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Morley sucked in a breath.

It was light, barely audible to a human.

It sounded loud to Nick’s vampire ears.

His eyes dropped to where the bandage was falling away from the vampire’s white hand and fingers. Within seconds, he understood why Morley had reacted.

There were… gaps.

It was the strangest thing Nick had ever seen.

It wasn’t like the vampire had fingers or parts of his fingers and arm amputated. It didn’t look like his arm had been injured, or like a chunk of it had been ripped away.

It was weirder than that.

It looked like parts of him had simply been… erased.

Nick wondered if those parts were invisible but still there.

Could he still feel the empty space?

Or was it just completely gone?

Maybe the other Nick anticipated his questions. Maybe he’d even felt those questions through Nick, the same way he’d trickled into Nick’s dreams.

Either way, he silently answered Nick’s question.

Using one of his still-intact fingers, he dipped it into the empty space where part of his arm had been, showing that it was completely gone. Adjusting his grip on the spear handle with his half-eaten-away hand, he used his good hand to show how other missing pieces of the arm were really gone as well.

Nick looked at the black bandage still around his face and neck.

Jesus. Those had to be gaps, too.

Nick guessed he had them all over his body.

That was probably the real reason for the hat.

It was probably the real reason for the black clothes, and the long coat, and the gloves Nick had seen on him in his mind. He was like a mummy. He really was like the Invisible Man. Only instead of simply being invisible, he was slowly being eaten away.

“What in the almighty fuck,” Nick muttered, staring at the other vampire. He couldn’t keep the horror from his voice. “What the fuck is this? What is happening to you?”

The other Nick gave him a hard smile.

“I’m going back.” The male vampire’s voice grew cold as ice. A thread of triumph lived there, a near crowing in his words. “I’m going back to my real world… to where I belong. It’s already happening. It’s already happening and you can’t stop it––”

“Why the fuck would I care where you go?” Nick growled.

He did care, though.

He didn’t know why but he cared a lot.

Everything he felt off the other vampire, everything about the way he looked, those fucking bandages, his coat and hat, the pieces missing off his body, every word he said, felt wrong. It felt unnatural. All of it made Nick’s hair stand on end. All of it made him feel faintly ill, and angry, and off-balance, and borderline murderous.

That was even apart from what he’d done to his friend.

It was true even before the other Nick continued speaking.

“It’s already happening,” he repeated, that triumphant note more prominent in his voice. “It’s already happening… but I’m running out of time. I don’t intend to go alone. I will bring my people with me. I thought this would be easy. I thought if I let them see me kill, they would arrest you. I thought they would arrest you and question you and I could finish my work. But they let you go.”