Page 10

Six months had passed since I first descended into Morrow's underground domain.

Autumn had transformed the cemetery, painting the oak trees in fiery oranges and deep reds.

Fallen leaves carpeted the grounds, creating a crackling tapestry that shifted with each cool breeze. Misty twilights came earlier each evening, the sun surrendering to darkness by six o'clock.

I moved through my patrol with practiced efficiency, cataloging the subtle changes in the landscape.

Two fresh graves had been added yesterday.

An elderly couple who died within days of each other. Their matching headstones would not arrive for weeks, but I already knew their birth dates, their children's names, their favorite songs. The details of their lives had become mine the night before, shared through Morrow's blood after he fed.

These feedings had become our ritual.

His sustenance, my addiction.

The sharing kept our connection vibrant and strange. My blood for his. His memories for mine. An exchange that left both of us changed in ways I was still discovering.

Daylight had become increasingly uncomfortable to me.

Not painful, but grating, like music played slightly off-key.

I performed my administrative duties as needed but found myself counting down the hours until sunset, when the world shifted into focus and my senses sharpened. Night had become my natural state, twilight my awakening.

"Ms. Ruiz."

I turned to find Winters standing ten yards away, his wire-rimmed glasses catching the last rays of sunlight.

I had not heard him approach.

Unusual for me these days.

"Mr.

Winters," I replied, keeping my tone neutral.

"I didn't expect you this late."

"Quarterly inspection." He held up his clipboard like a shield.

"Though I suppose I could have waited until morning."

"You could have." I did not move closer, letting him decide the distance between us.

Winters shifted his weight, his discomfort obvious.

In the months since I had begun sharing blood with Morrow, Winters had developed a wariness around me that bordered on fear.

He never mentioned the changes he surely noticed.

My preference for darkness, my intimate knowledge of the cemetery's history, my increasing authority when discussing grounds management. Questions formed behind his eyes but never reached his lips.

"The Richardson plot needs attention," he said finally.

"Subsidence has created a depression.

I've scheduled the groundskeepers for Thursday."

"No need," I replied.

"I've already filled it."

His eyebrows rose.

"You did the maintenance yourself?"

"I take pride in my work." I smiled.

"The cemetery is my responsibility, after all."

Winters' gaze dropped briefly to my hands as if remembering the mark from so many months ago.

I adjusted my sleeve, and his eyes snapped back to my face.

"Well then," he said, making a note on his clipboard.

"I'll be going.

Lock the gates after the Hargrove funeral tomorrow?"

"Of course."

He nodded and turned to leave, then paused.

"Ms. Ruiz?"

"Yes?"

"You've lasted longer than most night guards." His expression held something between concern and curiosity.

"The position tends to...

wear on people."

I smiled again.

"I find it suits me."

The look he gave me suggested he feared exactly that.

After Winters departed, I continued my patrol, moving deeper into the cemetery as true darkness settled over the grounds.

The Hargrove funeral tomorrow would bring the first burial of the week.

Beverly Hargrove, ninety-two, widow of a state senator, would be laid to rest on Tuesday evening at four o clock. Morrow would feed well tomorrow night.

I completed my patrol route near the oldest section of the cemetery.

Standing still, I closed my eyes and focused, extending my awareness outward like ripples in a pond.

There. A presence moving beneath the surface, a cold current in the sea of spirits. Morrow, rising from his daytime rest.

I did not need to wait long.

The air shifted around me, the temperature dropping several degrees as shadows gathered beneath a massive oak.

They twisted and coalesced, forming the elongated silhouette I had come to know as intimately as my own reflection.

Morrow emerged from the darkness, his gray skin almost luminous in the moonlight.

The angles of his body remained wrong, his proportions impossible, but the horror had transformed into familiarity.

Desire. Love.

"You smell of him," Morrow said by way of greeting, his grinding voice softer than it once had been.

"Winters.

Fear and suspicion."

"He came for the quarterly inspection." I stepped closer, drawn by the chill that radiated from Morrow's body.

"He suspects but won't ask."

"Self-preservation," Morrow observed.

"He's smarter than most."

"He mentioned the Hargrove funeral tomorrow."

Morrow's lipless mouth curved in that familiar not-quite-smile.

"You've already chosen."

It was not a question.

Over the months, I had taken on the role of selecting which graves Morrow would feed from.

Which bodies would provide the richest memories, the most satisfying essence.

"Eleanor Hargrove," I confirmed.

"Ninety-two years as a senator's wife, philanthropist, and arts patron.

Three children, seven grandchildren. Traveled to thirty-six countries. Speaks four languages."

"Spoke," Morrow corrected, gliding closer.

"Past tense now."

I smiled at the pedantry that occasionally surfaced in his speech.

A trait acquired from centuries of observing human scholars and intellectuals, fragments of their memories absorbed through countless feedings.

Morrow's eyes gleamed with something between hunger and amusement.

"You've become quite the curator," he said, reaching out to trace one elongated finger along my jawline.

"Selecting the finest vintages for consumption."

The chill of his touch sent electricity racing across my skin, my body responding instantly to his proximity.

Six months of intimacy had trained me to associate his cold with pleasure, his alienness with desire.

"I know what you like," I replied, leaning into his touch.

His hand slid to the back of my neck, drawing me closer until I could feel the strange absence of breath against my face.

"And what you like," he murmured.

We moved together through the cemetery, a predatory patrol that had become our nightly ritual.

I guided him to the location prepared for tomorrow's burial, showing him the Hargrove plot.

Planning had become part of our communion, the anticipation almost as satisfying as the feeding itself.

Near midnight, we returned to the mausoleum that contained the hidden entrance to his underground domain.

Soon I would finish my official duties and join him in darkness and passion.

But for now, we stood among the silent graves, existing in the boundary space between his world and mine.

"Six months," I said, breaking the comfortable silence between us.

"Since that first night."

Morrow's head tilted.

"A heartbeat to me," he said.

"Yet more substantial than the centuries before you."

The admission of my impact on his existence never failed to stir something in me.

Pride, maybe, or the satisfaction of having marked an immortal being as surely as he had marked me.

"Wednesday's child is full of woe," I recited, looking out across the moonlit graves.

"That's what my mother used to say about me.

Born on Wednesday, destined for sadness."

"And now?" Morrow asked, his eyes studying me.

I considered the question, weighing the life I had left behind against what I had gained.

The friends and family I had lost over the years, the months of homelessness, and now the home I had found with a dark entity and the communion with death that had become my comfort.

"Now I understand woe isn't only what I thought," I said finally.

"It's not all misfortune and misery.

It's finding beauty in decay. Life in death."

Morrow's form shifted closer, cold radiating from him like an open grave.

His elongated hands framed my face gently, those inhuman eyes holding mine.

"Wednesday's child," he murmured, "full of such beautiful woe."

I smiled up at him, no longer disturbed by the wrongness of his form or the centuries of death carried in his touch.

I had chosen this path, this partnership with darkness.

Had welcomed the woe and found it sweeter than I could have imagined.

Thank you for reading!