Blood and Fire

by Gabriela Fišerová

  “What kind of angel would work with vampires?”

  Yeah, that was a good point. But what was stopping James from furthering this line of thinking was seeing Arkemoz shudder.

  “Maybe you should head home for today, huh?” Arkie blinked at him. “Um, do you have a home?”

  The demon still looked surprised, but he nodded. “Yes, Aegis gave me an apartment.”

  James really wondered how Aegis could afford all of this, even if they did cut a bit of their paychecks in exchange for accommodation. He wasn’t complaining—getting a place to live here was one of the reasons he wasn’t that bitter about being forced to join Aegis—but there had to be some dark magic going on.

  “All right, great, head over there, huh? Before you freeze. We’ll get you some more weather-appropriate clothes tomorrow.”

  Arkie looked so wide-eyed and confused by all of this. And James would lie if he didn’t find that cute. “Don’t we have more important things to do?”

  “You heard Black. We’re supposed to return to regular Aegis business. Which for us means getting you to interact with the world.”

  Arkie looked like he wanted to argue, but he wasn’t saying anything. He probably didn’t know what to say because then he let out a hmph. So cute.

  “Do you want me to walk you home?” James teased, smirking, and immediately regretting it when he saw Arkemoz look away and fold his arms. James just kept forgetting Arkie couldn’t tell when he was being playfully teasing and when he was genuinely mocking him.

  The demon just gave James a nod and started walking away, his hands deep in his pockets. James couldn’t even remember what it felt like to be cold, but he sympathized anyway.

  “Do you want my jacket?”

  Arkemoz stopped in his tracks, looking back. James forced himself not to start laughing, especially once Arkemoz looked down.

  “If it’s not an inconvenience.”

  James couldn’t help but crack a smile at that. He walked over to the demon and shrugged off his jacket, putting it over Arkie’s shoulders. The demon immediately pulled it around himself tighter, avoiding James’ eyes.

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem.” James patted Arkemoz’s shoulder. The demon nodded again, walking away with one last look over his shoulder. As James watched him disappear from sight, he sighed wistfully. He really needed to watch his tone. But it was too late now, James supposed.

  He wasn’t sure who else he could contact about the undetectable vampire, so he supposed he would just go on another patrol around town. Hopefully, the Aegis leadership would give Black something to go off of soon. Because if they didn’t, James had no idea what would happen.

  5

  Arkemoz groaned as he woke up. And he really didn’t want to do anything other than just go back to sleep. Prior to coming to Earth, he’d never really slept at all, and now, he never wanted to leave his bed. It was way too comfortable, that wasn’t his fault.

  But since he was supposed to report at the Aegis headquarters every morning, he had to get up. Especially since there was a potential crisis going on. Rubbing his eyes and yawning, he forced himself to climb out of bed, flicking his tail in annoyance. It was nice to let his tail relax for a few hours, but it always just made him wish he didn’t have to keep it so carefully hidden during the day. It made it cramp up.

  He wrapped the tail around his leg and put on the coat, stifling another yawn, and blinked as Adley’s black jacket fell on the ground from the hanger. Arkemoz picked it up, blushing as his heart did a flip. Right, he needed to return this. Even though some part of him didn’t really want to. But was completely ridiculous, so Arkemoz pushed it away. He wondered if Adley would be at the headquarters, but either way bringing the jacket there would be the best option.

  As Arkemoz put on his boots and prepared to leave his apartment, he remembered that Adley had said he’d help him buy a new coat. Arkemoz liked to think he’d manage that on his own, but realistically he probably wouldn’t. Getting around town wasn’t one of his strengths, and he might get lost while looking for a store, as embarrassing as that was to admit. Adley seemed to know his way around much better, and beyond that, Arkemoz didn’t mind spending more time with him, despite how baffled and annoyed the vampire made him frequently feel.

  His eyes drifted to the credit card on the table he’d been given and hadn’t touched in weeks. He should probably take that with him. He was semi-confident he still remembered the PIN number, and he couldn’t expect Adley to pay for whatever he might buy, surely. Stuffing the card in the pocket of his coat, Arkemoz walked out of the apartment with the jacket in hand, grabbing his hat as an afterthought.

  At least he knew the way to the headquarters quite well now, so he didn’t need to pay a lot of attention as he walked, only making sure to step over piles of snow. Though he couldn’t help but feel at least a little on edge. Any of the people walking down the street around him could be a supernatural creature in disguise. And while he would have no idea, they would recognize what he was immediately. But at least there couldn’t be any vampires due to the sunlight—he knew that much.

  All of that left his head as he realized he wasn’t covering up his eyes. Frantically searching Adley’s jacket’s pockets, he quickly pulled out the sunglasses and put them on. Breathing out a sigh of relief, he promptly glared at the balding man giving Arkemoz an odd look as he passed by and started walking again, this time a bit faster.

  For some reason the sunglasses felt heavier than usual where they were perched up on the bridge of his nose. Arkemoz was suddenly much more aware that they were there, and he really disliked it. He quickly realized what the problem was, though. He was much more aware of how much of himself he was covering up, and now it was bothering him.

  Glaring, he pushed the sunglasses back as far up the bridge of his nose as they would go. It didn’t matter if he liked it or not, he would have to put up with this because he didn’t have a choice if he wanted to stay on Earth among humans. And he did want to. If only to get more of that drink from yesterday. What had Adley called it? Oh yeah, cola. Arkemoz wanted more.

  Just as his hands were starting to sting from the cold, he finally made it to the headquarters. The stark white building with all manners of pillars and statues always stood out to Arkemoz whenever he saw it, but not one of the humans walking past it ever seemed to question it. Arkemoz could detect a slight magical aura around the building, which probably meant there was some kind of cloaking spell on it. He’d originally thought that it might just be a side effect of the concentration of vampires inside the building, but that probably wasn’t it, now that he thought about it harder.

  He walked through the heavy front door, heading down the corridor to the room where every Aegis employee had their desks. Arkemoz was sure he had one too, but he hadn’t bothered looking for it as he’d had no need for it. He walked past two vampires who whispered something to each other once he was too far away to understand them, which made Arkemoz shoot them a glare. He had no idea what they’d said, but he was sure it was about him, and most likely nothing nice. He truly had doubts that what Adley had said about them fearing him was true.

  “Boss wants to see you,” said a vampire staring into her laptop as Arkemoz walked in. She hadn’t even looked up to say that. Arkemoz frowned, gripping the jacket more tightly. He wished he knew which of the many desks in the large room was Adley’s, but he wasn’t willing to ask any of the four vampires present, so he just made his way into the corridor leading to the chief’s office. There were more doors here aside from that, but Arkemoz hadn’t been told what was behind them, nor did he really care.

  He was swinging the office door open before he remembered that on Earth people generally knocked before doing that. Well, it was too late now. Black didn’t seem at all surprised or annoyed by this, at least. He just looked up from whatever he was reading.

  “Ah, Arkemoz,” he said, rubbing his eyes. He looked surprisingly tired, with circles under his e
yes and everything. Arkemoz hadn’t known that was possible for vampires. “I just wanted to make sure you and Adley were getting along.”

  Arkemoz frowned at him, too surprised by that to answer right away. Why was that a priority right now? Didn’t they have a bigger problem on their hands? But Arkemoz had been confused so much lately by everything, maybe this was normal behavior, so he decided to just go along with it.

  “He’s annoying. But yes.”

  Black gave him a slight smile. “All right, I just wanted to make sure. He’s...a bit notorious, you could say.”

  This was getting more and more weird by the seconds. “Notorious how?”

  Black sighed, closing his eyes and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Every vampire has done a lot of bad, and vampires like us…. Well, we have to try to work through it somehow. Adley hasn’t had much time to do that, and he’s older than most of us. And on top of that, his old self had quite the reputation....”

  Arkemoz wasn’t sure what to think of that. He could easily accept that Adley was old by vampire standards, but he had trouble believing Adley had a reputation for being particularly bad. He certainly hadn’t seemed that way at all, though the fact that he wasn’t killing humans anymore might have had something to do with that. But it was still strange to imagine. Unless Adley had just been acting the entire time.

  Arkemoz didn’t like how thinking about this was making him feel. And he was also getting this immediate need to reject all of this. He couldn’t help but find that fascinating because he didn’t think he’d ever felt that.

  “I should have told you all this yesterday, I know,” Black said, grimacing. “Sorry. I just didn’t want your first impression of him to be...this.”

  Arkemoz just frowned more. He was a little offended at being lied to, but he was mostly just confused about why Black was bringing it up now, and what this changed, if anything.

  “Just...keep an eye on him, huh? He’s been handling being reintroduced into society a bit too well.”

  The demon barely understood what Black had meant by that, but if there was a potential problem with Adley, he would watch him. He would have done that anyway. Though the more he thought about it, the more it sounded like Black was expecting Adley to do something.

  “Do you think he’ll turn on Aegis?”

  Black blinked, huffing out a laugh a moment later. “Uh, no, not...exactly. I’m just concerned he might not handle the weight of everything he did and go back to drinking blood.”

  Arkemoz didn’t know much about vampires, but he did know that drinking even a little bit of human blood was a guaranteed way of making vampires bloodthirsty again, and he didn’t like imagining Adley doing that. So if he could help to keep him away from that someone, he would try.

  “He does still wear the detector, but that’s only a measure to find a vampire who went rogue. It doesn’t help with preventing it.”

  “Detector?” Arkemoz had never heard of anything like that before.

  Black nodded. “It looks like a bracelet.”

  Arkemoz couldn’t say he’d noticed Adley wearing a bracelet, but then again, he’d been very cold at the time since the only time he could probably see it was while the vampire hadn’t been wearing his jacket. “It detects when a vampire wearing it drinks blood. And allows us to track them down if necessary. Every vampire who goes through the rehab program has to wear one for a year as a means of keeping an eye on them.”

  Arkemoz nodded. That actually made a lot of sense. He hadn’t thought to question the process that followed after a vampire was apprehended, but to be fair, it didn’t really involve him. He only cared now because of Adley.

  “So what exactly should I do?”

  Black waved his hand. “As I said, just keep an eye on him, if you can. I know you’re still learning how human communication and behavior work, so I won’t ask you to read into what he says or does.” Black chuckled quietly, though it didn’t sound amused at all. “Just, um, tell me if he suddenly gets distant. Or maybe starts meeting with anyone not related to Aegis.”

  So that could be considered suspicious behavior? Interesting. He would have thought the second thing was odd, but not the first. If Adley got distant, Arkemoz would assume he’d done something to upset him. He really had a lot to figure out, didn’t he?

  “Okay.”

  “Great, thank you.”

  Arkemoz turned around to leave to process what he’d just learned when Black spoke up again.

  “Don’t worry about it too much, okay?”

  Arkemoz just gave him a nod over his shoulder and walked out the door, deep in thought. He supposed Adley being well known explained why he could contact an angel. He doubted any run of the mill vampire would get that ‘privilege’. Though now it made him wonder if the vampire had met other demons, too. Though judging how much Adley seemed to be fascinated by Arkemoz’s horns, he probably hadn’.

  “Ah, there you are, Arkie!”

  Arkemoz flinched, immediately looking up at the person standing in front of him. Adley was grinning at him widely, his eyes practically sparkling.

  “Was wondering when you’d get here. Do you sleep?”

  Arkemoz blinked, a bit shocked by the sudden question. “Erm, yeah.”

  He offered the vampire the jacket he’d only now realized he was still holding. Adley took it, grinning even more.

  “So you don’t need to eat, but you do need to sleep?”

  Arkemoz found it really hard to focus when Adley was looking at him like this. “Well, no, I just...like to.”

  “How much cuter will you get?”

  Arkemoz scoffed, folding his arms and looking away at the wall. “Don’t mock me.”

  “No, I wasn’t….” Adley paused, which was enough to make Arkemoz look up at him again. The vampire looked very serious now, bordering on angry. Arkemoz automatically drew his shoulders in. “Is that why you left Hell?”

  Arkemoz frowned at him, immediately confused again. What did he mean by that?

  “Did other demons mock you a lot?”

  The demon’s gaze fell to the floor. He really didn’t feel like talking about this, but thankfully Adley seemed to get that message.

  “All right, look—whenever I’m teasing you, I don’t mean it in a bad way. I just do it ‘cause it’s fun and I like you.”

  Adley was doing the huge eye thing again. Arkemoz sighed, giving up on being irritated. “The nuances of human languages are so strange.”

  Adley chuckled, grinning at him. “Yeah, we’re a strange bunch.”

  Arkemoz wondered how this worked. Did vampires consider themselves a part of human culture still? Though Arkemoz supposed that made sense given that they used to be human. It must have been confusing being a vampire. Though clearly not as confusing as being a demon on Earth.

  “Demons are a lot like angels, huh?”

  “No, we aren’t!” Arkemoz immediately denied without even thinking about it. Was this Adley teasing him again? Because if not, that was really insulting. They were nothing like those arrogant, feathered—

  “Whoa, you really hate each other, don’t you?”

  Arkemoz just rolled his eyes. That should have been very obvious by now. Adley started laughing, clearly very amused by all of this, and the demon huffed and folded his arms again.

  “I’m sorry. Was saying you’re similar offensive?” Adley was using the same teasing tone again. Arkemoz had to remind himself that apparently this wasn’t meant in a malicious way.

  “Yes,” the demon grumbled, scowling at the hardwood floor.

  The vampire sniggered. “Anyway, we have an important quest ahead of us today.”

  Arkemoz had no idea why Adley changed his tone so suddenly changed into an overly dramatic one, but he didn’t ask. He was really starting to realize that sometimes it might be better to just not understand something and move on.

  “Does Aegis want us to do something?”

  “Yeah, they want us to get you some clothes you won�
�t freeze in,” Adley replied, still smiling at him.

  Arkemoz frowned at him. “How is that an important quest?”

  The vampire laughed. “Come on, Arkie.”

  Arkemoz followed Adley down the corridor, heading away from the office room, though he had no idea where they were going. There was sun out right now, having risen not that long ago, so how was Adley going to go anywhere without bursting into flames? And Arkemoz would rather be cold than for that to happen.

  Once they reached the end of the corridor, Adley opened the door in front of them, revealing stairs down. Arkemoz blinked. He’d had no idea this place had a basement, much less that there was access to it from here.

  “What’s down there?”

  “We’re grabbing a car.”

  He hadn’t known that Aegis had cars, either, especially ones vampires could use during the day, but he supposed that explained how they would get around. Though Arkemoz still wasn’t sure how Adley was planning on getting inside the store itself without being exposed to sunlight.

  “Ever driven anywhere, Arkie?” Adley asked as they turned a corner to walk down another flight of concrete stairs. For how well lit the Aegis headquarters were, this part of the building was very dark. “Do you even know how to drive?”

  “No?” Arkemoz wasn’t sure if he should be ashamed of that or not. Everyone seemed to know how to drive cars around here, but he hadn’t had enough time or reason to learn.

  “I can teach you if you want. It’s pretty easy.”

  The corners of Arkemoz’s mouth turned up without him meaning to do it. And his heart was doing weird things again, too. “Um, yeah, I think...I’d like that.”

  As they walked down into the surprisingly large garage, Arkemoz shivered. It was dark here, and even colder than outside somehow. He hoped the cars had some kind of heating system. They had to, right? The humans he’d seen in cars had seemed very comfortable in them. Or very angry. But he doubted that had anything to do with the cars themselves.