~*~

Back upstairs, Sayre walked straight to the bar and sat.  He threw his elbows down on the counter, then buried his head against his hands in pain. His pulse raced. His head pounded. He needed blood. Or, alcohol. Or—

“Hey,” Leah leaned into him, “you okay?”

“A shot, please,” he winced from the depths.

“That’s the third.”

Sayre dug into his pocket for his wallet and flung a hundred dollar bill at her. She swiped it away, poured, and then preemptively poured a second in another glass. After he knocked them both back, she reached across the bar and lifted his chin.

“Your eyes.”

He shifted his gaze from her hazel-green and to his reflection behind the bar. Yes, a reflection. Silver (and a silver-backed mirror) did nothing to (or for) him, other than clash against his skin tone and make him wish for gold. He saw his reflection in puddles, in wine, in glass orbs. Sayre was aware of what he looked like. Now, as he glanced around the bottles of gin, whisky, and cupcake flavored vodka, his once human, sapphire eyes were now threaded with black and red. It strained into his skin, like snakes—thick lines of something ancient, and cursed. Sayre groaned and rubbed. The Old One, and its powers, were just as oppressive on his body as it was to those he used in on.

Leah offered: “I’ve got a bag in the back. It’s not that old, I don’t think.”

“It’s alright,” he said into his wrists. His palms once more ground against his eyes. Pain and heat, against pain and heat.

She attempted to run a hand over his porcupine hair, but instead left it against his arm. Her thumb caressed worriedly. “What happened?”

“Bullshit.”

“That’s your answer for everything,” Leah scoffed.

“It usually is,” he grumbled. 

“But on a scale of One-to—”

“Bad,” Sayre blurted.

“All right, damn.” She poured another shot and took it herself. “Anything I can do?”

“No. …How’s it now?” He lowered his hands.

“Better,” she assured without looking. Sayre shot her a glare, but a quick glance and a nod later, let him know it really was. The signs of his vampirism gone.  Leah leaned into the bar on her elbows. “You know, we are friends. And, I don’t ask a lot of questions about…” she pointed. That was about as delicately as she was ever going to say it.

When Sayre had met Leah a couple years ago, he had interrupted her attempted mugging in an alley. She had done her best to fight the mugger off, but found herself on her side spewing the most creative use of curse words he had ever heard. She shouted them so fervently, it woke him in his apartment. That and the inescapable scent of blood. He stormed over to put a stop to the noise, but in the end he found dinner, and a friend. 

She had limped over to the mugger's dead body and kicked, and Sayre expected a scream, instead all he heard was: "I knew it."

Witch's enchantments and glamours did a lot to protect his world, but it wasn't unheard of for a human to still wiggle their way in. 

Over the years, he would come to learn she had accidentally dated a werewolf, but even before that she had suspicions. Though she was less keen to say, something along the lines of a family trait of supernatural intuition meant she always just knew, but could never prove it. It had its own consequences.

Otherwise, she didn’t ask him much. She had shown interest, but she didn’t push Sayre—and over the years, that trust (that he wouldn’t hurt her, and she wouldn’t pry), became the foundation of their unshakable friendship.

“I know, Lee.” He reached for the bottle and poured another. Using her pet name, something only he and a small circle of people could use, didn’t sway her.

She stopped him. “Sayre. Be honest with me. Are you okay?”

“Will you trust me?” He locked into her gaze, and summoned a bit of himself. An attempt to enthrall her.

“If you use your vampire powers on me, I will shank you.”

Sayre smiled. “Promise?”

She pulled her lowered hand from the bar and the broken wooden spoon. Friends, but with precautions. “Always.”

With a laugh, Sayre stood, pulled her head to his lips and kissed her black hair. “You’re the best. Say hi to Betty for me, would ya? Tell her I miss her cooking.”

“Hey, I can cook perfectly fuckin’ fine!” Leah pointed with the make-shift stake. “Is this what I get for inviting you to my apartment? I don’t even get some cool story, just you liking my girl’s cooking more than mine?”

“Darling, baby, sweet-heart,” he cooed. The stake in her hands lifted higher. “This is why you don’t have any cool stories.”

“This? This is why?”

“What? Is it not enough to be friends with the city's most powerful vampire?”

She slapped down a bill. “It would be if he paid his tab. Plus tip.”

Another hundred dollar bill floated to the table from his fingers. “There. Happy now?”

“Are you leaving?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, now I am happy. Get out.” She flung her hands with a smile.

Sayre saluted her, then stepped into the sun-soaked street. He lit another cigarette, tilted his head back, and basked. Hair-metal and the newest Madonna song blasted through the roar of traffic. With a sigh, he turned down the street and walked. He ached for his Walkman and a mixtape.

The city smelled significantly less like horse-shit, but the fumes of cars were worse. It stuck in his lungs, low and heavy. Something tacky and tar-like. Horse-shit stung the nose. Exhaust came after his lungs like a rabid St. Bernard; but then again, that might have been the marquee at the dollar theater he walked past. 

A lot had changed, and yet, so much of it didn’t. The streets were still packed with carriages—horse or motor, it didn’t make a difference—and people. There was never a quiet street, or reprieve. It was constantly alive, if on occasion, it slept in a little drunk from the night out. The alleys still had cats. The buildings still had rats. The people still brusk, and a little batty.

Sayre loved it. Sure he could have lived in some pastoral, bucolic wherever, but then time would have crawled (and far slower than it already did for him). At least here, in one of the planet’s greatest cities, there was a pulse. Movement. Change. Whether he wanted to acknowledge the passing of it or not, time kept on ticking.

Like him.

He walked for hours, and hours, until mid-afternoon cast the city in mostly shadow. He had stopped for a soda, knocked back the abusive bubbles, and tossed the plastic container into a bin.  A bag of snacks kept his fingers and jaw busy as his thoughts raced. Leaning against a building, booted-foot to the wall, scowl on his face, and a crunch-crunch, made him feel like a proper hooligan. A human miscreant.

An all together better m-word than monster.  

 He walked, hands tucked into his jacket’s pockets. His head low, but his gaze and mind far away. He hadn't realized he stopped walking until someone cursed at him, and a shoulder bumped into him. Then his eyes focused. A little book shop with a plaque on the door from the historical society. In the old windows, spines of books, trinkets, and a sleeping cat. The door opened with a bell, and a couple of teenagers walked out.

Sayre smothered his cigarette beneath his foot and stepped in. The giant wall of apothecary drawers were still there, closed and sad. The tile floor was replaced. The giant slab of tree, now some ugly counter. The register was also long gone. The smell was…absent. Like he stared at a painting of a garden, but could smell no flowers. That’s what it felt like…without her there.

Sayre took a deep breath to steady himself. Then, he walked straight past it all. Down the hallway of faded yellow wallpaper, up a little staircase that creaked and moaned under his weight, to a door at the far end of the landing, where he knocked three times. The same rhythmic triplet he did against his cigarette case. His pulse raced with unease. Sayre rubbed at his chest and the tattoo over his heart.

A secret he would take to his grave—and since he was immortal…not even the universe would know. …Except the sun who had been there when he got it, and watched in fury, and envy. 

Sayre hadn’t been on these stairs in years. In fact, he avoided this part of town for decades. Avoided it like the plague since the 20s. The last time he saw members of this coven. Saw Her, and now he was meeting her—

Footfalls moved towards him. The door ripped open to a scowling young woman with cherry coke red hair, teased. Her makeup was just as jarring. The crystal pendant dangling from her ear was unsurprising. Even when it illuminated in his presence and whispered something in her ear. Her scowl worsened. “Who are you? What do you want?”

“I need to talk to Hazel.”

The young woman scoffed. “Hazel’s busy,” she snapped, then pushed the door closed with as much attitude as a miffed and freshly grounded teen. Sayre pushed a flat palm against it, enough to keep it open. Despite all her body weight—and he suspected a little bit of magic—Sayre kept it open, easily.  “I would—”

“Tell her it’s Sayre,” he said through her anger, sotto voce.

She blinked, and blinked. The anger on her face dissolved to shock. Her cola-brown eyes rolled up and down him, bubbling with curiosity. “Oh,” she mumbled. Then she pulled back, moving to the side, hauling the door with her. Inviting him in.

Sayre gave a thankful nod, exhaled a sigh, then he stepped over the threshold, and into the coven of witches threatening to kill him.