Howard twitched, before his face sunk. “Is… Have you been carrying that all this time?”

Sayre wanted to scoff. Of course he had been carrying it. Of course he would feel guilty. And of course he would have a cocktail of emotions about just feeling guilty. He was a long-lived, fanged creature with hang ups about morality—about his own actions! 

All the events that lead up to her final moments were his fault. His decisions. His stubbornness. They had been inseparable for years, and now…now he was still angry every time he woke up alone. Now, he cursed at the sun every morning it greeted him. He felt enraged every moment those rays warmed his back. He wanted to rend the city apart, brick by brick down to the very asphalt, any time he saw a doting couple on the street. It was an agonizing fury he had so rarely felt in his long life. Sure, he had lost people before, but with her… It was different.

The first few years without her, he’d walk to their spot, and he’d just stand there. He’d watched the curling waves of the ocean and imagined (no matter how futile or unlikely) that she’d sneak up behind him. He’d feel her hand wrap around his shoulders and slither down his arm to his hand; and he'd stare at the impossible beauty of the cold Atlantic Ocean and talk about how one day he’d take her to England, to London.

But that dream was dead.

Sayre wondered if having a heart now was worth it.

What was the point of having it, if it was just heavy all the time?

Howard stepped a little closer. “My God! No wonder you look like” —he motioned to the bleached hair and general wardrobe— “this.”

“This has nothing to do with it,” Sayre huffed; “I like it.”

“Ah, so it’s just your taste then?” teased Howard.

Sayre glared, but it dissolved into a shake of his head, which Howard took as a situation more diffused. Howard peeled away again, heading for his desk. He lifted a small black book and carried it to Sayre. “Listen, I know—”

“If that’s a—”

“What?! No! I would never!” Howard contorted. “It’s my address book. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Maybe you’ll give yourself an early grave, Sayre!” He took a deep breath, then pried it open with a soft squeak of the leather binding. “If you don’t want to talk to me, then I could suggest someone.”

“I don’t want to talk to anyone.”

Howard’s eyes went wide. “Oh, that was apparent,” he said. “But, you can’t keep hanging onto this. To—and you’re gonna get angry, but listen to me—”

“If you’re about to say what I think you are…” Sayre condensed into a tighter rage.

Howard used the book to point about Sayre. “How many more years are you going to carry this? To not talk about it?”

Sayre shifted and crossed his arms over his chest. His eyes moved to the side of the room, and to the various bookshelves littered with titles he never heard of. “That’s really not any of your concern.”

And it wasn’t. Who the hell was Howard: a werewolf, to tell Sayre: an Old One Vampire, how to live his life!  Who cared if he toted the weight of it around. Who cared if after all this time, all these decades, he still yearned for her.

That, a part of him—a small, infinitesimal part of him where he allowed and gardened such dangerous things to bloom—swore that somewhere out there she was still alive.

Somewhere out there, she was still burning with the fury of a thousand suns.

Her impish grin still coiled.

She was out there, and all he had to do…was find her.

“You’re right.” Howard closed the book over one of his fingers, and mirrored Sayre. “It really isn’t, especially since you’ve just waltzed into my life for the first time in nearly fifty years to dump a stinking pile of bad news at my feet. It’s really, really not something I should bother myself with, except for the fact that, well, now…I want to.” He narrowed his eyes. “Just because it will piss you off. So… Ha!”

Shaking his head, Sayre snorted through his nose before turning his stormcloud eyes on Howard. “There…isn’t anything to talk about it.”

“Oh yes, there is. There’s plenty.” Howard stepped back and sat on the edge of his desk. His palms braced behind him. “Listen… I won’t push. I’m just… I’m here, Sayre. If you need someone to talk to, or, to take you to the best spots in the city to howl at the moon.”

The scowl that had softened from Sayre’s face returned. “Howl? …At the moon? What do you take me for? Some common street mutt?”

“Hey!” Howard pointed, admonishing. “Watch it. You know what I mean.”

Sayre tapped painted fingers over his leather jacket. He grumbled and mulled, but eventually he said nothing—which was the second best outcome. 

Howard took it. “This business with the shadow-fucker, we’ll figure it out. …Again, I guess.” His fingers rubbed against his eyes.  “Then again, I could never say no to you.  Run head first into danger. Into the fires of hell, but… I don’t know, it always felt fun with you.”

Sayre felt something crawl up his spine. It felt like an anchor wrapping around his heart and dragging it down… Making it heavier. “I’m not doing this because it’s fun. I happen to like this city, I want to keep living in it.” His head dipped. “I have…people here. Humans.”

“Ho-ly shit. You—ancient and cranky. Perpetually a wet, grumpy cat—you have human friends?”

“Don’t call me ‘ancient!’” Sayre snapped. A flush of red and black filled his eyes. He huffed, then deflated, conceding that maybe he did, in fact, have some things to work out.

“You know, you’re really touchy about that word.”

“Yeah,” Sayre grumbled, “I know.” He shifted his jacket and tried to recompose himself, if not emotionally, at least aesthetically. He had to keep up appearances, after all.

Howard nodded. “All right. I’ll keep an ear out. I’ll send out some scouts, maybe we can find something to go on. Maybe someone has heard something.”

Sayre took a deep breath, before a sincere: “Thanks, Howard.”

Howard jerked in shock. “I’m sorry… The hell are you?”

“A lot has changed. I’m not…I’m not the same.”

The werewolf’s eyes rolled up and down Sayre. “That’s for damn sure.”

“There’s also a rumor floating about that Hazel wants to kill me.” Howard laughed, a roaring, incapacitating laugh.  Sayre’s expression flattened. “Don’t do that when you hear it.”

The laughter continued: a horrible mixture of a cackling hyena, and a howling husky. It went on for a long minute, turning Howard’s face red. He laughed, and laughed, as if it had been pent up for far too long. Eventually, the rumble faded, and he wiped fingers across his crying eyes. “Ah, sorry, sorry. It’s just… Duh! No rumor about it. She hates you. She’s always hated you.”

“Yes, thank you, I know.” Sayre picked at his nails. “I’m trying to make up for it. I sent her to Bodhi.”

Howard lifted a hand, appalled. “Bodhi? Who? —How many other friends have you made without me, Sayre? I’m offended! I’m proud!”

“Bodhi is not a friend,” Sayre corrected.

A scoff ripped through Howard and his still laughter-reddened face. “By whose count? His or yours?”

“Bodhi is an annoyance, a louse that fixated himself on me and now—”

Howard pulled a kerchief from his pocket and wiped his hands. “You're sending your ex’s sister to him? I thought you were trying to not have her hate you.”

Sayre sighed. “He’s nothing like me.”

“What?” Howard teased. “Cheerful and optimistic?”

With narrowed stormy eyes, Sayre glared. He held it on Howard’s expression with a cocked head, until he nodded.

“Oh, ho, ho!” Howard beamed. “Ring the chapel bells now. They might be engaged already.”

Sayre rolled his eyes. “Listen… Be careful. Whatever this thing is. If it is that…weird horrible shit from before, or something new. I’ve this terrible sinking in my gut. My senses feel like they’ve been electrocuted. Something is going on.”

Howard paused, examined his long-time acquaintance (he wasn’t sure if he was ever really a friend for Sayre, but may have been one of the closest damn things), and nodded. “Yeah, I will. You, too.” The werewolf sat again in his plush but worn leather chair, where he was haloed by the pocked and dappled bespeckling of afternoon rays. They fell across him, and if Sayre didn’t know any better, he would have thought Howard actually holy.

What odd people he kept in his company: a twenty-something human who sometimes had visions; a werewolf in disguise as a holy man, but actually fit the part better than he intended; and the younger sister of the witch who had stolen—for he did not keep it exposed, but rather locked deep, deep, deep within a vault of his being—heart.

Sayre righted his leather jacket and peeled his glasses from the collar of his shirt. As he turned, Howard called out to him again.

“You know, if you could also maybe come see me again sooner than fifty years, I’d like that.”

Sayre stared, his jaw closed. He slipped the glasses over his human eyes and moved to the door. Before he stepped through he managed a “Yeah.” 

Then, he was gone.