Darkest Before the Dawn (male/male)

Felix

During the second World War, I prided myself on my steady hand and good aim with a gun. I had always joked that my careful hands could let me be a surgeon if I ever felt like it. Now, as I was about to wake up Mew, I silently laughed at how stupid that idea was, my right hand trembling like a chill had passed through my body. I was afraid of waking him up, both because I wasn’t certain how he would react, and because I enjoyed looking at his face when it was placid like this. He had a gentle scowl on his face, but the blankets were pulled up tight to around his chin, his body cocooned in the thick comforter.

I squeezed my left hand into a fist then placed my right one on his arm, giving him a little shake, biting the inside of my lip as I did. Amber eyes blinked up at me several times, and I had to step back as he shot up in his own queen-sized bed, hair sticking up every which way, head swiveling on his long neck to take in his surroundings. “Right. Hotel,” he murmured, closing his eyes and rubbing them. His cheeks puffed as he blew out air and yanked the blankets off his legs. “It’s nighttime already? Fuck, I didn’t mean to sleep that long.”

Goldie and Cadence had both told me he hadn’t been sleeping too well, partly due to this case and just because that’s who he was when his anxiety got bad. I didn’t want to push and have him shut down, so I couldn’t bring it up to him. “You probably needed it. You’ll need to be awake and alert tonight, anyway.”

“My sleep schedule is gonna get so fucked up on this case,” he said around a yawn, standing up to his full height. He was dressed in grey sweatpants and a red T-shirt that swallowed his torso, giving him an almost sickly appearance when combined with the dark bags underneath his eyes. “Gimme, like, ten minutes to get ready. Can you also text Goldie and make sure she and Madeline are at the meeting around here?”

“Already on it,” I responded, halfway through the text to the nymph. I still didn’t like the idea of her being alone on this, having to monitor Madeline all by herself. It was the safer option out of the two, however. She was at least in a car and could escape if needed. Mew and I would be on our own if Layla and Adrianna decided to attack. “Make sure your gun is loaded in case you need it. I’m hoping you won’t, but you can never be too safe.”

“What I’m hearing is that I could’ve used my gun the other night on Charlie,” Mew called from the bathroom, stepping out with his toothbrush poised in his mouth. “You just didn’t want to fill out paperwork.”

“Do you know how long that paperwork takes? The Council has made it to be about eight pages with a full report required now.”

“Not my fault that all of you wanted to switch to less violent practices. It used to be that we could just use any means necessary, and that was that.” He was back in the bathroom and spitting out his toothpaste.

“Yes, and people would end up hurt when they didn’t need to be. Hurry up and stop complaining.” Although I would never admit it to him, I loved bickering with him because of how much I enjoyed irritating him. Maybe it was a nasty habit I had adopted form Madeline, yet I loved it when he would just roll his eyes at me and mutter under his breath. Getting under his skin was fun.

While he finished getting dressed, I packed up the few belongings I had taken out of my overnight bag, like my toiletries and pajamas. Marigold texted me back to confirm that she had safely made it to the meeting, this time in South Atlanta, where she was able to park half a mile away to give her time to leave if she had to.

“You ready?” Mew asked, coming out of the bathroom, dressed in distressed jeans and a button up with little red flowers on it, which I think was called a Hawaiian shirt. It was cute on him, even if the style was unexpected.

“Wouldn’t have taken you for a flower type of guy,” I admitted, shouldering my bag.

He rolled his eyes and pocketed his phone. “Cadence is one of those weird plant girls the Internet makes fun of, like the kind of girl who names her plants and has customized pots and all that. It probably just rubbed off on me.” Irritation flickered across his face and he tipped his head. “Are you ready or gonna make fun of me more?”

“Oh, do I get the option? Por qué no los dos?”

He reeled and held up his hand as if to stop me. “So you thought MySpace was a website meant for house remodeling, but you can quote taco shell commercials at me?”

I shrugged and held the door open for him, letting him step out into the hallway first. “I watch a lot of TV. It’s how I learned about the decades and modern times. I learned that I’m not a fan of reality TV, with the exception of those food competitions where they have to make like these really extreme cakes and things like that. There’s a Halloween one out right now that’s really cool if you haven’t watched it yet.”

“You sound more and more like Goldie every time I talk to you,” he muttered, at least not disdainfully this time. “Isn’t it torture watching those cooking shows and not being able to eat it? Goldie's at least able to get vegan desserts, but you're out of luck.”

I hadn’t thought too much about it. I had subsisted on a diet of only blood for more than seventy years, to the point where I couldn’t even remember what raw sugar tasted like. All I knew was that I had once enjoyed the taste of it in my tea, something my parents made fun of me for since it wasn’t the most traditional way of enjoying English breakfast. This is something I told to Mew, who somehow allowed me to talk about the foods I had enjoyed as a human as we made our way down to my car.

“Do you ever get upset that you missed out on newer food creations? I mean you’ve never had Pringles or a Reese’s cup before.”

I snorted, starting the car. “First of all, you have the diet of a child. Secondly, I’ve had potato crisps and peanut butter with chocolate before. I’m not missing out on much.”

“If you say so,” he grumbled, fishing his phone out of his pocket. “Let’s quickly review this plan before we head out. And remember that this is saved in my phone, therefore making it concrete, so you can’t change anything about it.” He had been insistent upon that last night, as well, convinced that once he had put it in his phone, we couldn’t alter it any. I hated this idea to my very core. I wasn’t certain how he was handling it with his anxiety until I remembered that he tried so hard to keep everything hidden.

“I’m putting a lot of trust in you on this not to attack me, you know,” Mew muttered as we headed east, aiming towards Central Georgia where Adrianna and Layla were supposedly going to be located. “I’ll knock your fangs in if you try to bite me during this.”

“You’re fine. I’m not hungry.” Although that could have changed if this plan started going awry, concerning me, given how I had smelled his blood a few days before and second guessed my self- control. But I wasn’t like Richard or Layla or any of them involved with murdering demons for their blood. I was better than them—I drank strictly from animals to prevent harm to people or took donations from blood banks where humans voluntarily gave up their blood. I wasn’t a monster.

We had made it out of Atlanta by the time Marigold called Mew, who put her on speaker. “Hey, okay, so Madeline was able to figure out where Layla and Adrianna are going so that it’s not just a vague location,” she quickly explained on the other line. “You’ll be headed towards a town called Covington, right on the outskirts of Atlanta. They may be headed back by now, so you may want to, you know, do the thing.” She hesitated then, as if feeling my own apprehension with this idea. “Felix, are you going to be okay?”

“Yes,” I almost snapped, both because I didn’t want either of them to doubt me and because the more they asked, the less confident I felt.

She huffed, then sniffed. “One of you needs to call me as soon as you’re done so I know you’re safe. I’ll be there as soon as possible if you need me.”

“We’ll be fine, Goldie. You know me,” Mew chided, setting his phone on his knee and stretching out his fingers.

“Yes, and that’s why I want one of you to call me.”

“Ye of little faith. Call you soon.” He hung up his phone and placed it in the cup holder of the center console, then closed his eyes like he was steadying himself. “Make me mad,” he demanded, grabbing his right wrist with his left hand, his thumbnail poised at the joint.

“That wasn’t part of this whole thing. Make yourself mad,” I murmured, wanting as little involvement in this part as possible.

“Literally any other time, you’d be thrilled to piss me off, and you’re choosing now not to be a dick?” He rolled his window down, then returned his hand to around his wrist. He sucked in a heavy breath as he dragged his nail down his wrist, opening a crevice of blood along the faint blue artery in his right arm. The fragrance hit me like a brick wall, saliva forming in my mouth, urging me to take what I could of the liquid that was now hanging out my passenger side window.

It was pungent, warm, and metallic, the typical smell of blood. The iron in it was rich, that much I could tell. A faint trace of ozone lingered there behind that almost acrid scent, a reminder that magic flowed through Mew’s veins, even if it was faint. I wondered if Cadence’s would smell stronger since she had better control on her magic. But it wouldn’t have that punch of coffee and baked goods that I always associated with Mew, who now smelled like a bakery that had a murder scene in it.

My fingers tightened on the steering wheel, something I had to do to prevent myself from grabbing Mew and pulling him close to me to drink from him. I had better control than my instincts. I was in charge of myself. The warm wind entering through the window was helpful in keeping my head cleared, although it did bring the fragrance back to my senses, smacking me in the face as a reminder of what I couldn’t have, what I wasn’t allowed to partake in.

A whining began in my ear, high pitched and annoying, the way my hearing got when I began to focus on blood. At the corner of my vision, blackness began to fade in, tunnel vision settling in. “Felix, you okay?” Mew called, his voice distant and faint. “I need you to focus, man, come on. You said you’d be good.”

“I-I am,” I choked out, lip trembling. My fangs scratched the inside of my gums. I was fine. I controlled myself, not my disease. I considered Mew’s golden skin and if it would break easily and questioned if he’d put up much of a fight if I did try to take blood from him. He would. I know he’d fight me. That got me to reel myself in, thinking about how much trust he was putting into me and knowing that everything we had constructed on this mission would be ripped apart if I crossed that line with him. “I’m fine. I’m good now.”

I glanced at him, his eyes a faint red and gold blend and those glyphs having returned to his jawline. Guilt settled in my stomach that I had frightened him with the way I behaved, but he smirked, the top and bottom canines in his mouth grown in longer. “You always know how to piss me off,” he murmured, my skin prickling with the sudden uptick of magic coming from him, a blanket of warmth covering my bones. I could only imagine how much better it would have felt if that magic was inside of my own veins, but the thought stayed in my head. “Hopefully this works.”

“Sound a little more confident,” I chided, my voice tight and my lips close together to prevent my fangs from scraping against my lips again. They hurt when I had to retract them, the tips always sharp and half of the tooth still rooted in the gum when I wasn’t using them. Fully extended, it made my speech awkward and painful, giving me a strong lisp that caused me to become reticent. I winced as they began retreating into my gums, hoping nothing would trigger the canines to act up again.

“I’ll be confident once we have Layla and Adrianna. Pull off at this rest stop.”

“Why? Do you smell them?” I did as requested, turning on my blinker and steering towards the almost-vacant stop, lit by blinding lampposts.

“I smell another demon and lots of blood.” Mew reached into my glove department and grabbed two sets of handcuffs, reinforced with diamond to prevent any escape. He got out of the car, shaking his right hand voraciously, flinging drops of blood across the pavement. “You coming or letting me handle this alone?”

I rolled up his window and shut off the car, joining him on the sidewalk. All around us, there was the odor of blood, no longer fresh, but undeniably demon. It had that same tang of magic to it like Mew’s currently bloodied wrist. “I thought they were going to keep this demon alive,” I commented. “Madeline said they wanted to bring it to the meeting.”

“Most vampires don’t have the same restraint as you.” His wrist had closed finally, the blood sticking to his wrist as it dried. His eyes met mine, like he knew that I wanted to lap up the dried blood like a starving dog. He didn’t say anything to me, only stuffed the handcuffs in his pocket and took off in the direction of the blood. I knew part of him was regretting having me along. With Marigold, he would never have to worry about his well-being or me trying to harm him.

Just our luck, we were headed into the trees. Surrounding the rest stop was a thick entanglement of woods, so crowded with trees and foliage that we were maybe twenty feet into the thicket that it became hard to see the road and glowing lights in the parking lot. Mew had to pull branches aside for me, and several times, I had to stop him from walking into a spiderweb with a rotund banana spider resting in it.

“The blood is getting stronger,” he commented, swatting at a few mosquitoes that kept landing on him. It was September, and the heat was high, the humidity was thick, and the bugs were obnoxious. All around us, the cicadas and crickets chirped and buzzed, and the sound of owls communicating filled the woods. Sweat had beaded on Mew’s forehead, making me feel bad that it was almost impossible for me to perspire.

This was my comfort zone. The woods were always my place of Zen, even as we walked into what was possibly a trap or a murder scene. If it was twenty degrees cooler and less insect-filled, it would have reminded me heavily of my European childhood, hiding away in the forests as I traveled with my parents. “Have you ever been to Europe, Mew?” I asked softly, sidestepping a thorny bush.

“A few times, yeah. Mostly as a kid, so a good three hundred years. I’m sure nothing has changed.” He raised a tree branch for us, letting me step in front of him. The scent of magic was stronger here, overpowering the bloody one.

I held up a fist, stopping him in his tracks. With two fingers, I pointed to our right, starting in that direction due to a crosswind that had blown that fragrance right past my nose. There was lots of blood. They did a sloppy job, that much I could tell. A good vampire, even in a rush, didn’t let blood go to waste. If they were leaving as much as I was suspecting, they weren’t drinking because they were hungry. They were doing it for sport now.

The carnage was more than I was prepared for, however. “Mew, stop,” I hissed quickly as I stepped into a small clearing. All around me, blood flooded my senses, weighing heavily on my taste buds, wafting up my nose, painting my vision. There was so much of it, everywhere, like a slaughterhouse scene gone wrong. The leaf bedding squelched underfoot as I approached the corpse, strung from the ankles on a low-lying branch. My teeth ached as my focus switched into keeping my fangs locked up into my gums.

Behind me, the spike of energy made my hair rise, and I wouldn’t have needed to be able to see in the dark to spot the two glowing eyes behind the layer of trees. Mew realized what had happened in this clearing. He had only seen pictures before this, and now it was the real thing right in front of him: a demon murdered and left to rot off the side of the Interstate. Somehow, he maintained his composure, not blinking or speaking as he came closer to the body. Quick as lightning, jarring me, he used his claws to cut the victim from the tree, catching them before the body could hit the ground.

The demon was a woman, with long chestnut hair like Cadence’s, but her complexion was darker than Mew’s sister. Like with previous corpses, this one had the eyes and horns removed, although her nails were still intact, painted a pale pink. Empty eye sockets stared upwards at the sky, and Mew drew them closed with his fingers. He was being gentle, given the situation.

Mew’s own large eyes were scanning the woods around us, absently taking in the copious amounts of blood splattered across the leaves and branches. “Call the Atlanta chief and request a coroner,” he muttered, standing up again, leaving the corpse on the ground. My head was clouded with the intensity of the blood, which he must have noticed because he finally didn’t hesitate in touching me, settling his hand on my shoulder. I felt the warmth of his skin through my shirt, and it was every bit of comforting as I had imagined. “I know this is hard. I need you to help me, though. I’m about to lose my absolute shit, so you gotta keep me grounded.”

The buzzing in my head began to settle while his image became a lot sharper, not just a blur surrounded by red. Licking my lips, I patted my pockets, warmth rising to my face at the absence of my phone. “I left it in the car. Do you—”

“I don’t have mine. Hurry and get yours.” His tone was too even, reminiscent of how he had sounded in the midst of his panic attack a few weeks prior. As much as it bothered me to leave him here alone to retrieve one of our phones, I knew it had to be done because he asked me to, and he wanted to pay respects to the female demon now lying dead on the ground. He would be fine for the few moments that I would be gone.

When I had the phone, I considered just calling the Chief of Police then, but something tingled inside of me, warning me to get back to Mew. It wasn’t right to leave him alone right now, not when we were unsure of the whereabouts of Layla and Adrianna. I found him kneeling again over the body of the other demon, pushing her dark hair back from her face. He must have known I had returned but made no indication of caring.

“When Cadence and I moved here twenty years ago, we thought we’d be safe,” he admitted, voice tender, the thickness of the air stopping the sound waves from carrying too far. “Nobody picks on demons. We’re scary creatures from ancient times, and we believed that for so long. Then I got attacked by Richard, and my parents almost had me come home. I told them I’d be fine. I had my job, I was finally officially on my own. And Cade and I were good, all up until now. Now I’m thinking maybe Hell is the safer option until this is all over.”

My stomach tightened at the same time my heart dropped. It was selfish of me to try to convince him to stay here in this dimension when demons were getting killed, but wasn’t I allowed to want things, even if they were unreasonable? I wanted to be granted that freedom to just be selfish and tell him to stay and that I would always keep him safe if he did stay here. I couldn’t have that, though. It wasn’t fair to him. It wasn’t right of me to use my emotions to attempt to sway him, no matter how disheartened it made me.

“I promise we’ll take care of this,” I whispered, one step closer to him. This would have been the time in a movie or TV show where I would have snagged him up into my arms and gave him a lingering kiss, convincing him that I was the sole reason he should give up everything and stay. I couldn’t bring myself to move any closer. “I don’t want—” I froze, a new odor penetrating the blood and magic that surrounded us.

My attention turned from Mew to the new smell I had picked up on—another vampire was in the area. It seemed one of the girls had finally joined us, although there wasn’t much time to react as she appeared by Mew, claws ripping into his bicep, tearing the fabric of his shirt. “Dammit,” I hissed, Mew choking back a holler and grabbing his open wound with his free hand. “Are you okay?”

“Glad I’m not human,” my partner murmured, checking his hand for blood, seeing that he was bleeding freely now. “Fuck, you got some sharp claws. You Adrianna or Layla?” The gentle moment between us had yet again passed by like the breeze on a hot summer day: brief, but lovely. Now he had returned to his more natural state: angry, annoyed, and all these other negative emotions that I had no right or reason to be so attracted to.

“Who’s asking?” She was shorter than Marigold, barely five feet, her long blond hair pulled into a high ponytail that gave her three extra inches and exercise clothes adorning her athletic body. She didn’t look any different from a girl I’d see at the gym, other than the fangs and the hatred in her eyes. This was Adrianna, I remembered. She wasn’t as dressed up as she had been at the meeting last week, but this was certainly her.

“I mean, obviously we’re asking. You’re wanted by the Mazerene courts for the murders of multiple demons across Georgia.” Mew removed the first set of handcuffs from his pocket, holding them up for her. “You can come with us quietly, which we’ll make note of for your court ruling, and that’s far more preferable.”

“Is that why you lured me here with your blood?” she asked softly, rotating her neck and wrists. “I like a little bit of a challenge, and you do smell yummy.” She eyed Mew, making me step defensively towards him. “Look yummy, too.”

“Ah, yes, I’ve tailored my appearance in the hopes that a vampire would find me yummy.”

“Sarcasm isn’t attractive. It’s a sign of fear or vulnerability, and some people use it as a defense mechanism whenever they’re feeling particularly threatened.” Adrianna came closer, cocking her hip as she planted herself firmly in front of Mew, jabbing her fingers into his chest. “Are you scared of me?”

“You a therapist or some shit?” the demon growled, appearing almost ready to break her wrist if she moved again. Those nails of his elongated while his eyes became that pale blend of golden and red.

“A previous social worker for abuse victims. I hear you’ve been abused before by my leader.” Her big gray eyes, almost a pale blue, searched Mew’s face, and his throat jumped when she changed her focus to me. “And you. Are you his escort or something? Making sure he stays in his lane so he doesn’t attack us mean ol’ vampires?” Before either of us could react, she had her hand cupping Mew’s cheek, rubbing her thumb directly beneath his eye. “The eyes of those other demons were such mundane colors. Yours will be a lot more interesting to have.”

I wasn’t sure which one of us struck first -- if it was me grabbing at Adrianna or Adrianna scratching Mew across the face or Mew digging his claws into Adrianna’s throat. All I saw was blood as it scattered across my face, and I wiped it off quickly enough to catch Mew pinning Adrianna to the ground. Her body became an unrecognizable blur when she moved, Mew’s body being tossed atop the corpse. I couldn’t get to him before Adrianna had lodged a stick into the gash on Mew’s arm, the demon having to clench his teeth to prevent from yelling out.

“I’m gonna fuck you up so badly, you won’t know your own fuckin’ name,” he threatened, yanking the stick out from the cut and tossing it aside.

“I thought demons were supposed to heal quickly. Do you have some performance anxiety?” she asked, leaning over Mew, hand poised to strike again if she needed to. “Didn’t you end up in the hospital last time you fought a vampire? Why is that?” His throat was now cupped tightly in her hand, and I finally forced my body to move from the shock of everything suddenly going into motion, tackling Adrianna away from Mew to give him a moment to recover. “Are you going to go against your own kind?” she asked as I pinned her shoulders to the ground.

“You ask a lot of stupid questions,” I hissed, placing my palm on her face. I wanted to shred her, the haze of red in my mind pushing for more bloodshed. Mew’s wound had begun to bleed again from Adrianna’s assault on it, making my head swim. That was three times now that I smelled his blood and was unsure if I could suppress the need for it.

“You’re turning against your species to guard a demon. Do you use him as your personal blood bank?” She had me on my back quicker than I was able to respond, forearm on my throat, nails raised over my stomach, as if my response would determine if she would plunge them into my guts or not.

“Of course not. I’m not a goddamn monster like you and that cult you’re part of.” I have to say, I’ve been shot multiple times in my life, both as a human and vampire, but having someone dive their fingers into my entrails probably hurt worse. Half of her hand was inside of me, and I couldn’t lower my voice when she jerked her hand to the side. Trying to pull her hand out was futile, her fingers only reaching deeper the more I tried grabbing at her wrists.

The only thing that stopped the squirming fingers in my intestines was the resounding bang of a gun going off, the odor of gunpowder mingling with the different bloods that had been spilled.

Mew stood over me and the limp body of Adrianna, half of her skull now missing. She wasn’t dead since we as vampires unfortunately didn’t die that easily, but she would certainly be out until her body healed itself, giving us several hours. Those short horns of Mew’s had reappeared on his head, and the black glyphs seemed to have grown further onto his face. “Sorry, you’re gonna have to fill out that paperwork now,” he murmured, panting. He scrubbed a hand over his face to remove some of Adrianna’s blood, then helped me to my feet, my knees wobbling like a newborn horse. “You good?”

I nodded, covering up the hole in my stomach with my hand. Already, my body was trying to repair the torn skin and organs, the pain thankfully mild. Rebuilding the stomach lining and skin was simple, whereas Adrianna’s body had to fix bone and brain, something far more complex. “Good shot,” I said softly, looking now at the blood on my hands. I didn't know where the blood on my clothes started as mine and ended as Adrianna’s. “You shot her for me.”

“You were in trouble. I’ll shoot her fuckin’ head off every day if I have to,” Mew offered, finally putting away his gun, sighing as he did. “Now we have to figure out how to get her back to the car with half her head gone and us just. . .bathed in blood, lookin’ like Sissy Spacek out here.” He scowled at me, then swiped his fingers down my cheek, wiping off what I saw to be another hunk of brain now lying on the ground.

“You like horror movies?” I asked gently, keeping the shock at bay as best as I could. Watching someone’s head explode just a foot from you can really mess with you, even if they were going to come back. I had watched people starve to death and be shot in the back and their limbs—the head was a new one. It didn’t particularly smell, nothing short of raw meat, but the imagery would certainly stick. I felt bad for anyone who decided to go hiking in these woods and stumbled upon the carnage.

“That’s what you’re focusing on?” Mew grumbled, closing his eyes. I saw now that his lips were trembling, which carried down to his arms and hands. He breathed in deeply through his nose and flexed his fingers. “Okay, let’s be sure to call the Chief of Police now and fill her in on what happened. We’ll stay until she and the coroner get here, then get Anne Boleyn here back to Mazerene.”

I peered at him, not resisting the smile that pushed itself to my lips. “Were you trying to make a joke about her missing most of her head?”

He sighed and rolled his eyes. “I just shot someone in the head and found a murder scene. Cut me some slack if my puns aren’t up to par tonight.”

“I personally would’ve gone with Medusa, but good try.” I handed off my phone to Mew, now distracted by the two rings that had come from Adrianna’s back pocket. “Would it be a little creepy to read her phone?”

“I view it as evidence. It could be Layla or Richard texting her.” He traded my phone with Adrianna’s, caring less about privacy than I did, apparently. All rules of this must have left the area once he saw the dead body. He even went as far as to use Adrianna’s limp fingers to unlock her phone. “Oh, well that’s fuckin’ delightful.”

“What’s up?” I extended my hand for the phone, disliking the grim expression that had crossed his face.

On the screen, the contact read Richard, just like Mew had suspected.

Adrianna had texted him just a few minutes before, prior to the attack. A picture of Mew was sent as an attachment, albeit a bit dim because of how dark it was around us. I could still spot the white hair and the bright crimson eyes, regardless of the lowlight. It was taken from above, like she had been in a tree, watching and waiting. Found your boy was the text that accompanied the picture.

I’ve missed him was all Richard had sent back.

I really didn’t feel bad about dropping Adrianna’s phone. I barely opened my mouth before Mew shook his head. “We’ll talk about this later. One thing at a time.”

“Mew,” I started as he stood tall, towering over me. I had to clench my fists tight to stop from grabbing him.

“Felix. Later.” His voice was weak and small, more powerful to me than if it had been loud and demanding. A quiet Mew was a worrisome Mew.