“Those sweats were brand new. I never even got a chance to wear them.”

“Really? Maybe you need me to watch the car for a sec while you…” David let the sentence trail off as he gestured to the thrift store. Nick put the car into drive, miffed, and they rolled off. “I look like I dressed myself, with my own clothes, and not like I was wearing what I could dredge from a pal’s clean clothes hamper.”

“Whatever. Any more stops?” Nick asked, dismissively.

David squinted, trying to remember the number on the rectangular piece of card stock. “Drive slow,” he said. “I need a pen and paper.” He drew numbers in the air, concentrating. As it turned out, the one thing Nick’s heap was good for was pen and paper. There were groupings of such shoved in a variety of compartments and pouches and bags. David didn’t ask, scribbling digits down in groups of seven.

“A phone number,” Nick said, glancing over. “Guess it was in your wallet. Do you have eidetic memory?”

“No,” David replied distractedly. “I just remember how things are…oriented, I dunno. Shut up a sec. Seven, five, five, seven, four.” He flexed one of his hands. He could remember her name, and her smell. “I need your phone,” he said finally.

Nick leaned over in his seat, driving and fishing. He handed over the small black device. “Don’t break it.”

David tried to look appalled and shocked. The number was to the police precinct in general, so most of the numbers he came up with would have been fine, but he still took pride in getting the number right without having the card.

“Detective Ferrara,” the woman said. Her accent was barely detectable and she sounded upset.

“Uh…” David cleared his throat. “Detective, this is David Cruz. You gave me your card.”

He wasn’t sure how much information she would need, but she got with the program rapidly. She asked him if he was hurt. She asked him where he was. David worked the moment over in his mind; it wasn’t a question of whether or not he would lie, but of how much lying he was prepared to do. He decided to not be jovial. He asked her if they could meet and talk.

He had a whole other line of rubbish planned out, just in case, but she asked for the when and where almost immediately. There was finger snapping in the background and quick scribbling. A couple different movies were replaying in his head, and they were all action thrillers with bad endings for the character he was playing.

David panicked and changed the time. She paused, but then agreed.

“I’ll see you in an hour, then,” she said, and quickly hung up.

David looked over at Nick, who was looking back at him. They were paused at another red light. Traffic was beginning to pick up.

“You’re really bad at that,” Nick said. 

“Shut up,” David retorted, half-heartedly. “You should drop me off near the place and go.”

Nick looked consternated, like he wasn’t sure what to say to that. Clearly it wasn’t a situation he wanted to be in. David handed the man his phone, wondering if maybe he should have called from a pay phone. He probably should have. Nick looked like he was having the same thought.

Then David was standing on a not-so-random corner between the docks and the warehouse district. For reasons David couldn’t say, the memory of Nick tripping and falling into the gutter stood out. Nick told him the time before driving off. He was about thirty minutes early. David imagined an unmarked car tailing Nick home, or snipers staring through scopes at his bemused expression. He thought about hiding around a building, or under something. What he ended up doing was fidgeting for about twenty minutes, spooking at every sound. By the time the woman showed, David regained his composure.

For some reason, he found himself wishing for a watch to check and see if she was early or late or right on time. Ferrara showed up in a mundane looking Ford—Detective Ferrara, whose first name was Victoria. David’s vision was excellent, but with her dirty windshield and the glare of light, he couldn’t quite decipher her movements as she rolled to a stop and then stepped out of the car. He wondered if she had a gun and if she planned on trying to arrest him.

She was wearing some sort of casual Friday thing, pants of a khaki material with dress shoes and a collared shirt and jacket. He tried to look and listen, but not give off the impression that he was doing so. Nick was right; he looked ridiculous. She stopped about ten feet distant, hands away from her body, palms open and facing him.

“Detective Ferrara,” he said.

Her expression shifted slightly. She did that thing women do where they flip their hair. “Mr. Cruz. You can call me Vic.”

David nodded. He liked that, how she could shorten her name and it didn’t sound stupid. He once head butted someone for calling him Dave.

“I wanted to ask you some questions about your apartment,” she said.

“Alright. Call me David.” He lost confidence in all the lies he thought up back in Nick’s car.

“Interesting place you chose,” she said, looking around. She was getting more comfortable; he could hear it in her voice and see it in her posture.

“Yeah.” He had nothing to say to that.

“Bullets were found in the drywall of your apartment,” she began. “They were of very specific make…” She let the statement trail off, taking him all in for a moment. The clothes worked, David thought. “Evidence of more shooting was found near your apartment, but no bodies, though the evidence found suggests that it should have been otherwise. I pulled your file, such as it was, and there was nothing to indicate why you would be mixed up in something like this.” Her manner of talking was straight-forward, but it felt like there was more that she wasn’t saying.

“Well, there isn’t,” David said clumsily. “I mean, there isn’t a reason.”

“So you’re saying you don’t know the people who attacked you?”

Inside, he cringed. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to admit that he was in his apartment. Wasn’t he shot? Maybe she could prove that he was there, in which case he would be openly lying.

“I just want my life back,” he said, more emotionally than he felt. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but I saw the police tape and I talked to my parents, and I just want to make sure I’m not being blamed for anything.” The tape detail was a gamble, but didn’t they always use it?

Victoria decided not to press him on his diversion. She was a cop of course, and dealt with liars on a regular basis. “Mr. Cruz…David. I think you’re a good guy,” she said, “but I think you can help me.” She looked over his head off into the distance and put her hands on her hips. “This town has its problems and people here tend to turn bads into goods instead of fixing them.” She looked back down at him. Her eyes were a deep shade of brown, similar to David’s. “I think you can help me, and I know I can help you, so I see no reason why we can’t at least try to help each other.” She reached for the inner pocket in her jacket and moved a few steps closer. She revealed David’s cell phone and wallet. To accept them, he would have to step forward.

He remembered the billfold had the twelve dollars in it. Suddenly he was self-conscious of the nine thousand and nine hundred dollars on his person. He also realized that accepting those items meant that he accepted the terms of her bargain.

Then the phone rang. Numbly, David flipped it open, staring, admittedly, at her chest. He blamed it on her height. He went stock still at the voice on the other end.

“Hey, Dad,” he replied shakily.

Detective Victoria Ferrara smirked, almost knowingly. She had dimples. 

Chapter Fourteen

 

“Mrs. Glickman, how are you today?”

David entered phase two, which should not be confused with the point of safe return. He passed that just outside of the apartment building in Victoria’s car—Vic’s car. David said that he didn’t believe in vocal agreements and even though she backed him directly into one, he felt better about a hand shake, which allowed him to get a bit more control over the exact nature of their tentative partnership. She would help him in any legal manner to reacquire his lifestyle, such as it was, and he would help her case by giving her information and being a willing witness. The best he could do was to keep vague about the amount of help he needed to provide, and under what circumstances he was required to help.

After that, it was just a matter of getting everyone else to play along. Mrs. Glickman, the building super and unofficial president of the renter’s association, was the person who could give him another apartment to live in, namely to show his father when he arrived. David didn’t know how much time he had, but was praying to the gods of airport red tape and delay.

The round, squat woman peered at him. They were roughly the same height. “You,” she stammered. “The police were looking for you.” Which was to say that he was a criminal.

David nodded and smiled. “Actually, that’s why I had one of the detectives from the precinct escort me here, so there wouldn’t be any confusion.” He turned slightly so she could see Victoria, who played her part well, even stepping forward to shake Mrs. Glickman’s hand and provide a slow flash of her badge.

“Mrs. Glickman, I think you and I have spoken before. Do you remember me?”

That provided the almost-instant agreement and assistance David was hoping for. Mrs. Glickman went from hostile to indifferent and he stepped directly into the task of expediting the processing of his new apartment. He played the card of his very old father coming to visit, which was true. He had a ballpark idea of how old the man was, but nothing in writing. Mrs. Glickman played the card of processing fees and housing agreement, to which David countered with next month’s rent up front.

He could feel Victoria’s eyes on him during the entire exchange, but he had to cross the bridges as they came. Mrs. Glickman made him wait a handful of minutes, then produced the new lease, which he signed.

“You normally carry around that much cash on you?” The elevator ride up was less silent than David hoped it would be.

“I emptied my savings,” he replied, which seemed plausible enough. He opened his mouth and then closed it; that was enough, let her stew on that. David thought he could see the wheels working in her reflection.

Victoria followed him down the hallway to his old apartment door. David thought briefly about everything that happened since she was there last. There was no tape.

“Do you normally lie to your relatives when they come into town?” she fished.

David began gathering specific items from various rooms. They adhered to a list he already had in mind. “You say that like you don’t,” he replied. That one he tossed over his shoulder.

He decided to go into the bedroom just for some distance from her questioning. As it turned out, there were things in his bedroom that were also on the list. He just needed to transfer enough items over to the new place, which was two floors up, to make it look like he had a day or two of leisurely moving under his belt. Things of value had to go, along with a few pieces of furniture. From the doorway to his bathroom, he eyed his queen-sized bed and frame with slight disdain.

“Your bedroom is cleaner than mine,” came Victoria’s voice.

David paused, unsure how to respond to that. He thought maybe she crept down the hallway, but it was much more likely that the stress of the minutes ticking by was getting to him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He wasn’t sure what she meant to gain by pointing out the cleanliness of his bedroom, but he switched his response from evasive to ignorant.

“Nothing,” she replied.

David handed her a few of the items he gathered: a small tray for his pockets’ contents, his cell phone charger, and a DVD case. To these he added his alarm clock, which he bent to unplug.

“Carry this, will you.” He made sure not to inflect. She agreed, after all.

He grabbed the empty suitcase he used for traveling and carried it back out into the living room, scooping things into it.

“You’re very deliberate,” she noted. David glanced at her over his shoulder. “With the things you’re taking. They’re random and non-precious, yet specific.”

She kept making her comments but kept up, assisting with the first load up to the new apartment. There wasn’t a whole lot of life on the new floor. David anticipated it being difficult to get a new apartment at all, but it seemed like the top floor was almost half empty.

“So what’s your father like?” Victoria asked on the way back down.

David shrugged at her question. “He’s like a father. I don’t know how to answer that. What’s your dad like?”

“He passed away, along with my mother.”

David hid his face by stepping off the elevator first and moving up the hall quickly. Even better, his cell phone rang. His prayers were answered. Someone bungled his father’s rental order. He was just leaving the airport, so David had more than enough time for another trip, maybe two. He had so few possessions; he considered moving himself all the way in. 

“Dad running late?” David silently wondered how she knew that. She shrugged. “You need him to be late, and you smiled, not like you were happy to see him, but that you were glad things were working out in your favor.”

He supposed one could be a dumb cop but not a dumb detective. For a moment he was wary, imagining her as much more perceptive than she likely was.

“I need your help with my bed,” he said, changing the subject.

“Why don’t you just carry it yourself?”

David froze. A dreadful possibility occurred to him and he turned to face her slowly.

She looked at him, a little confused, and made a gesture with her hands like she was moving a very large wall hanging. “You know, drag it.”

David eased into laughter, breathing a sigh of relief as he turned back around. “Yeah,” he said, chuckling. “No.”

They had to stop twice, during which she grumbled in Italian. However, when he got the phone call about his father being downstairs, half of his bedroom and the valuables from the den and essentials from the bathroom were neatly stored in the new apartment.

“You’re not going to take your couch and love seat?” Victoria jabbed.

David appreciated the sport, and easily deflected her attempt at a last minute interrogation before his father arrived. “Are you volunteering to help carry them?”

She was sitting on the sill of an open window, flapping her shirt for air. She didn’t say anything.

The knock came, followed by a voice calling out to him in Spanish. David opened the door and stepped into his father’s hug. It went on a bit longer than necessary; he was being patted for recent injury. Then his father held him at arm’s length, whispering questions in his thick accent. David turned a dismissive wave into a gesture directed at Victoria.

“Dad, Detective Victoria Ferrara. Vic. Vic, Dad.” He didn’t have to lead the man to her, and she didn’t need any encouragement to walk over from the window.

She almost pounced on him with her aggressive hand shaking and staring. “It is very nice to meet you. David does not speak much of you but I can see where he gets his strength.” It was an odd statement. She noticed the way the father glanced at the son.

“She…” Mr. Cruz started.

“Is a cop, yeah,” David interrupted, offering him the one chair that went with his computer desk. It was sitting in the bare den area, alone. “That isn’t how we met. She had a problem with a missing animal, came by, and now I’m helping her with it…you know, being a vet tech.”

The look he received reminded him of junior high school and the time he tried to squeeze one of his worst planned lies past the man. David became a liar mostly out of necessity, but if he ever wanted to make a career of it, he most certainly had the genes. Mr. Cruz simply nodded, patting his son’s arm at his shoulder.

“Your mother says hello,” he prompted.

“Oh?” David could’ve hugged him again. “How is mom?”

“The same, something is always wrong or broken. You should call more. It was a nice card that you sent for winter.”

Lying with the truth. David could only nod at his father’s mastery. He glanced at Victoria. 

“I got it from this place in the mall, Hallmark.” He knelt in front of his father. “I’m sorry I haven’t finished moving in, but Vic was the only one around to help me. You’re welcome to the bed, but I have yet to screw the frame back together. I’ve been sleeping on the floor because I didn’t want to trouble my new neighbors. There aren’t many up here.”

Mr. Cruz held up his palm. “No worries. They had a special deal, or they gave me one for losing my reservation. They gave me free stay at the airport hotel.” He smiled like when he used to beat his son at basketball or checkers.

David knew that his father could talk anyone into almost anything. There were many legends about the Cruz men, and that was one of them. The men of David’s family had a charm, people used to say.

He noticed that his father didn’t say specifically how long he was going to stay, but there was no point in asking. The man was going to leave when he was sure things were to his liking. David put his hands on his knees as he pushed himself up.

“Well, welcome to Bay City. I wouldn’t go out at night, just to be safe, but there’s plenty to do around here during the day.”

“I secured a brochure from the nice people at the airport. We will catch up. Maybe I can find a place around here and we can have mufungo,” Mr. Cruz said, standing up himself. “I would help you with your moving but I would probably get in the way.” He stepped towards the door, stopping to turn around slowly. “Something wrong with the other apartment?”

“It faced a funny direction,” David said. “Plus the neighbors were noisy, keeping up all kinds of racket into the early hours.” He decided to stop before he sounded any more ridiculous; that was his mistake back in middle school.

Mr. Cruz smirked. “Well, chico, be careful about the contracts with these things.” He made the gesture for warding off evil spirits. “You could end up losing in the end. It’s a good place, though. Keep it clean, your mother would say.” He opened the door and shouted over the shoulder that he would call, and with that he was gone.

David could not hide his visible relief. He knew the man was headed directly downstairs to the old apartment, but there was nothing he could do or say to stop him. 

“A nice man,” Victoria asserted. “Distinguished.” She squinted her eyes at the door as if she could still see him.

David plopped down in the lone chair. Victoria went back to the window, not to sit in it, but to stare out. He watched her go, slowly starting to accept how complicated things were becoming. He wasn’t sure what would satisfy his father, and he wasn’t sure how to adjust things to give him that satisfaction. The only thing he knew was that Mr. Cruz was not going back to the island any time soon.

“So,” Victoria said. “I’ve helped you out. Ready to help me?” She turned away from the window, her energy revived.

David stood up, hesitantly. “Of course. You’re the police and I want to cooperate, but I can’t guarantee that I know much, or anything at all, about what you’re working on.”

She walked past him to the door, a knowing look on her face. “We’ll see.” 

Chapter Fifteen

Nick dropped David off on the corner and drove off at the man’s insistence about some plan he had brewing. He looked in the rearview mirror and watched David fidget and grow smaller and smaller in size. Driving by the familiar warehouse only increased Nick’s curiosity. The front was still strewn with yellow police tape, but the area at large seemed devoid of life.

He felt the memories pushing their way forward in his mind as he slowed at a stop sign. Nick let them come, experimentally, and was satisfied that he could remember without flinching away from the sights and sounds in his mind. He could remember being terrified without being terrified. He saw more of everything, and with that more expansive view came greater clarity.

The one unexpected vision among them all was that of the summoned creature itself, strange and bold in its otherness. Thinking back, it seemed completely contrary to any expectation or constraint; it looked different every time he looked over his shoulder running through that cold night. His perceptions almost contorted and shaped it to more than its true size. Regret at the creature’s demise was another surprise. Nick thought of it as if it had qualities like a person would. He thought of it as himself.

He jumped at the blaring of a car horn behind him. His hands came away numb from his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, sweat pushing up between the hairs on his arms. He looked back into the rearview mirror. There was the other driver, making rude gestures, and there was the top of his own head with a line of sweat above his eyebrows. Nick released the brake and nudged the accelerator. The car eased at first then leapt forward. Numb all over, he pushed the worry into the rear of his mind and concentrated singularly on getting back to his apartment.

Nick left the warehouse district and was headed west on a side street when his cell phone rang. The second ring never came. He patted the passenger seat blindly until his hand fell on the smooth plastic of the phone. Flipping it open, he wasn’t sure what he expected; he wasn’t surprised that he didn’t recognize the number of the missed call. Just a wrong number; someone realized they dialed the wrong number and then, sensibly, hung up.

Nick turned right at a red light and continued on toward campus. The city stretched out in all directions in his mind, the places he knew best like tunnels that bore through the unknown. He thought about his thesis. The ideas likened to the omnipresent crack in his windshield. He was on one of the thin branches working his way backwards to the initial crack, the inciting moment. It was ludicrous to imagine himself making such a breakthrough as that, but that was the purpose of the discipline at large. At least, that was the way he thought about it. Each student, each scholar, was responsible for contributing an infinitesimal piece of road that when followed could lead to a more realized understanding.

That would make a good introductory sentence, he thought, looking at himself in the mirror for encouragement. There he was, neutral expression and all, and behind him the mid-sized four door with the blue and red lights across the top. Nick stiffened, aware of his lack of seat belt…among other things he could not describe but feel.

Suddenly he was keenly aware of not only the speed limit but also of the speed range he had to stay within to avoid suspicion. Nick turned left and then right, following his route. As the patrol car continued its casual pursuit, it seemed more and more inevitable that the lights would flash, but they never did. At an intersection, the police car turned left and Nick continued straight. He swallowed, pulling at the dryness in the back of his throat.

When he finally pulled into the parking spot, he breathed happily for a bit, then chuckled at his ridiculousness. David, after all, was the one they were after. Nick envisioned a few dozen scenarios, all of which were exciting and dramatic, involving the lycanthrope and his evasions of notoriety. So long as there weren’t any dead bodies in Nick’s apartment, vampires included, he felt satisfied that today would be different from yesterday.

Sliding his key into the lock made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Determined to force his life back into normalcy, he ignored the trepidation and pushed the door open, happy to see that the place looked like it did when he left. Then, as if the sight of the tipped-over chair still mostly covered in duct tape were a clue, his phone rang again, and again. Nick reached a hand in his pocket and flipped the phone open, closing the door blindly.

“Hello?” He didn’t recognize this number either.

“Nicholas.” The voice he did recognize. It was Dr. Gray. Nick was happy that things were starting to make sense again.

“Oh, wow. Hey.” He felt himself brighten. “It’s funny, you write your number on all different forms but you never get a call, you know?” He chuckled.

“Nicholas, something has happened,” Dr. Gray said. Then the door to his apartment locked itself. The noise that escaped Nick’s throat was like a curious groan. “The Dean has passed. Foul play is suspected.” Nick turned around slowly, hopeful. He wasn’t even sure what he was hoping for, and when he saw Scarlet he didn’t feel one iota better. “There’s something else. Actually, where are you now? We’re holding an emergency congress.” Nick frowned at her, and at Dr. Gray’s words. He cleared his throat. Scarlet looked in better sorts, draped in the same array of tools and weapons, her hands behind her back. She had a delicate power about her.

“When?” Nick asked. “I mean, I’m at home.” He watched her flip a strand of hair out of her face with a jerk of her head. The gesture didn’t take, so she took more deliberate action and used the barrel of a small handgun to move the hair. With the same motion she exposed her other hand, also holding a firearm, only this one she pointed directly at him. “But, uh, I have to go.” Scarlet nodded.

Dr. Gray said something as Nick was closing the phone that he couldn’t quite make out. At the behest of the gun barrel, he put his hands up.

“So,” he said to her shoes, clearing his throat. “How’ve you been?” Nick had no illusions about who she was, what she was. Making small talk wasn’t a defensive gesture; blabbering apparently just came natural to him. 

“Your friend, the lycanthrope, seems to perpetrate no wrong save for his existence.” She moved as she spoke.

Nick mirrored her movements, and they both stepped deeper into his apartment. He wondered how the police would find his body, if they’d find his body. He bumped into the island in his kitchen.

“There have been developments of a different sort.” She circled to put the island between the two of them. “I have new quarry. Strip.”

That made Nick lock eyes with her. Everything he found in her face told him that she was completely serious. Nick was temporarily distracted by the sadness at her being nice, more playful, curious, being an act. He watched her stow one of the guns in a holster and pull a small item from a pouch at her belt.

She gestured with the other gun. “Now, Nick.”

He frowned, but moved his hands to his shirt and began unbuttoning. It was an odd demand and he couldn’t see the sense of it. Nick slowly put the phone back into his pocket.

“I can’t help but be confused about this.” Something in him made him resolute to know the information he would be shot over. He wasn’t afraid of anything right then except not knowing. “I’ve been nothing but cooperative in the past.” He wasn’t sure if he really meant that, his insinuation of her betrayal. Betrayal of what, he couldn’t say; maybe of the narrative he romantically constructed in his head.

Her eyes considered him as he shrugged off the first shirt. “Things have changed,” she said simply.

Nick concentrated on her words and posture, trying to uncover what she didn’t want to give away. He yanked at his undershirt so he could hide his expression for a moment. It was halfway off when he stopped. It was a theory of his that educated people were capable of being petty and childish in ways that other people weren’t. Truth was an ideal.

Nick stared across the island at her. “I really liked you,” he said. His voice didn’t crack.

Her response was to simply blink, unwavering. She opened her other hand to reveal a small charm at the end of a strip of raw hide. It looked like a mood stone, except with complicated facets and a thin line of silver casing. It was one of a myriad of trinkets and tools that belonged to a long list that at one point Nick considered memorizing. It was in one of those old books with the inked paragraphs and pictures in aged yellow and faded black.

The color of this one was unique though, two-toned. Much of it was dark red on the side nearest Scarlet, but there was a thin strip, a darker one, nearest him. She leaned forward and slid it cautiously across the island. When it stopped, the colors began changing again as if the stone were filled with paint. It was a surreal moment as Nick glanced back from the tiny thing to Scarlet.

There was the briefest of moments, before the stone settled again on its pigments, when Scarlet’s face wasn’t as set, wasn’t as resolved. Then it was finished, and Nick’s side of the stone was a foreign shade with striations of purple and streaks of blue. The side nearest Scarlet was the same viscid red from before. Nick was terrified, like he discovered something that he didn’t want to know.

In the movies, they cock the weapon first. They turn off the safety. There is some extra threat, some extra notification to be commenced. It’s how the game is played, for the sake of the audience. Really, in those situations, Nick discovered, what happens next is someone gets shot. There’s no preamble in the mind of someone bent on killing.

Scarlet pulled the trigger, a neat and quick motion which was not preceded by anything clever. There was so much Nick didn’t understand, and he was being robbed of that; it was terribly unfair. Click. That was the sound the gun made; Nick wasn’t dead. Click. Click. Click. Scarlet’s eyes grew wide into surprised circles.

“What did you do?” she accused.

“Me?” Nick almost yelled. His arms were still thrust into the sleeves of his shirt. What could he have possibly done, he wanted to ask.

“You. You’re another one, like him.” She paused for a moment, as if making up her mind.

Scarlet resolved to kill him, and something as random as her gun jamming wasn’t going to deter her. Nick saw her ridiculous armory before, and no random chance would save him from a knife thrust. He had another handful of moments to finish contemplating his existence. It was a short trip, to skip down his life from the beginning of memory to this end, dying at the hands of a woman he had romantic feelings for.

Scarlet drew a curved blade about eight inches long and darted around the island. Nick did what anyone would do. He ran away, awkwardly, with his arms pasted to his sides. He didn’t get very far, either; she caught him and sent him flying into a wall. Then he screamed, wailed, and begged for his life. He prayed to every god he suspected might be real that he not die in that fashion on that day. He struggled with all the skill at his disposal.

Then Nick did what only a few people could do. He made the decision that his life was worth more than any promise he ever made, any covenant he agreed to keep. He decided that although he was one very small man, he still deserved to live. Something inside him burst like a dam, and things would never be the same again. 

 

Chapter Sixteen

 

A wizard is called to court by his king. He’s preceded by all the typical fanfare, the gathering of all the stock characters that serve as scenery: knights, lords, ladies, and sycophants. Even the king, despite his power and reach, numbers among them. The stage is the sorcerer’s. He knows this. They know this. However, what he knows that they do not is the important part; and the big secret, really, isn’t so big. Because in truth, there is no hocus pocus, no abracadabra. He has specialized knowledge and expertise, but the fulcrum of the entire charade, what he knows that they don’t know, is exactly what he can and cannot do. What they think he can do only helps the fiction; they think he pulls doves from the air or breathes fire. The only impetus on him is a way to make it happen without disappointing their expectations.

There Nick was, laying on the floor, having just toppled over the coffee table he bought and assembled himself. Scarlet still waved her knives, because if one of her guns misfired, then it meant Nick exercised some power over them somehow. For reasons also unknown, knives worked just fine. He must have been cut over a dozen times; his skin was on fire and the wetness from his bleeding cooled him none. His heart was beating up into his throat, and he probably hurt himself just as much with all the wild scrambling. He destroyed his entertainment system and overturned the couch, several lamps were broken, and wall hangings were either slashed in half or knocked from the wall. Most of the destruction Nick didn’t have time to notice. It all took a handful of seconds.

Scarlet adjusted her grip on one of her weapons and aimed before throwing. Nick kicked madly, trying to crab-walk backwards. His foot shoved at the coffee table and it slammed into her knee. It was enough to offset the weapon’s deadly trajectory; at least, the blade did not strike him after she threw it. Enraged, Scarlet jumped over the table, the other naked blade pointed down like a tooth.

Nick had little else to do but throw his hands up and scream, the latter of which he was already doing. There was a sickening, wet squelch. The pain brought him close enough to unconsciousness that he went completely silent. The knife passed through his hand and came within a centimeter of his eye, biting a bit into his left cheek. The back of his ruined hand pressed against his mouth. His eyes bulged. He was in so much pain, and yet did not black out. 

Nick yelled at Scarlet. He coughed at her; no, he spat, because when he opened his mouth to scream again some of the blood and viscera from his destroyed hand fell into his mouth.

As close as she was, eyes and mouth wide open, what exited his mouth flew straight into her face. She flung herself backwards as if struck, shielding her eyes. Almost crazed, Nick crawled away on his elbows and knees—sometimes he rolled—towards the door. He put a sweaty hand on the handle and threw the door open.

The situation and circumstances were grim, but always present in Scarlet’s mind was that Nick was some sort of demon-consorting mage and it was only a matter of time before he could evoke his magic. Her last attack was verbal. Screams, shouts, even questions that later he would recall in only snippets. Presently, they only spurred him on, further and faster. Outside, he only saw two people at the far end of the floor—or rather, they saw him. They closed their doors quickly as he came, a shirtless, bloody mess hustling by in complete silence, with bloodshot eyes and the howls of a woman scorned in his wake.

It was his ignorance of where the health office on campus was that pushed him in the direction of his car, with the city hospital in mind. Halfway to the parking lot, he began to wonder just how much blood a human body contained. The thought itself weighed him down and his feet began to drag. An almost constant trail of blood flowed out of his hand, which comically still had the knife stuck through it. Nick stopped suddenly, teetering.

What did Scarlet say? The Dean was dead. They found things in his home, forbidden things. “All debts come due,” she shouted. If he knew what the end would be before he started on his path, would he still have chosen it? There was little debate. Of course, Nick would avoid every step he took to evade bleeding out half naked in a parking lot, but that wasn’t how things worked.

Nick fell to his knees. The jolt made him open his eyes, which he only realized then were closed. Night fell, and walking up to him quickly in the darkness was a man. Nothing about him made sense, but Nick was still happy he was there. It took some effort, but he managed to tilt his head up to look into the blurry face.

Nick frowned. “David?” He might have slurred.

Then the night swooped in and smothered him.

* * * *

There were images and scenes that he could not precisely recall. They weren’t accompanied by any feeling or any elation at being alive, nor by any conclusive realization that he was finally dead. They were just there and then they were gone. Mostly, he remembered the sparkly sort of sunlight that comes through narrowly spaced leaves moving overhead. It was pleasant, which was directly offset by the sensations that came next. There was an ache—actually there were several—and jumbled memories; altogether, they told him that he was awake, and alive.

Something cold and hard was shoving against his back, and moving shifted it like a rolling pin forced flush against his ribs and head. He was lying on a very hard floor. Rolling to either side was like being gnawed at, so Nick tried his eyes, rubbing at them with the hand he could feel.

He groaned, a low, hoarse noise that made him aware of other sounds nearby. People were walking and talking, shouting even. The room seemed big enough that one end could be lit and the other dark. Nick could make out light reaching across the ceiling, but obscuring his vision was a dark box. No, it was a stack of something. He tried sitting up, but made very little progress. He grunted. One pair of footsteps became foremost among the others and a head poked around the corner. Then a figure spryly stepped up to him.

“You’re awake. Good,” the person said. It was a male voice, low, a little gruff, and accented just so.

Nick tried responding vocally and nothing intelligible came out. He tested his jaw, opening his mouth and closing it.

The man removed something from a pocket and worked it in his hands. “Here, drink this,” he offered.

Metal touched Nick’s lips. He swallowed the moisture and almost immediately reeled at the fiery taste. It didn’t quite sit him up, but it rolled him over nicely. Nick coughed and his body jerked, though not so much that it hurt. Thankfully, he didn’t vomit either. On his elbow, facing away from the man, he could make out the rest of the lit portion of the room and the labels on the stack of things next to him. Potatoes.

“Good, eh?” The man patted his shoulder. The stranger genuinely thought the drink would help.

Nick didn’t bother trying to speak but reached up with his right hand toward the stack of potato sacks. Gripping with his right hand made him cry out, but before he could topple backwards strong hands gripped at his arm and hefted him up.

“Easy, easy,” the man whispered.

Nick steadied himself with his left hand as the pain subsided. Standing up, he realized that the stack of potatoes was only three feet, maybe four off the ground, and that he was almost a head taller than the man who was helping him. Nick looked down at his right hand, but the stranger stepped into the path of the light coming from the other end of a storage room. He took Nick’s right hand as if to shake it, but didn’t squeeze. He also didn’t let go. Though Nick was taller, he could feel that the man’s hand engulfed his own.

“How do you know my son?” the stranger asked, his face still a bit obscured by the angle of the light.

Nick paused, taking a moment to swallow. The power of the grip was only emphasized by the fact that he could almost detect a power waiting to be used at a moment’s notice. Of course, he thought. His son. “Your son?”

The shorter man nodded. “David. You called out his name. No, you thought I was him. He favors me a bit.” The grip tightened just a hair.

Nick went from somewhat panicked to significantly so. He blinked. “We’re friends,” he said. “We met…uh…he helped me out in the past, saved my life, even.” He was talking faster than normal.

“Is he in some kind of danger?”

Nick swam through his murky recollections of the past however many days. “Uh, not that I know of. He was a bit worried you were coming into town. Maybe he was worried you would berate him or something, because he couldn’t take care of himself,” Nick blurted out honestly. The man wasn’t actually hurting him, but Nick found his stance extremely persuasive. David’s father paused, as if thinking. “I guess I owe you both, now,” Nick added.

“You are welcome. Tell me, what is your name?”

“Nick. Nicholas,” he replied. The man bent his elbow a fraction, lifting their grip once and letting it go, releasing Nick’s hand.

“We have been introduced, then,” David’s father replied, turning on his heels, much the way David did. He began walking, pausing to pat at his pockets. “Oh, and I did not save your life, that you will have to settle with the owner here.” With that, satisfied that he still had whatever it was he looked for, he was gone.

Nick reached a hand up as if to physically deter the man; he watched through a thumb and forefinger as he slipped through the door. Finally, he could see the damage done to his writing hand. The wound was on both sides; it started between the ring and middle fingers and went to the center of the palm. It was a gory wound, though it was stitched. Looking down, he found he was similarly attended to on his chest and stomach.

A flash of memory brought Scarlet’s face to the forefront of his mind. Nick began walking in the direction he saw David’s father leave. He wasn’t looking forward to discover whom it was that he owed. It was also up for contention what kind of life he still possessed, or for how long he’d have it.

“All debts come due,” Scarlet yelled. “I’m going to find you. Your ilk is visible to all, even the blind.”

The room contained several other stacks of goods like the potatoes. In another corner was a door to some type of freezer, and in all the places in between there was alcohol of many varied types.

The last part of Nick to liven was his ferocious curiosity. That, for the time being, would force him to keep putting one foot in front of the other. He wasn’t dead, yet.

 

Chapter Seventeen

David and Nick were gone for some time. Jarvis could not say how long, as slippery as time was becoming, but he was imposing order on the bags and suitcases of money when he found the small radio. He turned it over in his hands, remembering a time when it used to play music and so many voices. The vampire could not recall why it stopped. At one point it was there, functioning, and then it was gone, likely removed because it died. Now here it was again.

He moved his fingers around the exterior until he found the small knob that used to make the noises stop and start. Jarvis changed its position, and nothing happened. He switched its position again, and it remained silent. He remembered then. One day the voices became sluggish and the sound shrank. The light on the front dimmed and then it died, as if the radio were alive.

Over time, Jarvis repeated the ritual several times, and each time he put the device away, then rediscovered it, and then remembered all over again. He put it back in its place and closed the bag.

Near sundown, a trio of children from the neighborhood ran up to the front stoop and then sprinted away. It was a game for them, daring each other to knock, to see how close they could get before becoming frightened. From the small filmy window in the basement, he watched the light outside finally die.

Jarvis waited a bit more after sunset and then departed. When he opened the door, he found something the children left. It was a toy, a doll, and it looked broken. Jarvis inspected it carefully. No, it was broken, but now it was fixed. It was made up of different pieces of different dolls, sewn together with thick black string.

The vampire closed the door and walked in the direction of the clothing store. Things were changing, and he had no way to determine how or why. Focusing, he reevaluated the situation, and came up with the same ignorance and the same strangeness.

The streets on the route were empty. People lived in clumps in the neighborhood, huddling together in one home with many empty ones between, their windows and doors boarded over. It was a short walk to the part of the city where the clothing store was. David said once that Jarvis’ sense of fashion was nonexistent. He said the vampire looked like…a paramilitary thug. Jarvis shrugged, not understanding completely. The material he preferred was rarely worn among the people he saw and interacted with, but it was fire resistant and dark—two things he found useful. 

The building was two stories high, with big letters on the side and very few windows. Jarvis never saw it during the day, but when closed, it had steel bars over the glass panes and a large metal door which rolled up and down. He usually went in through the roof; he discovered all entrances had the same protections and trying to enter through those resulted in the same police car driving by, shining lights through the windows. The locks did change occasionally. They changed in substance, size and, Jarvis could imagine, complexity. He didn’t know because he had no knowledge of the intricacies of locks; ingress for him required only removing the door from its hinges, which he could easily accomplish.

He left the doll on the roof next to the ruined door and dropped down inside. It didn’t take long; it never did. By the time he was out again, the single police car arrived, squeaking to a stop, the constables inside opening their doors and continuing their conversation. Jarvis listened from the roof as they walked past the scarce windows, staring inside.

“You see anything?” one of them said.

The other sighed. “Nope. This guy needs a new alarm system or something.”

The first grunted as he examined the large metal door that went up and down. “Feels secure to me. Check the back?”

“You check the back, I’m gonna finish my burger,” his partner retorted. He turned his flashlight off and walked back to the car, speaking into the radio at his shoulder. The report was that they answered the call and were checking it presently. Under his breath, his partner called him something disparaging and walked around the back.

Jarvis walked to the ledge. He caught sight of movement from the roof across the street. It was an old man staring from the far edge of his rooftop. The vampire focused on the features of the man’s face, the set of his jaw. He glanced at the stitched doll leaned up against the roof’s opening, and then back at the old man, but the stranger was gone. Jarvis considered looking for him, but he chose his vantage point to be as far away as possible—and yet he wanted to be seen.

Below, the officer’s radio fizzled to life. It was calling the men away with numbers the vampire did not recognize, nor did he recognize the street. The officer responded affirmative and gave up checking the back entrance. He sprinted to the car.

“Choke that crap down, we got a code in the barrow.”

The car squealed in reverse and then smoked down the street, lights coming alive with the siren. Jarvis watched the officers go. He did know where the barrow was. It was the area of the Moguls’ rivals. Their name changed several times over the years; infighting over failure at seizing more territory led them to destroy each other. It was always the same with people; they were never content, not even with stability. Jarvis retrieved the doll, unsure as to why, pondering at the vacant space on the rooftop across the street.

His feet took him directly to the Moguls, faster than normal. The apartment building they used was in a frenzy of activity, but everyone still moved around mechanically as if they weren’t unsettled. The Big Man’s presence didn’t help. He was greeted in much the same manner as normal and shortly after he arrived someone sprinted off to inform Bethel of his visitor. It would probably be of concern that he wasn’t summoned. Surprisingly, Bethel came outside to meet the vampire. He wasn’t outwardly agitated, but his heartbeat betrayed his worried strain.

“Big homie,” he said, pulling them both away from the others. As they walked, he took temporary interest in the doll.

“What’s happened?” Jarvis asked directly.

Bethel looked up into the vampire’s face. “You don’t know? The barrow got hit. Folks is dead, lots of folks.” He paused. “Look, man, some freaky stuff is going on, and I remember…”

“It wasn’t me,” Jarvis replied.

Bethel rubbed his neck. “I didn’t think it was. I mean, hell, I don’t know. We got rules, you know, there’s just stuff you don’t do.” Jarvis stared at him, hopefully conveying his lack of understanding. “We ain’t enemies, really. We all in it bad. We’re just different, you know? I’m goin’…we goin’ to show support and whatnot, so they know it wasn’t us. I mean, I ain’t got a problem killin’ somebody, but the stuff I been hearin’…”

“What happened?” Jarvis asked again.

Raymond Bethel was not a terrifying man. He created an image to substantiate the illusion of him being a horrible monster, but compared to Jarvis, Bethel was a novice child. Now he was afraid, though not of the vampire.

“Dudes I sent over there said folks’s been chopped up, slashed, chewed on. Some Elm Street nonsense, man.” Bethel was finally at the place all the many villains Jarvis knew over the years, and in his own way helped or hindered, eventually came to. His eyes pleaded with the vampire, wishing for him to empathize. A line was crossed, Bethel’s eyes said, an important, human line.

Jarvis let the moment in which he could be comforting pass. “This was left on the stoop of my house,” he said, holding the doll up.

“The hell?” Bethel said. “The world’s gone crazy.”

“People die, Raymond,” Jarvis said. “Sometimes in unsettling ways. Go to your brothers. I came to ask if you needed anything.” He was several steps away when Bethel called out. The Big Man turned again, curious.

“Look, man.” Bethel struggled with his newfound powerlessness. “I know it ain’t no never mind to you, but find who did this?”

Their agreement had the vampire utilized as a tool to strengthen the Moguls’ position. This was not that, because the man was begging. He was still Raymond Bethel, however, and despite it being a plea, he did leave it hanging on the air and turned to walk back to his followers. He lived in squalor, but he was a king nonetheless.

Jarvis looked down at the doll, pondering the request. He supposed that if Bethel was a king, then that made him a dragon.

He watched the Moguls leave in a procession of recently washed and painted cars. It looked all at once like a funeral procession and a war band. The police would be there, too. They seemed indifferent to the problems of the barrow in the past, but a massacre was a massacre.

Jarvis were not tasked; he was asked. He walked slowly back in the direction of the house he dwelled in, wondering how obligation worked in cases when he was given a choice. He wasn’t sure what Bethel thought of him, if he considered the vampire someone he could beg assistance of. It would be useful to find the offender, whoever they were, and destroy them, because they had the chance to unsettle the situation.

Things progressed well for some time. The city changed and grew, but really it was the same seaside village. It maintained its spirit. Again, Jarvis pondered simply leaving. Perhaps that’s what the Mistress’ statement ultimately meant; that she couldn’t leave, for a reason she could not describe or understand. Why didn’t anyone leave a clearly deteriorating situation? What made it worth dying under or suffering beneath?

The vampire stopped in front of the door to the house, hearing shuffling within. It was never his house. It was a building he stayed in; he possessed no key. People never came around either, to his knowledge, except when he was there. However, someone being inside without his permission seemed wrong, and Jarvis acted without thinking. He moved so quickly that objects and structures he moved past were only visible in retrospect. He collided with the figure as it was moving up a central hallway. It was flung backwards as if by a strong wind, crumpling in a corner of a far room.

Jarvis felt his hand almost pass through the soft tissue of the chest, pushing the bones of the ribs inward—many of them broken. It was an injury beyond fatal, the flesh beneath the bone would be torn and ruptured. It was a wound he delivered before. When he unfolded the figure of an elderly man, however, the body coming uncompressed as the arms and legs unfolded where they could, the eyes rolled into consciousness and a weird mouth etched into a grin.

“Magnificent.” The stranger lifted his head up slowly, spying down at his own body. “You’ve broken me. My spine, even reinforced, is broken as a twig.” His eyes looked back up at the vampire. “You are a fantastic creature, and I am inspired to make your acquaintance, my sir.” His right arm slowly rose from the floor and extended up in Jarvis’ direction in a gesture of greeting.

The vampire considered simply stepping on the stranger’s face, but there were questions. Jarvis concentrated, remembering. This was not the man from earlier. “Who are you?” he asked. 

The stranger let his arm drop to the floor, clawing until he managed to work himself into a sitting position against the wall. His insides limped along in a semblance of life. There were all sorts of other sounds along with the beating of the heart and pumping of the lungs.

“What are you?” Jarvis decided to rephrase.

Again came the alien grin. “Why, I’m like you, my sir,” the man replied. “I am a god of this mortal world, though you may call me Tomohiro. Dr. Tomohiro. I see you received my gift.” He gestured at the doll, still in the vampire’s left hand.

Jarvis lifted the toy into view, holding the image of the broken man in his vision along with that of the small, patchwork doll.

Chapter Eighteen

 

Looking down at the broken Tomohiro, Jarvis came to realize that he wasn’t going to destroy him. He couldn’t. The vampire made the decision to begin asking questions.

“You haven’t said why you’re here,” he said.

A frown creased the man’s forehead, and he awkwardly cocked his head to the side to stare up at Jarvis. “Why, my sir, I’m here for you.” He waved a hand lazily as if he could erase the statement from the air. “For us. You can help me, and I can help you. We can help each other. You exist, but do you know why? Do you understand what you are, and what you are becoming?” He let his head drift back down again.

Change never occurred to the vampire, but it was a topic that crept often into his thoughts lately. “You have these answers,” Jarvis said, taking a step backwards to give the man room, since he decided not to step on his head.

“Some, my sir. I have some. Other questions can only be answered by you.” The strange Tomohiro put a hand on one of his useless legs and pulled it in such a way as to readjust his seating. His movements were getting slower.

Jarvis could hear the pumping and slurping and sluicing sounds inside the man’s chest changing in rhythm and speed. In the vampire’s experience, Tomohiro was getting closer to death. “You are dying,” he offered, unhelpfully.

The man grinned like a knowing cat. “The driving sentiment of these strange years.” His eyes unfocused for a moment then became sharply fixed once again. “I am, though, as you must know. So are all people, all things.” His smile widened. “Except for you, and those like you. I digress. I need your help presently. I seem to be bleeding in a variety of places, and soon this will expire.”

Jarvis didn’t understand him at first. Over the next few hours, he became more accustomed to the corpse’s manner of expression. The vampire didn’t notice before, but Tomohiro left a bag near the front door. After it was delivered to him, Tomohiro set about opening it, rummaging carefully for various tools and implements, all the while remaining happily engaged with the giant.

True to his word, Tomohiro explained things about history and its recording, and how it was that vampires came to be. “There is truth even in fable. A story constructed from a lie still has to combat some form of unsaid truth. Both the shadow and the light need one another to exist,” he said.

Tomohiro unbuttoned his shirt to reveal scars and stitches. He went about inserting tubes, cutting with knives, and cracking with hammers. He was sewn all over, it seemed. Jarvis could not help but remember the doll and thought about giants’ children that made this man from the parts of other men.

“I have no claim to any throne that exists in the natural order,” Tomohiro said. “Like yourself. You had many names over the centuries: Soul Killer, Spirit Eater, and Sevren are among those I think are most appropriate.” He paused, his working arm pulling on his strange hair, wrenching his neck forward so he could more easily look into his chest cavity. A curious expression darkened his face. “There are less stories recounted about what I’m attempting. I think, maybe, that each case is unique.” Tomohiro made a decision and released his grip, his head flopping backwards and his arm reaching, the hand feeling and grasping. There was a pop, and then a final snap. “In my case, I was simply not done living.”

Jarvis was once again witness to how fragile life was. He saw the insides of a man on many occasions. Every one mostly seemed made of the same parts: a small rounded box resting within a cage of thin bars, hopping along on fragile spindly legs. In between, as was the case with Tomohiro, was a seemingly endless network of humors and liquids. The strange man, however, seemed much drier on the inside, and many of the parts were missing. There was metal too, much more than the vampire thought a person could have inside of them and still live.

When he was done, Tomohiro pushed the small metal pins closed, much like the buttoning of a shirt. “I am afraid I am going to need a wheelchair for our next adventure, my sir,” he said, ashamed a little.

Jarvis thought for a moment. “Does it have to be a wheelchair?” he asked.

Tomohiro looked up at the giant, quirking an eyebrow.

That was how the vampire ended up pushing a shopping cart downtown with pieces of a talking man inside. There were several of the rolling carts in the neighborhood, each of them belonging to a different year and store. A community lived in the depressed corner of the area beneath an underpass, and sometimes the children would go to taunt the people with bags and cardboard houses.

It was strange to find the place in the exact shape it was the last time he saw it, which was back when he asked about the local gangs on the search that eventually led him to Raymond Bethel. Some things changed, and other things did not. There didn’t seem to be much of a way to tell one from the other, though.

“How did you discover where I lived?” Jarvis asked, nudging the cart along. In most places there wasn’t a sidewalk, so they traveled on the side of the road. Few cars passed them, but mostly their audience was the moon.

“Good question. I knew you were a thinker. The gathering place,” Tomohiro replied, patting the side of the cart to some rhythm the vampire couldn’t know.

“The gathering place,” Jarvis prompted.

Tomohiro squirmed in the cart as if he wanted to move, but he dropped in such a way that he couldn’t move very much. “You do not know? I suspected you were insulated. I forget its specific name, but most cities have them. They are convergences of all the strange folk that make up the periphery of this world, like a crossroads,” he said, which required further explanation.

After several times through, Jarvis began to understand. It was a place to hide if one was not strong enough to make his own hollow. Jarvis was familiar with the concept; hiding was what his kind did. A person could get practically anything, or anything practical, in the gathering place so long as they had something commensurate for trade. The one in Bay City was a place people frequented for libations and conversation. The vampire supposed that was appropriate. 

The tangent led to more questions, which in turn led to more of Tomohiro’s stilted answers. Jarvis decided not ending the man was a good idea. He was helpful and informative, like David.

“What did you mean about what I’m becoming?” Jarvis turned into an alley, off of the rough, jarring unevenness of the road. They were nearing their destination; the vampire could tell by the height of the buildings and population of parked cars. Locating it from street level was a new and strange exercise. Everything seemed so closed and impossible.

“Well, I cannot be completely sure, but you are alone in this city, yes?” Tomohiro squirmed again in the cart.

“Yes,” Jarvis responded without thinking. Images of David occurred to him, and then a few of Nick.

“Well, that makes sense. Your kind is territorial. In many cases, when many of you exist in the same area, massacres occur, questions arise, and the hunters come. So naturally, you push each other away, except for spawning.” Jarvis worked his mind around the word and tucked it away. “You, my sir, are alone throughout this entire city. Such a large place, one would have to be very strong, I think.” Tomohiro sounded pleased with himself.

Jarvis had memories of contests with others who came to challenge him. They called it haunting. Jarvis destroyed many of them with the image of the Mistress’ still face in mind. It occurred to him once that maybe he might coexist in peace with at least one of them, but it was always a brief and fleeting thought. He remembered different seasons and weather. Sometimes it rained; sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes the stars shone; sometimes they did not. It seemed that those were the only details that ever changed. The others all demanded, then bargained, then begged, then expired.

“You become strong with age, and with death. Have you seen much death, my sir?”

Jarvis didn’t know how to answer. There was the one time…they called it war. Men lay dying to the horizon in all directions. It was where he retrieved his blade, and where he learned that terror touches even free men. 

“Yes,” he decided.

Tomohiro’s head bobbed backwards and forwards in confirmation. “You are old, I think, and you have killed many. Death surrounds you like a protective cloak, a shielding cloud, my sir. Animals flee from you, and carrion feeders await your leavings. Ending life is breath.”

Jarvis pulled the man’s words apart to put them back together in a way that made sense. He stopped the cart, stepping around it in the direction to the mouth of the alley. Looking around the corner, he saw the police station with the matching cars and bright lights out front. He took an extra moment, working through Tomohiro’s words. He turned back to the cart.

“The police building is that way.” He gestured.

Tomohiro remained still, thinking. His insides were beginning to make the disagreeable sounds again. “Excellent. Our destination is nearby, perhaps around the back. Push me closer, please.” He was getting excited.

They resumed traveling, turning right out of the alley in the direction of the police area.

“We will stand out, I think.” David used a word Jarvis could not recall. It meant obvious.

“Something I have learned about the order of man. They are not so different from ants, in many respects,” Tomohiro said.

Motion prevented him from finishing his statement. A large group of constables emptied the station, all heading in the direction of different cars. Distant sirens signaled the presence of fire trucks and ambulances. Some drove past the two of them walking down the sidewalk and didn’t slow, or even look over. It seemed Tomohiro was resourceful in ways the vampire had trouble anticipating. He decided that it was a good thing, the man wanting to be of assistance.

Jarvis turned to watch the last car screech around a corner. “What is the place we’re looking for called again?” he asked. It seemed that every time Tomohiro opened his mouth, the vampire learned something new. Sorting through each statement, though, was taking time.

“It is called a morgue, my sir,” the man replied, sounding pleased again. He resumed his tapping on the rusty framework of the cart.

Jarvis strained to hear this time, but all he could piece together was odd noises and low, distant heartbeats. “Morgue.”

“It’s where they keep the dead.”

The vampire supposed that made sense. Tomohiro had a talent for clarifying things, he was discovering.

“What did you mean by spawning?” The giant asked yet another question and Tomohiro answered. 

Chapter Nineteen

 

David discovered how woefully boring police work could be. He was especially thankful all the waiting around and travel time in crime dramas and cop shows were cut out. Since sunset, he and Vic did laps around Bay City in search of her wild geese.

In the mean time, she told him about her case. A high volume of illegal trafficking of guns and drugs, gang-marked executions, and the death of a number of undercover agents all amounted to some bloody turf war for contested territory in Vic’s mind.

David had his own theories, but instead he badgered her about why she was in the protecting and serving business. He was waiting for some emotional story about her dad being killed in the line of duty and her resulting quest for vengeance, but it never came. Apparently, he watched too much television. She liked solving problems and helping people, simple as that. 

“You hungry?”

They were sitting at a red light waiting for a green. Vic turned her radio down, but David was still making mental tabulations about what he thought the various codes were. As expected, cops never explained them and no one ever called back inquiring as to what the meaning of this one or that one was.

David looked over at her as if slapped out of a nap. “Hell yes,” he replied.

She chuckled, smirking at her speedometer, and made a turn he was pretty sure was illegal.

The first upside to the evening occurred twenty minutes later at a nice pizza place that had a police discount. Vic liked goat cheese and anchovies. David was sure he would normally be against something like that, but over the years he came to grips that he really liked most anything that counted, even loosely, as food. Plus he was hungry. Without the hot press of need stirring in his gut, David gave some thought to her mystery.

Vic was a homicide detective. She was high enough on the pole not to get just any random assignment, but still had to provide the civil service of solving cases when they were thrust upon her. This one wasn’t current. Apparently, she worked on it while people weren’t dying in a steady enough fashion so as to control the attention of all the detectives at her precinct. The gist of it, which he had trouble focusing in on the details of, revolved around a conflict in and around an area called the barrow. No one liked to say it, but the barrow was the ghetto—the ghetto where people died and there weren’t any ambulances, where people got robbed and no one bothered calling the police. David gave Vic points for even bothering, given that she admitted a lot of things went on in the area that no one really had a strong stance on doing anything about.

David knew a place similar back on the island. He supposed they were everywhere. In any event, apparently the barrow came under the control of some gangster who was known for his ruthless tactics and thorough influence. Naturally, around the same time, people started dying, antagonists and bystanders both, and some of them were cops. Even though the person whom everyone thought was responsible remained in jail for decades, the activity continued. Over time, things became steadily and considerably worse.

Vic was looking for the leader who was the real power behind everything—or for any information, really, that she didn’t already have. She was fairly sure the guy was at the top of some group called the Moguls. David found it pretty laughable that she thought he had any information resembling something helpful to assist with any of that. He said as much. 

“There’s a lot here I don’t understand. There’s a lot here a lot of guys in the department aren’t even willing to entertain because the details make no sense.” Vic left it at that, conveniently pushing some food into her mouth followed by a sip of soda. She didn’t do diet, which he could respect.

There was actually a lot about her he could respect. David asked to see her gun, which she refused, but that was about his only objection thus far. He shrugged. “The only weird thing I’ve seen in the past month has been this pizza.” It wasn’t meant to be a joke, per se, but she did chuckle once, and only once. “Aren’t you breaking some sort of rule by telling me all of this stuff?” he asked, curious. 

“The names of the undercover detectives were released, along with their rank and department. Undercover detectives who die in the field usually do so in the barrow. Wouldn’t be hard for a smart guy like you to figure out,” she answered while watching him with that steady gaze. It wasn’t something he could see so much as feel. David was learning to shrug it off like the look his mother used to give him about his childhood mischief.

“I’m thinking you may be giving me too much credit. I had to settle for technical school over real college,” he countered.

“There’s nothing wrong with learning a trade over traditional education,” Vic replied. “You enjoy your job, right?”

David supposed he stepped into that one. “Of course. Working with animals comes fairly natural to me.” He clamped his mouth down on his straw, sipping fiercely. “Plus I’m helping people,” he added.

She quirked an eyebrow. “Easy there, superman, you put band-aids on animals.”

David’s mouth dropped open. He didn’t know how to respond to that. He glorified it, but women normally accepted that, with an agreeing smile, even.

“So when are you going back?” She took a drink herself, pressing her lips together to avoid grinning at his expression.

“I was going to go back tomorrow, but I’m taking some time since my dad’s in town,” David answered, staring at her. “Which I can do as soon as you release me from this ridiculous outing.” It was petty but it was all he had.

That was how they got back into the car, silently. David could hear Vic’s mind running through a mental tally of what he revealed and what she chose to assume based on both what he said and what he didn’t say. He chose to pretend to sulk slightly at her reaction to his chosen profession, hoping it would buy him some hours’ reprieve from her investigations.

Her next play saw them pulling into the university parking lot. There was a uniform there already, and David struggled to sift through all the codes he heard already to figure out which this one was for. Vic had them responding to the call without her even acknowledging it on the radio. He felt her eyes on the side of his face as the lights from her Taurus shone on the ugly green of Nick’s car. All she got out of him was a narrowing of the eyes, which could have been him squinting in confusion.

“What are we doing here?” he asked.

She countered with telling him to stay in the car, and closed the door against his next question. Her and the uniform walked a ways back towards the dormitories; the man pointed at the ground in places as they exchanged words David couldn’t make out. If her car were just a tad crappier, he could roll his window down. As it was, with the window closed and them being so far away, they sounded like the adults in Charlie Brown. They did some stooping, and then some more pacing.

David began worrying when the uniform started flipping through some paperwork that led him to point at Nick’s car, and then gesture back to the building. He pointed to some other cars in the parking lot, but briefly and with less emphasis. David pulled out his cell phone and dialed from his lap. The best he could do was put it on speaker. It rang and rang, then went to voicemail. David ran through several bleak scenarios when the smell of blood began to waft through the air vents. Nick wasn’t answering his phone; what’s more, he seemed to be missing. David stared at a field of puzzle pieces with no idea of where to start.

Another code was called in, and it must have been a major one because both Vic and the other cop froze, listening. Then Vic hurriedly gave instructions, the man started putting things away, and Vic hopped back in the car. David shoved his phone back into his pocket so fast he ripped his new pants. Either she heard it, or thought he was masturbating, the way she looked at him.

“So what’s going on?” David asked, citing the code number.

Vic started the engine and clipped her seat belt in one smooth motion. “Tampering with police equipment is a crime, you know,” she said, looking in the rearview mirror as she pulled out of the parking lot. It wasn’t a full on tire-screeching exit, but she was in a bigger hurry than at any point in the evening. When they were on the road again she made a point to look down at his hand in his pocket. “You show me yours and I’ll show you mine,” she said, which had less impact than she probably intended.

Instead of David being unnerved, the atmosphere in the car sort of got awkward. No lewd comments popped into David’s mind to say. Vic jerked her head forward and he could hear the old leather of the steering wheel complain in her grip.

Thus far, cop work consisted of waiting, sitting, eating, waiting, driving, pointing, stooping, waiting, and talking. Vic’s ankle flexed as she pushed the engine just a hair above the speed limit as they moved in a southeasterly direction. The engine growled comfortably. David could tell Vic was concentrating on both not going too fast or too slow.

He broke the silence. “I was calling my dad, to check in and stuff,” he said.

“Oh?” she responded, more brightly than she looked. “How is he?”

“I’m actually sort of worried. He didn’t pick up.” He looked over at her; she was still looking at the road.

“He seemed like the sort that could take care of himself.”

“Well, according to you, there’s axe murderers and ninjas walking our streets. The man has an AARP card,” he quipped. She chuckled again. Apparently, he was funny. David long suspected as much.

“Maybe not anymore, after tonight.”

David was starting to understand her, with all the tension and waiting time. It was bad to say, but it was sort of like hunting. With each interchange one better learned about their prey. They sped across the boundary he learned the police used for the barrow, and promptly Vic slowed down.

“We got a report,” she said as she started to weave her way down the short streets. The quality of the roads decreased drastically, the ride becoming more jostled.

“I thought you guys didn’t get reports from the barrow.” He left the question hanging in the air.

“We do if enough people die,” Vic replied.

The car slowed at a stop sign, a faded-red octagon with spray paint filling bullet-shaped dents in its front. It seemed like a suggestion, mostly. As they stopped, David saw cars coming to cross. It was a deliberate line of sober-looking four doors. They were in all colors, with matching windows; except for those that were rolled down, they were all walls of solid color. One car near the back turned right where all the others kept going straight. The driver side window rolled down and a serious looking man peered through Vic’s window at her. David wouldn’t say he was afraid, but he was paying close attention. He had a thought that this was how famous rappers died. Vic rolled her window down after taking a moment; to compose herself, he thought.

“You must be lost,” he started, drawing out his last word, sprinkling it with menace.

Vic showed him her badge, a little quickly. His expression didn’t change. He repeated his statement.

“We heard you had a problem that needs looking into,” she said, her accent a little thicker than normal. Her heart rate sped up but other than that, she was doing well. David didn’t know who this person was, or how he fit into the grander scenario, but at least something exciting was happening. He frowned at his newly discovered desire for excitement.

The man in the jet-black car set his stare and let a few moments pass before responding. “A’ight then,” he said, his window seeming to roll up by its own accord. “Welcome to hell.” It was loud enough for anyone listening to hear, but remained an afterthought.

Chapter Twenty

 

David looked over at Vic for confirmation, because he was confused. The guy in the car insinuated something but he never said it. Instead of answering his look, Vic performed one of those turns where the car goes forward and backwards twelve times. After that, they began to creep along after the black sedan through the cracked, lonely streets of the barrow.

“I think I’m starting to understand,” he lied. David was actually closer to formulating something that sounded like a confident guess.

“It’s just a different culture,” she replied. She glanced over at him and must have seen something in his face. “They have their own laws and customs and norms. You learn about some of them in infiltration classes, but mostly by interaction. That we came is an insult, even if they need us.”

David grinned with the side of his face that she couldn’t see. “That actually makes sense.” A lot of families liked to settle things in house. He thought of his father, curiously. Maybe he really should have called him, just to check in. David’s view of his father as he was growing up conflicted with the feel of the back of the man’s hand, old and leathery.

“Shouldn’t your dad be asleep?”

The question jerked his head around. “What?”

“You said you called your dad. It’s past three. I mean, he seemed spry enough, but still older.” She tip-toed to the end of her sentence. David appreciated it.

“He seems pretty easy-going, but he’s sort of a wild man. Plus mom keeps a tight leash on him back on the island. This is as much an excuse to check up on me as it is a chance to cut loose a bit.” He could feel the moment leaving and the two of them slipping back into their back and forth: his lying and her trying to detect his untruths.

“Still waters run in the family?” She asked. David looked forward to keep from acknowledging what was, honestly, a really good job on her part. Admittedly, he had a harder time lying to women for some reason, but he was of the mind that he could teach a class. She was keeping up, though she probably talked to liars all the time, slamming their heads into that metal table in the room with the one-sided mirror. David frowned; that was an odd image.

“I think we’re here.”

David couldn’t know where here was; it was all uniform buildings in this section of the barrow. They were two story and long, with identical windows, identical shades and color, identical bricks and in some cases even graffiti. There weren’t many cars except for the ones they followed, pumping hot air into the night under the red glow of brake lights.

Vic pushed on. “Maybe you should call him again?” She eyed the pocket containing his phone.

Almost defensively, David pulled the device into view and realized redialing would call Nick and not his father. What if Nick picked up? David felt Vic giving him that stare. He debated; he had to admit that he grew concerned about Nick’s safety. The man was a magnet for bad situations; apparently, all the intelligence in the world couldn’t keep a person from making stupid decisions.

The people around them, seemingly all men, began disembarking from their cars. David didn’t realize it then, but this required Vic to get out too, which she did. She conceded to a draw again, a little exasperatedly. She couldn’t hear, but David made the concession of a pressured sigh.

She tossed in another “stay in the car” and pushed the door closed. David watched another silent show. He could almost see what she talked about earlier. Those of the men not reaching into their trunks for what looked to be all manner of weaponry were standing around, away from Vic. Their posture was indifferent, and not inviting. She produced a pistol, being very deliberate not to point it at them. It seemed like some words were spoken, mostly between the assembled men and the man who was in the black car. David surmised he was the pack lead, so he was sort of responsible for Vic. She moved in among them, cautiously. David squirmed in his seat, finally flipping the phone open. Vic and the well-armed neighborhood watch stepped towards the nearest building, picking what was one of several entrances. Vic was the only one who looked officious, sort of ducking while walking, holding her gun in both hands. The others worked hard on evoking a sense of presence and invincibility. David really was beginning to understand then.

A moment after they disappeared, he got the excited urge to push all the buttons on the radio, check the glove compartment, and open and close the air vents. He flipped the phone closed, and open, and closed. The thought of calling Nick occurred to him again, and like magic, the phone rang.

“Nick,” is what he said into the receiver, without looking at the caller ID.

“No,” came the hushed voice of his father. Right then, David realized he honestly thought the man would be in bed. He was much older than he looked. “Your friend is fine.”

David blinked at the phone. “What? How do you know that?”

“Listen to me. He’s fine. There are other problems, Niño.”

David thought he heard something. In a fit of compound annoyance, he opened his car door and stepped out. The smell of blood this time was mixed with death.

“Uh-huh. Okay. Like what?” David looked toward the doorway he saw Vic disappear inside with the others. His eyesight was very, very good, which meant he could see in pitch black, but not well enough to do anything but not walk into things. He looked up as if the clouds might part at his insistence.

“There is a Sevren here, in this place.”

David stopped, stock-still. Did he forgot to tell his father about Jarvis? He wasn’t sure how to respond. Then there came that noise again that he thought he heard before. It sounded like a thump, or a thud.

“Uh, really?” he said, numbly, the phone drifting away from his ear as he strained.

The noises which followed were very clear to his hearing, and they all came at once. Gunshots David heard before, and these were in the same in some ways, and different in others. Flashes in the windows told him where the shots came from, and the shouts and screams told him they were ineffective. Within the action of clenching his fists as he bent forward into a sprint, David closed the phone shut on his father’s words. He didn’t register them, really; there was something about the morgue and a shopping cart. He would have been a little curious if he weren’t suddenly involved with a strong sense of worry.

David pushed himself forward, disregarding the first set of stairs completely, pulling himself up onto the landing and springing up the second set. He found the door corresponding to the windows he saw, and thankfully it was left open. David tripped on an arm splayed out across the doorway, falling partway in line with the dead gaze of a little girl with pig-tails and pink bows.

The next noise brought his focus rushing back: it was a strange, confused snarl. It was followed by a more assertive rasp, fearful cursing, and more gunshots. David pulled at the carpet with his hands for traction while he pushed forward into the place. There were bodies everywhere, lots of children and about half as many adults, many of whom were older; all of them were torn apart, not just simply dead. It smelled like days upon days of rot.

He kicked against a wall to turn a corner and barreled into someone’s back; Vic’s back—the toss of her hair and the smell told him it was her—which solved half the problem. She hit the floor hard, but still managed to elbow him while flailing.

“Vic, Vic, it’s me,” he said rapidly. He was still on top of her, but he tried to give her enough room to turn over. She struck him hard in the ear with the butt of her gun. David’s vision filled with blue spots.

A man, his back exposed, was moving towards them up the hall, working a rifle. There was the snarl again, and then an explosion of light traced the shooter’s silhouette. Something beyond the man smelled awful.

“We have to go,” Vic said through clenched teeth, pushing at him.

David pulled himself up, eyes wide, ears listening. Vic stood up too, but she was having trouble breathing and standing erect.

The man with the rifle was panting and bleeding as he took a moment to lean up against the wall. He sagged like he wasn’t going to get back up, and then he collapsed. When he fell, parts of the creature came into view. Pieces of it looked like it could have passed for a member of the home, but in between each limb was a scraggly line of what looked to be staples and suture.

“We have to go, now,” Vic wheezed, grunting with severe pain. Her eyes glazed over as she gripped David’s shoulder tightly.

“I think it’s dead,” he said, staring at the creature.

Vic’s breathing was at the forefront of his mind, but David could also hear little noises elsewhere. He parsed through them, and confirmed Vic’s next words.

“There’s another, I think,” she forced through gritted teeth. A quivering hand, with blood running down it, reached into her holster for another clip, which she eased and then slapped into her gun. David put a hand instinctively around her waist to try and relieve some of her weight. She put a hand on his chest and pushed him away.

An aggressive growl signaled an attack and David lowered his center of gravity. Vic slipped into what must have been years of training and pointed her gun straight forward then swiveled, bending her arms, as she addressed the opposite end of the hallway.

David moved forward, listening, and accepted the charge with his arms held out in front of him. This creature was larger, slick with liquid that smelled like blood mixed with something else. The carpet buckled and tore as David lowered his weight even more and then surged forward, striking it in what he imagined was a waist-like area. It tumbled over him, landing hard on its back. David hopped a bit into the air, bringing his foot down on its face.

Vic stumbled around the corner, swinging her pistol. David waved wildly, hoping not to get shot. She leaned against the wall in a fashion David saw before, taking a free hand to wipe a streak of blood across her face. David caught her, stepping over the first creature and the dead man. His hands searched her torso for injury and a safe place to support her. She moaned in pain, pushing with her legs, but they were failing her. David was waiting for her to say something; hoping, really.

He was hit with the realization of what the other smell and all the minute sounds he heard really were. There was a ticking just behind him, at his feet, and a few yards distant. The two creatures fell completely silent, and promptly exploded.

A moment before it happened, David let Vic collapse, and he landed on her for the second time in as many minutes, shielding her as best he could. He was still waiting for her to say something. Hoping, really.

Chapter Twenty-One

 

It all happened at once, but Nick couldn’t help but hear the music before he saw the scene. One stimulus was visual, the other audible, and the latter was overwhelming enough to stagger him. Standing in the doorway of the storeroom, he put his hand on the jamb to steady himself. An instant before touching the wood, he realized it was his injured hand. Shock and awe followed the lack of agony. The music was filling him with something so unlike pain there was room for little else.

Nick was looking into a modest combination of kitchen and bar. A scant few patrons were outflanked by glasses and tumblers that ranged from empty to full. Nick meant to sweep his gaze from left to right, but he went no further than the musician playing, the one responsible for the crashing swells of rhythms and tones.

Beyond the bar, at the back corner of the room, was a very short stage, no taller than maybe a handful of inches. On the stage stood a massive piano a distinct shade darker than night, and playing it was a man. A light overhead warmed the scene with a pale glow, and that was all. That was everything. A crowd was gathered in front of the stage, and yet Nick could still see the player, impossibly. The music was secondary to the feeling it produced, waves palpable enough that everything was visibly vibrating smoothly; their pulse pushed through his skin, not just his ears. Nick felt. His heart synchronized with the tempo, a leisurely rhythm that skated effortlessly as if on a slight decline. He was distantly thankful it wasn’t too fast, but the worry was blown backwards, out and away from him in the same mode as everything else. Nick was reaching out, arms outstretched towards the pieces of himself that were flung free like in a storm wind. It never once ceased to be pleasant, though ominous.

Once all of him was gone and he was emptied, Nick was buoyed, as if flying, like an empty, bowl-shaped leaf on invisible currents. Then he began to fill. The process was not slow. The silken string that connected all the notes like a weaving, winding train, every tone in its place, whipped gently at him. Then a chord the size of dreams, a wave pushing out of the brightly dark instrument, climbed to the ceiling and smothered the entire room in something Nick could only describe as a vision, yet there was no visual component. Nick felt, and the feeling filled him.

Strangely, he thought of Scarlet, and this feeling wasn’t blown away like all the other thoughts. It breezed past, flitted around him, and swallowed him as the waters rose. It became Nick, and he wanted it to both stop and never end; he felt like a man dying of thirst and drowning. She was moving close to him, sailing with an incomprehensible speed, and yet never reaching him. If she ever did finally arrive, Nick knew he would be content and die. He reached out for her, and she responded, as she did from the very beginning, with fire and ice and the steel of a beautiful dagger. She pierced his outstretched hand and he cried out.

Nick was still standing in the same spot, though this time with his sweaty, stitched, and scarred palm staring up at him. His vision blurred from the pressure of moisture pushing up out of his eyelids. Nick blinked and watched the brief rain of tears dapple the ugly stitches. He was breathing hard and his heart was racing—painfully, he realized. He sagged against the doorway and the scene came back to him.

It was the same as from before, except the crowd pushed in a bit on the man, all of them swaying in the same rhythm. Nick recoiled a bit, not wanting to be pulled under again, but being aware of what was happening seemed almost enough to avoid the effect. He could almost see the music pressing in on him, pushing. He responded by moving into the room and up the bar, away from the piano.

He backed into a man-shaped wall wearing the clothes of a bartender. Nick spun around, looking at the worn bleach-ringed t-shirt and up into the man’s eyes. They were slightly larger than normal, dangerous looking, like mouths set into his face, empty and waiting. The man didn’t bark anything; he just stared down at Nick, who stepped around him, keeping his original mission at the forefront of things. By the time Nick negotiated a position on the customer side of the bar, he was in a full sweat and all the old pains were coming back, discomfort spilling out of his stitches.

“You look like you need a drink,” a voice said. It was musical and disturbingly harmonious.

Nick wheeled and found the man from the piano standing before him. He was eerily the same height as Nick, and was standing a step too close. Nick made some noise that he knew expressed his dismay, surprise, and disorientation.

“It’s not doctor-prescribed pain medication, but it works.” The musician proffered a glass. That the man could hold anything, and he didn’t even notice, scared Nick even more.

The stranger’s face was perfectly symmetrical, carefully chiseled bones gently stretching beneath toned skin. Every part of him looked crafted with every other part held firmly in mind. His pupils were black, and there was no evidence of any other color in his eyes. He tilted his head to the side just enough to make his hair fall perfectly into place, each strand moving independently. Delicate fingers rattled the glass, and the ice within sounded like bones.

Nick realized the glass was inches from his face. He grabbed at it with his right hand, squeezing his injured hand around it. He winced, and took the opportunity to step backwards.

“Thanks,” he couldn’t help but saying. He looked into the cold glass. It contained a white liquid, smooth like everything about the place, and milky. Thinking was coming slowly to him, so he forced his thoughts. “I, uh…you…who are you?”

Nick looked at the musician’s shoes instead of his face. They were immaculate, fashioned in a way to represent their cost without being flashy. Nick’s gaze worked its way up. The stranger wore a simple black suit, a white shirt, and black tie. His survey went too quickly, and suddenly Nick was looking into the man’s eyes again. He brought the glass up to his face and drank, hoping that it wasn’t poison.

“They call me The Count,” the musician replied. His voice implied the capital letters without being ostentatious about it.

With his head tipped backwards, not looking at the stranger, Nick could concentrate more on the effect of the man’s voice instead of its quality. In a moment of clarity, he was flying backwards into a host of readings and lectures. As his head came back forward, Nick felt an underlying sense of terror. The surprise was that it was a surprise.

“You’re Nicholas,” the man said. He was able to pick whichever ear to talk into, each of his words having the quality of an intimate whisper.

The drink seemed like a trap, because Nick didn’t stop drinking until he was finished and the glass was empty of everything except a white film and the cubes swinging forward against the curve of the glass.

“What are you?” he blurted out. The new tactic was to use language as a blunt weapon, smashing at the illusions.

The musician’s eyes rolled up and to the right as if he was hearing something. “With respect to you?” He eased into the reply like in a comfortable chair. “A good Samaritan.” Nick’s terror returned. “Why don’t you have a seat?”

The man stepped forward, back to his original distance, and Nick felt the glass leave his hand. He stepped backwards, instinctively, and tripped into a booth. Nick adjusted himself so he was at least sitting and not falling. He tugged on the logic waiting at the entrance of his thinking. It said if the musician had cause to kill him, he wouldn’t save him. He probably meant to use Nick. When Nick looked up again, the musician was sliding easily into the opposite side of the booth. Nick swallowed, ignoring the pleasant aftertaste from the drink.

“Thank you.” Nick clenched his teeth in frustration. He had no control over who saved him.

The Count made an elegant gesture of scratching one of his fingers. “You don’t need to, really,” he conceded. He pulled his hands off the table and shoved them into his pockets, shrugging. “You wouldn’t have died, but your older friend seemed convinced you might.”

“I do not understand.” Nick was feeling better, which he was quickly deciding wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

“Most people die like climbing up a slick cliff face. They do whatever it takes to get back up, gracelessly. It’s why it’s such a powerful exercise. Some people are burdened, others buoyed.” The musician turned his head to the side, and when his attention shifted, Nick felt suddenly like someone wasn’t standing on his chest. “You, Nicholas, had powerful hands lifting you.” Nick frowned. He wanted to ask whether those hands belonged to The Count, but asking that would make him look stupid, so he kept quiet. “Your older friend was unaware.” The musician turned his gaze back on Nick.

“What is this place?” Nick jumped to the next topic like the last one was a platform that just vanished. Mentally, he beat on the musician’s previous statement like the meaning was trapped in ice.

“It’s a place where travelers gather.” That shot out mechanically. It was a noticeably awkward gesture, which only pronounced everything else about The Count.

Nick felt a thought ease its way into his mind and yanked at it. Realization occurred a few moments later, and his host waited for the jerk of Nick’s neck as he glanced over at the bartender and every other person there. Nick didn’t feel any better, really, but he knew more, so that was something. He used his left hand to pat his pockets until he found Scarlet’s charm, and produced it.

The Count’s hand came forward, quickly but calmly, and pressed Nick’s palm onto the table, hiding the bauble’s display. “That won’t help you,” were his words.

It felt like being gently admonished by his foster mother, loving but with finality. The memory was bright and sunny, and Nick’s sadness and embarrassment were deep. He wanted nothing more than to shove the ugly thing back into his pocket.

“I’m sorry.” The words came out of him like the other social courtesies.

Gently, the musician removed his hand, but when the feeling vanished, Nick felt he was replete of the sensation of glass and metal against his palm. “It’s alright, Nicholas. We should, however, discuss the price. You can’t pay me if you’re dead.”

Nick swallowed, nervous. A different weight afflicted him then, a draconian thing, like the obligations of owing and paying. “Price.”

“The service was provided, necessary or not.” The Count put a hand up, neither confirming or denying that the charm was gone. “It isn’t due yet, don’t worry, but it will come. All debts come due, Nicholas.” Scarlet was in Nick’s mind, running around, slashing at things. “She’s on her way. You’ll come back. When you have time.” The musician smiled, something he never did. He had perfect mastery over it, like everything else. Nick couldn’t see his teeth, but even the small upturn of his lips was like the light over the piano; Nick had to look away.

He took a step out of the booth before he realized he was beginning to stand up. “I…” he began, forcing the words out of his mouth. “I don’t understand.”

The musician was next to him again, one of his hands at Nick’s throat. He suddenly felt cloth on his back and against his stomach, and underneath his arms. Nick looked down and found he was wearing a shirt. It was white, like the musician’s, pressed but not harshly starched. The Count was deciding whether the top button belonged open or closed. He settled on open, and Nick agreed, a wave of terror rumbling under his skin.

“Lovers should be lovers,” The Count said.

Nick felt as if he was back at the threshold again, pulling and pushing at Scarlet. For a moment, as he reached out to her, his own hand was different, elegant and perfect. The roots of Scarlet’s hair shone black, pushing the color along their similarly divine strands in a corona of red.

Pain came again, but instead of being in his hand, it shot to the core of Nick, folding his insides to nothing, and he came back. For the second time, the musician seemed like so much less than himself to Nick’s perceptions—he seemed hurt, and alone. Nick stepped around him, as if his feet knew something his mind was still confused about.

The door appeared, as if it was waiting for Nick to be ready to find it. Walking through it, he found the deeper darkness of foreboding night on the other side. Somehow, Nick knew without fail that the sun would soon rise.

Chapter Twenty-Two

 

At the prospect of meeting up with Scarlet before he was absolutely ready, Nick’s walking soon became running, which not long after became jogging. He tried not to care about the mysterious musician’s words. He tried not to, but even in retrospect, the man’s words had a gravity that etched them into the mind. Jarvis was effortlessly terrifying, unsettling even, but Nick’s foggy recollections of myth and legend made him fear The Count more.

He poked his head around a street corner. He looked up, squinting at the sky. Dawn was coming; or maybe it was already there. After a moment, he determined that it was just a little past dawn, but that things were overcast. A storm moved in during the night, and Nick couldn’t identify its beginning or end.

He felt a bit more confident he wouldn’t be shot in the back, or the side, or the front. Zigzagging as he was, he determined swiftly that he had little idea where he was, and less idea of where he was going. Aside from what Nick hoped was alcohol, he had nothing to eat, and was still undecided about whether being unconscious counted as sleep. He bent over, using just the one hand at the last moment to rest on his knees; the other he bent at the elbow and rested against his stomach. The idea of just lying on the ground and resting a bit occurred to him, and just as quickly it was discarded.

He suddenly felt a sense of direction, like a vector. Nick stood up, again only using his left hand to clutch at his side. He thought he heard something behind him and sprung back into mad dashing. It could have either been cats playing with an empty bottle or red-haired death patrolling the next street—or something in between.

A street sign he awkwardly speed-walked by gave him recollection. While he never saw this portion of the street, the name was familiar. Nick looked left and right, trying to approximate which direction would take him home, a rough map of the city expanding in his mind. He decided at least having his car would be preferable. Home, then, became the focus.

Setting off again, he soon found a bus stop peopled with a handful of workday types, two men and a woman, all of them silently awaiting the bus. He couldn’t begin to imagine what he looked like, cold and sweaty in his faded blue jeans and designer button up, walking up speedily, checking directions like a fugitive. As time ebbed by, Nick strangely found himself caring none at all. The next vehicle that followed a rumbling station wagon and a rusty one-eyed sedan was the city bus and he could have danced.

He embarked and slumped into the nearest empty seat. He closed his eyes, grateful. His heart rate slowed, and as everything else began to slow down, he could pick at his thoughts, turning them upside down and shaking out the contents. Mentally, he examined the last handful of hours and the weird intermission whose duration he had no way of approximating. To the musician and his gathering place, he committed much thought. The things Nick saw there were amazing, and sparked a career’s worth of curiosity. There came flashes of old illustrations he saw in hundreds of books. In those references, the pictures always showed a place just off the road, lit by traveling lanterns in a protective copse of trees, that a person could never find unless they were looking. People bartered, slept, and drank, each pictured individual as different from the next as they were from them all; and in the center, always taller or higher or brighter than anyone else, was a figure with arms outstretched in a gesture of welcome.

Nick leaned his head back and couldn’t help but enjoy the possibility of repose again. Almost as if in disagreement, the vector of resolution pulled at him again. Experimentally, Nick poked at the impulse, wondering if it would respond fully.

“Say what?” the bus driver said.

Nick jerked his head forward, his eyes flapping open. The driver’s eyes were on the road, his weathered hands on the wide wheel as he tried to expertly dodge the oncoming field of pot holes. Nick realized his mouth was dry and his joints were sore from stiffness.

“Excuse me?” Nick said, confused.

The driver wanted to turn his head to glance backwards, but decided not to. Nor did he reply. Nick looked around. Some of the other passengers replied with stares. Others already fixed him in their sight, and then averted their gazes. Nick slowly adjusted himself in his seat, taking a view of the nearest street sign as they eased into their next stopping situation. More people got on, and no one got off. Nick thought of a riddle he heard when he was young.

Thinking of his life growing up also made him think of his mentor, and that disappointed way of sighing he had. Nick fished into his pocket for his phone and pulled it out. Through it all, the tough little device still worked. David called. Nick stared at the number, curious at the hour of the call. The battery was on its last blood-red bar. As if it thought it would be dramatic, the battery light decided to start flashing. If anything, he had one call left without the charger. He couldn’t even use a payphone; his change was devoured by the needy mechanism at the front of the bus.

Nick thought about the people he could dial; he thought about the last call death row inmates get. He thought about the last meal. Nick’s stomach rumbled, perturbed. The little bell signaled someone on board wished off. Nick stuffed the phone back into his pocket, looking around again. They were almost near campus, he reasoned, seeing distant landmarks. He squinted, trying to recall if he ever bought that phone charger for the car that he meant to. So many things to do, and all evidence pointed to his rapidly running out of time to do any of them. 

The nearest bus stop to his car turned out to be a few blocks away, and by the time he disembarked onto the sidewalk, Nick got his second wind. He didn’t feel cavalier enough to walk, or too confident in the second-wind concept to run, so he settled for jogging again. The first thing he saw wasn’t his car, but the glass around it. Nick crunched to a stop, looking at his driver’s seat; the glass that would normally serve as a barrier was under his feet. Strangely, it took him a second to think about who would do such a thing. Nick looked around quickly as if he could feel crosshairs marking his confused face. He gingerly unlocked and opened the door. There was even more glass on the inside of the car. Bent over as he was, Nick could see that all four windows were broken out. He stood up again, a question in mind; the tires were indeed flat. He conjured a mental image of Scarlet smashing his windows in a rage then thoughtfully puncturing the tires. Nick closed the door again, facing his apartment. No doubt, it would be similarly wrecked. Nick tried not to imagine his mentor’s exasperated exhalations. 

That left only one place to go, realistically. He found David at the diner. Headed in the direction of the man’s apartment building, he was fortunate enough to spot him through one of the semi-clean windows. Nick went hurriedly inside. David made a point out of sitting in the same spot, facing the door. Nick slowed when he saw the condition of the man’s clothes. It looked like he was on the losing end of a terrible knife fight, whole strips of cloth missing. In some cases, his skin was visible. On closer examination, the clothes looked burned. Nick crept up slowly, though he knew it didn’t make any difference.

“Nick,” David said, hollowly. Normally the other man would call him Elminster or Gandalf; that he didn’t meant that something was wrong. Nick eased into the booth. When David’s eyes found him, they redirected to his shirt, then to the scar on his face, then back to his shirt. “Nice shirt,” he said, more lightly.

Nick brought his hands into view, out of habit more than anything, and he saw the other man’s eyes trace the scar on his hand.

Nick pointed at David’s clothes with his left hand. “Uh.”

“What happened to you?” David asked.

“The honeymoon’s over.” Nick tried his hand at joking. It was in poor taste, he realized, but David actually chuckled tiredly. Nick noticed the droopy expression on his face. “Have you slept?” he asked.

David shook his head. “Just got back from the hospital,” he replied. Nick frowned. “Vic is hurt. Burned.”

The last statement Nick recognized as the origin of the hole in David’s voice. Nick took a moment to try and recover who Vic was, and how their being injured could visibly shake David. He wouldn’t call his father by his first name, would he?

“And your dad?” Nick tried changing the subject. In retrospect, he wasn’t sure why he thought that would brighten things.

He watched the thought wash over David’s face, straightening his features and posture. The man jerked, tearing at his pocket to produce what was probably a phone at some point. The outside was charred and peeled, and it made a strange cracking sound when it was flipped open. David didn’t curse; he just stared at the ruined device like it told a bad joke.

Nick held the silent moment reverently, before he realized he still had his phone. He produced it and David snatched it out of his hand as he slid out of the booth and headed for the door. Nick followed, and this time he had to run a bit to keep up.

Out in the street, David put the phone to his ear after dialing. He looked up the intersection, and down, and left and right, undecided about something. Then he did curse. He pushed the phone back at Nick without looking.

“His phone is off,” David said. He looked around, wheeling on Nick. “Where’s your car?”

Nick’s mouth dropped open. “Uh…Scarlet…my tires…”

David interrupted him by turning around again, scanning the street and whistling at a taxi, which slowed to a stop. Nick followed him into the cab.

“Wait, David. What’s wrong?”

David slid across the bench seat in the back, looking from the back of the driver’s head to Nick. “I think he’s going after Jarvis.”

Nick closed the door, thoughts escaping him as they were blown away into the storm of possible scenarios.

David made a frustrated noise. “I don’t know where he is.” He sounded sad, and defeated, but it didn’t affected him physically, yet. He dangled over the precipice, and in that moment, at his lowest, he turned his head back to Nick.

Nick could do nothing but accept the stare. He could think of little else, right then, besides wanting to help David find his father. Nick couldn’t say what happened, who Vic was, or how exactly David’s father ran afoul of Jarvis or vice versa. He couldn’t say how David’s horrible evening compared to his own. He thought of that moment of resolution he felt on the bus and in the alley, and Nick surrendered to a semblance of hope, that is to say a lie, before he admitted, again, to being of no useful help at all. In one defining motion, Nick accepted it.

He turned to the driver, internalizing confidence he never before imagined. “Just drive east, I’ll tell you where to go.”

He didn’t look at David again, but he decided he wanted to believe that David trusted him implicitly and that he wasn’t going to screw up. Nick committed, adjusting himself in his seat. Not only did he bite off more than he could chew, he bit into something completely alien without even reading the ingredient label.

Nick looked down at his phone, the sliver of a red bar looking up at him. Evidently, there was yet more to do.

Chapter Twenty-Three

 

They worked well into the night, on into the gray haze of an uncomfortable morning. Jarvis could feel the sun’s life-giving warmth looming behind the wall of thick clouds, just like he could feel the inclination to retch growing in his inert chest. What Tomohiro wanted was simple and Jarvis supposed in retrospect it couldn’t have been anything else: the corpse of the summoned.

The city’s palace of the dead was appropriately like a mausoleum, all cold edifice and tombs. Jarvis was instructed to remove wires from the occasional wall or tear down some sort of electronic recording device. Other than that, they were not troubled on their quest. Jarvis thought they looked comical, “ridiculous” was the word David would have likely used. A long time ago, the vampire understood that the wheeled baskets were used for going to the market, for shopping. Tomohiro sought only one item, and it would have been an issue fitting into the tiny cart.

Even as his insides were dying, Tomohiro’s excitement grew. Jarvis suspected there was some great ceremony to go along with all the excitement and reverence, but the man simply did not have enough time. Taking the body was cumbersome work, and their escape was slow and awkward. Tomohiro’s instructions came in between long pauses when his eyes rolled around in his head and most of him went limp. 

They ended up picking more or less the first warehouse that seemed safe, found a flat surface, and the vampire stood back and watched the spectacle of a ritual, helping where he was asked to.

Tomohiro was strong in a way that could not be described. Jarvis could smash a man easily enough, rend stone and tear metal, but the puppet man was different. He had no pride. One arm dragging him sluggishly about the corpse of the summoned, his lazy eyes searching, he worked methodically against an hourglass only he could see. He was rushed, like he could hear each grain of sand tumble individually, but still composed himself not to work any faster than was strictly necessary. He looked pathetic, and Jarvis suspected he knew it, but there were no curses, no anger, no shame at what he became. Tomohiro simply worked, and that working state, combined with his composure, made him seem fierce.

So many times Jarvis saw men cut down for saying the wrong words, or for simply letting their thoughts creep up into their faces. Sticking their chests out, being daring…all of it encouraged the dark rot which destroyed lives. Jarvis experienced moments of awe watching Tomohiro work, even as the man slowed, reaching and searching and repairing and reinforcing. His tools were always in hand, the clock always in mind. Occasionally a flicker of scouring light would shoot through a crack in the building’s exterior and then the clouds would smother it just as quickly.

The last item Tomohiro removed from his bag, which was then left empty, was a delicate chain littered with charms of varying size. It didn’t look like a tool at all, but as one of the man’s eyes fought for life, his quivering hand held onto it like it was more precious than his soul.

“My sir.” He seemed momentarily overwhelmed by how much energy talking required. “This task is for you. Please, help me.” He smiled that same smile; it was innocent like a child’s. He lay forward, with a final nod to acknowledge approaching death, and had Jarvis chain together one of his wrists with one of the summoned’s.

With the two wound and tied so, it looked like a marriage ceremony the vampire saw before. The union knot was said to unite bodies and souls. Jarvis did his part with care, suddenly obligated to this thing, this man, who had no vicious humanity in him, just a staunch desire to live.

Jarvis took his focus away from Tomohiro’s failing body and touched that part within himself that was more aware of the passage of time. Hours passed, and still no light. The vampire could hear the wind blowing debris in the street. He could also hear something else.

Jarvis stalked skyward. He skulked into a position behind his target. Watching the old man, he became aware that he was not that old, or was more spry than he appeared. The intruder was creeping slowly on the top floor of the empty building space, creeping along old dusty boards and around long unused machines, peering through the holes he could find in the brick surrounding the much larger central area where Tomohiro and the summoned were.

Something in Jarvis encouraged the quick kill, maybe a shove or a strangle; he never wanted to know the man’s name or his story. After all, he had Tomohiro, and the strange man would tell Jarvis everything he wanted to know about himself, or anything else; and he had David, who would teach him everything he needed to know. Still, Jarvis was embracing a new experience, and that part of him was intrigued by the mystery of the vanishing man who reappeared before him now. The vampire chose a comfortable distance and ground a boot against the floor to announce himself.

He expected the old man to jump back, startled. He did jump back, but anger was more visible in his features than dismay. When his eyes took on a deep shade of black, Jarvis realized there would be no talking. The wild man lunged at the vampire, slow like he was unaccustomed to quarry with speed. Jarvis understood the man could command only the lesser mien; there was no maw or fur or claws, just two strange eyes grown to large ovals and stuck in a strained visage.

Jarvis stood in the unfamiliar position of the defender while he pondered. With no formal training in hand-to-hand combat, there was no way to avoid the attacks except for grabbing hold of the man’s wrists, which Jarvis realized were more slippery when he wasn’t trying to break them.

The man circled him twice, kicking and flailing, yelling the kind of things his kind were prone to shout. Jarvis realized he enjoyed a rarity in the peaceful time he knew David. It was to be expected that another lycanthrope would show up at some point, calling him unnatural, unclean, shadow kith.

Jarvis took a quick step backwards, turning as he did, and then reversed the motion to backhand the old man and send him flying across the attic space. He didn’t swing fast enough or hard enough to snap his neck or break his jaw; Jarvis was trying to create distance. Appropriately, the wild man launched into the air, flipping backwards into a pile of wood stock.

“Who are you? What do you want?” Jarvis asked, trying to be direct, but not hostile.

The old man rose a bit sluggishly; he was cut in a variety of places. He was also breathing hard, but his face remained the same. There was no pause, no relent. The rage swept him up, and would carry him to his death. To Jarvis. He did manage to bark the once.

“Por mi familia!”

That didn’t make any sense to Jarvis, but the growled undertone was plain enough. The old man didn’t run, he lunged, and the exertion of his legs pointed him arrow straight at the vampire. He covered the intervening distance faster this time. On the first pass, Jarvis didn’t see the knife at all, but even sidestepping as he was, the blade caught him across the chest, a blow that sliced through the clothing and created a burning line across the vampire’s skin. It had been a great long while since he felt the hissing kiss of silver.

Jarvis did a bit more backing up then, as the old lycanthrope flailed and cut at him. In a moment of creativity, he realized he had sharp steel too, and Jarvis used his superior speed against his opponent. The old man stabbed and swung and sliced, and on his next lunge, the slicing blade Jarvis carried came free and the hand clutching the knife went flying into the darkness. The man didn’t scream so much as howled, but even that didn’t stop him from continuing to surge forward. He grabbed at Jarvis’ throat with his one remaining hand, scratching at the tissue, but to no avail. The vampire was tougher than any he encountered before, or at least stronger than he anticipated.

Jarvis reached for the man’s throat also, pushing him backwards, leaving him like so many before, their legs kicking in mid air and fingers clawing at the hand closing off their breathing. Jarvis tried to see him, really see him, like Tomohiro suggested he was capable of.

In this other place, the puppet man said, the world was simply a dark room filled with endless candle tops, a field of many, many wicks. The living came in different sizes and colors and brilliances, but no one could hide from standing out against that darkness. Squirming in Jarvis’ hand was a vivid fire, bright and golden, though diminishing. Jarvis squeezed, experimentally, watching the fire die just a bit. The vampire wasn’t sure what he was feeding on, but it was there.

Focusing away from his quarry, Jarvis could see a fire growing on the bottom floor of the building. It ranged in severity from that of weak kindling to violent and ever growing sparks. It looked to Jarvis like a distant battle reaching its climax, and much like in a forge the violence would yield some constructed creation.

Jarvis became idly aware of the old man kicking at him in his death throes. However, his voice broke the vampire’s concentration. “You,” he began, hoarse. Jarvis was standing in a pool of the man’s blood. His face went ashen. “You may kill me, but you cannot have my son.” He was beating against the vampire’s arm with a clenched fist and his stump, spurts of blood spraying against Jarvis’ front. The vampire could feel flecks of it seep into his skin, filling wounds. “I curse you.” A spattering of blood. “I curse you again.”

Jarvis stared into the man’s face and then dropped him. Out of surprise, or something else, he was not sure. “Your son?” the giant asked, looking down on the dying man.

The distant and sudden snarl was the only warning before calamity struck. Jarvis closed his eyes briefly, scanning around. As if the brick wall were a window, he could clearly see the golden ball of fire careening down towards the building, towards him. There would be arms and legs and teeth in accompaniment, but the raging spirit was most pronounced to Jarvis right then. It was the first moment of indecisiveness that he experienced in an even longer while than he had the stinging kiss of argentum. It was obvious that getting out of the way was most prudent; Jarvis was hit by several careless cars in the past, and it always turned out worse for the person being struck.

He began to move almost reflexively, but stopped when he looked down at the dying light of the old man. David’s father.

The vampire bent down to grab him, to move him, but he was already too late. David came barreling through the wall like a wrecking ball, and with the age of the building and its lack of upkeep, things fell apart. Jarvis met David’s eyes the once, primordial, feral pools that they were. One of the vampire’s hands was bunched around Mr. Cruz’s clothes, while the other reached for a handhold that wasn’t there in the hole that appeared suddenly in the floor trying to swallow them all.

Sideways became up, and the vampire’s fingers pushed themselves easily enough into the wood of the floor, but the planks flapped skyward like an uneven fence.

David growled as Jarvis hurled his father up and away even as he reached out for him. The vampire wondered what David’s thoughts were behind those horrible jaws and killing eyes. They fell, tumbling down together into what they wrought.

 

Chapter Twenty-Four

 

The fall went better for Jarvis than it did for David. Peering down into the hole they were falling into gave him a fair approximation of which direction to drift as he plummeted. In his rage, David swatted with huge arms and sharp claws even though Jarvis was out of range. The lycanthrope spun and tumbled through the air, and fell hard among pieces of stolid metal and unyielding masonry. Before the massive impact occurred, Jarvis could pierce the darkness clearly, but the erupting dust cloud was more difficult to see through. The vampire tried to adjust himself in the air.

He kicked off a wall a head’s height before the bottom floor of the ruined building and slid to a stop nearest the center. Jarvis didn’t have to look for David. He was alive, and the vampire needed no confirmation. However, he did take a few moments to perhaps gather himself before exploding from the rubble, his cat’s eyes searching for his prey. Gouts of hot air bellowed from his maw, like he was breathing fire.

Jarvis’ thoughts turned for a moment to Tomohiro, who might be able to explain the situation. Glancing over, he saw the puppet man was lying still on the huge chest of the summoned.

“David,” Jarvis called, without moving.

His stoicism incensed the lycanthrope further, although he still had a few pieces of wood and metal stuck through him. He began angrily breaking himself free.

David described the rage to Jarvis before, the wild, feral mindlessness. It sounded unpleasant, which David admitted it could be, but it was also an experience of unbridled freedom and power. Jarvis had little reference for that, but David almost salivated when describing it, his pupils growing wide. Jarvis told him that addiction benefited none of them. It was something someone said to him once. They were monsters, but could choose how monstrous.

Jarvis’ stance was a warning one as well. He dropped his blade somewhere, and suddenly he felt diminished because of that fact. It didn’t occur to him that he might have to kill David until the man charged. Jarvis was ambivalent until the lycanthrope got about halfway to him. The vampire contemplated, knowing that this was not how he would perish yet wondering what it would mean for him to go forward. Much like him, David had no formal training in combat, and his stoked anger helped him none at all.

David brought his arms up as if to slash down. Jarvis took a slight step forward, catching both wrists. David pushed him back as his boots searched for traction. Jarvis gave up ground as David lurched forward, but that was expected, too. The far wall came closer and closer as the lycanthrope shoved and wrestled forward. Rather than be crushed into it, the vampire hopped backwards, pressing against it. Perpendicular as they were, Jarvis could see more of the place. Tomohiro’s still form lay atop the massive presence of the summoned. Somewhere above their heads was David’s father. He likely would not need medical attention, but his kind didn’t recover so well from dismemberment. He would have that wound until he died, or it killed him.

“David,” Jarvis said again. 

At the odd angle, David had even more trouble snapping at him. That fact, and perhaps Jarvis’ tone, made him shake with ire. He began to sway as if to throw the vampire sideways to wrench him from the defensive position.

David needed more time to come down from wherever he was. Jarvis pushed from the wall, shooting overhead, bringing the furry wrists with him. One benefit of the condition was the lack of possibility for what the vampire considered simple injury. Both of their pairs of shoulder sockets whined and popped, but his much less so. Jarvis’ joints eased open and closed as he willed them, the same as walking. He was animated from a stance of mind and nothing else.

David made a confused, strangled noise as the breath was shoved from his lungs while Jarvis tugged. The vampire used his momentum and strength to hurl him end over end, back towards the jagged pile of refuse.

Jarvis’ shoulders sighed back into their sockets and he got a sprinting start and pushed himself into the ceiling of the building, holding onto a beam supporting the roof, looking for David’s father. The vampire didn’t see the old man immediately, but he did spy the conjurer Nick picking his way around the periphery. Jarvis was confused, and curious, but the moment passed as he ignored the distraction.

Finally finding David’s father, he swung easily back onto what remained of the top floor, crouching over the still form of the old man. He was breathing, and his body recovered from the initial shock and settled into an equilibrium of sorts. Jarvis put the backs of his hands to the floor and slowly pushed at the body until it rolled onto his forearms. He heard David coming and was careful not to spin around too fast, lest he drop the old man over the side some many feet down.

David came bursting up through the floor, angry and salivating for destruction. To his credit, he paused when he saw the vampire holding his father.

“He’s alive,” Jarvis said.

David flexed murdering hands but decided to abstain from tearing through his father to get to Jarvis. He worked his killer’s mouth open and closed as if he could talk, or would try. Jarvis extended his arms and took a step forwards, as if to relinquish the unconscious man.

David stood looking at him for a time, considering something. Jarvis couldn’t read his mind or his body language, but typically change always came to his relationships with people. They tried to accept or look past certain things, but eventually, they turned away from him. Jarvis imagined that David was thinking the way Raymond Bethel thought recently.

A frightened noise interrupted David’s thoughts, and together they looked over the side, down into the center of the lower room. Nick, wearing a tight collar of the summoned’s fingers, was being suspended above the floor. The creature’s head, one of the horns still missing, turned slowly to the suffocating Nick and then the entire massive body moved. The other arm of the summoned lovingly scooped Tomohiro’s body, cradling it against a sizable conjunction of thick arm muscles. Its feet touched the floor and it stood to its full height. Jarvis remembered the first time he saw the thing, a full head taller than him, and wider. There were few things that the vampire ever encountered that were larger than him.

Seated on a meaty neck freckled with stitches, the face of the outsider seemed itself and not itself all at once. It spoke in Tomohiro’s broken tongue, “It is done, my sir.” It seemed ridiculous that such a small voice could come from such a massive chest.

David made up his mind about something. He leaped into the air and bulleted from one side of the building to the other on his descent, leaving Jarvis with his father. The vampire looked down into the man’s face. David said he was from an island, far away to the south, a rich port. Jarvis always imagined it as some sort of golden hilltop with plantation houses and fresh fruit, no war, and long, cool nights. The old man said that the vampire couldn’t have his son.

Jarvis heard the impact of Tomohiro’s arm against David’s side. Nick was thrown clear a ways. Jarvis closed his eyes and focused. In the candle-top world, he remained the clutching darkness, holding the dull yellow cloud of David’s father while somewhere below, the golden fireball that was David streaked back across the room towards a bonfire the color of muddy blood. Nick was a dull ping of sparking red and blue flame entwined. The summoner and Tomohiro burned in the direction of one another, pointedly.

David’s fireball flaring almost to explosion broke Jarvis’ concentration. This time he smashed into the floor. Tomohiro reached out for him in a way that the vampire himself reached out so many, many times before. It was to be the end.

The old man’s body dropped to the floor with a distant thud. Jarvis could not readily recall how he covered the intervening distance so arrow straight, but he did. For the briefest of moments, he might have understood friendship. The vampire’s feet were on each of Tomohiro’s immensely broad shoulders. Their faces were only inches apart; in that short time, he could see the creature’s expression change.

Tomohiro sailed backwards awkwardly, impacting through a far wall into a small room further back. David was up again in an instant; something was forming in his eyes, but the vampire couldn’t piece it together. They did look more human, though. The lycanthrope roared, livid, reaching out for control, or maybe for the rage. Tomohiro crept through the wall; his smile was gone. He stood to his full height again, gesturing with an arm.

“This is not what I wanted, my sir,” he said, adjusting the aim of his pointing. “None will accept you, and least among them are the guardians.” He pointed at David. “They exist to hate everything that you are. That we are.”

Jarvis could scarcely recall a time when he thought they could all exist among one another in tenuous harmony. The vampire looked at the lycanthrope, watching his eyes develop irises and then fade back to black. David was good; he was determined to be a savior, a shepherd. Tomohiro’s description had the flawless fit of truth. Such things came natural to David, but Jarvis was an abomination. He did not belong. They should be destroying each other, he realized.

Jarvis thought the contemplation showed on his face, but David didn’t move. The vampire turned back to Tomohiro. The puppet man’s new body was naked save for the delicate charms dangling from his wrist.

“No.” The vampire shook his head.

The following moment stretched as much as it could, like fleeting peace. Then, the three of them resumed to destroying one another. Jarvis could not speak for David, he finally realized, but he lost himself in it. He was, after all, losing everything else. David was a wave of cutting and tearing and slashing and biting. He was smashed in, broken down, and shattered but there was no ceasing in him. He and Jarvis were as two bloody hands on the same killer.

Tomohiro, however, was from elsewhere, and they finally ran out of time. David was flung up into the air, this time changing finally, shrinking and diminishing, and landing naked and useless in a heap of bruises and bones misshapen from breaking. Tomohiro reached behind himself and tore Jarvis from his back. His body was bleeding from everywhere, but that seemed not to deter him. Jarvis suspected it wouldn’t, but the red stuff kept him standing for far longer than he should . Tomohiro was angry, beyond frustrated. He had plans, and they came to ruin at the hands of a trio of dead men.

The red liquid soaked into Jarvis’ pores and he became himself again, only to be crushed into the floor a moment later. Tomohiro made the place pock-marked with their bodies, chipped stonework from fixtures, tumbled over machines that were moored to the floor, and still the sun refused to shine. Idly, Jarvis thought that through it all Nick never got up or stirred once. Tomohiro beat the ground with him, then he beat Jarvis with his fist. He screamed at the vampire, sometimes speaking in his small voice, other times in the disharmonious chorus that was apparently the summoned’s voice.

“No?” He landed another blow. “No?” Another. “You think we are not the same? You are right, my sir.” He brought his left hand up, working his wrist. Jarvis wondered if he broke it on his face. “You will not understand,” he screamed.

Jarvis demanded his eyes open, and they responded. The vampire wished his mouth to work. He willed his voice up out of his corpse. “No,” he said, putting his left hand around the pinning wrist, scarcely feeling the odd grouping of charms and the chain. “I think I finally do.” With that, experimentally, instead of seeing the creature, he smothered it. Tomohiro’s flame was wild and awesome, and Jarvis formed himself into a hollow pillar of night-colored steel and strangled his light.

Connected as they were through the trinket of charms, Tomohiro seemed like a small man, thin and frail, covered in strings that pointed off to nowhere. Overlaid on his face was a thin pall of a myriad of faces, sometimes women, sometimes men, sometimes children. He draped himself in the guise of others for so very long.

The vampire guessed, really, about his being a man. It turned out that he was right. Jarvis was always beaten the worst because he was clever.

Tomohiro screamed as Jarvis devoured his soul. It seemed the only thing he had left was a name, and the vampire took it as his. The massive body slumped on top of him and Jarvis smiled with a broken face.

A time later, Nick bobbled into view, limping as if on a sore ankle, holding himself like his elbow was injured. In his small way, he helped roll the corpse off of Jarvis—that is to say he watched. Jarvis told him to fetch his blade. When he couldn’t find it, the vampire settled for wrenching the thing’s head off with his hands. He dug into its center, seeking out its heart. It had none to speak of, but he devoured what was there. The kill was fresh enough that it revivified him greatly.

Nick watched, stunned, with a glazed over expression. “What do we do?” he asked as the vampire stood, holding the head by the one horn.

Jarvis looked over at David and then glanced up idly as if he could see his father. A cold flurry blew past them, a reminder of the gaping hole in the side of the building.

“Get him away from here. When he wakes, tell him I’ve gone.” Jarvis looked up to see snow beginning to fall white against pools of varying red. There was too much blood.

“Gone?” Nick asked.

The vampire looked at him, and Nick didn’t recoil or jump. He held Jarvis’ gaze for just a moment, then looked down. He was scarred; his gaze steadied.

“Away. Tonight is the last. There is a place where I can secure passage. For a price,” Jarvis said, remembering Tomohiro’s words. The vampire walked over to David and stood above his body. He was very badly injured, but like his father, he would live, with rest. “His mother must be strong, too,” he said idly. Nick followed Jarvis; he wasn’t aware. Strange.

Nick helpfully provided Jarvis the rough location to the gathering place and the name of its keeper. The snow began falling faster. The scene was one of great destruction, but it was quickly becoming a uniform white. The site of the ritual would always remember, though.

Nick put his hand out toward Jarvis, in thanks. He didn’t say that the vampire didn’t have to go. He didn’t say anything, and Jarvis didn’t shake his hand.

Like an awful thought or a nightmare, one moment Jarvis was there, and the next he was gone, lingering but distant.

Chapter Twenty-Five

 

David didn’t have a choice, really. His body decided to give him less control, given the irresponsible way he acted. Consciousness came back to him slowly, and he didn’t complain.

Smell came first, with hearing right behind it. His first thought was that he was back home—home-home, in his father’s house. Mother was making dinner. He wanted to cry, sort of, and when he heard the voices, the impulse didn’t change.

“I feel like I should thank you again, for saving me.” That was Nick; the man’s voice made David wonder where he was, but a quick sniff confirmed that this was home. Whoever Nick was talking to, didn’t respond. “So, thanks,” Nick added, and then he went quiet.

When feeling returned, David discovered he was sore and terribly hungry. He couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or not, which meant it was either very dark or he was blind. Searching through his memories cleared up a lot of confusion. They were beaten severely, but David guessed they survived somehow. Thinking about Jarvis turned his mood back to negative.

David put his hands against the naked mattress and sat up, groaning. His ribs hurt, and his back and his legs. A knock came at the door.

“Yeah, Nick.”

The man opened the door, flipping the light on as he came. He was doing a commendable job of balancing a plate of hot food on a cup while opening the door with his other hand.

“Evening.” He leaned over, offering the food and drink.

David wasn’t hallucinating; the recipe was his mother’s. He accepted the food, scooping a sizable amount of it into his face and leaving Nick with the glass.

Nick watched David, who chewed quickly but with a kind of renewed satisfaction.

“Evening?” David asked, taking a quick breath before engulfing more of the food.

Nick shrugged, taking a step back, moving idly. “You’ve been out for hours.”

David processed that thought more slowly than he did his food. He swallowed a second time, sighing, and then leaned forward and snaked at the cup. After he was done with that, he burped loudly.

“How are you feeling?” Nick asked.

Taking him in with a bit more concentration, David noticed that he was a lot better composed than he was in the taxi. He was still wearing that ridiculously nice shirt. His scarred hand was hidden in the pocket of his pants, but the scar under his eye was obvious. The stitches looked like they were about ready to come out. David frowned; maybe he was out for more than just a day.

“I’m fine,” David said, clearing his throat. “Seems like your messes come in twos, eh?” he quipped. It was like taking a shirt out of a drawer and suddenly realizing it no longer fit. David looked down at himself. He was purple with bruises, but on the mend.

“Yeah.” Nick waited to respond until a moment after it was appropriate. They both felt it. They tried on an old mood and sadly folded it up and put it away.

David ate some more, just to have something to do.

Nick glanced back up the hall and sighed. “Jarvis is gone,” he said, a bit quietly.

David looked up into Nick’s face and he could tell the man didn’t mean the vampire was dead. Jarvis left like he said he would.

“He say anything?” David asked, and felt stupid. Of course he didn’t say anything. David knew that Jarvis didn’t really have the capacity to understand something like sadness. He thought David would be angry about his father. David was, sort of. He was jumbled up on the inside and it must have shown on his face.

“Realistically, he couldn’t have stayed,” Nick volunteered.

David was surprised that he wasn’t upset at Nick. He always figured the man would hang around until he would be the one to bite his nose off. “Yeah,” was all he said.

“You guys were friends, I think, in your strange way. It makes sense to be sad.” Nick was pushing again.

That brought back a bit of the old frustration. Looking at him, David remembered when he could have said that Nick couldn’t understand what it was like to be like them, but now the words caught in his throat and easily receded.

He stood up, leaving the last of the food on his plate. “I’m not sad he’s gone,” he said, pushing the plate at Nick. “I’m sad his being gone makes me feel better. Different circumstances, and we would’ve been friends.”

David stepped around Nick and left the room. Someone put a t-shirt and shorts on him. Piecing things together, he came across a mental image that made his guts twist around. The reality was worse.

Next to a window in David’s still-incomplete den, seated in his computer chair, was his father. He had his plate of food balanced dangerously on the sill and he was clumsily using his left hand to push the food around on the plate, his right arm ending uselessly in nothing. He gave his son a few moments to think or speak, while he took a few bites, placidly. Then he turned his head toward David, and he looked woefully aged.

“Why didn’t you tell me you befriended the Sevren?”

The question was accusatory, and David couldn’t rebuff it at all. He supposed that from his father’s perspective, that was the crux of the entire matter. “I thought you’d be disappointed in me.” The son tried honesty. It hurt like the stuff was made from tiny razors.

“I am,” the father replied.

There was nothing David could say to that. He couldn’t say that he wasn’t warned. The only thing his father didn’t do was to lead him away by the hand.

That was all there was to say on the matter. His father now knew what he needed to know; David answered honestly, and now they were free to deal with the aftermath. Nick crept past him at some point, and he could hear him washing dishes in the kitchen. His father turned away from him and was eating again, staring out at the dark city.

David walked to the kitchen, getting Nick’s attention with his presence. A new kind of night fell. “You got some place to be?” he said, more harshly than he intended.

Nick didn’t react immediately. His shoulders slumped a bit. He finished washing a dirty plate but turned the water up higher instead of off. “Your dad’s flight leaves in a couple hours,” he said, looking over at David. “He asked me to drive him, and I agreed.” He had more to say, David could tell, which seemed inconceivable right then.

David couldn’t say he was sorry. Rather, he could say it, and he could mean it, but it wouldn’t help at all. He turned his head to the silhouette of his father eating quietly at the window. There had to be more to say, he thought. David saved Nick’s life, but Nick also saved David’s, technically.

Nick turned the water off. David grabbed him by his shirt. “What happened?” he asked. “Afterwards.”

Nick dried his hands on a towel without wiggling out of the urgent grip. “I helped him get you into his rental. I knew where your old place was, he knew where your new place was.”

“But, the building.” David didn’t know why he even cared. He guessed he just needed a bit more time; it was slipping through his hands like sand.

“There was a fire,” Nick said.

David’s hands went a little slack and he let go of the shirt. The garment looked like his hands never touched it. Nick had a look in his face that David never saw before. It was only there for a moment, but it hung in his memory like a painting. Nick moved around him and left him standing there. Everything about the man was different, and still there was something else he couldn’t quite figure.

David went back to his room. He busied himself there for a handful of moments and then left the apartment alone to get a few things from his previous one, downstairs. The physical activity helped a little, and on about the third trip up, he re-centered himself. This was how things were going to be. Things behind the mask changed; he could accept that.

When he got around to being ready, he learned from Nick that he had about fifteen minutes to say goodbye, to both of them. With that, the final tumbler fell into place.

To his credit, his father hugged him as firmly as before, with genuine caring and love. David was, after all, his son. “You should visit more often,” he said, putting the one hand on his son’s face, drying his cheeks. “...And bring something for your mother.” He patted his shoulder and went to wait in the hallway. David still couldn’t look completely at the man, almost as if looking at any part of him would remind him of what his father lost.

Nick shook his hand. “I’ll be back,” he said.

“Right.” David stared into one of the button-shaped pearls of Nick’s shirt. “If you see…” He stopped in the middle of his statement as if struck.

Nick nodded. “If I see him,” he said, which meant that he might know where Jarvis went, or he might not. David had known Jarvis for a while. He would find some place and hunker down. “Something’s happened,” Nick said. “To me. I don’t know where, what, or why. I have a suspicion of when and how, but…” He flashed a grin belonging to the old Nick, as if to prove that he was still in there somewhere. Just as quickly, though, it was gone. “I guess I’ll always be the question asking type, and the answers aren’t here.” He walked around David and out of the door.

“Take care of yourself, Potter,” David said.

Nick threw a sign of acceptance and affirmation over his shoulder but didn’t turn to show David his eyes. Nick and Mr. Cruz shuffled on in silence, and David left the door open for a long while before he closed it.

He stayed up awhile, and when he slept, he slept fitfully. Sometime during the night he made a few decisions, came to a couple conclusions. A person wasn’t necessarily the hero of their own story, just a protagonist. Things swept around and through them that they could engage in, but “good” or “bad” was something they got stamped on the ticket when all the chips were cashed in. They could start over so long as they didn’t care about age, and they could get up as many times as long as they could disregard the scuffs on their palms and cuts on their belly.

When he woke up, David quit his job on the way to the hospital. The manager was upset that he wasn’t in to work and didn’t call, and quitting right then and there didn’t improve the man’s mood. David worked under the same man, for years, but right then, the man’s name escaped him. He could see in his reddening face that he was going to ruin David’s references column. David asked the receptionist out on a date in the middle of the manager’s tirade. He thought the man was going to punch him; he was sure he could have taken it with a smile.

When David got to Vic’s room he could see that they cleaned her up. He did a poor job at the scene and as for the guys in the ambulance...well, how Vic looked was the least of their concern. She was still in a coma, and they had little to no idea when she would wake up. David decided then that he was going to make a point of being there every day. He got used to the smell of the place, and to all the sounds.

A nurse came in to check Vic’s vitals. She looked over at him quizzically. “You sure are diligent, honey,” she said, smiling. “Are you from the department?”

David grinned. “No,” he replied thoughtfully. Then he stood up, looking down on Vic. Victoria Ferrara. David left a little early that day, stopping once at the doorway. “We’ll see about tomorrow, though,” he said to the nurse, smiling suddenly.

Sandra, the receptionist at the vet clinic, wrote her phone number on his final paycheck.

Epilogue

 

Looking through the window, Nick imagined how the room was appointed once. The huge fur of some terrifying predator would have been on the floor directly before the massive fireplace, over which would have hung some intimidating painting. The mantle place would have been filled with rare trinkets. Maybe there was a large, richly appointed chair seated in the center of the room. Now the space was empty like every other room on the first floor that had a window. In retrospect, Nick thought, if they found even one piece of contraband in the Dean’s residence, then they probably carted everything off just in case, leaving nothing to chance.

The answers he sought were no longer there. Even the garage was empty. Did the man own a car? Something like a clever thought wiggled its way to the forefront of Nick’s mind and waved madly.

Nick felt eyes on him. When the sound of a car broke his reverie, he didn’t duck or start; he simply left. He imagined red death being on his trail come morning, and she would be rested, too. Nick thought that the vampire had the right idea. This night was his last in Bay City, and it was rapidly disappearing as he slowly bussed across town. Part of him was hopeful that his next stops wouldn’t be so fruitless.

When he finally arrived back at the gathering place morning was on his heels. It was a gamble to go there, but he reasoned Scarlet wouldn’t be present. She was cast from an intolerant mold; she would lower herself to showing up for information, but wouldn’t hang around. He searched for the door while sweeping the area. He sifted through his memories to piece together its location. Nothing helped; everything seemed different. An overturned barrel in front of a lewd spray painting over a rusted drain pipe seemed just as likely as a single rose growing among seasonable weeds beneath a burned out wall light.

For a moment, he let the frightening urgency wash over him. Nick studied things, remembering what the joy of fed curiosity felt like. The strange multi-layered symbols stood out in his mind; it was as if they had texture. Nick reached his hand out, suddenly lost in the deciphering.

“Those stitches look about ready to come out.” The Count’s voice was as melodic as before, and his step as silent.

Nick spun around, suddenly afraid. He steeled himself, holding up the small silver suitcase he brought with him.

The musician tilted his head slightly, eyeing the luggage. “A gift? For me?” His tone made Nick’s confidence in the plan taper to nothing.

He swallowed to preface his bravery. “It’s money. Close to a million dollars.” He lifted the suitcase, then let his arm drop, feeling suddenly stupid. “For the debt.”

The Count stared through Nick, as if judging the seriousness of his statement by inspecting his soul. Then he laughed. It was a sound that filled Nick’s ears, and all the space between he and the musician, and then all the spaces around them. It was a cutting, biting noise. As quickly as it started, it ended; the keeper of the gathering place was silent again, as if he could cackle but no mirth could touch him.

“Nicholas. You can’t pay your debt with money.” He stepped forward quickly, covering Nick’s hand with his own. “This is a bar, you know. There is such a thing as a tab.” Nick couldn’t help but be spun around and pointed away from the building. He could almost feel the distance between him and the entrance increasing. “So, you’ve raided the dead’s coffers. That’s interesting.” Together, they rounded a corner in a direction Nick wasn’t aware of before. The quality of the sidewalk and the buildings it jutted up against changed, almost imperceptibly. “Find anything else in your delving?” the musician asked, a surprisingly powerful arm slung around Nick’s shoulders, pinning him as they walked. They moved in lock step, each stride matching. Sound whispered into the ear opposite Nick’s host, “Find the wisdom to your riddle, yet?”

Nick felt a white hot pain under his left eye and jerked suddenly, wrestling away from the Count awkwardly. Putting a hand to his cheek, he could feel the burning flesh opened slightly, but he could not feel the rough threading of the stitches. Looking down at his hand, he could see those stitches were missing, too.

The Count dexterously flexed open and closed one hand, his fingers a sudden blur. When they were done moving, he wove the stitch threading into a braided symbol. It looked like a small tree, or maybe a stooped man. He was also holding the briefcase.

“Just more breadcrumbs,” Nick responded after a moment, putting a hand to his face every now and then. He felt safe in the knowledge that The Count spoke what he spoke and did what he did, but wasn’t much beyond a trickster.

The man smiled like a cat, closing the hand, making the stitching disappear. The Count opened his palm again into a gesture of greeting, stepping forward past Nick into a small open garage space. It was empty mostly, but seemed impossibly long if not very deep. Parked on the end nearest he and his host was an old motorcycle. It was rusted. It was pitted and caked with dry mud and what looked to be rotten leaves. There was an old misused machine; the front headlight was a clouded wreck.

Nick blinked, reading the company name and model number. Somehow, he knew it was an ancient model, though he had no real knowledge of bikes. “I don’t understand,” he said cautiously.

The Count stood a healthy distance from the machine, but possessed admiration for it. “It’s a bike,” he said, a smile cutting into his face. “Surely you don’t think walking will get you anywhere on the road you’re on?” He pointed to the back wall. “Those are the keys.” With that, the musician stepped back out of the space, swinging the briefcase as he went.

Nick stepped backwards with him, keeping an eye on the grim two-wheeler. He watched his host walk back up the street. “How do you know it runs?” he asked, somewhat loudly.

“I know the man who built it,” the musician replied without turning around. The Count’s use of the word “man” seemed impromptu and a little makeshift. Nick glanced at the bike, with both eyes this time, as if that answer and his new focus would make it shiny and new. It remained on the verge of falling apart, sitting still. When he looked over again, the keeper was gone.

The rest of the money he took from Jarvis’ otherwise empty house seemed that much more pronounced, situated in places all over his person. He also took an old backpack he found there. It was mostly empty, but had within a most precious cargo tucked deep inside. Nick was suddenly unsure what he would do if the musician discovered he found Dean Janis’ personal journal in the wreckage of his exploded car. Nick put his thumbs under the straps of his pack and eyed the bike again.

On closer examination, he found that draped over the seat was a terribly misused leather jacket. It fell to pieces when Nick touched it, sloughing off and becoming something similar to dust when it hit the ground. Nick hoped the bike wouldn’t do that; he would have paid a small fortune for it, after all. Retrieving the key and finding where it went was easy enough. It slid into its housing as if the intervening years didn’t pass, and when he turned the ignition, it rolled over smoothly. The engine looked simple enough, small even, but it sounded like it was made for racing or scaring small children. Nick never heard a machine sound like that, and he settled into thinking that maybe that sentiment would be repeated fairly often, soon enough.

The bike, monstrous as it sounded, turned out to be simple enough to operate—a couple pedals, brakes, and a throttle. It didn’t have a gas gauge, the machine’s invincible rumblings dissipated Nick’s worry.

“It wants to run, my sir.” The voice came from a direction he couldn’t perceive, and he didn’t feel surprised that he heard it even though he was alone in the odd garage.

Nick guessed he was done jumping at things. He looked down at the rusted monster and nodded in agreement, conscious of the road in front of him and the burned pages he set to using as a map.

He bolted from Bay City on a hunt of his own, resolute to have his answers. He figured someone owed him, and knew that eventually all debts came due.