Chapter 25 – Luna
Chapter Twenty-Five
Luna
I sat in the back of a cab on the way home, trying to figure out what precisely I’d tell Paco when he woke up.
I knew I couldn’t lie to him. But there had to be an easier way to present the truth than: Hi, yeah, we’ve lost your boyfriend. He may be in another dimension somewhere? But not hell, so that’s good, right? Oh, and also, you were being played, so it’s kind of your fault. Mine too!
Plus, who knew what kind of wreck his life was right now, personally? And it wouldn’t help that he’d likely wake up starving.
At least that last part I could fix.
Maybe.
I blew air through pursed lips, let myself back in Jack’s apartment door, and went through my extensive personal roster from having been a vampire’s long term number one sidekick.
First things first—physical comforts.
I went into Jack’s room and tossed on the light, finding Paco asleep in Jack’s coffin. He hadn’t bothered pulling the lid on and even dead he looked distressed.
“Poor fucking bastard,” I muttered as I picked his clothes up. He and Jack were different sizes. If I did his laundry, he’d at least have something clean to wear when he woke up this evening.
I unlaced his belt and freed it, tossing it onto the bed, and fished around doing a pocket check—when I found something and pulled it out.
A faceted stone I recognized, dangling from a chain.
It glimmered underneath Jack’s piss-poor apartment lighting pretty much like my hope did, and I instantly dropped the slacks.
This could change the game.
I’d managed to set the stage before Paco woke up and came out into the living room, and the sheer look of relief he had at seeing me made me feel a little queasy, because I didn’t really deserve to ever have anyone look at me like that.
Then again—
“Where the fuck did all these candles come from?” he asked, taking in the rest of the room.
“Yeah, about that . . . I bought a Costco out. I also bought a Costco membership for myself. Thanks.”
“Do I want to know why?” he asked, as he tilted his head.
“You do—but you’re a lot taller than I am. Go take the batteries out of all the smoke detectors first,” I said, sitting down on the couch to pat a warehouse-store-sized box of matches his credit card had also purchased.
He gave me a wary look, but then went back into the bedroom to do as he was told—which was the only place that’d been safe from my “let’s try magic” scheming.
Otherwise, there were candles on every flipping surface in Jack’s house—the kitchen table, the top of the fridge, the counters, his desk, on top of his monitor, all over his coffee table, which I’d pulled to one side, and on the little bit of tile around his entryway—I wasn’t sure how many of the candles were required for magic, versus just setting the mood, but I didn’t want me being cheap to fuck it all up.
By the time Paco returned with two nine volts in hand, I was braced.
“So there’s a chance Jack’s alive.”
He surged towards me with frightening purpose. “Where?” he demanded, and I could sense he wanted to whammy me to take me to him.
“That’s the problem. No one knows. The Faithful are working on it, but I figured we should work some too, ourselves.” I fished the gemstone out of my pocket. “This is how you found me, right?”
“Yeah. Because I bled you.”
I nodded. “Well, as Jack’s creation, you’ve got a little bit of his blood inside you, too.”
“Which means we can reverse this?” he said, snatching the stone out of my hands.
“Easy there, tiger,” I said, taking it back. “We can, theoretically, but it’s going to take some work.”
He eyed me dourly and one of his eyebrows quirked. “Of what nature?”
“You could either go and find a couple virgins to sacrifice—although in this town, at this time of night, good luck—or you could sleep with someone who also likes Jack like you do, who happens to live a few doors down.”
Paco’s expression dropped. “I don’t want to involve that kid again,” he said and closed his eyes.
I waited meaningfully until he’d opened them back up. “If you keep calling him that, when he’s not, this is never going to work,” I said, and I watched his jaw grinding. “He doesn’t have to be your equal, Paco. You just need to accept that he’s Jack’s ‘and,’” I said, and he frowned.
“It’s not just that, Luna. What if we involve him and bad stuff happens?” His full lips pursed. “No one wants Jack back more than me. No one. But—”
I reached up and put a hand over his mouth. “It’s a lot, right? Can’t even decide who you’re going to trust with the knowledge of your curse, much less your heart? Sound like anyone you know?” I asked, and when he nodded, I dropped my hand.
“It’s harder on this side of things than I thought it’d be,” he confessed, then swallowed, and I thought I saw a little bit of light cross his face, without a single candle going. “But . . . if he’s out there . . . and we can get him back . . .”
“Exactly,” I said, jerking my chin toward the door. “So let’s go see what the hot blonde guy down the hall has to say.”
I was the one who knocked.
Now that this was the second time we’d done this, I felt like we were some kind of strange sex missionaries, out here doing the Lord’s work.
Someone shuffled on the door’s other side, and then we heard Zach announce “I don’t want any” after having seen us through the peephole.
I knocked harder before Paco could be tempted to whammy him—we’d gone over the rules for the evening, and everything had to be given freely, or it wouldn’t work: which meant we had to legitimately clue Zach in.
“Yeah, you do,” I said, still knocking.
He groaned and I heard a latch slide. “What?” he asked, opening the door a crack, looking pretty much how Paco felt.
I belatedly remembered that Jack had gone and broken up with him—which explained how come the “I’ve been crying” bags under his eyes looked like he’d been three pints of ice cream deep.
“We need to talk,” Paco intoned.
“What does it matter? He doesn’t want to see me again—and it’s all your fault.”
“Yes and no, k—” Paco said, then stopped himself.
“Zach,” he said, with determination. “A really bad thing happened to Jack, and honestly I don’t have anyone else who gets it to talk to.
” Zach blinked a little as Paco went on, some genie inside of him suddenly uncorked.
“And I need your help, because if I can’t fix things.
If I can’t find him again—and if I can’t make things right—then I’d rather be dead than feel like this for an eternity. ”
Zach appeared to carefully weigh Paco’s confession against whatever harm Jack’s rejection had done to his pride—and I suspected his intrinsic kindness would win out.
I didn’t think he’d been in Vegas long enough yet to have fully squashed it, and when he asked, “Did you want to come in?” I knew that I was right.
“Could you maybe come back to our place?” I asked, with feigned timidness and genuine hope.
Zach sighed, then shrugged. “Sure. Why not,” he said, then tucked his feet into flip-flops he had near his door, to followed us back down the hall.
He balked, however, when I opened the door and he saw all the candles.
“Just go inside,” Paco said quietly, and Zach was compelled to obey.
He whirled on the both of us however the second I’d closed the door, and Paco held up his hand.
“I don’t want to have to do that to you again, Zach, ever, but we needed to skip to the part where you just believe what I tell you, because we’re running out of time.”
I slunk off to the kitchen to make myself a sandwich, because if this was ever going to happen in any meaningful way, Paco needed to be the one driving the car.
“Jack’s a vampire,” he announced, and I managed to keep my mouth shut.
Brutal, yet efficient. All right.
“So am I,” he went on—and then he looked at me. “And Luna here’s—some kind of Renfield.”
My jaw dropped like I’d been punched.
“What did you just call me?” I asked, my voice arcing up. I shook my peanut-butter-covered bread at him. “Does this look like bugs to you?” I demanded—and then Zach laughed, almost to the point of tears.
“Y’all are fucking weird,” he said, when he’d recovered. “And while as a gay man, I can appreciate alternative lifestyles, this,” he said, looking around, “this is a choice.”
Paco ran his hands through his hair, and I saw Zach clock the gesture. “And me just ordering you around—”
“Jack has a coffin on his bed,” Zach cut in.
“He’s a magician or some shit, I don’t know, Vegas is a weird place.
Or maybe you all drugged me real fast and somehow got me high—I had groceries delivered earlier today, and I know you can put acid on a lot of things.
Though if you dosed me, I’m going to be pissed. ”
Paco looked to me, and I shrugged. “Go for broke?” I suggested, and Paco turned back to him.
I could feel it in the room when he decided to change.
He wasn’t as smooth as Jack was at it because it wasn’t a part of him yet, so there was a stutter in the surrounding pressure, but it was nothing someone who wasn’t vampire adjacent 24/7 would notice.
“Little human,” Paco told Zach, looming over him, with half a foot and fifty pounds of muscle on him, easily. “Look at my fangs.”
And Zach did as he was told because he couldn’t disobey.
“Oh my God,” he whispered.
“God’s presence in all of this is currently debatable,” I said, swinging back through the living room, to put my back against the door. “So please don’t run away?”
“Are you threatening me?” Zach looked between us. “Am I going to die?”
“Only with a good time, and no,” I said, shoving my sandwich in my mouth.
“Shouldn’t you already be lighting candles?” Paco asked, then added, “Renfield?”
I squinted at him. “I should’ve dragged you out into the sun earlier today, when I had the chance.” But I did as I was told, and then sequestered myself away in Jack’s bedroom, and started pacing, hoping neither one of them would trip on anything and set the place on fire.