'I'm fine.'

  'You sure are, love, but you're not alright,' I joked, one eye on Mia, one on the living room clocks: analog, digital, magical. In case of something breaking, a breakout, or a mass dispel, we'd hopefully be covered.

  Since she'd moved in, there had been some changes around o-my house. For example, one of the guest rooms had been converted so my zmeu could safely practice her constructs, drawing and painting in it, which meant it was covered in everything from burn marks and acid holes to patches of frost and crystal. Not to mention the projects she often left lying around unfinished when her whims took her and she started a different one in the middle of another.

  My girlfriend was disturbingly good at drawing organs. Almost as good, in fact, as we both were at drawing them out of bodies.

  Despite my doctor's handwriting convincing many people my hands were dead and numb long before my undeath, I was, actually, not completely clumsy in this regard. I coul sketch the anatomy of most supernaturals that actually have one, a skill I learned by necessity in college, and which I had hoped would make my books more interesting, back when I was a writer. It didn't work, but, well. you already know that.

  Sometimes, I wondered how writers with ideas as uninspired and unsuccessful as mine find the will to not only keep writing, but keep living.

  Maybe I should just have gotten a foreign publisher, like so many mangaka did? Kishimoto was fairly successful in his adopted country of Brazil, despite claiming that, back home, his manga would have never gotten off the shelves, due to being heavily inspired by Japanese legends and folklore. Then there were people like Oda, Togashi and Shimabukuro, who only referenced such things and simply dreamed up their own grand, adventure-filled worlds.

  But...I was trash at drawing anything besides anatomy sketches, dammit. Or I'd have written a fashion comic or something, like Kubo.

  Mia, who often flicked through the tankobon I was just thinking about, still had her apartment in Bucharest, on a street straddling the Old Centre and the Spines, the supernatural reptilian quarter. She had also started working on her domain in zmeu country, though it was far from complete, according to her. She wanted it to be perfect before we wrecked it for the first time.

  The thought made me smile briefly, but I still wished the others would get there faster.

  While Mia sat on my reinforced grey couch, an arm behind her head, I paced holes into the carpet. Before describing my house even vaguely, I must warn you my tastes arr offensively boring: my floors were all brown parquet, my walls were all white (give me that cheap, cheap paint) and my ceilings were grey. My bathroom, which is only ever used by other people (the times we used it when showering together notwithstanding) had some pretty nifty navy blue tile. Still white walls and ceiling, though.

  While I was musing about my bland rooms, I heard two sets of approaching footsteps: one accompanied by the tinkling of icons and crosses, the other weighted down by the burden on his shoulders.

  Andrei's coat was pretty heavy, too.

  Pops entered without knocking, knowing my door was always open to him. My father had recently become sixty-nine, a birthday I had missed due to work, as it was on Christmas Eve. But, he had assured me, I wouldn't have found him home, anyway. A demon had appeared, turning every inanimate object in Jilava into its opposite, and he had been sent by the Patriarch to work together with the city's senior priestess and the Supernatural Service to banish it.

  "Doing good unto others is the best gift one could ask for, David," he had said.

  Andrei was wearing his black longcoat, still paranoid after the Fright. The floor creaked as he entered and sat down opposite Mia, in a recliner that, thankfully, easily supported him and the equivalent of a horse. Pops, dressed in a white button-down and grey slacks, sat on the other couch, so he could keep both Andrei, my girlfriend and I in sight.

  My living room is arranged pretty simply. Being the first room you enter through the front door, part of it is dominated by the staircase leading to the second floor, containing Mia's studio, our bedroom and the smaller two guest rooms. The rest is split between bookshelves, the TV, and a table surrounded by the couches and recliner.

  While pops smiled reassuringly at us all, Andrei looked between Mia and I like we had declared the cake was a lie, the reason for my request to help with a delicate problem now clear. The only reason I hadn't elaborated had been because of time constraints, mind.

  When Mia had come home, half stoned out of her mind, half ready to break down into tears, I had...panicked. Stupidly. Or, well, hadn't trusted myself to handle her alo-damn, I'd have to make a joke about that later. So, maybe overreacting, I had reached out to someone I trusted and respected, and Andrei too.

  'Guys...' Mia sighed, rubbing her eyes with the heel of one hand. 'There's...no need for you to be here, alright? I guess David called you for advice or whatever-I get it. He values your opinions. Great. But this is between us two.' She gave me a meaningful look, and I stared back steadily, but held out a hand for her to grasp. At first looking surprised, Mia shook her head with a small smile, then grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze.

  I had managed to convince her to wash off Lucas' smoking powder-by herself, despite the offers to join her; I didn't want her when she wasn't thinking clearly, which I guess made me a hypocrite. She never objected to the voice in my head, but I'd rather be hypocritical than take advantage.

  'I promised to talk all you want, and we will, as soon as they leave. But, if you're feeling unsure about us, I thought you should hear from a man who once made a mistake bigger than any we may or may have not made so far combined.'

  'He's talking about himself,' Andrei piped up, reaching into one of his coat's many pockets for a flask. I could smell the wolfsbane-vodka mixture from metres away, and, though I knew it was harmless to him, I had once asked him why he would drink something so foul.

  "Well, you see..." Andrei had started. "One day, during the Long Watch, I met this American werefolf in London..."

  I had no idea if his duties had really seen him sent so far abroad, or why. And, of course, after talking my ears off for hours, telling me about every mauling and rooftop chase, he still hadn't mentioned why he drank that. Bastard.

  'But,' the werebear's boyish, eighty-five year old face grew sharper, more serious. 'I don't think I ever told you about it, girl. If David has...well, I guess I'll bore you for a while. But I still think it's worth it to hear it from the horse's mouth...so to speak.'

  ***

  'And that is how babies are made!' Andrei finished, sarcastically spreading his arms. 'No storks, no cabbage patches, just two horny idiots with too much time and too little brains.'

  Mia didn't reply right off the bat, instead resting her head on my shoulder, arms wrapped around me as I sat in her lap. Being undead, I couldn't feel her breath, but I knew it was warm and, thank God, now steady. Her system was clearly working out whatever Lucas had given her in an attempt to help her relax.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  'Did she like it?' my zmeu muttered finally. To a human, it would have been inaudible, but to Andrei's hearing, even in human form, it was as clear as thunder in a library.

  'She liked everything until the pregnancy reminded us how reality works.'

  After another, shorter silence, Mia kissed my neck, lightly brushing my noose marks with her fangs. I could tell she was smiling slightly, and I almost pumped my fist. 'Hmm...she sounds really adventurous. I'd have loved to meet her...say, David. How do you think she'd have reacted to learning you call me mommy, too?'

  Pops chuckled before I could reply. 'I am sure you'll have all the time to discuss that once you are alone, my dear. But first, why don't you tell us what is bothering you?'

  And Mia did.

  ***

  'So...' I began carefully. 'It wasn't your parents' death that bothered you? You were just...worried about me?'

  'Not just about you,' Mia replied, her arms briefly tightening around me. 'I'll tell you more, but, please...you said you'd be willing to forgive me for anything. Don't...don't put what you think I want before what you want.'

  Pops rapped his fingers on one thigh while I tried to come up with a reply, before lowering his gaze, smiling self-deprecatingly. 'Have I ever told you why I became such a boring old priest, David? Seemingly no flaws, no vices? No excess of zeal?'

  'I once heard you wanted to diddle some choirboys, but the Catholics cut into line,' Andrei said, tilting his flask at Constantin with a knowing smile.

  He was joking, of course. Overly zealous or corrupt sects resulted in vengeful angels descending to punish their members after stripping their priests of power. Several movements and schools of thought-having as many children as possible, even shunning birth control or abortions, believing faith will make you wealthy and prosperous, or disinterested donations will get you into Heaven-had been shut down this way.

  'Alas, they were too fast for me,' pops said, before sitting up straighter, eyes glowing with an inner light. 'Hear ye, then...'

  ***

  'Mommy,' Costi says one day. 'Why aren't we rich?'

  Elena, running a hand through her close-cropped grey hair, does not look at her son, who is chopping wood in the muddy yard alongside her, but she smiles, as warmly as her mangled face allows her. A strigoi once tore out her right cheek and eye after she refused to be with him. In response, he took her in front of her husband, breaking his legs and cutting off his eyelids to make sure he'd have no choice but to watch, cursing himself, the strigoi and God as he cried and tried to crawl closer to no avail.

  That was over seven years ago, when Constantin was little. But, though his mother does not know this, he remembers. He cannot forget the night he stumbled to the window on stubby legs, drawn by the screams of his mother and the laughter of a man he did not know.

  Then, he hadn't sounded human. Definitely hadn't sounded like his father, who had screamed such things as Constantin had never heard him before or after.

  What should have been a younger sister became a miscarriage, the fetus mangled by the force that had laid her mother in bed for weeks after.

  Constantin was not surprised to hear this later, when he grew. He is now twelve, and has seen his parents cry for every lost sibling, heard them wonder what they are doing wrong when they think he is not listening.

  Constantin does listen, though. He knows, as surely as he knows Jesus Christ is in Heaven, that he is the first and will be the last child of his parents.

  'We are poor because...' Elena tries for a lighthearted shrug. 'Everyone is, baby. But don't worry-that won't last long. As soon as the comrades in Bucharest get things going, we won't even need money anymore. You'll see.'

  'The comrades,' Costi echoes. 'Not God?'

  Elena shrugs again, not so flippant anymore. 'I don't think He is going to help anyone, my boy.'

  Constantin does not mention that, in his opinion, God should reward them with wealth for their faith. They pray every night, attend church whenever they can, help their lame, blind or deaf neighbours...his father, Costel, cannot walk, but scrimshaws for anyone interested, for he has nothing to occupy his time with, sitting in bed all day.

  Elena, bearing the name of an emperor's mother like her son bears that emperor's, never learns this opinion of his. Both her and Costel die that night, and their son wakes up to a nightmare, wearing the face of a smiling man.

  When Constantin open his eyes, his parents' bodies-they sleep together because the bed is small, and they need all the warmth, for all the weak heat of their stove-are cold and unmoving. His father's eyes are dead and glassy, mouth open in an eternal, silent scream. His mother was, perhaps, smiling in her sleep when she died. Now, she looks hideous, like a mannequin whose mouth and face were carved to mock humanity.

  The doctor, for who else could the man in the white coat be, smiles pityingly at the boy, hands clasped behind his back. He explains about hypothermia, about shock and old hurts and ills coming home to roost, but Constantin is dead, willing his father would stop screaming, his mother would stop smiling and the Devil would stop laughing in his soul.

  The doctor nods his head in sympathy. He understands the shock, and will take the boy to his clinic, where he will get the life he deserves, like all the other children.

  That morning, the strigoi takes the spawn of his old toy to his car. But, before they drive away, the boy has a question.

  'Why didn't God kill me as well?'

  'Why, Costi...' he ruffles his hair. 'If God wanted you to die with them, do you think you'd be with me now?'

  They drive to the Southern Carpathians, to a village the boy doesn't know is false, built by the strigoi for appearances and populated by smiling, raised corpses. That night, the strigoi returns to play with the woman once more, and, why not, the father too. Their boy will soon follow, though he likes them warm rather than cold. By then, the other villagers have found the bodies, drained of lifeforce, though they do not have long to scream before they meet the same fate.

  The next morning, the false village gets new inhabitants.

  The clinic, Constantin quickly realises, is not a place of healing. It is a madhouse.

  Quite literally, too. The madmen who alternate between laughing themselves to bloody tears, smashing their heads against concrete walls when they do not prowl the blood-spattered halls in search of victims, are not the only tenants, though. There is a thing that was once a woman, but now sits in the corner of a room, morbidly obese and featureless, womb churning as it spits out things never meant to touch human flesh. There is a man whose limbs were cut off and replaced with blades, and now he prances around, singing to himself as he looks for people to maim. There is a woman whose feet and hands have been melted together, and who dances, dances, dances.

  Constantin has meet them all. The strigoi wants his family to know each other, he tells Constantin one night, trailing kisses down his neck. They boy has song since ceased reacting with horror to his affections, for it only spurs him on, and instead resorted to praying silently.

  "'Where is your God now, my dear?' the strigoi asks, annoyed at the lack of reaction, squeezing him so hard Constantin cracks his teeth as he grits them.

  But the Lord answers. An angel of His descends, and she is terrible and beautiful, burning down the nightmare place. Constantin can only ask her why she is so late.

  God's servants, she explains, can only interfere so much. But such horror could not stand. She can train him, help him sharpen his faith into a weapon, if he wants to prevent such things from happening to anyone else, though.

  Constantin accepts, and the angel, whose name he never learns, becomes the object of his love.

  It is absurd, really. The lesson of the Nephilim's failure is fresh in Heaven's mind, and she is more like a mother to him, even though Constantin, guided by rage, is not empowered by God for years. He tries to convert the people of other faiths, and condemns atheists as blind fools, can't they see God exists and saved him?

  One day, the angel throws herself in front of a demon summoned by one of the young man's many enemies, and dies. Constantin weeps, and burns the demon with holy fire. It is the first time he does this. It will not be the last.

  He realises how pointless forcing your beliefs upon others is, and how love can blind one to the desires of the one they love, desires thay may not even include them.

  ***

  After pops left, Andrei promising to treat him to something, Mia and I sat to ruminate what...what we'd learned.

  It seems my kind never ran out of fantasies to act out. But, as disgusting as that experience had been, it had resulted in pops meeting his angel...and beginning their doomed love.

  'I don't want us to end like that,' I whispered hoarsely to Mia, hugging her as hard as I could without hurting her as we laid in bed. "I don't want to do something for you without thinking, and hurt you, or lose..."I gulped. 'So please, tell me, is it my fault? Did I upset you?'

  Mia looked almost ready to cry, again, and my heart sank. My fault, wasn't it? Fucking damn it all-

  'You're willing to give me everything, David,' she said softly. 'When I can't return your favour. I...I cannot. So...here is the best I can do. I promise to love you as much as I can, as often as I can. And...I hope, the rest of the time, you'll find it in yourself to forgive me.'

  You won't be surprised to learn I started crying before her.

  'Hey, hey...' she rocked me, trying to sound her usual saucy self. 'I just don't want you to rip me apart in anger, alright? At least do it the fun way.'

  We did not have more to discuss or make other promises, though. I was called to Giza, with a specification I'd be sent to the UK after, while Mia was called to a classified location in the Pacific.