The Secret Ingredient Is Love. No, Really Read online

  “A long time,” he said softly. “You deserve a rest.”

  “We all do. This is the easy life, my guy. We made it. You, me, and Jasper—whatever the hell else he gets up to, he’s here and doing better, that’s what matters. Practically retirement, except we still get to see each other every day. I call that winning. It’s more than a lot of people get.”

  “I know,” Jude said, sounding so serious and earnest she felt a flicker of hope deep down, that maybe they weren’t as estranged as it seemed; maybe they could still come back from this. But she knew better by now than to jump at that kind of faint hope. She didn’t usually like where she landed. “It’s more than Felix got. And he wouldn’t want me to throw it all away.”

  Some words still hit like the proverbial ton of bricks. Some names. After five years, she could hear and say Felix’s name without a wave of nausea or cold weight in her stomach—but that was when she was ready for it. Out of everything, she hadn’t expected Jude to bring up that name in particular, and that knocked her too off-balance to ignore. Her smile faded along with the last of her energy. “No, he wouldn’t. We’re the lucky ones, Jude. Enjoy it. For everyone who can’t.”

  “Anything else... Eva?” His voice was still quiet. Some of the tension had finally faded from his body, but it just left him looking tired.

  “No.” She shook her head, looking again at the dark circles under his eyes and wondering if her own matched. “Go home. Go home and rest,” she specified, knowing what would happen if she didn’t. “No more chasing shadows for you. Not tonight.”

  “Good night,” he said, giving her what she suspected was an attempted smile. She appreciated the effort, it was getting harder for both of them.

  “See you tomorrow.” Eva tried to smile back, but didn’t succeed any more than he had. How strange it was to miss someone when they were standing right in front of you.

  Jude turned on his heel and strode out of the room, and Eva sank back into her chair, suddenly exhausted. As she watched her friend leave, she wasn’t entirely sure whether to laugh at the absurdity—vampires in the mall, he says—or cry for everything they’d been and everything they’d lost. A few seconds after the door closed, Eva put her forehead down on her desk. But first she ripped the rumpled Band-Aid off her nose.

  The night outside was damp and cool. It had just rained—it was Oregon, of course it had—and even the night air of the parking lot smelled fresh and clean. Jude’s eyes flicked into the darkest shadows as he walked the unfamiliar path, automatically scanning ahead for escapes and dead ends. He counted steps toward alleys and parked cars, paused just before rounding a corner or object large enough for a predator—living or otherwise—to hide behind.

  It wasn’t his usual route home—he didn’t want to risk running into Eva again as she made her own way back to their apartment building. Being off the clock helped both of their respective stress levels and she’d be friendly to him, he knew, even after their sort-of-fight about punk kids and coffee malfunctions—and him not being there when she needed him. At one time, that would have been unthinkable. He’d failed her today, yes. But the risk was calculated and the stakes were higher than either one of them alone.

  And Eva wasn’t nearly as well-adjusted and together as she liked to think. The flash of pain in her eyes when he’d dropped the bomb, the name ‘Felix,’ always on their minds and hardly ever on their lips… he almost regretted it, but her reaction only strengthened his resolve. She had to know what drove Jude’s every waking thought—the same thing that drove her, really. Eva just didn’t know it yet. She wouldn’t hear it. And given the choice between an awkward conversation and facing a night full of potential horrors, Jude knew what he’d pick every time.

  He almost made it to the far side of the lot before he saw them. A pair of figures near a streetlamp, just outside its pale yellow circle of light.

  “You kids shouldn’t be out this late,” he called, taking a few steps toward them. The streetlight flickered above. Maybe they were here for some of Jasper’s less-than-legal substances and/or services that he and Eva never quite got around to checking on. Maybe they were just bored. It didn’t matter. His job was to protect them all.

  “It’s getting dark,” Jude tried again, and didn’t get an answer. The pale light sputtered and went out. The darkness was complete, and so was the silence. A chill rushed up his spine and he almost kept moving, faster this time. But he stayed where he was, because they couldn’t have left either, not without making some noise. “Listen, it’s not safe—”

  The light came back on, bright as a white-hot spotlight on a stage. The two kids were gone. In their place were monsters.

  Their eyes flashed an iridescent blue-green with thin, vertical pupils. Like cats, Jude thought wildly. Black, leathery wings rose behind them, spanning four or five feet on either side, partly blocking out the bright light.

  The short one was a very pale grey, with spiky, short blonde hair and small, long-fingered hands outstretched toward him and flashing lethal-looking claws. Toes as well, he realized--they'd ditched their shoes, Heelys and otherwise. Those clawed feet must have been pretty squeezed, but now they were free, toenail-claws flashing through the air. The taller one was a darker grey, the tight curls of her black hair falling all the way down to her waist in meticulously neat coils. When she struck a dramatic pose in the spotlight and waved her long arms, the streetlamp’s light flickered again, but this time it intensified.

  High-pitched keening erupted from two wide-stretched mouths, an alien sound. Choking, Jude bent over almost double, fists defensively blocking his face. As he staggered back, he caught another glance at the creatures’ faces—and realized the terrifying expressions were smiles. They were laughing at him. Their grin-bared teeth flashed along with their eyes, very bright, and very sharp.

  Jude froze, and the world along with him. He couldn’t breathe.

  It was five years ago and fire blazed all around. The night wind wasn’t cool and damp anymore. Instead, superheated air seared his lungs when he inhaled. Screams cut through the dark as helicopter blades thrummed in the distance, getting closer. Not fast enough, help would never reach them in time. Static crackled in his ear. His throat was raw from yelling for help—where was Felix? Was he all right?—and breathing in smoke, but the radio didn’t work. That had been the first thing to go. The smell of blood was so thick in the air he almost gagged, metallic sting sharp in his nostrils and mouth.

  The moon was full and very bright. Like the streetlight. Like reflective eyes. Like teeth.

  Running hadn’t worked then and it wouldn’t now, Jude knew that deep in his bones. He’d never seen anything move as fast as the thing that had swept by him that night, leaving death in its wake. He couldn’t fight back and hope to survive, either. But at least he’d go down with his fists up, standing between the creatures and the mall lights behind him. He’d end the way he started, protecting Eva, Jasper, and everything good left in the world.

  Head down and arms up, Jude waited for the death blow. It didn’t come.

  Slowly, he lowered his hands and looked up, eyes wide and unblinking, frozen like a deer caught in the last headlights it would see on this Earth. He saw the flashes of two grins, the same laughing faces with razor-toothed smiles—but somehow, the tilt of their heads looked perplexed, and their smiles confused. They didn’t attack. The two creatures just stared at him for a few seconds, looking almost awkward, as if they’d just told a joke that had flown over his head.

  They turned away from him to face one another, holding a whispered conversation. He couldn’t hear what they said, but it didn’t sound like the guttural growls he expected. More like a whispered exchanged between girls giggling in the food court. The familiarity was as disorienting as the strangeness, paralyzing in itself.

  Then the shorter of the two waved the taller one away, shaking her head. She turned on her clawed foot and took a few short-legged but powerful strides, then launched herself into the air on
quick-spreading, dark wings. Her companion followed after shooting one last, almost pitying look back at the terrified, motionless human huddled on the ground below.

  Jude stayed there long after the sky was clear. Then, cursing himself for his own helplessness, he scrambled to his feet and ran the rest of the way home.

  The Sunset Towers building was an even more welcome sight than usual. Jude slipped into apartment number 359 and immediately locked the door behind him, then fell against it, trying to slow his panicked breathing. Cold sweat made his blue uniform shirt cling to his skin. He’d felt a chill the second he saw those four glowing eyes. Gasping, he rubbed his clammy face with both hands, running his fingers through his usually-neat, now-disheveled, straight black hair.

  Real. They were real. They’d been there, in the parking lot. Flashing eyes, gleaming fangs, bright, sharp grins. Staring right at him. But they hadn’t attacked—why? No. Not important. What mattered was that he wasn’t seeing things. He still had his grip on reality.

  He thought. He hoped. Wasn’t the very nature of hallucinations that they fooled the senses? You saw things that weren’t—

  No, dammit. Couldn’t start thinking like that. Not after the case he’d made to Eva. Not after the closest encounter he’d had since that last traumatic, life-defining, threshold-crossing night five years ago. Jude had only caught glimpses ever since. But he’d told her the truth. He’d been telling the truth night after night, he’d never lied once and his senses weren’t lying to him now.

  He knew what he saw.

  But they were gone now, and he had no chance of catching them. He hadn’t even tried. He’d panicked, almost collapsed with helpless terror. Couldn’t tell Eva. She wouldn’t want to hear, she’d reject it out of self-preservation, anyone would. Not that he blamed her. She was right. They’d put their own lives on the line more times than he could count, for innocent people and each other. Eva had done it more than once for him. She’d earned her rest and reward a thousand times over and if she wanted a boring, safe desk job, that’s what she got. He owed her that much and more.

  Jude sank down onto his old, faded sofa, and it made a noise like a weary sigh. So did Jude. Everything hurt. Old, familiar pain, muscles and joints aching down to his core. He felt hollow, and cold as if he’d swallowed ice that refused to melt in his stomach.

  He had his share of scars, visible and otherwise. Not as many burns as one might expect. Most of them were from impacts or lacerations, protective suits couldn’t eliminate those entirely. Occupational hazards, and most of them were long since healed. Likewise for his chest. His now-faded top surgery scars had been entirely voluntary, and carried an even greater sense of pride than his other physical reminders. Scars meant he survived, and none of them really bothered him anymore.

  But his left leg did. As always, pain radiated from his toes to midway up his thigh in degrees, a slow burn that started whenever he pushed past his limits—which he did, consistently, ignoring it until he couldn’t anymore. Then the pain grew to a regular throb of agony, until there was no pause between the beats. After nights like this, the whole thing just became pain.

  He let out another sound that was less a sigh and more a half-stifled groan as he sat up, then leaned forward to roll up his left pants leg. There was no reason for his entire leg to hurt, even though the scarring—gashes, not burns, stretching from his knee to his thigh—had taken years to fully heal. That thick layer of scar tissue was never going away. But the pain in his shin and foot shouldn’t exist at all.

  No nerve endings in a prosthetic leg. It didn’t make sense to his logical brain. Of course, a lot of things didn’t make sense anymore, phantom limb pain most of all.

  It didn’t sound real until you lived it, something gone that you could still feel. And no amount of psychoanalysis or practical medical knowledge (still-active neural connections no longer attached to anything, still doing what they were designed to do, registering pain, particularly when triggered by associated traumatic memories) made a difference. Nothing made it stop.

  But he could start to ease his leg off and try to convince his body that there was no need for this. Get ready for bed and try to relax, even though he’d been trying desperately to relax for five years. Jude usually only fell asleep when he couldn’t keep his eyes open another second. But like with everything else, he’d keep trying.

  BANG.

  Jude threw himself to the floor, flinging his arms up over his head. Something had hit the window, almost shattering it. They’d found him. He readjusted his prosthetic and army-crawled to the kitchen where he kept his more extreme measures, finding some grim satisfaction in the fact that he’d told everyone it would end like this.

  Sometimes, constant hypervigilance was a blessing. Instinct and muscle memory had saved Jude’s life more times than he could count and it would again. He didn’t even have to look to find the drawer where he kept his weapons. When he stood, he held a small vial of consecrated holy water. At least, consecrated and blessed according to Jasper’s assured expertise and guarantee. If that guarantee didn’t live up to the hype, Jude would have words for him. But then, unless it did, he wouldn’t get the chance.

  Jude took a deep breath and tried once again to steady his nerves. It didn’t really work, but he still shut his eyes and counted silently down. Three, two...

  On one, he jumped in front of the window, eyes wide open, teeth bared, holy water raised, ready to spray it at the…bedraggled little bat flopping around on the windowsill outside.

  Its scruffy fur stuck up in clumps and actually looked pink. Maybe this particularly unlucky bat had flown into some wet paint, just like it must have flown into the window and banged its head, too dazed to take off again. The little thing did look sad and confused, wiggling its big ears and turning its fuzzy pink head like it was trying to figure out where it was and what to do next. Jude knew the feeling.

  Exhausted again, he lowered his weapons. Just a bat. His paranoia really was at an all-time high, but that wasn’t surprising after the night he’d had. No wonder he was jumping at shadows, noises, and bats. Maybe he was even seeing things. But this seemed real enough, even if he couldn’t remember ever seeing a bat this close before, especially not a pink—

  BANG.

  Jude jumped again, this time nearly out of his clammy skin. His heart slammed in his chest and his head spun from the sheer adrenaline. Until he realized the noise wasn’t actually another impact, it was more like…

  Knock-knock-knock.

  Jude flopped back against the wall, almost collapsing in a weak heap for the second time that night. After a few seconds of shaky-kneed relief, he made himself focus on the apartment door and how to actually open it. Nightmarish creatures of the darkness were unlikely to knock. And wasn’t there something about them needing to be invited in? Jude didn’t even like inviting other humans in.

  So, silently and smoothly, he set about undoing every lock. He had seven: the standard lock and bolt chain, two more keyed, and three deadbolts. Non-regulation, probably breaking several lease rules, but this was one case where rule-following came after staying alive. Then, just as quietly, he opened the door a crack to peer out. Jude held his breath, ready to fight for his life or go down swinging.

  “Hey Ju—hello,” Eva corrected herself, for which he was immediately grateful. Ever since deciding on his name, he’d barely gone a day without someone making a crack about that damn song, every time thinking they were fresh and original. They never were. There was only one person in the world Jude had ever let get away with that and he had no plans to increase that number. Even Eva wasn’t allowed, and she always caught herself when the words popped out accidentally. One of many reasons she was one of two remaining people he was ever actually glad to see. Now, she squinted at him through the small gap between the door and the frame, and Jude could just see that she held something—a large pizza box and a bottle. Her Band-Aid was gone, though her nose definitely looked scabbed and bruised. “Uh, I was in t
he neighborhood, and thought I’d—”

  “Oh, thank God.” He let out his breath in a rush along with all of his coiled-spring tension, shoulders falling and hands dropping down to his sides. Jude opened the door the rest of the way and glanced up and down the empty hall.

  “Hi there,” Eva said in a deliberately casual kind of way. “You expecting someone?”

  “Huh?” He jumped slightly before somewhat-successfully shoving aside his lingering paranoia and focusing on her. “No. Why do you ask?”

  “No reason.” Her eyes flicked down to his white-knuckled fists. “What is that?”

  “Oh. This?” He glanced down as well and saw he’d forgotten he still had the holy water. “That’s nothing. I was just...”

  “Okay,” she said when he didn’t even try to finish the sentence. “Got a minute to talk? Without the spray bottle?”

  “Yeah, come on in,” he said, waving her in with one hand before realizing it held the holy water and hastily lowering it again. “Um, I can explain this.”

  “You really don’t have to.” Once inside, Eva eyed the several locks, actually giving an approving nod. “Got something like this on mine.”

  “Uh-huh.” He was busy peering out the peephole, checking the hallway outside for wings and fangs, and only half-heard.

  “Which you’re always welcome to stop by and see.”

  He didn’t even answer that time.

  “Anyway,” Eva rolled her eyes, turning and setting the pizza box down on the counter. She opened and closed the lid a couple of times, wafting the aroma across the room. Then smiled as Jude sniffed and turned around. “Hi. Got your attention now?”

  “Pizza?” His eyes widened and mouth dropped open a little.