Page 20 of The Stars and the Stage
As much as they hated it, they just had to ask him. They could meet in a safe place—hunting was technically not legal, in the strictest of terms, so a well-lit, populated area might deter him from making any moves. And if Maddox wasn’t the man he’d made himself out to be, finding out now, under their own terms, would give them as much power as they were likely to get in this situation. After the meeting, they’d at least have something more to bring to Serina. It had to happen in the next eighteen hours though, before the doors opened for the week’s first event session and Maddox showed up in his regal costume, dashing and chivalrous and offering to bleed himself out at Diego’s feet.
When they called to ask him out for coffee before the club, though, he clammed up.
“I have something I can’t miss then.”
“Work?”
“Yes—no. It’s complicated.” He sighed, such a deep, uncomfortable sound that Diego could picture him rubbing his neck. The image made their fangs fill with venom. Their stomach flipped as they realized just how instinctual the idea of biting Maddox had already become. “I’ll tell you about it later,” he added. In their teenage years, that would have meant he was genuinely planning to explain the thing, accurately and in detail, letting Diego ask questions and sling accusations and sometimes fists. But Diego didn’t know if that held true, anymore.
It turned out, they didn’t know him after all.
They hummed noncommittally, replying with a grumbled, “Well fuck you, too” that they hoped they’d successfully played off as teasing, and ended the conversation.
Something he couldn’t miss, something that was work but wasn’t… it was all too coincidental. Maybethiswas the proof Diego needed. They wouldn’t have to ask him, wouldn’t have to put themself in that kind of physical danger. Then, if he did come to tell them himself afterward, they’d know the facts ahead of time, could gauge his honesty and prod at his secrets. These were all technically excuses, Diego knew—it was the emotional danger they were afraid of. But it turned out that was scarier than any other dive into the unknown.
Diego wrapped themselves in the thickest fabrics they owned, threw on their biggest pair of sunglasses beneath their tinted helmet, and borrowed the old motorcycle one of the club’s other vampires occasionally lent out. They parked in the shadow of the building across from Maddy’s, hanging out behind the dumpsters in case he was watching for anything suspicious. He couldn’t know that they were onto him. Probably. Maybe.
It was better to be safe than sorry.
Despite all their layers, by the time Maddox pulled away on Juliet, Diego was already suffering from the first hints of sun-poisoning. They tried to ignore the ache setting into their bones and the shivers that started in their limbs—this was still their best option; information without confrontation—and pulled out far enough behind him not to be obvious. They kept their distance, hanging to the sides of the street where the least of the late afternoon light could reach them, as Maddox made his way towards… the Celestial Club?
He turned the wrong direction when he reached their street, though, heading five blocks down and three past before veering into an alley. Diego slowed enough to listen for the telltale cut of Juliet’s ignition. They hid their own bike in an alley and snuck around the corner in time to watch Maddox enter a run-down two-story warehouse.
Diego’s stomach twisted. This proved nothing—there had to be a dozen reasons he could be hanging out at a place like this that had nothing to do with hunters or vampires. They just couldn’t come up with any of them in the moment, because their heart was pounding too violently to think straight.
They slipped off their helmet, keeping to the shade as they jogged quietly down the alley. At the first possible window, they peeked inside. Through the grime on the glass, they could make out battered cement floors and plastic folding tables, twenty or so people gathered around with weapons. They weren’t all as fancy or large as the ones in Maddox’s closet, but Diego recognized the gleam of their holy silver. The group waved to Maddox as he entered. Like he was their friend.
Like he was one of them.
Because he was—Diego could see it as they watched, frozen in place as though the sight had put a spotlight on them, and yet they still didn’t want to believe it. They had come because they thought they’d be proven wrong, they realized. Because the Maddy who’d bled for them, laughed with them, moaned beneath them, couldn’t possibly be doingthis. But here he was, slapping a man on the shoulder as he showed off the holy silver chain he’d looped around his wrist.
Diego stepped back. Their legs felt numb, the ground a wavering cloud. It was true. Maddox was—he was—
“Well, what do we have here?” A man sneered behind them in a tone he probably thought was flirtatious but would have lit up every bone in Diego’s body even if they hadn’t been a vampire lurking outside a meeting place meant for hunters.
They checked that their fangs were fully retracted and turned. As they did, the man shifted his grip on something silver. A soft burning sizzled along Diego’s exposed skin, sinking deep into their muscles and zapping their strength. They hissed instinctively, baring their teeth. All their teeth.
He hadn’t expected a vampire, Diego realized, just a person—a woman, probably—pretty enough to warrant his harassment and alone enough to have to bear it. But the realization sank in and his expression turned from sexist leering to something even more hideous. He held his holy silver cross out in front of him like a priest in a movie, his hand on his belt where Diego could see the hilt of a knife prodding up from under his jacket. He whistled—not a catcall but a summons. “You got some holy silver in there you can spare? Because we’re going to need it.”
Every cell of Diego’s body told them to run, straight back the way they’d come, hoping their weak, shaking legs would carry them past the man in time to burst across the street. But they knew what happened to vampires caught in direct sunlight when holy silver was near, had heard enough stories of the way their skin would crackle and their bodies turn to ash. That was the one thing the media always seemed to get right—the one way a vampire could die that was fully unique to them.
The other end of the alley then; maybe if they circled back around…
But as Diego stumbled away from the hunter, two more burst out from the old warehouse, more holy silver in their hands. Diego tried to scoot around the new arrivals, but their feet were more unsteady with each step, their lungs growing increasingly tighter. They could feel the phantom grip of Maddox’s pliers around their fangs—a memory from a timeline that hadn’t even happened, the fear of it lingering so long and strong that it might as well have. It wouldn’t end there, though.
A vampire was still a monster, even without their fangs.
And whatever the Celestial Club liked to pretend, in the real world, monsters weren’t loved, they were slain.
Diego hurled away from the hunters as fast as they could under the holy silver’s influence, but one of the men grabbed them around the waist and the other latched onto their arm. They shifted their momentum to lunge for the nearest throat, but a chain of silver tightened around their neck, heavy and solid and identical to Maddox’s. Even with their thick scarf still separating their skin from the metal, it sent a terrible ache through their chest and scorched at the underside of their chin. The hunter yanked backward on the chain. Diego crumpled.
They bit back a sob, struggling at the holy silver with their gloved hands. Everything felt a hundred pounds too heavy, every sensation buried beneath the throb of the metal. Two of the hunters grabbed Diego under the arms and dragged. The world blurred and darkened, churning into light and shadow as they were pulled into the building, until all they could make out was Maddox turning towards them.
He was beautiful. Even now, like this, so terrible and awful, with his expression lofty and a knife bobbing in his hand, his intensity and passion and poise as manifest as ever. He was beautiful; and he would kill them.
The first hunter who’d come upon Diego in the alley shoved at their back, only to yank the chain around their neck tighter as they fell to their knees. “Look what we caught snooping around outside.”
Diego choked against the holy silver. Their head felt light. Maybe no one would get to kill them. Maybe they would just die like this, on their own, under Maddox’s piercing gaze.
