F I F T E E N

Blood don't dream. Nightmare and Dream are members of the big Fae family and it can get very personal should one of them trespass on private territory. See, Blood are supposed to be dreams, we cruise them often enough. It's not an especially original method of communion, but it is effective. So the sister-brothers don't go walking where they're not invited and we do our part to maintain the pact.

That's why we couldn't figure out why I still dreamed after I'd made the Change. More precisely, why I nightmared. Tasia consulted her sources and experts but she never came up with a valid explanation. Eventually she rationalized that I was still "trapped by my humanity" which sounded like horse manure even back when we were so tight.

It was like a regular, mortal nightmare, the kind that hits hard and fast and goes away long enough for you to think it won't happen again. Until it does. Mine always came back when I was at my worst, more like a loop than a vision. Loops are the cheapest kind of porn, a short film that repeats the same scene again and again. They don't dwell on foreplay but go straight for the climax. Name your fetish, put a quarter in the machine. You get what you pay for, mostly scratchy, out of focus, jerky action. My loop was a cinematographer's masterpiece, excruciatingly vivid.

Okay. This is it. I can't go on without writing about this. Can't avoid it any longer.

The night I went back to Danny's, to that shack we shared on the beach.

"Shack" is not the most accurate description because it was actually a nice little place made out of sun bleached stucco. Roomy with a big porch, big windows. Not much for privacy inside and very isolated on the outside. We didn't have neighbors because Danny didn't like them.

I barely gave Danny a thought after the first night with Tasia. I forgot about him. Living with Tasia – and I do mean living with her – I'd never been that happy ever, even after the thing with Auberon. But it turned out there was a cloud in paradise named Danny Miller. The island was big enough so we didn't have to run into each other. Still, Danny trailed us everywhere we went, a human ghost haunting our night-time shadow. You might have thought one of the villagers would have helped him out once it was obvious that he was on his own, but he insisted on making a pain in the ass of himself and, pretty soon, the natives became hostile. Well, Danny always had a way with people. Like cancer. Then, when he heard the stories surrounding Winter's Garden, he got worse. It got back to Tasia and me that he was sure I was being "held" against my will and planned to do something about it.

That's what she told me.

She didn't have to ask me to talk to Danny, I was getting ready to suggest it myself. Or something like that. What I planned to say was "Let's get the hell out of here." But she asked me to speak to him, to try to smooth things out, so I promised I would. She would have never asked me to do that if we'd had any other option.

It was long after dark and very late when I got up the nerve to walk to the beach house. I didn't see any lights inside but that wasn't unusual. There was a full moon reflecting off the water bathing everything in an electric white glow. The house itself looked almost neon.

I found the front door open like always and walked in. Called out but didn't get any answer. It was plenty miserable inside and it stank. Depressing. I accidently kicked into a pile of empty wine bottles. They clattered off each other and rolled about releasing a new gust of odor. Yeasty old wine smells merged with the scent of turpentine and mold, other stuff, too, that reminded me more of the City's most desolate alleys. I saw Danny had been busy. Dozens of new canvasses were stacked up against the walls and piled on every horizontal surface available. So far so good. Danny always worked best and fastest when he was pissed off about something. Usually me. He would thrash it out on canvas until he worked whatever bugged him out of his system.

I stepped careful to the table and lit the lamp, resigned into waiting for him. Began thumbing through Danny's work to pass time. That was a mistake. His subject hadn't changed. He was still using me for his model, but what he had me doing in those paintings, what he had others doing to me was the sickest garbage I've ever seen. I didn't think anything like that could surprise or shock me anymore but I was wrong. It terrified me that he could imagine those things about anyone – but that was me in there. And some of it was very personal business – intimacies he'd forced me to share, private demons he'd dragged out of me under the guise of compassion. All that had been exposed, exaggerated. Twisted. Some of it was sexual stuff. Most of it was violent. He had me dead in every possible way I'd ever heard of. Some I hadn't.

I spotted a more recent painting on the easel catching the moonlight and couldn't keep from looking. This one was more subtle than the others and I didn't get it straight off. Moved closer, looked closer.

At first I thought I was going to be sick. Next came anger. Rage. I grabbed up the painting and smashed it. Shattered the frame against the table, hurled it away as far as I could. Bolted for the door. All I wanted was to be away from there. Wanted to run into the ocean, strip and scour myself with salt and sand. Felt like I would never be clean again.

But I turn around and charge into Danny. Almost knock us both down. He stares at me, gaunt from a diet of obsession and alcohol. He smells and looks as filthy as his rotten pictures. There's nothing I can say to him. Nothing I want to say to him. I don't know him.

He is standing statue-still. It's like I should be able to simply walk past him but even before I try, I know it's not going to work. He catches my arm up close to the shoulder and I see the back of his hand coming at me and I can't dodge. Never been hit like that before. Bones crumble in my face. I nearly black out. But I wheel back, shove my fist up under his jaw, into his throat. The best shot – the only shot – I get at him. He almost lets go.

He hits me again. When I drop, he kicks me. I go with that momentum and try for distance. Try to get away. But something's wrong inside and I can't stand up. Can't get straight, can't walk right. It's a warm night but I'm cold and sweating. Unbelievable. Staggering away, though. Still moving. Glance back over my shoulder and Danny's right there. So close. Sweating more than me. Eyes and teeth I see eyes and teeth. Eyes wider than they should be. Lips stretched back in a rictus grimace-grin. Screaming at me. No words just screaming, sobbing. Holding something over his head and I recognize a piece of that chair I busted up for kindling months ago. He hits me. My arm and shoulder shatter like the frame on that canvas. The pain is like a bomb exploding under my skin, the splintered shrapnel, my bones. I keep moving. Hear the whistle of air as he brings the club up again.

And down. I fall on my knees – twist around – turn on him. But there's the club and he hits me again. I go all the way down. Danny hits me again.

And again.

I am dying and it really hurts and I'm really scared and I wish he would Stop! but he doesn't and he hits me again and I hear the club smack the floor through my body and it's the worst sound I've ever heard.

All that makes me alive, all that makes me human is going away. The sleeping seeds that will make me Fae wake up, drive in, they root and grow – Changing me and I Am Aware. I see those White Lights we hear so much about, hear the voices, see those waiting to greet me and I want them to Help-Me-Please-Make-Him-Stop-Please-Help-Please but they can't. I can't get to them, either. I reach for them, strain to them ... if I could only....

I Am Aware.

Aware when Danny stops hitting and kicking and screaming.

Aware of what he does after.

Aware of when he walks out of the room and down to the beach, into the water. I am screaming at him in my Soul – Die you miserable fucker! Rot! Hit the pit and burn!

But I am Aware when he makes the Light and they welcome him. Son of a bitch!

It's not fair.

The loop ends but the sound that follows isn't film smacking a projector, it's my teeth. I'm shivering hard. Not because I'm cold. It's tricky and klutzoid to wake up howling in a sleeping bag but it happens. The night waits outside, more wholesome than anything locked inside my little tomb and I go for it.

It's not fair – we're not supposed to dream and that's what I was babbling to myself when I clawed my way into the dark of Mallock's van. Tasia's not there to hold me so I hold onto myself. Trying to forget, trying to get past it again.

I've got company. There's noise and movement nearby. Something wet and warm noses at me. In true, no-bullshit, dog instinct, she pushed her way over onto my lap with this I'm-glad-to-see-you-what's-the-matter inquiry. Holding onto the dog is better than holding onto myself. It's even better than holding onto Tasia. Animals don't lie and they don't set you up.

See, that's the final end-scene on my little loop. Discovering that Tasia sent me to Danny so he would be the one to pull the plug and send me over. Not her. She set it up. Set me up.

And that's the real reason I left her.

Tasia was so kind to me when I woke from the Change. Danny had done me so bad, my body needed to heal even after I came over and, once I was physically all right, it took even more time for the rest of me to come back. There's so much I don't remember about that time. I didn't speak for more than a year. Every time I opened my mouth, all I wanted to do was scream. Tasia was so patient with me, so tender. I loved her so much.

The horror is I still love her. I still want her. I miss her. But I shoved her away the minute she told me what she'd done. Tasia screamed it at me in that last argument, that last fight. I tried to make one more effort to understand before I left – to get at what was eating her. She hurled it at me like a bomb.

"Yes – I sent you to Danny. I never wanted you," she screamed, wild, a child in full blown tantrum. "We should have never met! He should have killed you that night, destroyed you!"

I'd never seen her like that. Her fury as much as her words kept me quiet.

"I cannot love you," she said. "I can't!"

It was her turn to run out of the room and leave me standing there, white faced, screaming-silent.

I heard the lies in Tasia's voice then, too, even while she was tearing me apart with truth. For whatever that was worth.

That's what makes it impossible to write about the time we spent together. Those five years ... I don't know how much of it was real. She suckered me, I know it. She knows it. What's more, I think everyone in the whole Fae kingdom knows, too. Just another little giggle contrived to relieve the eternal boredom. In the time I've spent apart from her, I've tried to put all my energies into not needing her, into not needing anybody. All I want now is to be left alone.

Strange how things never work out the way you plan.

The door at the back opened up and Rick Mallock stuck his head in, looking very worn around the edges. "You're awake," he said with relief so big it might have been comical any other time.

"Yeah," I said.

"How do you feel?"

"Bad."

"Well, I guessed you needed the rest."

That struck me odd so I asked, "Why?"

"I've been driving around for three days waiting for you to rise and shine. Don't mind telling you I was getting spooked. When you're not walking around, you are really dead, you know that? Mortuary material. I kept waiting for the local cops to decide it was time for a roust. Came up with some interesting explanations as to why I was spinning my wheels with a corpse in the back of the van. All of which would have made as much sense as sending cows to the moon."

"Three days?"

"And nights."

That was a shock. Which I was still contemplating when the big dog wriggled around on my legs, trying to get my attention. The reason was obvious.

"Go for it," I said.

She got up and pushed her way past Rick heading outside fast. I couldn't keep from looking smug.

"She's house-trained – or van-trained," I said. "Looks like you didn't have to put up with any dog crap after all."

"Dogs don't shit where they eat," Rick answered, dry. "Or on their food, either. Forgot about that in the special warmth of the moment the other night. But you're pretty rank, maestro. Riding around with you in the back has been a treat in more ways than one."

"Do you plan to go on like this all the time or is it just because I haven't paid you yet?"

"Money's got nothing to do with it."

"Okay. Just so I know."

Rick inclined his head briefly, almost gracious. "We're just outside Phoebus," he said. "Where to now?"

"I thought maybe dancing."

"Dancing?"

"It's time to meet the rest of the family."

"You're not talking about Don Corleone and the clan are you?"

"No."

"Guess we better tank up first."

I wondered if he meant gassing up the van or hitting the bottle. Figured he was probably thinking of both and I didn't blame him. We rounded up the dog, who wasn't too far away, closed up, and started moving. Rick was beat and I opted for quiet because I needed to plan and there wasn't going to be much time. See, once I'd shook my nightmare edge, it brought me back to what I'd been thinking about before – the woods and its haunt. Rick had been so right in our conversation at the Burger Pit. I was scared. Mad, too, but mostly scared. All I could think of was putting distance between me and It, even if safety meant running back to the Blood.

Yeah, yeah – I know. I'd done a lot of running trying to get away from Tasia and, before her, Danny. Before Danny it'd been Angelo and Allen. It was easy to rationalize. When you're 5 years old (or less) and you know a parent or sibling is losing it and getting ready to beat the hell out of you, the smartest thing you can do is get away. If you can. I got this rotten vision of me cruising Eternity, the eternal punching bag, and I didn't like it. Far as I could tell, there would always be someone who could and would hunt me down now – just for kicks.

Unless I got him first.

That thought brought on a wave of self-loathing so intense I wanted to throw up. It put me on the same level as Danny, Allen and Angelo. Speed, too. All my favorite role models. Later we could look each other up in the not-so-sweet-by-and-by and compare terror tactics.

Lapsed into speculating about that as we pulled into the gas station. Rick went up to the cashier's office to pay in advance and I slipped out quiet to the restrooms in back. I wasn't hurting as bad as before but that wasn't saying much. Moving felt strange – like my legs were made out of pipe cleaners and offering as much support. Watched my shadow glide across the asphalt ahead, locked to my boots, looking tall, wraith-thin and mean. Better looking than the rest of me. I'd caught little glimpses of myself, reflections off glass and metal, the way my hands looked clutching the sleeping bag or smoothing the dog's fur and it was worse than ugly. Like all the juice had been leeched out leaving skin sticking straight to bone – drawn, stretched, parched. Lichen-white and softly glowing like the radiated numbers on an old clock face. My wounds had healed over but scar tissue left thick, ropey seams of dead-white flesh. And, like Rick said, I was a reeking, filthy mess, but that wasn't the reason he was keeping better than arms' distance away. Took a lot of guts for him to keep talking to me and looking at me, the shape I was in.

I slid into the shadows and sent out a call. This wasn't hard to do, especially since I wasn't freaking out like before. Pretty soon, an attendant felt it and got suspicious.

See – you don't always coax people in with promises of good will – "Want some candy, little boy?" Fuck you, no, asshole – and die! That isn't my style anyway. Most of the time, all you have to do is send out little waves of suspicion, a hair's breadth sense of wrong and let territorial instinct take over. Mr. (or Ms.) Macho will supply the rest.

He peered around the corner, sending back a steady swell of fear, hostility and adrenalin-charged anticipation flavored with the pungent aroma of gas, oil and old sweat. Very hyper. If I'd had any spit left, I might've drooled.

I backed into the corner of the partition that shielded the door and let him catch the movement. Let him know there was someone (something!) out there. Soon as he saw me, he swung out onto the walk striking a John Wayne pose and smacked the tire iron he'd brought with him into the open palm of his fist.

"I see you," he said though that wasn't really true. If he'd really seen me, he'd have run.

"Come out of there, you damn junkie," he went on and shook the iron in his fist. "Don't make me use this."

I heard him thinking, It's safe, noting I was smaller than him, spoiling for a fight. He was waving that weapon around in a way that told me he didn't know how to "use" it but I made a challenge-sound for him all the same and he moved in closer. Might have been smarter to make a hurt-scared noise but I hate that approach.

"Damn junkies," he spat out again which didn't exactly endear him to me. It was too personal.

It was too true.

So I was a little personally pissed with him when he got close enough for me to make my move – and I let him get real close because I did not want to screw it up. He was near enough for me to feel his body-heat, near enough to hear his blood pound when I came up from the shadows and let the light spill on my face. Grabbed him fast – shirt front in one fist, weapon arm in the other. Man, he almost twisted away, I was that down, that weak. Held on harder – panicked, snarling. He dropped the tire iron when I squeezed his wrist and I jumped at the noise it made, hoping it wouldn't draw company. Brought him in tight. He tried to yell but I looked at him and froze him, actually felt the sound stop in his throat. Nobody came. Even the few bugs left buzzing the low-watt, yellow bulb outside the gent's had taken off soon as I brought my cold, sorry ass near. Not even blood-scent can make them stay once the call is sent like that. That should have been the clue.

When I had him secure, I pulled open the men's room door and ducked inside. Almost ripped the door off the hinges.

There was a lot of anger in him and I took it in, companion to my own. Also took in the quart of Bud he had at dinner. There was other stuff but that's what I remember most. I didn't completely drain him – once again, not my style – although it was very hard stopping. After, I propped him careful as possible in the corner. It was more than filthy inside but better than the sidewalk or alley. That brought on a flash of guilt because suddenly I remembered how I left Linda that night at the beach. She was much more to me than this one and I treated her like she was nothing.

There are lots of reasons that make it hard for me to look in mirrors. Hardly any have to do with sporting a fright mask on the front of my head. That's what I was thinking about cleaning up, washing off days-old dried blood and grit. So I stopped thinking and went to look for Rick.

He was waiting for me on the side street in the van. He didn't say anything when he saw me, just put it in gear and I got in on my side and we took off.

We were cruising down a deserted Mallory Street in Phoebus when Rick said, "I didn't think to bring this up back when we were making our deal but I think I should before we get any deeper. I don't ever want to see you looking at me and thinking 'lunch.' Understand?"

"Yeah," I said. "Don't worry."

"I don't plan to worry. That's why I want this clear and up front."

"Okay."

It's still awkward and too-quiet between us so I offered, "I didn't kill him. I'm not a killer."

Rick shrugged like he was rolling a weight around on his back, concentrating hard on the road and his driving in a night that was clear as crystal glass. "I believe that," he said, "or I wouldn't have come back for you the other night."

"What?"

"The night we found the dogs ... would have been real easy to drive away when you ran off down the road. With the sun due up in less than an hour – wouldn't have had to do anything but go. Drive back at noon and sweep your ashes to the winds."

"You thought about it. You were going to do it, weren't you?"

"Yeah."

"Why didn't you?"

"I've still been trying to figure that one out, especially during these past three days. Don't make me sorry I didn't, okay?"

"Okay," I told him.

Rick pulled over and parked on the corner of Mallory and King where I pointed. "You don't think they'll connect us up back at the gas station when that guy comes to, do you?" he asked.

"As long as they didn't see us together – which they didn't. Besides, he'll forget."

"Come again?"

"We're not supposed to exist, remember? He'll wake up thinking he was mugged and someone scared me off before anything serious happened. Next time, he'll lock up and call a cop."

"Vampires as public service reps?" Rick looked as skeptical as he sounded. "I don't buy it."

"Good. Don't," I said and left it at that.

Part of me resented that particular conversation. The rest broke down into confusion, guilt and fear – free fall anxiety. I had to trust this guy. Then again, he had to trust me. But the odds weren't with us.

Phoebus – what there was of it – stretched out in the same dismal silence thickening between me and Rick. We were surrounded by more blood-red brick, shingle and peeling, Victorian gimcrack than I have seen anywhere in one place. Dozens of street lamps washed buckled sidewalks and ancient asphalt with a coat of yellow turning night into day for people who were not there. The bay was just around the corner, rolling in and out at Buckroe Beach and Fort Monroe. The smell of moist, salt air and the sound of rolling water was inescapable but the streets were deserted. There were less than half-a-dozen cars parked along the curbs. No joggers or bike-riders or anyone hoofing-out for a walk to the shore. It was a photo-town from out of the past. No convenience stores, no fast-fooderies in sight – nothing that would require service after dark. The only gas station was shut down for the night and the lone grocery was closed and empty. There were plenty of local restaurants like the Old Point Steak and Spaghetti House, Sarah's and a corner spot sporting a grimed but lively-looking sign, Eat-Dirt-Cheap-At-Fuller's with the "Fuller's" in big, black, block letters. There were plenty of shops, too, including an incongruous Electric Glass Company with monster windows flaunting expensive and exotic, museum-class take-home but no bars on the windows, no pull-down screens, no obvious alarm system. Down the street, Roses A'la Carte displayed wind chimes and potted plants – a regular window herbarium, not a rose in sight – and painted up wood and straw witches cavorting on broomsticks, suspended on strings amid traditional orange and black crepe paper hangings. Well, it was October and appropriate but it was the only shop deliberately decked out for the holiday. A furnace blower cut on inside and the witches and chimes spun around, lazy.

All this screamed out as STRANGE to an industrial-strength, urban dweller like myself. Any other city council would have stepped in and transformed these Colonial and Victorian buildings into a renovated Yuppie Village. That was the big thing happening on the East Coast and it hadn't even begun in Phoebus. Looked like the little town had crawled almost as far as the 50s and stopped.

I had my suspicions why.

Small towns that rolled up their sidewalks after sundown were no big deal to Rick, so even though the atmosphere wasn't completely lost on him, it was easier for him to accept. I had no idea what was on his mind and he didn't look as though he felt like sharing. Me, I was thinking it was not too late to turn around and go back and the idea was very appealing. It was the go-back-where I couldn't figure out. It was one of those times I wished I still smoked because a cigarette would have been great.

"Where's this family you were talking about?" Rick said at last.

I looked down the street and nodded at a massive cluster of brick and glass, as ambiguous as it was possible to be.

"Do you mind if we get moving or are you planning to take root here?" he asked.

"This way," I told him and walked off, not waiting to see if he followed. But he did.

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