During one of her many YouTube binges, Phoebe had stumbled across a man claiming to be a vampire. He had all the stereotypes, heavy eyeliner and Gothic clothing and fangs that rested over pouty lips. And although she had watched the video out of boredom, she had known that he was as real as Olivia’s charmed jewelry. Phoebe may not have had magical abilities but she could recognize fakes.

There was no doubting the authenticity of the vampire inspecting her, though.

Phoebe winced at the obvious threat in his words, and she nearly screamed as his tongue darted out and dragged over the glass, leaving behind a glistening trail of saliva. She sensed the eagerness in his actions, heard the way that he drew in breath excitedly. This was a thirsty man who had discovered water in the desert and he could barely disguise his need.

The giant unscrewed the top of the jar and tossed it aside. His long fingers invaded her prison, grasping for her. Phoebe wiggled, trying to avoid his reach, and she gasped as one finger slid through her hair, the flesh shockingly cold. He withdrew his hand when he realized that she wasn’t coming out easily. Undeterred, he tipped the jar toward his open mouth.

She was out of the frying pan and into the fire. Phoebe found herself suddenly wishing for her previous predicament. Being sold to an unscrupulous magic dealer didn’t seem so bad, especially compared to the nightmare at the other end of the jar. The vampire’s mouth awaited her, a dark cavern lined with teeth. She began to slide down, toward the writhing tongue and the black throat, and the glass was too slippery for her to slow her descent.

Her feet hit the bottom row of teeth, momentarily stopping her slide. Wet gusts of air — the giant’s hurricane breaths — blew over her skin as she tried to clamber back up the jar. It was futile; all that it would take was a quick shake of the jar and she would be launched down into his throat. Phoebe had almost prepared herself for a gruesome end when they both heard the footsteps.

A couple was leaving Annwn, whispering and giggling, and the vampire moved the jar from their view. He couldn’t hide the body sprawled out in the alleyway, although it turned out that the man and woman were too absorbed in each other to even notice. Phoebe watched them leave, heads pressed together, and her heart sank in despair. The interruption had only bought her a few more minutes. She didn’t have any weapons or magic, and at her size she couldn’t even fight back.

She was nothing more than a snack, destined to be consumed and then forgotten.

But the vampire just stood there, a dazed expression on his face. It was as if he had been awakened from a long and fitful dream. Gradually his eyes came to rest on Phoebe, smoke-gray eyes with pupils that gleamed like garnets. The eyes were neither alive nor dead, but something in-between, and she couldn’t maintain contact with them.

Luckily, he pulled his gaze away. The confusion on his face vanished, as did the outside world. The giant placed the jar into one of his pockets, cutting off the light and her view of the alleyway. In the darkness, Phoebe shivered and marveled at the fact that she was still alive. For now, at least. She listened as he marched down the sidewalk, boots echoing against the pavement.

Then came the noises of a vehicle door opening and the ignition of an engine. So he wasn’t transforming into a horde of bats and flying off with her or whatever it was that vampires did. In her semi-delirious state, the idea of a monster casually driving a Subaru or Volvo made Phoebe chuckle. Laughing, she slowly collapsed to the jar floor and buried her face into her arms.

***

They drove and drove.

Just as Phoebe was beginning to think that they would drive for eternity, the vehicle stopped and the giant turned off the engine. By his movements, she could tell that he was climbing out and then heading somewhere. The jar and Phoebe lifted and fell with his steps, upsetting her balance and her nerves. She was learning that everything affected small things, including the simple act of walking.

He removed the jar from his pocket when they reached their destination, which happened to be an apartment. Phoebe guessed that it was his apartment, judging from the light-blocking curtains and blinds on the windows. She glanced around, trying to take in her surroundings. The place was sparsely-furnished and there weren’t any photos or paintings; the only decoration were clocks. Other than at a clock store, she had never seen so many. Baroque cuckoo clocks and vintage diner clocks and Art Deco clocks crowded the walls, and there was even a grandfather clock next to the faded sofa.

There were also stacks of books, skyscrapers of them. They were as eclectic as the clocks, ranging from classic literature to modern science fiction. Phoebe only had time to skim a few of the titles before the giant placed the jar on a wooden side table. She cowered as he bent down slightly, his strange eyes scrutinizing her.

“So you’re another one of Emmanuel’s victims, huh?” The giant rumbled at last.

“W-who?” Phoebe stammered. Then she realized that he was referencing the dead Lab Mouse, the man who had shrank her. She finally knew his name, although that knowledge wasn’t exactly useful at this point. “Oh. Him. Yeah.”

“He always was an asshole. I shouldn’t have kept falling for his promises.” The vampire didn’t bother to expand upon that. Instead, he took off his leather jacket and hung it on a nearby hook. With his back still turned, he said, “I’m sorry for earlier. Blood makes me crazy at times. The hunger does as well.”

Phoebe realized that he was apologizing for trying to devour her, which she supposed was a step in the right direction. She didn’t know how to respond. The subsequent silence became awkward, so she forced herself to speak. “I’m Phoebe, by the way.”

He glanced over the impressive slope of his shoulder. “Hiram.”

She remembered that she was nude and crossed one arm over her breasts. The other arm slid down between her thighs, trying to shield herself. But the giant didn’t seem overly interested in her. Now that he wasn’t trying to eat her, she was able to take a good look at him. Hiram didn’t resemble the YouTube imposter or the vampires in movies and television shows. He was dressed in a slate-colored t-shirt and worn jeans, not aristocratic finery, and he would have fit in better at a car mechanic’s shop than a castle. There was a harsh intenseness to him, his face all sharp angles and his dark hair cropped close to his skull, and she could see how tense his lean muscles were. Always ready to run, she guessed, or more likely, to pounce.

“Are you going to let me go?” Her voice was so soft that most people wouldn’t have heard her. But the vampire wasn’t like most people.

“Even if I did let you go, you’d probably be eaten by a cat or something,” Hiram answered, and Phoebe wasn’t nearly brazen enough to remind him that she had nearly faced a similar fate that night.

“Besides,” he continued, “I don’t need you telling anyone that I’m a vampire. I don’t want a stake through the heart while I’m asleep.”

“I won’t tell anyone, I swear,” Phoebe pleaded, but already she could tell that she had lost the argument. He lifted his hand in a dismissive wave.

“We’ll talk later. The sun’s almost up,” he told her, and she said nothing more.

***

Hiram’s head was throbbing.

His sole consolation was that the hunger had retreated. It was only temporary, of course; the hunger never completely left. It was always there, feral and insatiable, bubbling up into his thoughts and gnawing at them. He couldn’t ignore it, not for very long, and that was the reason why he had gone to Annwn. Desperation had once more driven him to talk to Emmanuel, who would have gladly turned Hiram into a statue or a lizard if he hadn’t been immune to magic.

“You know, vampire blood is worth quite a lot of money,” Emmanuel had said. “Sell some more of it to me and I promise you a cure this time.”

Hiram loathed this, having to put up with the weaselly man and his weaselly smile. He couldn’t pretend that his soul was clean; the hunger and his rage had forced him to do atrocious things. But Emmanuel had been a sadist, delighting in making people suffer. It had been rumored that he practiced the darkest of magic, finding victims amongst those with some sort of weakness.

Like Hiram.

But that night had been different. As Emmanuel tried to strike another bargain, the hunger had been ravaging Hiram’s mind. It had been days since he had fed, and the need for blood had become intolerable. He found that whenever he was in such a state, his body ceased to be his own. He was reduced to a helpless marionette, his strings pulled and yanked by the hunger.

Most of the time, Hiram despaired as he watched himself sinking his teeth into vulnerable flesh, tearing and ripping with a frenzied violence. But he hadn’t felt any regret when he had fed on Emmanuel. The sorcerer hadn’t even fought him, too stunned to do anything but fall to his knees. And as the life had drained from Emmanuel’s eyes, Hiram had known that another possible cure was gone.

He would keep searching, of course. He had all the time in the world.

The tiny woman turned out to be the source of the headache.

Hiram had been digging through Emmanuel’s bag, hoping that the bastard had something of worth, when he had found the jar. If he had been in a more reasonable state, he would have regarded the shrunken woman with curiosity. Pity, maybe. But bloodlust had been roaring through his veins and saliva had been filling his mouth. Hiram had been a puppet for the thousandth time, unable to withstand the horror controlling his body.

If Fate hadn’t intervened, he would have swallowed the woman without a second thought.

And now Hiram was stuck with her.

The headache was making it difficult to think clearly. He considered the options: release her, although at her size, everything was a life threatening danger. There was also the risk of her spilling his secret to her friends and family. Or he could keep her until he figured out another solution. Hiram decided on the latter option.

He found a cardboard box in the closet and transferred Phoebe into it, careful not to touch her any longer than necessary. The hunger may have been muted but it was still there, tempting him. This was why he avoided people; the warmth of their flesh, the salty richness of their blood, teased him. If Hiram touched her for too long, he would want to taste her. Suck on her soft curves, roll her around in his mouth and savor her like an exquisite bonbon.

Thinking about it made the pain in his skull explode.

To distract himself, Hiram gathered up supplies for the tiny woman. Some tissues, which he supposed she could use for blankets or clothing. A teaspoon of water, which at her size looked like a large beverage tub. He didn’t have any food, since anything but blood made him violently ill, but she didn’t seem to be very hungry. If anything, she was pale, her reddish hair plastered damply to her forehead. When he placed anything in the box, she flinched and scuttled away from his hand.

They were both silent.

The sun was rising, Hiram knew. His limbs became heavy, weakened, and weariness settled over him. The damned headache persisted, but he ignored it. Casting one last glance at the tiny woman in the box, he slunk into his bedroom, already welcoming the oblivion of sleep.

Phoebe huddled in the corner of the box, waiting for the giant to reappear. She counted the minutes, which was easy with all of the clocks constantly ticking and chiming around her, and when he remained in his room, she stood up. Her makeshift tissue dress rustled softly as she tiptoed toward one of the cardboard walls. What remained of Phoebe’s hope crumbled as she saw how high the wall was. She briefly considered trying to construct a ladder, but all that she had were some tissues and a spoon. And at her size, she could barely move the spoon. She could try tipping the box, but she weighed as much as a hummingbird. She didn’t have enough weight to even tip over a salt shaker.

Defeated, she went back to the corner.

Considering how anxious Phoebe was, she didn’t think that she’d be able to sleep. But somehow she nodded off, drifting into a strangely vivid dream. Olivia was in it, shrunken down to Phoebe’s size and wearing the same clothing and jewelry as the previous night. Phoebe found herself calling out to her friend, who was perched on the edge of the box, dangerously close to losing her grip.

“Don’t worry. I’ll get you out,” Olivia said, inching her way along the box. Behind her was a darkness unlike anything that Phoebe had ever seen, an impenetrable wall of blackness that had absorbed all light. It was like staring into an abyss, one filled with the worst kind of monsters imaginable. And even as this thought passed through her mind, Phoebe saw the gigantic face materialize. Saw the dark red pinpricks that were the monster’s pupils, saw the razor teeth and wicked, ravenous smile.

She shrieked as the yawning mouth closed around Olivia, her friend’s legs kicking and thrashing. Olivia’s cries were barely audible behind the vampire’s lips and teeth, the sounds nearly muted by tons of flesh and bone. With the agonizing slowness of a nightmare, Olivia’s left leg and then her right leg disappeared between the giant’s lips. And with that, she was gone.

Fortunately, Phoebe was spared the awful sight of her friend being swallowed alive. The box shook, catapulting her from the dream and back into reality. She was still in the corner, her neck sore from resting at an odd angle, and as she tried to slow her heart, she noticed the colossal shadow. Glancing up, she saw the same mouth from her dream, the fangs just as long and sharp as she remembered.

Phoebe stifled a scream, wedging herself further into the corner.

The vampire — Hiram, she remembered — frowned and pulled away from the box. “Calm down. I was just bringing you something to eat.”

A furtive glance at one of the clocks revealed that Phoebe had been asleep longer than she would have liked. She muttered a soft “Okay” and watched warily as he lowered some food down into the box. The selection was limited: fruit, a chunk of cheese, a couple of wheat crackers. But there was so much of it. One of the strawberries was so wide that she couldn’t wrap her arms around it, the yellowish seeds large enough that she could have played marbles with them.

“I didn’t have any food on hand, so I went out,” Hiram told her. “I had to remind myself that humans need to eat.”

Phoebe didn’t move toward the food. Her appetite was almost nonexistent and the thought of eating beneath his burning gaze shrank her stomach even more. She mulled over what he had said: I went out. So he had left earlier and she hadn’t even heard the giant moving past her. Which meant that the stories about silent, stealthy vampires were true. God, he would have been dangerous even if she hadn’t been reduced to bug-sized.

Hiram noted that she didn’t hadn’t left her spot in the corner. He finished placing the food in the box and stood back up, his body unfolding upwards like a living, breathing building.

“You’re pretty quiet, aren’t you?” He commented, and Phoebe gazed up at him.

“My friend’s the talkative one,” she mumbled.

“I see.” The giant rubbed at his jaw. “So why were you at Annwn?”

Is this twenty questions? Phoebe wondered, and it could have been due to the stress of the previous twenty-four hours, but she fell back into the old lie. “To show off my magic, of course.”

“You’re a practitioner of magic?”

“Yeah,” Phoebe said, afraid that he would smell the acrid fear-sweat emanating from her pores, that he would sense her deception with his uncanny abilities.

“Uh-huh. Why haven’t you used your magic to return to normal size?” She heard the skepticism in his voice and observed it in his gray and crimson eyes.

“It was a powerful spell,” she replied, surprised at how easily the lie grew, spreading its tendrils everywhere.

“I can relate to that,” Hiram said, his dark eyebrows drawing together. Phoebe wasn’t sure what he meant by this; then realization struck. Somehow, Hiram had been turned into a vampire, and from the way that his mouth tightened, she could tell that he didn’t like what he had become. Scraping together her courage, she addressed him:

“So why were you at Annwn?”

“For a cure.” Phoebe hadn’t expected him to answer, and yet he did so without hesitation. “Because I want to be human again.”

At that point, she should have uttered a few words of sympathy, maybe nodded in understanding. But an idea popped into her head, one that was incredibly rash. A really, really dumb idea, Olivia would have said if she were here. Olivia wasn’t here, though, and desperation was making her reckless.

“What if I can help you? With a cure, I mean?” Phoebe couldn’t believe what she was saying.

Hiram stared at her, his faraway face unreadable.

She began to babble, too nervous to stop. “I’ll help you find a cure, and in exchange, you can help return me to normal. I just need to find the right spell book and ingredients and I’m sure that I can—,”

His hand hurtled toward Phoebe with the speed and size of a bullet train, too fast for her eyes to follow. She found herself snatched up from the box, squeezed between the giant’s fingers. He wasn’t being gentle, either, the digits digging painfully into her chest and abdomen. The expression on his face had changed; anger contorted his angular features, his lips pulling away from his teeth in a ferocious snarl.

“You’re not lying, are you?” Hiram’s voice reverberated through her.

“N-no,” Phoebe squeaked.

“Good. Because I’m getting tired of people lying to me.” The gargantuan fingers continued to grip her like a vise. “And if you are lying, you’re going to wish that I had eaten you.”

***

Phoebe waited until Hiram had vanished into the bathroom to approach the towering pile of food. With quivering hands she brought a piece of cracker to her lips, trying to ignore her situation. And failing. She couldn’t help but replay the past day or two in her mind. It had been bad enough when she had been shrunken down against her will, but now she needed to deliver on a promise that she couldn’t possibly keep.

This wasn’t the first time that a lie had gotten her into trouble. Olivia had set her up on a blind date and when the man had asked what she did for a living, Phoebe had embellished the truth a little. Well, a lot. She went from being a legal assistant to a lawyer to the partner in a law firm. When the man had eventually found out, she had been humiliated. That was nothing compared to her current situation, however. The rage that had smoldered in Hiram’s eyes had been very real and very threatening. He had dumped her back into the box and then stomped away, leaving her with the terror howling in her head.

I’ll figure this out, Phoebe tried to reassure herself, but she knew that she was lying again.

***

Hiram stepped into the shower, the water blissfully hot against his skin.

Like other vampires, he craved warmth. His own body had stopped generating heat long ago, and now he felt more like a reptile or fish. Or a corpse, as much as that thought disgusted him. He did what he could to recreate that feeling of life, including holding steaming mugs of tea between his hands or standing in the shower until the hot water ran out. Most nights, he allowed his mind to wander while the water cascaded down his back and shoulders in comforting streams. There was only the present for him, no past. As hard as Hiram tried, he couldn’t remember his childhood or who he had been before he joined the undead.

From what he knew, it wasn’t uncommon for his kind to forget their previous lives. The human mind wasn’t made to last for millennia or even for centuries, and his memories turned to dust while his body stubbornly survived. It bothered him, the way that time slipped by and then disappeared forever. That was one of the reasons why he collected clocks. What started out as a hobby became a way for him to cling onto reality.

Deep down, Hiram was worried that he would disappear — the part of him that was still human, at any rate. All that would be left was the hunger, mindless and cruel.

Which was why he continued his search for a cure. Which was why he listened to the tiny woman, even though his gut whispered that she was another fraud. Hiram would let Phoebe prove herself, although she wouldn’t have much time. Standing there in the shower, he felt the hunger pangs, the sensation worse than any other agony that he had endured. Soon he would need to feed, and it wouldn’t be safe to be around him.

I can’t give up hope.

Closing his eyes, Hiram concentrated on the warmth of the water and fought against the monstrous feeling surging up inside of him.

***

He brought her doll clothes and scraps of fabric. Most of the garments didn’t fit; Phoebe guessed that they were intended for Barbie dolls, and Barbie was a huge giantess in comparison to her. As she sifted through the mound of clothes, she managed to find a few pieces that she could use. They were definitely better than the tissue clothing that tore and ripped so easily. She had just finished changing into a pastel pink dress when Hiram appeared, moving with that unnatural grace.

“You said that you needed some ingredients,” he said, and Phoebe knew exactly what he was referring to: the cure that she had so foolishly promised. Swallowing hard, she fought to remain calm.

“Yes, I do.”

“Can you give me a list?” He asked, and Phoebe scrambled for an excuse.

“It’s not that simple,” she replied. Narrowing his eyes, he placed his hand into the box.

“Then I guess you need to come with me,” Hiram told her, and when she stood paralyzed, he said, “You can either get into my hand or I’ll just grab you.”

Since she didn’t have much of a choice, Phoebe approached his outstretched hand. She climbed up between his fingers, the flesh of his palm cool beneath her bare feet. It reminded her how much she longed for shoes that were her size.

Don’t drop me, Phoebe silently begged, clutching onto the long length of his ring finger for support. Hiram didn’t; he lifted her from the box and into the pocket of his leather jacket. Before he started to walk and jostle her around, she clambered up to the top of the pocket and poked her head out. When she glanced down, she saw the mammoth columns of his legs, the hardwood floor a thousand miles away. And when she glanced up, she couldn’t see his head, the cliff face of his torso blocking her view.

Even if Phoebe had been in the mood for idle chitchat, she was too amazed by the world around her to say anything to him. They left the apartment and she gawked at the vast outlines of trees against the starry sky. Crickets chirped in the shrubs and bushes, so loudly that it startled her. Everything was so gigantic, so deafening, so overwhelming. She briefly contemplated sliding back down into the darkness of the giant’s pocket.

Hiram reached his vehicle, which turned out to be old truck. It was the sort of truck that she had seen countless times before, black with random patches and streaks of rust, and it would have blended in anywhere. Perfect for a vampire who didn’t want to be noticed, she guessed. They got into the truck, Phoebe the reluctant passenger in his pocket. Around and around her mind spun, trying to formulate a plan.

Phoebe hadn’t come up with much by the time that they arrived at the alchemist shop. The little store was in the downtown area, stuck between two abandoned retail spaces with FOR RENT signs in the grimy windows. She had seen the shop on her way to work, but she had never had the courage to go inside. Now, as Hiram brought her with him, she stared at the store with awe.

She had been expecting it to be musty and cramped and gloomy; instead, she saw that the shop was spotlessly clean, with bright fluorescent lights and modern displays. It looked more like a place that sold the latest trendy technology rather than bottles of glowing mushrooms and vials of shimmering dust.

The only other person in the store was the bored employee at the cash register. Hiram slunk down the nearest aisle, Phoebe bobbing up and down in his pocket.

“Okay, we’re here,” he whispered to her. “What do you need?”

Phoebe’s eyes traveled to the shelf across from them. There was an assortment of magical oddities, including a skull with four indigo horns. She pointed to a half dozen things, choosing them without much thought. Hiram retrieved the various boxes and jars and pouches.

“Is that it?” He asked.

“For now,” Phoebe replied, and he grunted, obviously irritated. The items rattled and clinked in his arms as he brought them to the front of the store, where the young man at the register was waiting. As Hiram began to unload the items one at a time, Phoebe realized that this was her chance. The giant’s torso was close enough to the counter that she could grab onto it. And she did, pulling herself out of the pocket and onto the counter.

The store employee was scanning the items and he paused when he noticed the tiny woman near the register.

“Help! Please help me!” Phoebe shrieked.

“What the hell…?” The man gasped, and Hiram moved with terrifying swiftness.  The crimson of his pupils had expanded, filling his irises and scleras and turning his eyes a shocking red.

“You didn’t see anything. There’s nothing there,” the vampire said.

Something was wrong, very wrong. Confusion fell over Phoebe in a suffocating embrace. There’s nothing there. There’s nothing there. There’s nothing there.

“Yeah,” the store employee said in a dreamy, detached voice. “You’re right. There’s nothing there.”

In her own mind, Phoebe waded through the confusion, felt herself being dragged down into it like quicksand. Run, a small voice ordered, and it sounded a lot like Olivia. You need to run.

Her legs and her head had become leaden, but miraculously she forced herself to run, sprinting along the counter as Hiram cursed behind her. Phoebe had no idea how she was supposed to outrun a colossus, especially one as fast as the vampire, and as she sensed his hand reaching out for her, she dove over the other side of the counter.

Light as a shrew, she tumbled down and down, landing onto a stack of plastic bags. Phoebe slid to the floor and then resumed her escape. She wasn’t an Olympic runner, but fear and determination gave her an extra burst of speed as she raced toward the shop’s door. Hiram could have used his mind-control powers again, beckoning her to come back to him, but he didn’t need to.

As Phoebe neared the door, a massive boot crashed down in front of her, blocking her path. The boot was close enough that she could see the tiny pebbles embedded in the tread, could feel the rush of displaced air as it landed. Phoebe skidded to a stop and chanced a glance up at the powerful calf and thigh.

And then she saw Hiram’s furious face.

The giant’s rage petrified her, rendering her legs useless. His red eyes pinned her in place; only her heart seemed to move, and it was threatening to explode between her ribs. A deep, unearthly growl rose from his throat. It wasn’t the sort of sound that a human could possibly make.

Oh God, this had been such a bad idea.

Hiram bent down, his hand swooping to seize Phoebe. He grabbed her with such ferocity that she was convinced that he would break all of her bones and squeeze her into jelly. But although she was compressed between his fingers and palm, she was surprisingly in one piece.

Phoebe would have tried reasoning with Hiram if she hadn’t been trapped tightly in his fist. Worse, he was swinging his arm angrily as he stormed toward the truck, and for Phoebe, it was a wild and nauseating ride. By the time that they got back into the vehicle, she was wheezing, trembling as he uncurled his fingers. Tentatively Phoebe met his eyes, relieved that they weren’t that horrible crimson. But they were still enraged, glittering in the moonlight. Not only that, but she noticed something else lurking in his gaze. It was more frightening than the fury; this was a hungry thing that regarded her with inhuman intensity.

“Look, I’m sorry,” she said as the thing in his eyes watched her. “I just…I panicked.”

Hiram brought her closer and Phoebe saw that the rage had left his face. Now there was only that ravenous gleam in his eyes, and she instinctively scooted backwards on his palm. Which ended up saving her life, because the white tombstones of his teeth snapped at the air where she had been. Stranded on his hand, Phoebe had nowhere to go as the giant’s tongue smashed into her, the heavy muscle slithering down the length of her body. Huge, slimy tastebuds scraped her skin, leaving her drenched in saliva. He was savoring her, relishing the salty flavor of her fright. Inhaling, he greedily took in her scent, ravenous for more.

The palm beneath her tipped, bringing Phoebe closer to the vampire’s mouth. She resisted, of course, not that it made any difference. Hiram shoveled her between his lips, plunging her into a deeper and more terrible darkness. Sensing his intentions, Phoebe wrapped her arms around the writhing mass of his tongue. It was like riding a bucking horse; the tongue tossed her from side to side before pushing up against the curved ceiling of the giant’s palate. Clinging on took all of her resolve, and it was a struggle to even breathe. With what little strength she had left, she cried out, her voice echoing off the fleshy walls of his mouth.

“You’re not a monster!” Phoebe shouted. “You don’t have to do this!”

What seemed like a lifetime passed. Then Hiram’s tongue stopped its frenzied bucking; it slumped, lowering Phoebe down with it. He took a deep breath, the wind whistling past her face as it traveled to his lungs. The mouth opened, bringing with it faint, silvery moonlight, and a second later he spat her into his palm.

“I’m not a monster,” Hiram agreed, his voice soft and strained.

They stared at one another, Phoebe soaked with his viscous saliva. She should have felt many things: anger. Fear. Resentment. Desperation. But the only thing that she felt was pity for the giant holding her. At that moment, he looked lost, his eyes drifting from Phoebe and focusing on something that only he could see. She loathed her curse; being this small and helpless was awful and she wouldn’t have wished it on her worst enemy. But his curse was even more horrible to contemplate. To be so driven by dreadful urges, to lose one’s soul. Phoebe shuddered, and it wasn’t due to the cool air against her wet skin.

“We’ll fix this,” she said to him, and this time she meant it.

***

They didn’t go back to his apartment. Instead, they drove to the outskirts of town with the radio as the only source of sound. The classic rock was low and oddly soothing to Phoebe, a reminder of her previous life, something that she could hopefully return to someday.

He parked near the edge of a state park and removed her from his pocket, setting her on the passenger’s seat. She had given up on the idea of escape; Hiram was simply too big and too fast. There was no doubt that he’d track her down within the span of minutes.

With his gaze on the park’s shadowy oaks and pines, Hiram said, “This is why I stay away from people. It’s not much of an excuse for what I did, of course.”

Phoebe decided that she would try to pry some more information from him. “How did you become a vampire?”

“I don’t remember,” he replied, gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles paled. “I don’t even remember my real name.”

“Isn’t it ‘Hiram’?”

“No, someone gave that name to me.” The ghost of old pain passed over his features. “I wouldn’t call him a good person, although I haven’t been a saint, either.”

“Well, even if you can’t remember how you became like this, we’ll find a way to turn you back,” Phoebe said. “We’ll find a way to turn me back as well. It’s not exactly a thrill being Fun Sized.”

Hiram smiled, his lips closed to conceal his fangs. “I’m sure it’s not. You know, I honestly never thought that I’d meet a tiny person before.”

“And I honestly never thought that I’d meet a vampire before,” Phoebe said, trying to imagine the man that he had once been. A knight or a sea captain or a blacksmith or a million other possibilities. His past was as much of a blank to him as it was to her, and that filled her with an inexplicable melancholy. Beneath Hiram’s carefully crafted facade, she saw fleeting glimpses of many things. Struggle. Sadness. How much willpower did it take to hold back the voracious hunger every night?

They sat there until the first lavender rays of dawn appeared in the sky. As Hiram placed her back into his pocket and started up the truck, he said, “That’s another thing that I don’t remember: the sun. It’d be wonderful to see it, at least once.”

There it was again: that sadness, flickering across his face. She wanted to ask more, but they had already fallen back into that familiar silence.

***

Hiram continued to bring her whatever she requested, including spell books that were probably older than some civilizations. How he procured them, she couldn’t (and wouldn’t) guess. Phoebe pored over the books, walking up and down the gargantuan pages, the letters and drawings as enormous as those on billboards. There wasn’t a lot on size change spells; one book mentioned a growth potion, but she wasn’t adept enough at magic to try it. Knowing her terrible luck, she would either grow as big as King Kong or dwindle down even more. She imagined herself shrinking to the size of a flea, so minuscule that even Hiram wouldn’t see her. A speck-sized woman lost between the towering ridges of his finger pad.

No, it wasn’t worth the risk.

The spell books also didn’t have much on vampires, and the information was often contradictory. Frustration welled up within her, and if she wasn’t so small, she would have heaved the books at the wall. Many nights, she was by herself as she searched through mildewed pages and jotted down notes on minute scraps of paper. Hiram would disappear for hours at a time and she didn’t ask his whereabouts, not wanting to acknowledge that he was feeding that inhuman hunger. On the nights that he was at the apartment, Phoebe would sneak peeks at him. It could have been his vampiric glamor at work, but there was a part of her that appreciated the sharp curves of his cheeks, the stubble that dotted his jaw. Hiram was beautiful, in the same way that a typhoon was beautiful. The qualities of magic that fascinated her — its wildness, its danger, its mystery — were also qualities that the vampire possessed. Occasionally Hiram caught her glances, his storm-gray eyes betraying none of his feelings. Whenever that happened, Phoebe would avert her gaze and go back to her work.

Don’t be an idiot, Olivia’s voice chided in her head. You need to focus on finding a cure, nothing else.

And yet, as Phoebe searched the countless pages of text, her mind wandered, adrift.

***

Adeline was one of the few people that he remembered.

She had been so vivacious, so eager to explore everything that life had to offer, a fiery woman who wore lariat necklaces and cloche hats and beaded dresses. Hiram had been wise enough to avoid humans, interacting with them only when necessary, but her brightness had attracted him like a moth to flame. And so he had attended her poetry readings, surrounded by the expatriates who swarmed the Parisian cafes and bars. It had been that time in between wars, and he almost felt alive, especially when he listened to Adeline. Her whiskey voice had been so rich and husky, the poetry flowing from her lips and filling that aching spot inside of him.

Adeline had noticed him as well.

It hadn’t been her fault; vampires emitted a sort of supernatural charm, an attraction that allowed them to get close to their prey. In this case, Hiram hadn’t wanted to attract her to him, but he hadn’t been able to push her away. He had wanted her warmth, her rich voice, her poetry. That selfishness had been their undoing, because although he had tried with all of his might, he hadn’t been able to resist the hunger that coiled within his belly.

The last night that Adeline had been alive, she had composed a poem for him, a sonnet about a man who had been blessed and cursed to witness the universe being perpetually recreated. Hiram had drank in her words, shivering as he battled with the hunger. The agony had steadily replaced any pleasure that he felt, and as the hunger had finally won, he had sank into bleak despair.

For as long as he continued his unnatural existence, he would remember Adeline. He would also remember the gray pallor of death that had settled over her as she lay next to him, her blood drained. Her large eyes, lifeless and milky-white, haunted him as he watched Phoebe.

No matter what I said earlier, I’m a monster.

The tiny woman had fallen asleep on one of the books, exhausted by the hours spent combing through the spells and the diagrams. She was curled up near a drawing of astral projection, her auburn hair forming a reddish halo around her head. Hiram was intrigued by her smallness, her delicateness, and he studied the way that her checkered doll dress rose and fell with her breaths. He considered picking Phoebe up and placing her into the nest of tissues and fabric that served as her bed, but Adeline’s face flashed before his vision.

He winced and balled his hands into fists.

Better to keep this relationship as strictly business. Hiram doubted that Phoebe could find the solution to his problem, but he held out hope. If somehow she found a way to turn him back, perhaps he could revisit these thoughts. Until then, he simply watched her as she shifted in her sleep, lost in some dream. To distract himself, he ran his tongue over one of his fangs and bit down hard. He welcomed the sudden blast of pain, the taste of his corrupted blood washing over his mouth.

While she was asleep, he’d go out and feed, he decided. He’d find a mugger or a drug dealer and sate his burning thirst. And afterwards, he’d sleep, hiding from the memories of Adeline’s whiskey voice and her clouded-over eyes. Hiram left Phoebe slumbering away on the spell book, unaware of all of the things that he had done.

***

“Anyone can do magic,” the man at the mall kiosk had told Phoebe as she had exited Bath and Body Works. She had wanted so desperately to believe him; so many others could perform the most breathtaking magical feats. There had been countless nights where she had laid in bed, staring at the ceiling and imagining herself as a powerful witch or sorceress. The man had sensed an easy mark and seized upon the opportunity. He had spent nearly half an hour telling Phoebe that she just needed some of his elixirs to unleash her potential. She had left with three bottles of shimmering blue liquid.

Not surprisingly, the potions had turned out to be duds, and she had been too embarrassed to ask the salesman for her money back. But despite this, she clung onto the hope that she’d discover her abilities one day. If only she tried hard enough, if only she could crack the cosmic secret, she could gain access to the world of magic.

I can do it, Phoebe thought as she sat on the pages of the gargantuan spell books, reading and rereading the dense texts. That guy was a conman, but he was right.

She eventually worked up the courage to try a spell.

Phoebe knew that there were hazards associated with spell casting, especially if the person wasn’t gifted with natural magical abilities. She went with a basic spell, something that even a beginner could do. It was a water manipulation spell, and her target was an almost empty glass. All that she had to do was concentrate, carefully recite the spell, and then the water would flow from the glass in any direction that she chose. If she could perform this spell, she could move onto more difficult ones.

Standing on one of the side tables, Phoebe focused on the towering glass and the water within it. She tried to envision herself as the sorceress from her fantasies, confident and powerful, the magic rushing from her in waves. One simple spell, and then something more challenging. Even if she hadn’t been born with magical powers, she would develop them, one enchantment at a time.

Phoebe uttered the tongue-twisting words with precision…at least, it seemed that way. As soon as she spoke the final word, the water began to boil, gently at first and then with a startling violence, churning like a whirlpool.

That wasn’t supposed to happen.

Blackness spread through the glass, darkening the water until it resembled motor oil. Phoebe panicked, unsure what to do as the glass rocked from side to side, the water taking on a life of its own. The liquid spiraled upward, solidifying into a serpentine shape. Frantically, she tried to remember how to deactivate the spell. The spell book had mentioned it, but in her panic, she couldn’t recall anything. Her mind was still racing when the dark water slammed into her with incredible force, sending her flying.

***

Hiram was absorbed in a collection of short stories, so he didn’t see the exact moment when the water collided with Phoebe and smashed her into the hardwood floor. His head snapped up when he sensed the sudden movement. Tossing the book aside, he went over to where the tiny woman was sprawled on the floor, motionless. She lay in a puddle of black water, one arm twisted at an unnatural angle.

He dropped down to one knee, concerned that the fall had killed her. But Hiram sensed the life flowing through her, heard the beating of her minuscule heart. He also smelled her blood, which was leaking from the various cuts and scraps on her bruised skin. The hunger reared up, desperate, and he ground his teeth and fought it. Gently, he picked up Phoebe, noticing the way that her small body flopped bonelessly. She didn’t stir, didn’t open her eyes. She just lay in the middle of his palm like a wilted flower.

Hiram had seen enough death to know that she wasn’t long for this world. He raised his other hand to his mouth and pricked one of his fingers with a fang. A bead of blood, darker than the blood of a human, appeared on his fingertip. Hiram studied the droplet as it gleamed like onyx.

The Source, Emmanuel had once called it, and Hiram hadn’t bothered to ask him what he meant. He hadn’t wanted to make small talk whenever he was exchanging his blood for a possible cure. Just being in the same room with the weaselly man had been repulsive enough.

Emmanuel had paid a hefty price for Hiram’s blood, which had all kinds of magical qualities. That included a regenerative property; vampire blood could heal all kinds of ailments. Which, Hiram hoped, included broken bones and damaged internal organs. He tipped his finger, allowing the drop of blood to plunge onto Phoebe’s tiny body. A fractured memory, or maybe it was a dream, invaded his thoughts as he watched the blood trickle down.

You will become so much more, the entity had promised him, its face a swirling chaos.

And like that, the dream-memory faded away. Hiram’s gaze remained on Phoebe, and when she didn’t move, he wondered if his powers had failed him. He lifted her closer, listening for her minute heartbeat and breaths. Phoebe moaned, turning her head. With a sharp crack, the bent arm shifted back into place as the bone repaired itself. The maroon bruises marring her skin disappeared one by one, until only healthy flesh remained. Whatever internal damage Phoebe had sustained was gone, and with a low cry, she looked up at him.

“Are you alright?” Hiram asked softly.

“I-I think so,” she stammered. “W-what happened?”

“You fell.” He hesitated, then said, “I healed you.”

“H-how?”

“With my blood.” His answer sent a wave of shock through her already pale face.

“Does this mean that I’m infected? Am I going to become a vampire too?” Phoebe looked horrified in his hand.

“It doesn’t work that way,” he replied, and she shuddered in relief.

“Thank you,” Phoebe said, reaching out and touching his upper lip. Her little hand rested there, the sensation oddly pleasant. “For saving me.”

Hiram shrugged awkwardly, unsure how to respond. He was used to being the villain, not the hero, and he couldn’t find the right words.

“Listen, I need to tell you something. I can’t do magi—,” Phoebe started to confess, but Hiram shushed her.

“I know,” he said.

***

She expected him to carry out his threats, to wring out her body between his hands, or worse. But those threats turned out to be empty. Hiram didn’t seem livid; if anything, he was deflated. The light had left his eyes, and Phoebe understand that for all of his posturing, he wasn’t a maniacal beast. Just a sad, hopeless man.

Phoebe placed her hand on the plush fullness of his lip again. Beneath the flesh, she felt the sharp hardness of a fang.

“I still think we can fix this,” she told him, and he made a dismissive noise deep in his throat.

“Right,” Hiram muttered, his voice vibrating through her. How long had he been pinning his hope to an elusive cure? Years? Decades? Even longer than that? It was possible that several lifetimes had passed, and yet somehow, that hope persisted.

“Anyway, you need a bath,” He said, changing the subject. She did need one; her skin was stained with blackish water, and her hair was tangled and caked with drying vampire blood. She agreed, and once she had chosen a new doll dress, he brought her into the bathroom. After setting Phoebe down, he began to fill up the sink with warm water. It had been a long time since she had had an actual bath; she had been cleaning herself with a scrap of damp fabric.

He gave her a dollop of body wash — at her size, it was several months’ worth — and turned to leave the bathroom. Then Hiram hesitated. He seemed to be having some sort of internal debate, and he curled his fingers around the door knob. His gaze slid back and forth, trapped between Phoebe and the exit. There was hunger in his expression, but not the sort of crazed, insatiable thirst that she was used to seeing. This hunger was different, an emotional craving that almost hurt to behold. It was the result of years of loneliness, of self-isolation.

It was a very human hunger.

Aware that he was watching, Phoebe slowly removed the filthy dress, allowing it to fall at her feet. Perhaps it was the strange connection of their blood-bond, or maybe it was the natural glamor of the vampire, but for once, she didn’t mind his gaze on her. She padded over to the pool of water and lowered herself into the sink. Phoebe methodically cleaned the gunk from her hair, submerging her head beneath the water to rinse it out. When she lifted her head, water cascading down over her face, she saw that  Hiram was standing over the sink. His speed and silence never failed to astonish her. He didn’t reach out toward her, so she took the initiative, stretching out her dripping arm. Seeing this, Hiram met her halfway, offering his index finger to Phoebe. She latched onto it, allowed him to pull her up from the water.

“You’re lovely,” Hiram whispered as he transferred Phoebe into his cupped palm. “I can’t believe that something so small can be so beautiful.”

“You’re not too bad looking yourself,” she replied. “Although you’re more James Dean than Lestat de Lioncourt.”

He chuckled. “I actually liked that book. It’s one of my guilty pleasures.”

She trailed her hands down the curve of his thumb, and he explored her as well, outlining her small torso and limbs with his finger. It wasn’t the first time that someone had touched her so intimately, but none of her previous relationships had involved such a vast size difference. And, she thought, none of them had ever involved a vampire.

Hiram swung his hand around, positioning her closer to his mouth. “I’m not going to eat you, I promise.”

Phoebe had no reason to trust him, and yet she remained still as he ran his tongue over her lower legs, winding upwards until he was licking at her thighs. Beyond his tongue were his fangs, each one marble-white and so very deadly. She wasn’t sure if it was because he had a lot of practice, but the way that his tongue teased out her most hidden pleasures was incredible.

She cried out as the pleasure built and built, crescendoing into raw bliss.

“You taste amazing,” the giant murmured, his tongue continuing its long, deft sweeps. Phoebe squirmed and writhed, her body moving in time with his licks. His lips closed around her legs and her eyes widened, surprised. But he kept his promise not to eat her. Instead, he began to suck on the lower part of her body, the pressure powerful and unbelievably sensual.

Phoebe’s legs bumped up into the slabs of his teeth, but she barely noticed. Grabbing onto the lower part of his nose, she rode the waves of ecstasy until she was completely spent. Hiram practically had to pour her back into his hand, her little body wonderfully limp. He dried Phoebe with a towel and helped her into the clean dress, his fingers working with superhuman dexterity and swiftness. Exhaustion had already settled over her, and she was aware that she was drifting into sleep as he carried her out to the couch.

She didn’t fight the sleep, nor did she protest when he placed her on the sprawling plateau of his chest. Phoebe listened to his heartbeat, so slow and so unnatural, and she allowed herself to tumble into the darkness.

***

He waited until she was unconscious and then moved her to the couch.

The feeling of her body in his hand made Hiram’s heart pound again, and he experienced a sort of relief as he put her down and moved toward the door.

Hiram marched out into the chilly night, hands jammed into the pockets of his leather jacket. The tiny woman was doing things to him, and it wasn’t just the thirst, either. He thought about Phoebe’s little body in his hand, her small, flowing curves. The bright red of her hair, so soft against his skin. The part of him that remembered being human ached for her, and he wanted to run his fingers along her minuscule form, explore every centimeter.

But then he remembered Adeline and everyone else who had fallen victim to his hunger, and his desire turned to ash.

You need to just let her go, Hiram told himself as he wandered along the sidewalk. Bring Phoebe to her friend and then move to another city or town. They’ll never find you, and she’ll be safe.

More than anything, he wanted her to be safe.

He would find someone else, someone who could actually do magic. He’d discover a cure, one way or another. With that plan in mind, he drifted toward a gas station, the cool air helping to clear his mind. Hiram would miss her, of course, but her memory would fade away peacefully, rather than be seared into his brain, tormenting him like Adeline. As he paced by one of the gas pumps, he decided that it was for the best. He was working up the courage to head back to the apartment when he sensed it. Or rather, him. Instinctively, his lips pulled away from his razor teeth as he glanced around warily, the hair standing up on the back of his neck.

Standing in the artificially bright light of the gas station was the man who had given him his current name. The man who knew more about his past than he did. A very cunning and extremely dangerous man.

“Hello, Hiram,” Levi said, flashing his fangs.

It took a monumental effort for Hiram to close his mouth; even then, his lips twitched with barely-concealed annoyance. Levi, on the other hand, was grinning merrily. He was dressed like a CEO or corporate lawyer, his suit perfectly tailored and his light brown hair flawlessly styled. But despite the expensive clothing and haircut, he looked the same to Hiram. Beneath the playful, charming facade, there was only calculating coldness. Hiram often wondered if something in Levi had been dead long before he became a vampire.

“Just the man I was looking for!” Levi exclaimed, as if they were old friends.

“What do you want?” Hiram resisted the urge to show his fangs again.

“Oh, I was just passing through the area and I figured that I’d say hi.”

Hiram narrowed his eyes. He hadn’t seen the other vampire in decades, and he sensed that Levi had some terrible scheme in mind.

“Anyway, have you heard about what happened to Emmanuel at Annwn?” Levi pretended to study the amethyst cuff links that glittered at his wrists. The question caught Hiram off-guard. He was aware that Emmanuel had associated with other monsters and sadists; he supposed that it made sense that he would have known someone as vile as Levi.

“I can’t say that I have,” Hiram replied coolly, and when Levi glanced up, he met his eyes.

“It was awful, really. He was completely drained of blood,” the other vampire said, and they stared at each other, neither looking away.

“Since when do you give a damn about people dying?” Hiram remembered all of the needless death that Levi had caused; he often killed purely for the thrill of it, and that was one of the many reasons why Hiram despised him.

Levi rolled his eyes dramatically. “I can be fond of humans, believe it or not. And Emmanuel was such a wonderful man. He procured all sorts of things for me.”

Hiram doubted that Levi was fond of anyone other than himself.

“So what exactly have you been up to, Hiram?” Levi leaned in closer, and Hiram caught the scent of cologne masking another odor, this one rotten. “What’s been keeping you busy, besides all of those clocks and books? Is there anyone special in your life right now?”

Hiram refused to let his surprise show. Levi knew about Emmanuel’s death, and it seemed that he knew about Phoebe as well. The unspoken threat hung in the air, and Hiram gave in at last, baring his fangs.

“Go to hell, Levi,” he snarled, giving the other vampire a wide berth as he turned to leave.

“Take care, Hiram,” Levi said, his smile artificially warm and his eyes frigid. “We’ll definitely be seeing each other soon.”

***

Phoebe was ripped from sleep when the huge fingers snaked around her.

She relaxed when she saw that the fingers belonged to Hiram. His expression concerned her, however. Rage and fear pinched his features, drawing his dark eyebrows together, and the hand holding her trembled slightly.

“Hiram, what’s wrong?” Phoebe asked, and his fingers tightened.

“We need to go,” he replied, moving around the apartment with urgency. Phoebe held on for dear life as he scooped things up at random and stuffed them into an old gym bag.

“Why? What’s going on?”

Hiram paused, and she felt his pulse quicken against her. “Let’s just say that my past is catching up with me.”

***

Arizona, 1881

Humming cheerfully, Levi made his way through the scrubby underbrush, stopping now and then to yank on the rope in his hand. At the other end of the rope was a disheveled man, hands bound together. His captive stumbled far behind, head hung low. The man had lost his hat during the scuffle at the saloon, and his dirty blond hair was matted with sweat. Levi supposed that he could have used his powers to mesmerize his captive and force him to come along willingly, but he enjoyed the man’s pleading and struggles.

“This is why cheating at cards is such a bad idea,” Levi said, jerking the rope hard. “You may end up getting your sorry ass kicked by a vampire.”

The man winced as he was pulled along. “Y-you’re kidding, right? You ain’t a vampire.”

Levi turned his head, his sharp teeth catching the moonlight, eyes wide and crimson.

“Jesus,” the man whimpered. He tried to back away, but another strong tug on the rope brought him even closer.

“Don’t worry, I won’t drink your blood,” Levi told him. “I need you alive.”

He didn’t seem to convince the man, who struggled more forcibly against his bindings. But his strength was meager and Levi led him along effortlessly. There was no out here to help the man; not even bandits frequented this part of the desert. The landscape was inhospitable, just sand and rocks and prickly plants. And caverns. Levi’s destination was one of those caverns. It had taken some effort to get the information from the locals; no one wanted to discuss the demon that lived out in the desert. But Levi had been gifted with a silver tongue, and one of the bar maids at the saloon had told him everything that she knew.

“The devil in the desert only comes out at night,” she had said, making a quick sign of the cross.

Of course he did; the devil in the desert was a vampire, after all.

Levi found the cave that the bar maid had mentioned. Someone had carved markings on the outside, religious symbols and warnings to whomever stumbled upon the cave. He chuckled at the symbols, knowing that they were useless, that whatever lived in that cavern barely noticed them. His prisoner gawked at them, though, and his face blanched when he saw the pitch blackness of the large opening.

“We ain’t going in there, right?” His captive asked nervously.

Levi smirked at the man, and with a strong tug, forced him into the cave.

They both detected the presence; even the prisoner, with his ordinary human senses, felt it. Levi’s captive gasped and thrashed wildly in the darkness. The rope slipped from Levi’s hand and he cursed, grabbing for it. But before the man could flee, a low growl issued from the back of the cave. It sounded like a rabid dog, and for the first time in years, Levi experienced a cold stab of fear. He stood defensively, preparing himself for a blow.

A gust of air stirred his hair as something raced past him, moving so fast that not even his supernatural eyes could see it properly. Levi’s captive raised his bound hands, as if to ward off the thing charging at him. Roaring, the other vampire tore into the man with a brutality that even Levi found stomach-turning. Levi remained motionless, watching as the thing buried its face into the ruins of the man’s neck. It — he — drank eagerly, greedily, as if he hadn’t fed since the Middle Ages.

Levi finally approached the other vampire, avoiding the mutilated corpse on the cavern floor. The creature was nude, the man’s blood glistening on his leanly-muscled frame, and he glared at Levi with feral gray eyes. There he was, the thing that Levi had been trying so hard to find.

The Source.

“My Lord,” Levi said, bowing deeply.

The other vampire continued to glower at him, although traces of his humanity were beginning to reappear. He looked down at his red-stained hands with ever growing horror. How long has he been in this cave? Levi wondered. The legends were so ancient that the vampire didn’t even have a name. This was perfect, Levi realized. The creature would be easy to manipulate, to shape as Levi saw fit.

Still cautious, Levi sidled closer and said, “You need a name, my Lord.”

The creature stared at him, black tears streaming down his cheeks.

“How about ‘Hiram’?”

***

The night sky was rapidly disappearing by the time that they arrived at the motel. The place wasn’t exactly popular; the only vehicle in the parking lot was a Buick. But at least it was well-maintained, with a fresh coat of yellow paint on the exterior. Sensing Hiram’s agitation, Phoebe stayed quiet in the depths of his pocket as they headed into the motel office. The woman behind the counter tried to flirt with Hiram, but she gave up when her attempts were met with gruff, monosyllabic answers. She handed him the keys to a room and he left without another word.

As soon as Hiram was in the room, he pulled the curtains over the windows and then hung up a blanket for additional protection from the encroaching sunlight. Collapsing onto one of the double beds, he retrieved Phoebe and put her down next to him. A billion questions ran through Phoebe’s mind, but before she could choose one, Hiram spoke.

“I’m not a good person, Phoebe,” he said quietly, and when she tried to interrupt him, he kept talking. “I’ve told you that I can’t remember how I became a vampire. I can’t even remember most of my past. What I do remember is terrible.”

Hiram obviously didn’t want to continue but did so anyway.

“Someone found me…another vampire. His name was Levi. I was so confused and I found myself blindly tagging along with him. All vampires need to feed, but we don’t take pleasure in it. Levi did.” A muscle spasmed at the corner of Hiram’s mouth. “One night I stumbled across what he had done to a young couple, and I don’t think that he had fed at all.”

Phoebe listened, a chill creeping down the length of her spine.

“I wanted to kill him. In hindsight, I should have. But he was the only one who seemed to know anything about me. I let him go, which was a big mistake because now he’s back,” Hiram told her. “I think that he has something planned.”

“What do you think he’s planning to do?”

“I don’t know. But he knows about Emmanuel.” He paused, looking away. “And you.”

The chill in her spine became piercing cold. A psychopathic vampire knew about her, and God only knew what his intentions were. So this was why they were at a motel in the middle of nowhere. They were hiding like two fugitives.

“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it,” Hiram tried to reassure her. His voice had became lethargic and slow, a sign that dawn had finally arrived. He curled up on the bed and the change that overcame him was sudden and shocking. If Phoebe hadn’t known better, she could have thought that he had died rather than fallen asleep. His skin took on a grayish hue, bruise-like circles darkening his eye sockets. Each breath was slower than the last, until it seemed like they had stopped.

Phoebe rose, making as little noise as possible.

She didn’t need to sleep near him. The bed was the length of a football field to her, and there was certainly more than enough space for her to sleep wherever she wanted. But she approached the giant, the floral comforter barely dimpling under her weight. Beneath his long-lashed eyelids, his eyes didn’t flutter. Did vampires dream? Did Hiram manage to recover his memories when he sank into sleep? Phoebe couldn’t help but wonder. She chose the spot where his neck met his chest, a huge hollow that provided a feeling of protection. Laying down so that her back was pressed up against him, she closed her eyes.

***

When night descended and Levi awoke, he was surrounded by luxury.

He never saw the point in austere living, especially when he had the time and ability to amass great wealth. So he indulged himself in whatever he wanted: a penthouse overlooking the city, rare works of art, designer clothing. The bottles of expensive wine and whiskey were merely for show; if he drank any of it, he’d be in agony. One of the few things that Levi missed about being human was liquor and gourmet food.

Fortunately, there were other things that he could eat.

Levi put on a silk robe and left his cavernous bedroom, strolling into the living room. As he was passing by one of the mahogany side tables, he snatched up a vial. The liquid inside was too dark to be human blood; no, this had belonged to a vampire. Emmanuel had managed to get several vials of the stuff for him. Holding it up close to his eyes, Levi examined the blackish blood for a minute or two. Then he heaved it into the fireplace, hardly noticing as the glass shattered.

“Of course it’s worthless,” Levi spat. “Just like he is.”

One of the advantages to having a considerable amount of money was that he could hire the best talent. In this case, he had hired some of the most gifted geneticists to study the vials of blood. He had paid them a small fortune, but their reports always said the same thing: nothing out of the ordinary. Whatever the Source was, it wasn’t physical. Which meant that Levi had to try to get the information another way.

Groaning, he rubbed at his eyes. “The most frustrating part is that he doesn’t even act like a god. He acts like a small, pathetic man. All that power and it’s completely wasted on him.”

There was movement in one of the nearby Waterford crystal vases, and Levi grinned wolfishly. He bent over the tall vase, hands clasped behind his back. Inside of the vase, the tiny man blinked up at Levi. He had probably worn glasses and then lost them when he had been shrank. Levi was most likely a gigantic, monstrous blur to him. Which was sort of a blessing, because he couldn’t see the devilish smirk plastered on Levi’s face.

Emmanuel had sold most of his shrunken victims to unscrupulous sorcerers who used them for spells, but he had given a handful to Levi. They were like little living candy, mouthwateringly delicious.

“You’re one of the last ones, alas,” Levi said to the tiny man cowering in the vase. “Well, there’s also that woman, but I doubt that he’ll give her up easily. He seems to like her a lot.”

The man didn’t say anything, but that was to be expected.

“Of course, I can use that against him. I think that I can pry his secrets from him, given enough time,” Levi said, talking mostly to himself. He was contemplating this when hunger twisted through his abdomen. His stomach growled loudly, impatient.

“Now it’s time for breakfast,” the vampire announced, reaching into the vase.

The tiny man screamed.

***

Hiram found Phoebe stretched out against him, her minuscule body warm against his skin. He didn’t deserve to touch her, or anyone for that matter, but he gave into the urge. His fingertip caressed her chest, then lightly brushed her hair. He sighed, enjoying her delicate softness. If he could spend the rest of eternity doing anything, it would be this. Simply touching another person, reminding himself that he was still human. Hiram couldn’t forget that. No matter what happened, he had to hold onto that.

He felt Phoebe roll over, her arms embracing his finger.

The ever-present hunger made its presence known, but his options were severely limited. There were only two other guests at the motel; with his preternatural hearing, he could tell that they were a retired husband and wife, and he had no desire to hurt them. To distract himself, he sat up, mindful of Phoebe beside him.

“I’m going to take a shower.” Then, feeling oddly bashful, Hiram said, “You can join me if you want.”

Phoebe nodded, so he scooped her up.

The motel bathroom was small, hardly bigger than a closet, but at least it was clean. Setting Phoebe down on the edge of the tub, he began to undress. He noticed how she watched him appreciatively, and she averted her eyes shyly when she realized that he had caught on. Hiram turned on the water, stepped into the shower. Phoebe didn’t move from the edge of the tub, and it occurred to him that she was leery of the water crashing down like a flood around her. He lifted her up and brought her closer to his torso, bending forward slightly so that his back shielded her from the full blast of the water.

This time, she explored him, her touch faintly ticklish. Phoebe started near his navel and worked her way down from there; he had to lower his hand to help her. When she reached between his legs, her touches went from being ticklish to heavenly. Hiram was astonished at how swiftly his body responded; he may have been alone for years and years, but his body remembered. He dug his fingers into the tiled wall, his strength causing them to crack loudly. In his other hand, Phoebe wrapped herself around his hardness, her tiny mouth all over him. Hiram wanted to tell her where to lick, but somehow she knew, and he shuddered in delight.

He didn’t last long, and neither did the wall. It crumbled down into the tub, raining down bits of tile and drywall.

Hiram turned the water off and exited the tub, careful to avoid the sharp fragments of tile. He wrapped one of the thin towels around his waist and then looked down at the woman kneeling on his palm. She was so lovely, so perfect, so delicious…

Remember how she tasted, the hunger whispered insidiously. Like joy. Like life. Don’t you want to experience that?

No. No, Hiram refused to let the hunger control him.

To be on the safe side, he put her down on one of the beds. As he dug through the gym bag, trying to find some clothes to wear, he said, “I’m a hopeless case, but you’re not.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Phoebe asked.

“I’m stuck as a vampire, but we can find someone to restore you to normal size. I know a few mages. They may not be able to help me, but they can probably help you,” Hiram said.

He saw the fragile hope emerge in her eyes, and he smiled sadly.

New York City, 1904

Hiram had his face buried in a book when Levi returned home. The apartment was spacious and located in a desirable part of the city, and Levi had been the one to find it. He got the impression that Hiram would be satisfied living almost anywhere — underneath a bridge, in a rundown warehouse. Worldly comforts meant little to the man, who lived like a monk with his books and not much else.

The other vampire didn’t look up as Levi found a handkerchief and wiped the dark red stains from his fingers.

“You know, life would be a lot more pleasant for you if you actually lived it,” Levi said, methodically cleaning away the blood.

That didn’t get much of a reaction; Hiram’s eyes remained on the page. Sighing, Levi tossed the handkerchief and slid down into one of the plush chairs. He was keenly aware of how different they were; Levi dressed like a socialite, and Hiram looked like a dock worker, with a blue collarless shirt and suspenders and old trousers. And yet, despite his roughness, there was an undeniable appeal to Hiram. He was beautiful in a feral way.

“Well, I had a wonderful night. I met the most beautiful succubus — Tullia, I think her name was — and we really hit it off. She told me all kinds of stories about the infernal planes.” Levi didn’t mention what he had done after he had left Tullia, although the bloody handkerchief probably gave it away.

Again, no reaction.

Levi clasped his hands together and leaned back in the chair. “Do you ever think about your past life? Before you became a vampire?”

Hiram’s gaze lifted at last. There was a raw vulnerability in his gray eyes that disgusted Levi.

“No,” was Hiram’s response. “Do you?”

“Often. Then again, I’m not nearly as old as you are,” Levi said; then, deciding to hunt around for answers once more, he asked, “Do you remember anything about your past?”

Hiram frowned and shook his head, and Levi couldn’t tell if he was lying or not. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, I’m just curious,” Levi replied. Which was far from the truth. Hiram had his hoard of secrets, and Levi would uncover them, one at a time, until he finally found what he wanted. As Hiram turned his attention back to the book, Levi stood up and stretched.

There was a couple who had just moved into the apartment down the hall, and he wanted so much to meet them.

***

After several days of takeout, Phoebe decided that she wouldn’t be able to eat lo mein ever again. As usual, Hiram ate nothing, and it was obvious that he wasn’t getting any blood, either. He paced around the motel room like a caged animal, brow furrowed as he made one call after another. Phoebe couldn’t help but worry. His will was admirable, and he was far stronger than she would have been in his situation, but she knew that the temptation was always there and that she was never truly safe.

When Hiram finally got in touch with one of his contacts, she couldn’t help but feel guilty relief.

Phoebe eavesdropped as she picked her through a gargantuan mountain of beef and broccoli, the sticky pieces of broccoli laying on the paper plate like fallen trees.

“You know that I don’t normally call in favors, Tristan,” Hiram said to whomever was on the other line. He was near the heavily-shrouded windows, leaning up against the wall and trying to talk quietly into the phone. But Phoebe could hear everything; one of the few advantages to being tiny was that normal voices carried like thunder. The other person — Tristan, she assumed — said something, and Hiram’s lip curled up in annoyance, revealing the sharp spike of a fang.

“Yes, I know that it’ll be expensive. Money isn’t an issue,” he replied curtly. Hiram’s irritation seemed to go away, or at least, he managed to hide it. He listened and then muttered a quick good-bye. Phoebe wiped her hands on a huge sheet of napkin as he hung up and approached her.

“The good news is that I found someone who’s willing to help us,” Hiram said. “He’s not my first choice, but we don’t have many options right now.”

Phoebe considered this, then stepped into his hand. He was becoming better at picking her up; he was no longer so impatient, so rough. His cool fingers surrounded her, and she held onto one of his knuckles as he carried her out to the truck.

***

They met Tristan at his house, which was a gingerbread Victorian that would have been gigantic even if Phoebe had been normal-sized. As she wondered how many rooms the house had, Hiram approached the door, which had been painted deep purple and green. He didn’t bother to knock, just laid one hand on the door. A ghostly shimmer passed over the outside of the house and the door swung open on its own, revealing a dimly-lit interior decorated with flowered wallpaper and a wide variety of antiques, some in good condition, some not.

“Is he here?” Phoebe asked from Hiram’s pocket.

“Yeah. He’s expecting us.” Old floorboards creaked underneath the vampire’s boots as he strode down the hallway and then turned into a large room. Unlike the rest of the house, this room looked modern, with gleaming light fixtures and new furniture. The only thing that seemed out of place was the circular table, carved out of a dark red wood and littered with candles. A black-haired man was seated at the table, sipping at a glass of white wine. He glanced up when Hiram entered, and Phoebe caught sight of pointed ears and delicate, otherworldly features. Part Fae, maybe? His left eye had been replaced by a stained glass replica, the rainbow segments pieced together with fine pewter threads.

“You’re late,” the man said, and Hiram slid into a chair across from him.

“Not like you had anywhere to go, Tristan,” Hiram replied, and the man — Tristan — rolled his living eye.

“Anyway, let’s get down to business,” the vampire said, withdrawing Phoebe from his pocket.

Tristan’s living eye focused first on Hiram, then on the tiny woman as she was placed on the tabletop.

The eye widened, surprised.

“Well, this is certainly something,” Tristan managed to say.

Hiram smiled lopsidedly. “I know that you’ve seen weirder stuff, Tristan.”

“I have seen lots of weird stuff, but I never thought that I’d see a mouse-sized person.” Tristan bent down closer to the table, his wine-sour breath washing over Phoebe. The stained glass eye caught the yellowish light of a nearby candle, glittering. “Is this what you called me about?”

“Yeah. Can you undo the spell? Return her to normal size?”

As if Phoebe was a figurine and not an actual person, the mage plucked her up. She yelped, startled, and Hiram’s lips twitched, showing the barest hint of his fangs.

“Careful,” Hiram warned, and Tristan relaxed his grip. He pinched her between his thumb and forefinger, examining her with his mismatched eyes.

“This is a very bad spell,” the mage said softly. “I’m not used to seeing this kind of magic. Who did this to her?”

“Emmanuel,” Hiram told him, and Tristan’s living eye narrowed.

“Sounds like something he would do.” The mage continued to scrutinize the tiny woman held between his fingers. “I’m not sure how easy it’ll be to undo this.”

“You’re a smart guy. You can probably figure it out,” Hiram said.

“It won’t be cheap, either.”

“I didn’t think that it would be, especially coming from you,” Hiram replied, and Tristan shrugged.

“I’m not an altruistic person, Hiram. I always look out for myself, first and foremost,” the mage said, dumping Phoebe onto the table. She was glad to be free from his ungentle hands, and she quickly darted across the table, away from him.

Tristan retrieved his glass of wine and took a sip. “Not that you can judge me, Hiram. Your soul is filthier than mine.”

“I’m well aware of the state of my soul,” Hiram hissed. With the glass still raised to his lips, the mage chuckled.

“Are you?” Tristan asked enigmatically. He finished his wine and placed the glass where Phoebe had been earlier, the impact tremor rippling beneath her feet. The stained glass eye regarded her, and for a second, it seemed as if Tristan was able to see her with it.

Maybe he could.

“I’ll try a few simple spells, and we’ll see how it goes.” Tristan rose. “I need a few things. Be back in a minute.”

The stained glass eye watched Phoebe until the mage disappeared from the room. It could have been the way that Tristan had held her, or the way that his mismatched eyes swept over her like she was some valuable collectible, but Phoebe didn’t trust the man.

“Where did you find this guy?” She asked.

“He was the only mage that I could reach,” Hiram said. “So let’s see what he can do.”

They listened to Tristan rummaging around loudly in another room; judging by the amount of cursing, he was having trouble finding something. The cursing was cut short, replaced by a strangled shriek. Hiram leapt from the chair and bolted through the doorway in search of the scream. Stranded on top of the table, Phoebe could only watch as Hiram melted into the darkness of the hallway.

And then she saw a flash of metal, followed by a heavy, meaty thud.

Hiram tumbled backward, hitting the floor hard. Dark blood seeped from his head as he lay there, and Phoebe wasn’t sure if he was unconscious or dead. By the time that she made it to the opposite side of the table, a figure had emerged from the hallway. The man was wearing a tailored suit and gloves, a golf club held casually in his hands. Except it didn’t look like any golf club that she had ever seen in her life. It gleamed too brightly and there was an unearthly aura surrounding it.

At first, the stranger’s attention was entirely on Hiram. He nudged the vampire’s body with one foot, waiting to see if there’d be a reaction. When Hiram didn’t stir, the man’s gaze fell on Phoebe.

“There you are,” the stranger said. “You must be Phoebe.”

Phoebe stared at him, slack-jawed.

“You don’t know who I am, do you?” The man grinned, revealing fangs similar to Hiram’s. “My name’s Levi.”

Levi. The psychopathic vampire was here, standing over Hiram’s body, his crimson pupils locked on her. Phoebe didn’t know what to do, her muscles paralyzed from fear. Levi lowered the golf club and stalked toward her.

“I can tell by your expression that he’s mentioned me,” he said, and Phoebe finally gained control of her body. She tried to flee, but her route was blocked by a gigantic hand as it slammed down onto the table and caused a mammoth earthquake. Desperate, Phoebe feinted running right and then went left instead. Once more, the hand crashed down from the heavens, mocking her futile attempts. She glanced up, saw that Levi was watching her with obvious delight.

“Oh, you’re a feisty one,” he laughed, grabbing for her. Phoebe dodged his grasp, only to be pinned down beneath his outstretched palm. Her cries were muffled by the heavy flesh of his hand. She was beginning to think that he would simply suffocate her when he eased the pressure at last. Levi lifted her up, amused by her squirming and wiggling, and held her dangerously close to his razor fangs.

“I can see why he likes you,” Levi commented, and she stopped squirming, transfixed by those terrifying teeth. “You look mouthwatering. Fortunately for you, though, I’ve already eaten.”

Phoebe recalled what Hiram had said earlier, about Levi finding pleasure in pain and misery, and she stayed very still, her breaths rapid and shallow.

Something sparkled in the hallway, and Phoebe caught sight of Tristan’s stained glass eye. He merely stood there, not moving to help. His face was half-hidden in the gloom, but the guilt and shame were easy to detect on his features. It dawned on her that he had somehow been involved with this plot and anger welled up in her chest.

“He sold you out for a few dollars,” Levi said, glancing in Tristan’s direction and confirming her suspicions. “You can’t trust anyone nowadays.”

Her gaze shifted to Hiram, who remained motionless near the doorway, black blood gathering around his head.

“Don’t worry, he’s not dead. He has a lot of secrets, and there’s one in particular that I want,” Levi said as Phoebe shivered in his hand.

****

Phoebe was back in a jar, although this one was larger and more ornate than the one that had served as her prison at Annwn. It was one of the many antiques strewn around the shadowy room. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed — it was at least a day, because bright sunlight had spilled through one of the windows and then given way to darkness — and she kept expecting her captors to visit. But Tristan hadn’t appeared, which was a good thing because she would have tried to punch him, even if she was the size of a gerbil. And Levi frightened her, with his cold, hazel eyes. Vampires looked like they were caught in between life and death, which made sense, but Levi’s eyes didn’t have a speck of life in them. Even worse, she suspected that his eyes had never been truly alive. All that she saw was seething hunger, although not the physical kind that Hiram endured. No, this hunger was emotional, a cruelty that could never be satisfied.

Hiram thought that he was a monster, but he had been wrong. This was a monster, and she was now at his mercy.

She heard the heavy thunder of footsteps, and she hoped that it was Tristan. Or better yet, Hiram. Maybe he had somehow stopped Levi and Tristan and come to her rescue.

But then Phoebe saw the dead hazel eyes and her innards turned to ice.

The vampire tapped on the side of the jar with a gloved finger, each impact jostling her entire body. “Good. You’re still alive in there.”

“What do you want?” Phoebe asked, her voice wobbling more than she would have preferred.

“Answers, mostly. Not that I expect you to know much.” Levi tapped on the jar more forcefully this time, nearly knocking it from the table. Phoebe whimpered and pressed herself against the cool glass. If the giant wanted, he could simply shove the jar over and send her plummeting to her death.

“Do you ever wonder where vampires come from?” He asked unexpectedly. Phoebe didn’t know if he wanted her to give an opinion or not, so she didn’t make a sound. Levi ran one finger along the side of the jar. “There’s all kinds of legends. The spawn of Cain. Dracula. I even heard one story about vampires coming from outer space. But a long time ago, I stumbled across the truth, or part of it, at least. There was a reference in an old book to The Source, which was magic or some other power that had welded itself to a human.”

He’s talking about Hiram, Phoebe gradually realized. Hiram is The Source.

“Yeah, that mopey asshole isn’t a vampire, he’s the vampire. The original one. And he’s spent centuries trying to turn himself back. Can you believe having that sort of power and just wanting to give it up?” Levi bared his sharp teeth and Phoebe flinched. “Then again, he’s always been an idiot. Falling head over heels for people and then destroying them.”

Lightning fast, the giant snatched up the jar, causing Phoebe to lose her footing. “Like you. Do you think that you’re special? Because you’re not special at all. The hunger will win and he’ll devour you as well.”

Phoebe tried to look up at him defiantly, but his words unnerved her. Was Levi right? Would Hiram eventually give into his darker appetites? She remembered when she had first met him, the way that his eyes had gleamed inhumanly. It was moments like that, when the ravenous hunger took over and he was merely a shell of a man, that he terrified her.

He’ll devour you as well.

Levi dipped his hand into the jar and grabbed Phoebe around the waist. She was wise enough not to struggle, not to give him an excuse to cause her agony. It was difficult, though. Squeezed between his fingers, her skin crawled at his touch.

“It’s a pity that you won’t be around for very long,” Levi said, holding her close enough to his eyes that she could have struck the left one. Reason prevailed once more, and she resisted the urge to lash out at the crimson pupil inspecting her.

“You would have made a cute little pet,” the vampire told her, and Phoebe did take a clumsy swing. Levi chuckled and tightened his grip until she was certain that she’d faint, and then relaxed it again. Still laughing, he carried her to another room. This one was empty except for a wooden chair. And Hiram. He was bound with thick, silvery chains, his shoulders drooped, head lowered. Levi approached him carefully and then flicked him in the side of the face.

“Wake up, sleeping beauty,” Levi said, and Hiram didn’t just wake up. He roared to life, his eyes wide and deeply red. Snarling, he tried to lunge at Levi, the chair shaking and heaving from his violent movements.

“You’ve been so uncooperative, Hiram.” Levi smirked and brought Phoebe into view. “I bet you’re starving, aren’t you?”

Hiram’s scarlet eyes leapt from Levi to Phoebe, and there was no recognition in them. Only that desperate, animalistic hunger. Levi dangled her close to the other vampire, and Hiram reacted with frenzy, snapping at her like some colossal shark. His teeth were so close, huge, flashing slabs that clacked and chomped at the air before her.

Phoebe shrieked and thrashed in Levi’s hand.

At the sound of her cries, Hiram stopped snapping at the air. His facial muscles twitched and he panted heavily. Fighting himself, although it was a losing battle. Hiram’s crazed eyes rolled in their sockets before they focused on Phoebe once more.

“Like I said, you’re not special,” Levi said, unfurling his fingers and holding her like an offering on his palm.

Almost gently, Hiram’s lips closed around Phoebe, pulling her into his waiting mouth.

***

“You and I aren’t so different,” Levi said, watching as Hiram ate the tiny woman. “You like to pretend that you have morals, but in the end, we’re just looking out for ourselves.”

The other vampire wouldn’t meet his gaze — guilt, maybe? — although Levi could see that the hunger was still there, still gnawing at him. Which didn’t surprise him; the woman couldn’t have been more than a morsel, something to whet his appetite. In this condition, Hiram would be more susceptible to the spell that Tristan was about to perform. Most magic didn’t affect vampires, they had a kind of natural immunity, but Tristan claimed that this spell would work.

And if it didn’t work? Well, Levi would feed the mage to Hiram too.

He called Tristan into the room, and the man entered nervously, watching Hiram like he was a lion. Except that Hiram was much more dangerous than a lion, and there was no doubt that he’d rip out Tristan’s throat if he came too close.

“How is this supposed to work again?” Levi asked, and Tristan seemed transfixed by Hiram’s furious glare.

“It’s a spell from the same grimoire that bound The Source,” the mage replied as Hiram’s glower intensified, the vampire’s fingers digging inch-deep furrows into the wood of the chair. “I modified it to work on memories.”

Levi leaned down and whispered into Hiram’s ear, “Did you hear that? I’m about to give you your past back.”

***

Somehow, Phoebe was alive.

Fortunately, she wasn’t on a one-way trip through Hiram’s digestive system, but she wouldn’t have said that her current situation was ideal. When he had dragged her into mouth, she had expected to be thrown down into his esophagus. But his tongue had pushed her beneath it, and when she had tried to free herself, it had shoved her down again. Trapped under the heavy bulk of his tongue, viscous saliva puddling around her, it had dawned on Phoebe that his action were deliberate. That there was some part of Hiram still there, that he wasn’t completely mindless. So she didn’t move again, her body wedged against smooth, soft gums. In the humid darkness, she listened to the internal workings of his body, the bellows of his breaths and the strange blood flowing through his veins. Occasionally, Hiram would swallow the saliva pooling around her, and as it flowed backwards, she feared that she’d be swept along with it.

Please, Hiram, Phoebe silently pleaded. I know that you’re there. Please don’t swallow me.

Levi and Tristan were talking, their voices faraway and muffled. She heard them mention a spell, and then the mage began to recite words from a language that she didn’t recognize. The gusting blasts of Hiram’s breathing slowed as he fell into some sort of stupor, his tongue resting against her like a beached whale.

She could only listen as the spell overtook him.

***

Memories trickled into Hiram’s mind, slowly at first and then becoming a deluge. They overwhelmed him, years and years worth of memories, all of them out of sequence. Hiram saw Adeline reading her poetry, unaware of the fate that awaited her; he saw Levi standing over the bodies of the couple down the hall, bright blood flecking his face; he saw a woman with dark, wavy hair and kind eyes, arms outstretched, and he realized that she was his mother.

Then he saw who he had been.

He hadn’t been a king or a general or a lord, and he had no magical gifts. He had been just a man, surrounded by so much power, and craving his own. He had become an assassin, and a successful one at that. Terrible images appeared, of daggers and rope and poison and a trail of death. Powerful men noticed him, gave him favors in exchange for carrying out their dirty deeds. One of those favors had been access to a grimoire that supposedly predated humanity. He had found what he had been searching for: access to magic. Access to power.

The memory shimmered, skipped forward in time. He was in a cave, but not the one in Arizona. No, this was long ago, before the pharaohs had ruled in Egypt. He had summoned the entity in the grimoire and it stood before him. Its body was emaciated, ribs outlined against its pale skin. The worst part was the face because there wasn’t one, just a swirling jumble of chaos. Looking at it for too long made him dizzy and horrified.

“Are you a god?” He asked, frightened and yet fascinated.

“No,” the thing said. “I devour gods. Once, I was vast and I consumed entire universes. But now I am reduced to this.”

The entity sensed his hesitance and crept toward him, its overly long limbs swaying. “I can give you so much. Immortality. Strength. Power.”

“Yes,” he replied. “Yes, I want that.”

It laid its bony hands on his shoulders, and impossibly, he thought that he saw a smile in the whirlpool of its face. “You and I will be inseparable. You will become so much more.”

***

And now he was in the present, his head swimming. Hiram hadn’t been intoxicated in thousands of years, but it felt like he had drank gallons of wine. It was difficult to collect his thoughts as voices spoke around him.

“It’s not working. I should tear your other eye out for being such a failure.”

“Give it some time, Levi.”

“He had better start talking.”

The voices became softer, fading away. A door opened and then slammed. Hiram’s head lolled and he felt squirming underneath his tongue. Phoebe. It was Phoebe. The hunger howled inside of him, and he knew that the entity was right, they were inseparable. More than anything in the world, he wanted to eat the tiny woman, feel her faint movements in his stomach.

Swallow her. Swallow her. Swallow —

He spat Phoebe into his lap, her drenched body landing onto his right thigh. She lay there, stunned, and then pushed herself to her hands and knees.

“Hiram, we need to—,” Phoebe started to say before he interrupted, his voice creaky, as if he hadn’t used it since he had made that awful bargain with the entity.

“Go.”

“What?”

“Run.” As if on their own will, his arms strained against the silvery chains, threatening to break them. “Get away from here. From me.”

Phoebe remained frozen on his thigh, not moving, not escaping. Hiram roared at her, several of the chain links popping and snapping, and she finally began to climb down the length of his leg, holding onto the fabric of his jeans for support. The last fragment of his human self prayed that she’d get away before the chains gave way.

He was so very hungry.

Phoebe reached the floor and only hesitated for a moment. As much as she wanted to help Hiram, she knew that he was dangerous in this state. Growling and snarling, he heaved against the chains, more beast than man. Those chains were some of the biggest and thickest that she had ever seen, and yet they were snapping beneath the vampire’s strength, broken links flying in all directions. One of the links nearly landed on her, and that prompted Phoebe to start running.
 
She had made it halfway across the room when the chains finally gave way.

There was nowhere to hide; the only piece of furniture in the room was the chair, and the door seemed like a lightyear away. So Phoebe turned and faced the giant as he sprang toward her, the floorboards quaking beneath his weight. What else could she possibly do?

“Hiram, I know that you can hear me,” she said slowly. Which was a guess at best; the vampire was in a crouching position, his movements frenetic and jerky. His lips were peeled back to reveal every single tooth — molars and incisors and, of course, those long and deadly-sharp fangs. Whatever was going through his head wasn’t rational at all.

One of his hands crashed down next to Phoebe, the impact almost toppling her. Saliva dribbled down from his gnashing mouth, pattering onto the floor.

“You don’t have to do this,” she tried to persuade him. “You’re a good person.”

Her words didn’t seem to penetrate the ravenous hunger; the giant’s face inched down toward her, razor teeth bared. Phoebe stared back into his crimson eyes, seeing only that terrible need. And then something else splashed onto the floor. Inky-black tears spilled down Hiram’s cheeks in dark rivulets.

“No, Tristan and everyone else was right. I’m an awful person,” he said. “I remember everything now. I wasn’t some tragic hero. I did atrocious things and I invited this nightmare into me.”

Phoebe saw that he was telling the truth.

She retreated cautiously, her gaze alternating between the giant and the door. Hiram reached for her, fingers outstretched; then, without warning, he sank his teeth deep into his forearm. Distracting himself. He groaned, more out of desperation than pain, and Phoebe took advantage of the small opportunity that he had given her.

Dashing the rest of the way across the room, she squeezed herself beneath the door. A few seconds later, the door shuddered and cracked as Hiram slammed against it. Phoebe glanced back, saw the wood splintering as the vampire smashed and clawed his way through it.

Then she fled.

***

Everything about this situation was making Tristan nervous.

He had agreed to help Levi for a large — no, a gigantic — amount of money. When the vampire had first contacted him, the job had seemed easy enough. Trick Hiram, retrieve his memories, and then receive a very handsome reward. But there was something off about Levi, and it was putting Tristan on edge. He had expected vampires to be creepy — they drank human blood, for one thing. Levi wasn’t just creepy, though.

He was terrifying.

As they had walked down the hallway, leaving Hiram to recapture his memories, Levi had asked him if he knew any shrinking spells. When Tristan had asked why, the vampire had grinned horribly.

“Emmanuel used to provide me with shrunken people,” Levi had replied. “I’ve grown fond of them.”

That answer had made Tristan’s flesh crawl. He had decided that it’d be better not to work with Levi in the future, no matter how much money he offered. The threats alone weren’t worth it, and as Tristan had mumbled an excuse and left the vampire in the hallway, he had wondered what exactly Levi was doing with those shrunken people.

At least it was almost dawn, and the vampire would be disappearing into a dark room for the duration of the day. That would give Tristan a chance to unwind, away from Levi’s cold, cruel eyes. He’d dig through his books and find another spell, just in case the current one didn’t work on Hiram. Tristan headed toward his study, that sense of doom lingering. He guessed that it had something with his Fae heritage, a psychic ability to predict when he was in trouble.

And he was definitely in trouble. He didn’t doubt that Levi would carry out his threats, including the more gruesome ones.

On his way to his study, Tristan noticed the gaping hole in the door to the room where they had been keeping Hiram. He stopped, studied the jagged fragments of wood strewn across the floor. His psychic ability set off shrieking alarms in his head, and as he realized that Hiram had escaped, there was a sudden flurry of movement in the corner of his eye.

The last thing that Tristan saw was Hiram’s mouth yawning open, sharp teeth glistening.

***

Phoebe crept down the hallway, staying close to the baseboard. If she could make it to the front door, she could escape. Or that’s what she hoped; she wasn’t sure if Tristan had cast some sort of spell that prevented anyone from leaving. If that was the case, she would hide until she figured out another plan. Maybe Hiram would come to his senses, although she remembered what he had said, about being an awful person.

And yet she also recalled how he had fought himself, battled those inhuman urges.

Footsteps boomed down the hallway, steadily headed in her direction. Phoebe’s heart lurched and she darted into yet another room. This one was stacked with furniture, which gave her ample hiding places. Quickly, she crawled under a dresser, avoiding the enormous dust bunnies that loomed over her like filthy clouds. Holding her breath, she strained her ears, hoping that she hadn’t been spotted. Seconds passed, and then a minute.

The footsteps intensified, as did the sick feeling in Phoebe’s belly. A pair of colossal legs appeared, striding toward the dresser and the tiny woman hiding in the shadows. The giant paused, as if contemplating something, and Phoebe prayed that he would leave.

Just as she was beginning to think that her prayers had been heard, Levi bent down, his face filling the gap between the dresser and the floor.

“Oh, you’re still alive,” he remarked, his smile hideous. “Well, if he doesn’t want to eat you, I will.”

The vampire’s pupils expanded, filing his eyes with that dreadful red. Sensing his intentions, Phoebe turned away, refusing to meet his hypnotic gaze.

“You want to come to me,” Levi whispered, and that strange, familiar fogginess leaked into her mind. His mind-control abilities weren’t as powerful as Hiram’s, but she struggled against them nevertheless. Yes, I want to come to him, Phoebe thought, and she truly did. Even though she knew that he’d drain her dry or swallow her like a piece of candy, Phoebe’s heart and legs ached, longing to walk in the direction of the vampire.

No. No, I don’t think so, you bastard.

“No,” Phoebe said, teeth gritted so hard that they hurt.

His hand lashed out, trying to seize her, and Phoebe moved as far away as possible, her back pressing up against the wall. The giant’s enormous fingers dug and scratched and scrabbled at the floorboards, leaving behind long grooves.

“I was kidding about eating you. Come out and I’ll make you my pet,” the vampire coaxed, still grasping for her. “I’ll dress you up in the finest silks and you can do tricks for me.”

“Go to hell!”

Levi’s expression darkened. “Fine. Be that way.”

He stood, and as Phoebe wondered what he was doing, the dresser lifted high into the air, the drawers rattling and banging loudly. With his supernatural strength, Levi held the huge piece of furniture as if it weighed nothing at all.

“You should have come out,” he said, tossing aside the dresser. Phoebe knew that running wasn’t an option, so she balled up her hands and glared at the giant defiantly. This seemed to delight Levi; he squatted down, eyes glittering.

“Oh, look how fierce you are,” Levi laughed, poking her in the stomach with one enormous finger. It was like being battered by a wildly swaying log, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her discomfort. He pinched the back of Phoebe’s doll dress and yanked her up from the floor. The dress seams protested, threatening to rip, but Phoebe was more concerned by the fact that Levi had positioned her over his waiting mouth. His tongue reared up, licking at her legs, and she responded with frantic kicks. Pounding at the wet, heavy mass of his tongue did nothing except elicit a chuckle from the giant. He was the cat and she was the mouse, and he was toying with her before the inevitable occurred.

The growl came from the darkness, low and angry and not quite human, and a moment later Hiram charged at them.

Levi grunted in pain and surprise as the other vampire barreled into him full-force. Somehow, he held onto Phoebe, whose world had become a violent blur of motion and titanic, heaving bodies. She was trapped between two kaiju-sized beings, and as they snarled and fought each other, Phoebe was terrified that she’d be squashed. When Hiram bit down on Levi’s shoulder, her captor shrieked and finally let her go. Phoebe spilled from his open hand onto the floor, and she moved out of the way quickly. Which was a wise decision, because the giants rolled where she had been, still punching and biting.

“Give the power to me,” Levi hissed, managing to shove the other vampire away. “I can use it better than you can!”

Hiram laughed bitterly. “Even if I could give it away, you’re the last person on Earth that I’d give it to. You’re a monster.”

“So are you!”

“I know,” Hiram said. “And I’m sorry for that.”

Phoebe noticed that both vampires had slowed down, as if exhaustion had hit them. And she realized why: thin beams of sunlight filtered through the window shades. Dawn had arrived, bringing with it golden light. One of the beams brushed Hiram’s cheek and the skin smoked and smoldered, grayish smoke curling outward in wisps. He didn’t flinch, didn’t react at all. The pain didn’t seem to reach him.

“You’re weak! You’re pathetic! You’re urrrk —,” Levi screeched, his rant extinguished when Hiram grabbed him roughly. Phoebe couldn’t see Hiram’s face but Levi did, and whatever he saw gave him pause. His rage was replaced by horror, his hazel eyes so wide that they bulged.

“Wh-what are you?” Levi whimpered, and Hiram’s head moved enough that Phoebe caught a glimpse of something horrible: the edge of a swirling chaos, a ravenous madness that had existed before this world did.

I invited this nightmare into me, Hiram had told her.

“This is the answer that you were chasing for so long,” Hiram said, and Levi howled in terror. His cry became higher, shriller, as Hiram hurled him through the window, his body launched out into the sunlight. Fire exploded over his skin and clothes, and by the time that he hit the ground, he was nothing more than whitish ash. Hiram stood staring at the broken window, far enough away that the light didn’t cause him to spontaneously combust as well. At last he turned, and to Phoebe’s relief, his face had resumed its normal shape.

“I remember now why I forgot everything,” he told her, and Phoebe should have taken the opportunity to escape. Even if it hadn’t been daytime, Hiram wouldn’t have followed her. There was only grief in his eyes, enough to fill several lifetimes, and the fight was gone from him. But Phoebe didn’t move toward the doorway, toward the warm sunlight; instead, she went back into the darkness where Hiram wiped futilely at the blood on his face, his hands too stained to remove it.

And then, slowly and gently, he reached down to pick her up.