Roman didn’t bother with a photograph. His face was all he needed.

“Hey, I’m looking for my brother,” he pushed a smile onto his face as he approached a couple waiting for the bus. “He looks just like me, just with a mustache and—“

“Sorry, can’t help you,” the guy muttered, giving him a brief, tight smile. All lip and no teeth. He wouldn’t even meet his eyes.

The girl hanging on his arm was friendlier but just as unhelpful. “We really wish we could help,” she’d cooed, blown pupils revealing just how high she was. Her head rested on the guys shoulder and her eyes kept drifting over to his as she talked, drawn by a string. Their bus hissed as it slowed to a stop in front of them. “Hope you find him,” she purred, then let the guy usher her up into the bus.

“Thanks,” Roman muttered as he stepped back and the door closed in his face. He waited until the bus growled and tumbled down the otherwise deserted street. Nothing was open this late at night, but this was Re’s favorite time. Cool air, well, as cool as summer got in the concrete jungle.

And quiet. Re liked to joke that after last call and all the bars closed, fewer people in the streets made it easier for him to tell that the voices he heard were coming from his head and not passers-by.

Roman never thought the joke was very funny.

A door opened two blocks down and a splash of light and music spilled out into the night. Something was open. Roman watched a tall silhouette slink down the sidewalk, turning in profile before disappearing into the shadows. It wasn’t Re. But perhaps someone there had seen his brother somewhere? He knew it was a long shot, but he’d already checked every hospital, every morgue. After the second hospitalization, Re signed a blanket disclosure for him, so he knew his brother hadn’t been readmitted.

And the police? Once they’d pulled up his arrest record, the cops had been less than worthless, with the kindest of them hinting that maybe he should take Re’s disappearance as a gift.

As much as Roman didn’t want to find his brother in a fucking bar, it was better than not finding him at all and he hurried to the door. The front was clean, well-kept, and the heavy wood door and the brass handle was polished. The place was old, but not decrepit-old, more like… fine antique old.

He reached for the handle but before his fingers closed around the fingerprint free metal, an impossibly strong hand wrapped around his arm and yanked him into the darkened alley.

“Do you have a death wish?” a voice growled, incongruously soft baby blue eyes glinted back at him in the darkened alleyway.

“What?” Roman tried to pull away but the man’s grip was too strong. He stepped closer and into a pool of light bleeding from the streetlamps across the way. He was tall and… broad, dressed in a long grey trenchcoat and some kind of paramilitary-looking khakis, pockets bulging. He had some kind of knife thing strapped to one thigh, his hand hovering over it like he was just itching to shank him right there in the alley.

“Look, I… I don’t have a lot of money but just take it,” Roman tried again to pull away. The guy stayed centered and when Roman feinted in one direction, he wasn’t fooled, staying on him.

“Money?” The guy suddenly laughed and released his arm. “I don’t want your money. I’m trying to save your life. That’s a vampire’s den.” 

“Those aren’t real, they’re—”

The door opened and the guy pulled him into the shadows, one hand coming up to cover his mouth. “Shh, and watch…”

A man and a woman emerged from the bar—what the hell was a bar doing still open after last call, anyway? They stood right under the streetlamp, giving Roman a good look at them. The man clung to her arm just like the couple from the bus stop, dazed and high, holding on to her like she’d hung the moon.

“Oh, my sweet…” The man whined and tilted his head, like he was enticing her with his neck. “Now, now, not out here… Emile would sooner stake me than let me take you outside.” She traced a line down his neck and the man shuddered under her touch. 

What caught Roman’s eyes, though, were the two puncture wounds her hand revealed. “Let’s get you home, my sweet. I’m getting hungry again.” 

The rest of their words were muffled under a haze of static as Roman sank down to the dirty alleyway. A high pitched keen filled his ears and it took a minute for him to realize that was him.

Warm, calloused hands closed over his and he gripped back reflexively, the guy’s hairy knuckles and the fuzziness on the backs of his hands oddly comforting. “Hey, Kiddo, just breathe for me, okay…” He squeezed his hands, inhaling slowly and deliberately. Roman tried to copy him, but broke into a panting sob.

“That’s good, that’s a good try…” The guy praised him anyway. “Try again now,” he murmured. His voice was low and strong, not whispering, but quiet words just for him. Roman realized he was speaking right next to his ear. He should be freaked out, he should push him away. But he just felt… safe. He tried again to copy his breathing and this time he could do it.

“Very good, that’s it…” he said and Roman slowly nodded. “No bloodsucker’s gonna hurt you with me around, okay?” 

Roman lifted his head and the guy’s eyes widened. “It’s you, but…”

“You’ve seen me before?”

He leaned in, breathing deeply, almost like he was smelling him. The guy shook his head. “Not you…” he said slowly.

“With a mustache?” Roman scrambled to his feet. “You’ve seen my twin? My brother Remus, I—”

“Oh…” His face fell, sorrow and pity crumpling his features. “I’m so sorry. I…” The guy gripped his arms and Roman had the distinct feeling he was holding him upright. “I’ve seen your brother… he…” 

The guy hung his head and the streetlight filtered through his blonde curls, giving him almost a halo. The rough tone clashed with the angelic softness and Roman was suddenly grateful for the guy’s tight grip on his arms as his knees weakened. “The bloodsuckers got him,” he finally said.

“What? No—” Roman shook his head. His face and neck grew wet and he stared back at the guy past blurry vision. “Where… his body? He’s not in the morgues… I checked… I checked every John Doe… No, I—”

“Oh, Kiddo,” he whispered now and pulled him into a big bear hug. Roman sobbed against his shoulder like a baby. After all this? A vamp got him? “There’s no body, Kiddo. They… they turned him.”

Rage burned through Roman’s veins. Vamps stole his brother, his whole family, and they didn’t even leave him a body to bury, to say goodbye to? “How… how do you know?” His voice shook. It couldn’t be true.

“I saw it happen, Kiddo. From the roof.”

"And you just watched!?" Roman pulled back but the guy’s iron grip kept him in place. “Why didn’t you—“

He shook his head. “By the time I saw—“

“How hard is it to see a vamp biting into a man’s neck?”

“You don’t understand… People come here to… to feed them. They… they like it. I thought… I thought your brother…” The guy swallowed hard, like he might be sick. Horror churned in Roman’s guts as realization grew.

He shook his head, rage freezing hard and cold in his chest. “No…”

“Once I realized, I jumped down, but I wasn’t fast enough. V had taken him.”

“I’ll kill him.”

The guy stared at him and Roman just stared back. “There’s nothing you could possibly say to change my mind. My brother and I fought everything together. When Re got sick, we lost everything. Everyone. All we had was each other. Without Re… without Re I have nothing. And nothing left to lose.”

“Not even your life?” The guy’s blue eyes pierced right through him, but Roman didn’t look away.

The guy stepped back but still wouldn’t let him go. A slow smile spread across his face. “Well, if you’re going after the most dangerous bloodsucker in the city, you’re gonna need help, then, won’t you?