Strangers in the Night

by E M. Jeanmougin

  Loose gravel slid underfoot. A whoosh of fire burst at their heels, spitting shattered hunks of stone into the air.

  The chime clanged for the fifth… or was it the sixth time? The face of the clock began to pulse, its hands spinning.

  They hit the base of the hill and veered to avoid a second burst of flame. Crimson threw in an extra burst of speed, and Jasper was surprised to find he could keep up just fine, but so could the spellcaster. He felt fingers grasp at the collar of his shirt, the scrape of long fingernails on flesh.

  “JUMP!” screamed Crimson as the last chime split the air, and Jasper sprang forward with all his might.

  Chapter Twelve

  —

  All Accounted For

  They leapt forward instead of straight up in the air, and when they came through on the other side, there was nothing to slow their momentum. They landed in a tangle of arms and legs amid several magic users who hadn’t quite gotten their feet. Jasper’s gun clattered to the side harmlessly.

  Crimson was laughing as he stood and brushed himself off. “Holy shit, man. You’re crazier than me.”

  The exhilaration of having so narrowly escaped had Jasper grinning as well. He was no stranger to close calls, nor was he accustomed to coming by them so frequently. “I can’t believe we made it.” He picked up his gun and made sure the safety was back on. There was no sign of the spellcaster who was chasing them. They must have been stuck in the Summerlands.

  Jasper remembered their reason for fleeing said spellcaster and looked for Max, finding him struggling to his feet near a few disgruntled spellcasters, still wearing his jacket. Jasper helped him up. “Hey, Max.” He tried to speak softly. The man was still shaking and scared, weak from blood loss and shock. “It’s alright, it didn’t follow us.” They should get out of here quick anyway. What if the caster had friends?

  “Our friend can help you,” Jasper said.

  Crimson took one look at Max covered in blood and filth from stumbling around the forest, and sighed, though his smile was still there, sparkling in his eyes. “Al’s gonna be pissed.”

  #

  Max was well enough to walk, but only because Crimson put him under again. Jasper didn’t like the way the werespider carelessly wielded his hypnotism, but he had to admit it could come in handy. Max must have been in excruciating pain and well on his way to a fatal case of shock, but the hypnosis seemed to keep both problems at bay.

  They made it back to the hotel in good time, considering the circumstances. Crimson headed for the stairwell and Max tried to follow him. Jasper caught his arm, glowering at Crimson. “What are you doing? He’ll never make it up all those.”

  Crimson frowned but, looking at Max, had to concede the point. “It’s kinda small for three people, isn’t it?” he asked when the lift arrived and Jasper stepped on.

  “Uh, not really.” There were more spacious lifts, surely, but these were larger than the ones at the agency, which had obviously been installed back when people were smaller or something. Jasper put his hand out to hold the door. “Come on, you’re drawing attention to us.”

  “Gods, you call me dramatic,” huffed Crimson, but he stepped on and put as much distance between him and the other two as possible, standing in the corner with his fingers wrapped around the rail behind him. Soft jazz music played as they ascended. The doors only opened once, for a suited businessman with a roll-along suitcase at his heel. “If I were you, I’d wait for the next one,” growled Crimson. It only took one scathing look for the man to agree.

  The doors slid shut. The music played on. Jasper cleared his throat, trying to hide a small grin with his fist. “So, uh, you’re scared of elevators, huh?”

  “Fuck you, Craig, I’m not scared of elevators.” Jasper’s eyes went to the deathlike vise-grip he had on the handrail, and the werespider quickly let up, but his fingers left indentations in the cheap metal. He shoved his hands in his pockets instead. “I just don’t like being cooped up in these things. There’s nowhere to go.”

  It was kind of funny, but Crimson was obviously very sensitive about it, and Jasper didn’t want to antagonize him, though he couldn’t stop from smiling. The door opened again, this time to their floor, and Crimson was the first one out, Max trailing after him like a puppy.

  Alcander wasn’t as angry as Crimson predicted he would be. When they came into the room with the injured human, he fired off a quick series of questions, which Crimson answered with a shrug and the short explanation that they had “found him in the woods.” Jasper thought it was a pretty sorry explanation and went into some more detail, the spellcaster, the chase, the suspected ritual. Max began to shudder and shake more violently, and Al seemed to make up his mind on the matter, leading the human into the bathroom.

  “Are you hurt?” the doctor asked, and Jasper realized he was talking to him. The tip of his tongue traced the cut on his lip. It wasn’t very deep. He could take care of it and the other cuts along his arms easily.

  “I’m fine. Just help Max.”

  Alcander said he’d do a much better job of helping Max if he had any sort of medical supplies. Jasper dug his first aid kit out of his backpack. It was a little better than a standard first aid kit but still rather sorry when you compared it to Max’s injuries. Crimson offered him the jar of salve he had purchased in the Summerlands, and, though Alcander looked extremely uncertain, he took it nonetheless.

  Al told him to take one of the sheets off the bed and cut it into strips, which he did, and then he told him, in a curt, firm voice, that he could leave the room. Jasper thought it was a nice way of telling him to get the fuck out of his way.

  Since the bathroom was occupied, Jasper had to make do with the mirror on the closet door, washing off his face and his arms with a bottle of water from the mini fridge and what was probably a clean T-shirt. None of the cuts were deep enough or wide enough to need stitches. It was good they didn’t actually fight the spellcaster. It could have been a lot worse.

  “Thanks for helping me get him out of there,” said Jasper, looking back at Crimson through the mirror. He hadn’t been certain he was going to.

  “Yeah, well, I promised I wasn’t gonna ditch you, so you didn’t really give me much choice.” Crimson shrugged as he tossed his backpack and jacket onto the bed nearest the window. “Besides, I figure this makes us even. You helped me out with Alcander. I helped you out with Mark—”

  “Max,” corrected Jasper.

  “Whatever.” He climbed onto the bed. “I’m gonna get some sleep. Wake me up if…” He paused, presumably to think of acceptable reasons for waking him. “Just don’t wake me up. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

  Having been awake for the entire festival and considering the recent excitement, Jasper could have gone to bed too, but he wanted to make sure Max was going to be alright. He waited up.

  It was more than two hours after Crimson had gone to sleep that Al finally emerged from the bathroom, drying his hands on a white hotel hand towel. It was noticeably less white than it had been before, and Jasper was a little surprised to see the vampire holding onto something so filthy so tightly.

  “Is he—” Jasper started to ask, but Al gently interrupted. “He will be fine, Jasper. I’ve patched him up as best I can. That salve seems to be helping. He has lost a lot of blood, though. I am afraid there is nothing I can do about that with my current resources. He will need rest and plenty of it. Could you please bring him out?”

  Alcander was a vampire and should have been strong enough to carry the human on his own, but Jasper didn’t argue with him. Turning off the movie he was watching on low, he went to get Max. He was lying in the bathtub, a folded towel beneath his head serving for a pillow. Asleep, his chest rising and falling slowly under the white strips of sheet, graying hair pushed back off his face. The stumps of his missing fingers were thickly wrapped, red already coloring the white. When Jasper lifted him from the basin, his eyes fluttered under his bruised lids, but he did not wake, not even when
he brought him to the main room and laid him on the second bed.

  There were four of them now, and only two beds and one couch. The beds were big enough for two, but Max needed as easy a rest as he could get, and Jasper didn’t want to crawl in beside Crimson. The werespider was being nice to him lately, especially at the festival, but he seemed like the sort of guy who could easily get the wrong idea. He’d probably wake up on the floor anyway, so he resolved to sleep there tonight. Al could have the couch. It was the least he could do to repay him.

  Jasper grabbed the extra pillow from Crimson’s bed. His mind felt fuzzy from tiredness and the leftover alcohol and hallucinistem in his system. He glanced at the empty space beside the werespider, plenty big enough for him, and at the werespider himself. His eyes were closed, dark lashes resting against his cheeks, hair rumpled in a way that looked very deliberate and messy. Jasper thought of the smoke-filled tent, the ghostlike memory of his hair at his fingertips. He turned away, threw the pillow onto the floor between the beds, lay down, and tried to sleep.

  #

  “Crimson?”

  The vampire’s voice was a soft hiss, pulling him unwillingly away from the deep darkness of slumber. He kept his eyes closed, feigning sleep.

  “I know you are awake,” said Alcander.

  Crimson sighed. Godsdamn his vampire ears. The werespider rolled over, squinting at the other demon, then sitting up and tilting his head to listen to the soft snore of the half-blood lying on the floor at the end of the bed. Al finicked beside him. “Did they know?”

  “Will you shut up?” Crimson tossed back the blankets and climbed out of bed. He gestured for Alcander to follow him. They slipped out onto the balcony, Crimson easing the sliding glass door shut behind them and preemptively lighting a cigarette as an excuse in case the mortal should wake.

  “Well?” It was unusual for Al to be so impatient.

  “Well nothing.”

  “Nothing?” Ah, skepticism. There was the Alcander he knew.

  “That’s what I said. Nothing. Nada. Bubkes. Should I think of other synonyms? Zilch.”

  “I get it. Can’t we talk inside?” He was obviously uncomfortable on the balcony, his back pressed against the glass.

  “No.” Crimson perched on the handrail, hooking his ankles around the bars. The buildings were shorter here, and the air tasted strange, so similar to New York, yet so different. “He’ll hear us.”

  “If what you say is true, there is nothing to hear,” replied Alcander. “Who did you talk to, anyway?”

  “Lots of people.” Crimson tapped his ash to the parking lot below. It was packed with sleek, expensive cars, too clean and too new. Everything was always different from how he remembered it. “I saw Morgaine.” He almost didn’t mention it.

  “Morgaine Onyx?” The vampire hated Crimson’s association with the blood mage—their ideological philosophies rested on opposite ends of a spectrum—but Crimson couldn’t help it; he had precious few friends to begin with and couldn’t afford to go kicking them to the curb any time they had a problem with one another.

  Not that he was sure he considered Morgaine a friend, exactly.

  “What did she say?”

  “Just the usual magic folk gibberish,” replied Crimson. “Nothing important. I also got Jasper high outta his fuckin’ mind and drunk to boot. Didn’t let anything slip. If he’s really stagin’ some sting, he’s pretty good at keepin’ it under wraps. He did get a little weird about that human in there, but that don’t seem abnormal for him.”

  “So then, you don’t believe him to be…?”

  “A Hunter out for my blood?” Fleeting thoughts of the hookah tent, Jasper’s fingers trailing through the ends of his hair. Then of the vampires in Brooklyn wisping into ash. Of Adam, wildly rambling nonsense, his strange ratlike black eyes darting. Nothing made sense. “I dunno. We’ll have to see. If you’re uneasy, I can stay up again, keep watch.”

  Alcander shook his head. “I will do it. I need to keep an eye on Max anyway.” He shifted antsily from foot to foot. “Could we—”

  “Yeah, I think we’re good.” Alcander shouldn’t have to deal with this. “Go on inside. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  #

  It hadn’t occurred to Jasper to ask Max where he lived while they were running for their lives from the spellcaster, and he was happy to learn the next day that he was from Miami. He lived in a small house in Buena Vista, by himself, and had been abducted from his own bedroom one night after working at his accounting firm just a few blocks away. That had been two weeks ago.

  As far as Jasper could gather, his abduction was random. He wasn’t any sort of magic. The most important thing seemed to be that he was alone. No wife or kids, both parents deceased. Any family he had lived on the other side of the country. There didn’t seem to be anyone who would miss him.

  Alcander wanted to watch over him for another day before letting him go home. Already he looked leagues better thanks to Al’s care and the magic salve Crimson had bought in the Summerlands, but it would have felt like a waste for him to have survived the ordeal just to die due to an infection.

  Jasper went out and got more medical supplies and more takeout than two people could possibly eat. It was the first time in a long time that he shared a meal with someone who actually ate food. It was nice. He’d kind of missed it.

  The day after that he made the mistake of mentioning that if they had a car, they could drive Max home, and Crimson was out the door before he could stop him. He was back within half an hour with an old hatchback and a shit-eating grin. The car was obviously stolen, but with the damage already done, Jasper saw little need to make a scene and got in the front seat after helping Max into the back.

  At his house, a cute little one-story on a street of cute little houses, Jasper insisted on helping Max inside while he ignored Crimson’s eye rolling. He wrote his number down on a sticky pad and stuck it on the fridge, telling Max to call him if he needed anything. Max thanked him and gave him a business card with his number on it, though the human wasn’t sure if he would still have a job after being gone for two weeks without a good excuse. Somehow, he didn’t think being kidnapped by magicians who tried to sacrifice him to their blood god would work.

  Chapter Thirteen

  —

  Date Night

  The next few weeks passed in a blur. Jasper all too quickly grew accustomed to sleeping in and staying up late, so much so that he could hardly recall what it was like to have spent the better part of his life rising with the sun, if not earlier.

  Most of their evenings were spent barhopping. Jasper learned poker and pool and the names of more mixed drinks than he had known existed. In the predawn hours, before sleep, Crimson liked to watch movies. These were often the sort that included lots of fast cars and large explosions, but he had an obvious soft spot for the old black-and-whites. Bogart and Cagney. Welles and Robinson. Jasper preferred books and music to the more visual forms of media, but he warmed to the films and, gradually, liked them as well.

  Alcander never left the hotel. Never even left the room. During the second week of their stay, Crimson brought a laptop back from one of their outings “to keep him from going crazy,” and Alcander seemed delighted for probably the first time since Jasper had known him. He was far less sulky from then on, though he was still sometimes skittish around him.

  When the barhopping lost some of its appeal (or when Jasper grew tired of waking up hungover almost every single day), they explored the city’s other attractions, first the mundane human ones, then those of a slightly more supernatural nature.

  The city was not as booming with demon activity as New York was, but there were a small number of secluded haunts and even a supposedly haunted house, where Crimson swore the creepy sounds and mysterious gusts of cold wind were nothing more than an overzealous mage trying to make a mint off dumb tourists.

  Once, Crimson told him he was going for a walk and insisted he not follow. It wasn’t hard f
or Jasper to figure out why; his skin had the washed-out look of a faded picture taken in sepia tone, and his dark eyes were more often the shade of rust than of chocolate. When he came home, however, he seemed healthier than ever.

  Jasper tried not to think about it. He tried so hard, in fact, that he didn’t think about it. Then it was back to the bars and nightclubs and pubs.

  “No way,” said Jasper, one night midway through the third week. “I know how this goes. You convince me to go into this obnoxiously loud club, you hang out with me for like five minutes, you run into some pretty girl or handsome guy, and then you ditch me with a retarded werewolf.”

  “Abby’s not retarded,” said Crimson. He nudged him with his elbow. “And that’s not the way it’s gotta go. Maybe this time you could meet some pretty girl and ditch me.” This was absolute bullshit, of course, but Crimson seemed surprisingly earnest. “Do people still use the word wingman?”

  Jasper smiled weakly. “Only in the movies, Crims.”

  The club was as obnoxious as he had anticipated, but before long Jasper was too drunk to care and just drunk enough to ask a girl to dance. Fortunately, she was drunk enough to agree.

  Her name was Lindsay, and she had short, spiky blond hair and a nose ring, and though Jasper was sure she was very obviously too cool for him, he was delighted when she gave him her phone number and asked him to text her.

  “Am I supposed to wait three days or something?” asked Jasper the next day, when he was squinting at the smudge of ink on the back of his hand in an attempt to make out the blurry digits.

  “If she’s actually interested, three days is gonna feel like an eternity, and if she isn’t, then you could wait a year and it’d still be too soon.”

  “So, then I should text her now,” Jasper decided.

  Crimson snatched the phone out of his hand.