Chapter 1: The Lecture Hall

Professor Theron Vasco had been speaking for forty-three minutes, and somewhere around the thirty-minute mark, his body had begun to shut down.

“The iron atom at the center of the heme group,” he said, his deep, rough-edged voice drying to a whisper, “is what allows a single red blood cell to carry roughly one billion oxygen molecules. One billion. In a cell so small you could fit ten thousand of them on the head of a pin.”

Most of the students were taking notes. A few. were watching the clock.

He cleared his throat and turned to the board to give himself a moment of privacy. His eyes closed as he waited for the feeling inside his limbs to return, for the floor to stop tilting, and the bright pulse behind them to fade. If the attack could just pass long enough for him to gather himself, he could finish the hour. But that scent drifted through the old window beside the lectern. Honeysuckle and something ancient he couldn't recall mingled with the metallic tang of blood. He'd asked twice since the semester began that the window be sealed or realigned.

It hadn't been. Whatever lingered on the air didn't belong to this time. And it was making everything worse.

He finished writing on the board. Read Chapter 15.

His hands were shaking when he turned back to face the class. He set them on the back of the chair behind the lectern and leaned forward, his tall frame folding slightly over it. To anyone watching, his posture suggested complete ease and control. The students would take it for charisma, but it was the only thing keeping him upright and his dignity in check. The outline for next week's assignment was done, but time felt like it was standing still.

He could feel her watching him somehow.

The haunting fragrance was coming from the pre-med student in the second row. She was the kind of young woman who dressed deliberately plain. Oversized sweaters, leggings and boots that hit just below the knee. Her thick, wavy dark hair was always pulled back in a plait, but a few strands always escaped to frame her heart shaped face. She didn’t appear to be the type that noticed if she was being noticed. But her nonchalance only drew the eye and the small magic inside her was like a perfume that made you forget what you were about to say. Shoulders rolled and backs straightened when she entered a room. He'd noticed those things though she didn’t seem to.

She was writing down what he’d said. Her wrist was fine. Her fingers, long and thin, and she held her pen in a way that made her delicate mannerisms stand out even more. He’d been trying for eleven weeks not to notice. Instead, he catalogued every detail of her. Most of all, the way she seemed capable of focusing on nothing but the lecture. Not the girl in front of her, or the young man who kept sneaking glances her way. She wanted to be a doctor. End of story.

His jaw flexed as he willed the scent to disperse, and her, by some quiet exertion of his ancient will, to stop watching him.

She defied him. Unconsciously. Ever curious, independent and always the perfect student.

The walls looked like they’d just taken a breath. He pressed two fingers against the bridge of his nose and waited for his brain to return to normal. When he looked up, he gave the students a small, tight smile and let them go a minute early.

He never did that. If anything, he went a minute over or stayed until the buzzer signaled the end of the hour. Two of the brighter students exchanged a glance as they gathered their things. It didn’t matter.  He needed them out of the room and the door closed.  He needed the window open wide enough that the cold November air might move what little blood was in him through veins that had thinned over the months. Then he needed to be in his office, where there was a small refrigerator, and inside it a single glass bottle.

He’d calculated that morning, that he had eleven days. Not counting the days was not only impossible, it made him feel he was losing control. The rare steaks were helping. The lamb barely warmed and the iron in the heavy Bordeaux was helping. None of them were enough, and eleven days wasn’t long enough to finish the work.

Two months ago, the work had been weeks from completion. Now it sat in pieces across his desk, impossible to hold together by a mind starved for blood.

The students filed out and he began packing his notes, his mind already in his office, on the bottle waiting in the dark.

“Professor Vasco?”

He didn’t look up at first. He knew the voice. Elia Loredan, second row by the window, no doubt because she was always too warm.

A polite refusal was already in the works. I have another class to prepare for. Email is best. I’m afraid I’m in a rush.

Her scent moved through the air and a will he'd honed for centuries was suddenly on the brink of betraying him.

His hand was on the edge of the desk, faster than the eye could see, holding him up. He'd almost fallen on his face.

What was that? Her blood? Whatever had just happened wasn't simply about her blood or the notes it carried. It was the quality of it. The power.

She was a muse.

And she clearly didn't know it. She wore no muse insignia. She stood with her notebook against her chest, unaware of the small wake she left wherever she entered a room or walked down a hall.

Focus on the notes, said a voice inside his head.

“Yes, Ms. Loredan.”

“I’m sorry to bother you. I know how hard you’ve been working on the paper. I overheard dean Carjen mentioning it. I didn’t mean to overhear, but…”

She stopped as if she could sense his irritation. Of course she did. She felt him without knowing she was doing so. But he wanted—no needed her gone. He needed to be in his office. He needed to have been there fifteen minutes ago.

“I just wanted to ask if you were all right. If there was anything I could do.”

“I’m fine.”

It’s only, you seem so exhausted.” Her voice trembled.

It was difficult not to meet her gaze. Her vulnerability was so raw it cleaved straight through to his heart.

“I thought if you needed a research assistant, or, I don’t know. I’d be glad to help.”

Now he was forced to look at her.

That offer required an immediate refusal.

But she had this urgent, slightly nervous expression. She was offering him something more than her time. Only the deepest part of her knew she was offering him continued existence.

“It’s not necessary,” he said, his voice dry from suppressing pain. It sounded angry He drank what was necessary to get him steady and functioning..

“I appreciate the thought.” He tried to soften it. Now it sounded cold, a degree less than angry. A soft sigh escaped his lips. “My work isn’t the kind that benefits from extra hands, and I am not, contrary to appearances, in any difficulty.”

She blinked. Her face flushed from embarrassment—or was it hurt feelings?

He wished he’d softened how cold he’d been. His throat felt dry.

Then his attention moved to the slow, steady pulse along the side of her throat. His mouth watered.

“Of course,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for. Have a good evening.” His eyes fixed on his hands gripping his briefcase.

He walked toward the door at what he hoped was a normal pace. Four feet. That's all. A few easy strides beneath the fluorescent lights of the Perelman School of Medicine. Then the floor lurched sideways and his shoulder slammed into the doorframe.

Delicate fingers closed around his forearm. Small fingers that couldn’t have reached all the way around even if she had tried.

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, “I thought you might fall…”

Her fingertips pulsed. Through the wool of his jacket and the cotton of his shirt, he felt it: the warm, steady, two-beat rhythm of her. The faint hush of her carotid two feet from his ear, the slight slowness of her resting heartbeat that no doctor would ever quite understand, let alone explain to her.

His gums throbbed. He didn’t move.

“Ms. Loredan,” he said, very quietly. “Please. Get on with your business.”

She let go.

He didn’t look back, his eyes on the long corridor, the white marble blaring, the sunlight distorting the lines and edges of everything. He kept his breath frozen inside his chest until he had turned the corner.

 

Chapter 2: The Bottle

Walking through the halls was a hazy memory, a vague impression of marble floors, and the back of a colleague’s coat disappearing into a classroom. The key somehow slid into the lock with hands he could no longer feel. Every second of the turn caused his hunger to rage and burn what was left of the energy inside his body.

When the door closed behind him, he fell to his knees, the rug a foot from his face as he crawled toward the compact refrigerator under the credenza.

 Light spilled from the interior and fell onto his hand. His veins were almost invisible as he reached for what to anyone else, would look like a small bottle of Bordeaux.

He uncorked it, careful not to spill any as he sank into a sitting position, his legs trembling, his back heavy against the edge of the sofa. He drank only enough to steady himself. No more, despite veins pulsing and raging with hunger.

It was the hardest thing he’d done that day, and he had done several hard things. He set the bottle back on its shelf, the cork pressed firmly in place and closed the refrigerator door.

It took perhaps four or five minutes for his body to begin coming alive. Like a yawn, everything that had closed down was opening again.  The fog in his head cleared the way wind clears storm clouds. The spotty vision sharpened and colors brightened. Next came the ringing in his ears, it stopped and was replaced by a flawlessly clear voice of a woman on her cell phone, followed by the grating of a paper towel being ripped away. She was in the women’s bathroom. Shoes clanked against the stairwell, and he heard the abrupt clatter of pans in the staff kitchen on the floor below. Then the sounds faded again, the way he’d trained them to slip into the background, a skill that had taken him years to learn.

His hands stopped trembling. His thoughts stopped breaking apart mid-sentence. His memories returned in flashes.

He lowered his face into his hands and raised it only after a few breaths cleared away the memories.

The girl had touched his arm. He’d felt her pulse through three layers of fabric. She didn’t know why she wanted to help him. That would come in time. It would grow if they had contact again. That wouldn’t happen, but she set in motion things she’d never imagined existed. The truth was, by the time she understood, he’d be gone. Hopefully, not before he found a way to reproduce O-negative. There were so many counting on him. Friends he had known for centuries. He could change their lives. It was all he wanted. His gift to them for being closer than even family.

After getting to his feet, he smoothed his shirt then pulled his jacket straight to get the crisp look back. He opened the upper drawer of his desk and stared at the leather journal where he kept his private arithmetic.

He’d been running the numbers for three months.

When Sofi left him in August, she’d given him all the blood her body could afford and still live. The vessels were in his pantry at home, sealed against the air, and he knew to the milliliter how much time she had given him. He'd calculated with the precision of a man who had devoted five centuries to science. It had been astronomy in Egypt, architecture in Rome, general medicine in Greece, and now, hematology.

Memories flooded back. He took another breath and forced them away. He needed his mind clear. The only thing that mattered now was finishing his work. O negative was the world's most valuable blood type, and it might save his friends from a future that had already begun claiming them. They were ancient vampires, but one by one their muses were returning to Ahket— the realm between Earth and Heaven. A muse's magic was already part of her. The exchange of blood awakened it, and over centuries it expanded beyond the limits of what this world could hold.

There came a point when muses could no longer pass for human, and every one of them would eventually have to leave their vampire companion. In the old world it was easier to hide. Now, almost nothing stayed hidden.

 

 

The leather felt cool in his hand. He slipped the journal back inside the drawer and locked it slowly. His mind was lost in the emptiness between thoughts. The back of the chair took his weight as he leaned back and pushed a rush of fresh new images away. Feeling empty was liberating. He’d accepted his death even though life had unexpectedly brought someone inside his orbit that could change that. He pushed that thought away too. Muses were from another lifetime. It was different for vampires, easier to blend in. They didn’t have to hunt humans; there was deer and other big game.

Of course there were vampires who still hunted humans. They were called the Sheseru and for them, it was the natural order and something to be preserved. They viewed vampires of the Aamari clan as the enemy. Theron and his friends were Aamari, but the two rarely crossed paths. But when they did, someone usually ended up dead. The vendetta was centuries old. A long time for a human, a mere season for a vampire.

He sat with that thought for a long moment—wondering if his invention was just the excuse for the Sheseru to start a war. It wouldn’t last long even if it did. You didn’t get to live for centuries without knowing how to survive and when to quit. Besides, the fighting would take place far from human eyes, and though it was something Theron wouldn’t live to witness, it bothered him to think some of his friends might end up dead after all he had done to save them. All of them. Even the Sheseru.

He stood up and straightened his jacket again before leaving his office. It was that time of day when he poured himself a cup of coffee and looked as normal as the rest of the professors in the university.

Chapter 3: The Staff Lounge

The staff lounge was at the end of the east corridor on the third floor, a beige room that smelled like a coffee factory. The black liquid that fueled the department. Theron could sleep if he chose to, but he didn’t need it, and when he had enough blood in him, being awake and alert was as ordinary to him as walking was for a human. He stood at the counter and let the small motions of the room and the hushed conversations calm him. Someone was always arguing a philosophical or scientific point. The lounge was often an exciting place, a good way to break up the day.

“Theron.”

He turned.

Dean Margaret Carjen was crossing the room toward him with a coffee mug in her hand, her lips curved in a warm expression. She was sixty-one, slim and fit, and wore her hair in a ballerina’s bun like Audrey Hepburn. She was pleasant on the surface and as blunt as a sledgehammer underneath.

“You look fabulous,” she said. “All you need is a weekend off, eh?”

Behind the pleasant demeanor, he detected a slightly angled, unstated question. She’d heard something. Someone had said something to her.

“How are you, Meg?” he asked dryly.

“Well, not so good, to tell you the truth.” She set her mug down on the counter beside his. “Elia Loredan came to me this morning wanting me to ask you if she could assist on your Cell paper. I told her to ask you herself, that, of course, you’d be glad of the help. She came into my office ten minutes ago in tears. I’d say you did rather more than say no.”

He sighed and poured cream into his cup without thinking. He hated cream. He hated coffee too, but he could stomach it. The question turned over inside his mind.

“I just don’t need an assistant.”

Meg’s eyes widened a fraction. Her back straightened against the counter.

“How’s the paper?” she said.

“On schedule.”

“Mm.” She picked up her mug. “Judy in the department office asked me yesterday if you were being treated for something. I told her that couldn’t be, since you haven’t taken a single sick day in eleven years.”

“I have a deviated septum,” he said. “It’s been giving me trouble. I’ve seen someone.”

“And that’s why she saw you sway in the hallway?”

He went still.

“You look great now,” Meg said, mildly. "But John told me he saw you catch yourself on the doorframe this morning.”

He took a slow sip of the coffee, gazing at her over the rim of the mug.

“I appreciate the concern. Truly. But I’m managing a heavy semester and a paper at a difficult stage, and I’ve been sleeping badly, and none of those things require institutional intervention. I’ll be on the other side of this by Christmas.”

Meg nodded once. Then she set her mug down again.

“Anyway. Getting back to Elia.”

He let out something between a sigh and an eye roll. She noted it and went on.

“She wants to assist on the Cell paper. Elia’s our strongest graduate student in I don’t know how long. She’s an MD-PhD student transitioning into her research years, and she needs hematology research on her CV and a letter from a serious investigator. She came to me because she was too nervous to go to you directly. She finally got up her courage. And whatever you said… Theron, what did you say to her?”

“I wasn’t rude. I know that much.” He almost shook his head. That was definitely a half-truth.

Something caught Meg's attention. He couldn’t quite read it. A kind of recognition, perhaps. She studied him for a moment.

“I want you to take her on,” she said. “I want this for three reasons, and I’m going to list them, and then I’m going to ask you to say yes.”

"Margaret, I don't —"

“One.” She held up a finger. "Your paper is the most important thing coming out of this department this year and possibly this decade. Penn has the best hematology and molecular biology in the country right now, and a not-small part of that is you. I'm not going to stand by and watch you finish it on willpower and a deviated septum."

He almost smiled.

"Two," her hand settled on her hip instead of raising a second finger. "She’s going to leave us for Hopkins or Stanford if we don't give her something to keep her mind engaged. I'm not losing her."

"And three?"

She paused. Her face shifted, fractionally, into something gentler and less administrative.

"There is something special about that girl, Theron. She was adopted by a family from Venice, a family who, as far as I can tell from the registrar's notes, hasn't responded to a single one of her emails this semester. She's alone here. And I would like her first real piece of work to have your name on it. It would help her belong. It would give her a real start."

It wouldn’t work, but something still quieted inside him.

The Loredans weren’t responding to their daughter’s calls. He could take a guess as to why. They wouldn’t have a name for what they were witnessing. Only the growing certainty that something about their daughter was changing. Changing in a way that would eventually force them to choose between retreating from the world to hide the strangeness or letting her go and preserving the life they knew.

Across centuries, muses had fallen in love with ordinary men who prayed their children wouldn’t inherit the gift. And when the child turned out to be a muse, a decision was made. Usually one that failed the child, not because they loved them any less, but because the world surrounding muses frightened their parents. Suddenly their lives would include vampires, magic and the attention that came along with that. So, many parents pulled away hoping the magic would just go away.

He almost nodded, but he’d caught it in time.

The girl needed to belong. But she didn't need to belong to anything connected to him.

He tried to find a reason to say no. His mind was clear. The bottle had seen to that, but clarity wasn't helping him here. The arguments he had ready were thin.

"Meg, bringing a new person into the lab at this stage would slow the work, not speed it. The protocols are delicate. The training curve..."

"She's been in Yusuf's lab for a year. She knows flow cytometry. She knows your essay because she audited your seminar last spring and asked Yusuf if she could practice it. She has, in fact, already practiced it. Yusuf told me yesterday she has better hands than his second-year graduate student."

"The paper is at a stage where --"

"Where a pair of competent hands is exactly what it needs."

"I work alone, Meg. You know that."

Her voice softened. He distrusted that register of her voice. It was the one she used when she knew she had bullet-proof reasoning.

"Theron. I'm asking you. As your dean and as someone who's fond of you. Take her on. Two afternoons a week. If in a month it truly isn't a fit, we'll revisit."

He looked down at the coffee. The regret of adding the cream nagging at him. He thought about the journal in his drawer. He was going to say yes. Not just because Meg outmaneuvered him, but because he was a creature of logic and reason even when his instincts were screaming danger at the top of their lungs.

"All right," he said. It came out as if someone had a knee to his neck. "Two afternoons a week."

"Thank you, Theron."

"Tuesdays and Thursdays. Three to six. No evenings, no weekends, no fieldwork. She does not handle the live samples until I clear her on each one individually. And if her coursework slips, even a point, she's out."

"Agreed."

"And Meg." He met her eyes. He felt his own darken a shade. "If I tell you in a week that it isn't working, you won't argue with me. You'll reassign her to Yusuf and we won't discuss it again."

Meg studied him for a long beat.

Something passed across her face, he couldn't parse. Amusement, perhaps, at her own conviction.

Then she gathered herself and gave him a single nod.

"Agreed," she said softly.

She reached out and took his hand, squeezing it briefly, like there was a secret inside the gesture.

Theron felt the warmth of her skin. For the briefest moment, something familiar brushed against his senses. Faint, diluted, but unmistakable.

He frowned. Strange. He’d known Meg for decades and they’d never shook hands.

Her expression brightened before she released his hand.

Then she picked up her mug and crossed the room.

He watched her go, the sensation lingering on his fingertips.

 

Around him, the chatter of ordinary conversations continued, including one where the speaker's hands moved animatedly, as though he were utterly convinced of whatever he was saying.

Theron stared into his coffee. The cream turned it the color of Elia Loredan's skin.

He wanted neither. Not the coffee. Not the student being pushed into becoming his research assistant.

Two afternoons a week.

 

Chapter 3

The Lab

 

Elia was hiking. She needed to be calm before she reached the university. Her gaze lifted. The fog above the stream was rising onto the trail and curling around trees and rocks like fingers. They were heading straight for her, breaking her calm. Thoughts of her first lab with the Professor returned.

A chilled breath spread through the warmth inside her chest and a daydream found its way into her thoughts.

She would sit beside the professor at the bench while he could easily hand her the early drafts of his manuscript. She already knew his published works, and she’d modestly let him know.  A glint of approval would reach his eyes. Then she’d do it. She’d tell him that she’d read his papers before she ever even came to American. He’d hide that he was flattered behind a reserved really? But it would be his smile that said it all.

That last part, his smiling, made her body feel warm even in the November chill. He might not smile but thanking her wasn’t going too far.

She let go of the daydream and admired the bare trees; their branches intertwined like latticework. Puffs of cold air escaped her lips as she quickened her pace. It was difficult to get her heartbeat up, but she wanted to be breathless. Breathless enough to cool the fire growing inside her.

The backpack thumped against her hip. She had fifteen minutes before the train. Her parents hadn’t written back to any of her emails. She’d sent three in the past week. Somehow that compounded the regret of not getting to say goodbye to Mrs. Calloway before she left this morning. Her landlady hit her horn, a quick two beats. Her way of saying goodbye when they missed each other. Elia had planned on them sharing a cup of coffee before bidding each other goodbye. Today was what Eia had been working toward since she was accepted to Penn for the MD-PhD program. It felt important like, a milestone deserving of at the very least, a shared latte and blueberry muffin.  

A cold wind blew out of nowhere, and her nose felt instantly red.

Sniffing and wiping the wetness from her nose, her parents came to mind again. She grinned. When they found out Professor Vasco had taken her on as his research assistant, they’d be over the moon, talking over each other and asking her too many questions to answer all at once. Her mother would have a lot of advice, while her father would tell her how proud he was and that he’d seen this kind of thing in her future all along.

They were going to call. And when they did, it would melt away the feelings of not being important enough for them to spare five minutes.

They had each other and one day Elia would find someone to love her the way her father loved her mother. She was certain of that.

She let out a gasp. Something between a sigh and an embarrassed chuckle. The memory of this morning’s shower came out of nowhere. Thinking about the professor while she was naked had been awkward even though no one would ever find out about it. Still, she tried to force herself to stop thinking about him as the steam made her skin radiant and silky. She imagined him smiling. A smile she’d never seen, his dark eyes squeezing and crinkles forming at the edges. She felt ridiculous, like she was fifteen again.

She walked even faster, making it impossible for her to think about the humiliating shower. When she left the trails, she felt someone eyeing her from behind. The only thing there was the coffee shop and the wide single step that led to the glass doors. This was the second time that had happened. And whoever it was, their gaze felt like beetles with sharp, tiny claws. She didn't need to turn around to check if it was her imagination. She always knew when she was being watched, but whoever this person was, they had a dark soul.

Once she reached the platform, the temptation to see who’d been following her grew uncomfortable. She resisted the impulse and stared out at the sky and tops of roofs and treetops beneath it. A minute later, the sound of the train’s metal wheels grating against the rails could be heard.

Everyone slowly moved toward the edge of the platform. Whoever had been staring was closer. The sensation of beetles grew heavier. Her shoulders quivered at the feel of it.

The ride to University City wasn't long. Whoever was watching her was staring now. When her stop arrived, half the coach stood up, waiting for the doors to slide apart. The person watched her all the way to the crowded street. She wouldn't know who'd been watching her now if she turned around and part of her wished she had.

Elia cut through a crowd of girls talking, forcing them to close the gap and give her a moment to lose the person following. Seconds later she was racing up the stairs, passing professors and other students, scarves catching in the icy wind and hands pulling lapels close to ward off the cold.

Her thoughts narrowed once she greeted the guard at the entrance of the building. Papers, lab and research flitted through her head. Her class came and went. She took notes, listened to the professor and jotted down several questions she’d ask when most of her classmates were gone.

Elia stopped by the library before her second and last class of the day. Lunch passed unnoticed as she finished leftovers from last night’s dinner along with a steaming hot cup of raspberry tea.

She'd meant to arrive at Professor Vasco's lab two minutes ahead of time, but Professor Elliot cornered her in the hall, a sheaf of papers in his hand.

"Elia. I was hoping to catch you."

She slowed and forced herself not to glance down at her watch.

"I'm submitting to JCI on Friday and the methods are a mess. I know you're starting in Vasco's lab today, I won't keep you. But if you have an hour this weekend, even half an hour, I would owe you. You caught three things in Patel's draft last semester that two of my postdocs missed."

She said yes. She would have said yes even if she hadn’t been in a hurry. Elliot was the kind of professor who remembered favors, and because she had read every paper he'd published in the last five years, she knew she could help him. He thanked her so much that by the time she pulled away she was three minutes late instead of two minutes early. She rushed down the empty hall, her long, heavy braid brushing the backs of her arms like a pendulum.

Her hand lifted. The lab door was right there. Her body stopped like she’d slammed on the breaks. She swallowed, took a few breaths and then reached for the silver doorknob. Her eyes closing as she twisted it.  

Of course, the professor was already there. Elia opened her mouth, ready to apologize. He glanced down at his watch and returned to his reading.

She scanned his desk. Nothing on it for her to review. Beside him, the empty space she imagined was taken up by papers and an empty bottle of water.

Her eyes searched the room. A stack of papers was waiting for her on a desk at the far end of the room. As far from his own bench as the lab allowed.

Elia glanced at him, waiting once more for an acknowledgment that never came.

Her heart sank as she walked toward the desk, her boots sounding against the tiles, every clack louder than the last. Sliding the backpack from her shoulder, she looked up at him one final time before sitting down.

The cool surface of the desk steadied her as she laid her palms against it. The foolish daydreams she'd carried all morning, sitting beside him, discussing manuscripts, earning a rare smile quietly dissolved.

He didn't even know she existed. The inhale tugged at something bruised inside her. She shook her head, subtly, with resignation and opened the folder carefully.

The lab was silent except for the wind howling down Civic Boulevard. The windows shuddered every now and then. She acclimated to the sound, the space inside the atmosphere was familiar. Loneliness and Elia were well acquainted, but there was a heaviness in the room that had nothing to do with her hurt feelings.

She took a few deep breaths and the last of her disappointment left on the exhale. There were hundreds of pages on the desk in front of her, all of them belonging to the brilliant professor Vasco. Elia began with the earliest entries noticing his writing. It was careful and slightly old-fashioned. She read through the first protocols of the past three months, taking notes of her own on a small pad. His comments in the margins were fascinating. She knew Professor Vasco was gifted, now she realized his was the kind of mind that came once in a lifetime. He was known all over the world and she’d researched him in undergrad. His family was from Morocco. His father had died when he was a child. He had no brothers or sisters.

She read on. His manuscripts grew bolder, the conclusions surprising, the experiments more ambitious. Time slipped by as Elia lost herself inside the world of the professor’s mind. She could’ve remained there all day. Forever even.

Elia was lost in tunnel vision. The lab faded away. The wind did too. Her eyes felt strained from staring at the page for so long. She rubbed them, glancing around, careful to avoid catching the professor's eye in case he took breaks too.

When she finished a page, she slipped it to the bottom of the stack. Her eyes lifted as she placed the page beneath the others. Without permission, sometimes her gaze moved to him. More than once she noticed him go motionless, as though he had known her eyes were about to find him. He never fully looked up.

But the stillness of him held something more. Something heavy, hidden. There was a secrecy about him, something he hid as though if it were known it could change more than his research career.

She was oblivious that she was staring. He raised a hand to his forehead to rub it slowly, her focus narrowing. It fell to the bench as though it had weight to it.

He was tired. That was it. No, not tired. He was exhausted.

Something stirred softly inside Elia He was working too hard. He had a paper at Cell and a deadline he couldn’t afford to miss, not after already missing the last one. It had to be hard being perfect, brilliant and so—darkly attractive. She imagined the need to outdo himself was enormous.

Elia returned to the notes, reading on. An hour passed. Then another. The light through the tall windows shifted from the white wintry afternoon sky to the twilight of a winter night. Darkness would claim the horizon in a matter of minutes, and she was nearing the end of her time in the lab. Then she found it.

She’d been studying a column of pH values in a series of binding-affinity trials from October. Her eyes skimmed the column once. Her fingers nimbly returned to the protocol on a previous page to double-check the specified value. She turned forward to the entries that followed and ran her eyes down the pH columns of the next three trials. She read each one twice.

The pencil hovered above the page, her fingers beginning to tremble, her lip hurt from biting into it. Her mind scrambled with how to tell him she'd found an error. It was the reason the manuscript hadn't been submitted in September. Worse, it never would have been submitted until someone caught it.

How could he have missed it? It wasn’t complicated at all. But that’s what made telling him uncomfortable.  She didn’t want to embarrass him. Not on her first day. The same day she'd managed to arrive late.

"Professor."

He didn’t lift his eyes.

"Professor, I think this pH was recorded incorrectly. The protocol specifies eight point three, but the working notes here show seven point three."

His fingers rubbed his eyes.

"If the protocol value is the correct one, the binding affinity would shift, and the results from the next three trials would track differently."

He went still, his dark eyes landing on hers, the shadows in the room slanting across the upper part of his body. His hair and his eyes looked unnaturally black.

He stood, a finger rising to his temple, before he sat back down slowly. She sensed, not saw him shudder.

He couldn’t stand.

"Bring it over, will you?"

His voice was clipped. His brow furrowed slightly, as though he were irritated.

Compassion hit her so suddenly, it hurt. She sipped her canister of water, screwing the top back like she was relaxed instead of alarmed.

With the page and several others, she set them carefully on the corner of his bench, then she took a step back. His face turned to her — almost.

He read it. He turned to the page with the protocol. He read that too. He studied the column of pH values for the trials that followed and ran his finger down them, slowly.

He was silent for a long moment.

"My God…” He mumbled softly. "That should be eight point three." His voice revealed quiet shock. Relief too. He didn't look up immediately, his eyes were still on the page, a vein along his temple pounding too fast.

Elia stared. She knew blood. She knew hearts. No heart moved that fast. Ever.

He took a breath and the pulse stopped. Completely. Impossible.

Elia wrapped her arms around herself. The silence, the coldness of his expression. Her body had begun to tremble. Her arms held it still.

She heard him inhale.

"I could've turned this in…"

His response caused the air tangle inside her throat.

"Thank you, Ms. Loredan."

Her lips parted. The words landed softly inside her chest like a petal reaching the ground, finally.

"Professor."

He handed the pages back to her without looking up, and she returned to her desk.

His eyes followed her the whole way. She felt it, and it was nothing like the crawling sensation of the watcher. The professor's gaze felt careful. Curious.

Something of him settled inside her chest. Each step should have carried her farther away from it. Instead, the sensation remained, warm and impossible, just beneath her ribs.

This wasn't normal. Not by a long shot.

 

She sat down gingerly, pretending the papers on the desk needed arranging. Her attention moved to him for only a second. Just in time to catch his hand resting above his heart before he moved it.

Was he feeling it too?

No, the professor wouldn't feel something like that. He was the epitome of science and reason. Nothing mattered to him but his work. Of all the articles she had ever read about him, none had mentioned a woman. There had been two photographs taken of him leaving conferences, in both of which a dark-haired woman had been visible in the back seat of a car a driver was holding open for him. But photographs were old, and the woman had not been named in either caption. Still. The images spanned a decade. Something she hadn't thought about in undergrad now occurred to her. Neither he nor the woman had aged. Except for the strands of gray in his hair, he hadn’t changed, loose wavy locks that curled at the tips. He was tall, wide-shouldered, but perhaps a bit less athletic than before. No, he looked just the same, only more mature and internationally known.

Elia read the last few pages of the stack without absorbing very much of them. At six o'clock she gathered her things. The dark sky winked with a blanket of stars still foreign to the sky outside the window of her childhood bedroom. She stood and began packing up. The notepad, a pencil and two pens placed into their specific compartment of her backpack like it mattered.

"Goodnight, Professor."

He met her gaze, his face unreadable, his eyes seeming to see through her.
"Goodnight, Ms. Loredan."

A brisk wind swept up the steps of the university just as she stepped into night. But what she felt most of all was the faint sensation inside her chest. His gaze left something behind. It didn't make any sense, but neither did the dragonflies and phoenixes that seemed to follow her wherever she traveled with her parents.

Elia swiped her train pass through the kiosk and stepped onto the platform.

Only a handful of people were waiting, kitchen staff uniforms peeking beneath warm coats. Elia leaned past the platform, no light from the train, only tracks that stretched into the darkness.

And then it returned.

The stare. Her stomach twisted hard. Did they know her schedule?

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                         

Chapter 4:

The Gathering

Over the years, many vampires had settled around Gladwyn, but gatherings with his oldest friends still felt like old times. Only now without the view of pyramids, or the sound of Roman guards arresting political rebels in the street outside, or the soft attendance of blood muses moving through the rooms. Tonight, it was Theron doing the honors of preparing the feast.

Rejuvenated by the emptied glass of blood, he’d sauteed the filet mignon, still deeply red at its center, and prepared wilted dark leafed greens with garlic and set out bowls of black grapes and cherries. A meal for friends who hailed from the Mediterranean wouldn’t be complete without bread, and four loaves fresh from Caruso's Bakery sat in a braided wicker basket, a cruet stand of olive oil and vinegar at its side. And for the occasion, Theron brought up a case of Bordeaux from the wine cellar, older than America itself.

Ten friends were coming. The group would celebrate the progress Theron had made on what they’d affectionately called “the new blood.” Of the ten, the friendship he had held the shortest had been three hundred years. The longest belonged to Malek, whom he had known for over two thousand years. The others he’d met through wars or in long ship's holds bound for new worlds, in centuries when wars and crossings were the places vampires found each other.

Several of his friends were women. Malek and two others kept muses. Everyone else, apart from Theron, hunted deer and tonight would be the first dinner party Theron had thrown since Sofi returned to Ahket.

The two of them had never been lovers. But of the four muses he’d had throughout his life, Sofi had been with him the longest. Yet even at over eight hundred years of age, she hadn’t wanted to leave him. But her powers had grown through the years, powers that made remaining on Earth impossible. Muses were social beings, but to remain would’ve resulted in a life spent inside the walls of his house, hidden, careful, her veins slowly threading gold into her skin. She would’ve wilted. She would’ve died. It was he and not her that made the decision for her to return.

 

Voices and laughter drifting in from outside set Theron into action. He wiped his hands on the apron, balled it into his fist, and opened the door. His heart swelled as wide as his smile.

Of course, the first person he saw was Malek, a dark bottle of wine in his hand, and behind him Antonio holding a single white rose aloft, the kind of humorous gift only he would think to bring. A few friends were still climbing out of their cars while others had simply wandered over from nearby homes.

They were all on time and not one of them had their muse with them. Their absence was as awkward as what they had hoped to avoid by bringing them.

Smiles and hugs ensued. They slapped backs and chuckled softly in the cold night air. Theron's arms soon filled with gifts. It was a vampire custom. You never entered another's home empty-handed, though in older centuries what you sometimes entered with was a sword or a sharpened blade.

"Ah, so no Nefera. No Corelia or Josef?" Theron had been blunt all his life. He heard the groans his comment produced. "You could've brought them. We all live practically next door to one another."

"No," Sintali said. She was the only woman in the room whose muse hadn’t returned to Ahket. “We wanted an evening where you didn’t have to play host to everyone.” She turned in a slow circle. Theron had changed the furniture and curtains since their last gathering. The old art, the painting and statues, he’d kept. "I like it."

"You said you wanted a change.” Malek was studying the modern furniture, the beige leather sofa, the matching loveseats. "So, this is what a human home looks like? Is this a real Persian rug?" he studied it with careful eyes. "The pattern is different. The artisans wove them differently when we were young."

"Sure, it is." Theron poured from the bottle Malek had brought. The full-bodied flavor of it drew a response from the room. An unconscious lift of the nose. Several of them blinking a little more slowly.

"Nay," said Edmond, agreeing with Malek. "Nothing like the rugs of old."

He was rich enough not to have to spend time among humans. It was just him, his muse, and the rest of the Aamari, gathered here in Theron's home. His English had barely changed since he had learned it two centuries ago.

Theron studied him with quiet affection. He'd pulled Edmond out of the Sheseru in a century neither of them spoke of now. The night had been bloody. Edmond had stepped between his son and Theron to end the challenge. The sword that found Edmond's side had been Magnus's own. The young vampire fled. Theron stayed, he stopped the bleeding and helped a limping Edmond to his home. The two had been friends ever since.

Sheseru hunted humans, but now Edmond had had a muse for over a hundred years.

Malek stood and crossed the room for a napkin. Halfway there, his steps slowed. He stopped beside Theron and inhaled once.

His head turned.

"This muse," Edmond said, referring to the scent Malek had just detected. "From where does she hail? The combination is rare. Rarer than I have known in a long time."

The room felt as still as a photograph.

Antonio rose from the sofa. "Forgive me. I have neglected the rose."

He crossed to the kitchen and found the most exquisite vase in the cabinet. After filling it with water, he carried both the vase and the rose back to the coffee table.

Malek and several vampires chuckled, Sintali rolled her eyes, and Edmond simply shook his head as if Antonio had lost his.

"Thank you, my friend," Theron said, his lips curving slightly as he admired the rose in the much-to-large vase.

"I spared no expense.”

Theron’s smile spread, then he took a slow breath. His brows lifted briefly. He had two glasses in his hands, and he passed one to Edmond and a vampire sitting next to him. "She was adopted. She doesn’t know."

"Know what?" One of the friends pushed, his eyes dancing with more questions than the one asked.

"That she is a muse. That muses exist at all."

“Truly,” Edmond said, twirling his wine.

"But she will be yours?" Another vampire asked.

Theron opened a new bottle. The cork came free with a small sound that disturbed the quiet.

"I will not be taking a new muse. We’ve all had this conversation.” His voice was dry. “I remember we all agreeing just last summer that the world was too small for them now."

"I am amazed," Antonio smiled, crossing leg with a bounce, “that you have finally decided to hunt with us."

Theron turned, the bowl of the glass resting in his palm and the light catching on the outward curve. "I don't think I said that," his voice was soft.

The eyes of his friends told him he didn’t need to say more.

No one spoke for a long time. There were two vampires waiting for a glass as the sound of the wine pouring stood out.

"Sofi left you blood, obviously." A female vampire asked, her voice already broken.

"Yes. Of course she did."

Theron adjusted the basket placement of bread on the counter before tending to the bowls of fruit beside it.

"But even if you have discovered how to make the new blood," Malek said, "it will take time to..."

He didn’t finish.

Theron took a breath, his voice sounding as calm as the old Theron. The one who used to love life.

"Production would take a little over a year. After it is approved, I’ll have someone slip the real formula in. I was thinking I would add a footnote that it helps with improved circulation, which it does, in a way, and then..."

Several vampires stared into the distance as the implication settled over the room.

"You're dying." Malek said, the words coming out hesitantly. His glass was suspended in the air between them, his eyes shining with grief. 

The silence pressed in on the room.

"How many?" Malek pushed. "How many days?"

Theron took one of the loveseats and lifted his feet onto the ottoman. His eyes gazed toward the ceiling as though he had to calculate a number he didn’t think about every day, all day. "Nine or ten."

It got quiet again.

"I was thinking of ending the game too," Antonio said, his eyes twinkling. "Maybe we could go together. Some kind of blast."

He paused, working out what a blast might actually entail.

"Oskot," Edmond muttered, irritation in his voice.

Antonio tilted his head. "From Spain, remember?"

Edmond inclined his head, "then callarse la boca."

Antonio grinned. "I am serious. Since my muse left me for Ahket, I've been depressed. Blood from deer..." His nose wrinkled.

Everyone turned to Theron. The two questions in the room didn’t need to be asked.

"I told Sofi to go," Theron said. "She didn’t leave me. And no. I am not depressed."

He could see that they believed the first part, but the second was still in the air.

Antonio started in on possible methods for going out in a blast, each scenario funnier than the last. The mood changed. Dinner was served.

 

"You cannot leave us, Theron." Edmond said, his head shaking slowly. "I refuse to wait an eternity to taste the combination of spices known only to you. I insist you change your mind. Perhaps a taste of this muse would be worth it? Just one taste."

"Speaking of one taste," Malek said, before Theron had the chance to answer, "I understand why Sofi left. But this muse’s magic would take centuries to become visible. By then who knows what will be acceptable, or what inventions may cover gold skin.”

“It’s not just what happens to their skin.” Theron stared at the bread in his hands before he tore it in half.  "She has no idea what it would mean to be a muse. That’s just the first thing. The second is that she’s a pre-med student. Whoever the muses are who would still practice the old ways would be juggling jobs and professions. Most couldn’t afford the life of leisure that comes with parting with that much blood every other week. How would I even begin to ask Elia—"

Hearing Elia’s name struck a chord.

Antonio smiled and leaned his elbows on his thighs.

“…Take off work, dear. Every other Thursday." He washed the bread down with a swallow of wine.

"We all hold the ritual on Saturday so the muses have the weekend—" Sintali began.

"That's not the point," Theron snapped, cutting her off.

She angled her head softly. "Maybe she would want to. It is what they were made for."

"Not exactly. It's what the priests ended up with." Theron set his glass down. "And we all know how that turned out. In the beginning at least."

Soft murmurs of acknowledgment drifted around the room. They knew the horrors.

"Until we realized what they’d really created," Malek said. He’d been there and saw what being locked in a tomb with pharaohs who never rose from the dead had done to those first Hemanians.

"But," Sintali said, lifting her wine as if in a toast, "they benefited from us as much as we have from them. The magic.  Ahket…Imagine that.”

No one spoke.

“It’s held for two thousand years."

"Indeed, it has," Edmond agreed thoughtfully.  

"Until a photograph of someone could span the world in less than an hour,” Theron put in. “The world is too small for the bargain to hold. Which is what we have all been saying for two decades or more. You’re changing your stance tonight… Because of me.”

"Which is why Theron is doing the work he is doing," Antonio put in. “So we never have to hunt humans if the deer somehow die off.”

Edmond’s brows furrowed. “I thought you wanted to go out in a blast?” His voice was dry.

“When they go to Ahket, I hear they barely miss us.” Sintali had a faraway look in her eyes.

“Surely Josef will invite you?” Edmond asked, somewhat alarmed.

She twirled her wine. “Of course he will… I just hear things”

Antonio sat back, his head resting against the soft leather as his eyes stared at the ceiling. “I do as well… Ahket is like paradise, except you get to eat and have sex.”

A few chuckles filled the room with the ease of people who’d lived long enough not to take life too seriously. Death either, for that matter.

The night settled into the work itself. Theron answered the questions they had been waiting all evening to ask.

"The girl found a mistake in my notes. It changed everything."

"You will live to turn in the paper that will change everything?" Antonio asked.

"It needs a bit more work. The calculations have to be corrected. But yes. I will end up going out in a blast, as you say. I just won’t be around to experience it."

"Tell me about the blood muse." Sintali had her own and wasn’t asking out of personal interest.

"I don't know a lot about her. I know she doesn’t know what she is, and that her parents have stopped communicating with her." Theron drank his glass dry, the iron in the Bordeaux moving through his cells, reviving something old. A muscle memory of nights when he'd tasted Sofi, and she'd urged him to drink more because she was in the mood for the heavy relaxation that came from giving too much.

"We have all had muses whose families resisted the process," Sintali said. "If she’s like some of the others, her magic was surfacing and it scared them. The parents are religious, you say?"

"Missionaries. Latin teachers for seminarians. No doubt the rigid and superstitious type."

"Oh Dios," Antonio grimaced. "Just like the pharaohs."

Theron and Malek exchanged small smiles and didn’t bother to correct Antonio. He hadn’t been in Egypt back then. Magic hadn’t been the issue. It had been the prize. But Theron knew what his friend meant. Religion and magic rarely mixed well.

"Do you think she’d like to meet Corelia?" one of the vampires said.

"I don’t know what she would like. I don’t know if she’s ready to learn she’s not fully human. And it is not as if I have time to fish."

The silence came again. Heavier this time.

"So," Antonio sighed. "How do we come about this new blood when it goes public?"

"I told you all about Michial, the young vampire at Edison Pharmaceuticals. He knows the protocol. Reach out to Malek, and then down the chain of command. In case..."

"In case we go to war with the Sheseru," Theron and Edmond shared a look. Memories of the past slipping in for just a moment.

The conversation went back and forth.

"Feeding from humans makes the Sheseru stronger."

“Correction. Feeding from humans makes the Sheseru ruthless.”

“Animals in fine threads.”

Theron stood up and brought a few bottles over as the debate went back and forth.

"I don't want any of you to die. But it is likely someone will."

The vampires exchanged glances, the thought of which of them it might be, obvious. They had all been warriors at one time or another, Theron hoped none of his friends would die.

"When the Sheseru win a fight, they come back with head in hand.” Edmond said, staring at the wine inside his glass. “Always. And one does not return from that."

“Ruthless.”

 

 

"Let's do this again," Antonio said. He was already on the front steps, his long black coat blowing in the frigid night wind. The others were waiting for him in the driveway, all eyes on Theron at the door. "Before. You know."

"Next week," Theron nodded.

Every head turned toward the bushes at the edge of the property, then back at Theron.

"They know you are close," Edmond said not bothering to whisper. The Sheseru in the bushes had heard everything they had said inside the house. None of which would give him any leverage.

Malek turned again, his eyes narrowing as he studied the bushes, then he caught Theron’s eye.

"I will be your watcher."

His voice had gone gruff in the way it always did when he was suddenly itching for a confrontation. Theron felt the old recognition of it move through him. Malek had fought in more wars than all of them. He had survived things the rest of them had only heard about. If anyone of his friends were going to survive what was coming, it was Malek.

Theron gave him a small nod.

He stood at the door as engines revved and headlights lit up the night. Others simply waved and left the driveway on foot. He could hear them saying goodbye to Edmond and another vampire as their cars headed up the road.

A tremor went through his left hand. The night had drained him.

He stood for a moment in the front hall, listening to the silence he’d never get used to now that Sofi was gone.

Then his senses widened. The Sheseru was still outside in the bushes. Soon there’d be more than one out there. But he was already dying and there was no stopping the production of O negative now.

Theron straightened up a little. A cleaner was coming tomorrow; she’d do the rest. He walked around, turning off all the lights. His mind whispered that this was how it would be when it all ended. There was something peaceful about it. But something lonely, too.

 

Chapter 5:

The Watcher.

 

Elia's heart had a lovely, fragile sound to it She was strong, but there was something delicate about her magic. There was an innocence to it that was different from the magic that ran deep inside the muses he’d been with. His mind paused as he caught himself comparing her to the others. He was resolved to his death. And even if he had not been, Elia was too ambitious to be a blood muse. That’s what had made Meg push him to take her on as his assistant. Give her something to do, or she would leave. Which meant she had probably already put out feelers and gotten a positive response. Elia needed to move, push and stretch her wings, not spend days being tended to after feeding him.

He couldn’t imagine her going along with the ritual, either. The ritual wasn’t subservient, not for a muse raised among other muses. But for someone who wasn’t familiar with the tradition, there were parts of it...

The way a muse sat in the Mer-Khat, her hands on the armrest, her fingers gripping its edge. The tilt of her head. Being carried to her room afterward and cared for. A muse would not want to clothe herself. She would not want to prepare her own food. A muse would know she deserved to feel like a queen and be treated like the rare creature she was.

Theron blinked a few times, only now catching where his mind slipped to. His skin grew cold when he looked up at Elia. Her head was slanted in the same way Sofi used to tilt hers before a feeding. It was as though she’d seen the images in his mind. Of course she hadn't.

But in that moment...

Time was closing in. Theron thought about how he wanted to be when he died. In a bed. A glass of red wine on the nightstand. The ring he had been given when he was made on his left hand. One hand on his heart, the other resting on his stomach. He would dress in the white silks he had worn during the ceremony of his new birth as a vampire, the same robes his brother and father had worn.

Malek would find him. He would call the others. They would see the body and wrap it in linen then carry it to the sea.

"I've gathered all the correct numbers and values."

Elia was standing to his left. The window was open, and the cold air moved through the room like a shadow. The scent of her made his lungs ache.

"Thank you," Theron said, taking the papers, a quiver skirting down his pinky finger.

"You're out of water. Would you like me to get another bottle?"

Theron gave her a mild smile. "Yes. That's thoughtful of you."

Elia didn’t move right away. His dark eyes held hers, her gaze faltering before she turned and left.

 

She returned so quickly that Theron knew she had run up the corridor to the staff lounge, where there were usually a dozen or more bottles by the coffee machine. What she brought back was cold. She had taken someone's unopened water from the refrigerator. When the cold bottle met his hand, he looked into her face.

She grinned, as though her deed required a pack of secrecy before returning to her seat.

"If I get into trouble for this, I won’t hesitate to blame you," Theron heard himself say, and regretted it almost at once. What was he doing? Why was he being friendly as though it mattered?

"I don't mind. I've been blamed for worse." She had smiled back, but there was something more in her eyes.

He thought of her magic. A small twinge of something pricked inside him.

"With the corrected calculations, the paper is nearly ready," she said. "Would you mind if I prepared the submission package? I could have everything ready for Cell by Friday."

Theron’s eyes stared at the window. The surface reflected the two of them like a mirror. His mind worked through it. Judy was busy with two other papers, and he had been planning to ask her to handle the formatting and the submission portal. He was going to bring up Judy, but Elia volunteered first. He noted, again, how intuitive she was.

"Let me get a few things in order. I'll let you know tomorrow."

"You don't have a way to reach me."

Theron's skin turned colder still, his veins thinning right before his eyes.

"I'll take your number," he said. He pulled out his phone. She recited the number. He entered it. "Calling you now, so you have mine."

He was not looking at her, but he could feel her surprise as her phone lit up inside her bag.

 

***

 

He stayed in the lab for an hour after Elia had gone.

Only one side of the room was lit. The automatic timer had switched off the overhead lights above the students' desks. His remained on. The room felt smaller now. He sat at his bench, his eyes staring out before they dropped to his hand. He’d forgotten he was holding the pen, his fingers numb.

He stood up. His knees gave in, buckling and collapsing him back into the chair. It rocked backward and the room swayed.

He hadn’t noticed the weakness setting in. This sensory loss was new. It bothered him. He had eight days. He thought had had more time before his senses deteriorated.

He thought about whether to drink from the bottle in his office refrigerator. He decided against it. He’d be home in under twenty minutes. He could manage.

He gathered his coat and his keys, forgetting his briefcase in the corner of the bench.

His gait was slow in the corridor. To the two colleagues who passed him on their way to their cars, he looked like a man enjoying the cold evening breeze. He nodded at one of them trying to remember his name. By the time he recalled it, the man was already inside his car.  The exhaust billowing in pale clouds.

Theron slid into the driver's seat and pulled the door closed. He sat for a moment with his hands in his lap.

Everything had gone heavy.

As the other cars pulled out of the lot, he thought about calling Malek. He would leave whatever he was doing and get there as fast as he could. The thought was a comfort, but he wouldn’t call him. Somehow, he’d manage. He always did. He just didn’t know how he’d do it now.

He caught a figure in the corner of his vision.

A car he had never seen in the faculty lot before. The high-end type that boasted testosterone instead of intellect. There was a man in the driver's seat, not pretending to be on a phone, not pretending to be reading anything, just staring at him.

Theron knew what he was looking at. The only thing the enemy had changed in a thousand years was the way they dressed. They were called the Sheseru.

Theron stared ahead, feeling the enemy’s eyes on him. Gathering information. Both of them sat in their separate cars, the sky darkening and the lot emptying out. The Sheseru didn’t move. The small spike of adrenaline that rose in Theron’s chest was the only thing that made his body start listening again.

It was enough.

He pressed the start button. The car came alive. He gave the verbal command.

"Home."

His black Audi eased out of its space and began to navigate the lot on its own.

The Sheseru remained parked. But that didn’t stop Theron from glancing into the rear-view mirror. He checked one last time as he turned out of the lot.

Only then did it register that he wasn’t being followed. Not tonight at least. Maybe he was marking his territory. The Sheseru didn’t act unless it made sense. Right now, their logic remained elusive.

He let his head fall back against the headrest, the autonomous drive taking over as the vehicle moved through University City and onto the expressway.

Traffic was packed up, but his mind was spinning like tires on a sheet of ice. The fact that he hadn't been able to push the start button under his own willpower sent an icy chill through him. The Sheseru parked outside where he worked was just as troubling.

Theron was helpless.

If the enemy had chosen today, news of his head in a bag would reach Rome in days. The Imati had a way of making every problem worse, no matter which side you were on.

The only advantage he had today was being in a public space, but that would've changed in a few more hours. Between the snow and nightfall, his luck would've run out.

Malek was waiting at the gate when he pulled up the drive.

Theron sighed. He had hoped to have a few minutes alone to gather himself. There would be no hiding the state of him. Malek would detect the change in his pheromones. Maybe the Sheseru had already sensed it.

Theron pressed the button to release the door and managed to swing it open. Now all he had to do was turn his body and put his feet on the driveway.

“Damn it,” he mumbled when his feet wouldn’t move.

When too much time had passed, Malek came over, angling his body to peer inside.

"Hey."

"Hey," Theron said. His voice was dry.

"What's going on, buddy?"

Theron let his head fall back against the headrest. "Not enough blood in these veins of mine." He made the situation sound light. Both of them knew it was anything but.

"Give me a second."

Malek moved fast. A blur. The door of the house opening and closing. A gust of cold air carrying him back, and in his hand a stainless steel water canister.

He pressed it into Theron's hand.

"In case anyone is looking," Malek said, referring to the blue metal canister.

Theron understood. The driveway was open to the street. A wine glass to the Sheseru would explain everything, even if his condition hadn’t dawned on them.

He drank. Slowly, letting his cells respond. He could almost feel them expand. His hands steadied, his vision sharpened. The faint sound of Malek's breathing whispered into his ear.

He closed his eyes and drank the rest of the blood.

Malek waited.

When Theron opened his eyes, the world had become itself again. "They were in the parking lot," he said.

Malek understood Theron’s shorthand. "How many?"

"One that I saw. He wasn't trying to hide."

"They wanted you to see him."

"Yeah."

Malek nodded once and took the empty canister. "Come inside."

Theron managed it. Slowly. Malek didn’t offer his arm, but he stayed within reach.

They went up the front steps together, talking like everything was fine. Malek opened the door, and Theron walked into the house. Warmth that never meant anything to him now moved through his blood, awakening it even more.

Home, peaceful and familiar. And Malek. The fiercest vampire he knew.

"I'll pour you something," Malek said. "Sit down."

Theron did as his friend suggested, letting the chair absorb his tall frame. Malek had set the empty canister on the front table.

Theron had miscalculated how much blood he needed from Sofi and how bold the Sheseru had become over the centuries.

There was a time when his name commanded respect. He had been a fierce warrior in his day. Now he was a doctor the Sheseru could watch without bothering to hide.

Malek came back with a glass of red wine and set it in his hand. He didn’t say anything. He only sat in the chair across from Theron and waited.

Outside, somewhere along the property line, the scent of another Sheseru drifted into the house.

Theron stared into the wine. The timing bothered him. For nearly half a century he and the Sheseru hadn’t even crossed paths.

Then Elia Loredan walked into his lab.

His eyes lifted toward Malek. "They know."

Malek's brow furrowed.

"Know what?"

Theron glanced back at the wine. "The paper." It was the only explanation that made sense. The girl finds the mistake. The manuscript survives. The Sheseru appear. Theron didn't believe in coincidences.

 

Chapter 6

The Unexpected Visit

They sat in the front room with the lamps low and Malek's choice of music playing through the speakers. Soft jazz. Malek had always liked jazz, which surprised Theron. He'd known his friend for two thousand years.  They'd grown up like brothers, opposite sides of the same coin. Theron was always clean-cut and fastidious. Malek's long ringlets were forever slipping free of the leather band, yet somehow they never seemed at odds with his crisp white shirts and tailored jackets. Theron smiled. People like that, let alone friends, only came around once in a lifetime.

"We'll be submitting the manuscript Friday," Theron said.

He hadn’t meant to break the quiet, but the silence had begun to fill with things he didn’t want to think about.

Malek turned to him and smiled, sadness and pride in one small turn of his lips.

"I can’t tell you how proud I am of you, Theron."

Theron sighed. He’d done it. And he’d done it before dying.

"The ones who don't have muses won't know what to do with themselves." Malek chuckled. "They'll probably keep driving out to Ridley Creek anyway. Just for the hiking."

"Probably."

Theron imagined the woods at this hour. The bare November trees. The path along the creek, dark and rich with the scent of nocturnal animals waking up with empty stomachs. He hadn’t been in nature in years. He missed it now that it was too late to miss anything. There were a lot of things, he realized, that he should have done before now. He used to love skiing. Having lived in Egypt for centuries, his first snow was like being born again. Him, Malek and Antonio. They hadn’t met Edmond yet. Not face to face, anyway.

A soft knock at the front door drew both their attention.

"Oh, God," Theron mumbled beneath his breath.

Theron knew who it was. Her scent moved through the seal of the door and both men exchanged glances.  

Malek stood up.

"Wait." Theron said.

“Of course I smell her.” He said, “I finally meet the research assistant.” He muttered to himself.

"What in the world is she doing here?"

"You’re about to find out.” Malek said, slipping beyond the vestibule.

"Follow me," Theron heard his friend’s voice and then a quieter one following it.

Elia walked into the front room, his briefcase against her chest with both hands. The scarf covering her chin softly fell onto the lapels of her short black coat. Her nose was red and the wind left strands of her hair framing her face. Something in her eyes he couldn't quite parse gave him pause.

"You left this."

"I did."

“I’d just missed you as you pulled off.” She said, her eyes taking in the art on his walls and resting on a piece "Some creep in a nice car tried to give me a ride," Elia said, moving closer to the painting. "Probably the creep who's been following me. Is this a J. M. W. Turner?" She looked over her shoulder. “It looks like an original.”

Theron was still stuck on the jerk who offered her a ride and that she’d been followed.

“Of course, you didn’t get into his car?” Malek said before Theron had a chance.

“Are you crazy?” She chuckled, studying the painting again.

Malek grinned at Theron while Elia wasn’t looking. Theron was clearly still bothered.

“I thought you might want this.” She was facing the two men, her eyes briefly dropping to the briefcase before setting it on top of one of the stools at the bar overlooking the kitchen.

"That's very thoughtful, Ms. Loredan. You didn't have to." His voice sounded tired. He glanced at the canister, still on the front table, grateful that Malek hadn’t used a wine glass.

"Malek," he said. "This is Elia Loredan, the research assistant. Elia, my oldest friend, Malek."

They exchanged greetings.

Malek's eyes took her in. The coat. The tights. The boots.

Theron saw Malek’s fingers twitch. He knew his friend was sensing the magic inside her. Not understanding it, perhaps, but recognizing something unusual.

Elia would remind Malek of the Egyptian women of old. Light brown skin with hints of gold beneath it. Thick hair spilling in hundreds of ringlets that mothers and servants once massaged with castor oil.

Malek was staring at her.

Theron coughed once.

"If you're going to submit by Friday," Elia said, rocking back and forth once on her heels. "I thought you'd want the briefcase." She caught an Egyptian artifact sitting on top of the sofa table and walked over to it.

Theron and Malek eyed each other as they watched her bend over and stare. She lifted her hand as though she wanted to touch it.

“You seem to love art.” Theron said twice before she’d heard him.

“What was that?”

“I said, you seem to love art.”

She moved through his house with ease. “I’ve seen a lot of it traveling with my parents.”  Elia said, now studying a sculpture.

She was the first muse to enter his home since Sofi. The first one in a hundred and twelve days.

She turned, brushing her hands together.

"Well. That was it, Professor. I have an Uber waiting."

"Wait." Malek's voice was different. He bent toward Theron to speak softly. "There's a Sheseru on the property line. He's got her scent."

Theron nodded, his thoughts on them knowing about the paper and now the girl who’d made its submission possible.

He breathed in slowly.

"What's wrong?" Elia’s eyes told Theron she’d read the room. That alone shocked him. What would the daughter of missionaries know about danger?

Neither of them answered her.

She walked to the window, and without pulling the curtain back, peered out around its edge. She stood there silently then turned to both men. "Who's watching you?" her eyes moved from Theron to Malek. “Is this about the paper?"

“Yes,” Theron nodded. "There are forces out there that don't want certain kinds of work to succeed."

"And by bringing the briefcase, you've put yourself on their radar," Malek added, his tone careful.

She didn’t flinch. She only turned back to the window. No arms wrapping around her body, no fingers clenched. Whatever she felt, it never reached the surface. Theron couldn’t even smell an adrenaline spike. It worried him more than it impressed him.

"I appreciate the concern," she said. "But I can take care of myself." She adjusted the scarf around her neck. "Professor. Malek."

She walked to the front door and let herself out.

Theron heard her boots on the front steps. He heard the small sound of an Uber's engine running at the end of the driveway, then a vehicle door open and close.

"Follow her," Theron said as they heard the vehicle pulling out.

Malek was already at the door.

"She lives in Chestnut Hill.”

Malek nodded. He knew how to shadow her. “Don’t worry. She’ll get home safe.”

"Yes." Theron said, but his mind was on later that night, and tomorrow and the next day. Would she be safe then?

Malek was gone before Theron had time to thank him.

He stayed in the chair, his weakness preying on him. His eyes landed on the empty wine glass as his mind contemplated the few too many bottles of blood in the refrigerator. Then her scent met his nose again.

The first muse to stand in his front room since Sofi and she’d walked out into the night, not understanding what her scent meant to him. Or the enemy.

He could still smell the Sheseru on the property line. A small mercy that he hadn’t followed Elia. Not tonight. But the enemy knew her face and from the scent of her, he knew she was an unprotected muse.

The Sheseru would report back to whoever led them now. A decision would be made.

Muses were either claimed or lived among their own. Those without protection were hunted for their blood. Elia was on her own.

He sat in the chair for a long time, wondering how he could protect her.

Eight days.

That was all he had left.

 

 

Chapter 7:

The Failed Removal

 

The sky looked like snow, though the meteorologist hadn't predicted it. Theron had been listening to radio station, NPR on the way in, and a light drizzle was all that was expected. He headed for the steps, a sigh already escaping as he eyed the long flight that led to the doubled doors. He'd slept, which wasn't unusual lately. The fog that followed afterward was.

His body felt fair. Not weak, not jittery, but nothing close to the strength and vitality he felt he was fed regularly. He’d wanted to be sharp this morning. He had needed to be sharp, but almost getting out of the car without turning it off and then the last second grab of his briefcase told another story.

Theron asked to meet with Meg. He was headed to her office now, passing through halls that hadn’t filled up with students or faculty. The only way to protect Elia was to have Meg remove her from the assistantship. Meg promised at the end of the conversation that instated Elia, that if the arrangement did not work, she would reassign her to Yusuf and they wouldn’t discuss it again.

Meg was a woman of her word, but he’d still planned what he was going to say. The order mattered. Right now, he couldn't remember it. He searched his brain, mumbling to himself before realizing his lips were moving. If anyone noticed, there’d be more rumors, this time about his mental health. He was on the brink of losing it right on the eve of such promise. What a way for a successful legacy to end. Nothing like the blast Antonio had in mind.  

Meg stared at him from behind her desk. Her fingers were steepled, her eyes narrow as they took him in. He could feel her assessing everything with that sharp mind of hers. The discomfort felt almost as excruciating as standing in front of the vampire council.

"Let me understand this. Last week she caught a vital error on her first day of checking the work, and now she's not right for the position."

Theron nodded. "Yes. She's not a good fit." It felt like a good start to things, until she said:

"Do you realize how you sound?"

Theron stared, speechless.

"Has she been inappropriate in some way?"

"No." His response was more urgent that he would've liked.

"Does she have a crush on you?" Meg shook her head and stood up to gaze out at the skyline of the city. "Strike that. Which of your students doesn't. Did she say something out of line? Are you trying to, I don't know, get out ahead of some kind of scrutiny? We can’t have a blemish on this project, Theron. It's too important."

"No. Nothing like that. She's completely professional." The moment he said it he knew he had walked in the wrong direction. He’d just defended her, argued how there was nothing wrong with the assistant he was asking her to remove.

"She's just not right," he repeated. "You said if it didn't work out, you would—"

"Theron. I'm not derailing the career of an MD-PhD student because you have a feeling. You haven't given me anything."

She turned away from the window. Her hand settled on the side of his arm for a moment.

Theron felt the small dilute warmth of her, the trace of what she didn’t know he’d picked up on. Or maybe she did know. His body flinched involuntarily at the contact. His body wanted a muse so badly that he slipped his hands into his pockets and took a step back. He leaned his shoulder against the wall as though that was his intention all along.

Her eyes dropped to the place where she had touched him, as though she had picked up the whole exchange in her own skin. Impossible. She was a minor muse. Centuries away from a pure bloodline.

She stood very still.

Rage. Hunger. An animalistic urge on the brink of taking him over. Theron thought of the blood in the refrigerator inside his office. Only five minutes away. Five minutes. It repeated like a chant inside his mind.

The expression on her face cleared, then softened.

"You're working too hard," she said. "The submission is in a few days. You will get through it. But you came in here with no argument, Theron. That isn't like you. What is happening to you?"

He didn’t answer. He didn’t even blink.

She waited a moment. The old him would have said something clever. She gave him a small smile, sat down, and pulled a file toward her. The meeting was over.

Five minutes. It became a chant inside his mind. The hall bustled now and students and colleagues passed him in the corridor. Some of them may have spoken to him. He couldn’t be sure.

A five-minute walk. Five minutes.

He’d never fed on a human without permission. He’d never fed on a human, period unless they were muses.

When he finally made it inside his office, he stood with his back against the closed door, his chest heaving. Something was wrong. He had no frame for what was happening to him. He’d never known a vampire who’d simply stopped feeding. The vampires in his circle that were no longer around—his father, his two brothers, childhood friends. They were either still living in the old world or had died in violence.

When his breathing calmed, he reached the refrigerator in two long strides. The bottle of blood felt chilled inside his hand. It was thick and the aroma of old blood was flat.  He didn’t stop drinking until the bottle was empty.

He hadn’t meant to drink the whole thing, but his throat would not stop pulling it in.

He thought about Meg. The word failure rose with no other words. The darkness inside his mind was spreading. Words were starting to feel foreign.

Fragments came instead. Her hand on his arm. The dilute warmth of her. The look in her eyes when she had seemed, for a second, to understand what he was. His own body flinching as the last of his will held on.

This feeding was nothing like the warmth of the Mered. The absence of the ritual crushed something inside his chest. The eye contact. His hand in their hair. Wiping the blood from their neck. The same dance practiced for over two thousand years. That’s how long he’d been doing this. For two thousand years. The warmth of the blood. The aliveness inside it. The bonding of the Mered.

And now he was alone in his office drinking dead blood from a bottle because he was tired of living. The thought of why almost formed inside his mind. It left too soon to be caught.

The cold blood still fed his cells, but it only barely forced his heart to pump it through his body. A Vampire body needed way more energy than a human one. And his… it was beginning to fail. But he felt dead already.

Even if he had enough blood to last for years, this was as empty as it got.

.

Chapter 8: The Pantry.

 

Theron didn’t believe in luck, but something had run out.

This was the second time his body had gone heavy. His medical mind was already running diagnostics, reviewing what he had  today. A bottle of blood and a cup of coffee. Nothing else. He’d taught a graduate seminar, answered three emails and walked to his car. The walk had been slow but it hadn’t been frightening.

Now his arm wouldn’t lift.

He was sitting behind the wheel, staring at the start button like that alone might engage the engine. The button with a red circle in its center, catching the pale light was four, maybe five inches from his hand. He’d asked his hand to move toward it twice, and his muscles refused both times. The third time his hand had risen perhaps an inch off the gearshift before it collapsed to his thighs like a cut of meat from the butchers.   

At least he’d remembered the briefcase this time. A small mercy.

It was snowing. The weatherman had predicted a dusting, and the dusting was now over an inch.  Within the hour the lot would be empty, and his car would be the only one left. Through the windshield he watched the last of the day shift walking to their cars, hunched against the snow, none of them paying him any mind. They were all in a hurry to get on the road. Why would they look? To anyone passing by, he was just a man sitting in his car, probably on the phone, writing down what to get from the grocery store in case the snow continued past rush hour. 

The clinical assessment came automatically. Proximal failure progressing distally. His core was still under his control — he could turn his head, he could shift his weight slightly in the seat. His arms had gone first. His legs would go next. He had perhaps forty-five minutes before he lost the mobility of his torso.

His phone was in his jacket pocket. A little less than a foot from his hand. That’s how far the call to Malek was. The start button on the dash would solve everything. Both the call and the drive. But the four inches to reach it might as well have been a mile.

He closed his eyes.

He had been a man of strategic intelligence for two thousand years. He’d survived two empires, three plagues, four wars he could name and a dozen that were just blurs. He’d outwitted men who wanted him dead. He had outwitted more often, himself. He’d never, in the entire span of his life, been outmaneuvered by something as menial as a button on a dashboard.

Rage burned slowly inside his chest. He couldn’t smash his hand through the windshield or even hammer it on the console. All he could do was feel it consume him like a spark simmering in dry grass.

After a while the rage changed. Something ugly and thick made its way inside his heart. Shame.

A knock on the window jolted him.

It was Elia bending toward the car, snow dusting her hair and dark wet lashes framing eyes full of concern.

"Are you okay." 

Adrenalin cleared his mind as scenarios of every way to dismiss her flashed. The words were on his lips. Something pulled them back down his throat.

She opened the door, and the cold rushed in. The snow on her coat brushed against his sleeve. Her face was inches from his.

"Professor Vasco. What’s wrong? You look ill."

His throat moved before the words came out. A dry swallow that hurt, but not as much as the words that followed.

"I can’t start the car." His voice cracked. He didn’t mention why it wouldn;t. Those words clung to his vocal cords like fingers gripping the edge of a cliff. 

"Here, let me try."

She reached across from him. He felt the warmth of her against his chest. She pressed the button. The engine came alive. “There.” She straightened. "Are you sure you’re okay? Should

 I —"

"I can’t move." He said it calmly, cringing inside as he watched her face change.

She froze for one second. Then two. He saw her register what he’d said, her mind was working, trying to figure out what should’ve been an impossibility.

"I’ll drive," she said. "Move over."

"I can’t."

Her face didn’t change. Only her eyes. Seeing that was worse than the truth he’d just shared. The moment sliced through him like something sharp, skinning away his flesh in slow motion.

The door clapped shut. He watched her hurry around the front and yank open the passenger side door. One foot braced against the frame while the other slid in the snow. Grabbing his coat lapels, she pulled with a strength he wouldn't have predicted. His weight dragged across the center console before collapsing into the passenger seat.

All he could do was allow it—allow her. He felt his body against the leather seat, the sound of her breathing hard as she grabbed his legs and straightened them like it was important that he appear dignified.

He couldn’t bear to look into her face anymore. She was twenty-three, twenty-four years old. She hadn’t signed up for any of this.

The irony twisted as horror and gratitude became one sickening emotion. 

Though he was centered in the bucket seat, she adjusted his shoulders and straightened his coat lapels. Then she finished by placing each of his hands on his thighs. The air tightened. He sensed she wanted to look at him, check on him one more time. She didn’t. Small mercies, he thought, watching her shield herself from the elements as she darted around the car.

Compared to him, her body sat small in the seat. Even now, without the usual straight spine and muscles coiled ready to move or defend. Old habits and violent histories still lived in muscles that had now failed him.

From the corner of his eye, he saw her studying the dashboard. She glanced at him suddenly, as though she’d just remembered something. He turned his face when she knelt onto the seat and reached across him for the seatbelt.

Her breath was hot against his neck, and a rose scent lifted from her hair. The edges of her ears glowed bright with blood. Then he smelled the iron inside her blood, and the strange hint of something ancient mixed inside it. A part of him tried to recall where he’d first experienced that combination, but the vein pulsing on her neck, inches from his mouth, stole his attention as desire thrummed through his body.

He closed his eyes. All he saw was red.

The seatbelt buckled. Her body heat faded, and the cold of the car filled the space where she'd been. 

After she was secured in the seat, the windshield wipers screech against the glass. The snow melted and the sound stretched in the silence, white flakes running crooked on the glass as they turned to water.

Theron’s mind followed the rhythm of the wipers. Back and forth. Back and forth. Then it quieted. Fascinated by the two arcs of emptied snow on the window. He chuckled silently. His brilliant mind had been reduced to being astonished by the simple design of rubber blades.

"Deve essere un ictus.” she whispered in her Venetian tongue. 

"It is not a stroke."

She stared at him, a flush spreading beneath her light brown skin.

"Then what is it?" English again.

"An allergic reaction." The lie came out smoothly.

"My God." 

White spotted the tips of her fingers gripping the steering wheel.  She was on the road now, tires crunching the new white snow and the clean, faint scent of whatever he’d washed his hair with, wafting past her. Her mind returned to his condition.

"I am taking you to the hospital. Penn is two miles. We can —"

"No hospital."

"Professor," the word merged with a gasp.

"No hospital. Just take me home… Please."

The please made her eyes light up in surprise. It surprised him, too. She didn’t say anything for a moment.

"All right," she said with a breath, the car idling until an SUV stopped and allowed her to merge into traffic.

Theron leaned his head back, his eyes on the ceiling as his senses registered the motion and sounds around him.

He smelled her fear. She was afraid for him, not of him. The rhythm of her heart was too slow for anxiety, about forty beats per minute. Normal for an athlete, and there was nothing about Elia that hinted she was the athletic sort. He imagined her younger self with her nose buried in a book instead.

Elia drove well in the snow, moving through traffic, noticing the other drivers but reacting when too many cars tried to pull in front of her. She was composed, her curses quiet, all in her native tongue. Other times she just looked to be thinking. He didn’t want to guess about what.

 

His contracting muscles drew his thoughts inward and how much blood he needed to get his body going again. More than he’d calculated for. It was Wednesday. He'd turn in the manuscript on Friday. That's how long he had. Until Friday. 

 

***

Being this close to her was worse than the effect Meg's touch had on him. Elia’s scent circled the car, every round pushing something primitive and dangerous to the surface. By the time she got him through the front door and to the sofa, he would need to drink immediately, and he would need her to get it for him. The bottle was dark. She wouldn’t know what she was bringing him. And then she’d need to order an Uber before he recovered.

He closed his eyes again, his thigh muscles beginning to contract.

Shame was no longer the loudest sensation inside him. Instinct and hunger had taken its place. It was like drowning, and the lungs screaming so loudly for air, the mind narrowed to that one thing. If he could move his body, the hunger could act before his mind did and that thought terrified him. He turned to look out of the window.

The only thing protecting her was his body’s betrayal.

His eyes veered from the window to his hands. Images of what they’d done in the past fluttered by. For two millennia they’d protected, killed in self-defense, and saved countless lives. Now they might as well belong to a corpse.

 

Traffic was backed up on Kelly Drive. He’d hoped that wouldn’t be the case. Time was ticking in more than one way. 

Her fingers moved toward the button to turn on the music before she stopped herself. “Would you mind?” she asked.

“Please.” He said, not intending to sound as desperate as he did.

When she asked the car to find a station that played instrument jazz, his relief doubled.

It soon helped. The hunger quieted, like a lion seduced by a lullaby. It didn’t leave him. The fangs inside his gums still raged for release. The need for blood only coiled. Waiting for a moment to strike.

She was quiet as she drove.

He angled his head so it appeared he was fixated on the road. But he was studying her. Everything. How could she not realize she was a muse?

He felt his lips soften into a small smile. She drove in the same way that she read his notes in the lab. That same earnest expression, the wanting to avoid mistakes, the iron-clad focus. The same intelligence. Her calm impressed him greatly. He wondered if he’d ever met a woman her age with that level of composure. He concluded that he hadn’t.

He thought by this time she would’ve asked him more questions. She was driving. She’d get to them later.

The traffic moved. The car finally turned off Kelly Drive and onto City Line Avenue. It was practically empty. The snow had thinned to a slow fall. The universe sometimes doled out mercy just when we  needed it.

Within minutes she was turning onto Old Gulph Road. The driveway was white with pristine snow, probably three inches by now.

"Garage or driveway?" she asked, her voice quiet, but even.

"Garage. The door opens from inside the car. The button on the visor."

She pressed it. The garage door rose and she pulled inside. The door closed behind them and the garage went dim.

They sat there for a moment.

She looked at the door that led into the house. He saw her measure the distance with her eyes. She was calculating what was about to happen.

"Theron." It was the first time she had used his name. "I can’t carry you."

"I know."

"You have to help me. Can your legs hold any weight at all?"

He tested them, pressing his heels down into the floor of the car. He felt the muscles register the instruction. Some of them responded. He couldn’t stand on his own, but with significant focus, he could stay upright.

"Some."

"All right. We’re going to do this slowly. I’m going to come around and open your door. I’m going to put your arm over my shoulders. You’re going to stand and lean on me. Then we’re going to walk. If you can move your legs at all, move them. If you can’t—I’ll drag you. Capito?

"Understood." Theron said, doubting that if she needed to drag him, she could.

"Are you embarrassed?"

He almost laughed; a breath came out instead. "Yes."

"Get over it." Elia got out of the car and walked over to his side like she really believed she could carry him if she needed to. Once the door was open, she bent down. Her hand slid beneath his arm and pushed her shoulder under his armpit. Then she counted to three in English, and she lifted.

He helped her with what he had. His legs took some of the weight as his body came out of the seat. The weight of a six-foot three frame transferred to her. She staggered for half a second and then steadied, managing him with grit, not strength. At least not the strength required to move a man who weighed over two hundred pounds. It should’ve been impossible. It had to be muse magic emerging.

He felt her fingers gripping the side of his coat. The heat radiating from her body was unusually warm, the scent of her blood stronger now.

He kept his eyes on the door ahead of them not trusting himself to look into her face.

"Step," she said.

He stepped. His leg moved, his foot landed. She took his weight again as he balanced.

"Step."

He grunted, then stepped.

They moved like that across the garage floor. She was breathing heavily now, and he was concentrating with what was left of his fractured mind.

 

They reached the door by some small miracle. She managed to open it with her free hand. The warmth of the house rushed out as she walked him through the garage door.

“Which way?”

There was hall with the option of a flight of steps or a door.

“The door.”

 

The sofa was ten feet away.

"Three more steps, Theron."

"Yes."

"Step."

"Yes."

They made it. She turned him so his back was to the sofa, he fell hard, the soft white leather taking his mass.

She bent over, her hands on her knees, her breath coming out in huffs. Her eyes were staring into his. Probably gauging his pupils as she caught her breath.

“In the pantry… Inside the refrigerator—” he said. There wasn’t time for whatever she was doing.

She stood up, ready to take care of it like his request made sense. Like she thought she was being asked to fetch medicine or something.

Her face was flushed, wavy hair escaping the thick plait down her back and sticking to the side of her face like she’d just come from jogging.

“The dark bottle. I need it now.” He sounded bad. She moved fast, like she thought so too.

 

He could hear everything. Her footsteps. Her blood. It sounded like rapids.

The suction of refrigerator door parted. Then it got quiet. He hadn’t expected that. His eyes closed when he heard the cabinet door click open, then slam with a quick thud. His eyes stayed closed as he heard the cap of the bottle against the marble counter.

It got quiet again. Her breathing stopped. Then the sound of her boots clanked against the kitchen tiles.

 

The blood inside the water glass was dark. She sat beside him, her composure still intact, but adrenaline surged through her veins and her pupils were wide. She lifted the glass to his lips.

After a few long sips, he lifted a trembling hand to the glass. He could finish the rest on his own, but before he did, she needed to leave.

He was about to tell her he would call an Uber. She spoke before him, her words stunning him into silence.

“You need more than one glass. Your brain cells are affected. That’s the first place your blood will feed.” She stood to head for the kitchen.

“No.” Theron croaked. “No…”

She stared at him, the glass in her hands now, both of them, the tips of her fingers pressing into the hard surface.

“I know what you are…”

Theron studied her like he didn’t understand what she’d said.

"I've been suspecting it for a while. You're not the first."

"Not the first, what?"

"When I was in Colombia with my parents.” Her mouth closed like that was all. Then she continued.

“That was the first time I met one. And when we were in Rome. I seem to find them wherever I go. Most don’t approach me. But they did."

"Find what exactly?"

"Vampires."

Their eyes locked in place. The room stilled as though reality had closed one door and opened another.

He'd heard her. But she wasn't finding vampires. They were finding her.

He should've been relieved that she hadn't run out of the house screaming, but the thought that vampires were drawn to her was almost as alarming. He took a deep breath.

"Let me get you more blood." She said, turning.

"I wouldn't have enough to last if I drank more."

She stopped mid-step. "Why do you keep it in a bottle? The ones I met hunt animals. Do you need to hunt?"

"I don't hunt."

A crease flashed between her brows for a moment. "Then how do you..."

"I wish I could tell you. But you're in danger. I'm not in the best of shape. I'm not myself. My discipline, my self-control is..."

"I was told that I was special. That there was magic inside me.” She took a step toward the sofa. “Both of them wanted to drink from me, but they couldn't."

"You said they hunted animals."

"They do. They did. But they wanted to drink from me." Elia’s eyes dropped to her finger tapping the side of the glass.

"What stopped them?" His eyes squinted.

She licked her lips, her eyes dropping to the floor. "They said they were drawn to me. They wanted to take my blood, but something inside me hurt them. It hurt them because I didn't want them to have my blood."

Theron wondered why, when her neck had been close to him and he'd  thought of taking her, he hadn’t felt pain. Then he remembered the night the Sheseru had been outside the house, and how Elia hadn't been afraid. Her magic would only work if a vampire wanted to draw her blood with  their teeth. The Sheseru were ruthless. They wouldn't care how they got her blood.

"Theron, you need more blood, and you need it now. I understand what you said. You'll run out. But maybe you can deal with that when the time comes. There are three bottles in there right now."

"One for each day."

Elia nodded. "And when you run out, whoever or however you got the blood, you'll get it again."

"No," Theron said quietly. "The person who gave me her blood is gone."

"How long will they be away?"

"She's gone forever. There's no getting more blood."

"I don't understand."

"What I'm trying to say, Elia, is that I have to finish everything by Friday. That's all the time I have."

There was a loveseat to the left of her. She sat down, eyes unfocused. "Are you saying..." She looked away before meeting his eyes again. "Are you saying you're dying?"

It was a simple question. Why did looking at her and answering it hurt?

"Yes."

She stared silently, her brows suddenly pinching when she turned. “How could you… There are ways.” She stood up to peer out of the window.

Theron watched her, wishing she’d stand somewhere where she couldn’t be seen.

"People don't just decide they're dying on Friday."

"You'd be surprised." He answered softly.

"Would I?”

He wanted to say something. Nothing came to mind except a feeling that made every moment harder than the next.

“Many vampires do this? Decide to die?” She turned, her eyes holding his, making lying impossible.

“I have no choice. If you understood, you’d agree.”

Elia shook her head sadly and returned to staring out at the snow.  “I doubt that… I would always choose life.”

 

 

Chapter 9:

A Deadly Warning

 

Theron heard her drag in a trembling breath. When she walked back toward the loveseat, her face was red, her eyes glassy.

His heart shriveled into a painful knot when she ran her hand across her nose as she sniffed.

"I'll... You can have my blood."

Theron's head snapped up, already shaking 'no'. "You don't know what you're saying."

"My magic will keep me safe." Her voice was thick, a sob waiting to burst through.

"What's the difference between me dying on Friday or next Friday?"

Elia ran her hands over her hair, smoothing it back. She reached for the glass, streaks of blood still clinging to the inside.

He watched her walking around the room, looking at the art she hadn’t studied before.

"Your muse… She lived here?" Elia asked, staring at a painting of a woman. She set down the glass again and walked toward the wall where it hung. 

"Yes. But that’s not a painting of her."

Elia nodded, her head barely moving. "What was her name?"

"Sofi."

"Sofi. That's a beautiful name."

The hunger Theron felt earlier was beginning to subside. Life returned to his hands. He flexed his fingers instinctively.

"How long did you know her?"

He watched her—her stillness as she studied the painting.

"Centuries."

She turned. "She was your lover?"

"No." He answered, noticing something register in her eyes.

"She was able to give you her blood and not die." It wasn't a question.

"When she fed me, she had to rest afterward. There's a ritual. She’s what we call a blood muse."

He heard her repeat the words quietly to herself.

"What do you mean, a ritual?" Elia asked, her fingers touching the intricate edges of the gilt frame. He vaguely wondered what it was that fascinated her.

"The ritual is called the Mered. She offers me her blood. When it's over, I take care of her until she's recovered. That part is called the Senebed. I bring her food. I take care of her in other ways."

"You mean sexually?" Her voice was soft. Soft enough to suggest she hadn't slept with many men, or maybe any.

"No. We weren't lovers. She was my blood muse, and I was her companion and her protector."

"Protector?"

He nodded.

"Why would she need protection?"

"There are vampires who…Once she became my blood muse, she was safe."

"But before?"

He chose his words carefully. "The way those two vampires sought you out. Vampires sought her out too."

"Because she was beautiful?"

"She was beautiful. But not for that. For her blood. O-negative blood, and something in her bloodline that turned women into muses centuries ago... It changes the scent of...” He let the sentence hang. Sofi was gone. It didn’t matter anymore.

Elia returned to the painting. "…What changed them into muses?"

He could sense her magic. It was more than defensive. She was an intuitive. He could feel moving in and out of him, touching his emotions and his thoughts the way a blind person uses their fingers to feel out a room.

"O-negative blood came into existence in Egypt. The priests were trying to replicate our immortality… They used ancient potions and magic and somehow..."

Her gaze swept his way when he went quiet. The interest inside her eyes tunneled into him, warmth and fire mixing inside him in equal measures.

"My blood is O-negative."

She didn’t need to tell him what her blood type was. He’d spent over three months trying to ignore it. Trying to ignore her.

Elia was piecing things together. "My blood would help you."

"Yes. And your taking mine would protect you."

"I don't need protection. Remember?"

He only watched her as she wandered toward a bronze ankh displayed on a pedestal.

"Tell me more about the ritual," she said, bending to read the small plaque at its base.

It was an original.

 

"It ends with the Khareb."

"What is a Khareb?"

"It isn't a thing. It's my offer to her. Of my blood. It helps the muse recover faster, among other things."

His phone went off. Malek. Perfect. His best friend would gladly take Elia home.

Then he heard the tone of Malek's voice, and everything went sideways.

His eyes found Elia’s. She was already staring at him like she could sense what was going on inside his body.

"What is it?" She asked.

He held up a finger. Malek was a few minutes away, but that wasn’t why he’d called. It didn’t take long for him to explain why.

Theron stared at the phone, his skin growing colder by the second.

"What is it?" She asked again, her voice climbing.

"Elia, your..." his eyes dropped to the phone again.

"Theron. Just tell me."

"Your landlady. She was attacked… Inside the house."

"She's dead." It came out in a whisper. And it wasn’t a question.

He nodded. If he had trusted his strength, he would have gotten up to go to her.

"I'm sorry, Elia. I'm so sorry."

A hand went to her mouth. Someone knocked on the door and her shoulders shot up.

This time, Theron struggled to his feet, his heavy legs moving slowly. His fingers flexed before he removed a blade from the drawer of the marble candelabra console. He could smell Malek, but he slid it inside his sleeve anyway.

"Thank God," Malek sighed heavily when he saw Elia across the room.

"How did it happen?" Theron asked quietly.

Malek gave Theron a look.

"I want to know. Everything..." Elia said craning her neck to see around Theron’s broad shoulders.

His eyes narrowed. She shouldn’t have been able to hear his whisper.

"Elia," Malek said with a single nod.

"How did it happen, and who? Was it the man who was in the bushes the other night?"

"Or one of his kind." Malek answered.

"His kind?"

"Sheseru. Enemies."

There was another knock. Malek opened was still in the vestibule; he turned the bolt to unlock it. Edmond and Sintali stepped inside.

Elia's eyes took them in. Sintali's short wavy hair was brushed back, the collar of her peacoat turned up around her ears. Beside her stood Edmond in cashmere and a neatly knotted scarf, every bit the polished gentleman.

They noticed Elia too. Both went still for a moment, their heads lifting slightly.

"Edmond. Sintali. This is Elia," Theron gestured toward her, studying her composure. She was holding her breath. The air trembled on the exhale when her lungs forced her to breathe. "Elia, these are friends of mine."

"We heard the news," Edmond said, his eyes drifting back to Elia.

"I'm the only one who doesn't know,” she said, her voice almost too soft to hear.

The vampires exchanged quiet glances.

"The attack has a name." Theron said. He should be the one to tell her. It was going to be a blow.

"There are rules in our world. We have all vowed to keep our ways and our existence hidden from the outside world."

Elia's eyes dropped as her arms wrapped around herself. Theron had the feeling she was sensing what he was about to say. She was already bracing for it.

“They call it the bloodletting,” he paused, hesitant about the details. “They place their victim inside a tub of water so the police or investigators can’t detect that their blood was depleted by other means. “They… They make it look like suicide.”

Elia lifted her forearm to her runny nose, the image of Mrs. Calloway forcing its way into her mind. "Why?" she asked. "Wasn't the man outside here for you?”

Sintali turned away, and Malek folded his arms over his chest, his brows pinched hard.

"Are you saying he was here for me?"

"You said it yourself earlier. Everywhere you go, you and vampires seem to always cross paths."

She touched her forehead, her head feeling light. She hadn’t had lunch.

“You need something to eat,” Sintali said getting up and walking toward Elia. “Theron, what’s in your refrigerator?”

Elia stared at the vampire. “How did you know I was hungry?”

Sintali put her arm around Elia’s shoulders without answering as they headed for the kitchen.

"Are you saying the man in the bushes was here for me?"

Sintali stopped reaching inside the refrigerator. “Theron or Malek would know,” she said, grabbing a bag of grapes and berries. She placed them on the marble counter before returning to remove a block of provolone cheese and French bread.

For the first time since offering Theron her blood, another thought surfaced.

If the vampires had killed Mrs. Calloway, then the danger had never been Theron. It had never been about the work they were doing.