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“Are you sure you’re not going?” Eli asked, crouching down under the table. No one was there. “Come on. It’s important. We’d all want you there.” It was a sizeable greenhouse and he didn’t relish the thought of having to check under each and every damn table.

But when he reached another, he ducked down.

Nothing.

He came this far. Going back empty handed wasn’t a real option.

Something scurried away and he hurried to intercept it. Being half naked for over a month, he appreciated his new suit and didn’t want to sully it.

Even so, he knelt at yet another table. That’s when he saw it, the large bird, the size of a chicken, with the human head. It cocked its head to the right and opened its beak.

“Oh, shit,” Eli protested.

Two hands snatched it up. “Gotcha.” Manny held the infant up and preened. “Did you think I would not find you, little one? I’ve got you.”

The creature smiled and Manny did as well. He threw her up and then caught her, her brown wings flapping in both the rise and fall.

Five feathers waved on the creature’s head when Manny put her on a wooden shelf and held out his hands for her to fly into them.

“Come on. Come here. Come on,” he entreated.

He was almost playful.

The harpy scampered out then ducked back.

“Aww. Come on,” Manny coaxed. “You’ve gotta fly some time. I got some more seeds. Look.”

When he chewed one then offered it to the shadow, Eli approached with caution.

A beak snapped the morsel up, nicking Manny with it.

“Ow. Shit.” He would have kept on whining if something didn’t hop forward then back again. “Aw. Come back for more, have you?”

Eli narrowed his brow. This was unreal.

By the time three more fingers suffered the same fate, Manny acknowledged him.

“Look at this,” Manny insisted. “Look at this baby. It is perfectly hideous. Look. And I adore her!” Once he put the mush into the palm of his hand, he didn’t move.

The first thing Eli saw were the big eyes. They were disproportionate to the bird beak. Because while the rest of the creatures face looked fowl, those eyes were...human. As were the ears. It resembled something concocted in a madman’s lab.

The bird body was the bit that had him gagging. It had no hands, only wings and it hopped onto Manny’s palm and ate.

His fingers snapped shut. “Gotcha.”

The thing made a pitiful chirping cry as it was picked up.

“Now, don’t you go running off until we can get you airborne.” Manny flopped down by the bag of seeds and went about chewing some more. But when he offered it, the thing simply cried.

“Ah. Come on. If I let you go, you are going to run away again.”

The baby harpy stopped crying suddenly and instead stared him down.

Manny raised his right eyebrow then scowled. “Ah, crud.” A minute later, a white liquid ran down his forearm. He sighed.

“Is that a normal baby reaction?” Manny asked Eli. “She just looks you in the eye when she craps all over you. Like...right in the eye like some mafia boss.

“Sir...” Eli began.

“Give me a second. She starts crying if she’s not kept clean. I was gonna use this bucket and make it into a birdbath but the poor thing cannot swim yet. All the rest of her feathers just grew in yesterday. Isn’t she sweet?”

Eli focused on the creature as Manny fulfilled his promise and dipped a cloth in the bucket before wiping up the mess.

“Tell you one thing,” Manny boasted. “It is so much easier than everybody says. And give me a harpy baby any day. It stinks far less than the human ones. And look.” He turned the thing toward Eli and pressed their cheeks together. When he made a yi-yi sound, it mimicked him. “Isn’t that fun? Ow.”

It also bit at him.

“Well, she thinks everything is food right now. But she is doing well.”

It—she wasn’t all that large. He could hold her one-handed, she was so tiny.

Eli had a bigger problem. Eli wasn’t sure if Manny was playing a dunce or if he truly had given away his runes. With an action so unlike him, Eli concluded this was a ploy to get rid of him.

“Trix—”

“How is she?” Manny asked, still struggling to keep hold of the half bird half human in his arms. “Is she cross with me? I wouldn’t blame her. I was not all that nice.”

Eli said, “It would be better if you asked her yourself. She’s requested you again.”

Rather than answer, Manny scoffed and chewed another seed. He fed it to his little friend who was more agreeable.

“Then tell her to stop requesting me.”

Eli sighed out through his nose. “What you did—no one can blame you for what you did.”

“Right. I’m sure all vampires wanted to spend eternity in a trailer park.”

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As saddening as the image was, Eli couldn’t say whether or not vampires deserved more.

“That was the gamble we made.”

“No. I made. I made and I choked.” He looked up from his task and asked, “What would happen if it got out that vampires are not the reason human went extinct. Legion was?”

Eli’s breath hitched. “I’d...we’d all rather that not become common knowledge, if it’s all the same.”

“Oh. I do not deny that.” Manny tried to feed the baby again and when she refused by turning her head a third time, he concluded, “You must be full.”

The thing yawned and he laughed, smitten.

“Do birds actually yawn, though?” He put the harpy on the floor. “Watch this.”

Clawed talons clicked on the floor as the creature turned around in place three times, then lowered itself to rest.

“Three times. Absolutely three.” Manny poked it until it awakened. Once again it turned, and turned. Before the third time, Manny picked it up. Another yawn followed.

Once it was on the floor yet again, it turned once, twice. The vampire snatched it up.

“Three each time. It starts over.”

But the thing didn’t turn, instead, it titled its head back and cried.

“Oh. Oh shit. No, no, no. I did not mean it. Come now. Come on.” He used both hands to scoot her. “Turn three times and down you go.”

His words had little effect. He was learning the hard way that no one liked to be made into a plaything.

“Oh, come on.” Manny picked her up and turned three times then put her down. Nothing. She only wept. “Oh. Come on. It was just cute. Look.” He mimicked her jumpy walk as he turned once.

The baby harpy looked up at him. She hopped around for one turn but not for another. Manny did the honors and the child mimicked him. Once he made the third turn, she yawned and hopped to him. Using her right foot, she clawed at his ankle.

A restless baby was a restless baby, no matter what manner of being.

“What? You want to come up?” Manny crouched and put his hands out. Once she hopped on, she turned three times, causing Manny to wince at her talons, and flopped down. “Oh shit. Now I cannot put her down.”

He resolved to sit with his back against the wall.

Eli hated seeing whatever game Manny was playing. And to not let a baby see its mother. This was low, even for him—and that was saying a lot.

As he sat there staring at the floor, he asked, “Really, how is she?”

Those words made no sense at first. Once Eli understood them, he couldn’t believe his nerve. “You stole her baby and locked her in a cage—”

“That is not fair.” Manny met his gaze. “You know what we are. It was the only way to know she wouldn’t cause any trouble. The entire country wanted her head. Remember?” When Eli had no counterargument, Manny asked, “How is she?”

Exasperated with all the games Eli sighed. “If I tell you, will you go and visit her?”

The silence meant he wouldn’t. The night of the new covenant wasn’t one Eli liked reliving, especially with the fit Manny’d thrown once the harpies and angels, all quite satisfied, departed. As soon as Slade’d pronounced Trixie healed, Manos Dresden walked out of his manor and disappeared. That was four weeks to date. It was no mystery where he went. There weren’t many tombs he could inhabit easily.

In that time, Slade had come to see him, countless others had. And he never left.

“She’s going back home tonight, she said,” Eli told him. “After Davenport’s trial. So will you come see her?” Queasy, Eli shook his head. “You did what you did for the right reasons. None of us blame you. Vampires don’t even know how close they’d come to freedom so there’s no reason to feel guilt—”

“I feel no guilt. I’m a vampire.” Manny kept his eyes on the infant harpy, a frown etched into his face. “My runes have dropped. Because I feel so proud of this creature before me. But I’m still thinking straight so that tells me I’m more of the old me.” He looked up from the ground to meet Eli’s gaze. “The harpy doesn’t need me. She needs someone gentle.”

Eli argued, “Yes, but you know the difference.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not abusive.” Manny sat up, holding the child in both hands. “And you’re wrong, Evelyn. I did go see her. We went...once.”

“Stop saying my name like that. Evelyn’s traditionally a boy’s name, I’ll have you know.”

“Yeah. In prison.”

Eli stared daggers at him. The previous words finally made sense. Manny’d gone to see Trixie.

This was news. Eli perked up. He leaned on a nearby table, feeling more at ease. “You went? With the baby?”

Manny rubbed the little harpy’s head, smoothing out the feathers there. “She used to have seven of these.” He looked up at Eli and said, “Her mother plucked two...for fun.”

A wave of dread forced Eli to stand to his full height. “That’s not like her.”

“I know that is not like her. Because it is not. Whatever that thing is...that...angel is, it’s not her. It’s not who I want. So I will wait.” He patted the baby’s head. “We will wait. I am a vampire. And apparently, I will be one for a while. I’ll wait for her runes level to drop—for the harpy to come back.”

Eli protested, “But that could take years!”

“Roughly twenty,” Manny agreed. “Her words.”

Disappointed, Eli nodded. “And you will not see her off?”

Manny sighed. “To what end? She’s gorgeous now, yes, but...do you know it’s strange. Somewhere in the last ten years, somewhere in there, I didn’t see anything ugly. I couldn’t say it; I was too dumb to say it, but I didn’t see it. But what I see now...that’s unsightly.”

Although those words weren’t directed at Eli, he felt slighted all the same. “She deserves a goodbye. But if you’d ask her...if you’d ask her to stay, she would. Don’t you think she deserves that? She took care of you when you were useless to yourself. Doesn’t she deserve something similar?”

Manny closed his eyes and whined, “But I don’t want to. I thought I could do it, but then she was just so damn mean-spirited. Seven feathers and she had to go and pluck two!”

The baby harpy coughed and Manny cradled her close. He tucked her under his arm and stood.

“I’ll go see her, but I’m not happy about it,” he complained.

Eli smiled, relieved. He’d completed his task. “You won’t regret it.”

“I already regret it.” With his free hand, he picked up a bag and began to pack it with several things for his baby harpy. All the while, he grumbled, “Tell you one thing, being around her reminded me...it reminds me of this human I’d known. Right. Real pretty.”

The force with which he shoved the towels into the bag drew Eli’s focus. “Oh?”

“Also Christian, if you must know. But.... You know, after her, I concluded that pretty people were...weird. The majority of them. And I’m not sure if it’s true, but she was so weird that she skewed my world view.”

“Weird?”

Manny strapped the bag over his shoulder and started out. “Well, for one, she was saving herself till marriage.”

Eli hurried to catch up. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Well, not all parts of her,” Manny countered.

At first slowing in his stride, Eli countered that and moved with him. “Beg your pardon?”

“Oh, we did fuck. Fucked all the time. Just not the right way.”

Eli squinted. “Oh kay.”

“And the things she would let you do to her,” Manny shuddered. “After a while, you just could not look her in the eye.”

His lowered runes meant he didn’t combust in the sunlight, but his skin did sizzle. This was another thing he’d done for the infant harpy, taken her out into the day time.

“And prayed I would never get my reflection back, because I was pretty sure I could not even look myself in the eye.”

Eli scowled. “Honest, you can stop talking.”

“What if I’m stuck with that for the next twenty years? Huh? Have you thought of that, werewolf? Because I certainly have. Being stuck licking angel taint for twenty years if she’s creepy, too.”

Fighting back a gag, Eli begged, “Really. You don’t have to tell me any of this.”

“And you never really question your humanity until you’re fucking someone you can’t even make eye contact with afterward. I will tell you that.” The little harpy stirred, and he looked down at her. “Wait, she wants to walk. It’ll take us ages, but I do not have the heart when she starts to cry.”

As soon as the bird feet touched the ground, the infant harpy was off. Manny gave chase and Eli, glad that their discussion had come to an end, ran behind them.

Two wings flapped like crazy when the little harpy came back, a worm in her beak.

Manny gagged. “Oh, come on. We’ve talked about this. Seeds, fruit, anything that will not poison you. But nothing alive.”

Eli watched on, fascinated as the harpy dropped the worm and blinked two big green eyes at him.

After glancing from her to the expected food, Manny groaned and picked it up.

“Wait,” Eli protested, “are you—?”

“Might as well.” Manny held the worm up. “Probably be stuck putting worse in my mouth for your mother.”

Eli opened his mouth to curse but nearly vomited when Manny chewed on the worm then took the mashed up bits out of his mouth and fed the happy little harpy.

Cringing, Eli swallowed down his breakfast which threatened to rise up.

Once the bird-like creature was done, she hopped up and down and Manny picked her up again. He let out a sigh and told her, “Let’s go see your mother. Maybe it will be better this time.” He stepped by Eli. Just for curiosity’s sake, werewolf, if I wasn’t already dead, would swallowing urine kill me? Asking for a friend.”

“Shut up.” Eli hurried past him. “You are the worst person on the planet.”

“Asking for a friend,” Manny called out.