It’s hard to figure out if what I’m dealing with is a hungry homeless person or a crazed Vampire on fairy dust once you start finding body parts in the recycling instead of where they’re meant to be, which is nowhere. Living in New Salem means you’ve got to sort your own garbage out, but on this street, nobody gives a damn other than the stuck up her ass Elf landlady who still hasn’t fixed my apartment door. That’s why I come and go through the window and the fire escape; that’s also why, as I was coming back home, I smelt something dead in the recycling dumpsters. Fun.

And since she’s going to be on my case, singling out the only human living in the building, I might as well get this part over with and figure out why the overflowing recycling dumpster reeks of wet meat and tasty decay. I’m kidding, by the way. I’m so exhausted that I’ve got no other choice except to make fun of the rank stench. Good thing I haven’t eaten in a few days, or else my stomach in all its glory would be all over the alleyway right now.

I use my phone’s screen to light up the alleyway. The street lights are busted, splashing vomit-yellow light along the sidewalk behind me as the bulbs flicker. Music comes from the apartments above me, some of it rock, most of it jazz and techno. I gag when I open the dumpster, and it looks like my intuition was right. The body looks new and fresh, with still enough blood in their cheeks to keep them slightly pink, as if they’re blushing at how embarrassing it is to get caught dying in a dumpster. I sigh under my breath and tilt the woman’s head, taking hold of her tense jaw and rigid cheeks, and it cleanly comes off her neck and splashes into a puddle next to the dumpster, drenching my sneakers and my legs. Double fun! I pick her up by the hair and look at her, then shake her slightly.

She doesn’t suddenly wake up, so I guess that means she wasn’t on Lady Death’s premium plan, but I can’t blame her. The rates have been crazy terrible lately, but you never need insurance until you’re dead. I put her back inside the dumpster and briefly glance at the holes in her throat, because that means a Blooduskcer—sorry, I know we’re not meant to use that word; ‘Vampire’—got to her and not some crazy murder hobo. I suck air through my teeth, my Walkman still spinning on its tape, because now I’m wondering if going back home is even an option. So I make the executive decision to pull her out, body part by body part, onto the ground until most of her is at my feet and beside my backpack. My sword stays on my back, and so does the dagger on my hip. You’re just asking for it by putting your weapon down in a dark alleyway at literally two in the morning. I’m a little stupid. Not that stupid.

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But the dead body is missing a chunk of her torso, a piece of her thigh, and half an arm, like whoever did this wanted to get all the prime cuts of meat they could. I try not to let my saliva get too bitter, but…come on.

Fucking Bloodsuckers, but suddenly I’m in the wrong for saying they should get put in cages.

I hadn’t been planning on investigating a murder tonight. Today’s been a long and not so glorious day. I had wanted to get home, eat some Ramen, and ignore the silence that lives in my tiny apartment alongside me without a single drachma in rent paid from it, either. I’m bruised and beaten up, and the remnants of a black eye is making it hard to see her face clearly, but…it’s better than just being some lonely, sad little teenager in the dark.

I take a deep breath, then slowly release it through my mouth. I shut my eyes, then search around me for a trace of magic that can help this search along. She’s got nothing discernable on her body. No tats, no piercings. Her hair is blonde, but I mean, so is mine—that helps nothing. And then I find it, a trickle of magic snaking through the air like violet wisps of smoke. I open my eyes and watch as it wraps around the woman’s body parts, then clings to bloody handprints on the dumpster, the alley walls, and then finally, the firescape. She’d run away. Hadn’t made it far before whoever got her had, well, gotten her. The trail leads to the firescape, and coincidentally, into my room.

Making an even more fun day exceptionally more fun.

“I’ll be right back,” I tell her, grabbing my bag.

But I guess she’s got nowhere else left to go.