“Possibly. I am not certain.”

  “He can do half-elf,” Peter interjected. He waggled his eyebrows. “He can do half-elf really well.”

  She laughed. “I like you guys.”

  “We appreciate your hospitality,” Ante said. “But I am puzzled. Everyone here seems so willing to enter a fight that is not theirs.”

  Chloe thought about this for a moment. “To be honest, it’s not all about you. A lot of the folks here, they… they’re kind of wild. Naturally, you know? And most of the time they keep it under control. They’ve chosen to be civilized, at least as much as they can. Like Frank.” She indicated the werewolf. “He’s a CPA. On full moon nights, he’s out there howling and hunting down Bambi, but the next day he’s back doing all our taxes.”

  “I met an architect werewolf once,” Ante said. “He seemed to be making his dual roles work.”

  “Sure. And Frank’s a happy guy. We all are. We’ve got it good here and we know it. But still, I think a lot of people are pretty pleased about having an excuse to stretch their fighting muscles, if you know what I mean.”

  “Even if it means they might be killed?”

  “There’s an old Klingon proverb. ‘Today is a good day to die.’”

  Peter and Ante joined Chloe for the final few words, making her laugh again. “I like you!” she repeated.

  “Don’t tell me you have Klingons here too,” Peter said, grinning.

  “Nope. But one of these days when you get a chance, ask Sara over there where her hometown is.”

  THE night had grown very late by the time the residents began heading home. Rajiya walked over to join Peter and Ante. Peter had somehow managed to get his hands on a box of Pop-Tarts and had eaten half of them already.

  “We have some more preparations, but they will best be done in daylight,” Rajiya said.

  “And I’ve got to get my ray of sunshine tucked away,” Peter responded.

  Ante found it a silly notion—a young elf somehow in charge of an ancient vampire’s safety, like the world’s oddest nursemaid—yet he felt warmed to know that Peter chose to care for him like that.

  Rajiya nodded. “Of course.”

  “Should we go back to the Guerneville inn?” asked Peter.

  “Do not be ridiculous. This is your home now. We have arranged temporary accommodations for you until we can find you something permanent. Come.”

  The temporary arrangements turned out to be the earth mound Ante had noticed when they’d first arrived. The mound was home to three young people of indeterminate gender and species, all of whom seemed happy to have guests. “We volunteered our place,” said the one with the pink hair. “’Cause no windows, so that’s good.”

  Their hosts led them through a small room and then down stone stairs into an underground hallway with a low curved ceiling. They pointed to their own bedroom at the end of the hall before taking Peter and Ante into a cozy space with simple, sturdy furniture and, on the walls, posters for bands Ante had never heard of.

  “Bathroom,” said the host with the nose ring and neck tattoos, pointing at a narrow door.

  The third host was bald and wore multiple layers of colored silk clothing. “You guys need any food or anything?”

  Peter hefted one of their bags. “I’m good, thanks. Um, you can tell me if this is rude—I don’t know the local etiquette—but, um, what are you?”

  The trio laughed. “We’re fairies of course,” said the tattooed one. Then they wished Peter and Ante a good rest before leaving them alone.

  After they made love, Ante held Peter tightly and fell asleep to the music of his soft breath.

  ANTE woke up surprisingly well rested and followed Peter upstairs, where they discovered it was midday. One of the fairies made a huge stack of french toast and half a pig’s worth of bacon for Peter.

  “Are you hungry too?” the fairy asked Ante. “I can get someone—”

  “I am fine, thank you.” Actually, although he wasn’t hungry, he was twitchy. It took him some time to realize why. “The Shadows are close.”

  “You can tell?” Peter asked.

  “Lee is with them.”

  “Oh. The blood thing. How close?”

  Ante concentrated, then shook his head. “I cannot tell. Not here in the valley, I think. Not until sundown.”

  “Maybe they’re all staying the day at the inn in Guerneville. Do you think they enjoyed the s’mores?”

  Ante tried to picture Eadburg getting roasted marshmallows stuck in her fangs. “I doubt it.”

  “They’ll be here soon after it gets dark, huh?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll let the gang know.”

  Peter and the fairies left Ante in the house, feeling useless and helpless. At a loss for what else to do with himself, he washed the dishes from Peter’s meal. When he poked around the kitchen, looking for the proper places to put things away, he noticed that the fairies had a collection of junk food that would impress even Peter. Maybe fairies craved sugar as badly as elves did. If he survived tonight’s encounter, he might want to learn more about the many species in residence at the sanctuary. He’d once thought the world was too familiar to be of interest, and yet he’d found a bounty of novelty all in one small valley.

  “Everyone’s pretty set,” Peter announced when he returned. “They have bows and arrows. Those work, right?”

  “If well aimed.”

  “Frank the werewolf has silver bullets. He says those suckers will kill his kind dead. What about vamps?”

  “Not fatal. But gunshot wounds hurt—”

  “I’ve seen that myself,” Peter said, briefly caressing Ante’s shoulder.

  “And the silver would be especially painful. Enough, perhaps, to convince a vampire to retreat.”

  Peter looked thoughtful. “Maybe especially if that vamp wasn’t all that invested in the fight to begin with. How loyal are these guys gonna be?”

  It hadn’t occurred to Ante to consider that question. On the one hand, some of them had been with Lee for decades and had high aspirations for moving up the organizational ladder. And some just liked committing violence. On the other hand, Lee tended to govern more out of fear than respect. Ante doubted many of his followers actually liked him—which made Ante a little sad, in a weird sort of way.

  Finally he had to fall back on his stock answer. “I do not know.”

  Since they had nothing to do but wait for nightfall, Peter followed Ante’s lead and took it ten steps further, going on a cleaning binge that left the fairies’ kitchen and living room immaculate. Afterward, in their borrowed room, he took the photo of his mother out of his jacket pocket. It was slightly wrinkled but otherwise unscathed. With a wistful expression, Peter set the picture on the dresser. “I still miss her sometimes.”

  “Of course you do. I still miss my family sometimes as well.” His boisterous brothers and outspoken sisters, his practical mother, his father who tended to be quiet but occasionally surprised them all with a ridiculous joke. His nieces and nephews and cousins and… and everyone he had lost so completely.

  “Hang on,” Peter said before fleeing the room. He returned a few minutes later with a bouquet of fragrant lavender in one hand. After pulling a pair of drinking glasses from a cupboard, he divided the flowers between them. One glass went near his photo; he handed the other to Ante.

  “I have no mementos of my family.” Photography hadn’t been widely available when he died, and he’d lost the few possessions placed in his grave.

  Peter wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “You don’t need a physical thing. Good thoughts are fine. Maybe… is it kind of a good thing that your people are still remembered so many years later?”

  “It is,” Ante said, smiling softly.

  “And you’ll have plenty of time to tell me all about them.”

  Hoping it wasn’t considered blasphemy, Ante recited a prayer in Latin and another in Croatian. He was surprised how well he remembered them. Then he placed his glass of lavender near Peter’s.

  It wasn’t dark yet. Ante paced restlessly within the tight confines of the room until Peter huffed with irritation, dragged him to bed, and gave him a blowjob. It didn’t quite distract Ante but came pretty close. And then Peter asked Ante to stroke him off, and when Peter was close to climax, he insisted on a bite. Ante took only a mouthful, but since it was Peter’s heady, exhilarating blood, it was enough.

  Ante rushed out of the fairies’ house as soon as he could. In fact, he jumped the gun a bit, and if not for the nearby steep slopes that blocked the sun’s last rays, he would have been singed. He didn’t think all the Iwapkutians were present, but over thirty of them waited in the grassy town square. Some were armed with weapons that made him distinctly uneasy—arrows, spears, and stakes—while others seemed satisfied with the natural weapons their species were born with.

  An oversize silver-gray wolf sat on its haunches, gold eyes glittering with excitement. “But the moon is not full,” Ante said to Peter.

  Rajiya, who stood nearby, overheard. “He can shift at other times, if he wills it. Usually he does not, but tonight is a special occasion.” She wore loose trousers and a short blouse, and she’d braided her hair and fastened it atop her head. Her sharp teeth gleamed white.

  “Do you want a stake?” The bald fairy had walked over to offer sharpened sticks to Peter and Ante.

  Peter took one and examined it closely, but Ante shook his head. “I prefer to use my fangs and fists.”

  “Fair enough.” The fairy walked away, perhaps to distribute weapons to other people.

  When Ante looked at Peter, his throat tightened. “You should stay inside,” Ante said, pointing at the earthen house.

  Peter narrowed his eyes. “You think I’m a goddamn damsel in distress, good for nothing except shrieking and running away?”

  “I think you are inexperienced at fighting. And you—”

  “Nope.” Peter poked him in the chest. “First off, this is my fight, remember? I’m not gonna let a bunch of fairies and spiders and fluffy dogs risk their lives while I hole up with Netflix. And second, I already killed one of them, remember?”

  “I do. And how do you feel about that?”

  Peter opened his mouth, then closed it. He looked away while he thought. “I haven’t had a chance to process it yet, if you want to know the truth. But I’ll tell you one thing for sure—I’d do it again in a heartbeat to any bastard that came after you.”

  “I just found you. I do not want to lose you so soon.”

  “You won’t.”

  “You—” Ante went still. “He is close.”

  They made a small procession, the people of Iwapkuti. It might have been the strangest army ever assembled, but everyone looked eager for what was to come. They marched out of the square, between the houses, and down the path along the river. They kept going after passing the parking lot, until they came to a place where the trees pressed in close to the road on one side and the river rushed by on the other. It was a reasonable defensive spot. Attackers would have a hard time advancing in any organized way, and their cars would not be able to turn around. A few of members of the little army climbed nearby trees and hung electric lanterns from the branches. A wise idea since not everyone had such good night vision as vampires.

  Ante stood in the front with Rajiya on one side and Peter on the other. Perhaps he should have felt discomfort with so many vampire-lethal weapons at his back, but he did not. He trusted these people.

  Imagine that.

  Frank and the bigfoot growled in unison, and a moment later, Ante heard the thrum of approaching engines. He let his fangs show and was gratified when Peter grinned. Peter leaned close and whispered, “You are the sexiest thing I have ever seen.” Then he winked.

  Ante let out a deep, unneeded breath and widened his stance. And then the cars appeared.

  They snaked down the road, one after the other, all of them black and shiny. A dozen, Ante estimated, which meant his own side might be outnumbered. The leading car stopped several yards away, blinding Ante with its headlights. For a full minute, nothing happened.

  And then, as if according to some invisible signal, all the car doors opened and vampires poured out. Many wore suits, but others were dressed more casually. Dorothy—in one of her vintage dresses—was near the front of the pack, her only nod to the occasion being flats instead of high heels. She actually smiled when she caught Ante’s eye, and not in a malicious way. More like she was genuinely happy to see him. Strange woman.

  Eadburg wore fucking armor—a chain-mail shirt over a tunic and trousers—and she carried her sword. She looked like she’d stepped out of some Viking fantasy.

  And Lee. He’d been in the front car, of course, and he wore one of his expensive suits, although he’d chosen to forego the tie. He’d slicked back his hair to best show off his piercing eyes and sculpted cheekbones, and he looked very handsome.

  The pull? It was there as always.

  Lee walked closer. He probably intended his gait to appear casual, but Ante knew him well and could discern the tenseness around Lee’s shoulders and smile.

  “Is that him?” Peter whispered. “He’s gorgeous.”

  Ante nodded slightly.

  “Well,” Lee said loudly, his voice full of false bonhomie, “you’ve been having some interesting adventures, haven’t you, Ante?”

  Ante growled. “Go. Go away and never come back.”

  “That’s not a very nice way to treat family. But is that the elf himself? I can see why you’re so taken with him. Very pretty.”

  “Go.”

  “I’ll tell you what. We’ll just bundle him right up and bring him back to Zortea. There’s no reason why you can’t still fuck him now and then. Maybe I’ll join you.”

  It was a deliberate and transparent attempt to goad him. His Peter, a prisoner? His Peter, used in any way by the Shadows? Never! However, Ante held himself back.

  Oddly, Peter remained silent. He undoubtedly had a hundred sharp retorts at the tip of his tongue, yet he seemed to sense that this moment was between Ante and Lee. While Lee’s pursuit of Peter had set everything into motion, this confrontation had been a century in the making. None of Lee’s followers said anything either—not even Dorothy—and the Iwapkutians remained stolid and silent. Waiting.

  “I am sorry for what I did to you,” Ante said. “And I am sorry you will never find happiness. I have recently learned a new lesson. We cannot escape the shape of what we are, cannot eliminate the forces that drive us. But we think. Even if we are monsters, we know what is wrong and what is right. And we can choose our path. I have chosen mine, and it does not lead to you.”

  “Pretty speech.” Lee tried for sarcasm, but Ante’s words had rocked him—that much was clear. His attempt at a smile was more of a grimace, and his eyes held a hundred years of pain.

  Ante decided to push a bit more. “You can still change your path, Lee. It is not too late. You can have power and money without cruelty. Perhaps you might even find love. Please. You need not harm others.”

  For a second, maybe two, Lee wavered. Ante saw it in those eyes, which for a very brief moment looked soft and needy and human. Then they hardened again, like a lake turning to ice. “I’m not weak!” Lee roared.

  And then he leaped.

  Chapter Seventeen

  IN some small, ineradicable way, Lee was still Ante’s creation, his first love, his family. So when Lee attacked, Ante hesitated. Not for long—but vampires move like lightning, and that briefest of falterings was enough for Lee to land on him, to bear him to the ground.

  Ante’s own blood saved him. The taste of it momentarily shocked Lee—after all, this was the blood that had given him immortality. And then the tables were turned, because a tiny pause was good enough.

  Ante pressed his hands against Lee’s skull and pushed hard, shoving Lee away. He kicked Lee’s chest and hopped to his feet. He was ready when Lee launched himself again. This time Lee could not get his teeth close enough to bite, so he punched instead. His fist hit Ante’s face like an iron rod. But Ante held his ground and hit back. First he broke Lee’s nose. When Lee tried to reel back, Ante grabbed his hair and bashed his own forehead against Lee’s already ruined nose. It hurt like hell but was worth it for Lee’s roar of pain.

  Around them, the fight raged. People screamed and shouted. Someone was yelling obscenities in a language Ante didn’t recognize. Someone else was uttering a battle cry. Gunshots echoed. Ante saw flashes of light out of the corner of his eye and heard a wolf howl, but he couldn’t stop to investigate. He couldn’t even look around to find out if Peter was safe, because Lee was raking Ante’s skin with fingers that felt like claws.

  Then Lee kicked him hard in the balls, sending Ante to his knees. Ante tried to ignore the sickening agony in his groin, but Lee jumped on him and bit him again—this time only a glancing scrape against Ante’s shoulder, tearing the fabric.

  Another outfit ruined. As if that would matter when he was dust.

  Ante clutched Lee tightly in a grim parody of a lover’s embrace. They rolled together on the ground, snarling and bloody, each trying without success to get at the other’s throat. Someone tripped over them and fell with a thud, but the person was up and gone before Ante saw who it was. Someone else let out a bloodcurdling cry.

  “Traitor,” Lee hissed as he scratched at Ante’s ear.

  Ante didn’t respond. He was trying to dig his fingers into Lee’s throat. And perhaps he might have been successful—he sensed he was stronger than Lee—but a length of sharpened metal pierced Ante’s back.

  Ante roared, lurched backward, and would almost certainly have been destroyed by Lee if one of the giants hadn’t kicked Lee and sent him flying.

  Grasping at his back, Ante tried to find the sword so he could pull it out, but he couldn’t reach it. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Eadburg standing nearby. She was grinning victoriously.

  “A bayonet killed me,” Ante growled through clenched teeth. “Your sword won’t.”