Chapter 5

 

Scott lived in suburbs of Denver, on the ritzier side of town. His neighborhood was one of those nice ones, with wide streets, little black-iron lampposts, and lots of fenced-in yards. The house was a two-story shingled job with a pillared porch and three-car garage. A silver Volvo station wagon sat in the driveway.

Scott was standing outside in the front yard when I pulled up, a black cat weaving figure-of-eights between his legs. When I got out of the car, the animal hissed and high-tailed it into the hedge. Scott laughed and shook his head before pulling me in for a brotherly hug.

“How you doing?” His dark eyes held a hint of concern.

I shrugged.

“Man, Fritz does not like you, does he?” He bent down to call to the cat.

“I’d forget about getting him to come to you. They hate big bad vamps like me.” I pulled my pack out and lit a cigarette. We stood there and stared at the RS. There wasn’t much to be said. Scott didn’t know about Serv, but I’d effectively lost my home, at least for a little while.

“When you finish that, we’ll go in.”

“Is Liz up?”

He winced. “Yes. She’s freaked out about the fire, and about you staying here.”

I turned to look at him directly. “Seriously? I thought she liked me.”

He rolled his eyes. “She still doesn’t understand why a punk-ass kid like you would be hanging around with an old shoe like me. Come on inside.”

We shared a laugh. I threw the half-finished cigarette down and ground it out with the toe of my shoe. “Which is why I always meet you someplace else. And hell, I barely see you as it is. Sometimes it’d just be easier if they all knew, huh?”

“You’re still a punk-ass kid.” He threw a weak punch at my arm and mimed being in pain. I snorted.

“And you’re still a nerdy dweeb.”

“How in the fuck did we ever get along?” Scott opened the door for me and stepped back to let me go inside first. Cinnamon tickled my nose. Potpourri. I looked around the den at the ruffled bows hanging above the windows. The furniture was a deep mahogany leather with polished dark oak accents. A floral woven rug covered the carpet.

“Wow. You can tell who runs this house.” I smirked and followed him through the kitchen and out another door, which led into the garage. He flicked a switch and the fluorescents winked on after a few seconds, and not all at once. There was his happy place. Long tool bench. Table saw. Pool table with a dust cover. A fuck-load of stacked boxes. Nuts and bolts scattered everywhere. An old green refrigerator rattling to itself in the corner. And, of course, the big-ass black Cadillac truck.

“I figured if you help me move some shit around we can hang out in here.” He picked at a tangled ball of duct tape stuck to the edge of the pool table. “Had to keep the damn kids off the thing.”

I nodded. In the farthest corner of the garage a dusty PA cabinet caught my attention. “Holy shit, dude. Is that what I think it is?”

Scott squinted to follow my gaze. His eyebrows shot up. “Yup, sure is. You think I’d get rid of it?”

“Man we haven’t played in a band together in fucking decades. I wonder if it even still works. When’s the last time you hooked it up?”

He looked up at the ceiling and counted silently. “When did you...uhh...”

“Die?”

“Yeah, I was trying to avoid saying that.”

“You still can’t say it. I’m over it man. And it was eighty-five.”

“Okay then.” He nodded at the cabinet. “That long.” He turned to grab a box off the pool table. It was full of Christmas shit from the look of it. Fake pine needles bristled over the top and something jingled inside when he stacked it on top of another box on the floor.

I tore my attention away from the speaker cabinet and pitched in to help. With me working twice as fast as him, we had the table cleared, the boxes rearranged and organized, and the floor swept in twenty minutes.

“I come here to stay and you put me to work.” I stood next to him and shook my head.

“Damn man. I need you here more often.” He ran his arm over his brow and sat down in an old moth-eaten office chair. 

I remained standing and fidgeted. “Where can I smoke?”

He shrugged. “In here’s fine.”

“What about Liz? Won’t she get all bent out of shape?” I lit a cigarette while Scott stood and helped himself to a beer from the fridge. He held one up for me and I shook my head. He nodded and put the bottle back in the fridge before popping the cap on his own.

“That’s right. You only drink that nasty whiskey.”

I nodded. “I used to be able to drink beer, but I can’t anymore.”

“Weird. So you just stopped being able to...what? Drink it? Stand it?”

“It makes me throw up, just like food.”

His brows rose. “Oh. Well then. Looks like I’ll be stopping at the liquor store for you tomorrow.”

“You put me to work to distract me, didn’t you?” He didn’t need to answer that, and he didn’t. “Thanks for letting me stay.” I leaned back against the workbench and pulled the tie out of my hair, which fell around my shoulders and draped down the back of my jacket.

I was grateful to have what I considered to be a safe hideout. Scott’d been there for me time and time again, from dragging my ass out of fights when I still alive, to giving me support when I came back as a vampire, and now to give me shelter and a place to recollect.

“Did they tell what might’ve caused the fire?”

I shook my head and stared at the floor.

“Well the wiring’s pretty old there isn’t it?”

“I got a call, Scott. It was deliberately set.” I met his eyes. “It was a way of getting back at me. Serv was the one that paid for it.”

“Oh shit, that’s your singer, right?” He frowned. “You think he was still in there?” His face fell as he realized what I was saying. “You think the fire got him?”

I bit the inside of my cheek. “Yeah, almost positive. When I left earlier, he was mad at me and hanging out in his room.”

“Fuck, man. I’m so sorry. And you can’t exactly accuse these guys of murder, can you?”

“No, I can’t. I don’t even know who they are, or what they want. And if they bring more of those Wretched things, I might not be ready enough next time.”

“Wretched?”

I told him about the so-called vampire slayer and even the zombie thing Freddie’d sent to attack me first. Then about Tabby, and the fact that I’d ended up admitting to her that I was a vampire. He remembered her from Halloween. And then the mystery caller. Basically, pretty much everything that’d happened since the last time Scott and I’d seen each other.

“Did you at least have some stuff with you when you left to go to Tabby’s house?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I took my bass and a change of clothes. I’m pretty sure everything else is a total loss.”

“Fuck. What about Tabby? She okay?”

“She’s gonna have to be. I kind of have a fucked-up situation right now of my own. If I go back to her place, whoever is trying to get my wig up will probably come after me there.”

Scott raised an eyebrow. “So you’re saying they might come here?”

I shook my head. “They’d have to do some serious digging to connect you and me.”

I lit another cigarette, wishing for a drink. I didn’t want to face that I’d lost nearly everything in a matter of hours. Not to mention my livelihood. I was thoroughly fucked. And Serv was dead. A lump rose in my throat with surprising emotion.

The door opened and Liz peeked in with a scowl. Her face was puffy from sleep and her brown curls were writhing in a piled mess clipped back into a short ponytail. “It’s six AM, Scott.” She glared at me. “Scott said you were okay with sleeping in the basement. I went ahead and switched a load of laundry while I was down there but it should be done by the time you’re settled in.”

I forced a smile. “Okay, Liz. It’s good to see you again.” She raised an eyebrow and shut the door again without a retort. I looked at Scott. “She doesn’t like me much at all, does she?”

“It’s just really early, she has to work this morning and this is spur of the moment that you’re here is all. She’s really nice. “

Liz and I’d met briefly at a Pale Rider barbecue when their whole family had come with Scott. That’d been about two and a half years ago. Chelsea, Scott’s daughter, hadn’t hit her teens yet. Liz was a few years younger than Scott, and fresh from a previous marriage. Chelsea’s mom was somewhere...I don’t remember what happened to Debbie but she and Scott never married, just kind of lived together. Scott met Liz through a business contact and they got married after just a few months of dating. I knew all that already. Scott wasn’t ever private with me.

I grinned and stamped out my cigarette before tossing the flat butt into the curbside Dumpster sitting to the right of the Cadillac. “I’ll let you know when I see her nice side.”

The basement wasn’t half as dreary as I thought it would be, but I think any normal person would’ve found it cold. Scott laid down an air mattress, which I inflated with a portable pump. It wasn’t fancy, but it’d do until I figured out where I was going to stay. I could stay with Tabby, but hanging out with her would just drag attention from those creeps back to her. I thought about seeing how Josh and Bea felt about me crashing at their place, but they would probably end up taking Darrell in, who was also now homeless after the fire.

“I could offer you a job, maybe.” Scott took the pump from me and fit it back in the box.

“Doing what?”

“What you used to do.”

“Advertisements?” I laughed. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not? You used to be awesome.”

After college, Scott and I were hired fresh out of school for a place called Slater Enterprises downtown. We created ad campaigns and were a pretty rocking team. The problem was, after I became a vampire, the whole ability to draw just sort of went away. Yet, I could recreate a bass line after listening to a song once. I guess it was a decent trade.

“It’s been too long.” I got up off the floor and dug through my duffel bag I’d pulled out of the car. Two full changes of clothes and an extra shirt. Well, at least I had that. Sasha stood against the wall in her hard case. I had everything I needed.

“You going to be all right down here?”

“Yeah. The basement is perfect for me. Especially since you put that tinfoil over the egress window. Gives it a nice cozy bat-cave feeling.”

Scott walked toward the stairs. “Yeah, I figured you’d like that. Liz wanted to give you the guest room but I told her you needed to have some space away from the family while you recovered.” His face softened. “I’m really sorry about Serv.”

“Yeah.” I lay down on the air mattress and stared up at the pipes and insulation overhead. Scott went back upstairs. More tired than I felt, I fell asleep before the dryer stopped.

* * * *

I used Scott’s cordless phone out on the back patio to call Charlie the next evening to see if he had any news. He was over at Linda’s house. It looked like everybody had a place to stay for the time being.

“Still no word from Serv?” I loosened my grip on the phone before I snapped it in half. I didn’t like the thought of Serv being gone. As much as we’d fought, he was still a good kid.

“Nothing. They haven’t found anything inside the building either.” Charlie’s voice was deadpan–flat. I knew he had been fond of the guy too. The fire department wasn’t going to find Serv’s remains. Vampires burned nicely. Once we were dead, our bodies were really damn fragile and were gone, just like that. I thought about that zombie-vampire turning to foamy goop in the grass and scowled.

“Darrell and Josh okay?”

“Yeah. I think Darrell went to stay with him and Bea. I gotta call out the insurance company tomorrow to come give an estimate of the damage. The top half of the goddamn building is gutted. It gonna take some time to rebuild.”

“Yeah, I figured. I wish I could help.”

He gave out a sharp laugh. “Boy, you can help by taking care of yourself, and by coming back when it’s done. Ain’t no fire gonna keep me down for long, all right?”

We shared a few more trivialities before he said he was tired and going to go spend time with Linda to figure stuff out. I gave him Scott’s home phone number and told him to keep in touch. I disconnected the call and sat down at the patio table to smoke a cigarette, but I was being watched.

I smiled. “Hi, Chelsea.”

She came from around the corner of the house chewing on her fingernail. To see her kind of shook me by how much she was really starting to favor her estranged mother. She had the same big brown eyes and ash-blonde hair framing her heart-shaped face. Same but different. I eyeballed her in the garden lights.

“Is that a lip-ring your daddy let you get?”

She nodded.

“What are you, fifteen?”

“Almost. I turned fourteen two months ago.” She shuffled over to where I was sitting and hunched in her pale blue quilted-down jacket. I grinned at her black Converse sneakers. When I’d first met her dad, he’d always worn orange ones. I wondered if she knew that. She was tall, like her dad, probably five-eight or something. Her hair was combed artfully to the side, concealing one eye. The other one was smudged with dark makeup, which made her look like a raccoon. Her lips parted, like she wanted to ask something.

“Spill it, kid.”

“Are you a rock star?” Her eyes were wide with anticipation, and it made me laugh.

“Not quite.”

“But you play in a band.”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“How come Dad hangs around someone cool like you?”

I wanted to laugh, but just shrugged. “He’s always been nice to me.”

“Liz said your place burned down.” She eyed my cigarette and I frowned at her. “She said that you live in a dirty old bar.”

“A dirty old bar, huh? I’m going to have to have a talk with Liz. I’ll have her know we’ve always kept it clean.”

She laughed, and just like that, the ice was broken. I endured a half hour of questions about guitars–which I could discuss all night–and being famous–which I wasn’t–before Scott stepped out back, still in his long wool coat and cap, with a bottle in a brown bag.

“So that’s where she went.” He looked at his daughter. “You better get cleaned up for bed.” Chelsea groaned but got up and went back into the house. Scott unveiled the half gallon of whiskey and set it on the table in front of me.

“Oh, man. Thank you so much.” I reached for it and unscrewed the lid.

“Jesus, Xan. Let me get you a glass. I didn’t know you’d dive right in.” He went back inside and returned with a tall glass of ice. I threw the ice into the grass and filled the empty glass with whiskey. He watched me take a drink.

“What?”

“I have a feeling I should have bought more.”

“I’ll go easy on it.”

He took a seat at the table and gazed up at the night sky. “Cold outside, but not too bad without the wind.”

I lit another cigarette. “I miss Pale Rider already.”

Scott glanced at me. “Yeah, you look out of place here somehow. I guess you’ve grown out of the city life.”

“Meh. I never really liked it much anyway.”

“It’s nice having you here. I know we haven’t talked much. I keep wanting to ask stuff about you. I know you wouldn’t care, but it still seems rude.”

I sat back in my chair. “You have a nice place, Scott. Chelsea’s awesome.”

He grinned. “Yeah, but she’s a handful.”

“You can ask whatever you want, man. The past few years we’ve seen each other at loud rock shows and quick social events. I know we haven’t really tried to talk since I found you again.”

After I became a vampire, lived the whole vampire house life and left my sire, I wandered around for a year. When I answered the ad for Pale Rider, it brought me back to Colorado, but not Denver. Another year passed before I tracked down where my car’d ended up. I knew my dad had it when I died, but not whether he’d sold it or what. Turned out, Scott had bought it from him. He busted me checking it out in his driveway back at the old place, and mistook me for somebody looking to steal it. It was pure luck. After he’d gotten over the shock that it was his best friend instead, who was supposed to have been dead for over twenty years, Scott’d given me back my car. I let him in on my secret, and we picked up like nothing’d happened.

“It’s okay.” He gave me a smile. “I’m just stoked to have you here.”

“Yeah, it’s awesome to just sit and shoot the shit without a real timetable.”

“Did you figure out anything on where you’re going to stay? You know you can stay here as long as you want.”

“I talked to Charlie earlier. He said he was going to get someone out tomorrow to find out what it’d take to rebuild.”

“Cool.” Scott pulled his coat around him. “Did you want to go inside? I figure you’re not bothered by it, but I’m freezing out here.”

“Yeah, want to shoot some pool in the garage?” I stood and picked up the bottle of whiskey and my glass.

“That sounds great.” We went back inside.

Our obvious differences put aside, Scott and I were still very much the same. Sure, he was richer, had a family and a nice house now, but his personality hadn’t changed. I was always the mechanical one, while he was awesome with numbers and technical shit. I bet he would still toss bottle caps in the garbage disposal given half a chance. He used to have the oddest habits back when we were roommates. One of them was his inability to wash a dish. Or throw away bottle caps from his beers. He’d just pass by the sink and ka-chunk! right into the garbage disposal. Later, I’d do the dishes and run the thing only to have it spit up water and screw up the blades. It sounded more like a Volkswagen in a blender.

“Man, Chelsea really looks like Debra.” I waited while Scott measured out his angled shot. I’m surprised he didn’t bust out a protractor and a scientific calculator. This was why he usually wiped the floor with me at playing pool. “And you let her get her lip pierced?”

“Yeah, why?” Scott raised an eyebrow at me and returned his attention to the game. He tapped the cue ball just enough to get it to move, which clipped the seven and poked the three ball into the side pocket.

“Damn. That was kind of bad ass. Too bad it took you twenty minutes to figure it out.”

“Everything takes time.” He leaned the cue stick against the table and opened the fridge to get another beer. I noticed with no small amount of surprise that he pitched the bottle cap in the trash. “Everything that’s worth a shit anyway.”

“She’s fourteen, though.” I meant Chelsea. “Is that the style now? On the side, not in the middle or the eyebrow?”

Scott snorted. “Eyebrow piercings are old news, man.”

“She’s growing up. Pretty soon she’ll be my...” I let the sentence drop. Yeah, I’d gotten used to being twenty-seven for almost the equal amount of years. If Chelsea hit twenty-seven, that would make her my technical age, which gave me a weird twist in my gut. Kids turned into grown-ups.

“And then mine.” He sunk the eight ball.

I gathered the two balls I had left on the table along with the others and started a new setup. It wasn’t fair. Life wasn’t fair. The kid that still lived inside of me stamped his feet and balled up his fists at the thought of losing all of this. Scott was the only one that knew the times I knew. I needed a drink. I left the balls in the triangle and retreated to my bottle and glass.

“You’re dropping into emo gear. I get enough of that from my fourteen-year-old.”

I snorted and fiddled with an unlit cigarette. “No shit? Fourteen-year-olds get depressed?”

“Haven’t you noticed her? Oh, it’s all black: black drapes, black carpet, black notebooks. Liz and I put our foot down on dyeing her hair black.”

“Wouldn’t that be feet?”

“Fuck off,” Scott said with a smile. “You breaking this time?” He jerked a thumb back at the pool table.

“Nah, you go ahead. If anyone’ll get balls flying, it’ll be me.”

“You are one sick fucker. I’m keeping your ass in the basement and barring the door.”

“Is that where you keep the booze?”

He shook his head and gave me the bird. “Asshole. No. That wouldn’t be torture exactly, would it?”

“Depends on how drunk I stayed. I’d demand restocking once a week.”

“No wonder you have to live in a bar.” He leaned down, lined up the cue stick with the table and snapped the balls into a frenzy all over the table. 

I shook my head and clucked my tongue as I stood to take my turn. “Aww, too bad. A Dolly Parton break.”

“A what?” He laughed and gave me a funny look.

“Dolly Parton break.” I chalked the tip of my cue stick before taking my first shot. “All bust, no balls.”

* * * *

I fit in pretty well around there. Liz approved of me after I folded laundry she’d left in the dryer. Hey, it wasn’t like I had much to do. Besides, it kept me busy and not thinking about other stuff, like where I was going to go for the next few months while Charlie tried to get Pale Rider back in order. He’d said a while. I guess he needed time. I didn’t know how long it took to rebuild a place, but also the scene was under investigation for accelerant found in the charred wreckage. That meant arson, which I already knew about but couldn’t tell anyone because then they’d ask questions or worse, try to get me to come in and talk to them. So I sat around, did dishes, watched TV and folded laundry to try keep from going insane over the whole ordeal.

Scott talked me into riding up with him to Slater Enterprises one night, probably to distract me from worrying about what had happened to Serv and the whole fire thing. I’d just woken up and was in the process of finding my first cigarette to take upstairs. He tossed a fresh, unwrapped pack in my lap.

“What, are you a mind reader or something?” I peeled the cellophane away and opened the box. My brand too.

“No, but I noticed you were running low. Say, I’ve got to go up to the office for something tonight, wanna go?”

I frowned. “No, not really. I don’t think I need to be going into a place I used to work at.”

“Come on, man. None of the original staff is there. And it’s nighttime. The office is empty anyway.” He smiled. “Aren’t you at least a little bit curious to see it?”

I shrugged. “Maybe a little... I need to a take a shower first.”

“Do you actually get dirty, sitting around the house? I mean, you don’t sweat.”

“Well, not really, but it feels good and gets me fully awake.” I snorted. “Besides, my hair would smell like a bar if I didn’t.”

Scott held up his hands. “Cleanliness is godliness. Nothing like a freshly showered vampire to keep that new-car smell.”

I threw my shirt at him. “Give me twenty minutes.”

I’d gone twenty some-odd oblivious years without having to deal with myself, and all of a sudden, my past was jabbing me like a knife to the ribs every chance it got. Sure, I was curious if Slater had changed any. If my old desk was still there. If any of the old stuff was still there, but it would be painful to see. If the place still looked the same, it’d bring back memories. If everything had been changed around, it’d be that time in my life erased from reality. Did my name ever come up? I doubted it.

I showered and got dressed in the time frame promised, and joined him in the den, my hair damp over my shoulders.

He lived close to the ad agency, maybe about the same distance Pale Rider was from Tabby’s house. My heart thumped hard once when the old five-story office park came into view. Slater was located on the bottom floor, in one of the larger office spaces. The old fountain was still there up front, turned off for the night, or maybe it just didn’t work anymore. A new maroon awning stretched over the double-door entrance. When I’d worked here, it’d been green. Scott walked behind me, maybe because he knew I could find the office on my own. It was to the right of the foyer, third door down. I stopped in front of it and stared at the gold-foil name on the door. That hadn’t changed a bit. Scott unlocked the door and switched off an alarm.

I raised an eyebrow. “Alarm system?”

Scott nodded. “Had an incident a few years back with a movie company. People fishing for information on the new flick.” He switched on the overhead lights.

“Damn.” I looked around. It was better than I’d expected. Kind of a mixture of old stuff with improvements. New chairs and desks. A hell of a lot more desks. And the one I’d worked at was gone.

Scott stood at my side. “Your desk was here until a few years back. I needed the space.”

We glanced at each other and I nodded. “I get it. These new desks are smaller. With little walls around them.”

“Cubicles. The future of the private office.”

I’d seen cubicles in movies and on TV. They looked like little boxes, with fabric walls. I got the functionality of them, but the thought of being stuck in one all day made my skin crawl. My desk had been pretty big, wooden, with an adjustable part that could be tilted up so I could draw on it. None of these cubicles even had drawing space, just huge thin monitors and computers.

“Nobody draw on paper anymore?” I ducked into one of the cubes, testing the desktop, thinking maybe it lifted up or something.

Scott laughed at me. “Rarely. Most everything is done digitally now.”

“So they just scan it in?”

He shook his head and picked up a fat pen-looking thing. “Nope. It’s drawn right on the monitor.”

“No shit?”

He laughed again. “Damn, man. Somebody’s behind the times. Let’s go to my office. I’ll show you how it works.”

His office was Julian’s old office. I half expected the old man to be sitting behind the imposing cherry wood desk, twitching his little moustache. In truth, he had been a cool boss, and never really bugged us much at all, except when I’d miss days of work. Scott was always his favorite because he was responsible. Not to mention creative as hell. I gave Scott a run for his money on layouts, though. And he always said I could capture people’s emotions in their faces.

I walked into the private office before Scott and stopped dead in my tracks. This was where Scott kept Slater Enterprises’ history alive. Photos of people who worked there, some I even recognized, stood testimony on the now half-empty shelves. The walls were decorated with framed advertisements from clients throughout the years. And above his chair, between the two windows, was one I’d done.

It was for a car company that didn’t exist anymore and was actually a photo with a lot of retouching and added-in cowboys on galloping horses. The client had mentioned concerns about the car not being cool or tough enough, and even though I’d given it my all, the truth was, that car was a piece of shit, and ugly as sin. But I guess Scott had kept that ad I made, which was kind of really touching. Not that I’d ever tell him the extent of what it meant to me.

“I still think that is an ugly ass car,” I commented, and Scott cracked up behind me. I’d said as much while I was doing the project. Maybe more than a few times.

“Yeah, that’s why I kept it. You had some hate for it. Then I find out you’re playing dead.”

“All that reverence for nothing. So, you gonna take it down?”

Scott shook his head with a smile. “Not a chance in hell. My best friend did this. It’s got sentimental value.”

“Huh.” I sat on the corner of the desk as he took his seat and moved the mouse. The screen lit up, one of those big ones, like everybody else had. He picked up one of those fat pens, which turned out to be a stylus and opened a program. I raised an eyebrow. “Hey, that’s pretty cool.”

“Wanna try it?” Scott handed me the pen.

I waved it away. “Nah, it’s your thing.”

“Oh, come on. How long has it been since you’ve drawn?”

I stood and went to the door. “I’m good. Really. I’ll just step outside for a smoke.”

And I did. I breezed out of the office, with my tongue sliding down the back of a fang and weird anger filling me. I shouldn’t have gone with him. All it did was make me remember what I’d lost. What I couldn’t do anymore. Picking up that stylus to prove the skill was gone would have just rubbed it in even more. I stayed outside until he came back out.

“Hey, are you okay? I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad.” He punched the remote on his key fob and the Escalade winked at us.

“It’s nothing, man. I just want to go home, if that’s all right with you.” I meant Pale Rider, but his house would have to do. I guess I could’ve run off to some bar and sat with a drink, feeling even more alienated, but I didn’t. I also didn’t say shit on the drive back, which was cityscape, freeway lights, sprinkles on the windshield and a whole lot of blah.

My mind kept revisiting the night I left Serv alone. The phone call. I clenched my fists and gritted my teeth, but there wasn’t a lot I could do about it.

But I had an enemy, that much was certain.

I stayed scarce around dinnertime at the Barrows’. I didn’t need Liz feeling offended because I couldn’t eat her meatloaf or whatever she made. Though Scott knew what I was, it wasn’t something I felt the rest of his family needed to know. He understood and tried to cover for me, but I was still woken around five in the afternoon. Scott wasn’t home yet.

I popped awake to full consciousness the minute Chelsea set foot on the basement stairs, and sat up to greet her. It was good they had the stairs. Waking a vampire by poking him in the ribs during daylight hours was not a good idea at all. I might bite.

“Liz wanted me to tell you dinner is almost ready.” That day she wore pink sneakers, and black everything else. I raised an eyebrow at her almost too-short skirt. Scott was really lenient with her, and I was starting to sound like my own father. Her nails were bitten to the quick and painted black. She tucked her hair behind her ears and approached me sitting there on the mattress.

“Ah.” I rubbed my face and pulled my hair back into an elastic band.

She watched me. “So are you coming?”

“To what?”

She rolled her eyes and smiled. “Dinner, silly.”

I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

I sighed and lay back down on my side, facing her. “Not feeling too hot.”

Her expression melted into concern. “What’s wrong with you? You’re not sick, are you?”

“Nah, probably just smoke from the fire. Leaves you feeling queasy for a while.” It wasn’t an absolute lie had I been in the fire, but she didn’t know what happened and she nodded.

“Okay, I’ll let her know. Do you need anything? Ginger ale or something?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “No, sweetheart. I’ll be fine. Just not hungry. I’ll probably step out later for a bite.” Thankfully, Denver was full of people. Vulnerable people. I wouldn’t take much. Just enough from a few girls at a bar, or maybe...eh, I was disgusting. But yeah, I was also getting hungry. I could feel the craving sink slowly into my veins, tightening my insides to begin with, transforming with downhill speed into a full-out need if not addressed soon thereafter.

Chelsea seemed satisfied with my answer and went back upstairs, and I went back to sleep until Scott came down. He was still in his button-down, long-sleeved executive-type shirt and slacks. He even wore a blue tie. The old Scott would never wear a tie. I wore an old black Scarlet Claw t-shirt and jeans.

“Hey.” He approached me cautiously, like I was a coiled cobra.

I smirked at him and stood up to stretch, running my fingers over the rough surface of the pipes overhead before dropping my arms to my sides. “How was work?” I grinned and reached for my jacket, which contained my cigarettes.

Scott shrugged. “It was work.” He watched me as I pulled out the pack. “I’m guessing you want to smoke. Want to head to the garage?”

“I figured I would and then grab a shower if that’s cool.”

“Sure, but you’ll have to use the guest bathroom. Liz is in the bath.”

I grabbed my cigarettes and we went upstairs and out on the back patio.

“Kid asleep?” I flipped open my Zippo and lit my cigarette.

“I think Chelsea’s still on the damn phone in her room.”

“She tried to get me to come up and eat dinner with you guys.”

Scott laughed and took a chair at the glass-topped patio table and I did the same. “Yeah, I figure it’ll be a challenge to continually make excuses for you to not ever eat.”

“I’ll think of something. I’ve been doing it for a while now.”

Scott looked down at his tie and loosened it. “I’m not sure how you manage. People ask questions.”

“Yeah, but you’d be surprised. I’m rarely questioned on not ever eating. People just fill in blanks. Why would you suspect anything of a big healthy dude like me not eating? The mind just assumes. It’s good that happens.”

“I guess you’re right.” He started to say something else, but Chelsea came outside with the cordless phone in her hand.

“It’s for you.” She put it in Scott’s hand.

He covered the mouthpiece. “Who is it?”

“I dunno. Some lady.” She disappeared back into the house before he could inquire further. 

He raised an eyebrow and lifted the phone to his ear. “This is Scott... I’m good...Gabriel? Oh...no, he passed away some time ago...”

I leaned forward, curious of who’d be looking for me under my living name.

“Silvia...Silvia Redhouse? Of course I remember you. Gabe went with your sister way back–oh really? Really...wow.”

“Silvia? What’s going on?” I asked, but Scott waved his hand to keep me quiet.

“Wow...I’m so sorry to hear that...yeah, she was a sweet girl, err woman.”

“Was?” I scooted closer, trying to pick up the other side of the conversation, but Scott stood.

His face went from passive to horrified. “You’re serious? Holy–yeah, that’s terrible! Any idea who? Or...what? You mean like bites? From what? Oh. Damn, Silvia, I’m really sorry to hear that.”

He wandered into the house and shut the door, leaving me outside to freak out. What the hell was going on? Why was Silvia calling? I tried to think of who I was related to that might be affected enough to make Silvia look for me. Well, me as before. I guess she hadn’t gotten the memo that Gabriel was dead.

Scott came back outside with a cup of coffee, still on the phone. “Yeah...you too, hon. Bye.”

He disconnected the call, sat his coffee on the table, and looked at me. “Fuck it. Give me one of your cigarettes.”

I didn’t question his request and shoved the pack and lighter his direction. “Who died?”

“Her sister. Heather. She was found in the park where she works. Bite wound to the throat.”

The news was like a one-two punch to the gut. Heather had been my girlfriend in high school, and her family was close friends with mine.

“A bite killed her?”

Scott’s face was devoid of emotion, but his eyes held a glint of anger. “I’m thinking maybe one of your–”

I stood. “Whoa, wait Scott. If you’re thinking that a vampire– We don’t just leave dead bodies hanging around.”

“She said they don’t know what caused her death. The bite itself just seems to be an injury. But she’s dead.”

“Did Silvia mention blood loss? When did this happen?”

Scott shook his head. “Just that she was found during her shift after she stopped responding to her radio while checking out a noise disturbance at one of the campsites. And I don’t know when it happened. Silvia’s pretty shook up about it. I didn’t want to press her with a bunch of questions.”

I sighed through my nose and thought back to Heather. She had definitely been a prominent presence in my life before. We had played together as kids, and when Silvia came to go to college in Denver, Heather moved with her and shared expenses, getting a job as a waitress while she attended high school with me. It was awesome having her around. I lost contact with nearly everyone after Dad took me off the reservation to live with him. Heather and I were still as good friends as we’d been as kids, but as young adults our hormones had taken over and we ended up dating instead. It took over a year for me to realize my feelings for her were just really strong ones of friendship and I broke it off. It destroyed our relationship completely and when Silvia finished her time, Heather went back home to New Mexico.

“You’re thinking pretty hard over there.” Scott ground his cigarette out in the ashtray.

“Yeah.” I did the same and immediately lit another one. “I want to go check out what happened. Because, if what you’re telling me is from a vamp, I need to find the fucker and end it.”

“But how? You’re for all points and purposes dead, Xan. Even if you weren’t, there’d be no way you could go over there as Gabriel and have people accept that you’re fifty-two. You look young enough for me to be your dad.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I could be your son.”

“What? Oh fuck no. No way. Be your own son.”

I frowned. “My own son?”

“Yeah, you know–Gabriel’s son.” 

“But, I never had a...oh, wait. I get it.”

Scott rolled his eyes. “You look just like your old man, you know. Spitting image. Gabriel’d been proud.”

“I could call her and tell her I’m Gabriel Nez, Junior.”

Scott stood and brushed the cigarette ash off his shirt. “Liz is going to murder me for smoking.”

“I’d say she’s going to blame me anyway.”

“True, and yeah. You could go check stuff out posing as your own son. That’s actually kind of brilliant, man.”

Conversation died after that. Eventually, Scott had to go to bed, and I fucked around in the basement ’til close to sunrise. I was restless. I don’t know why I kept ignoring my hunger. Worrying about what’d happened to Heather distracted me anyway. Once the sun came up, I lay down on the air mattress and, surprisingly, passed out.

Footsteps on the stairs woke me the next evening. I was used to Liz venturing down there every so often to do the family’s laundry. I could smell the sliced beef before the plate even came into view. It was Liz, probably to come and try to get me to eat dinner with them. I groaned inwardly. The woman was persistent. I had to give her that. She was still in her day clothes: dress slacks and sensible beige pumps with a cream-colored ruffled blouse. A gold pin on her right breast spelled out her full name in elegant but clean black letters, along with the name of the bank at which she worked. Her mouth was set in a thin line, and her dark brown hair  swept up off her neck save for a few precise curls. I sat up to acknowledge her. Nope. She’d brought dinner to me. On a plate.

“Hey, Liz. Whatcha got there?”

Her moss-green eyes swept over my things before her gaze settled on me. Sleeping in my clothes. Her frown deepened, but was tinged with a definite hint of concern.

“I’ve noticed that you haven’t eaten dinner with us. Chelsea mentioned that you might be ill. I wanted to leave this plate for you, just in case.”

I opened my mouth to object, but her face held a stern expression of defiance. She wasn’t going to take no for an answer. I looked from her face to the round white plate, piled high with sliced beef, as I’d already detected, mashed potatoes with gravy, green beans and a steaming-hot dinner roll. I licked my lips. If only I could eat that stuff. My brain told me it’d be delicious. My body was mildly repulsed by the thought of trying to consume it.

I forced a smile. “Yeah? That’s really sweet of you, Liz. Looks good too.” I took the plate from her hands and set it on the mattress beside me.

“Okay, umm. Thank you.” She nodded once and went back up the stairs without looking back. The aroma of her offering reminded me I really should get out around Denver and hunt down my kind of sustenance. I glanced down at the plate guiltily. First, I had to get rid of that without her knowing.

The basement door was still open a crack. I started to get up so I could close it, but Scott walked in and thumped down the stairs.

“Hey. How’s it going?” He was casual that evening in khakis and a gray button-down linen shirt without a tie. In his hand was a brown bag containing, I guessed, more whiskey for me.

I grinned. “Good. Your wife is a pushy woman.” I tilted my head at the plate beside me. He handed me the bottle and I set it by my feet.

“Yeah, she can be. Here, let me have it.” He took the plate of food and dug the fork into the mashed potatoes. I gave him a few minutes to eat while I outlined my plans for the night.

“I need to run upstairs and take a shower then I gotta split for a few hours.”

“Mmhmm.” Scott swallowed his food. “What for?”

I hooked my bottom lip behind my fangs and shrugged.

“Oh, you mean...oh. I see. The vampire thing you have to do.” He sat beside me on the mattress, making it poof up underneath me with a hiss, and dragged a piece of his roll through the lake of brown gravy on his plate.

“Yeah. Every so often I’m reminded I’m not human.” I snorted and pulled the bottle he’d brought from the bag. “Mm.” I nodded at the name on the label. Scott didn’t buy cheap booze. He could’ve. I’d been happy with whatever, really. I spun the cap off and took a nice long drink. Scott raised an eyebrow as I wiped my lips with the back of one hand and gave a satisfied sigh. “Good stuff.”

He finished my dinner and laid the fork over the empty plate before setting it on the floor with a momentary clatter. I laughed as he leaned back on his elbows with a sigh.

“I need a dog for the next time Liz decides to feed the vampire downstairs.”

“I was thinking...” Scott was staring at the washer and dryer.

“What?”

“I was just thinking that you don’t have to go out if you don’t want to. At least for that.”

“For blood? It’s a good idea if I do. It’s not going to go away. I need to take care of the problem.”

He eyed me, turning his head only slightly. “What about me?”

“What about you?”

He rolled his eyes. “You know. Take me instead.”

I frowned. If I had one rule I followed well, it was once people became friends, they were off the menu permanently. Friends were definitely not food. Even Tabby, whom I’d slept next to many nights while dealing with the inner beast until I could break away upon the next sunset to find relief was no longer on the menu.

“No.”

“What do you mean ‘no’? It’s not like you’d kill me.”

“I mean no, Scott. I don’t feed on people I care about.”

Scott sat forward, his arms draped over his knees. “I think you’re looking at it the wrong way.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Would you let me fucking finish, Xan?” He sighed. “As much as I want to, I can’t really help you much besides let you stay here and offer you money, which you’ll refuse.”

“You bring me whiskey. It’s enough, man. I’m not biting you. There are plenty of people out there–”

“Oh, so let me get this straight. You’d rather steal it from a stranger than accept it from a friend.”

I shook my head. Was he nuts? I couldn’t drink his blood. It’d be wrong on so many levels.

“So then what is it exactly? Afraid you’ll hurt me? You didn’t hurt other people. You said you leave them a little disoriented and they don’t remember a thing except that they felt really good.”

“Why are you asking this of me?”

He rose to his feet and so did I. We eyeballed one another like it was the first time we met. “Because I want to.”

I was hungry. That was no lie. Even standing there that close to him, I was aware of the throbbing pulse beneath his skin, the shallow breaths he took and the muffled rattle of Tic-Tacs in his pocket, as well as the scent of his aftershave. Physically, he was no different than many of my other snacks. But Scott was probably one of the most precious people in the world to me. Still, the room brightened as my pupils dilated, my vampire side sputtering into action at the possibility of a meal nearby. It was something I held a firm grip on most of the time. I was afraid I’d hurt somebody, much like I had that kid, Freddie.

“Let me give this to you.” His gaze was direct and unwavering. Those dark eyes seared into mine and I looked away. I couldn’t tell if it was the thrall talking or if he’d really come up with the idea on his own. Talking about it made the symptoms worse. He unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt without a word, and stood his ground. I growled softly, frustrated by the temptation to drink from my best friend. It was like dangling a fresh raw steak in front of a hungry Rottweiler.

I closed the distance between us with one step. “Just a few seconds. To take the edge off maybe.” My mind was screaming no, but my body was all about yes. And it was my body that reached out to take him in my arms in a quick, fluid motion to sink my fangs deep into his throat.

The effect was instantaneous. I moaned softly as his blood welled up and flooded my mouth, which I drank greedily. My best friend was fucking delicious. It attracted me more that the blood was freely given, without fear of discovery or interruption. His knees buckled under him, but I kept him upright in a vise-like grip as I lost myself in that sea of bright red, floating. His heart thundered in my eardrums as he gasped and clutched at my shirt. I wondered what he was feeling. Did it feel good? The moment I counted twelve seconds, I slashed my tongue on my fangs and brushed it over the wounds before I released him from my bite. He felt so fragile to me, but I knew from his scent, sound, and now his blood, that he was as healthy as an ox.

He dangled in my arms for about half a minute before coming to. “That was nice,” he said and smiled dreamily as I lowered him to my mattress to give him time to collect himself. He rolled over on his side and stared at the wall.

“Dude. Scott...are you okay?” Was I bad for taking his offer? Was it horrible of me to enjoy it more than with a stranger?

“Oh yeah. Totally.” He rolled over on his back.

“Really? I mean you remember it?” I hovered over him, watching his face.

His eyes focused on me. “Not really. But it was...like nothing I’ve ever felt before.” His hand went to his neck and felt around. “You didn’t even leave any bite holes.”

It felt funny, discussing this kind of stuff with a living person, even him. I backed away and rummaged through my bag, looking for my shower stuff. 

He got up from the bed and kind of staggered sideways before finding his balance. “Wow. What a fucking rush.”

I knew what he meant. Even then I was shot through with unspent energy, feeling like I’d been recharged completely. It helped me feel human again. I hummed in response and left him down there while I sought my diversion in the shower. I had to think about what had just happened, and fight not to feel like a complete heel. I stepped in under the scalding hot water, washed, and let it pound on me until it ran ice-cold.

By the time I got out of the shower, Scott had disappeared into his bedroom. My plate was gone from my basement room. Everybody was really nice to me here. It wouldn’t have been so bad sticking around longer, but I wanted to check out what had happened to Heather in New Mexico. That would mean going back to where I came from and facing people who knew my mother. They wouldn’t recognize me. I hadn’t been there since I was about eight years old. My childhood was all but lost to memory. Vague recollections passed through my thoughts like steam escaping out the bathroom door after my shower.

My mom had died after fighting cancer for almost two years before her body just gave up. My dad had gone on to Colorado and was working on buying a restaurant. I didn’t know much about him besides what my mother had told me and a couple of pictures she kept put away most of the time. I think she still loved him. Manny had been a big womanizer, charming the ladies out of their panties, but never settled down. He’d towered over me and scared the shit out of me when he came to take me away to someplace I’d never been called Denver. It was 1966, and we got in his big black car and drove home. He lived in a suburb of Denver in a nice place–a three-bedroom brick, two-story house. The neighborhood was quiet, and all the kids were curious about me, of course. I guess I’d always been a “curiosity” around the white kids. Being a half-breed made life fun, to say the least, and the less said about it, the better.

Scott found me poring over maps on his computer when he came out for coffee that Saturday morning. The rest of the family was still asleep.

“So I take it that you’re really going to go to New Mexico.” He took a cautious sip of his coffee and stood at my side with his hand on his hip. I glanced up at him and snorted at his hair, which was still standing on end from sleeping. It was also the first time I’d seen him not in work clothes. That morning he was in pajama bottoms, a turquoise Billabong shirt with rows of sharply pointed waves, and his feet were bare.

“I thought I might, yeah.” I eyed his cup, which depicted a hand grenade with a number one on the pin. The bold black font informed: Complaint Department. Please Take a Number. “I like your cup.”

Scott looked at the thing like he didn’t realize which cup he’d grabbed from the cabinet. He folded an arm up behind his head and yawned. “Thanks. It was a Boss’s Day gift last year.”

He leaned over and looked at the site I was browsing. “Are you planning to drive down there?”

I stared at his neck and thought of the night before. A wave of guilt washed over me as I realized he probably didn’t remember a goddamn thing. One thing was for sure though: friends tasted good. I think it was because of the care I had. It was a different experience than just chomping on some random girl in a club. I also decided then and there that we were lucky and I shouldn’t try it again. I shouldn’t have done it in the first place.

“Xan?” Scott was looking at me.

I blinked. “What?”

“I asked if you would let me at least buy you a plane ticket.”

“To where?” I was too distracted by thoughts. I stood and stretched.

“New Mexico. Where you want to go.” Scott raised an eyebrow. “You okay? You’re like not all here.”

“Huh? Oh. Yeah. I’m just about ready to go to sleep is all.” I grabbed my pack of cigarettes off his desk and walked toward the open door leading into the den before turning. “I’ll think about the ticket, Scott. I don’t want to put you out or cost you more than I have to.”

The sun had already risen, so I went to the garage for my last cigarette. Inside the house, I heard his family rouse and Liz start breakfast–my cue to disappear before she tried to force omelets on me or something. Scott didn’t follow me out, which surprised me because I expected him to push the issue with me on buying me a plane ticket. It’d be harder to get around without my car, but maybe he was right. Silvia might recognize the car, even though at the time it was in way worse shape and usually covered in the driveway back then. I remembered Silvia as the cool older sister that had a Toyota and hauled us around. We’d drag the streets, or go to the record store and browse music. She was pretty too, with shiny brown, almost black hair like her younger sister and both shared piercing black eyes. But Heather was more rounded and shapely, while Silvia had an almost boyish figure with hardly any curves.

It’d be weird seeing Silvia twenty-six years later. I avoided people from my past for that reason. It hurt to see them get older. Scott was no exception, but I was really glad I’d reconnected. He grounded me and made me feel real. I was floating in an existential limbo otherwise.

I glanced down at my cigarette. It’d burned down all the way, leaving a pillar of ash perched between my fingers. It was stupid of me to smoke. It wasn’t like a physical need, more like a mental urge. Maybe the researchers were right: it was all in the head. I dumped the dead cigarette into the saucer Scott’d donated to use as an ashtray and started to go back inside, but Scott opened the door to the garage a second before I reached for the knob.

“There you are.” He’d ditched the coffee and had put on jeans and white sneakers.

“I was coming back inside.”

“Ah.” He looked over my shoulder. I followed his gaze. “I figured I’d shovel the sidewalk and salt the driveway.”

“I’d help you if I could.” I shrugged.

“So, are you going to let me get you a ticket to New Mexico or not?”

I sighed and stared at my bare feet. “The problem with commercial airlines is there’s complications that can happen.”

“So? It’s like an hour flight from Denver. Maybe Silvia will come pick you up. We can have you leave here after sunset.”

A vampire on a plane. It sounded like a comedy. I’d gotten used to doing for myself since I’d died. If I couldn’t drive there, I stayed right where I was. A badly timed layover could mean disaster to a guy like me that couldn’t tolerate sunlight. And how would I pack? I couldn’t even carry a bottle of hairspray over four ounces, let alone a weapon and ammunition. My guns were still in the RS, under the liner in the trunk. The ammunition’d been hidden in my room at Pale Rider, but that was kind of a lost cause. I’d have to buy more anyway. I didn’t like using guns. I used them enough for my sire and the odd jobs I stopped taking a few years ago. I was good with them–maybe a little too good–and had a reputation among other vamps as an asshole they didn’t want to fuck with. It worked well for me because they all left me the hell alone in Pinecliffe. As far as I knew, I was now the only vampire in Pinecliffe.

“I’m going to drive out to Pale Rider tonight. My bike is still out there. Gonna check if it made it through the fire. I think I want to drive it to New Mexico instead.” Like hell I was going to go through security at a fucking airport.

“What about your car?”

“Well, provided the bike is okay and not melted to the garage floor, I’d want to leave the RS here with you, if that’s all right, I mean.”

Scott shrugged. “Sure. Why don’t I just drive you out to Pinecliffe and if the bike is still good you can come back on it?”

I agreed. Scott admitted that Liz probably wasn’t going to like my car sitting in the driveway, so instead of shoveling snow, Scott moved some shit around in the garage. Well, he moved a couple of things and sort of pointed out where he wanted me to move the rest.

“I guess the words ‘garage sale’ mean nothing to you guys.” I picked up the far end of the pool table and spun it around sideways.

“Well it’s stuff we’ve had for a while. I know I could stand to part with a few things...”

“A few?” I laughed. “You have like six boxes of Christmas lights.”

“Yeah. I put them on the house at Christmas. We’re festive here. You know, jolly.”

I grunted. “Jolly. Pfft. Waste of electricity. Keeps the neighbors up at night.”

“It’s for the kids, Xan.”

We stared at the space we’d cleared out.

“Think it’ll fit?” I looked at Scott.

“Hope so.”

I dropped the keys into his open palm then backed against the wall as he opened the garage door. Scott walked out into the sun, looked around and then got into the RS. It started without hesitation, the twin exhaust pipes spitting out two puffs of smoke. With a low rumble, it crept forward into the garage. The overhead lights slid over the slick blue fenders, making me smile. It was the prettiest thing I’d ever owned, and leaving it in Scott’s care was a humongous show of trust.

Scott switched off the ignition, got out and thumbed a button mounted on the unfinished wall to put the door down again. 

I caught the keys when he tossed them to me. “You sure I’m not going to have a cue ball through the windshield?”

He snorted. “Nah, nobody plays pool except you and I, and if your jump shot hits your car well...”

“Hah. Right. Okay. Do you think Liz is going to throw a fit about this?”

Scott shook his head. “I think she’ll be more upset about losing her helper around the house.”