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Now he found himself turning all the way around.

He faced directly into that darkness near the stairwell.

Even for vampire, it was difficult to penetrate fully, at least until his eyes adjusted. The inky black nook sat under the crumbling, water-damaged stairs, nothing behind it but a black-painted door that slowly grew visible behind the male being who stood there.

Nick’s mind hazarded that the door likely led to an ancient basement, possibly a boiler room, or possibly what had once been storage cubicles, or even bike racks for the building’s residents.

He already knew who stood in that dark space, so he didn’t spend much time looking at them. Even so, his fangs lengthened instinctively, well before his mind formed a single coherent thought about why the other vampire might be waiting for him here, or what he might want.

Wish I knew what you were looking for.

Might have known what you would find.

His mind recited the lyrics without thought. Only after it had, did Nick recognize the words as part of a song he’d played in his dorm room while he’d attended college at San Francisco State. The memory was so immediate, so visceral, a sharp pain rose in his chest.

Fuck, that was a lifetime ago.

Several lifetimes ago.

So long ago, the realness of it, theright nowreality of it, shocked him.

As the song continued to play in his mind, he was seeing it again.

Flyers from bands tacked on his dorm room walls, opening the windows to hear music from the floors and rooms next to theirs. Sitting on the grass in Golden Gate Park with their books. Lights flashing as they laughed, slamming into one another in dark, smoke-filled clubs, smoking pot with his pals, including Angel, including Angel’s own roommate, who he’d had a crush on for most of his late teens and early twenties.

Surfing before dawn, bonfires on the beach, wolfing down giant burritos before class as he crammed for midterms, trying to decide what the fuck he wanted to do with his life…

Pain shocked him harder, hitting into his heart.

It wasn’t only Dalejem that time.

It was his world.

It was his parents, who’d never shown him anything but love. His sisters. His friends. Miri had come later, after he’d joined the military and been stationed overseas, but there had been years with her in his life, too, well past when he’d left his military uniform behind, gone through police academy, joined the force, and donned a new uniform.

Eventually that had changed, too.

Black and Nick’s first glimpse of the supernatural entered his life.

But well before Black showed up, Nick had already changed beyond recognition. The slacker college student who listened to British New Wave in the dorms, got stoned and surfed every morning before class, went to punk shows and record stores and shopped in second-hand shops and rode skateboards… that guy was already gone.

He’d been banged into a new, different shape, at least.

War had done that to him.

Being a homicide cop had done that to him, as well.

Eventually, justlifehad done that to him.

Specifically, not ending up with the life he’d always wanted for himself had changed Nick.Thathad done things to who he was, how he thought about himself, as much as anything else. It wasn’t even that he’dwantedthose things for himself, so much as he’dfully expectedthose things for himself, even if he never exactly admitted it openly.

He’d maybe even feltentitledto that life in some way.

It took until he was forty to even be honest with himself about it.

But Nick had never gotten the wife or kids or the white picket fence.

He’d never even owned his own home.