shrug, still obviously anxious. “Gotta say, I like the sauce a lot better.”

“Sauce?” Jasper asked, sounding intrigued but much calmer than Jude might have been in his place.

“Eva’s,” Jude supplied, still looking back and forth between them and trying to regain his equilibrium. “Is there a reason you didn’t tell me you knew each other?”

“Pixie trusted me not to reveal his existence to anyone who might endanger it," Jasper said, sounding entirely level and reasonable. It didn't make Jude feel better. "And I thought vampire hunters qualified.”

Jude glared, feeling unexpectedly defensive. A few nights ago, he would have eagerly agreed with the sentiment. Undead monsters better believe he was a danger to their existences. Now, the idea wasn’t nearly as appealing. “You thought I’d try to stake him or something?”

“You did try the holy water,” Jasper pointed out, as Pixie scanned a set of leather-bound, parchment-filled books, still not touching but seeming to find them much more interesting than the conspicuously charged conversation going on just a few feet away. “Good thing it didn’t work, in retrospect. I’m just as surprised as you are, for the record.”

“That was—he crashed through my window!” Jude struggled to keep his voice down, frustration boiling over. “And you could have still told me you knew each other. It would have been nice to know I wasn’t walking into a trap.”

Jasper shook his head, seeming to have reached a conclusion he didn’t much enjoy. “If I’d told you that, what would you have done?”

“Trusted him a lot sooner,” Jude said with growing impatience and indignation. Jasper had always had a much looser definition of rules and the truth than he did, and much of their agreements were unspoken, based on mutual familiarity with trauma, recovery, and things done in the dark no one else would understand. Jude had to chase vampires to function. Jasper had to chase adrenaline in the form of backroom deals of questionable legality. But they’d never actually lied to each other’s faces—at least as far as Jude knew. “Is that a bad thing?”

“No. But you had to make that choice on your own, not because of what I wanted.”

“You were pretty clear about telling me to go with him!”

“But not because I trusted him, that’s the difference,” Jasper said, every word adamant and emphasized, as if he wanted to will Jude into understanding. “I didn’t want you to put my feelings above yours—or trust me more than yourself.”

“I do not—”

“You just said so, Jude. If I trusted a vampire, that was good enough for you? Enough to make you put aside any of your own feelings, no matter how it hurt? No.” He shook his head again while Jude fumed, unsure who he was more upset with, Jasper or himself. “On the other hand, when have you ever listened to sensible advice in general?”

“You still should have told me,” Jude said, folding his arms and glowering at Jasper. He didn’t like feeling resentful or distrustful of someone who knew him so well, and vice-versa. He didn’t like any part of this conversation. “I deserved to know.”

“Like I said, we’re in different places. I didn’t know exactly where you were. And I wasn’t going to force you into a recovery you weren’t ready for.” Jasper was leaning against the counter now, as if he found this interaction exhausting. Jude certainly did, fighting the desire to step around the counter and sink into the chair behind it, as he’d seen Jasper do more and more lately. “Trying to push past these things is never a good idea, ever. Trust me. It would have done so much more harm than good—and not just for you.”

“Because I’m damaged,” Jude said, voice flat and painfully blunt. “And you thought I’d either kill Pixie, or only trust him because you did.”

“Damaged? It takes one to know one,” Jasper said with a wan smile. “Grief has a way of muddying the waters. Turning you into someone you don’t recognize. But I was wrong, and I misjudged you. Sorely. Jude, I am so, so sorry.”

For a few seconds, Jude couldn’t answer. He’d started this exchange furious, betrayed. But as the pieces clicked into place, he just felt tired. “You were trying to protect us, weren’t you? Both of us. Pixie from me, and me from… also me.”

“Yes,” Jasper said, and Jude could see the hope in his eyes along with the shame. Behind him, Pixie drew a little nearer, perhaps hearing the intensity in their voices die down, or sensing the energetic shift from confrontation to relief. “And I see now, you didn’t need it. I should have known better, Jude. I should have trusted you more. Vampire or not, you’re not going to go mowing down innocents.”

“Innocent?” Pixie actually giggled, though the sound was strained and more than a little awkward after the tense scene that had just played out around him. “Watch it.”

“Of course,” Jasper said, giving him an answering smile, one with real amusement and fondness, Jude was only slightly surprised to note. He’d only seen Jasper look at him and Eva like that. Maybe he should have been jealous but all he felt, seeing their familiarity, was relief. They clearly got along and that meant less work for him. “Another misjudgment on my part. Deepest apologies.”

“For the record, I’m sorry for not saying anything either,” Pixie said, still sounding apprehensive despite Jude and Jasper’s resolution. “I didn’t know if I should. Or if it would change anything. And things were just starting to work out, I didn’t want to...”

“Shake anything up, I understand,” Jude said, only mildly surprised to find that he actually meant the reassurance. “You played it safe. I might have done the same. In both your places.”

“I doubt it,” Jasper said with a rueful, but fond, smile. “You’ve always had a much closer relationship with the truth than I have.”

Jude had, in fact, entertained almost that exact thought not long ago, but decided not to share it. “You were doing the best you could, working with bad circumstances,” he said instead. “My track record… I might have done something dangerous, yeah. Or at least, you had every reason to think I would, I haven’t been the most stable lately. But I don’t know what I would have done if I’d ever actually caught a vampire.”

“Spray ‘em with holy water,” Pixie supplied, the smile on his face quickly putting any fears of hard feelings to rest. “Then give them a towel. Listen, you didn’t hurt me, which is way more than I expected. All in all, this turned out a lot better than it could’ve.”

“Still,” Jude said, still looking at Jasper with a renewed sense of understanding. And, somehow, trust. He wasn’t facing all this on his own anymore. Maybe he’d never been. “Last week, if you’d come to me with this… I might have done something I’d regret. But not anymore.”

“Really?” Jasper’s eyes widened, relief palpable. Relief and something else, what Jude could only think was admiration. “What changed your mind?”

Jude looked over at Pixie, started to answer, then shut his mouth. Pixie made a pleased noise, looking so satisfied Jude almost said something sharp out of habit. But he held his tongue and Pixie’s smile grew. “It’s good to have friends, isn’t it?”

“It is indeed,” Jasper agreed, in a tone that suggested this matter was closed, but another was about to open. “And I think I have another one who can help us resolve a potentially treacherous situation, assuming that’s why the two of you are here at all.”

“Yeah it—wait. Us?” Jude asked, heart fluttering instead of sinking. He was unaccustomed to feeling anything like hope, but he certainly enjoyed it. “You mean you’re coming?”

“Of course. The nice thing about the truth being out is that now none of us have to face it alone.”

 

 

The mall was dark when Jude and Jasper emerged from the shop. Pixie didn’t step out with them, instead riding securely in Jude’s inside jacket pocket, in his much smaller, winged form. It was safer that way, he and Jasper agreed, and Jude didn’t actually mind being the one to give him a ride. There was something oddly comforting about the warm weight in his pocket, and it did more than he would have expected to calm his nerves.

Every other store and kiosk was locked down and deserted, lights turned off, the only illumination from mandatory red EXIT signs and Jasper’s store itself. The space seemed much larger, sounds echoing in the stillness. Like the continuous shuffling of cards.

The pale woman in black looked up at Jude and Jasper as they drew near, their reflections clear in the large, black sunglasses Jude had never seen her without, even now. She never once slowed or stopped shuffling, the motion fluid and automatic.

“Sorry to come pester you out of nowhere like this,” Jasper began. At the sound of his voice, something started to wiggle in Jude’s pocket and Jude tried to angle his body away from the stranger. To his credit, Pixie had been still and quiet for longer than he’d expected, but he’d just have to sit tight a little more. “But it’s a bit more urgent than usual.”

“You’re never a bother,” said the woman, shooting him a subtle, crooked smile as she set her deck down and drew one card from the top. She didn’t show it to them, but one dark, angular eyebrow rose over her sunglasses. “Whenever I come to see you, I have a good reason and, so far, you’ve extended me the same courtesy.”

“I’d never dream of abusing the privilege,” Jasper said and, though his words were unexpectedly formal, it didn’t sound like he was faking a bit of sincerity. “We had a request—or maybe an offer. I believe I know your feelings on the subject.”

“Sounds intriguing,” she said, laying the card down. On it, the moon shone bright silver in a starry night sky. Jude couldn’t help feeling uneasy. Jasper, however, looked unbothered. “What kind of request-or-offer?”

“The kind I think we’d all prefer talking about somewhere a bit quieter,” Jasper said, with a nod back toward his shop. “I should be closing up soon as well, anyway.”

“Hm,” she said, turning to face Jude as she lay down a card that looked like a man hanging upside-down from a tree, dangling from a rope around his ankle. “And everyone’s up to speed on what deals like mine usually entail?”

“Not as much as I’d like to be,” Jude said, shooting Jasper a sidelong glance, not tremendously reassured when he got nothing but a serene smile in return. “Who are you, for starters?”

“A witch,” she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the universe.

“But what’s your name?” he persisted.

“Valuable, powerful, and mine to give to those who’ve earned my trust.” She pushed back the floppy brim of her black hat to see them better, reached for her coffee, and took a long sip.

“So we just call you ‘Witch,’ then?”

“I don’t care what you call me. I don’t trust you yet.” She took another slow drag of coffee and laid a third card. On it, a small, blindfolded figure in bright yellow was strolling along a forest path, accompanied by a little white dog. She must have seen something in the card she liked, because her half-smile came back and stayed. “But I trust that whatever you’re up to with my friend Jasper, it’ll be fun.”

“Hopefully,” Jasper said as she rose, collecting her cards and coffee cup, which unceremoniously disappeared, despite the conspicuous lack of any trash can or bag anywhere around. The cards could have slipped up her sleeve, but the coffee was another story, and Jude felt a small surge of alarm that he quickly controlled, but didn’t ignore. “But it could also be quite dangerous.”

“My kind of fun, then,” she said as Jasper waved them inside and through the dim lighting and packed shelves. They didn’t stop at the counter, as Jude expected, instead continuing out through the back exit, into the isolated delivery area that ran behind the mall. The Witch led the way, seeming to already know exactly where she was going. “It’s a back-alley kind of night, isn’t it?”

“Most are,” Jasper returned. He cast an anxious glance toward the alley opening, but the place looked deserted as the mall and he turned back, satisfied. “But tonight more than most. We’re going up against someone quite formidable and we’d be exceedingly grateful for any assistance you could provide.”

“Who’s the formidable someone?” she asked, remarkably casually for all this intrigue. Jude couldn’t help but feel a heart-pounding and somewhat nauseating blend of excitement and anxiety. After all this time, he was about to find out what Jasper actually did. And solve the secondary mystery of this ever-present coffee-drinking, card-shuffling enigma.

“A vampire,” Jude said abruptly, studying her reaction. He didn’t get much of one, just another eyebrow raise from behind her shades. It seemed like she was more surprised by his bluntness than the nature of their request. “He’s huge, wears a lot of black leather, and I think he can control other vampires.”

“A pair of teenage girls?” she asked without missing a beat. She had an accent he couldn’t place. Spanish, maybe, but he didn’t think that was quite right.

“That’s the one,” Jasper jumped in much more cordially, except for shooting Jude a faintly warning look, as if he were starting to make a scene in a fancy restaurant. “I take it you know of him.”

“I’ve dealt with Cruce and his ilk a few times over the years,” the Witch said, voice temperature dropping a few degrees as she said his name. “And for years, they’ve been putting innocent people under their thrall and using them—like those girls. Kids who deserve so much better. The most vulnerable people, these monsters just rake them in and suck the life out of them.” Her voice didn’t rise, exactly, but it did grow more intense, words coming faster as she spoke. “But they’re cowards, like all bullies and tyrants. They resort to mind control to get their way because nobody would give them the time of night otherwise. All those girls need is someone to open their eyes to the truth.”

“What truth?” Jude asked, still unsure what to make of the strange woman. For a witch, she’d yet to do anything particularly impressive, aside from making some trash disappear.

“That nobody owns them, fangs or no fangs. They belong to themselves.”

“So, what, we just tell them that?” Jude said, skeptical words out of his mouth before he quite decided on them. Still, his first instincts were usually right.

The Witch favored him with a long look that suggested she was keeping her face a practiced neutral in the face of foolish questions. Jude knew the expression, had used it several times to his own advantage, and felt vaguely annoyed at now finding himself on the business end.

“I tell them this magically,” she said, in a patient tone that only confirmed Jude’s suspicion. “And dispel any holds Cruce has over them, preventing them from being ensnared again. Afterwards, I make sure Cruce never harms them, or anyone else, ever again.”

“How?” Jude pressed, feeling himself quickly losing his grasp on the situation and hoping to regain some equilibrium.

The Witch gave a borderline-theatrical shrug, throwing her hands up. “That’s entirely up to him—though by now, I have a good idea what he’ll choose.”

Jude mentally dug in his heels, and physically folded his arms. He was losing ground, he knew, but couldn’t bring himself to stop his default, somehow-satisfying stubbornness. At least it made him more sensible. “How do we know anything you’re saying is true? How do we know you can help us at all?”

“Ask your friend,” she said, nodding to Jasper, who gave her one right back. Jude was also getting tired of the feeling that everybody knew one another, everyone but him. “Better yet, ask your other friend.”

“Other…?” he gave her an eyebrow raise of his own, which she didn’t acknowledge. Instead, she gave him a faint smirk and deliberate nod.

“The one in your pocket.”

Before Jude could respond, the pink bat had wiggled out of his inside jacket pocket and flopped to the pavement. By the time he could look, it had a human shape. Pixie waved in a cheerful way that filled Jude with a sense of foreboding, even as his cheeks flushed with embarrassment. He knew when his bluff had been called—and who’d won this last round.

“How’d you know?” Pixie asked, sounding more tickled than upset that she’d apparently detected his presence. “I mean, yeah, witch, but still.”

“I know a lot of things,” she said, perfectly nonchalant, as if sensing the presence of bats who turned into punks was nothing unusual. “When vampires are near. Their habits, the way they think. What to do when they become dangers to others, or themselves. How to stay alive while making sure that danger doesn’t become a catastrophe.”

“Wow,” Pixie said, giving her a look of awe which, for some reason, gave Jude a pang of something he refused to name as jealousy. He knew his way around vampires too and he didn’t go around bragging about it. But then, even if he tried, the Witch was a lot more convincing than he could ever manage. “Sounds like we’re in the right place.”

“So you’ll do it?” Jasper asked the Witch, sounding more urgent and driven than Jude had heard in a long time. It was refreshing to hear. All this secrecy and danger agreed with him. “You’ll help us?”

“Under one condition,” she said, and Jude could feel her studying the three of them from behind her dark glasses.

“What’s that?” Jude narrowed his eyes, suspicion rising once again.

“I’m going with you.”

“Great!” Pixie sounded genuinely excited—even more than usual. “The more the merrier. Jasper already told me how cool you are, so yeah, I think you going with us would be a really smart thing to do.” He looked to Jude, noted his dour expression, and continued without a missed beat. “And pissing you off would be really not-smart.”

“Why?” Jude pointedly refused to meet Pixie’s equally pointed look, instead maintaining his stare at the Witch. “What do you really want?”

“Same as you,” she said, voice level but with an edge he didn’t dare question. “These are dangerous people I’ve been trying to take down for a very long time. I want them gone, or at least unable to hurt anyone ever again—which, for them, also means ‘gone.’ This is just the best chance I’ve had yet.”

“So now that’s settled,” Jasper said with a bright smile and clap. “How exactly do we proceed? I trust you know the way.”

“The maintenance tunnels in the sub-basement,” she said as if there’d been no interruption. “They open up into a series of tunnels and somewhere in them is your lair.”

“Lair?” Pixie repeated, sounding substantially less excited than he had a moment ago. “Why do they have to have a lair? We’re vampires, sure, but we don’t have to live in creepy tunnels. It’s just excessive.”

“Maybe,” she acknowledged. “But if they’re anywhere, they’ll be in there. It’s dark, hidden, and well-defended. The dramatics don’t hurt either. Vampires do tend to enjoy them. Call it a cultural quirk.”

“What kind of defenses are we talking about?” Pixie didn’t sound at all comforted by her less-than-satisfactory explanation. Jude could relate.

“There’s a locked door. You can’t get past a lock?” he asked, still eyeing the Witch warily, then glanced over at Pixie. “Or is it like them and needing to be invited or something?”

“That’s not the kind of defense I’m talking about,” she said with a slight shake of her head, dark brown hair swaying in shoulder-brushing waves. “The place will be magically shielded, fortified. The kind of protection you need me to get you past.” Her smirk shifted into something closer to a grimace. “But I’ve had a lot of time to practice.”

“Why haven’t you done this before?” Jude had to ask. He was almost hoping to find a hole in their theories, a reason to back out. He’d had reservations about all of this from the beginning and, the more the plan solidified, the more his brain screamed for him to leave, go home, and forget all of this. Except that he’d never be able to forget a single moment.

“Because I’m not a fool,” the Witch said easily. “At least not fool enough to risk it on my own. I’ve met the bastards outside, on my terms, but never theirs. Never on their home territory, and definitely not alone. I don’t like the odds. And I don’t start fights I’m not guaranteed to win.”

“Smart lady.” Pixie grinned. He seemed to have taken a real liking to her mysterious vibes and cool confidence. “But the odds are a lot better now that we’re here, right?”

“And why exactly is that?” Jude asked, still unconvinced but seeing no alternative. This was happening. Hadn’t he always wanted to track down undead evil and drag it to the light? He’d spent years working toward this. Why, then, did he feel so unprepared? “What makes us different from anyone else?”

“He knows his way around the arcane,” the Witch said, nodding to Jasper, then Pixie. “And he’s an actual vampire. And you… I just have a good feeling about you. You’re stubborn, you won’t quit for anything, even if it means bashing your head against a brick wall. I like it.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment, I guess,” Jude said with grudging satisfaction.

“Takes one to know one,” she tossed back. “So, there we are. You get me there, I’ll get you in, we’ll get each other out alive—or close enough.”

“Deal?” Jude asked, hoping he wasn’t making a huge mistake. At least if he was, he told himself, he wouldn’t be alone.

The witch gave that same tight-lipped smile that made him shiver and wonder what in the world came next. “Deal.”

 

 

“Do you trust her?” Jude asked as he followed Jasper down the length of the loading alley, toward the open street. The Witch did not accompany them. Jude had turned his back for what must have only been a second but, when he looked back, she’d disappeared as if she were never there. He wasn’t actually surprised by this, considering the rest of the past few days—and his life in general—but it was still mildly unsettling.

“As much as I trust anyone who isn’t you or Eva,” Jasper said, casually, as if they were discussing dinner plans with a new acquaintance.

“So then, not much?” Jude couldn’t resist a slight smirk, the kind she had seemed so fond of. It was easier to feel optimistic when they had a plan, or at least less-than-doomed. They may still be lost causes, but Jude was starting to warm to the challenge. However this night turned out, he’d be closer to answers, closure, and sweet resolution than he’d ever come.

“Not as much as I’d like to,” Jasper said a bit more seriously. “But don’t worry. She’ll help us.”

“That’s not all I’m worried about...” Jude felt something move in his pocket. Pixie was in there, again, and Jude unconsciously gave the warm lump a quick, reassuring pet.

Jasper gave a soft chuckle and started to answer, probably to say something ironic-but-comforting in the way only he could accomplish, the way Jude loved—but stopped mid-word. Then he stopped walking and held perfectly still.

“Jasper?” Jude asked, alarmed, and turned around.

But he didn’t reply. His eyes were wide and frightened, staring at—no, past Jude. At something behind and above him. Slowly, hating every moment, Jude turned again. He knew what it would be, but he made himself look anyway. And, as his eyes fell on the monster, he made himself breathe.

The shadowed figure clinging to the sheer brick wall twenty feet in the air was a vampire. Jude didn’t need to see its fangs to know that, but they were bared, flashing white and long as his pinkie finger, sharper than any he’d ever seen. The form was unmistakably inhuman, viscerally alien, and Jude knew the horror and revulsion he felt seeing its elongated limbs and claws was evolutionary, as millennia-ingrained as a fear of heights, fire, or death. This kind of fear kept humans alive. Except for when there was no escape.

The creature dropped silently, seeming to rush forward before it even hit the ground. Jude raised his fists but the action was absurd, pointless. The thing was a blur. He had a better chance of catching the wind itself in his hand than landing a punch, but he had to do something, anything. If they were going down, he was going down swinging.

But mid-dash, the vampire stopped, seeming every bit as frozen as the terrified pair of humans before it. And, for one brief, terrible moment, its outlines became clear, illuminated by one of the few alley street lights.

In a heartbeat that seemed to stretch into years, into a lifetime, Jude saw the creature’s face. Like the others he’d seen, it was twisted into a monstrous grimace. But as he watched, blood freezing in his veins, the horrific snarl faded, and the warped lines and too-sharp angles of the creature’s chillingly morphed features smoothed until they resolved into something else. Something Jude knew. As he stared into the vampire’s partially-transformed face, a pair of very human, very familiar eyes stared back.

He knew that face. Jude was sure he’d know the voice within a single word. He’d know it anywhere: dreaming and devastated, awake and unafraid, asleep or dead.

Everything had changed the day Felix died. Except for his eyes.

But the moment Jude barely began to articulate this, that those were the eyes that he hadn’t seen for five years, except for dreams from which he awoke screaming, crying, he hadn’t expected to see them ever again, even looking at pictures was beyond him, and now here they were, here he was—

He was gone.

In another rush of wind and blurred, too-fast-to-track movement, Felix was gone. Again.

Jude couldn’t move. Beside him, Jasper stood frozen as well, staring into the darkness where the… where Felix had disappeared. Something wiggled in Jude’s pocket, and he automatically reached down to cover the pink, fuzzy head that poked out. Pixie had to be scared, or at the very least curious, but Jude couldn’t make his mouth work. He couldn’t make any part of himself move.

“Jude,” Jasper whispered, breaking the horrified silence. “Did you see—”

The impact to his chest was so fast Jude never saw it coming, and so forceful he staggered backwards until he hit the brick wall. Jude gasped, the wind knocked out of him and head spinning as the impossibly fast-moving creature flashed before him again. Before he could catch his breath, or make a sound, it was directly in front of him, claws reaching for him, grabbing at his jacket. Then, a high-pitched screech and rapid flapping sent a new kind of dread surging through him.

“No!” Jude shouted, forcing his eyes open and hands into fists as talon-like claws tore at his jacket and its inner pocket, then seized the small, pink, frantically flapping bat. “No, don’t touch him! Get—”

Felix’s hands. Gentle, healing, magic hands. Shoving Jude against the wall and crushing Pixie in their grip, in their claws. Jude felt like he was dying, he couldn’t breathe, he wanted to vomit and scream and drag the thing with Felix’s face into the light, look it in the horrifically familiar eyes until he saw the truth, dredge some kind of meaning from this nightmare—

Felix recoiled, springing back and up into the air, Pixie clutched tight in both hands. There was another flapping sound, much louder than Pixie’s desperate flailing, and a pair of huge, dark wings unfurled from his back. They nearly spanned the alley and a gust of wind hit Jude in the face. More flaps, more wind-bursts, and more of Pixie’s terrified squeaks—and Felix leaped into the air, powerful clawed legs and wings propelling them higher and faster than anything should be able to move, almost faster than the human eye could follow.

Then they were gone.

Jude almost collapsed, laid low by terror, panic, and shame. He almost froze, overwhelmed with terror and shock. He almost ran after them, screaming Felix’s name, and Pixie’s. He almost laughed hysterically, weak under the realization that he’d been right, that what he’d barely dared hope for five years was real, that he knew what he’d seen.

“Jasper!” he yelled the second he got his breath back. Instead of any of the above tempting choices, Jude shoved his horror aside, banished the memory of Felix’s face and hands forever burned into his brain, a precious memory now tainted by fangs and claws. If he let himself, Jude knew he’d sink into a well of despair from which he might never emerge, and now that simply was not an option. “Damn it, come on! They’re getting away! Fuck that, they’re already gone! They’re gone, and he took Pixie, and we have to go after them! Now!”

Jasper didn’t move. He hadn’t moved this entire time.

“Come on, move! Say something!” Jude barely resisted reaching out and shaking him. He could feel his own desperation rising. A panic attack was the absolute last thing he needed right now, but it was the absolute most likely thing if this kept getting worse, and especially if Jasper wouldn’t talk to him. “Anything!”

“You saw who that was.” Jasper’s voice was barely audible, but it wasn’t a question. When Jasper turned to face him, he looked almost as grey as any vampire Jude had seen.

“Yes,” he made himself answer, though the words tasted like blood on his tongue. “Felix. He’s…”

“He’s alive.” Jasper finished when Jude couldn’t. His voice did not shake, and grew stronger with every word. There was no hesitation, only certainty, finality. “He’s been alive all this time.”

It wasn’t quite true, Jude thought with a surge of hysteria. But it didn’t have to be completely true to be forever life-changing. Felix wasn’t alive, but he wasn’t dead. He wasn’t gone, he was here. He’d been here. He was just—

Jude sucked in a breath. His chest was tight, the familiar constriction that meant he was right on the panic-edge again. This was real. As he’d said over and over again for years, Jude knew what he saw. And he’d seen Felix.

But that wasn’t the only thought that made his stomach drop. Felix was here. And Pixie wasn’t. Pulling himself together as much as humanly possible when dealing with new, inhuman realities, Jude made himself speak. “So, assuming that was—who we thought it was—”

“It was!” Jasper said immediately, starting to pace quickly back and forth, eyes bright. Even through his dissociative fog, Jude realized Jasper sounded more energetic, more alive than he could remember hearing, even after tonight’s excitement leading until this moment. “It is! I’d know him anywhere! At the end of the world! Fangs be damned, that was him!”

“Okay. Okay,” Jude said, still trying to get his breathing and pounding heart under control, and arrange his chaotic thoughts into anything resembling sense. “So he… flew at us. He attacked us. And he took Pixie.”

“Yes,” Jasper said, stopping his pacing and looking at Jude. The intensity in his eyes was startling, as if he’d been asleep for the past five years and only just now awakened. “Yes, he—but he wasn’t in his right mind. How could he be? I haven’t been in my right mind, none of us have.”

“A thrall,” Jude said, throat feeling thick as he remembered Pixie’s ominous words and the Witch’s confirmation. He started to shake. “He’s under Cruce’s control just like the girls. He has to be. Nothing else makes sense.”

“My God,” Jasper whispered. “My God, all this time, I can’t imagine…”

With that, all the galvanized energy in Jasper’s eyes, voice, and body seemed to dissipate, like a candle blown out by a gust of cold wind. Slowly, he sank down to sit on the curb, burying his face in his hands in a now-familiar position that made Jude’s heart ache.

“If Felix is a vampire and he took Pixie,” Jude started, frantically clinging to logical thought-processes, cause and effect, his best shot at making sense of this nightmare. Where would they be? Where were they headed right now? He had an idea, and didn’t like it one bit. “That means he’s—”

“Jude,” Jasper said, very quietly, without looking up. His shoulders sagged and Jude felt his own knees shake with shock and exhaustion. “Give me a moment to take this in. Please?”

Jude stood in silence for the space of a few long breaths. Then, just as silently, he sat down on the curb beside Jasper and let his own head drop onto his knees. They’d figure out the next step soon. But for right now he just had to sit.

Felix was here. Pixie was gone. And Jude was numb.

“The sub-basement, she said!” Jasper exclaimed with a sudden urgency, raising his head. His revitalized voice shook Jude back to the present before he could sink too far into despair. That, at least, was familiar. “That’s where they will have gone! It all comes back to the same place!”

“That’s what I was thinking.” At least while he was able to think at all. But now Jude shook his head to clear the shock-induced cobwebs. Action. Game plan. They needed one. Jasper was with him, at least. “It makes sense.”

“You have the key, correct?” Jasper prodded. The hope in his voice made Jude’s heart speed up, made his head spin with something aside from overwhelmed confusion.

“No, not me,” Jude said, grounding himself with the feel of the cold concrete on which he sat, digging his fingertips into the curb. “Eva.”

“Shit.” Jasper sighed, sounding much more tired than annoyed. “I tried to tell her too, you know? But she didn’t want to hear it, and some things shouldn’t be forced. But she needs to know, should have known for a long time. How are we going to explain this?”

“Let me worry about that,” Jude reassured him, speaking as if he had a plan and wishing he knew what it was. “Go back and talk to your friend the Witch, get everything ready. I’ll meet you at the entrance with the key.”

“All right,” Jasper nodded quickly, climbing to his feet but not moving away just yet. He extended a hand down to Jude, which was gratefully taken. “This is happening. It’s a nightmare, but it’s real, and we know what to do with that. Save the shock and breakdowns for later. We’ve both gotten quite good at compartmentalizing, haven’t we? So we keep moving for just a little longer and we’ll know the truth. Just a bit more and he’ll be…”

He trailed off, eyes slipping out of focus, and Jude found himself smiling through the pain. Jasper never was the best at taking his own advice.

“I don’t know how this ends,” Jude told him, not letting go of his hand, taking some small solace in the warmth and closeness. They’d been together all through these long, painful years, but the kind of togetherness that reminded him of being in the same empty house, in different rooms. Tonight they were in the same place. “But it’s been a long time coming. Five years too long.”

“Jude, I’m sorry about Pixie,” Jasper said after a short pause. He shut his eyes briefly, and when he opened them again they were clear and resolved. Compartmentalization was a hell of a thing, Jude thought. “We’ll get him back too, I pr—”

“It’s fine,” Jude said before Jasper could finish that wonderful, dangerous word. He knew firsthand how much it hurt to make promises he couldn’t keep. The possibility that this might be one of them made his heart clench all over again.

“None of this is fine,” Jasper said with a sad return smile that Jude knew much more intimately than any of his newly-reclaimed, brave, wild hope. “It hasn’t been fine for a long time. And we’re right on the edge of it, now, aren’t we? It might be all over tonight… or, dare to dream, we might have everything.”

Jude nodded, giving the warm fingers in his hand a squeeze. His eyes stung, like looking into the smoke and flames of an inferno. But at least, just like before, he wouldn’t walk into it alone.

“Thank you,” he said softly, a familiar ache flaring in his chest. He’d felt it before, but never expected to find himself aching for the safety and return of someone who’d come into his life through noise complaints and a broken window. None of it had prepared him at all. “I… Pixie’s just… it wouldn’t be fair not to hold up my end of our deal. Not after all this.”

“I know,” Jasper said just as quietly, with just as much certainty. He let go and stepped away, heading back the way they’d come. “And you’re welcome.”

 

 

“I need help,” Jude said the moment the door opened.

“I’ve been saying,” was Eva’s deadpan reply. The sun had just gone down and she was in red flannel pajama bottoms and an oversized red T-shirt reading Meet Me In The Pit. Probably just settling in for a relaxing evening of Netflix and alcohol that she so sorely needed and deserved, Jude thought with a pang.

“No, I mean, I need your help,” he clarified, fighting the urge to clench his teeth and hyperventilate. No good would come from breaking down, particularly not now. But it sure was tempting. “I need to get into the maintenance tunnels. The mall’s sub-basement. It’s important.”

“Now?” Eva raised her eyebrows and leaned against the doorframe. At any other time, Jude might have taken the hint.

“Yes. Right now.”

“At night.” She glanced down at her pajama bottoms and bare feet, then back up at him, looking caught between fatigue, annoyance, and concern.

“Yes!” Jude said, as firmly but calmly as he could manage. “Tomorrow will be too late.”

“Because…?”

He knew the apprehensive look on Eva’s face. It meant she was praying to every guardian angel who might be listening that he wasn’t about to spout anything about blood and fangs. Jude had seen that pleading look a lot. Most recently just a few days ago, when he’d stood in her office and tried to fill out an incident report involving undead skaters. Now the situation was so much more important, so much more deadly, and he couldn’t begin to explain why. “I can’t tell you.”

Her shoulders sagged as she sighed, staring at him with half-mast eyes. “Jude… I’m tired.”

“I know,” he said, heart sinking. He felt every bit as worn out as she did, had for five years. The only difference between them was how they responded. “And you have every right to be, and I’m sorry I keep doing this to you. I wouldn’t if I could possibly avoid it, please believe me. I’m trying. It’s about…”

“About what, Jude?” Eva prompted, pinching the bridge of her bruised nose. It still looked like it hurt.

“It’s about someone important to me.”

After the words were out, Jude was only mildly surprised to find they were absolutely true. And that he didn’t just mean the shocking revelation about Felix—though the horrible knowledge was so momentous he could barely think about it without collapsing. He didn’t know exactly when his dynamic with Pixie had shifted from reluctant partnership to… something else. But it had. And the thought of him alone and surrounded by hostile vampires made Jude’s stomach drop nearly as much as it did when he thought about the alien look in Felix’s eyes.

“Tell me what’s going on,” she said, taking a step back, away from the door, and nodding for him to follow. She was going to hear him out, just like he’d prayed. Not known, not counted on, or taken for granted. Eva would have been so very justified to blow him off after this. But she was listening. It was all he could ask. “The truth, Jude. No vampires. No full moon. Just… the truth.”

“My missing upstairs neighbor, Pixie,” Jude started as he followed her inside, slowly, measuring his words. There had to be a way to distill the truth, tell her the crux of his crisis without getting into dangerous territory. “He’s not so missing anymore.”

“Well, that’s good,” Eva said, blinking and looking a little nonplussed at the anxiety on her friend’s face. Clearly she’d expected a different direction. Jude took this as encouragement and continued. “Glad to hear he’s okay.”

“Yeah. And he was helping me deal with some… troublemakers,” he said, unable to help raising his eyebrows meaningfully. “Kids at first, but then a bigger, meaner one appeared last night—but then he…”

Felix. Jude couldn’t possibly tell her yet. It was too much to process, too much for him to even make sense of yet. It was almost more painful to think about Felix now, knowing in what form he’d survived. How much he had to have suffered for five long years. There had been nights where Jude thought Felix had been the lucky one. But Felix had received no merciful release of death, no cessation of pain—instead granted what appeared to be a half-living servitude. This was almost worse. He didn’t know. He couldn’t know until this was over.

“Someone took him,” Jude finished a little weakly. He was suddenly so, so tired.

“To the maintenance tunnels?” Eva said, studying him, as if carefully searching for a lie in anything Jude had said. She wouldn’t find one. But she knew she wasn’t getting the whole truth either, Jude could tell that just by looking. They never could keep things from one another, even the most painful or unbelievable. As Jasper had recently observed, there was more than one way to tell a lie to someone, ways that involved no words at all. None of that had a place here.

“That’s where Jasper thinks they went,” Jude said with a nod. “The—the bad people, that’s where they’ve got Pixie. So we have to hurry and get down there too.”

Eva brought one fist up to her face, gently tapping it against her mouth and nose, elbow propped up with her other hand. She let out a long sigh through her nostrils, looking at Jude as if he were a puzzle she’d been so close to solving, but suddenly discovered a new, ill-fitting piece. “Jasper’s going and I’m not?”

So close. Their next few words would determine so much more than one night. It felt like a friendship and hard-won trust hung in the balance right along with Pixie. Jude took in a slow, deep breath, and let it out. “I want to know you’re safe.”

“That’s a cop-out and you know it,” Eva said, eyes narrowing. He’d known it was the wrong answer when he said it, but didn’t have anything better to offer. “If you’re going somewhere really dangerous—which I’d say you are—you need me.”

“I need someone on the outside to call for help if I don’t come back,” he said, a shake in his voice he refused to acknowledge. “Two in, two out, remember?”

“By my count, there’s two in, one out.” Was it his imagination, or did the specter, the ghost of a smile flit across her face when he reminded her of the old firefighting maxim? Always work in pairs. Never leave your partner. Two go into an active building and two come out. Her smile was gone before it really materialized, and only her careful, searching stare remained.

“And thank God for that one,” he said, meaning every word. But the old rule had another meaning—two venturing inside, two staying outside, in constant radio contact and ready for damage control. That was the one he needed her to remember. “Eva, I trust you more than anybody else on the planet. I want you to come with us. I want to show you everything. But it’s not about that anymore, it’s about staying alive and the only way I see us coming out of this is if you’re out here keeping an eye on everything before it goes to hell. Just like how it used to be. I could run into anything if I knew you were watching up above me.”

“But I’m not,” she said, and now he could hear the anxiety in her voice. But it wasn’t rejection. It wasn’t dismissal. It was the fear that came from being in the trenches right beside someone, the deep breath before you both took the plunge. “You’re not going to have cell reception down there. You’ll have no way to call for help.”

“I know. It would be too late anyway,” Jude spoke quietly, words coming out faster now. “But I’ll call you as soon as we’re out. I promise. If I don’t—Eva, I’ve broken a lot of promises lately. But if I break this one, if the sun comes up and you haven’t heard from me? You’ll know it’s real, and it’s over, and we need that extraction...”if there’s anything left to extract, went his unspoken conclusion. He had no doubt that she’d understand that much at least. ”So just... please,” he said, looking directly into her eyes with a fervor he hadn’t felt in years. He recognized the energy flowing through him now, the conviction, the desperate hope. He’d seen it in Jasper’s eyes not long ago. “Give me one last chance. When I’m done, I’ll either show you everything, or I’ll be dead. Either way, it’ll be over.”

Eva didn’t answer right away. For a few second she held absolutely still and then, slowly, sank down onto her own living room sofa—black leather and a lot less ragged than Jude’s. She sat there, staring at the opposite wall, while Jude stood there and silently waited, hating the infusion of tension and unaccustomed awkwardness between them. Eva was quiet for a long time.

“When the sun comes up?” she asked at last, very softly, and Jude knew, knew with his entire heart, what she was really asking. In a way not entirely unlike Jasper knowing Felix’s face at the end of all things, Jude knew Eva’s voice. He knew the exhaustion, the just-one-more-step resolve, the wanting to believe, but being unable to muster the hope.

He also knew he would never be able to lie to her. Not when she asked him in that voice. Not ever. Jude shut his eyes and readied himself for the end. “Yes.”

Silence stretched between them. The silence he’d been waiting for, for years. She’d been entirely within her rights to cut him off, him and all his ridiculous vampire bullshit. They had very different coping methods, as she’d say. Jude obsessed and clung to evanescent ghosts and ran full-tilt through the very fire that burned him. Eva did her best to move on and hold herself—and them—together. Do her job. Make life better for the people left.

He had no right to ask this of her. She deserved to heal on her own, away from all of this. Away from him. If that was what it took, he wished her resolution, closure, and peace with all his cracked and fire-tarnished heart.

The words that finally broke the silence weren’t the ones he expected to hear. But they were also the impossible culmination of the wild, foolish hope he didn’t know he’d been praying for, even as he knew exactly how impossible, how unfair it all was.

“I’ll help,” Eva said softly and Jude felt his painstakingly-built defenses crumble in the most beautiful way. “Do what you need to do. I’ve got your back.”

Tears stung at his eyes and he gasped out a sob. It was never the panic in the midst of a crisis that got him, it was the relief after. Kindness, not pain. That he was never prepared for.

“Thank you,” Jude whispered, squeezing his eyes shut. The tears came anyway but, right now, with her, he didn’t care. He never did. “I… thank you. So much. I can’t even say how much this means.”

“I think I have a pretty good idea,” Eva said, and Jude didn’t need to open his eyes to hear the smile in her voice. The last thing he expected or deserved. But coming from her, it felt natural. Right. Being together always did. “But this is the last time. I’ve been saying that too.”

“I know,” Jude said, opening his swimming eyes and blinking her back into focus.

“And this time I mean it.” The finality in her voice and face was unmistakable. After five years of promises desperately made and hopelessly broken, neither one of them had the energy required. “Don’t make me regret it, Jude. Please. Make it worth it.”

“It’s worth it. I promise, it is.” He dragged a forearm across his eyes, rubbing so hard it hurt. “You didn’t have to say yes. It’s not fair to ask you anything, after all the shit I’ve pulled. I know that.”

“Yeah, I know it too,” Eva sighed, and they both had to smile just a little.

“So then why are you doing this?” Jude never knew how to handle the non-worst scenario. Even now, with a found and hard-kept sister he trusted so much more than his own fool self. No trust could keep him from questioning.

She pulled him into a hug so tight he couldn’t breathe. He sobbed again, forehead against her shoulder, and hugged her back like both of their lives depended on it. “Because it’s about someone important to me.”

 

 

“Pixie. What am I going to do with you?” Cruce’s grating voice was conversational. The rebuke was almost fond, a soft disapproval, like one might show a pet who’d made a mess on a fancy rug. Pixie felt sick.

He also couldn’t move. Restrained, he thought. Somehow. Pixie hung in the nebulous state between unconsciousness and waking, head heavy, eyes throbbing, limbs feeling like lead. But that meant he had human arms and legs.

Pixie remembered snuggling down into the cozy warmth of Jude’s pocket. Then, yelling. Fear in Jude’s voice. Poking his head out and smelling more fear on the breeze, along with another, familiar, inhuman scent. Then being seized in a tight grip, desperately flapping to get away before being restrained, rushing through the air, a crushing impact, pain—

Then, nothing.

“I’d say I didn’t want to do this, that you pushed me here, but that would be a lie,” Cruce’s voice continued, unwaveringly light and casual. “And I do try to avoid direct lies. Particularly when the truth is so much fun. I’ve been looking forward to every minute of this.”

He moved away then, and Pixie heard more than saw him pick something up. Instinct flooded back along with barely-restrained panic from fragmented memories; Cruce enjoyed working in the dark. Fortunately, Pixie’s strongest sense was no longer sight. He’d never known if that was an advantage, or if Cruce used that sensitive hearing against him. Hearing without seeing and never being able to stop whatever came could be even more terrifying…

“I will say, however,” Cruce said with a sigh, as if ruminating over tragic regrets. It sounded like he was behind Pixie now, and the realization sent a wave of fear crashing through Pixie’s entire body. He wanted to curl up into a ball. He wanted to turn back into a bat and fly away. He couldn’t do either. Couldn’t even move. Even if he could, he knew what would happen if he did. “Part of that is true. This is all your doing. You knew what would happen the moment you ran. And you did it anyway! I wasn’t the only one disappointed, let me assure you.”

Cruce gave a rueful click of his tongue from somewhere Pixie couldn’t see. Pixie shivered.

“And now, you’ve put me in a very uncomfortable dilemma,” Cruce continued, voice low and smooth. He ran one finger down Pixie’s neck, drawing a frightened gasp and shiver, and tugged lazily at his scarf. Pixie clamped his mouth shut, barely suppressing the whimper that badly wanted to escape—but couldn’t keep in the relieved sigh when Cruce’s claw released his scarf and moved away from his neck.

“You see, no matter how glad I am to see you again, and particularly under these circumstances,” Cruce continued, sounding an odd combination of smug and vaguely annoyed. “Our master was very clear about the condition in which I’m to see you returned. That being ‘good as new, no marks, no damage.’ But, I’m afraid, sometimes things just don’t work out as we planned.”

Pixie gasped as something painful pressed into the palm of his left hand. A sharp object with a terrible point, but he couldn’t identify exactly what. Cruce was still behind him, stretching his arm to an awkward, uncomfortable angle. He let out a faint whimper, but immediately clamped his mouth shut over it. He knew from experience that Cruce didn’t just feed on blood. He liked the fear that preceded it, too.

“For example, I wasn’t supposed to leave scars. But sometimes exceptions have to be made.” He could hear the cruel smile in Cruce’s voice. Could tell that he’d heard Pixie’s soft, fear-filled sound. Of course he had. “And after all, you weren’t supposed to run away in the first place. I’d call that even.”

The sharp pain in the middle of his palm intensified. But, strangely, it didn’t feel like Cruce was digging it in. The point in his palm burned, as if it were metal, superheated. Pixie could almost smell his own scorched flesh. Only one thing could burn his skin like that now, he thought, despairingly.

Cruce moved into his field of vision now. His smile was every bit as wicked as Pixie had imagined. And the hammer he raised over his head shone as brilliantly silver as the nail he held against Pixie’s hand.

“Keep your eyes open,” he whispered, making Pixie’s stomach twist in agonized, nauseating terror. “And keep quiet. It’ll all go easier if you do.”

The hammer fell, and Pixie disobeyed one more time.

 

 

Eva’s key was as good as her word and that, as always, was very good. The door to the maintenance tunnels opened at the turn of the key. Jude and Jasper followed the Witch’s lead as she stepped over the threshold, leaving the mall, and the rest of the world, behind them.

Jude had made a brief stop at his own apartment before joining them, looking for anything he could use for what promised to be a harrowing night. The first thing he found was the empty bottle that had once held the alleged holy water, which seemed no more effective against vampires than regular water. An empty bottle was even more useless. For the first time, Jude wished he’d actually invested in the archetypal anti-vampire weapon, a stake. He’d never bothered to obtain one. Somehow having a real weapon would have made everything even more real and terrifying—but he didn’t have time to examine his motivations, and instead grabbed the only item that might actually be helpful. Another bottle. Red, long-necked, and filled with sauce instead of holy water.

Now, as he headed down the corridor with Jasper and the Witch, he kept touching the cool weight in his inside jacket pocket, somehow reassured by its presence as they went. The walls and ceiling gradually changed from the uniform lines and angles of constructed concrete to rough stone. Bare-bulb lights hung from the ceiling, just a bit too far apart for comfort, casting strange shadows as the rock surface grew irregular. The corridor’s shape grew more organic, until they were walking down a round-walled tunnel that sloped continually down.

After around ten minutes, they reached another door set into the stone. It looked just like the heavy metal door to the mall’s sub-basement they’d passed through, but something about it felt… wrong. Jude stopped several yards away from it, heart speeding up.

Going through that door was a bad idea, he just knew. The very thought made cold terror rise through his chest, freezing around his heart and lungs. Behind him, Jasper stopped as well, making no attempt to pass Jude or keep walking—the Witch, however, didn’t break stride.

As she continued toward the door without hesitation, she raised her hands, then made a sweeping motion as if pushing something aside, or opening invisible curtains. With two more unerring steps, she reached the door and took hold of the handle with both hands, pulling it open with only a soft sound of exertion. When she was done, she stood to one side and gave a slight bow, gesturing grandly to it with both hands.

“So that’s my end of the bargain held up,” the Witch said, sounding satisfied with her part in the operation. “Or the first step, anyway. Feel better?”

Jude gave a shaky nod, breathing more easily. The moment she’d opened the door, the dread that had once built up in his chest was gone. It felt like that door had been radioactive, giving off every possible danger sign, intangible but impossible to ignore until she’d found the magical ‘off’ switch. Beyond the open door, the corridor continued.

“Thank you,” Jasper said, sounding as disoriented as Jude felt. He looked from the Witch to Jude, then back at the door, seeming to struggle with something internally. “Ah, did either of you happen to feel…?”

“I definitely did,” Jude confirmed, remembering the negativity radiating off that door with a chill. At least it was over now. There seemed to have been an atmospheric shift, and everything felt a lot lighter, as if the air were pressurized instead of high-altitude thin. “It didn’t feel like a good sign.”

“It wasn’t a bad one, either,” said the Witch, sounding enviably unbothered. “Expect some more strangeness as we go, but nothing we can’t handle.”

Jude gritted his teeth, kept his reservations to himself, and followed.

Even with the door’s unnatural sense of dread dissipated, his sense of foreboding grew with every passing moment. Jude couldn’t help feeling like they were venturing someplace humans weren’t supposed to be, or even know about, and every step brought them further from daylight and fresh air and closer to a death trap from which there could be no escape.

But he kept walking and said nothing. Nobody did, not as the corridor branched, then branched again, dark paths leading away. Not as the Witch led them deeper into the earth, taking some turnoffs and passing others without hesitation. Nobody questioned her or how she knew where they were going at all—not until the dark, claustrophobic tunnel network opened up.

At first, Jude thought they were outside. Where the tunnel’s air had been cool but increasingly stale, the breeze that met his skin smelled fresh. The sounds of their footsteps and shallow breathing didn’t echo in the same way as they had in the tunnel’s small space. They’d entered a much larger cavern, and, as his eyes adjusted gradually, he saw that it wasn’t as pitch-dark as he’d thought, but illuminated by a low, intangible light, the source of which he couldn’t find.

“What is this place?” he asked, voice reverberating through the deep, open space. “I’ve never heard of a cave this size around here. Or any at all, actually.”

“You weren’t supposed to,” the Witch answered. She still sounded considerably less awed and more casual, as if huge, previously-unknown caves were a normal part of her everyday life.

“Look, there’s more tunnels over there,” Jasper observed, sounding incredulous and admiring at the same time. “If there’s even one more cave like this one, this network must stretch under the entire city…”

Jude could see him point in the low light and followed the outline of his finger to what had to be the far end of the cave. At least one hundred feet across the dark, open space were even darker shapes—dozens of entrances to more tunnels like the one through which they’d come. The light was stronger on the cavern’s far side, increasing until it looked like dim twilight underground.

“How has nobody ever noticed?” he marveled, brain failing to reconcile any of this. Like so many things in his life, it didn’t make sense. At least not when viewed through a lens that expected anything like rationality.

“Pocket dimension,” said the Witch, as if that explained everything.

“Pocket...?” Jude repeated, uncomprehending.

“A slice of reality solely dedicated to a single place or time. It’s practical, economical,” she said with a shrug. “Not really that unusual. It saves space. And nobody gets to see that space unless they’re allowed, or good enough to bypass its tricks.”

“We’re in… another dimension right now?” Jude whispered, suddenly feeling a little dizzy. His brain was going to reach its limit soon, he knew.

The Witch’s smirk was faint in the dim light, but unmistakable. “As I said, nothing we can’t handle.”

Before anyone could answer, everything changed. Light exploded through the cavern, drawing a surprised gasp from Jude as he squeezed his eyes shut and stumbled back, running into somebody, he couldn’t tell who, couldn’t tell where the light had come from—but he knew what it meant. They were no longer alone.

“Ah, wonderful! You took the bait,” called a clipped male voice, followed by a clap that snapped through the calm cavern air. “And here you are!”

“Yes,” came the Witch’s voice, calm, with an edge of fury instead of mockery. “Here we are. And you know what comes next. You can avoid some of it if you let him go.”

Let him… Jude forced his eyes open, terrified of what he’d see, but even more terrified to keep them closed.

Cruce. The towering vampire wore the same black leather as before, the same gloves. He stood not far away from the three, much closer than he should have been given there had been no audible approach. On either side of him, torches blazed in wall sconces, casting the previously-blinding light. They were too bright to look at without pain and Cruce stood in the glaring spot between them. Now his and every other shadow in the cavern danced unnervingly in the too-intense firelight.

But none of that mattered. Pixie was here, Jude thought as he rubbed at his sore eyes, trying desperately to blink the purple-and-orange afterimages away. He had to be.

When he finally found Pixie, slightly off to one side and outside Cruce’s immediate spotlight, Jude wished he hadn’t.

Pixie was back in human form and Jude had to look up to see him. Strangely, he was positioned above the much-larger Cruce. Hanging from something. Dangling. His arms were spread wide, but the droop of his head—and his silence—told Jude he was unconscious. Perhaps mercifully, Jude thought, sickened. He couldn’t quite tell what Cruce had done to Pixie and perhaps that was merciful too. Jude’s mind refused to put the pieces together. All that mattered was that Pixie was here. Not unharmed, but alive.

Despite everything, Jude still had no real idea what could actually harm or kill a vampire. Apparently not fire, he’d had five years to wrestle with that. Not holy water, as he’d found out firsthand. Then what—

“You haven’t changed.” The Witch’s voice was harder than before, and actively aggressive for the first time. Jude shivered, but couldn’t be sure if it was fear of her rage, or revulsion at—at whatever Cruce had done to Pixie. He couldn’t stop staring, but still couldn’t identify what was happening. What was wrong.

“Why tamper with perfection?” Cruce shot back, an unpleasant laugh under his echoing words. He bared his teeth in a grin as he looked up at Pixie’s still form. “Especially when it’s something I just… thoroughly enjoy. That’s rare, nowadays—we have to take pleasure where we can. And inspiration, though I’m admittedly not sure if this qualifies as ‘divine.’”

Divine inspiration.

No.

In a flash, Jude understood what his weary and traumatized brain was trying to protect him from. The way Pixie’s arms were outstretched, the way his head hung down low. The angular shape behind him. The glints of metal in his palms. He’d seen this before. He hadn’t seen it for five years but, before that, he’d seen it every Sunday.

“Oh, God,” Jude whispered, voice too loud for the silence, heartbeat too loud in his ears. Bile rose in his throat, burning all the way up, and his stomach constricted. He wanted to follow the impulse, vomit right on the spot, but that would mean looking away, and he couldn’t look away any more than he could breathe—and the moment he’d laid eyes on Pixie, he’d forgotten how.

“Crude, perhaps,” Cruce said, cruel amusement raising every hair on the back of Jude’s neck. “But it gets the job done. A time-honored punishment for thieves.”

His scarf, Jude realized, dizzied brain latching onto a single, small, but oddly important detail. Pixie wasn’t wearing it anymore. Jude had never seen him without it before, but here…

“Thieves…?” Jude rasped, head spinning. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be real. “What—”

“Did he steal?” Cruce interrupted, raising one hand to cup his ear. The exaggerated motion was an insult. Jude had no doubt the vampire could hear the very beating of his heart. “Well, isn’t that obvious? He left! I didn’t give him permission. My master certainly didn’t—his master, I should say. Our sire never relinquishes his property, particularly his favorite pieces.”

“Property?” It was Jasper who said it, sounding every bit as horrified as Jude felt. Jude couldn’t have gotten another word out to save his own life, or Pixie’s. “You’re a monster. You’d be a heartless monster, even if yours was still beating.”

Cruce gave a slight, casual nod, as if acknowledging a point so obvious it went without saying. “And he’s a thief. Fortunately, in this case, thief and property are one and the same. Recovering one takes care of the other. Two birds, you might say.” A sharp, unpleasant smile spread across his face. “And now you’re here, I’ve got three more.”

“No. It’s over,” Jude heard himself say. Though his insides still twisted, his voice didn’t shake. He wrenched his eyes away from Pixie, forcing himself to look at the demon responsible. No, the man. Cruce was still a man and, as Eva had told him once, the worst monsters were human. “You won once, when we were scared and alone—not anymore.”

“You’re not alone?” Cruce grinned evilly. Vampires did indeed enjoy drama, Jude remembered the Witch saying, evidently accurately. Cultural quirk. “Good. Neither am I.”

He raised one hand, and three figures stepped from the shadows behind him. Nails and Maestra stood on either side of Cruce, completely still, staring at the group of humans with unblinking, glassy eyes.

The third vampire made Jude’s breath catch in his throat.

His black hair was long, unkempt where it had once been soft and glossy, partly covering his ragged face. Jude remembered hearing something about hair and nails continuing to grow after death, and wildly wondered if this was proof. His skin was a washed-out, ashen grey instead of the healthy bronze it should have been. Claws sprouted from every long, thin fingertip, and his mouth hung partly open, revealing long, deadly fangs. Huge, leathery wings were half-open behind him, brushing the ground as he moved too smoothly, too silently. Everything about him was alien, unsettlingly inhuman, wrong in the way every homo sapient instinct was programmed to fear and flee.

But his eyes were exactly the same as they’d been five years ago—and the same as they’d been hours before.

“Felix,” Jasper whispered, dry voice still carrying through the vast cavern. He tried to say something else, but all that came out was a choked sob, then silence.

Speechless, breathless, Jude noticed the Witch raise her hands from the corner of his eyes, a ball of light in each palm. He was beyond surprise. Beyond caring. He couldn’t take his eyes off Felix—and, beside him, Pixie on the cross.

“Take them,” Cruce said to his servants as the air began to crackle with the building magical power. “But take your time. This is going to be fun.”