The Rose Moon

Chapter One

Wulff Vauer was about as socially skilled as a misbehaved donkey in a field full of thoroughbreds, but he was still the first person I called in a crisis.

When the invitation appeared on my desk in a pocket-sized light green envelope, I thought nothing of it. Maybe I'd overlooked it when I was packing up my files – maybe the receptionist had dropped it off on her way out when she'd left ten minutes before. A myriad of explanations went through my mind, but none of them were sinister.

When I broke the seal and read the words within, I immediately picked up my cellphone and scrambled to find Wulff's contact, a photo of him with red cheeks and bleary eyes popping up as I tried not to panic. What Wulff lacked in common sense, he made up for by being wicked smart, and this was right up his alley.

"Stay there," he told me sternly, "I'll be there in an hour."

Eager to hear how much shit I was in, Wulff came over right on time, giving me a sarcastic grin before I even explained anything. I'm sure the horror on my face said it all.

Sitting across from me at my desk, he looked like he usually did – almost put together. The pressed navy blue dress shirt he was wearing complimented the hints of green in his hazel eyes, but somewhere along the line between waking up and arriving at my office he missed a buttonhole, skewing the entire outfit.

He leaned forward, elbows hitting the desk audibly. I couldn’t help but stare at how one side of his collar lifted while the other pulled against his neck, the obviousness of it all entirely missed by him. That was Wulff in a nutshell: what he didn't care about, he really didn't care about – and what he did care about, he also made it seem like he really didn't care about it. Everything was "it is what it is" with him, until it came to money or secrets.

After reading through the invitation at least three times and listening to my anxiety word-vomit, Wulff clicked his teeth together and rubbed his hand over his face. The enthusiasm he'd had right before showing up seemed to wane after learning that the shit I was in was plenty deep.

“Listen, Pipes,” he sighed, a whiff of morning tequila on his breath, “this isn’t exactly an area I like to get involved in.”

“I’m not asking for you to get involved. I’m just asking for advice.”

Wulff’s left eyebrow shot up, and I could almost see the dollar signs forming in his eyes.

“Advice as a friend, Wulff.”

Wulff’s information and assistance came at a hefty cost, and as his primary source of income he wasn’t quick to give it up for favors or friendship. He spent years perfecting his reputation and becoming the go-to guy in the supernatural community, but somehow I made my way past the customer-level to a friend with him, and I wanted all the discounts I could get.

I gave him my best don’t-you-adore-me-please-help-me puppy dog eyes and waited for him to make a decision. You never knew which way it would sway with him.

After a tense moment of fidgeting where he tried to pretend he was absolutely torn up by my request, he eventually conceded. He was always an actor.

Wulff sucked air between his teeth as he sat back. “I’m starting to think I need to open a tab with you. Being your friend is getting to be expensive.”

The tight shirt collar relaxed against his neck as he lounged in the office chair. My eyes immediately landed on the bright red scar on his neck that disappeared past his collarbone – a result of being my friend. A hot flare of guilt hit my stomach and started to warm my forehead and cheeks, but I kept my face neutral. There were a lot of memories between us, and most of them were bloody and conniving.

Just how we liked it.

“You knew that when you met me,” I countered.

A slight smile crept up on Wulff’s face as we both remembered the chaotic night our paths first crossed. He’d been holding a rather impressive gun, and I’d squared off against him with a crooked machete gripped tightly in my non-dominant hand. That had been what impressed him – that I was literally in a knife versus a gun fight, and I was willing to go down swinging.

“You’re fun, at least,” he smiled mischievously, “always keeping me on my toes. All right, let’s talk vampires.”

There was one more thing I knew I needed before getting Wulff to really warm up: liquor. His vice for the cheap, throat-burning alcohol was my ticket to as much information as possible. Lucky for him, I'd been gifted a bottle of gin weeks ago from a client and had left it sitting in the bottom drawer of my desk, discarded and waiting for the right moment.

Now was the right moment.

As soon as the bottle was in my hand, Wulff's eyes gleamed like he was a kid watching a Christmas tree light up for the first time, his tongue darting out enthusiastically. I started us off, taking just enough of a sip that Wulff thought I was going to get knee-deep in it with him, but small enough that I didn't gag at the flavor. It really wasn't my thing.

"This is bad news, Wulff," I sighed as I passed the bottle into his eager hands. He took a swig without hesitation. "A Master vampire reaching out to me can only mean trouble. With the work I do with staking Risers –"

Wulff cut me off, waving his hand dismissively.

“Vampires, vampires,” he slurred slightly as he thought, the morning tequila mixing in with the fresh gin, “they’re really not that organized. Even though they have a hierarchy of some sort, they also have a classic case of ‘I’m a vampire and I do what I want’ rampaging through the ranks. Just because one Master wants you does not mean the rest of the vampire world knows about it.”

I rubbed my hands over my face, trying to keep my dwindling patience in check. With a deadline suddenly looming over me and Wulff's casual attitude brimming, I wasn't exactly feeling polite.

“Sure, point taken, but we're not just talking about some freshly-turned weirdo who wants to shoot his shot at me. We're talking about the Master vampire of Harrowbrook. Why would he be interested in me? That’s what I really need to know.”

“They always want to gain more power.” He hiccupped loudly and took another deep swig that made his throat bob up and down. It was stunning watching him inhale the drink without flinching. “So, someone of your…potential…might be an interesting…potential.” He grinned knowing his words were twisting together. “Think of it this way, Pipes. If I were a vampire, and I heard this little gal named Piper was starting to show some signs of being able to wield elemental magic, I would want to get my hands on her before someone else did. Even if it didn’t pan out, I could just kill her later and drink her blood. Gulp gulp gulp.”

I passed on having another drink and shoved the gin bottle back as Wulff offered up a serving. “Drink my blood, asshole.”

"You know I'm right," Wulff shrugged languidly with a cheesy smile on his face that always came on as he was entering a less-than-sober stupor.

I saw his point. Something as hard to find as an elemental magic user was an intriguing prospect, especially when that user could manipulate one of the few things that could kill a vampire: fire. But I still had my doubts. I hadn’t shown nearly enough power to be considered a candidate; hell, half of my spells went haywire and caused more chaos than good. I was just a hodgepodge witch who kept my head down and worked my many day jobs. Definitely not interesting enough to land on anyone’s radar – let alone a Master's.

“You know what’s a fascinating thought, though?” Wulff went on, swirling the amber liquid around and around like a mesmerized dog.

“What’s that?”

“Who, besides the three obvious people who saw you do that little fire trick of yours, would have told a Master vampire about you?”

“Why is that important?” I fired back, feeling my defenses raise. “It doesn’t matter who told. It only matters now that the Master knows. It could have been a friend of a friend told a friend who told a cousin who told a vampire who told their master who knows the Master.” I threw my hands up for added dramatic effect.

Wulff grunted, clearly not taking my side. “You’re telling me that two days after your fiasco, you get a summons – albeit an improper summons,” he corrected before I could protest that the invitation I had received held any official sway over me, “from a Master vampire, and you’re not the least bit interested in which one of your friends ratted you out?”

I blinked a few times, wanting to fire back again, but that was the thing about Wulff and the reason I’d called him – he often saw things no one else did. He could put together puzzle pieces that looked like they didn’t fit at first glance, but slid home when you least expected it.

We talked through the three people who’d witnessed the little fire trick of mine; Jammel, who I’d known since grade school and was now married to my sister; Partridge, who worked nights with me at the morgue staking potential Risers – people who died from vampire bites and may or may not come back from the dead; and Cellia, my best friend who’d been with me through thick and thin.

My sister also knew because of Jammel, Wulff knew because I'd opened my big mouth and told him all about it, and Roster, my nighttime boss, knew because of Partridge.

That made five suspects in Wulff's eyes and six in mine if I included him.

"Roster seems the most likely to rat you out. He is a vampire as well, after all."

I scoffed, the idea of Roster going out of his way a fairytale of a thought. "He hardly frequents the morgue or takes any interest in my personal life. When Partridge called him and reported the damage that had taken place, Roster didn't even actually ask what happened."

"What about Partridge?" Wulff annoyingly pressed. "Maybe he said something to Roster, piqued his interest."

"I heard the call. He told him there were some burns…here and there. Roster gave us his usual short, unfriendly answer and just told us to clean it up by morning. That was the entire conversation."

Wulff crossed his arms over his chest, thoughts mulling through his sluggish brain at two miles per hour.

Pat and I had been working a shift together and we had all been standing in the middle of the reception room of the morgue like a crazy mish-mashed group of supernaturals. It had just been happenstance that Jammel stopped by while I was working to drop off my bag I'd left at my sister’s, and Cellia had swung by on her way home because I hadn’t been answering my phone. She had just been dying to tell me about her new beau, whose name I had already forgotten.

After a random burst of emotion from being tired and hungry and annoyed all day, I had lit the place on fire.

It felt like a pressure headache at first, something aching in the back of my head that relentlessly grew stronger while I listened to Jammel and Pat argue about werewolf politics and Cellia stood slumped to the side, not wanting to involve herself. My stomach had growled, earning me their attention as lectures about eating healthy and taking care of yourself and damnit Piper, I told you to take a lunchbreak started spewing out of their mouths simultaneously. The pressure headache peaked, a groan escaped me that my friends misinterpreted as complaining instead of pain, and their voices elevated more. With a rush that felt like all of the air had squeezed out of my lungs, the pressure alleviated and the floor suddenly erupted into flames.

The only positive of having friends and family around me when it happened was that it made cleanup easier with more hands on deck – otherwise, they'd rightfully freaked out.

Wulff decided to deem my brother-in-law as the next most suspicious.

"Okay, Jammel then. He never shuts up. He talks to everyone like he's immune to consequences. You're telling me, with all of the various people he meets throughout the day, he didn't say a single thing about you going scorched earth at the morgue? Maybe in his excitement, he said something to a patron and someone morbidly curious and connected to high-ranking vampires overheard."

My sister was the owner of Dark Night Bar, where Jammel frequently worked as the head bartender – and he could talk. He was the friendliest person I had ever met, and had a way of pulling secrets out of people without them even realizing they were spilling the beans.

"Even if he did, that doesn't make him the direct target. He can't control who might overhear a conversation. Besides," I continued, my words rushing together in a I'm-so-over-this-conversation kind of way, "Jammel would never tell someone he didn't inherently trust. My sister didn't marry an idiot." I hoped. "Scratch him off the list and move on. It could have just as easily been you."

I'd called Wulff the morning after the incident and relayed the harrowing tale, which would have given him just enough time to tell the wrong people. I knew he had no interest in getting me in trouble or the politics of vampires, but the only way to secure information as income was to be the king of laying low and keeping the city's secrets to himself, and I'd given him the kind of information that could pay off debts. He had to choose his battles carefully and I knew I wouldn't always come out as the victor.

"…which includes not feeding Master vampires information. Or dealing with them, period," he argued back at me, though I'd been temporarily lost in my own thoughts.

Though Wulff's morals often made me raise an eyebrow, we kept an unspoken pact: I had killed for him, and he had killed for me. Therefore, our secrets were mostly off-limits – and I mostly trusted him. He may be a donkey in a field full of ponies, but he was a good, reliable donkey. I chose to trust him, but I silently prayed to myself, hoping it was the right decision.

The arguing continued for another hour, and the gin-drinking barely slowed. I went round and round with Wulff, gaining no clear answers, and finally moved on to the reality of my newfound situation.

“All that said and done, Wulff, what am I supposed to do here? We’ve talked about how vampires organize. We’ve talked about who may have snitched. We’ve talked about how Master vampires differ from the bloodsuckers we stake from time to time. We’ve talked about magic users in the past and what’s happened to them.”

I sighed and dropped my head into my hands for a moment, overwhelmed as my mind tried to rush through every topic we had covered. I took a deep breath and tried to keep my thoughts organized with all of the information and precautions Wulff had suggested I take. I hadn’t written anything down, too worried that someone may stumble across it at random. It was a far from likely occurrence; the office of Richter & Shapiro Accounting was a quiet workspace, but a few agents like myself came and went during the day and they weren't exactly aware of my vampiric duties beyond the office walls. There was no reason for them to snoop, but I had all the reason in the world to be paranoid.

Becoming an accountant was my least favorite job of all of the hustles I had going, but it was the most stable so I did what I had to. Being a witch sounded like it should pay the bills, but for me personally, it really, really didn’t. My sister was a different story, using her magical influence to make the Dark Night Bar the success it was. She had skills I could only dream of.

I straightened my back and rolled my shoulders, mustering strength and trying to ebb my frustration away as I continued.

“We’ve talked about places I can go, people I can talk to, places I can’t go, and people I can’t talk to, but I honestly just want to know. What – am – I – supposed – to – do?”

Wulff’s eyes had begun to redden at the outer corners with a dangerous combination of liquor and exhaustion, yet there was a clarity to his gaze that let me know he was still in there – he was still listening. There was less than a half-inch left of gin lingering at the bottom of the bottle, just enough to splash his tongue with. At no point did he seem to realize I wasn’t really drinking with him, or did he fix the annoying way his dress shirt was buttoned incorrectly.

“Vampires, vampires,” he said quietly to himself, his eyes locked on mine. Having stared down Wulff in more than one life-or-death situation, with him on both sides as the kill or be killed, I didn't flinch.

Wulff wasn’t a bad-looking guy, but he didn’t do much to present himself to his full potential.

With grown-out dirty blonde hair and rich hazel eyes, he looked straight out of the 1920s as a prohibition gangster and had a wicked smile to boot. He was a hair over six feet tall, and even though he was soft in a few places, I knew the strength that was underneath his navy blue dress shirt. Not fully "normal" and not wholly a shapeshifter, he had been ousted by both the human and the supernatural community and landed amongst the riffraff like me. I’d grown to enjoy his company and lean on him over the years, but I never quite knew what was swirling behind his colorful eyes. There was no way of knowing who could name the right price with Wulff, and I was constantly aware of that fact. Unspoken pact be damned.

Wulff had left me in silence for too long, my words lingering in the air like I was a ranting woman and he was a thoughtful psychiatrist watching me have a meltdown.

I wasn't crazy, but he was pushing me to the edge of not quite right.

“I think you better go and meet the Master,” he said finally, “but not alone.”

I had been half-expecting him to tell me to disregard the invitation, to take my life into my own hands, and to not worry about some strange phenomena that had happened on a random Wednesday evening – but he didn't say any of those things. What I had desperately wanted to hear and what he actually told me were two different realities.

“Why?” I asked, my voice sounding a little thin and panicked.

Wulff sighed and ran his fingers through his greased-up hair, nearing his social limit with me. We were a lot alike in that way, only able to deal with so many problems and so much talking before it became overstimulating and uninteresting. Still, he told me the truth and gave me a smile that was clearly mixed with emotion.

“Pipes, you and I have done more than the average person when it comes to these spooky things. We’ve staked vampires for both money and fun –”

“Necessity,” I corrected, but he waved my comment away. I couldn’t honestly say I’d staked a vampire for fun, but Wulff was a different breed of savage when alcohol wasn’t giving him the release he was looking for.

“– and while you may be getting better with taming your magic, there’s only one thing I’m absolutely certain of here. You can’t beat a Master vampire.”

"You don't know that. You and I have never tried."

Wulff clinked the emptying bottle against my desk impatiently. "No, Pipes, you can't. They're in a league of their own, and they've gotten that powerful because they're smart."

"We're smarter," I insisted. "Come with me."

Wulff let out a hearty laugh that almost made him sound sober. Almost.

"Absolutely not. You and I have been in the shit trenches together before, but this is a different story. Besides, there's really no threat here. So what – a vampire wants to have a conversation with you, meet a little, maybe wine and dine? You'll be fine."

The look I shot Wulff should have made him wither where he sat, but he was immune in his drunken haze. As my only close friend with any kind of vampiric staking skill, I was definitely disappointed at his disinterest, but I wasn't going to drag him kicking and screaming. He was right. There was no threat, yet. Sort of. Maybe.

"All right, Wulff," I relented, feeling another pressure headache begin to form. "Get the hell out of my office, please."

Wulff grinned, showing me his perfectly white teeth that were a bit too sharp. "Anything for you, my liege. Keep me updated. And don't die."

I didn't reply as he left my office, gently swaying from side to side as he began his walk home. The sun had began to glow bright orange and gold on the horizon and I had a few half-assed strategies in place, but none of them felt very secure or possible.

I locked the glass office doors behind him a bit quicker than usual, letting my eyes survey the parking lot for any signs of disturbance. Wulff’s home wasn’t close, but as a half-shapeshifter he had the incredible stamina of a working ox and often walked or ran to and from his destinations. I always suggested he should join marathons or even the Olympics, but to his credit, he knew he didn’t belong – too fast for the human leagues and too human for the supernatural leagues.

He disappeared around a corner, and the feeling that I was alone sank in heavily.

I slunk back to my computer to check one more thing, a particular unanswered detail making the back of my brain itch with an insatiable desire to know. After logging in to the office security system, which my boss wasn't exactly aware I had access to, I rewound the footage from that day. Starting at when I arrived, I watched myself move in fast-forward speed throughout the building, and kept my eyes trained on anyone who stepped within ten feet of my office. I watched the receptionist leave, my hand frantically waving as I told her I'd see her next year, and then past-Piper turned back to her desk, startled by the sudden appearance of an envelope.

I rewound the footage again, but it was undeniable: one moment, my desk was clear, and the next moment the invitation was on it, appearing out of thin air.

It was impressive, but not in the good way.

Most supernaturals hired or forced humans to do their mundane dirty work because they were easier to dispose of if something went wrong, but I didn’t know any humans who could move through walls and go undetected on camera. The Master had taken a few creative measures that made my skin crawl.

He'd also known I’d be in the office that day, which was not part of my regular routine. Work had been slow and I’d been working from home most days, but I had a client who insisted on meeting me to pick up hard copies of her paperwork. It worked for me since I likely wouldn’t be back in the office until the new year, and I had some things to drag back to the house.

So either the Master vampire was watching me, or had auspicious timing.

I shut down my computer and scooped up my box of packed up things, decidedly ready to get the hell out of there. Before I stepped out, I scanned the parking lot intently as my anxiety stacked up and my entire body tensed; when my cell phone suddenly vibrated in my back pocket, I realized I hadn’t really been paying attention. My mind had been occupied with a thousand what-ifs and who-done-its and my eyes had been on autopilot, watching everything and nothing.

I scrambled to grab my phone and made a less-than-happy face when Roster’s name popped up in all capitals on the screen, followed by a vampire emoji that had made me grin when I’d added it to his contact name.

“Hey Roster,” I answered breathlessly, my nerves running high.

Never one for preamble, he went straight into the reason he was calling. “We have five potential Risers showing up in about an hour. Bunch of teens. The usual. Need a babysitter.”

The usual. Those words made my heart drop. The youth had a nasty habit of getting lured to parties and indecent places that they had no business being in, thinking that they were going to get a taste of the dark side and ending up being tasted instead. Vampires weren’t notorious for their self control, but the law was convoluted on whether it was really murder if someone willingly went into a vampire’s den. In my mind, teenagers shouldn’t die because of their ignorance, but the human police force wasn’t equipped to take down the covens of ancient, unnaturally strong, sadistic creatures that were fans of draining blood.

I couldn’t blame them. That’s why they called experts like me and Wulff from time to time.

“Partridge?” I asked.

“On his way. Need two. No friends, no fires.”

I cringed but kept my voice even. “Yes, sir. I’m on my way.”

The line went dead so fast that I had a feeling he was hanging up on me before I even agreed to take the job. Oftentimes, I was impressed that he could even work a touchscreen phone. He wasn’t a particularly old vampire, but I had a feeling he had been just as stubborn and disagreeable during his human life. Turning into a vampire changed a lot about a person, but their personalities tended to transition with them.

When Roster hired me, he'd already heard a few things about me and knew I wasn’t squeamish with a stake, but he never did answer any of my questions as to how he got into the morgue business. There were some laws and regulations explicitly set for vampires, and Roster seemed to be one of the very few who followed them. He often had nothing to say and no thoughts to share, so as far as I was concerned, he was an enigma. And I was his weapon.

I frowned at my off-white button-up shirt, hoping tonight wouldn’t end in a bloody shower. There wasn’t enough time to head back home before heading towards the morgue, the two destinations in opposite directions from the accounting office, so what I was wearing would have to do. The amount of stain remover I bought every time I picked up groceries had to have raised some clerk’s eyebrows.

Just before I left, I set down my box of paperwork that I was considering forgetting at the office, and grabbed the invitation laying on top. I had read it over and over again in the hour I was waiting for backup, but something possessed me to read the words one more time, as though they may have changed in the last few hours I’d spent strategizing with Wulff. I needed the quiet of the office to keep me safe for a moment longer – I felt like the words might come to life and sink fangs into my neck if I stepped out into the real world.

To Piper Santis:

Please be advised that I would like to meet with you.

We will convene together on Saturday evening.

11pm, Black Dahlia Tavern, Tarot Room.

Your presence is highly appreciated.

~ Alaric Baldassare