Eva stepped back and grabbed at her walkie. Fortunately, the guy now yelling about ending up dead didn’t look armed—he was dressed only in a long-sleeved but thin shirt, even in the cold weather, and wouldn’t have had many places to hide a weapon at least. He also wasn’t paying attention to her, continuing to rail against God-knew-what, and right now, Eva had no desire to find out more specifics. That was a major escalation, one she didn’t feel entirely equipped to handle. At least not without backup.
“Jude?” she said into her walkie as she watched the tension build from a relatively safe distance away. “We might have a problem here. Still near Jasper’s shop.”
“Almost there,” he answered almost immediately. “Is it a—a day problem, or a night problem?”
“Day problem so far,” she said, sizing up the interaction that quickly seemed to be turning into a confrontation. “And I’d like to keep it that way.” With that, she stepped casually up to the other three in time to hear Milo’s tone shift into what sounded like actual concern.
“I haven’t seen you around in a while,” they said, giving the scruffy young man a searching look, up and down. “Have you eaten anything today? You look like you could use—”
“I’m—no, that’s not—shut up, Milo!” His face started to turn red under the grime as he went from frustrated to flustered very quickly. “Stop trying to distract me! You know I’m just here for her!”
Milo chuckled; it wasn’t an angry sound, more fondly exasperated, which only seemed to annoy the young man further. “You’re stubborn as always. But you can’t eat stubborn. Seriously, let me—”
“I don’t need a damn sandwich, I need her to keep her nose out of shit she shouldn’t be into!”
“Hey,” somebody said from behind her, and she turned to see Jude, standing tense and a little out of breath. Both Milo and the punk kid jumped and turned to stare at him with surprised, anxious expressions, as if they were kids caught with their hands in a forbidden cookie jar. “Everything okay over here?”
“We’re fine,” both of them said at once as they turned to face him. They simultaneously glanced at each other, then back at Jude, one smiling, one scowling, both clearly lying.
Eva watched as the sour-faced young man’s gaze took on a definite shade of panic, flicking quickly from her to Jude and back, then at Milo and Letizia. He must have felt distinctly outnumbered, because he took a step backwards, then another.
“You know what, screw all of you! I’m done! End up dead, see if I care!” With that, he practically sprinted toward the mall exit, stopping only as he passed a cluster of posters on one of the support pillars. He ripped one down in a fast, jerky motion with an accompanied angry grunt, then rushed out the sliding glass doors.
Nobody moved to follow him. Eva considered it, and could see Jude clearly pondering the same thing—and rubbing at his jacket pocket, which was subtly squirming—but since the conflict had apparently self-terminated, there was little point.
“Thank you, little friend. That could have been much more exciting than it was,” Letizia said with a nod in Milo’s direction. Still, Eva could see the tension on her face and stance even with her dark shades and general inscrutability. She’d been rattled, that much was obvious.
“Oh, of course,” Milo said, a smile that looked equal parts cheery and anxious spreading across their face. “Witches gotta stick together.”
“Witches?” Eva repeated, turning to them with new interest.
“Figure of speech! You know, for us goth types!” Milo said with a distinctly nervous-sounding laugh. “Now my break’s almost over, I have to get back. Sorry!” Before Eva could follow up on that and all it implied, Milo gave an apologetic wave of their black-nailed hand and hurried off, just short of actually running.
“You heard that too, right?” Eva asked, turning to Jude, who was also watching Milo’s retreat with a pensive expression.
“Sure did,” he said, and gave Letizia a sidelong look. But she said nothing, simply folding her arms and looking lost in her own hidden thoughts. “Any idea what that guy was yelling about? Sounded ominous.”
“Sure did. And no, none, but at least this part’s over without any mess this time,” Eva said. “If only every mall fight could be self-diffusing.”
“It’d be nice,” Jude said. “But I’m still going to follow up with Milo. If nothing else, they seemed to have some history with the other guy. But that also really didn’t seem like a figure of speech, at least not when it’s said to an actual—” he said, then stopped. When he and Eva turned to where Letizia had been standing, there was no trace to be found—witch and thermos seemed to have disappeared into thin air. “Of course.”
“I love the smell of weirdness in the morning,” Eva said dryly. “Aren’t you going to miss all this?”
“Oh, yes. I don’t know what I’d do without our morning adventures.” Jude’s tone was only half-sarcastic, and she half-smiled in return. “Did you hear exactly what they were arguing about? Shh, hang on,” he added in a low voice directed toward his pocket, which had started to quietly squeak.
“Not much more than you did. That guy followed us for a little, then went off at Letizia, yelling about how everyone’s doomed. Then Milo called him out on it, which he didn’t seem to appreciate either.”
“Maybe he wanted a free tarot reading,” Jude said, in a tone that if Eva didn’t know any better, she’d call joking.
“Or some of her other secret stash. Boy could probably use some,” Eva replied, in a tone that definitely was. Still, she knew neither of them would forget the actual words of warning. “In any case, we can find out for ourselves later. She asked us to come by her place tonight so she can fill us in on the latest fun. Which will hopefully turn out to be nothing, but just in case it doesn’t, we should probably have the heads-up.”
“About what, exactly?” Jude frowned, reservations immediately apparent, even as Eva felt that much more secure. An uneasy, dubious Jude meant she was back on familiar ground.
“I don’t know. I just have a feeling we might have another... complicated situation on our hands.”
“Complicated—as in a night problem, then?” Jude’s thick black eyebrows came together, telling Eva immediately that, as usual, they were on the same page.
She almost replied with something like ‘I hope not,’ but stopped herself, instead thinking about the way Letizia had smiled with obvious relief and fondness when Eva let her know she wasn’t facing whatever nightmare came next alone. She thought about how wildly, irrepressibly happy Nails and Maestra must be, freed from their last tie to their abusers. The telltale lump in Jude’s pockets and the irresistible onslaught of cute that was Pixie’s fluffy bat form with its huge ears and beady little eyes looking up at her. The mixed fear and hope in Felix’s voice when he begged her, out of sight but now just a room away, don’t give up on me.
Somehow, Eva found it easier to smile than scowl. “Seems that way.”
“Meet you tonight, then,” Jude said with a nod that held all the quickness and efficiency of a salute. The high-pitched squeaking from inside his jacket grew more urgent, sounding like a particularly weird ringtone. “I’d just as soon avoid any more surpri—hold on, I uh, have to take this.”
His pocket could no longer be ignored. Jude half-opened it to give Pixie some air, and reached inside to pet the top of his fuzzy head.
“Bring your bat to work day?” Eva asked, half-turning away with hands on her hips, looking up to the ceiling. “Which I definitely didn’t see. I know nothing about any unregulated animals in here, and even if I did, they’d be emotional support bats. Right, Jude?”
“That’s right,” he said, then whispered directly into his jacket, apparently past caring if anyone saw him looking strange. It’d be far stranger if anyone saw Pixie appear from nowhere. “Okay, I’ll let you out in just a minute, too many people here, try to hang on until—” He looked around, trying to look as casual and unruffled as possible as he fixe
d his eyes on the nearby bathrooms.
“Go,” Eva said, and Jude shot her a grateful look. “Just make it a quick break, all right? Busy day on the job ahead of both of us—and not everyone’s lucky enough to call it their last.”
“Okay, here we go,” Jude said, closing and locking the single-stall bathroom door and digging the bat out of his pocket as fast as he could while not being rough with the little creature. It wiggled a bit in his hand, then hopped off, turning from bat into boy long before it hit the ground. “Are you okay?”
“What happened?” Pixie asked in a tight voice as he stood up, eyes wide and fixed on Jude’s face. He looked disoriented, dizzy, and shaken up, like he had back at the apartment. “Are you okay? I heard yelling! Were you in a fight? Is somebody after us again?”
“No no, everything’s fine,” Jude reassured him, wanting nothing more than to wipe that fear right off Pixie’s sometimes too-expressive face. “I ran into Eva—and Letizia, and that Milo kid—talking with a guy who seemed… upset. Loudly upset. That’s probably what you heard. You and the rest of the mall.”
“Okay, okay good,” Pixie nodded, but didn’t look very reassured. “It’s just, I thought I heard... never mind.”
“What did you think you heard?” Jude felt a twinge of foreboding, seeing how Pixie seemed to shrink down a little at the thought, like it was the cause of all his unrest.
“I don’t know. Maybe I was dreaming. The only times I’ve been able to really sleep lately is in your pocket, as a bat.” He tried to smile, but it only succeeded in making Jude’s heart ache. “Bats don’t have bad dreams.”
That didn’t really help the worry worming around in Jude’s stomach, but when he tried to smile back, he had more success than Pixie had. “You can sleep in there whenever you want.”
“Thanks.” And Pixie brightened a little bit at that. Not enough, but it was there.
It was never hard for Jude to tell how Pixie was feeling, but vampires didn’t seem to show the same kinds of signs of distress as humans did. Their bodies were warm, contrary to popular belief—but no dark circles under their eyes when exhausted, no sweat or shivers, no actual need to breathe fast during a panic attack, and they likely didn’t lose or gain weight in the same way as the living.
Jude was actually relieved about that one. Worrying about Jasper was enough; if he ever saw Pixie looking thin and drawn, Jude would find staying calm and level even harder than usual.
“You can talk to me, you know,” Jude said after hesitating a moment. When had he become the person anybody talked to about their problems? He’d never been the most stable or responsible. Nobody had ever really needed him to be before. “I want you to feel like you can talk to me.”
“I know—it’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s not you at all.” Pixie still looked troubled, but a little less so than before. He reached out to touch Jude’s wrist, lightly take his hand. “It’s just... a lot.”
“Yeah.” Pixie had been through Hell. The closest to actual-Hell-with-a-capital-H Jude could imagine this side of living, or on the undead side, and that was only the part Jude had personally witnessed. But that alone—the kidnapping, torture, crucifixion, almost dying for a second time—was enough for anybody’s life to be forever changed and shaken. “Whatever it is... I’m here.”
“I know.” Pixie gave his fingers a squeeze as Jude ran his thumb over the smooth skin on the back of his hand, and the rougher scarring.
“Are you going to go home?” Jude asked after a second. “Or pocket again? I meant that, you can stay in there all day if you want to.”
“Um, I…” Pixie trailed off. He looked so lost.
Jude’s stomach clenched. Again, he wanted quite badly to pull Pixie close and squeeze him until all his worries disappeared. More than that, kiss him, wrap all of Pixie and his wonderful warm softness up in his arms and breathe him in, the way they had the night Pixie had agreed to stay with him. Jude hadn’t dared since, though every time he thought about it, the combination of wanting and uncertainty made his chest ache, and rooted him to the floor.
And, as always, no matter how badly he wanted to, Jude couldn’t bring himself to move. He never knew what to do at vulnerable moments, especially not when he suspected there was a lot more at work here than he could ever know. Not when he didn’t know what would help, or hurt, and Pixie didn’t need any more hurting. This was how he’d been for more of his life than he cared to admit, so afraid of making the wrong move and only driving them further apart that he ended up doing nothing at all.
“Who else did you say was there?” Pixie asked, sounding a little more relaxed, tired but calm. “Besides the yelling guy. I heard someone else.”
“Letizia, but she took off pretty fast. Eva—oh, and Milo. Purple hair, goth, they work around here somewhere,” Jude said, as if he didn’t know the exact layout and schedule of every mall employee, or at least the closest anyone could come to omniscience in the wild world of retail.
“The Abyss,” Pixie said immediately.
“Yes. The Abyss.” Jude said the word like it tasted bad. “The Halloween store that’s still open in January for some reason.”
“It’s called being goth, and goth doesn’t take a vacation,” Pixie said with a tiny upward curl of the corner of his mouth. “I love that place.”
“I know,” Jude said. After a beat, he sighed in mock despair, and only a little genuine resignation. “You want to go, don’t you?”
“Heck yes. You can drop me off, you don’t have to go in! I just at least want to make sure Milo’s okay—and to let ‘em know I’m okay. They’re cool. We were buds. I mean, we still are, I hope. It’s just been kind of hard keeping up with people with, uh, all this.” He gestured to his fangs, then down to all of himself, looking self-conscious and uncertain.
“I can imagine,” Jude said, trying not to let the alarm bells going off in his head leak out into his voice. “But are you entirely sure it’s a good idea to… That is, I take it, they’re familiar with…” now it was his turn to gesture to all of Pixie, eyebrows raised.
“Yeah,” he said with a nod that was only a little hesitant. “They should be. I mean, I don’t know for sure, but they always seemed into witchy type stuff before, so I was hoping… but I dunno, maybe they didn’t mean real witchy type stuff. Maybe I shouldn’t.”
“You could at least say hello?” Jude suggested, surprising himself with the daring thought he’d never contemplate for himself. It was well worth it to get that anxious, self-doubting look off Pixie’s face. “Seeing a friend might do you some good.”
“Yeah, but what if they notice something’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing’s wrong with…” Jude started, then stopped. Arguing this particular point, however much he believed it, was semantics, and likely not the point Pixie was trying to make. “You don’t have to, obviously. But now that I think about it, Milo did say something earlier, to Letizia, something like ‘witches have to stick together.’ That seemed fairly serious to me. If they’re friends, they probably know about the… other side of her, as well.”
“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right,” Pixie said, brightening a little, even if it still seemed like he was trying to convince himself. “I bet they do know. And if they don’t…”
“Then they should still hear it from a friend,” Jude said. After a pause, he made another decision the old him would have balked at, and said, “And I’ll be right there with you. If you want me there.”
“You will?” Pixie’s eyes were suddenly much bigger, shinier, and that much harder to resist.
“Yes,” Jude said with the seriousness of a man swearing to stand beside a comrade in the calm before a harrowing battle. “I’m behind you every step of the way.”
“Okay. Okay, yeah.” Pixie gave a resolute nod, seeming suitably convinced. “It’ll be good to catch up a little.” He gave Jude a refreshingly winning smile. “And maybe get some new earrings.”
Jude’s chest twinged again. That br
ight, pointed smile just made the desire to pull Pixie close and kiss him surge up again, but for a different reason than before. Then he’d looked so scared and hopeless, now he radiated his usual exuberant energy that sat polar opposite to Jude’s, an opposing charge that drew him like a magnet. But Jude still couldn’t risk making a move, not when Pixie’s smile had just barely come back.
He settled for a mock frown that looked nothing like his real one. “I’m buying, aren’t I?”
“Hey, it was your idea!” Pixie said happily, and rushed outside.
Jude sighed and let a moment pass before following. Still, whatever anyone might have to say about two men emerging from a single-stall public restroom, one of them a uniformed security guard, it just wasn’t his biggest problem today. If the rest of the day behaved itself, he wouldn’t have to add too many more to the list.
“You’re going to be my buffer, all right?” Jude said under his breath as they neared the fanged black arches of The Abyss. “I hate going into this place alone. It’s always crowded, loud music, everyone’s dressed depressed but acting happy—it’s the worst combination of edgy and perky.”
“That’s a bad combo to you?” Pixie raised his pink-dyed eyebrows.
‘You’re not ‘edgy.’”
“Oh, Jude, that’s hurtful. I’m hurt,” Pixie said, hand on his chest, but he was giggling. He’d pulled his hoodie down to shadow his face, which hid his most obvious vampiric attributes, but Jude still made a point to stay between Pixie and as many mallgoers as possible. “But sure, no problem. I love this place! Especially the way they greet you.”
“That’s never made sense to me,” Jude said with a furrowed brow. “Aren’t you always saying that true punk is inherently counterculture, and once it’s been absorbed into the mainstream and watered down for corporate profit, it ceases to be the tool of marginalized expression it once was, becoming another dead capitalist gimmick?”
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