Sucks to Suck – Chapter 21

            The guards posted at the gate to the Fridge did not seem enthusiastic about letting them in. Marion didn’t need to pay too close attention to read the tension in their postures, and as Isabella’s car drove closer to the abandoned factory, she quietly mused on why that would be. She had inhabited the world of night-shift jobs long enough to know that nobody performing regular guard duty was actually guarded all the time. It just wasn’t sustainable. The dominant emotion tended to be procedural boredom until something happened. She mused to herself about the possibilities; maybe the Prince was there, and Skye had set the meeting as a trap to force Marion to introduce herself to the ruler of Seattle’s vampiric courts. Perhaps they had reason to expect an imminent attack by… Someone? Who would even attack a group of well-armed vampires?

            “Do you think I can just… Park there?” Isabella asked, her mind focused on more immediate and practical concerns.

            “Uh…? Where?” Marion asked, turning to look out to where Isabella nodded with her head.

            “There, next to the black van.”

            The black van. Suddenly, the question of why the guards seemed edgy and high-strung as they allowed them through was answered. Marion’s blood froze. The icy feeling of fear and dreadful realisation spread through her veins, and her skin prickled. She recognised that vehicle. The Men in Black. The mention of bringing her to the courts. The fear of being handed to Mother. What were they doing there?

            “Marion…?” Isabella asked, and seemingly impatient to wait for a response, just said, “Ugh, never mind, I’ll just do it. Vampires don’t give parking tickets, right?”

            “N-No…” Marion shook her head, trying to regain her calm. “That’s a different type of ‘bloodsucker’.”

            “Ha! Good one!” Isabella said, bringing the car to a halt. “I mean, it’s totally a boomer Joke, but I guess you are kind of a boomer, aren’t you?”

            “Technically, I’m one of the Greatest Generation.”

            “Pft…” Isabella scoffed, opening the card door. “You wish.”

            “No, that’s just what they call it. I’m not saying… Ugh, never mind.”

            Marion stepped out into the cold night. There was no rain in the air right now, but the pavement was soaked and reflecting the sick yellow lights of the city lamps. The smell of foul water blew from the sound and caused her nose to crinkle.

            “You never see people driving in a TV series…” Isabella spoke idly, without turning her head. The non-sequitur nature of the statement caused Marion to frown.

            “What do you mean?”

            “Just that… I’ve been here before, with you and Skye. But we came in her car and… It feels different to drive my own car here.” Isabella approached the industrial door, knocking on it twice. The loud thump of metal echoed through the empty plant. “Whatever, it’s stupid.”

            “Nah, I think I get it,” Marion offered, with a shrug, and put her hands in her hoodie’s front pocket. “Being driven to the slaughterhouse and walking in yourself has to feel different, right?”

            The witch tilted her head with a mild frown and slight curl at the edge of her lips, then raised her brows and turned into a nod. Marion returned the smallest of smiles to her before looking back towards the door. The sound of a boot dragging came from within, and it opened.

            “The sheriff waits,” the woman on the other side said, before her eyes turned towards Isabella.

            Marion recognised that look. She had it most of the time, though she rarely ever focused on someone. Hunger. The tension on the lips and cheeks was a dead giveaway of someone actively feeling the pressure of their fangs. Her eyes went to Isabella’s neck, and Marion stepped in front of the witch, looking at the vampire guard’s eyes. Their exchange of stares was wordless, but after a moment, an expression of mock apology emerged on the guard’s face, and she shrugged.

            “This way.”

            Isabella seemed thankfully ignorant that someone had been looking at her neck like a thirsty toddler at a juice box, and Marion kept her sigh of relief locked in her chest. She wasn’t sure she had what it took to intimidate another of her Kin away, but apparently, she did.

            By the time they reached the chamber in the Fridge where the bodies were kept, they spotted two other guards standing outside the door. There was no sign of Houston or Paris, but Marion was sure the increased presence of security must be connected to the black van that looked exactly like theirs. The same woman who greeted them, with very short dark hair and a constant expression of malicious mischief, opened the Fridge door, and the smell of death washed over Marion along with the breath of cold air of the room, like the mouth of a frozen cadaver opening up to give a final posthumous exhale.

            Inside, Skye stood, arms folded in front of her chest and brows tense, looking down at two figures whom Marion had only seen once, and yet, she would not forget them anytime soon. Houston and Paris wore their shades, even indoors at night. In fact, most of their attire was the same, except they had thick black gloves, likely to help them with the cold inside the Fridge, and Paris was holding up a tablet, tapping on it as they stood over a dead body covered by a sheet over an old metal gurney. Unfortunately, that sight wasn’t a first for Marion nor Isabella.

            “Oh, London, what a pleasure to see you…” Houston said, and his voice didn’t convey sincerity, just detached politeness. “And who is this?”

            “I’m Isa-…”

            “She’s Venice,” Marion interrupted.

            “Hah. Fair enough,” Houston said.

            “I’m what now?”

            “Venice…” Marion repeated, turning to Isabella, both as an answer and as the prologue to an introduction. “These are Houston and Paris.”

            “Get out of here,” Isabella said.

            “That’s what I told them.” Marion nodded.

            The two suited Men in Black didn’t seem very keen on that response. Houston’s frown was visible behind the shades, but Paris, more detached, only sighed and said dismissively:

            “Gen-Z.”

            “Okay, Millennial,” Isabella retorted.

            “Venice has sorcerous talents. She has been an asset to the search,” Skye added in turn, trying to bring their focus back to the task at hand. It worked.

            “Huh,” Houston said, sparing Isabella a second glance. “Noted. We will not pass on an asset like that.”

            “I’m no one’s asset,” Isabella said.

            There was no response. Then, Marion stepped closer to the sheet.

            “New victim?”

            “Correct,” Skye noted. “This one is a fresh kill, in relative terms. It was not a lead from my thrall.”

            “Yeah, we intercepted a call to the police and collected him from the sidewalk.”

            “Right.” Marion shrugged. Yet something about the way Houston was looking at her, even through the shades, made her want to squirm with discomfort. “Why is he still covered?”

            “We had a look at him already, but… I wanted to get a glimpse of your reaction.”

            “My… Reaction?” Marion frowned.

            Houston nodded towards Skye, who, Marion could swear, was physically restraining herself from rolling her eyes. Her nostrils flared, though the only people whose breaths produced condensation in that room were the two suits and Isabella. Marion and Skye’s faces were as still and cloudless as the dead people resting in the Fridge’s improvised morgue.

            Skye’s hand pulled the fabric back, and Marion’s eyes were naturally drawn to what was revealed. She saw a naked young man sprawled on the gurney. His body was silent, yet it spoke volumes of the brutal violence of its final moments. Bruises across the shoulders, sides and back, a broken nose and a cut lip. Even if the blood had been mostly wiped from it, the red and dark purple marks on the skin never healed, making it clear.

            It did not look like the work of a vampire. To Marion, it seemed more like the doing of some form of animal, if not for the puncture marks across his neck. Yet even there, it wasn’t the clean, twin punctures of the Kiss. There were multiple bites and some tearing around the fangs, the type that would form if one were to shake vigorously while biting down. Something a dog may do, but not one of her Kin. No reason for it. They were not trying to tear out flesh. A patch of skin was missing, and the muscle beneath was torn away in ragged strips. Marion tried to maintain some detachment from the morbidness of it all, but she heard Isabella grunting uncomfortably as she turned her head at the sight of the body. Houston, Paris and Skye had no reaction whatsoever. Yet she still felt his eyes on her, waiting for that reaction. Reaction to what? To the violence? What would that tell him?

            She shifted her focus back to the body. It was different from the other victims. More damage, clumsier kill. Was it even the same creature that did it? It must be if they were all there to look at it. Her eyes traced the lines of his face, moving past the slack-jawed, silent scream frozen on his lips, and then up to his hair. Light blond, buzzed short, now matted with drying blood and rainwater. A memory flashed. Not an image. Just the smell of a wet alley. Of her own blood. Of beer breath. The smell of a dank Seattle Alley and of Cal Andersen Park at the small hours of the morning. Her chest felt tight. And cold. And hollow. The image popped in her mind as clear as the daylight she was banned from. A face contorted in drunken rage. A red pick-up. The taste of blood. A knife. Pain.

            The world inside the Fridge seemed to tilt on its axis. It wasn’t just a body. She knew him. He was no blood-doll for the Celts. He didn’t taste like other Kin when she bit him. Realisation struck her again. She had bitten him. He was dead now. And the reason he was dead, like the others, was her bite. She had marked a man for death.

            The flush from being well fed drained from her as her heart raced as much as it could. She felt dizzy, like her legs were no longer sure they were on solid ground, and she stumbled back. She bumped another gurney, producing a loud, metal clank, and Isabella rushed in to place an arm under her. That was good. Because Marion used that arm as permission to let go of her legs. She wheezed. It was strange to wheeze when one’s lungs didn’t need air. She felt the cold Fridge air invading them as her nostrils flared, and her eyes blurred. She felt sick. She killed him. Not directly, but she had marked a man for death.

            “Well…” Houston said. “Seems like she did recognise her friend, in the end.”

            “What the fuck…” Isabella roared from her position, now kneeling next to Marion. “Who is that?”

            “He’s the reason London and I met,” Houston said with a shrug.

            “A man she bit,” Paris added, a bit more helpful in giving information.

            “What? You knew she’d react like this and still set her up?”

            “We knew nothing. This is information. Data,” Houston said. “Her reaction suggests she’s n-…”

            “I don’t fucking care what it suggests, dick!” Isabella was furious.

            Marion realised only then that her hand was holding the front of the girl’s dress as she stared at the floor, and her thoughts of guilt and panic spiralled. Her scent drew that thing. Could it draw it to Isabella? To Logan? Would that girl from the nightclub, Mel, be next? Was she leaving a trail of bodies behind her without knowing? She never wanted to kill anyone. The things she saw. The things Mother had shown her… Now she was part of this butchery. Or had she always been?

            “These emotional outbursts are not going to help our investigation…” Houston said.

            “Oh, yeah? And these fucking mind games do?” Isabella said.

            “The sorcerer is right. This conduct is as likely to hinder our progress as any display of emotion,” Skye’s voice said.

            “Progress… Like you’ve done much of that. All we have is bodies and a series of non-starter theories…” Houston said in a low, dismissive tone.

            “Enough,” Skye said. “I indulged the Prince by getting you involved. But keep giving me reasons, and I’ll see this collaboration ends promptly.”

            “You and your Prince need us… Without us, we’re gonna have a blood war on our hands. And you know this.”

            “The Prince does not need the likes of you. Your participation hinges on the Prince’s courtesy. Do well and remember it,” Skye said, stepping forward.

            “We do not need the likes of you either. All of you.” Houston’s head seemed to point to Marion and Skye both. And perhaps Isabella.

            “Oh my god! Will you fucking stop measuring dicks? Jesus… I’m the twenty-something here, and you are acting like fucking kids.”

            The explosive comment seemed to halt the discussion, and while the tension remained, the silence that followed allowed Marion to remember Logan’s words. Breath. She did not need breathing, but she could mimic the motions. She could move her chest and push air. And she did. She counted the seconds. She focused on Isabella’s warmth. On the ground. On her senses. On the present.

            Slowly, she rose to her feet, as Isabella’s hand lingered under her shoulders for just a moment longer, ensuring she was stable, before she retreated, giving her space.

            “Marion… What… Was that?” Isabella asked, trying her best to project a calm voice, even if it was a futile effort in her state.

            “I did it. I’m the reason he’s dead,” Marion said, shaking her head, and then pointing to the table. “That’s the guy that… Stabbed me. I bit him. It was my scent, my mark that led the thing to him.”

            “The thing that… Preys on vampire blood dolls…” Isabella hummed.

            “Marion, huh?” Houston said to himself, but a dagger stare from Skye had him quickly tensing his lips and shutting up.

            “Yeah… I did it, Is-… Venice.”

            “Nah, whatever killed him did it, come on…”

            “But it was because of me…”

            Isabella hesitated. She wasn’t one to be often caught without a word to offer, but it was not surprising that comforting people in matters of fatal guilt was outside her wheelhouse. Her lips trembled as she threw open the metaphorical drawers of her mind, trying to find something to say. Anything. Marion could see the gears turning, but she knew there was nothing to be said. Because she was guilty, in the end. She had marked a man to die.

            “Young one,” Skye said, stepping forward. “London.”

            Marion lifted her head to find that alabaster hand on her shoulder, and she looked up to the unsettling, tall, sharp, beautiful and marble-like face. Yet behind the stone-cold facade, there was something there. Something that reminded her of a cold, bony hug. Uncomfortable, but tenderly meant.

            “Guilt is indulgence,” Skye said firmly. “If you seek redemption, you will only ever find it in service.”

            Marion stopped herself at the edge of scoffing. The panic she felt now waned, though it had not entirely faded. In the emptiness left by the retreating tide of fear, anger emerged. A deep and piercing anger pointed at Houston and his little theatre, designed to gauge her reaction. Skye’s words, which sounded to her like some empty platitude, turned the tall vampire into an easy target for lashing out. Yet, Marion held her tongue rather than firing on instinct. Something in Skye’s eyes, her face, her tone, made the statuesque, always so adamant-looking vampire appear almost… Vulnerable. Marion couldn’t lash out at her after seeing a gap in her armour. Skye’s words would sound like empty trite to many, but she meant it, from the bottom of her unbeating heart.

            “I don’t want redemption… I just want to catch this thing,” Marion said.

            “We shall. I will not fail my hunt,” Skye stated firmly.

            “What a sweet moment.” Houston’s voice carried no small amount of sarcasm. “If we are done with the pep talk, though, we should focus on the task at hand.”

            “You seemed chill, and not so focused on it when it was to fuck with London’s head,” Isabella said, her voice still high-strung.

            “Enough. There is no lost affection amongst us, but we do have a common goal,” Skye said. “This man was not one of Ronan’s dolls. It may mean that our hunter, whatever it is, may not be as selective of its targets as we thought.”

            “Yes. It goes against the deliberate targeting of the Celts’ dolls in Ronan’s turf…” Paris said, tapping her pad once again. “But it doesn’t offer a new angle… I mean, do we think it’s the same creature that did this?”

            “It smells the same to me,” Skye said. “And it doesn’t smell like Kin. Not fully.”

            “Not fully?” Houston asked.

            “Yes. I was less sure before. But on this fresher kill… I get hints of Kin. And some hints of human. Not as a separate scent. Mingled.”

            “A half-vampire?” Isabella asked. “Is that a thing?”

            “Everything is a thing,” Paris said, lifting her head from her tablet, its glow reflected in her shades. “A thing that is both vampire and not can be many things, and that’s the issue.”

            “Does… Any of those fit here?” Marion asked.

            “Not neatly,” Paris said. “The fact that we haven’t had civilians panicking suggests something smart enough to hide and keep away. The fact that it leaves no traces we can follow from the attacks suggests it’s smarter than just the raw instinct of a beast. And yet…” Paris gestured to the body. “This attack looks much messier than a normal vampire attack. And most of the bodies were just left out to be found.”

            “A creature that hides its tracks, but not its crimes.” Houston nodded. “It would make sense if it were something done to provoke Ronan, but… There would be no sense in killing this guy.”

            “Maybe it’s not targeting Ronan’s dolls on purpose…” Isabella said.

            “What are you getting at, Venice?”

            “…To quote ‘Law & Order’, it’s circumstantial,” the witch continued. “If it lives in Ronan’s territory and is drawn to people that got fed on—I’m guessing that’s what a doll is, right? Yeah, okay, moving on—then maybe it’s not targeting Ronan’s people... Just people that smell like vampires. And of course, those that hang around vamps the most smell the strongest... So, if this Ronan guy and his friends pulled back their ‘dolls’…”

            “It would track someone with a lesser but still noticeable scent,” Paris hummed. “Not a bad theory.”

            “It doesn’t explain the mismatch between the carelessness and the sheer cunning to keep a low profile.”

            Houston’s words echoed across the Fridge, in the silence that followed them. Marion could almost hear all the gears turning in everyone’s head. They all had much more knowledge of those affairs than she did. Even Isabella knew more about the hidden world than her. She didn’t know what she could contribute, but with a glance at the face of the dead man, she asked quietly:

            “What was his name?”

            “The dead guy?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Michael something, let me see…” Paris scrolled through her tablet’s screen.

            “No. It’s fine. Michael is enough,” Marion said. “He was a dick. He didn’t deserve this, though. But he was still a dick.”

            “Yeah. Most people are,” Houston said.

            “Not like that.” Marion shrugged, then turned to Isabella. “This one is fresher than the others… Is there any spell you can do to figure out his last moments?”

            “My mother probably could, but… I would rather not, uh… Not tell her how deep in shit I am?”

            “Yeah, that tracks.” Marion nodded. “Then I think we are done? I mean… Michael gave us some new clues. Now we need to look into them.”

            “Yeah, pretty much,” Paris conceded, and reached into her pocket, handing Marion an entirely black calling card. “Skye has our number. I guess it’s only fair that you and your friend have it too. In case you learn something.”

            Marion took the card, and with a furrow, she wondered if it was a joke. It was just a black rectangle the shape of a business card. Yet, as she tilted it, the light bounced off it. The surface was matte, but the lettering had a glossy finish. At the right angle, they looked white. It had a phone number and a cross with four arms of the same size. Nothing else.

            “Cool,” Marion said. “Can we go now?”

            “You look pale,” Skye said. “You should feed.”

            “You are one to talk,” the younger vampire teased, then shook her head. “I’ll keep it in mind, but it’s easier said than done.”

            Skye seemed puzzled by that response, yet she nodded once and proceeded:

            “The court has dolls you can use, I’m sure the Prince…”

            “No. No courts, no Prince…” Marion reminded her, interrupting quickly.

            “Fair enough. In that case… I can offer you my thrall. It does not please me to do so, but the moment calls for it.”

            “No, no… I appreciate it, but… I’ll figure myself out,” Marion said, turning to Isabella. “Shall we go?”

            “Yup.” The witch sprang into life, rubbing her hands from the cold and blowing on them as she immediately turned to the door. The notion of getting out of there as fast as possible seemed to sharply animate her. “Come on. I’ll get you home before sunrise.”

            “You better,” Marion said, as Skye approached the door and knocked twice, signalling for her guards to open it.

            In a matter of minutes, Isabella’s car was driving away from the Fridge and towards Capitol Hill.

***

            The howling of pain and rage echoed through the tight space like the shrieking of a dying hellhound. But the underworld denizen they were fighting was no hound, though it wasn’t hard to think it hell-born. The cavernous meat locker was a pit of absolute darkness, pierced only by the frantic beam of Pandora’s flashlight and the muzzle flash from Boris’ shotgun. The booming sounds of the barrels firing amplified manifold by the reverberation on the metal walls. And with each gust of orange, a scene of chaos and carnage was revealed—claws, blood, chunks of bones and pieces of ruptured chains tossed around them. The air, thick with the phantom stench of ancient blood and decay, welcomed now the scent of fresh vampiric blood, spilt abundantly from a wound across Pandora’s chest as she waddled backwards. One hand holding her stomach wound, the other a tomahawk axe dripping blood, just pulled from the monstrous creature’s skull.

            “It’s not staying down!” Pandora yelled, ducking under a wild, sweeping claw strike meant for her face. Instead, it struck one of the hanging chains and sent a meat hook clattering loudly across the floor.

            “No shit,” Boris yelled, quickly reloading his sawed-off shotgun. Smoking shells dropped at his feet, adding the burning sulfuric scent of used powder to the olfactory cacophony.

            It was not as if they couldn’t hit it. Boris’ slugs and Pandora’s axes had struck, gashed and gnawed at the beast’s pale flesh aplenty. But its wounds seemed not to slow it down, and to heal as fast as they could inflict them. In the moments when it lunged across the beams of the flashlight or was illuminated by the fiery breath of the shotgun, they could glimpse its terrifying, frenzied form. The creature was a nightmare of sinewy, gaunt flesh.

            Boris’ gun roared again. The concussive blast of ‘War’ teared a chunk of putrid flesh from the creature’s flank, sending it spinning into the shadows. But the wound was already knitting itself shut with a sickening, wet squelch, and the monster barely registered the impact as it scrambled on its backwards-jointed legs.

            Eva giggled. There was no joy in her laughter, though, just mania. It rose into a cackle, loud and desperate—the sound of pure madness in the gloom. The beast turned to her, charging towards the incoherently laughing, childish figure, who clung tightly to her toy bunny with both hands. A claw slashed towards her, and she didn’t attempt to dodge it. Instead, she disappeared under its strike as if the slam had shoved her straight into the floor. Except as the beast raised its paw, there was no blood, no body, no gristle and gore where she stood. There was nothing. Nothing but laughter that came from the ceiling above it as Eva dropped onto the beast’s back and sank her fangs into its neck. She feasted, for a moment, before she was tossed like the ragdoll she carried with her, to slam viciously against the wall.

            “Eva!” Pandora shouted, tossing her axe and striking the beast’s neck before it closed the gap between the fallen vampire and itself. It turned, moved by rage, always seeking to engage the most recent threat.

            “What in hell is this?” Boris grunted. “How do we kill it?”

            Raven’s answer was to loop a chain around its neck and tug. She wasn’t strong enough to win in a contest of might, but the meat-hook at the end of the chain sank into the skin and drew the fury from Pandora.

            “Its blood… It’s super yummy-yum!… Like vampire blood!”

            “It’s alive though… It has heat!” Pandora growled as she drew another axe from her belt, now that the creature was focused elsewhere.

            Raven listened. Alive, was it? The monster turned its eyes towards her. Paws, or feet, or hands or whatever the hell it had, started slapping against the floor with an unsettling sound as it charged forward to the source of the chain and hook. Raven could not harm it more than others had, but if it was alive, then maybe…

            Look at me. Come for me.

            She commanded, feeling the pull between her and the beast. It was easier for her to tell it to do something it was already doing. She tossed the end of the chain she was holding to Pandora, but never broke eye contact.

            Come for me. Forget them.

            Raven stood apart from the fray. She had no weapon. No weapon besides her wits, her mind and her fangs. They would need to do, she reckoned, as it charged towards her.

            I’m the biggest threat here. I’m the best meal here.

            Each step of it now made the floor under her tremble as it got closer. Another chain and hook were tossed over it, dragging and sinking into its back, but it didn’t turn. It just allowed the hook to sink deeper.

            Look at me. Forget the pain. Forget them.

            It worked. For a second or two. It kept charging. That was all they needed. As it came just in reach to slash Raven in half with its claws, she took a step back. The chain stretched taut, the hook around its neck, and the one on its back sank deeper. Pandora had tied the chain back on an anchor point in the ceiling. The beast tried to push against it, fight its bondage, only to find the rusty iron digging deeper. It bled. And its blood did smell like vampire blood.

            “Now!” Raven shouted.

            Pandora went in first, charging towards the creature with her axe and sinking it deep into its ribs, shattering bone and flesh, then sliding to get out of claw range before it could retaliate, using her momentum to carry her under the rampant beast. The chains prevented it from falling back onto its fours. One of the creature’s arms reached for a hook, in a surprisingly human motion, seeking to yank it free. But Boris rushed in next, pressing both barrels against the elbow joint and firing, point-blank. The limb was severed in an explosion of bone shards and gore. And as the beast roared in fury, it managed to slash Boris across the face with its surviving arm, taking out one of his eyes and sending him stumbling back, nearly falling unconscious.

            “Mr Rabbit… It’s boom boom time,” Eva whispered to her bunny.

            From behind Raven, the form of a muscular arm made of shadow, textured like the matted, uneven fur of a cheap plush shot out, holding what seemed like a cartoonish depiction of a bomb—spherical iron with a burning fuse. But the fire was real, casting light and heat, and the bomb felt solid as it was shoved into the creature’s open mouth. Raven turned to see the shadowy figure of an eight-foot-tall, hunched humanoid rabbit with a saucer-sized button for its left eye. It flickered out of existence, back into the shadows. Yet the bomb remained.

            Raven watched Eva pass out from the effort of warping reality with madness, and she lunged to cover her body with her own. Boris dropped down, covering his face, and Pandora shielded her eyes. And then…

            There was no boom. There was a sharp, deafening sound of ripping made by their own eardrums, followed by a loud ringing that immediately started to buzz as the shockwave of the explosion hit them. The heat came after, fiery, scorching their skin, and fragments of steel chains and bones shot fast like bullets, ripping flesh, clothes and bone. The creature they fought wounded them one last time, in the form of the most morbid of shrapnel. And then it was over.

            The explosive pressure forced the meat locker’s door open, but by that point, the fire had burned all the oxygen in the room, and warm air from the outside came rushing back, like a ferocious breeze that still, to some extent, licked their wounds.

            The beast was dead. They were alive, even if barely. Their bodies would soon mend. Not as fast as what they had just fought, but eventually, given sufficient blood. The butcher’s plan to kill them had failed. And as soon as their wounds were healed, they would make him regret it.

            “…Or… Will they?” Logan asked, dramatically, as she performed her signature move of closing her book, snapping her players out of a near trance that was the last combat.

            Alex inhaled as if he had been holding his breath for the past minute or so, and he had, as the dice were rolled to determine whether their characters could survive the explosion’s damage.

            “Holy shit,” Sam said. “Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit…” she continued, repeating it faster. “That was frickin’ awesome!”

            “So fucking awesome,” Alex agreed.

            “And Isa… What the hell was that?” Sam said.

            “Oh…” Isabella giggled. “I unlocked a new power with the XP from the last game… I talked to Logan, and she said it was cool to save it for a badass reveal.”

            “Badass reveal achieved,” Alex praised.

            Marion felt a strange sense of accomplishment that she was struggling to understand. It had all been them sitting around a table pretending to fight something that wasn’t real and rolling dice to make it more difficult. Yet, her plan worked. Logan had indulged her in letting her establish eye contact with the creature despite the darkness, and she was able to stun it for enough rounds that they could tie it. Marion was proud of it. It was all make-believe, and yet, she couldn’t help but feel that warm, swelling sense of having done something.

            “Marion, you fucking rocked too… That was some clever use of Enthral,” Sam said, clapping her hands together once, as if to disperse her excited energy.

            The post-game excitement was intoxicating. Almost intoxicating enough for Marion to forget the frustrating week she had had since her meeting at the Fridge. She had spent every waking moment worrying about Logan and the strange creature and beating herself up over whether or not she should call Mel and warn her. She didn’t, of course. Because what she could even say that would be remotely believable.

            She had not fed that week either, and her head was starting to hurt. Dave had never reached back to her about selling more blood, and Marion suspected that Skye’s visit had spooked him out of the business. She would need to hunt soon. But how could she do it knowing she was going to mark anyone she bit as a potential victim to… Whatever it was that was killing humans being fed on.

            Marion allowed herself to float away from all those concerns when she was Raven, and the game was a welcome distraction at that. It wasn’t until Isabella, Sam, and Alex had left and Logan was putting her books back on the shelves that her worries began to resurface. She was standing by the window, looking out as if expecting to see some monstrous figure stalking the shadows, when she heard a sound sigh. She turned to see Logan tossing herself on the couch, back first, feet over the armrest as she used each of them to remove her boots from the other and drop them with a resounding ‘thump’ on the floor.

            “You had fun,” Logan said. It sounded like an accusation, and as Marion walked around the couch to see her face, she confirmed that it was indeed so.

            “You can’t prove it,” Marion taunted.

            “You are smiling. You never smile.”

            “Maybe it’s Raven,” Marion offered.

            “M-hm…” Logan didn’t seem convinced.

            Marion looked out the window, smile fading. Nothing she could do. None of their clues had panned. Perhaps she would do best to wait for Skye to find out something and just focus on the game. And maybe feed herself.

            “You are really good, you know… As a… Narrator?”

            “Narrator. Storyteller… Yeah, I’ve been told,” Logan chuckled. And then she lifted her legs.

            Marion timidly approached the couch, taking the seat exposed by the gesture. When she did, Logan rested her legs over Marion’s lap. In that moment, the vampire’s mind was consumed by the thought of how warm and soft they were, and the smell of Logan’s skin. Idly, she caressed Logan’s legs. She knew that, if she were better fed, she would be blushing. Her heart would be racing. She still felt those sensations. Not really, but sort of. Like feeling an itch on an arm someone no longer had, she reckoned. She felt a phantom blush. The ghost of a racing heart haunted her chest.

            “You are a great player, too,” Logan said, after a moment. “I thought you’d take weeks to warm up to the game.”

            “I’m good at… Faking,” Marion admitted.

            “So am I. Serves us well, right?” Logan shrugged, mischievous and unapologetic. “But… Gaming is a healthier outlet for that.”

            “I suppose it is.” Marion nodded.

            They sat in comfortable silence then, for a moment that felt both too short and too long. It was too perfect to be long-lasting, and Marion spent every second of it holding her non-existent breath for the second it would shatter. And with each second it didn’t, she felt more tempted to let her guard down, and more terrified of doing so. But then, eventually, the other shoe dropped.

            “Will you ever tell me…?” Logan asked. Her voice wasn’t playful that time.

            “Tell you what?”

            “I don’t know… That’s the thing…” Logan admitted. “You don’t have to tell me, but… I’m just curious if that’s a never thing or… A once-we-know-each-other-better thing.”

            “I don’t know what you mean,” Marion lied.

            “You do. But that’s fine. I’m not pushing, I just…”

            Logan’s face showed pain, even though she tried to pass it off as no big deal. Marion felt it. She wished she could tell her. She wished she could, really, but she couldn’t. It was not safe before, and it was even less safe now that she knew her bite was a death mark.

            “I… I don’t know if I will,” Marion said, lowering her gaze.

            “Ah…” Logan didn’t hide her disappointment. But she did retract her legs from her lap, sitting up straight. “That’s okay. It’s your stuff, I just… Well, it’s fine. Thanks for being honest.”

            “I’ll try. When I can,” Marion said. It wasn’t a lie. Not fully.

            The silence that followed was heavy and cold, a stark contrast to the comfortable quiet they had shared just moments before. Logan nodded, picking at a loose thread on the couch cushion, her eyes fixed on anything but Marion. The warmth had vanished from the room, replaced by the familiar chill. The icy air of the secrets Marion kept inside her cold, dead chest. The weight of that man’s death, of the hunt, of a life lived in shadows. It was not something one shared. It was a curse. She could not pass that curse onto Logan. Logan deserved better. But she couldn’t stand in silence. She couldn’t bear to feel the distance that existed between them. Not so soon after she tasted the warmth of closeness. She knew that was a weakness. But that wasn’t new to Marion. She was weak. To break the painful stillness, she reached for the only safe topic they had:

            “That thing we fought…” Marion began, her voice softer than she intended. “The one in the game.”

            Logan looked up, a flicker of surprise in her eyes. A small, sad smile touched her lips, grateful for the change in subject.

            “Yeah? The big guy? Pretty nasty, right?”

            “It was,” Marion agreed. “It was also relentless.” The memory of its fictional healing feeling disturbingly real in Marion’s mind. Maybe because it struck close to home. “What was it?”

            “I can’t tell you,” Logan teased, still a little gloomy, but quickly warming as the talk shifted. There was playfulness in her tone.

            “Sure you can. We beat it, right?”

            “Hrm… I guess?”

            “Please…?”

            “Oh gosh, the Marion puppy-eyes!” Logan exclaimed. “Are you trying to use your Raven powers on me? Uh?”

            “Maybe?” Marion chuckled.

            “Well. It fucking worked!” Logan sat cross-legged on the couch, grabbing a pillow against her chest and rocking back and forth slowly in excitement. “So... The thing you guys fought was a ghoul.”

            “A ghoul… But it’s, like, undead?”

            “Well, no. It’s just called that. It’s like a mutated human.”

            “Right… It had breath,” Marion remembered. “But… You told Isabella her character tasted vampire in it.”

            “Some vampire,” Logan highlighted. “It has a lot of vampire blood in it, yes. But it’s not a vampire. That’s how it regenerates, though.”

            “Sounds… Dangerous.”

            “Yep. That’s a ghoul for you,” Logan said, the game master’s enthusiasm returning to her voice now that she was back on familiar ground. She leaned forward, happy to explain. “They’re basically what happens when a mortal gets fed too much vampire blood over and over. Their body warps, their mind snaps. They become feral, addicted creatures. Then they hunt vampires for more blood.”

            “Feeding a mortal changes them?”

            “Only if you do it, like… A lot. I mean, a lot a lot,” Logan said.

            “Are they smart?”

            “Maybe? Maybe like a shark can be smart. Not like a person, though. The person part of their brain gets fried by the blood-hunger.”

            Marion’s mind flashed to the bodies at the Fridge: the messy wounds, the animalistic rage. A cold dread began to prickle at the back of her neck.

            “So, they are… Feral?”

            “M-hm.”

            Marion pondered for a moment, and Logan looked at her with a mix of excitement and intense curiosity. Yet, her mind was drifting miles away, to the cold meat locker in the game.

            “But the Butcher, in the story… He was controlling it. Using it. Did he tame it?”

            Logan let out a short laugh, shaking her head.

            “Oh no, no one can tame a ghoul. Not really. They’re too irrational. They are like a predator driven by a singular need. To feed,” Logan said, her voice getting a notch deeper as it did when she narrated. Her eyes opened wide as she was clearly getting into it. “Their whole life is this overwhelming hunger for the taste of vampire blood.”

            “How do they find vampires?”

            “Well, they often exist near them, right? To be created, you need a lot of vampire blood. After that… They hunt by scent. They can smell a vampire miles away, like a shark in water. Not just vampires either. They are drawn to anything that reeks of Vitae.” She paused, her eyes lighting up as she explained the nuance.

            “Huh… And they can’t be tamed?”

            “I don’t think so. But you know, the Butcher didn’t control it. He just trapped it, starved it, and then waited until you guys walked in. He pointed it in your direction and fired it like a vampire-seeking missile.”

            The words hit Marion with the force of the explosion they had survived in the game world. The words echoed in her head. ‘Trapped it. Pointed it in a direction. Drawn to anything that reeks of Vitae.’

            The pieces slammed together in her mind with perfect clarity. The non-starter theories, the contradictory evidence, the killer who was both cunning and careless. It wasn’t a vampire poacher trying to start a war by killing Ronan’s blood-dolls. It wasn’t a careless beast acting on instinct.

            It was not just one thing or another. It was a weapon. A trapped, starving ghoul, set loose to hunt the strongest vampiric scent it could find in Ronan’s territory: his frequently fed-upon dolls. And Mike. Poor, stupid Mike. He wasn’t a doll, but for a week, he had walked around Seattle smelling exactly like one. Smelling like her. Her breath hitched.

            “Marion…” Logan asked, with some concern. “Are you okay? You look like you saw a ghost.”

            She shook her head and felt her phone in her pocket. She had to call Isabella. Call Skye. Maybe Paris and Houston. She had to tell them. She had figured it out.

            “N-No… No ghosts,” Marion answered.

            It was not an apparition that was haunting her. It was something much worse.

            And she was going to kill it.