Newark was, like every other populated area on the planet, teeming with the supernatural. In general, the odds of meeting someone who was some kind of spectacular creature were equal to meeting someone with naturally red hair, but skeptics still found ways to arise. After all, if you personally have no memory of ever meeting a werewolf, how could you really know that they existed?

But in defence of the skeptics, lycanthropy and vampirism were easy to hide. A fair bit of excuses could be found for being away from any form of communication during a full moon or for having very specific, very personal eating habits. Any evidence that piled up (and it always piled up) that proved the existence of the supernatural was overlooked by how ridiculous the whole thing looked from the perspective of an outsider.

Ridiculous, like the notion that the lanky millennial slinking his way through the back alleys at four in the morning sometimes (both willingly and not) turned into a creature more closely resembling a dinosaur than a human.

Milos was a fairly unassuming person, and probably a far cry from what most people would expect someone with lycanthropy to look like. At only five foot six, he was a head shorter than most of the other shifters he ran with, but he never expressed any deep displeasure with being the smallest. He was an outsider anyway, so being visually distinct from them was fitting.

Most of the werewolves in his pack were grizzled, broad, and especially well-dressed. Milos looked like a homeless drug dealer, and it suited him just fine, because that’s exactly what he was.

This morning, however, he wasn’t carrying any product. He was hitting the streets with the sole purpose of meeting up with his best friend, although this was a fact that he had neglected to tell her beforehand. Rowan was used to this sort of behavior by now, and he assumed that she found it endearing, despite her never actually confirming it.

As unlikely as it was for him to run into any trouble this early in the morning, Milos still kept himself on alert. How much of his alertness was deliberate and how much was the result of whatever cocaine was left in his system was up for debate, but he had enough street smarts to know not to let his guard down. Vampires didn’t scare him, and his friends had enough of a reputation that other shifters wouldn’t dare touch him, but the police? He’d rather chew off his own leg than deal with them.

That being said, he had absolutely no intention of walking up to Rowan’s front door like a civilized person. Her apartment had a perfectly good fire escape leading right to her living room window, and no matter how suspicious it looked, he was going to use it.

Once he reached her building, without missing a beat, Milos took a turn into an alley, got a running start, and launched himself at the ladder hanging above the ground. His open hand collided with the rough, cold metal with enough force to make the whole structure rattle like it was about to fall apart. If he hadn’t done this dozens of times already, he would be worried about waking up Rowan’s neighbors, but he knew the building was good at muffling outside noise.

The durability of the fire escape was another matter, but Milos chose not to worry about that. Falling from it would only be a minor inconvenience for him, anyway.

When he made it to Rowan’s window, he was delighted to see her standing with her back to him. It looked like she was holding something, and he was determined to change that, knocking his fist against the glass with just enough force to startle her without alerting any neighbors.

Exactly as he planned it, he watched Rowan all but jump out of her skin, sending a cup of coffee crashing down onto the kitchen floor. She reeled back in time to avoid getting hurt by it, simultaneously whipping her head around to stare directly at Milos and the huge, antagonistic smile he had on his face. He waved at her, watching but barely hearing her shout YOU DICKHEAD at him before he yanked her window open and crawled inside.

“Hiii, did you miss me?” Milos made himself comfortable quickly, as was customary, flopping down in Rowan’s armchair without any offer to help clean.

“So much.” Rowan sighed and got to work picking up ceramic off her floor. “I got used to you being at the docks for the full moon. I was almost worried when you didn’t show up.”

He dramatically placed a hand over his heart and tried his best to sound sincere. “So you do care about me.”

Ignoring his attempt at reconciliation, Rowan grabbed a few paper towels and got to work mopping up the coffee. “Where were you, then?”

“Back with Vincent and the gang. It just feels more natural, y’know? I think my instincts prefer it when I’m actually able to beat the shit out of something other than the inside of a shipping container. That, and it’s getting colder.”

“Fair enough.” Rowan thought for a moment, glancing back at her pot of coffee. “Actually, fuck it, I’ll make a new one with ice.”

“Knock yourself out,” Milos replied, pulling out his cracked, barely-functioning phone.

“You want any?”

“Pass. Too bitter.”

There was a pause as Rowan poured ice into an empty glass. “I’ve seen you use Everclear as mouthwash.”

Milos just shrugged. “I stand by what I said.”

While Rowan worked, Milos checked his feeds. Having a separate social networking platform for just supernaturals was useful in theory, but impossible to really implement. It was a difficult thing to verify, and the last thing anyone needed was a hunter infiltrating someplace that was supposed to be secure. Instead, shifters and vampires and the like hid in plain sight, lurking behind locked accounts or talking in code out in the open. Milos tended to prefer lurking. It was much less complicated.

Much to his disappointment, nothing new seemed to have happened in the two hours since the last time he checked in, but it gave him an excuse to not talk for a few minutes. He slung his legs up over the arms of the chair, watching out of the corner of his eye as Rowan finished making her drink and sat down on the couch.

“So, what’s been going on with you?” There were two thunks as Rowan propped her boots up on the coffee table. “I keep hearing all these rumors.”

Milos couldn’t help the smirk tugging at his face. He knew exactly what she was talking about. “What kind of rumors?”

“My friends who like guys have had a lot of nice things to say about you lately.”

Not bothering to fight it this time, Milos just grinned. “Listen, all I’m saying is if people wanna pay for some extra services when they’re buying weed from me, I’m gonna accept.”

Rowan was silent for a moment, staring at Milos with a frustrated expression on her face. Wordlessly, she fished an ice cube out of her coffee and threw it with pinpoint accuracy at his neck, hitting him directly on a spot just above his collarbone that was dotted by two small, dark points. Milos yelped, recoiling and slapping a hand over the sore mark, which was even more sore now from the impact.

“What the fuck?!” Milos did his utmost to look genuinely upset, going wide-eyed and looking at his friend with the approximate expression of a kicked puppy.

“And you’ve been hooking up with vampires again.” It wasn’t a question. The bite mark Milos was nursing was enough proof. “You’re unbelievable, you know that?”

Milos scoffed. “Gimme a break, Ro. I’ve never had a bad hookup with a vampire. They don’t want to fuck up a chance at drinking shifter blood, so they’re all nice and they make sure to ask before they—”

Ignoring him and cutting him off, Rowan continued. “You think you’d be more careful around them after what happened with Cory.”

“Stop.” Milos’ gaze snapped over to her with more conviction, any joking inflection completely gone from his voice. “What happened to him was different.”

“Vincent said it was a vampire attack.”

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“Yeah, well, Vincent’s a fucking liar.”

The atmosphere in the apartment was tangibly different now, and Rowan was clearly ready to put all of the attention on it. “Are you defending Cory, or the thing that killed him?”

With the way Milos grit his teeth and avoided looking at her, it was clear that he didn’t have an answer. He knew that. He wasn’t in any mood to argue, let alone come up with excuses for someone who wasn’t around anymore. He’d already spent enough time and energy burying the memory of Cory under drugs and alcohol. Trying to bring those feelings up again just made his fight or flight instincts kick in.

“I should go,” Milos finally said. The flight instinct won.

“I thought you’d at least ask to use my shower,” Rowan offered as an attempt to lighten the mood.

“Maybe later.” Instinctively, Milos ran a hand through his hair, deciding it felt clean enough this time. “I think I’m just gonna go back to the nightclub. Vince is probably worried sick.”

“Yeah, he’s certainly the doting type.” The sarcasm dripping from Rowan’s words was palpable. “Just stay safe, okay?”

Milos rolled his eyes and gave a half-hearted smirk, already moving to climb back out the window. “Always.”

— — —

The worst part about being confronted for his problems was knowing that his friends were usually right. That always stung Milos the hardest.

Luckily, he could drown out Rowan’s words echoing in his head with music, and the energy from it had the additional benefit of making him feel a bit more alive on the walk back. His limbs were starting to fail him, lethargy kicking in after this many hours spent awake, so he knew he would have to make a B-line for his gang’s nightclub or wind up sleeping on the street.

But when Milos rounded the next corner, he caught sight of something that made him freeze in place. The back end of a police cruiser was sticking out of an alleyway, one that Milos knew led to a dead end. There were no tire tracks and no obvious signs of a struggle, so the first conclusion he drew was that an officer willingly parked there, following someone down on foot. And with the car still idling, chances were high that the cop was still there.

It was risky, and it went against his usual impulse to avoid the police, but Milos could just tell something was wrong here. Bad idea or not, he had to know what was going on, so he turned off his music, stowed away the headphones, and gathered his nerves.

Milos approached cautiously, feeling an uncomfortable knot form in his stomach when he caught a glimpse of the dispatch number. It was one he recognized. This was a cop that knew him. When he was directly behind the car, he could put together a few extra details, namely that there was nobody in the vehicle and all of the doors were closed. The driver had been able to get out of the car and close the door, meaning nobody was dragged out.

Once he was past the threshold of the alley and the car’s exhaust wasn’t masking it anymore, Milos was instantly hit with the smell of fresh blood. It was about what he had expected, but the level to which that smell permeated the air around him almost made it difficult to breathe. This was one of the few situations where he loathed his keen sense of smell.

Despite the better judgement that anyone else would have had, Milos pressed on, keeping his footsteps as quiet as possible. When he got closer, he heard the sound of tearing flesh and muffled, humanoid growls. He wished his eyes would adjust to the darkness a bit slower, but he had no way of preventing himself from seeing the scene that was waiting for him in that alley.

The officer’s body was still fresh, the pool of blood under it only just starting to seep into the pavement. Crouched over the open rib cage was a figure, a person about the same size as Milos. At least, something in the shape of a person. It was impossible to look past the fact that this thing was eating the corpse in front of it.

Now, Milos had no aversion to meat. Really, lycanthropy of a carnivorous strain meant that he had a craving for (usually very rare) meat at just about all hours of the day. Human flesh was where he, and most other shifters with an ounce of humanity left, drew the line. This was clearly not a shifter.

Before Milos could formulate any kind of greeting that wouldn’t result in him being the next course of breakfast, the figure looked up at him. He was met with bright red eye shine set into dilated pupils and a face that was almost entirely covered in fresh blood. The “person” straightened up suddenly, revealing a lanky form that more closely resembled a teenager than an eldritch abomination. Though, to some people, the two weren’t far off.

“Ah, I’m very sorry,” the teen said, his tone friendly and cheerful, his words coming out through a vaguely European accent. “I won’t be much longer. Did you want some?”

He gestured down at the half-eaten cadaver, grinning with a set of teeth that didn’t quite fit the usual vampire motif. They were certainly sharp enough, but his canines were more wide than long, and it seemed as though too many of his teeth were pointed. If he was some type of vampire, he wasn’t following the rules of a vampire that Milos was familiar with.

“…No, thanks,” Milos finally decided on, his tone flat. “Not really all that hungry.”

The other supernatural cocked his head to the side, ignoring Milos’ obvious social cues and closing the distance between them. All Milos could think to do was lean away as the teenager seemed to sniff the air around him, walking in a full circle around Milos before recognition suddenly flashed across his face.

“Ah, you’re a shifter!” He beamed again before remembering that he had blood covering half of his face, pausing to wipe it off with the back of his hand. “Usually I’m able to smell it. Guess your species just makes it fainter, huh? I thought everyone around here was wolves, so that’s very interesting. Oh! I’m Vasco, by the way.”

Vasco was taking so many abrupt turns with this conversation that Milos almost didn’t register the fact that he was introducing himself. He was preoccupied by staring at the nose ring Vasco was wearing and wondering if he’d gotten that before or after being turned, and then wondering if Vasco had even been turned. It was another awkward second or two before Milos noticed the hand being extended towards him.

For the sake of politeness, Milos tried to ignore the fact that Vasco’s hand was still covered in blood, and shook it. “Milos. What did that guy do to you?”

“Not to me personally,” Vasco replied. “But trust me when I say this place is better off without him.”

“You plan on eating every cop in Newark?” Milos joked.

“I would if I could!” Vasco was not joking. “But that would take a long time, and I’d get very sick.”

The look on Milos’ face must have been priceless, some combination of bewilderment and genuine admiration. “Right. That’s fair.”

Obvious questions rushed through Milos’ head, like what Vasco planned on doing with the rest of the corpse, or the clothes on it, or the gun, or the car, but he figured that this would stop being his business as soon as he left the alley.

“I, uh…” Milos started to say, faltering when Vasco looked at him again with that same cheery expression on his face. “Sorry to interrupt, I was just—”

“Oh! Right, my apologies.” Vasco took a step back towards the body. “Don’t let me keep you! I’m sure we can try to get introduced properly when I’m not creating an active crime scene.”

The one thing Milos could tell for sure about Vasco was that he was very old. Vampires never got this jovial and upbeat about everyday murder unless they were well past their first century. There was no way Vasco’s chronological age wasn’t in the triple digits, even if he was dressed like a 90’s high school student.

“Maybe don’t try to follow me,” Milos added as gently as possible. “My friends don’t really like vampires all that much.”

“Right, yes, the inherent feud that all supernaturals have,” Vasco replied, waving his hand dismissively. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to hunt you down unless you give me a reason.”

It was said so matter-of-factly that Milos was almost inclined to not interpret it as a threat, but he knew better. Whatever Vasco was, he was much more dangerous than a normal vampire, and Milos was solely focused on getting out of this encounter with his insides still on the inside.

He backed away experimentally, trying to hide how awkward this whole situation was while also hiding how genuinely afraid for his life he was. A little fear was good, he liked fear in appropriate doses, but it was too early in the morning to get chased.

“Enjoy, I guess?” Milos offered.

Vasco gave a short wave, turning back around and kicking the dead cop’s ankle before kneeling down again. Milos was gone before he had a chance to see or hear what the rest of that meal was like, taking off into a reasonable jog down the street.

All of that adrenaline had completely wiped him out, though. Warranted or not, nothing made him lose a high faster than being scared he might get killed. Milos already knew he didn’t have any cocaine left, and he knew the nightclub was too far away for him to make it in time. Once he slowed down, he was going to crash.

He had two options: find a spot behind a dumpster and smell like garbage for a few hours, or climb up another fire escape and sleep on someone’s balcony. The balcony was the obvious choice.

Luckily, it only took another minute or so of jogging before Milos caught sight of a perfect one. Third floor, not too high up, with a lounge chair and some sort of wide-leafed potted plant to give him shade. Milos was running on fumes at this point, so he didn’t stop to consider checking if the owners of this apartment were home or not, much less whether or not they were awake. One way or the other, he was going to sleep on their property.

Another scramble up the side of a building, and Milos hauled himself over the half-wall and onto the deck. He didn’t even bother with yanking off his shoes or untying his hair, he was about to pass out and he already knew he would probably have to wake up abruptly anyway.

Milos collapsed sideways in the lounge chair, instantly feeling like his body was twice as heavy as it should be, unable to keep his eyes open. He was asleep within seconds.