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  “That sucks,” I said. “How old are you now?”

  “Fifteen.”

  I started to feel bad for how much this girl had been through at such a young age, hoping whoever found her and brought her here had killed the monster who made her.

  I lay still as she continued to work and did notice that within a few minutes the sharp pains reduced to dullness. Once I realized this, I attempted moving the fingers on my right arm. The movements still hurt, but nothing like they had before.

  “There,” Kelsey said. “You should be feeling better soon.” She stood and sucked on the tips of her fingers, all of them now bloody.

  I brought a hand to my face and brushed a finger down my cheek. I could still feel the scars that had haunted my reflection for as long as I could remember, knowing it was only one of many. Kelsey noticed my questioning look.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “My blood won’t heal your scars. Those wounds have already healed and left their marks. I can only heal ones still in the process of healing.”

  “I’d figured it was too much to ask for, so I didn’t even want to.” I said, sadly.

  “Even vampires have their limits,” Mallory said.

  “The only way to get rid of those is to become a vampire yourself,” Kelsey said. “The transformation would reset your whole body.”

  “That doesn’t seem worth the tradeoff,” I said, then saw a sinking expression on Kelsey’s face. “I didn’t mean… I’m not saying… I’m sorry.”

  “Nice,” Mallory said. “And you keep saying I’m a bitch.”

  Kelsey turned her attention away from me and back to her assigned duties as an orderly, losing the personal connection we seemed to have been forming. “The floor looks good. Would either of you like your bedsheets changed?”

  “That would be amazing,” Mallory said. “I can still smell that bitch on mine.”

  Kelsey dutifully changed the linens on Mallory’s bed while she leaned against the wall by the door, watching. When Kelsey asked to change my own sheets, I tested to see if I could sit up. I was amazed at how much better I felt, from my previously broken arm to my nearly unnoticeable headache. Once I was successfully sitting, I attempted to stand, which also came easier than I would have expected. So, I stepped aside and let Kelsey finish her work. I apologized again for offending her, but Kelsey simply shrugged and continued what she was doing.

  When she was done, she produced clean hospital scrubs for each of us and led the way to the showers. All the toiletries we needed were stocked and available. The showers were in private, individual stalls, and it felt so good to wash away all the visual reminders of the night before.

  10

  Matthew

  1949

  I awoke to commotion and chatter around me. The sky was still dark, but there was a red glow nearby. My head ached. I placed a hand to where I remembered the vampire plunging his fangs into my neck but felt no marks on my skin; my hand didn’t even come away with blood.

  I groggily sat up and took in my surroundings. Once again, I was in the backseat of the convertible where I had met the two teenagers. There was something cold and metallic in my other hand; I glanced down and saw I was holding a bloody tire iron, the one the kid had used to change the flat tire earlier that evening. But it surely hadn’t been bloody before. I let the tool fall to the carpeted floor.

  “Looks like our boy’s come to,” a gruff voice said.

  I looked up to see several police cars and an ambulance. Two paramedics were carrying a body out from the brush—it was Johnny’s body, already hidden inside a body bag.

  Two officers approached.

  “Thank God you’re here,” I said. “Did you catch him—the one who did this? He was still out there. I thought I was dead. I barely survived.”

  “Oh, we caught him all right,” the closest officer said. He was a big man, with a uniform that barely fitted, thinning hair, and a gray beard. “Caught him red-handed.”

  I let out a long breath, a protracted sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

  “Sir, I’m going to need you to step out of the vehicle, nice and slow. Hands where I can see them.”

  Then I noticed the other officer had his gun out and was pointing it at me.

  I threw my hands in the air. “No; it’s not what you think! I didn’t do this. Did you see what was done to her? I couldn’t have done this!”

  “We saw what was done to that poor girl, all right—and the boy you left out in the dirt. I always try to believe human beings aren’t capable of such savagery, and then I get reminders like this... Step out of the vehicle this instant.”

  I reached over the front seat to find the door handle, and in doing so, looked down at the girl sprawled across the front seat. She wasn’t like I’d remembered. Her neck wasn’t simply covered in bite marks, rather her entire head and neck were caved in as if bludgeoned by some powerful blunt object. And then I remembered the tire iron that had been in my hand. I now knew what Johnny’s body must have looked like when they’d found him too.

  “You don’t understand…” I cried. There was simply nothing left to do. I should’ve died on ParallEarth, Sector 7, with the rest of my crew. “I didn’t do this! I know what it looks like, but you’ve got to believe me. I was attacked as well… attacked by a monster. He’s still out there!”

  “It seems to me we have our monster right here,” the gray-bearded officer said.

  “I’m not a monster,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m not a monster. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time… in the wrong time.”

  “You have two seconds to get out of that car before I put a bullet in you for resisting arrest. Don’t you doubt me, boy.”

  I pushed the door open, shoved the driver’s seatback forward, and clumsily spilled out.

  “Keep your hands where I can see them!” the officer demanded, his gun aimed at me.

  I raised my hands to the sky. The officer doing most of the talking cautiously approached me with a pair of handcuffs. I followed his instructions, lowered my hands, put them behind my back, and was quickly secured.

  “So, what did your monster look like?” The gray-bearded officer’s mouth was almost right at my ear, and his breath smelled strongly of tobacco. “Describe him for us?”

  “He was a few inches taller and broader than me, short dark hair, a pale complexion. He was dressed in all black. No visible scars, tattoos or noticeable marks that I could see. He said his name was Frederick something or other.” I wracked my brain to try and remember my attacker’s last name, but I couldn’t. “And those eyes—like blue ice. They practically glowed.”

  “Is that all?”

  “He looked about mid-20s. No facial hair.” I paused, then continued. “And his teeth were sharp, not like the teeth of an ordinary man.”

  “Sarg,” the officer pointing the gun said. “Sounds like our boy here is describing a vampire.”

  “Was he afraid of garlic and crucifixes too?” The officer who had cuffed me asked while he turned around and took another peek at the dead girl. He leaned in and retrieved something from inside the car. When he turned back to his partner and me, he held a golden chain of a necklace with a bluish-purple gem. The chain was discolored from the girl’s blood.

  “I know I sound crazy,” I said. “But you—”

  “I don’t want to hear any more nonsense about monsters, vampires, and bogeymen,” the officer said, placing the girl’s necklace in a handkerchief, and stuffing it in his front pocket. Then he pushed me forward, guiding me toward the police cruiser. “All talking’s going to do at this point is just get you in more trouble. I suggest we have a quiet and peaceful ride back to the station.”

  I was haunted by the screams the girl had made before she died and what her body had looked like when I awoke covered in blood. I continued to plead my innocence from my holding cell and all the way through my trial. With all my proclamations of vampires and outer space, the psychological evaluation kept me out of the electric
chair and landed me in the Sisters of Mercy psychiatric facility. But I soon learned it wasn’t just due to my crazy ramblings, but because someone else had helped ensure I ended up there.

  Present Day

  I thought of the events leading up to my stint in Sisters of Mercy as I left the facility after another talk with Jack. We’d chatted more about my visit to Martin’s apartment. It had been a few days and he still hadn’t shown up, so we were now extremely confident the ashes were his.

  I also wanted to hear how Fiona and Mallory were doing, though Jack had advised it was best for me not to see them, especially while their incarceration was still so fresh. I’d reluctantly agreed.

  As I trudged back to my Land Rover, I noticed a gray cat curled up on its hood. Then I saw the darker stripes and thought it looked much like the one that had hissed at me outside of Martin’s apartment. I slowed my approach, studying the cat carefully.

  While I was still ten feet away, the cat sprang to its feet, arched its back, and let out a hiss. As it leapt off the hood of my SUV, its very form began to alter, shape-shifting before my eyes, one moment just a blur of cat and heavy fur, then a flash of disappearing stripes and a glimpse of sandy-hued, bare human flesh; the feline was transforming, right there, into a muscular man with long gray hair, streaked with black. He landed squarely on the balls of his bare feet, producing an imposing barrier between me and my ride.

  “I saw you at the apartment,” I said, stopping before the large man. “Why?”

  “I am here to ask you the same question, Matthew Mercer.” The man’s deep baritone voice adequately matched his physique. “What was it you were doing at Martin’s apartment?”

  “Looking for who potentially killed him,” I said.

  “As was I. So, you’re saying it wasn’t you?” the man said, confirming what Jack and I had thought all along.

  “I wish it were, but sadly, no. I’m not the one who killed him. Who was he? Why did he attack my friend?”

  The man smiled, revealing glistening fangs. “And I thought you were better informed. Well, consider this your official warning. Stay out of Order business.”

  “Order business?” It was obvious he was talking about the Vampire Order, the governing council of elite vampires. No wonder this guy knew who I was. The Order knew it via Sisters of Mercy, but not through my affiliation with the True North Society. If it had been the latter, they probably would have come for me long ago.

  “Yes, young vampire.” The man stepped forward. “Martin’s death is an Order matter. Which means you stay out of it, or you will be removed. Is that understood?”

  Before I had a chance to respond, he punched me in the chest, sending me flying across the parking lot and crashing into the back window of a sedan. Glass shattered all around me, the metal from the surrounding frame crumpling under the force of the impact. I regained my faculties in seconds, pulling myself out of the wreckage, but he was already there. A powerful grip grabbed my neck and slammed me to the ground. He pinned me down with one hand on my chest—somehow impossibly strong and agile in the sun.

  “I could rip your heart out right now,” he growled, spitting in my face as he spoke. “Remember what I told you.” Then his hands were on either side of my head. With a powerful twist and sickening crack, everything went black.

  11

  Sean

  I felt this was somehow my fault. If we—Fiona and I—hadn’t gotten into that argument and broken up, if I hadn’t given up on her, then she wouldn’t have gone off and tried to find her father on her own. She left everyone behind from her obsession to find him, and I knew better than anyone to what lengths she was willing to go, to do that. I should have seen this coming. The warning signs were all there.

  It was true, I didn’t want her to keep putting herself through the pain of rejection, due to someone who very likely didn’t want to be found in the first place. He’d had every opportunity to contact Fiona or her mother sometime in the last eighteen years; I didn’t buy the fact that he didn’t know.

  But then again, I always trusted her mother. I believed she was telling Fiona the truth about Fiona’s father leaving before he knew anything about the girls, and that she hadn’t heard from him again. Fiona questioned her, but never doubted her sincerity—and maybe that was our first mistake.

  I thought I knew more than anyone what was going on in Fiona’s life, but maybe I didn’t know as much as I thought. Maybe she didn’t open up to me as much as I thought she did. Maybe there was more to her story that the rest of us were blind to. She told Alexis and Candace quite a lot—they were her best girlfriends—but she didn’t tell them everything. There were things she told me that I knew she never told them, and there I was, thinking I was special and the one confidant she told everything to.

  Who is Matthew?

  The picture of her and that mysterious guy haunted me. And not because I was jealous… okay, maybe I was… a little. But he seemed to show up out of nowhere shortly after we’d broken up and I’d never seen or heard of him before. According to Candace, he hadn’t just walked in off the street—a new Hot Coffee customer who’d taken an immediate liking to her and instantly become a regular. They had a backstory that appeared out of thin air. He was supposedly a family friend, yet one I had never heard of in the six years I’d known her.

  As strange as his sudden appearance was, he knew something the rest of us didn’t—something the rest of us were missing. I needed to find him, but where would I even start? I guessed the best thing I could do was mention him to Fiona’s mother and gauge her reaction.

  I sat up from my bed and reached over to the nightstand to grab my phone. I had Candace’s number even though we rarely conversed that way; she was just so close to Fiona and Alexis, though, that it was good to have her as a contact. Now it would finally pay off.

  I texted Candace to ask if she’d send me the picture shown to me at the coffee shop, then simply waited for the reply.

  A part of me wished I could free myself from Fiona, but we had so much history and my life now felt so empty without her. I stood up and stretched, looking at my walls covered in pictures I’d taken and developed. I’d got interested in photography as a freshman; it had started with just my iPhone and filters, but I’d found capturing something as a still life—encapsulating a specific moment unique to the world—magical and fascinating. I yearned to capture more of those moments.

  I paced my room, more closely examining the pictures I’d displayed. One day, I would have my own exhibit, which people of distinguishing taste would flock to. I smiled at the thought. Fiona had been my muse for the past few years, even before we’d officially gotten together. And some of the moments I captured with her simply took my breath away.

  I stepped up to a black and white of Fiona on the Newport Pier, looking out over the ocean, the sunlight dipping below the water. She’d been a beautiful participant of that moment, not its pure focus. My attention wandered to others on the Pier, going about their own lives in the background of ours, all in one enshrined, captured image—and noticed something I hadn’t before. In fact, I’d had no context before, so there had been nothing to notice. Now, I knew better.

  Standing by one of the vendor tents, leaning against the pier railing, was the sudden and mysterious Matthew. At that moment, he wasn’t looking at Fiona or the camera. He seemed to be innocently gazing at others walking down the pier, but nevertheless, he was there. He’d been there with us, and I had seen him before, yet I hadn’t noticed his presence.

  What the hell are you doing in my picture?

  I tried to remember when the picture was taken. My images were all organized on my laptop, and the digital file would have the date on it, but I’d first have to narrow down when to search. This wasn’t the previous year; Fiona’s hair was too short in the picture. It must have been two years ago, or maybe even a little more.

  What were the chances he’d simply been there on his own accord, having nothing to do with us whatsoever? One pict
ure could certainly be a coincidence; Southern California was a big place with a lot of people, but it was funny how you could randomly run into the same characters in this sea of strangers.

  My phone pinged in my pocket. I checked it, and Candace had texted me the picture just as I’d requested. I’d expected a sarcastic comment to accompany it, but there was nothing else at all.

  I moved on from the pier picture on the wall and began to scan others, specifically ones of Fiona, examining them carefully. After looking at a few more, I noticed a blurred figure in the background that definitely reminded me of Matthew.

  Is that you?

  I moved onto more pictures and found another clear shot of the guy I was looking for. As I continued from wall to wall, I found another three, all showing Matthew in the background of the pictures I’d taken. He was blurry whenever the photos had primarily been focused on Fiona, but examining these pictures with a new lens, I knew it was him.

  Matthew had been around this whole time and no one seemed to notice—even Fiona herself. She may well have known him, but I was sure she had no idea he was following us. It was like he was obsessed with her… a thought which first brought my blood to a boil, but as I thought about it more, the realization now turned my blood to ice. Obsessed people were dangerous and did crazy things.

  What the hell did you do, Matthew?

  12

  Fiona

  The visits from Kelsey were confusing. She was so nice and did whatever she could to help. She was gentle and empathetic. She hadn’t asked for what happened to her and was dealing with it the best she could. In return, I didn’t ask much about her past because it seemed to be pretty traumatic, especially for a young teenager still trying to process things.