Andres had decided to stop having dreams, since Maul was slowly taking them all away from him.
“We need that blood now,” Maul said, his gravelly voice made rougher by their terrible phone connection. Knowing the vampire, he was probably in a basement somewhere setting up for the night’s sales. Or, more likely, barking at the poor employees he’d roped into doing the work for him. “Andres, Andres, you know how this business functions. We can’t survive off a few stolen bags here and a few stolen bags there. I need you to steal two hundred pints by tomorrow if we’re going to compete with that damn blood charity—Hey! Table goes on the left, we have to fit the cart in here still!”
Andres held the speaker away from his ear with a cringe, pacing beside his kitchen counter as he waited for his boss to finish shouting. He tried to sound unemotional but decisive—Maul was more likely to respect that. “A few bags here and there will all add up once I’ve planted my people in enough of the human’s blood banks, but I can’t do that in the first place when the blood banks are on high alert because we keep wiping out their entire supply every time they lower their guard enough for someone from my team to slip in.”
Myteam, he said, when he really meant your team. The only members Maul hadn’t forced upon him were so hard fought for that sometimes Andres wondered if Maul was doing it just to annoy him.
Andres ran his fingers through his hair. He could hear Maul in his head, snorting and telling him he was going to go bald if he kept doing that. Ironic, coming from a man who would have trouble competing with an egg, much less Andres’s thick, dark locks. And the incessant motion saved him on gel. He sighed, dropping his hand to the counter. “A big heist is riskier than a long-term plant, too.”
“That’s why I’ve got you to run the heist.” Maul paused, his tone twisting. “Unless you don’t think you’re up to it?”
That was not a question Andres had the luxury of answering no to, not unless he wanted to see Maul replace him with someone less conscientious. And there was the house to consider. And the paychecks. “I’m not worried about our safety on the heist, but the fallout that happens after it. You know how the media runs with these things. They pick it up like wildfire, and every other blood bank in the city will be on their guard by evening. Donations will dip and they’ll double the police presence around the better sites, and when our stores are low again next month, we’ll be in the same position, but up a river with no paddle.”
“Can’t handle a police presence suddenly? And here I thought you were the one who talked his way into—”
Andres cut Maul off before his boss could describe one of the many cons he’d run over the last decade. “No, no, that’s not a problem for me.”
He wrung his hair again. How was he supposed to explain to someone like Frederick Maul, who watered down and marked up the blood he sold despite the hardship it put on his own community, that Andres’s problem was that very hardship? Renewed attention would make Andres’s own work more difficult, but more than that, he cared about the vampires they’d arrest just for walking by a blood bank and the hatred which would stir throughout the city as the news cycled back to the theft over and over again, dramatizing it as though the vampires involved had sucked the stolen blood straight from dying children.
It was a dangerous short-term solution for everyone.
“We wouldn’t have this issue if our best customers weren’t getting snapped up by Vitalis-Barron hunters for their pharma experiments, while the rest scurry down to that damned blood charity.” Maul grunted. “If Jose’s is raking in the stuff, why don’t you try your plant idea there? They can’t possibly miss a few bags a night.”
Andres felt sick at the thought. While he’d never been to it himself, Jose’s Blood Bank had made life much easier for the most impoverished of his community, and that was enough to endear it to him. It was doing something that he could not so long as his life and business were under the thumb of Frederick Maul. So he tried to snag his boss’s attention back with a half-truth. “We shouldn’t have to. I think I’m closing in on Vitalis-Barron.”
Closing in was an overstatement—by the time his current lead panned out, he’d probably already have taken advantage of the pharmaceutical company’s annual onsite party next month to sneak into the corporate offices above their research labs and strip them of whatever information he could. But Maul still took the bait with an excited hum. “You bring me whatever evidence you find the moment you do. You know how sensitive this is. If we’re going to hit them where it hurts, we can’t be letting our guard down.”
“Of course.”
“And Andres? Send your team in at midnight.” Maul didn’t ask. He didn’t have to; it didn’t matter how good Andres was at talking and sneaking and sidestepping his way into places that no one wanted a vampire to go, Frederick Maul was the only one who’d take on a felon-turned-vampire, much less rent them decent living quarters.
“Make it one-thirty.” Andres said, just to wrestle back a sliver of control. It wasn’t as satisfying as he’d have liked, his worry and anger still roiling deep in his belly. “You have a van for me to transport them in?”
“I’m bringing in the black one we used for Burning Man last year.”
Big festivals were prime places for phony donation centers that lured high and drunk attendees into dark tents long enough to fill a bag or two—most of them never even realized what happened. “I thought the fridge in that one was faulty? What’s wrong with our usual rides?”
“There’s been a human poking around their storage lot.”
Andres feigned a scoff, because it was what Maul would expect from him. “You’re afraid of a nosey human?”
“I’m not afraid; I’m cautious. This man says he’s some kind of journalist. He’s been sticking his head into vamp lairs all over the city for weeks, hounding my customers and banging down doors.” Any vampire had a right to fear that, but the way Maul explained it, Andres could tell all too well who the predator was. “Don’t worry, though,” he continued. “Next time he pokes his head out, I’ll take care of him.”
Andres couldn’t help the shudder that ran down his spine. He dragged his fingers through his hair, trying in vain to relieve the uncomfortable sensation. Take care of him. That could mean two things. One of them wasn’t so bad, he told himself. One of them had made Andres what he was, after all.
He almost missed Maul’s next statement over the thrum of his own heart. “Take the Burning Man van. And check in when it’s done.”
“I always do,” Andres scrambled to reply, his final word meeting the buzz of a dead line. He leaned against the counter, covering his head with his hands, and breathed out. It didn’t clear the slimy sensation of Maul’s voice from the back of his mind.
Calls to the team members he’d be taking on this heist didn’t help either, one of them acting like he needed Maul to personally confirm every step of the plan and the other’s voice going audibly distressed when Maul’s name was mentioned. Andres worried about her. She said she was fine, though. That she was dedicated. He wasn’t quite sure why those two things went together, though occasionally Maul made a fuss over the latter, so perhaps that was it.
If anyone knew what it felt like to be berated and coerced by their boss, it was Andres, but at least he had learned how to conceal his emotions from his voice, or to find other outlets. He was a proper vampire—no matter how much some of his conversations with Maul made him feel like a will-ridden drone from the human’s monster legends—and he could prove that. With four hours before he needed to be at his team’s meetup point, he had the time for it.
There was more than one way to steal blood in this city, after all.
Besides, he’d been hounded that week by the sort of craving that only something warm and fresh and tasty could satisfy… something straight from the veins of an attractive human with a sharp smile and a fierce intellect. The image that thought conjured—dirty blonde waves tucked behind a feathered mask; hazel eyes that had flashed with such an enticing, breathless combination of fear and intrigue; a perfect, delicate neck scattered in soft freckles—made him sway. Andres hadn’t thought of that night in days—weeks?
After he’d first broken down and used the author name listed on Shane Cowley’s ChatterDash gala article to stalk like a cyber predator through his socials, Andres had sworn he was done fantasizing. But no matter how many times he put away his gala mask, it always managed to return to him.
It hung now from the mannequin bodice, atop the cape he’d worn that night, which he’d since embellished with a patchwork of black lace flowers and deep red satin that turned it into a beautiful, billowing wrap. It struck Andres as the wrong size and style for him, perfect for someone smaller, fairer. Someone who’d worn a swishing shawl when they’d met, whose slim lines and long limbs would glow beneath the darkness of the fabric. That was a ridiculous thought, though. He would never see Shane again. With Maul’s presence still leering over his life from a distance, he wasn’t sure it was right to pull any human into that.
Andres lifted his hand to his hair, then forced it back down. His insides felt wrong, a slight burn at the back of his eyes.
Perhaps he was more stressed by Maul’s nonsense than he’d assumed.
Or he simply needed the release of having a human beneath his fangs. That was it, probably. It was certainly why he was now envisioning the moment he’d first caught his little swan, clothed in white and already flushing beneath his touch.
Andres swore his heart had stopped.
He hadn’t meant to keep coming back throughout the party, to lead Shane on, but each flirtatious tease pulled at him, and the eagerness with which Shane fell for his every charm was intoxicating. When his swan had trembled as Andres finally bared his fangs, it had ruined him, like that single moment of vulnerability was carved into his soul. Andres had called him Cygnus teasingly, but by the end of the night, he thought perhaps Shane really was his constellation. The last time they’d made eye contact, Andres had turned back to steal a final kiss goodbye, as half a taunt and half a gift—something to remember him by, for better or for worse.
The soft graze had lingered on his lips for hours, then weeks.
But Shane Cowley wasn’t his, and he never would be.
Andres tried to ignore the way that knowledge sunk into him like claws, hitting all the same places that Maul had already felt the need to maim. He’d just have to find another release. There were other humans in this city who’d tremble under the pressure of his fangs.
He threw on one of the three leather coats he’d customized during a series of sewing tutorials on his channel—the black one with so many cutouts of lace roses that it was hardly a jacket at all—over a scarlet button-down opened to the middle of his chest and a black gem necklace to match the large studs currently in his ears and the shimmering black of his nail polish. He checked the look in his foyer mirror with a hum. It held a certain masculine draw, while still feeling very him—very not-quite-gendered—like the he/they pronouns he’d added to his business card at the start of the year. He’d wondered at first why the change hadn’t prompted any rearranging of his own thoughts; even if his heart soared when others referred to him with his secondary pronouns and danced when he heard the singular they on the streets, he still felt himself gravitate toward he and him in his mind; the words Cygnus’s lover would have used when he proclaimed who he was, who he loved. And that didn’t mean Andres was any less non-binary, he’d finally decided. Any less they.
He figured that he was making a bigger deal of it all than he needed to—but it felt like a big deal, felt like his heart and his bones and his soul trying to come into alignment after nearly three decades apart, bloody and torn and working little by little to heal back into place.
He had one baby cousin, at least—his Hellbeast, the other black sheep of the family, the two of them practically raising each other despite their seven-year age gap—who never failed to make him feel whole. He snapped a quick mirror pic and sent it to her, with the caption am I breaking gender yet?
She replied with a line of middle fingers, followed by you’re not as hot as you think, you fuckfaced themboy. With a sparkling killing it sticker.
He laughed and returned her insults with his own middle finger emoji, but the joy didn’t stick, the discomfort Maul had left him with returning beside a creeping loneliness that felt like a layer of grime on his skin.
Killing, perhaps not, but stealing a lot of blood from a bank and perhaps a little directly from the veins of a gorgeous human? That, he’d become a professional at.
Regardless of how he felt now, he was going to make this night a good one.
The Fishnettery was already bustling by the time Andres walked in.
With its colorful fairy lights strung behind draping fishnets, the glitter that seemed to occupy every free space, the overpriced rainbow shots and the happy hour deep-fried cocktail shrimp, the place looked like a fancy crab shack had collided with a gaggle of twinks. It was slowly losing its reputation as the last genuinely queer bar—or bar-adjacent alcohol-serving spot—in San Salud as the cishets wormed their way in like it was a friendly tourist spot, and not a place deliberately curated to be free of their unwanted attention, but it was still far gayer and brighter—and as safe as one could get for a gender-not-normal sort—than any other establishment in town. And the calamari was delicious.
Andres ordered an Old Fashioned at the central square bar that sat beneath a fishnet canopy and strolled through the adjoining rooms with their arched wood ceilings and colorful underwater theming, keeping an eye out for the red pin that covertly signaled that the wearer was happy to be bitten. Such humans were rare these days, and always sure to have their pick of the single vampires. Everyone wanted a safe neck to nibble on. But any harbor would do in a storm, and plenty of humans were open to a bite, so long as it came with an orgasm in the bathroom and they didn’t have to risk leaving the building with the fanged monster after.
Andres meandered through the space, letting his gaze slip from human to human—gender wasn’t important for this. While it were always men who stirred his heart and left him daydreaming months later, his physical needs were less picky. Right now, he just wanted someone who could hold his attention long enough for him to forget the way caving to Maul’s demands made his bones itch and his stomach turn.
There was someone else it seemed he needed to forget first though.
Every time Andres caught a mildly enjoyable blood scent, his brain jumped to the smell of Shane, bright and sun-kissed, like breathing in the earth after it had baked for hours. It made Andres think of the last time he’d been able to properly lay out on a summer afternoon, nine years ago. He’d spent months picking that scent apart: a little spicy, with a depth like umami, a tinge burnt, and something shockingly sweet at the end. It tingled Andres’s nose now with such luscious veracity that he could have sworn, over and over, that the man was somewhere in the next room.
It was as if the universe was reminding him just how little control he had over his life at that moment. He knew how to display just the sensual aspects of the tall, handsome, dark-haired vampire of myths, to use those parts of himself like a weapon, but between thoughts of Shane and Maul’s lingering domination, it seemed even that had been stolen from him. He dragged his hands through his hair, reminding himself that he had power over his own body. His own emotions.
He could push through this.
Still, his lungs refused to open all the way, as though Maul himself were squeezing the life out of them. Andres finished off his alcohol, but all that achieved was a burning sensation behind his eyes that produced a film at the back of his throat.
He did not want whatever pointless breakdown his body was trying to force upon him.
Another drink would help. If he made it a double, maybe it would drown his agitation enough that he’d be able to put thoughts of Shane aside and convince himself—and a random human—that he was still the vampire he so decisively showed the world; one who didn’t need to please Maul the way some of his subordinates did, or quake beneath him like the rest.
Shane’s scent still haunted him at every turn, though. His second glass was barely in hand when the tightness between his head and his heart turned painful. His eyes had to be moistening, because one of his contacts slipped awkwardly out of alignment, and when he tried to correct it, he only managed to pop it out of his eye entirely. It vanished onto the bar floor.
Fuck, this was stupid. He was stupid.
He yanked out the second one with a pathetic growl.
He shouldn’t have come. This could have been a decent night, curled up on his couch exchanging texts with his cousin—perhaps even hanging out with her for the first time all year and pretending he wasn’t still afraid she’d figure out what he was after all this time. Pretending that the one person he loved wasn’t also so estranged. That he still knew what their relationship was about, even if they could no longer be the chaos children of their youth, breaking into hotels just to soak in the spa and making blood-drenched comedy-horror home videos with the thousand ketchup packets they’d smuggled out of fast-food restaurants.
He could still just go home, sit alone in his kitchen and watch Shane rate things through a phone screen, and wish they’d never met. His mind shouted to flee—to get to the car before the tidal wave of emotions rising inside him finally broke. With his contacts gone, and his eyes already tearing up, his poor vision couldn’t keep up with the dim lights and the pounding in his head. As he struggled to pull out his emergency glasses from his jacket pocket with one hand, he stumbled over a lip in the flooring, falling directly into another Fishnettery patron.
The man yelped as Andres’s new drink splashed, dousing his fingers and the front of the man’s jeans. Bitter alcohol dripped to the floor. Someone to his right laughed.
The lump in Andres’s throat broke, his entire persona cracking with it. He wiped back tears with the side of his arm, and shook his head, his brain sending up a series of curse words like alarms. Danger, danger, emotional collapse incoming. And he could still smell Shane as though his little swan was standing in front of him. “Fuck.”
“Shit, I’m so sorry,” the man he’d crashed into was saying.
Except it wasn’t just any man saying it.
Andres was hearing things.
He pushed his glasses on.
Andres was seeing things too. Specifically, he was seeing Shane, standing with a hand still on Andres’s arm. In the dim fluorescence, his dirty-blonde waves were turned to a light brown and his scattered freckles washed out, but his pink lips were as lush as ever and he had a softness to his features that provided him a masculine beauty. He wore an impeccably matched flannel, tattered coat, and hazy scarf situation, in greens and browns like he was some forest druid come straight from hibernation.
The sight of him broke Andres, a fresh flood of tears spilling over as a sound left him like a blubber. Shane was here, and Shane was seeing him; was seeing the mysterious and majestic vampire who’d kissed him at a gala so many months ago, now without the mask that had held their act together, alone at a queer bar crying like an idiot over a spilled drink.
Andres’s little swan, his Cygnus, his perfect constellation, was here finally in front of him again, and the only thing he could wish for was to go back to being unseen.