Filming in a public space always meant plenty of retakes, but this was the first time Shane was going to have to redo a shot because someone had literally run into him. It was fine, he told himself. He hadn’t been convinced that the clear-topped jellyfish tables outranked the not-so-subtle tentacle theming of the left room’s back corner, anyway. It just didn’t have the same artistic flair.
Shane shut his phone camera off—his text app showed nothing from his vampire contact yet, dammit—before sliding it away entirely. He could take the shot again, it was fine. After he dealt with the drunk fool in front of him.
The drunk, handsome fool, with his dark hair slicked back and his nails painted and—was that lace worked into his leather jacket? And those lips…
Shane shook his head, forcing his brain to recalibrate. He hadn’t come here to flirt, or to think about how every pretty man’s mouth reminded him of his vampire’s, or how every smile brought back memories of those ones that had been given only for him, like seductive inside jokes that had dug their hooks into Shane’s chest. How every casual movement made him think of his vampire leaning in for the brush of lips that had claimed the number one spot on Shane’s kiss list, the night he’d forever be comparing every other dalliance to. And regardless of his pretty face and fitted fashion and adorable glasses-nerd vibes, this person could hardly top that chart.
“Fuck,” the stranger whispered, staring at Shane like a deer caught in the headlights.
God, this was uncomfortable. “I’m so sorry, that was my bad. Do you need…” Oh, shit—tears. Was this person crying? Shane’s gut twisted. “Are you okay?”
That had clearly been the wrong question, because the stranger’s pale and panicked expression worsened. He wavered, his drink sloshing again.
Shane grabbed his arm out of instinct. His gaze lingered on the stranger’s lips. They parted with an intake of breath, a single tear sliding over them.
“Do you know me?” the stranger asked.
Do I know you?That wasn’t an unusual question here, where the same regulars might pass each other five or six times before finally colliding—in this case literally. There was an instance where Shane wanted to say yes, if only for the subtle brightening in his chest that whispered he would know this beautiful fool someday, and that maybe that meant he always had, for better or worse. It was romantic fantasy though, and the reality was probably simpler: that they’d bumped into each other one of the times Shane had managed to drag himself here last month, and Shane’s inability to catalog faces for more than a week meant he couldn’t place the stranger.
The longer he said nothing, the weaker the stranger looked, like the noise and neon of the bar was swallowing him up.
“No, I don’t think so,” Shane replied. “But I’ve got you now. Come on, let’s sit you down.”
He led the stranger to an empty booth where the wavey designs within the decorative sand dollars looked a bit like genitalia—he’d rated this one low for minimal effort and an overall lack of creativity, but as he helped the person sit, he wondered if he should have added a star for availability in times of crisis. He was almost surprised to find the stranger still there when he returned with a glass of water.
“Drink this.”
The stranger made a sound, weak and hollow, but he took the cup with only a single tremor, his gaze steady. Was he actually drunk or was he just that sad? The second one seemed worse somehow.
“Are you good?” Shane asked. “Do you need me to get someone?”
He paused from drinking to shake his head. “No.”
Shane noticed that he hadn’t wiped at the fresh streaks running down his cheeks and had the oddest impulse to do it for him. But cheek touching, Shane was pretty sure, sat squarely at the top-most level of the friendship ladder, and whether or not the two of them had run into each other before and Shane just couldn’t recall his face, he didn’t actually know this person. “No, you’re not good or no, you don’t need someone?”
“I believe in this case I’m not good precisely because I do need someone.” His voice was so soft, so broken, even when raised above the music. It tickled something at the back of Shane’s mind, but he couldn’t place it.
His gaze went mindlessly to those lips again, a second tear now cresting them, but he looked away before his attention could settle. Whatever this poor person—this human, if he was anything like 99% of San Salud’s population—was going through, he did not need Shane’s misplaced desires for a specific vampire on top of whatever had caused his public emotional breakdown.
“It’s pathetic.”
“I didn’t say that,” Shane objected.
“You’re thinking it.”
He hadn’t been thinking it in those exact words. “I was thinking that I’d rate tear-streaked mascara a three out of ten on the fashion trend scale, due to the inherent effort required in crying every time you want to wear it.” It had felt like a joke in his head but the stranger only winced, finally lifting a hand to his face. Shane watched him wipe uselessly at the tear stains with a growing look of misery, and added, “I hear it’s therapeutic to trauma dump on strangers at bars, if you want to give that a shot?”
The stranger laughed at that, wet and choked. “Is it now?” He looked skeptical. “There’s not much to tell, truthfully. I’m pathetic and a bit miserable, and tonight I couldn’t manage to convince myself otherwise.”
“We all have our bad days.” Shane had no right to judge. He was pulling himself out of a few bad years—or trying to anyway.
The stranger glanced away again, taking another sip of his drink. “You were filming when I interrupted.”
“I have a video channel,” Shane replied. “But it’s not very large. You probably haven’t heard of it.”
He seemed to hesitate, running one hand through his hair. “You’re Shane and you rate stuff?”
“Oh my god.” Shane wanted to cover his face in his hands suddenly. “Yes, that’s me. How embarrassing.”
“Don’t be. Your videos are very… introspective.”
That was not the word Shane had assumed most people would go for, even if it was the truth—or at least, the truth as far as Shane tried to make it. But then the stranger kept talking.
“Do you ever worry that judging things means you’re imposing negative value on something that already feels bad enough about itself?” He wiped back another tear as he said it, but the question seemed thoughtful, like he wasn’t sure what his own opinion on it was.
Shane hummed. “I suppose the real question would be: can restaurant tables feel bad about themselves?”
“Of course they can.” That he did seem certain of, or perhaps it was just the slight relief that was slowly creeping across his features. Maybe this distraction was good for him.
“Ah, is that why chairs squeak at us when we sit down sometimes?”
“No, no—chairs are masochists. They like to be judged. But there are people watching these videos, and you could be affecting their opinions on things. Asking them to view one thing as better than another, when they’d have otherwise not thought to compare the two.” He said it so bluntly, like he wasn’t worried about offending Shane. Or, more accurately, that he didn’t think he would.
And he was right. “I suppose I probably am. But am I responsible for other people’s decisions?” It was a serious question, one he didn’t think even he had the answer to all the time. “If the burrito place I rate lowest in San Salud goes out of business, is that my fault, the fault of the customers who listened to me, or of the people making the unfortunate burrito?”
The stranger nodded slowly, wiping at his face once more. “Perhaps we’re all equally responsible for the world we create, and how that world affects those around us.” Then, as though they weren’t trading philosophical dilemmas in a vaguely sexual sand dollar-themed booth, he added, “Though if the octopus in booth ten has an emotional breakdown after you rate him poorly, I will legally back the cephalopod in court.”
That brought a smile to Shane’s face, the first one since talking with Nat earlier that day. He huffed comedically. “You assume I’d ever rate an octopus lower than a seven without very good reason.”
The stranger’s brows lifted. “What counts as a good reason?”
With his expression entirely serious, Shane replied, “He murdered my great aunt.”
“Defamation!”
Shane leaned in, lowering his voice. “And he’s not even particularly great in bed.”
“Now I know you’re lying.” The stranger was smiling now too, a soft, timid expression on his teary face. Even with the redness of his puffy eyes and the smears in his mascara, he was lovely. If Shane didn’t have an article to write, and his vampire to find along the way, his heart already tied up in someone with fangs and the softest of lips…
As though to drive that point home, his phone vibrated.
He pulled it out, the only notification popping up automatically. A text from his lead. Just an address, nothing more.
Shane’s heart fluttered with anticipation, his head a little light but his hands surer than ever as he opened the location in his mapping app. It gave him a point in the inner city, a few side streets off the main road, where the tired, weathered apartment buildings always seemed to form a maze around the little gravesites that San Salud was known for. The spot held none of the charm or safety of the other places Shane had tracked vampires back to, not the gothic brick elegance of the touristy areas, nor the quaint creativity of the south end, or even the homely appeal that the oldest neighborhoods like Ala Santa boasted. This place was one of the few truly menacing parts of town; perfect for selling black market blood without anyone batting an eye.
Which also made it the perfect place to abduct a lonely, diabetic journalist and beat the shit out of him.
The flutter in Shane’s chest dropped into his stomach. Despite all the effort he’d had to go through to reach this point, he’d still assumed that this interview would be akin to the others he’d instigated: decent people, who happened to have fangs, just trying to get by. Some had been annoyed with him, sure, others outright scared, all more likely to run from his questions than turn to violence. He’d never felt any more unsafe than previous jobs.
His worry now was ridiculous—and biased—making a rash judgment as to the blood seller’s morals based purely on location. And Shane needed this interview. Danger or no, if he wanted the Star to publish him, he didn’t have a choice.
Shane put back his phone and—the stranger, shit.
He’d taken to swirling the remaining alcohol in his glass around, now that his water was gone, and he gave a half-hearted smile when Shane stood. “Leaving?” He sounded genuinely disappointed. But then, he’d just gone from sobbing over a spilled drink to looking like he was almost enjoying himself, and here Shane was, abandoning him without explanation. It couldn’t be helped, not this time.
“Yes, sorry. Do you... want to trade numbers?” Shane asked. That sad look turned to something almost like hope, and he immediately backpedaled into, “I don’t have enough friends.” Or friends, plural.
And friends was all he would ever likely be with this odd stranger; all he wanted, until he knew for certain that the kiss he’d been given at the gala four months ago was the last he was going to receive from his vampire.
But he did want to see this stranger again, like a soft nudge at the doors of his heart. If the childish excitement he felt over his new friendship with Nat was proof of anything, it was that he desperately needed to talk to people he wasn’t trying to interview.
The stranger’s expression was hard to parse through the tear-stains and the dim lighting, but he nodded. “Yes—please.”
When Shane offered over his phone, he took it delicately, his painted nails tapping against the screen with every click. Andres Serrano, Shane read over his shoulder, followed by he/they. The sight of those pronouns relaxed something in Shane’s chest that he hadn’t realized he was holding onto: that permanent, instinctive worry that, queer or not, any stranger’s opinion of him could shift radically once they realized he was trans. In its place burst a sparkle of joy—of understanding and kinship.
As Shane took the phone back, Andres’s gaze met his again for that one breathless second, then darted away. It left an odd cascade of butterflies in his stomach. He tried to ignore them as he left, but the only way to quench the sensation was to think of the interview ahead of him.
That sparked an entirely different feeling. He tried to tell himself that none of it was fear, and failed.
The location Shane’s lead sent him to was exactly as he’d imagined it: gray walls, tight alleys, and micro-cemeteries bare of plants and flowers, their trashed picket fences and headstones looking as though they hadn’t been upkept since the city first decided to turn their grave-site problem into a tourist trap in the 70s. He was pretty sure the woman who hissed at him from a half-caved overhang was a vampire with her fangs tucked in, or else a human high enough to believe she was.
Shane tried not to let it rattle him. This didn’t have to be any different from his previous encounters with vampires. Still, part of him couldn’t help but wish he’d brought some sort of a weapon—he swore somewhere in the back of a disorganized drawer he still had a can of mace given to him by his mother pre-transition.
But he couldn’t turn back now. And he had no real reason to yet; none but the darkness of the night, and the way his nerves tingled every time a streetlamp flickered.
The empty alley his map finally led him into was wide enough for a car to pass down and cleaner than most, at least from what his phone light could reveal. He skimmed along the doorways, past a break between two buildings, a rusty shed, then there—the chalk drawing of a droplet that signified the blood dealer’s setup. Despite his fear, a little bundle of giddiness welled inside him. He was here. He was doing this.
His article would be exceptional.
Shane knocked. As he waited for an answer, the muffled sound of soft commotion came to him from the end of the alley. His heart skipped. It was probably nothing—possibly the very people he wanted to talk to. He forced himself to creep closer, peeking cautiously around the corner. A van was wedged into the space, its back open as two people unloaded a black container, handing it off to a third who stood at the building’s back door.
“This is all for now,” the person said, so soft Shane could barely make it out. “We’re restocking tonight though, so if you run out we can have another batch brought around—”
Behind Shane, someone called to him, “Hey? You knocked?”
The three at the van turned toward him. He aimed his light at them instinctively, and in unison, their lips lifted. Fangs.
Well, at least he’d come to the right place. “Yes, sorry, I’m here to speak with a man—a vampire—a Mr. Frederick Maul?”
“He’s human,” one of the vamps from the van transfer hissed, and Shane almost thought they were referring to Mr. Maul until another echoed him.
“Human?”
“Smells too good to be anything else.” It sounded almost flirtatious; almost, but for the edge that sent ice down Shane’s spine.
Fuck. Maybe this had been a mistake.
“Someone’s looking for me?” A bald, white vampire slipped from the chalk-marked doorway, wiping his hands on a rag. Apart from the fangs peeking out over his incisors and the dark gleam in his eye, he looked like any middle-aged professional Shane might pass on the street, well dressed but unassuming. He squinted through Shane’s phone light, and his expression tightened. “Ah, you’re the one.” His chin lifted. “Grab him.”
Shane didn’t have time to piece together what that meant before two of the vamps latched onto his arms from behind. A third yanked his phone from his hand. Their bodies moved like blurs in the darkness, their heightened strength obvious from the moment they grabbed him.
The panic finally hit Shane. He opened his mouth to shout, but a hand clamped over it, muffling the sound down to its barest bones. They dragged him forward so fast that he struggled to keep his legs under him. His heart pounded, blood rushing through his ears and the world spun, black on black on black.
A door slammed—he was inside, then—fuck. The light clicked on, too dim for him to make out more than silhouettes. Shane fought to think rationally over the terror. They might simply throw him in a chair, bare their fangs and threaten to find him if he ever said a word; he could walk out of here with nothing but fear and promises. He’d probably even agree to their terms in the moment, with his stomach in his throat and his limbs trembling like this. If he could just tell them…
But the hand stayed clamped over his mouth.
They seemed to close in on him, body and sweat and breath polluting his space, fingers gripping into him hungrily. The one on his right grabbed his hair. Their nails bit into his scalp as another forced up the sleeve-cuff of his flannel, laughing as they seized his wrist and began playing with his fingers. The contact made his skin crawl and he struggled helplessly against their hold.
Shane tried to scream again, but the hand over his mouth pinched his nostrils closed. He choked, his useless gasp turning to a sob. The air smarted along his face, refusing to creep through the seal of skin on skin that locked off his lungs, trapping them in their panic, forcing him smaller and smaller inside himself. Every touch felt painful, his own body a claustrophobic thing straining and bowing under the weight of the oxygen it couldn’t reach. His vision wavered, the silhouettes of the vampires around him filling with stars.
“You’ll fuck up the taste,” one of them complained, her voice rattling in Shane’s head like a waterfall, and then the hand fell from his mouth.
He gasped. His throat burned as they yanked his head back, his lungs still fighting to replenish. Fangs punctured his neck.
Shane knew, distantly, what this was supposed to feel like—the blissful little rush of venom that had accompanied the prick of his vampire’s fangs at the gala—but all he felt now was the pain and the fear, the stab of the bite sinking in again and again and the cry of his mind as he felt the blood leave him. His chin was shoved to the side, his face pressed to the greasy hair of the vampire feeding on him as the second of them bit down on his shoulder.
A third pinch of fangs at his wrist made his fingers numb. He whimpered, the sound trying desperately to turn to a cry but unable to fully manifest with the twist and tip of his throat.
“All right, enough,” Maul’s voice boomed.
Immediately, the vampires let him go, their tongues dragging roughly across the wounds. The chill of their saliva sent an uncomfortable shudder over him. They didn’t release him, but he was sure his legs would have fallen out from under him if they had.
That was it—that was the end. They had scared him—dear god, they’d scared him—and now, now they’d stop. They’d let him go back to writing fluff pieces and dreaming of his vampire. He’d—he’d be okay.
But Maul made a sound, almost animalistic in its low, gravelly tones, and drew a phlebotomist”s needle from a box, setting it delicately on an empty platter. “I want the rest in bags.”
Oh.
Shane felt numb as they moved him to a chair, holding him there by his hair and his upturned wrists. One of them returned with a blood donation kit—a single needle, with far too many blood bags. Oh. His limbs tingled. His mouth felt dry, so dry that when he tried to speak, it came out hoarse and hollow.
“Please…” He managed. “I didn’t mean any harm. I’m not a cop.”
“No,” Maul answered. He squatted beside Shane’s chair and drew out a small pocketknife.
Shane tried to tug away, but Maul’s goons held him in place as the vampire calmly tugged open the shoved cuff of his flannel and began cutting further upwards until Shane’s arm was revealed from mid-bicep down. He could have just rolled the fabric, a slightly hysterical part of Shane’s mind objected. If he intended Shane to ever need this shirt—any shirt—again, maybe he would have.
“You’re the journalist who’s been poking around my territory,” Maul continued, “And see, I’ve been poking around about you, and it turns out you’re what the people who hunt us would call a perfect target.”
“The people who huntus.” So Maul knew about whatever it was that Shane’s vampire had been investigating back at the gala—but Shane was too trapped by his words and the goons literally holding him in place to interrupt with a question.
“You have no friends, no family in the area, all your work is remote, all your hobbies solitary.” Maul kept moving as he spoke, wrapping the tourniquet with steady motions, cleaning the crook of Shane’s elbow, and extending his arm out. The veins bulged. “Which means it will take a while for anyone to miss you.”
“What do you want?” Shane tried not to sound desperate. Tried, and failed. “I’ll help you, I’ll write whatever you tell me to. Or I’ll stop writing. I’ll move to San Diego and you won’t even know I exist.”
“I’d like to believe that.” Maul shook his head. “I’d like to, but I don’t.” Holding tight to Shane’s elbow, he slipped the needle into Shane’s vein with a single prick of discomfort. “Relax,” he murmured. “It’ll be painless.”
Relaxed was the furthest thing from what Shane felt as the first hanging bag began to fill. The first bag in a long, long line.