Page 22 of Nosfer-Meet You

My voice rumbles in her ear. “That was a lot. This entire day is a lot for you, I think. But listen, I can smell humans not far from here, and I’m willing to bet there’s at least one of them begging to be drained. And I’ll need a badass Nosferatu to help me with it, because I’m a shitty hunter, remember?”

Juliette whirls around, wrenching herself away from me. Trails of blood stain her cheeks. She’s been crying again. “Oh, Juli…” I start, but she shakes her head.

“Stay there.” She holds up her hand as the rest of her body hangs limply. “Please. Just give me a minute, and then … then, yeah, we’ll hunt,” she says, but she doesn’t meet my eyes. Instead, she’s looking down at the street, which is still glistening from a recent storm.

I shove my hands into my leather jacket pockets and linger behind. Close enough that I can protect her if need be, but not so close that I’m suffocating. “Take your time,” I say.

A few minutes pass where I try to look everywhere but at her, even though I desperately want to. I may no longer have a soul, but there’s something inside me that wants to reach out to her. Hold her again. Offer her refuge against the war waging within her mind. What she went through was bad, yeah. You don’t become a vampire without a shit ton of trauma. Every single one of us has baggage. But hers might actually be the worst I’ve heard, and she’s had to raw dog existence in isolation for gods know how long.

Juliette turns around to face me and nods. I nod back. “Good to go?”

“I am ready, yes.” Her voice cracks a little, but I pretend not to notice. “Thank you.”

I wave a hand in the air. “Don’t mention it. We all got our shit.” And then I get an idea. A stupid one, probably, but an idea. I move to her side and smile down at her. Gods, she’s tiny. Definitely not what I imagined a Nosferatu to look like, that’s for sure. “Hey, I have a better idea than hunting.”

Juliette stares up at me and blinks.

“Let’s go get doner and chips.”

She continues to stare … then narrows her pretty eyes. “We do not need to eat food, Scotty.”

I shrug. “No, we don’t need to eat food … but nothing hits quite like a doner kebab and some chips after a shitty night.”

“We can’t digest anything, Scotty,” she says flatly. “How do you expect to enjoy this … what did you call it?”

I press my fingertip to her nose and grin. “Boop. Doner kebab. Like, yeah, sure, mostly you’d eat it when you’re drunk and then barf it back up, but⁠—”

Juliette bares her fangs and puffs out her cheeks. Okay, does she realize how fucking adorable she is when she’s angry? Because she is. “Scotty, I am not eating food for drunkards to only vomit it back up again simply to satisfy an impulse of yours. No.”

“Okay. You don’t have to eat it,” I say, then watch as the light at the nearby crosswalk turns green. “C’mon, let’s go. You can watch me eat it.”

Juliette doesn’t follow me right away, but once she sees me crossing the street without her, she chases after me at a trot. “W-Wait! Merde, you are stupid! You want to eat human food that you cannot digest. For what reason?”

We turn a corner onto another brightly lit street, this one with dozens of late-night eateries.

Juliette freezes. “I cannot go down there, Scotty. I⁠—”

I turn back around and flip her hood up. “There. Now you can. Don’t worry about it. I don’t think most people here care about the state of your hair—or, in your case, lack of it. They’re too busy eating and being drunk.”

And I’m right, because there are a few dozen people hanging around on the street eating burgers, chips, and doner. They’re also all incredibly drunk and stumbling around and laughing together, so there’s no way they’re going to even pay attention to Juliette and me. I stride up to the counter of Lucky’s Doner and Gyros, my favorite place when I’ve got a craving, and order a large platter and a soda.

It doesn’t take long before my order is ready, and I take my cardboard box of goodies off to sit on the curb. Juliette sits down next to me and peers down at the meat.

“This is … what, again?” She points at my food and looks up at me as I salivate. Gods, is there anything better than a plate of kebab on a rainy night in the city? Okay, a bottle of O would be great, too, but I don’t see any Helsing fucks around, so that’s out. For the moment, anyway.

“Doner,” I say, and stab a piece with my plastic fork. I hold it up for her, just in case she’s changed her mind. She grimaces at the meat in front of her face and pulls back. Yeah. Didn’t think so. “Suit yourself. It’s really good, though. You’re missing out.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” she mumbles.

I cram the doner into my mouth and chew. Relief floods my veins like an IV drip of happy chemicals. Fuck, yes. This is the stuff right here. I exaggerate a moan, and Juliette cringes.

“Why do you not just … chew and spit it back out?” she asks.

Wait, what? I stare down at her, and she blinks at me. My mouth is still full of doner, but that doesn’t stop me from saying, “Whaf? Whaf do you mean, donf swawwo?”

Juliette shakes her head. “Do not speak with your mouth full. It’s rude and disgusting. Spit it out back into the container so you do not need to purge your stomach contents later.”

Truth be told, I hadn’t thought of that, but she’s got a good point. Once all the flavor is gone, I spit the meat back out onto the plate like I’m a mama bird about to feed her young. Juliette shuffles away from me on the curb a few centimeters. I watch as she plants her chin in her palm and stares up at the night sky. She’s avoiding looking at me. Yeah, this is awful and not very fun for her, but I hope I at least got her mind off of other things.