Blood and Fire

by Gabriela Fišerová

  “I’ve wanted to drive these since I joined Aegis,” Adley said as he practically ran towards the three cars that were there. Arkemoz had no idea why Adley was so giddy, but he didn’t bother asking. He didn’t know what to think about the cars. They were just...silver. That was about as much as he was confident saying because he knew nothing about cars in general.

  He begrudgingly walked to the car when the vampire waved him over and opened the car door to the passenger seat, narrowing his eyes at the interior. It looked incredibly ordinary, but that might have been the point, as a way to keep a low profile.

  Arkemoz climbed in, frowning at everything around him as he closed the door. The seat was very comfortable—he couldn’t deny that, but he felt very strange being in a car. It was kind of like when he’d first come to Earth, everything here being completely different from what he’d known before, but at least he’d read about Earth from the texts the demons who’d visited the planet wrote. Arkemoz knew nothing about cars aside from the fact that they were used for faster transport.

  “It’s not like I’m that into cars, ya know?” Adley continued as Arkemoz started playing with the sun visor. At least Arkemoz assumed that was what it was. “But this is a car I can drive during the day. You wouldn’t believe how annoying it is to not be able to go outside during the day. The sun is just everywhere.”

  Arkemoz was pretty sure he had some idea of how annoying it must be, but he said nothing. It was nice seeing him so excited though.

  “Anyway, this should be fun!”

  Adley grinned at Arkemoz widely and put the key in the ignition, turning it. The demon watched the process closely, trying to take notice of everything Adley was doing. Though just looking at all the buttons was very intimidating. How was he supposed to know which one did what? The symbols on them told him nothing.

  “See, the trick to driving,” said Adley as he somehow made the car move. Arkemoz flinched and stared out the front window with wide eyes as they got closer and closer to one of the walls. “Is moving the steering wheel.”

  Arkemoz peered at the steering wheel closely. Though his eyes kept moving to Adley’s hands on their own instead. They were hairier and looked rougher than Arkemoz’s own, but for some reason they were really pleasing to look at. Arkemoz got an urge to touch them.

  “And basically you just use the pedals.”

  Arkemoz blinked as his attention was brought back to what the vampire was saying. Great, now he had no idea what to do. What pedals?

  He didn’t get a chance to ask though because just then what he’d thought was a wall started to rise, temporarily blinding him with light. Though even like that he couldn’t miss how Adley flinched next to him. Not that Arkemoz was surprised. He doubted he’d react well to being suddenly exposed to something as deadly to him as sunlight was to vampires.

  “This is great,” Adley muttered, grinning, though it lost some of its intensity almost immediately. Then he turned to Arkemoz. “Anyway, let’s go.”

  Arkemoz stared out the window as Adley drove the car up out of the garage and onto a street. After closer inspection, Arkemoz realized they were just behind the Aegis headquarters.

  “There’s one shop I know that should be vamp friendly at this hour.”

  Arkemoz assumed that meant there would be enough shadows surrounding it to make entering it safe.

  “Hopefully they’ll have a winter coat goth enough for you.”

  “What’s goth?”

  Adley just smirked at him and turned his eyes to the road again as he turned a corner. From what Arkemoz could see, driving really did seem to only be about turning the car with the wheel, and pressing those pedals, if Adley’s leg movements were anything to go by. But he would have to try this himself to fully evaluate it.

  Arkemoz’s eyes settled on Adley’s beard next. He wasn’t sure how that had happened, but now he was wondering what it felt like to touch it. Feeling his cheeks grow hot Arkemoz forced himself to stare off to the side at the buildings they were passing.

  “It’s so weird to be outside like this,” Adley said, thankfully not noticing the demon’s embarrassment. He wasn’t even sure why he was feeling embarrassed, but he definitely was. “Well, not outside, technically, I guess. But I haven’t been out during the day for two hundred years.”

  Arkemoz frowned at him. Why didn’t he sound happy, then? This must have been a nice experience, surely. “Are you...okay?”

  Adley turned to him, his eyes wide in surprise. “Yeah. ‘Course. Just...nostalgic.”

  Arkemoz had no idea what that felt like, but he was moderately confident he understood what it meant, and he didn’t think it was a bad thing. So that was at least something.

  The rest of the short trip was silent, and Arkemoz continued staring out the window, fidgeting with his hands as he tried not to look at the vampire until they reached the store Adley had talked about. It was indeed mostly covered up by shadows cast by the much taller buildings around it, so hopefully Adley wouldn’t catch fire.

  “All right, let’s go find you a coat. And maybe another hat, huh?” Adley said as he climbed out of the car, the demon following right after.

  Arkemoz touched the edge of his fedora, feeling an immediate need to defend it. “What’s wrong with this one?”

  “Nothing, Arkie. It looks great on you.” Adley patted his back, smiling at him warmly, which made Arkemoz’s heart speed up yet again. “But you could have more than one. For some variety, you know?”

  Arkemoz scowled at the sidewalk as he thought about it. He didn’t see much of a purpose in owning more kinds of the same article of clothing, though he did have another pair of shoes at his apartment, in case his boots got damaged. But that was a practical reason because he couldn’t go outside without shoes. This sounded like anything but practical.

  “Is having a variety of clothes important?” he asked as they made their way to the store. Adley had parked the car right next to the store, but the entrance was around the corner. There was sunlight shining down on the street, but the sidewalks seemed to be safe, shaded by trees and roofs.

  “It can be.” Adley smirked back at him. “But it’s mostly fun.”

  Arkemoz supposed he understood that. Having more clothes to choose from did sound kind of...nice. But it wasn’t needed—he was sure of that much. And he wasn’t even certain he could afford more than the coat.

  “Do you have a lot of clothes?” Arkemoz wasn’t sure why he’d asked that. It didn’t matter at all, yet he was curious about it since he’d only ever seen Adley wear the same leather jacket and blue t-shirt with jeans.

  For a moment, Adley froze, only turning around as he opened the door to the store. “No. It’s not really my thing.”

  Arkemoz looked around as they both entered the store. The room was relatively small compared to the shop he’d gotten his coat at, but practically every inch of it was filled with racks of clothing of all colors and types. It was kind of overwhelming. And this was a small town. What did stores in cities look like?

  Adley waved at the bored looking woman behind the faded counter on their left. There was something off about her, and on closer inspection Arkemoz realized she was a werewolf. Was that why Adley had chosen this shop? It would be an odd coincidence otherwise, and even if it had been, surely he’d be less casual about greeting her.

  “Now, where to find an emo coat….” Adley muttered, venturing into the mess of clothing.

  Arkemoz had no idea what emo was or meant, but he decided not to ask. The vampire would have probably been as helpful as ever, anyway. Since he was feeling incredibly out of his element, Arkemoz just followed behind Adley through the narrow alley between the numerous rows of clothing, looking around occasionally. Nothing much was catching his eye though.

  Suddenly Adley stopped and turned to the right. “Ah, there we go. Go nuts, Arkie.”

  Arkemoz narrowed his eyes in concentration as he looked where Adley was pointing, noticing what looked like a few dark coats
in the back of the row that was a mess of colorful t-shirts, sweaters, and hoodies. How was he supposed to traverse this?

  Before he could ask, Adley was already walking away, scanning the clothes around them. Arkemoz sighed. Well, there was only one way of doing this, so he had no choice but to try to squeeze through the narrow gap between the two rows and hopefully get to the coats without making the other clothes fall.

  He forced himself not to overthink this and just do it. It turned out to be easier than expected, though he had almost managed to send a t-shirt or two to the ground. He had no idea what Adley was doing right now, but if he wanted to buy something, Arkemoz had no idea how he would actually get anywhere in this shop. He was quite a lot bigger than Arkemoz was in this form.

  The demon scowled at the five coats that were there. None of them really spoke to him, just from a casual glance, but he needed to buy one, so he would have to ignore his preferences and just pick one. He was about to just grab one of them and leave when he noticed a sixth one all the way in the back. Unlike the others, it had a fur collar, and it was longer than the others, so he wouldn’t have to be afraid of his tail being exposed. He didn’t generally like fur, but it somehow worked for him here.

  He took it off the rack and put it on over his original coat. It was a bit bigger than he needed, but he didn’t mind. The coat he already owned was the same way, anyway. It was apparently difficult to find clothes in the right size for this body, which was very annoying since he couldn’t do anything about it.

  Arkemoz hadn’t even noticed he’d closed his eyes until then. This coat was apparently very comfortable. Deciding that this was definitely the best he could get here, he took it off again and turned around. Great, now he would have to get out of here somehow.

  Closing one eye and grimacing, Arkemoz squeezed past the clothing again, breathing out when he made it back into the narrow path in the middle of the store. He looked around, trying to spot Adley, which he did almost immediately because he was apparently chatting with the still bored looking werewolf.

  Arkemoz frowned, feeling his mood souring even though he didn’t know why. How did humans deal with this every day? Constantly shifting emotions were so exhausting.

  Shaking his head, Arkemoz walked over to them, clutching the coat close to his chest. He cleared his throat without bothering to find out what the conversation topic was, drawing both their attention to himself. The werewolf still looked just as bored as ever. Maybe a little more unfriendly, though. Not that Arkemoz wasn’t used to that reaction to his presence from other supernatural beings.

  “Arkie!” Adley said, a wide smile on his face. “Look what I found!”

  He held up a black t-shirt with a pink unicorn on it, looking almost proud. Arkemoz peered at it closely, only then noticing the words Go to hell! that were right under the unicorn in bold, colorful lettering. That did look like something Adley would find amusing, though the odd thing about it was that the t-shirt looked far too small for him.

  Since Adley’s smile was starting to disappear, Arkemoz just decided to compliment the t-shirt. That was probably what Adley was waiting for, right? “Very nice.”

  For whatever reason, not only was Adley’s smile gone now, but he actually looked disappointed. Had Arkemoz sounded too insincere? He had meant what he’d said—the mix of colors was pleasing to the eye, for whatever reason. He didn’t really like pink, so he wasn’t sure why. But he supposed this was the same thing as with the fur on the coat.

  “You gonna buy that?” the werewolf asked, staring into her phone. Arkemoz nodded, giving the coat to her when she outstretched her hand towards it without looking at him. She checked the price tag that was on the inside of the collar. Arkemoz had completely missed that. “Right. That’ll be a hundred.”

  Arkemoz reached into his coat, pulling out the mass of paper bills and counting off the hundred dollars required. He’d thought it would be a little cheaper, but to be fair he had very little idea of how much things were supposed to cost. The only thing of any worth in his home dimension was information.

  He put the coat on as soon as he got it back, not caring that he was still wearing the old one. Surely two coats would keep him extra warm, right?

  Since they were done here, they left after that, and as soon as they stepped outside Arkemoz could feel how much of a difference the second coat made. He would have to see how long he could be outside before getting cold despite the extra protection, but this was already much better.

  “So, um, you don’t like the shirt, huh?”

  Arkemoz looked at Adley as they headed back to the car. The vampire sounded so sad about it, and Arkemoz had no idea why.

  “It’s all right if you don’t. You don’t have to wear it. I just saw it and thought....”

  Arkemoz blinked, coming to a halt in his shock. That t-shirt had been meant for him? Well, he supposed that explained the size and Adley’s reaction to him not being overly enthusiastic, but he was now even more confused. “It was...for me? Why?”

  Adley, also having stopped, raised an eyebrow at him. “Do I need a reason to give you a funny t-shirt?”

  Arkemoz looked down as he thought this through. Was this common on Earth? He didn’t think anyone had ever given him anything before just because, so this was a very foreign mentality to him. The entire idea of doing something for no real reason was foreign to him, in fact.

  “Not a demon thing, huh?”

  Arkemoz shook his head. He was fully expecting to just not have anything explained to him once again, and so he hadn’t even been planning to ask, but Adley apparently decided to give him more information this time.

  “It’s just what humans do sometimes. We give each other stuff to make each other happy.”

  Interesting. “Does it work?”

  Adley didn’t reply and simply offered the t-shirt to him. Arkemoz blinked, taking it after a moment of hesitation. The cotton material was soft and comfortable to the touch, which Arkemoz hadn’t expected from just looking at it before. He frowned at the pink unicorn again, now wondering how this was a ‘funny t-shirt’. What was funny about it? Did Adley think it was humorous because there were no unicorns in Hell?

  “Does it work?” Adley repeated the demon’s question, smiling at him.

  Arkemoz stopped thinking and just tried to focus on how holding the t-shirt was making him feel. There was a warmness spreading through his chest, and he...wanted to smile. That was pretty rare in itself.

  “I...guess it does.”

  Adley’s grin widened. “You don’t have to wear it, you know. I wouldn’t want you to ruin the style you got going on. My feelings can take it.”

  And once again, Arkemoz was confused. “How would the shirt do that?” It was black, wasn’t it? That went with other black items. So it wouldn’t ‘ruin’ anything.

  Adley chuckled warmly, giving Arkemoz a look that somehow both looked a bit sad and fond.

  “Great coat, by the way,” Adley added, winking at him. Arkemoz looked down at the coat, rubbing the material of his sleeve between his fingers. Hearing the compliment made him feel pleased and embarrassed at the same time. Why was he feeling embarrassed again? His emotions were making no sense at all.

  “Come on, let’s go back to the car,” Adley said, looking at the stripe of sunlit street that was behind Arkemoz. “Before I accidentally kill myself.”

  Arkemoz agreed to that immediately. The sun was moving quite fast right now, so it wouldn’t be even that hard to make a fatal mistake. Even just being outside during the day seemed a bit too dangerous to Arkemoz, but he wasn’t a vampire, so he’d say nothing about that. Adley had to know what he was doing better than him.

  Once they got in the car, Adley spoke again. “Now let’s teach you how to drive.”

  “Right now?” Arkemoz could barely keep his concern out of his voice. He wasn’t sure why he was so intimidated by this idea, but he’d rather do this later. Though when he thought about it more, that probably wouldn’t fix
anything. He doubted he’d feel ready at any point.

  “Got something else to do?”

  “Well...no.” Arkemoz kept his eyes on the t-shirt in his lap. He only looked up when he felt the vampire’s hand on his shoulder.

  “You’ll be fine. It’s easy,” Adley assured him, though Arkemoz couldn’t say it helped a lot. “I mean, if you really don’t want to….”

  “No, it’s okay. I should learn this.” Arkemoz gave a firm nod, mostly for his own benefit, as he made a decision. At least he should know what to do in case there was an emergency of some kind. Adley seemed to like driving, so if this partnership lasted in the foreseeable future, he would be the one behind the wheel.

  “All righty.” Adley smiled at him proudly. “Just gonna drive somewhere you can try this out without us getting pulled over by the cops.”

  Oh. Arkemoz hadn’t even thought of that. But it was true. The police would probably notice his no doubt odd driving if they saw it.

  “Have you been anywhere other than Danworth?” Adley asked. Arkemoz felt very ashamed that it took him a few seconds to remember that Danworth was the name of this town. He just wasn’t used to anyone actually saying the name.

  “No, I haven’t had a reason to leave.”

  Judging by the grimace Adley was currently wearing, the vampire wasn’t pleased with the answer, but he didn’t comment on it. “Well, now you do.”

  Arkemoz found himself staring intently out the window as they quickly left the town and went down a road cutting through a dense forest instead. He’d had no idea forests could get this dense, but then again, he’d never seen them himself. All he’d known about them was that they were large clusters of trees.

  He found himself mesmerized by the greenery around them. So much so that he’d almost forgotten why they were out here until Adley stopped at the edge of the road. Arkemoz swallowed thickly. He wasn’t looking forward to this, but at least it seemed there was little opportunity to crash. The trees weren’t right up against the asphalt, and no one else seemed to be here, which was probably why Adley had chosen it.