Sometimes, Jude was actually glad the mall was so overstimulating. Headache-inducing or not, its bright lights and crowd chatter drummed any thoughts of fanged horrors out of his head—here, they seemed ridiculous. This was the real world, and nothing he was scared of belonged. The shadows didn’t run miles deep. Nightmares and half-buried memories faded in the face of neon lights and sale signs. Everything seemed familiar, friendly, and reasonable in the sun.

But the main promenade wasn’t his ultimate destination. He’d get out on the floor soon. He’d meant it when he told Eva he’d actually do his job, but one last loose end remained. Or a last chance. The light of day made him brave enough to take it. He turned into a small corner shop, bearing a sign reading Jasper’s Rare Finds: Vintage Books and Records in curling, elegant lettering.

Jude blinked a few times as he crossed the threshold. It was always darker in Jasper’s store than in the brightly lit mall, and more cramped. Every bit of shelf and floor space was crammed with books, records and mysterious-looking items. Crystal balls that had to be fake. A large, rune-covered skull that Jude certainly hoped was. It all made for an impressively arcane atmosphere, like every book or antique might be hiding something and, if they weren’t, anyone who frequented this place probably was.

Jude was almost certain this place was a front for something else, dealing in illicit materials not found on its visible shelves—what, he didn’t care to hazard a guess. Ordinarily lawful in the extreme, Jude made one glaring exception. As long as Jasper wasn’t hurting anyone else, or himself, he deserved whatever coping mechanism worked, however shady. The only warning signs, so far, were Jasper’s evasive answers about his job’s specifics and the occasional unsavory or enigmatic person hanging around his store.

Jude had passed one on the way over. A few small tables stood near the store’s entrance, overflow from the nearby coffee shop. The one nearest to the doorway was occupied by a pale woman all in black, complete with a floppy-brimmed hat and oversized sunglasses, sitting alone shuffling a deck of cards. Every time he’d come here, actually, she seemed to be there with her cards and tall coffee. Jude never asked, but he had to wonder if Jasper actually paid her to sit there and add to the mysterious ambiance. Much stranger things had happened. At one point her presence had made Jude decidedly nervous—pale strangers tended to do that—but after the first few times, he’d concluded she was probably just an older example of the mall goths who frequented The Abyss. Jude had never been inside; the colorful hair and loud music repelled him, and at least none of the clientele had yet shown fangs.

“Jasper? Are you even in here?” There was barely room to pick his way through the labyrinthine shelves and piles of books sitting on the floor. Jasper would call it ‘cozy’ or ‘atmospheric.’ Jude called it a mess.

“Mmm,” came the noncommittal response. Jasper stood behind the counter, round shoulders hunched as he pored over yet another thick, leather-bound book. He hadn’t looked up when Jude entered, and didn’t now.

He was heavyset and not much older than Jude’s 25, but he’d clearly made an effort to look otherwise. His face was hidden by the brim of a large black top hat and, under it, his thick dark hair was disheveled. Deceptively so, Jude knew just how long it took to tease it into the perfect shape and frizz level.

“I need to talk to you,” Jude said, finally emerging from the shop’s maze. Every book he could see was old, decades or maybe centuries, but well-preserved. Nothing was overtly ominous, but the dim light and arcane aesthetics put him in a certain state of mind, one he never liked to linger in. He couldn’t wait to see fluorescent lights.

“Of course. Anything.” Today’s costume didn’t look like Wednesday’s usual, now that he could see it properly. Wednesday usually involved plaid, but this one instead gave the impression of a circus ringleader or cabaret Master of Ceremonies. A bright red silk scarf contrasted with his black and white tuxedo and tails, and there seemed to be a very fine layer of glitter over all of him, and a bit on the nearby countertop. But what Jude could see of the book on the counter was clean and glitter-free. It looked very old and the writing on its weathered, parchment-like pages was small and in a language he didn’t recognize. Apparently Jasper did, because he smiled, as if he’d just read something funny. He still didn’t look up.

“It’s about...” Jude lowered his voice and tried to make the near-whisper as intense as possible. Sometimes drama worked when not much else did. “...Them.”

Jasper casually turned a page. “Anything but that.”

“It’s important,” Jude said at a regular volume and his normal, if slightly annoyed, voice.

“So is deciphering Ms. Verazza’s latest enigma.” Now Jasper looked up, and his entire ensemble came together. His heavy eyeliner came down into points halfway down a theatrically pale face and black-polished nails gleamed in the low, faux-candlelight as he folded his hands and rested his elbows on the front desk. Gothic ringleader, Jude thought, a little appreciatively despite himself. With some creepy harlequin. “That woman is taunting me, I can just feel it.”

“If she wrote that,” Jude said, nodding down to the yellowed pages and dense scrawls, “she has to be taunting you from beyond the grave. How old is that thing?”

“At least a-hundred-and-fifty years,” Jasper said, casting the book a baleful glance as if it were indeed smugly mocking him. “And, for the past week, it’s been quite the headache. You wouldn’t happen to have heard of a ‘burned angel,’ have you? Who ‘sleeps in the circle of stones?’”

“Is that some kind of riddle?” Jude frowned, wary of being pulled into some game for which he really wasn’t in the mood. He’d always gotten the feeling Jasper’s side businesses involved more than old books. Magic, if he was to be believed. Jude wasn’t sure how much he did believe. His brain rebelled at the existence of vampires, much less anything else. He’d never really inquired about specifics and he’d never seen Jasper do anything more ethereal than morph his hair and makeup from one persona to another. He was also a firm believer in using whatever coping mechanism worked, no matter how unorthodox.

“You tell me.” Jasper shot Jude a quick grin, raising his eyebrows in a very expectant way. Clearly he was in the mood for games. Color Jude unsurprised.

“I don’t know.” Jude shook his head, glancing back out toward the wide open mall and its tempting, brightly lit spaces and complete absence of non-sequiturs. Maybe coming in here had been a mistake.

“Are you all right?” The slightly provocative smile slipped off Jasper’s face and his pale blue eyes turned searching instead of playful. “You look like you haven’t slept in days.”

“More like nights,” Jude admitted, with some regret and more fatigue. “A few nights.”

“Bad dreams?” Coming from anyone else, the question would have seemed invasive, or teasing. But despite the glint he’d had in his eyes a moment ago, Jasper seemed nothing but sincere and concerned. More than that, he sounded like he had experience. Both of these impressions, Jude knew, were accurate.

“Old ones.” Jude ran a hand through his hair and rubbed the back of his sore neck. He hadn’t gotten much sleep since Eva left last night, unable to stop replaying everything she’d said, and everything he’d seen in the parking lot earlier. “The kind that don’t go away when I wake up.”

“Well, if there’s any way I can help,” Jasper offered, serious and sympathetic. “I’ll do it in a heartbeat, you know that.”

“You could back me up.” Jude leaned forward in an uncharacteristically conspiratorial way, resting his own elbows on the counter. He’d seen Jasper utilize space and nonverbal communication to emphasize his points enough times to give it a try himself, no matter how silly it felt. “I’m done, I really am, but Eva still thinks I imagined the whole thing, and I just don’t want it to end like that. And you can tell her I’m not making it up, and I’m not just seeing things. I’m not that far gone yet.”

“Oh.” Jasper immediately looked back down at his book, seeming to find something in its inscrutable text deeply intriguing. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“Why not?” Jude asked, a little more loudly than he’d intended, and straightened up, frustration shaking his focus.

“Many reasons,” Jasper said, with a firmness clearly meant to discourage argument, which might have worked on anyone who wasn’t Jude. “None of which would do any good to drag back up to the surface.”

“This is important,” Jude insisted, intent on finding at least one ally. Common sense and good advice told him to give it all up without question—but he couldn’t stand the thought of his best friends thinking he was misguided at best and completely out of touch with reality at worst. Especially when he’d seen firsthand evidence to the contrary. “I told Eva I wasn’t doing this anymore—”

“Oh, good for you!”

“I said I would stop.” Jasper chuckled at this, and Jude had the sudden urge to grab the top hat off his head. Didn’t know what he’d do with it, but it would get his attention. “And I will. Soon.”

“You lied to Eva?” Now Jasper peered up from underneath his hat, interest seeming piqued.

“No, I didn’t lie,” Jude said slowly, trying to sound as reasonable and grounded in reality as possible. Being in this particular shop, and talking with its owner, always made that difficult. “She told me to let the past go and focus on the present, and she’s right, and I will. Very soon.”

“You lied to Eva,” Jasper concluded, nose back in the book. “Your funeral.”

“I saw them,” Jude lowered his voice again to an intense whisper. “Last night. In the parking lot.”

“You saw something strange in the parking lot?” Jasper said with a dry laugh, not looking up. “Alert the media.”

“It was them!” Jude insisted. “The two girls? I’ve been catching more and more glimpses lately, and last night I got closer than I ever have—”

“Oh, God love you, Jude,” Jasper said with a sigh and a slow shake of his head. “You’re a lost cause.”

“It’s the truth and you know it. All of it,” Jude said softly, resisting the urge to glance over his shoulder. They were the only ones in here, standing close enough to speak in whispers, but he still felt exposed and vulnerable whenever he said certain things out loud. “You were there. You saw everything I did. Eva didn’t, but I know you did.”

“That’s certainly true,” Jasper said briskly. His eyes scanned the page, but Jude had the distinct impression that he wasn’t reading a word anymore. “I saw a lot of things. Felt them. Heard, smelled, tasted even, it was a five-sense experience. And that’s how I developed a sixth sense for things that are better left alone.”

“So you’re giving up?” Jude asked, equal parts disappointed and incredulous.

“Yes!” Jasper raised his voice beyond low conversational tones for the first time and his bright blue eyes flashed in a glare as he lifted his head. Jude wasn’t often on the receiving end of one of those. He sometimes forgot exactly how much intensity Jasper could command, this was a reminder. “And I’ve said it before, you would too if you had half the sense Eva thinks you do.”

“Well, that’s not much.”

“My point exactly.”

Jude glanced around at the store full of old books, crystals, skulls, and objects he couldn’t even identify, and resisted comment. “Don’t you want to find the things that attacked us that night?”

“Thing.” Jasper’s sharp eyes narrowed, a sudden undercurrent of cold anger in his voice. All at once, his dark ringleader costume and harlequin-esque makeup seemed a lot more menacing. There were a lot of creatures Jude had no desire to run into in a dark alley and, for the first time, he got the feeling that Jasper was not only prepared to meet them, but would have a better chance of surviving than he did. “There was only one.”

“I know. The one that killed Felix. Isn’t that—”

“Don’t talk about him like that, please.” Jasper closed the book with a soft thud. His voice dropped, and there was no sharp edge to his words, but Jude knew better than to push him. Jude had seen the way Eva froze, hearing that name. He probably did the same whenever someone mentioned it. Jasper didn’t freeze, really, but he did push himself back from the counter which Jude felt much more tangibly as a barrier between them, everything about his face and voice seeming to close off and invite no pursuit. “Let’s not use his memory to win arguments.”

“I’m sorry,” Jude said, wishing for not the first time that life came with a rewind button instead of existential dread and fanged menaces. Going back a few seconds, or a few years, both ideas were tantalizing. “I didn’t—I’m sorry.”

“No, I am.” Jasper’s sequin-dusted shoulders sagged and every bit of energy their quick back-and-forth had built up seemed to seep out of the room as he sighed, leaving Jude cold. He took off his hat and started to rub at his temples and tightly-shut eyes. “That was uncalled-for. You weren’t trying to... you cared about him too. You understand.”

Jasper put his warm hand briefly on Jude’s arm and squeezed, before taking a few steps away and sinking his heavy frame down into a rarely-occupied reading chair half-hidden by the counter. Jude always had suspected it wasn’t actually for customers. Jasper shut his eyes and rested his forehead in his hands, hat laying forgotten on the counter.

“Another migraine?” Jude asked, lowering his voice as he had before, but this time it wasn’t to be dramatic.

“Or something like it...” Jasper didn’t look up, also as before, but not to play a game. “Regular stuff isn’t working. Might have to break out something stronger. At least it’s legal now.”

“Your pain’s getting worse?” Jude’s voice sharpened involuntarily, and he felt a pang of adrenaline. Worry felt like nausea, but colder.

“Not getting any better, that’s for sure.” He let out a long sigh, seeming to deflate. He murmured something. Maybe Jude wasn’t supposed to hear but he caught the tail end anyway, “only thing that used to help...”

“What used to help?” Jude asked quickly, still feeling energized and propelled into action despite having nothing useful to actually do.

A slight pause. When the answer came, it was mumbled and flat. “Felix’s hands.”

Jude hesitated, holding very still. “I’m not meaning to pry—”

“By all means, pry away,” Jasper actually laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “It’ll distract me.”

“I thought your head started hurting after... that night,” Jude said, with the fervent hope he wasn’t about to hear something that would make their strained days and desolate nights even worse. “Is it something else now?”

“I’ve always had migraines,” Jasper said, massaging his temples. “But yes, they did get much worse five years ago. Blunt force trauma will do that.”

“I’m sorry,” Jude said, because he couldn’t think of anything else. That was a regular problem.

“Felix helped with all of it, before.” Jasper said, continuing to rub at his head in what seemed to be a poor substitute. “His hands were amazing—I guess you don’t get to be a medic unless you have them. They always knew exactly where it hurt, and how to take the pain away. And so gentle. Like the rest of him. Magical hands, always where they were needed most.” In the brief pause that followed, he glanced up, and Jude caught the faintest ghost of familiar amusement in his eye. “Yes, I’m still talking about headaches.”

“Of course,” Jude said, only a little deadpan.

“But now that you mention it...” The sharp, slightly mischievous ringleader smile crept back onto Jasper’s face, like he was about to welcome a captive audience to the greatest show in the underworld. “His hands were good for lots of things besides migraines. My favorite was—”

“All right,” Jude held up his own hands, but he was far from actually bothered, instead, deeply relieved to find himself back on solid ground. Jude had a very low tolerance for teasing under most circumstances, but when Jasper did it, the world made a little more sense. “I have a pretty good imagination.”

“As if you’d have to imagine!” Jasper actually laughed, and this one sounded much more genuine than his previous sardonic chuckles. “You knew we’d end up together before I did. And you’re blushing. You are!”

“I am not!” Jude protested, even as his hand flew up to his cheek to check. It was warm, which he knew it would be. Jasper had gotten under his skin again, this time without even trying. But the weariness and pain were gone from his face, and it even seemed like his head didn’t hurt quite as badly. An even trade.

“You were right, though, we did belong together. Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith. And adrenaline is an addictive substance.”

“Addictive.” Jude couldn’t help but smile. “Really.”

“The only thing better than jumping out of a helicopter, running into a burning building, or asking someone to marry you is live theatre.” He adjusted his red silk scarf and sequined collar. “Or so I’ve heard.”

They both fell silent, comfortably so. Jude rarely felt the need to fill up quiet rooms with meaningless words, and never with Jasper or Eva. With them, he wouldn’t have cared if it stretched on all day. He knew exactly how rare and wonderful that was, to have two people in his life he could say that about. He’d once had three, but he still counted himself lucky.

“I would have loved to be your best man,” he said at last. It was hard to get the words out, but not because they weren’t true. Quite the opposite. The truer and more important something was, the harder verbalizing it seemed to be. “If things had gone differently. I wish they’d gone differently.”

“Me too,” Jasper answered mildly. His tone was light and noncommittal, revealing nothing. He didn’t have to. It hurt anyway.

“Just the fact that you asked me...” Jude continued, suddenly finding words pale, clumsy things, not at all what he needed to express the never-ending gratitude and deep warmth he carried with him through the bleakest of nights. “Best man. Man, specifically—you don’t know how much that means. I don’t think you can.”

“We had some idea,” Jasper said, an answering fondness in his voice. “But you’re right, some things no one can really understand unless they live it. I’m glad we could give that to you.”

“You were the first I told. Before Eva, even.”

Jasper looked up now, eyes clearing and wide with what looked like slight surprise and deeper emotion. “Even her? I didn’t know that.”

“You were the first to call me by my name.” Jude nodded, swallowing past the thickening feeling in his throat. All this time, and he’d never told Jasper any of this. Maybe he should have, years ago. They both knew firsthand the importance of making sure loved ones knew exactly how important they were, while the chance remained. “You called me a man for the first time in my life.”

“Well,” Jasper said, slowly rising to his feet and replacing his hand on Jude’s arm. This time he didn’t move away. “We always did think you were the best.”

It took Jude a moment to clear his eyes and even longer to speak. “There’s really nothing I can do, is there?”

“Just listening helps.” Jasper’s face was soft under the dark, sharp-lined makeup. “Talking about him helps. I don’t do it enough.” His eyes narrowed again then, tone turning a little bitter. “Or maybe I do it too much, I don’t really know anymore.”

“I don’t know if there is a too much.” Jude tried to maintain the connection they’d enjoyed for these few minutes, a deep understanding that made him like feel part of the world again instead of isolated from it. He knew it was good for Jasper too, but he could feel the distance between them growing, just like Eva last night. There was only so much either of them could handle before the pain got too close, even in memories. “Not when you lose someone like that. I hope you find some peace, Jasper.”

Jasper replaced his hat and shot Jude a smile that came nowhere near reaching his eyes. “After five years, I’m lucky if I can find my way home.”

 

 

The walk home was short and blissfully silent. Jude barely saw anything, eyes out of focus and feet carrying him back to Sunset Towers—his usual, vampire free route—the way he did most things, by muscle memory. He’d already hit the lights, made it into the kitchen, and opened the fridge when he heard it. A soft noise, half-knocking, half-scratching, like someone fumbling with the doorknob with their hands full.

“Eva?” He called, poking his head back out of the kitchen. His living room was actually feeling warm and almost homey, a far cry from the tense atmosphere from the night before. It was amazing what a good conversation with a trusted friend could do. Even if he was on his own when it came to vampires—which he was done chasing, he reminded himself, so this was quickly becoming a moot point—and even if Jasper was clearly still in a much worse place than he’d like to admit, Jude couldn’t help but feel better about everything. He’d made the right decision, and he wasn’t alone, not really. Maybe this was how healing started.

“Come on in, enjoy some delicious blood sauce,” he laughed a little at himself, hand on the doorknob. “How much of that stuff did you say you had? 99 bottles? Was that a joke, or—”

CRASH.

Shards of glass and wood showered the living room as something exploded through the nearby window. Jude barely caught a glimpse of a shadowy form topped with a flash of pink as he dove behind the couch, heart in his mouth as he tried to gauge the distance between himself and his next course of action.

Back in the kitchen, grab the holy water? Too far, by precious seconds. Bedroom? Required leaving his cover. He couldn’t even see well enough to make a choice that didn’t end in death—whatever it was had knocked over a lamp and shattered the bulb in a shower of sparks, halving the light and casting strange, flickering shadows up across the walls and ceiling.

Every option opened himself to attack from whoever—or whatever—had just slammed into his living room like an asteroid. Paralyzed by indecision and fighting panic, Jude held perfectly still and did nothing at all.

A few seconds went by, silence broken only by his own shallow breathing. Then:

“Ow.”

Jude didn’t recognize the voice. And couldn’t tell from the single word where the intruder was. He waited a little longer, but nothing met his ears but more silence, and the whistling of a cold night wind through his now-broken window. Finally, very slowly, he peered out from behind the couch.

He had one chair that matched the old sofa, and now it was tipped over along with the lamp, lying on its back on the floor. In it, a young man sprawled, upside-down and legs in the air, looking like he’d just stepped out of a punk rock concert, or maybe off the stage. His jeans were torn, his hair was bright pink, and his ears were full of piercings—large, unusually pointed ears. His only concession to the cold outside was a scarf pulled tight around his neck, black, covered in tiny red skulls, and with the tags still hanging from it. New at best, stolen at worst. The whole ensemble would have been at home at some loud, chaotically anarchist gathering Jude would have wanted to leave immediately. But none of that actually added up to intimidation, at least not while he was down on the floor. If this was a burglar, he was about the most ineffective one Jude had ever seen.

And he made no effort to move, folding his hands across his soft, round belly and staring up at the ceiling. Didn’t even seem hurt or distressed, more like he was getting his bearings and taking a quick break. For the few seconds it took both of them to adjust, he stayed right where he’d landed.

When Jude managed to speak, his own voice was surprisingly calm, considering. “What the fuck?”

The uninvited guest stared up at him, a matching expression of confusion on his upside-down face. “You’re the one who invited me in.”

“I did not,” Jude said automatically.

“Yes you did, I heard you, just now, you said ‘let yourself in.’ So I did.”

“I wasn’t talking to you!”

The pink-haired intruder shrugged, or did the closest movement possible while lying on his back. “Sorry. My bad.”

“Your bad...” Jude repeated, raising his eyebrows in bewilderment, suddenly aware of how absurd all this was. He was arguing with a young punk—exactly the kind of delinquent who made Jude’s reluctant job harder every day, the kind who threw things at Eva, the kind that still hadn’t righted himself or gotten up off the floor. “This is my apartment. And that was my window.”

“Yeah…” Now he slowly sat up, brushing small bits of glass off his shoulders and back. He seemed only slightly sore rather than actually hurt by his sudden and exciting entrance. He’d come through in a lot better shape than Jude’s window, at least. “Sorry about that. Windows just kind of sneak up, you know?”

“No,” Jude shook his head, actually impressed at exactly how calm he was staying. “I don’t. I don’t know anything. Like what you’re doing here… Pixie.”

“Hey, you remember!” Jude’s upstairs neighbor had always been distinctive. The bright hair and shiny piercings, his small, chubby build made of soft curves and few sharp angles. The way his nose wrinkled up a little when he smiled (infuriatingly, that was the exact look he’d had right before Jude had told him to turn his music down, the exact one). The big, pointed ears with their rows of studs and hoops, which gave a little twitch, as if he knew Jude was looking at them specifically.

“You’re kind of hard to forget. I thought you were missing,” Jude said, relieved despite his frustration and everything else about this moment. This was unmistakably Pixie, from the pink hair to the unlikely name. Still, something he couldn’t quite place was bothering him. Besides his window, lamp, and glass-covered floor.

“How can I be missing if I’m right here?” Pixie seemed to find the idea amusing. Jude didn’t, eyes narrowing as he peered closer, trying to get a better look in the too-low light.

“Something’s different about you.” Jude was sure of that, but still couldn’t say why. It wasn’t his hair, although that had changed since Jude had seen him. Last time they’d clashed it had been an electric blue, appropriately sticking straight up as if he’d stuck his toe in a wall socket. It wasn’t even the scarf or the T-shirt Jude had never seen before, ripped in a way that might have been intentional, reading ‘Chaos Chainsaw.’ Was that a band? A singer? A too-strong drink? So much baffled him tonight.

“Well, you look the same as ever,” Pixie said, still sounding upbeat and eager to make a good first impression. He could start by repairing the window. “Jude, right?”

“That’s right,” he said, still studying his impromptu nighttime visitor and resisting the urge to show him out the way he'd come in.

“Hey, Ju—uh,” Pixie stopped as Jude’s face hardened into an immediate glare. He’d put up with a lot tonight and that would have just been the last straw. If even Eva and Jasper weren’t allowed to tease him like that—not that they would on purpose, they knew how he felt about it—this guy absolutely wasn’t. A sheepish grin spread across Pixie’s face, and he pointed up with two black-nailed fingers. “Dude. Hey, dude, how’s it going?”

“It’s quieter. Haven’t had to make a noise complaint in the past month.”

“You never did appreciate my music,” the younger man said primly, getting up off the floor. He talked as if he had some kind of high ground despite being surrounded by broken glass. Which he’d shattered.

“No, I don’t. And I asked you very politely—”

“Pff, banging on your ceiling is polite? You almost punched a hole in my floor!”

“I had to get your attention somehow, since apparently asking five or six times wasn’t good enough!”

“Everybody’s a music critic!”

“That was not music.” Jude folded his arms while Pixie clapped a hand to his chest and gasped as if mortally offended. “I don’t know what that was, but it wasn’t music, it wasn’t anything I’ve ever—”

“Excuse me!” Pixie’s large ears twitched again as he took a step closer, looking up at a sharp angle at the taller Jude, who stared unflinchingly right back down. “I don’t criticize your taste in whatever it is you like!”

“No, you just burst into my apartment at night, almost give me a heart attack, and shatter my window! You still haven’t told me what you want.”

“Want?” Pixie let out a giggle that sounded distinctly nervous. “Can’t a guy just, uh, wanna come see a fr—not a friend, just another guy, a familiar—”

“Familiar is right,” Jude squinted again, leaning down closer. Pixie held very still, not even blinking, as if he were even holding his breath. “But there’s still something different about you. I just can’t put my finger on it.”

“Uh, I don’t know what you mean.” Pixie started to bounce quickly on the balls of his feet, as if holding still for just those few seconds had taken all the self-control he had. “Oh—it’s probably the hair. Or the earrings! I got a few new studs.”

“No, I’m used to all of those...” Jude waved vaguely at the alternative accessories, and didn’t stop studying Pixie’s face. Maybe it was just the low light (the broken one Jude would make him pay for later along with the window), but the young man’s skin looked almost ashen grey.

“Um, so, what’d I miss while I was gone?” Pixie asked brightly, clearly trying to change the subject. “Anything exciting happen around here?”

“No,” Jude answered after a moment’s hesitation. He was unwilling to let his vague but undeniable suspicion go, but something Pixie said had only deepened it. “Wait. ‘While you were gone?’ Where have you been?”

“Uh, around,” Pixie deflected and looked away, back out the window, and now Jude could swear his ears drooped just a little. He reached up to nervously adjust his scarf. “Um, did anyone ask about me? Come looking?”

“Some police came by,” Jude spoke slowly, watching for any telling reaction. He had the definite impression Pixie was making just as concerted an effort to control himself, and Jude caught the widening of his eyes and the small catch of his breath. “My friend Eva said you’d gone missing. They must have been here to check it out. Have you been back to your apartment at all?”

“Uh, yeah, sure.” Pixie swallowed, eyes flicking again to the broken window. Jude knew that look well. Pixie was doing what he’d done just a moment ago. Gauging distance, time, ease of making a fast escape. “Hey, you don’t happen to remember what these cops look like, do you?”

“What are you asking me?” Jude gave him a hard look, less annoyed and more suspicious with every passing moment. “Pixie, are you in some kind of trouble?”

“Ha, no!” He laughed just a little too loudly. Jude had seen his share of terrible liars (and been one) long enough to recognize when someone was floundering. “What? No, come on, what would I even—no!”

“Listen,” Jude dropped his voice, then his folded arms. “I work mall security, but that’s not why I’m asking. I’m not with the police and I don’t talk to them either.”

“Really?” Pixie asked, voice rising in pitch as he took a step away from Jude and toward the window. “‘Cause it’s kinda hard to tell the difference from where I’m standing.”

“You came to me for a reason, didn’t you? I can’t help you if you don’t—”

“I said no!” Pixie took another step back. As he did, his eyes flared, blue-green and chillingly familiar, iridescent like a cat’s. His mouth, still open from his sharp cry, revealed sharp-pointed canines. Even as his pulse pounded loudly in his ears, Jude’s blood ran cold.

He’d been right. There was something different about Pixie.

“Shit.”

They leaped away from one another. Jude flew toward his kitchen at last while Pixie stumbled backwards. Jude threw the emergency drawer open and, in a moment, the holy water was in his hand. He acted on instinct, unscrewing the spray top and simply hurling the liquid toward the dark shape huddled in the corner and its still-glowing eyes.

A high-pitched, inhuman yowl split the silence. Jude scrambled backward, not looking to see the result, but feeling grimly satisfied as he shielded his head with his arms. But, although the vampire’s bloodcurdling screeching continued, no talons raked down his back, no teeth sank into his skin. He wasn’t being ripped to shreds. Something was wrong. Slowly, he lowered his hands and opened his eyes, turning around to face his opponent.

Pixie was right back where he’d started. On the floor. But he’d curled up in a ball, rolling around and covering his own head to escape imaginary blows. Instead of what Jude had thought was a bloodcurdling predatory shriek, he let out terrified squeals. Jude watched for a few seconds, dumbfounded, but nothing else happened. No lethal attacks, no mortal terror. Just increasing levels of secondhand embarrassment.

“Does it really hurt?” he asked, letting the hand holding the holy water drop and hang loose. Pixie didn’t reply, not seeming to hear. The small... vampire, if the fangs and eyes were to be believed, continued to squirm in a tight, scared ball, yowls dissolving into sad whimpering noises. Jude pinched the bridge of his nose, a gesture that reminded him of Eva whenever she was particularly exasperated with him. One for which he now had a newfound empathy and respect. “Please stop.”

Pixie didn’t stop. His only response was to paw at one wet ear, rubbing every bit of holy water off his definitely-grey skin. Jude sighed and turned away, feeling safe enough to briefly leave the room. When he returned with a towel a moment later, the shivering vampire was still there, and hadn’t un-curled. So he dropped the towel right on top of Pixie.

“Thank you,” said the dripping lump under the towel.

“Mm-hmm.” Jude stared, wondering all the while what in the hell he was doing and how to steer the situation back toward something he knew how to deal with. Fighting vampires was one thing. Having weird, awkward standoffs with them was another. When he spoke again, it was in a conversational tone even he found absurd. “So, it’s true about holy water?”

“What?” Pixie emerged, hair standing up even straighter than usual from the vigorous toweling. “Oh. No, I guess not. It doesn’t burn or anything. Which is good to know! I thought it would, honestly, learn something new every day. But you did scare the heck out of me. Also, I don’t really like being wet.”

“I scared you?” Jude stared some more, then shook his head with an aggravated snort. Enough. “Never mind—get out of here!”

“That’s not very nice,” Pixie grumbled, sounding hurt again.

“You’re a vampire!” Jude exclaimed in an ever-more-familiar combination of frustration and confusion. “I should be staking you right now!”

“Do you actually have a stake?” Pixie asked, looking up sharply and looking legitimately worried for the first time.

Jude only hesitated for a second, hoping that he was, at least, not the worst liar in the room. “Maybe!”

“Well, thanks for not using it.” Pixie seemed to relax a little, but continued to anxiously twist the towel in his hands. Something about his eyes, when they weren’t flashing glare-bright, made Jude shut his mouth. His pupils were definitely more vertical than Jude was used to seeing but, aside from that, they looked almost human. “I don’t even know if it’d work for sure either, but getting stabbed in the chest is never gonna sound fun. So, yeah, thanks for that.”

“I’m… you’re welcome.” Jude folded his arms, somehow feeling like he’d just been out-maneuvered. The fact that he wasn’t entirely sure if it was intentional didn’t make it better. “You’re still a vampire, in my house, which is about the worst place a vampire could ever be. You’re dealing with an armed, dangerous, prepared vampire hunter.” He held up the holy water and gave it an intimidating shake. Then realized the bottle was empty and quickly stopped.

“Okay, good.” Pixie nodded, not actually looking as unimpressed as Jude had expected, but not that scared either. “That’s actually why I’m here.”

“You have a death wish?”

“I mean, I’m kind of already dead, so—”

“Just talk fast and get out of my apartment so I can fix my window!” Jude was shivering already, and it wasn’t entirely from the adrenaline. Maybe cold didn’t bother vampires, but it certainly bothered him, that and virtually everything else about this conversation.

Pixie did talk fast. “Okay! So the mall’s infested, right? With a ton of pesky vampires who like to bug you, and kick me around, and basically act like bullies who own the place, right?” Pixie stopped and waited, looking like he expected Jude to agree immediately. When he didn’t, he went on. “And they’re really annoying, they scare people, they suck their blood, all kinds of, just, real bad things that vampires do, right? Except for me. I don’t—I mean, they’re out of control, someone should do something!”

“I intend to,” Jude said levelly, and hopefully menacingly. Pixie apparently didn’t know about his promise to Eva, to stop chasing vampires and start focusing on his actual job. And he didn’t need to. Not yet, anyway, not while it gave Jude even a slight advantage. “I’m out there every night.”

“Yeah, I know!” Pixie didn’t sound nearly as scared of this as Jude had expected or intended. Again, frustrating.

“You do?” Jude narrowed his eyes, suspicion re-igniting. Vampiric nature aside, this one was up to something. “What do you know?”

“Um—I hear things.” Pixie wiggled one large ear, apparently in a demonstration. When Jude didn’t smile or otherwise acknowledge this, he quickly moved on. “But so far you’ve been chasing little squirts, just catching glances here and there, and you can barely keep up? Especially with all the naughty human kids running around, right?”

“And I suppose you can change all that,” Jude said, slightly impressed despite himself. Inconvenience aside, it took serious guts to approach someone supposedly on a mission to eradicate one’s species, even if Jude hadn’t had all that much success so far. Still, he never would have thought to make first contact with a vampire, much less on its home turf. Even if this was some kind of trick, it was a daring one.

“Mm-hmm.” Pixie nodded, still altogether too perkily for Jude’s taste, or trust. “I know where they sleep.”

Jude’s skepticism and resolve wavered, but only for a moment. “The one I’m looking for is… something different than the ones I’ve seen around here.”

“Different is good, makes ‘em easier to find!”

“What, exactly, are you suggesting?” Jude asked, not at all sure he wanted to know the answer. But at least after he dismissed it he could go back to figuring out what to do with the vampire in his apartment and how to prevent it from being an issue again.

“A deal. I’ll take care of your little monsters, if you take care of mine.” Pixie smiled in a sly kind of way that reminded Jude of Jasper’s cunning ringleader face, the one that said he was cooking up many schemes, behind many curtains. Coming from Pixie’s comparatively much-more-innocent-looking face, it wasn’t quite as convincing. “I scare away the naughty kids so you can focus on important stuff, like the nest of big baddies! Then you take them out, which is safer for everybody—we both win!”

“You’re trying to get me to kill off others of your own… species?” Pixie shrugged, and Jude eyed him, looking for any hint of hostility or guile. He didn’t find one, but that did nothing to reassure him. “Why?”

“Hey, vampires only turn into vampires because we get bitten and killed by other vampires. There’s no weird loyalty system or whatever. I don’t like these guys any more than I like… actually, I like you more than them. You’re actually talking to me.”

Jude considered the proposal, studying the young man’s smiling face, pink hair, and complete lack of anything intimidating. Aside from that first flash of eyes and fangs, nothing about him was what Jude would call frightening, even to him, an unarmed and not-quite-able-bodied human. At all. “I don’t know if you’re up to this.”

“Oh, come on, give me a little credit!” Pixie actually sounded insulted at the idea, defensive and eager to prove his undead prowess. “I can scare off a couple of bratty kids! It’ll be fun!”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m not just out here hunting any random monster.” Jude’s tone dropped and expression along with it, frown deepening as he grimly remembered the initial reason for his five-year fixation. “There’s one in particular.”

“Huh…” Pixie nodded slowly as if to show he was following, and now he was the one giving Jude a cautious, searching look. “This one, uh, got a name?”

“No. No name, no face. Just claws, fangs and…” Jude shivered, remembering full moons and flames. “Fire.”

“Well, that does kinda describe a lot of us,” Pixie said thoughtfully, as if he were running through a mental roster of vampire names and reputations. Jude had to admit, such a thing might be of some use. “Even the fire part, more than you’d think. Most of us don’t like it, yeah, but some of the bigger guys like to play with it, show off how badass they are.”

“This one is responsible for more carnage than I can describe.” Jude spoke slowly, tone full of warning, surprised to find that part of him hoped Pixie would listen. “It shouldn’t have been possible. It wasn’t possible. I’ve never seen anything like it and, somehow, I don’t think you have either. This thing was… more.”

“Hey, I’m still a vampire!” Pixie interjected, again sounding indignant. “I have fangs! And my eyes glow, and I can turn into a bat, and do all kinds of wild stuff! I’m—”

“Listen,” Jude said in a much calmer voice than he would have expected from himself under the circumstances. “I’m sure you’re great at…those things. But if I’m going to fight fire with fire, so to speak, I’m going to need something with a little more fire-power.”

“Well, you’d be better off with me than throwing holy water that doesn’t even work. And—and!” he continued before Jude could argue. “I saw you the other night.”

“What other night?” Jude asked, instantly back on his guard. The more-than-slightly conspicuous Pixie had to have been watching for a few days at least and Jude hadn’t noticed, even at his levels of hypervigilance and obsessive watch for threats. That was sloppy. Sloppy could get you killed just as easily as fangs. “Just how much have you been spying on me?”

“I haven’t—okay, maybe I was spying, but just a little,” Pixie admitted with a sheepish-looking shrug. “In the parking lot. You went up against two of ‘em, they look like teenage girls? They’re little, but they’re nasty. And you totally froze up.”

“I did not—”

“Dude, it’s okay.” Pixie grinned, fully revealing his two small front fangs for the first time. Like most things tonight, they weren’t what Jude expected. Now that he got a good look at them, the little, only slightly-pointed nubbins were the opposite of threatening. If Jude wasn’t so annoyed, apprehensive, and contemplating the most perilously bone-headed plan of his life, they might have been cute. “Scaring people’s kind of their whole deal, and they’ve had about two hundred years to practice. They scare the heck out of me!”

Jude frowned and didn’t answer. He didn’t want to admit he knew the feeling, no matter how true. That would give away too much leverage, and that was the last thing he wanted a vampire to have on him, aside from fangs themselves.

“But yeah, you could use some backup,” Pixie continued, apparently undaunted. “And I got you covered! Just remember, those girls can be creepy, but they’re small fries. If you’re after the big fish… follow me.” He headed over to the window and casually brushed away some broken glass from the sill, which just felt insulting after what he’d done to it earlier. Then he turned back around to face Jude, meeting his hard, scrutinizing stare with an oddly optimistic look. “Just think about it, okay?”

Jude still said nothing. But he didn’t reject the request either, painfully aware of his lack of any better alternatives.

“Cool! Good talk!” Pixie smiled again, this time fang-free. Without those, or the dramatic eye-flash, he looked like… somebody Jude probably would have still avoided like the plague. But definitely not as threatening as vampires were supposed to be. Jude just folded his arms tighter across his chest. The less monstrous this undead intruder turned out to be, the more confused he got. “See you later!”

There was no cloud of smoke or flash of light. One second Pixie was there, the next he just wasn’t. Instead, on the windowsill sat a small, fluffy, familiar-looking bat. Very familiar. Very pink.

Jude and the bat regarded one another for a few seconds. It didn’t move, just stared up at him with beady little eyes, and wiggling very large ears. Finally, feeling perhaps the most ridiculous he’d been this entire ridiculous night, Jude shook his head and spread his hands in a conceding gesture.

“I’ll think about it,” he said in as level and practical a tone he could manage while talking to a flying rodent. “But no promises.”

Seeming satisfied, the small pink bat flopped the last couple inches out the broken window, dropped off the sill, and disappeared.

Alone in the silence, Jude stared at the mess of his apartment. Time to start putting the room, and his head back together. He’d start by sweeping up the broken glass. Tomorrow, he’d talk to Jasper about holy water and set a few related misconceptions straight. After he got a refund.