They weren’t even expecting her and it made the mood even sweeter. The house itself was barely visible against all the thick darkness around it, save for the scattered lit window. It added a familial warmth to the darkness that hovered over the house. Detta tilted her head to the side and scrunched her face. It really looked more like a hunting lodge than a home. When she looked closer, the side of the house looked . . . under construction; all tarped and boarded up. Was that a result of that fateful night? Next to her sat an old Jeep with glittering shards of glass in its bed and one lone fence post. Fence post . . . looked more like a tree trunk. And shaved to a point. Cute. Something told her someone died by the end of one of those. She just didn’t know who.

The old man’s house was just as secluded out in the mountains as her cave was on the bluff. But it was quiet here. The loudest noises under the star-clotted sky were the chirping of crickets and scuttling of small woodland animals, no doubt running away from her. Animals can sense evil after all. Can bugs?

She stood away from the porch, feeling around the interior of the home, casing the joint. Detta had to be careful of the old man, though. He could feel when she waded in. Hopefully he’d be too preoccupied to pick up on a bump.

He was. Carving something. It hadn’t been long since dinner. Lucy was washing dishes. The younger brother was in his room, on the phone, plotting with the two other zits she felt from that near death day in the cave. Michael was home too . . . in his room . . . with the only odd blood in the house. Star. Detta’s blood sizzled in her veins as she felt Star’s mere presence. Detta’s growing family had been whittled down to two and it was all her fault.

She doesn’t die. Not tonight. Stick to the plan . . .

Gravel and sand crunched under foot as she slowly stepped towards the short set of stairs in front of her. She stepped lightly, her trustworthy brown boots barely tapping out her arrival. The stairs would have groaned under the weight of anyone else. Well, anyone else that was human. For her they remained silent, in league with her to exact revenge. A shame that the mortals’ safe haven was slowly turning against them.

She’d barely stepped foot on the porch when a bark sounded from the other side of the door. Shit. It barked again. Detta could hear its nails tapping against a presumably hardwood floor. It barked again and she could hear it position itself right in front of the door. A guard. She heard the low, rumbling growl. She could even hear its lips pulling back over its teeth. It had no reason to growl. At least not tonight.

Detta continued to the door and raised her knuckles to it. She listened to the growling for another moment before connecting her hand to the wood in a series of soft, gentle knocks. No need to pound. But the dog had reason to bark. No need to be a guard tonight. Tonight was parlay.

She could hear Lucy’s soft motherly voice on the other side of the door desperately trying to shush and calm the dog. Obviously it wasn’t working. Its nails slid across the floor. Lucy had pushed it out of the way so she could get to the door. The deadbolt clicked back. Judging by the shine of the lock, it was new. Detta watched the knob turn slowly and the door creaked open to reveal Lucy’s tender face filled with nothing but curiosity. Her eyes didn’t seem to comprehend who was standing in front of her even though Detta was now awash in the warm living room light.

“Good evening, Lucy,” Detta said politely, clasping her hands in front of her.

The realization hit as fast as a punch and Lucy’s carefree demeanor dropped like lead in water. It wasn’t a look of fear, not yet. Just shock. Did Lucy know about her? How much did Star say? Lucy stumbled over her words at first until her lips finally formed some semblance of understanding.

“D-Detta! Oh my! What a . . . surprise to see you! There’s um . . . I uh . . . have you heard . . . about Max . . .?”

Lucy wasn’t sure if she even wanted to ask the question. Detta could see she didn’t even believe her own eyes when she saw Max in his full vampire form. She hadn’t come to grips with it yet.

“I have,” Detta replied, her tone noncommittal. “I’ve been left in charge of his . . . estate. Big mess at the beginning, of course, but now I think I’m capable of sorting everything out.”

“So you’ve been to the video store?” Lucy’s voice was airy and just a little bit frightened. Maybe Star did tell her.

“Mmm, no. Not yet. I thought I’d start here first.”

“Here? Why?”

“Well, there seems to be some loose ends dangling around your children and the company they keep. I’m here to tie them up.”

Detta tried desperately to keep the sarcasm from her tone but she didn’t think she was doing too good of a job with it. It was hard to not be snide considering the facts. It was just difficult to speak that way to Lucy. She was like the universal mom. How could she be nasty to her?

When she saw Lucy’s face edge by the way of fear, Detta chuckled, waving her hand as if to brush her off.

“Not literally, of course,” she covered between light laughs. Then she stopped. “Not yet anyway.”

“What do you want with my boys?” Lucy asked, her voice a frazzled whisper as she hid herself behind the door.

It slowly started to creak shut. Maybe Lucy was doing it in the hopes that Detta wouldn’t notice. She hoped wrong.

Detta stepped forward, wedged the door against the tip of her boot and stopped it. Lucy visibly jerked, not expecting the block. She flinched not only for the sudden, unexpected hit on the wood but the fact that Detta seemed to be at least a step ahead of her.

“Lucy?”

The voice was old, ragged by smoke. The slow shuffle of feet moved across the floor from somewhere inside the home. Lucy turned out of instinct and Detta let her eyes linger on the back of her red head before following her gaze. Ambling into view came an older man, obviously Lucy’s father by the way she addressed him. He had a surgeon’s scope on his head and a rubber apron over his casual denim. The moccasins were responsible for the shuffling. There was blood in the air. Its length of dead stung Detta’s nose: animal and bitter.

His eyes were on Lucy momentarily before they hopped over to Detta. The only change his lined face seemed to make was his eyes narrowing.

“What are you doing here?” He stepped just behind Lucy and her body slackened just slightly. There was a safety in her dad.

Detta rolled her shoulders and gave her best nonchalant look. “Just paying a visit. I’m allowed, right?”

“This is private property.”

“Is that what you say to the Jehovahs? Fortunately for you, I’m all out of my stash of Light Tower Magazine.”

“We left you alone. You can do the same.”

“Ah.” A small smirk started to crawl across Detta’s face. “You can feel it. Not just a lucky guesser, are you?”

“I been around long enough to know when someone other than me is in my head.”

“Dad, what are you talking about?”

Lucy’s voice was near angelic but her father’s tsk to shush her was near snakelike.

“Of course. I finally got to meet the old man. The only mortal that knows about us and still has a working heart.”

More nails scraped across the wooden floor as the old man kneed the dog out of his way.

“We had a deal.”

Detta scoffed. “You had a deal with Max. But since you killed him, I’d say that deal is pretty much shattered.”

“He crossed the line first.”

Detta put up her hands in mock surrender. “Look. I really don’t give a shit about arguing over who started what and when. I just have some points to deliver.”

“Don’t let her in!”

A voice squeaked from up the stairs followed by an inconsistent tempo of thumps and stomps as an uncoordinated body made its way to them. It was one of the zits from the cave, all blonde and tan and looking like MTV yaked on him. Detta was starting to feel sorry for the dog as it got scooted once again and the boy pulled his mother away from the door.

A wooden cross flew at her face and knocked into her forehead, coming a millimeter from poking her in the eye. She saw a smug, cockeyed smile spread across his face when he’d thought he’d pushed her back but that faded pretty quickly when she put her finger to it and pushed it away.

“Gotta have faith, kid. When was the last time you even went to mass?”

When he saw that Detta wasn’t thwarted by his cross, he tried to shove the door shut. The cracks and splinters it started to emit were a sure sign that her foot was holding steady.

“Sam, stop it,” Lucy said from behind the door. “Maybe we should just let her talk.”

“Listen to your mother, kid,” Detta added.

“She’s a vampire, Mom! She came back from the dead! Is that someone you want talking to you?”

“I, uh, never rose from the dead.”

Sam was taken aback by her conversational tone. “But what about the cave? I seen zombies that looked more alive.”

Detta cocked an eyebrow at him and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Pictures of them, anyway.”

“Not dead. Just weak.”

“And the other one?” the old man asked, inching towards his grandson.

“Same,” Detta replied. “He was worse off. Still too weak to fly now.” Detta caught a vengeful glitter in Sam’s eyes. “But not that weak. I’d recommend not trying anything,” she said, staring Sam down.

He shivered under his sweater.

“You know,” Sam upped his bravado while holding unnecessarily tight to the door knob, “I can have my connections here in a second and you . . . you’d . . .”

“I’d have them dead in half that time?” Detta finished Sam’s sentence with the wrong conclusion. His overexaggerated gulp was a testament to that. “What? Not what you were looking for?”

“Look, Detta,” Lucy started in a voice that could probably melt David. She stepped out from behind the door, nudging the dog away yet again. By the sound of the tick-tacking nails, it’d given up and gone off to find something more interesting. “We’ve all been though . . . way too much recently and we’re still trying to wrap out heads around it all. Maybe you should just say what you need to say and . . . get back to tending to Max’s estate.”

Lucy wasn’t the kind of person to tell someone to just go away but Detta figured that was probably as close as she was going to get.

“That’s all I came here to do before our conversation was hijacked.”

“You can tell it from the porch,” Sam squeaked when Detta shifted.

She tilted her head to look at him and cricked up the corner of her mouth. “You really think I can’t come in uninvited? Judging by the hole in your wall, I would think my brothers proved that one wrong.”

“Unless you want a holy water shower, stay where you are.”

“Sam!” Lucy chided. “She hasn’t doesn’t anything.”

“Yet,” Sam and the old man said in unison.

Lucy frowned at her family and Detta tried to stifle a smile. Their defenses were nothing short of comical.

“I think Michael should hear this,” Detta stated matter-of-factly. “And you might as well call Star down too. I know she’s up there.”

Star had always been a great source of conflict for Detta. She never could relate to her situation as a vampire, at times found her annoying but at others felt sorry for her. Detta’s ill will towards David helped keep away the distance the other boys had with him and his toys. On some deep, long-buried level she could understand what it was like being on the receiving end of David. But when she turned against them and slaughtered most of Detta’s family, the flip-flopping flopped its last flip. There was no turning back now.

Lucy gently but sternly called up to Michael and Star while the old man and Sam offered her glares of death. A rustling around sounded through the old floorboards before definitive footsteps were made. The creak of the door being opened was loud enough for a mortal to hear downstairs. Star and Michael emerged from the hallway.

“What is it, Mom?”

Michael looked half asleep but Star was definitely wide awake, her grip on Michael’s hand getting tighter. He flinched and when he couldn’t get his hand away, looked to his girlfriend’s face only to follow her fear-ladened stare to Detta’s face. If they kept their faces like that long enough, maybe their children would be born the same way.

“Boo,” was all Detta offered.

“Come down here, please,” Lucy commanded in her always soft-spoken, endearing voice.

“What’s going on?” Michael asked as he cautiously descended the stairs with Star reluctantly in tow.

“Detta just has something she’d like to tell us.

“Well, not you, Lucy,” Detta corrected. “Really, just your children . . . and Star . . . and the two other zits that were involved.”

“The Frog brothers?” Sam asked, his squeak sounding more like a rusty scratch.

“Sure.” As if she cared for names.

“We thought you were dead,” Michael said as he approached the door. He heroically placed himself in front, shunting the women and children behind him.

“Nice to see you too, Michael. I’ll let Marko know you said hi.”

“Time for you to talk,” the old man said, finalizing the frivolous conversation.

“I guess it is, isn’t it? Well,” she started as she clasped her hands behind her back. “You have a year.”

“A year?” Michael asked.

“A year.”

“For what?” came Sam’s voice from behind the wall of family bodies.

“Before we start hunting you.”

“What do you mean—”

“Oh give me a break, kid. You actually thought you’d get away with this? And you,” Detta turned to Star and she stepped back. “I already have dibs on you, you self-serving bitch.”

“Watch your mouth,” Michael spat as he grabbed the lapel of Detta’s jacket.

She took his wrist and twisted, his fingers loosening immediately. He tried to hide his wincing but the welling tears deceived him.

“You’re food again, Mikey, remember? Remember your place.”

“And this food annihilated five of you to watch it!” Sam said from the safety of his mom’s back.

“Four,” Detta corrected him as she straightened out her jacket. “They were stupid and didn’t think. It was nothing more than luck so don’t blow it out of proportion, kid.”

“What are you going to do?” Star asked, bringing Detta’s attention back to her.

When Detta smiled a smile that sent souls running, she could see in Star’s face that she wished she’d kept her mouth shut.

“You thought that time with us was torturous. I might as well just hand you a gun now to spare you the suffering. But then I’d be missing out and I have no idea why I’d do that to myself.”

“There’s no deal—”

“All bets are off, old man. I haven’t decided on you yet but these three and the other two might as well say their goodbyes now.”

“You’re a cunt.”

“Michael!”

Even in the midst of a threat, Lucy didn’t want to hear that word come out of her son’s mouth. He turned to her, his face tense, and they locked eyes. Lucy wanted him to apologize, at least a piece of her did. The other part, well, the other part agreed with him. Detta saw these two contradictions floating side by side in her head and coughed, a lousy means of covering a laugh. She just handed Lucy’s family death sentences. Let them rant and rave if it’ll make the last days better.

“That’s all you have to say?” Detta asked as he eyebrows reached for her hairline.

Michael’s neck creaked towards her, the movements jerky and stiff. The skin at his temple twitched and she could actually hear his teeth grinding together.

“You won’t find us.”

Detta snorted and grabbed her sides as she belly-laughed. Right!

“You can’t really believe that! Oh how human you are!”

“You haven’t been around that long, Detta. We can outsmart you.”

Detta let out one last snort before she turned her eyes to Star and let her smile linger. There was that little bit of defiance that always lurked just underneath the surface. Star had bouts of it when she was a half-vampire but one thing Detta knew, those bouts were easy to crush.

“Outsmart and me are oxymorons. I may be young but Marko isn’t and don’t think for a second we’ll be alone.”

“You’ve made more of you?”

Sam’s face peeked over his mother’s shoulder but he didn’t dare come forward.

“You’ll just have to wait and find out, won’t you?”

“Always knew it wouldn’t last forever,” the old man said as an aside to no one in particular.

She looked to him and hefted her shoulders. “All good things must come to an end, I guess. Time changes things and all that.”

“Finally get a chance to leave now, then.”

“Don’t lie to yourself, sir. This is your home. You don’t really want to go.”

The old man thought for a moment although his face emitted nothing but an empty stare.

“No, I don’t. Before I couldn’t leave and wanted to. Now I can and don’t. Funny how that works out, huh?”

“Funny,” was all she replied.

“Well, if that’s it for you, Detta, I think we’ll shut the door now. No need to keep letting bugs in.”

“No, no need for that.”

Really, what did she expect them to do? Throw punches? Maybe a stake or two? Bucket of holy water? Perhaps some more screaming. Michael called her a cunt. That was something but all around disappointing when it came down to it. Her and Marko have a year off to do whatever they feel like before the games begin. But will it be a game? Was the slaughter of her family any more than luck or did this family have more in them than she gave them credit for? For her to have been a fly on the wall that night to see just how everyone acted. Maybe she’d bring David back just for that. It’d prove useful information later on.

Detta moved her foot from the door, freeing it from its stuck state. She expected it to slam shut but Lucy hung on it for a moment, waiting for someone to say something. Maybe.

“One year,” Detta reiterated through the silence. “And consider yourselves tracked. Be sure to live before then. Don’t want to die with any regrets, right?”

She smiled a sweet, demented smile as Michael grabbed the edge of the door and slammed it shut, sending the vertical blinds flapping. A series of clicks resounded in the door, followed by shuffling feet and hushed voices. Detta stared into the light filtering through the blocked off window before turning her back to it and heading down the stairs. The old man’s eccentricities were all around the property. Even though this house was a prison for so many years, he’d made it his home.

Detta would leave him for last. Hopefully she’d have her mind made up by then. The zits will probably be the most fun to hunt. They’ll put up the biggest fight. No doubt about it, though, Star will be the sweetest kill. She’ll have to fight Marko over it, because, let’s face it, none of this would have happened if she’d kept her mouth shut. Detta forsaw multiple games of rock-paper-scissors in the near future.

She looked back over her shoulder to see a window curtain flutter against the pane. Sam, probably. She had a feeling he’d already made the call to his friends. She pointed her face up towards the moon and let its glow warm her before taking off into the night. There were still a few more things on her to-do list before she could grab some take-out and go back to Marko.

<–12. Fear and Healing in Santa Carla +

“Good Christ. I should have knocked you out before taking flight. Look, if you don’t want to plummet to your death, I suggest you stop squirming.”

Detta hefted the flailing girl into her arm once again, grinding her teeth as she did. Next time it’s a blow to the head. She contemplated just letting the girl drop into the ocean but the hassle of having to find another meal just irked her. She was impatient tonight and rightly so. Marko was up and walking around as she soared (and the food screamed). It took weeks but he was finally there. Unfortunately he still needed delivery since the wind could still whistle through his chest. Fortunately, though, he was well enough that her blood wasn’t a necessity. He still oozed a bit from the wound when he fed but the feed powered his own strength and he was starting to regenerate nicely. Full health was still a little ways off but it was miles better than the crumpled heap of ash he was. Not only that but Detta didn’t have to fly with a stomach of sloshing blood nor get drained to the brink of death anymore. Always awesome.

She took another crack at the girl’s face but she just kept on screaming, now only louder. She didn’t want to hit her too hard and punch out the back of her skull but at the same time Detta couldn’t handle the incessant screaming anymore. It started with some slaps but elevated to a punch or two when the meal just wouldn’t shut up. Detta didn’t usually have to fly this far out to sea but any closer and she’d wake the townsfolk.

Detta thanked whatever higher being that was watching out for her as the blinking spotlight of the lighthouse came into view, signaling the welcoming mouth of the cave just behind it. The girl continued wailing and flailing and scratching and kicking and Detta wanted so badly to throw her another punch but since her restraint wasn’t what it should have been from constant irritation, she didn’t want to bring a dented head back to Marko. Plus it’d be pretty pointless for the girl to lose too much blood.

The scratching and tearing stopped when they neared the opening and Detta cleared the narrow gap between the top of the fence and the bottom of the opening with ease. Apparently it frightened the girl. Or her hair caught on one of the fence spikes. Considering the short shriek, that might have been the case. Detta’s booted feet touched down in the lobby lightly, which was more than could be said for the bloodied meal slung over her shoulder. As soon as her body thunked to the floor her shrieking hiccupped into a sobbing, panicked wheeze that sounded as if she was about to choke herself with it.

“Detta. The goal is to keep the blood inside the body. You know how shitty it tastes when it’s cold and smeared with dirt.”

Detta looked up to see Marko climbing out of what used to be Star’s sleeping nook. In the soft light of the oil drum fires, he looked almost alive. The flickering light made his skin a healthier flesh color instead of the morgue pale it actually was. He wore just a pair of jeans and his bare feet padded noiselessly over to Detta and the meal. He hadn’t worn a shirt since Detta peeled the holey one off of him a couple weeks before. If he wasn’t going to wear a shirt, she insisted that he bandage the gaping hole in his chest. It was growing smaller every day but she couldn’t stand to look at his insides in the process. It also kind of aggravated her that the human pink of the wound hadn’t spread to the rest of his body yet.

‘Concentration of power,’ he had said. ‘It needs to heal the hole first before it gives me a tan.’

It made sense to her but it didn’t mean she liked looking at it anymore. So covered up it was. The dressing was changed daily just to see how much closer it was to healing but that was as much exposure as she wanted to get. Obviously, the memories it incited were ones she’d rather forget and as much as she wanted the twits dead, she didn’t want her nights consumed with planning their demise. Yet. That would just get boring.

Detta crossed her arms over her chest and gave him an incredulous look. “Maybe if she’d just stopped screaming, I wouldn’t have had to hit her.”

Marko’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Why didn’t you just knock her out?”

Detta threw her hands up in acknowledgement and her face filled with mock realization. Marko just frowned. “Why didn’t I think of that? I should borrow your brain next time I go out since I obviously can’t think of this stuff on my own.”

His eyebrow only pointed to the lobby ceiling. “And that’s why she’s not unconscious?”

“Oh shut up and eat.”

“You fed?”

“Of course.”

The petrified, bloodied blonde on the floor between them bounced from one side of the conversation to the other, her eyes wide as they pinged and ponged back and forth. She didn’t try to run but instead sat, fastened to the cold stone floor, and waited for her death. It probably wasn’t her choice to do that. Considering the wide, liquid puddle spreading around her seat, and the stench of waste now filling the air, she just couldn’t get her legs to work right.

Detta smirked as Marko rolled his eyes at the mess his dinner was quickly becoming but dove in anyway. The girl didn’t even have time enough to consider the thought of flailing and could only manage a surprised squeak before Marko greedily tore out her throat.

Keeping her arms firmly crossed over her chest, she left the feeding frenzy to Marko and meandered to a slightly darker, emptier corner of the cave. The stench of death and rot emanating from this side of the lobby would have knocked out an ox but neither her nor Marko smelled it anymore. The zits that threatened to torch Detta’s second home had deposited the bodies of her vampire family haphazardly in the fountain. They had no respect for the dead, soulless or not. When Detta had come back from feeding that following night, the festering presence of vampire death hit her like a brick to the face. Marko had a lighter meal that night since she ratcheted up blood at the sight of wayward parts of her family strewn about. Marko said to wait until he could get out there and they’d sort it out together. It was a week she had to endure the sight before Marko could help her sort through the remains.

David was the only one still whole and his moldering body lay as if placed in a coffin in the farthest corner. Dwayne’s torso was the next easiest to recognize. That bare, tan chest couldn’t have belonged to anyone else. Now it was covered with what remained of the rest of him, spawning maggots from the exposed rotting pieces. The rings and bracelets Paul wore religiously still adorned the fanged skeleton that was found in a twisted heap amongst the parts. It lay next to the remnants of Dwayne, mimicking David’s own burial shroud but months ahead of him in decomposition. By process of elimination, the heaping pile of ashes had to be Max. Mixed in with his dusted remains were splinters of wood and stone and somehow, even after all this time, it still gave off an inkling of heat from the fire that supposedly consumed him.

Detta sat on the edge of the couch, her body draped over the arm, just staring at her dead undead family. It was heartbreaking and liberating all in one breath. The only one that had any hope at all of coming back was David and it was a notion that Detta feared. She stared at the holes in his still fully formed body, made by something strong enough to cease his immortal life. Whatever it was had done the job she could never do. But thinking about it after all this time, did she really hate him as much as she used to? Was that animosity really still there or just in spirit?

She looked at the piled of the deceased lain about next to him and saw no hope. No amount of vampire’s blood would bring any of them back except David. Detta hoped that wherever they were, they forgave her for not fighting with them and that they understood why they were short a brother on the other side. She hoped Max finally found his Mary Tyler Moore and Paul his never-ending stash of pot. She hoped Dwayne was finally reunited with his son but most of all she hoped David, in ethereal form, was not standing next to her attempting to goad her into bringing his life back. Both her and Marko knew she was terrified of the very idea. It was probably why he never brought it up. It was only a matter of time, though, before he did. They both knew it and both were waiting for the perfect moment to brace and speak, whenever that may be.

The cushion behind her dipped as Marko took a seat, pressing his bare chest up against her back and placing his chin on her shoulder. The weight of him against her was a welcome change from the delicate touches each had to afford the other. Detta had been weakened beyond anything she’d ever been when she was nursing Marko back to health. After each draining her skin would actually crumble off where he touched. His was that bad in the beginning but the more he fed, the less brittle his skin became. Now they were just waiting for the color to spread.

He wound his arms around her waist and she settled into him, no longer afraid to press back and lean into his body. They both stared at the remains for a moment, morbid monuments to lives past, before a question rumbled up to Detta’s mouth.

“Your leftovers need to get thrown out, don’t they?”

She felt him nod each time his chin dug further into her shoulder. “She helped. Thank you.”

Detta smiled and she knew he could feel it. Their attention to each others’ psyches was much more attuned the stronger they both got. “You don’t have to thank me.”

“I don’t have to but I’m going to anyway. Besides, a thank you isn’t going to be enough to repay my debt to you.”

Detta turned her head just enough so that she could see his face out of the corner of her eye. “Debt? What debt? You don’t owe me anything.”

The obvious pulse of a scoff thrust from Marko’s still-wounded chest. “You resurrected me. I need to repay you somehow.”

She turned back around to face the death before her once again. “You survived. That’s payment enough. Consider it me paying you back for saving me.”

She could feel him frown. “When did I save your life?”

“So soon you forget. Did you not turn me to protect me?”

“Oh, that . . . that doesn’t count.”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t bring you back from the dead.”

“Listen, I feel a vicious cycle coming on. How about we drop it for now and come back to it later? I’m just not in the mood for it at the moment.”

“Fine. How about—”

“Don’t even try.” The word ‘David’ was in a queue on his lips. If she wasn’t up for talking about paying back debt she certainly wasn’t up for talking about resurrecting a lives-long enemy. “Let’s just . . . leave all that until after I get back.”

“You gonna pay the visit?”

“Might as well. You plan on sticking around here much longer?”

Marko shook his head, knocking into hers. “This place . . . just isn’t right anymore. We’ll finish up here and hunker down at your place until the loose ends are all tied up. Maria still needs some closure too.”

“I know. I haven’t forgotten about her. One thing at a time, alright?” Detta hefted herself up from the couch, Marko’s hands reluctantly sliding off of her. “Let me take out the trash and I’m going to come back and change. I gotta look good if I’m going to pose a threat.”

A smile cracked her pristine face, her skin turned back to the sun-kissed gold it was before her near-mummification. His mouth did the same, only it was set among pallid skin that contrasted slickly with his golden blonde hair. Marko pressed himself up from the couch with little effort and grabbed her face between his hands. Detta closed her eyes and nuzzled one hand, reveling in the comfort he proffered even in his less than perfect state. His now soft albeit slightly colder lips pressed into hers, his tongue prying open her mouth to let him in. Even when he was sick, he still tasted so sweet.

Marko was the one to break the kiss first, nipping at her neck before she walked away to clean up the mess. Even after all this time and after all they’ve been through, something as little as a kiss from Marko sent a rush of delight coursing through her body. Every time it was as if it was the first time they’d kissed and she still couldn’t get over the feeling. And she hoped she never would.

Detta threw the lifeless, bloodless corpse over her shoulder and took flight back out of the cave. This would be a good time to go over just what she was going to say to her family’s killers. Anything less than perfect would be unacceptable.

<–11. Bated Breath + 13. Yakity, Yak – Don’t Talk Back–>

“We should burn ‘em. It’s the only way to make sure the bloodsuckers stay dead.”

“They’re dead, Edgar. Doesn’t look like they’re rising up for anything anytime soon.”

“Listen to my brother, man. Let’s torch the place.”

“Let’s not and just leave the bodies to rot on their own. You guys were so convinced with garlic, remember? What a waste that was.”

“It was one mistake–”

“And then there was Max and the whole ‘our goddamn tests are pointless if he’s invited in.’ Remember that one?”

The squeaks and pseudo-grumbles of the pubescent voices in the cave with Detta and Marko lurched her from her daytime sleep even though her body didn’t show it. Even if she wanted to move, she couldn’t. Drained in the daylight hours left her more than vulnerable. Her eyeball shifted under her eyelid, proving to her that she wasn’t blind; she just hadn’t opened her eyes yet. By the conversations of the voices, she’d best keep them closed. Her thoughts tiptoed over to Marko and the boys seemed to be misinformed. Marko was still ticking but deep in a restorative sleep that nothing could wake him from. He could probably get staked again and would just fade away behind closed eyes.

Detta groped around her mind and her blood for any type of connection, anything that linked either of them to anyone else but each other. The faint pulse of Marko remained but there was nothing but holes where the others should have been. No more pot hazes and drummer beats from the likes of Paul or silent stoicism from Dwayne. While David was rarely ever reachable, there wasn’t even a wall pushing Detta back. It was just nothing but empty blackness where David’s piece of her pie used to be.

The semi-mortal thoughts of Star and Laddie were gone. No longer could Detta feel Star’s unenduring pain nor Laddie’s misbegotten place in either world. They could roam the daylight now, Michael with them. Detta never even bothered to wade around Michael’s head when he connected and now that window, briefly open, has shut once again.

The absence of Max created the biggest hole of all, his presence the obvious greatest out of all of them. His near-ancient life that felt like a weight pressing on her soulless, undead being had been lifted. She’d been freed of Max’s confines and forced familial life. No more ridiculous orders or searching for the perfect fanged June Cleaver. Max died in the pursuit of completing his incomplete family and he took his boys with him, kicking and screaming into the darkness. Detta was sure they came close to this in Needles. It looked like fate didn’t like being prodded by things already defying it.

“Edgar, stuff the lighter fluid and let’s go! We’re killers already. You wanna add arsonists to it too?”

“We’re vampire hunters. It’s different.”

There was a sigh followed by skin slapping skin. It didn’t sound like a hit but a forehead hitting a palm. When Detta refocused her attention on the cave now occupied with her vampire family’s killers, she felt the floor underneath her start to tip and swirl as it had done the night before. She trusted Marko not to stir and attract attention but she couldn’t say the same about herself. She’d done a good job of playing dead already. All she could do now was hope the zit brigade decided to not be pyromaniacs and leave the cave sooner rather than later.

“You boys all set? What the hell you doing back there?”

The voice was definitely older and distant. It echoed down the entry shaft and into the cave. Detta feebly groped for the phantom senses behind that voice. All she could determine was that there was no way in hell he’d be climbing back there before he shut her out. Oh shit! He shut her out! Shit! Shit! Shit! He knows. Oh shit he knows she’s alive!”

“Everything alright back there?”

“Fine, Grandpa.”

“Anything interesting?”

Thank whatever god may have existed Detta didn’t have a shred of strength to show the fear that was coursing through her. If her body had been capable, she’d be violently shaking.

“Couple of corpses. One’s so dried out she looks like The Mummy and the other still has the stake wound in his chest. Doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere either.”

“Vampire Romeo and Juliet.”

“Shut up, Edgar.”

“Well why don’t you boys come on now. No sense in starin’ at ‘em. Ain’t gonna get any deader.”

“We’re gonna torch the bodies, Mr. Emerson. Make sure they stay that way.”

If Detta’s heart actually beat, it would have pounded out of her chest. There was a slight pause before the aged echo called out to the boys again.

“Ah no need to draw attention to them. Get the fire department out here and they find the bodies, we’ll have a helluva bigger mess than what we already got. Now come on. This place’s got a bad vibe. I’m ready to go.”

“Put the lighter away, Alan.”

Detta heard the distinct click of a Zippo snapping shut before the boy presumably tucked it back where he got it.

“I still say we burn the evidence,” came a strained voice as feet began climbing.

“And yours’ll be the first description I give to the cops when they come knocking,” came the voice of reason in the group, just as strained.

The mild bickering continued as the boys clamored out of the cave, bumped along the entry shaft and stumbled out the other end. Other voices joined them when they emerged but Detta didn’t care to decipher them. She thrust her eyes open to look into the pitch black cavern. When she saw the beams affixed to the ceiling and then the body of Marko next to her unscathed, she let out a sob and a choke, a cry catching in her throat to make an odd, deathly sound that silenced the pattering in the lobby. Detta clenched her eyes tight and held her breath, this time forcing her ears to pick up the more distant voices.

“What the hell was that?”

“It’s a cave, boys. There are bats down here.”

“Didn’t sound like a bat to me.”

“Maybe it’s a bat killing a mouse.”

“Bats don’t eat mice.”

“Owls do. Maybe it’s an owl.”

“In a cave?”

“C’mon, boys. No need to stay here any longer. Whatever it is isn’t going to bother us.”

The tapping of shoes on stone grew fainter as they exited the cave and Detta unclenched her body, easing back into the ground. Her fingers found Marko’s leather-clad hand and fiddled with his fingertips, thankful to still be able to feel his flesh. His fingers twitched in response and tapped on hers lightly before making their way back to sleep again. Everything was as it should be for the time being.

Without the stress of the near-death intrusion nor the forced concentration, Detta allowed herself to succumb to the sleep that had been so violently thrust away from her. She needed her strength if Marko was going to get better. She had no doubt in her mind that the boys weren’t beyond exaggeration saying she looked like a mummy. But the blood she needed to revive herself had to wait until night. Now it was time for the room to stop spinning.

vVv

“Detta.”

It happened in her dreams every evening just before she was about to wake. It didn’t matter what she was dreaming about, it always ended in a sunset and then her eyes popping open to a new night. This evening was no different.

She sat on the terrace of some villa with a faceless someone next to her. She couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead. They were watching the sun set into turquoise waters. The bright yellow orb, its rays warming her skin against the slight breeze, segued into orange. As it dipped lower the pinks and purples started to show their faces. When the last curve of the sun tucked itself under the watery horizon, Detta lingered in the final moments of her sleep, watching the blue sky fade to dark, the pinking turning into reds and purples and the navies of the night.

Then it broke through her pre-dark moments; the rasping voice of someone near death calling her name. This was not usual and the faceless person next to her didn’t acknowledge it. The light of the day faded faster, the night sky grew darker and the voice came again, wheezing its call to her.

“Detta.”

The scenery around her fizzled away and the fading colors of sunset eased into black as Detta looked at the inside of her eyelids, letting the last remnants of sleep fade naturally. When the voice came again, this time rattling in the throat that rested so close to her, she snapped her eyes open and bolted her body upright, looking directly to the prone Marko next to her. The room wavered and flowed around her once again, the tilting and leering exacerbated by the sudden, unexpected movement. What little remained in Detta’s stomach crept up her throat as her body heaved against her will. She kept the retch as quiet as she could but a little moan of disparity escaped despite her best efforts. She spat out the bile and blood that collected in her mouth and then spit again for good measure, ridding the acrid taste from her tongue.

Tiny pats of fingertip pads danced onto her hand and Detta wrenched herself from her cocoon of vertigo and nausea despite what her body said. While his hand rested on the ground, his fingers found Detta’s hand and had made to get her attention. She watched them for a moment, fighting back what she thought were tears but knew they were the last things her body would waste energy on. It was the first time she saw movement from Marko that wasn’t dripping in agony.

“Detta.”

Her eyes immediately hopped to Marko’s face and her chest heaved an empty sob to see him actually looking at her with eyes that could see, if not very clearly. His fingers continued to tap on her hand as he continued to stare at her.

“You look like shit,” he rasped.

Her sob mixed with a laugh as she shifted her body to move closer to his head. His eyes followed her every movement.

“You don’t look so hot either,” she replied as she hid the shock of the wheeze in her own voice.

“You’ve been . . . healing me?”

It was obvious speaking was a lot of effort for him and judging by the bubbling and gurgling of his wound, it didn’t feel too nice either.

She nodded. “You can see?” When she looked more closely as his eyes, they weren’t as crystalline as they should have been but nowhere near as milky as they had been.

“Fuzzy. The guys?”

“Dead.” She didn’t even think to hesitate. “And Max. They died avenging you.”

When Detta said that, a bomb of guilt dropped into her stomach. Should she had died with them? Was she a coward to come and weep at his side instead of attempting to kill his murderers? She hadn’t thought of it before now but the deadweight that came with that clarity was something she didn’t like feeling.

His fingertips stopped tapping and pressed into her hand. It was the closest to a grip as he could get.

“You did . . . right. I’m still . . . here because of . . . you. They died . . . no reason.”

That didn’t really make her feel any better. Sure, Marko was alive but the other boys died for him, avenging a death that’s now a moot point. It looked like a no-win to her.

“Stop.” Marko’s voice rasped as he pulled out of her thoughts.

Detta could feel him clunking around clumsily inside her head. It saved her talking this way, at least. Her throat felt like it was coated with shards of glass.

“That . . . later. You must . . . feed . . . for both . . .”

Her throat was nothing compared to what Marko was feeling and Detta knew he was right. The only way he was going to survive was if she took care of herself first. She needed to feed and soon.

Detta rolled her weight onto her knees, nuzzling the pit of his arm. He still continued to watch her every move. She looked into his eyes that she now knew could look back and in his face she saw the man that he once was, fighting to come back to the surface and succeed. He was there, caked under dirt and expelled life, hidden under crackled and chipping skin, hanging onto a life that was barely there. She pressed her lips to his, the two parched mouths crackling together, the skin sticking together in its arid condition. Despite all that, Detta felt the heat there, Marko’s life just waiting to heal and come back to her good as new. They both wanted it. The rest of the mess could be sorted out when they were both back at peak performance.

She peeled their lips apart and she saw that his eyes had remained open the entire time, soaking in her presence. She moved her mouth to his forehead, imprinting his skin with her lips. When she’d finally sat back up, she looked back into his eyes and they said only one thing: go.

The corner of his mouth crooked up, however slightly. It was the most smile he could muster. Detta tried to smile back but didn’t manage much greater. Her skin was far too taut and dry to be very pliable.

With some strained effort, Detta pushed herself onto her feet, crouching next to Marko as she gathered her bearings. There was really no point to that, though, since the bearings only gathered when she fed. With a hand to the wall and the steadfast determination to beat back the vertigo, Detta groped her way back to the shaft entrance. She could feel her joints squeaking and cricking as she moved. She could feel the layer of grime collected on her otherwise desert skin. Right then she could have passed as the true to form dead having just risen from the grave.

The thought made her smile. The thought of the faces on the boys who were in the cave should they get a look at her in her undead, near death glory made her smile even bigger, at least in her mind. Taking the climb steadily and carefully, Detta started making her way to the shaft but not before daydreaming of a torrent of blood running down her throat. It would be another night of gluttony.

<–10.  More, More, More + 12. Fear and Healing in Santa Carla–>

The blood squished and Detta fought back a gag. There wasn’t a reason for it. It’s not like she hadn’t seen such gore before but the bodies of the years past were just that—nameless corpses on her take-out menu. Perhaps it was because the squish was her blood seeping into Marko’s open chest that caused the retch. It was like she was filling up the stake wound the only way she knew how. But instead of the blood pooling in his wound, it seeped into his body, disappearing into the crackling crevices, leaving behind nothing but dust once again.

Detta could feel the blood rushing around in her body, migrating toward the scraped-open wound and out into another body. She picked the bloodied lure up with her damaged hand, blood soaking the lure even more. The pointed tip nicked open her tongue as she licked it clean before touching it to her clean wrist. The skin popped and tore as she dragged the time-dulled lure down her wrist, exposing yet another artery and giving her life another means of escape.

Little white spots began to burst and fade only to explode once again before her eyes. Her arms wavered over the death wound but the drops that didn’t make it into his chest burrowed through his dry kin, disappearing beneath the surface. Through the oncoming unconsciousness Detta noticed a slight change in tone around the wound. No longer was the opening a rotting gray but speckles of pink were littered about, creeping around slowly to consume the decay. The blood was working. She was healing him.

But there was hardly any blood left in her. A look at her own blood-crusted skin revealed not the tan, youthful appearance she normally had but an aged, decrepit tone. Wrinkled and drying, only a few steps away from Marko’s. She had to be careful. It would defeat the purpose if she were to die in the process of reviving her lover.

She couldn’t tell if it was a near-death hallucination or her eyes were telling the truth but Marko’s wound was now glistening at her. No longer brittle and arid, the flesh and muscle shone as if the hole had been freshly carved. If this was the last she saw before she died, she’d be happy enough. Her self-mutilation wasn’t in vain.

A roar, different from the deafening pain of her own scream, broke through her semi-conscious haze and Detta jerked her arms back, frightened and caught off guard by the sudden thrust the corpse beneath her gave. The corpse thrusted. It moved! Marko’s torso writhed jerkily, obviously uncomfortable (to say the least) under the weight of the now-fresh wound. Eyes wide in varying degrees of shock, she looked to Marko’s face and saw his head moving in the same mechanical manner, stiff under his still-dying skin. His mouth was hinged wide open and an animalistic cry of pain rolled incessantly from his throat. His eyes saw nothing, the blues whited out in death and her blood not being plenty enough to restore his sight. Marko’s arms lifted and fell, clawing at the dirt below them, at his own skin, chipping it away, and occasionally at her denim-covered leg, feeling nothing but pain. She heard a crackling, breaking noise that could just as easily been the creaks of a leather jacket if the noises weren’t coming from Marko’s own joints.

Tears continued to drip from her eyes as the elation swelled in her chest, threatening to suffocate her in such a joyous way that she would gladly welcome it. However, this was just the shell of the man she knew as Marko. She heard the beast rumbling in his chest as she threw herself at his side, forcing dirt into her open wounds as she crushed her arms beneath her. The cry that erupted steadily from the crackled mouth in front of her wasn’t Marko’s but that of a wounded, feral animal blinded by death that, despite its defiance, stood lingering right next to him. And he knew it was there.

Detta rested her head on his shoulder once again and lifted it just as quickly as the near-dead Marko howled at the pain she caused. In death there was no pain. There was hardly any pain in undeath. But in this half-life, the decay and deterioration that was so visible on his skin was very real . . . and very painful. Careful not to touch him again, she pulled herself up in the blood-mixed dirt, setting her head level with his as she propped herself up on her elbows, her lips gently brushing his flimsing ear.

“Shhhhhh,” she hushed under the beastly howls. “Marko, it’s me. Please stop.”

Detta waited for a response but was only greeted with more cries and more pain. For the first time since he’d been reanimated, Detta’d taken notice of his presence within her once again. No wonder she didn’t feel it before. It was faint, barely a pulse and barely recognizable as Marko. It mimicked the shell that lay before her—barely alive and as raw as life could be.

As she focused on the presence that was no longer absent, the felt another piece of a vampire beginning to fade away. She quickly perched up and looked into the blank white eyes and she could see the veins in them shifting, the cry still gurgling in his throat. Death wasn’t teasing her with Marko. Another brother had died. She remained still for a moment, blocking out the cries that constantly rose and quelled in pitch, and felt her way around the remaining lives. Arrogance was the only youth that was left. That coupled with the rising animal in what she knew to be Laddie, it was safe to say that Dwayne had been the one to get killed. Piece by piece they were dying for a brother that lay beneath her that she may just be able to save.

As she looked into the white orbs sat against the slate gray of his face, it was a sickly sight even for Detta to handle and she let out an audible sob, her chest heaving out the pain in her heart. Her tears dripped onto his cheeks, the parched skin greedily absorbing the moisture and she gently touched a finger to his protruding cheek bone, wanting to feel him and hoping he’d feel her. At her touch, his wailing lowered to a whimper as he lay motionless, allowing her to feel his painful skin. Her fingertip lifted and landed on his lip, brushing it lightly. She watched his bark-like tongue try to reach out and greet it but it couldn’t pass his teeth. She brought her arm up and brushed her fingers through his still-soft curls, a stark contrast to the harsh body below.

His nostrils flared as her blood-soaked arm passed by his nose and a grunt issued from his throat. Detta looked to her arm and back to his face, his lips feebly attempting to curl, his head wanting to lift but remained weighted to the ground. She dipped a finger into the drying blood, making sure to cover the tip, and gently pressed it onto his tongue. Like the rest of his body, the moisture-starved skin inhaled the blood and for the briefest of moments, the tension left Marko’s face before the pain resumed once again.

A rush of immediacy overcame her and if her heart worked as a human’s did, it would have been pounding in her chest. The dread in her mind stated ‘this is not permanent’ and she looked down at the flesh-colored wound in Marko’s chest. It was torture to keep him lingering in a mid-life like he was. She needed blood and she needed it now. Her face dropped to the ground below him, her nose pressing into the dirt as the rest of her pushed itself up.

“I’m going to get life,” she whispered hoarsely in his ear. “I’m going to bring you back. I’ll feed you. Don’t worry. I’ll feed you.”

Detta thrust herself up as quickly as she could and fell butt first onto the ground with just as much speed. She needed blood just as much for herself as she did for Marko. The back shelter spun as she pulled herself up once again, steadying herself against the wall. Before she scaled the wall, she glanced back to Marko, shifting slowly on the ground, his mouth closing a fraction before opening back up into a scream that would fade away into a gurgle. His hands, as much as they wanted to lift, stayed firmly put, the fingers clawing to the best of their stiffened ability.

Her stare wasn’t healing him. She turned back to the entrance over her head and started the short climb, brushing off the waves of unconsciousness that threatened to overtake her. She inched her way along the tunnel, her stomach sliding over ancient wood and rusting nails as her legs pushed her along. There was no strength to catch her as she fell out the entrance, crunching along the stone wall and shattering some trinkets below her. She could feel the plaster and paint embed itself in her skin, in the wounds that weren’t healing as there was hardly any life to heal it.

Tried as she may to keep her eyes from crossing, the blackened lobby still blurred in her vampire’s night vision as she stumbled through the dark, knees slamming into the ground and elbows knocking into corners. She swore that the entrance was quickly creeping further and further away from her. The ocean air assaulted her dying senses as the spray prickled her skin. She could hardly walk. Would she even be able to fly?

She prepared her mind as she did every time she was about to take flight; imagined that she was weightless and just let her body do the work for her. The weight melted from her body and Detta began to steer herself towards Santa Carla’s main beach. But another bout of inching unconsciousness nearly overcame her and her concentration was broken, leaving her body leaden and her brain addled. The frigid ocean water was a mind-clearing shock as she splashed into it and despite her dangerously low level of blood and the denim jeans that continued to get heavier, her eyes were fresh and wide and her purpose clear. She spat out the salty water and brushed her clinging hair from her face, briefly remembering how ragged her skin felt and cringing at what she probably looked like.

Pushing the momentary bout of vanity from her mind and refilling it with the near-corpse of Marko that lay waiting, helpless, in the cave, Detta forced herself from the water, bursting through the little waves that lapped at her head and soared, drenched and raining down upon unsuspecting heads, towards town. She cackled to herself, her throat raspy and parched when she saw she wouldn’t have to go to the mecca after all.

Bridges Beach, a much quieter spit of sand a couple of miles north of the hub housed a small bonfire without a potential hearing ear in sight. Her feet touched down silently on the blackened sand, out of reach of the orange glow of the flames. New moon tonight, the darkest night could get. As she padded closer, she noticed four of them, all male. She wondered whether it’d be best to overfeed or bring a couple back. Quick calculating determined that yes, glutting herself felt like the best course of action. Carrying meals back just seemed like a needless waste of energy in such a precarious situation.

Detta imagined herself as looking like the walking dead; her skin sunken and gray from the lack of blood, parched beyond the help any kind of mere moisturizer could offer. Her clothes, tattered and torn from her tumbles and slides in the cave, flew about in wisps around her body, exposing skin just as ragged and split. For all intents and purposes she should have been bleeding from those wounds but only the color of blood offered itself.

Pain and weakness weighted her body as she staggered towards the fire, building up her energy for the eminent attack. They must have been pretty wasted not to hear her thump into the sand on the couple of instances she fell. The oblivion didn’t last long, though, as realization came to a set of eyes staring straight at her. At first they squinted. He was probably thinking he was seeing things but when Detta’s outline solidified itself in his vision, and her corpse-like appearance became clear, his stoned eyeballs nearly burst from his skull as he clamored up from what looked like a rather comfy reclining position. The other guys proffered a look to humor their paranoid friend but the mass hysteria caught on quickly.

“Now boys,” Detta croaked, her voice rattling in her throat. “Don’t make me work too hard on this. I’m not . . . not feeling too well.”

No. She wasn’t some drugged up, drugged out heroin prostitute. The fangs and the lunging and bright yellow eyes in the old, dead face cleared that confusion right up. Too bad for the boys, who couldn’t shake off the marijuana haze fast enough. She had to kill them all first otherwise she might lose one.

The first neck got her fangs and she drank greedily as she tore into another with her nails, not bothering to see what she was doing. Two bodies down, the other two running away in day-glo swim trunks. She didn’t need to be a vampire to see that in the night. As she closed in, Detta thought about breaking their necks but, from this vantage point, knocking their heads together seemed like the most efficient move. An echoing crunch, followed by sand catching a couple of collapsing bodies, mingled with the breaking waves. Her fingertips caught wayward blood as it dribbled down her chin and returned it to its rightful home in her mouth. The other two were first since they were losing the most blood.

Blood-stained fangs tore at the tan throat as Detta drank everything that was left in the surfing body beneath her. Death by Nails was next as the blood slowly trickled from his wounds, pooling around his head. What a waste. She didn’t get too much from him. The other two, though, not only had they lost very little, they were both still alive. Detta could feel her stomach filling as she gulped at the pot and coke-tainted life in the guy’s veins. The fourth one even moaned a little, aware that he was dying but just not in a state to do anything about it.

Her back greeted the sand when she drank the last drop of blood she could, the vital life sloshing around in her swollen stomach. The crime scene needed to be cleaned, and her overfed body made it that much harder. Detta thought this was probably what it felt like for her on Thanksgiving. Stuffed.

With bloody sand buried and the bodies sinking a mile out into the Pacific, Detta headed back to the cave revitalized, rejuvenated and not looking like a brain-eating zombie. Her skin no longer pulled taut at her face and her hands were the golden tan they were when she was human. Her flight didn’t falter and her determination was steadfast. Like an overstuffed bullet she tore through the cave opening, straight through the midnight lobby and, with precision, straight to the boys’ sleeping quarters like she certainly couldn’t have done an hour ago.

With only a slight frantic stumble, Detta touched down in the blackened room of death with Marko still writhing on the floor. His blind eyes looked in her general direction desperately trying to see the source of the crunching gravel. She could, however minutely, feel his fear rising, afraid that it wasn’t Detta that’d returned but his killers. The rocks and dirt crunched beneath her knees as she knelt next to Marko, her hand lightly touching his arm, reassuring him that yes, it was her.

She looked to the hole in his chest and nothing had changed since she left. It was better than having it decay again. She felt his fingers touch lightly on her pant leg and it sent a surge of emotion coursing through her body. He was still there, still hanging on, but she needed to hurry. Please.

The crusted fish hook still lay next to Marko and Detta picked it up and reintroduced it to her skin, dragging it along the faint scar the last tear left behind. She bade the blood to come forward and out it poured from her wound and into Marko’s dastardly one. The splishing and splashing of the blood hitting decrepit organs and bone made the bile rise in Detta’s throat but it was easily swallowed back when she saw his fleshy tone return to the edges of the wound. This time it slowly began to spread outwards, creeping towards his stomach and collar bones.

A guttural mumble emitted from Marko’s throat in a mixture of pain and rising health as the blood flowed into him and Detta could feel herself drain yet again. Blood splashed onto his jacket as Detta jumped, the breath catching in her throat as Marko’s hand swiftly latched onto her wrist. The movement was unbecoming of his position but it showed his improvement. Detta smiled down at him as his still-weak arm pulled at her wrist, wanting to move it to his gaping mouth. The blue of his eyes had started to fade back in but only slightly. There was still no sight there.

Detta eased the energy Marko was expending on her as she moved her wrist to his mouth, touching her skin to his lips. It was a distorted kiss as his lips lingered momentarily against her skin. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking if anything other than to bite. And that he did. She sighed heavily as his fangs punctured her already jagged skin. It was a mixture of pain and momentary past pleasure, a thought to better times to escape the destruction that surrounded her now. Her veins pulsed with his every suck, obeying his command for more blood. Her body gladly gave it. Detta shifted from her knees to her butt as she felt herself weaken more and watched as the skin on her arm started to crust and gray again. There was no stopping him, not now. She wouldn’t allow it.

The cave spun once again as the blood drained from her head and into Marko’s mouth. Her stomach churned at the ride the room had turned into, bending and waving and weaving all around her. It might as well been breathing with the way the walls swelled and deflated. She could no longer feel the fangs in her wrist anymore and wondered if he had taken his fill. She knew that was impossible, especially now, but looked anyway to verify.

Nothing but blackness greeted Detta although she swore her eyes were blinking. Funnily enough, she could still see the room spinning. Maybe lying down would be a good idea. Her shoulders lurched and her neck bent awkwardly, her head hitting something that caused her no pain. It was numb too. The ringing in her ears got louder as her body got number and only then was there sleep.

<–9. Hello Emptiness + 11. Bated Breath–>

Her nails raked across her chest as she screamed. She could feel every inch of the point’s penetration tearing away her skin, her bones, her heart and back again. At first it felt like a horrible nightmare, a lucid dream that she didn’t know she could have in her vampire state. But the longer her eyes were open and the more conscious she became of her bedroom around her, the quicker the realization came that this was anything but a dream.

Blood collected under Detta’s nails as she continued to claw at her skin. Where was it coming from? She looked down but only red welts appeared. There was no hole and nothing tearing through her body. Yet she could still feel it, as if a phantom pinned her to her bed with a stake through her heart. Her voice screeched as it tore through her home, radiating her pain to anyone or anything that listened. Then she listened. For a brief moment, through her rabid cries, Detta thought she heart a faint snap and the pain intensified tenfold.

It was nothing physical, that she knew right away. This was something . . . familiar. Unbearably familiar. Overriding the ghostly physical pain radiating through her body was the absence of Marko, a feeling only felt once before and, like they say with childbirth, it’s a pain never forgotten. Animalistic cries intensified as Detta groped around blindly, desperately searching for any shards of the connection that could be near. Lifeblood was leaving her. She could feel the cool liquid gushing from her chest even though her t-shirt remained desert dry. She could feel her existence draining, her body wilting without the connection cable between her and Marko. What was going on?

The floor caught her hard as she lurched out of bed, her head making the connection first. But there was no pain, no feeling. Only deadness. Pressing her weight into the railing, Detta clunked down the stairs, her body dropping every time the rail moved a little further away from the wall. She could have twisted her ankle on one of the steps. That step down just didn’t feel right but it didn’t matter. There wasn’t any pain.

From the banister she threw herself at the door, coming up short by a foot and greeting the floor with her head once again. Tucking a knee up under her arm, her foot pressed into the floor, the wood underneath creaking with the pressure, Detta hoisted herself up, grabbing onto the doorknob for help. Surprisingly, it held. Throwing her weight against the wall, she turned the metal knob in her hand and pulled the door open, ready and willing to find out what this death was.

Fire. Like putting her hand in a vat of hot grease, her face began to sizzle and burn, her eyes shut tight against the blinding light. From her face to her ankles, it was nothing but fire, burning, smoldering pain that worsened the longer the light shown on her. With the remaining effort left in her dying arm, she hurled the door closed again and sank down the wall, eyes clouded by the puffs of smoke swirling around her.

It was daylight. How was that possible? What’s going on? Marko never told her anything about this. Why were the only things she could pick up from her undead brothers were death, pain and nothingness? Everything else was feral. Why couldn’t she find Marko? Where was his mind? What was going on?

Detta’s chest heaved over her wheezing lungs as she looked down with vampire eyes on her still-sizzling skin, pieces blackened by the deadly sun. She could already feel it beginning to mend but it was the only fix. Her palm inched along her chest, feeling the nothing that was there but it didn’t explain the hole she felt, not only the emptiness but the damage done bodily, just not to her.

Sleep started to overtake her again. Her crackling eyelids dropped over eyes that still saw the bursting streaks of light in the darkness. Anger now pulsed alongside the unbearable pain and emptiness she felt. But anger at what? Had her brothers witnessed something? Did they know what happened to Marko? Why she could no longer feel him running through her? Clear and rational thoughts just were not possible, not amidst the confusion, the intense emotions and the nothingness. Thought didn’t exist now as her brain faded back into sleep as her body slumped against the door, the open sores on her body pulsing in what should have been a healing pain. The emotions swam and the feelings cracked further as unconsciousness crawled its way through Detta’s veins.

vVv

The sun had barely sunk below the horizon when Detta’s eyes snapped open, feeling as if she were opening everyone else’s as well. Thoughts from the fading day swirled in her mind, trying to create a rhyme or reason for why she was leaning against her front door instead of wrapped cozily in her bed. Her eyes saw the crisping, blackened pieces of flesh on her arms and legs, felt the stiffness of the skin on her face but the pain was delayed. Only after moments of staring did the dull, burning pulse make its way to her brain to remind her that yes, this did happen.

She put her hand to her chest that felt so hollow but was perfectly intact, the scratch marks she remembered making already gone. They were nice enough to clear the way in order to heal the heavier duty sun burns running down the front of her body.

It was then, as she pulled herself up, her body leadened from the daytime stress, that she felt the launch of what felt like the armies of a million countries, their collective blood boiling over and wanting nothing more than to replace it with the lives of the enemies. There was just too much going on in her head. Everywhere she thought there was more feeling, more fear, readiness, anger, revenge.

Her palms pressed against the sides of her head as she closed her eyes and let the voices swim. There was Star and Laddie: panic, confusion and terror. They weren’t with the boys. Michael: fear thinly masked with determination and a sense of protection. What did he do? The message wasn’t clear but they were all together. The boys might as well been sharing the same brain. It was a combination of loss, revenge and finality. Max’s voice was pulsing in her head and echoing to the boys. Do it now. This is it. Before everything else gets ruined. Paul didn’t share the “not again” thoughts that Dwayne and David were having, angry at not only this loss but it having happened. Needles, Detta assumed.

But the loss. What loss and where was Marko? Was he so angry that he’d shut off entirely? No, he’d get the message to her somehow. Where was he? Why were his thoughts absent? What was he doing that–

A sharp intake of breath caught in Detta’s throat, giving her the illusion of being able to choke. She put her hand up to her chest again, feeling the gaping hole that wasn’t there when her undead heart started to pulse in her ears. Then she listened, really listened to the swarm of people in her head and the silence from the only voice that mattered to her was deafening. Dead weight, as black as pitch behind dead, soulless eyes. A void. All in a momentary flash, the colored squares of the Rubik’s cube lined up and Detta ratcheted up the blood that had yet to digest from the previous night.

Puddling blood on a Berber carpet meant nothing as she took the stairs two at a time, drops of blood and saliva dangling from her chin. Her overgrown nightshirt was in a pile on the floor before Detta realized it was even off but before her body could be re-robed, another retch rolled from the pit of her stomach and she could feel the blood pushing its way up. She tripped to the sink, her ankles locking into each other in the frenzy. She caught herself on the porcelain but chucked her chin and bit her tongue. Yet even more blood lost when the second wave poured out her mouth. Now was not the time for sickness.

Detta blindly grabbed at whatever she could put her head through, whatever would slide up her legs and whatever her feet would fit into. Caring about how she looked wasn’t even a potential thought. The stairs dropped suddenly as she stood at the top, their height magnifying exponentially as her head swam in nausea. There was no time to gather her bearings. She’d have to get them later. By the feel of it the railing had already been yanked partly from the wall, no doubt a result of the visions she then thought were horrible daymares. It would have been so much easier if she could believe they were.

Her body winced when she threw open the door despite the fact that the sun was nowhere to be seen. It’s natural marks on her unnatural body were still prevalent and painful and the healing had slowed since she’d vomited the blood. It was only natural for her body to react as if it was about to get pain again. She heaved the door shut behind her, not caring enough to lock it before she took off into the night, towards her second home. The sonic screech of overgrown bats reverberated in her ears as the noise grew more and more distant. Her vampire brothers might have crossed right over her as they traveled in opposite directions but neither party cared. It wasn’t about any of them. It was about loss and unfinished plans. Plans she really couldn’t care any less about at the moment. Let Max punish her later. She couldn’t do anything without answers.

Every few seconds the rotating light of the lighthouse caught her eyes as she descended on Hudson’s Bluff. All of the motorcycles were tucked safely behind a collection of nearby shrubs. The boys had taken flight to exact revenge. As she flew lower over the stairs and swooped over the rickety wooden walkway, she could feel the spray of crashing ocean on her face and arms. The scent of mortals lingered in the air. As far as she could remember, it’d been long enough since any of them had brought dinner back that there shouldn’t be a scent. But there was. It was a scent that traveled out. They came out of the cave alive. Detta’s tongue felt like it was swelling, her ability to swallow gone as she flew through the gap of the chain link fence and the mouth of the cave, scratching her shoulder on a piece of jutting rock. Even more blood lost.

Her feet finally touched ground in the blackened lobby, feeling nothing but useless in its unuse. Star and Laddie were indeed gone and the scent of humans was even stronger here. Michael had been here too, returning even after the sex whose scent still lingered faintly on the air. He brought others with him. A rescue mission. Was it because of Star?

The further she walked into the cave, the stronger the scent of young human blood became, mixed with the stench of old death, a seemingly impossible feat in a new death. A quick leap was all it took for Detta to reach the opening to the boys’ collective sleeping quarters. As she knew, they were gone. Not daring to trust her flying in such a closed space, she crawled in the blackness lit brilliant with her vampire eyes. Edges of wayward support beams and threads of spiders’ webs glistened and glowed fantastically in the dark, lighting her way to the back nook. The scent of child mortals was in the tunnel too, dripping from the crevices overhead. Detta’s stomach gave another lurch and she fought back another retch. Why were humans able to make it back here and out again alive?

Charred flesh not her own stuck in her nose. She inhaled the scent again. It was David. She wasn’t the only one that rushed into the death of daylight in a fit of emotion. But he had seen the reason why and they were all blocking it out now. Only after smelling the burning flesh did she remember the pain of her own open wounds reignited by the dirt and wood shards being pushed into them. But she was almost there.

At the opening, Detta looked up to the bar she knew the boys to suspend from. It crossed the nook empty with nothing but darkness and death to keep it company. With her knees tucked to her chest, she jumped to the ground that was more than her height below her. Immediately her throat locked and her body froze. The squish that came from beneath her boots was foreign and the phantom pain in her chest exploded, as if the wound had been staked open again. She lifted each foot slightly and listened to the squelch, afraid of looking down despite the blinding sympathy pain in her body.

But she did and there, beneath her feet, pooled the dead, glittering unlife of a vampire, making a horrible mocking mud of the dirt around her. The suspicions she had buried, the knowledge she had successfully ignored up until that point were being violently shoved in her face as her eyes wandered of their own accord to a set of clawed feet, fashioned by vampire’s blood to mimic a bat’s to add versatility to the undead’s sleeping repertoire. But these were not the feet of a healthy creature of the night. The skin was the color of soot and cracked like a lake bed in a drought. Unable to control herself, Detta knelt, her knees squishing into the cold, gooey mess underneath her, and reached out a finger to touch the body that just couldn’t be real. The skin cracked and broke off as soon as the pad of her finger touched it.

Her eyes continued their way up, reaching familiar leather chaps covering a pair of blue jeans that she still had the receipt for tucked in a drawer somewhere in her house. By Marko’s standards, they were hardly broken in yet. Up her eyes traveled, stopping at an exposed portion of stomach, the skin still clinging to well-defined muscles that she loved to trace with her tongue. Only now it looked as if the ashen skin would suck any moisture she had straight from her mouth, turning her into a body under a drought. A dirtied, crusted patchwork jacket lay helter skelter on either side of his torso. The tack, as Detta so often called it, was marred by the dead life it was swimming in. Just a little further up lay the source of her pain, extended grotesquely from the center of a wife-beatered chest, the material she knew to be a dirtied white now looked black to her night-visioned eyes. A tipless gloved hand rested against the wooden stake, the fingers showing signs of clutching at it until there was nothing left to fuel them. The other hand lay askew off to her side, as if he was just calling her to lie next to him.

Her own morbidity got the better of her as her hand reached for the stake, poking it to see just how sturdy it was. It wavered slightly, the squish beneath her louder than the squish his chest should have made. But anything that would have made that noise was no longer in him. It had exploded out in a torrent of death the moment it had entered. Her nails again raked across her heart, attempting to scratch away the very real pain that lay dead before her eyes, that radiated inside of her. More blood left her body as her nails kicked up skin.

Further up rested a set of collar bones that she loved to nip, a neck that he would often invite her to drink from, all surrounded by a congealed mane of curly hair that no longer resembled its former color. Her chest kicked and heaved as her eyes fought against making the last leg of their journey, the home stretch that would bring the infinitesimal lingering doubt to a sudden halt. She wanted to see. They didn’t want to show her. She was the victor.

A well-defined chin that perpetually carried the tinge of a summer tan might as well been the color of soot. Lips that used to be as pink as a human’s looked ready to break off at the thought of a kiss. The nose whose tip would always welcome one of her kisses now offered no such invite. Eyes that were once so blue she wanted to dive into them from the moment she first saw them were nothing more than white orbs stuck into a head of the body of a Marko who shouldn’t have lived this long, as nature would be wont to dictate.

All the pieces of the puzzle have been violently shoved together. There was no pretending. He wasn’t going to wake up and go “Gotcha.” There wasn’t going to be any laughing or frivolity or pats on the back at how good the prank was. This was death and the others were out taking revenge on their fallen brother, the brother that died in front of their eyes by the hands of kids, or so their remaining scent said. Could they do nothing to help him?

A dull roar started to brew in Detta’s head, all the way at the back. Like a train creeping across a bridge, it made its way forward, but unlike the train, the roar didn’t abide by speed limits and gained momentum as it made its way to her forehead. It took up all the room in her ears, allowing her to hear nothing more than the screech of a banshee tucked somewhere deep in the cave, sounding like she wanted nothing more than to claw her way out. She could feel her ear drums vibrating, the noise was so loud. They were sure to pop at any second. The roar reached her eyes, shutting off all sight of the body that lay below her. In a whirling drop, feeling much like the first time she tried to fly, the roar filled her body, denying her the touch of cold life on her skin, the pain in her chest, the existence of any part of her body. Nothing was there. Only the roar and the scream.

The pain in her throat pushed the roar away and it was only then that she realized the scream was coming through her own mouth, not from some mythical beast tucked back in the cave. The scream resounded back into her ears, feeling like they were being shaken to their rupturing point. If they did, it was only more blood to add to that already lost. When her eyes could see again, they were level with the desert corpse of Marko, his shoulder hardly able to bear the weight of her head as she felt it crumble underneath her. Her face was wet and when she put her hand to her skin to wipe it away, she saw not more blood but clear wet. She was crying. The vampire was crying for the loss of her soul mate that lay rotting to dust next to her. Perhaps her undead tears would alleviate his arid skin.

She touched a tear-stained finger to a crackling cheek, traced the definition of the vampire face he clung to in death and then touched the only things that remained unchanged – his fangs, white as his eyes were blue, standing out even more against the darkness all around them. Her finger traced the shape of his incisor before she moved it down slowly, like she did that night in the alley in her last moments of human life. She stuck her finger on the tip and, despite all that she’d lost, blood still rose to the wound to stain the tip of his fang. She wiped the blood on his cracking lip before moving her hand down to take hold of the stake that still stood erect from Marko’s torso.

With a faltering burst of energy, she yanked the stake from his body. At first it rose with its killer but then it slid from the wood and rested on the ground once again. With her other hand she pushed herself up, relieving the decaying shoulder of her weighty head, and looked at the murder weapon, half of it stained with the life it took away. She could feel the youth on the dry end where her hand held it. Her lip curled and she could feel her fangs elongate as she chucked the stake across the sleeping quarters. It didn’t need to be around anymore.

Her eye caught the adornments on Marko’s jacket; his meticulously chosen patches and trinkets that he’d collected over the years. He still had more to add. She reached for the whisping strands of nylon fastened to the material with a hook. Marko saw a trinket in anything, including fishing lures. It stuck in the jacket, at first not wanting to come out but with some coaxing, it succeeded. The death hadn’t tainted the lure but it waved through her again as there was one less cluster of thoughts swirling in her head, snuffed out of existence. There were two left, stoic and stubborn. Paul was gone. The humans were fighting back.

She looked the hook over, the metal dull from the years it sat nestled in Marko’s jacket. Detta sniffled. Her nose was actually stuffy. A human moment in her vampire life. But she was far from human. It was then that a statement from her not-too-distant past scrolled through her head, Your blood is stronger now. Layla, the Coney Island psychic with an Eric Clapton name told her that at the end of her and Marko’s reading. Her blood was stronger now. Detta looked at the hook again, the tip dulled, and brought it to her wrist. Like tearing open a seam, the point ripped open her skin, exposing her artery. The blood pooled in the wound as if waiting for the command before Detta willed it to flow, tickling her skin as it dripped from her arm.

<–8. Help, I Need Somebody + 10. More, More, More–>