Victoria finally snapped out of her reverie and gathered what lay in front of her.  There were shards of clothing, fur, blood, and … James.  Leila’s James.  She was poised to step out of the alley, but she heard the bouncer start yelling to no one in particular accompanied with a long string of profanities.

She slunk back in, hoping that soon she would wake from this hellhole of a nightmare.  Her nails pierced her skin in an attempt to rouse herself, but it was all in vain.  Her body was shaking convulsively, until she felt an arm around her shoulder.  She looked up, and there was Lucifer.  “Quit trying.  You’re just an apparition.  And I don’t care.  Let the damn bouncer see me.  I’m not going to let you haunt me.  I’m leaving.”

“Tori, please.  Let me explain myself.  I know the story far too well.  I’ve replayed it over in my head so many times.  Just let me say what I need to, and then you can decide what you really want to do.  Before I tell you anything, just remember.  I love you.”

“Lucifer.  I’ve told you.  That means nothing now.  Because you’re dead.  Or are you doing this to get out of purgatory?”

“I’m not in purgatory.  I’m here, on mortal soil, with you.  My beloved soul mate.”

“Quit telling me lies.  I, as a vampyre, know they aren’t true; and you, as a … An apparition, know they aren’t true!”  She lifted her hands up to her face, but quickly pulled them away after noticing they were smothered in sticky blood.

“My darling, just listen.

“The night you had my accidental demise planned in your head, well, I never guessed anything like that would ever happen.  But once you bit me and started drinking my blood, very quickly I was fading away into obscurity.  Then with just a few ounces of blood left in me, my heart stopped.  You thought that I was dead, and left me here.

“I don’t know how long I lay in that alley before realizing what changes had overcome me.  The first thing that gave away my new state of being was the sunlight.  The night that I awoke, the tips of a few of my fingers were singed from the exposure.  I was so weak, from enduring a very strenuous blood loss, a transformation, a few lacerations here and there from alley rats, and countless other ailments.  I could’ve given up – and believe me, I thought about it – but I remembered you, and that gave me the strength to continue and feed.

“I’ve been sitting here, waiting.  I’ve haven’t moved from this alley, except on a rare occasion that I felt the desperate need to feed.  But I felt your mourn.  And I know you felt a stir in your subconscious, but you didn’t want to admit to yourself that I could still in fact be here.  Your guilt surpassed your hope, and you’ve been watching the world around you crumble.  You’re waiting, because something’s coming, isn’t there?

“I want to help you, Victoria.  I want to help your entire family and rid the world of the wretched beasts that you, your family, our people have been fighting for centuries, millennia, even.  Don’t keep telling yourself what you want to avoid.  I’m here.  It’s going to be okay.”  And with the end of his speech, he pulled Victoria closer and held her.

“You are real.  Thank God.  Never hide again, Lucifer.  Return to me whenever you’re lost.”  She stood up and offered him her hand.  He gladly took it, and they walked out of the alley, gripping each other’s hands as though they would never let go.



Leila had been sitting on the couch for the past hour, flipping from channel to channel.  “Jesus,” she muttered.  “By eight o’clock, there should be something good on!”  She was so bored.  After returning with Tim in her arms, her parents whisked his limp body upstairs and started doing whatever they could to revive him.  She threw the remote control at the wall with disgust and flopped back into the couch and put a pillow over her head to try and drown out her screams.

After five minutes of near suffocation, the doorbell rang.  Leila peeked behind the drapes and saw two cops standing outside her door.  She fluffed up her hair and slathered on another layer of lip gloss.  Victoria couldn’t have had the gall to report her family to the police, but what if someone else knew?  Well, she thought, if anything, I could always treat my family to a surprise.

She opened the door and gave the two fresh faced police her best smile.  “Hey, officers.  What brings you out here this morning?”  She figured the longer she played cute and dumb, the longer she could think of a plausible excuse.

But the cops didn’t play games.  “Last night, a young man was murdered.  His name was James Yates.  We’ve made calls to all the contacts in his cell phone, and everyone we interviewed had asked the same question; if we had told you about the incident.  Because of that, we’re suspecting you’re his girlfriend?”

“Oh, no, not James, too!  I’m the girl from before.  My last boyfriend was murdered,” here the cops flinched at the fact they had fallen for her flirts, “Owen Edwards?  Ring a bell?”

“The guy who was found decapitated in front of Vamp?”

“Yeah, him.”

“Well, honey … Uh, how do we say this … James was … Also found decapitated in front of Vamp.”

Leila played it up as much as possible.  She crumpled to the floor and wailed, “Who the hell is playing such a sick joke on me?”

“Well, as of right now, the main bouncer for Vamp is our prime suspect.  He spends all his time out near the street in front of Vamp.  How could anyone else pull off such an intricate string of murders?  Unless you have any information that could contradict that …?”

“The bouncer always spends his time … No; I don’t have anything to testify for or against him.”

“Alright, miss.  Thank you for your time.  Goodbye.”

“‘Bye, officers.”

She shut the door and heaved a sigh of relief.  She and her family were safe.  The cops were so thick that they couldn’t see what was right in front of their eyes.  She was a wolf in human’s clothing, and at the rate knowledge progressed, no one would know until long after she was dead.