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Maybe for the first time, in all these decades, he found himself face to face with the true Vampire King, staring into his blood-red eyes.

He watched the razor-sharp fangs elongate, dripping with saliva.

Shock rippled through him, as reality settled somewhere in his gut.

It was over.

It was really over.

He wanted to feel relief.

He wanted to feel some sense of completion… but he didn’t feel that, either.

There would be no relief. There was no completion.

He did not manage to succeed in any of what he attempted to do.

Maybe for that reason, he couldn’t remain silent.

“The worlds never end, vampire.” Faustus spat the words. “They always come back around.” He stared into Brick’s chalk-white face.

His heart pounded in his chest as the animal watched him, head cocked. Faustus felt his chest compress, his breath fight to leave his lungs. He stared at his enemy, the thing he had fought since he arrived on this world, the enemy of all enemies.

He saw only an animal.

A savage, feral animal.

“I will be back,” Faustus blurted furiously. “The One God––”

But that was as far as he got.

2

AWAKE

He wrapped around me, pressing his face into my neck, pulling me up against his muscular frame. I was still only half-awake when he started kissing my neck, sliding his hand under the hospital gown to stroke my belly.

Pain ripped through me so intensely, I writhed against him.

I opened my eyes like I’d been jabbed with an electric prod.

I remembered where I was.

I’d woken up on Tuesday, and now it was Thursday.

The doctors asked me to stay in the hospital a few extra days.

They’d more or less insisted.

Something about being extremely dehydrated despite the IVs, and being dangerously low on iron. I’d also been low on calcium, vitamin D, and a few other things. Of course, my human doctor was still making his best guess, given I’m not really human at all.

Black and I probably could have pressed the point, or even overridden my surgeon’s decision entirely. I probably could have left the day I woke up, even within a few hours of waking. Black and I both decided it would be better if we let the doctors call the shots, however.

The key word now wasnormalization.

The more normal and non-threatening we seers could appear to ordinary humans, the better. The more comfortable they got with our physical differences and anatomy, the better. The more we acted like ordinary patients and not entitled, know-it-all assholes, the better.

We opted to stay the extra few days.