Lily's hands were cold. He hesitated only long enough to watch my attention shift suddenly up in surprise. Lips parted with a light inhale just before he touched my cheek. The rain made my hair stringy and the moisture turned my complexion albino pale.

“This...” His fingers ran across my cheekbone as he spoke seriously. Every minute, every second since we had left the meeting he had been studying me. It was an extra unnerving burden on top of a mind racing through the things that had transpired inside the club-- both spoken and unspoken.

“This,” he said again and I knew by now that he did not mean my cheek. “Change nothing. Understand? For me it change nothing.”

But I knew by the very fact that he felt like he had to say that at all, that everything had changed.

I remember more about her than I think I should.

For example I remember noticing the subtle pink thread-like marks on her arm before she pointed them out to Jonah, and her chemically processed black hair. I remember that her stubbornness and indignation made her seem younger than she actually was and that in itself sent a cold shivering stab through me like watching a ghost from the past wonder through a crowd.

But most of all I remember the way Lily watched her as we left. The way his eyes followed the limp ecstasy of each movement, the dissociated numbness of each breath, and the masochistic smile she didn't know she was smiling with a nearly undetectable tremble of envy.

The day had started off normal enough. I overslept and was woken up not by the sound of my alarm but by the infinitely more obnoxious buzzing of the ringtone on my phone. I did not want to get up, but once I saw the number I knew not answering it would be worse than answering it.

“Where's the clip from the Today Show?”

“Huh?” I mumbled. My mouth felt like it was full of cotton.

There was a long stabbing pause on the other end; I felt more and more unnerved for every second longer it grew, blinking the morning blurriness out of my eyes and flailing around in my bed for some point of reference. What day was it? The other side of my bed felt worn, soft and empty in subtle ruts where something was supposed to be and was not.

Jake was gone, when had he left? What time was it?

“You were asleep,” the voice on the phone tensely muttered. It was my boss.

“Umm ... yeah.”

“So you didn't clip Tara Reid's Today Show appearance?”

I yawned, quickly biting my fist to keep a sound from escaping through the phone lines. “Why would Tara Reid be on the Today Show on a Saturday? Today Show doesn't air on Saturdays.”

“It's Friday.”

Oh shit. “....No it's not...”

“Yes it is. So get your cute ass out of bed and clip the fucking Today Show.”

“Okay okay, sorry...” I struggled against the sheets, cotton like fly paper stubbornly keep me trapped. “Didn't Joe do it?”

“I fired Joe last week.”

“.....Really?”

“Yes really.”

“Why?”

“Because, buttercup, I don't know if you've noticed but the economy isn't so good right now.”

“Oh...”

“From now on I want you to come in to work at the office.”

The office? The office? I had never been to the office. I had never seen it. He had hired me after a thirty minute meeting at his favorite snobby elite socialite restaurant where he had coffee and a pastry and I had nothing because never once did the waiter even look at me. I had no idea where the office even was.

“...Is that really necessary? I mean, I get it, I screwed up, but this is the first time and it won't ever happen ag--”

“Be thankful I'm not rehiring Joe.”

With little more than a grunt he hung up.

..............................

Now, don't get me wrong. Normally having my head on the chopping block at work would have been something of an obsessive end-of-the-world crisis, but unfortunately I had already filled my quota for obsessive crises to the point where I actually found myself slightly annoyed that my boss was pulling me out of my blissful freelance existence over the stupid fucking Today Show.

I had better things to worry about.

“I'll be with you in just one moment,” Jonah sighed and waved us towards seats at the bar

Jonah McKenzie was proprietor and bartender of Athame, a vamp bar in the halo buried deep among the underground basements of the corporate world in Midtown Manhattan. There's a weird little bit of symmetry to that-- the real vampires cohabiting with more conventional bloodsuckers like lawyers and middle managers. Jonah told me once he'd picked the neighborhood because club kids like me didn't come up this way and that kept the place quiet and discreet.

I wish I could say that Athame looked like the vamp clubs in fantasy comic books-- draped in velvet and accented with gothic absurdities like human skulls, ivory colored candles burning bright with spider veins of spent wax hardened along the taper and black lace or coffins or crucifixes or something-- but Jonah was not a lifestyler. He was not especially prejudice against them either, but he was also not interested in losing his liquor license when the occasional after-work-drinks crowd rolled in by accident.

I suspect he made more money from bankers and office workers who simply did not realize what an athame was than he ever did or would from us, his own kind and target market.

But then Athame's subtly is the reason why it's practically the only place in the halo I find tolerable. There are big comfy booth couches arranged in horseshoe patterns around the edges of the room with long glamorous curtains running on tracks around each group. The curtains, were left half closed when Jonah set up every night so that the masses in scattered tables by the dance floor could just see a sliver of what and who was beyond, created the feeling that each seating area was its own little catacomb. They were sheer, letting soft light through, giving so inclined pairs enough privacy to feed but discouraging people from doing anything more illicit than that.

Other than that feature, it was outfitted like millions of other clubs and lounges in the city. Lots of graphite grays, reds, oranges and purples. Lots of pillows and cushions. A collection of mundane liquors segregated into top shelves and bottom shelves.

Lily shifted uncomfortably on his bar stool, looking quickly around the room and tapping out the beat of a moody but rhythmic Elefant track on the edge of his glass as it played in the background. He kept saying 'this is nice' or some variant at regular intervals.

I hadn't exactly explained to him where we were going. I didn't want him to freak out. I figured we could just come here around eight or so-- before the night crowd came in but after the work crowd had left-- do business, have a few drinks and leave without Lily getting wise. But maybe it was dumb to think that was even possible.

There were a couple of young vamps hanging around like they had brushed themselves off after being vomited up by Hot Topic. One of them was whispering with Jonah at the edge of the bar. His girl (donor?)-- her artificially black hair and pale anemic skin-- stood next to him and shot glares off in random directions at anyone she could make eye contact with.

Jonah McKenzie is in his late thirties, husky (maybe a tiny bit overweight) with a lingering southern accent that melts the divisions between words and injects unfamiliar slang into his vocabulary. He suffers no fools, something the halo never seems to lack, but has more faith in the power of community than I do.

He has a round, pudgy face and small eyes that are partially obscured by the almond shaped glasses that sit perpetually on the tip of his nose. Jonah has the kind of face that's ignorable; the combination of mousy coloration and Humpty-Dumpty swaying making him practically invisible to unenlightened humans.

The guy handed Jonah a single sheet of paper. From where I was sitting I couldn't read it, but the general shape of the paragraphs told me exactly what it was.

Jonah looked it over, asked to see some ID and then reached below the bar and pulled out a cardboard box.

Now Lily was watching too. Watching as the guy and the moody girl signed and dated on the lines at the bottom of the sheet. Jonah adjusted his glasses, examined the signatures for a moment before pulling a stamp out of the cardboard box and pressing it into the paper. Then he took a plain ballpoint pen out of the box and signed across the stamp.

You see, in addition to running a vampire club, Jonah McKenzie was also the public notary for the halo.

The boy folded the contract and quickly shoved it in his back pocket, giddily pointing toward one of the horseshoe seating cubbies and hauling his girl off with him.

“Sanguinarian?” I asked as Jonah came back.

He nodded. “Sorry about the wait. So...” He tilted his head in Lily's direction. “What's wrong with him?”

“Excuse me?”

“You're back here after such a long time? It's either about the breach or about Tibby--”

I interrupted so quickly I bit into his words. “You heard about the breach?”

“Word travels fast.”

“About somethings,” I muttered.

He moved towards my Ukrainian and poked him curiously in the arm. Lily, whose eyes were sliding from person to person around the room, snapped suddenly to attention.

“He seems okay. If you breached again it doesn't seem so bad.”

“I didn't breach with him.”

“...No? Not him?” Jonah was quick on the uptake. He always had been; didn't need much spelled out. “You mean you have two?”

“Yes.”

“You still have two?”

“Yes. What's your problem?”

“Most people are lucky to find one.”

“Well then I guess I'm extra lucky.”

“Maybe.” He shrugged, and since I hadn't yet owned up to what the problem was he fixed his attention on his books. It was a silent, wordless challenge: I'm busy, either ask for help or don't.

“Jonah.”

“Yes?”

“Can we speak in private?”

He glanced up, eyes staring sharply over the wire brim of his glasses. Suffer no fools, remember? I could flatter myself and claim that never applied to me, but that would have been just flattery. “Of course.”

I waited until he closed the door to his small private office before I spoke again. It's not that I wanted to keep secrets from Lily, it's just that I wanted to hear what he had to say before Lily did. I wanted to get a sense for how badly poor, sweet Lily was going to freak out when I had to tell him.

“It is about him.”

“The boy in the bar?”

“Yes.”

“And what did you do to him?”

“What makes you think I did anything?”

“If you want help, you have to be honest.”

“.... I was feeding...”

Yes ... that much was obvious wasn't it? I attribute Jonah's incredibly charitable patience with me to the fact that he has sort of watched me grow up.

“And...?” he said, no annoyance in his voice.

“He gets happy.”

“That's normal,” Jonah chuckled. “Or any case hardly a concern. What else?”

“Really happy. Like giddy, drunk happy.”

“Tired?”

“No-- And! He doesn't remember.”

“Remember what?”

“When I feed, he blacks out.”

This disturbed the easy rhythm of his mind and his smooth movements around the tiny box like office. “Jesus!” he exclaimed. “You should have started out with that first! Are you taking too much?”

“No.”

“You're sure?”

“Yes.”

“Okay ... I suppose you'd like me to take a look at him?”

“...Yes.”

Jonah stepped around and opened the door to his office. Outside Lily was not where we had left him but lingering close to the edge of one of the curtained off catacombs and staring at the hazy movements inside.

Jonah smiled. “He does know this is a vampire club right?”

“Not exactly.”

“Go get him before he causes a scene.”

When I called him he did not respond. He was utterly transfixed by the scene playing out through the peepshow slit view as the curtains moved. I gasped as I drew closer.

Blood.

The girl with the black hair and the pale skin had a razor blade pinched between two fingers. Her arm was extended out like a classic Greek statue, her eyes closed and her lips baby pink and slightly parted. The lips of her boyfriend pressing hard against the unfreckled skin of the underside of her arm made gluttonous and obscene sucking noises

When he pulled back the thin wound was pink and light traces of loose fluidly blood were still coming out.

“Lily!” I pulled him away. I pulled us both away.

A sanguinarian. A blood-feeder. I knew the likelihood of running into one of them here was high. I knew that boy was one of them. But seeing that and I knowing Lily had seen it ... well, I hadn't wanted Lily to see that. At all. Ever.

“He drink ... blood,” Lily replied, leaving a gap between the sound and meaning that could have been awe or fear. “Her blood. He drink her blood.”

“Yes,” Jonah said. “He drinks blood.” And before Lily could ask what he was obviously thinking about he added, “Clare does not.”

“Oh...”

“There are different types,” I said. “Energy feeders, blood feeders, and hybrids.”

“Oh...”

I think he was in shock, which was exactly why I never wanted him to see this. It's more innocent than it sounds: you lose more blood from a bad paper cut than you do from a blood feeder. Sanguinarians need to feed less often and have a whole assortment of rules. They are also the most hygienically obsessed people I have ever met, but none of that matters because the fact remains that they drink human blood.

Jonah understood my desire to avoid dwelling on this topic and quickly gestured for Lily to follow us back into the privacy of his office.

“What's your name kid?”

“Illya.”

“Okay Illya, Clare tells me you've been having memory problems?”

The Ukrainian nodded.

“Any other problems you haven't told her about maybe? Feeling sick? Light headed? Bad dreams?”

He breathed slowly through his mouth, thoughts still reviewing the scandalous things he had just seen. “No.” Pause. “Nothing.” Pause. “I am fine.”

Jonah smiled. “Do you mind if I check?”

“Check?”

“Yes. Check to see if you're fine.”

Lily blinked quizzically at me and lightly caught his tongue between his teeth before turning back to Jonah and asking suspiciously, “You are ... doctor?”

“Sort of.” He slapped his desk with the palm of his hand and waved Lily forward. “Something like that. Come here.”

He sat down on the desk, stiff, suspicious but it was his acceptance of the matter that I found the most alarming. This was not the sort of world that came to you naturally, nor was it the sort of world where you go with the flow when it comes to new things. Any reasonable person would have immediately resisted, questioned, maybe even interrogated Jonah to find the scam. Lily did none of these things, which meant he either trusted me completely or maybe there was something seriously wrong.

The fact he had not run screaming at the sight of the sanguinarian-- frankly-- concerned me.

Jonah's hands hovered over his back and shoulders, moving up and down and stroking the layer of air above Lily's clothing. He never once touched him, but on occasion Lily would flinch or shift as if he did.

“Channels are intact,” Jonah noted with a soft hum. “Energy is a little weird though.”

“Weird how?”

“Well ... It's too good.”

I snorted. Jonah ignored me, stepped back in front and look over Lily again.

“Illya?”

“Yes?”

“Do you get depressed?”

“Uhhg?”

“Do you get depressed?”

“....maybe sometimes.”

“Uh-huh...” He nodded in my direction. “Does she take that feeling away?”

“Yes,” Lily said slowly. “But that normal, yes? It is normal for ... lovely people to make you not sad.”

Mistakes and all, it was the first time Lily had said, or even indicated, that he loved me. It made my heart race and my body go cold. The look Jonah gave me-- though not judgmental, cruel, or condemning itself-- made me feel like I had been strung up and disemboweled.

“Stay here a minute Illya, we're going to go talk outside.”

Lily frowned. “...Okay.”

As we stepped back into the club, Jonah held the door until it closed without a single sound and smiled condescendingly at me. “I knew if you ever found a regular partner, we'd finally see what kind of person you are behind all that childhood angst and bombast. And now we have: you're a fiddler.”

“Excuse me?”

“You've been fiddling with him, pushing his emotions around, taking certain ones away, putting things in him he doesn't feel. He's your little fixer-upper.”

I was embarrassed to be labelled so plainly, even if I didn't quite see how this was a bad thing.

“Is it so wrong to just want him to be happy?”

“There's happy and then there's programmed. I think you should take his memory loss as a signal that you're moving too far over that line.”

“And what about--”

I came just close enough to saying it to shoot myself in the foot. Jonah raised an eyebrow and folded his arms over his chest. His bicep muscles bulged from under his shirt like a cartoon strongman. “What about, what?”

“Last time I fed...”

“Go on.”

“He got really ... hungry.”

“Hungry or hungry?”

“I don't know ... maybe it wasn't really food-hungry, but I made the mistake of...”

When I trailed off and couldn't start up again, Jonah just rolled his eyes, went to the bar, unscrewed the cap of a half empty bottle of Johnnie Black and poured out two glasses. “Might as well tell me and just get it over with.”