“Again? Oh, you mean a couple nights ago? Is that the fun time you mean?” Pixie said, raising his voice before Jude could react. He jabbed a thumb at Jude and glared at the teenagers—even if they were actually centuries old, Jude couldn’t help thinking of them as such. They certainly acted like bratty kids. “He was scouting you out. Letting you think you won, so he could, like, gauge your strength and fighting styles and stuff, and get the advantage. He’s a hunter. And he’s real tired of you tearing up his turf. I’d start running right now if I were you.”
“Oh yeah, he’s hardcore,” Nails snorted, rising out of her deep crouch to put her hands on her hips. Somehow she stared down her button nose at Jude, despite being a good two heads shorter. “Looked real tough screaming and falling over, probably peed his pants when we—”
“Hey, he’s not messing around this time!” Pixie retorted with a lot more conviction than Jude had in his entire body. “And neither am I! You guys went too far tonight. So just give back the guitar, quit scaring people, and nobody has to get hurt!”
“Pixie, shut up—” Jude started to whisper, but he was interrupted by another cackle.
“Seriously?” Maestra laughed, fangs flashing, and Jude took an involuntary step backwards. It was the same chilling, very inhuman sound from last night. Unlike her friend, she didn’t hunch over, her movements were smooth and flowing instead of jerky and punctuated with contorted angles. She took another runway-model graceful step closer, long braids swinging, and a shiver ran up and down Jude’s spine. “Is this supposed to impress us? Are we supposed to be shaking?”
“‘Cause we’re not,” Nails finished before either of them could answer, looking at Jude with what he could only call amused incredulity, as if he were so pathetic it was hilarious. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had looked at him like that, especially someone who didn’t even look old enough to see an R-rated movie alone. But most teenage girls didn’t have the lethality to back up their bravado and he fought not to take another step away. “He doesn’t scare us and neither do you.”
“Come on, Pixie,” Maestra said in a more reasonable tone, though she still sounded right on the edge of laughing. “We were just having some fun with you. You didn’t have to bring in a… hunter.” She said the last word as if it should have air quotes around it.
“That’s not why I’m here,” Jude blurted, finally finding his fear-twisted tongue, shooting Pixie a half-furious, half-panicked look. He hadn’t planned on any of this, even if, in retrospect, he probably should have. He’d foolishly thought they were actually starting with something mundane and he was starting to think that even tangling with two relatively small vampires was an equally foolish idea. At the very least, they weren’t supposed to talk. They weren’t supposed to be kids who understood and answered him. They were supposed to be monsters. “I didn’t know I was being dragged out here to hunt anyone tonight. All I know is that you have something that doesn’t belong to you.”
“Yeah, and we want it back!” Pixie seemed to have regained some confidence, though he’d never been as shaken up as Jude. “That guitar’s mine. You don’t even know how to play it, why do you want it?”
“Oh my gosh.” Nails didn’t even try to hide her giggle as she looked up at Jude, then away quickly, as if she couldn’t look at him for too long before completely losing it. “If you wanted to hang out with us that bad, all you had to do—”
She stopped dead. The smile faded from her face in a split second, and her eyes, pale blue with the now-familiar vertical pupils, went very wide. They didn’t flash in what Jude had come to understand as aggression, but she definitely wasn’t laughing anymore. She held perfectly still, except for her flaring nostrils. Catching the way her friend had so abruptly frozen, Maestra turned to face Jude as well, looking confused. Beside her, Nails shook her head and jabbed one claw at Pixie. Immediately after an audible sniff, Maestra grabbed her by the arm and started to back away, suddenly looking about as scared as Jude had been last night.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought!” Pixie laughed, standing up a little taller as they backpedaled. “You better run. Told you we weren’t messing around here!”
But the gargoyle-like girls weren’t paying attention anymore, having another of their whispered conferences and shooting definitely-disturbed looks Pixie’s way. They seemed to have forgotten Jude was there at all.
“Well, that went even easier than I thought,” Pixie said, sounding very satisfied as he shot Jude a grin. “See? No big deal. We can do this all night.”
“What’s wrong with them?” Jude asked, speaking for the first time and finding he needed to clear his throat. It had definitely started to close seeing the creatures so close-up, though he was still at least holding it together. Good. That was all he could hope for, really. “Why do they look scared of you?”
“Me?” Pixie looked at Nails and Maestra, then back up at Jude—and hesitated, seeming to slip back into the very careful, measure-every-word mode Jude had seen before. “Hey, you’re the hunter here. They probably—”
“Thralls.” Everyone froze at the sound of the harsh new voice. The word wasn’t a shout, but it cut through the still night air like the crack of a whip. Beyond the streetlight’s pale glow, a towering figure stood, silhouette a deeper black in the dark.
“No…” Pixie whispered. He took a step back so he was standing slightly behind Jude, then froze as if rooted to the ground by some unseen force.
“Pixie,” Jude said in a low, very-carefully-reasonable voice as Nails and Maestra turned to face the newcomer, standing very straight. He could see the tension in their wings and shoulders from here. “We’re leaving. Now.”
But Pixie wasn’t moving, or looking at Jude at all. He stared at the dark shape as it started to move closer, resolving itself into a tall, muscular man in a long trenchcoat. Pixie’s mouth hung slightly open and his eyes were wide. They didn’t flash, but the fear in them stood out, stark and palpable.
“Pixie,” he said again, taking a step back as well, stopping when Pixie reached up to take hold of his arm. Jude didn’t know exactly what he was doing, trying to hide behind him or steady himself, or maybe just make sure Jude was still there, but he held on tight as Jude struggled to form words. “Who?”
The answer was an even quieter, shaking whisper. One word, the foreign-but-familiar Latin syllables set off alarms in Jude’s head. He knew that word, the same way ‘transubstantiation’ would forever be memorized, formative years essentially tattooing the rote knowledge across his brain. Even if he couldn’t quite recall this word’s meaning, images flashed through his increasingly panicked brain. Carved marble hands and feet. Metal nails, a cross, a face twisted in pain, or bowed in altruistic, agonized resignation. Flowing white cloth, bright red liquid. Wine or blood?
In the ringing of his ears, he heard a choir. Familiar and terrifying.
Excruciating. Ex…
“Cruce.” By the time Pixie said it again, Jude could have whispered along with him. If he’d been able to move at all.
The vampire called Cruce was much larger than the two girls, Pixie, and most people Jude saw in his everyday life. He superficially resembled a man in his fifties, skin so white it almost seemed to glow under the streetlamp, cold and absolutely nowhere near lifelike. He stood at least a head and a half above even the taller of the young vampires, broad shoulders and thick-limbs reminding Jude more of a fighter’s build than a vampire’s expected litheness. His long, black trenchcoat swept the wet pavement, steel-toed boots echoing with every long, deliberate stride. With his shoulder-length grey hair, he might have been elegant, if he weren’t bristling with so much raw hostility, fixing Pixie and Jude with a predatory stare. The way his large, black-gloved hands curled into fists made Jude’s breath catch as painfully as if they’d been curled around his throat.
Cruce had the parking lot’s undivided attention. Jude couldn’t take his eyes off the intimidating figure long enough to glance at Pixie again,
but heard him let out a soft, frightened whimper, the kind of noise Jude might have made himself, if he could speak or move at all.
The teenage vampires looked almost as scared, both holding perfectly still as Cruce reached them. He spared them a brief glance before fixing his white-gleaming eyes on Jude and Pixie.
Then his sharp command cut through the sudden quiet. “Take them.”
But the two younger vampires looked up, sharing expressions of worry. “Why?” Nails asked, sounding completely lost and looking up at Cruce with a tilt of her blonde head. “Aren’t we on the same side?”
“Kind of,” said the taller one, Maestra, taking a step toward Nails with the same easy grace she’d had on her board, shooting a glance back toward Pixie. Oddly, now she looked almost afraid of him, conspiratorial in speaking to her cohort. “He smells like—”
Cruce made a fist, and they both fell silent. Instantly, they stood up ramrod-straight, staring at him with wide, unblinking eyes. All was still for a moment. Then his fist became a pointing finger, leveled directly at Jude and Pixie.
“Take them.”
As one, the girls pivoted to face their targets, eyes flashing far brighter than they had yet, teeth bared and claws extended.
“Oh, crap,” Pixie whispered, but it sounded distant. Everything did.
Jude couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. Pixie said something else, pulling at his elbow, but he couldn’t bring himself to take a single step or look away from the monsters advancing on them. This was a dream. This wasn’t real. Jude wasn’t even sure if he was real himself.
It was five years ago, and the full moon shone bright overhead.
There’s fire on all sides but that’s not what Jude is afraid of. It’s under control. It’s an intimidating blaze, but nothing they haven’t dealt with before. It’s familiar, even. And so is the place—he’s been here before. They all have. The last time he saw it, though, it wasn’t a construction site with newly-erected beams, it was a church. The last time they were here, Felix asked Jasper to marry him. It’s surreal to see the change, even if the night feels the same, as if no time has passed. The moon is just as full and bright overhead.
But two things are strange. Wrong.
The first is that this fire shouldn’t be here at all. The derelict building burned to the ground a month ago and in its place stands scaffolding—a new foundation, the bare skeleton of the project to come. Construction hasn’t been completed, or even begun in earnest. There are no walls, no carpets, no insulation.
There’s nothing to burn, yet fire blazes on every surface.
The second thing is harder to articulate. Jude is overcome with unease, not from being inside, with flames all around, but looking out. The walls are unfinished, so it’s easy to see the dark sky and bright moon beyond. It’s too clear, he thinks. The boundary between cool night air outside and the inferno in here is too perfect. It’s like they’re walled in with fire, neat and clean. It means something.
He doesn’t have time to think what. Jasper cries out suddenly and Jude whirls in time to see something rush at him, something dark, indistinct, but horribly solid.
Jasper’s head whips back like he’s been shot in the forehead. Then he goes down, falling backwards in a graceful arc while his helmet flies in the opposite direction. The entire full-face mask has somehow been ripped clean off his head. He seems to hang in the air forever, but it’s still too fast. He’s on the ground before Jude can move.
Jude recovers quickly, world shrinking to Jasper falling. Nothing exists but this—not the fire and not the elusive, too-fast shape. He sprints as fast as possible in his heavy suit and helmet, scrambling across the uneven construction site ground to get to where Jasper lies, face-up but much too still.
Adrenaline slams through Jude’s veins as panic threatens to overwhelm him. He calls Jasper’s name, but gets no reply. Jasper doesn’t move. Then Jude is on the radio, yelling for Felix and Eva, before it can fully hit him that Jasper isn’t moving, and his eyes aren’t opening. Jude frantically searches for his lost helmet, respirator mask, can’t find anything, he has to work fast because he knows if he stops for half a second to think about this, he’ll freeze, and they’ll both be dead.
Where the hell is Eva? In a helicopter a mile out, far up in the sky. Jude has never hated their formation so much. And where is Jasper’s goddamn helmet? It can’t just be gone, the way whatever-it-was had hit him and disappeared, that didn’t just happen, that was impossible too—
“I’m coming,” Felix says, voice loud in Jude’s in-helmet radio, cutting through the roar of the fire and the static in Jude’s head. “Almost to you, just hold on. What happened? Is he all right?”
“I don’t know,” Jude says desperately, even as relief floods through him at the sound of Felix’s voice. He clings to it. He isn’t alone here, help is on the way. “Something hit him, too fast to see what. Just one minute he’s standing, the next he’s down.”
“Something hit him—you mean it fell? Room check, Jude. Do you think it’s coming down?”
“No, no, not the building, something in the building with us!” Definitely on the edge of panic now. Jasper was hit hard enough to knock him out, helmet or no. Don’t move people with head or neck injuries, Jude knows that, but what’s the greater danger here? Possibly making the damage worse, or the definite threat of smoke inhalation? Jude takes a breath and tries to be coherent. “Felix, where are you? Jasper needs to get out of here, but I don’t want to move him alone, I can’t tell exactly where he’s hurt!”
“Don’t worry, Jude.” Bless Felix. Bless his sweet voice and the way it eases Jude’s clamoring mind when nothing else can. He’s so scared it almost hurts, but he listens to Felix’s voice, wraps himself up in it, and he can breathe. “Everything’s going to be fine. I’m right here and Eva’s on her way. Just stay with him, please.”
“Yeah, yes, okay,” Jude says immediately. He still can’t tell what in the world hit Jasper but he forces himself to look up. Nothing else is falling or flying, the room looks stable, even if his brain keeps screaming that it shouldn’t be on fire, nothing to burn, where is it coming from? Nothing feels real. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“And neither am I. I see you!” Jude looks up to see Felix’s suit-bulky silhouette framed in the space where a wall should be. No fire behind him, only the dark night sky. Jude’s never seen anything more beautiful in his life. Weak with relief, Jude feels himself smile as he moves to carefully drape one of Jasper’s arms over his shoulder. Felix will take the other one and they’ll all be out safe in a minute. “Hey, Jude.”
“Hey yourself.” Felix is the only one who can get away with that. The only one who doesn’t sound mocking when he does it, only ever warm. No one else is allowed.
Felix steps toward him and Jasper, bringing relief and rescue with every step. Jude’s never been particularly lucky, but everyone gets at least one good thing in their life, and this is his. He’s not alone.
Then he sees it. Felix doesn’t. Someone is behind him, standing over his shoulder. Entirely calm amid the flames. Another wrong thing in a night full of impossible things going wrong.
Jude freezes, and so does his blood. Below his rising panic, he catches a glimpse of fangs.
“Felix,” he starts, staring at the bizarre, incongruous, impossible apparition. He doesn’t get to finish. Jude barely has time to register the deadly, needle-pointed canines and the curving, razor-edged claws glinting silver at the edge of the long, thin arms, before the creature is on him.
It moves in a blur. The attack is brutal, and lashes from the dark so fast his head spins. By the time Jude realizes what’s happening, it’s too late.
The first impact is to the center of his chest. Air rushing from his lungs, he staggers backwards. Then his feet leave the ground, and an iron grip latches around his ankle. Something stabs his calf, pierces through his reinforced suit, starts clawing its way up his leg. Before he can scream, a new, horribly sharp pain s
hoots from his knee down, up, everywhere. There is nothing but pain. It’s white-hot, nauseating, dizzying, agony beyond anything he imagined his brain was capable of processing. It fills the entire world. It becomes him.
Under the pain and his own screams, he hears something rip. Maybe his suit. Maybe himself. Maybe he’s being torn apart, skin from bone. Something slams into him from behind. The floor. He’s on his back, staring up at the stars through a hole in the unfinished ceiling. Stars rush down to meet him—no. Eyes. Bright gold-gleaming, alien in their intelligent chill. The only thing he recognizes in them is a glint of laughter.
Just as suddenly, he’s free. Whatever had its claws sunk into him is gone. The release is just as shocking as the stabbing torment.
He hears someone screaming his name.
Felix?
It doesn’t matter.
It’s not really happening. Nothing is real except pain.
Still, Jude struggles to sit up and look down. His leg is nothing. There’s nothing below his knee but air. Blood pours out, turning the floor dark, slick, shining. Too fast. Bracing himself against a fresh surge of blazing agony, he curls around himself and clamps down on his ruined leg, but he might as well be trying to stop the bleeding with a Band-Aid. It’s coming out much too fast, injuries like this, there’s not much time. He knows it in a detached kind of way. He should be more upset, terrified, but even the pain is finally fading. Everything seems too far away to worry about.
Everything except for Felix, standing in the middle of the room. His back is to Jude. Why won’t he turn around and help? Did he see the shocking amount of blood and know it’s already too late?
Felix is yelling something, Jude thinks, numb. He can’t understand words anymore.
The Secret Ingredient Is Love. No, Really Page 8
