Page 50 of Nosfer-Meet You

Juliette lets out a pained sob as she strokes my hair again, but she nods. “I promise.” Her voice cracks, and several droplets of blood fall onto my face.

“Don’t cry, beautiful,” I rasp, and lift my hand to wipe away her tears. “Don’t cry.”

Then everything around me turns dark, and I can no longer hear Juliette’s anguished cries as I slip out of consciousness. Forever.

I wake to the sound of a drip, drip, drip. That same familiar dripping sound of the sewers—the spot in the ceiling on the other side of our salon that gets worse when it rains.

If this is heaven, then I suppose it’s not so bad. I was kind of hoping for sunshine and an endless supply of beer, but this works, too.

But then I hear humming, and I bolt upright. I grab the wool blankets covering my body and pull them up to my face. Looking around, I notice the familiar candles on the crates and the phonograph in the corner. I’m back in the salon, but how? I’m supposed to be super dead right now. The last thing I remember was being staked by that paladin and Juliette sobbing over my body.

“Shhh, mon couer. I see you’re finally awake,” Juliette says as she moves to my side and dabs my forehead with a damp washcloth.

I open my mouth to speak, but my throat is so dry it could be used as kindling. Fuck me, I’m supposed to be dead, right? That’s what happens to a vampire who gets staked through the heart.

“H-How?” I finally croak out.

Juliette drops the damp cloth into the bowl of water and worries her lip. I eye the bowl and furrow my brow, horrified by the implication.

“It’s not sewer water,” she says, reading my mind. “It’s fresh. From a bottle.”

I stare at her blankly. This doesn’t make any sense.

“From the store on the corner,” she adds. “I enthralled the man behind the counter to give me some.”

Got it from the corner store? Look at my baby girl, all grown up and going to the shops by herself. Smiling, I push myself up to sit, but the pang in my chest almost takes me out again. When I look down at myself, I notice that I’m completely naked save for the bandages wrapped tightly around my chest. It hurts, yeah, but it definitely doesn’t feel like I’m dying anymore.

“I thought I was dust,” I mutter.

Juliette nods. “Me, too. But when your body did not explode, I brought you here. That was a light-blessed blade blessed by the Servants of Reagan.” She winks at me, and I’m rendered speechless. “If it struck just half a centimeter over here,” she says, tapping my chest, “there would be nothing left of you.”

Gods, it’s so good to hear her lovely French accent again. To see her gorgeous round face and those upturned ears that make me think of elves, or pixies, or⁠—

“What were you doing out there? Running around by yourself? I thought you were checking things out and coming right back,” I say.

Juli nods. “I know. I’m sorry. But when I caught a glimpse of their leader, I decided to follow him from a distance. That’s why I was on the roof. There was a Templar down there, Scotty.”

“Wait, a Templar? Are you serious?” I ask. Juliette’s brows knit together and she nods.

It’s worse than I imagined, then. The situation is unraveling fast. Too fast to process, honestly.

Juliette must sense what I’m thinking, or she’s reading my mind, because she nods again and says, “Yes. We need to leave as soon as possible. The situation here is escalating at a rapid pace, and I’m not sure why. The Templars have never been this far west before.”

I sit up, wincing, and Juliette puts an arm behind my shoulder to help me.

“I’m good,” I say through gritted teeth. “I can make it.”

“We may need another full night for you to recover,” she says. “Otherwise, if we’re spotted, I’m not sure you’ll be able to protect yourself.”

“I know that, but we can’t wait any longer. They’re destroying the city with their bullshit.”

I look around the salon, frowning. It’ll suck to have to leave Juliette’s paintings, but we can’t exactly get a moving truck and load it up with her things.

She follows my gaze, and her eyes soften. “Yes … I know. But such is the life of an artist. We create, then create some more. I will paint something new once we are settled in our new home.”

Our new home. I close my eyes and let the words wash over me. Ours. Together. Jules and me. Normally, I’d be anxious out of my mind over living with a woman. I’ve never been a long-relationship kind of guy, after all, but nothing about this situation scares me. No, what fuckin’ scares me is someone taking my Juliette away. Forever. That can’t happen.

I look around the room again, and suddenly, I’m aware of the shopping bags in the corner. One is from a nearby department store that I’ve never stepped foot in. How did she even go shopping? Don’t they close at, like, eight?