#plot: vampirony.

Back in college, Jenny had written an essay about what made a literary monster. She’d written countless essays and academic texts on such subjects, pulling them apart and unthreading them until she could use them to score a high grade and have something to talk about. She had scoured books and other people’s research and thinkpieces to come to a conclusion about what literary ingredients made a monster and how those ingredients were changed overtime or based on cultural context.

She didn’t need any research now. No think pieces. No input from death authors like Mary Shelley or Robert Louis Stevenson. Jenny knew what she was. She knew that inside her there was a monstrous thing and that even though she was still trying to figure out the line between that thing and herself, it made her a monster all the same. She, or something within her, had harmed Henri beyond repair and killed a stranger walking the streets. Whether there was a line and if so, where it separated herself from that part of her — it mattered little.

So, she wallowed in that knowledge. She’d locked herself in her townhouse. She dropped off Edward at Baz’ place with plenty of his toys, treats and other things. She put on one of her more depressing records on. She locked herself in the bathroom with one of the bloodbags Jade’s friend had given her, splattering tiles and herself as she fed. Lapping it all up with that tongue of hers, breaking those same tiles and her perfume bottle in the process.

And now she sat on the floor, back leaning against the couch. Bauhaus wallowed in the background. Jenny tried not to think about the taste of Henri’s blood in her mouth. 

—

Henri would be furious if she was here. He didn’t exactly get much say in the matter, though, not right now. It wasn’t that Eve was angry at him, not when she had made errors of judgement of her own that had carried an equal weight but… he was soft on the supernatural. The truth was that it did not matter that Eve liked Jenny, or that Henri liked Jenny, or that anyone liked Metzli. Here was the truth, plain and simple: the Supernatural might not want or choose to be a threat, but that did not change that they were. Hunters might not want to kill, it might not be a good thing that they did, but it was necessary.

What Eve did was necessary too, even though right now that gave her little comfort. She wore a concealed Kevlar vest under her blouse today, and a motorbike leather jacket on top. A long blade hung from her hip, and that did not offer her much comfort either.  She knocked and then pushed open the front door of Jenny’s apartment, where she had been several times before. 

“Jenny. I know it’s a bad time, but we need to talk. How are you feeling?” Are you in a ravenous rage, was what Eve wanted to ask.

—

The sound of a familiar voice sent a shiver through her system. She had not been expecting visitors because she had not been inviting visitors. Jenny felt that she existed best with just herself now, returning back to her days of teenage misery where she hid in her room and clung to media to soothe her tumultuous mind. But of course, the teenage angst she’d felt then hardly compared to the weight of Henri’s lost arm and a dead man on her mind. 

Bauhaus kept droning on in the background until she’d gotten up to remove the needle from the vinyl. She waited for Eve to enter the room to address her, standing next to the record player as if frozen. At least she’d managed to brush her hair today. At least she’d wiped the flecks of blood from her feeding session in the bathroom from her face.

“I’m great,” she said, unable to keep a sardonic tone from entering her voice. She closed her eyes for a moment, gestured at one of the many seats when she opened them again. What did Eve know? What did she want to talk about? Surely it wasn’t something as mundane as their arrangement. Something like Eve having caught feelings for her or someone else, something that would mess with the casual fun they’d had before the world had fallen from underneath her feet. 

She felt nerves strike through her. She watched Eve carefully. “What do you want to talk about?”

–

“Are you?” Eve asked curiously, her eyes scouring over Jenny huntingly. She was looking for traces of blood, knew where it might get caught in clothing seams or creases of the skin. Elbows were missed surprisingly often, especially if you were prone to dry skin and forgot to moisturise. (That had never been Jenny, though. The person in front of her looked too drained of life to much remind her of Jenny. Eve had no idea how much of that was her actual death, or her metaphorical one. It didn’t matter.)

There was no point in beating around the bush. There were places for delicacy, but they were not at your own grave, not after dining on your friend’s arm. Eve stepped into the apartment, and perched herself on the arm rest of one of Jenny’s couches, gesturing for Jenny to sit. Her eyes never left Jenny, not even once, and she moved with a grace that she usually hid. Her gun was heavy at her hip, but it wouldn’t be the weapon she’d reach for if Jenny began to change. 

“You.” Eve said gently. “How you're coping with your death, and how I might be able to help you now.” She didn’t mention how intimately familiar she was with death, on both sides of the curtain. Nor that she wishes she had known when Jenny had died, so that she could have retrieved her corpse, and done what she always knew Henri couldn’t have. It was still a lingering regret about how she had handled Emilio’s death, even though she was glad she was still alive. (Something that wouldn’t be true twice over if she had killed Emilio.) “I’m really sorry that this happened to you, Jenny. No one deserves this.” 

—

Eve questioned her answer, and after that sat on an arm rest, not a seat, and gestured for Jenny to sit in her own home. Though occasionally delusional, she had a dreary sense that this was going to be a serious conversation. She sat down on her couch as invited, as if she had suddenly walked into Eve’s living room and was relying on her hospitality. It might as well be that way, because when the other took charge of the conversation, Jenny felt fully out of her depth.

So Eve knew. Eve knew she had died (and been reborn, an important distinction) and now she was sitting in her living room offering her aid. What aid was there? What could Eve offer? Jenny remembered when they had met, when she had wondered if the other was a vampire and had let go of that conclusion. She remembered the scars littering her body, the multitude of proof of violence that marred her. She stared at Eve and wondered who had told her, who was close to her like that, but most of all, she wondered what she was.

She seemed so very human. “How do you know?” The question was posed forwardly, yet warily. It seemed those were the only words she’d speak composedly, because she felt her bottom lip start to tremble. She had been crying a lot these days. Whatever cold emotional coolness came with vampirism in some literature had certainly passed her. Her throat became lodged and she felt her eyes sting. She let out a huff of air that seemed almost like a laugh, but lacked all humor. Eve was offering her sympathies and she did not know what to faced with them besides cry. “I don’t —” She covered her eyes with her hands, pressing her palms into the sockets as she breathed in. “What do you mean, help?”

—-

“I know Henri,” Eve answered simply, barely a trace of emotion in her voice, despite all the weight it carried. In those three words, there was every flirting kiss, every late night poured over books, the question Henri had asked the morning that they had handled the inflatable snowman. And then the phone call, the apartment, the excruciating numbing watching of the minutes ticking by until the surgery ended. It even held seeing him in his hospital bed, and not regretting her answer, despite everything. But she had not forgotten who had put him there. Who had carted off his arm like a midnight snack. She looked at Jenny with all the gentleness she could summon, her mask perfectly fused in place. Flinch, she thought, give me a reason to draw my blade. “He didn’t tell me, to be clear. I guessed.” Another loaded sentence. Jenny had never, ever been subtle. Anyone who knew anything at all would have been able to connect those dots.

Her lip curled up in a slightly wry smile, briefly. “He would not be a fan if he found out I was here. For several reasons,” Eve admitted. “I keep the supernatural secret from humanity. To protect them from the dangers and… temptations of knowing.” A sick pit settled in her stomach, but she kept going. “Which sometimes means I cover up what supernatural beings do. Something I’m sure you can understand the importance of.”

—

As Eve talked, Jenny pulled her legs on the couch, unconsciously making herself smaller and easier to hold together physically. Mentally, that was a battle lost, but she could at least embrace herself somewhat. Eve knew Henri, that would not be a shocking revelation on any other day, but in the face of what had happened the week prior, it was a devastating thing. Henri had been ripped in two, the separation line mercifully on his arm and not his throat or stomach. It was she who had done it. Or the she that wasn’t her, but that lived inside her. The monster that was dormant now but which even now recalled the taste of his acidic blood, the anticipation that had come after she had severed the arm. 

“I didn’t — you know I didn’t mean to, I never meant to…” she began, voice reaching a higher pitch. She had been trying to come up with excuses for what she (or the monster within, if it could be distinguished from the Jenny sitting on the couch) had done for days now. She hadn’t come up with a solid one yet. “It was an accident.” That one was pitiful. But it rang somewhat true.

Eve had also said something about keeping the supernatural a secret from humanity and doing cover up. The importance of which made sense to her, sure. If she had never known about it, she would just be an ignorant human wasting time on a play right now while trying to fit into the small town life. “You’re not …” doing a good job of it then. She swallowed the rest of the words. It seemed pissing Eve off right now was a bad idea. And even Jenny knew it was unfair to project what she was going through on the other. “Sure. What does … that mean? Now.” Did cover up and protection include elimination? Did Jenny have to ask another (former?) friend to not kill her? She dug her nails in her knee. “What are you here for?”

—

Eve’s gaze hardened as Jenny shrank in on herself. Henri was in a hospital bed. For a couple days, Eve had been wondering if his own bloodlust would set in, and if she would have to do for him what he had failed to do to Jenny. At least one person was dead - realistically, far more. 

The most central part of being a hunter was knowing what you were. Delusion into thinking you were a hero, or that the people you killed weren’t people, was what lead to the eventual moral compromise and the emotional instability of hunters that fell that way. What will you do if he cries, Jake had asked Eve on the night of her first hunt. Do it anyway. Own the pain that you will cause those families and communities, and learn not to flinch. 

That Jenny could not even summon a sorry, only an excuse, and a shift of the blame, was pathetic. There had been moments over the past few months where Eve had looked at Jenny with a heady lust that had almost knocked out her ability to think. She had gotten caught up in the woman’s easy charisma. There was none of that now. She might have even understood if Jenny had held her ground, just shrugged and just acknowledged it as part of her nature. Eve would not have liked it, but she would have respected it more than this. “Of course you didn’t mean to.” Eve replied, her voice still perfectly even, calm as a forest without birdsong, “But it doesn’t really matter, does it? You still almost killed him. You still ripped off his arm.”

But that didn’t matter either, not right now. Because Henri had asked, and Eve had agreed. She would not send another slayer to do what he had failed to do. She would not attack Jenny herself, even though her body throbbed with the need to, her want for vengeance so thick she thought Emilio might be able to feel it. If she did it right now, Jenny would not even see it coming, would barely feel it before her head hit the floor, rolling for a second before turning to blood. But she had promised. Unless Jenny made the first move, Eve's blade would stay sheathed. 

“I’m here,” Eve began, pushing down the lump in her throat, filling up the pit in her stomach, “to remind you that you have my number. And that when you kill again, you owe it to your victim to call me. I can give their family answers and closure that their corpse might otherwise not.” Her gaze softened slightly. “And, to protect others from what happened to you. You want that, don’t you?”

—

A few weeks ago she would have bucked against the words Eve spoke. Would have gathered excuses, grasping at them like straws and holding them close to her chest. In her diary she had tried to rationalize and make this right, but she had been hitting walls even when it was just her and her thoughts. The man she had killed the night she’d turned? The woman she had ripped apart after what had happened with Henri? Those she was able to file away as accidents, as horrible things that had happened and shouldn't have. But with Henri she could not find it within her to make such explanations mean enough. 

“No,” she said quietly. It didn’t matter. She had come to Henri’s for help and had ruined his life in stead. She had refused his suggestions of putting her in a place where she was safe and others were safe from her. She had come begging when it was too late, when the hunger was already scratching her up from the inside out. She hadn’t meant to, but she had still driven her car there when she was teetering on an edge. Jenny knew that. She had no energy or delusion left to deny that. “It doesn’t.” She swallowed thickly. Henri had ignored her text until he'd told her to fuck off, and she knew that there was no apology that could make this right. 

She glance at her hands for a moment. “How is he?” She could muster a vague picture of what had happened after. Hospital, surgery, a pale Henri sleeping in a hospital gown. At least he was alive. Right? Jenny wasn’t sure if she was owed an explanation of how Henri was. She had ways and means of punishing herself, most originating from teenage depression years, but non seemed to work now.

Eve did not seem to be here to kill her, at least. It wasn’t a large comfort. Maybe that was what she needed — for someone to punish her, properly. Not by looking at her with anger or disgust or an unspoken I told you so, but to whip out a stake and attempt to sign her death warrant. The permanent one this time. But Eve was offering something that sounded an awful lot like help. A person who could help fix up her murders. Future ones, which she wanted to avoid but seemed inevitable. “Yes,” she murmured, “Of course I want that. So … you would not call the cops or someone … like a slayer? Or —” Her lip trembled for a moment. “I wouldn’t blame you, if you did. But I have to ask. I don’t –” Want to die. It felt pathetic to ask. Her voice got caught for a moment. “Want to kill or hurt anyone again, you know.”

—

Some part of her hadn’t expected Jenny to ask how Henri was. She had expected Jenny to forget about him, to be so focused on her own moral injury that she would lose sight of the bigger one. It was a small, welcome surprise, but that didn’t matter much either. 

“Alive and healing,” Eve replied coolly. “Any possible positive outcomes here are entirely a credit to his surgical team and his own strength of character. He’ll heal, and he’ll adapt, but it will take time. Years. It’s not just the writing, the drawing, or lifting things. There’ll be a hundred things you and I will never even think of that he’ll have to solve. But there will always be some things that are more difficult than they are worth the effort, and most things will be slower than he’s used used to. You have cost him time that, as a hunter, he was already short on.” Henri filled his time. There was never a minute of the day that he wasn’t using for researching, or hunting, or making his online videos, or with his friends and loved ones. Henri had never wasted his time in his life, and now he would have less of it. If he even survived a normal hunter lifespan. Not many hunters who had such severe injuries did. “And without an arm, even shorter.”

Meanwhile, Jenny had an infinity of it. Hers would be sustained on the deaths of others, of course. As much as humanity wanted to help, it also wanted to profit, especially at others' expense. Eve looked away. Her voice hadn’t trembled, hadn’t shifted from the near perfect monotone as she’d spoken. Her words had no bite or edge, at least not in tone. And yet.

“I don’t think we should talk about Henri anymore.” Or she might not keep her promise, and she’d give Jenny a red necklace that would not come off. 

Better to focus on the real reason Eve was here. Although, if she was honest with herself, this could have been a phone call. The only reason she was sitting in front of Jenny was to have the opportunity to break her own personal code. She still might get it.

“No,” Eve agreed, as she had agreed with people far more monstrous than the woman who had eaten her boyfriend’s arm. “I won’t tell anyone. But I expect something in return. You can’t post about the supernatural online anymore. You can’t tell humans about it, not even your friends. Over the next few years, you’re going to have to fade out of people’s lives, and stop posting pictures of yourself. You won’t be able to explain how you look like this forever, and facial recognition technology is just too good now. Obviously, this also helps you.”

—

Eve was different. Jenny had gotten to meet her as someone breezy and exciting, someone who had distracted her from her attempt to mingle in a vampire bar (a memory that gained a new dimension now). But Eve was not chatting as easily as she usually did. She was talking, a fair lot, but her tone was cool and unshaking. Like a knife, cutting her precisely. Or a whip, lashing her with the consequences of what she had done. Or the she that was not she. She was still not sure where to draw the line.

It would be so easy to pass the blame to the monster that she now housed within, but she struggled to. Especially now. Her mouth felt numb as words tried to make their way through her throat and into the world, getting caught somewhere in between. She should be saying something to Eve now. Something that showed responsibility and remorse. Something that would make it okay. But horrible thoughts flashed through her mind. That it was all for nothing. That the blood had tasted horrible. That it wasn’t on her, that his time had already been short. That she hadn’t been able to help herself.

“I …” She pulled her knees closer. Her nails continued to dug into soft flesh. “I’m sorry. I really never meant – I never – I am.” It felt futile. Empty. She wondered what Eve wanted from her. If she wanted her on her knees, sobbing and snotty. If she wanted her to bare her neck or something of the sort. But Eve said that she didn’t want to talk about it any more and that was a bit of relief.

“Okay,” Jenny said. “Alright.” That would be easier. The news that Henri was alive and healing though, were stored away and kept close to her chest. It was good news. Good enough news. The bare minimum she could hope for. 

And then Eve went on, because the precise cuts about Henri’s permanently altered situation were not enough. Part of her wanted to disappear into herself, the way she had been trying to these past days, but it was hard to. “Oh,” she said. Her mind went to her family, who had been confused about her absence at Christmas, her quietness and evasiveness. That alone had made her chest felt like it was caving in, the way she had maneuvered that. But there was the future, too. Where she would outlive her family. And she had thought that one through before she had gotten into all this, but she had expected to at least see them a little bit more. But seeing them now was not an option. There was no weaning herself off of them if the reality existed where she ate her nephew. “That all makes sense. Sounds … logical, yeah. I can do that.” She would have Baz on her side, at least. She and them, forever against the world. “So, yeah. Yeah, okay.” A beat. “So you knew … all along?”

—-

For a brief moment, as Jenny stumbled through her apology, Eve’s mask dropped, her lip curled upwards, and she stared at the woman with something resembling disgust. It was better for both of them that Jenny grabbed at her offer like a drowning man grabbed at a life raft. The next moment, her face was a perfect mask of neutrality once more. There was nothing left to be said. Eve had one of the first every promises that she actually meant to keep, and Jenny’s tongue had not made an appearance. There had been no opportunity to declare self defense. Eve pressed her thumb nail into the palm of her hand, tempted to change that. To give herself reason to draw the blade by forcing Jenny into acting. But that was cruel, and more importantly, it was not smart. One of them had to be smart. 

“Good,” Eve acknowledged as Jenny agreed that her requirements were logical. That was it then, she was done. She pushed herself to standing, and smoothed down her leather jacket. At Jenny’s question, a small sad smile flicked to her face, heavy with the regret of someone she had failed to save. (But that was what hunters did, wasn’t it? The failure rate was higher than the rescue rate, by design. If it wasn’t, far more supernatural beings would have gone extinct by now.) “Yes, I did.” She said, slinging her bag back over her shoulder, and starting to walk towards the door. Eve spun a ring around her finger, and it felt like ice to the touch. “I liked you a lot, Jenny. I am truly, very sorry that this happened to you.” And if you ever touch my friend again, I will rip you limb from limb. 

Eve turned to the door, the first time she’d looked away from Jenny since stepping in here, but paused as her hand touched the handle. “Obviously, this conversation requires your complete discretion too. I’m sure I’ll hear from you soon.”

—

She did not want to think about her family in front of Eve. She did not want to be in front of Eve, struggling to conceptualize the reality that stretched out in front of her. All of it had felt so very surreal since she had come to pass but it was in moments like this that the haze seemed to disappear and reality crashed around the corner. Jenny felt the weight of it now, the tightness of consequence. She had become something unspeakable and even though she fought tooth and nail to separate herself from the monster within, she was faced with the ramifications all the same. There was no walking out of this. No leaving the scenes on the cutting room floor. 

She wanted to talk to Baz or Rosemary, who were softer to her. On another hand, she figured she deserved this in a way. 

Eve said she had liked her. Past tense. She understood what this meant — their friendship had gained a full stop and was over now. Jenny did not know what to do with the pity. It wasn’t an accusation, telling her that she’d sought this out and was paying for it now. But she didn’t feel comforted by it, just as she felt like Eve wasn’t comforted by it either. “Me too,” she murmured, self pity an easily accessible emotion even if she understood she had no right to it. At least not right now, not in front of Eve. 

It had taken so much hunting. 

Rosemary had known that finding a cure for the predicament Jenny found herself in wouldn’t be easy. It wasn’t something she could walk into a drug store and find readily available and pre packaged. The witch had dug through four books on vampirism and their subspecies, hoping to find any mention of a cure for upiors. The fourth book mentioned that there had been some success in brewing a potion to stop the transformation. After a little more digging, she had the ingredients needed. And she headed to the Bizzare. 

The Bizzare was a difficult place. Sure, she could get anything she needed there- spell components, favors, curses, hexes, charms, wards… but everything came with a cost. That concept wasn’t new to Rosemary. Costs came with the territory of being a caster. Everything you took required something in exchange. Everything created needed something destroyed. It was just the way things were. So she set to trading. After two binding favors owed, the sale of dozens of jars of grave dirt, and bartering away almost half of the remaining stock of Alistair’s weird components, but she found all the components needed to create the cure. Dried Upior tongue, a bit of its blood, and the foot off a arkan sonney for its luck, and squonk tears. In Rosemary’s hands, they were useless. But she found a caster who swore up and down she could brew it, if the necromancer would get the ingredients. All for the low, low fee of another unspecified favor, to be collected at a later date. 

When the brew was finally completed, Rosemary wasted no time. She drove straight to Jenny’s place, knocking excitedly at the door. “Jenny! Jenny, open up- I’ve got it!”

—

Jenny felt like she was dying, which was most likely because she was. Today had been a day of unrelenting nausea and muscle aches, somewhat reminiscent of a stomach bug she’d had as a child but with something else added on top of it. There were spasms and there was something about the need for oxygen that seemed both heightened and lowered. Henri’s note was on her mind at all times. Around three weeks after the bite, he’d put down, she’d die. 

She sure was getting close now, and she felt it. Something inside was dying and sometimes, something inside was being reborn. There were moments of great rejuvenation, though they outweighed the moments where she felt like she did now. Lying on her stomach on the couch, face planted on a pillow, eyes staring at her television where she was watching a kid's TV show that tugged at heartstrings but did not show any blood.

At the sound of someone at the door, she raised her head dully. Rosemary’s voice passed the wood, up the stairs, and into her living room. Excited. That could only mean one thing. Jenny peeled herself up, stumbling down the stairs. Edward was barking excitedly. She found the sound nauseating, like she found most things.

She opened the door, eyes bleary, wearing pyjama bottoms and an old, faded shirt with a movie poster printed on it. But there was an expression of hope on her face, despite the knots in her hair and the sick tinge of her skin. “You got it?” It bore repeating. “Really?”

__

When Jenny opened the door, Rosemary’s heart dropped in her chest. The woman looked awful. Like she would crumple to the ground at any given moment and simply cease to be. If it had taken the witch any longer to get the brew, it might have been too late. “I got it.” She said again, confidently. “It took a lot of negotiating, but I got it.” She held up a pink thermos and gave it a little shake. It wasn’t the most magical looking vessel to carry a magical cure for one of the most brutal variations on vampirism, but the witch did not want to risk having it in a little glass jar and having Jenny’s hopes dashed to smithereens on the sidewalk. 

The witch held the thermos out to her friend, wanting to get the cure into her system as soon as possible. “I’m going to warn you now, it’s probably going to be fucking nasty tasting. You’re going to want to just chug and don’t give yourself any time to think about the flavor, okay?” Rosemary instructed as she stepped inside.

—

Any other day, Jenny would have looked at the pink thermos with endearment and amusement, but today she just looked at it like it was the last liferaft floating in a vicious ocean. This was it. This was going to fix all the wrongness within her, or at least, all the wrongness that had been caused by the toxins of that beast's tongue.  

“Rosemary,” she breathed out the name, a long exhale slipping from her mouth. Her eyes were no longer just bleary, but teary too. Hope, she knew, was a dangerous thing — but right now it just felt like a soft promise, a warm blanket, a cup of hot tea after getting caught in the rain. 

She let the witch in, moved up the stairs to her living room and considered what she was saying. Every step of the stairs sent a shot of pain through her gut, but she barely paid it any mind. She was thinking of Rosemary, of having a friend who went through all this trouble. Of how she didn't care how bad the potion might taste. Jenny turned to look at her, holding out her hand to take the thermos. “I don't care,” she said seriously. “I just – I'm glad it worked, and thank you, and I'll be a good host when this is done, okay?” 

__

“Jenny, you’re my friend. You could have told me the cure was to get you a pony ride on the last unicorn in existence, and I’d have found a way to make it happen.” Rosemary said. She meant it. She had so few people she knew would go to bat for her if she truly needed it. The least she could do for them was to do the same. “You don’t have to, or need to thank me.”

She snorted, shaking her head. “When this is done, I’m buying you a celebratory bottle of wine. Or five.” The witch insisted. Her gaze settled on the pink thermos. All their hopes, stored in a pink bottle. “Alright, let’s do this. Don’t need you cursed any longer than you need to be.” Rosemary said, practically crawling out of her skin for confirmation that this cure she’d worked so hard to get actually worked.

—

A watery laugh left her lips. “Imagine if it’d been that. I would like to ride a unicorn some day,” she said, wiping at her nose. Jenny wasn’t sure if unicorns were real, but she figured that there had to be some kind of supernatural horse out there. It had been a while since she’d been this curious about the world beyond the limits she had known before. She had lost part of her curiosity it seemed, as she’d been dying.

Her muscles spasmed, contracting and relaxing. She bit through the uncomfortable sensation of her nerves cramping. When alone, she’d been whining from the pain with abandon, but she didn’t want to make Rosemary witness all that. In stead she screwed open the thermos. “No,” she said solemnly, “You will get a year’s supply of wine from me. And books, so many. Anything.” There was no repaying someone for rescue. Her mind got stuck on Henri for a moment, and the prize he’d paid for saving her. 

She tried not to inhale through her nose as she brought the thermos to her mouth. In one go, Rosemary had advised. Luckily, Jenny had some experience chugging drinks her constitution disagreed with. She closed her eyes and tipped the thermos backwards, grimacing the second she caught a whiff of the potion but drinking until it was done. Just open the hatchet and go. Like it was three shots of tequila in one go. Once she was done, she gagged. Another shiver ran through her body, but this was no supernatural terminal illness cramp — this was just one of disgust. “Fucking hell,” she said, eyes tearing up. Her voice was strained as she continued, “I – so … so now we wait? Can I have a piece of gum until then? Or would that mess with the magic?”

—-

“I have no idea if they exist, but if they do, we’ll make it happen.” Rosemary insisted. “And if they don’t, I’ll strap a party hat onto a pony and we can pretend.” It would be a good way to celebrate Jenny not dying, she thought. Because this was far too close for comfort. 

“You don’t owe me a thing babes. Anything for a friend. Anything.” Rosemary meant it. There were so very few people in the world that she could call a friend. When she found them, she’d do anything to safeguard them. If saving them required her to burn the world down, she’d blow a kiss with a Molotov cocktail and watch it burn as she waited for her friend's safety. “If it helps, I can sing one of the drinking songs from my sorority days to help motivate you to get it down in one.” She offered as Jenny opened the thermos and prepared herself for the worst tasting medicine of her life. “We like to drink with Jenny, cause Jenny is our mate, or something like that.” 

Rosemary winced as the young woman chugged down the frankly disgusting looking liquid. She gave Jenny’s arm a sympathetic pat as the woman shivered in revulsion from the medicine she’d had to take. “Atta girl. You drank it down like a champ.” She fished around in her pocketbook, yanking out a pack of spearmint gum. “As long as you don’t swallow it, I think you’re good.” She said, offering the girl the package. “So how are we feeling?”

—

Rosemary was filling her future days with the promise of a unicorn (real or fake) as a means of celebration and Jenny wanted nothing more than to squeal and whizz her around. What a sweet idea it was, that she might be alright and that they would celebrate it. 

The sorority song had helped getting the drink down, if only because it was another sign of Rosemary’s commitment to helping her. She leaned into her pat too, eyes stinging with tears. She had never tasted anything so very foul and the words to describe the drink escaped her. It didn’t matter, though. She would gladly drink another portion of that horrible thing if she  “Okay,” she said, voice hoarse as she grabbed the chewing gum. “You’re usually an amazing cook, Rosem–”

She stopped mid word. The shivers passing through her bodies became heavier and she felt her body convulse. It started at her toes and moved up to her gut, then her throat. With speed, she rushed towards her kitchen sink where the convulsion ended in a stream of horrible vomit. It splattered against her kitchen tiles and back onto her face too. “Nooo,” she groaned, before being hit with another wave. More of the inside of her guts left her mouth, along with bile. Once done, she leaned over, clutching her stomach. It was panging bad, shoots of pain coursing through her gut. “We need to scoop it back, we need to –” She winced, eyes wet with tears of pain and dread. “Try again.”

__

The witch was about to laugh. To insist that her shopping for ingredients had nothing to do with the actual flavor of the caustic smelling brew that was supposed to fix all of Jenny’s problems. And then Jenny paused. The woman shuddered, and Rosemary’s heart sank. And then Jenny was sprinting for the sink, retching over the basin. The witch sprinted after Jenny, holding the girl’s hair back for her and smoothing a hand over her back.

“Hey, no, it’s gonna be okay.” Rosemary did her best to sound calm. She didn’t know what this change in events meant. Didn’t know if this meant her body had expelled all the poison with the cure. Didn’t know if it was a sure sign that all her efforts had come just a moment too late. But her freaking out would solve anything. She had to remain calm, and objective, and goal oriented. The goal was to help Jenny. She could do that. She drew in a slow breath, and let it out. “I’ll get you more. I gave the witch at the Bizzare more than enough ingredients, she has to have more of it left. She could probably sell it for a pretty penny at the market anyway- I’m sure I can convince her to give me whatever’s left for you.”

—

Her body had been rejecting a lot of things these days. Jenny was caught in a constant state of absolute hunger but she could keep nothing down. It was like a horrible stomach bug, except she knew it wasn’t. Her body was slowly transforming into something dead, something that could only tolerate blood. It apparently also couldn’t tolerate this cure — somehow it seemed worse than all the ‘human’ food she’d been trying to keep down.

“It hurts,” she croaked, clutching her stomach. “Worse than cramps – worse, worse than the other days.” The details of her ailments had been mostly kept to herself due to the gross details, and she didn’t remember what she’d told Rosemary about how badly she’d started to feel over the past week. She inhaled and the sharp scent of bile and the potion stung her nostrils. “I can’t be around it, it’s —” She gagged, then yelped from the pain of the strain on her stomach. After dry heaving a few times, something rose to her mouth again and she went to spit it in the sink. Dark red blood bloomed among the vomit. Jenny backed away, wiping her mouth on her sleeve. “I — what if this happens again Rosemary? I don’t think – it all feels wrong.” 

___

Had she failed her friend? That was the only thought in Rosemary’s mind. She’d known she was on limited time. But she’d tried everything she could to get Jenny a cure. She’d begged, and borrowed, and bartered away, ready to strike a deal with the devil himself if she thought it might have spared Jenny from a fate the woman didn’t really want. But there was a chance it had all been too little, too late. She bit down on the inside of her cheek, swallowing the fears down. She had to still have time. She had to. She couldn’t fail another friend. 

She was patting Jenny’s back as the girl retched again, pausing at the sight of blood in the sink. “I don’t know,” She admitted, well and truly scared for the girl now. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know… What do you want me to do Jenny- I’ll run over and see if she has more, or I’ll go get more ingredients now that I know where to get them, or I’ll take you there myself- I’m so sorry that I don’t know how to help you-” She apologized and apologized for something that wasn’t her fault- wasn’t either of their faults. But it was a devastating thing, to watch a friend dying and know that, once again, she could have stopped it. If only she’d been smarter, or quicker, or had had more of the answers. At least Jenny was still conscious to hear her apologies. 

—

She stared at the blood in the sink for a moment. Part of her felt hungry at the sight of it, but a more clear part within knew that there was nothing about it that would soothe her. She pulled at the faucet, opening it and letting cold water run down in great, angry gusts. Jenny spat one last time, more blood mixing with the horrible liquids already there, and then turned around to rip her sights away. Her gut continued to ache and she was wondering if her stomach lining had started bleeding in response to whatever she’d drank. She clutched her sides.

“I don’t know,” she murmured. She knew how wrong this felt. Her body had been rejecting plenty of things over the past days, but never this viciously and violently. She listened to Rosemary stumble over apologies she did not owe her. Jenny closed her eyes for a moment, trying to battle with both the despair and the physical pain. “We can … we can try, but I … it feels wrong, Rosemary. My body doesn’t want it.” As her body made no move to start dry heaving again, she pushed herself away from the kitchen counter, making a move towards the living room where the stench of the potion and her vomit didn’t fill the air. “You — please don’t apologize.” She looked over to her friend. “Please don’t. You did so much.”

__

These were the times Rosemary wished she clung to blind optimism more. That she could push aside any and all of the glaring red flags that were frantically waving at her that all was very much not all right with Jenny. Despite the cure that she’d procured, she was watching the young woman clean away the evidence of the transformation's progress. She tried to stifle a morbid thought, but her fingers itched to reach out for confirmation. 

There was no obvious thread as far as Jenny was concerned. Nothing that was a wholesale sign that Jenny was completely dead or undead. It was more like… like a whisper of a thread. That a thread could be there, given a bit more time. The necromancer balled her hands into fists and shoved them in her pockets, not wanting this glimpse into the future. Rosemary followed after Jenny, unsure of what to say. What could she say? Well, time to embrace one of the more fucked up versions of vampirism? Absolutely not. “Hey, it’s not over yet, right?” She offered, daring to let the tiniest hint of hope into her heart. “There’s still more I could do. Maybe it’s a dosage thing… or a strength of the dosage. Or maybe there’s more than one cure.” So much for not being a blind optimist. “Whatever you want, honey, I’ll make it happen. And-” the witch wanted to swallow down that last start. It wouldn’t offer Jenny any hope. Wouldn’t boost her morale to keep on hanging on. But it had to be said. “And even if it doesn’t, and I can’t,” she said softly, slowly- as though dropping her tone would cause the fates to ignore this sentiment and allow this future to pass them by. “You’re not going to lose me as a friend Jens. I’m not going anywhere. Promise.” 

—

Rosemary was continuing to offer hope, to think of all the ways this issue might be solved. Jenny wanted to believe all the potential problems there had been with the cure, but she was just thinking of Henri’s list. Eighteen days had passed since that fateful night, and it could be any moment now that her body would start giving in. Maybe Rosemary had been too late. But it was an unspeakable thing, something she could not bare to say. It wasn’t even an accusation, but she wasn’t sure how to not make it sound like one.

She slid down on her couch, which was miraculously enough not yet dented from the time she’d spent on it the past few weeks. “Maybe,” she said, though there was no hope in her voice. Though she appreciated the hope that Rosemary was offering, she could not make herself take it. She pulled up her legs, hugging them to her. Her stomach continued to cramp. She was scared she’d start spasming again, showing Rosemary the ugliness of her state. Jenny found her eyes linger on her throat for a moment before she pulled them away violently to stare at her hands in stead. She wasn’t even going there. 

As she stared at her hands, her eyes grew teary. Rosemary was offering not only hope, but comfort. She wanted nothing more than for the witch to come sit next to her and hold her, but she knew she could not ask. The memory of trying to tear open that gardener’s throat was still fresh on her mind. “Okay. Okay, thank you. I don’t … you can try more.” If only because she didn’t want Rosemary to feel like she’d failed. Even if she had. But the first mistake was hers, for tripping in a cemetery. “I’m glad you … you’re here. But scared — Rosemary, I tried to attack somebody two days ago. And I don’t – just don’t get into any accidents while you’re here. Okay? Don’t bleed. I will … I don’t want to hurt you.” 

__

The despondent little maybe Jenny offered up utterly crushed the witch. Rosemary was so determined to dig her claws into whatever faint hope there was left that she could help Jenny, that she almost missed the fact that it wasn’t her life in the balance. It wasn’t her choice as to whether or not they kept searching, kept struggling on with nothing but blind, useless hope to keep them company. She caught the shimmering of I shed tears in her Jenny’s eyes, and saw her for what she was- a scared young woman, who didn’t want to die. 

Rosemary sat down on the couch beside her friend, tucking her knees beneath her as she wrapped an arm around Jenny and tugged her into a half hug. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to bleed. You’re not going to hurt me.” The witch smoothed a hand over the young woman’s hair, gentle fingers deftly combing through the tangles. “If you’re really that scared for me, remember I have a failsafe. I really hate using the failsafe on friends, but I have it, for an ‘in case of emergency’ type moment.” Rosemary didn't want to scare the girl further. Didn’t want to bring up that if Magic were to fail again, that she’d be all but powerless to stop Jenny from killing her. So she let that grim reality go. 

The witch sat beside her, her hand continuing to chart a course from the top of Jenny’s head, down to the end of her hair, and back again. “It’s gonna be okay, Jens. One way or another, it’s going to be okay.” Rosemary sighed, pressing a kiss to the top of the young woman’s head. 

—

The last time she’d been this close to someone had been when she’d wrapped her legs around Oliver to try and bite open his neck. It was nice that this touch was softer and kinder. Rosemary had been a constant these days, with her messages and occasional visits — but to sit with her on the couch was even more important to Jenny somehow. The comfort, though conflicting, was welcomed with little argument. She leaned into the half-hug, felt every motion of her fingers through her hair, and tried not to think about all the blood in Rosemary’s veins.

Rosemary spoke of a failsafe. She remembered how she’d spoken about being able to kind of control vampires. Jenny wondered if she was already like that. Controllable by a necromancer. “Do I …” She swallowed, closed her eyes for a moment, rubbed them. “Feel dead yet?” The concept that Rosemary could hold her back should she lose herself again was a strange comfort, even if it felt discomforting at the same time. It would be preferable to being restrained by roots, though. That was for sure.

She swallowed thickly again, eyes growing heavy with unshed tears. She let Rosemary kiss her on the top of her head and looked at her. She blinked and two thick tears slid down her cheeks. “I hope so.” At least she had Rosemary on her side and others, too. At least she didn’t feel so alone right now, even if her gut hurt and her body felt all wrong. “I’m glad you’re here.”

___

At the girl’s question, Rosemary’s hand stilled. She knew the answer, of course. Had tested it only a few minutes prior. But she couldn’t tell if she ought to give Jenny a sweet lie, or the bitter truth. “Not completely,” she sighed, reluctantly settling on honestly. “You’re still alive. Your heart’s still beating. There’s nothing for me to grab hold of… but it’s like the idea that there might be something there eventually. Like when you take a picture off the wall after years and years, and the outline is there to remind you of what used to be there… nothing tangible.” Not yet. She let the last bit go unsaid. No point in being more cryptic than she had to be. 

She leaned back slightly, her thumb brushing the tears off her friend’s cheeks as she fussed over her like a mother hen. The witch wrapped her up in a tight embrace. Who else was spending any real time with the girl? Was anyone else holding her hand through this? If it was just Rosemary, then she was going to do her best to compensate. “I’m not going anywhere.”

—

It should not come as a surprise – that she was still alive – and yet it did. Jenny wasn’t sure how the death would come. If she would explode and be reborn from guts and blood, or if she’d simply die a sick-person’s death and stop breathing. Maybe it would go by unnoticed and she’d only find out once her tongue grew in size as she killed someone. She swallowed thickly, trying to push the thoughts away. “Okay,” she said. “Okay.” She wasn’t sure what that meant. Maybe the small thread that Rosemary could feel was their sign that it was too late, but it might as well mean nothing. Magic was probably fickle like that. “My heart feels kind of … weak.” 

Jenny Price would not be found dead at the community center on any old day. But these days were not normal, and it seemed death was both around the corner and very far away, anyway. She was restless, listless and directionless. More so than she ever had been before, which was really saying something. So as she strolled through her neighborhood and she passed the center, she figured why not?

She trailed past the place that she’d usually write off as something for plebs and people who had no community of their own (as if she had any place to judge), halting at someone tending to a garden. She had no green thumb, not even a green pinky, but she really did like plants. For aesthetic reasons, mostly, though she figured the air quality perks were also cool. She dreamed of a house covered in ivy one day, which at least was a more feasible option now that immortality was around the corner. It was one of the ways she tried to look at things more positively.

“Cool plants,” she said, addressing the gardener and wondering how to talk like a person. A person that wasn’t on the brink of becoming a monstrous vampire, that was. She rubbed a leaf between her fingers before smelling her fingers. “Is this mint?”

—-

The community garden was a guilty pleasure of Oliver’s. He was the youngest appearing person who helped care for the plants. There were older individuals, people that Oliver could only assume were retired, and one or two that seemed only slightly older than Oliver, but who seemed to be here on a mission. Something was rewarding about just being on a random list of approved ‘helpers’ as the email had described. He stopped by at least once every two weeks to water, pull weeds, or check on any plants that seemed to be struggling. However, last time he had come by, Susan (or Dr.Hollandson as she had introduced herself) had come by 10 minutes later and had been upset that he was there during “her timeslot”. Oliver had simply blinked before looking around the rather large area and offered to split the garden in half. He was fairly certain that the organizer had said that the timeslots weren’t set in stone, and as long as there weren’t too many people around to the point they had nothing to do, it was fine. Dr.Hollandson had refuted his attempts to compromise, and Oliver had left soon after, not wanting to cause more of a stir. So he had done a glance at the schedule, and came on a day when no one else was scheduled. 

The garden itself wasn’t exactly a tourist trap, but there tended to be at least one person who came by to explore whenever Oliver visited. He was using the watering can on one of the rose bushes, mind elsewhere, when he was brought back to the present by the sound of someone next to him. Internally groaning, Oliver glanced over, half expecting it to be Susan again or someone else who was going to berate him for signing up for this timeslot, but was happily surprised that it was someone who just had a plant question. 

“Hm?” Oliver asked, but then her question fully processed. “Oh, no, close! It’s spinach.” Oliver explained. “They look similar, though, so I don’t think it’ll be too offended.” He joked with a grin. 

—

It was overcast, which was good. Not for the plants, maybe, but Jenny wasn’t as concerned with their need for vitamin D. The past few weeks, she’d been growing more and more sensitive to the sun, which was ironic considering the fact that the days were growing darker and shorter. It was part of the virus taking over her body, the fast acting terminal illness that was bound to kill her momentarily before she would rise again. 

There was no cure yet. But she could still stand in the sun, even if her tongue ached. Even if sometimes smells hit her stronger than ever. Even if she no longer hungered for her usual go to favorite foods, any of the indulgences she could always go for. If this was going to be something she had to see through, then she’d take this bit of clouded sun. Still, she took it with her head covered with a rimmed hat, and sunglasses at the ready should the clouds break. She stared at the plant she’d asked about, the smell on her fingers already telling her she was dead-wrong. They smelled earthy and a little grassy, and she wrinkled her nose before dropping her hand. 

The gardener revealed what it actually was, and she flushed. At least, she thought she did — Jenny wasn’t sure what was happening to the blood in her veins, or how that worked for vampires in general. She snorted at herself. This was easy to laugh at herself at, in the grand scheme of things. “Yes,” she said, “Very similar. Spinach and mint, both green plants. Like … most plants.” She looked around the plants pointing at another leafy, green plant. “That one’s mint. Right?”

—

Oliver laughed at her conclusion. “Yeah, at least it’s a pretty color! I feel like it would be much harder to get people into gardening if all the plants were some ugly gray or something.” He said before following her finger to a different plant. “I think that’s actually peppermint! The leaves are super similar, though.” Oliver said with a nod. Walking people through the different kinds of plants was something he loved doing. Most of the time, the person who was asking the questions would leave after their first question was answered. Content to have filled their social quota for the visit before allowing the area to return to the baseline of murmurs between guests. 

“Mint is actually over there-” Oliver moved to point to a row over when he accidentally brushed his hand up against one of the rose bushes. “Ouch.” It wasn’t a bad cut. It was barely a cut at all. More akin to a papercut then anything else. However, it was enough that Oliver could see blood filling the opened space. Sighing, he glanced back at his guest. “These rose bushes, they wait until you’re not paying attention to get’cha” He joked, setting the watering can down. Assisted by gravity, the blood trickled out of the cut and down his finger. “You wouldn’t happen to have any tissues, would you?”

—

Jenny stared at the other, wondering if he was messing with her. “Peppermint is mint,” she stated, utterly convinced of the statement. Sure, she knew that peppermint and mint were slightly different toothpaste and gum flavors, but they were the same. Right? She wasn’t entirely sure. She moved to where the gardener said mint actually was, getting ready to consider the plant and get confirmation that it was the same, and that he was just over complicating things for no good reason. 

She stilled, though. The gardener said ouch, which was little cause for concern (as of yet). But her nose caught the scent of something familiar. She looked at him, listened to what he was saying and before he was finished she said, “No.” Her head shook and she backed away. “No, no, no.” It smelled like Baz. It smelled sweet and intoxicating, stronger than it had when it had oozed from Baz’ wound. It was almost like she felt the scent traveling from the other’s finger to her nose, to her head, to her mouth. Her mouth grew wet with saliva.

Whatever step she’d taken back mattered little as she moved forward, sliding down onto her knees, uncharacteristically uncaring about the dirt getting on her tights. Jenny felt herself grow ravenous, her other thoughts shoved to the back and she reached forward, grabbing the hand with the bleeding finger and pulling it to her mouth. 

—

“Peppermint is a type of mint! So they are actually different plants.” Oliver explained, excitement tinging his tone as he got to teach her something new. “It’s actually a naturally occurring hybrid of water mint and spearmint, with a way higher methanol level than normal mint!” He babbled as he shifted so that his thumb was pressed up against the cut as he checked his pockets for something he could use, which is why he didn’t hear the visitor at first. The second ‘no’ caught his attention, though, making him glance up with his eyebrows furrowed. “No?” Olive replied, watching as she backed away. Holding up his uninjured hand in surrender, Oliver shook his head. “Oh! It’s not that bad. Promise!” The last thing he needed was for her to run away and for the story to somehow grow from a small cut to him losing a finger, as the gossip in Wicked’s Rest typically went. 

It was why, when she took a step closer, Oliver felt his shoulders relax a fraction. It seemed like an overreaction to a simple cut, but some people freaked out at the sight of any blood, so he wasn’t going to judge her too harshly. However, any thought that this was a normal reaction was swiftly thrown out the window as Oliver watched the woman slide down to the ground. “I-Are you ok? Are you feeling faint?” He asked, but things weren’t adding up for that to be the answer. It wasn’t as if the woman had lost any color in her face that he might expect to see in someone who was trying to stay conscious, and it wasn’t as if she looked like she was getting weak. He didn’t have an answer for what was happening, which just made him feel uneasy. 

When she reached forward, Oliver didn’t pull away, figuring that perhaps she just needed help standing. However, when she pulled his hand forward, her mouth opened as if awaiting a meal; everything changed. He pulled his hand away, curling the hand into a fist and placing it over his chest as he felt his heart rate quicken beneath it. “Sorry, while other plants here are edible, my body is off limits.” Oliver moved a few steps back, frowning. “Who are you?” He asked coolly, eyes still locked on her. 

—

She got close. His fingers were only inches removed from her mouth when the other pulled away, slipping from her grasp. A sound left her mouth without intention, something ugly and animalistic that Jenny hardly recognized, though her mind wasn’t functioning fully. The part inside of her that was itching to transform was in stead on the forefront, all instinct and no capacity for thought. That part of her noticed the warmth, slickness of blood that had stained her hand as she’d grabbed the other, and licked it ferociously.

It was only a few drops, barely enough to satiate the hunger within but a moan of satisfaction left her anyway. More was the only demand she knew, and Jenny had no other words to make that clear. So she said, “More,” and stumbled up to her full height (which was unimpressive compared to the man). She was not yet fully transformed or formed, but there was a part of her that seemed awakened now. A part of her that thought itself stronger than the human limitations, that acted on the presumption that she already was an immortal brute, rather than a human woman of short height.

She threw herself at him, climbing him like a tree, legs throwing themselves around his middle as she reached for his neck. Her mouth was still human — two rows of teeth, artificially straightened and whitened, but her mind was thrumming with the instinct to bite down. She did not know what else to do but give into her instincts, so she pressed her manicured nails into the back of his neck, tore at the skin and sank her teeth into his neck.

—-

Oliver’s eyes widened when the woman didn’t answer him; instead, she opted to moan as she licked her hands for any speck of his blood. What the fuck was happening? He had expected some sort of grin from the other before she would have launched into some kind of monologue about who she was and what she wanted. He had expected her to look at him like he was a foe. However, instead, he found that she was looking at him as if he were a meal. As she stood up, Oliver caught the ‘More’ that left her lips. He frowned, shifting his weight onto his back foot to run for it if he needed to.  “Uh-” Oliver isn’t able to finish whatever he was about to say, and any memory of what he had started to formulate is overshadowed by the woman throwing herself at him. 

A mix of being caught off guard and the way she securely wrapped her legs around Oliver’s waist makes it so Oliver isn’t able to just push her off him, at least not without sending them both to the ground. “Get. Off.” Oliver shouts as he tries to lean back enough to avoid her face while also attempting to pull her legs off of his waist. Not having enough hands, he isn’t able to stop her hands reaching the back of his neck, and he lets out a gasp of pain as he feels her nails sink in. Oliver jerked his head away and was instead met with the feeling of teeth in his neck. For a moment, he thought he had figured out what was happening. It was a vampire attack. But it wasn’t the feeling of fangs that he felt slip into his neck, no, Oliver had felt those before. 

Instead, it was the stinging of her teeth scraping against his neck, followed by a sharp, hot clamp as they gripped onto his skin. He shut his eyes for a moment as the pain radiated down his neck, and he could feel the blood dripping down the back of his neck from her nails. Gritting his teeth, he forced his eyes open. Whatever she was, it was clear this wasn’t a random human, which meant that there was no point in fighting with his arms tied behind his back. Oliver’s eyes glowed as the dirt around the plants next to him shifted. He was able to get his hands underneath her thighs, lifting her slightly, whereas in any other setting, others would probably see it as a romantic gesture. In this one, though, he was using it more for leverage, while she was more focused on breaking through his skin. “I said, GET OFF.” Oliver grunted, lifting her to eye level before head-butting her while he let go of her legs. The roots of the plants around him weren’t strong on their own, but with enough of them combined, they had reached over to her feet, building a barrier so as not to be wrapped around his own body anymore. This caused the woman to no longer be securely tied to him, and so when she fell backwards, Oliver was not taken down with her. A headache formed behind his eyes, while his forehead ached from the headbutt, which was mixed with the stinging and sharp pain stemming from his neck, essentially making his whole head just a ball of pain. 

Oliver moved quickly, not wanting to allow her to use a moment of hesitation for a retaliation strike. He placed his hand on the ground, eyes lighting up as roots came up from the ground and wrapped around her wrists and ankles. A trail of blood fell from his nose, but a noise from behind him made him stiffen. “Sorry! The garden’s closed today!” Oliver said loudly enough that he hoped whoever was coming would hear him. He blinked down the scene in front of him, as he racked his brain for a possible explanation. “We-We’re filming a short film!” His stomach ached at the lie, but he pushed that aside. 

—--

It had taken time for it to register but once it finally did, Owen realized that he was busy in a way he hadn’t been before, when he’d been doing shifts at the bar or Fable Blades and hunting more for sport than on any real schedule. Now, between running an actual business semi-efficiently and then the side business which really took most of the effort (not to mention all of the damn socializing which wasn’t supposed to take up any time or brainpower but fucking alas) Owen was finding that things slipped through the cracks. One of those things was the damn nymph, another non-human Owen had (in this case accidentally) slept with. Oliver probably thought he’d won at this point, thought he’d be allowed to get away with doing whatever the hell he wanted when Owen’s directions had been real fucking clear. 

Now that Owen finally had time to think about the nymph, after finally catching up on the chaos that followed those damn surges, he was set on not leaving Oliver be until the two of them were firmly on the same page. Owen’s page. 

It had barely required any snooping at all to find out where Oliver was, because the nymph was clearly very friendly and shared his location with people that were more than willing to then belay that information to Owen. It was the first time the slayer had ever gone to the community garden and the way it was currently empty, he could only assume it was always this slow and sad because really, what kind of person actually enjoyed gardening? In the silence, it was hard to miss the sounds of a struggle once they started. 

Knife at the ready, an iron blade considering who Owen had actually come here looking for, he followed the noise. A random sheet of plastic rustled annoyingly loudly as Owen brushed against it, robbing him of the element of surprise but instead, confirming that at least Oliver was here. His voice called out, feigning nonchalance well enough but there was a hint of something tense underlying the words - the lie, probably. So Owen advanced with less hesitation now, stepping in to find the scene that greeted him, and it took him a few moments to fully register it and even longer to try and understand it. 

The unbearable fangbanger was here for some reason, blood all over her face, maybe from a broken nose, limbs restrained by roots and vines that had reached for her in a very unnatural way. Owen’s grip on the iron blade tightened, attention turning to Oliver who… didn’t look fantastic, either. Blood dripped from his nose and the side of his neck, the wound looking… odd. What the hell did those two have to fight over, other than both of them being insufferable? The hairs on the back of Owen’s neck raised, confusion bringing on the discomfort, surely - since it was similar to the feeling of an undead hiding some distance away, which… Owen’s head swiveled, completing a full survey of their surroundings, finding only Oliver and Jenny as the feeling faded. Alright then. “What the fuck is going on here?” 

—

Teeth grazed skin but Jenny did not manage to pierce the skin her instincts wanted her to. She lacked the fangs, the sharp rows of teeth that the upior within was already acting with. She at least drew blood with her nails and was considering taking that for now, wanting to climb up higher to start licking at the scratches. It seemed like the gardener was helping her, lifting her slightly, and she let out a satisfied sound as she got face to face with the source of the sweet smell in the air. He met her halfway, crashing his skull into her face. 

It happened fast and Jenny was lacking in combat instincts and the sharp senses that she might gain should her transformation complete. And so she fell back, blood streaming from her nose. Fury took a hold of her as she was ripped from the scratches she’d created, animalistic instinct struggling against what was enveloping now. Her mind was too red, too clouded to realize what was restraining her — just that she was, and that the struggle of her limbs was not enough to break through it. 

The blood streaming from her nose into her mouth was something of a surprise as it leaked down her throat, and she was grunting hungrily. Her tongue started lapping madly at her nose, trying to get to the blood faster than the injury could deliver. Sanity was not yet returning to her, her mind fixated on only blood and getting more of it. When another party joined the fray, she whipped her head, pulling her tongue back into her mouth and staring. Another opportunity to feed this need was all she saw. Recognition did not strike her yet, nor did the ironic realization that the last time this had happened, it had been Baz wearing Owen’s face that had managed to control her.

Maybe that was a gift. Maybe it was better that she did not realize the plant restraints, the grunting that came with her tongue trying to surpass its natural length. The Jenny who cared so detrimentally deeply about how she came across and how she looked was buried underneath animalistic instinct. And for now, that was a kindness. She pulled at the roots, snarling with little threat to the sound. She wagged her (short, normal) tongue at the new player on the board, which was also ineffective. “More.”

—

At the sight of Owen, Oliver felt his body stiffen for a moment. What was he doing here? He had largely stayed away from the hunter after their last interaction. It was obvious that the two of them had different ideas of how things should be done, and neither was willing to change their thought processes. While he had been actively avoiding Owen, Oliver had been mildly surprised that the other hadn’t contacted him. Not that he was going to complain, especially when everything else in Oliver’s life was already growing more complicated. The last thing he needed to add to the mix was an ex-hook-up who also just so happened to hunt supernatural. Especially when blackmail was still on the table. At the very least, Oliver knew that Owen hadn’t messed with the tree that was hidden away. It appeared that his grace period had ended, though, and Oliver raised an eyebrow as he caught sight of the knife in Owen’s hand. Who had Owen been planning to run into? Had it been Oliver? Or had he been hunting someone else? 

Too many questions, too few answers. Oliver huffed at Owen’s own question, turning his attention back to the squirming body next to him. “Great question! No idea.” He grimaced at the sight of the woman now greedily licking at her own blood that fell from her nose. Oliver couldn’t help but feel bad about the fact that he had definitely broken her nose, though at least now she was distracted from trying to get to Oliver’s. “She was normal five minutes ago, we were chatting about the plants around here, and then I accidentally cut myself on one of the rose’s thorns, and it was like she flipped a switch.” Oliver explained, reaching up to feel where she had attempted to bite him. The skin was irritated, and Oliver could feel the ridges of her bite mark as he ran a finger over the area, but it didn’t appear that she had been able to actually break the skin. Lucky, Oliver couldn’t help but think. Though he wished people would stop trying to take literal bites out of him. 

“No fangs, but also she doesn’t look like a zombie that is losing control because of hunger.” Oliver explained, gaze flicking between Owen and the woman. “She’s not fae, but she’s definitely not human either. At least not fully.” He watched as she wiggled her tongue at Owen, tilting his head to the side. “Ever seen anything like this?”

—--

Slowly, it all settled. The distraction of seeing Oliver’s abilities on full display(presumably, unless the plants here were randomly fucking rebelling), even though the nymph looked less than intimidating at the moment, coupled with Jenny of all people, being here and acting, well… Owen’s eyes narrowed and he reached for that fleeting feeling earlier, the one that had almost been a warning of undead nearby. Again, it was briefly there before vanishing. Not the sign of a vampire being less than ten feet away, not even a zombie despite the way those always felt more dull to Owen. This was different. But definitely not fucking normal. His mind flipped through years of experience and knowledge, of what to kill and how to kill it. Jenny’s tongue flicked out to desperately lap at her own blood and despite his lack of a complete answer, Owen’s stomach dropped on instinct. 

Oliver’s voice cut through the scrambled thoughts - not something usual, but something blood thirsty, but without the fangs and either not setting off or capable of avoiding Owen’s very keen sense for the undead, some damn weird sort of fae except she’d so clearly been human - and the nymph’s confusion seemed to mirror Owen’s. At least Oliver could knock one group off the table, even though Owen was certain that no one could fake being an obnoxious human longing for cursed immortality as well as Jenny had. “She was,” Owen bit out, brows furrowed. 

Entirely unthreatened by the desperate but still quite human noises, Owen moved closer to the struggling girl, taking in how she strained uselessly against the roots and then, how her tongue was no longer reaching for the blood from her own nose but instead, so clearly towards him. With a flash of anger and something colder, maybe even sadder, the answer struck him. Rare enough to not have crossed his mind instantly, the memory of an upior only halfway there to their full monstrous form came to Owen’s recollection. Teeth half sharpened but deadly enough, tongue doubled in size with a few barbs beginning to take shape. The process of becoming a creature completely controlled by instinct, more so than just the average, fanged vampire, well on its way. There were stories of a cure, sure, but in Owen’s experience, they were just that. Stories. 

Having never seen one this early into the process, he couldn’t be entirely sure. The way his whole being buzzed with discomfort without his sixth sense was maybe telling but… Well, Owen had made threats but he wasn’t exactly excited at the prospect of running a stake through her and find it jabbed into a beating heart if he was wrong. Maybe some goddamn curse or whatever the fuck he wasn’t familiar with. Annoying as she was, Owen really wanted to be wrong on this. “You fucking idiot,” he muttered, gritting his teeth as he turned to Oliver. “Go get cleaned up. Wrap up anything that’s bleeding, tight. Go. I’ll… keep an eye on her.”

—-

While her blood was far from what she – or whatever was taking over now – wanted, it was enough to balm her hunger somewhat, to ease the rage that stirred within. It was still human blood, after all, and though it wasn’t as enticing as the blood she had smelled before it was something to hold her over. But Jenny wasn’t breaking through her frenzy yet, was not yet faced with the sobering reality of her situation as she fought against the restraints to try and get to the person close to her.

She kept lapping up the blood that was streaming from her nose, satisfying herself with what was available, the warm and irony taste making her tongue feel electric. All of it was wrong, her instincts were starting to realize — she was not strong enough, her tongue wasn’t large enough, her teeth not sharp enough. Maybe it was that that made her feel more conscious, that made part of her crash through the instinct that was taking over. While her heightened senses still smelled the blood that didn’t seem as metallic as her own, she also was starting to realize the predicament she was in.

Before, she would have described her predicament in a singular way, with a single word: blood. That was all her mind had thought about, all her body had moved on accord of — the need for more. The plants were not a magic she’d never seen, but just something keeping her from what she wanted. The new person on the scene was not a slayer she disliked (and worried about), but another potential source. Her behavior was not embarrassing, aggressive and ugly, but a necessary means to an end. 

But now it was like part of herself was being catapulted back within. Jenny saw the plants around her wrists and ankles. She saw Owen. She tasted blood on her mouth, felt the dull and stuffy ache of her nose. She felt not only hunger and rage any more, but another emotion too — fear. It hit her system at the same time as a hint of clearheadedness did. She continued to struggle, but her tongue was trapped in her mouth now, despite the way it wanted to keep licking her nose. A noise escaped through her closed mouth, a scared whine. Henri had suggested locking her up and she’d bucked at that idea, but now she wished that was her reality. She spoke eventually, tongue struggling to cooperate. “Go away, go — go away, I don’t want – I don’t want to …” But she did want to. She wanted to lick the small bits of blood and skin from under her nails. To make the cut on the gardener’s hand deeper. To drink it all. She closed her eyes and pulled at the plants to try and cover her face, but failed. In stead another high pitched whine left her mouth, eyes flicking between Owen and the gardener. Like both a cornered creature and a beast of prey, choosing who it wanted to pounce on.

—-

Oliver’s head shot up at the other’s insult, a surge of anger coursing under his skin at being called an idiot. It isn’t as if he went into this interaction expecting to be attacked after all, if anything, Oliver feels like he handled it pretty well. However, once he sees that Owen’s attention is on the woman and not himself, the anger cools just as suddenly as it had started brewing. Oliver’s gaze shifts from the hunter to the woman as it clicks that they likely know each other. He gives a small nod at the others' instructions. In any other situation, he probably wouldn’t be so quick to follow orders from him, but this isn’t just any situation.  “Right, I’ll…go do that.” He says, standing slowly, wiping his hands on his pants. “I’ll be close by, so just…you know, call out if you need anything.” Though he was fairly certain they both knew that wouldn’t be something that would happen, even if things did start to go awry. As he goes to leave, the woman’s pleas make him stop. He opens his mouth, before shutting it as he gives one last look at Owen. It’s not as if there’s anything helpful he could say in this moment anyway.

Not knowing how long his plants would hold, especially if the woman started thrashing around, Oliver jogged over to the public bathroom that stood near the edge of the garden. Not seeing anyone immediately inside, he pushed open the stall doors to confirm that he was alone before locking the front door. Finally having a moment to himself, Oliver leaned heavily against the sink, eyes closed. He inhaled deeply through his nose before letting it out slowly, doing some another two times before he felt his heart rate start to slow down. Re-opening his eyes, Oliver reached over and flicked the faucet on. With the help of a paper towel from one of the dispensers, Oliver cleared away the blood from his nose as well as his neck, leaving a ring of pink around the drain. Checking the first-aid kit on the far wall, Oliver found a handful of Band-Aids and antiseptic wipes in small packets. He wondered how long it had been since the kit had been stocked, and then quickly decided that perhaps he didn’t want to know that answer. 

Gasping quietly at the sting, Oliver carefully cleaned the scratch marks on the back of his neck and wiped the irritated skin of where she had attempted to bite the side of his neck for good measure. The last thing he needed was a weird infection to crop up from this whole interaction. Using the mirror for assistance, Oliver placed Band-Aids where her nails entered his skin, cursing quietly when it didn’t go as smoothly as he would have liked. His shirt still had drops of now-dried blood on the back of his collar, but there wasn’t much he could do about that other than plan to throw the shirt out the next chance he got. 

Running a hand through his hair, Oliver sighs as he gives himself one more glance-over before unlocking the door and walking back out. He doesn’t leave, though, no matter how much his instincts yell at him to do exactly that. There’s a nagging sense of unease to leave her behind with a hunter, even if Oliver was pretty sure he had seen a flicker of concern in Owen’s eyes. He also doesn’t feel right about leaving Owen behind if the woman tries to attack again. Oliver doesn’t need that on his conscious. Instead, Oliver opts to walk around the two of them, giving them a wide berth, and pauses a couple of feet ahead of them. He’s close enough to be there in a moment if needed, but far enough away that he isn’t crowding them. Oliver turns his attention towards the garden’s entrance. The last thing they need is some random townie deciding that today is the day they visit the garden. 

—-

The shift wasn’t completely clear cut, not with Jenny still struggling, her pupils still blown in what was now a mix of fear and what Owen assumed was hunger. At least her tongue had returned to her mouth, retreating almost shamefully and Owen saw actual thought appear behind Jenny’s eyes before she finally spoke, confirming that there was some sense (what little there had been to begin with) left in her. His throat worked around a swallow, her pleading cutting deeper than Owen wanted it to. This was what she’d wanted, he thought. Not the fantasy version of it but karma rarely worked that way. An upior, though… That felt almost too cruel, even for an entitled, insufferable brat like Jenny. Owen wouldn’t have wished that fate on his worst fucking enemy - well, fine, maybe someone for whom he thought death was too kind of a punishment. Jenny hadn’t quite earned herself that spot. 

A small blessing, Oliver didn’t argue with his demand, leaving and hopefully bringing some more sense back to Jenny with the source of blood getting further away. That was about all the blessing Owen had and could hope for. If he was right (which he was, he knew as much deep in his gut, even though admitting it was fucking shit) then the risk of just letting Jenny leave now, to be someone else’s problem a few weeks from now… But taking care of it here, now, where she would bleed like any old human instead of turning into dust or even exploding into a rain of blood. A better slayer - an actual slayer, who had at any damn point in his life acted in the way a hunter should - might have gone through with it. Owen had never acted from a sense of actual justice, except maybe for his own scorned past, or any kind of caring about the general public’s safety. It was a bonus, maybe, to all the grime and ash that coated his hands but that had never been the point and he wasn’t much different now. Killing Jenny might have been the right thing to do, in the grand scheme of things but, just like with a certain fury, Owen wasn’t capable of that. 

He avoided meeting her eyes as he brandished the knife, sharp iron making quick work of slicing through the roots keeping her in place. Owen left the final one behind, wrapped around her left wrist as he finally met her gaze. “I fucking told you,” he gritted out but there was nothing smug about it, no satisfaction in this inevitable I told you so. Maybe Owen would have found amusement in finding Jenny turned into a regular old vampire, finding her ruining some human’s life, and maybe he would have driven a stake into her chest then with ease. Probably not. Too damn fucking soft. 

“Get the fuck out of here,” Owen hissed, slicing through the last root, ignoring the pit in his stomach for now. His instincts knew this was the wrong damn call, knew that like so fucking many of his decisions (usually the ones not made with his common sense) it would come back to haunt him. All of that knowledge did absolutely nothing to change right now, though. 

—-

The bleeding gardener left and with him, he took some of the leftover frenzy that had taken over Jenny. She felt the fantasies of finally cracking through his skin with her teeth die out and though a part of her continued to yearn for that slice in flesh, she felt herself land back within herself. It wasn’t necessarily better. She felt panicked and scared, swallowed whole by embarrassment. She wanted to disappear, but the plants were still keeping her in place, and so in stead she looked at Owen with hesitation, perhaps even fear.

She remembered how he’d culled that vampire as if it’d been yesterday. Eight months had passed since then— since the first time she had seen someone die and it had been in a cloud of dust. All the words shared between them now seemed to point to a logical conclusion of their dynamic. She saw him brandish his knife and got ready to beg. To exclaim that there was still hope, that she hadn’t transformed yet, that she was sorry and would really keep herself locked inside her house from now on.

But Owen did not put the knife at her throat or heart, not even at her hands. He was slicing through the roots, freeing her from the restraints. Jenny remained still as he worked, scared that any wrong move might make him change his mind on this pre-vampire that had already showed lack of constraint. The only movement was a mild tremble of her nerves, of leftover energy that had nowhere to do. Owen did cut her eventually with those words, the ones that held the same sentiment she’d sensed in Henri. But she noted no happiness about it, no kind of victory of being the clever one between them. She looked at him. She had nothing to say. She did not go looking for this, it had just happened on her path. She did not deserve this. Baz had said so. Rosemary had been not said anything of the sort to her. Xóchitl had looked after her. Henri was working to help undo it. She did not deserve this, but as she looked at Owen she felt her stomach sink anyway.

As her last wrist was released, she scrambled to her feet and backed away. Jenny picked her bag from the ground and continued scurrying back. Eventually she found her voice and all she had to say was: “Thank you.” Even if the only thing she was thanking Owen for was not killing her, and that seemed like a shit thing to thank someone for. But she was grateful all the same, because hope wasn’t entirely dead yet, just like she wasn’t. She turned on her heel and ran off, head pounding from the impact, gut churning with the endless hunger she was not yet familiar with.

—-

At the sound of movement behind him, Oliver stiffened. Is the woman fighting Owen? Is he using the knife he had seen? Oliver bit the inside of his cheek as an internal battle raged within him. If he turned around and Owen is hurting her, does Oliver have any ground to stand on to stop it? She was normal 10 minutes ago, asking questions about plants, and now he doesn’t know if he’s standing guard as a Hunter murdered her. 

However, before Oliver could even try and decide what he wanted to do, he heard the ‘thank you’ that was definitely not Owen’s voice, followed by the quickened pace of footsteps away. He glanced over his shoulder and spotted Owen, who was currently alone, surrounded by the cut roots, with the woman gone. Oliver's gaze moved from the gate in front of him to where Owen was, to the general direction the woman had run off. Should he just leave? That would be the easy answer: pretend that this was all just a weird dream or hallucination and go about his day. Use this as an excuse to continue to avoid Owen. Unfortunately, Oliver’s never been all that good at following the easy path. 

Instead, Oliver turned and walked until he was only a foot or two away from Owen. “So, what was going on?” He asked, not even attempting to hide the curiosity in his tone. “Will..she be ok?”

—--

Jenny looked pathetic. It wasn’t something that had ever worked on Owen before, he remembered enjoying it when they begged, when he knew nothing more about them than the fact that they were dead and wrong. So much more fucking simple. The Owen from a few years ago would have carved out her heart without hesitation but then, that Owen also wouldn’t have been swinging by to have a chat with the fae under his (mostly forced) employ. A lot had changed. Not for the better. 

The would-be vampire’s ‘thank you’ stung, almost made Owen change his mind, a brutal reminder of the time he’d been forced to intervene and save vampires he had no damn longing to save. But this decision, stupid as it was, had been his own. And the undead he’d been tasked with keeping safe had rarely, if ever, thanked him. If Jenny lived for more than a few days, if she didn’t run into another slayer who was actually equipped to do their job, Owen wondered how this encounter would change Jenny’s view of him. Would she think he was just following some code of only taking out fully transformed vampires? Or that maybe he wanted her to become a horrible monster lacking all control, as part of her punishment for pining for this fucked up dream? Not that any of it mattered, her judgement was no match for the one already speaking loud and clear inside Owen’s head. 

It had been six months since Jenny had learned about the existence of vampires. Six months, and very little to show for it besides a set of scars on her neck (as well as other parts of her body) and a few memories of vampires turning into dust in front of her. Her goal had not yet been reached and it was growing frustrating, the way she kept inching close and then losing. She had thought Philip her golden ticket, but he was dust now. Max was too mercurial to trust to turn her any time soon. And Metzli …

Alas. At least fall was in the air and the nights were growing longer. Her mood had been softened by the incoming spookiness that would take ahold of Wicked's Rest, and she had enjoyed a Halloween like never before. She had not lost hope yet, but she was returning to cemeteries.

Never mind the nagging memory of a groundskeeper 'saving' her from a vampire by killing him. Never mind the potential stupidity in such a thing. Her muse needed feeding and it were the spookier places in town that did it for her. Dusk was around the corner, a brisk fall wind played with the air and under her boots leaves crunched. Though she was no vampire yet, she could at least enjoy their cemetery aesthetic and take in the sight of the orange-tinted sky without being bothered by the sun.

As she focused on her phone screen to take a picture of the sun peeking through branches and past headstones and then herself, too, Jenny lost sight of her immediate surroundings. Her foot hooked around a tree root that had surfaced through the earth with sheer stubbornness and she fell face first, phone skidding over the ground and her tights ripping. She let out a hiss of pain, before quietly cursing, “Fuck,” when she heard someone approach. Just her luck, that her very pleasing evening walk was disturbed with witnessed clumsiness.

_

There was not much for the slayer to expect from the cemetery at this early hour. The sun was vanishing beyond the pines in the east, and soon, the moon would be the only source of light in the area. More than enough for the young man, who, ever since he was a small child, had never known what it meant to be scared of the dark. Not like that. To him, the dark was only another name for evilness, and that often had nothing to do with the hour of the day or night. 

How innocent and reckless to imagine that the worst things happened at night. Broad daylight was no better, no worse. 

And yet, now was not a time where the cemetery was particularly interesting.

He heard the stumble. He breathed in with expectation. Maybe he had been wrong about that.

Looking over his shoulder, he stood up from the tombstone he sat on to get a proper look at the poor unfortunate soul. 

Jenny. 

Henri sighed, and yet hurried forward, his boots pressing through wet leaves. Crouching a few feet away, he tilted his head. “Jenny?” he asked, although it was not precisely a question. Holding out her phone, he lowered his voice. Just in case. “You dropped this.” He noticed the rip in her tights, and the dirt on her palms. Not exactly the best way to end the day, was it? “Are you alright?”

—

And who better to catch her in this embarrassing moment than a slayer who had shown a tendency towards condescension already. Jenny wasn't sure how she felt about Henri – was he a friend? – but she knew she didn't really want to see him while covered in mud and bleeding from her knee. Of course, the list people she did want to see her like that was so short it might as well be non-existent.

“Yep, that's me,” she groaned, pulling her knee up to consider the damage done. Ripped tights were an aesthetic choice she'd gotten behind before, but there was nothing pleasing about ripping them on accident. There was nothing pleasing about the blood welling up either.

Her phone went ignored for a moment as she stared at the bright red mixed with dirt and a small wood chip or two. “Damn it.” She blew on the damage, wincing again and only looking up at the slayer when the expression had left her face.

There was something so childishly embarrassing about falling like this and being witnessed on the ground. Tears (of pain) stung her eyes and she cleared her throat to rid herself from the immature response. “Yes! It's just a graze.” She took her phone from him, then looked back at her knee. She'd felt worse pain than this. Not even that long ago. She inhaled sharply. “It's fine. It's just blood.” She'd also lost more blood in recent times. It was not a big deal.

__

“A graze?” The slayer raised his eyebrows as he saw the wound, the red spilling onto the woman’s leg as she sat and looked at the damage herself. “I have plasters and …” A whole first aid kit, which was not precisely the sort of things people carried around. They should have, he thought. There were plenty things Henri thought that people ought to have carried around with them, especially in this God forsaken town. 

“Let’s get that cleaned up before it gets infected,” something in the way he said it implied that Henri wouldn’t take no for an answer. Besides, he was already sitting down beside her and searching his bag for supplies. Handing over a single-use wipe, the slayer tried to ignore the tingle on his skin. Heh, they were in a cemetery. This didn’t mean they were instantaneously facing a threat. Plenty of undead folks were kind people. Plenty were jerks too, but Henri found that wasn’t exclusive to any species. 

“Should I ask what you were doing here in the first place?” Probably not. He wouldn’t like the answer. His top guesses involved vampire literature references of all sorts, and they already had a conversation on the matter that he preferred to entirely forget. “I shouldn’t. Agreed,” he responded, before she could. He did not want to have an argument, not so early in the night.  

—

Of course Henri had plasters. He was probably the mom-type friend, in the way people were mom-friends in fiction. Always carrying around everything, micromanaging like second nature, checking in on the people around him with sincerity. (This stereotypical friend-type was not based on Jenny’s experience with her own mom.) “You have something to fix my tights? I love them.” They were adorned with a pattern, had been bought eons ago. She wasn’t sure she could get the same pair again.

Her lip jutted out as she took the wipe, staring at her knee before wiping it. She hissed at the contact, but was glad to see the bits of dirt and earth leave the graze. Once it was clean, she dropped the wipe on the ground before rethinking that action. “Oops,” she said, as if it had been an accident, reaching for it and balling it up. 

Henri was asking a question that he thankfully answered himself, because Jenny was kind of done with talking to slayers about her affinity for vampires. “Then I won’t ask you in return.” She looked at him, giving a small grin. “Can’t complain, anyway, Mr. White Knight himself.” It would have been so easy to antagonize Henri after what had transpired between them before, but he’d shown her kindness. Jenny found it a little confusing, but took to it heartily. She was about to say something when a branch snapped in the distance, the sound of someone approaching swiftly and ferociously unmistakable.

__

Henri’s head snapped toward the trees before he fully had the time to even think his actions through. His breath caught in his throat. Out of all the creatures to run into, this was perhaps one of the worst that could have found them. 

His hand instinctively flew toward the blade he kept sheathed beneath his jacket. 

Henri didn’t speak at first, straightening up instead as his eyes narrowed on the darkness between the headstones, the shape of the creature clear as though it had stood in the sunlight. Its scent hit him then as the wind carried it their way, faint but distinct to the slayer’s nose in the crisp fall air. 

“Jenny,” he said quietly, keeping his voice low enough not to carry across the distance. “Stay behind me.” 

It was too late to explain, too late to pretend it didn’t exist. He could hear it moving, sharp nails against bark, snarling breaths. He could hear something wet. He had heard all these sounds before. Not often. More often than he’d liked. Definitely enough to tell what he was dealing with. 

Upior. 

The last one he had encountered had torn through a trained slayer before meeting its end by his mother’s blade. And that was in the middle of winter, when the air was too dry to carry on the wind. Henri was sure he imagined feeling Jenny’s injury now, but he knew for sure that the creature would smell it. 

“Don’t move,” he whispered, crouching slightly, as his blade slipped out of the sheath. His eyes darted toward the injury, the torn tights, the dirt, and the smear of red on her leg. “You have to cover this. Quick.”

A branch snapped. Closer. 

As the ascending moon drew long shadows across the cemetery, Henri saw the shape once again between the stones, moving low, moving fast.

Henri exhaled. Slowly. His shoulders squared. “Alright then,” he said, voice flat and quiet, the edge of grim resolve seeping through. “Stay down. And if it gets past me. Run and don’t look back.” 

And then, the slayer moved.

—

The tone changed. Though Henri had been considerate and slightly concerned, the volume with which he addressed her now had taken a turn for the serious. Jenny stared at him with inquisitive eyes, almost forgetting her ruined tights and the stinging graze she’d just cleaned.

She heard it too, though not as sharply as he did. Something was moving towards them, something that sounded far from human. She clutched her phone tightly, as if anything about that small piece of technology could do anything against whatever made Henri look the way he did. The words why and what’s out there died on her tongue as he instructed her once more.

“O—okay,” she stammered, pulling her scarf from her neck and attempting to tie it around her knee. “What’s going on?” Something was coming closer, that much she could gather from the second snap of a branch. This one sounded nearer than the one before and she stared into the dark like Henri did, holding her breath without any of her usual dramatics. Was it a vampire, like the one that guy had killed with his shovel? Or was it something worse? Her mind went to the zombie she’d encountered in this very same cemetery, and the werewolf that had fought it after.

Monsters aplenty in this world. Henri probably knew all about them. 

She remained squatted, watching Henri standing tall and strong. A weapon sat in his hand she felt a noise exit her mouth. One of concern, for both herself but also for the slayer she had so often deemed annoying. 

Henri moved and Jenny wanted to tell him to get back, but she did not — she understood that there was a certain gravity to the situation, and she did not want to die. (Later, she might reflect on her willingness to let someone else play the hero as she cowered in the back. Or maybe there’d be other things on her mind.) 

The thing – whatever it was – jumped out from behind gravestones, and she watched Henri move towards it. But the creature did not care as it honed in on its target, driven by the scent of her spilled blood. Jenny saw it in its full glory as it barrelled towards her and she screamed a scream of true terror, vocal cords straining as she pushed herself onto her feet and started scrambling backwards.

It was horrible. Two red eyes, a tongue that swayed through the air like a monstrous trunk, barbed and sharp. Jenny kept screaming as it moved towards her, that tongue splitting the air to jab at her throat. She dove, just in time, to feel it crash against her shoulder, the creature following its tongue and throwing her against the ground.

__

The slayer cursed under his breath, words that were covered in the instant by Jenny’s screams. 

A valid reaction, to a first encounter with brutality incarnate. 

The creature lacked grace when it moved, erratic and guided by a hunger Henri had only ever read or witnessed. There was no imagining the sort of drive that led this person (because this was someone still) to lose all sense of control. As a matter of fact, it was all the more difficult to remember that there was a person in there, all the more impossible to imagine what they were like. Maybe this was a father of two, maybe a university student, or that woman who covered the night shift at the diner sometimes. 

In Henri’s book, you couldn't fault a creature for needing to feed but that did not mean that he had to let them. 

He moved fast, spinning on his heels to get a hold of the upior before it could touch her. She might have brought this upon herself, Henri did not think that she deserved that kind of fate. 

His fingers curled around his knife, steadying his hold on it before he threw it at the creature’s cheek. Another knife was already in his hand, retrieved from his belt, and the hunter lunged forward, giving up his survival instincts as he did so many times before to save her. 

Save them. A voice in his head told him. And he told himself that he would try his best. But the monster was trashing in his harm, desperate to access Jenny’s blood. 

The vampire’s nightmare of a mouth didn't bleed where the knife hit it. The blade had stuck into the gum and remained there, the upior acting as though it was nothing more than something stuck in their teeth after a nice meal. Getting a hold of it, Henri sliced through bone and sinew, cutting at last into the monster’s barbed tongue and managing to get its attention. 

By the time it tried to get it wrapped around the slayer’s neck, it had come right off.  Henri could feel the weight of it, the drool and venom seeping through the cloth of his shirt before it turned to ash. 

He hadn't forgotten about Jenny then. He just needed to get rid of the upior first. With its tongue out of the equation, claws dug into Henri’s skin, turning his skin into a tortured canvas, painted with red. 

But the hunter didn't back down. He needed to make sure she had time to run away. Please run away, he thought. As for him, he knew now that it would be either him or the upior and Henri refused to go now. 

The same knife that found the creature’s jaw dug beneath the trachea and as Henri mouthed an apology to the person in there, the slayer drove the blade through, crushing through bone again, this time with a more definitive outcome. 

Sweat clung to his skin and the tingling on his skin had dimmed into nothing, when the creature, instead of turning to dush, let out a final gargle, its own body dissolving into red goo. 3… 2… His eyes shut close in expectation of the crimson rain that came with the bursting of an upior.

But the instants the blood hit his face, the hunter rushed to her.

—

How swiftly the wound to her knee was diminished. Jenny knew only how to scream as she felt something rip her shoulder apart, watching a meaty tongue retract from her. The pain did not register yet, only the bone-deep fear and the dawning realization that she was going to die. The instinct to fight against that. 

She pushed herself back, scrambling and attempting to get up. That was when the pain shot through her shoulder, when another sound joined the fray and she whined with pain. She fell back, unable to push her weight up with her marred shoulder, and remained there. Tears and snot were slipping down her face, as she watched what happened in front of her.

If this was a movie, she would applaud the body horror of the monster that had moments ago attacked her. If this was a movie, she would have yelped, but that would have been it. If this was a movie, she would be able to pause the scene in order to grab a drink, scroll down her phone or go to the bathroom. It should be a movie, some fictional thing that would end with the credits rolling over a dark cover of a popular song from the 2000s. 

But it was not. This was real. Henri was really trying to fight that thing, had sliced off its tongue and Jenny stared at it in horror. It was long and muscular, lined with barbs and slivers of saliva. She sobbed at the sight, any control she had over her emotions far from gone. She was reduced to instinct and so all that was left was fear. Fear disguised as panic, fear disguised as disgust, fear that was just fear, the bone-chilling and nerve-destroying kind.

Fear for herself, not yet in a way that brought her clarity about all she’d done over the past months, but in a more acute way. But also fear for Henri.

As the beast tore into him she screamed once more, the sound ending in a whimper that continued on with stalling breaths. Henri was putting up a fight, but Henri was just a man. A man who was trained for this, though, a man with a knife, a man who might bleed after being scratched open but who was the one who remained standing as the creature turned to a shower of blood.

Henri rushed towards her and Jenny moved towards him, trying to push herself up again and using the hand belonging to her uninjured shoulder. “Henri,” she wept, “Henri — what was — are you okay? You –” A hiccup. “You saved me.” And it wasn’t the first time someone had done that since she’d come to town, but it was the first time where she felt relief and gratitude, cutting her like a knife.

__

You saved me.

The words sunk a pit in his stomach because he knew what just happened. No amount of beating himself up over it would rescue her from what was about to come. Still, he dreaded what he had to tell her now.

Henri wished it had been easy. You did very good. Or. Don’t ever set foot in a cemetery ever again. Instead, his eyes couldn't help darting toward the mark on her shoulder and his heart broke further more for Jenny. 

From the sound of her screams of horror, the slayer imagined that this was what hell must have looked like to her. A far cry from the glamorous vampires in Anne Rice’s literature or the manipulative yet enticing Bela Lugosi figure of the collective imaginary. 

How was he supposed to tell her that she was set to turn into an upior ? Not now, not even next week if they had any luck but… 

“Jenny, it touched you…” he stopped himself.

Henri couldn't give up just because fate told him to. Perhaps, since the upior poisoned, infected its victim, perhaps he could get his hands on a cure ? He had read on that. It had to be possible. 

He couldn't give up on her. 

“We’ll… I’ll-” he had to tell her. Because what if he didn't save her in the end ?

“You’re gonna turn into this within this month or the next.”

—

She loved the imagery of people covered in blood. The concept of it was marvelous, an aesthetic choice that almost always worked. But she could not appreciate it right now, as she looked at Henri. Blood dripped from his blonde hair, and he was no Carrie or Patrick Bateman, but he was just Henri. Smelling of iron, looking at her with a look in his eyes she did not like at all.

What she liked even less was what he said next.

Jenny stared at him blankly for a moment, then let out a burst of laughter. It was akin to a sob, with how sudden and uncontrolled it slipped from her throat. She clapped her hands over her mouth, as if to stop herself from laughing more.

To suddenly slip into disbelief about a supernatural phenomenon after she’d easily accepted everything else she’d learned over the past year would be ridiculous. And yet …

“No,” she said, shaking her head. Her hands were still on her mouth, so the word continued to come out muffled, “No, no, no, no —” She covered her face with her hands now as another burst of laughter left her mouth. This time it wasn’t just one short shot of laughter, but something that went on longer, transformed into a fit of giggles. Desperate ones, that clung to the idea that this was a joke. 

It could not be real. That for all her attempts and sacrifices when it came to vampires, for all the risks she’d taken, the things she’d seen and the blood she’d lost, she would turn into that. She kept laughing, clinging to her sides, shaking from the sounds but from the underlying fear, too.

__

Her laughter was perhaps the most human reaction, the most human thing to do. Perhaps this was why it terrified him so much. 

And so the hunter looked at her, woe drawing lines between his eyes that felt more hollow than usual, devoid of warmth as the adrenaline seeped out and reality sunk its claws in. She was going to die, and it was his fault. 

“Jenny…” He started, but she was laughing again, and his words stayed stuck in, like gravel in his throat. She laughed. The look in his eyes stayed the same. Horrified, emptied of its light. 

In the dim light of the moon, the man, painted in crimson red, remained quiet. 

He finally crouched, slow and deliberate, so he wouldn’t startle her.

“Jenny,” he said softly, his voice roughened from the fight. “Hey. Look at me.” 

She kept laughing, and the sound cut through him the same way the upior’s claws did his chest. Brittle, loud, human. 

And now his hands were on her shoulders, as though to beg her to stop laughing and come back to him, as though to beg her to listen, because they didn’t have much time, and he had so much to tell her. “Please, Jenny. You… We… We’re gonna get you through this, and…” With a shaky voice, he added : “We’ll find a cure. We…” Yes. The cure. There was a cure. They could save her. “We’ll find a cure.” The words felt like a statement this time around, nothing like the shell of a sentence he uttered seconds before. “We’ll cure you. Because we have time. Weeks. We have weeks, okay? Okay.” And he was talking to himself now, filling in the silence, perhaps in fear that she might laugh again, that she might burst back into a fit of laughter and break his heart again. 

“Please.” He let go of her shoulders, as though touching her anymore might break her. He had done enough damage tonight. Now was the time for fixing it.

—

There were tons of literary devices she could reference right now, but her mind was not working that way. All it seemed to do was circle the same two letter word of denial, her body shaking with it. No, she thought, this cannot be how it ends. No, this cannot be how it begins. This cannot be the faith that the world has laid out for me. No, they will have been right. No. No. No.

Henri was speaking to her and she couldn’t even look at him and his blood covered face. That wouldn’t even be the worst of it, the red staining him — the worst would be whatever expression he was wearing. 

Okay, one literary device, then: the hero’s journey, where Henri was the mentor, and Jenny was the hero who met him at the beginning of her tale. A subverted trope, as Henri was the wiseman who’d warned her against going on that journey and now here she was, a few steps deeper into it all. And he was still here. He was talking to her. He was offering aid. He was touching her shoulders —

“Ow, ow, ow!” The sounds cut through her giggles, the sudden gust of pain that coursed through her making her land back on earth. The laughter ceased and in stead she listened, clinging to the words that Henri said, especially when he said cure. So there was hope. There was an objective. The journey continued. Jenny looked at him, “There’s a cure? I don’t have to — I don’t have to be like that?” 

The image of the creature flashed through her mind’s eye again and she let out a whimper, the crying returning as the laughter had left. “So what — where is it? How do we get it? What do we do now? Do you —” She was trembling again, with terror and dread. “I don’t want to be that, that can’t be what I become, not after everything not … not that.” She reached for her face again, burying in her hands again. “Not that. Not that.” Her knees pulled up and she thought she might remain there, on the ground, waiting for Henri to return with the cure he spoke of. That could be alright. That could be okay. That could be better than trying to get up and doing something as mundane as driving away from this place. “Just get it.” Her voice was small and childlike, belonging to a daughter who’d always gotten the impossible, the cherished and the sought-after. 

__

Henri would never tell her that, but the crying was actually an improvement from the laughter. An appropriate reaction. It wasn’t doing anything for the knots in his stomach but at least it was normal, and it meant that she was listening. 

Unfortunately, it also meant that he had to talk, and he did not have all the answers yet. This was not the sort of situation he found comfortable. Most of the reading he did was to avoid such situations. You could not be caught by surprise if you already knew all the facts, right ? Well, he did not know all the facts. Upiors were not that common (because they usually killed their target), and Henri liked to believe that their rarity also stemmed from that possible cure. He knew he had heard of a cure before. He was certain about it. 

But clear answers? He didn’t have any. 

He sighed as she demanded he brought her the cure. She sounded convinced that he just kept a bottle of anti upior pepto bismol in his closet. If he ever needed any proof that she didn’t know a damn thing about how things worked in his world, there it was. 

Things were never simple. The choices they had to make? Impossible. Happy endings ? Who could define what they consisted in ? Was not dying a happy ending? Emilio came to mind and Henri told himself that he’d rather die than return undead himself. 

Things weren’t simple. She had walked into this cemetery looking for a vampire. She had found one. Simple would have him smile and tell her to lie in the bed she made for herself, tell her that he was going to save himself the trouble and kill her now, before she inevitably turns in a month. 

Instead, Henri said: “I need to look into it. I have never done this before, and whatever this cure is, I don’t know if it’s going to come without consequences.” 

His eyes couldn’t focus on her face, he chose to look at her wound instead. “I’ll go patch you up now.” And if they were lucky, no one would cross their path. 

—

Henri wasn’t getting up to go get the cure as she’d so weakly demanded, which wasn’t a surprise per se, but still a disappointment. Jenny got what she wanted most of the time, especially when it existed on the material plane. A cure was something that could be made or bought, and so something she right now believed she could get.

There was something to be said about how she’d gotten what she wanted now, her shoulder oozing from the contact with an upior, the fate written for her in the stars. She had come to this cemetery to find a vampire, and she had found something. She was not ready to think about the irony of her situation yet, and perhaps never would be — just as she had never been ready to assess why she was so willing to seek out death in the first place.

“Consequences be damned,” she whined, “I’ll take it — you will find it, you have to Henri, I don’t want –” She closed her eyes and sobbed miserably. “I cannot become that, did you see that? What even – what even was that?” She opened her eyes and looked at him like he was the last buoy left in the harbour, the last thing she could hold onto before drowning. She wanted to reach for him, cling to him, but she remained as she sat, pulling her legs closer to her even if the strain hurt her shoulder.

Jenny considered what Henri was saying. Her shoulder did need tending to and she tried to look at the wound, letting out a wail as she saw the damage done. She could not see the full extent of it, but her limited sight was enough. “Okay, okay, okay,” she said, teeth clattering. “What do I do — what do you need? Do you want to do it here, on the ground?” Somehow, even now her disgust shone through. 

—

Henri had tried not to point a metaphorical finger at her, no matter how much he thought she deserved to get told that this was all her fucking fault, but now she was making demands and there was something deeply irritating in the way she whined about her fate. Wasn’t this all she ever wanted ? 

He remembered how she was hellbent on showing him how wrong he was on the subject of vampires, back at the library. And now she thought she could just pick what sort of horror she was to turn into? Maybe he had failed her. Maybe he should have managed a way to show her upiors and spawns, wights and nachzehrers. Maybe that would have kept her out of trouble. 

“Consequences be damned?” With a scoff, the slayer got up to his knees. “THIS is the consequences for your actions.” And he didn’t care whether or not she wanted to turn into an upior. He was going to help her, not because she deserved it, but because it was the right thing to do. “What tells me that once you’re cured, you will stop your stupid quest for immortality ? Do you know what else lurks in those cemeteries? There are worse fates than this, Jenny. You don’t know a damn thing about the undead, and we tried to warn you but you don’t care about anyone but yourself.” He motioned toward where the upior burst. “And now that person’s dead.” Because where she only saw a monster, Henri knew there was someone. 

“I don’t fucking care what you want.” His voice had lost its usual calm and quiet. And his words echoed through the night with frustration and anger. “I’m going to help you because that’s what we do, but I don’t think you deserve it.” 

He left her side then, picking up his hunting gear and slinging the bag over his shoulder. “I’ll keep you under watch tonight. You’re coming with me. Now get up and let’s get going.” 

—

She grew silent. The crying did not stop – it was the kind of weeping that went on and on – but she clenched her jaws together, eyes blazing with shame, but indignation as well. All emotions born from the same endless source within: denial. It had started with the laughing, with the delirium that she’d gotten caught in as Henri had lifted the veil on her future. Then, a lapse of acceptance and then the entitlement, the hope she clung to in a way that was unfair to Henri, although that wasn’t what she was thinking of.

Jenny listened quietly, her jaw continuing to tremble as Henri laid out the truth — his truth. She wanted to argue with him, that this was no consequence to any of her actions, that being attacked by a tongue-wielding monster was far from a natural result to walking a cemetery at night, something a ton of people did, by the way! She wanted to argue that this was getting awful close to victim blaming, and she had thought better of Henri. 

But there was something about his tone that made her jaws feel glued together. There was something about the ache in her shoulder that made her stop for a moment. There was something about the memory of sight of that beast that kept her quiet. She was struck by it, his proclamation that she did not deserve his help but he’d give it to her anyway. 

And when Henri said she was coming with him, it was a command, and she did not move to disobey it. She just inhaled sharply, another sob leaving her throat. Her next words sounded choked, as if she was lacking oxygen: “I’m sorry! I’m sorry okay, I just — I just —” She inhaled again, “I don’t want to be that – I just — I’m scared, and it hurts and I’m sorry, alright?” She felt snot run down her nose, into her mouth and choked as she struggled to inhale again. 

Shame washed over her properly now, as did the fear she’d just confessed to. That was the underlying thing, the monster underneath her bed, the ignored elephant in the room. She was afraid. She had been afraid for months. Jenny hid her face in her hands again, wiping at her nose. Muffled, now, still strained by lack of oxygen, she mumbled, “Please,” she said, “Please just help me. I’m sorry.” She started to unfold, hissing with pain as she moved her arm and tried to get up. She felt dizzy as she got up to her knees, struggled to push herself up with one arm, inhaled too fast to exhale properly and wept openly through it all.

___

He wanted to scream in her face, tell her that she deserved it, that she did this to herself, and that she only had herself to blame now. But he stayed quiet this time. His anger couldn't have looked more obvious anyway. Henri figured he didn't even need to tell her how he felt about the whole ordeal. It was clear in the way he stood, the way his gaze had hardened into granite, even as he handed her a tissue. "Bit late to be sorry," he finally said, because he wanted her to stop repeating the world like some sort of incantation. 

Sorry would not fix shit. Once again, hunters would fix messes and she'd probably not learn her lesson and come back to the cemetery looking for a more appealing undead type. 

With a sigh, he held out his hand and helped her to her feet. 

He could feel his skin tingle as they walked out, but nothing came their way. The slayer thought to himself that he wouldn't have minded a little something to get his edge off. Because he remained furious. Furious that these people never listened. Furious because that upior wasn't doing anything wrong and now it was dead. All because of one person's stupid, selfish life choices. All because she didn't think it through. 

They walked through the cemetery without much trouble. They were quiet, and if there were anyone around, they were not the type to run and scream at the sight of blood, though they might have been the sort to hide.

As they left the tombs behind them, Henri’s gaze was drawn to a singular car parked on the lot. Bright red. Definitely looked like something someone who never worked for anything in their life would own. He sighed, at his own thought, because that was a bit rude, even coming from him. 

“Well that solves the issue of walking around Downtown covered in blood, doesn’t it?” Pause. “Keys?” Because she wasn’t going to drive now. Not after what just happened. Not with what was happening. Opening the passenger’s door for her, Henri dumped his blood coated coat into the trunk and wiped some blood off his face with his sleeve ; then getting behind the wheel and taking them to his place. The ride was a quiet one, safe for the radio playing some song he didn’t know. Soon enough, they were stopping by a two storey brick building, safely tucked between a permanently closed post office and a bookstore, also closed at this hour, thank God. 

—

She had nothing to say in response to that statement. It was clear Henri felt a way about this that would offer her little comfort if she dug deeper into it. She was vulnerable, not just because of the tears, the snot, the blood and the shaking — but because she’d proclaimed that she was scared and he did not meet that confession with much. So Jenny remained silent, ashamed and petrified. She remained silent, because to talk was to ground herself more and more into this reality they were in.

Henri offered his help and she took it, two bloodsoaked hands meeting. She walked behind him, whining softly from the pain each step took, but the crying had stopped. A dazedness had washed over her, a kind of autopilot that came from the bloodloss, the possibilities ahead and the memory of that creature on top of her.

She was pulled back to where they were when Henri spoke, eyes falling on her car. Jenny struggled to dig her keys out of her bag, the pain in her shoulder growing louder with every moment her adrenaline continued to melt. She offered the fob to him, then got into the passenger seat without complaint. She didn’t want to go to wherever he lived or whatever other location he had in mind. She wanted to go home. To the townhouse in Oldtown she lived in or the dreamed of home she always longed for when the earth seemed gone. The one where her mother was always home when she needed her and held her, singing softly. The one she fantasized about during sleepless nights. That dream space a lonely kid had created, that kept her yearning.

For a moment she did think Henri was driving to her house as they passed her neighborhood, but he kept driving. The radio played. She looked out of the side window, watching sidewalks and patches of grass pass. With every bump and turn she moaned, but she knew better than to ask Henri for anything. It was similar to sitting in a car with one of her parents when either of them were stressed, except that there was more blood and death involved. Like, a lot more.

The car stopped and Jenny looked up, seeing buildings she recognized vaguely. “Where are we?” She did not move. Just looked, waited for Henri to tell her what to do. Her stomach swirled. The car ride had been a moment caught in time before the next steps. “Shouldn’t we — hospital?”

__

“Hospital?” He gave the young woman a look. Sure, he was going to take her to the hospital, covered in blood than belonged to… possibly someone who should have been dead for centuries already. What a great idea. 

All he could hope for was that she figured out why just by getting a look at his face, the blood drying all over it, and the way his eyes kept on darting toward her shoulder and that vicious wound. This was not explainable, and any doctor who properly examined the gash left by that barbed wire tongue would be unable to assess what had caused this. And that's usually when questions were asked.

“I never go to the hospital,” that wasn't entirely true, although he had never been for himself. He never had to. Hunters recovered so quickly, what was even the point ? And frankly, bone trauma was easy to fix. At least, that was how he felt, and he knew he wasn't the only hunter feeling that way. “You’ll be fine. I could open a pharmacy with the shit I keep home,” he quipped, with no humor to his voice. 

And if she wanted help, she’d have no choice but to follow him inside. 

And so he got out of the car, opened his front door, and headed straight to his bathroom, avoiding for now, to look at his reflection in the mirror. He wouldn't like what he would see. His failure, plain and obvious on his face.

—

It was a foolish suggestion, she’d known that the moment she’d put it to words and as Henri looked at her, covered in blood. There was no explanation for the injury on her shoulder, and though they could use the good old ‘wild animal’ excuse, Jenny understood that they would not go and lie to a bunch of doctors and nurses. 

Henri’s voice was almost as sharp as barbed tongue and she wanted to cower in shame, an instinct that had occurred to her aplenty in the past moments since she’d walked in the cemetery. The shame she’d felt when falling over was nothing compared to this, though. She bit her lip to keep it from trembling, wanting to trust Henri to take good care of her but not quite getting there. “Alright.” The answer was meek, lacking her usual attempt at a witty rebuttal. 

He was not happy with her, that much was glaringly obvious, and it felt unfair to her. She had not asked for this. She had just walked a cemetery at night, with some intent, but she had not brought this upon herself — even if she thought different. Jenny tried to grasp it, what had happened to her and what might happen next. But she couldn’t come further than fear and shame, and wallowed in them as she sat in the car, waiting. She could drive off to the hospital herself, to find kindness in nurses and doctors she could not be honest with. She could do it. But she didn’t, in stead slinked out of the car after Henri and into his apartment. 

Every step reverberated into her shoulder, her face twisted with pain and exhaustion as she moved after him, into the bathroom. Jenny was silent. She slid down, landing on the tiles. A sound of pain escaped her. She looked at her shoulder, sparing a glance, and then whined louder as she saw it — the blood, the ripped skin, the somewhat strange tinge to it that made it seem green-ish. She looked away, back to Henri. Pleading, quietly.

___

Henri kneeled on the floor beside her, with a bag that could have been stolen from a first responder’s trunk. “That’s…” Well, it did not have to be awkward, considering what they both had been through already. And it wasn’t even 10 pm yet. What a great start to a night.

“Let’s take your shirt off,” he finally stated, lifting and placing her arm against his shoulder to keep her steady while he attempted to peel off her blouse. The fabric clung to her like a second skin around the wound, and the bleeding resumed as coagulation was torn off in the process. He supposed that as long as he was focused on treating that wound, he didn’t have to yell at her anymore. He could forget how angry he was with her reckless behaviour, and he no longer had to think of what he should do if she ended up going through this transformation, because upiors were closer to monsters than they were to vampires in his book. Uncontrollable beasts who knew nothing but their thirst for blood, nearly unstoppable forces. He still wondered how he had managed to get away from the one in the cemetery with just a few gashes on his arms and a complete blood spray tan. 

Aoife most likely would call bullshit when he’d tell her about it but he knew his parents would be very proud. 

His brows furrowed deep as he ran a wash cloth over the woman’s shoulder. The wound looked worse yet when it was not covered with blood, somewhere between ground beef and mince pie getting made. But now was not the time for childhood memory flashbacks. 

And as he looked up, he crossed her gaze. She wasn’t scared, panicked, or angry. She needed hope, he realized. And he didn’t have any to give her. 

—

This was probably the least sexy way someone had undressed her. Jenny barely helped get her shirt off, feeling feinter as time passed on. She’d grown familiar with blood loss, but not this much, and not this viciously. Whatever energy was left was spent on the pain caused by her blouse being peeled from her. Her shoulder felt hot and searing and she did not put any effort in keeping herself from moaning and groaning as Henri worked. 

At least she was occupied enough to ask for painkillers, to wonder if he had anything like morphine in that gigantic bag of his, to complain about the fact that the hospital would have given her that immediately, surely. She had half a thought about the risk at infection but she nearly laughed at that idea — it seemed they were far beyond things like rabies at this point. She felt a bubble of amusement push past her lips, her eyes tearing from pain. “Maybe I’ll get rabies,” she mumbled in a moment where she wasn’t whimpering. “Ha. Ha.”

She had been angling her head up, staring at the bathroom ceiling. Searching for points to focus on. A spiderweb, a crack in the wall, a tiny stain. But she eventually looked down again, the sight even worse now. Jenny was silent, even if she wanted to wail. She stared at it and wondered how Henri thought he could fix this, the ripped skin, the flesh showing, that strange tinge. She closed her eyes, squeezing them so tight she saw stars. “It’s bad, huh?” 

___

Right. Pain. He didn't know Jenny enough to evaluate her tolerance for it, but he shouldn't have expected her to grind her teeth and wait til he was done to swallow a few pills, or chew them down, which he believed was more effective. 

He had not worried about anti inflammatories and antiseptics either. “You’re gonna wish you got rabies,” he commented, dry as ever, and went to the sink to clean his hands with soap. “We’re gonna need a few stitches.” Pause. “I’ll give you a shot of pain killers,” he stated before she could say anything about needles. 

His cat approached the bag of supplies then, protesting quietly as Henri shooed him away. “It could be a lot worse. That thing could have ripped off your whole arm if I had taken longer to get to it.” And he doubted transforming into an upior would have regenerated it back. “Do you have allergies?”

—

She did wish that this was rabies. Although she’d heard that could kill you in under a day, the cures against it and the help available were all at the hospital, where Jenny didn’t have to sit on a bathroom floor with someone whose bedside manner left much to be desired. She felt relief push through her when he mentioned pain killers.

“Okay, okay,” she said, keeping herself from pushing Henri to be faster, or asking him why it had taken him so long to get the painkillers. A whine from the back of her throat escaped in stead, her flesh feeling like it was searing. It reminded her of acid reflux in a way, but worse and fleshy, tearing at her tendons.

The thought that her arm could have been gone was harrowing, but she found little comfort in whatever she had ended up with in stead. She just whimpered and turned to the next question in stead. “Strawberries and – and nickel, but nothing — nothing that matters, I think.”

__

"Strawberries?” The slayer had never heard of that one. Then, part of his upbringing had led Henri to believe for a long long time that allergies were made up. His immune system must have prevented him, and his family from having any, and it was the sort of weakness that would have been easily frowned upon or laughed at in hunter communities too. Imagine your only weakness being flowers? Ridiculous, right? “That’s a bummer. But cherries are a lot better anyway,” he commented absent mindedly, more to keep her focus on the banal conversation, rather than because he felt very strongly about fruit too. 

He discarded the syringe in the sink, and reached for the stitching kit in his bag next. “Alright. Just… breathe?” While she could, he couldn’t help but think. That made his mood drop a bit further down, and with that, the pit in his stomach was getting harder to ignore. The slayer sighed quietly, and set himself to work. Henri worked with method, quickly, his jaw tight, and his stomach twisting each time he heard her whimper or suffer at all. “You’re doing fine,” which was perhaps the most effusive he had ever been with the young woman. 

He cut the thread and moved onto the other half of the injury. Another point of torn flesh that needed to disappear as soon as possible behind layers of gauze and bandages. 

—

“And bluebe-berries too,” she blubbered, because she liked those the very best. It didn’t matter, but it was something else to say than the horrors she was thinking about. She wanted to ask Henri about the cure and how to get it. What would happen if they couldn’t get it. What that would make her. What he’d do in that case. Would he kill her the way he’d killed the upior? Or would he aid her the way he was now, with some complaint but still doing it all the same?

Jenny felt some of the pain dissipate, but not all of it. A numbness took over her shoulder and she tried to follow his instructions, to breathe — and she did, though it was shaky and filled with sharp inhales, her eyes closing and opening with every sensation. “I —” She didn’t want to argue that she wasn’t doing fine. That in stead of fine, she was scared, more scared than she’d been over these past months. And that she hated the pain, that she felt nauseated by it. That it burned through the painkillers. 

She inhaled sharply and asked one of the burning questions anyway, because she was about to slip down a road of horrible thoughts and imaginations if she didn’t. She wasn’t looking at what Henri was doing, staring at tiles in stead as she spoke up: “What’s gonna happen to me?” 

___

“Depends on the blueberries,” he responded with a slight, void of a smile. “Some taste bland. You have to get them from the farmer’s market,” or maybe he was just used to the ones in his parents garden, and those were the only ones who could even compare to the real thing. Again, he didn’t feel that intensely about fruit. He just wanted to distract her from the pain, and it was doing sort of the same thing to him. The sense of dread was dimmed down a bit. Just a bit.

“I’m… Let’s finish this and then I’ll explain what happens next, okay?” He supposed that with a rundown of all the steps that would lead to her death, she would certainly feel a whole lot better (turn off sarcasm). 

He cut the thread once again, spraying his work with antiseptic and dabbing at it with gauze once more. Blood no longer seeped out now, and though the scar would be an ugly one, she would most likely be safe… for now. He then grabbed a washcloth from the cabinet, running it under warm water and passing it over her arm and her back, where the blood had trickled down and dried on her pale skin. He grabbed another one, and did the same for her face, staring at her intact shoulder as he ran it against her cheeks and wiped off tears, mascara and snot from her. 

Then he got up and yet again avoided her gaze. “I’ll go get you clothes.” 

—

“That’s true. Nothing quite as bad as a bland or soggy blueberry,” she said, just to say something. There were many worse things than that. Monsters that ripped you open with their barbed tongues, to name one. Jenny was glad to have something useless to say, though. Because while the distinction between a good and a bad berry was important to make, it had nothing at all to do with the rest of what was happening.

She felt her lip tremble as Henri held off on answering the question. That was never a good sign, though it wasn’t like she’d expected him to say none of it was going to be a big deal. Jenny nodded in lieu of a reply. She remained silent as Henri continued his work, washing with a kind of softness that seemed to fully contradict all the violence they’d seen that night. She gave no complaint or argument as he washed her face and for a moment she felt like a child, even though she had no memory of either of her parents ever washing her like this. 

She nodded as he moved away, not sure if he saw it. As Henri went to get clothes – no quick jab made about how she wanted dark colors and no beige, please – was made. Jenny in stead pushed off her shoes with her feet and started peeling off her tights. The rash on her knee was still there, juvenile and innocent in how small the injury was, compared to the other one on her body. Still, she hissed as she pulled the fabric over it and discarded the stuff in the tiny bin in a corner. Even if the tights had not been ripped, she wouldn’t have wanted them any more. 

She pushed herself up then, bare feet hitting the tiles as she swayed, gripping the sink with her good arm to pull herself up. She saw herself in the mirror, for a flash. Puffy eyes. Hair flecked with blood. Her shoulder — she looked away and her shoulder shook with a sob as she waited for Henri to return.

__

This was the first time he had had for himself since they had met in the cemetery, and without warning, before he could do anything about it, Henri felt all of tonight’s emotions hit him in the face all at once. The pit in his stomach sunk further and he was quick to wipe away the warm tears that stung at his eyes and felt like a burning flame against his cheeks. 

His lip quivered. With a sharp inhale, he closed the bedroom door behind him and sat down on the bed. Worn out and helpless. 

He did not have a fucking clue of how he was going to help Jenny. But he knew of a cure, and he would do what was necessary to get to it. 

He returned with what he personally would have liked to wear on such a terrible night. A tee shirt that wouldn’t snag at her stitches, a fleece lined sweater that would keep her warm, courtesy of the Archeology Department (and lovingly dirt colored), some woolen socks, and a pair of sweatpants she’d need to tighten at the waist as much as she could, he supposed, but which would do the job for now. 

Placing them on the hamper basket’s lid, he avoided her gaze again. “D’you need a hug?” He sniffed, his gaze falling onto the clothes he’d set down for her.

—

She heard Henri return and she wiped at her face with her good arm, trying to get rid of the newly formed tears. Her attempt to gather herself was poor, but she tried to look like she wasn’t on the verge of falling apart as she turned around. A poor attempt, because she already had that evening. She wasn’t sure she’d ever stopped.

Jenny looked at the clothes Henri put down for her, wrapping one arm around her body. Suddenly she felt naked, standing there in just her skirt and bra, but it wasn’t like she had the energy to be embarrassed about it any more. She just felt cold and exposed. 

And he wasn’t even looking at her. She doubted it had anything to do with her (lack of an) outfit, or the gnarly wound on her shoulder. Jenny was looking at him, though. Wanting to see something like the softness in his gaze that he’d used when he’d wiped her clean. Wanting gentleness, endless amounts of it, and pity for what she had gone through, and maybe just some kind of unitedness in the face of the horror of tonight.

“Yes,” she said without hesitation as he asked. Henri hugged her and she returned the embrace with her good arm, eyes squeezed shut tightly and tears still leaking out. After a moment, she pulled back and murmured. “Can you — I’ll get dressed now. Thanks. For the clothes.”

__

He nodded quietly and left her alone once again, closing the door behind his back. He stood there for a few seconds, the amount necessary, he supposed, to gather his thoughts and shove away whatever knot in his stomach he could feel. 

Part of him wanted to text Estella, because she always knew just what to say to cheer him up but… considering how he felt now, the slayer was concerned she would just call or come over no matter how much he tried to explain that he was fine. As for his family or Eve, well, he didn’t want to get a second hunter’s opinion on the matter, because it might be more level headed and undo what he was trying to do here (although he could understand that other hunters might see the threat already here).

Instead he leaned into the pillows of his couch and grabbed onto a fleece blanket, reaching over for his notebook and his fountain pen. 

A photo of Eve slipped out from the back cover and some light briefly returned to his face as he tucked it back inside his notebook. 

He then began writing the first step on the list. One she had already gone through. The upior’s saliva enters the bloodstream through touch. 

He twisted on the couch to get a look at his bookshelves. He would cross his notes with his parents’ and then… Well maybe he’d also take a look at his books too. There weren’t too many receivable ones, when it came to vampires, and he imagined he would have trouble finding a lot regarding upiors but… Well maybe his parents would suffice. Maybe they’d know.

When Jenny finally walked out of the bathroom, he was adding a broad timeline to each item on the list. In three weeks if he couldn’t find a cure, she would die. 

—-

Jenny looked at the pile of clothes for a moment after the door was closed behind her. It seemed like an insurmountable task, a hill too tall to climb. That was how everything felt right now, though. With the pain numbed and the bleeding stopped and the danger quelled for now, she felt the world rest underneath her feet again. How was she supposed to move on from this? To get dressed, to get out of the bathroom, to hear what fate laid ahead of her? To talk to her sisters, or her friends? To write her fucking play?

She looked at herself in the mirror. This time she did stare at the injury, glad that most of it was covered with bandages. Henri had done an excellent job. She wondered if he had to do this often. If these kinds of things did not feel like impossible hills to climb for him.

Eventually she got to work. Her first challenge was a large one: getting her bra off one handed was a task in and of itself. Once she’d snapped it off she let it drop, kicking it to the side. There was blood sticking to it. She wanted it burned. 

She hissed and moaned through the process of putting on the shirt and jumper, then got to work with swapping the skirt for the sweatpants. The outfit was comfortable. Another thing Henri had done. His acts were filled with consideration, but the tone of voice he’d held earlier was still on her mind. The way he’d been avoiding her gaze, too. Jenny figured this was another hill she wasn’t ready to climb yet.

Once she’d gotten her socks on (another struggle, what with her aching shoulder) she wet her fingers under the faucet with cold water and pressed wet fingertips onto her face. She dried off her hands and left the bathroom. Her clothes were abandoned on the floor, kicked to the side. She took only her bag and shoes with her as she searched for Henri, finding him on the couch. “Thanks.” She remained standing for a moment, before sitting down on a chair. She was too tired to stand. The familiar feeling of being anemic was there, too. “For the clothes. And everything. What’s that?” 

__

He had sunken in the couch when she walked out, although judging by two steaming cups on the table, Henri did move quite a bit while she dressed, making himself a cup of coffee with the old French press his mom relented to give him when he moved out. Something to think about me every day, she had dramatically stated, as though her son wouldn't be calling every morning to let her know that he had lived through another night.

He wondered what he would tell her in the morning. He knew what his mother would have done. She would have called it a mercy kill, and she perhaps would have been right. But Henri still believed in finding a cure, and he still refused to think of his mission as janitorial. He wasn't cleaning up the town, he was making it safe, and you just couldn't do that by taking out the good people that had the misfortune of being undead.

Sitting up, he put his pencil down beside his coffee cup. “I made you herbal tea.” He wondered if she’d even fall asleep, but the hunter was mainly concerned of what she’d do if he let her wander out now. “I… I'm not certain how precise I can be about this but, this is … huh,” his eyebrows furrowed. This is how you die ? This is the torture that awaits you ? 

Nothing he had written on that sheet of paper was the sort you ever wanted to see happen to you. “That's how someone,” you, “turns into an upior.”

—

It struck her, as she sat there, how lucky she had been. It was a strange thought, considering the fresh injury of her shoulder and the horror she had witnessed today. Jenny did not feel lucky, but as she went over the memory of before the attack – the falling and worrying about being witnessed in such clumsiness – she was faced with the truth. If Henri hadn’t been there…

And it wasn’t a comfortable thought, that she could have been dead. That this was one of the better outcomes, sitting here in joggers that were too large and wool socks tickling her feet. Her shoulder whining with acidic pain, her head aching from the crying and the fear that still made a house of her nervous system. She had been lucky and it was Henri who embodied that luck. 

He’d made her tea. It made her cry. A sniffle rose as she watched the steam rise. She wanted to thank Henri, even if she did not know how. She’d said the words tonight, but they didn’t seem like they served the weight of what she meant.

She stared at the piece of paper once Henri had revealed what it was, eyes hollow and yet curious, too. “Oh,” she said distantly. “Oh, okay. Henri.” She paused. She didn’t reach out for the paper yet, basking in the momentary ignorance of her fate. Even if she knew what she’d end up as. “What is an upior? Just … just a monster?” 

__

“Some consider the upior to be demonic rather than vampiric,” but any slayer would tell you that demons had nothing to do with the undead. He felt rather that demons belonged to a different plane of their universe, one that they sometimes decided to cross through. “There are plenty of vampire species out there. The upior is far from common because it’s so aggressive it rarely manages to let their victim go.” The bloodthirst was impossible to control, and victims were rarely able to get away. And so they didn't reproduce much. “Victims die before they can turn. Generally instantly,” he paused again, at last deciding to push away the shame to look at her. Because how could he not feel ashamed.

Henri wondered how long it would be before he forgave himself. There would be no reassuring him of his (lack of) responsibility. He was there when it happened. He also had a chance to warn her before, back when he first met her. He had a chance to stop the beast sooner. Thoughts were swirling around his mind now, and when it came to moments like those, there weren't many remedies to stop this unstoppable train of thoughts. He would have to work on finding a cure or find a way to balance one evil with one good deed, most likely on the edge of a blade. 

“The upior is a vampire,” he kept himself from bitterly congratulating her just yet on escaping human nature, because it was a cruel thing to say, because he would have found little solace there, and because he wanted to believe in curing her, in saving her. “They’re a mindless bloodthirsty beast the second they scent blood, like you found out earlier. But the rest of the time…. They look just like you and I. There was a person in there. It was wrong to kill them for acting on instinct.”

—

Vampiric. Vampire. Jenny was trying to comprehend what the other was saying — how had she not known that there were other vampires out there besides the ones she’d been baring her neck to? All those people that had warned her against the danger of letting them drink from her, but none of them had mentioned the monstrous ones. She had no energy to be frustrated about this, nor to question whether that would have made a difference. Maybe she would still have gone to the cemetery tonight, even if she knew about upiors. Right now, that very idea seemed ridiculous (shame and guilt over her appearance in that place, at that time had started to ingrain themselves with her nervous system the moment she’d seen that tongue). But who was to say? 

But, right — vampire, Henri said. She’d started manifesting succeeding her transformation before June 2026, she remembered vaguely. That was what she’d discussed with Baz. And now here she was, shoulders ripped to shreds and her goal on the horizon. She wanted to laugh again. She wanted the world to start making sense to her again. Because in that world, Jenny was not afraid. Not of the past, present or future. Not of all the blood loss she’d gone through, the ways she had always known deep down that she was putting her out there to possibly become a vampire victim statistic, not of the things she’d seen and felt over these past months. But she could not deny her fear any longer. She could not smile at the idea that immortality was around the corner. There was no happiness here. No relief. No thought that at least it was a vampire, and not some strange beast. Not after tonight.

She felt unsteady, even as she sat there. Her lip trembled. “Oh,” she said eventually. Jenny leaned towards the tea, grabbing the mug and pulling it close. Someone had died tonight and it wasn’t her. Should it have been her? She stared at Henri. Realized the choice he’d made and that it had been her he had saved. Realized that he perhaps wasn’t like Owen and Jade with their stakes. That he was her best bet, here, even if there was blood clinging to him that was on her. Guilt wasn’t an emotion she was familiar with, but she was growing swiftly acquainted. “I — didn’t want anyone to die. Or for you to have to –  to have to do that.” How many times had she argued with slayers (or just men with shovels) that she hadn’t needed saving? Three vampires had turned to dust in her presence, and one into blood. For this one, she could not angrily blame Henri, the way she’d blamed Caleb, Jade and Owen. She could not blame him at all.

The tea smelled good. She wasn’t surprised that Henri had good taste in tea — an indication that despite all their squabbling, she knew him well enough to note this without surprise. “I’m sorry.” A beat. “So … what now? Do we just … go to sleep, and … start over tomorrow? Try to find a cure? Try to …” Live with this? Forgive me? She wasn’t sure. She quieted herself with a sip of tea. Perfect temperature. Not a surprise, either.

___

The vampire hunter turned his head. 

He really didn't want her to see how upset he was. Through the window, he watched for a moment as the fairy lights twinkled, flooding the street below with artificial magic. The street was deserted, and he wondered who else was out tonight. People like him, no doubt. And then surely people like Jenny, who would probably find nothing but death tonight, because most people didn't have the luxury of being saved at the last minute. Jenny was one of those victims, even though she must have thought he had saved her life.

But Henri didn't look like a savior tonight, and everything about his attitude suggested that he wanted nothing more than to disappear, once again. He had already had this feeling of being nothing more than an insignificant element in a world that was far too vast, and every time this state of mind came over him, an intense melancholy took over, locking him in a state close to tetany. 

He wasn't going to kick Jenny out, but the fact that she could look at him when she knew he had failed in his mission? It made him sick. He wanted to yell at her, tell her to go and leave him alone, because he didn't want anyone to see him. It was ridiculous, but failure had always had this effect on him, and he strove every day to ensure that he would never have to experience this kind of situation again.As a result, he strove to know how to do everything and to avoid anything that was inexorably doomed to failure.

And because of that, Henri promised himself that he would do everything to get Jenny out of the situation she had just put herself into.

December 19

De BLOOD i WANT BLOOD I NEED BLOOD

—-

December 20

Dear diary, I’ve felt so badly all day. I’ve closed the curtains and buried myself in bed but it doesn’t help. I want blood I need blood. I cant stop thinking about it. Theres this itch that i cant get rid of and i know what would fix it, it would be more blood, but i dont want to be like i was in that garden or with baz, i just want more

—

Jenny put down her pen, a groan spilling from her lips. It was coming again, another wave of nausea like the ones that had plagued her for days now. She bent over the side of her bed, retching nothing in the popcorn bowl she’d put down in case something would come up. But Jenny hadn’t eaten any normal, human food in days, her body rejecting most of it. It didn’t satiate the hunger she felt, anyway. She wanted blood and nothing less.

Nothing came up, just a swallow of bile that she spit out. A wail left her mouth as she laid back in bed, the sheets underneath her slick with her own sweat. She wondered, once again, if this was what dying felt like. Her lungs had been aching for days, each breath feeling like a labor of its own. Her muscles kept spasming, and there were moments where she felt a new kind of strength harbored within them. There were moments where her energy was richer and heavier than it ever had been before, even after three espressos. Where she ran around her house with manic energy, frantically trying to come up with methods to get herself what she wanted most. Where she cowered in the bathroom, Edward scratching at the door, because she could smell it in his veins.

But most of the time that energy was not there. Most of the time she felt like her guts were stilling somehow, like her heart was trying to stop itself in its tracks, like her lungs rejected the oxygen. That was how she explained it to herself, though. If she was transforming into a being that no longer needed these bodily functions, then it made sense that they’d shut down. That was as far as the sense in any of it went, though.

She wanted to call someone. To call out and be heard, because reaching her phone seemed too laborious. Maybe Rosemary would hear her? She lived in the neighborhood. Her voice was a croak as she spoke, “Help me.” There was no one to hear her.

Jenny knew this was what it was leading to. She had been told as much. The venom would take hold of her and kill her, transform her in what she had wanted to be — an immortal being that fed off blood. But she would not drink the way Max, Metzli or Philip had. She scratched at her opposing lower arms at the thought of it – a drink – biting her tongue until she could taste her own blood and placate herself somewhat.

Death, she knew, was inevitable. And so was rebirth. The hope for a cure was gone now, unless some deus ex machina was to burst through the door last second. Jenny rolled on her side, clutching her sides and pulling up her legs. She inhaled desperately and deeply, her throat rattling with it. Her lungs seemed to cramp with the oxygen. She had barely the energy to cry and yet she did, tears sliding silently onto her already wet pillow. 

Her body convulsed then, and Jenny retched once more. The blood she’d sucked from her own tongue came up, splashing over her chin and chest. She tried to push herself up but there was no strength within. She gasped, but her lungs rejected the air and she gasped again and again. No breath seemed to make it to her lungs, no oxygen entering her bloodstream. Her heart clenched painfully.

Death was inevitable. The cure was nowhere to be found. No one was bursting through her bedroom door. She had not called someone to hold her hand, because this was too ugly to behold. This was not worthy poetry or cinematics. This was bile and blood mixed with saliva. This was sweat clinging to her cold body. This was organ failure without a beeping machine. There was no soundtrack. No strings. No monologue. No inspiring quote. This was a grave she’d dug and in which she lied with all her shame and discomfort around her like granules of sand. Digging into every crevice of her.

Jenny laid back once the convulsions had stopped. Or rather, her body fell back into the mattress. She could not breathe. Not functionally, anyway. And so her heart panicked and tried to find something useful to pump around, but it was a futile effort. 

She exhaled one less useless breath and with that, she died.

She’d be reborn anew.

Hope was a fickle thing. Jenny had never known how true that was up until now. She had read the story of Pandora’s box, how the last thing to slip out was hope and how that was both a monstrous and good thing. She had mused on the ways to interpret that story on a meta level, but now that she was in a situation where hope was the only thing left she knew the truth: hope was not a blessing. It was a curse.

Today, hope had made her reach out to Rosemary. She had texted the other, inviting her over to her house with an urgent ask for help. She knew Henri was trying to find a cure as well, but she figured that putting as much effort into the little bit of hope she’d been cursed with, might turn it into a blessing. Like betting on as many horses as possible — one of them would have to turn out a winner, right? 

She was waiting, sat on her couch, gnawing at her hand. Her teeth had not grown sharper yet, but it seemed like she was able to put more force behind her bites. The other night she’d woken up with her wrist in her mouth, her own blood pouring down her throat like warm mulled wine on a winter’s night. But a shitty mulled wine, that had been out too long and was made with cheap cinnamon in stead of real quality sticks. 

When the doorbell rang, she rushed to the door. Swinging it open, she looked at Rosemary. Her eyes were hollow, the bags underneath them large and almost blue. Sleep had been hard to come by, as if she no longer needed it but was still plagued with sleep deprivation. She stared at the blonde witch for a moment. Her lip trembled. She’d been crying more than ever these days, too. “I’m in big trouble,” she said, squinting at the sunlight pouring in. That, too, was bothering her more these days. “I’m — I — please just come in.” She stepped aside, a shiver running up her spine.

__

Rosemary didn’t frequently find herself on people’s list of resources for an emergency. Maybe, at least for the ones who knew what she was, they were simply holding on to those favors should the day arrive where they needed a substantially bigger favor that only she could fix. Actually having someone call her for help? That was a relatively new experience. And the witch didn’t give a shit if she wasn’t having a great go of things- the would would have to be burning down completely for her to not show up for a friend. 

When Jenny had asked her to come over, the witch hadn’t hesitated. She’d grabbed a Tupperware container of cranberry apple crumb cake, and she’d hustled out to her car. Jenny hadn’t given her any details, but Rosemary hoped whatever the problem was, it would be something in her wheelhouse. She could use a problem to fix. Something that she could take into her care, and polish it up and prove that she was still capable of something. The witch walked up to Jenny’s front door, rang the bell, and waited.

Jenny looked like she’d been through it. The young woman looked like a portrayal of one of those faint young ingenues in dramas where the heroine of the tale would inevitably, tragically, die of consumption or some equally eighteen hundreds ailment that was aesthetically appropriate. She also looked like she was going to burst into tears. “Oh honey,” Rosemary sighed, her own problems utterly forgotten. “Come here- whatever it is, we're going to figure it out.” The witch managed to sound confident as she stepped inside and swept the woman into a brief, but tight embrace. “Here, I brought you ginger bread- do you need me to do anything? Do you have tea? I can make you some- or if you need something stronger, I’m pretty sure I forgot a bottle of Pinot in the back seat of my car the other day when I went to the store.”

—

The search for a cure had been futile so far. She was trying to be graceful about it, to not act like a stomping toddler who wanted another cookie, but part of her wanted to scream at everyone around her to demand that damned cure. On another hand, Jenny was trying to keep things under wraps. It was better that way, because she remembered the things Henri had said and wondered who else would start accusing her of deserving this situation she was in — as if anyone deserved to be struck by a meaty, gnarly tongue and await a fate like this.

She looked at Rosemary as if she was her last hope for a moment, and begged something up above that it didn’t show on her face. As the witch hugged her, she squeezed her eyes tight, trying not to wallow in the softness of her words. She wanted to cling to that comfort, to demand more of it. But the embrace was brief and there was too much to discuss to get lost in it. She wondered who she could go to for just that, but wasn’t sure if she was able to ask it of a person. To just be held and give nothing in return, to not be judged, or questioned, or worried about too much. She wanted to ask it of Rosemary, but there was a bigger, more pressing question to ask.

For now, she closed the door behind Rosemary and walked further into her house. “I am not very hungry,” she said, another side effect that Henri had predicted. “But I will have some – I do have tea, and coffee and liquor — anything.” She moved further into her house. “I will make tea.” She walked into the kitchen, a space equipped with top of the line equipment she barely used. The kettle, however, she used plenty. With trembling hands, she picked it up, opening the faucet to fill it up. Jenny did not look at Rosemary as she asked, “What kind of tea do you like?”

—

Jenny seemed rattled. Like something had gone and shaken her to her very core. And yet there she was, shuffling off to make tea. Rosemary knew that feeling. That feeling that in doing something domestic and mundane, she could pretend for a few seconds that everything wasn’t falling apart at the seams. She watched the way the kettle shook under the faucet, water dribbling over the sides as it missed.

Rosemary stepped up beside her friend and placed one hand on Jenny’s shoulder before carefully taking the kettle from the young woman’s hand. “Jenny, honey, let me. You sit, and take a deep breath, okay? I’ve got you.” Rosemary had never had an older sister. She’d never had someone to stand beneath her as she walked life’s precarious little tight rope, ready to catch her if she lost her balance. She didn’t know if Jenny had, either, but in that moment, the witch could tell she needed one. So she’d just have to learn how to be a sister on the job. 

The witch set the kettle down, and started poking around cabinets, grabbing two mugs. She turned back to look at the younger woman. She looked more fragile than she usually did. Like a porcelain doll that threatened to crack if she breathed a hair too loudly. “What’s wrong, Jenny?” There was no accusation in her tone. Only a gentle concern that the witch hoped would prompt the girl to explain why she’d called her over. 

—

Jenny did have two older sisters. Where her relationship with her oldest, Eleanor, was a little more distant, the one with Ashley was not. The two talked, often. Jenny was her kids’ favorite aunt. Ash was who she whined to about her parents, who she could rely on for sharing annoyed glances during family events and possibly her oldest friend. But she could not go to Ash about this. She could not drag her into the mess she’d made, especially if there was still a chance she’d clean it up.

Rosemary tended to her with a sisterly quality, though. Jenny felt her hand close to hers and let go of the kettle, nodding. She wasn’t proud enough to fight the other to still fulfill her task of making tea. “Okay.” She was just grateful for the gentleness, the way Rosemary had stepped in with little complaint or hassle. That she could sink down and watch the other get to it, pulling up her legs onto the kitchen chair she chose. 

It was good that the witch turned around and asked her a question, because she had felt very comfortable just sitting there with someone tending to her. That was all she wanted. For people to tend to her. For someone to fix this mess. She touched her marred shoulder, the flesh that had healed faster than was normal feeling strange under her clothes. Eventually she looked up at Rosemary. “I’m going to be a monster,” she murmured. She swallowed thickly. “I – uh. Do you know what an upior is?” It would be easier if she knew. If she didn’t have to go over all the details and just get to the real question at hand. Jenny inhaled, the breath getting stuck in her throat. 

—

She was relieved when Jenny didn’t fight Rosemary on her fussing. Everyone deserved to be clucked over by a mother hen when they needed it, and Jenny most definitely needed it. And gods, she hoped it was something she could fix. They both needed a win. 

Her heart plummeted in her chest, and her expression softened at the word upior. Rosemary may not have been terribly well versed in the different kinds of fae and shifters were out there, but she was well educated on the kinds of undead there were. She didn’t know all of them, of course. But she’d payed attention to the ones she thought she might one day run into. Jenny looked as though she were about to disintegrate into a flood of tears. 

Rosemary moved to sit beside her friend and took the girl’s hand, giving it a tight squeeze. “Yeah. I do… were you…?” She couldn’t quite bring herself to ask, the question dangling in the air between them. 

—

Baz had not wielded any results yet. Neither had Henri. Jenny looked at Rosemary with desperation. A desperation that could only grow as she got closer to making her request, as he got closer to explaining what it was that had happened and would happened if she did not get what she wanted.

Wasn’t this what she’d wanted? The thought struck through her with judgement that wasn’t her own but was very loud all the same. She cast it away for a later moment, in the bathtub or in bed.

Rosemary sat down next to her and held her hand. Jenny figured they might as well end it here. She’d lean forward and press her face against Rosemary’s shoulder and heave a few times, cry until she was all dried up before telling her she was just joking. But Rosemary knew what an upior was and was already asking, was already guiding her into the direction she needed to go. And it was supposed to be a small mercy, but she felt the heaviness with which the witch asked.

“One — one attacked me, in the cemetery. I had fallen and grazed my knees and it smelled me and –” She pulled aside her cardigan and then her top, showing the healed but marred flesh. “The venom it’s –” She looked away, hugging her cardigan towards her again. “I don’t want — I don’t — Rosemary, there’s a cure, do you know anything about that? About what we need? I can get it, I have –” She fell quiet. Money solved so much, but she hadn’t found the right black market seller yet. She hadn’t found anything yet besides an aversion for her favorite foods and a deep, dark hunger. “It’s probably a potion, right? A potion, or a spell or something like magic, and you —” She looked back at Rosemary. Her bottom lip trembled. “Can you help me?”

__

The way Jenny was looking at her had the witch’s heart aching. Rosemary knew that look. She was all too familiar with that look. She’d worn it earlier that year. That was the sort of look that settled on a person’s face when they were too scared to admit the future that was barreling down the road straight for them. At least Rosemary’s circumstances hadn’t been so dire. Magic being spectacularly fucked was one thing. Breaking her arm and having no real way of telling just how many years she had cut off the back end of her life from a spell going sideways wasn’t all that bad, when compared to the reality Jenny now had to face. Her thumb rubbed a comforting path across Jenny’s knuckles as she held on tight to the younger woman’s hand. If Jenny had to face it, she wouldn’t be facing it alone. 

As Jenny began to speak, Rosemary was fixed with a feeling of dread. She wanted to help her friend. Truly she did. But she simply didn’t know if she could. She knew nothing of cures for upior venom. It wasn’t her area of expertise- not that she really seemed to have any  area of expertise, aside from being able to occasionally stop an impending vampire attack. “It’s…” She started, testing the words in her mind before she spoke them aloud. “It’s very possible there’s a cure. I’m not very well versed in cures or curse reversals.” She confessed, regret tinging her voice. “But-” She continued, praying that her lack of answers wouldn’t cause the girl to loose hope entirely. “But, that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. The person who taught me everything I know left a bunch of their stuff with me when they left to go home- Ingredients, books- a veritable font of information. Plus, they’re only a call away. I can look around and see what I can find out there. Plus I have contacts that I buy things from in the bizarre. I’ve run into a few casters who deal with protection magic… Maybe they’re versed in the inverse as well. If they are, they might know something about if it’s to be treated as a curse, or something.” Rosemary explained. She was already formulating a plan in her mind- she had a lot of reading to do. Rosemary looked back to Jenny with a deep frown on her face. “I’m sorry I don’t have the answers yet, but I promise I’ll look for them.”

—

It felt like she was holding her breath. It was not necessarily that she did not think Rosemary would not want to help her. That was a possibility that had crossed her mind, painting the witch as many of her friends back in the city. Back there, everyone was such a fair weather friend – herself included – and she’d dread to think of a reality where it was them she had to ask for such favors. But she knew Rosemary to be better than that, so that wasn’t her primary worry. Her main concern was that she’d say no because she did not know how to help her. 

Jenny’s lip continued to tremor as the other spoke, but she kept herself from sobbing once again. She’d been doing a lot of crying these days, anyway. She could go for a break. Rosemary started to speak with hesitation and her eyes filled to the brim and she looked at the ceiling, or at the apparent God above it, and tried to blink them away. She wiped fast, honing in again when Rosemary went off with her but. “Okay,” she said, nodding, “Okay, yes— yes, just, your network, that would be good, someone has to know. And tell them if they want anything, it’s all good, I can pay.” She felt some tears drop despite her best efforts. “Baz tried on black markets, in Netherville, that’s where I — that’s what we’ve been trying. But nothing so far. But maybe there’s more — if there’s a cure it has to be able to be acquired or made, right? That’s – that’s how it should be.” That was how she wanted it to be. To undo the process of infection spreading through her body. To reset. To have a bit of a break. (To try again, the right way.) “Don’t – don’t be sorry. Thank you. For wanting to try.” 

__

Watching the young woman try not to burst into tears felt akin to having someone take her beating heart and steam roll over it- a slow, unforgiving, inescapable ache. “Hey,” the witch soothed as she got up. Rosemary pulled the younger woman into a tight embrace. As though she could hold Jenny together through sheer power of will long enough to find the girl a cure, and everything would be alright. “This is my top priority, okay? I’m going to find you this cure. I have things I can leverage to get what I need.” She still had residual stock from the odds and ends Alistair had left behind with her. Some of it would go for a pretty penny at the Bizzare. She could trade it up until she found what she needed. And if that didn’t work… well, the name Kane still probably held some reputation in town, infamous though it may be. If she had to, she could offer up a favor from the family. No one had to know that she was the only member of the family who would ever make good on that deal. “I can be sorry you’re going through this- I can only imagine how you’re feeling. But you’re not alone, okay? I know you can’t tell your family about this, but you’re stuck with me now. I’ve got no experience being a sister, and I’m probably going to be a bit shit at it, but I’ve got you.” 

—

As Rosemary hugged her, Jenny melted into the touch. The desperate desire to be held was strong, and she pressed her cheek into the other’s shoulder, eyes squeezed shut for a moment. Eventually she wrapped her arms around the witch in return. “Okay, okay, and really, all the money is a non issue, and I can reimburse you for anything you might lose, I — I really will.” The thought of Rosemary going through all this trouble for her was a tough one to deal with, because even though Jenny wanted this cure more than anything, it still felt like asking for charity. She’d give the witch a lifetime supply of books, or something, to make it right. 

2 december

Dear diary,

I’ve tasted blood and I want more.

Jesus. What a dramatic way to start this entry. There’s so much to say. I don’t even want to do it. 

–

I’m going to though. Sorry, went to take a little break. Sitting in bath for an hour staring at the wall didn’t help. Should try and write it out.

Okay, so the beginning. let’s start there. I went to mistwood the other night and fell and skinned my knee. Henri came and helped me out but then this monstrous thing attacked us because of my smelly blood and its tongue lashed me and ripped up my shoulder and at that moment the poison entered my system and okay long story short, I’m going to be a vampire but a really ugly aggressive one with a massive tongue.

[There’s an attempt at a drawing of an upior, but it’s really bad.]

Well, that. google images is not fukcing helping.

so I spent the night at Henri’s after he patched me up and we’re gonna try to find a cure but I didn’t want to just rely on him. so I went to Baz.

3 december 

Dear diary,

I couldn’t finish last night. I dont wanna think about it. do I even need to record it? what’s the point? we talked about it when it happened. it’s all done and handled. I can move on now. 

I reached out to some people for help. that guy Emilio and Metzli. what a fucking embarrassment to have to ask those people after all the ways I broke off contact with them. they must think me so desperate and useless. I wonder if  they think they deserve it.

talking to Metzli about this has been good though. I guess.

stuff with baz was so bad. I don’t want them to ever be scared of me. but maybe I should say this here and nowhere else, but their blood tasted so good.

we also didn’t get to talk about thanksgiving. I don’t think we’re going to pick up our almost kiss where we left off now. What with me being doomed to become some kind of horrible thing if we don’t find a cure. 

i’m going to watch this kids show someone online recommended.

love, Jenny

4 december

Dear diary,

I feel so alone. I only go out for Edward walkies and it’s fine but I miss going to cafes and cute shops and getting out and about with people.

but I can’t do it. I can’t go out. And I can’t invite someone over. because what if what happened to Baz happens again?

Henri is being the nicest he’s ever been which feels twisted. everything feels so wrong. 

I don’t feel very sick though. But I can’t sleep. I just lay awake and feel tired and a bit clammy.

the sun is horrid though. Like it’s way brighter than usual but that can’t be because it’s fucking november in maine. 

5 december

So what if it’s not so bad?

just hear me out for a bit, diary. like, what if it isn’t so bad? What if I can find a way to live with this? Maybe we will find a cure and I can try to become a normal vampire but I’m not being super optimistic right now with the lack of results.

so, what if it happens? I will be immortal. so that is great. And yes, it will be horrible to have such a weird and bad tongue, but it will be manageable. Maybe I can do a diet of blood bags! or maybe I can just readjust and sometimes kill people. like that’s terrible, but maybe that’s inevitable and maybe I just need to prepare for that. maybe that’s just the new reality. right? how bad can it be? 

but I will be immortal. and I can sort out so much with all the time I’ll have. And maybe there can be something about it, you know. body horror. blood. maybe it can be okay. maybe I can make it work. 

–

I wrote that at 3am and I dont know how i feel about all that. let’s not unpack that.

I’m asking Rosemary to come over tomorrow to help with a cure

I’m canceling my plane tickets for christmas. regardless of what happens I think I just need to stay here and I can always book something last minute if everything turns out okay and human. but I can’t even begin to think about being around those little clumsy tikes. 

I don't want to hurt them.

December 6

dear diary,

Rosemary is going to help. she seemed very determined but it’s not her area of expertise. I should have befriended more witches maybe. but I’m so glad she came over. it was just good to be held for a bit. and I didn’t even drink any of her blood. 

I hope she can figure it out. I feel kind of bad asking for this big a favor. but it’s for the best. I can repay her a hundred times. she’s just such a good friend. dont know how I got to deserve that. but I’ll take it you know? 

i’ve been chainsmoking and am all out of vape pods. they don’t doordash or instacart those so I’ve asked henri of all people to bring them. which he did.

so saw two people in one day. now just me again. I’m getting cabin fever. at least Baz has been video calling a lot.

I drank my own blood last night. It tasted like shit. but it worries me that it still tasted better than these blueberries I got. 

December 7

I want to drink blood. accidentally scrolled past this fancam on tiktok that had blood and now my mind has been focused on nothing but that. I’ve been pulling at the hangnails at my fingers and I just can’t stop thinking about it. not even blaring music helps. it’s just all blood blood blood in my head. it’s a miracle that’s not all I’m writing. Imagine that, my diary just being scribbles of blood blood blood. Henri would eat that shit up.

no way he’s gonna read these though.

I miss being around people. I wanna call Ash but idek what to say to her. 

I guess it’s kind of like I’m terminally ill, right? but with the hope of a deus ex mechina cure? yeah. I guess that’s it. I guess I’m dying. and I’m withering away in my living room watching stupid kid shows and blooper reels and I just can’t do this. I want to see my family. that’s funny, huh? the way I want them now. not mom or dad, but def Ash and Nel. their stupid kids. Grandpa. I just want one of them to hold me for a moment. That’s how it supposed to be when you’re terminally ill. your family should be there. my friends. But I’m just sat here. and it’s not like my life is going to end if this cure doesn’t come, I’ll still be alive, but still. my body is definitely not right at the moment. I just feel so alone.

I wish I could invite Baz. but I can’t risk it. I can’t risk any of them. Maybe Metzli but I can’t cope with the thought of them in my house even if my blood probably tastes like shit now. it’s just too much.