[8/17/461 AC, 9:25 PM]

  “Get away from . . . her?” Thalia roar-squeaks, her voice faltering. All I can catch is the glint of a dark barrel and a shimmer of golden myst . . . before a flurry of dragging cws, and fur like burned lichen, ripples past her. Panting. Drooling. Emerald eyes, wreathed in sickly smog. As it scrapes the linoleum with long finger-like paws.

  My drummer friend is pointing an ear-ringing revolver at my forehead . . . and there's a eight-foot-something werewolf charging us.

  So, no makeout session for me.

  Well . . . fuck.

  “Ha.” Bea chuffs, as her elbow bashes the beast in the jaw, sending it sprawling to the side and into her stted closet door, which in turn crumples. “Knew y'all were listening.”

  “Corri!” Thalia yelps as she runs over to the pile of stumbling fur and fallen clothes. Digging out the grumbling half-wolf. As it groggily . . . winks at me.

  Teeth sharp, set in a scrunched snout, but the Saints fucking annoying smile.

  Wait.

  WAIT

  That's Corri!?

  “The fuck happend to them?” I mutter. Before realizing the obvious. Every member of HIGH STAKES is a Winnower, and clearly all contract Hunters, FAGGs. Bea’s aether is blue, a Memetic; Thalia is yellow mist, an Esper. They were trying to recruit me to the band. Their hunting crew. My own breath, besides the bck smoke of undeath, is tinged red, a Kinetic. Which leaves only one Winnower type, one Aspect, unaccounted for in the hunting party.

  Green aether. The Myst of liars and monsters.

  A Shifter.

  “Asks the bloodsucking murdering corpse?” I’m snapped out of my neurodivergent train of thought, as Thalia gres at me, pyrite haze fading, before slowly turning to look at the chucking keyboardist in bck. “Bumble . . . why is Annie a vamp???”

  Bea opens her mouth the reply, but I answer first my fingers trace over the scars on my neck. “I was murdered.”

  “Fuck.” She says through her thumb as she begins to gnaw on her nail.

  “Yeah I’m not a fan of being dead either.” I fiddle with my hair, looping it around my fingers. “Kinda blows up my college pns. Like can I even go out in the su—”

  “No, I mean, you weren't supposed to die.”

  “We don't have time to deal with your Esper nonsense.” Bea gruffed.

  “Hey, give her some credit love.” Caorri groaned, as shaggy fur rewove into a vest and scks, and a blood trickled smile. “Her winnowing is more apt than yours. Ms-Forgetful-Mcstabby.”

  “Like you’re any be—” She chuffed. Stepping forward, and stopping. Halting in pce, as her grey eye flicked back to me for a moment. “Nevermind. We’re short on time.”

  “I mean yeah Meadows is a murder suspect and leech. If we don't at least take her in then the BOTEMS will.”

  I fiddle with my sleeve.

  “I didn't murder the wizard.” My lips quiver, as my teeth glint.

  “Well that's obvious” Thalia sighed. “You weren't even a vampire yesterday when he was killed. Even if you're a Ripper, that's not who chronology works.”

  “You did murder three Bureau agents. Like horrifically.” Bea chuffs. “Surprised you didn't puke.” As the taste of blood, vodka, and birthdaycake all mix with the lingering sour of stomach acid.

  I groan. “Not helping.”

  “Neither will Bea’s old man hunting us down, but what are you going to do. Y'know?” Corri shrugged.

  “Kill me?” I shrug back, ughing nervously.

  “Kill her?” Thalia replies insinch, holstering her gun. “Joking.”

  “Tried that. . . Again sorry Annie.” Bea said.

  “Saints No. Gods you all are mad. I doubt Meadows has murdered beyond defending herself, I doubt she was trying to devour Baker. At least in that way. And frankly a few decades ago and it would be my head on the bulletin beside hers. We don't kill Sophont-Cryptids unless we need to. Even Leech– Vampires.”

  “Fair,” Thalia’s eyes flickered bright. “Her dying again . . . would just complicate things. With her around . . . there's still a shot. We need to get to the Hideaway.”

  “I feel really out of the loop. Why are we going to my Aunt’s shop?” I question . . . not quite sure how a magickal thrift shop will save my ass. “A shot for what?”

  “To meet your maker.” A voice crackles from the doorway, and familiar dark eyes from the bus. A boy dressed in bck and red. Smelling putrid and sterile. Earilie cold, a corpse.

  As Corri growls, and lunges.

  * * *

  [8/17/461 AC, 9:36 PM]

  “Go go go!” Corri bellows from behind me, as I hear a squeltch of him smashing vampiric flesh against brick, as I scramble into the rickety car's passenger seat. “You motherloving cunts! Drive!” My fingers gripp into the worn fabric.

  “Roll up the windows!” Thalis shouts as a shot rings from her window, sending one of our pursuers sprawling with a screech and a spatter of oozing blood. She only hisses, sight glimmering. As the revolver clicks.

  “Fuck fuck fuck!” Bea shouts. As the car roars forward, and Corri leaps into the open trunk. “Address!” A swarm of a dozen figures runs after us. I can hardly think as my temple beats groggily. The blood, hot and alive, simmering around me. As cortisol floods the arteries of the bodies surrounding me, echoing in the aluminum chassis.

  My eye twitches. Something drips onto my thigh.

  Shimmering drool on freckled skin.

  Fuck we’re salviting.

  I flip around back, twisting my wrist as the left legs of three of the vamps follow the same motion, and snap. Like a glowstick. “2673 3rd Street!”

  `”Left!” Thalia shouts, Bea spins that wheel, as another car on the empty street blurs past, scraping the paint job as it flies. Residential blocks giving way to bars and stores and we head downtown.

  “Pick up” I plead to the aether and my half-busted phone. As I hear the soft click of the call connecting. “Auntie O!”

  “Andromeda!” Or’s shout rings from the warped speakerphone. Worry woven into her every word. I can almost see her freckled face and hazel eyes . . . so much like mom. “Are you okay?!”

  “I’m with Bea and he— our friends.” I stumble over my words as we twist around the bend. Bullets firing and wheels screeching. Gss and metal cracking. “We’re on our way over. Just . ..”

  “Take the way under Gheras Bridge.” The call cuts with a beep . . . as my phone then finally dies.

  Greeaaaat.

  “Heads up on the right!” Corri barks from the trunk. I can make out their mismatched silhouette in the high beams as they swat it back.

  Metal scraping and crashing.

  Light flickers and bursts in amber sparks.

  “On it!” The car twists down a side street. Red hair flutters into my mouth, as I look up. The dark sky freckles with stars, cut by the bridge’s concrete form.

  We barrel towards the underpass. As a bck van crumpling into the pilr.

  “Woah!! Shit!! Bloody leeches!” Someone shouts as the world billows with pink and red fog, choking as it sms into and through the window, shattering.

  “Shit!” In an instant my forehead cracks into the dash. Iron ooze kers my mouth, as for instance I bck out.

  The car lurches to a halt. Outside the window isn't the cluttered city streets alive in the te summer air. Packed with college students. All around me is dust swirling like glitter stars in the dying high beams. Books, and bobbles, and trinkets strawn about, as I stumble out the bent door.

  I wipe blood from my forehead. Almost bck, it sticks between my fingers. It smells like rot. Worse than all the other blood surrounding me. Like a month old orange in a sad of fresh fruit.

  Bea grumbles as she steps out of the car. Sighing as she looks at her car. Corri ys a meter back sparawd on tip of a run over shelf, flung from the car as it nded. Thalia is unconscious in the back seat. Forehead lightly bleeding. My eyes keep flickering around the dim enclosed room. Familiar. One of the storage spaces I'd mucked about in countless times. When customers were few and far between.

  We're in the Hideaway.

  “Starshine . . .”

  * * *

  [8/17/461 AC, 9:54 PM]

  Cinnamon.

  Cardamom.

  Ginger.

  And clove.

  I can't bring myself to sip the warm drink from the green mug. And ruin it. Remembering the remains of st night’s vanil cake. So instead I drink up the spiced smell and the warmth against my icy fingers. Trying to melt into the wicker chair.

  And hopefully . . .

  Before . . . everything.

  “Tea or coffee?” A soft click as Or lights the corner-kept iron stove. She won't look at me. Not since she saw what I am. Gncing only to Bea, before she returns to the break room cupboard. Shifting her glittery ginger and lic shawl.

  “Coffee please.” Bea replies, her voice oddly quiet. As her height is scrunched into her leather jacket, like a nervous rabbit. As Thalia and Corri y unconscious and bandaged on a nearby cot.

  “So . . . Starshine.” She turns around and sighs. “Let’s get ready to take out your sire.”

  “What?” I drop my mug, spshing on the embroidered tablecloth. “You’re weirdly on board with this.”

  “Well, ideally you wouldn't have been targeted or turned.” She pours coffee off the stove and into a mug, setting it in Bea’ hands as she then leans against the counter. Taking in her own mug slowly between pursed lips. “But Ms Barlow isn't one to come to court. So dragging in her corpse is really the only way to get those mages and hunters off your back.”

  “You know who she is?”

  “You could say that.” “We dated for a bit at one point.”

  “You dated a vampiric crime lord?” Bea chuffed.

  “Well she was just a bloodrunner when we met.” She fiddles with her bracelets. “We didn't end on good terms. But we haven't talked in almost a decade.”

  “Is that why I was murdered?” “Not just to be a scapegoat for the killing of some rich politician i've never heard of. But alos to fuck with you?”

  “Annie…” Bea’s eyebrows crease, her face sharp in the dim light.

  “I’m not going to say sorry.” She turns off the stove, as she steps through the curtain and into the font of the shop. “That won't fix anything. I can't leave the Hideaway right now. The truce is already breaking. But I can help.”

  “Help how?” Bea and I follow, as I step behind the counter of my workpce. Rows of clothes from the past few decades, and an assortment of antiques. The goods purchased by the majority of patrons. Though the store right now is closed. Illuminated by blinking bulbs and the faded blue neon of the club across the street.

  “Beside supplies I have information.” Or pulls out an assortment of enchanted trinkets from behind the counter. Including a revolver, a sword, a ring, and a bottle of churning silver, id out on bck velvet cloth. “Scarlette Barlow is hosting a cryptid masquerade tonight. She won't miss making an appearance. And you can take my bike.” She pulls out her keys, and clicks them, as the crimson motorcycle chained outside the main window, beeps twice.

  Bea, weakly, smiles.