The Secret Ingredient Is Love. No, Really

by RoAnna Sylver

  But the thing is still out there, the thing with the claws and fangs. He catches sight of golden eyes across the room and realizes Felix is standing directly between it and him.

  The monster looks human. A man standing still, as before, calm amid the flames. Not one of them, no heavy suit. He’s leaning a little to one side, head cocked under the wide brim of a hat, it looks like his hands are casually in his pockets. Jude wouldn’t be surprised to hear a cheerful whistle. Instead, he dimly wonders how another person could do this to them. How it’s even possible for someone to stand in the middle of a fire and not burn.

  Jude never sees the man move. He sees him raise one hand, straight out from his body to point directly at Felix—but Jude never sees him rush forward. He moves too fast. One moment he stands across the room, the next…

  His hand is sunk wrist-deep into Felix’s chest. Like his hand is a blade, razor-edged, wickedly pointed claws puncturing Felix’s suit, flesh, and bone. It’s impossible, Jude thinks as he watches Felix jerk to stand unnaturally straight upright, rigid with shock.

  None of this should be happening. A man should not move in a blur through a fire and stab someone with his bare hand. It shouldn’t be Felix and it shouldn’t be like this. Jasper should be awake with them. Eva should be here. Jude doesn’t understand any of this, but he knows this is not how it was supposed to happen.

  The man rips his hand back out and it’s almost as brutal as the stab in. Jude feels his own heart clench in response. His leg doesn’t hurt anymore. All the pain has gravitated to his chest and it feels like his heart is shattering into a thousand tiny, sharp-edged pieces.

  Felix falls.

  He doesn’t fly backwards like Jasper in an arc. Instead, his legs just collapse under him and he drops like a sack of bricks. Felix sprawls across the floor, long limbs bent at strange angles, thick-gloved hand landing so near Jude’s face that, if he was just strong enough, he could reach out and take it.

  Jasper is still unconscious, mercifully, behind him. Felix is worse than unconscious, he has to be. And Jude can feel himself slipping away, the edges of his vision going dark. It’s only when his eyes sting and blur that he realizes he’s crying.

  The floor is a vertical horizon. Lost, spinning, Jude watches as black-and-metallic wing-tip shoes stride toward his face, like walking down a wall in zero gravity. Somehow, even amid the smoke, fire and blood, they’re clean. With each step, he catches a flash of gold.

  The man casually strolls over to where they all lie in a bloodied heap. Paying no mind to Jude’s ever-weaker struggling, he bends down and grabs one of Felix’s arms. Jude just has time to yell in protest, fighting to sit up and shove the man away, somehow keep Felix safe—when the man draws back his foot and then slams its sharp, gold-tipped toe into Jude’s sternum, impossibly hard, hard enough that his suit’s impact-resistant material feels like wet paper. Air rushing from his lungs, Jude falls backwards to the floor that’s quickly growing slick with his own blood.

  Jude only realizes Jasper is awake when he hears the anguished cries. Heart constricting, Jude tries to think, how long has he been conscious? How much horror has he seen? He’s sobbing. Maybe words, maybe not.

  Jasper tries to pull Felix closer, but the man kicks his arms away too. Then, as if a grown man and a heavy firefighting suit weighed nothing, the man—creature, monster, demon, man—pulls Felix directly out of Jasper and Jude’s frantic reach, and lifts him clean off the ground.

  “N…n…” Jude tries to cry out, but his throat is choked with tears, terror, and blood. He can’t stop Felix from disappearing any more than he can stop the fire around them, not anymore.

  He can hear thrumming high above and far away, like a rising storm reverberating across miles. Helicopter blades, Jude realizes faintly, and a smile pulls at the corner of his blood-caked lip. Eva is coming, flying to them as fast as she can. But not fast enough. She won’t get here in time. Nobody will.

  As his vision goes dark, a realization flashes into his mind. He knows what’s been bothering him now, what’s wrong with this entire scene. Fire where there’s nothing here to catch. The impossibly neat divide between inside the burn and out.

  The fire’s perimeter is a perfect circle.

  Jude almost laughs. He figured it out. He can’t think anymore, but he knows. He’s bleeding out and a monster just vanished, taking Felix with it, and Jasper is probably dying, and he’ll never see Eva again, but he knows…

  Nothing.

  They rise up on all sides. A ring of stones, fingers of crystalline onyx reaching for a bright, clear sky. Jude turns around in the center, looks straight up into blue infinity. A perfect circle of black, shining obelisks. Like the fire. But this place is still.

  Warm sand between his bare toes. The constant sound of crashing ocean waves.

  A cool, salty breeze that raises the hairs on the back of his neck.

  Bright blue-green water just outside the stone circle. It stretches in every direction, deep as the sky and just as endless. Gentle waves meet the soft, clean, white sand.

  A peaceful, precious, too-brief, everlasting moment goes by before he sees it.

  Somebody is lying on the beach, half in the water, half out. Not moving.

  Jude doesn’t hesitate. He rushes forward.

  The person on the beach seems unconscious. Eyes closed. Shallow breath but regular, Jude notes as he carefully takes hold of their thin shoulders and pulls them onto dry, warm sand. Long, straight black hair trails on the beach, in the water. Their sleeping face is pale, almost grey, and they burn with fever. Their skin is dry.

  He doesn’t recognize their androgynous features. But it almost feels like he should. Like he’s missing something. This face isn’t familiar, but it’s important.

  A black mask rests on the sand beside them and Jude thinks of his respirator face mask. Jasper’s, impossibly taken. This one has no plastic tubes, no purified air tank connected. Instead it has a long, gracefully curving shape, like a water bird’s beak. There’s something important about this strange, bird-face mask too. He knows it, the way he knows its owner is… not familiar. Not yet. Significant.

  Jude doesn’t know them yet, but thinks he might.

  He turns back to the unconscious person on the beach beside him; is their breathing easier now? Their white dress is rough, fabric uncomfortable to the touch. The edges of their long skirt are ragged, singed black as if they’ve been burnt, and impossibly dry after being pulled from the ocean.

  He freezes, remembering fire.

  But before he can move or say a word, the almost-familiar stranger opens their eyes. Black and shining as the stones around them, and quick, locking onto his face without a moment’s hesitation. They look up into Jude’s eyes, and for one moment, it’s like seeing his own reflection. There’s a strange recognition in their dark eyes, the same kind he feels, not of knowing, but connection. Of yes, this is important. Yes. Remember this. Yes.

  When they speak, Jude doesn’t understand the words. But he hears the anxiety in them. Their voice is tight with desperation, and the scared-sounding syllables go over his head. He doesn’t know what language. One he doesn’t speak.

  “I’m sorry,” Jude says, and deeply feels it. Why is he so painfully aware that this is a crucial moment, but not what makes it so? Why does he know he’s missing life-altering details, but not what they are? He can feel the not-stranger’s hands clasping his own the way he feels the sand, the water, the breeze. It’s the most tangible, vital, real thing he’s ever felt.

  “No…” They frown, and he watches as they shift from disturbed disorientation to realization. They must feel it too, that this isn’t right. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. When they speak next, it’s slow, halting, as if the translation is hard work. But this time Jude understands. “Is he all right?”

  Someone else asked him that not long ago, he remembers dimly. Jude didn’t know the answer then. He doesn’t know it now. And he doesn’t have time.

&nb
sp; In a moment, the beach, the circle of stones, the sky, and the person with the mask are gone, and he is somewhere else.

  The first thing Jude feels is pain. He’s aware of it before anything else, keeping his eyes closed while sensation worms its way into his consciousness. Why does it hurt? He won’t find out like this, so he blinks a few times, and the first thing he sees is a harsh white light.

  He immediately shuts his eyes again and gasps in a breath that burns in his lungs. He remembers seeing the bright, full moon overhead, Felix’s screams reverberating in his ears. If the moon is here, then...

  He’s warm but not burning. There’s no hard ground under his back. The air he sucks in doesn’t taste of acrid smoke and metallic blood. It’s cool, with a sharp, antiseptic edge. There are no screams. Instead, a regular beeping comes from somewhere near his head. He holds perfectly still for another moment, then slowly opens his eyes again.

  A bed. Four white walls, white ceiling. A fluorescent light overhead, not the full moon. His breath returns, much more slowly. Still, everything hurts and his throat burns with a terrible thirst. It feels like he’s been dropped from a dizzying height, every bone in his body rattled and sore. The pain centers in his left leg, sharpens, resolving itself into a wave of nausea that washes over him as his vision clears.

  Jude struggles to move his head, straining to see more of this room than the too-bright ceiling. He fights to sit up and look down at his leg. But what he sees next shatters any slow-developing thoughts and makes his breath catch in his dry, aching throat.

  He’s not alone. Jasper is in a chair beside him, but half-lays face down on Jude’s bed, resting his forehead on both his arms. His breathing is shallow and slow, as if he’s fallen asleep. There’s a hand on Jasper’s back, moving in a slow, endless circle. Eva’s, Jude realizes, and slowly looks up at her face. She’s standing next to the chair and bed, but her eyes are closed. She looks asleep on her feet, dark circles under her eyes and fatigue etched into every line on her face.

  Felix is nowhere.

  Jude lets out a small groan as he struggles half upright, and that’s enough to get attention. Eva opens her eyes first, glancing down at Jasper as if thinking he’d made the sound—then her gaze snaps to Jude’s half-awake face, eyes widening in what looked like combined shock and joy.

  “Jude,” she says, the whispered name coming out on a rush of air, as if she’d been holding her breath. “You’re awake. He’s awake,” she says, a little louder. Her hand, which had stopped as the rest of her froze, went back to rubbing Jasper’s back, harder this time, to gently bring him back to the present.

  Jasper slowly raises his head and looks up, bleary-eyed as if he really had been asleep. It takes a couple seconds and blinks for joyful recognition to flash across his face, and light up his tired, red, raw-looking eyes.

  “Hi,” Jude manages to say, a smile starting to pull at the corners of his mouth. He’s happy, bizarrely. So happy just to be here, to be alive and have them near him, no matter how much it hurts. He wants to stay in this moment forever.

  “Hi!” Eva laughs, or maybe sobs, shoulders starting to shake.

  “We thought we’d lost you.” Jasper’s voice is raspy and just above a whisper. For the first time, Jude notices the white bandage around his forehead, partly hidden by his uncombed hair. He remembers an impossibly-fast dark shape flying through the air to slam into Jasper’s head with an awful crack. But Jasper’s alive, conscious, safe. And now his hand lifts from the bed and reaches for Jude, as if he wants to touch his face. But he stops, wavering—and Jude doesn’t have the energy to lean forward as he wants to, so badly. Instead, Jasper’s warm hand slips around his, and he gives it a weak squeeze.

  “Welcome back.” Eva says, looking exhausted, worn bone-ragged, but whole. The tears shining in her eyes must come from relief, because he can see the tension and worry melt from her face, feeling his own disappear with it. He knows that smile. He knows everything is all right now. “Glad you made it.”

  “Me too.” For a moment, he thinks of nothing but this, nothing but the three of them, and lets his body lay down again, feeling heavy, sleepy and warm, relief flooding him. Then something occurs to him and the flash of anxiety shakes away any lingering sleepiness. He’s awake, alert, and the growing nausea that comes with consciousness makes him wish he wasn’t. But he still needs to know. He needs to know why the three of them aren’t four.

  “Felix?” Jude asks, trying to prop himself up on an elbow to see the doorway out into the brighter-lit hall. Nobody answers, and cold fear starts to seep into his heart again. He looks up to see the relief freeze on Eva’s face. Her eyes flick down to Jasper and Jude’s follow. Jasper isn’t looking at him. He’s not really looking anywhere.

  “How much do you remember?” Eva asks quietly, and now she looks apprehensive, like she’s about to venture out on very thin ice, praying not to see cracks.

  “I...” Enough. Jude remembers enough. He sees Felix fall, like it’s happening right now, clawed hand like a dagger piercing his heart, his willowy body sprawling across the ground. He hears a strangled scream and sees Jasper struggle to pull Felix’s limp body into his arms. He sees a dark shape come up behind them. And here, now, a cold, sharp weight of fear settles in his stomach. He starts to shake. When he speaks again his voice trembles, like the rest of him. “Where is he? Is he all right?”

  It’s only after he says the words that Jude realizes he’s heard them before. In a dream of the beach and the strange, long-haired person on it. Is this how they’d felt then? Desperately searching Jude’s face for a reason to hope, the way he’s watching his friends now?

  Slowly, anything like hope vanishes from Jasper’s face, leaving behind something Jude never wanted to see there. Something hollow. Broken. Stripped, as if every bit of life has been torn mercilessly away, nothing remaining but bones. Like the construction site’s metal scaffolding silhouetted against the night sky and flames, the unfinished building going up in smoke. The bed is warm but he feels cold.

  “No,” Jasper whispers, though Jude doesn’t need the answer anymore. He doesn’t want to hear it, but he hears it anyway. “He’s not.”

  Five years later, the moon was full again. And, again, Jude was frozen in horror.

  Immediate terror and remembered agony rooted him to the parking lot pavement and his knees shook, threatening to buckle under the crushing weight of trauma and unanswered questions. Everything came back in a rush, everything he’d tried to bury and forget so he could function, everything he tried to pretend he was over and done with, the past he pretended was past, even as his present and future crumbled.

  “Take them.”

  Cruce’s words floated back, and Jude realized that what had felt like hours of terrified memories must have only been a few seconds. The imposing vampire was still pointing one black-gloved finger in his direction, ordering the two vampire girls to attack—but no, not directly at him.

  Jude felt something press against his shoulder and realized Pixie was still there. He hadn’t run away. They were standing back to back again. They both might still die in the next minute, but he wasn’t alone and that was something, more than Jude expected. The thought was a grim comfort as the pair of girl-shaped creatures of the night came flying towards them.

  They moved so fast Jude could barely keep them from becoming windswept blurs. As they had before, they sped around Jude and Pixie like they were trying to whip up a tornado in the parking lot. Before, they’d let out keening shrieks and hair-raising giggles, but now they were silent and that was worse. Jude was afraid to move and terrified to stay still. If he moved they’d attack for sure, and if he stayed still, he was just waiting for the first strike.

  But then, the pair leaped back, putting about thirty feet of distance between themselves and Jude and Pixie. They exchanged a glance, and seemed about to charge again with a running start—when they stopped moving forward. Then they stopped moving at all, except to reach out to take each oth
ers’ hands.

  “What are you waiting for?” Cruce snapped. “Get him!”

  But the girls held perfectly still, together hand in clutching hand, like the contact was the only thing keeping them standing straight and tall. They remained about halfway between Jude, Pixie, and the towering Cruce, who hadn’t bothered to take another step. Behind them, their leader let out a wordless snarl of fury, black-gloved hands curling into tight fists. Even from here, in the low light, Jude could see his bright eyes narrow into a glare. And Jude couldn’t move an inch, frozen just as fast as the two teenage vampires seemed to be.

  “Fine. I’ll collect him myself,” Cruce said in a harsh voice that made Jude’s stomach feel like it was being squeezed in a cold, tight grip.

  “Run!”

  At the sound of Pixie’s voice, a sudden burst of wind rushed by Jude’s face, followed by a rapid flapping noise from behind him. He whirled around, expecting to see Pixie running, but there was nothing there but dark parking lot. Pixie must have taken the easy way out, the smart way, and left him here to face these monsters by himself. Panic rising, Jude turned back around, and immediately ducked—the huge vampire in the long black coat was closer than before, closer than he should or could possibly be, too-bright eyes flashing in the dark.

  Jude almost overbalanced and fell to the ground, but managed to keep on his feet as he scrambled backwards. Every instinct, both natural and learned, screamed at him to run, hide, never look back, leave everything behind him, now and for the rest of his life—but he didn’t, even as he fought with himself to do the smart thing and run, just like Pixie had. The girls were still standing where they’d stopped, and he had the strangest feeling that they were every bit as scared of Cruce as he was.

  Cruce didn’t pursue him either. He was looking up at the sky, hands raised as if to snatch something from the air. If Jude ran for it now and kept running, was there a chance he could make it to safety before they realized he was gone?