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39

MERCER

The blood had come out from beneath Mercer’s nails, and while he wasn’t sure it would ever stop staining his soul, at least he could hear Rahil climbing into the shower, Kat barking at the backyard squirrels, and Lydia tapping on her phone from down the hall. His family was safe. That was enough.

And if, someday, his best couldn’t buy them that, then it would still have to be enough then too.

That was someday though, and today was today. He still had one more challenge to confront, one more before he could try to find some semblance of rest for himself.

Mercer tapped on Lydia’s open door, poking his head in slowly.

She looked up at him from the floor beside her bed.

“Can I… come in?” He didn’t mean it as a trick question, but somehow, he knew it was.

Miraculously though, she just shrugged and patted the floor at her side.

Every single one of Mercer’s bones ached as he sat down. Maybe committing a kinda-murder aged a person. The dark humor of the thought made him feel nearly as sick as the memory of the thing itself—but he had the rest of his life to drown in that misery. Right now, he was sitting on a floor, carpet beneath him, wearing a clean, blue shirt the same color as the dusk sky outside Lydia’s window. He was here. He had something to do, something, specifically, to do for his daughter, of all people.

She looked as tired as Mercer felt, her chin on her knees and her beanie pulled nearly over her eyes as she cradled her phone between her thighs.

Mercer nudged his shoulder into hers, and as much as it hurt to even think the question, he forced himself to ask, soft and sympathetic, “Puck, why did you want to be a vampire?”

She shrugged, staring at her feet. “Sometimes it just sucks being sick. It hurts and I’m scared, and you’re scared, and that makes me more scared, and you keep saying everything will be okay as long as I take my meds and be careful and do everything right, but sometimes things just aren’t okay.”

Mercer thought he understood part of that, because he could feel her pain—was feeling it now, deep in his chest as his heart wailed to do something, anything. All that tension and fear told him to contradict her. He could make things better for her, if he hid his fear deeper down, and they stockpiled her meds and—

But no. That only felt rational, felt like if he fretted and pushed then they had to make some kind of progress. And occasionally fretting and pushing did work out—but mostly it didn’t. Lydia was right. Sometimes things just weren’t okay.

Despite Mercer’s heart still beating like a panicked rabbit’s, he kissed the side of her head and gently asked, “Do you still want to go through with it?”

Lydia hesitated, but then she shrugged again. “No? Maybe. It would be really cool. And I’d be strong, and wouldn’t have to worry about seizures or nerve damage. I’m awake most nights anyways, and I don’t care about the sun or garlic that much. Maybe it’s not the best, but you wouldn’t have to be afraid my meds will run out because all I’d need is blood, which you have all the time.”

One phrase caught in his chest, encircling his heart like a cord from one of Leah’s traps: you wouldn’t have to be afraid .

He wouldn’t have to be afraid.

Mercer sucked back a sob. He leaned forward, trying to catch her gaze. “Puck, were you thinking of doing this for me ?”

“It would make you less stressed out.”

“You don’t…” Mercer forced himself to breathe, absorb her words and feel without reacting for one, two, three beats, until he finally managed with a steady voice, “My stress and my fear are my own, Puck. I wouldn’t trade them away for a different version of you. I don’t always know what to do with you, and I’m afraid of making decisions that will hurt you by accident. And you’re right, too much of that isn’t good for either of us. But that’s something I need to fix, not you.”

Though, perhaps not alone, he thought. There were people whose jobs were to help with the extremes of human emotions. Medications, too, if he could get them without being poked and prodded too much for it. Maybe they wouldn’t solve everything. Maybe sometimes things just weren’t okay. But he could try it, at least. And having Rahil to lean on would help.

Wait . “Did you think Rahil was going to turn you? That’s why you kept going back?”

“No, duh.” Lydia rolled her eyes. “He gave me stupid tasks saying he was testing me, but he was never gonna do it. He thinks I don’t know, but I’m not stupid.” She fiddled with the edge of her beanie. “I wanted to do his stupid tasks, though. I like him; he’s cool and he listens, and he doesn’t tell me it’ll all be okay.”

“I listen,” Mercer protested, feeling irrationally defensive despite his sudden rush of pride for both Rahil and Lydia.

Lydia snorted. “You listen for what makes you scared. That’s different.”

His instinct was to fight the accusation, but he had a guilty suspicion it was true. “You know, you’re very smart for a chaos fairy.”

She grinned, tiny but fierce. Chaos fairy indeed. “Am I not grounded forever, then?”

Mercer sighed, rubbing his face with one hand. “You’re not grounded at all. But if you ever get hooked on a boneheaded idea like vampirism again, you tell me before you go demanding strangers turn you. And there’s something you can do for me that’s not becoming a vampire, okay? You talk, and I’ll try to listen better. I might still be scared, and I might have scared dad ideas, but I promise I want to know your scared daughter ideas too. Maybe we can make this less scary, together?”

“I’m not, like, that scared,” she grumbled. “But sure.”

“And we’re seeing a movie next weekend. You and me. Even if everything else is not okay, we get to be okay for a couple of hours of popcorn.”

“Yeah, fine.”

“What was that?”

“ Yeah , dude.”

“Dude? Who’s dude here?” Mercer probed his fingertips into her sides, cackling as she squirmed against the tickles.

“Duuuuude, stoooop,” she laughed.

He knew her laugh, though, and this one was too shallow, too short. She held herself awkwardly, too, now that he was looking for it, pain in the curl of her back and the stiffness of her jaw. Mercer transitioned his assault into a massage, rubbing her back instead. “I’m not trying to be scared dad here, but when did you take your meds last?”

“This morning.” She grimaced. “I took half, like Anthony said. It’s not enough.”

“I know it’s not, Puck.” Mercer’s voice was thick as he pulled her close, pushing back her beanie to brush his hand over her head. “Is it okay if I hope things will be better soon?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “Yeah. I think that’s the point.” She sniffled. “You can’t have hope if you don’t admit it might not work out. But it can’t work out either, if you don’t have hope. You ne—nu—”

Mercer caught the signs a moment before it happened, but his heart still stopped as her eyes rolled back, a shudder running through her body. It cascaded into the next, and Mercer began moving automatically to position her onto her side the way he’d had to over so many of her younger years, but before he could drag his body into the motions, the device he hadn’t even noticed now fitted on her beltline jumped to life to help. Its silver cords did the work for him, letting him simply hold her and watch her seizing body go through the motions, hoping and praying that she came through the same as she always had—worse for wear, but alive and alert. When it stopped, the aid retracted. Mercer scooped her into his arms, cradling her as she forced her medication down, and as she sobbed after.

He did not tell her that he’d fix it, or that everything would be okay—though with the aid now tucked into her belt, he thought, at least, everything might be a little better—but he did tell her the truth. “I’m here, Puck. Your dad’s here, and he’s not going anywhere.”

Mercer’s heartbeat barely rocketed when the doorbell rang, and he resisted the urge to retrieve a knife from the kitchen before checking the peephole. There was no one on the stoop, but he could make out the gentle rumble of a retreating sports car. That, though, was signal enough.

He sighed, and retrieved the package left on the mat.

The note had been sharpied into the top of the box, but unlike William’s present from weeks back, this one brought Mercer only relief.

I have to run, but figured you’d prefer these as quickly as possible.

He opened the package delicately, retrieving the bottle of familiar pills from within. The sight of them eased such a weight from his chest that it confirmed everything Lydia had shared with him earlier. His fear was normal, but perhaps it wasn’t entirely healthy. There were pills for that too. Pills, and people. He’d have to look into both.

As he went to break the box down for recycling, a paper wedged against the side caught his attention.

Don’t trust anything new Vitalis-Barron makes. PS. There is a vampire by the name of Dr. Clementine Hughes who runs the Ala Santa blood charity. Bring him a sample of your unholy gold. He is a good scientist and a better man.

Mercer’s heart clenched at the reminder of the unholy gold, but as he read and reread the note, his dread turned to curiosity. A scientist with a PhD who was part of the vampiric community. He’d heard of the Ala Santa blood charity—it was one of the hot vampire stories that ran between the Wesley Smith-Garcia trial and the continuous speculation about Vitalis-Barron’s work—but only that it was owned by a human from Ala Santa who the local people often referred to as the community’s guardian angel. Perhaps this Clementine Hughes wasn’t interested in the spotlight, or, more likely, the spotlight wasn’t interested in featuring a vampire as the savior of other vampires.

If humans were needed to lift the vampires out of their desperate situation, then humans could, after all, lower them right back into it if they changed their mind.

The shower shut off—he was going to have one hell of a hot water bill this month, but Rahil was worth it—and Mercer worked his way into his room, taking off his slippers and settling onto the bed with the note to conduct some rudimentary research. It seemed Dr. Clementine Hughes did exist, and had been, of all things, a scientist at Vitalis-Barron—though he wasn’t in their directory any longer. That must have been how Anthony knew him. Coworkers? Rivals? Hm.

Mercer didn’t look up as Rahil exited the bathroom, but he caught his partner stretching sleepily out of the corner of his eye, the oversized fabric of his borrowed bathrobe parting to reveal the lean length of his chest. His palms were freshly bandaged with the supplies Mercer had left him.

“Be a good boy and grab my water from the dresser.”

“Oh, we’re preying on my weakness now, are we?” Rahil teased, collecting the water and handing it to Mercer. He slipped onto the bed with him, nuzzling against Mercer’s neck. “Do I get a reward?”

Mercer took his anti-migraine pills and drained his glass after despite not feeling the least bit thirsty. With all the stress of the day, he could already feel the migraine fighting to take hold. For now though, it was subtle enough that he could ignore it. He smiled at the tickling sensation of Rahil’s fangs gently tracing along his skin, and tipped his chin a little. “I suppose you deserve a drink too.”

The slide of those fangs into his neck made Mercer sigh, overcome momentarily by the dose of venom that flooded his system. Sex was just sex, but this was bliss . He ran his hands up and down Rahil’s spine as his vampire cuddled against him, taking slow, long drags that sent fresh waves of pleasure through Mercer. As the venom built in his system, he slowly relaxed backward onto the bed, letting Rahil climb atop him. The tingling thrill running through his veins gave him the inexplicable urge to touch himself, and after a flash of unwarranted shame, he gave in. Mercer lingered there, caught between the pleasure of Rahil’s bite and the aching delight of his cock until Rahil’s tongue finally began closing over the fang-marks, and Mercer finished himself off into a tissue.

“You’re perfect,” Rahil whispered as he snuggled against Mercer.

And Mercer replied with the only three words his mind could form. “I love you.”

Rahil made the softest, happiest noise Mercer swore he’d ever heard, and, for a moment, every fear and pain Mercer had ever felt vanished.

They lay like that for a few minutes, and Mercer fiddled with the edge of Anthony’s note before realizing that if he didn’t broach the question soon, he might interrupt a rare moment of sleep for Rahil, which was the last thing he wanted. Gently, he kissed the top of Rahil’s head.

“Hey, babe, what do you think of this?”

Rahil lifted his head groggily, but as he took in the note, his eyes widened. “He’s the vampire who runs the blood charity?”

Mercer played with the skin on the back of Rahil’s neck. “We’ll get confirmation, of course. If you don’t trust him, then I don’t trust him.”

After a moment, Rahil nodded. “I’d like to meet him.” He looked at his own hand, experimentally giving the slightest flex and tightening of his fingers. He only cringed a little. “Maybe we both have something we can offer.”

Mercer thought of the feeling he’d gotten as he’d sensed the holy silver breaking through Rahil’s cells, initiating a change that was both terrifying and intriguing, and wondered if perhaps he had more to offer as well. A shiver ran through him. That was a question for another day, one where, hopefully, his world hadn’t been torn asunder and pieced back together multiple times in a twenty-four-hour span. Right now, Lydia had enough meds to last her the month, Rahil was curled up beside him, and the threat they’d been facing these past weeks was buried beneath a fresh bed of flowers. Things would certainly fall apart again, but for now, he would take what he had and run with it. Or, in this case, nap with it.

As Mercer snuggled into a relaxing position, Rahil moved to set the note off to the side, but he paused, flipping it again, then fiddling with the edges. Carefully, he pushed what Mercer had taken to be one thick paper into two; a perfectly folded note, stuck tight by sweat and the summer heat. As Rahil opened it, he revealed a complex doodle of rings and lines and molecular nomenclature. Beneath it were the words: If something happens to me, show this to Clementine ; and then: Lydia’s medication .

From the place where all his fear had hollowed out, Mercer sobbed.

And for the first time in a decade, he was not alone for it.